The Superwall Podcast · 2026-04-14
Brett Bauman & Zack Hargett - COPY this ai app's $6.7m/yr marketing strategy
Coconote co-founders Zack Hargett and Brett Bauman (ex-Loom) explain how their bootstrapped AI note-taker for college students reached $6.7M ARR and 2M registered users, then sold to Quizlet about 18 months after launch. Growth came from organic TikTok/Reels by a small part-time creator team; a viral 'PDF to Brainrot' lead magnet drew 100-200M views but converted poorly. Monetization wins: a doubled onboarding (+16% trial conversion), login after the paywall, paywall after the first recording, and a 7-day trial extension that saves 27% of cancellers.
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Numbers mentioned
| Subject | Metric | Value | Quote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coconote | users Registered users | 2M users approximate | “And we crossed 2 million registered users. Last year, we crossed 6.7 million ARR.” |
| Coconote | arr Peak ARR crossed last year, before the Quizlet acquisition; bootstrapped | USD 6.7M approximate | “And we crossed 2 million registered users. Last year, we crossed 6.7 million ARR.” |
| Coconote | margin EBITDA margin | 50% approximate | “We've done generally over 50% EBITDA, and we've kept the the team quite small.” |
| Coconote | time to milestone Launch to acquisition by Quizlet | 18 months approximate | “About 18 months, a little less than 2 years.” |
| Coconote | arr | USD 100K approximate | “so within 45 days, we crossed 100,000 ARR” |
| Coconote | arr | USD 1M approximate | “within 4 months, we had crossed a million ARR, and within 5 months, so just 1 month after, we were about 2 million ARR.” |
| Coconote | arr | USD 2M approximate | “within 4 months, we had crossed a million ARR, and within 5 months, so just 1 month after, we were about 2 million ARR.” |
| Coconote | arr | USD 5M approximate | “And then after a year, we were at 5.” |
| Coconote | views Single PDF to Brainrot TikTok | 40M viewsper video approximate | “This This one TikTok got 40 million views.” |
| Coconote | views All videos for the PDF to Brainrot feature | 100M–200M views estimate | “we probably did 100 between 100 and 200 million views just for this feature alone.” |
| Coconote | trial starts From the PDF to Brainrot videos over a couple of days; their highest trial count for any such period | 3,000 trials approximate | “we did, from all of these videos, 3,000 trial starts over the course of a couple days, which is by far and away our our highest number of trial starts over that period.” |
| Coconote | revenue Revenue from the ~3,000 PDF to Brainrot trials, vs ~$360K if all had converted | USD 25K approximate | “If those would have converted, you know, in like at 100%, it would have been 360,000 in revenue, but they converted to something like 25,000.” |
| Coconote | views Several problem/solution videos on the @coconoteapp Instagram page, each around 20M; converted much better than PDF to Brainrot | 20M viewsper video approximate | “we had several videos with around 20 million views on our main page, just the @coconoteapp on Instagram.” |
| Coconote | views 'My mom just changed my college life forever' lecture-hall demo; nearly all within the first 2 months | 18M viewsper video approximate | “So this video got 18 million views, and it directly shows the core product.” |
| Coconote | share Share of the 18M-view video's views that were organic (minimal paid boost) | 99% estimate | “I'd say 99% of those views are organic.” |
| Coconote | views 2048-but-help-me-study game video on the brand page | 2M viewsper video approximate | “This one got 2 million views. This one says um it plugs the URL 2048buthelpmestudy.com” |
| Coconote | team size Content team at its largest before the acquisition: all part-time contractors | 10–12 creators approximate | “the content team at its biggest was maybe 10 or 12 content creators, all part-time, all contractors” |
| Coconote | count Creators per content coach | 12 creatorsper coach | “Right now, it's 1 to 12. One coach for every 12 creators, yeah.” |
| Coconote | team size Engineering team size | 4 engineers approximate | “Four engineers is like pretty a pretty small um team.” |
| Coconote | count Onboarding screens before the redesign; went to about 13 | 5 screens approximate | “Yeah, I think we went from like 5 to um to double or more uh screens.” |
| Coconote | count Onboarding screens after at least doubling the flow | 13 screens approximate | “we at least doubled the length of our onboarding to, I think, like 13 screens.” |
| Coconote | conversion rate Initial trial conversion uplift after doubling onboarding length | +16% approximate | “And that really really helped with our initial trial conversion. Um, I think it went up 16%, and which was pretty huge for us.” |
| Coconote | conversion rate Share of users entering the cancel flow who keep their trial after being offered a 7-day trial extension; a smaller share later convert to paid | 27% approximate | “I think we end up saving like 27% of the people who um uh go through the cancel flow by extending their trial.” |
| Crew | users Signups driven by UGC-style viral TikTok/Reels content | hundreds of thousands of signups approximate | “we were going viral on TikTok and Instagram Reels uh to drive, you know, hundreds of thousands of signups” |