# Yasser Elsaid

> Yasser Elsaid is an Egyptian-born software engineer and entrepreneur who bootstrapped Chatbase - an AI agent platform - from zero to $9M ARR with 18 people, all without raising a dollar of VC funding. He launched to 16 Twitter followers in February 2023, the tweet went viral, he failed two university classes, turned down a $1M acquisition offer for his source code three months in, and kept building. Now based in San Francisco on an O-1 'Alien of Extraordinary Ability' visa, he's declared 2026 the year Chatbase forgets it's bootstrapped.

- **Role:** Founder & CEO at Chatbase
- **Organizations:** Chatbase
- **From:** Egypt
- **Nationality:** Egyptian
- **Education:** Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (partial), Cairo University, Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, York University, Lassonde School of Engineering
- **Known for:** Built Chatbase from zero to $9M ARR completely bootstrapped (no VC funding), Grew to $1M ARR in under 5 months post-launch, Built a team of 18 people (11 engineers) while staying fully bootstrapped

## Career timeline

- **2019** — Moved from Egypt to Canada to complete university at York University
- **2021** — Software Engineering Intern at BlackBerry (cloud infrastructure)
- **2022** — Software Engineering Intern at Tesla (3rd year of university)
- **2022** — Software Engineering Intern at Meta/Facebook (4th year); did not receive a return offer
- **2022** — New-grad job offer rescinded amid tech layoffs, pivoting fully to entrepreneurship
- **2022-11** — Started building Chatbase, exploring GPT-3 API weeks before ChatGPT launched
- **2023-02** — Launched Chatbase to 16 Twitter followers; tweet went viral
- **2023-02** — Dropped all university coursework; failed two final classes to focus on Chatbase
- **2023-05** — Turned down $1M acquisition offer for the Chatbase source code
- **2023-07** — Reached $1M ARR, ~5 months after launch
- **2024-02** — Reached $3M ARR, one year after launch
- **2024-09** — Appeared on Morning Maker Show podcast discussing bootstrapping
- **2025** — Reached $6M ARR; team grows to 18 people
- **2025-12** — Reached $8M ARR
- **2026-01** — Reached $9M ARR
- **2026-04** — Received O-1 'Alien of Extraordinary Ability' visa; relocated to San Francisco

## Achievements

- Built Chatbase from zero to $9M ARR completely bootstrapped (no VC funding)
- Grew to $1M ARR in under 5 months post-launch
- Built a team of 18 people (11 engineers) while staying fully bootstrapped
- Turned down a $1M acquisition offer for source code just 3 months after launch
- Received O-1 'Alien of Extraordinary Ability' visa from the US government
- Launched to 16 Twitter followers and went viral
- Built Chatbase MVP in two weeks using GPT-3 API and Supabase
- Featured in ProductLed, Indie Hackers, Supabase, Starter Story, and multiple podcasts

## Latest updates

- **2026-04** — Received O-1 'Alien of Extraordinary Ability' visa and relocated to San Francisco
- **2026-01** — Chatbase crossed $9M ARR
- **2025-12** — Chatbase crossed $8M ARR with a team of 18 people
- **2026-02** — Featured in ProductLed article: 'How Chatbase Hit $8M ARR with 18 People'

## Links

- Website: https://www.yasserelsaid.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasserelsaid/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/yasser_elsaid_
- GitHub: https://github.com/yasserelsaid

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/yasser-elsaid
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-04-25