{ "site": "https://aiolum.com", "generated": "2026-10-22", "count": 110, "grades": "Evidence grades: A = disclosed by a public company, a filing or a payment processor, or verified by one; B = two or more independent reports agree, or a journalist confirmed it; C = a founder claim that no one else verified; calc = computed on this page from graded facts.", "fields": { "slug": "URL key: /story//", "added": "ISO date when the story went live (used by \"newest\" sort; the default sort is \"evidence\": grade A to C, then outcomeUsd)", "aiType": "\"AI-native\" (the model output is the product) or", "team": "\"solo\" or \"small\" (2 to 10 people at the moment of success)", "outcome": "\"exit\" or \"running\"", "group": "what the product does: one slug from GROUPS (/group//)", "channel": "how most customers arrived: one slug from CHANNELS (\"unknown\" when no source says)", "trend": "revenue in the latest months against the months before: \"growing\", \"flat\",", "collections": "patterns that cut across the groups: any of \"platform\", \"phone-app\", \"open-source\"", "evidence": "best grade of the headline number: \"A\", \"B\" or \"C\"", "outcomeUsd": "headline number in US dollars, for the \"biggest\" sort and the ticker", "months": "months from launch to the headline outcome, for the \"fastest\" sort", "meters": "1 to 4 each: evidence strength, copyable pattern (used by the \"copyable\" sort), capital needed", "factsCaption": "caption of the numbers table; factsRead is the line under it", "timelineLead": "one line under the timeline heading", "facts": "rows of the numbers table; grade \"X\" means calculated on this page", "sources": "numbered list; facts and timeline entries point to these numbers" }, "stories": [ { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/base44/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/base44.md", "slug": "base44", "name": "Base44", "country": "Israel", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI app builder", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "exit", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-05", "launchLabel": "January 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$80M cash exit, 18 June 2025", "sticker": "$80M exit", "outcomeUsd": 80000000, "months": 5, "teamLabel": "1 founder, then 6 to 8 staff at the sale", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Timing", "group": "build-software", "channel": "audience", "trend": "sold", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 4, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Exit", "Vibe coding" ], "product": "You describe an app in plain language. Base44 generates a working web app with its own database, user login and hosting, so you never touch a server.", "why": "It launched in the month that AI models became good enough to write a whole app. It sold to people who cannot program, it charged from day one, and it was sold to a company that already had millions of customers.", "summary": [ "Base44 is a vibe coding platform. Vibe coding means that you describe software in plain language and an AI model writes the code. Base44 goes one step further than most tools. The generated app comes with its own database, user login, file storage and hosting. So a person who cannot program never touches a server.", "Maor Shlomo built it alone as a side project from the end of 2024. He launched it in January 2025 and sold it to Wix for about US$80 million in cash on 18 June 2025. Base44 took no outside investment. Under Wix it reached US$150 million in annual recurring revenue by May 2026. Annual recurring revenue (ARR) is the current monthly subscription revenue multiplied by twelve.", "This page grades every number by its evidence. It also shows the failed startups that promised the same thing before AI models made it work." ], "pricing": { "caption": "Base44 plans in 2026, reported by reviewers (grade C)", "note": "A credit is one request to the AI. A complex change can use several credits. Reviewers report users who pay about US$300 a month after they spend all the credits of their plan. Yearly billing is about 20% cheaper than monthly billing.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "25 credits, at most 5 a day" ], [ "Starter", "16", "20", "" ], [ "Builder", "40", "50", "" ], [ "Pro", "80", "100", "" ], [ "Highest tier", "about 160", "about 200", "" ] ] }, "factsCaption": "Payments disclosed by Wix total US$159 million by August 2026, for a company that was about six months old at the sale", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was disclosed by Wix, a public company. A grade C value is a founder claim. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a side project to US$150 million in annual recurring revenue in about 18 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "facts": [ { "fact": "Initial payment from Wix, 18 June 2025", "value": "about US$80 million, in cash", "grade": "A", "note": "Wix press release. TechCrunch confirmed the cash form with Wix.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Retention bonuses for employees, inside that US$80 million", "value": "about US$25 million", "grade": "A", "note": "The press release says the bonuses are part of the initial payment, not an addition to it.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's share of the initial payment", "value": "about US$55 million", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 80 minus 25 equals 55. Shlomo was the sole shareholder.", "src": [ 1, 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Earn-out period", "value": "2025 through 2029", "grade": "A", "note": "An earn-out is a later payment that is paid only if the business reaches agreed targets.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Earn-out payment disclosed in May 2026", "value": "US$38 million", "grade": "A", "note": "Disclosed by Wix with its results, reported by Calcalist.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Earn-out payment disclosed in August 2026", "value": "US$41 million", "grade": "A", "note": "Disclosed in Wix's second-quarter 2026 earnings, reported by Calcalist.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Total disclosed payments by August 2026", "value": "US$159 million", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 80 plus 38 plus 41 equals 159. Calcalist writes \"above 150 million\". One report mentions a further 90 million payment, but the reports do not reconcile, so it is not counted here.", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Users at the sale", "value": "250,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder posts, reported by TechCrunch.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Users in the first three weeks", "value": "10,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder posts, reported by TechCrunch.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Profit in May 2025, the month before the sale", "value": "US$189,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder posts. Stated as profit after model costs.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue at the sale", "value": "about US$3.5 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Unofficial estimate compiled by Latka. Wix did not disclose it.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Price paid divided by revenue at the sale", "value": "about 23 times ARR", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 80 divided by 3.5 equals 22.9, using the unofficial estimate above.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, August 2025", "value": "US$15 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on LinkedIn, recorded by Latka.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, March 2026", "value": "US$100 million", "grade": "A", "note": "Disclosed with Wix's fourth-quarter 2025 results.", "src": [ 4, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, May 2026", "value": "US$150 million", "grade": "A", "note": "Reported by Calcalist from Wix's disclosures.", "src": [ 4, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue growth in the eleven months after the sale", "value": "about 43 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 150 divided by 3.5 equals 42.9. The starting value is the unofficial estimate, so this is an approximation.", "src": [ 4, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Employees at the sale", "value": "6 to 8", "grade": "B", "note": "Calcalist reports six. TechCrunch reports that Wix confirmed eight.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's age at the sale", "value": "31", "grade": "B", "note": "", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "B", "note": "", "src": [ 2, 3 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2017", "what": "Shlomo co-founds Explorium, a data company, at age 24 and becomes its chief executive (CEO). Explorium later raises about US$125 million.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "End of 2024", "what": "After army reserve duty, he does not return to Explorium. He starts Base44 as a side project.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "January 2025", "what": "Public launch.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "First three weeks", "what": "10,000 users. The founder reports about US$1 million in annual recurring revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 6 ] }, { "when": "January to June 2025", "what": "He posts user numbers, revenue and profit publicly on LinkedIn and X. The product spreads through user recommendations.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "May 2025", "what": "Profit of US$189,000 for the month, after model costs.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "18 June 2025", "what": "Wix buys Base44 for about US$80 million in cash plus earn-outs. The company has 6 to 8 employees.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "9 July 2025", "what": "The security company Wiz reports an authentication bypass. Wix fixes it within 24 hours.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "August 2025", "what": "US$15 million in annual recurring revenue, founder on LinkedIn.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "March 2026", "what": "US$100 million in annual recurring revenue, disclosed with Wix's results.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 4, 6 ] }, { "when": "May 2026", "what": "US$150 million in annual recurring revenue. Wix discloses a US$38 million milestone payment to the founder.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "29 June 2026", "what": "Base44 launches Base1, its own AI model, trained on its users' interactions.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "4 August 2026", "what": "Wix discloses a further US$41 million payment to the founder.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 5 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Timing", "text": "In late 2024, AI models crossed a threshold: a generated full-stack app mostly ran on the first try. Every earlier attempt at this product was built before that threshold existed. Base44 launched within weeks of it." }, { "title": "The buyer", "text": "Early 2025 competitors such as Lovable, Bolt and v0 produced code that the user still had to connect to a database and deploy. Base44 hid all of that. Its customer was an operations manager or a small-business owner, not an engineer." }, { "title": "Cash from day one", "text": "Users paid for credits before they built anything. Model costs were passed through to users in the price of the credits. So the company was profitable while it was still one person." }, { "title": "Sold to distribution", "text": "Wix had millions of website customers and needed an AI app builder. After the sale, annual recurring revenue grew from about US$3.5 million to US$150 million in eleven months. The product did not change that much. The sales channel did." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from a newsletter that summarizes the founder's talks and posts. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Plain JavaScript with JSX (a syntax for writing HTML-like markup inside JavaScript) instead of TypeScript, because the models wrote it with fewer errors.", "MongoDB as the database, because the data model changed often. MongoDB is a document database, so it does not need a fixed table structure.", "Model routing: larger models (Claude, Gemini) for app logic and design, and smaller models for small fixes. Routing means that each request goes to the cheapest model that can do the job.", "Growth tactics: a staged onboarding of the first 10 users, then a relaunch on Product Hunt. Later, free credits for users who invited others, and a large hackathon event.", "The first employee was hired about six weeks before the sale." ], "src": [ 9 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database promised the same thing: software without programming. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Builder.ai", "years": "2016 to 2025", "funding": "US$445M", "cause": "Unit economics", "promise": "Custom apps for US$20,000, assembled by AI.", "died": "The apps cost US$35,000 to build. Offshore developers did the work behind the AI label. It collapsed in May 2025, one month before Base44 was sold.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2170-builderai" }, { "name": "Koji", "years": "2016 to 2021", "funding": "US$16M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "No-code app builder for creators.", "died": "Free users did not become paying users. It was squeezed between Webflow and Bubble.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/284-koji", "note": "Press reports put Koji's end in December 2023, when Linktree bought it. The dates in the database may be wrong." }, { "name": "Light Table / Eve", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$3M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Let anyone build apps without code.", "died": "Users had to learn a new way to program. Developers stayed with the editors they already knew.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1560-light-tableeve" }, { "name": "Appcubator", "years": "2013 to 2016", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Product failure", "promise": "Drag-and-drop app creation, no coding degree required.", "died": "The market was not ready. It lost to the more flexible Bubble.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1160-appcubator" }, { "name": "Sosh", "years": "2012 to 2013", "funding": "US$2.3M", "cause": "No market need", "promise": "Drag-and-drop website builder, before Webflow existed.", "died": "Too complex for beginners, too rigid for professionals, and the generated code was messy.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/565-sosh" } ], "whatChanged": [ "All five companies failed for one shared reason. Before 2024, no-code meant that the user replaced typed code with a visual tool, and the user still had to learn that tool. The database entry for Sosh says it exactly: too complex for beginners, too rigid for professionals.", "AI models removed the tool. Plain language became the interface, and real code became the output. Builder.ai is the sharpest contrast. It sold the same promise with people hidden behind an AI label, and it collapsed in May 2025. Base44 sold the same promise with a real model, and Wix bought it one month later." ], "copy": { "verdict": "Not as it is. The pattern, yes.", "text": "The general-purpose market closed within about a year. Lovable reported US$500 million in annual recurring revenue in June 2026. Base44 is inside Wix. Replit, Bolt, v0 and the model companies compete with large budgets. A new general-purpose app builder from one person has no opening.", "steps": [ "Watch for a capability threshold: a model that newly does one thing reliably.", "Build the all-in-one version for a buyer who cannot program, while competitors serve developers.", "Charge from the first day, with usage pricing, and publish your numbers.", "Sell to whoever owns distribution before funded competitors arrive." ], "open": "The vertical version is still open. That means app generation for one profession where data rules and compliance matter. Examples: clinics, law firms, property managers." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Model dependence", "text": "Base44 rents its intelligence from model providers. Base1, its own model trained on tens of millions of user interactions, is the answer. The company says that owning the model will cut inference cost and improve margins." }, { "title": "Bundling by a giant", "text": "Shlomo has said that the competitor to fear is Google, not Replit or Lovable. A free app builder inside a large software suite would remove Base44's pricing power." }, { "title": "Credit pricing", "text": "Reviewers report users who pay about US$300 a month after they spend all their plan credits. Price complaints are the most common criticism in reviews." }, { "title": "Security liability", "text": "The July 2025 flaw let anyone register inside private apps by using a public app identifier, which also bypassed single sign-on. The platform owns security for apps whose builders cannot audit them." }, { "title": "Cost to the parent", "text": "Calcalist reported that Wix's quarterly loss widened to US$76.4 million in 2026, partly because of the Base44 payouts." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Wix press release, 18 June 2025: Wix Further Expands into Vibe Coding with Acquisition of Base44", "url": "https://www.wix.com/press-room/home/post/wix-further-expands-into-vibe-coding-with-acquisition-of-base44-a-hyper-growth-startup-that-simplif", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. Primary source for the deal terms, the retention bonuses and the earn-out period." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 18 June 2025: 6-month-old, solo-owned vibe coder Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/18/6-month-old-solo-owned-vibe-coder-base44-sells-to-wix-for-80m-cash/", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. Wix confirmed the cash form and the headcount to TechCrunch. The user and profit numbers inside it are founder posts, grade C." }, { "title": "Calcalist, 18 June 2025: Vibe coding fever: Solo entrepreneur's Base44 acquired by Wix for $80 million", "url": "https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/s1iflnlelx", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the founder's background and the six-employee count." }, { "title": "Calcalist, May 2026: Base44 milestone unlocks $38 million payout for founder Maor Shlomo", "url": "https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/sy8shemymg", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. Reports numbers that Wix disclosed." }, { "title": "Calcalist, 4 August 2026: Maor Shlomo's Base44 payday climbs to $150 million after latest Wix payout", "url": "https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/apa3i9eyt", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. Reports numbers from Wix's second-quarter 2026 earnings." }, { "title": "Latka, updated 31 August 2026: Base44 Revenue: $80M Wix Deal, Then $150M ARR", "url": "https://getlatka.com/blog/base44-revenue-acquired-wix", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. A secondary compilation that dates and attributes each revenue figure." }, { "title": "The Hacker News, July 2025: Wiz Uncovers Critical Access Bypass Flaw in AI-Powered Vibe Coding Platform Base44", "url": "https://thehackernews.com/2025/07/wiz-uncovers-critical-access-bypass.html", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Based on the Wiz research report." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 29 June 2026: Vibe-coding platform Base44 launches own model as AI startups seek defensibility", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/29/vibe-coding-platform-base44-launches-own-model-as-ai-startups-seek-defensibility/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Also the source for Lovable's US$500 million ARR claim." }, { "title": "AI & No-Code Exits newsletter, 16 January 2026: How Maor Shlomo sold Base44 for $80M", "url": "https://nocodeexits.substack.com/p/how-maor-shlomo-sold-base44-for-80m", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Summarizes founder talks. Source for the technical and growth details." }, { "title": "Base44 reviews with 2026 pricing: flowstep.ai and justinmckelvey.com", "url": "https://flowstep.ai/blog/base44-review/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read as summaries. Source for the plan prices and the credit complaints." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/chatbase/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/chatbase.md", "slug": "chatbase", "name": "Chatbase", "country": "Canada, now USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI customer-support agents", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "2 February 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$10M annual recurring revenue, March 2026", "sticker": "$10M ARR", "outcomeUsd": 10000000, "months": 37, "teamLabel": "1 founder alone to US$1M ARR, 26 staff at US$10M ARR", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Timing", "group": "support-agents", "channel": "audience", "trend": "growing", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 3, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "Customer support" ], "product": "A company uploads its documents or gives its website address. Chatbase turns that material into a chat agent that answers customer questions on the site, by email or by phone, and hands the conversation to a person when it cannot answer.", "why": "It launched the obvious application of a new model within weeks, with a pricing page on the first day. The founder built the parts around the model instead of a model, so every model upgrade improved the product for free. Then it moved from a consumer toy to business customers who stay.", "summary": [ "Chatbase builds AI agents for customer support. An AI agent here is a chat program that answers customer questions from a company's own documents and website, and that can take actions such as looking up an order or passing the conversation to an employee. The first version in February 2023 was much simpler: upload a PDF, then chat with its content.", "Yasser Elsaid built that first version in about two months while he was a final-year computer science student in Toronto. He posted a demo on 2 February 2023 to 16 followers, and the first customer paid about 30 minutes later. He reached US$1 million in annual recurring revenue 117 days after the demo, still alone. Annual recurring revenue (ARR) is the current monthly subscription revenue multiplied by twelve. In March 2026, Stripe, the company's payment processor, published that Chatbase had passed US$10 million in ARR with 26 employees and no outside investment.", "This page grades every number by its evidence. The headline number comes from the payment processor. Most of the growth numbers are founder statements. The page also shows five failed startups that sold automated customer conversations before language models could hold one." ], "pricing": { "caption": "Chatbase plans in October 2026, from the company's pricing page and from review sites (grade C)", "note": "A message credit is one answer from a standard model. An answer from a larger model uses more credits, up to 5 per answer according to reviewers. Extra credits cost US$40 per 1,000. Removing the Chatbase name from the chat window costs US$99 a month. Yearly billing is 20% cheaper than monthly billing.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "50 message credits a month" ], [ "Hobby", "32", "40", "700 message credits a month, 1 agent" ], [ "Standard", "120", "150", "4,000 message credits a month" ], [ "Pro", "400", "500", "15,000 message credits a month" ], [ "Enterprise", "custom", "custom", "Higher limits" ] ] }, "factsCaption": "US$10 million in annual recurring revenue three years after a demo posted to 16 followers, with the headline figure published by the payment processor", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was published by Stripe, the payment processor that handles the revenue. A grade B value comes from a supplier's account or independent press. A grade C value is a founder claim. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a weekend demo to US$10 million in annual recurring revenue in 37 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "facts": [ { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, March 2026", "value": "US$10 million", "grade": "A", "note": "Published by Stripe, the company's payment processor, in its customer story. One case study dates the milestone to May 2026; this page uses the Stripe date.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Employees at US$10 million ARR", "value": "26", "grade": "B", "note": "Stated in the Stripe story. A headcount is not a payment figure, so it is graded B.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per employee", "value": "about US$385,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 10,000,000 divided by 26 equals 384,615.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Paying customers, 2026", "value": "more than 8,000", "grade": "B", "note": "Supabase customer story. The founder's own figure is more than 10,000 (grade C).", "src": [ 2, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "B", "note": "Stripe writes fully bootstrapped. Supabase writes not a single dollar of venture funding. One AI-written directory claims a Y Combinator batch and a US$3 million raise. No other source supports that, so it is not counted.", "src": [ 1, 2, 11 ] }, { "fact": "First public demo", "value": "2 February 2023, posted to 16 followers", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interviews.", "src": [ 3, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Time to the first paying customer", "value": "about 30 minutes", "grade": "B", "note": "Stated in the Stripe story and in founder interviews. A pricing page was live at launch.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 11 February 2023", "value": "US$400", "grade": "C", "note": "Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is the subscription revenue of one month.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, end of February 2023", "value": "US$3,000", "grade": "C", "note": "", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, mid-March 2023", "value": "US$10,000", "grade": "C", "note": "", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, mid-May 2023", "value": "US$64,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview with Indie Hackers.", "src": [ 3, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Time to US$1 million ARR", "value": "117 days", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interviews. US$1 million ARR equals about US$83,000 of monthly revenue.", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Date of US$1 million ARR", "value": "30 May 2023", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 2 February 2023 plus 117 days.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Employees until June 2023", "value": "1", "grade": "B", "note": "Stripe story: the founder was the only employee until June 2023.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "ARR at the two-year relaunch, February 2025", "value": "US$5 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder post on Indie Hackers.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Time from US$1 million to US$3 million ARR", "value": "7 months", "grade": "C", "note": "Then 12 months from US$3 million to US$5 million. Growth slowed as the product moved from consumers to businesses.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "ARR, December 2025", "value": "US$8 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on the ProductLed podcast. Team of 18, of which 11 engineers. Retention 92%.", "src": [ 5, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue recovered from failed card payments, 2023 to 2026", "value": "US$870,000", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe story. Money that automatic payment retries recovered.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to US$10 million ARR", "value": "37 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: February 2023 to March 2026.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "November 2022", "what": "Elsaid, in his last year at York University in Toronto, experiments with the GPT-3 API, weeks before ChatGPT is released. He did not get a return offer from his Meta internship.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "when": "2 February 2023", "what": "He posts a demo of ChatGPT for your PDFs to 16 followers. The post spreads. A pricing page is live, and the first payment arrives about 30 minutes later.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "when": "February 2023", "what": "He stops attending class and fails two final courses. The first plan costs US$9.99 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 7 ] }, { "when": "Mid-May 2023", "what": "US$64,000 in monthly recurring revenue. No marketing budget: subreddits, X, LinkedIn and Product Hunt. He hires his first two employees.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "30 May 2023", "what": "US$1 million ARR, 117 days after the demo, with one person.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "when": "2023 to 2024", "what": "Chatbase moves from a consumer tool with US$10 and US$30 plans to a business product: support agents that connect to a company's systems. The team moves from Toronto to New York, where 98 of its 100 target accounts are.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 7 ] }, { "when": "February 2025", "what": "Relaunch as an AI agent platform, US$5 million ARR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "December 2025", "what": "US$8 million ARR, 92% retention, 18 people.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 7 ] }, { "when": "March 2026", "what": "Stripe publishes that Chatbase passed US$10 million ARR with 26 employees.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "2026", "what": "The product sells agents for chat, email and voice, with a plan for enterprise customers.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Timing", "text": "The GPT-3 API became usable in late 2022, and ChatGPT created demand in January 2023. Chat with your own documents was the obvious application. Elsaid shipped it within weeks, before the category had a name. In 2023 he said himself that the viral launch was a one-time advantage and not a strategy." }, { "title": "The harness, not the model", "text": "Chatbase owns everything around the model: document ingestion, retrieval of the right passage, rules that keep the agent on script, a fallback to a human, and analytics. The founder's bet was that the models would keep improving. Every model upgrade since then improved Chatbase at no cost." }, { "title": "Paid self-serve from day one", "text": "A pricing page and Stripe checkout were live at the first demo. Customers entered a card and deployed an agent without talking to anyone. The founder was the only employee for the first four months, so the product had to sell itself." }, { "title": "From toy to business tool", "text": "Hundreds of chat-with-PDF tools appeared in 2023. Chatbase left that market and sold support agents to businesses. Business customers pay more and leave less: the founder reports 92% retention. Growth was slower in that phase, from US$1 million to US$5 million in 19 months, but it held." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from founder interviews and from the customer stories of two suppliers, Supabase and Stripe. They are grade B and C.", "items": [ "React and Next.js for the web app. Supabase, a hosted Postgres database with built-in login and file storage, as the whole backend, so one person did not have to connect four services.", "The OpenAI API and LangChain for the model calls. Pinecone, a vector database, stored the document embeddings at first. Later the embeddings moved into Postgres itself with the pgvector extension, so the search runs next to the data.", "Stripe Checkout and Billing for subscriptions, usage credits and add-ons, and Stripe Radar with custom rules against card-testing attacks, which self-serve products attract.", "The first version took about two months to build. Growth was organic: a story posted in subreddits worked better than a tool announcement, plus X, LinkedIn and Product Hunt.", "Later: one person owns search optimization for both search engines and AI answer engines, and about 80% of outbound sales go to warm leads who already visited the site.", "Team at US$8 million ARR: 18 people, 11 of them engineers. New hires then shifted to growth and sales." ], "src": [ 1, 2, 3, 5 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold automated customer conversations before language models could hold one. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Answerly", "years": "2013 to 2016", "funding": "US$550K", "cause": "Product failure", "promise": "FAQ chatbots that deflect support tickets so humans handle only the complex cases.", "died": "Every customer needed months of hand-written FAQs and decision trees. The language processing of the time could not handle real questions, and a failed answer annoyed the customer twice.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2168-answerly" }, { "name": "Hipmob", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$100K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Customer chat inside mobile apps.", "died": "Intercom and Zendesk added the same feature to larger products. With almost no funding, it stayed invisible.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1184-hipmob" }, { "name": "RightHello", "years": "2014 to 2022", "funding": "US$600K", "cause": "Ran out of cash", "promise": "Live chat for online shops that turns visitors into buyers.", "died": "A human had to answer every chat. Intercom raised US$240 million while RightHello had US$600,000, and small shops churned faster than they could be acquired.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2260-righthello" }, { "name": "Niles", "years": "2017 to 2020", "funding": "US$2.8M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A bot inside Slack that answers questions from the company's knowledge.", "died": "Slack built its own search, and the bot needed constant retraining that a small customer base could not pay for.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1031-niles" }, { "name": "Vanti", "years": "2019 to 2024", "funding": "US$18M", "cause": "No market need", "promise": "Shopping chatbots that guide customers to a purchase.", "died": "It built its own language models. When GPT-4 arrived, any startup could build the same conversation for a fraction of the cost, and the custom models became worthless overnight.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2508-vanti" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Before 2023, a support bot needed its answers written by hand. Answerly's customers spent months on FAQs and decision trees, and the bot still failed on any question that was phrased in a new way. The companies that survived in that market, Intercom and Zendesk, sold tools for human agents, not replacements.", "Language models removed the hand-written part. A company uploads what it already has, and the model reads it. Chatbase's first version was built by one student in two months, and the same idea had cost Answerly three years. Vanti is the sharpest contrast: it spent US$18 million on its own models and closed in 2024, one year after Chatbase reached US$1 million ARR on a rented model." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The first product, no. The pattern, yes.", "text": "Chat with your documents was copied hundreds of times within months of the launch, and the founder said in 2023 that the viral start was not repeatable. The business product now competes with Intercom and Zendesk, which bundle AI agents into their support suites, and with venture-funded agent companies that target the same enterprise accounts.", "steps": [ "When a model newly does one thing reliably, ship the obvious application within weeks, with a pricing page on the first day.", "Build the parts around the model: data ingestion, retrieval, rules, human handoff, analytics. Rent the model itself.", "Grow without a marketing budget first, then spend when revenue is reliable.", "Leave the consumer version when copies appear, and sell to businesses that stay." ], "open": "The vertical version is still open: a support agent built for one industry, with the integrations and the rules that industry needs. Examples: clinics, logistics companies, banks in one country. Voice support in languages other than English is also early." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Bundling by incumbents", "text": "Intercom and Zendesk sell AI agents inside products that their customers already pay for. Chatbase must win on product quality and price, and the founder says quality is the only moat when features are easy to copy." }, { "title": "Model costs", "text": "Chatbase rents every answer from a model provider and resells it as credits. Reviewers report that an answer from a large model costs 5 credits instead of 1. If model prices fall, margins improve. If customers demand the largest models, margins fall." }, { "title": "Slower growth upmarket", "text": "ARR went from US$1 million to US$3 million in 7 months, then took 12 months to reach US$5 million. Enterprise sales need salespeople, onboarding calls and compliance work, which the founder is now adding." }, { "title": "Numbers that do not agree", "text": "Customer counts are 8,000 in the Supabase story and 10,000 in founder statements. The US$10 million ARR date is March 2026 at Stripe and May 2026 in one case study. One directory claims a Y Combinator batch and a US$3 million raise that no other source mentions." }, { "title": "Churn in the small-business segment", "text": "RightHello and Hipmob died from churning small customers. Chatbase's self-serve plans serve the same segment. The reported 92% retention is a founder figure." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Stripe customer story, 2026: Bootstrapped startup Chatbase reaches $10 million in ARR with Stripe", "url": "https://stripe.com/customers/chatbase", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. Stripe is the company's payment processor. Primary source for the ARR, the headcount, the recovered revenue and the founding month." }, { "title": "Supabase customer story, 2026: The consolidation play that took a single founder from zero to 10 million in ARR", "url": "https://supabase.com/customers/chatbase", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. A supplier's account with founder quotes. Source for the customer count, the team size and the database details." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 2023, interview by Channing Allen: How a college student reached $64,000/mo in 6 months by being an AI first mover", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-a-college-student-reached-64-000-mo-in-6-months-by-being-an-ai-first-mover-ba7981f6e1", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview. Source for the launch story, the early stack and the growth tactics." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, February 2025, founder post: From viral side project to a $5M/yr B2B AI platform", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/TpbhTVyp1sjBk0uzo4tR", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in part. The full post is behind a membership wall. Source for the US$5 million ARR at the relaunch." }, { "title": "Superframeworks case study, 2026: Bootstrapped to $10M ARR, $1M in 117 Days From a Tweet to 16 Followers", "url": "https://superframeworks.com/case-study/chatbase", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Summarizes a video interview with the founder. Source for the month-by-month revenue of 2023 and the growth phases." }, { "title": "Solo Founders newsletter, 2026: $9M ARR, no VC, solo founder", "url": "https://solofounders.beehiiv.com/p/9m-arr-no-vc-solo-founder", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the summary only. Confirms US$9 million ARR in early 2026 and the bootstrapped status." }, { "title": "ProductLed podcast, February 2026: How Chatbase hit $8M ARR with 18 people", "url": "https://www.castfox.net/podcast/productled-podcast-22666/episode/how-chatbase-hit-8m-arr-with-18-people-71565", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the episode summary, not the audio. Source for the December 2025 ARR, the team size and the move to New York." }, { "title": "Chatbase documentation and blog", "url": "https://www.chatbase.co/", "grade": "C", "how": "Not used for numbers." }, { "title": "Chatbase pricing page, read 12 October 2026, with review sites costbench.com and chatarmin.com for the plan prices", "url": "https://www.chatbase.co/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "The company page gives the Hobby price, the credit amounts and the add-on prices. The Standard and Pro prices and the credit cost of large models come from review sites." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." }, { "title": "NeuronFeed directory entry for Chatbase", "url": "https://neuronfeed.com/startups/chatbase", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. An AI-written directory. It claims a Y Combinator batch and a US$3 million raise. Cited only for that conflict." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/cal-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/cal-ai.md", "slug": "cal-ai", "name": "Cal AI", "country": "USA", "sector": "Health Care", "productType": "Calorie tracking from food photos", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "exit", "evidence": "B", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "May 2024", "outcomeLabel": "Sold to MyFitnessPal, price not disclosed, December 2025", "sticker": "Sold at $30M+ revenue", "outcomeUsd": 30000000, "months": 19, "teamLabel": "2 teenage founders plus 2 partners, 7 employees at the sale", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "health-appearance", "channel": "creators", "trend": "sold", "collections": [ "phone-app" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 3, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Exit", "Consumer app", "Teen founders" ], "product": "You photograph your meal. Cal AI sends the picture to a rented AI model and returns an estimate of the calories, protein, carbohydrates and fat. No search, no portion menus.", "why": "It sold speed to people who gave up on manual food logging, it paid 250 influencers fixed monthly fees to reach them, and it had a 30-dollar-a-year price. The rented model made the hard part cost almost nothing to build.", "summary": [ "Cal AI is a mobile app that estimates the calories in a meal from a photo. It uses a multimodal model through an API. A multimodal model is an AI model that reads images as well as text, and an API is a paid interface that lets an app send a picture to a model that another company runs. The founders did not train a model. Older calorie apps, such as MyFitnessPal, asked the user to search a database and enter portions by hand.", "Zach Yadegari and Henry Langmack, both 17 and still in high school on Long Island, New York, wrote the first code in March 2024 and launched in May 2024 with two older partners. The app passed US$1 million in sales within five months and reached an annual run rate above US$35 million one year after launch. Annual run rate is the current monthly revenue multiplied by twelve. MyFitnessPal, the largest calorie app, bought Cal AI in December 2025 after almost a year of talks. The price was not disclosed. MyFitnessPal told TechCrunch that Cal AI had more than 15 million downloads and more than US$30 million in annual revenue in under two years.", "The headline numbers on this page are grade B: a buyer's statement to the press, and documents that CNBC and Fortune reviewed. The founder's own figures, such as the US$50 million run rate at the sale, are grade C. The page also shows what happened to earlier attempts at the same idea." ], "factsCaption": "Sold to MyFitnessPal 19 months after launch, with the buyer confirming US$30 million in annual revenue and 15 million downloads, and the price undisclosed", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade B value was stated by the buyer to the press, or comes from financial documents that a journalist reviewed. A grade C value is a founder claim. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value on this page is grade A, because neither company is public and no payment processor has published the revenue.", "timelineLead": "From a weekend project in a parents' house to a sale to the market leader in 19 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Cal AI subscription prices, as reported in September 2025 and listed in the App Store in October 2026 (grade B and C)", "note": "The app is free to download, with a three-day free trial. The 2025 press prices are US$2.49 a month or US$29.99 a year, which is US$2.50 a month. The App Store listing in October 2026 shows in-app purchases called Unlimited at US$2.99, US$9.99, US$19.99 and US$29.99, and a Streak Restore at US$0.99. The listing does not say which period each price covers, so the two columns below hold the yearly and monthly prices from the press only.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "Download and a 3-day trial" ], [ "Unlimited, 2025 press", "2.50", "2.49", "Billed US$29.99 a year, or monthly" ], [ "Unlimited, App Store 2026", "", "", "Prices listed: 2.99, 9.99, 19.99, 29.99" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Annual revenue at the sale", "value": "more than US$30 million", "grade": "B", "note": "MyFitnessPal's chief executive to TechCrunch, March 2026. MyFitnessPal is privately owned, so this is a buyer's statement, not a filing.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Downloads at the sale", "value": "more than 15 million", "grade": "B", "note": "Same statement to TechCrunch.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Sale price", "value": "not disclosed", "grade": "B", "note": "TechCrunch: terms not disclosed. One blog writes a rumored US$100 million without a source. That number is not used on this page.", "src": [ 1, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Annual run rate claimed at the sale", "value": "US$50 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 2 March 2026, 18 months after launch.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Annual revenue, March 2026, compiled estimate", "value": "US$40 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Latka's company page, which cites Yahoo Finance. Not confirmed by the company.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Gross profit per month, September 2025", "value": "about US$1.4 million", "grade": "B", "note": "Documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Gross profit here is revenue after the 15% to 30% that Apple and Google keep.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Net operating income per month, September 2025", "value": "about US$274,000", "grade": "B", "note": "Same documents. Profit before tax and interest, after marketing and salaries.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Gross profit per year, from the monthly figure", "value": "about US$16.8 million", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 1.4 million times 12.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Net operating income per year, from the monthly figure", "value": "about US$3.3 million", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 274,000 times 12. Most of the gross profit went to marketing and salaries.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, September 2025", "value": "about US$2.1 million", "grade": "B", "note": "CNBC Make It headline figure, reprinted by The Nightly. Fortune reviewed records showing several million dollars a month.", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Annual run rate, May 2025", "value": "more than US$35 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in a recorded interview with Latka, one year after launch.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "First month of revenue, May 2024", "value": "more than US$28,000", "grade": "B", "note": "Documents reviewed by CNBC. The second month was US$115,000.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Cumulative sales of US$1 million", "value": "by 4 September 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview. About five months after launch.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "New downloads per day, May 2025", "value": "20,000 to 30,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Share of new users who start a trial or pay in the first session", "value": "20% to 25%", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Influencers on fixed monthly fees, May 2025", "value": "about 250", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview. Total influencer spend reached the mid six figures in one month.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Marketing test before launch", "value": "US$2,000", "grade": "B", "note": "CNBC: the founders spent US$2,000 on a social media test. One founder and one partner then paid the costs for six months until app-store payouts arrived.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Team size", "value": "17 in May 2025, 30 in September 2025, 7 employees plus contractors at the sale", "grade": "B", "note": "17 from the founder interview (grade C). 30 from CNBC documents. 7 retained employees from MyFitnessPal to TechCrunch. The founder's March 2026 post thanks a team of more than 30, so the 7 may count only employees, not contractors.", "src": [ 1, 2, 4, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "B", "note": "Founder interview and Fortune. The founder wrote that investors kept offering money and were refused.", "src": [ 5, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Founders' age at launch", "value": "17", "grade": "B", "note": "TechCrunch and Fortune.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the sale closing", "value": "19 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: May 2024 to December 2025. The sale was announced in March 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2021 to February 2024", "what": "In his first year of high school, Yadegari builds Totally Science, a games website for school networks. It reaches 5 million users and about US$60,000 a month in advertising. He sells it for about US$100,000 in February 2024, at age 16.