Founder stories
$100K ARRin 10 years
4 milestones
CMO who led Ahrefs marketing to $100M+ ARR with zero sales team
Founder
Tim Soulo
Co-Founders•Technical•Singapore
Commitment
Full-timeExperience
ExperiencedProduct
All-in-one SEO toolset for backlinks, keyword research, and competitor analysis.
Type
SaaSIndustry
MarketingModel
SubscriptionMarketing Strategy
How Tim acquired customers
Primary Channel
SEO / Content
Also Used
Word of MouthCommunities
Tech Stack
Tools used to build Ahrefs
Custom StackPostgreSQLAWSStripe
The Full Story
Tim Soulo joined Ahrefs as CMO (Ahrefs was founded by Dmitry Gerasymenko) and led the marketing strategy that grew the company to $100M+ ARR with no sales team for 14 years. Educational content beat sales tactics.
Product-Led Growth
Ahrefs built a product so good that customers recommended it to others. Word-of-mouth was the entire sales strategy.
No Sales Team
For 14 years, Ahrefs had zero salespeople. The product and educational content did all the selling.
Educational Content
Tim focused on teaching, not selling. The Ahrefs blog became the go-to resource for SEO education.
- First year revenue: $1M from referrals
- Years without sales team: 14
- Current ARR: $100M+
*Note: Tim Soulo is CMO of Ahrefs. The company was founded by Dmitry Gerasymenko.*
Key Takeaways
1
Build product so good customers recommend it
2
Educational content beats sales tactics
3
Word-of-mouth can scale to $100M+
4
You can grow without a sales team
Originally published onDreamdata Interview
Inspired by Tim's journey? Generate a business idea in the Marketing space using AI and real founder data.
Milestone Journey
Tim achieved 4 milestones on the path to $100K ARR
First Customer
3 months
October 2010
6% faster
vs avg 3 months+9 months to next milestone
$1K MRR
$1,000
1 year
July 2011
Avg: 11 months
+1 year to next milestone
$10K MRR
$10,000
2 years
July 2012
Avg: 1 year
+8 years to next milestone
$100K ARR
$100,000,000
10 years
July 2020
Avg: 3 years
10 years
Total journey time
4
Milestones achieved
Tim's Path to $100K ARRPremium
The journey, decisions, and context behind this milestone
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