Anton Osika, Co-Founder and CEO @ Lovable: Hitting 85% Day 30 Retention - Better than ChatGPT
Watch on YouTube ↗ Summary based on the YouTube transcript and episode description.
Anton Osika explains how Lovable hit $17.5M ARR in 3 months with 85% Day-30 retention — better than ChatGPT’s — while growing $2M net new ARR per week.
- Lovable reached $17.5M ARR in ~3 months post-launch (November 2024), adding $2M net new ARR per week at time of recording.
- Day-30 retention on paying customers is ~85%, which Osika claims beats ChatGPT’s month-one retention on paying users.
- North star metric is users who successfully deploy a product with real users on it; ~40,000 paying users at recording.
- Anthropic Claude is the primary workhorse model for code generation; Lovable also uses OpenAI and Google Gemini.
- Osika would buy Grok (talent density + ruthless business instincts), hold Anthropic, and short OpenAI (lost top talent, unclear product focus).
- Biggest product mistake was investing in community features — unnecessary given organic growth velocity; focus should stay on core AI quality.
- Rejected YC: viewed it as high dilution with modest acceleration and a potential distraction from Stockholm-based building.
- Foundation models will commoditize; current capability differences (e.g., Claude better at code) will equalize over time.
2025-03-05 · Watch on YouTube