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "when": "March 2024", "what": "First line of code. Yadegari, who tracked calories to gain weight, found manual logging so tedious that he had stopped. He and Langmack, a friend from coding camp, build the photo app with two partners met on X: Blake Anderson, 24, and Jake Castillo, 30.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 4, 6 ] }, { "when": "May 2024", "what": "Launch from his parents' house in Roslyn, New York, after a US$2,000 social media test. First month: more than US$28,000. Second month: US$115,000.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "July 2024", "what": "The founders spend the month in a San Francisco hacker house and hire about 15 people. Investors offer money. They refuse.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "when": "4 September 2024", "what": "US$1 million in cumulative sales, about five months after launch.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "Early 2025", "what": "MyFitnessPal notices Cal AI in the app-store rankings through Sensor Tower and starts talks. The two apps are neck and neck in their category.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "May 2025", "what": "Annual run rate above US$35 million, 17 people, 20,000 to 30,000 downloads a day, 250 paid influencers. Yadegari is still in high school.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "Spring 2025", "what": "Yadegari's posts about being rejected by 15 of 18 colleges, with a 4.0 grade average and a profitable company, get tens of millions of views and television coverage.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "when": "September 2025", "what": "CNBC reviews documents: about US$1.4 million gross profit and US$274,000 net operating income a month, 30 employees. Yadegari starts at the University of Miami.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "when": "December 2025", "what": "The sale to MyFitnessPal closes. Cal AI gets access to MyFitnessPal's database of 20 million foods.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "2 March 2026", "what": "The sale is announced. Seven employees plus contractors join MyFitnessPal. Cal AI stays a separate app. The founder posts that it passed US$50 million in annual run rate.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "Yadegari leaves MyFitnessPal.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "8 October 2026", "what": "He announces Persona, an AI assistant with a US$179 wristband, with US$10 million from Vine Ventures and others.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 7 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Distribution", "text": "Cal AI paid about 250 influencers fixed monthly fees to post on TikTok and Instagram, instead of a commission per sale. Half of the 17-person team in May 2025 worked on marketing and influencer management. The founder's own viral posts added television coverage at no cost. The product was built in two months. The audience took the rest of the money." }, { "title": "Speed over accuracy", "text": "MyFitnessPal's chief executive said it himself: his app is for users who want to specify three pickles, not two. Cal AI is for people who want an answer in two seconds and do not want to think about it. That audience was larger than the dedicated one, and nobody served it." }, { "title": "A rented model", "text": "The founder says the app was only possible because of model APIs such as ChatGPT's, and that they did not train a model. The expensive part of a 2011 photo-calorie app, the recognition, cost Cal AI a fraction of a cent per picture." }, { "title": "A low price with a trial", "text": "US$29.99 a year, with a three-day free trial and a paywall tested hundreds of times. About 20% to 25% of new users started a trial or paid in their first session. The founders expected 25% to 50% of yearly subscribers to renew." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's recorded interview with Latka, from CNBC's reporting, and from TechCrunch. They are grade B and C.", "items": [ "A native mobile app for iPhone and Android. The calorie estimate comes from a third-party multimodal model through an API; the company did not train its own model.", "Yadegari and Langmack wrote the code. Anderson, a serial entrepreneur, and Yadegari paid the running costs for six months, because Apple and Google pay out with a delay.", "Superwall, a paywall tool, ran hundreds of tests on the subscription screen.", "Growth: a US$2,000 social media test before launch, then TikTok and Instagram influencers on monthly retainers. The largest influencer earned tens of thousands of dollars a month for four posts.", "The weekly team meeting was on Sunday night, because the founders were in school.", "After the sale, the app was connected to MyFitnessPal's nutrition database: 20 million foods, 68,500 brands, 380 restaurant chains." ], "src": [ 1, 4, 6 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "The Loot Drop database has no failed food-photo app. The closest entries are below: a hardware tracker, a coaching service, and two personalized-plan apps whose records are thin. The values are from that database and are not independently verified. Two real photo-calorie attempts from 2011, which are not in the database, are described in the next section.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Jawbone", "years": "1999 to 2017", "funding": "US$930M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A wristband that turns your daily activity and food into health insights.", "died": "Fitbit and Apple built better hardware. Recalls and lawsuits drained the money. The food feature came from The Eatery, a photo app that Jawbone bought in 2013 and let die.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/257-jawbone" }, { "name": "Arivale", "years": "2015 to 2019", "funding": "US$50M", "cause": "Unit economics", "promise": "Scientific wellness: blood tests, DNA, activity tracking and a personal coach.", "died": "It cost about US$4,700 a year to serve a customer who paid about US$1,200 after the first year. The coach could not be automated.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/8-arivale" }, { "name": "Overfit", "years": "2020 to 2023", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Personalized fitness and nutrition plans from machine learning.", "died": "Customer acquisition cost more than a subscriber paid over their lifetime. Noom and MyFitnessPal kept users longer.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1347-overfit", "note": "The database record names no founder. Treat it as an illustration." }, { "name": "Refolo", "years": "2017 to 2021", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "No market need", "promise": "Paid meal plans for people who switch to a plant-based diet.", "died": "Free recipes existed everywhere, and larger wellness apps added meal plans as a feature.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1994-refolo", "note": "The database record could not be matched to press coverage." } ], "whatChanged": [ "Photo calorie counting was tried in 2011. Meal Snap, by DailyBurn, let users photograph a meal and returned a calorie range. TechCrunch assumed that people behind the app, probably paid through Mechanical Turk, identified the food, and reported a handful of cashews rated at 150 to 614 calories. The Eatery, by Massive Health, had other users rate the photo as Fit or Fat. A study of 200,000 downloads found that 69% of users never took a picture, and 2.6% used the app for more than a week. Jawbone bought Massive Health in 2013 and stopped development.", "The idea was right and the recognition did not exist. In 2024 a rented multimodal model identified the food and the portion in seconds, for a fraction of a cent. Two teenagers could build in two months what a funded company could not deliver in 2011. The remaining problem was the one the 2011 apps also had: getting people to open the app. Cal AI spent its money there." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The exact app, no. The playbook, yes, with money for marketing.", "text": "Photo calorie apps are now a category with dozens of entries, and the market leader owns the best-known one. A new entrant needs a reason to be chosen. Cal AI's playbook costs money: influencer retainers reached the mid six figures in one month, and the founders had a previous exit to fund the first six months.", "steps": [ "Pick a daily habit that people abandon because of manual entry, and remove the entry with a model API.", "Price it low with a trial, and test the paywall constantly.", "Pay creators fixed fees for reach before competitors do, and make the founder story part of the marketing.", "Watch for the incumbent: the buyer found Cal AI in the app-store rankings." ], "open": "Other logging habits that people abandon: receipts and expenses, medication, water, chores, mileage. Each one has a manual-entry app that users quit." }, "watch": [ { "title": "No disclosed price", "text": "Neither company is public, so the sale price may never be known. The outcome on this page is the revenue that the buyer confirmed, not the money the founders received. Retention terms for the founders were not disclosed, and the chief executive left after six months." }, { "title": "Renewals", "text": "A US$29.99 yearly plan sold through influencer traffic depends on renewals. In May 2025 the founders expected 25% to 50% of subscribers to renew, which is a wide range. The 2011 photo apps lost most users within a week." }, { "title": "Accuracy", "text": "The founder claims 90% accuracy. App Store reviews describe wrong sodium and fiber values and confusing portion sizes. The buyer sells the precise version itself." }, { "title": "Platform cut", "text": "Apple and Google keep 15% to 30% of every subscription. The CNBC documents show gross profit of US$1.4 million on revenue of about US$2.1 million a month." }, { "title": "Numbers that do not agree", "text": "Revenue at the sale is US$30 million (buyer), US$40 million (Latka estimate) and US$50 million run rate (founder). Team size is 7, 17 or 30 depending on the date and on whether contractors count." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TechCrunch, 2 March 2026: MyFitnessPal has acquired Cal AI, the viral calorie app built by teens", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/02/myfitnesspal-has-acquired-cal-ai-the-viral-calorie-app-built-by-teens/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. The buyer's chief executive states the revenue, the downloads, the team size, the closing date and the undisclosed terms." }, { "title": "Zach Yadegari on X, 2 March 2026: Cal AI has been acquired by MyFitnessPal", "url": "https://x.com/zach_yadegari/status/2028473704359874652", "grade": "C", "how": "Read as reproduced on arr.club, because X does not serve the post without login. Source for the US$50 million run rate and the team of more than 30." }, { "title": "Latka company page: Cal AI revenue 2026", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/calai.app", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A compiled page that cites Yahoo Finance for US$40 million. Used only for that estimate." }, { "title": "CNBC Make It, September 2025, reprinted by The Nightly: 18yo CEO Zach Yadegari learned to code at age 7, now he has a $2.1 million-a-month AI app", "url": "https://thenightly.com.au/business/cal-ai-18yo-ceo-zach-yadegari-learned-to-code-at-age-7-now-he-has-a-21-million-a-month-ai-app-c-20025032", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. CNBC reviewed company documents. Source for the gross profit, the net operating income, the first two months of revenue, the team of 30 and the 2024 sale of Totally Science." }, { "title": "Fortune, 27 September 2025: This Ivy League reject taught himself to code at 7, built a $30m app by 18", "url": "https://fortune.com/2025/09/27/gen-z-founder-treats-college-like-vacation-30-million-app-by-18", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Fortune reviewed financial records. Source for the prices, the launch month, the four founders and the refused investors." }, { "title": "Latka interview with Zach Yadegari, May 2025: How Cal AI hit $35M ARR and 20,000 daily downloads in under a year", "url": "https://getlatka.com/interviews/cal-ai-zach-yadegari-2025", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the transcript and the figure list. Founder statements on camera. Source for the run rate, downloads, conversion, influencers, team and the rented model." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 8 October 2026: Cal AI's 19-year-old founder just raised $10M for his new AI startup", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/08/cal-ais-19-year-old-founder-just-raised-10m-for-his-new-ai-startup/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the founder's departure in June 2026 and the Persona round." }, { "title": "Apple App Store listing: Cal AI, Calorie Tracker, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cal-ai-calorie-tracker/id6480417616", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the in-app purchase prices, the seller name Viral Development LLC, the 370,000 ratings and the accuracy complaints." }, { "title": "stork.ai blog, 2026: This teen's AI app sold for $100 million", "url": "https://www.stork.ai/blog/this-teens-ai-app-sold-for-100-million", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. States a rumored price without a source. Cited only to say that the rumor is not used." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 5 April 2011: Too lazy to count calories? Now you can just take a picture of your meal", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2011/04/05/too-lazy-to-count-calories-now-you-can-just-take-a-picture-of-your-meal/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for Meal Snap and the 150 to 614 calorie range." }, { "title": "MobiHealthNews, 2014: Study: less than 3 percent of The Eatery downloaders really used it", "url": "https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/study-less-3-percent-eatery-downloaders-really-used-it", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Reports a study in JMIR of 200,000 downloads." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 4 February 2013: Jawbone acquires mobile health startup Massive Health in big talent acquisition", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2013/02/04/jawbone-acquires-mobile-health-startup-massive-health-for-tens-of-millions/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the acquisition and the end of The Eatery's development." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors. Several health-app records in this export name no founders, which is why the page uses only four." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/magnific/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/magnific.md", "slug": "magnific", "name": "Magnific", "country": "Spain", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI image upscaler", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "exit", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "27 November 2023", "outcomeLabel": "Sold to Freepik, price not disclosed, 7 May 2024", "sticker": "Sold in 5 months", "outcomeUsd": 10200000, "months": 5, "teamLabel": "2 founders, no employees, no CEO", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Audience", "group": "photos", "channel": "audience", "trend": "sold", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 2, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Two founders", "Bootstrapped", "Exit", "Image tools" ], "product": "You upload a low-resolution image, often one made by Midjourney. Magnific enlarges it and invents plausible detail: skin pores, fabric, leaves. A slider sets how much the model is allowed to invent.", "why": "One founder had posted AI tutorials on X for a year before the launch, so the audience existed before the product. The tool did something that had no name yet, it charged from the first hour with no free trial, and two people ran it with no employees until the largest design platform in Europe bought it.", "summary": [ "Magnific is a creative upscaler. An upscaler is a program that enlarges an image. A normal upscaler guesses the missing pixels from the pixels around them. A creative upscaler uses an image model to invent new detail that was never in the file, guided by a text prompt and a creativity slider. In late 2023 most Midjourney images were small and soft, and designers wanted to print them.", "Javi López and Emilio Nicolás, two founders from Murcia, Spain, who had sold a student-housing site after thirteen years, built the tool in about three months for under US$5,000 and opened it on 27 November 2023 after a two-week waitlist. There was no free trial. Five months later it had 725,000 registered users, and on 7 May 2024 Freepik, a design platform from Málaga with tens of millions of users, bought it for an undisclosed price. The founders say it made US$10.2 million in 2024 and US$34.42 million in 2025 with two people and a 90% gross margin after GPU costs. Gross margin is revenue minus the direct cost of delivering the product, here the rented graphics processors, divided by revenue.", "The revenue numbers are founder claims, grade C. The sale, the user count and the Freepik figures are grade B. On 28 April 2026 Freepik renamed itself Magnific, after the product it had bought, and reported US$230 million in annual recurring revenue. That figure belongs to the whole parent company, not to the upscaler." ], "factsCaption": "Two founders, zero employees, zero advertising: sold five months after launch, with founder-reported revenue of US$10.2 million in the first full year", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade B value comes from the buyer's announcement or from independent press. A grade C value is a founder claim or a reviewer's report. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A: the buyer is privately owned and no payment processor has published the revenue.", "timelineLead": "From a sabbatical hobby to a sale in five months, then the buyer took the product's name. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Magnific platform plans in 2026, as reported by a reviewer, after the merger with Freepik (grade C)", "note": "These are the plans of the merged company, which bundle the upscaler with image and video generation. Each plan has a monthly credit budget; the reviewer estimates about 2,666 upscales a year on Premium and about 44,444 on Pro, or roughly US$0.06 per upscale. In 2024, before the merger, Spanish press reported that the standalone upscaler started at US$39 a month with usage tokens and no free tier.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "about 20 images a day" ], [ "Premium", "14.50", "20", "" ], [ "Premium+", "33.75", "45", "" ], [ "Pro Starter", "82.50", "110", "" ], [ "Pro", "210", "280", "" ], [ "Business", "", "55 per seat", "two seats minimum" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue, 2024", "value": "US$10.2 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 28 April 2026. The first full calendar year after the launch.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue, 2025", "value": "US$34.42 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Same post. The founder writes that it includes sales from both websites after the acquisition, so part of it is Freepik's.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Gross margin after GPU costs", "value": "90%", "grade": "C", "note": "Same post. GPU costs are the rented graphics processors that run the image model.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "GPU cost in 2024, implied", "value": "about US$1.0 million", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 10% of 10.2 million. Gross profit about US$9.2 million.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per founder, 2024", "value": "US$5.1 million", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 10.2 million divided by 2. There were no employees.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue one year after launch", "value": "US$10 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 14 February 2025.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Registered users at the sale", "value": "more than 725,000", "grade": "B", "note": "Freepik's announcement, reported by Tech.eu and LBB.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Waitlist sign-ups in the first 24 hours", "value": "more than 30,000", "grade": "B", "note": "Same announcement.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Employees", "value": "0, besides the two founders", "grade": "B", "note": "The announcement says the tool was built without a CEO. The Decoder describes a two-man team.", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Advertising spend", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's email to users, quoted by The Decoder.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Money to start", "value": "under US$5,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's account, compiled by Startup Founder Stories. Development took about three months.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Share of the code written by an AI model", "value": "about half", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's email, May 2024: written with GPT-4.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Sale price", "value": "not disclosed", "grade": "B", "note": "Freepik called it its largest acquisition. Earlier purchases were EyeEm, Videvo, Iconfinder and Original Mockups.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the sale", "value": "5 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 27 November 2023 to 7 May 2024.", "src": [ 3, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "B", "note": "Freepik's announcement and the founder's posts. The parent company is a different case: see the limits.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Parent company's annual recurring revenue, April 2026", "value": "US$230 million", "grade": "B", "note": "Freepik, renamed Magnific, to Fortune. Video is about half of it. More than one million paying subscribers, about 400 employees.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Parent company's revenue per employee", "value": "about US$575,000", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 230 million divided by 400.", "src": [ 6 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2010 to 2022", "what": "López and Nicolás build Erasmusu, a student-housing site in Murcia, for thirteen years and sell it. Both take a two-year break.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "April 2022", "what": "DALL-E 2 is released. López starts experimenting with image models and posts tutorials and tests on X. A year later the audience exists, before any product.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "Autumn 2023", "what": "A workflow from his experiments enlarges an image and redraws it with new detail. He runs his own posted artwork through it for three months. Development takes about three months and under US$5,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "Mid-November 2023", "what": "Two-week waitlist. A handful of creators get access and post before-and-after images. More than 30,000 people sign up in 24 hours.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 3, 5 ] }, { "when": "27 November 2023", "what": "Open to everyone. No free trial, because every upscale costs GPU time. Users buy tokens from the first hour.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "December 2023", "what": "Relaunch on Product Hunt after a first attempt fails on Product Hunt's side, with one day of 50 free tokens for everyone.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "7 May 2024", "what": "Freepik announces the acquisition: 725,000 registered users, its largest purchase to date. Magnific continues as a subsidiary. Both founders join Freepik Labs, the AI team.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "May 2024", "what": "López tells users that half of the code was written with GPT-4 and predicts one-person unicorns.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "14 February 2025", "what": "López posts: from zero to US$10 million ARR in one year with two people.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "28 April 2026", "what": "Freepik renames the whole company Magnific and reports US$230 million ARR to Fortune. López publishes the 2024 and 2025 revenue of the upscaler.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 1, 6 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Audience before product", "text": "López opened his X account a year before Magnific existed and used it for generative AI tutorials and experiments. When the waitlist opened, 30,000 people signed up in a day. In his own words, the whole launch strategy was to spend a year talking about AI without realizing you are building a channel, then give tokens to creators so they spread the word." }, { "title": "A thing without a name", "text": "Existing upscalers kept the image faithful. Magnific invented detail, and early users complained that it was not a real upscaler. The complaint was the point: no existing tool produced that output, so there was no free alternative to compete with. The buyer's announcement called it a new category." }, { "title": "Paid from the first hour", "text": "No free trial, because each upscale cost GPU time. Tokens were sold at launch, so revenue arrived on day one and the two founders never needed a salary from investors. The founder reports a 90% gross margin after GPU costs, and personnel and marketing costs that were negligible with two people." }, { "title": "Sold to a distributor", "text": "Freepik had tens of millions of users and no upscaler. It bought the two-person company five months after launch. Two years later it took the product's name for the whole company, which by then reported US$230 million ARR across stock images, image and video generation." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's email to users, quoted by The Decoder, and from a compilation of his accounts. They are grade C.", "items": [ "A workflow on top of open-source image models, with a creativity slider and a text prompt that guide how much detail the model invents. The exact models are not public.", "About half of the source code was written with GPT-4, which in late 2023 few people believed.", "Rented GPUs ran the model. Because each image cost money, the product had tokens and no free tier from the first day.", "Launch by throttling: a two-week waitlist, early access for a few creators, their before-and-after images as the marketing. Then a Product Hunt relaunch.", "No CEO, no employees, no advertising. The founders handled everything, from support to billing, until the sale.", "A previous exit paid the founders' living costs, so the company needed no salary from day one." ], "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database tried to improve photos with software or hardware before image models existed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Lytro", "years": "2006 to 2018", "funding": "US$215M", "cause": "Unit economics", "promise": "A camera that captures every ray of light, so you refocus the photo after you take it.", "died": "The hardware delivered 1.2-megapixel output from an 11-megapixel sensor at US$399 to US$499. Phones got better faster. The company pivoted twice and never fixed its costs.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2174-lytro" }, { "name": "Picnik", "years": "2005 to 2012", "funding": "US$3.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Photo editing in the browser, without installing software.", "died": "Google bought it in 2010, folded it into Google+ and shut it in 2012. Phone apps with built-in filters made a web editor unnecessary.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/429-picnik" }, { "name": "Everalbum", "years": "2013 to 2019", "funding": "US$19.2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Unlimited photo storage with AI organization.", "died": "Google Photos offered the same for free. Users would not pay for a feature that the platform gave away.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/125-everalbum" }, { "name": "Snipshot", "years": "2006 to 2009", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Quick photo edits in the browser.", "died": "Picnik did more, free tools did the same, and there was no clear way to charge.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1241-snipshot" }, { "name": "Splashup", "years": "2007 to 2010", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Product failure", "promise": "Photoshop-like editing in the browser, with real-time collaboration.", "died": "Built on Flash as Flash died. No business model.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1660-splashup" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Before 2022, improving an image meant arithmetic or hardware. A classic upscaler averaged neighbouring pixels and produced a larger, softer picture. Lytro spent US$215 million on optics so that a photo could be refocused. The browser editors, Picnik, Snipshot and Splashup, offered convenience, and convenience lost as soon as Google or a phone app bundled the same feature for free.", "Image models changed what software could do: invent detail that looks right. That output had no free equivalent in November 2023, so two people could charge for it from the first hour. The business risk did not disappear. It moved. Freepik now gives its subscribers third-party models, and every image tool has an upscaler. Magnific was sold five months after launch, before that happened." ], "copy": { "verdict": "Not the product. The sequence, yes.", "text": "Creative upscaling is now a feature in Magnific's own parent, in Topaz, Krea, Leonardo and in the image models themselves. A new entrant with the same product competes with free. What remains is the order of events: audience first, a new capability second, paid usage from the first hour, and a sale to the company that owns distribution.", "steps": [ "Post what you learn about a new technology for a year, in public, before you have anything to sell.", "Build the first tool that uses a new model capability for one visible result, and give it a name.", "If compute costs money, sell tokens from the first hour and skip the free tier.", "Sell to the platform whose users you already serve, before the capability becomes a feature everywhere." ], "open": "The same sequence applies to each new model capability: video upscaling and restoration, 3D from one image, audio cleanup. Tools for one profession, such as architecture renders or film VFX plates, are less exposed to bundling." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Founder-reported revenue", "text": "The US$10.2 million and US$34.42 million figures come from one post on X. No buyer, filing or payment processor has confirmed them, and the 2025 figure includes sales on Freepik's site. Latka estimates the standalone upscaler at US$330,000 ARR, which contradicts the founder by a factor of 30. This page shows the founder's figures with grade C." }, { "title": "The price is unknown", "text": "Freepik did not disclose the price, and the founders' payout is unknown. The outcome on this page is the first-year revenue, not the money the founders received." }, { "title": "Bootstrapped, with a footnote", "text": "Magnific took no outside money. Its parent says the same, but Wikipedia and Spanish press report that the private-equity firm EQT took a majority stake in Freepik in 2020. The parent's US$230 million ARR is a company with 400 employees and 14 years of history, not a two-person story." }, { "title": "Category collapse", "text": "Upscaling became a feature of every image tool within two years. The founders sold before that, and the founder himself says he could not repeat the launch." }, { "title": "GPU dependence", "text": "The margin depends on rented GPU prices and on the models the company does not own. The parent now resells third-party models such as Google's Veo, which sets a floor on its costs." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Javi López on X, 28 April 2026: Magnific AI in numbers", "url": "https://x.com/javilopen/status/2049128517686919661", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through a public mirror of X, because X does not serve posts without login. Source for the 2024 and 2025 revenue and the gross margin." }, { "title": "Javi López on X, 14 February 2025: From $0 to $10M ARR in just one year with only two people", "url": "https://x.com/javilopen/status/1890536285523062917", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through a public mirror of X." }, { "title": "Tech.eu, 7 May 2024: Freepik acquires Spanish AI image upscaler Magnific", "url": "https://tech.eu/2024/05/07/freepik-acquires-spanish-ai-image-upscaler-magnific/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full, together with the same announcement on LBB Online. Based on Freepik's announcement. Source for the user count, the waitlist, the no-CEO detail and the earlier acquisitions." }, { "title": "The Decoder, May 2024: Magnific AI co-founder predicts the rise of one-person unicorns propelled by AI after exit", "url": "https://the-decoder.com/magnific-ai-co-founder-predicts-the-rise-of-one-person-unicorns-propelled-by-ai-after-exit/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Quotes the founder's email to users. Source for the zero advertising, the two-man team and the GPT-4 share of the code." }, { "title": "Startup Founder Stories: Javi López, Magnific, 0 to $10M ARR", "url": "https://startupfounderstories.com/stories/javi-lopez-magnific-0-to-10m-arr", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A compilation of the founder's talks and posts. Source for the launch date, the waitlist mechanics, the starting cost and the founders' background." }, { "title": "Fortune, 28 April 2026: Spanish startup Freepik changes name to Magnific as new focus on video AI leads to $230 million ARR", "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/04/28/freepik-magnific-joaquin-cuenca-abela-230-million-arr-video-generation-ai-pivot/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Interview with Freepik's chief executive. Source for the parent company's figures." }, { "title": "My Architect AI, 2026: Magnific AI pricing, plans, tokens and API costs", "url": "https://www.myarchitectai.com/blog/magnific-ai-pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A reviewer's page with the 2026 plans of the merged company. The company's own plan page returned an error for this check." }, { "title": "El Ecosistema Startup, 2026: Magnific factura $230M ARR sin inversión", "url": "https://ecosistemastartup.com/magnific-factura-230m-arr-sin-inversion-lecciones-para-founders/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, in Spanish. Source for the US$39 starting price of the standalone upscaler and for the note on EQT." }, { "title": "Wikipedia: Magnific (company), read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnific", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Used for the 2020 EQT stake and the company history, which it cites to Spanish press and Fortune." }, { "title": "Latka company page: Magnific AI revenue 2025", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/magnific.ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the summary. An estimate that contradicts the founder. Cited only for that conflict." }, { "title": "The AI Corner newsletter, 2026: Zero ads, zero VC, $230M ARR, the story of Magnific", "url": "https://www.the-ai-corner.com/p/the-story-of-magnific", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Narrative account that led to the founder's posts. Not used for numbers." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/photo-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/photo-ai.md", "slug": "photo-ai", "name": "Photo AI", "country": "Netherlands, run from anywhere", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI photo studio", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "10 February 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$105K a month in revenue and US$80K in profit, March 2026", "sticker": "$1.3M/yr, 1 person", "outcomeUsd": 1260000, "months": 37, "teamLabel": "1 person, no employees", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Audience", "group": "photos", "channel": "audience", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 2, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "Consumer app" ], "product": "You upload about 20 photos of yourself. Photo AI trains a model of your face, and then generates photos of you in any clothes, place or style: headshots, dating photos, product shots. The site calls it firing your photographer.", "why": "The founder had posted his revenue in public for ten years and had hundreds of thousands of followers before he shipped it. He launched a cheesy avatar version first, made US$100,000 in ten days, then pivoted to the useful version. Rented GPUs, one PHP file and no employees keep the profit margin above 75%.", "summary": [ "Photo AI is an AI photo studio. You upload about twenty photos of yourself, and the service fine-tunes an image model on your face. Fine-tuning means that an existing model is trained a little more on a small set of new examples, here your photos, so that it learns one new concept: you. After that, the model generates new photos of you in any setting from a text prompt. The site sells this as a replacement for a photographer.", "Pieter Levels, a Dutch programmer who has run one-person internet businesses since 2014, built it alone. He first sold AI avatars in November 2022 and made US$100,000 in ten days, then launched Photo AI on 10 February 2023 as the useful version of the same technology. In July 2023 it had 1,872 paying customers and US$61,808 of revenue a month. In March 2026 he posted that it makes US$105,000 a month with US$80,000 of profit, from a single 40,870-line PHP file on rented GPUs, with no employees.", "Every number on this page is a founder statement, grade C. Levels publishes his revenue himself, and no payment processor or buyer has confirmed it. The page also shows what happened to earlier photo startups, which could only filter, tag or print a photo that already existed." ], "factsCaption": "One person, no employees, revenue of about US$1.3 million a year in March 2026 and a profit margin of 76%, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: every value is a founder statement, grade C, unless marked \"calc\", which means computed on this page from the rows above it. The founder posts his revenue in public and has done so for a decade, but no independent party has verified these figures.", "timelineLead": "From a cheesy avatar generator to a one-person studio that outlived its funded copies. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Photo AI plans in October 2026, from the product page (grade C)", "note": "An AI credit pays for one generated photo or one step of video. Yearly billing gives about six months free: the yearly prices are US$99, US$349, US$599 and US$1,199. The site claims that a professional photo shoot costs US$250 to US$1,500 for 75 to 100 photos, which is the comparison the product is sold against; that claim is the company's own.", "rows": [ [ "Starter", "8.25", "19", "50 credits a month" ], [ "Pro", "29", "49", "1,000 credits a month, commercial use" ], [ "Max", "49.92", "99", "3,000 credits a month, most popular" ], [ "Ultra", "99.92", "199", "10,000 credits a month" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month, March 2026", "value": "US$105,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 6 March 2026, with the size of the code: one file of 40,870 lines.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Profit per month, March 2026", "value": "US$80,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Same post.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, March 2026", "value": "76%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 80,000 divided by 105,000.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per year, from the March 2026 figure", "value": "about US$1.26 million", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 105,000 times 12. Profit about US$960,000 a year.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, November 2025", "value": "US$132,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's public revenue figures, reported by PPC Land. The highest figure on this page.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, September 2026", "value": "US$86,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's public figure, tracked daily by IdeaWave. About 35% below the November 2025 figure.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Paying customers, July 2023", "value": "1,872", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 3 July 2023.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, July 2023", "value": "US$61,808", "grade": "C", "note": "Same post. About US$33 per paying customer per month.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "AvatarAI sales in its first ten days, November 2022", "value": "US$100,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 7 November 2022. On the Lex Fridman podcast he recalled about US$150,000 in a week; this page uses the written figure.", "src": [ 5, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Photos generated, all time", "value": "30,920,367", "grade": "C", "note": "Counter on the product page, 12 October 2026.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Employees", "value": "0", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder statements. For model setup he once hired one AI developer temporarily, according to the Indie Hackers case study.", "src": [ 6, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: I don't raise money, I don't use VC funding, I do everything myself.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Compute", "value": "rented GPUs from Replicate", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on the podcast. He later invested in Replicate and FAL, the two inference companies he uses.", "src": [ 6, 9 ] }, { "fact": "All of the founder's businesses, revenue per month, September 2026", "value": "US$200,000 to US$250,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 23 September 2026. Photo AI is the largest. His claimed US$10 million a year includes investment gains, mostly unrealized.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "Projects that made money, out of more than 70", "value": "4", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on the podcast: more than 95% of everything he built failed.", "src": [ 2, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the March 2026 figure", "value": "37 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: February 2023 to March 2026.", "src": [ 1, 8 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2014 to 2022", "what": "Levels builds Nomad List, Remote OK and dozens of other sites alone, and posts their revenue in public. He gains hundreds of thousands of followers on X.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 8 ] }, { "when": "August 2022", "what": "Stable Diffusion, an open image model, is released. He plays with it, makes a site of houses that do not exist, then Interior AI for room redesigns.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "October 2022", "what": "He uploads photos of himself to a fine-tuning tool and finds that the model learns his face. He launches AvatarAI.me, which makes stylized avatars.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "7 November 2022", "what": "US$100,000 in avatar sales in ten days. The GPU vendor raises its training price from US$3 to US$20 after seeing his revenue posts, while he sells at US$30. Lensa, a funded competitor, ships the same product as an iPhone app within weeks.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 6 ] }, { "when": "10 February 2023", "what": "Photo AI launches: not cheesy avatars but photorealistic photos of yourself for headshots and profiles. The first output quality is, in his words, so bad, and people pay anyway.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 8 ] }, { "when": "3 July 2023", "what": "1,872 paying customers, US$61,808 a month, about 14,000 lines of PHP with jQuery and no framework.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "August 2024", "what": "Four-hour interview on the Lex Fridman podcast. Sign-ups across his sites double, and Photo AI's triple.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 8 ] }, { "when": "November 2025", "what": "US$132,000 a month, the peak figure on this page. Interior AI makes US$40,000 and Remote OK US$41,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "6 March 2026", "what": "He posts that the 40,870-line index.php makes US$105,000 a month in revenue and US$80,000 in profit.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "1 August 2026", "what": "He adds a video editor that generates videos with the trained models, written with AI coding tools.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "Monthly recurring revenue tracked at US$86,000. He posts that his businesses make US$200,000 to US$250,000 a month in total.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 9 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Audience", "text": "Levels had posted his revenue and his experiments in public for a decade before Photo AI. The Indie Hackers case study puts it bluntly: the product succeeded because he had spent ten years building an audience of more than 600,000 followers. A four-hour podcast with Lex Fridman in 2024 tripled sign-ups. About half of the traffic now comes from search, helped by the exact-match domain and early press links." }, { "title": "Ship, charge, pivot", "text": "He launched the avatar version within days of discovering that fine-tuning worked, asked for US$30 per order, and made US$100,000 in ten days. When funded copies with iPhone apps appeared, he left the avatar market and built the useful version: photos that look real, for people who need them for work or dating." }, { "title": "Almost no cost", "text": "One PHP file, rented GPUs billed per job, no employees. The founder reports 76% profit in March 2026 and says his companies run at about 90% margins. He also says that owning no team is why he never sells: a company that runs itself earns the sale price in three years anyway." }, { "title": "Rented models, renewed often", "text": "The product uses whichever image model is best at the time. By 2026 the plans advertise Nano Banana Pro, a Google model, and video from Seedance. Each new model improves the output without new engineering, and each is one API call away for a competitor, which is why the audience matters more than the code." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's own posts and from his interview with Lex Fridman. They are grade C.", "items": [ "One file, index.php, with inline HTML, CSS and jQuery: 14,000 lines in July 2023, 40,870 lines in March 2026. No framework, no TypeScript.", "Training and generation run on Replicate, a GPU rental service that bills per job. The founder asked its chief executive to add DreamBooth, the fine-tuning method, after his first vendor raised the training price from US$3 to US$20 per model.", "The first vendor took half an hour per training run. In 2026 the product page says training takes one to three minutes.", "The image models are swapped as better ones appear: open Stable Diffusion variants first, later commercial models such as Google's Nano Banana Pro, and video models for the editor added in 2026.", "Content rules are a real cost: many fine-tuned base models were trained on adult content, and the prompts and filters had to work around that.", "Marketing was the founder's own posts, press coverage of an AI that replaces photographers, and search traffic to an exact-match domain." ], "src": [ 1, 4, 6, 7, 8 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database tried to make money from people's photos before image models existed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Mobli", "years": "2010 to 2017", "funding": "US$86M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Photo and video sharing with filters, backed by celebrities.", "died": "Instagram had the users first and was bought by Facebook. Filters on a real photo were not enough to make anyone switch.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/341-mobli" }, { "name": "Color Labs", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$41M", "cause": "No market need", "promise": "Share photos with the strangers around you.", "died": "Users did not understand it. US$41 million before launch bought no answer to the question of why anyone needed it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/65-color-labs" }, { "name": "Seerslab", "years": "2016 to 2019", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Augmented-reality effects for selfies.", "died": "Snapchat built the same effects into an app that already had the users.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1463-seerslab" }, { "name": "Viewdle", "years": "2006 to 2013", "funding": "not recorded", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Face recognition that tags your photos automatically.", "died": "Google and Facebook built their own. Viewdle sold itself to Google.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/709-viewdle" }, { "name": "Picplum", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$1M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Upload photos, and they arrive printed in the mail.", "died": "Digital sharing replaced prints, and the logistics cost more than customers would pay.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1603-picplum" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Every earlier photo startup needed a photo that already existed. Mobli and Seerslab added filters and effects to it, Viewdle tagged the face in it, Picplum printed it. The photo itself still needed a camera, a place, an outfit and, for a good one, a photographer. None of those companies could charge much, because the platform that owned the camera, Instagram or Snapchat, added the same feature for free.", "In 2022 an open image model learned to generate a face from twenty examples. The photo no longer needed to exist. Photo AI charges for the shoot, not for the filter, and its comparison is a photographer at US$250 or more, not a free app. The risk did not disappear. Lensa copied the avatar version in weeks, and the image models that Photo AI rents are available to anyone. The founder's answer is the one asset that cannot be copied in weeks: his audience." