Cracking AI Growth & Retention: How Instant & Relume scaled from $0 to $10m

How do AI companies scale this fast without breaking?Eight figure revenue in competitive markets. Products that double revenue in a single month. Customers who tattoo your logo on their body. Not growth hacks. Not hype. Real traction, earned the hard way.Brendan Hill sits down with Daniel Slater from Relume, Liam Millward from Instant, and Sally Yu from King River Capital to unpack what actually drives breakout AI companies in 2025. The answer is not building more features. It is obsession with distribution, ruthless focus on speed to value, and teams that move faster than their competitors think is possible.Relume did not start as an AI startup. It started as an agency. Building websites manually, feeling the pain firsthand, and removing the work that should never have existed. Instant did not find product market fit once. It found it three times, killing products, rebuilding teams, and learning the hard way that revenue without stickiness is a mirage. And from Silicon Valley, Sally Yu shares what she sees across the fastest growing AI companies in the world, why community is becoming the real moat, and why founders with unwavering conviction now win disproportionately.They talk candidly about churn, mistakes, hiring A players, monthly execution cycles, and why most AI products fail not because the tech is bad, but because the company moves too slowly. This is a conversation about momentum. About earning distribution. About building products people would fight to keep.If you want to understand how modern AI companies actually scale, and what it takes to stay ahead once you do, this episode is for you.Oversubscribed is proudly supported by our sponsor Vanta 🦙Vanta is the all-in-one solution for startups to become compliant quickly and build a security foundation with ease. Startup customers get $1000 off Vanta at vanta.com/oversubscribedThe Day One NetworkOversubscribed is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.Guest Founders:Relume: relume.ioConnect with Daniel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-james-slater-13079288/Instant: instant.oneConnect with Liam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liammillward/King River Capital:http://www.kingriver.co/Connect with Sally: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sally-tech/Stay Updated:Listen to the Oversubscribed Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6rZ9SajGVXkO8oxuvEHAsk?si=I2yR92GgRZa-Fdqbp8T4bwListen to the Oversubscribed Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/oversubscribed/id1848789610Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or financial product. Brendan Hill is an investor in Everlab, Relevance AI and A1Base.About the Host:Brendan Hill is a Venture Partner at TEN13 and an angel investor in Australia’s fastest-growing startups, including Everlab, Heidi Health, Relevance AI and Instant. If you are interested in finding out more about angel investing, connect with Brendan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsbrendanhill/