Why Programiz Built a YouTube Channel Before Launching Their SaaS

On the latest episode of the Levels Podcast, we sat down with Punit Jajodia, co-founder and CEO of Programiz, to discuss their journey from a content-driven coding tutorial site to a thriving edtech platform with 6 million learners worldwide. What emerged was a fascinating story about brand building in the age of SEO—and why sometimes you need to put faces to your company before you can sell anything.

The Utility Problem

Programiz had a problem that most founders would kill for: millions of users visiting their site every month. But there was a catch. Nobody knew who they were.

"As SEO people, we realized that we didn't have a brand. We thought we had a brand. But we realized that we did not have a brand. Because our brand searches were zero on that. Nobody was searching for Programiz app. Everybody was searching for C app or Python app."

This was the harsh reality Punit and his co-founders faced after years of building what he calls a "utility." People would search Google for "Python for loop," click on a Programiz article, grab the code snippet they needed, and leave—all without registering that Programiz even existed. The site functioned more like a vending machine than a brand.

"You use it, and you don't even talk about it. You forget it. So you are looking for something like a Python for loop. There's some query that you need to solve. You go on Google, you search for it, some random list of websites appears, you click on the top link, you go to it, you read it, copy some piece of code, come back to whatever code editor you're doing. And in this entire process, you don't even remember the name Programiz."

The YouTube Experiment

When the team decided to move beyond their ad-supported content model and launch a paid web platform (Programiz Pro), they faced a critical question: how do you convert anonymous utility users into paying customers?

Their answer was counterintuitive. Before building the SaaS product, they launched a YouTube channel.

"We decided that people are seeing Programiz as kind of a ghost. People are not seeing that Programiz actually being built by humans. There is a team behind it. So that is the reason we started the YouTube channel before going to the web. We said, let's show the face behind Programiz so that when we go to the web, we are able to humanize the company."

The results surprised them. The YouTube comments revealed something the analytics never could: people had been using Programiz for years, they just didn't know there was a team behind it.

"The comments on the YouTube videos, they gave us a huge boost. It was like, I had been using Programiz but I didn't know it was you guys. It was like suddenly, yeah, they started making the connection that you saved my life, you helped me pass."

The Transformation They Didn't Know They Were Making

This feedback opened Punit's eyes to a deeper truth about their business. They weren't failing to create value—they were just invisible to the people they were helping.

"We realized that we had been making the transformations that we thought we hadn't, right? But it was just so subtle because it was such a small part of the person's journey or small bits and pieces of whenever they needed some small help, we had help. We were not taking them from A to Z, but maybe somewhere from B to C or, you know, like we were certain pieces in the puzzle."

Understanding this changed everything. The YouTube channel wasn't just marketing—it was validation that they could build something more comprehensive. Once they saw that people actually cared about Programiz and the humans behind it, they felt confident investing in a full learning platform.

The Finding-Your-Face Story

There's a wonderful moment in the interview where Punit explains how he became the face of Programiz's YouTube channel almost by accident. The team struggled to find the right person—someone who was fluent in English, comfortable on camera, and technically strong. Then during an internal knowledge-sharing session, Punit gave an impromptu presentation on standard deviation.

"I took a whiteboard and I talked about why standard deviation is important, what are the practical use cases and all of that. And at the end, the whole team goes, this is our YouTube. We just found our YouTube guy."

Sometimes the right person for humanizing your brand is already in the room—you just need to create the space for them to show up.

Lessons for B2C Founders

Programiz's journey from faceless utility to recognized brand offers several insights for founders building consumer products:

SEO traffic isn't the same as brand equity. You can have millions of users and zero brand recognition. If people can't remember your name or don't know there are humans behind your product, you're vulnerable to any competitor who bothers to build a relationship.

Consider humanizing before monetizing. If you're planning to transition from free to paid, from content to product, or from utility to platform, think about brand building first. It's hard to ask people to trust you with their money when they don't even know you exist.

YouTube (or similar platforms) can bridge the awareness gap. For Programiz, putting a face to their content transformed how users perceived them. It shifted the relationship from transactional to relational.

Your existing users might already love you—they just don't know how to express it. Sometimes all you need is a comment section to discover the impact you've been making all along.

The broader lesson here is about the evolution of online business models. The anonymous, SEO-driven content model that worked in 2011 looks increasingly fragile in 2025. As Punit notes, communities and authentic relationships are becoming the new competitive moat. Before you can build community, people need to know you're actually there.

Key Points

• Programiz had millions of users but zero brand searches—people used them without knowing they existed
• The team launched a YouTube channel specifically to "humanize the company" before launching their paid product
• YouTube comments revealed users had been benefiting from Programiz for years but never made the connection
• Punit became the channel's face almost accidentally after an internal presentation
• The brand building effort validated that they could successfully transition from free utility to paid platform
• Anonymous SEO-driven growth creates vulnerability—users have no loyalty to what they can't remember

Listen to the full conversation to hear more about how Programiz is evolving their platform with gamification, communities, and their vision for the future of learning to code in the AI era.