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The product, easily. The customers, not without an audience.", "text": "An AI photo studio is a weekend project in 2026: the fine-tuning and the models are rented by the call, and the founder himself says the product is simple. Dozens of copies exist, several with venture funding. What made Photo AI work was ten years of public building, an early viral launch, press that treated an AI replacing photographers as news, and a domain that matches the search term.", "steps": [ "Build in public for years before the product, and post real numbers, so that a launch reaches people who already trust you.", "When a new model does something new, ship the obvious version within days and charge for it, even if the output is still bad.", "Leave the novelty market when funded copies arrive, and sell the useful version to people who need the result for work.", "Keep costs near zero: rented compute billed per job, no employees, no office, so that revenue is profit." ], "open": "The same pattern fits any output that people used to pay a professional for: product photos for small shops, real-estate interiors, voice-overs, short video. The customer who needs the result for work, not for fun, pays and stays." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported numbers", "text": "Every figure here comes from the founder. He has published revenue for a decade and his figures have not been contradicted, but nobody outside has checked them. His US$10 million a year claim mixes business revenue with unrealized investment gains, so it is not comparable with the other stories on this site." }, { "title": "Revenue is falling", "text": "US$132,000 a month in November 2025, US$105,000 in March 2026, US$86,000 in September 2026. The image models that produce the photos are now sold directly by Google and others, and chat apps generate a headshot for free." }, { "title": "Vendor pricing", "text": "The first GPU vendor raised the training price from US$3 to US$20 the moment it saw his revenue posts. The business depends on two rental companies, and the founder now owns shares in both, which he discloses." }, { "title": "Funded competition", "text": "Lensa out-shipped him on mobile in 2022, and he says he now has fierce competition from a venture-backed company for the first time. He has no iPhone app." }, { "title": "Content and likeness", "text": "A service that generates realistic photos of real people carries moderation and misuse risk, and the fine-tuned base models were often trained on adult content. Dating photos that look better than the person are also a product with an unhappy end user." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Pieter Levels, 6 March 2026: Photoai.com is a 40,870 line index.php making 105,000/mo revenue and 80,000/mo profit", "url": "https://levels.io/photoai-40870-line-index-php-105k-mo-revenue", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on the founder's blog, which mirrors his X posts. Source for the headline figures." }, { "title": "PPC Land, 2025: How one photo AI app generates $132K monthly after 70 failed startups", "url": "https://ppc.land/how-one-photo-ai-app-generates-132k-monthly-after-70-failed-startups/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Reports the founder's public revenue figures and quotes the podcast. The numbers are the founder's." }, { "title": "IdeaWave revenue tracker: PhotoAI, US$86K MRR, self-reported, checked daily from 1 August to 29 September 2026", "url": "https://ideawave.io/startup/photoai-2", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A tracker that records the founder's self-reported figure each day." }, { "title": "Pieter Levels, 3 July 2023: Photo AI is almost 14,000 lines of raw PHP making $61,808 per month", "url": "https://levels.io/photoai-14000-lines-raw-php-revenue", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on the founder's blog. Source for the 2023 customer count and revenue." }, { "title": "Pieter Levels, 7 November 2022: Sold $100,000 in AI-generated avatars with AvatarAI.me in 10 days", "url": "https://levels.io/sold-100k-ai-avatars-with-avatarai-me", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on the founder's blog." }, { "title": "Lex Fridman Podcast #440, August 2024: Pieter Levels: Programming, Viral AI Startups, and Digital Nomad Life, transcript", "url": "https://lexfridman.com/pieter-levels-transcript/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the Photo AI, AvatarAI and When to sell startup sections of the transcript. Source for the origin story, the GPU vendor story, Lensa, Replicate, the failure rate and the margin claim." }, { "title": "Photo AI product page, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://photoai.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the plans, the credits, the photo counter, the training time and the photographer price claim." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 2025: Photo AI by Pieter Levels, complete deep dive case study, $0 to $132K MRR", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/photo-ai-by-pieter-levels-complete-deep-dive-case-study-0-to-132k-mrr-in-18-months-3a9a2b1579", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A community case study that compiles the founder's posts. Source for the launch date, the temporary hire, the search-traffic share and the podcast effect." }, { "title": "Pieter Levels, 23 September 2026: I passed $10M/y in revenue and investment gains with a 94.5% profit margin", "url": "https://levels.io/passed-10m-revenue-investment-gains", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on the founder's blog. Source for the total business revenue and the investments in Replicate and FAL." }, { "title": "Pieter Levels, 1 August 2026: I vibecoded a full video editor into Photo AI", "url": "https://levels.io/video-editor-added-to-photo-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on the founder's blog." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors. Viewdle's funding field in the export holds the value 12, which is not a dollar amount, so it is shown as not recorded." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/typingmind/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/typingmind.md", "slug": "typingmind", "name": "TypingMind", "country": "Vietnam", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Chat interface for AI models", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "6 March 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$130K to US$160K a month, October 2025", "sticker": "$1.7M/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 1740000, "months": 31, "teamLabel": "1 founder, then 5 people with 2 employees by mid-2024", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Speed", "group": "ai-model-tools", "channel": "audience", "trend": "growing", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 2, "copyable": 3, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B" ], "product": "A chat window for AI models that is better than the one the model makers ship: search in old conversations, folders, prompt library, plugins, and any model from OpenAI, Anthropic or Google. You bring your own API key, so TypingMind never pays for the model.", "why": "It shipped five days after the ChatGPT API appeared, when the official interface logged people out, typed slowly and had no search. It charged from the first day and raised the price with every update. Then a Team version for companies turned one-time sales into subscriptions.", "summary": [ "TypingMind is a chat frontend for AI models. A frontend is the part of a program that the user sees and clicks; the model itself runs elsewhere. You paste your own API key, a password that lets a program call a model provider on your account, and TypingMind sends your messages to OpenAI, Anthropic or Google and shows the answers with search, folders, plugins and a prompt library. The company pays nothing for the model and almost nothing for hosting.", "Tony Dinh, a Vietnamese software engineer who left a job in Singapore in 2021 to build small products alone, started it on 1 March 2023, the day OpenAI released the ChatGPT API, and released it on 6 March. It made US$22,000 in its first seven days as a one-time purchase that started at US$9. In February 2024 it passed US$500,000 in total revenue. In November 2024 he wrote that it had made US$1 million in the last twelve months. In October 2025 he wrote that it makes US$130,000 to US$160,000 a month, more than half of it recurring revenue from a Team version sold to companies.", "Every number on this page is a founder statement in his own newsletter, grade C. No payment processor or buyer has confirmed them. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that built a better interface on top of someone else's platform." ], "factsCaption": "A one-time purchase that reached US$1 million in twelve months of revenue by November 2024, then a run rate of about US$1.7 million a year, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement from his newsletter or interviews, or an estimate by a third party that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a domain name suggested by ChatGPT to a business that sells 3,000-seat contracts, in 31 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "TypingMind prices in October 2026: personal licenses as reported by reviewers, Team plans from the company's page (grade C)", "note": "Personal licenses are one-time purchases, sold as lifetime licenses, and the pricing page shows a permanent 50% off. Team plans are subscriptions per month, billed yearly with two months free, with 5 seats included and more seats at US$8 each per month. Enterprise starts at US$18,700 a year with seats as low as US$4. In every case the customer pays the model provider separately for usage.", "rows": [ [ "Standard, personal", "39 one-time", "", "reviewers" ], [ "Extended, personal", "79 one-time", "", "reviewers" ], [ "Premium, personal", "99 one-time", "", "reviewers; shown as 50% off US$198" ], [ "Starter, team", "83", "99", "5 seats" ], [ "Growth, team", "166", "199", "5 seats" ], [ "Professional, team", "249", "299", "5 seats; shown as 50% off US$499" ], [ "Enterprise", "from 18,700 a year", "", "custom contract" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month, October 2025", "value": "US$130,000 to US$160,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter, 9 October 2025. Recurring revenue from the Team version is more than half of it.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the October 2025 range", "value": "about US$1.56 million to US$1.92 million a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the range times 12. The headline figure on this page is the midpoint, US$1.74 million.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the twelve months to November 2024", "value": "US$1 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter, 22 November 2024, from his profit-and-loss statement. Twenty months after launch. One-time purchases were still about half of monthly revenue.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Total revenue by February 2024", "value": "US$500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter, February 2024, one year after launch. Subscriptions were US$15,000 a month of it.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, March 2024", "value": "more than US$40,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter on the sale of his screenshot app.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the first seven days, March 2023", "value": "US$22,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder. US$1,000 on the first day, US$2,000 on the second, US$4,000 on the third.", "src": [ 2, 5 ] }, { "fact": "First price", "value": "US$9 one-time, raised to US$19, US$29 and later up to US$79", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interviews. Each update came with a price rise.", "src": [ 5, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Paying users after three months", "value": "more than 4,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview with Indie Hackers, mid-2023.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Updates in the first twelve months", "value": "171", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Largest contracts, November 2024", "value": "one 3,000-seat deal and several 1,000-seat deals", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter. Enterprises use TypingMind as the front end of an internal AI platform.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Team, July 2024", "value": "5 people, of which 2 full-time employees", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter on getting SOC 2. Latka records 3 employees in October 2024.", "src": [ 7, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Cost of the SOC 2 Type I security audit", "value": "under US$10,000 and about 10 days of work", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter. He had expected US$30,000 a year. Half went to a consultant, half to the auditor.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Paid advertising results", "value": "US$2,000 on LinkedIn: no revenue. US$600 later: 2 conversions", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletters, April 2024 and October 2025. Sales come from word of mouth.", "src": [ 1, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Hosting cost of the personal version", "value": "almost nothing", "grade": "C", "note": "A static web app with no backend, no database and no login, activated by a license key. That is why a one-time price was possible.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder statements throughout.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Latka's revenue estimate for 2024", "value": "US$817,000", "grade": "C", "note": "A third-party estimate, marked as such. Lower than the founder's twelve-month figure of US$1 million in November 2024.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2025 figure", "value": "31 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: March 2023 to October 2025.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "August 2021", "what": "Dinh, then a senior engineer in Singapore, quits to build products alone from Vietnam. His side products make US$600 a month. He has 8,000 followers on X.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "2022", "what": "Black Magic, a tool for X users, reaches about US$13,000 to US$14,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 11 ] }, { "when": "January 2023", "what": "He turns down a US$500,000 acquisition offer.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "1 March 2023", "what": "OpenAI releases the ChatGPT API. The same day he decides to build a better chat interface for it. ChatGPT suggests the domain name typingmind.com, registered on 2 March.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "6 March 2023", "what": "Release on X, five days after the API. US$9 one-time. US$22,000 in the first seven days.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 5 ] }, { "when": "April 2023", "what": "X raises its API price. He sells Black Magic for US$128,000 instead of rebuilding it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 12 ] }, { "when": "Mid-2023", "what": "More than 4,000 paying users, first place of the day on Product Hunt, and a Custom version for companies at US$3,500 a month in recurring revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "February 2024", "what": "US$500,000 in total revenue after one year and 171 updates. Subscriptions reach US$15,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "19 March 2024", "what": "He sells Xnapper, his screenshot app, for US$150,000, because TypingMind makes more than US$40,000 a month and needs all his time.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "26 July 2024", "what": "SOC 2 Type I security certification for under US$10,000, to close enterprise deals. Team of 5 with 2 full-time employees.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "22 November 2024", "what": "US$1 million in revenue in the last twelve months. A 3,000-seat deal and several 1,000-seat deals. He looks for a salesperson.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "9 October 2025", "what": "US$130,000 to US$160,000 a month, more than half recurring. He writes that the product gave him financial independence.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "Still building TypingMind, now with AI coding agents, from a hacker house in Da Nang.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Speed", "text": "The API came out on a Wednesday; the product shipped the next Monday. In the founder's words, when you are first to a niche, the first version does not have to be amazing, because people have an itch and nothing on the market scratches it. OpenAI fixed the slow typing, the logouts and the missing search a few months later. By then the customers were his." }, { "title": "Charge from day one, raise the price with every update", "text": "US$9 on launch day, then US$19, US$29 and up to US$79 as features arrived. Each update was a public post, and each post was a reason to buy before the next rise." }, { "title": "No model costs, no server costs", "text": "Customers bring their own API key and pay the model provider. The personal version is a static web page with a license key, so hosting is close to free. That is why a one-time price made money, and why a copy by a funded competitor would not have had a cost advantage." }, { "title": "The Team version", "text": "Companies that wanted an internal AI chat for staff bought TypingMind Custom as the front end, with single sign-on and a security audit. Seat-based subscriptions passed one-time sales in 2025. The founder says B2B sales calls exhaust him and that he did them badly, and the contracts closed anyway." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's newsletter and his interviews. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Next.js, Tailwind CSS and Node. The first version was built in a weekend for his own use, then released five days after the API.", "The personal version is a static web app: no backend, no database, no accounts. A license key unlocks it. Hosting costs almost nothing.", "The Team version runs servers and databases, so it is a subscription. It added single sign-on at customers' request, and a SOC 2 Type I audit in July 2024 for under US$10,000.", "Model-agnostic from the first day, after the Black Magic experience: it works with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others, so no single provider can end it.", "Payments moved from Lemon Squeezy to Stripe in 2024 because the subscription analytics were wrong.", "Marketing is the founder's posts on X and word of mouth. Paid ads were tried twice and failed." ], "src": [ 1, 3, 7, 9, 5 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database built a better interface on top of a platform that they did not control. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Xobni", "years": "2006 to 2013", "funding": "US$42M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A smarter inbox inside Microsoft Outlook.", "died": "Tied to Outlook, which Microsoft improved itself. Mobile made the desktop add-on irrelevant. Yahoo bought the remains.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/763-xobni" }, { "name": "Rockmelt", "years": "2009 to 2014", "funding": "US$40M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A browser with your social feeds built in.", "died": "Users moved to phones, where the social apps themselves were the interface. Chrome had Google behind it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/510-rockmelt" }, { "name": "Xmarks", "years": "2006 to 2014", "funding": "US$9M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Sync your bookmarks and tabs across browsers.", "died": "Chrome, Firefox and Safari built sync in, for free.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/762-xmarks" }, { "name": "Flux", "years": "2015 to 2018", "funding": "US$7M", "cause": "Founder conflict", "promise": "One inbox for Slack, email, WhatsApp and the rest.", "died": "The platforms kept changing their interfaces and breaking the integrations. The money went into repairs.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1901-flux" }, { "name": "Readability", "years": "2009 to 2015", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Clutter-free reading of any web article.", "died": "Browsers added a reader mode, free. Few readers paid.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/485-readability" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five built a better window onto a platform that it did not own, and the platform owner closed the window by adding the feature, changing the interface or moving to phones. TypingMind is the same bet. OpenAI fixed the problems that TypingMind solved within months of its launch, and the founder says so himself.", "Two things differ. First, the platform is an API that the provider sells and wants used, so improvements to ChatGPT do not break TypingMind, and the model providers are several, not one. Second, the customer pays the provider directly, so TypingMind carries no usage cost and could charge once instead of monthly. The Team version added the part the platforms do not sell: an internal chat for a company with its own login, data rules and audit. That is where the recurring revenue came from." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The launch, no. The structure, yes.", "text": "Being first with a better ChatGPT window was a one-week opening in March 2023, and the founder says a late entrant would have found no painful problem left to solve. The structure is still available: a product with no usage cost, a one-time price for individuals, and a subscription for the version that companies need for compliance.", "steps": [ "When a provider releases an API, ship the obvious interface improvement within a week and charge for it.", "Let customers bring their own API key, so the model is never your cost.", "Raise the price with each visible update, and post every update.", "Build the company version, with login, security audit and seats, because that is what recurs." ], "open": "Any new API with a weak first-party interface: voice, video and image models, agent frameworks, and the internal tools that companies want behind single sign-on." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported, and a wide range", "text": "The founder gives a range of US$130,000 to US$160,000 a month, not a figure, and no one outside has checked it. Latka's estimate for 2024 is below his own figure." }, { "title": "The platform can close the window", "text": "Every predecessor on this page died when the platform added the feature. OpenAI, Anthropic and Google ship their own desktop apps, teams plans and enterprise versions. TypingMind's answer is to support all of them at once." }, { "title": "One-time revenue does not recur", "text": "About half of monthly revenue in late 2024 was one-time licenses, which must be re-earned every month. The shift to Team subscriptions is what makes the business durable, and it needs sales calls that the founder dislikes." }, { "title": "Sales depend on one person's audience", "text": "Paid ads have not worked. Growth comes from the founder's posts and word of mouth. When he sold Xnapper, he structured the deal around the fact that his X account drove its revenue." }, { "title": "Permanent discount pricing", "text": "Both the personal and the Team pages show 50% off, which reviewers note is always on. Customers who notice may wait or distrust the list price." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Tony Dinh's newsletter, 9 October 2025: Oct 2025 updates: code, money and travel", "url": "https://news.tonydinh.com/p/oct-2025-updates-code-money-and-travel", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder's own update. Source for the monthly revenue range, the share of recurring revenue and the ad test." }, { "title": "Tony Dinh's newsletter, 22 November 2024: Nov 2024: My first million!", "url": "https://news.tonydinh.com/p/nov-2024-my-first-million", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the US$1 million in twelve months, the seat deals and the B2B sales account." }, { "title": "Tony Dinh's newsletter, February 2024: $500K milestone, my reflections after 1 year of building Typing Mind", "url": "https://news.tonydinh.com/p/500k-milestone-my-reflections-after", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the total revenue, the launch timing, the updates count and the static-app pricing logic." }, { "title": "Tony Dinh's newsletter, 19 March 2024: Another 6-figure exit and the future", "url": "https://news.tonydinh.com/p/another-6-figure-exit-and-the-future", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the Xnapper sale and the US$40,000 monthly figure." }, { "title": "Startup Founder Stories: Tony Dinh, TypingMind, $22K in 7 days", "url": "https://startupfounderstories.com/stories/tony-dinh-typingmind-22k-7-days", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Quotes the founder's launch account with the exact dates and the first three days of revenue." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 2023: How a tool that improves the UI for ChatGPT reached $10k/mo only a few months after launch", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-a-tool-that-improves-the-ui-for-chatgpt-reached-10k-mo-only-a-few-months-after-launch-5e69b67949", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview. Source for the price steps, the user count and the early Custom version." }, { "title": "Tony Dinh's newsletter, 26 July 2024: Get SOC 2 certified as an indie hacker", "url": "https://news.tonydinh.com/p/get-soc-2-certified-as-an-indie-hacker", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the audit cost and the team size." }, { "title": "Latka company page: TypingMind revenue 2024, estimate", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/typingmind", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party estimate and a headcount from LinkedIn." }, { "title": "Tony Dinh's newsletter, April 2024: April 2024 updates, new product", "url": "https://news.tonydinh.com/p/april-2024-updates-new-product", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the LinkedIn ads test and the move to Stripe." }, { "title": "Nomadpreneur newsletter, 2025: Solo founder who turned $100 into $1,500,000, no team, no investors", "url": "https://nomadpreneur.beehiiv.com/p/solo-founder-who-turned-100-into-1-500-000-no-team-no-investors", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A secondary account of the founder's story. Source for the 2021 background." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 2024: He made $45k/month with ChatGPT, Tony Dinh's story", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/he-made-45k-month-with-chatgpt-tony-dinh-s-story-c40283745c", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A community summary. Source for the Black Magic figures and the X API change." }, { "title": "Tony Dinh's newsletter, 26 December 2023: 2023 recap", "url": "https://news.tonydinh.com/p/2023-recap", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the rejected US$500,000 offer and the Black Magic sale." }, { "title": "Tony Dinh's newsletter, 10 June 2026: I'm on Product Hunt, updates Jun 2026", "url": "https://news.tonydinh.com/p/im-on-product-hunt-updates-jun-2026", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Confirms the product is still being built in 2026." }, { "title": "TypingMind Custom pricing page, read 12 October 2026, and reviewer pages diyai.io and toolradar.com for the personal licenses", "url": "https://custom.typingmind.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "The company page gives the Team plans. The personal pricing page loads its prices by script and could not be read, so those come from reviewers." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/headshotpro/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/headshotpro.md", "slug": "headshotpro", "name": "HeadshotPro", "country": "Netherlands", "sector": "Photography", "productType": "AI headshot generator", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "16 March 2023", "outcomeLabel": "More than US$10M total revenue, October 2026", "sticker": "$10M+ total revenue", "outcomeUsd": 10000000, "months": 43, "teamLabel": "1 founder for the first year, 4 people by November 2024", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Timing", "group": "photos", "channel": "search", "trend": "unknown", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Photography" ], "product": "You upload a few selfies, choose backgrounds and clothing, and get 30 to 70 business headshots back in under 30 minutes. One payment of US$29 to US$59, no subscription. Companies buy credits so every employee's photo matches.", "why": "It took one ordinary purchase, the US$300 studio headshot, and sold it for US$29 the week the technology could do it. One-time pricing fitted a product people need once. Search pages for every city brought buyers without advertising, and company orders made the customers come back.", "summary": [ "HeadshotPro is an AI headshot generator: a web service that trains an image model on a customer's own selfies and then renders that person in business clothes, studio lighting and office backgrounds. The model is a diffusion model, a neural network that builds an image by removing noise step by step, personalised with a method called DreamBooth, which teaches the model one specific face from a handful of photos. The customer pays once, from US$29, and downloads the results in under 30 minutes.", "Danny Postma, a Dutch founder who had sold his AI copywriting tool Headlime in 2021, built the first version in about 30 hours and announced it on X on 16 March 2023. Within seven weeks the Indie Hackers podcast introduced him as having passed US$300,000 in revenue. He ran it alone for the first year, with his wife answering support email, and hired a team of four by late 2024. The company's own pages show 60,497 customers in February 2024, 102,207 in March 2025 and more than 250,000 in October 2026, with more than US$10,000,000 in revenue since launch.", "All money figures on this page are statements by the founder or his company, grade C. No payment processor or buyer has confirmed them, and the founder said in August 2023 that he no longer publishes revenue. Two third-party estimates disagree with each other by a factor of 30, so the page shows them as estimates and explains why. The page also lists earlier photo-tool companies that failed, and what is different here." ], "factsCaption": "More than US$10 million in total revenue in 43 months, from one-time purchases of US$29 to US$59, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founder, by his company's website, or by a reviewer or third party that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a free experiment with AI profile pictures to a company with 250,000 customers, in 43 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "HeadshotPro prices on 12 October 2026, read from the company's pricing page (grade C). All prices are one-time payments, there is no subscription.", "note": "An individual buys one shoot. A company buys credits, one credit per person, with volume discounts that start at 20% off for 5 credits and reach 50% off at 1,000 or more; the page shows US$25.35 per shoot at 100 credits and a starting price of US$19.50 per shoot. Credits never expire. The company sells a SOC 2 Type II report and single sign-on as extras.", "rows": [ [ "Basic, individual", "29 one-time", "", "30 headshots, 6 edit credits, about 2 hours" ], [ "Professional, individual", "39 one-time", "", "50 headshots, 26 edit credits, 30 minutes, 1 free redo" ], [ "Executive, individual", "59 one-time", "", "70 headshots, 46 edit credits, 15 minutes, 4K" ], [ "Team credits, 5 to 1,000 people", "25.35 per shoot at 100 credits", "", "40 headshots per person, admin dashboard, invoice" ], [ "Team credits, 1,000 or more", "19.50 per shoot", "", "50% off list, shown as the starting team price" ], [ "Enterprise", "custom", "", "1,000+ people" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Total revenue since launch, October 2026", "value": "more than US$10,000,000", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's About page, read 12 October 2026. The same page says 17,000,000 headshots generated and 200,000+ shoots completed, and that HubSpot's sales team is a customer.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average revenue per shoot", "value": "US$50", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$10,000,000 divided by 200,000 shoots. It sits inside the US$29 to US$59 price band, so the two company figures are consistent with each other.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average revenue per month since launch", "value": "about US$233,000", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$10,000,000 divided by 43 months, March 2023 to October 2026. A floor, because the figure says \"more than\" and the sales were not spread evenly.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Customers, October 2026", "value": "more than 250,000", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's home page, read 12 October 2026.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Customers, 2 March 2025", "value": "102,207, with 17,943,292 headshots created", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's home page as saved by the Internet Archive on that date.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Customers, 24 February 2024", "value": "60,497", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's home page as saved by the Internet Archive on that date. Price from US$29, 120 headshots per person, done in 2 hours.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "New customers between the two archived pages", "value": "41,710 in 372 days, about 3,400 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 102,207 minus 60,497. At the US$39 middle price this is about US$1.6 million a year; at US$29 about US$1.2 million. Team orders count one credit per person, so the customer count is a count of people, not of buyers.", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "New customers from March 2025 to October 2026", "value": "about 148,000 in 589 days", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 250,000 minus 102,207. At US$39 that is about US$3.6 million a year. The 250,000 is a rounded figure, so this is an approximation.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue seven weeks after launch, 5 May 2023", "value": "more than US$300,000", "grade": "C", "note": "The Indie Hackers podcast listing for episode 278 says the founder talks about \"passing $300k in revenue\". That is total revenue since launch 50 days earlier, about US$180,000 a month. Several secondary sites later repeat US$300,000 as monthly revenue; see the watch list.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the first two weeks", "value": "more than US$100,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Not verified. Reported by secondary sites Startup Founder Stories and Grey Journal, which say it comes from the founder. No post by the founder with this figure was found.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Launch price and conversion, 17 March 2023", "value": "US$39 average order, 4% of visitors buy", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder's post on X offering affiliates 20% of each sale.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Time to build the first version", "value": "about 30 hours", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview with Unite.ai, February 2024, for ProfilePicture.AI, the product that became HeadshotPro. The Bootstrapped Founder interview says HeadshotPro was six months old in August 2023.", "src": [ 9, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 person for the first year; 4 people by November 2024, planned 6", "grade": "C", "note": "In August 2023 the founder said his wife answered support email and he was about to make his first hire. On 30 November 2024 he wrote that he hoped to grow the team from 4 to 6 with a designer and a salesperson.", "src": [ 8, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder statements. He describes the choice after Headlime as venture money, bootstrapping with a team, or selling, and says he chose to build a team this time.", "src": [ 8, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Price of a studio headshot, for comparison", "value": "US$232.50 average in the United States (company, 2025); US$300 to US$800 a session (company, 2026)", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's own comparison figures, from the archived and the current home page.", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Third-party estimate: Starter Story", "value": "US$300,000 a month, US$3.6 million a year", "grade": "C", "note": "A profile that gives no source. It matches the podcast's cumulative US$300,000 figure, so it may be a misreading of that figure as a monthly one.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Third-party estimate: Latka", "value": "US$96,000 revenue for 2023", "grade": "C", "note": "An automated database estimate, far below the founder's US$300,000 by May 2023. Shown here so the reader sees the spread of outside guesses.", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2026 figure", "value": "43 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 16 March 2023 to October 2026.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2020 to March 2021", "what": "Postma puts GPT-3 into Headlime, a copywriting tool, reaches about US$20,000 a month and sells it to Jasper after eight months for a seven-figure sum.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 8 ] }, { "when": "September 2022", "what": "Stable Diffusion is released. He builds Stock AI, an AI stock-photo site, then drops it: quality too low and fear of a lawsuit from Getty Images.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 8 ] }, { "when": "Late 2022", "what": "He builds ProfilePicture.AI in about 30 hours on top of DreamBooth, which trains a model on one person's face. It sells well for a week on X, then sales fall.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "2 February 2023", "what": "He posts a free tool that makes an AI headshot with an AI background, an early test of the idea.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "16 March 2023", "what": "HeadshotPro is announced on X as professional headshots for remote teams or yourself. Deep Agency, an AI model agency, launches the same week and gets the press; HeadshotPro gets the sales.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 9 ] }, { "when": "17 March 2023", "what": "Affiliate programme: 20% per sale, with a US$39 average order and a 4% conversion rate. Servers go down at night during the first weeks.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 8 ] }, { "when": "5 May 2023", "what": "Indie Hackers podcast episode 278 presents him as passing US$300,000 in revenue, seven weeks after launch.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "25 May 2023", "what": "An Indie Hackers member finds the site in the top 10 Google results for \"professional headshots\" with 200+ city pages. Postma replies that backlinks from his other sites, his followers and the domain name did it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "9 August 2023", "what": "Six months in, still alone, wife on support. He says he is mentally unable to build more features, is making his first hire, and will no longer share revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "20 February 2024", "what": "Interview: a pipeline of dozens of open-source and custom models, a year of work on custom models, and a small team of contractors and part-timers.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "24 February 2024", "what": "Home page shows 60,497 customers, 120 headshots per person, from US$29.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "30 November 2024", "what": "Team of 4, plan to reach 6 with a designer and a salesperson. In December he says his goal for 2025 is to do no day-to-day work himself.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "2 March 2025", "what": "Home page shows 102,207 customers and 17,943,292 headshots created.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "22 May 2025", "what": "A CNET reviewer buys the US$29 plan: 40 headshots for US$29, 100 for US$39, 200 for US$59, results in 1 to 3 hours.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "12 October 2026", "what": "Company pages show 250,000+ customers, 200,000+ shoots, 17 million headshots and more than US$10 million in revenue since launch. Packages now return 30 to 70 headshots in under 30 minutes.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2, 12 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Timing: the same week the model could do it", "text": "DreamBooth made it possible to teach an image model one person's face from a few photos in late 2022. Postma had already shipped a profile-picture version of the idea and watched its sales fade. HeadshotPro repeated the trick for the one photo people pay money for, and shipped before the dozens of copies that followed. By May 2023 he was already describing search rankings as his protection against them." }, { "title": "A product people buy once, priced once", "text": "A headshot is needed once every year or two, so a subscription would be cancelled at once. He charged US$29 to US$59 per shoot. Against a studio session that the company puts at US$232 to US$800, the saving is obvious and the buyer does not need to be persuaded." }, { "title": "Search pages instead of advertising", "text": "More than 200 generated pages, one for each city, such as \"professional headshots San Francisco\", plus blog posts, put the site in the top 10 for \"professional headshots\" within three months. Backlinks from his older sites and from launch posts gave the new domain authority. Affiliates got 20% of each sale." }, { "title": "Company orders", "text": "A firm that wants matching photos for all staff buys credits, one per person, with an admin dashboard, bulk download, invoices and a SOC 2 report. This is where a one-time consumer product gets repeat buyers: each new hire is a new credit." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's interviews and the company's pages. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Image generation on Stable Diffusion, an open-source diffusion model, personalised per customer with DreamBooth. The founder says competitors stop there; HeadshotPro adds dozens of extra open-source and custom models, and had spent a year on its own models by February 2024.", "LLaVA, an open vision-language model, checks uploaded photos and removes unsafe outputs. CodeFormer, a face-restoration model, removes AI artefacts from faces.", "Customers upload 15 to 17 photos; the founder says that number gave the best quality in 2024. By 2026 the product asks for a few selfies and returns 30 to 70 headshots in under 30 minutes.", "Marketing: programmatic search pages per city, blog posts, Product Hunt launches used for backlinks, an affiliate programme at 20%, and the founder's X account with about 187,000 followers.", "Operations: the founder alone for the first year, his wife on support, then a remote team of 4 that works without meetings, with Asana as the single record of work.", "Refunds are automatic and no questions asked; the founder complained in April 2023 that customers still filed card disputes." ], "src": [ 9, 2, 15, 10, 7 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold photo tools to consumers before image models could make a photo from nothing. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Picnik", "years": "2005 to 2012", "funding": "US$3.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Photo editing in the browser, no download.", "died": "Google bought it and shut it down to fold the features into Google+.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/429-picnik" }, { "name": "Splashup", "years": "2007 to 2010", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "Online photo editing with real-time collaboration.", "died": "Built on Flash with no business model, while phones and HTML5 took over.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1660-splashup" }, { "name": "Seerslab", "years": "2016 to 2019", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Augmented-reality filters for selfies and stories.", "died": "Snapchat and the other platforms built filters in, and nobody needed a separate app.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1463-seerslab" }, { "name": "Picplum", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$1M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Photo prints by mail as easy as a selfie.", "died": "Sharing moved to screens; costs of printing and posting ate the margin.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1603-picplum" }, { "name": "Modsy", "years": "2015 to 2022", "funding": "US$72.7M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "AI-made 3D pictures of your room with furniture you can buy.", "died": "Each design still needed a human designer, customer acquisition was expensive and customers rarely came back.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2521-modsy" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Picnik, Splashup and Seerslab sold a better way to edit a photo that already existed, and the platforms that owned the photos added the feature themselves. Picplum sold a physical print that people stopped wanting. Modsy is the closest case: an AI image service for a one-time purchase, which failed because every order still needed a human designer and the customer never came back.", "HeadshotPro differs in three places. The photo is new, not edited, so there is no platform to copy the feature into; LinkedIn does not run a photo studio. The pipeline is fully automatic, so the cost of one order is model compute, not a designer's hour. And the repeat buyer is the employer, who buys a credit for every new hire. The risk that remains is the one Seerslab met: the model makers and the big platforms can offer the same picture for free." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The first-mover week, no. The shape, yes.", "text": "Being the first paid headshot generator was an opening of weeks in early 2023, and the founder said by May that year that search rankings, not the model, were his defence. The shape is still usable: take a purchase people already make at a known price, make an AI version at a tenth of it, charge once, and build search pages for every place the purchase is searched for.", "steps": [ "Pick a purchase with a known price and a clear result: a headshot, not an avatar.", "Charge once, in the band of a tenth of the human price, and refund without questions.", "Generate one page per city or niche for the search term, and get backlinks from launches and existing sites.", "Add the company version, with credits per person, an admin view and the compliance paperwork, because that is where repeat orders come from." ], "open": "Any image or document that people buy once at a fixed price: product photos for online shops, real-estate photos, passport photos, CV layouts, voice-overs for training videos." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported, and the founder stopped reporting", "text": "Every figure is the company's own. The founder said in August 2023 that he no longer shares revenue, so the only money figure after that is the About page's \"more than US$10,000,000 since launch\". No date is given for when that line appeared." }, { "title": "The US$300,000 a month figure is probably a misreading", "text": "The Indie Hackers podcast of May 2023 said he had passed US$300,000 in total revenue. Starter Story and others report US$300,000 a month. The customer counts on the company's own pages, about 3,400 new customers a month at US$29 to US$59 between February 2024 and March 2025, give US$1.2 million to US$2 million a year, not US$3.6 million." }, { "title": "The model makers can give it away", "text": "Every big image model can now make a business portrait from a selfie. HeadshotPro's answer is likeness quality, a tested pipeline, and the company product with compliance paperwork. Seerslab died when the platforms added the feature." }, { "title": "Dozens of copies and card disputes", "text": "The founder has complained about clones since his first AI product, and about customers who dispute the charge after an automatic refund is already available. One-time consumer sales carry both costs." }, { "title": "Customer counts are not buyer counts", "text": "A company order of 50 credits adds 50 customers. The 250,000 figure is therefore a count of people photographed, and the revenue per customer on this page is an approximation." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "HeadshotPro, About page, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://headshotpro.com/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Company statement. Source for the US$10,000,000+ revenue, 17 million headshots, 200,000+ shoots and HubSpot." }, { "title": "HeadshotPro, home page, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://headshotpro.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 250,000+ customers, the 30 to 70 headshots in under 30 minutes, and the US$300 to US$800 studio comparison." }, { "title": "HeadshotPro home page as saved by the Internet Archive, 2 March 2025", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250302071352/https://www.headshotpro.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 102,207 customers, 17,943,292 headshots and the US$232.50 studio comparison." }, { "title": "HeadshotPro home page as saved by the Internet Archive, 24 February 2024", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240224114606/https://www.headshotpro.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 60,497 customers, 120 headshots per person and the US$29 starting price." