From a $6.90 newsletter to $3M API: How a non-coder built Memelord | Jason Levin

Jason Levin is the CEO and founder of Memelord, an AI-powered meme creation platform that helps brands and individuals create contextual, trending memes. He started Memelord as a $6.90-per-month newsletter sending subscribers to a Google Slides deck, grew it to $100K ARR on Bubble without hiring engineers, then raised $3M to build it into an API-first product. What you’ll learn: - How Jason grew Memelord from a $6.90/month newsletter to $100K ARR without writing a single line of code - Why “no UX is the best UX” and how agents are becoming Memelord’s primary users - The mandatory vibe-coding rule for his marketing team and how it unlocks unprecedented creativity - Why free tools are the new PDF downloads and how they’ve generated hundreds of thousands of emails - Jason’s hardware hacking projects, including a bedside keyboard that creates Linear tickets without waking his wife - Why AI can be funny (but humans are still funnier) and which model is the funniest - The philosophy of building hyper-personalized software just for yourself — Brought to you by: WorkOS—Make your app enterprise-ready today Persona—Trusted identity verification for any use case — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Jason Levin and Memelord (04:28) Demo: Agentic meme creation with OpenClaw (06:55) “No UX is the best UX”—building for an agent-first future (08:35) How Memelord started as a $6.90 newsletter with Google Slides (12:35) Building to $100K ARR on Bubble with 395 workflows (15:20) Demo: Free tools section that generates hundreds of thousands of emails (17:59) Why Cursor is perfect for non-technical founders (20:20) Let your marketers cook—or watch them leave (24:19) Commit graph that shows the vibe-coding inflection point (25:25) Tools: Claude, Gemini, Linear, PostHog (28:19) Build weird stuff in the real world (33:24) Creative AI use cases (39:56) Using OpenClaw for calendar analysis (43:37) Can AI be funny? Which model is funniest? (45:26) Memes are not slop (46:45) What Jason doesn’t use AI for (48:12) Final thoughts — Blog & detailed workflow walkthroughs from this episode: How I AI: Jason Levin’s Workflows for Agentic Memes, Vibe Coding, and Hardware Hacking: https://www.chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/jason-levins-workflows-for-agentic-memes-vibe-coding-and-hardware-hacking ↳ Build a Custom Bedside Keyboard for Idea Capture with Raspberry Pi and ChatGPT: https://www.chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/workflows/build-a-custom-bedside-keyboard-for-idea-capture-with-raspberry-pi-and-chatgpt ↳ Build Free Marketing Tools as Lead Magnets Using AI Code Assistants: https://www.chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/workflows/build-free-marketing-tools-as-lead-magnets-using-ai-code-assistants ↳ Automate Meme Marketing with an AI Agent and OpenClaw: https://www.chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/workflows/automate-meme-marketing-with-an-ai-agent-and-openclaw — Tools referenced: • Memelord API: https://memelord.com/api • Cursor: https://cursor.com/ • Bubble: https://bubble.io/ • OpenClaw: https://openclaw.ai • Claude: https://claude.ai/ • ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/ • Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/ • Grok: https://grok.x.ai/ • Linear: https://linear.app/ • PostHog: https://posthog.com/ • Zapier: https://zapier.com/ — Other references: • Diego Zaks—“The best UX is no UX”: [https://x.com/diegozaks/status/[redacted card]](https://x.com/diegozaks/status/[redacted card]) • Sam Lessin: https://wlessin.com/ • “Stop giving me advice”: https://stopgivingmeadvice.com • Memelord free tools: https://memelord.com/tools — Where to find Jason Levin: Twitter: https://twitter.com/iamjasonlevin Instagram: https://instagram.com/iamjasonlevin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamjasonlevin/ Memelord: https://memelord.com — Where to find Claire Vo: ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/ Website: https://clairevo.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/ X: https://x.com/clairevo — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [redacted email].