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In this interview, Mihai Matei shares the story behind Jarvis, an AI assistant built to eliminate the constant friction of explaining context, uploading screenshots, and switching between windows. Just two weeks after launch, the product had crossed 1,200 users. He talks about building as a solo founder with AI agents, finding early users through Reddit, and what he's learning while growing a startup at just 16 years old.
Mihai shares:
His backstory and how he started.
How he got his first free and paid customers for his product.
What was effective in attracting customers to his product?
His competitive advantages, what gives him an edge, and insights that have proven beneficial to his operations.
Which books, podcasts, or other resources have had the greatest impact on him.
Advice he'd offer to entrepreneurs who are just starting out.
I’m Mihai Matei, and I’m working on Jarvis, a product that makes using AI much easier. The goal is to help people use AI more often, explore their curiosity, and get answers to questions or ideas that pop into their heads throughout the day.
I see this as a very high TAM product. Anyone can get value from Jarvis, regardless of age, technical ability, or how much time they spend on a computer.
I’m a 16 year old solo founder and I use AI a lot. Over time, I noticed how annoying it was to constantly explain context, take screenshots, paste them into AI tools, and switch back and forth between windows. It felt obvious that a more integrated way of using AI was coming. When I think about how people will interact with AI one, two, or three years from now, this is the kind of experience I imagine. Instead of waiting for someone else to build it, I decided to do it myself. That’s how Jarvis started.
The original version was much simpler than what Jarvis is today.
At first, it was just a screen assistant. You could ask questions about whatever was on your screen, and it would answer based on that context.
As I kept building, I realized the opportunity was much bigger. Instead of being a tool that only looked at your screen, Jarvis could become a complete assistant that’s always available and can pull context from everything you’re doing.
I built it using Claude Code, Codex, and GPT. From the point where the current vision became clear, it took about three months to build.
There were a lot of ups and downs along the way. The vision changed multiple times, the product evolved, and plenty of things didn’t work. But that’s ultimately what led to Jarvis becoming what it is today.
No co-founders or employees. Just me and tons of AI agents.
We’re still in beta, so the launch has been relatively soft compared to the potential of the product.
We crossed 1,200 users within two weeks of launch, generated a few thousand organic website visits, and we’re currently sending a few thousand Reddit DMs per day.
If you factor in our current growth curve, the projected reach for month one is probably over 200,000 people.
Most of our first users came through Reddit DMs. We’ve also put a lot of work into SEO, had some word of mouth growth, and picked up a small amount of traffic from X.
Direct outreach through DMs has worked best so far. We’re also starting to move into larger scale email marketing.
We crossed 1,200 users within two weeks of launch, and the product generated roughly $1,000 in revenue during its first week.
Right now, the focus is on improving the product, expanding what Jarvis can do, and making the experience even more seamless.
I think the future of AI is much more integrated than what we have today, and that’s the direction we’re building toward.
Honestly, I’ve learned a lot about how to use AI effectively. How to code with AI. How to market with AI. How to automate things with AI. The amount of leverage available today is insane if you’re willing to learn how to use these tools properly.
Claude Code, Codex, ChatGPT, Notion
I learn a lot from founders, operators, and creators online.
Some of my favorites are:
My First Million
The Joe Rogan Experience
Diary of a CEO
Lex Fridman
I’ve also followed people like Jack Neel, Roy Lee, Zach Yadegari, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and many others.
Yes. I’m looking for great designers, motion designers, marketers, and honestly, talented people in general. We’re still very early, but I’m always interested in meeting ambitious people who want to build cool things.
Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions! What is your contact info if people would like to inquire about your services? You can add all your links.
Great! Here’s my X and LinkedIn
Let me know what you learned from this interview and have a productive week! 🙏
One of the easiest ways to spot a promising business idea is to pay attention to the workarounds people have already created.
If someone is maintaining a giant spreadsheet, stitching together five different tools, or manually repeating the same task every week, they’re often revealing a product opportunity without realizing it. The best founders don’t always invent new behaviors. They find existing ones and make them easier.
Most screen recording tools force you to spend time editing before you can share anything. Cursorful automatically turns rough recordings into polished product demos by zooming, following cursor movements, removing dead space, and making everything easier to watch. If you create tutorials, product walkthroughs, onboarding videos, or social content, it’s one of those tools that quietly saves hours every week.
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