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers podcast, episode 278, 5 May 2023: Growing a portfolio of AI products past $300k after a 7-figure exit with Danny Postma", "url": "https://bizarro.dev.to/theindiehackerspodcast/278-growing-a-portfolio-of-ai-products-past-300k-after-a-7-figure-exit-with-danny-postma", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the episode description on the DEV Community mirror; the indiehackers.com page returns error 410. The audio was not transcribed. Source for the US$300,000 in revenue." }, { "title": "Danny Postma on X, 16 March 2023: launch of HeadshotPro", "url": "https://x.com/dannypostma/status/1636337910017556480", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the launch date and the positioning for remote teams." }, { "title": "Danny Postma on X, 17 March 2023: affiliate programme", "url": "https://x.com/dannypostma/status/1636556544270823425", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API, with the follow-up post. Source for the 20% commission, the 4% conversion rate and the US$39 order value." }, { "title": "The Bootstrapped Founder, 9 August 2023: Danny Postma, an indie hacker's business evolution", "url": "https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/danny-postma-an-indie-hackers-business-evolution/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the transcript in full. Source for the solo year, the wife on support, the first hire, the one-time pricing logic, the Headlime sale and the decision to stop sharing revenue." }, { "title": "Unite.ai, 20 February 2024: Danny Postma, founder of HeadshotPro, interview series", "url": "https://www.unite.ai/danny-postma-founder-of-headshotpro-interview-series/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for Stock AI, ProfilePicture.AI, the 30-hour build, the model pipeline and the move to a team." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers product page for HeadshotPro, with the founder's X posts of November and December 2024", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/product/headshotpro", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The page quotes the founder's posts. Source for the team of 4, the plan for 6, the async work and the 2025 goal." }, { "title": "CNET via Yahoo Tech, 22 May 2025: I tried an AI headshot generator", "url": "https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/articles/headshot-using-ai-140002501.html", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on pricing and setup. A journalist's own purchase. Source for the 2025 prices and the founding in the Netherlands in March 2023." }, { "title": "HeadshotPro pricing page, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://headshotpro.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the pricing table and the team credit discounts." }, { "title": "Starter Story: How an indie hacker built an AI headshot business to $300K/month", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/headshotpro-breakdown", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party profile with no stated source for the monthly figure. Also the source of the unverified US$100,000 in two weeks claim, together with Grey Journal and Startup Founder Stories." }, { "title": "Latka company page: Headshotpro revenue 2023", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/headshotpro", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. An automated estimate, shown for contrast." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 26 May 2023: Breaking down Danny Postma's SEO strategy for HeadshotPro, and the founder's reply on X of 25 May 2023", "url": "https://indiehackers.com/post/breaking-down-danny-postmas-seo-strategy-for-headshotpro-300k-in-1-year-fad0af94d2", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, and the two X posts it links through the fxtwitter API. Source for the city pages, the rankings, the backlinks and the February 2023 free tool." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/interior-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/interior-ai.md", "slug": "interior-ai", "name": "Interior AI", "country": "Netherlands, run from anywhere", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI interior design and virtual staging", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "September 2022", "outcomeLabel": "US$43K a month, September 2024", "sticker": "$43K/mo, 1 person", "outcomeUsd": 516000, "months": 24, "teamLabel": "1 person, no employees", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Speed", "group": "real-estate", "channel": "audience", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Design tool" ], "product": "You upload a photo of a room, pick a room type and a style, and about 25 seconds later you get a photorealistic render of the same room redesigned. It also furnishes empty rooms for real estate listings, turns sketches into renders, and makes walk-through videos.", "why": "It was the first product of its kind, built in five days in September 2022, a few weeks after the image model it uses was released as open source. The founder already had a large audience from ten years of public revenue reports, so the launch post was enough marketing. Rented GPUs and one person keep costs low. Revenue reached about US$40,000 to US$50,000 a month and has been falling since 2025 as large AI companies and competitors ship the same feature.", "summary": [ "Interior AI is an image-to-image design tool. Image-to-image means that an image model takes an existing picture as input, here a photo of your room, and a text instruction, and produces a new picture that keeps the shape of the input but changes its content. Interior AI uses this to redesign a room in a chosen style, to furnish an empty room, which real estate agents call virtual staging (adding furniture to a photo of an empty home so that the listing looks lived in), and to turn a line sketch into a realistic render.", "Pieter Levels, a Dutch programmer who has run one-person internet businesses since 2014, built it alone in five days in September 2022, a few weeks after Stability AI released the Stable Diffusion model as open source. He has said it made US$10,000 to US$20,000 a month within a week. The site showed its own monthly recurring revenue on the home page: US$6,446 in November 2022, US$49,000 in September 2023, US$32,000 in September 2024. In September 2024 he listed it at US$43,000 a month on a record day after his Lex Fridman interview. He then launched Photo AI, which is on this site separately, from the same code and fine-tuning method.", "Every number on this page is a founder statement, grade C: his posts, his interview answers and the revenue counter that he placed on the site. No payment processor or buyer has confirmed them. His own project page shows Interior AI's share of his income falling from 13% in 2023 to 3% in 2026, and he wrote in July 2026 that large AI products are taking over what used to be small apps. The page also shows what happened to earlier interior design startups, which used human designers behind a software front." ], "factsCaption": "One person, no employees, about US$43,000 a month in September 2024 and a declining share of the founder's income since, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: every value is a founder statement, grade C, from his posts, his interviews or the revenue counter he displayed on the site, unless marked \"calc\", which means computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From an open-source image model to a paid product in two weeks, then two years near US$40,000 a month, then decline. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Interior AI prices read from the company's pricing page on 12 October 2026 (grade C)", "note": "All plans are subscriptions. The yearly price is shown per month and is billed once a year: Pro US$349, Premium US$599, Ultra US$1,199. The limit is the number of interior designs per month. From September 2024 to at least October 2025 the monthly prices were US$39, US$99 and US$299, and the yearly prices US$199, US$499 and US$1,699, according to archived copies of the page. The site says refunds are not given because the GPU time has already been paid for.", "rows": [ [ "Pro", "29", "49", "1,000 designs a month, low quality, 4 rooms in parallel" ], [ "Premium", "49", "99", "5,000 designs a month, medium quality, editing, virtual staging, videos" ], [ "Ultra", "99", "199", "25,000 designs a month, highest quality, 16 rooms in parallel, dedicated server" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month, September 2024", "value": "US$43,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 22 September 2024, listing each product on a record day when total revenue reached US$420,000 a month after the Lex Fridman podcast. He wrote that it had already dropped a lot by the time of posting.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the September 2024 figure", "value": "about US$516,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$43,000 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, August 2024, founder's estimate", "value": "US$40,000 to US$50,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Lex Fridman podcast, August 2024: \"now still makes like 40K, 50K a month, and it's been like two years\".", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue shown on the site, September 2024", "value": "US$32,000", "grade": "C", "note": "The home page displayed \"$32K MRR\" next to the logo. Archived copy of 1 September 2024.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue shown on the site, January 2024", "value": "US$38,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Archived copy of 14 January 2024 shows \"$38K MRR\".", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue shown on the site, September 2023", "value": "US$49,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Archived copy of 4 September 2023 shows \"$49K MRR\". The highest value found in archived copies.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue shown on the site, November 2022", "value": "US$6,446", "grade": "C", "note": "Archived copy of 1 November 2022 shows \"($6,446 MRR)\" under the title, about six weeks after launch.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the first week", "value": "US$10,000 to US$20,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on the Lex Fridman podcast: \"within a week, made 10K, 20K a month\". No exact figure.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Interiors rendered by 2 October 2022", "value": "19,129", "grade": "C", "note": "Counter on the archived home page of 2 October 2022, when the product was still free and payment was not yet built.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Share of the founder's yearly revenue and investment gains", "value": "2% in 2022, 13% in 2023, 12% in 2024, 6% in 2025, 3% in 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's project page, revenue chart, read 12 October 2026. The 2026 value is extrapolated by the page. The total includes investment gains, which grew strongly, so a falling share does not by itself prove falling revenue.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Third-party estimate, November 2025", "value": "US$38,000 to US$45,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers case study on Photo AI, which lists the founder's other products. The author does not give a source for this figure.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "GPU cost, September 2024", "value": "about US$60,000 a month for Photo AI and Interior AI together", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post. The split between the two products is not given. Other costs, server and Cloudflare, about US$500 a month.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's total business revenue, September 2026", "value": "US$200,000 to US$250,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 23 September 2026, all products together, described as very stable.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 person", "grade": "C", "note": "The site says \"This service was built by me, Pieter Levels\". The founder describes all his products as built by himself with no employees.", "src": [ 12, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder statements throughout; his blog describes all his products as bootstrapped without funding.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the September 2024 figure", "value": "24 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: September 2022 to September 2024.", "src": [ 1, 8 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "August 2022", "what": "Stability AI releases Stable Diffusion as open source. Levels installs it on his laptop and generates houses. His post of 18 September says this was two weeks earlier.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "5 September 2022", "what": "He launches This House Does Not Exist, a site that generates modern houses. He later says that people got bored of it, but that the model was good at interiors.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14, 2 ] }, { "when": "September 2022", "what": "He builds Interior AI in five days. The first archived copy, 15 September 2022, is a gallery of generated interiors. By 2 October the site accepts a photo of your room and shows 19,129 interiors rendered; payment is \"not working yet, building it now\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 8 ] }, { "when": "4 October 2022", "what": "The launch thread on X: \"Here's how I built interiorai.com from scratch in 5 days\". He says it made US$10,000 to US$20,000 a month within a week.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 2 ] }, { "when": "1 November 2022", "what": "The home page shows US$6,446 in monthly recurring revenue. A Pro plan removes watermarks and unlocks more rooms, styles and resolutions.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "November 2022", "what": "He fine-tunes the model on a gallery of good interiors, then on photos of himself. That experiment becomes Avatar AI and then Photo AI, which is on this site separately.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "4 September 2023", "what": "The home page shows US$49,000 in monthly recurring revenue, the highest archived value. The site now calls itself \"the first AI Interior Designer in the world\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "October 2023", "what": "In a podcast he says that interior designers use the tool to show clients ideas, and that he wants to bring Photo AI and Interior AI to US$100,000 a month each.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "4 December 2023", "what": "Interior AI v2 turns minimal architect sketches into renders.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "14 January 2024", "what": "US$38,000 in monthly recurring revenue on the home page. An affiliate program pays 20% of referred payments.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "27 March 2024", "what": "Someone at Wayfair asks him to cancel their subscription. The company had run 8 accounts for months while building its own AI interior design tool, which launched in 2023.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "20 August 2024", "what": "Lex Fridman podcast. He says Interior AI still makes US$40,000 to US$50,000 a month after two years.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "1 September 2024", "what": "US$32,000 in monthly recurring revenue on the home page. Prices: US$39, US$99 and US$299 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "22 September 2024", "what": "A record day after the podcast: US$43,000 a month for Interior AI inside US$420,000 a month in total, at about 80% profit. GPUs for Photo AI and Interior AI cost about US$60,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "13 January 2026", "what": "Room detection, the step that recognises what kind of room is in the photo, is moved to xAI's language model.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "24 February 2026", "what": "He adds a viewer for Gaussian splats, a 3D representation built from images, so that a customer can walk through the generated interior, using the World Labs API.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 18 ] }, { "when": "6 April 2026", "what": "An automatic system answers Stripe payment disputes with a PDF of the designs the customer generated.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 19 ] }, { "when": "26 July 2026", "what": "He writes that large AI products are \"cannibalizing everything that used to be apps for indiehackers\", with declining revenue and traffic on his own projects too.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 20 ] }, { "when": "23 September 2026", "what": "His total business revenue is US$200,000 to US$250,000 a month and stable. His project page gives Interior AI 3% of his 2026 revenue and investment gains.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 10 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Two weeks after the model, first in the category", "text": "Stable Diffusion became open source in late August 2022. Levels launched a house generator on 5 September and Interior AI in September. He has said that he launched it because \"obviously interior design AI, and nobody's doing that yet\". The first version was a free site with a counter of rendered interiors; the paid plan came weeks later." }, { "title": "Image-to-image on a photo of your own room", "text": "Generating random interiors was a toy. The product became useful when a customer could upload a photo of a real room and get the same room back in a different style. The site then added the uses that people pay for: virtual staging of empty homes for real estate listings, sketches to renders for architects, and an editor to brush away mistakes." }, { "title": "An audience built over ten years", "text": "Levels had published his revenue in public since 2014 and had hundreds of thousands of followers on X when he posted the launch thread. He has said that going on national television brings him about 3 sign-ups, while the Lex Fridman podcast raised his revenue 2.5 times. There was no paid marketing." }, { "title": "Rented GPUs and one person", "text": "The model runs on rented GPUs through inference providers; the site says refunds are not possible because the GPU time has already been paid. There are no employees. In September 2024 the founder reported about 80% profit across his products." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's posts, his interviews and archived copies of the site. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Stable Diffusion, open-sourced in August 2022, with image-to-image: the photo of the room is the input, the style is the text prompt. Later a model fine-tuned on a gallery of good interior photos, and now the Flux model according to the pricing page.", "Built in five days, alone. The founder says Photo AI is \"the same code essentially\". Photo AI is a single PHP file, as described on its own page on this site.", "Inference on rented GPUs through providers such as Replicate and FAL, in which the founder later invested. GPU cost was about US$60,000 a month for Photo AI and Interior AI together in September 2024.", "A language model detects the room type in the uploaded photo; moved to xAI's model in January 2026.", "Gaussian splats from the World Labs API let a customer walk through the generated room in 3D, with a viewer the founder wrote himself in February 2026.", "Payments through Stripe. A home page counter showed monthly recurring revenue from 2022 to 2024. In 2026 an automatic system answers payment disputes with evidence of the customer's usage.", "Marketing is the founder's posts on X and podcast interviews. An affiliate program pays 20% to 30% of referred payments." ], "src": [ 14, 2, 11, 1, 17, 18, 19, 6, 5 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold interior design or home design through software. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Modsy", "years": "2015 to 2022", "funding": "US$72.7M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Upload photos of your room and get photorealistic 3D renders with furniture you can buy.", "died": "The renders were made by human designers, 2 to 4 hours per room, sold for US$69 to US$199. Margins were thin and paid social ads cost more than customers returned.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2521-modsy" }, { "name": "Laurel & Wolf", "years": "2014 to 2019", "funding": "US$25M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Online interior design: a flat fee connects you with a professional designer.", "died": "Flat fees did not cover customer acquisition. Scaling the designer network lowered quality and the brand.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2012-laurel-wolf" }, { "name": "Tastemaker", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$1.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Affordable professional interior design for middle-income households, through a web platform.", "died": "A distributed workforce of designers gave inconsistent results. Better-funded competitors arrived and the company could not pay to acquire enough users.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1572-tastemaker" }, { "name": "Kujiale", "years": "2011 to 2025", "funding": "US$550M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Design your own home in 3D in the browser and see the furniture in place.", "died": "Chinese consumers did not want to design their own homes. Users played with the tool and left, and AI tools made the technology ordinary.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2371-kujiale" }, { "name": "Iwjw (Love Home)", "years": "2014 to 2019", "funding": "US$200M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "A marketplace that standardises home renovation and interior design in China.", "died": "Acquiring a homeowner cost US$300 to US$500 and few came back for a second job. Contractors left the platform after one project.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2346-iwjw-love-home" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five sold design as a service and had a human cost behind every job: a designer who spent hours per room, a contractor, a customer acquired through paid ads. The software was a front for labour, so the price could not go below the labour, and the margin never appeared.", "Interior AI has no labour per render. A design costs GPU time measured in cents and arrives in 25 seconds, so the product can be sold as a subscription with thousands of renders a month and a profit margin near 80%. The customer gets ideas, not a finished room, and the ones who pay are the ones who need many images fast: real estate agents staging listings and designers showing options to clients. What the predecessors show is the trap to avoid: as soon as a human must touch each output, the economics of the five return." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The launch, no. The method, yes, in another domain.", "text": "Being the first interior tool on Stable Diffusion was an opening of a few weeks in September 2022, and the founder himself now writes that large AI products take over small apps. The method is still available: take a new open model, find one input that people already have, here a photo of a room, and ship the obvious product in days, with a subscription priced above the GPU cost.", "steps": [ "When a model is released as open source, build the one-input product within a week and put a counter of outputs on the page.", "Make the paid version the one that works on the customer's own data, here their room, not random generations.", "Find the customer who needs volume, such as agents staging listings, and price the plans by renders per month.", "Keep costs to rented GPUs and one person, and expect the revenue to fall when the model providers ship the same feature." ], "open": "Any new open model with a one-image or one-file input: floor plans, garden photos, product photos, architectural sketches, and the walk-through videos and 3D views that image models now produce." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported, and a record day", "text": "The headline figure, US$43,000 a month, comes from a founder post about a record day after a podcast, and he wrote that revenue dropped a lot right after. The site's own counter showed US$32,000 three weeks earlier." }, { "title": "Decline since 2025", "text": "The founder's project page shows Interior AI's share of his income falling from 13% in 2023 to 6% in 2025 and 3% in 2026, and in July 2026 he wrote that his projects have declining revenue and traffic. The exact revenue after September 2024 is not published." }, { "title": "The feature belongs to everyone now", "text": "Wayfair built its own tool after studying this one, and every image model provider now does image-to-image editing from a chat window. The founder's answer is to add what the model providers do not sell: staging, sketches, videos and 3D walk-throughs." }, { "title": "Sales depend on one person's audience", "text": "There is no paid marketing. Revenue rose 2.5 times after one podcast and fell afterwards. The business is tied to the founder's posts." }, { "title": "No refunds and dispute volume", "text": "The site refuses refunds because the GPU time is already spent, and the founder built an automatic system to fight card disputes, which suggests that disputes are frequent enough to matter." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Pieter Levels, 22 September 2024: I hit a new $420,000/mo revenue record thanks to the Lex Fridman podcast", "url": "https://levels.io/new-420k-mo-revenue-record-lex-fridman", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder's post listing each product's revenue, GPU cost and profit margin. Source for the headline figure." }, { "title": "Lex Fridman Podcast #440 transcript, 20 August 2024: Pieter Levels: Programming, Viral AI Startups, and Digital Nomad Life", "url": "https://lexfridman.com/pieter-levels-transcript/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on This House Does Not Exist, Interior AI, fine-tuning and Avatar AI. Source for the first-week revenue, the US$40,000 to US$50,000 a month figure and the pivot story." }, { "title": "Archived copy of interiorai.com, 1 November 2022, Wayback Machine", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20221101122025/https://interiorai.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The home page shows \"($6,446 MRR)\" and the Pro plan features." }, { "title": "Archived copy of interiorai.com, 4 September 2023, Wayback Machine", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20230904105510/https://interiorai.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the header. The home page shows \"$49K MRR\"." }, { "title": "Archived copy of interiorai.com, 1 September 2024, Wayback Machine", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240901191252/https://interiorai.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the header and the pricing section. The home page shows \"$32K MRR\" and the prices of US$39, US$99 and US$299 a month." }, { "title": "Archived copy of interiorai.com, 14 January 2024, Wayback Machine", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240114141317/https://interiorai.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the header. The home page shows \"$38K MRR\" and a 20% affiliate program." }, { "title": "Pieter Levels on X, 4 October 2022: Here's how I built interiorai.com from scratch in 5 days", "url": "https://x.com/levelsio/status/1577086792695975936", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the first post of the thread through api.fxtwitter.com. The rest of the thread is images and could not be read." }, { "title": "Archived copy of interiorai.com, 2 October 2022, Wayback Machine", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20221002120221/https://interiorai.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Shows 19,129 interiors rendered and that payment was not yet built. An earlier copy of 15 September 2022 shows a gallery version." }, { "title": "Pieter Levels, 27 March 2024: Wayfair used my AI interior design tool to build their own", "url": "https://levels.io/wayfair-used-interior-ai-to-build-their-own", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the Wayfair accounts and the \"launched 2 years ago\" statement." }, { "title": "Pieter Levels, projects page: everything built since 1996, with a revenue chart per year", "url": "https://levels.io/projects", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the revenue chart and the 2022 entries. Source for Interior AI's share of yearly revenue and investment gains." }, { "title": "Pieter Levels, 23 September 2026: I passed $10M/y in revenue and investment gains with a 94.5% profit margin", "url": "https://levels.io/passed-10m-revenue-investment-gains", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for total business revenue, the inference providers and the no-funding, no-employees position." }, { "title": "Interior AI home page and pricing, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://interiorai.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the prices, the render time, the refund rule, the features and the \"built by me\" statement." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, November 2025: Photo AI by Pieter Levels, complete deep dive case study", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/photo-ai-by-pieter-levels-complete-deep-dive-case-study-0-to-132k-mrr-in-18-months-3a9a2b1579", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on launch history and the founder's portfolio. A community case study without stated sources for the Interior AI figure." }, { "title": "Pieter Levels, 18 September 2022: This House Does Not Exist", "url": "https://levels.io/this-house-does-not-exist", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the Stable Diffusion release timing and the house generator that preceded Interior AI." }, { "title": "The Bootstrapped Founder podcast transcript, 25 October 2023: Indie hacking is dead, now what?", "url": "https://levels.io/bootstrapped-founder-indie-hacking-is-dead", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on GPUs, Interior AI and valuation. Source for the interior designers' use and the US$100,000 a month goal." }, { "title": "Pieter Levels, 4 December 2023: Minimal architect sketches turned into renders with Interior AI v2", "url": "https://levels.io/minimal-sketches-ai-interior-renders", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "Pieter Levels, 13 January 2026: Moved all my sites LLM APIs now to xAI", "url": "https://levels.io/moved-sites-llm-apis-to-xai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the room detection step." }, { "title": "Pieter Levels, 24 February 2026: Built my own gaussian splat viewer for Interior AI", "url": "https://levels.io/built-gaussian-splat-viewer-for-interior-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "Pieter Levels, 6 April 2026: Made an auto-dispute response system for Interior AI", "url": "https://levels.io/auto-dispute-response-system-interior-ai-stripe", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the Stripe dispute system." }, { "title": "Pieter Levels, 26 July 2026: BigAI is cannibalizing everything that used to be apps for indiehackers", "url": "https://levels.io/bigai-cannibalizing-indiehackers-apps", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the declining revenue statement." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/formula-bot/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/formula-bot.md", "slug": "formula-bot", "name": "Formula Bot", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI spreadsheet-formula generator, now a data-analysis chat", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "28 August 2022", "outcomeLabel": "US$500K a year run rate, May 2025", "sticker": "$500K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 504000, "months": 33, "teamLabel": "1 founder, plus two contract developers at about 20 hours a week each by 2025", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Timing", "group": "documents-data", "channel": "creators", "trend": "growing", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 3, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Spreadsheets" ], "product": "You type what you want a spreadsheet to do, in plain words, and it returns the Excel or Google Sheets formula. Started in August 2022 as a one-page site built without code. Since 2024 it is a chat that reads uploaded files and connected data sources and returns charts, tables and reports. Renamed Better Analyst in 2026.", "why": "It was the first visible AI tool for a task that 750 million Excel users do, and it appeared three months before ChatGPT. A Reddit post and a TikTok video brought 100,000 visitors in a day. The founder put a paywall on the site when the OpenAI bill reached US$5,000, and 606 people paid in the first month.", "summary": [ "Formula Bot is an AI tool that turns a sentence such as \"sum column B where column A says Paid\" into a spreadsheet formula. It was built with no-code tools, programs such as Bubble that let a person assemble a web application by drawing screens and rules instead of writing code. It calls the OpenAI API, the paid interface through which a program sends text to a model and receives the answer, so the founder never trained a model. Since 2024 the product is a data-analysis chat: the user uploads an Excel or PDF file or connects Google Sheets or Google Analytics, asks questions, and receives charts, tables and reports. In 2026 the company renamed it Better Analyst.", "David Bressler, a director of analytics at a media agency in Orlando, Florida, built the first version during paternity leave in July 2022 and released it on 28 August 2022. A post on the Excel subreddit and a TikTok video brought about 100,000 visitors in a day and an OpenAI bill of about US$5,000 before any revenue. He added a login, a limit of 5 free formulas a month and a US$2.99 subscription. The first month ended with 55,000 active accounts, 606 paying subscribers and US$10,700 in revenue. By March 2023 MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the sum of all active subscriptions for one month, passed US$14,000 and total monthly revenue reached about US$23,000. He kept his job until 1 September 2024, then went full time. In May 2025 he wrote on Indie Hackers that the product made more than US$42,000 a month, which is an ARR, annual recurring revenue, of about US$500,000. Bubble reported 1 million users in April 2025 and a newsletter reported 1.2 million in October 2025.", "Every money figure on this page comes from the founder, through his own posts, interviews, or a third party quoting him, so the grade is C. No payment processor, buyer or journalist-reviewed document confirms them. One widely shared figure, US$2.8 million a year posted by Indie Hackers in April 2025, does not match the founder's own US$500,000 ARR written a month later on the same site, and this page does not use it." ], "factsCaption": "From US$10,700 in the first month to more than US$42,000 a month by May 2025, every figure self-reported (grade C)", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement in his own post or interview, or a third party's estimate that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a one-page formula generator built on paternity leave to a US$500,000-a-year data-analysis product, in 33 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Better Analyst (formerly Formula Bot) prices read from the company's pricing page on 12 October 2026 (grade C). The page offers an annual option labelled \"save 50%\", but the annual prices load by script and could not be read.", "note": "The monthly prices are the regular prices. The page shows a half-price first month on each plan. Max and Business are priced per user. A free plan with limited usage exists and needs no card. In 2023 the only paid plan was US$6.99 a month or US$75 a year, and at launch it was US$2.99 a month.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "limited usage, no card" ], [ "Starter", "", "20", "250 chat messages a month, 2,500 AI actions, 2 dashboards" ], [ "Max", "", "40 per user", "unlimited messages, 5,000 AI actions per user, 10 dashboards" ], [ "Business", "", "80 per user", "unlimited messages, 15,000 AI actions per user, 20 dashboards, white-label embeds" ], [ "Custom", "", "", "custom volumes and connectors, by demo" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month, May 2025", "value": "more than US$42,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's own Indie Hackers post, 17 May 2025, headline \"after hitting $500k ARR\". The post's summary box gives \"Revenue >$42K a month\".", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the May 2025 figure", "value": "about US$504,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$42,000 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page. It matches the founder's own US$500,000 ARR.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Users, April 2025", "value": "1 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Bubble's customer story, 23 April 2025, which quotes the founder. Users means accounts created, most of them free. A newsletter reported 1.2 million in October 2025.", "src": [ 2, 8 ] }, { "fact": "First month, September 2022", "value": "55,000 active accounts, 606 paid subscribers, US$10,700 revenue", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's X post of 2 October 2022. The paid plan was US$2.99 a month at the time.", "src": [ 3, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the first three months", "value": "about US$30,000, with MRR of about US$4,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interviews with No Code MBA and the Hustlers newsletter, November and December 2022. Indie Hackers wrote US$20,000 in two months and US$3,000 MRR on 21 November 2022.", "src": [ 6, 7, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, February 2023", "value": "US$22,000 to US$23,000, of which MRR above US$14,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's Starter Story interview, 21 March 2023. The page's summary box says US$26,000 a month. The difference between total revenue and MRR is yearly plans and tips.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue and profit, May 2023", "value": "US$24,000 revenue, US$21,000 profit", "grade": "C", "note": "A third-party case study, September 2023, quoting the founder's listing on Acquire.com, where he offered the business for US$800,000. The listing itself is no longer online.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Users and paid users, September 2023", "value": "650,000 free users, 10,900 paid users", "grade": "C", "note": "Same third-party case study. 10,900 is cumulative paid users, not active subscribers.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Paid share of users, early 2023", "value": "about 5,000 of 750,000, or 0.7%", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in a podcast quoted by Starter Story. The 5-free-formulas limit was enough for 97% of users, by his count.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "OpenAI bill before any revenue", "value": "about US$5,000 in the first two weeks, about US$10,000 in the hole after a few months", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder quoted by Bubble. The first version had no login and no usage limit.", "src": [ 2, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Fixed costs at launch", "value": "US$25 a month for Bubble and US$10 for the domain", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview with No Code MBA, 2022.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Marketing spend in the first seven months", "value": "US$5,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's Starter Story interview. Influencer posts cost US$200 to US$3,000 each; some were free.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Share of customers using a personal email", "value": "60%", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's X post, 10 September 2024. He calls the product more B2C than B2B.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Team, 2025", "value": "1 founder plus two contract Bubble developers at about 20 hours a week each", "grade": "C", "note": "Bubble's customer story. He hired the agency once MRR reached about US$5,000. Earlier he used Upwork contractors.", "src": [ 2, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Date the founder went full time", "value": "1 September 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder quoted by Bubble: he kept his job exactly a year to the day from 1 September 2023, after the product's income passed his salary.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in the Website Planet interview: not VC-backed. Consistent with every other source.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Indie Hackers' US$2.8 million a year figure, April 2025", "value": "not used on this page", "grade": "C", "note": "An Indie Hackers X post of 8 April 2025 gives US$2.8M a year, 900K users and 87.5% profit margin. The founder's own post on the same site a month later gives US$500,000 ARR. The 87.5% margin is the May 2023 profit margin from the Acquire listing. The larger figure is unexplained.", "src": [ 12, 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the May 2025 figure", "value": "33 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 28 August 2022 to May 2025.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "May to July 2022", "what": "Bressler, a director of analytics at a media agency, has his second child. On paternity leave he tests GPT-3 on Excel questions, learns Bubble from YouTube and builds a one-page site: an input box, a button, an output box.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 2 ] }, { "when": "28 August 2022", "what": "Launch. Free, no login, no usage limit. A post on the Excel subreddit gets more than 10,000 upvotes; a TikTok account with 4.5 million followers posts a video; about 100,000 people visit in a day. The OpenAI bill reaches about US$5,000 in two weeks. He adds a tip page and receives a couple of thousand dollars from a couple of hundred users.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 14, 2, 4 ] }, { "when": "September 2022", "what": "Login, a limit of 5 free formulas a month, and a US$2.99 subscription. First month: 55,000 active accounts, 606 paying subscribers, US$10,700 in revenue. A Product Hunt launch gives the best sales day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 14 ] }, { "when": "November 2022", "what": "About US$30,000 total revenue and US$4,000 MRR after three months, 1.1 million visitors, while he still works full time. Indie Hackers publishes the first interview.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 7, 14 ] }, { "when": "March 2023", "what": "MRR above US$14,000 and about US$23,000 revenue in the last month. The plan is US$6.99 a month. About 10 copy products exist, some with the same front-end code. He has spent US$5,000 on marketing, mostly TikTok creators.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "May 2023", "what": "US$24,000 revenue and US$21,000 profit in the month. He lists the business on Acquire.com for US$800,000; it does not sell. Around the same time, eight months after he bought the domain, Microsoft sends a cease-and-desist letter over the word Excel in it; he buys formulabot.com for US$500 and widens the product beyond formulas.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 9 ] }, { "when": "September 2023", "what": "A third-party case study counts 650,000 free users and 10,900 paid users since launch and estimates US$192,760 total revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "December 2023", "what": "He publicly lists 13 competing formula generators and thanks them for pushing him to build more than a formula generator.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "1 September 2024", "what": "He leaves his job after the product's income passes his salary. The product is now a chat over uploaded files and connected data sources. He hires a Bubble agency for development.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "April 2025", "what": "Bubble reports 1 million users. Indie Hackers posts a US$2.8 million a year figure on X that the founder's own later post does not support.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 12 ] }, { "when": "17 May 2025", "what": "He writes on Indie Hackers that the product passed US$500,000 ARR, more than US$42,000 a month, with little marketing, and that marketing is the next focus.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "October 2025", "what": "A newsletter reports 1.2 million users. Google Ads run only sometimes because the payback period can reach 8 months.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "formulabot.com redirects to betteranalyst.com. The product is renamed Better Analyst, with dashboards, scheduled tasks and a Slack bot. Plans are US$20, US$40 and US$80 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "First to a task that hundreds of millions of people do", "text": "In August 2022 GPT-3 could already write Excel formulas, but almost nobody had put an input box in front of it for that one task. The site asked for nothing, returned a formula in seconds, and was easy to film for TikTok. ChatGPT, which does the same thing for free, came three months later. By then the site had hundreds of thousands of accounts and was adding features ChatGPT does not have: add-ons inside Excel and Google Sheets, then file upload and charts." }, { "title": "Raise the barrier to use, step by step", "text": "In the founder's words, the biggest reason for the site's success was to gradually raise the barrier to usage. First free with no login. Then a login. Then a monthly cap. Then a subscription for unlimited use. Each step was taken after the previous one had brought users, so the paywall arrived with 55,000 active accounts already there." }, { "title": "Almost no cost per formula", "text": "A formula is a few dozen tokens in and out, so the model cost per request is tiny, and the site ran on a US$25-a-month Bubble plan. The May 2023 profit margin from the founder's own listing was 87.5%. The only expensive moment was the launch, when unlimited free use cost about US$5,000 in two weeks." }, { "title": "Distribution by other people's videos", "text": "The founder spent US$5,000 on marketing in seven months. He found TikTok creators through TikTok's Creator Marketplace, paid US$200 to US$3,000 a post or nothing, and chose by engagement, not follower count. He says he cannot tell which creator drove which signup, and that it worked anyway." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's interviews and posts and from Bubble's customer story. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Built in Bubble, a no-code web-application builder, with no line of code written by the founder. The first version took about a week and a half of paternity leave; the public version with login and checkout came in September 2022.", "The model is OpenAI's API. The product does not train or host a model. Usage limits, a login and a subscription were added after the first bill.", "Add-ons for Excel and Google Sheets followed in 2022 and 2023, so the formula could be generated inside the spreadsheet.", "After the Microsoft letter in 2023 the product widened into data analysis: upload Excel, CSV or PDF files, connect Google Sheets, Google Analytics, Search Console and databases, then ask questions and receive charts, tables, sentiment labels and cleaned data.", "Development is done by two contract Bubble developers at about 20 hours a week each, hired through an agency once MRR reached about US$5,000.", "Retention work: automated emails whose text depends on the questions a user asked and on the days since signup." ], "src": [ 4, 2, 8, 9 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold an easier spreadsheet or an easier data analysis to people who already had Excel. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Fieldbook", "years": "2014 to 2019", "funding": "US$1.7M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Spreadsheets with database features, without learning SQL.", "died": "Excel and Google Sheets added the missing features faster than users could be persuaded to move. Switching costs were high.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/142-fieldbook" }, { "name": "Skysheet", "years": "2009 to 2012", "funding": "US$200K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A cloud spreadsheet with real-time collaboration and charts.", "died": "Google and Microsoft moved their spreadsheets to the cloud and added collaboration. No clear difference remained.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1218-skysheet" }, { "name": "DataNitro", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Run Python scripts inside Excel for data analysis.", "died": "Limited by Excel's own architecture. Power Query and Power BI, then Excel's own Python, did the job inside Excel.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1587-datanitro" }, { "name": "SumAll", "years": "2011 to 2019", "funding": "US$15M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "One data dashboard for small businesses, no data scientist needed.", "died": "Free tools and large analytics products did the same. Small businesses would not pay the price, and churn was high.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/587-sumall" }, { "name": "Snapboard", "years": "2020 to 2023", "funding": "US$1.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "All your developer tools and data in one customizable dashboard.", "died": "Feature parity with Zapier and Power Automate, bigger budgets on the other side, and only subscriptions for income.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/926-snapboard" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five asked users to leave Excel, or to add a layer on top of it, and the owner of Excel or of Google Sheets then built the feature in. Formula Bot faces the same owners: Microsoft put Copilot into Excel and Google put Gemini into Sheets, both of which write formulas, and ChatGPT writes them for free. The founder's own December 2023 list of 13 copies shows how low the barrier was.", "Two things differ. First, the cost structure. The predecessors raised money and built teams before they knew who would pay. Formula Bot's fixed cost was US$35 a month, so a 0.7% paid share of users was a profit, not a problem, and no investor needed a bigger market. Second, the product did not stay a formula generator. The Microsoft letter in 2023 forced a new name, and the founder used it to move to the part that Excel does not do for a non-technical person: upload a file or connect a data source, ask a question, get the chart. That is where the US$20 to US$80 plans and the 2026 rename to Better Analyst come from." