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Why AI startups are blowing past revenue milestones that old-school SaaS could only fantasize about.

elenaverna.com · 1,854 words · saved by 1 readers

I recently joined Lovable (Lovable.dev) and my mind is blown. Lovable lets you build working apps and websites by simply chatting with AI and we’re racing past $70M ARR - just 7 months in. How wild is that? And we’re not even alone in this trend. DeepSeek is rumored to have reached $200M ARR in under a year, while Cursor has hit $100M. AI startups are blowing past revenue milestones that old-school SaaS could only fantasize about. According to Stripe’s “Indexing the AI Economy” report: → Median time to $1M ARR → AI: 11.5 mo | SaaS: 15 mo → Time to $5M ARR → AI: 24 mo | SaaS: 37 mo The playbook has changed. And it’s NOT about some growth hacks. Are you paying attention? It’s tempting to dismiss today’s AI boom as just another hype cycle - because if you’re clinging to the old SaaS playbook, that’s a much more comfortable story. But here’s the truth: we’re in the middle of a structural shift on par with the industrial revolution. This isn’t a passing trend - it’s a rewrite of how product

Why AI startups are blowing past revenue milestones that old-school SaaS could only fantasize about. And why old-school SaaS is on a ticking clock. Elena Verna Jun 06, 2025 71 6 12 Share This post is sponsored by Stripe Billing . I recently joined Lovable ( Lovable.dev ) and my mind is blown. Lovable lets you build working apps and websites by simply chatting with AI and we’re racing past $70M ARR - just 7 months in. How wild is that? And we’re not even alone in this trend. DeepSeek is rumored to have reached $200M ARR in under a year, while Cursor has hit $100M. AI startups are blowing past r

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