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I'm Rémy, and I break down marketing tactics from the best startups.
Today, we’re going to analyze the growth strategy of HeyGen, the AI video company that recently hit 100M ARR after 3 years.
If you're building a technical product, this breakdown will give you ideas to grow your company.
About HeyGen
HeyGen is an AI video tool that turns text into realistic talking‑head videos using avatars and AI voices. No camera or editing needed. It helps teams quickly create multilingual, personalized videos for marketing, onboarding, and sales.
It was founded in 2020 by Joshua Xu and co‑founder Sherman Zheng. The company has raised significant venture funding and crossed from about $1M ARR in early 2023 to $100M ARR in October 2025.
The playbook behind their growth
1. SEO
They get huge traffic on their website.
Here are content formats they used:
Template libraries for specific use cases (onbing, product explainers…)
Short demo embedded in landing pages.
Case-studies highlighting brands like Trivago and Workday using HeyGen at scale.
2. High-ROI Use Cases
HeyGen leans hard into workflows where AI video has a clear ROI versus traditional production:
training
onboarding
global marketing/localization
These use cases have recurring content needs, which increases retention and makes churn less likely.
3. Hybrid PLG + Enterprise GTM
The best AI B2B apps combine self‑serve growth with strong enterprise sales. Here is HeyGen’s approach:
Strong self‑serve : free and entry‑level plans, easy onboarding, and templates tailored to marketers, educators, and small teams who can start without talking to sales.
Enterprise sales : advanced features (SSO, governance, teams, integrations like HubSpot and email tools) and a growing partner ecosystem that appeals to large organizations.
So they get:
Viral adoption from individuals and small teams who experiment with AI video
Larger, more predictable contracts from enterprises that standardize on HeyGen for training, support, and marketing content across regions.
This mirrors the GTM playbooks of tools like Canva, Loom, and Descript, where a big self-serve base feeds into an enterprise pipeline once usage centralizes and governance matters.
4. Moats
They built great moats over time :
Data models: proprietary avatar library, voice models, and accumulated performance data from millions of generated videos to improve realism and reliability.
UX performance: a browser‑based studio that abstracts away model complexity, templated workflows, and fast rendering so non‑technical users can ship content quickly.
Network effects : integrations with CRMs and marketing tools (e.g., HubSpot) and partner/agency usage that spreads HeyGen into clients’ stacks.
Their Untapped potential for growth
1. Turn current email flows into conversions machines
Current emails sent only focus on product updates:
We could send :
emails focused on solving pain points/benefits (saving time…)
YT tutorials / blog content to increase conversion rate
2. Double down on affiliates
I would create more content to educate affiliates. For example:
How this affiliate made X $ with Heygen Affiliate Program
Best performing content for our top 10 affiliates
Calculators like Submagic to visually show how much money affiliates could make
TL;DR
HeyGen has done a really good job on the content and product side. Their next growth lever would be to focus on driving more traffic and retaining it with personalized email flows.
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See you next week,
Rémy