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The launch window, no. The method, yes.", "text": "Being the first AI formula generator was an opening of a few months in 2022, and it closed when ChatGPT arrived. The method is still available: take one task that a very large number of people do badly, put the thinnest possible interface over a model API, launch free where those people already talk, and add the login, the cap and the price only after the users are there.", "steps": [ "Pick a task with hundreds of millions of users and a short input and output, so model cost per request is near zero.", "Build the first version with no-code tools in days, and launch it free with no login in the forum where the users are.", "Set a spending alarm on the model API before launch. The founder did not, and paid US$5,000 for it.", "Add the login, the monthly cap and the subscription one step at a time, each after the previous step has brought users.", "Pay small video creators by engagement, not followers, and accept that you will not know which one worked.", "When the platform owner copies the first feature, move to the next task that it does not do for a non-technical user." ], "open": "Any single task inside a mass-market tool that a model can do from a sentence: formulas in spreadsheets, regular expressions, SQL queries, slide layouts, email filters, and the file-analysis step that follows each of them." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported, and one figure is contradicted", "text": "Every number is from the founder or from someone quoting him. Indie Hackers' own X account posted US$2.8 million a year in April 2025; the founder wrote US$500,000 ARR in May 2025. This page uses the founder's lower figure and cannot explain the higher one." }, { "title": "The platform owners now ship the feature", "text": "Microsoft Copilot in Excel and Google Gemini in Sheets write formulas inside the spreadsheet, and ChatGPT writes them for free. The founder said in 2023 that about 10% of churned customers named ChatGPT as the reason. The product's answer is to be the analysis layer, which is a more crowded market than the formula layer was." }, { "title": "Mostly consumers, with a free tier that is good enough", "text": "60% of customers use a personal email. In 2023 the free limit was enough for 97% of users and about 0.7% paid. Consumer subscriptions churn, and paid acquisition had payback periods of up to 8 months, so the founder runs ads only sometimes." }, { "title": "Growth after the viral start is unclear", "text": "US$23,000 a month in early 2023 and more than US$42,000 a month in May 2025 is less than a doubling in 26 months. The founder himself wrote that marketing had not been a focus until 2025." }, { "title": "A rename in 2026", "text": "formulabot.com now redirects to betteranalyst.com. A new name loses the search traffic and the links that carried the old one, and the pricing page shows no annual prices that can be read without running its scripts." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Indie Hackers, 17 May 2025: Getting serious about marketing after hitting $500k ARR, by David Bressler", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/getting-serious-about-marketing-after-hitting-500k-arr-8XGnzrxG1neA3jy37x2D", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public part: the summary box (Revenue >$42K a month), the title and the first section, which gives the paternity-leave start and the move to full time. The rest is behind the Indie Hackers login. Source for the headline figure." }, { "title": "Bubble customer story, 23 April 2025: How Formula Bot Built a 1 Million-User AI Tool on Bubble", "url": "https://bubble.io/blog/formula-bot/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full from the Wayback Machine copy of 15 May 2026, because the live page loads by script. Founder quotes on the OpenAI bill, the full-time date, the agency and the user count." }, { "title": "David Bressler on X, 2 October 2022: First month of @excelformulabot is in the books", "url": "https://x.com/bresslertweets/status/1576392611480289282", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the first-month accounts, subscribers and revenue." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 21 March 2023: I Turned My Side Project into A $26K/Month SaaS Tool, interview with David Bressler", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/excelformulabot", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The page now shows the name Better Analyst. Source for the MRR, the monthly revenue, the price, the marketing spend, the barrier-to-use method and the Orlando location. Its monetization page quotes a podcast on 750,000 users and 5,000 paying." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 10 September 2023: Case study: Excel AI bot makes projected $164,850 profit in 12 months", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/case-study-excel-ai-bot-makes-projected-164-850-profit-in-12-months-402bf5338c", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party estimate built on the founder's Acquire.com listing and posts. Source for the launch date, the May 2023 revenue and profit, the asking price and the user counts. The Acquire listing itself could not be found in the Wayback Machine." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 21 November 2022: Leveraging no code and influencers to hit $3k MRR in 2 months, David Bressler of Excelformulabot", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/leveraging-no-code-and-influencers-to-hit-3k-mrr-in-2-months-david-bressler-of-excelformulabot-9ffd4bc22b", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public summary; the interview is behind the login. Source for US$20,000 in two months and US$3,000 MRR. Niall Doherty's blog of the same day adds the US$2.99 a month and US$24.99 a year prices." }, { "title": "No Code MBA, late 2022: Growing Excelformulabot to $30,000 in just 3 months", "url": "https://nocode.mba/interviews/excel-formula-bot", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview. Source for the US$4,200 MRR, the US$30,000 in three months and the fixed costs." }, { "title": "Tiny Empires newsletter, 10 October 2025: 1.2 Million users as a solo founder", "url": "https://tinyempires.substack.com/p/12-million-users-as-a-solo-founder", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A secondary account by Joshua Tiernan. Source for the 1.2 million users, the Upwork contractors, the US$8,000 to US$10,000 loss before revenue and the ad payback period." }, { "title": "David Bressler on X, 1 August 2024: domain purchase story, the Microsoft cease and desist", "url": "https://x.com/bresslertweets/status/1818801254761406953", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the letter, the US$500 domain and the pivot." }, { "title": "David Bressler on X, 10 September 2024: Formula Bot is more B2C than B2B", "url": "https://x.com/bresslertweets/status/1833477559767421345", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the 60% personal-email share." }, { "title": "David Bressler on X, 6 December 2023: I'm calling out all of my competitors", "url": "https://x.com/bresslertweets/status/1732428331625095496", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Lists 13 competing formula generators." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers on X, 8 April 2025: David Bressler (@bresslertweets): $2.8M/yr", "url": "https://x.com/IndieHackers/status/1909662238123999441", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Cited only to record the contradicted figure; not used for any value on this page." }, { "title": "Website Planet, undated, before April 2025: 900K Users As A Bootstrapped Solopreneur: How Formula Bot Founder David Bressler Did It", "url": "https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/formula-bot-interview/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview. The page carries no publication date. Source for the 900,000 signups, the no-investor statement and the pricing A/B test advice." }, { "title": "The Hustlers newsletter, 2 December 2022: David's AI side project is making $4K+ monthly revenue", "url": "https://hustlers.beehiiv.com/p/david-ai-excel-formula-bot", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A secondary account. Source for the TikTok account size, the 1.1 million visitors and the Product Hunt launch day." }, { "title": "Better Analyst pricing page (formerly formulabot.com), read 12 October 2026, with Wayback Machine snapshots of formulabot.com", "url": "https://betteranalyst.com/#pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full for the monthly prices and plan limits; the annual prices load by script and could not be read. Wayback Machine index entries show formulabot.com serving its own page on 27 July 2026 and redirecting to betteranalyst.com on 2 September 2026." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/pdf-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/pdf-ai.md", "slug": "pdf-ai", "name": "PDF.ai", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Chat with PDF documents", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "May 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$60K a month, November 2023", "sticker": "$720K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 720000, "months": 6, "teamLabel": "1 founder, plus a full-time developer and a full-time video creator hired in 2023", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "documents-data", "channel": "search", "trend": "unknown", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Document tools" ], "product": "You upload a PDF and ask questions about it in a chat window. The answers come from the text of the document. Paid plans add more uploads, more questions, OCR for scanned pages, a Chrome extension, chat across several PDFs, and an API for developers.", "why": "The founder did not build it. He bought a weekend project with no revenue for US$20,000, paid about US$10,000 for the domain pdf.ai, and relaunched it under that name. The domain put the product at the top of Google for the words people were already typing, and a one-time launch deal paid for a developer and a video creator within weeks.", "summary": [ "PDF.ai is a chat-with-PDF tool: you upload a PDF file and type questions, and a language model answers from the text of that file. It uses OCR, optical character recognition, which turns a scanned image of a page into text, so scanned documents can be searched too. The AI model is OpenAI's; PDF.ai is the product around it.", "Damon Chen, a former Cisco engineer in Silicon Valley who already ran Testimonial.to, bought the project in May 2023. It was called Looseleaf.ai, had been built in a weekend by Josh Schneider, and had US$0 in revenue. Chen paid US$20,000 for the code and US$9,899 for the domain pdf.ai, and relaunched it under the new name with a US$99 lifetime deal. He wrote that it broke even in 6 days, had made US$35,000 by 5 June 2023, reached a US$200,000 annual run rate (one month's revenue multiplied by twelve) by September 2023, US$30,000 a month in October 2023, and more than US$60,000 in revenue in November 2023, three times the purchase price.", "Every revenue number on this page is a founder statement on X, LinkedIn or in interviews, grade C. No payment processor has confirmed any of them. The founder stopped posting PDF.ai figures after 2023; later numbers are third-party estimates and are marked as such. The product has not been sold: in October 2026 pdf.ai still sells the same plans plus an API. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that sold search or question-answering over documents." ], "factsCaption": "A US$30,000 purchase that reported US$60,000 of revenue in a single month six months later, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement on X, LinkedIn or in an interview, or a third-party estimate that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a weekend project sold for US$20,000 to US$60,000 of revenue in one month, in about six months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "PDF.ai prices on 12 October 2026, read from the company's pricing page in a browser (grade C)", "note": "The pricing page is rendered by script, so it was read in a browser, not downloaded. Prices are per user per month. Yearly billing is shown as 25% off, which matches the Ultimate price (US$27 to US$20) but not exactly the Pro price (US$17 to US$10). The API for developers is sold separately in credit packs and is not in this table.", "rows": [ [ "Hobby", "0", "0", "1 PDF upload, 100 questions a month, 10 MB files, OCR 2 pages per file" ], [ "Pro", "10", "17", "100 PDF uploads, 1,000 questions a month, 50 MB files, Chrome extension" ], [ "Ultimate", "20", "27", "Unlimited uploads and questions, advanced model, chat with all PDFs, team members" ], [ "Enterprise", "30", "37", "Unlimited, 100 MB files, OCR 100 pages per file, white-labeled PDF embed" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue in November 2023", "value": "more than US$60,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's LinkedIn post, December 2023: crossed US$60,000 in revenue in November, three times what he paid to acquire the product.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the November 2023 figure", "value": "about US$720,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$60,000 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, November 2023", "value": "more than US$500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview with Peter Yang, 29 November 2023: grew PDF.ai to US$500,000-plus ARR. Consistent with the US$60,000 month if part of it was one-time deals.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 17 October 2023", "value": "US$30,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X: Testimonial US$70,000 MRR plus PDF.ai US$30,000 MRR equals US$100,000 MRR.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue and profit in September 2023", "value": "US$25,070 revenue, US$17,600 profit", "grade": "C", "note": "Case study by Diego Jaggi on Indie Hackers, 9 October 2023, from the founder's numbers. More than 1,250 paying users. A 70% margin.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Annual run rate, 8 September 2023", "value": "US$200,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X: hits US$200,000 ARR in 3 months.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the first month, by 5 June 2023", "value": "US$35,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X: bought for US$20,000 early last month, generated US$35,000 so far.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Purchase price of the code", "value": "US$20,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Bought on acquire.com from Josh Schneider less than 48 hours after his launch of Looseleaf.ai, with US$0 revenue, May 2023.", "src": [ 6, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Price of the domain pdf.ai", "value": "US$9,899.01", "grade": "C", "note": "Domain-industry news, 22 May 2023. The seller had paid US$610 earlier in 2023. The founder rounds it to US$10,000.", "src": [ 11, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Time to recover the purchase price", "value": "6 days", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 11 May 2023, quoted in a newsletter: broke even in 6 days with US$2,891 of profit on top.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Lifetime deal at launch", "value": "US$99 one-time, more than 300 buyers in 3 months", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview. First customer within 24 hours. The money paid for a full-time engineer.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly visitors, September 2023", "value": "about 1,047,000, of which 350,000 from search", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers case study. The founder says most traffic comes from Google searches for the words PDF AI.", "src": [ 5, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Team, 2023", "value": "founder, 1 full-time developer, 1 full-time video creator", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, September 2023. Latka counts 1 employee on LinkedIn in October 2024.", "src": [ 1, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, October 2023: bootstrapped and profitable with a very healthy margin.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Latka's revenue estimate for 2024", "value": "US$591,700 a year", "grade": "C", "note": "A third-party estimate, marked as such. Latka records US$300,000 for 2023 from X.", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "fact": "Starter Story's estimate, October 2024", "value": "US$60,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Estimated from public sources, the page says. Its title claims US$1.5 million ARR, which does not match its own US$60,000 a month, so this page does not use the title figure.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Testimonial.to, the founder's other product, November 2025", "value": "US$109,000 MRR", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X with a link to a Stripe public profile. Not PDF.ai revenue; shown for context. The founder has posted no PDF.ai figure since 2023.", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "fact": "Time from relaunch to the November 2023 figure", "value": "6 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: May 2023 to November 2023.", "src": [ 3, 6 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2020 to 2021", "what": "Chen, a Cisco engineer for 8 years, builds four products that make nothing, then Testimonial.to, which reaches US$100,000 ARR in 9 months. He quits Cisco in 2021.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "Early May 2023", "what": "Josh Schneider launches Looseleaf.ai, a weekend project built with OpenAI and LangChain. Chen buys it within 48 hours for US$20,000 on acquire.com, with US$0 revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 6 ] }, { "when": "May 2023", "what": "The domain pdf.ai sells for US$9,899.01. Chen rebrands the product to PDF.ai, launches on X and Product Hunt (4th of the day), and sells a US$99 lifetime deal. He writes that it broke even in 6 days.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 8, 9 ] }, { "when": "5 June 2023", "what": "US$35,000 of revenue in the first month. He asks his followers what he could sell it for.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "6 June 2023", "what": "Launch date recorded by the Indie Hackers case study. Pricing moves from the lifetime deal to subscriptions at US$15 a month, with an Enterprise plan at US$50 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "8 September 2023", "what": "US$200,000 ARR in 3 months. He lists his steps: buy a product with no revenue, buy a domain, sell a lifetime deal, move to subscriptions, hire a full-time video creator and a full-time developer, post every day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "September 2023", "what": "US$25,070 of revenue and US$17,600 of profit in the month. More than 1,250 paying users and about 1 million visitors, 350,000 of them from search.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "17 October 2023", "what": "PDF.ai at US$30,000 MRR and Testimonial at US$70,000 MRR: US$100,000 MRR combined.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "29 October 2023", "what": "OpenAI adds PDF chat to ChatGPT. Chen writes that he is optimistic, that PDF.ai is profitable, and that several million dollars in ARR within 1 to 2 years is his goal.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "November 2023", "what": "More than US$60,000 of revenue in the month, three times the purchase price. An interview the same month puts ARR above US$500,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "when": "October 2024", "what": "No founder figure. Latka estimates US$591,700 a year; Starter Story estimates US$60,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12, 13 ] }, { "when": "26 December 2024", "what": "Chen writes that for Testimonial and PDF.ai he wants a calm business, whatever the competition or the AI hype.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "August 2025", "what": "A secondary account says his two products together make US$1.3 million a year, that the chat-with-PDF market is crowded with copies, and that monthly revenue is down.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "12 October 2026", "what": "pdf.ai is live with four plans, a Chrome extension, AI agents and Parse, Extract and Chat APIs. No sale has been announced.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Buy, do not build", "text": "The code was a weekend project that someone else had already shown on social media, and the reaction to that demo was the market test. Chen paid US$20,000 for it rather than spending weeks writing it himself, and said the code was worth about 10% of the business." }, { "title": "The domain is the marketing", "text": "People searched Google for the words PDF AI. A site at pdf.ai with that exact name ranked first for them. Chen said this brought most of the traffic, about 350,000 search visits a month by September 2023, with no advertising spend." }, { "title": "A lifetime deal that funds the hires", "text": "A US$99 one-time offer brought more than 300 buyers in three months. That cash paid for a full-time developer and a full-time video creator for daily Instagram and TikTok posts, while the plan moved to monthly subscriptions." }, { "title": "Daily posts and a second product's audience", "text": "Chen already had an audience on X from building Testimonial.to in public since 2020. Every PDF.ai milestone was a post, and the posts were quoted by newsletters and case studies, which sent more visitors." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's interviews and posts. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The original Looseleaf.ai was built in a weekend with OpenAI's API and LangChain on Next.js, hosted on Vercel. It could chat with one PDF at a time and had no payments.", "After the purchase Chen added payments through Stripe, the lifetime deal, then subscriptions. He says the web stack was new to him and he learned it from Udemy courses.", "Tools named by the founder: OpenAI, Vercel, Stripe, Mercury for banking and Deel to pay remote contractors.", "Later additions: OCR for scanned pages, a Chrome extension, chat across many PDFs, an AI quiz generator, and in 2026 a developer API for parsing, extracting and chatting with documents.", "Marketing is organic search on the domain name, daily short videos by a hired creator, an affiliate program paying 30% for 12 months, and the founder's own posts." ], "src": [ 7, 9, 5, 17, 1 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold search, question-answering or management of documents before language models could read them. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Niles", "years": "2017 to 2020", "funding": "US$2.8M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A Slack bot that answers questions from your company's documents.", "died": "Slack built its own search improvements, and the AI needed constant retraining that a small customer base could not pay for.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1031-niles" }, { "name": "ROSS Intelligence", "years": "2015 to 2018", "funding": "US$13M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "AI legal research that reads case law for lawyers.", "died": "Lawyers stayed with Westlaw and LexisNexis; the AI was an addition, not a replacement, and investors stopped funding long sales cycles.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1511-ross-intelligence" }, { "name": "Docucharm", "years": "2019 to 2022", "funding": "US$3M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Cloud document management: digitize, organize and retrieve business documents.", "died": "Google and Microsoft shipped the same inside their suites, for less.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/978-docucharm" }, { "name": "Documents.Me", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "All your documents from every cloud service in one app.", "died": "Free tools from the platform owners did the same, and every cloud API change cost money to follow.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1167-documentsme" }, { "name": "Readability", "years": "2009 to 2015", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Clutter-free reading of any web article.", "died": "Browsers added a reader mode, free. Few readers paid.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/485-readability" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five sold a way to find or read what is inside documents, and each died when a platform owner added the same feature for free or when the technology could not answer well enough to replace the old tool. On 29 October 2023 OpenAI added PDF chat to ChatGPT, which is exactly the event that killed Niles and Readability. Chen wrote the same day that he was not worried.", "Two things were different for PDF.ai. First, the model did the hard part: Niles and ROSS had to build and retrain their own AI; PDF.ai calls OpenAI and pays per use, so each model upgrade improved the product at no cost. Second, the customer arrived by search, not by a sales call. A person typing PDF AI into Google found pdf.ai first and paid US$15 the same day, so the business reached US$25,000 a month before any competitor's feature launch could matter. Whether that holds is the open question: the founder's own posts stopped giving PDF.ai figures after 2023, and a 2025 account says monthly revenue fell in a crowded market." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The purchase, yes. The domain, only if one is for sale.", "text": "Buying a demo-stage project that already had a public reaction, and relaunching it with payments, is repeatable on any marketplace for small apps. The exact-match domain was the one-off: pdf.ai sold for under US$10,000 in May 2023 because the market had not priced AI domains yet. Lifetime deals to fund the first hires and a move to subscriptions are standard and still work.", "steps": [ "Watch acquire.com and similar marketplaces for weekend projects whose launch post got attention but that have no payments yet.", "Pay for the exact words customers search for, as a domain, before paying for ads.", "Sell a one-time deal for 3 months to test demand and fund a developer, then switch new customers to subscriptions.", "Post every number and every feature; let newsletters and case studies repeat them." ], "open": "Any file type people ask questions about: spreadsheets, contracts, slide decks, audio transcripts, and the API version of each for developers." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported and old", "text": "The headline is a founder's LinkedIn post about one month, November 2023. He has published no PDF.ai figure since. Third-party estimates for 2024 are US$591,700 a year (Latka) and US$60,000 a month (Starter Story), which do not agree with each other or with Starter Story's own US$1.5 million title." }, { "title": "The platform shipped the feature", "text": "ChatGPT added chat with a PDF in October 2023, and other document vendors can do the same. Every predecessor on this page died from exactly that. PDF.ai's answer is more features around the model: OCR, extensions, team seats, an API." }, { "title": "Revenue may be falling", "text": "A 2025 account of the founder's story says the chat-with-PDF market is crowded with copies and that monthly revenue is down. The founder's December 2024 post speaks of wanting a calm business rather than growth." }, { "title": "One-time money in the early numbers", "text": "The first months mixed US$99 lifetime deals with subscriptions, so the US$200,000 run rate and the US$60,000 month overstate recurring revenue. The founder's own October 2023 MRR figure was US$30,000." }, { "title": "Variable costs", "text": "Every question costs an OpenAI call and every scanned page costs OCR. The founder reported a 70% margin in September 2023; a price war with free tools would squeeze it." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Damon Chen on X, 8 September 2023: PDF.ai hits $200K ARR in 3 months", "url": "https://x.com/damonchen/status/1700209364471333271", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full via the fxtwitter API. Source for the US$200,000 ARR, the US$20,000 and US$10,000 costs, and the two hires." }, { "title": "Damon Chen on X, 17 October 2023: $100K MRR now with Testimonial.to and PDF.ai", "url": "https://x.com/damonchen/status/1714114381657870823", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full via the fxtwitter API. Source for the US$30,000 MRR." }, { "title": "Damon Chen on LinkedIn, December 2023: PDF.ai crossed $60k in revenue in November", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/posts/damengchen_pdfai-crossed-60k-in-revenue-in-november-activity-7136059894838820864-53OW", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post text from the public page. Source for the headline figure." }, { "title": "Peter Yang, Behind the Craft, 29 November 2023: Damon Chen, from engineer to indie hacker making $1,300,000 ARR", "url": "https://creatoreconomy.so/p/damon-chen-engineer-to-one-million", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part; the rest is behind a paywall. Founder interview. Source for the US$500,000-plus ARR, the Testimonial figures and the 2020 to 2021 background." }, { "title": "Diego Jaggi on Indie Hackers, 9 October 2023: PDF AI tool made $25K in MRR last month", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/pdf-ai-tool-made-25k-in-mrr-last-month-07148fa17d", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A case study from the founder's numbers. Source for September 2023 revenue, profit, users, traffic, first prices and the affiliate program." }, { "title": "Damon Chen on X, 5 June 2023: bought pdf.ai for $20k, $35k in revenue so far", "url": "https://x.com/damonchen/status/1665823454342553600", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full via the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "Niall Doherty, 11 May 2023: Sold his app for $20K within 48 hours of launching", "url": "https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/23687674-sold-his-app-for-20k-within-48-hours-of-launching", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Quotes Josh Schneider's launch post and names the buyer, the marketplace and the stack." }, { "title": "5 Biz Fri newsletter, May 2023: PDF.AI, $23k in 6 days", "url": "https://5to9.beehiiv.com/p/5-biz-fri-0004-60k-mrr-two-months-building-around-gpt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the PDF.ai section. Quotes the founder's 11 May 2023 post on breaking even in 6 days, and gives the Product Hunt rank." }, { "title": "SaaS Starter Stack: PDF.ai founder interview", "url": "https://saasstarterstack.com/interviews/pdfai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Undated founder interview, written after the US$50,000 MRR point. Source for the lifetime deal, the first customer, the search traffic and the tools used." }, { "title": "Damon Chen on X, 29 October 2023: I'm optimistic about PDF.ai", "url": "https://x.com/damonchen/status/1718491423065137169", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full via the fxtwitter API, with the quoted post about OpenAI adding PDF chat. Source for bootstrapped and profitable, and the ARR goal." }, { "title": "ccTLD.ru, 22 May 2023: The PDF.ai brought the former owner fifteen times the profit in a few months", "url": "https://cctld.ru/en/media/news/industry/34506", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Domain-industry news citing Domain Gang. Source for the US$610 and US$9,899.01 domain prices." }, { "title": "Latka company page: PDF.ai revenue 2024, estimate", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/pdf.ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party estimate and a headcount from LinkedIn." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 23 October 2024: How Damon Chen scaled PDF AI to $1.5M ARR in months", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/pdf-ai-breakdown", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The page says its figures are estimated from public sources. Used only for its estimate, with the inconsistency noted." }, { "title": "Damon Chen on X, 26 December 2024: I just want to build a calm business", "url": "https://x.com/damonchen/status/1872158126071595306", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full via the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "Damon Chen on X, 26 November 2025: $109K MRR, with a Stripe profile link, for Testimonial", "url": "https://x.com/damonchen/status/1993489819167866938", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full via the fxtwitter API. About Testimonial.to, not PDF.ai; used for context only." }, { "title": "SupaBird, 21 August 2025: Damon Chen, from corporate to $1.3M SaaS empire", "url": "https://supabird.io/articles/from-corporate-dreams-to-1-3m-arr-as-an-entrepreneur", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A secondary account with no links to the founder's posts. Used only for the 2025 statements that revenue was down and the market crowded, marked as secondary." }, { "title": "PDF.ai pricing page, read in a browser on 12 October 2026", "url": "https://pdf.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "The page renders by script, so it was read in Chrome with both billing toggles. Source for the pricing table and the product list." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/jenni-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/jenni-ai.md", "slug": "jenni-ai", "name": "Jenni AI", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI writing assistant for academic papers", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "July 2022", "outcomeLabel": "US$3M a year run rate, January 2024", "sticker": "$3M/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 3000000, "months": 18, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders; about 5 people in late 2023, about 8 by July 2024, 23 by April 2025", "fundingLabel": "About US$600,000 to US$850,000 in small checks, no venture round", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "learning", "channel": "creators", "trend": "flat", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 3, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Funded", "Running", "B2C", "Education" ], "product": "A text editor for students and researchers in which a language model suggests the next sentence, writes from the PDFs you upload, and inserts citations in more than 1,700 styles. Free with a daily word limit; paid plans remove the limits.", "why": "After three years stuck at US$2,000 a month as a marketing-copy tool, it narrowed to one group, students writing papers, and sold to them through short videos on TikTok and Instagram made by many small creators. One viral post in July 2022 gave it the first thousand customers; a system of paid creators and referral programs kept the growth going.", "summary": [ "Jenni AI is an AI writing assistant, a text editor in which a language model proposes the next sentence while you type and writes paragraphs from sources you give it. Its users are students and researchers. They upload PDFs of papers, and the editor writes from them and adds citations, the formal references to those papers, in any of more than 1,700 academic styles. The model behind it is OpenAI's, so the company resells model output; in September 2023 its model bill was US$20,000 to US$30,000 a month against US$150,000 of revenue.", "David Park, who dropped out of the University of California, San Diego, started it with co-founder Henry Mao in 2019 as an internal tool for a content-writing agency called Altum. The company sold it as a marketing-copy tool from 2020 and was stuck at US$2,000 a month for about three years. A viral post by a technology writer in July 2022 sent hundreds of thousands of visitors, and the two founders rebuilt the product for academic writing. On 14 January 2024 Park wrote on X that revenue had gone from zero to US$3,000,000 in annual recurring revenue, the subscription revenue of one month times twelve, in 18 months. A third-party database recorded 5 employees in late 2023. By July 2024 the team was about 8 at US$6 million ARR, and the US$10 million mark in early 2025 was reached with 23 people, so this page uses the US$3 million figure as the small-team headline.", "Every revenue number on this page is a founder statement on X, in interviews, or in a research report that quotes him. No payment processor or buyer has confirmed them. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that sold writing tools and study tools to students." ], "factsCaption": "A marketing-copy tool that found its real customers, students, and went from about US$560,000 to US$3 million in annual recurring revenue in thirteen months, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement on X or in an interview, or a reading from a third-party database that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a dead marketing tool at US$2,000 a month to a US$3 million run rate in 18 months, and to US$10 million a year with a much bigger team after that. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Jenni AI prices as shown on the company's pricing page, read 12 October 2026 (grade C)", "note": "The page has a Monthly/Annual switch with the label Save 60%, and the static text shows one price per plan: Plus US$12 a month and Pro US$29 a month. The static text does not say which billing period those prices belong to, so the yearly column is empty. Starter Story, in December 2024, described the paid plan as US$30 a month with a 60% discount on the annual plan, which matches US$12 a month billed yearly. The free plan allows 200 words a day according to the same source.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "", "0", "daily word limit; 3 AI edits, 5 chat messages, unlimited citations" ], [ "Plus", "", "12", "5,000 autocompletes, 500 AI edits, 500 chat messages a month; period not stated" ], [ "Pro", "", "29", "unlimited autocomplete, edits, chat, reviews; period not stated" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, January 2024", "value": "US$3,000,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 14 January 2024: from zero to US$3,000,000 ARR in 18 months.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, September 2023", "value": "US$150,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Sacra report, April 2024, citing the founder. OpenAI bill of US$20,000 to US$30,000 a month, about 83% gross margin.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the September 2023 figure", "value": "US$1.8 million a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$150,000 times 12. Latka records the same US$1.8 million for October 2023 from X.", "src": [ 2, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, end of 2022", "value": "about US$560,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Sacra report. The post of January 2024 gives the same stage as US$600,000.", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team size, late 2023", "value": "5 employees", "grade": "C", "note": "Latka headcount readings: 2 in November 2021, 3 in November 2022, 5 in October and November 2023, 23 in April 2025. Latka does not record the source of the 2021 to 2023 readings.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Team size, July 2024", "value": "about 8", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's hiring post on X: a small group of about 8, at US$6 million ARR.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, April 2024", "value": "US$5.1 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Sacra estimate. Four years from zero to US$1 million ARR, then 4 months to US$2 million and 6 more months to US$5 million. Monthly churn 16%.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, early 2025", "value": "more than US$10 million", "grade": "C", "note": "TMTPost, December 2025, citing figures shared by the company; reached with 23 employees. Latka records US$10 million for February 2025 from X.", "src": [ 7, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Jenni AI monthly revenue, April 2025", "value": "US$667,500", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 2 May 2025. The whole group, with two unnamed products and an acquired product, made US$793,300 that month.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue, September 2025", "value": "about US$730,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 25 September 2025: flat at about US$730,000 a month for a year, by choice, to stay profitable.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "US$600,000 to US$850,000", "grade": "C", "note": "CB Insights: US$600,000 over 4 rounds, the last a US$250,000 convertible note from AI Grant in September 2023. Sacra: US$850,000 raised. The founder names a US$100,000 check from Jason Calacanis and funding from a Korean startup competition.", "src": [ 11, 2, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the academic pivot to the January 2024 figure", "value": "18 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: July 2022 to January 2024. The founder himself counts 18 months.", "src": [ 1, 7 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2019", "what": "Park and Henry Mao, who met at UC San Diego, build a writing tool on GPT-2 for the human writers of their content agency, Altum.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 7 ] }, { "when": "2020", "what": "After GPT-3 appears in June 2020 they sell the tool as a service to agencies and marketing teams, against Jasper and Copy.ai. Revenue stalls at about US$2,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 7, 8 ] }, { "when": "2021", "what": "A US$100,000 investment from Jason Calacanis after a podcast appearance. Park moves to Malaysia to make the money last, then to Korea, where a startup competition brings more funding. Latka records 2 employees.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 13, 6 ] }, { "when": "July 2022", "what": "A post by technology writer Zain Kahn listing free tools goes viral. Revenue goes from US$30,000 to US$120,000 ARR in one month; about US$10,000 of subscriptions in one day. The founders rebuild the product for students and researchers. Park is diagnosed with thyroid cancer the same year.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 7 ] }, { "when": "December 2022", "what": "About US$560,000 ARR after adding automatic citations, chat with your own library, and Word and LaTeX export. Latka records 3 employees in November 2022.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 6 ] }, { "when": "Summer 2023", "what": "Short videos stop working during school breaks. The team adds referrals, a larger creator budget, SEO and paid ads, and goes from US$1 million to US$1.75 million ARR in three months.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "September 2023", "what": "US$150,000 a month. A US$250,000 convertible note from AI Grant.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 11 ] }, { "when": "14 January 2024", "what": "Park posts that revenue went from zero to US$3,000,000 ARR in 18 months and describes each growth stage. Latka records 5 employees in late 2023.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "when": "April 2024", "what": "Sacra estimates US$5.1 million ARR, up 481% in a year.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "9 July 2024", "what": "Hiring post: US$6 million ARR, a group of about 8 people working as digital nomads, looking for a tech lead.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "September 2024", "what": "US$8 million ARR. An Indie Hackers writer counts eleven people.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 13 ] }, { "when": "Early 2025", "what": "More than US$10 million ARR with 23 employees. In April 2025 Jenni AI alone makes US$667,500 in the month; the group buys a citation tool, Citesure, for US$150,000 cash plus stock and earnouts.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 4, 12 ] }, { "when": "25 September 2025", "what": "Park writes that Jenni has been flat at about US$730,000 a month for a year, because he chose profit over growth.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "One narrow customer instead of everyone", "text": "As a tool for marketers it had no advantage over Jasper or Copy.ai and sat at US$2,000 a month for three years. User interviews showed that the people who stayed were students writing papers. The team removed the marketing features and built what students need: an academic tone, writing from uploaded papers, and citations that point back to the source. The founder's view is that ChatGPT killed the general writing tools but helped the specialized ones, because it taught everyone that a model can write." }, { "title": "Short videos made by many small creators", "text": "After the viral post of July 2022, creators on TikTok and Instagram made videos about the tool on their own, and those went viral too. The company then paid small creators to run new accounts that post only about Jenni, with one repeated format: a student with a paper due tonight. The videos reached hundreds of millions of views. Creators were paid partly per subscriber, US$15 each plus a share while the user stays." }, { "title": "Spread the channels before a channel dies", "text": "Growth stopped during winter break 2022 because nobody watched school videos. The team added referral programs, a ten times larger creator budget, SEO and paid ads, and had its fastest quarter the next summer while the videos failed. By January 2024 organic video was no longer the main traffic source." }, { "title": "Conversion before more traffic", "text": "From US$1.74 million to US$3 million ARR the work was internal: free-to-paid conversion, churn and referral loops, through thousands of experiments. Before this, 241,700 new users added US$26,000 of monthly revenue; after it, 152,300 new users added US$48,000." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's posts, his interview with Sacra, and press that quotes him. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The first version, in 2019, ran on a fine-tuned GPT-2 and made the agency's writers 10% to 20% faster. GPT-3 in 2020 made it good enough to sell.", "The product resells OpenAI model output. In September 2023 the model cost US$20,000 to US$30,000 a month against US$150,000 of revenue, about 83% gross margin.", "The academic version has three parts: sentence autocomplete tuned for academic tone, a document library of uploaded PDFs that the model writes from, and a citation system covering more than 1,700 styles with links back to the source passage.", "Free plan with a daily limit, paid plans at US$12 and US$29 a month, sold directly to the student.", "The team works remotely as digital nomads. The stack named in the July 2024 hiring post is TypeScript, React and Rust.", "Funding was small checks: US$10,000 from a stranger on a plane, US$100,000 from Jason Calacanis, a Korean competition, and a US$250,000 note from AI Grant." ], "src": [ 2, 7, 3, 8, 11, 14 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold writing tools or study tools to students and writers. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Draft", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A simple online editor for writers with version control and collaboration.", "died": "Google Docs added the same features. The free plan never turned into enough paid users.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1605-draft" }, { "name": "WriteWith", "years": "2007 to 2010", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Group writing in the browser.", "died": "Google Docs did the same thing inside an ecosystem people already used; almost no money to compete.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1237-writewith" }, { "name": "Flashnotes", "years": "2010 to 2016", "funding": "US$1.47M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A marketplace where students sell class notes and study guides to other students.", "died": "Course Hero and Chegg had better products and more money; note quality could not be controlled. Sold to a smaller rival.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/154-flashnotes" }, { "name": "StudyRoom", "years": "2010 to 2013", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "A place for students to share notes and study together online.", "died": "Too few users for network effects, high churn, and students would not pay.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1691-studyroom" }, { "name": "Knewton", "years": "2008 to 2020", "funding": "US$182.3M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Adaptive learning that personalizes content for each student.", "died": "Expensive to integrate with institutions, while Khan Academy gave content away. Sold to Wiley.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/281-knewton" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Draft and WriteWith sold a better text editor and lost to Google Docs, which was free and already open in every student's browser. Flashnotes and StudyRoom sold to students, who would not pay, and depended on other students to supply the content. Knewton sold personalized learning to institutions, which buy slowly.", "Jenni AI differs on each point. The product is not a better editor; it is the writing itself, which a word processor does not do, and the citation step, which students fear getting wrong. The content comes from a model, not from other users, so there is no supply problem. And it sells directly to the student at US$12 to US$29 a month, with no institution in the loop. The remaining weakness is the same one the predecessors had: the platform owner, here OpenAI, can add citations and PDF writing to ChatGPT, and students churn at 16% a month." ], "copy": { "verdict": "Yes, the method is general; the viral start is not.", "text": "A model-based writing tool for one group of users with a specific fear, sold through many small creators on short video, needs no capital and no sales team. The 2022 opening, when a single post could bring hundreds of thousands of users to an unknown tool, is gone, but the founder's own account says the later growth came from systems, not from that post.", "steps": [ "Interview the users who stay, not the ones who leave, and rebuild the product for them alone.", "Pay small creators per paying subscriber to run accounts about your product, with one repeatable video format.", "The month a channel slows, add two more: referrals, SEO, paid ads.", "Once traffic is steady, spend a quarter only on free-to-paid conversion and churn." ], "open": "Any writing task with a formal rule set that people are afraid to get wrong: grant applications, legal filings, clinical notes, code documentation, and the academic markets outside English." