I joined Kleo just two to three weeks before the launch.

Very quickly, I realized I wasn’t the only new hire. Dhruv and Ashwin had joined around the same time. Both senior to me. Both are excellent engineers. I learned a lot just by working alongside them.

Surprisingly, it never felt like pressure. It felt like momentum. There was a clear vibe in the team. We were building a real product. Something users would actually use. Something that would have paying customers.

I personally expected some sales. The team had reach and credibility. But my expectations were low. One, five, maybe ten users on day one. Twenty if things went well. Fifty felt like the absolute max.

What stood out early was how deliberate everything felt. What to ship. What to cut. What mattered now versus later.

Most of my interaction during this time was with Cam. Watching how he handled product decisions, scoped features, and pushed execution over just a couple of months was eye-opening. It wasn’t about perfection. It was about moving fast, but with a quality product.

Those two to three weeks weren’t intense only on the product side. A lot was happening in parallel.

While we were building and fixing things internally, the founders were showing up everywhere. Rob, Jake and Lara were actively doing podcasts, tweeting, and sharing the journey publicly. Starter Story. Beehiiv. Florian’s channel. It was consistent, not accidental.

This wasn’t “build first, market later.”
Product and distribution were moving together.

Inside the team, the pace was relentless. We shipped, found issues, fixed them, and moved on. Decisions were fast. The bar for launch was clear. Anything that didn’t directly serve that goal was pushed out.

From the outside, launches look sudden.
From the inside, this one felt earned.

Everything was stacking up toward a single moment.

Launch day was the 22nd.

The real work started the day before.

By the 20th night, most major issues were cleared. The 21st was meant to be a final check. We had a meeting scheduled for 2 hours that afternoon.

That call stretched on and on. Bugs, edge cases, and last-minute changes. Everything that had shipped in the previous weeks came back under a microscope. The goal was simple: make sure nothing breaks when real users arrive.

The call ended up lasting 12 hours until everything was over :)

At some point, the meeting just blended into the launch itself. We were on and off calls the entire day. Dhruv was troubleshooting while travelling. No one logged off. Showers were optional. Sleep definitely was.

Right before the webinar, things finally stabilised. Production was live. The product was ready.

The launch itself was a webinar. Around 700–800 people live there. In my head, I was still thinking in small numbers. Typical conversion math. A handful of users. Maybe a few dozen if things went really well.

Then Lara started speaking.

She went on for hours. High energy. Clear narrative. No fluff. Watching that live was unreal. By the time the webinar wrapped, the numbers didn’t feel real anymore.

We crossed around $50k during the session.

I’d never seen anything like it. I’ve been part of multiple startups and launches before. None of them came close to this.

After the webinar, the team jumped on a call. Everyone was exhausted. Everyone was buzzing. Rob, Jake, and Cam, pure adrenaline. The kind you only get when something actually works.

People logged off to grab a beer or eat a pizza.
We just sat there, processing what had happened.