Hiro: 14 Questions Answered From the Starter Story Interview, With Timestamps

Hiro is an analytics and reporting platform for email and SMS marketing agencies, and it went from zero to a self-reported million dollars in annual recurring revenue in about 19 months by selling to agencies instead of brands. In the Starter Story interview, co-founder Zac shows about $96,200 in MRR, growing by close to $10,000 a month. One agency sale brings in 10 to 30 brands, and agencies are easy to find in platform partner directories.

We transcribed the interview with transcribe.so and asked it the same questions we ask every episode. Each answer below is written in our own words and points to who said it and the exact second, so you can check it in the video. All figures are self-reported by the founder and we have not audited them. We are not affiliated with Starter Story, and we sell a transcription service. The interview names no single launch or post that moved the numbers, so that question is left out.

What does Hiro do and how does it make money?

It pulls the data an email and SMS marketing agency needs from the platforms it runs for its clients (Founder, 01:30; 01:48), then adds agency features: every client in one view, and how the team is pacing against its goals (Founder, 01:58; 02:00). It makes money from a subscription priced by the agency's client count, plus seats (see the pricing answers below).

What numbers does the founder share?

Over a million dollars in annual recurring revenue, reached in the 19 months since the October 2024 launch (Founder, 01:05; 01:09). About $96,200 in MRR on the dashboard he shows (Founder, 02:07), growing by close to $10,000 in MRR every month (Founder, 02:08), with very low churn (Founder, 02:14). The host calls it the best churn rate he has seen on the show (Host, 02:17).

Who is the founder, and where did the idea come from?

Zac and his partner Brendan built Hiro together (Founder, 01:00). Before it, they ran an email marketing agency for about six years (Founder, 03:10) with around 30 clients, the same kind of agency they now sell to (Founder, 03:13). The idea came from that work: Brendan got so fed up with the friction every agency deals with that he decided to build something himself (Founder, 03:17). Once Hiro had momentum, they left the agency to work on it full time (Founder, 03:25). Earlier still, they worked at a data visualization startup that Amazon bought, then at Amazon, then on a newsletter that failed (Founder, 09:43 to 09:49).

How long did it take to build, and with what?

The interview gives no build timeline. On tools: they had an unusually specific background in data pipelines (Founder, 04:27), so they set up the tables themselves and put an internal app builder on top of their own database (Founder, 04:43). In the last six to eight months they moved the whole build to an AI coding assistant (Founder, 04:55).

Who is the customer?

Agencies that run email and SMS marketing for online stores, on behalf of their clients (Founder, 01:30; 01:42). They knew this buyer because they had been one: their own agency's 30 clients matched the profile (Founder, 03:13).

Why are agencies the right customer for Hiro, and how does pricing by client count work?

Most analytics tools in e-commerce sell to one brand at a time (Founder, 05:10). One agency has 10, 20 or 30 brands as clients, so one sale puts all of them on the platform (Founder, 05:27).

"agencies are really easy to find" (Founder, 06:02)

The big platforms publish partner directories that rank agencies by size and influence (Founder, 06:10), and because those agencies all run the same platform, they share the same problems (Founder, 06:21).

"Ninety nine percent of the features we launch is relevant to every single user every time." (Founder, 06:27)

The pricing follows the same logic: the monthly fee scales with the number of clients the agency manages, after a 30-day free trial (Founder, 02:30). Details are in the pricing answer.

How did it get from zero to a million in annual recurring revenue?

The interview does not lay out growth channels in order. What it does describe is the sales motion: find agencies through platform partner directories (Founder, 06:10), and pitch the two things every agency owner wants, more clients without more hires and time saved (Founder, 08:51; 08:56). Because each agency brings many brands and seats, every sale is large (Founder, 05:58).

Why does it win?

Asked whether the email platform it connects to could simply build the same thing, he gives two reasons. A million-dollar product line is big for a team of a couple of people but would not move the needle for a public company (Founder, 07:26; 07:32). And Hiro connects to several email and SMS platforms, so it shows clients that a single platform would never report on (Founder, 07:39).

How is it priced, and why?

A subscription with a 30-day free trial, priced by the agency's client count (Founder, 02:30):

• 10 clients: about $500 a month; 20 clients: about $600 (Founder, 02:38).
• Large agencies: bespoke; some have 200 clients and pay a couple of thousand dollars a month (Founder, 02:44).
• Seats: $10 a month per seat; an agency can hand seats to its clients, so 20 clients wanting access adds another $200 a month (Founder, 05:50; 05:55).

The reason is volume per customer: one agency account carries many brands and many users. The interview does not mention a price change.

What does it cost to run?

No figures. The one cost he names is a mistake: their early cloud and data warehouse bills were very high because they did not know how to run those services for an app (Founder, 04:31; 04:36). The interview does not discuss margins, team costs or ad spend.

What went wrong?

The newsletter business they started after leaving Amazon failed, though it taught them email marketing, which led to the agency and then to Hiro (Founder, 09:49; 09:51). The early cloud bills above were the other misstep.

How would you copy this model in another industry?

Start from an industry you know: they knew the platforms, the players and what mattered (Founder, 08:10). Ask whether it has an agency layer (Founder, 08:17); restaurants, for example, have agencies running their delivery app ads that must report results to the owner (Founder, 08:27). Find the agencies in the key platforms' partner directories (Founder, 08:38), then sell on their shared problem:

"Every agency owner is trying to take on more clients without hiring more people." (Founder, 08:51)

What is the founder's advice?

"The path to finding like the business that really works is never linear." (Founder, 09:31)

Hiro reached a million in annual recurring revenue in about a year and a half (Founder, 09:35), but he says it really took about ten years (Founder, 09:40), so do not discount any experience: you never know which one will matter for the business that finally works (Founder, 10:02; 10:06).

What did the hosts take away?

The producer's first thought: every industry seems to have an agency layer you could build something like this for (Host, 10:27). The main host adds that these layers are documented in public, since big platforms list their agency partners on their own sites (Host, 11:03), and that the value is not the charts:

"The sauce is not the data visualization; it's the time saved in doing so." (Host, 12:19)

He closes by recommending unglamorous niches, especially in B2B, for anyone who wants to grow this fast (Host, 12:53).

What to copy

• Sell to the middle layer. An agency, bookkeeper or consultant who serves many businesses turns one sale into dozens of end users.
• Use the platform's own partner list as your lead list. If the customers all run the same platform, the platform has already ranked them for you.
• Price by the thing that grows with value. Charging per managed client and per seat lets revenue grow as the agency grows, without renegotiating.

More from this series: the partner audiences playbook for SaaS, every Starter Story episode answered, and our free YouTube transcript tool if you want to run the same questions on any interview.