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported", "text": "Every revenue figure comes from the founder, from a database that cites his posts, or from a research firm that interviewed him. No payment processor or buyer has confirmed any of them." }, { "title": "The small-team headline is the early one", "text": "The US$3 million figure is the latest number that the sources put with about 5 people. The US$10 million a year that press reports was reached with 23 employees, and the founder said about 8 at US$6 million. Latka does not record where its 2021 to 2023 headcounts came from." }, { "title": "Growth stopped for a year", "text": "The founder wrote in September 2025 that revenue had been flat at about US$730,000 a month for a year, by his choice, and that he was tempted to trade profit for growth." }, { "title": "Churn and seasons", "text": "Monthly churn of 16% in 2024, and revenue drops every summer and winter break. Each month the company must replace a sixth of its customers." }, { "title": "The model provider can add the feature", "text": "The product resells OpenAI output with its own interface for citations and PDFs. ChatGPT already reads PDFs; a native citation feature would remove the main difference." }, { "title": "Academic integrity rules", "text": "Universities may ban AI-written papers or detect them. The company's answer is traceable citations, but the market can change with one policy." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "David Park on X, 14 January 2024: How to go from 0 to $3,000,000 ARR in 18 months (step by step)", "url": "https://x.com/Davidjpark96/status/1746573265425064293", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Founder's own post. Source for the headline figure, the growth stages, the viral post and the conversion numbers." }, { "title": "Sacra, 26 April 2024: Jenni AI: the $5M/year Chegg of generative AI, and the interview with David Park published the same day", "url": "https://sacra.com/research/jenni-ai-the-chegg-of-generative-ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part in full; the rest needs a membership. Research firm citing the founder. Source for the US$150,000 monthly figure, the model bill, the US$560,000 and US$5.1 million ARR figures, churn and the US$850,000 raised." }, { "title": "David Park on X, 9 July 2024: We are hiring a Tech Lead at Jenni AI", "url": "https://x.com/Davidjpark96/status/1810718648425927092", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the US$6 million ARR, the team of about 8 and the stack." }, { "title": "David Park on X, 2 May 2025: We hit $793.3K MRR in April", "url": "https://x.com/Davidjpark96/status/1918413056960545201", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the April 2025 monthly figures by product." }, { "title": "David Park on X, 25 September 2025: Jenni has plateaued at ~$730k MRR for a year now", "url": "https://x.com/Davidjpark96/status/1971258958561321222", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the flat year and the profit-first choice." }, { "title": "Latka company page: Jenni AI revenue and headcount readings", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/jenni.ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Third-party database. Source for the headcount readings by year and the revenue readings it attributes to X." }, { "title": "TMTPost, 19 December 2025: Small AI, Big Returns: How a Nine-Person Team Turned an Overlooked Writing Tool Into a $10 Million Business", "url": "https://en.tmtpost.com/post/7814928", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Press article from an interview with the founder. Source for the co-founder, the three pivots, the July 2022 post, the nine-person team until late 2024, the 23 employees and the US$10 million figure." }, { "title": "David Park on X, 8 June 2024: We had 10+ years of failure before any semblance of success", "url": "https://x.com/Davidjpark96/status/1799250774930952492", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the US$100,000 investment, the US$2,000 a month stage, Malaysia and Korea." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 12 December 2024: How a 27-Year-Old Grew Jenni AI To $5M ARR in 2 Years", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/jenni-ai-breakdown", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part in full. A summary built from public sources. Source for the 9 employees estimate, the creator pay per subscriber and the pricing description." }, { "title": "ARR Club, 6 September 2024: Jenni AI ARR at $8M, hit 4M users", "url": "https://www.arr.club/jenni/jenni-ai-arr-at-8m-hit-4m-users", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A short note citing the founder. Source for the US$8 million ARR in September 2024." }, { "title": "CB Insights: Jenni funding and financials", "url": "https://www.cbinsights.com/company/altum-1/financials", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part. Source for the US$600,000 over 4 rounds and the AI Grant convertible note." }, { "title": "David Park on X, 3 August 2025: Here's the exact details of citesure acquisition", "url": "https://x.com/Davidjpark96/status/1952039463485616622", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the Citesure purchase terms." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 25 September 2024: He beat cancer and built an $8M AI empire: David Park's story, by David Kim", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/he-beat-cancer-and-built-an-8m-ai-empire-david-parks-story-1a03c7a33a", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A community summary of a podcast. Source for the team of eleven, the US$10,000 plane investment and the withdrawn Korean offer." }, { "title": "Jenni AI pricing page, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://jenni.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the static text. The Monthly/Annual switch is script-driven, so the billing period of the shown prices could not be confirmed." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/tweet-hunter/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/tweet-hunter.md", "slug": "tweet-hunter", "name": "Tweet Hunter", "country": "France", "sector": "Communication Services", "productType": "AI-assisted writing and scheduling tool for X (Twitter)", "aiType": "AI-leveraged", "team": "small", "outcome": "exit", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "May 2021", "outcomeLabel": "Sold for US$2M cash plus earn-out, August 2022", "sticker": "Sold for $2M plus earn-out", "outcomeUsd": 2000000, "months": 15, "teamLabel": "2 founders, 1 partner on profit share, 1 contract developer", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "partners", "trend": "sold", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-leveraged", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Exit", "B2B", "Social media" ], "product": "A tool for people who want to grow an audience on X (then Twitter). It started as a search box over a library of viral tweets, then added a scheduler, automatic direct messages, a contact list, and a language model that proposes tweets and threads in the user's own style. A sister product, Taplio, does the same for LinkedIn.", "why": "Two founders shipped eleven products in about four months and kept the one that made money. They sold it on the platform it served, gave an audience owner a share of profits instead of a sponsorship fee, and used a language model to make writing faster, not to replace it. Fifteen months after launch, with about US$1 million a year in revenue, they sold to a larger French software company run by a former schoolmate.", "summary": [ "Tweet Hunter is a tool for growing an audience on X, the social network that was called Twitter until 2023. It began in May 2021 as a searchable library of viral tweets, posts that were shared far more than normal, sorted by topic, so that a user could study what worked before writing. Within months it became a full suite: a scheduler, automatic direct messages, a CRM (customer relationship management, a list of accounts to follow up with) and an AI writer. The AI writer used a large language model, a program trained on large amounts of text that writes new text from a prompt. It started on OpenAI's GPT-3, then moved to a model from AI21 Labs that the founders could fine-tune on tweet formats.", "Thibault (Tibo) Louis-Lucas and Thomas (Tom) Jacquesson, two French founders whose earlier startup went bankrupt, built it under a studio called Pony Express. They had promised themselves to ship one new product every week until one made money. Ten products failed; the eleventh was Tweet Hunter, priced at US$9 a month. A partnership with JK Molina, a writer with a large X audience, took monthly recurring revenue (MRR, the subscription revenue of one month) from about US$4,000 to US$20,000 in two weeks in late 2021. By May 2022 the product passed US$1 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR, monthly recurring revenue times twelve). In August 2022, fifteen months after launch, lempire, the French maker of the sales tool lemlist, bought Tweet Hunter and its LinkedIn sister Taplio for US$2 million in cash plus an earn-out, extra payments that depend on the revenue the products reach in the following years.", "The cash price and the revenue figures on this page are founder statements, grade C. The buyer confirmed in his own blog that it was a multi-million dollar deal with revenue-based earn-outs, grade B, but did not publish the price. The founders later said the total reached about US$8 million. The page also shows five earlier companies that built businesses on top of a social network's data and lost when the network changed the rules, the same risk the founders named as a reason to sell." ], "factsCaption": "A US$2 million cash sale fifteen months after launch, plus earn-outs the founders expected to bring the total to US$10 million to US$15 million, all self-reported except the buyer's confirmation that the deal was multi-million", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade B value comes from the buyer's own blog post. A grade C value is a founder or partner statement in an interview, a thread on X, or a founder post on Indie Hackers, or a third-party report that repeats them. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A.", "timelineLead": "From a weekly product challenge to a sale to a former schoolmate's company, in 15 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Tweet Hunter prices in October 2026, read from the company's pricing page (grade C). The page is now run by lempire.", "note": "Prices are per month in US dollars. The page shows a monthly tab and a yearly tab; the yearly values are the ones its script fills in when the second tab is clicked. All plans start with a 7-day free trial and the page shows a permanent countdown offering 50% off the Grow plan. The AI writer (daily AI-written tweets, rewriting, thread ideas) is in the Grow plan and above. Enterprise adds a custom-trained model and unlimited AI use.", "rows": [ [ "Discover", "23", "29", "1 X account, 3,000 auto-DMs a month, no AI writer" ], [ "Grow", "36", "49", "5 X accounts, 7,500 auto-DMs a month, AI writer and CRM" ], [ "Enterprise", "167", "200", "unlimited X accounts, 15,000 auto-DMs a month, custom-trained AI" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Sale price, cash", "value": "US$2,000,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Partner JK Molina's thread on X, 16 January 2023: Tweet Hunter US$1,400,000 and Taplio US$600,000. Tibo's own thread the same day gives the cash as 7 figures and shows the deal table without amounts.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Deal confirmed by the buyer", "value": "multi-million dollar deal with revenue-based earn-outs", "grade": "B", "note": "Guillaume Moubeche, founder of lempire, in his blog post of 16 January 2023. He names no price. He writes that the earn-out depends on revenue goals, with an operating-margin limit, stock options with short vesting, and a time-based part.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Earn-out structure", "value": "revenue milestones from EUR 2 million to EUR 10 million, each paying a 6- or 7-figure amount, plus 6-figure payments for year 1 and year 2", "grade": "C", "note": "Table posted by Tibo on X with the exact amounts hidden. Total earn-out shown as 8 figures.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Expected total including earn-out", "value": "US$10 million to US$15 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Tibo in interviews, 2023 and May 2024, on condition that the Twitter and LinkedIn integrations keep working.", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Total received, as stated in 2024", "value": "about US$8 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Tibo to Indie Hackers, September 2024: two companies sold as a package deal for US$8 million. Lower than the earlier expectation; he says he regrets selling.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Date of the sale", "value": "August 2022", "grade": "C", "note": "JK Molina's thread: birth May 2021, acquisition August 2022, 15 months. The public announcement came on 16 January 2023. The exact month of the buyer's offer is not verified.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Annual revenue at the sale", "value": "about US$1 million a year, with US$100,000 of monthly recurring revenue for both products", "grade": "C", "note": "They Got Acquired, March 2023, from an interview with Tibo. Tweet Hunter had about 5,000 users and Taplio about 3,000.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Price to revenue multiple at the sale", "value": "about 2 times annual revenue in cash", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 2,000,000 divided by 1,000,000. Tibo wrote that the full deal, with earn-outs, rewards a multiple of more than 10 times ARR.", "src": [ 1, 2, 4 ] }, { "fact": "ARR of both products, May 2023", "value": "US$3.5 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Tibo to Starter Story, nine months after the sale, with 10% to 20% growth per month and a gross margin above 50%.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, May 2022", "value": "US$41,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Tom Jacquesson to Failory. Tweet Hunter alone, before Taplio grew.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, November 2021", "value": "US$21,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Tom Jacquesson, interviewed six months after launch.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "ARR, October 2021", "value": "US$150,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Tibo's post on Indie Hackers, four months after the first version. He first titled the post with a US$1 million valuation, then changed it to the revenue figure after readers objected.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "First price", "value": "US$9 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Both founders, in several interviews. Later raised.", "src": [ 5, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Effect of the partnership with JK Molina", "value": "from US$4,000 to US$20,000 MRR in about two weeks", "grade": "C", "note": "Tibo to Starter Story; Tom says they tripled revenue in two weeks. Molina took a profit share by contract instead of equity.", "src": [ 5, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Team at the sale", "value": "2 founders, 1 partner, 1 contract developer", "grade": "C", "note": "Tom's interview of November 2021. No later statement gives a larger team before the sale.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Tom: profitable from day one, nothing invested except the fees to create the company.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Language models used", "value": "GPT-3, then AI21 Labs models", "grade": "C", "note": "AI21 case study with quotes from Tibo, February 2023. In October 2021 Tibo said the product did not use GPT-3 for generation; Starter Story says GPT-3 was used to analyse and sort tweets.", "src": [ 10, 5, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Twitter API cost after the sale", "value": "from US$0 to US$42,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Tibo, May 2024. Access was also cut off for a few days at one point.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the sale", "value": "15 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: May 2021 to August 2022.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2015 to 2019", "what": "Louis-Lucas and Jacquesson build Pistache, a chores app for children. Louis-Lucas then raises money for Dreamz, a game that teaches coding; it goes bankrupt.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 5 ] }, { "when": "Early 2021", "what": "The two start Pony Express, a product studio, with the rule of shipping one product a week until one makes money. Ten products fail; the best reaches US$400 MRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 11 ] }, { "when": "May 2021", "what": "Tweet Hunter: a search box over a library of viral tweets. First version built in two weeks, launched on X and Reddit at US$9 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 7, 9 ] }, { "when": "October 2021", "what": "US$150,000 ARR. The product now has an AI inspiration feature and a scheduler.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "Late 2021", "what": "JK Molina, a ghostwriter with about 40,000 followers, joins as a partner on profit share. His launch takes MRR from about US$4,000 to US$20,000 in two weeks. November: US$21,000 MRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 8 ] }, { "when": "January 2022", "what": "The founders decide to sell. A broker brings offers from large companies that ask them to stay two years; they refuse.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 11 ] }, { "when": "2022", "what": "Taplio, the LinkedIn version, starts after Guillaume Moubeche, a lemlist founder and paying customer of Tweet Hunter, asks why the tool is only for Twitter. A beta reaches him one week later.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "May 2022", "what": "US$41,000 MRR. The product passes US$1 million ARR, one year after launch.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 12 ] }, { "when": "Mid-2022", "what": "Moubeche, a middle-school classmate of Louis-Lucas, makes an offer about a week after they discuss the broker's offers over lunch in Paris. A letter of intent is agreed in about two weeks on WhatsApp.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "when": "August 2022", "what": "lempire buys Tweet Hunter for US$1,400,000 and Taplio for US$600,000, with earn-outs. The founders agree to stay two years.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 11 ] }, { "when": "16 January 2023", "what": "Both founders, the partner and the buyer announce the sale publicly on X and on the lempire blog.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 1, 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "May 2023", "what": "Both products reach US$3.5 million ARR under lempire. Target of US$10 million ARR by summer 2024.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "2023", "what": "Twitter raises its API price for the product from nothing to US$42,000 a month and cuts access for a few days.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "September 2024", "what": "Louis-Lucas says the two products were sold for US$8 million in total and that he would not sell again. He now builds revid.ai, feather.so and superx.so.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Eleven products in four months", "text": "The founders treated each product as a test: ship in a week, watch for revenue, move on. Eight got users, four made money, one took off. The rule removed the usual months spent on an idea nobody pays for." }, { "title": "Sell on the platform the product serves", "text": "Every sale of the earlier products had come from Louis-Lucas's own X account, so a tool for growing on X had its customers and its sales channel in the same place. The founders also shipped free mini-tools and launched them on Product Hunt as rehearsals; Louis-Lucas became Product Hunt's Maker of the Year 2022." }, { "title": "A creator as a partner, not a sponsor", "text": "Instead of paying JK Molina for a promotion, they gave him a profit share by contract. He launched to his audience and MRR went from about US$4,000 to US$20,000 in two weeks. They repeated the model with Alex Berman for Taplio." }, { "title": "AI as an accelerator, not the product", "text": "The core idea was that reading great content helps you write better content. The language model shortened the step from inspiration to draft: daily proposed tweets, rewrites, thread hooks. Louis-Lucas says the integration made the tool ten times faster. The customer still writes and posts under their own name." }, { "title": "Sell early because the platform owns the risk", "text": "The founders said the business depended on Twitter and LinkedIn policies they did not control, and that their skills were in starting, not scaling. They took a smaller cash payment with a large earn-out from a buyer with the same culture. After the sale, Twitter's API price rose to US$42,000 a month." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founders' interviews, Tibo's threads on X and the AI21 case study. They are grade C.", "items": [ "React with the Chakra UI component library, according to Jacquesson. The first version was built by Louis-Lucas in about two weeks.", "A library of viral tweets built from the Twitter API, sorted by topic. Before that the founders had tried freelancers and spreadsheets to collect examples.", "Tweet generation first used GPT-3, then moved to AI21 Labs models because they could fine-tune them on tweet formats and keep a style per user.", "Scheduling, automatic direct messages, auto-plug and auto-retweet through the Twitter API. Early on they hit Twitter's daily posting quota and had to ask Twitter for a higher limit.", "Growth came from the founders' X accounts, free side tools launched on Product Hunt, Reddit, an email list from earlier products, a purchased competitor used as a traffic source, and the creator partnership.", "Priced at US$9 a month at launch, raised as features arrived. Profitable from the first month with no outside money." ], "src": [ 8, 10, 7, 5, 9 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database built a product on data from a social network that they did not own. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Klout", "years": "2008 to 2017", "funding": "US$40M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A score from 1 to 100 that measured your influence on social networks.", "died": "Facebook and Twitter built their own analytics, and competitors offered better ones. The product depended on the networks' APIs and their policy changes.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/280-klout" }, { "name": "Nuzzel", "years": "2012 to 2019", "funding": "US$5.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "The news your friends share, taken from your Twitter and Facebook feeds.", "died": "It relied on the networks' APIs, and the networks began to offer the same feature for free.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/378-nuzzel" }, { "name": "ThinkUp", "years": "2010 to 2017", "funding": "US$1M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Personal analytics that explain your social media activity beyond likes and retweets.", "died": "A desktop-era product with little marketing, overtaken by the networks' own mobile analytics.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/624-thinkup" }, { "name": "PostRocket", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$610K", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "Data-driven timing to make Facebook page posts reach more people.", "died": "Facebook changed its API and the company had no plan for a pivot.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/457-postrocket" }, { "name": "Pixelpipe", "years": "2008 to 2013", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Post your photos and videos to every social network at once.", "died": "The networks closed their APIs and added their own cross-posting.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/435-pixelpipe" } ], "whatChanged": [ "All five sat on top of a social network's data and died when the network changed its API or copied the feature. Tweet Hunter carried exactly that risk, and the founders named it as their first reason to sell. Within a year of the sale, Twitter's API went from free to US$42,000 a month for the product and was cut off for days.", "Three things differ. First, the founders were paid before the risk arrived: they sold at fifteen months, with the cash upfront, and let a larger company with other revenue carry the earn-out years. Second, the product was not analytics, which the networks give away, but writing help and scheduling that X itself does not sell; a language model made the writing part possible for two people. Third, the sales channel was the founders' own accounts on the same network, so growth cost nothing in advertising and the audience moved with them to the next products." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The deal, partly.", "text": "Shipping one product a week until one pays, selling it on the platform it serves, and paying a creator with a profit share are all repeatable with no money. The sale itself depended on a buyer who knew the founders, used the product, and had reasons of his own to buy; the earn-out that was expected to reach US$10 million to US$15 million closed at about US$8 million in the founders' later account.", "steps": [ "Set a weekly shipping rule and judge each product by paid signups, not by interest.", "Build for the audience that already buys from you, on the network where they already see you.", "Offer a creator a share of profits by contract in exchange for a launch to their audience.", "Use a language model to shorten one step the customer already does by hand, and keep the customer's name on the output.", "If the product depends on another company's API, price that risk into when you sell and how much you take in cash." ], "open": "Any network or marketplace whose first-party creator tools are weak: LinkedIn, YouTube, newsletters, app stores. The same creator-partnership and weekly-shipping method applies to them." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Platform risk", "text": "The whole product runs on X's API. After the sale, the price went from zero to US$42,000 a month and access was cut for days. A policy change can end the product; the founders sold partly for this reason." }, { "title": "The headline price is not the cash price", "text": "The 8-figure number in the founders' announcement was the maximum with earn-outs. The cash was US$2 million. The founders later put the total at about US$8 million, below the US$10 million to US$15 million they expected." }, { "title": "Founder statements only", "text": "No payment processor or public filing confirms the revenue. The buyer confirmed a multi-million dollar deal but not the amount." }, { "title": "Growth engine was the founders' audiences", "text": "Sales came from the founders' and partner's X accounts. The buyer kept the founders for two years; the products' growth after that period is not public." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "JK Molina on X, 16 January 2023: We sold Tweet Hunter (thread, read through the Rattibha mirror)", "url": "https://x.com/OneJKMolina/status/1614969492915863552", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The first tweet was read through api.fxtwitter.com and the full thread through en.rattibha.com. Source for the dates, the buyer and the split of the US$2 million price." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 16 January 2023: I've just sold my startup for 8 figures (thread with the deal table)", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/1614966983698653184", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The first tweets through api.fxtwitter.com, the full thread through en.rattibha.com, and the deal-structure image downloaded from the tweet. Source for the weekly-product challenge, the partnership effect, the broker offers, the WhatsApp negotiation and the earn-out table." }, { "title": "Guillaume Moubeche, lempire blog, 16 January 2023: Acquiring a multi-million dollar SaaS business", "url": "https://blog.lempire.com/how-i-turn-my-middle-school-mate-into-a-multi-millionaire/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full from a Wayback Machine copy; the live site did not answer. Buyer's statement. Source for the multi-million confirmation, the earn-out design, the origin of Taplio and the Paris lunch." }, { "title": "They Got Acquired, 22 March 2023: How Pony Express' Tweet Hunter and Taplio sold to lempire", "url": "https://theygotacquired.com/saas/pony-express-acquired-by-lempire/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Journalist's interview with Louis-Lucas. Source for the US$1 million annual revenue, US$100,000 MRR, the user counts, the January 2022 search for a buyer and the US$10 million to US$15 million expectation." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 18 May 2023: How we built a $3.5M ARR LinkedIn tool that will be acquired for $10M-$15M", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/pony-express-studio", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview with Louis-Lucas. Source for the US$3.5 million ARR, the growth rate, the US$9 price, the US$4,000 to US$20,000 jump, the GPT-3 use and the founders' background." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 11 September 2024: Here's how Tibo sold two products for $8M and why he'll never do it again", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/heres-how-tibo-sold-two-products-for-8m-and-why-he-ll-never-do-it-again-iwykhfENoZqJgRLU33zv", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the open part; the rest is behind a free login. Source for the US$8 million total and the founder's later products." }, { "title": "Failory, 28 May 2022: Bootstrapping a Twitter-related SaaS to $41K/mo", "url": "https://www.failory.com/interview/tweet-hunter", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Interview with Jacquesson. Source for the US$41,000 MRR, the launch channels, the US$5,000 MRR at three months and the Twitter quota problem." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 4 March 2022: Interview with co-founder of Tweet Hunter ($20k MRR)", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/interview-with-co-founder-of-tweet-hunter-20k-mrr-d447ff150f", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Interview with Jacquesson recorded in November 2021. Source for the US$21,000 MRR, the team, the profit-share contract, the purchased competitor, no funding and the React stack." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 5 October 2021: I built Tweet Hunter's MVP in 2 weeks. 4 months later it grew to $150k ARR. AMA", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/i-built-tweet-hunters-mvp-in-2-weeks-4-months-later-it-grew-to-150k-arr-ama-a6ae1ee850", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post and the first comments. Louis-Lucas's own post. Source for the US$150,000 ARR, the two-week build and the retitled valuation claim." }, { "title": "AI21 Labs, 20 February 2023: How Tweet Hunter scaled to an 8-figure exit with AI21's LLM", "url": "https://www.ai21.com/blog/tweet-hunter-case-study", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A supplier's case study with quotes from Louis-Lucas. Source for the move from GPT-3 to AI21 models, the fine-tuning reason and the follower growth from 2,000 to 60,000." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 23 May 2024: How Tibo Louis-Lucas went from bankruptcy to an eight-figure exit", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-tibo-louis-lucas-went-from-bankruptcy-to-an-eight-figure-exit-607b389af1", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Profile with quotes from Louis-Lucas. Source for the earlier startups, the broker, the earn-out expectation, the two-year stay and the US$42,000 a month API price." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 31 May 2022: TweetHunter hits $1m ARR", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/tweethunter-hits-1m-arr-8fc16ece7e", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A newsletter item repeating the founders' announcement that the product reached US$1 million ARR one year after launch." }, { "title": "Tweet Hunter pricing page, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://tweethunter.io/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, including the page script that sets the monthly and yearly prices." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/audiopen/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/audiopen.md", "slug": "audiopen", "name": "AudioPen", "country": "India", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Voice notes to clean text", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "26 March 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$15K to US$20K a month, February 2026", "sticker": "$15K to $20K a month", "outcomeUsd": 210000, "months": 35, "teamLabel": "1 founder, no employees, part time next to a family retail business", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "voice-audio", "channel": "audience", "trend": "flat", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 3, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Productivity software" ], "product": "You press a button, talk in any language, and AudioPen returns a short, well-structured text in the style and language you chose, not a word-for-word transcript. It runs on the web, as a phone app, on desktop and as a browser extension. The free plan has short recordings; the paid plan, Prime, is sold for 3 months, 1 year or 2 years, never by the month.", "why": "The founder had 10,000 followers on X who watched him build it, so it had 100 paying users two days after a 12-hour hackathon and sold itself by word of mouth after that. A no-code stack kept costs near zero, a lifetime deal whose price rose from US$19 to US$150 funded the first year, and yearly-only pricing cut support work for one person.", "summary": [ "AudioPen is a voice-to-text tool: it records what you say and turns it into written text. Most such tools return a transcript, the exact words you spoke. AudioPen instead sends the transcript to a large language model, a program that rewrites and summarises text, and returns a clean, short, well-ordered note in the style and language you picked. The AI parts are rented: OpenAI's Whisper model for the speech and GPT models for the rewriting.", "Louis Pereira, a 31-year-old from Goa, India, who works in his family's retail business by day and has no engineering training, built the first version in under 12 hours on 26 March 2023 during a hackathon he organises himself, using the no-code tool Bubble, a visual builder that makes web apps without written code. He had paying customers that same day. By 22 April 2023 it had 400 paying users, by 16 May 2023 more than 500, and on 4 May 2023 it was first product of the day on Product Hunt. Two months after launch it had made US$73,000 from more than 1,000 paying users. In May 2024 he said it made about US$15,000 a month; in October 2024, US$12,000 to US$15,000 a month; in February 2026, US$15,000 to US$20,000 a month, from yearly and two-year subscriptions only.", "Every number on this page is a founder statement in interviews, a podcast or his own posts, grade C. No payment processor or buyer has confirmed them. The founder says that he keeps the exact revenue to himself, so the figures are ranges. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that sold note-taking and voice products against larger platforms." ], "factsCaption": "A 12-hour build that made US$73,000 in two months and then settled at about US$15,000 to US$20,000 a month for three years, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement from an interview, a podcast, his own post on X, or a page of his company. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From four tiny experiments with new AI APIs to a product with 200,000 registered users, in 35 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "AudioPen Prime prices on the company's pricing page, read 12 October 2026 (grade C)", "note": "There is no monthly plan. Prime is sold as a 3-month, 1-year or 2-year pass; the second column is the price divided by the months in the pass, as the page itself shows it. The free plan has shorter recordings and fewer voice typing sessions. The phone apps sell Prime through the App Store and Google Play at their own prices. Up to 100 one-year licenses can be bought in one order at a 20% discount. The lifetime deal sold in 2023 is no longer on the page.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "shorter recordings, fewer voice typing sessions" ], [ "Prime, 3 months", "11", "", "33 for 3 months" ], [ "Prime, 1 year", "8.25", "", "99 a year; shown as 25% off" ], [ "Prime, 2 years", "6.63", "", "159 for 2 years; shown as 40% off" ], [ "Prime, team or class", "6.60", "", "20% off one-year licenses, 100 per order" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month, February 2026", "value": "US$15,000 to US$20,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's account in an Indie Hackers article of 17 February 2026. Only yearly and two-year subscriptions are sold.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the February 2026 range", "value": "about US$180,000 to US$240,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the range times 12. The headline figure on this page is the midpoint, US$210,000.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, October 2024", "value": "US$12,000 to US$15,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers profile of 29 October 2024. Nineteen months after launch.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, May 2024", "value": "about US$15,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's interview with Starter Story, 16 May 2024.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the first two months", "value": "US$73,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's interview, late May 2023. More than 1,000 paying users at several price points, and more than 11,000 registered users.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Paying users, August 2023", "value": "about 3,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Goa newspaper interview, 11 August 2023, which also gives about 35,000 registered users.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Registered users, 2026", "value": "more than 200,000", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's home page says \"Used by 200,000+ people\". Registered includes free users.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Paying share of registered users, May 2023", "value": "about 9%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 1,000 of 11,000. August 2023: 3,000 of 35,000, about 8.6%.", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Lifetime deal price, 2023", "value": "US$19 at launch, US$150 by August 2023", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on the Bootstrapped Founder podcast, 16 August 2023. The price rose with each new feature. Lifetime was defined as the lifetime of the product.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Paid marketing", "value": "US$7,000 spent on TikTok influencers, no measurable traffic", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers profile, October 2024. Growth is otherwise word of mouth and the founder's posts on X.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 person, part time", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder runs his family's offline business by day and builds at night. No employees are mentioned in any source.", "src": [ 5, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "No source mentions investors. Build cost was about US$30 a month for Bubble.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the February 2026 figure", "value": "35 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 26 March 2023 to February 2026.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2018", "what": "Pereira, who studied in Delhi, worked in management consulting and ran a company in Gurgaon for two years, moves back to Goa to join the family business. From 2020 he writes and builds small products online at night.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "March 2023", "what": "He builds four tiny tools in a week to learn the new AI APIs, hosted on his personal website to save the cost of domains. One of them is a small voice-note tool.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 4 ] }, { "when": "26 March 2023", "what": "He builds the full version in under 12 hours at Half Day Build, a free hackathon he organises every two months, with a payment link live from the first minute. A few beta testers from X buy before launch; the first paying customers arrive the same day. The lifetime deal is US$19.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 7 ] }, { "when": "Late March 2023", "what": "100 paying customers within two days of launch, from his 10,000 followers on X.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "21 April 2023", "what": "400 paying users, announced on X the next day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "4 May 2023", "what": "Product Hunt launch, first product of the day. The founder delayed the launch until he already had more than 500 paying customers. The post offered 20% off Prime for the first 200 buyers.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 6 ] }, { "when": "16 May 2023", "what": "More than 500 paying subscribers in one month. Prices: annual pass US$60, lifetime US$120. Stack: Bubble, Whisper, GPT-4, Lemon Squeezy, Progressier, Loops, Zapier.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "Late May 2023", "what": "US$73,000 in revenue in two months, more than 1,000 paying users, 11,000 registered users, 4,000 visits a day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 10 ] }, { "when": "11 August 2023", "what": "About 35,000 registered and 3,000 paying users. A Goa newspaper reports that TechCrunch has mentioned the app.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "16 August 2023", "what": "On the Bootstrapped Founder podcast: 30,000 registered users, the lifetime deal now US$150, and he answers 20 to 25 support emails a day himself.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "16 May 2024", "what": "About US$15,000 a month. He says the AI API bills are his largest cost.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "29 October 2024", "what": "US$12,000 to US$15,000 a month on a US$99 annual subscription. A US$7,000 TikTok influencer test brought no noticeable traffic.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "17 February 2026", "what": "US$15,000 to US$20,000 a month from yearly and two-year plans only. He reports DDoS attacks on the service and says his goal for the next year is 10 times the current revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "An audience before the product", "text": "He had posted every small experiment on X for three years. When the hackathon version went live, people were already watching, so there were 100 paying customers in two days and 500 in a month before any launch site saw it. After that, in his words, people who are paying customers keep talking about it, and he has never had to market the product actively." }, { "title": "A rewrite, not a transcript", "text": "Speech-to-text was old. The new part in March 2023 was that a language model could turn five minutes of rambling into a tidy paragraph in the user's chosen style and language. Users show the output to other people, which is how word of mouth works for a tool whose result is a piece of text." }, { "title": "A lifetime deal that rose with every feature", "text": "There was no time to build subscriptions in 12 hours, so he sold lifetime access for US$19. Each new feature raised the price, to US$150 by August 2023, and each rise was a reason to buy now. The deal funded the first year while he worked out what usage cost him. The annual pass came next, and in 2026 only yearly and two-year passes are sold." }, { "title": "Yearly-only pricing as a workload choice", "text": "With no monthly plan there are fewer casual users, so fewer support emails for one person, and the revenue is predictable. He says this is a deliberate choice for a business he runs alone at night." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's interviews and the Product Hunt comments. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Designed in Figma, built in Bubble, a no-code web app builder costing about US$30 a month. The founder is not a developer; the MVP took about 12 hours.", "OpenAI's Whisper API for speech recognition and GPT models for rewriting. The API bills are the largest cost and scale with use, which is why the free plan limits recording length.", "Payments through Lemon Squeezy, a progressive web app through Progressier, email through Loops, and Zapier for connections. Later a backend on Xano and phone apps built in Draftbit, as readers of the 2026 Indie Hackers article summarise its paid part.", "Support is a message box in the account tab that sends an email with the user's address; the founder answered 20 to 25 a day in 2023 and refused to add a chatbot or a help page, saying the app should be clear enough not to need one.", "By 2026 the product runs on web, iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows and a Chrome extension under one account." ], "src": [ 2, 6, 7, 1, 12 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold note-taking or voice products against platforms with far more money, or could not turn free users into paying ones. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Springpad", "years": "2008 to 2014", "funding": "US$7.5M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Collect, organise and find your notes, articles and recipes in one tidy place.", "died": "A liked free product with no premium feature that users would pay for. Evernote moved faster into teams and companies.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1893-springpad" }, { "name": "Transpose", "years": "2012 to 2018", "funding": "US$0", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "An Evernote alternative with templates and collaboration for businesses.", "died": "Charged US$14.99 against Evernote with no money and no reason for anyone to switch. Few free users converted.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1849-transpose" }, { "name": "Voicery", "years": "2018 to 2021", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Text-to-speech voices that sound human.", "died": "Google, Amazon and Microsoft sold better voices cheaper, bundled with other services. US$2M could not keep up with their models.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1004-voicery" }, { "name": "Storyline", "years": "2018 to 2021", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Build Alexa voice apps without code.", "died": "Few people wanted voice apps, and the platforms were owned by Amazon and Google.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1011-storyline" }, { "name": "Petalite", "years": "2014 to 2025", "funding": "US$12M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A privacy-first voice assistant that runs on the device.", "died": "Amazon and Google sold hardware below cost and had billions of voice queries to train on. The on-device model could not improve as fast.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2471-petalite" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Voicery, Storyline and Petalite built their own voice technology and lost to companies whose models improved faster. AudioPen builds none: it rents Whisper and GPT by the minute, so when the models improve, the product improves for free. The cost moves to the user's bill, which is why the free plan is limited and there is no monthly plan.", "Springpad and Transpose had the opposite problem: a note product people liked but would not pay for. AudioPen charged from the first minute, with a lifetime deal that validated demand before any subscription existed, and it never built a free product first. About 9% of registered users paid in 2023, a high share for a consumer tool. The remaining risk is the same as the predecessors': Apple, Google and OpenAI can add a rewrite button to their own voice memo apps." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The timing, no. The method, yes.", "text": "Being the first clean voice-to-text tool on the new APIs in March 2023 was a short opening, and the phone makers now ship transcription and summaries of their own. The method is still available: build the smallest product on rented models, put a payment link on it the first day, sell to an audience you already have, and raise the price with each feature.", "steps": [ "Post what you build for a long time before you need an audience; the hackathon version sold because people were already watching.", "Put a payment link on the first version, even a lifetime deal, to see whether anyone pays before building subscriptions.", "Raise the price with each feature and say so in public; early buyers get a bargain and later buyers get a reason to hurry.", "Limit the free plan by the dimension that costs you money, here minutes of audio, and sell yearly passes so support stays small." ], "open": "Any workflow where a rented model turns a messy input into a finished output that people share: meeting notes, field reports, medical dictation in a specific speciality, or one language community's voice messages." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported ranges, no outside check", "text": "The founder gives ranges, says he keeps the exact revenue private, and no payment processor or journalist has checked the figures. The Product Hunt page today shows 877 points, while the 2023 interview said more than 1,000 upvotes." }, { "title": "Flat for three years", "text": "About US$15,000 a month in May 2024, US$12,000 to US$15,000 in October 2024, US$15,000 to US$20,000 in February 2026. The product grew in users but not much in revenue; the founder's stated goal of 10 times in a year is a goal, not a result." }, { "title": "The platforms can add the feature", "text": "Apple, Google and Samsung ship on-device transcription and summaries in their voice memo and notes apps. Every voice predecessor on this page lost to a platform owner." }, { "title": "Usage costs rise with the models", "text": "The AI API bills are the largest cost and lifetime buyers from 2023 still use the product. The founder's answer was to raise prices and remove the lifetime deal; the margin is not published." }, { "title": "One person, part time, under attack", "text": "The founder also runs a family business, answers support himself, and reported DDoS attacks in 2026. There is no second person to keep the service up." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Indie Hackers, 17 February 2026: Building an AI tool in a half-day hackathon and hitting $20k/mo", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/tech/building-an-ai-tool-in-a-half-day-hackathon-and-hitting-20k-mo-BCloDTDRfjuip0pDghap", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the open part and the founder's replies in the comments; the full article is behind a free login. Source for the US$15,000 to US$20,000 range, the yearly-only pricing, the DDoS attacks and the 10 times goal." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 16 May 2024: The App I Built In 12 Hours Now Makes $15K/Mo", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/audiopen", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview. Source for the US$15,000 a month, the four tiny products, Figma and Bubble, the Bubble cost and the API cost." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 29 October 2024: Louis Pereira, from idea to $15K a month with AudioPen (title shortened)", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/eda6e4c6e4", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Short profile; the id-only link redirects to the post's full title. Source for the US$12,000 to US$15,000 range, the 100 paying customers in two days, the US$99 annual price and the US$7,000 TikTok test." }, { "title": "Solveo, May 2023 (republished from Indie Hackers, 25 May 2023): How I accidentally created a generative AI tool that's made $73,000 in 2 months", "url": "https://www.solveo.co/post/accidentally-created-ai-tool-thats-made-73000", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The Indie Hackers original is behind a free login; its open part and comments were also read. Source for the US$73,000, the 1,000 paying and 11,000 registered users, and the Product Hunt result." }, { "title": "O Heraldo (Herald Goa), 11 August 2023: Goan creates a revolutionary AI tool for converting messy voice notes into clear, shareable text", "url": "https://www.heraldgoa.in/?p=124807", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Newspaper interview. Source for the 26 March 2023 build date, the 35,000 registered and 3,000 paying users, and the founder's background." }, { "title": "AI Makers newsletter, 16 May 2023: 500 paying customers in 1 month", "url": "https://aimakers.beehiiv.com/p/500-paying-customers-1-month", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview. Source for the 500 paying subscribers, the 2023 prices, the tool stack and the delayed Product Hunt launch." }, { "title": "The Bootstrapped Founder podcast with Arvid Kahl, 16 August 2023: Louis Pereira, When an Indie Hacker Strikes Gold (transcript)", "url": "https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/louis-pereira-when-an-indie-hacker-strikes-gold/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the transcript sections on numbers, pricing and support. Source for the 30,000 registered users, the lifetime deal from US$19 to US$150, the beta buyers and the support routine." }, { "title": "Louis Pereira on X, 22 April 2023: AudioPen crossed 400 paying users yesterday", "url": "https://x.com/louispereira/status/1649882187515453440", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API, which gives the post date." }, { "title": "Product Hunt: AudioPen, launched 4 May 2023", "url": "https://www.producthunt.com/products/audiopen", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The launch date is in the page data; the founder's launch post and his answers in the comments give the six weeks since launch, the Bubble stack and the discount code." }, { "title": "NoCodeLife, 2023: The half-day build that turned into 1,000 paying customers", "url": "https://www.nocodelife.com/the-half-day-build-that-turned-into-1-000-paying-customers/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview. Source for the 10,000 registered users, 4,000 daily visits and 1,000 paying users under two months after launch." }, { "title": "Build in Public Hub, 12 May 2023: Lessons from building AudioPen to 600+ paid users to clinching #1 on Product Hunt", "url": "https://buildinpublichub.substack.com/p/how-i-built-this-in-public-louis", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder guest post on building in public. Source for the 600 paid users in May 2023 and his approach to early users." }, { "title": "AudioPen pricing page, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://audiopen.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the pricing table, the free plan limits and the team licenses." }, { "title": "AudioPen home page, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://audiopen.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 200,000+ users claim and the list of platforms." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/remove-bg/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/remove-bg.md", "slug": "remove-bg", "name": "remove.bg", "country": "Austria", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI background removal for photos", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "exit", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "17 December 2018", "outcomeLabel": "Sold to Canva for an undisclosed price of at least US$12M, February 2021", "sticker": "Sold to Canva, price undisclosed", "outcomeUsd": 12000000, "months": 26, "teamLabel": "1 developer at the release, 2 founders, 7 people by August 2019, 25 at the sale", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "photos", "channel": "launches", "trend": "sold", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Exit", "B2B", "Image editing" ], "product": "You upload a photo. In about five seconds remove.bg returns the same photo with the background cut away, so the person or product in front stands on a transparent layer. A small preview is free; full-resolution results, the API and the Photoshop plugin cost credits.", "why": "It took one task that every designer does by hand in Photoshop, made it one click and free, and let Product Hunt, Twitter and TechCrunch spread it. Then it charged professionals for resolution and for an API, stayed profitable with no investors, and sold to Canva, which had already built the tool into its own product a year earlier.", "summary": [ "remove.bg is a web tool that removes the background from a photo. It uses image segmentation, a kind of AI model that decides for every pixel whether it belongs to the foreground (a person, later also products and animals) or to the background, and keeps fine details such as single hairs. The user does not select anything. At the release in December 2018 the tool was free, worked only on photos with a person in them, and returned images of at most 500 by 500 pixels. Later the free version became a low-resolution preview, and full resolution, an API (a paid interface that lets another program send images and get results back), a Photoshop extension and desktop apps were sold for credits, one credit per image.", "Benjamin Groessing, a developer in Vienna who ran a small web agency with David Fankhauser, released it on 17 December 2018 as a side product of another idea. TechCrunch, Product Hunt and Twitter made it known to millions within weeks. The two founders set up Kaleido AI around it, owned it half each, took no investors, and were profitable from the start. By August 2019 it had thousands of paying customers and seven people. In 2020 its monthly users grew from about 3 million to more than 20 million, and the company says its tools removed more than 100 million backgrounds a month. Canva, the Australian design platform, had used remove.bg inside its own product since about early 2020. In February 2021 Canva bought 40 percent and then 100 percent of Kaleido AI, with 25 employees in Vienna at the time.", "The price was not disclosed. The company and Canva called it one of the largest exits in Austrian startup history; Der Brutkasten quoted an industry insider saying at least a high two-digit million euro amount, and TechCrunch wrote that it may have fetched nearly nine figures. The headline number on this page is only the floor of what the press reported, tens of millions of euros, converted to dollars. No revenue figure was ever published; the best disclosed numbers are 80,000 paying customers and 270 percent revenue growth in 2019, both company statements. The page also shows what happened to earlier browser photo tools, several of which were bought by a large company and then closed." ], "factsCaption": "A free tool that reached 20 million monthly users in two years and was sold to Canva 26 months after its release, for a price that was never published", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from the acquirer's own announcement. A grade B value was read by a journalist from the Austrian company register (Firmenbuch). A grade C value is a founder or company statement to the press, or an estimate by an insider or a traffic service. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a free side project released on Twitter to a sale to Canva in 26 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "remove.bg prices in October 2026, read from the data embedded in the company's pricing page; the pay-as-you-go price is from the reviewer costbench.com (grade C)", "note": "One credit is one image at full resolution. Preview-resolution images on the website are free, and a new account gets one free credit. Subscriptions are billed monthly or yearly; the yearly price is 10 percent lower. The Professional plans run from 200 to 5,000 credits a month and the Business plans from 7,500 to 75,000; the table shows the smallest sizes. Unused subscription credits do not roll over. In 2019 the founder quoted a price starting at 18 euro cents per image, and in February 2021 Trending Topics quoted 11 cents; today the Personal plan is US$0.225 per credit and the smallest Professional plan US$0.195.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "preview resolution only" ], [ "Pay as you go", "3 one-time", "", "3 credits, from the reviewer" ], [ "Personal", "8.10", "9", "40 credits a month" ], [ "Professional, 200", "35.10", "39", "200 credits a month" ], [ "Professional, 500", "80.10", "89", "500 credits a month" ], [ "Professional, 1,200", "170.10", "189", "1,200 credits a month" ], [ "Business, 7,500", "710.10", "789", "7,500 credits a month" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Sale to Canva", "value": "100 percent of Kaleido AI, completed mid-February 2021", "grade": "A", "note": "Canva's own announcement on 23 February 2021 names Kaleido as the company behind remove.bg. Der Brutkasten read in the company register that Canva Inc became the sole owner in mid-February 2021, and that the deal was done in two steps.", "src": [ 3, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Sale price", "value": "not disclosed", "grade": "C", "note": "Both sides agreed not to publish it. Der Brutkasten quotes an industry insider: at least a high two-digit million euro amount. TechCrunch, citing Die Presse and Der Brutkasten, writes two-digit millions, which suggests a price approaching US$100 million. The founder said the deal was advised by i5invest and paid in two tranches.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Headline number on this page", "value": "at least US$12 million", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the floor of the reported range, 10 million euros, times the European Central Bank reference rate of 1.2129 US dollars per euro on 15 February 2021, equals US$12.1 million. This is a floor, not an estimate of the price.", "src": [ 1, 2, 17 ] }, { "fact": "First step of the sale", "value": "40 percent of Kaleido AI", "grade": "B", "note": "Trending Topics read in the company register on 4 February 2021 that VORGE Erste Beteiligungsverwaltung GmbH, owned fully by Canva Inc, held 40 percent, and the two founders 30 percent each.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly users at the sale", "value": "more than 20 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Company statement in the press release and to several papers. Leadersnet writes that the number rose from 3 million to more than 20 million during 2020, which the company describes as growth of more than 600 percent.", "src": [ 4, 6, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Backgrounds removed per month", "value": "more than 100 million (company), more than 150 million (Canva)", "grade": "C", "note": "The company said 100 million in its release and interviews; Canva's announcement says 150 million across photos and videos. Both are company figures, so grade C.", "src": [ 4, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Paying customers", "value": "more than 80,000 for remove.bg", "grade": "C", "note": "Futurezone, February 2021, from the company. Trend.at wrote 40,000 at about the same time. Both are company statements and the page shows the larger one with this caution.", "src": [ 7, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue", "value": "never published; growth of 270 percent in 2019", "grade": "C", "note": "Trend.at: revenue grew 270 percent in 2019, absolute figures not given. No source gives a revenue amount.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Price per image, 2019 and 2021", "value": "from 18 euro cents, later 11 euro cents", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder to Trending Topics in August 2019; Trending Topics in February 2021.", "src": [ 9, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly visits, early 2021", "value": "more than 33 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Trending Topics, citing traffic analysis services; among the 2,000 largest websites. Unscreen had more than 800,000.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Daily users inside Canva", "value": "more than 500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder to Der Brutkasten. remove.bg had been one of Canva's Pro features for about a year before the sale.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder quote in the Canva press release and to every paper: two founders and a team, profitable from the start. Trending Topics found no investor in the company register in 2019, and Der Brutkasten wrote the founders owned 50 percent each until the sale.", "src": [ 2, 9, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "7 in August 2019, 15 in March 2020, 25 at the sale, more than 70 in 2022", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder statements to Trending Topics, Futurezone and Der Brutkasten, and the company's own history page.", "src": [ 9, 13, 1, 15 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly active users, 2022", "value": "30 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Company history page, written after the sale.", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "fact": "Output at the release", "value": "free, persons only, at most 500 by 500 pixels", "grade": "C", "note": "The About page on 20 December 2018. An API was promised soon.", "src": [ 12, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the release to the sale", "value": "26 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: December 2018 to February 2021.", "src": [ 11, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2015", "what": "Groessing and Fankhauser, who run the Vienna web agency byteq, release Wurstify, a browser plugin that puts a Conchita Wurst beard on any face. The founder later calls it the foundation of Kaleido.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 13 ] }, { "when": "17 December 2018", "what": "Groessing announces remove.bg on Twitter. It is free, works only on photos with a person, and returns 500 by 500 pixels. The About page says it was a side product of another app idea.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 12, 10 ] }, { "when": "22 December 2018 to 8 January 2019", "what": "Pulse 2 and TechCrunch cover it. TechCrunch tests it on hair and quotes the About page: the current service will stay free permanently.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 11 ] }, { "when": "2019", "what": "API, Photoshop extension (April) and desktop apps (May) are released; the model now handles any photo with a clear foreground, not only people.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15, 20, 9 ] }, { "when": "30 August 2019", "what": "Thousands of paying customers worldwide, from 18 euro cents per image. Four people in Vienna and three remote. Product Hunt and Twitter are the main channels. No investor in the company register.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "2019", "what": "Revenue grows 270 percent over 2018, amount not disclosed.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "About early 2020", "what": "Canva builds remove.bg into Canva Pro as its one-click background remover. It later becomes one of the most used Pro features, with more than 500,000 daily users.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "when": "5 March 2020", "what": "Unscreen, the same for video, is released. 15 employees, profitable, no investors.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "November 2020", "what": "Unscreen Pro: one minute of full-HD video costs 5 euros.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "2020", "what": "Monthly users grow from about 3 million to more than 20 million in 180 countries.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14, 4 ] }, { "when": "4 February 2021", "what": "Trending Topics finds in the company register that a Canva holding company owns 40 percent of Kaleido AI.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "Mid-February 2021", "what": "Canva Inc becomes the sole owner, in the second of two tranches.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "23 February 2021", "what": "Canva announces the purchase together with Smartmockups. Kaleido has 25 employees and plans 30 more hires in Vienna. The founders say they declined many investment offers.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 3, 4, 6 ] }, { "when": "24 February 2021", "what": "TechCrunch: price not disclosed, speculated to be nearly nine figures. Der Brutkasten: at least a high two-digit million euro amount, per an insider.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "when": "2022", "what": "remove.bg reaches 30 million monthly active users; the Vienna team passes 70 and builds photo and video tools for Canva. Kaleido AI GmbH is later renamed Canva Austria GmbH.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15, 4 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "One task, one click, free", "text": "Cutting a person out of a photo took a designer 5 to 30 minutes in Photoshop. remove.bg did it in five seconds with no selection at all, and at the release it cost nothing. That made it easy to show in a tweet, and Product Hunt, Twitter and TechCrunch did the marketing. The founder said in 2019 that those two channels had reached millions of people." }, { "title": "Free preview, paid resolution", "text": "The free output stayed small. Anyone who needed the image for print, a shop or a catalogue paid per image, with credits sold in packs and subscriptions. The company reported thousands of paying customers after eight months and 80,000 at the sale." }, { "title": "An API for the people who do it thousands of times", "text": "Agencies and shops that cut out thousands of product photos used the API, the Photoshop extension and the desktop apps. Customers named by the company include Alibaba, Samsung and The New York Times. Canva built the API into its own editor about a year before buying the company." }, { "title": "No investors, profitable, then sold to the distributor", "text": "The founders owned the company half each and financed it from cash flow. The buyer was the company that already distributed the tool to 40 million users; Canva's head of apps said they had been in contact with the team for more than a year. The deal was done in two tranches, 40 percent and then the rest." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founders' interviews, the 2018 About page and the company's history page. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The segmentation model was trained in-house and combined with classic computer-vision algorithms for fine edges and color cleanup, according to the founder in 2019. The first version detected only persons; by 2019 it handled any photo with a separable foreground.", "The About page in December 2018 said uploaded images were deleted about an hour after processing and were not used to train the model. Today the result dialog asks the user whether to contribute an image to an improvement program.", "An API came first, then a Photoshop extension in April 2019, Windows, Mac and Linux apps in May 2019, and an Android app in June 2020.", "Pricing is credits: packs of prepaid credits, monthly subscriptions, and custom contracts for large customers. Unscreen prices video by length and quality.", "Unscreen, the video version, was built on the same technology and released in March 2020, with a Pro version in November 2020.", "Marketing was Product Hunt, Twitter and press coverage. The founders said in 2019 that they made decisions from customer feedback and did not want to be steered by investors." ], "src": [ 9, 12, 20, 1, 13, 8 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database offered browser photo tools or image AI before remove.bg. Three of them were bought by a large company and then closed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Picnik", "years": "2005 to 2012", "funding": "US$3.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Photoshop-lite photo editing in the browser, no download.", "died": "Google bought it in 2010, folded the features into Google+ and closed the product in 2012.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/429-picnik" }, { "name": "Snipshot", "years": "2006 to 2009", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Edit photos in the browser without Adobe software.", "died": "Larger rivals such as Picnik and free alternatives offered more; no clear way to charge.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1241-snipshot" }, { "name": "Pixate", "years": "2012 to 2016", "funding": "US$3.6M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Design mobile app prototypes without code.", "died": "Bought by Google, then given no resources while Figma and Sketch took the market.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/434-pixate" }, { "name": "Jetpac", "years": "2011 to 2016", "funding": "US$2.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Image recognition over Instagram photos to build travel guides.", "died": "Google bought the team in 2014 and closed the product in 2016; it also depended on Instagram's API.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/258-jetpac" }, { "name": "Everalbum", "years": "2013 to 2019", "funding": "US$19.2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Unlimited photo storage with AI organization.", "died": "Charged a subscription for what Google Photos gave away free, and paid for the storage itself.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/125-everalbum" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Picnik and Snipshot were browser photo editors with many tools and no clear thing to charge for. remove.bg had one tool, and the thing to charge for was obvious: resolution, and volume through the API. Everalbum paid for storage; remove.bg stores an image for about an hour and sells the computation. Jetpac and Pixate were bought for their people and closed.", "Two things differ. First, the model did something that free software could not do in 2018, so the free preview was a demonstration and not the product. Second, the exit was to a company that already sold the tool to its own users. Canva renamed Kaleido AI GmbH to Canva Austria GmbH, kept remove.bg running and grew the Vienna team past 70 by 2022. The product was still at 30 million monthly users a year after the sale, which is the opposite of what happened to Picnik and Pixate." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The moment, no. The structure, yes.", "text": "A segmentation model good enough to cut hair was rare in 2018; today every photo app and Canva itself has one, and the press does not write about a new background remover. The structure is still available: one AI task that professionals do by hand, free at low quality, paid per image at full quality, an API for the customers who need it thousands of times, and no investors, so a sale is a choice and not a necessity.", "steps": [ "Pick one task that professionals repeat by hand and that a model does in seconds. Make it one click with no settings.", "Give the low-quality result away so people can post it; charge per image for the quality that the work needs.", "Ship the API and the plugin for the tools the professionals already use, because volume customers pay for integration, not for a website.", "Finance it from the first paying customers. Then the companies that distribute your tool are the natural buyers." ], "open": "Any visual AI task that is still manual in professional software: video matting beyond green screen, product photo relighting, 3D from photos, and batch edits for catalogues." }, "watch": [ { "title": "No price and no revenue", "text": "The sale price was never published, and no revenue amount ever was. The headline figure on this page is a floor taken from press reports, and the two reported customer counts, 40,000 and 80,000, do not agree." }, { "title": "Company numbers only", "text": "Users, removals per month and growth rates are company statements. The traffic figure is from an analysis service quoted by a newspaper. The only register-grade facts are the ownership steps." }, { "title": "Not solo at the sale", "text": "One developer released it, but two founders owned the company from the start and 25 people worked there at the sale. It qualifies as a small team, not as a solo business." }, { "title": "The buyer already owned the channel", "text": "Canva had integrated remove.bg for about a year before the sale. A tool that lives inside a bigger product can be replaced by that product's own model, which is what the predecessors show; here the owner chose to buy instead." }, { "title": "The free tier is now the model's commodity", "text": "Background removal is built into phones, Photoshop and every design tool. The paid business depends on quality at the edges, on the API and on Canva's distribution, not on being the only tool." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Der Brutkasten, 23 February 2021: Wiener Startup Kaleido AI schafft einen der größten Exits der österreichischen Startup-Geschichte", "url": "https://brutkasten.com/artikel/wiener-startup-kaleido-ai-schafft-einen-der-grosten-exits-der-osterreichischen-startup-geschichte", "grade": "B", "how": "The live page refuses automated requests; read in full from the Internet Archive copy. Source for the company register entry, the two tranches, the insider's price range, the 500,000 daily Canva users, the 25 employees and the 50/50 ownership." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 24 February 2021: Canva acquires background removal specialists Kaleido", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/24/canva-acquires-background-removal-specialists-kaleido/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the price speculation and the founder's bootstrapping quote from the press release." }, { "title": "Canva newsroom, 23 February 2021: Canva welcomes Smartmockups and Kaleido to the family", "url": "https://www.canva.com/newsroom/news/kaleido-smartmockups/", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. The acquirer's own announcement. Source for the 150 million removals a month and the customer names." }, { "title": "Kaleido AI press release, 23 February 2021: Kaleido is joining the Canva family", "url": "https://kaleido.ai/b/kaleido-is-joining-the-canva-family", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 100 million people in 180 countries in 2020, the 25 AI experts, the declined investment offers and the renaming banner." }, { "title": "Trending Topics, 4 February 2021: Kaleido AI: Australisches Unicorn Canva steigt groß bei Wiener Startup ein", "url": "https://www.trendingtopics.eu/canva-steigt-beikaleido-ai-ein/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 40 percent stake from the company register, the 33 million monthly visits and the 11 cents per image." }, { "title": "Trending Topics, 23 February 2021: Canva: Australisches Unicorn übernimmt Wiener AI-Startup Kaleido komplett", "url": "https://www.trendingtopics.eu/canva-australisches-unicorn-uebernimmt-wiener-ai-startup-kaleido-komplett/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview. Source for the 100 percent step, the 600 percent growth, the Canva cooperation of more than a year and the hiring plan." }, { "title": "Futurezone, 23 February 2021: Millionen-Deal: Wiener Start-up Kaleido AI verkauft", "url": "https://futurezone.at/start-ups/millionen-deal-wiener-start-up-kaleido-ai-verkauft/401196236", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 80,000 paying customers and the profitability quote." }, { "title": "Trend.at, February 2021: Neuer Background für Wiener Start-up Kaleido AI: Canva übernimmt", "url": "https://www.trend.at/unternehmen/neuer-background-canva-wiener-start-kaleido-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 270 percent revenue growth in 2019, the 40,000 paying customers, the Unscreen Pro launch and prices." }, { "title": "Trending Topics, 30 August 2019: Remove.bg: Dieses Wiener Startup entfernt mit AI die Hintergründe aus deinen Bildern", "url": "https://www.trendingtopics.eu/remove-bg-dieses-wiener-startup-entfernt-mit-ai-die-hintergruende-aus-deinen-bildern/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview. Source for the agency background, Wurstify, the thousands of paying customers, the 18 cents, the team of seven and the channels." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 8 January 2019: This cool tool deletes the background from images so you don't have to use Photoshop", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/08/remove-bg-photoshop-free-image-background-editor/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Journalist's test and quotes from the About page." }, { "title": "Pulse 2.0, 22 December 2018: Remove.bg: An easy way to remove the background from photos", "url": "https://pulse2.com/remove-bg/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names Benjamin Groessing as the developer and embeds his tweet of 17 December 2018." }, { "title": "remove.bg About page, Internet Archive copy of 20 December 2018", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20181220000000/https://www.remove.bg/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the free service, persons only, the 500 by 500 limit, the privacy note and the API beta." }, { "title": "Futurezone, 5 March 2020: Hintergründe in Videos automatisch entfernen: Neues Tool aus Wien", "url": "https://futurezone.at/start-ups/hintergruende-in-videos-automatisch-entfernen-neues-tool-aus-wien/400771242", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the Unscreen release, the 15 employees and the profitability statement." }, { "title": "Leadersnet, February 2021: Australier kaufen KI-Runtastic der Wiener Start-up-Szene für Rekordsumme", "url": "https://www.leadersnet.at/news/48841,australier-kaufen-ki-runtastic-der-wiener-start-up-szene-fuer.html", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the user growth from 3 million to more than 20 million in 2020." }, { "title": "Kaleido AI company history page, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://www.kaleido.ai/about/our-story.jar", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 2015 app, the Product Hunt claim, the 2019 API, the 30 million monthly active users and the team above 70 in 2022." }, { "title": "remove.bg pricing page, read 12 October 2026, and costbench.com for the pay-as-you-go price", "url": "https://www.remove.bg/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "The page renders prices by script; the plan names, credits and prices were read from the data embedded in the page. The 3 credits for US$3 pack is from the reviewer costbench.com." }, { "title": "European Central Bank, euro foreign exchange reference rates, historical CSV", "url": "https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/eurofxref/eurofxref-hist.zip", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the row for 15 February 2021: 1.2129 US dollars per euro." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." }, { "title": "Startup Daily, February 2021: Canva buys two design startups after doubling its monthly users to 50 million", "url": "https://www.startupdaily.net/?p=87553", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Canva's co-founder quote and the founder's 600 percent statement." }, { "title": "Product Hunt, remove.bg product page with its launch list", "url": "https://www.producthunt.com/products/remove-bg", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the launch list. Source for the Photoshop extension (25 April 2019), the desktop app (18 May 2019) and the Android app (5 June 2020)." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/podsqueeze/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/podsqueeze.md", "slug": "podsqueeze", "name": "Podsqueeze", "country": "Portugal", "sector": "Media", "productType": "AI show notes and content repurposing for podcasts", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "February 2023", "outcomeLabel": "€16K a month and flat for two years, August 2026", "sticker": "$16K/mo, stuck two years", "outcomeUsd": 192000, "months": 42, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders, then 3 employees by January 2025", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Timing", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "sales", "trend": "flat", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 3, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Media" ], "product": "Upload a podcast episode and get the transcript, show notes, timestamps, a newsletter, social posts, a blog article, short video clips and quote images. The podcaster pays a monthly subscription priced by minutes of audio processed. Media companies and agencies pay custom contracts.", "why": "It was built in one week, right after the ChatGPT API appeared, by a podcaster who hated writing his own show notes. Reddit, cold email and a second place on Product Hunt took it to US$10,000 a month in five months. Then the first wave of AI curiosity ended, churn stayed high, and revenue has been flat at about €16,000 a month since 2024.", "summary": [ "Podsqueeze is a content repurposing tool: it takes one long piece of content, a podcast episode, and produces the short pieces that promote it, such as show notes, a newsletter, social posts and video clips. The audio is first turned into text by a speech-to-text model, a program that converts recorded speech into written words, and a large language model, a program that writes text from instructions, then writes the show notes and the rest. Customers pay a subscription priced by minutes of audio.", "Tiago Ferreira, a Portuguese software engineer who had worked at Trivago in Germany, and João Amaro, an architect by training who had run a cookie dough shop in Lisbon, built the first version in one week and added payments in the second. They released it at the end of February 2023. It reached US$800 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR, the subscription income that repeats every month) in the first month, US$2,000 by 2 April, US$6,500 in May, and US$10,000 on 20 July 2023. In October 2023 it made US$14,300 in revenue with US$10,725 in profit. In September 2024 the founder said it made US$16,000 a month. In August 2026 the founders appeared on Jason Cohen's podcast with the title stuck at €16,000 a month, and said they turned down an offer of 500,000 to buy the company in 2025.", "Every number on this page is a founder statement, on X, in interviews or on podcasts, grade C. No payment processor or buyer has confirmed them. This is a story about reaching a plateau as much as about reaching it fast: the page also shows what happened to earlier companies that sold convenience tools to content creators." ], "factsCaption": "Five months to US$10,000 a month on the first wave of AI interest, then about €16,000 a month, flat, for two years, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement on X, in an interview or on a podcast, or a third-party estimate that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a one-week prototype to US$10,000 a month in five months, then a plateau that has lasted longer than the growth. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Podsqueeze prices on 12 October 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C). The page shows monthly prices and a toggle that says yearly billing is 30% off; the yearly column was computed from that note", "note": "Plans are priced by minutes of audio processed per month, with unused minutes carried over up to three times the monthly amount. Each plan includes transcription, show notes and other text, a number of video clips or audiograms, and tools such as audio enhancement and an audio editor. The Enterprise plan has custom minutes and a demo call. There is no free plan on the page; the founders said on the Smart Bear Live podcast that the Pro plan has a free trial.", "rows": [ [ "Starter", "6.29", "8.99", "120 minutes a month, 8 video clips" ], [ "Pro", "34.30", "49", "320 minutes a month, 20 video clips" ], [ "Agency Lite", "62.30", "89", "600 minutes a month, 40 video clips" ], [ "Enterprise", "custom", "custom", "custom minutes and clips, priority support" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month, August 2026", "value": "about €16,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Title and summary of Smart Bear Live episode 3, 23 August 2026, where both founders appear. The host says in the introduction that it reached 16K in MRR in 18 months and that growth has plateaued. The founders showed their revenue graph on the video.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, September 2024", "value": "US$16,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Bites podcast episode notes, 13 September 2024: currently doing $16k MRR and growing. The two sources give the same figure two years apart in different currencies.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate used as the headline on this page", "value": "about US$192,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$16,000 times 12, from the September 2024 dollar figure. At €16,000 the dollar amount would be somewhat higher; the page keeps the dollar figure the founder gave.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Paying customers, August 2026", "value": "about 500", "grade": "C", "note": "Host's introduction on Smart Bear Live: only five hundred of those trial users converting to paying customers. In March 2024 the founder also said around 500 subscribers.", "src": [ 2, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Churn per month", "value": "15% to 20% in 2026; about 10% in March 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "The 2026 figure is the host's introduction on Smart Bear Live. The 2024 figure is the founder in the SaaStrappers interview, who called it terrible.", "src": [ 2, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Acquisition offer turned down", "value": "500,000, in 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Cohost Craig Hewitt on Smart Bear Live: they turned down an offer for 500 grand last year. The currency is not stated. Not verified beyond the podcast.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue and profit, October 2023", "value": "US$14,300 revenue, US$10,725 profit", "grade": "C", "note": "SpyMetrics interview with the founder, 12 November 2023. A profit margin of 75%, computed on this page.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 20 July 2023", "value": "US$10,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's X post, read through the fxtwitter API: crossed a mythical indie milestone, $10K MRR, in only 5 months.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, mid-2023", "value": "US$100,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers interview published 5 October 2023: 320 users and US$9,000 MRR five months after a late-February launch, and reaching US$100,000 ARR named as the biggest achievement. ARR is MRR times 12.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, May 2023", "value": "US$6,500", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers case study by Sveta Bay, 12 May 2023, two months after launch. SpyMetrics gives US$6,600 at the beginning of May.", "src": [ 10, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 2 April 2023", "value": "US$2,000, 1,368 users", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's X post closing the month of March: US$2,000 MRR, 1,368 users, 31,000 minutes processed.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Registered users, January 2025", "value": "more than 55,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Essential Business, 20 January 2025, from the founders. Most are free-trial users: about 500 pay, which is under 1% of 55,000, computed on this page.", "src": [ 11, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "2 co-founders, 3 employees in January 2025, 1 contractor in Latin America in 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Essential Business says the company Userquest Lda, formed at the end of 2023, has two partners and three more employees. On Smart Bear Live the founders said they hired a person in Latin America for sales. Latka counts 1 person on LinkedIn.", "src": [ 11, 2, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Essential Business: entirely bootstrapped, developed without any kind of external investment. The founders split the company 50/50.", "src": [ 11, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Latka's revenue estimate for 2024", "value": "US$182,200 a year", "grade": "C", "note": "A third-party estimate, marked as such. Latka also records US$144,000 a year for October 2023 from X, which is US$12,000 a month.", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the August 2026 figure", "value": "42 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: February 2023 to August 2026. SpyMetrics lists the launch as 29 January 2023; the founder says the end of February.", "src": [ 1, 9, 8 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2021", "what": "Ferreira leaves a well-paid engineering job to build his own products, starts the Wannabe Entrepreneur podcast and a paid community that reaches about US$600 a month. He interviews more than 60 bootstrapped founders.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "Late 2022", "what": "He and Amaro agree to build products together, one month each, and kill any that get no traction. Their first, a Product Hunt competitor called Indie Lottery, is dropped.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "February 2023", "what": "With the ChatGPT API new, they build Podsqueeze in one week to write show notes for Ferreira's own podcast and add Stripe payments in the second week. Released at the end of February. The first week brings one paying customer and many excited users reporting bugs.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 7 ] }, { "when": "29 March 2023", "what": "US$800 MRR in the first month. Product Hunt launch, second product of the day with 632 votes, about 5,000 visitors, 40 new users on the day and US$500 more MRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 8, 10 ] }, { "when": "2 April 2023", "what": "US$2,000 MRR, 1,368 users, 31,000 minutes of audio processed.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "May 2023", "what": "US$6,500 MRR two months after launch. First ten customers came from Reddit, AI newsletters and cold email within two weeks of launch.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 8 ] }, { "when": "19 July 2023", "what": "4,000 cold emails a day from their own email server.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "20 July 2023", "what": "US$10,000 MRR, five months after launch, after ten years of trying different projects.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "September 2023", "what": "Growth slows. The founders say they had expected the AI trend alone to carry them to a million in ARR and had neglected lasting marketing channels. They pay about US$1,000 for an SEO audit and start writing two or three articles a week.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "October 2023", "what": "US$14,300 in revenue and US$10,725 in profit for the month. Reaching US$100,000 ARR named as the biggest achievement.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 7 ] }, { "when": "End of 2023", "what": "The founders form Userquest Lda in Portugal to hold Podsqueeze and other products.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "17 March 2024", "what": "About US$14,000 MRR, around 500 subscribers, churn of about 10% a month. The goal for 2024 is US$100,000 MRR, which would need about 2,000 subscribers.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "13 September 2024", "what": "US$16,000 MRR and growing, per the Indie Bites episode notes.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "20 January 2025", "what": "More than 55,000 users. The company has two partners and three employees, no outside investment.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "2025", "what": "The founders turn down an offer of 500,000 to buy the company. Portuguese media groups become customers at a few hundred a month each and add about 2,000 to MRR; a 5x price rise for them goes through without objection.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "23 August 2026", "what": "On Smart Bear Live, Jason Cohen and Craig Hewitt work through why revenue has sat at about €16,000 a month for two years: 15% to 20% monthly churn, about 500 paying customers, and a self-serve podcaster market where most shows stop within months.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Timing", "text": "The ChatGPT API came out in early 2023 and podcasters had never seen show notes written for them in one click. The founders say the first wave of AI interest, plus one Product Hunt launch, did most of the work up to US$10,000 a month, and that they wrongly expected it to continue on its own." }, { "title": "Build for yourself, in one week", "text": "Ferreira ran a podcast and wrote show notes by hand. The product was the fix for his own task, so the first version was correct enough to excite users who then stayed through the bugs. The rule was one month per product, kill it if nobody is excited." }, { "title": "Cold email at scale", "text": "They collected podcasters' email addresses and sent 300 a day, then 4,000 a day from their own email server, with short personal messages that end in a question. This, Reddit and AI directories brought the first customers and kept working after Product Hunt." }, { "title": "Price by minutes, carry the model cost", "text": "Unlike a bring-your-own-key tool, Podsqueeze pays for transcription and text generation itself and charges by minutes of audio. The founders reported a 75% profit margin in October 2023. Minutes that roll over keep customers from feeling cheated on quiet months." }, { "title": "What stopped working", "text": "Podcasts fade: most shows stop within months, so a self-serve subscriber stops paying when the show stops. With 15% to 20% of customers leaving each month, new sign-ups only replace the lost ones. Revenue growth after 2024 came from a few media companies in Portugal, which stay and accepted a 5x price rise, but the founders have not repeated that outside Portugal." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founders' interviews and podcast appearances. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Python backend, JavaScript and React frontend, hosted on Google Cloud Platform. Payments through Stripe from the second week.", "The first version took one week; a weekly go or no-go decision followed for the first months.", "Marketing: Reddit posts, listings on AI directories, cold email from their own SMTP server at up to 4,000 messages a day, a Product Hunt launch, then SEO from late 2023 after a paid audit.", "The product grew from show notes into transcription in more than 20 languages, video clips, quote images, audio enhancement, an audio editor and podcast landing pages, which the podcast hosts in 2026 argued made the home page talk to everyone.", "Media companies in Portugal were sold by the founders in person; a hired contractor in Latin America tried the same by WhatsApp and demos, with meetings but few sales.", "The company, Userquest Lda in Lisbon, also holds the founders' other products." ], "src": [ 7, 9, 2, 11, 8 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold tools that saved content creators effort, and died when the platforms added the feature or the creators stopped creating. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Pixelpipe", "years": "2008 to 2013", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Post your photos and videos to every social network at once.", "died": "The social networks closed their APIs and built cross-posting in themselves.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/435-pixelpipe" }, { "name": "Pressly", "years": "2011 to 2018", "funding": "US$2.9M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Curate and distribute content for your brand with less effort.", "died": "Larger competitors offered full content suites and basic curation was not enough to keep paying.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/462-pressly" }, { "name": "HighlightCam", "years": "2009 to 2012", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Automatic video editing by algorithm, no skill needed.", "died": "Free smartphone apps did the same and the market did not know it needed the product.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1636-highlightcam" }, { "name": "ReelSurfer", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$1.25M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Clip and share segments of online video without technical skill.", "died": "YouTube and Facebook added clipping; few people paid for a separate tool.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1577-reelsurfer" }, { "name": "Trapit", "years": "2011 to 2019", "funding": "US$21.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "AI-curated content feeds for marketers.", "died": "Stayed a niche, overpriced tool while large platforms covered the same need.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/658-trapit" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five sold a convenience to people who publish content, and the convenience stopped selling when a platform added it for free or when the publishers lost interest. Podsqueeze faces both: podcast hosting services and the model providers themselves can add show notes, and most podcasters stop publishing within months, which the founders and their hosts name as the main reason revenue has not grown since 2024.", "Two things differ. First, Podsqueeze cost almost nothing to build and reached profit in months, so it survives a plateau that a funded company could not; the five predecessors spent between US$500,000 and US$21.5 million before closing. Second, the founders found one customer type that does not fade, media companies with many shows, and those customers accepted a price five times higher. Whether that can be sold outside Portugal is the open question in the August 2026 episode." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The first five months, yes. The business after that, only with a different customer.", "text": "The method that produced US$10,000 a month in five months is plain and repeatable: build the tool for your own repeated task, ship in a week, charge from the second week, and reach customers by cold email and Reddit. What it does not give you is a customer who keeps paying. Pick a customer whose need does not fade, such as an agency or a media company with many shows, before the first wave of interest ends.", "steps": [ "Pick a task you do every week and hate; write the first version in one week and add payments in the second.", "Send cold email at volume from your own server, with a short personal message that ends in a question.", "Launch once on Product Hunt with your network warmed up a week before, and treat it as a one-time event.", "Measure monthly churn from the first month. If it is above 10%, change the customer, not the feature list.", "Charge by a unit that grows with the customer, such as minutes or shows, and test much higher prices on business customers." ], "open": "Any repeated writing or editing task for a group that publishes constantly: newsletters, video channels, local media, agencies, internal communications teams, and the regulated industries where a transcript must be kept." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported, with a currency change", "text": "The 2024 figure is in dollars and the 2026 figure in euros, both about 16,000 a month. No one outside the company has checked either. Latka's 2024 estimate is in the same range." }, { "title": "The plateau is the main fact", "text": "Revenue has been flat for two years, with 15% to 20% of customers leaving every month. The founders chose to keep the company rather than sell it for 500,000; the podcast hosts argue that a flat, self-serve business is worth less each year it stays flat." }, { "title": "The platforms can add the feature", "text": "Every predecessor on this page died when a platform built the convenience in. Podcast hosts, YouTube and the model providers can all produce show notes and clips, and in 2026 there are hundreds of tools that cut podcasts into shorts." }, { "title": "Growth outside Portugal has not worked yet", "text": "The customers who stay are Portuguese media groups won by the founders in person. A hired salesperson in Latin America got meetings but few contracts." }, { "title": "Launch date differs by source", "text": "SpyMetrics lists 29 January 2023; the founders say the end of February. This page uses February 2023 and the 42-month count depends on it." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Smart Bear Live, episode 3, 23 August 2026: Restarting growth after stuck at €16k/mo, show notes", "url": "https://smartbearlive.transistor.fm/3", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Jason Cohen's podcast with Tiago Ferreira and João Amaro as guests and Craig Hewitt as cohost. Source for the €16,000 a month, the two flat years and the timestamps on the 500K offer and the 5x price test." }, { "title": "Smart Bear Live, episode 3, transcript", "url": "https://smartbearlive.transistor.fm/3/transcript", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the introduction and the sections on churn, the Portuguese media customers, the Latin America hire, the price rise and the offer. Automatic transcript, about 35,000 words." }, { "title": "Indie Bites, 13 September 2024: How Podsqueeze grew to $16k MRR in 18 months, Tiago Ferreira", "url": "https://share.transistor.fm/s/02980e76", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the episode notes in full. Source for the US$16,000 MRR in September 2024. The audio was not transcribed." }, { "title": "Tiago Ferreira on X, 20 July 2023: $10K MRR", "url": "https://x.com/wbetiago/status/1682035513660952576", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Names @JOAOTHA as co-founder." }, { "title": "Tiago Ferreira on X, 2 April 2023: closing the month of March", "url": "https://x.com/wbetiago/status/1642429155534053376", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for US$2,000 MRR, 1,368 users and 31,000 minutes." }, { "title": "Tiago Ferreira on X, 29 March 2023: Product Hunt launch", "url": "https://x.com/wbetiago/status/1640973197771264000", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for US$800 MRR in the first month." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 5 October 2023: How Tiago grew an AI SaaS to over 100K ARR in 5 months", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-tiago-grew-an-ai-saas-to-over-100k-arr-in-5-months-c6fa354bc5", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview. Source for the late-February launch, 320 users, US$9,000 MRR, US$100,000 ARR and the tech stack." }, { "title": "SpyMetrics, 12 November 2023: Podsqueeze.com made $14,300 in revenue last month", "url": "https://spymetrics.beehiiv.com/p/podsqueeze", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Interview with the founder, with his X posts embedded. Source for the October 2023 revenue and profit, the Product Hunt figures, the cold email volumes and the 29 January launch date." }, { "title": "SaaStrappers, 17 March 2024: From podcasting to a tool for podcasters, Tiago Ferreira", "url": "https://saastrappers.beehiiv.com/p/18-podcasting-tool-podcasters", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Interview transcript. Source for the one-week build, the plateau from September 2023, the SEO audit, the 500 subscribers, the 10% churn, the 50/50 split and the earlier community income." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 12 May 2023: Reaching $6.5K MRR with SaaS for podcasts in 2 months", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/reaching-6-5k-mrr-with-saas-for-podcasts-in-2-months-9458343b5f", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Case study by Sveta Bay with the founder's answers. Source for the US$6,500 MRR, the first ten customers and the Product Hunt traffic." }, { "title": "Essential Business, 20 January 2025: Young Portuguese entrepreneurs shake-up digital content creation with AI", "url": "https://www.essential-business.pt/?p=29287", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Portuguese business news site, based on the founders' statements. Source for both founders' full names and backgrounds, the 55,000 users, the no-investment statement, Userquest Lda and the three employees." }, { "title": "Latka company page: Podsqueeze revenue 2024, estimate", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/podsqueeze", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party estimate marked as such, an October 2023 figure attributed to X, and a LinkedIn headcount." }, { "title": "Podsqueeze pricing page, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://podsqueeze.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Monthly prices and plan limits. The yearly price is shown only through a script toggle labeled 30% off, so the yearly column was computed." }, { "title": "Podsqueeze home page, team section, and the co-founder's X profile", "url": "https://podsqueeze.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the team section. The co-founder entry links to the X account @JOAOTHA, whose profile name, read through the fxtwitter API, is João Amaro." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/sitegpt/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/sitegpt.md", "slug": "sitegpt", "name": "SiteGPT", "country": "India", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI customer-support chatbot trained on a website", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "30 March 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$190K a year recurring revenue, December 2025", "sticker": "$190K ARR, two brothers", "outcomeUsd": 190000, "months": 33, "teamLabel": "1 founder alone for about 14 months, then 2 brothers, no employees", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Speed", "group": "support-agents", "channel": "search", "trend": "growing", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 3, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Customer support" ], "product": "A company pastes its website address. SiteGPT reads every page, builds a chatbot that answers visitor questions from that content, and puts it on the site. Plans are priced by the number of chatbots, pages and messages. There is no free plan, only a 7-day trial.", "why": "It was built in two to three weeks as a side feature for an existing product and launched with a paywall on day one, one month after the ChatGPT API appeared. It reached US$10,000 a month in 25 days, then lost half of it to churn. What kept it alive for three years was cheap customer acquisition: more than 50 free web tools that rank on Google and send visitors to the paid product.", "summary": [ "SiteGPT is a customer-support chatbot for websites. A customer-support chatbot is a program that answers visitor questions in a chat window instead of a person. SiteGPT builds the answers from the company's own pages: it crawls the website, stores the text, and gives it to a language model when a visitor asks something. Chatbase, already on this site, sells the same idea from Canada and the USA at about fifty times the revenue; SiteGPT is the small, two-person version of the same category, run from India.", "Bhanu Teja Pachipulusu, a software engineer who had left his job to build small products, started it in March 2023 as a feature for his earlier product Feather, a tool that turns Notion pages into a blog. He launched it on 30 March 2023 with a post on X and a paywall. In 25 days it passed US$10,000 of monthly recurring revenue (MRR, the subscription revenue of one month). Then about half of the customers left, and revenue stayed near US$15,000 a month for the next year. In late 2024 he stopped accepting new sign-ups for three months and MRR fell to US$8,200. In April 2025 he and his brother, who had joined in 2024, nearly sold the product, then decided to work on nothing else. MRR almost doubled in eight months to US$15,800 at the end of 2025, which is US$190,000 of annual recurring revenue (ARR, MRR multiplied by twelve). In February 2026 he wrote that it had crossed US$20,000 a month.", "Every number on this page is a founder statement, mostly from his own posts on X, grade C. No payment processor or buyer has confirmed them. The page also shows four earlier companies that promised a computer that answers questions in plain language and failed before language models existed." ], "factsCaption": "A side feature that reached US$10,000 a month in 25 days, then needed three years to get to US$190,000 a year, all self-reported by the founder on X", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement from his posts on X or his interviews, or an estimate by a third party that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a weekend experiment to a two-brother business at US$190,000 a year, with a crash and a near-sale in between, in 33 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "SiteGPT prices read from the company's pricing page on 12 October 2026 (grade C)", "note": "A message is one answer from the chatbot. The message limit counts answers from a small model (GPT-4.1 mini); an answer from the large model (GPT-4.1) uses ten times the quota. A page is 2,500 characters of cleaned text from the company's website or files. Extra packs of 5,000 messages cost US$59 a month. Every self-serve plan starts with a 7-day trial that requires a credit card. Yearly billing is about 34% to 40% cheaper than monthly billing.", "rows": [ [ "Starter", "39", "59", "1 chatbot, 4,000 messages a month, 1,000 pages" ], [ "Growth", "79", "129", "2 chatbots, 10,000 messages a month, 10,000 pages, API" ], [ "Scale", "259", "429", "3 chatbots, 40,000 messages a month, 50,000 pages, webhooks" ], [ "Enterprise", "custom", "custom", "up to 500,000 pages, custom integrations, HIPAA agreement" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 31 December 2025", "value": "US$15,800", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X on 1 January 2026: he ended the year at US$15,800 MRR, almost double the start of the year.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, 18 December 2025", "value": "US$190,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X. This is the headline figure of this page. US$15,800 times 12 is US$189,600, so the two posts agree.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 25 February 2026", "value": "more than US$20,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, quoted by the Arrfounder directory. The post itself could not be opened on 12 October 2026, so this value is not verified on this page. It would be US$240,000 a year.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in calendar year 2024", "value": "US$251,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 30 December 2024. His total 2024 income was US$524,000: SiteGPT US$251,000, Feather US$22,000 before its sale, and the Feather sale US$251,000.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Average SiteGPT revenue per month in 2024", "value": "about US$20,900", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 251,000 divided by 12. Higher than the MRR of that year because it includes yearly plans paid up front and one-time charges.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue, expenses and profit, June 2024", "value": "US$15,801 revenue, US$4,271 expenses, US$11,530 profit, 73% margin", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's monthly update on X, 1 July 2024. MRR was US$11,700 at that time, growing 4% a month.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 1 January 2025", "value": "US$8,200", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X. He had closed new sign-ups more than three months earlier and MRR had been falling since.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue, expenses and churn, August 2025", "value": "US$10,183 revenue, US$2,230 expenses, MRR growth 8%, churn under 5%", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's monthly update on X, 1 September 2025. Churn is the share of customers who cancel in a month.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, August 2025", "value": "about 78%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: (10,183 minus 2,230) divided by 10,183.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "MRR growth during 2025", "value": "about 1.9 times, from US$8,200 to US$15,800", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 15,800 divided by 8,200. The founder writes almost doubled.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to US$10,000 MRR", "value": "25 days", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 30 March 2023 to 24 April 2023, the date of the post Crossed $10k now.", "src": [ 7, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Churn after the launch month", "value": "about half of customers", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview, October 2023: US$10,000 MRR in the first month and US$5,000 of churn the next month.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, October 2023", "value": "about US$15,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview with Starter Story, six months after launch.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Website visitors in the first five days", "value": "more than 40,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X with a traffic chart, 4 April 2023. About 15,000 on launch day according to his interview.", "src": [ 9, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Show HN post, 1 April 2023", "value": "118 points, 96 comments, front page", "grade": "C", "note": "Read from the Hacker News search API. The front-page claim is the founder's.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Product Hunt launch, 5 April 2023", "value": "667 upvotes on the product page today; number 2 of the day in the founder's post that morning", "grade": "C", "note": "Later case studies write number 1 of the day. The founder's own post that morning says number 2 with the top entries very close. This page does not settle it.", "src": [ 14, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Paying customers and revenue per customer, January 2026", "value": "about 130 businesses at about US$100 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in a video interview, summarized by Superframeworks. Lifetime value US$1,700 to US$1,800 per customer, which is 17 to 18 months at US$100.", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "fact": "Total revenue since launch, early 2026", "value": "more than US$500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Same interview. Consistent with US$251,000 in 2024 alone.", "src": [ 12, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Free tools built for search traffic", "value": "more than 50", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: about 90% of Google traffic lands on these tools, about 50,000 visits a month give 200 leads, 60 trials, and 25% to 40% of trials pay.", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "fact": "Sale of the previous product Feather, 2024", "value": "US$251,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 30 December 2024. Feather was at about US$6,000 MRR, so the price was about 3.5 times its yearly revenue.", "src": [ 3, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder statements throughout. Two brothers, no employees.", "src": [ 2, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Latka's revenue estimate, June 2024", "value": "US$300,000 a year", "grade": "C", "note": "A third-party estimate, marked as such. Higher than the founder's 2024 revenue of US$251,000.", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the December 2025 figure", "value": "33 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: March 2023 to December 2025.", "src": [ 2, 7 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2021 to 2022", "what": "Pachipulusu leaves a software job after eight months, moves back to his parents' house in Andhra Pradesh to have no expenses, and builds Feather, a Notion-to-blog tool, to about US$4,000 to US$6,000 MRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 12 ] }, { "when": "15 March 2023", "what": "He posts that he will try to build a new AI project that weekend, because he feels behind on everything related to AI. The idea: his 100 Feather customers all have blogs, so let visitors chat with the blog.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 10 ] }, { "when": "27 March 2023", "what": "Paddle, the payment processor, approves his account. He builds the first version in two to three weeks with one feature: paste a website address, get a chatbot. No free plan, prices set high in case the model bills were large.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 10 ] }, { "when": "30 March 2023", "what": "Launch with one post on X to about 10,000 followers, paywall already in place. First customers within the hour, about 15,000 visitors on the day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 10 ] }, { "when": "1 to 5 April 2023", "what": "Show HN reaches the front page with 118 points. A denial-of-service attack hits both products the same day. 40,000 visitors in five days. He launches on Product Hunt without a plan and reaches number 2, later reported as number 1.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 13, 14 ] }, { "when": "24 April 2023", "what": "Crossed US$10,000 MRR, 25 days after launch. The next month about half of the customers cancel.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 10 ] }, { "when": "October 2023", "what": "About US$15,000 MRR, six months after launch. He writes that the hype brought curious buyers and that real businesses only started to sign up after it ended.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "13 June 2024", "what": "His elder brother Sai Dheeraj leaves his job and joins as co-founder. June revenue US$15,801, profit US$11,530, MRR US$11,700.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 18, 6 ] }, { "when": "Late 2024", "what": "Feather is sold for US$251,000. New sign-ups to SiteGPT are closed for more than three months, and MRR drifts down.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "when": "1 January 2025", "what": "MRR US$8,200. He sets a goal of US$1 million ARR, which needs about 10 times the current MRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "April 2025", "what": "After two years without growth, the brothers try to sell. Only one buyer appears, at a much lower price. At signing time they refuse, shut down every other side project, and work only on SiteGPT.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "10 August 2025", "what": "Back to US$10,000 MRR for the third time. Churn under 5% by the end of the month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 19, 5 ] }, { "when": "28 October to 5 December 2025", "what": "US$13,000, then US$14,000, then US$15,000 MRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 20, 1 ] }, { "when": "18 December 2025", "what": "US$190,000 ARR. Two people building, coding and growing.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "1 January 2026", "what": "Year ends at US$15,800 MRR, almost double January 2025.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "25 February 2026", "what": "More than US$20,000 MRR, which he attributes to a new side product, MissionControlHQ. Quoted by a directory; the post itself could not be opened.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Speed, with a paywall on day one", "text": "OpenAI released the ChatGPT API on 1 March 2023. SiteGPT launched on 30 March with one feature and no free plan. The founder wrote that every day of delay he saw a similar product appear. The first week brought US$10,000 of monthly revenue because the launch post, Show HN and Product Hunt all hit in five days. He says himself that this cannot be repeated on demand." }, { "title": "Engineering as marketing", "text": "After the launch spike, the growth channel was free web tools: a sitemap generator, a meta-tag checker, a PDF-to-Markdown converter, an FAQ generator, more than 50 in all. Each targets a Google keyword with low competition, and each ends with a link to SiteGPT. By 2026 these tools brought about 90% of Google traffic, about 50,000 visits a month, and the paid product had no advertising budget. With a coding assistant, a new tool now takes about five minutes." }, { "title": "Reuse of an existing customer list", "text": "The first users were the roughly 100 paying customers of Feather, who all ran blogs. The product was a feature for them before it was a company." }, { "title": "Retention before growth", "text": "Three times the product fell back below US$10,000 MRR. The recovery in 2025 came from working on churn, not on sign-ups: closing new sign-ups for three months, talking to customers, and getting churn under 5% a month before trying new positioning." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's posts on X and his interviews. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Built in two to three weeks in March 2023 as a side feature of Feather, with one function: crawl a website and answer questions from its text with the OpenAI API.", "Paddle as the payment processor and merchant of record, so a founder in India could charge customers worldwide. Account approval took a few weeks and delayed the launch.", "No free plan from the first day, because the founder says he cannot convert free users to paid. Prices were set high in case the model bills were large.", "The launch broke the servers. The founder spent two days rewriting code for the traffic, and Cloudflare reported a denial-of-service attack on the second day.", "Pricing is metered on three things: chatbots, pages of content, and messages a month. Answers from the large model count ten times as much against the message limit.", "Marketing is more than 50 free tools on the company site, generated from a template with a coding assistant, plus the founder's monthly revenue posts on X. No paid advertising.", "Team of two brothers, no employees. The second brother joined in June 2024." ], "src": [ 7, 10, 12, 15, 18 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised a computer that answers a question asked in plain language. All four needed hand-written answers or custom models. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Ask Jeeves", "years": "1996 to 2007", "funding": "US$50M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Ask the web a question in plain English instead of keywords.", "died": "Human editors wrote the answers, so cost grew with every new question. Google answered with an algorithm at no marginal cost. The natural-language interface was dropped in 2006.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/10-ask-jeeves" }, { "name": "Tellme", "years": "1999 to 2011", "funding": "US$238M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Ask for stock prices, weather and services by voice over the phone, with no human operator.", "died": "Every answer path was built by hand. Smartphone apps and the voice assistants of Google and Apple replaced it. Microsoft bought it in 2007 and phased it out.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/612-tellme" }, { "name": "VocalIQ", "years": "2011 to 2017", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A dialogue system that understands context and improves with use.", "died": "It could not compete with the voice teams of Apple, Google and Amazon. Apple bought it in 2015 and folded the technology into Siri.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/719-vocaliq" }, { "name": "AllHere", "years": "2016 to 2024", "funding": "US$13M", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "An AI chatbot that talks to families in many languages to reduce school absence.", "died": "It built custom language models before GPT and had to keep paying engineers to maintain them. The chatbot misunderstood parents, and a data breach and fraud charges ended the company.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2306-allhere" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Before 2023, a program that answered questions needed its answers written or modelled by people. Ask Jeeves paid editors per question. Tellme built every voice menu by hand. AllHere trained its own models and could not keep up with them. In each case the cost of adding one more question grew with the size of the knowledge.", "A rented language model removed that cost. SiteGPT reads a website once and the model composes the answer to any question. One engineer built it in two to three weeks, as a side feature, and sold it with a paywall from the first hour. AllHere is the sharpest contrast: it raised US$13 million for custom models and closed in 2024, while SiteGPT ran at a 73% to 78% margin on a model it does not own." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The launch, no. The acquisition method, yes.", "text": "Chatbots trained on a website were copied hundreds of times in 2023, and SiteGPT itself was nearly sold in 2025 because it had not grown for two years. The part worth copying is cheap acquisition: free tools that rank on Google for low-competition keywords and point at the paid product. That method works for any business software and costs nothing but time.", "steps": [ "Build the first version as a feature for customers you already have, then make it a product if strangers want it too.", "Launch with a paywall and no free plan; price high enough that the model bills cannot surprise you.", "Find keywords with low difficulty and real search volume, build one small free tool per keyword, and end every tool with a link to the paid product.", "When growth stops, measure churn before you buy more sign-ups. Under 5% a month is the founder's target.", "Post revenue, expenses and churn every month in public. The posts are the marketing, and they are also the source for pages like this one." ], "open": "A support chatbot for one industry with the integrations that industry needs, for example clinics, property managers, or online shops in one country. SiteGPT sells the generic version; the vertical version is still open, as the Chatbase page also notes." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Numbers only from the founder", "text": "Every revenue figure here is from his posts on X or interviews. Two of the posts, the US$140,000 ARR post of September 2025 and the US$20,000 MRR post of February 2026, could not be opened on 12 October 2026 and are known only from a directory's quotation." }, { "title": "Growth is slow", "text": "The product reached US$10,000 MRR in 25 days and US$15,800 MRR after 33 months. The founder's goal of US$1 million ARR needs more than five times the current revenue. He wrote in September 2025 that something needs to change for SiteGPT to become a US$1 million business." }, { "title": "A crowded category with cheap copies", "text": "Chatbase sells the same product at about US$10 million ARR, and Intercom and Zendesk bundle AI agents into their support suites. A Show HN post in 2024 advertised a 10 times cheaper alternative to SiteGPT." }, { "title": "Free-tool traffic can be diluted", "text": "Any founder with a coding assistant can now build the same free tools in minutes. Google rankings for low-competition keywords are the whole acquisition channel." }, { "title": "Product Hunt rank is uncertain", "text": "The founder's own post on launch morning says number 2 of the day. Later case studies say number 1. This page does not know which is right." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Bhanu Teja P on X, 1 January 2026: Ended the year with $15.8k MRR", "url": "https://x.com/pbteja1998/status/2006676983024071147", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Founder's own post. Source for the year-end MRR." }, { "title": "Bhanu Teja P on X, 18 December 2025: Can't believe SiteGPT is actually at $190k ARR now", "url": "https://x.com/pbteja1998/status/2001757078264877136", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Founder's own post. Source for the headline ARR, the near-sale in April 2025 and the team of two." }, { "title": "Bhanu Teja P on X, 30 December 2024: 2024 revenue, SiteGPT $251k, Feather acquisition $251k", "url": "https://x.com/pbteja1998/status/1873663403245412430", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the 2024 revenue and the Feather sale price." }, { "title": "Bhanu Teja P on X, 1 January 2025: My goal for 2025 is to get to $1M ARR", "url": "https://x.com/pbteja1998/status/1874439566708580804", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the US$8,200 MRR and the closed sign-ups." }, { "title": "Bhanu Teja P on X, 1 September 2025: August 2025 update for SiteGPT.ai", "url": "https://x.com/pbteja1998/status/1962388042792251459", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the August 2025 revenue, expenses, growth and churn." }, { "title": "Bhanu Teja P on X, 1 July 2024: June 2024 update for SiteGPT.ai", "url": "https://x.com/pbteja1998/status/1807676777575379334", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the June 2024 revenue, expenses, profit and MRR." }, { "title": "Bhanu Teja P on X, 15 to 30 March 2023: the posts before and at launch, ending with Finally launching SiteGPT.ai", "url": "https://x.com/pbteja1998/status/1641448570569015296", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the launch post and the five posts before it (15, 27, 29 and 30 March) through the fxtwitter API. Source for the launch date, the Paddle approval and the paywall." }, { "title": "Bhanu Teja P on X, 24 April 2023: Crossed $10k now", "url": "https://x.com/pbteja1998/status/1650586632444149763", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Three words and a date; the US$10,000 MRR meaning is confirmed by the Starter Story interview." }, { "title": "Bhanu Teja P on X, 31 March to 5 April 2023: launch-week posts on traffic, the attack, Hacker News and Product Hunt", "url": "https://x.com/pbteja1998/status/1643289275096522756", "grade": "C", "how": "Read seven posts of that week through the fxtwitter API. Source for the 40,000 visitors, the denial-of-service attack and the Product Hunt rank that morning." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 8 October 2023: How my AI side project grew to $15K MRR in just a few months", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/sitegpt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview in his own words. Source for the origin in Feather, the build time, the pricing decisions, the launch-day visitors, the churn and the October 2023 MRR." }, { "title": "Arrfounder, 25 February 2026: SiteGPT crosses $20K MRR, quoting the founder's post", "url": "https://arrfounder.com/news/sitegpt-crosses-20k-mrr", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The founder's post of 25 February 2026 could not be opened on X (fxtwitter returned 404 on 12 October 2026), so the US$20,000 figure is cited from this directory's quotation and marked not verified. The same directory quotes the US$140,000 ARR post of 16 September 2025." }, { "title": "Superframeworks case study, 10 January 2026: $13K MRR, engineering as marketing masterclass", "url": "https://superframeworks.com/case-study/sitegpt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Summarizes a video interview with the founder. Source for the customer count, revenue per customer, lifetime value, total revenue, the free-tools funnel and the founder's background." }, { "title": "Hacker News search API record of the Show HN post, 1 April 2023", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35404852", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the API record (hn.algolia.com), not the discussion. Source for the 118 points and 96 comments." }, { "title": "Product Hunt product page for SiteGPT, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://www.producthunt.com/products/sitegpt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the page text. Source for the 667 upvotes and the 2023 launch." }, { "title": "SiteGPT pricing page, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://sitegpt.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The page carries the prices in plain text, including the yearly totals. Source for the pricing table and the message and page limits." }, { "title": "Latka company page: SiteGPT revenue 2024, estimate", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/sitegpt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party estimate of US$300,000 a year for June 2024, plus the founding year and the city, Nellore." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." }, { "title": "Bhanu Teja P on X, 13 June 2024: on his brother joining SiteGPT", "url": "https://x.com/pbteja1998/status/1801346064412536870", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the date the brother joined as co-founder." }, { "title": "Bhanu Teja P on X, 10 August 2025: Finally got SiteGPT.ai back to $10k MRR (again)", "url": "https://x.com/pbteja1998/status/1954489670638989471", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the third return to US$10,000 MRR and the churn target." }, { "title": "Bhanu Teja P on X, 28 October, 25 November and 5 December 2025: crossed $13k, $14k and $15k MRR", "url": "https://x.com/pbteja1998/status/1983070404261581031", "grade": "C", "how": "Read all three posts through the fxtwitter API. Source for the autumn 2025 milestones." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/rytr/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/rytr.md", "slug": "rytr", "name": "Rytr", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI writing assistant", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "exit", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "13 April 2021", "outcomeLabel": "Sold for an undisclosed price after a US$1M a year run rate, October 2022", "sticker": "Sold after $1M ARR", "outcomeUsd": 1000000, "months": 18, "teamLabel": "2 founders and 1 employee at US$1M ARR", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Price", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "search", "trend": "sold", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 2, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Exit", "B2C", "Marketing content" ], "product": "A web page where a user picks a use case (blog outline, product description, email, ad text), a tone and a language, types a few words, and gets a short text written by GPT-3. The free plan gives a monthly character limit; paid plans remove it. Rytr sells the output of OpenAI's model with a simpler interface and a much lower price than the other AI writing tools of 2021.", "why": "It entered an existing market with a lower price (US$29 a month for unlimited use, later US$9) and a simpler interface, sold the first customers through AppSumo, and put all marketing effort into search engine ranking, an affiliate program and a reward for reviews. It reached about US$1 million a year in revenue in seven months with three people, and a competitor bought it 18 months after launch.", "summary": [ "Rytr is an AI writing assistant: a web tool that sends a short instruction to a language model and returns a draft text for a given purpose, such as a blog outline, a product description or an email. It was built on GPT-3, the text model that OpenAI opened to developers through an API in 2020. Rytr adds a form with more than 40 use cases, 20 tones and about 30 languages, formats the request before it goes to the model and cleans the answer that comes back, so the user never writes a prompt.", "Abhimanyu (Abhi) Godara, a former strategy consultant and seed investor, built it with co-founder Atul Yadav and one employee. They launched on 1 April 2021 to private groups and on 13 April 2021 on AppSumo, a site that sells lifetime deals on software; the first day brought about 100 users and US$500. In November 2021 Godara told Starter Story that Rytr made US$83,333 a month, which is a US$1 million annual recurring revenue (ARR: the current monthly subscription revenue multiplied by twelve), with more than 300,000 users and a three-person team. The home page counted 30,000 users in August 2021, 800,000 in February 2022 and 2,000,000 in September 2022. On 6 October 2022 Copysmith, a funded competitor from Alabama, announced that it had bought Rytr together with Frase; the price was not disclosed.", "The headline number is a founder statement, grade C. The sale is confirmed by the buyer's press release, grade B, but without a price, so the page does not give a sale value. Rytr still runs as a product inside Copysmith in 2026 and its page claims 8,000,000 users. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that sold writing and marketing software to small businesses." ], "factsCaption": "A US$1 million a year run rate seven months after launch, then an undisclosed sale 18 months after launch; the revenue is self-reported, the sale is confirmed by the buyer", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade B value is a statement by the acquirer in its press release. A grade C value is a founder statement in an interview, a number on the company's own website, or a third-party estimate that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A: no payment processor, filing or buyer has published a revenue figure or a price.", "timelineLead": "From an AppSumo deal to a sale to a competitor in 18 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Rytr prices in October 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C). The yearly column is what the page shows; the monthly column is calculated", "note": "The pricing page shows the yearly plan as a price per month with two months free, so the monthly price is the yearly price per month times 12 divided by 10: US$9 and US$29. The monthly toggle on the page loads by script and could not be read directly. The same US$9 and US$29 monthly prices appeared on the home page in February 2022, and the first paid plan in August 2021 was US$29 a month for unlimited use. The customer does not pay OpenAI separately; model usage is included.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "10,000 characters a month, 1 language" ], [ "Unlimited", "7.50", "9", "unlimited generation, 1 tone match, 50 plagiarism checks a month" ], [ "Premium", "24.16", "29", "unlimited generation, multiple tone matches, 35+ languages, 100 plagiarism checks a month" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month, November 2021", "value": "US$83,333", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview on Starter Story, 28 November 2021. The profile shows US$83.3K revenue a month, 2 founders and 1 employee. In the text he says seven figures in ARR.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, November 2021", "value": "about US$1 million", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$83,333 times 12 is US$999,996. This is the headline figure of the page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Sale to Copysmith", "value": "announced 6 October 2022, price not disclosed", "grade": "B", "note": "Copysmith's press release, carried by MarTech Series and Digital Media Story. Preqin lists the deal as an add-on acquisition with no deal size. Tracxn dates it 7 October 2022.", "src": [ 2, 3, 5, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Users, October 2022", "value": "more than 2 million", "grade": "B", "note": "Buyer's press release, as carried by Digital Media Story: over 2 million writers, freelancers and marketers. The company's own home page showed 2,000,000+ in September 2022 (grade C).", "src": [ 3, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Users, November 2021", "value": "more than 300,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview. The home page showed 250,000+ on 4 November 2021.", "src": [ 1, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Users, March 2023", "value": "close to 5 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on the Napier podcast, 13 March 2023. The home page showed 5,000,000+ on 2 March 2023.", "src": [ 7, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Team at US$1 million ARR", "value": "3 people", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview: 2 founders, 1 employee, a small 3-member team. Tracxn names the founders as Abhi Godara and Atul Yadav.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Tracxn: has not raised any funding rounds. Latka: bootstrapped. The founder says the venture was profitable and self-sustaining in November 2021.", "src": [ 6, 13, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly growth, 2021", "value": "more than 50% a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview, November 2021. Not checked against any other source.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "First day on AppSumo, 13 April 2021", "value": "about 100 users and about US$500 of sales", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Latka's revenue estimate for 2025", "value": "US$1.2 million a year, 11 employees", "grade": "C", "note": "A third-party estimate, marked as such, for the product inside Copysmith. Headcount from LinkedIn.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the sale", "value": "18 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: April 2021 to October 2022. The press release also says within a span of 18 months since launch.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2007 to 2020", "what": "Godara works five years as a strategy consultant at a Big Four firm in London, then as an early-stage investor at a seed fund in India, then runs a venture studio and a chatbot platform for creators.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "2020", "what": "GPT-3 opens to developers. While using it in the chatbot project, Godara tries the existing AI writing tools and finds them expensive and hard to use.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 7 ] }, { "when": "March to April 2021", "what": "The team sketches the interface in Figma and builds the first version. Launch to private communities on 1 April 2021.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "13 April 2021", "what": "Public launch through an AppSumo deal. About 100 users and US$500 of sales on day one.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "4 August 2021", "what": "The home page counts 30,000+ users. Free plan 5,000 characters a month; unlimited plan US$29 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "4 November 2021", "what": "Home page: 250,000+ users.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "28 November 2021", "what": "Founder interview: US$83,333 a month, seven figures in ARR, more than 300,000 users, growth above 50% a month, three people, profitable.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "27 February 2022", "what": "Home page: 800,000+ users. A new US$9 a month plan with 50,000 characters sits between the free plan and the US$29 unlimited plan.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "2 September 2022", "what": "Home page: 2,000,000+ users; the browser extension has 10,000+ installs.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "6 October 2022", "what": "Copysmith announces that it has bought Rytr and Frase and groups the three brands as Copyrytr. Price not disclosed. Godara is quoted in the release as CEO of Rytr.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "13 March 2023", "what": "Godara on the Napier podcast: close to 5 million customers. The home page shows 5,000,000+ on 2 March 2023.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 12 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "Rytr still runs as a Copysmith product. The pricing page claims 8,000,000+ users; Latka estimates US$1.2 million a year of revenue and 11 employees.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14, 13 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Price", "text": "In 2021 the other GPT-3 writing tools charged more and limited output by word count. Rytr sold unlimited generation for US$29 a month, and in 2022 added a US$9 plan. The founder says the product was aimed at early-stage users and small teams without a budget for the more expensive tools. The low price was possible because the team was three people and the model was rented from OpenAI by the call." }, { "title": "AppSumo first", "text": "The first public sale was a deal on AppSumo, a site whose users buy software at a discount and leave detailed reviews. It brought paying customers, cash and feedback on day one, and the founder personally sent a welcome email to each buyer." }, { "title": "Search ranking, affiliates and reviews instead of ads", "text": "From the first day the team wrote pages for the search queries it wanted to rank for and asked bloggers who reviewed similar tools for links; after six months it ranked on the first page for most of them. A reward of credits for leaving a review and an affiliate program with a commission turned users into promoters. The founder says he picked only two channels on purpose." }, { "title": "The form instead of the prompt", "text": "Rytr hides the model behind a form: use case, tone, language, a few words of input. The team formats the request before it reaches GPT-3 and formats the answer afterwards, and limits how much a user can generate in one step so the user reads and edits the output. That interface, not the model, is what the company owned." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's interviews and the company's own pages. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The text comes from OpenAI's GPT-3 through its API. Rytr adds its own prompt formatting on the way in and post-processing on the way out, with use-case templates refined over time.", "Payments through Stripe; email through SendGrid; support chat through Crisp; analytics with Google Analytics and Hotjar from day one; affiliate tracking with Rewardful; design mock-ups in Figma.", "A drip email series over the first two weeks after sign-up nudges free users to pay.", "A free plan with a character limit, then one or two paid plans. The unlimited plan was US$29 a month from launch; a US$9 plan arrived by February 2022.", "Features added over time: a readability score, a built-in plagiarism checker, a browser extension, team sharing and document management.", "Three people until at least November 2021: two founders and one employee." ], "src": [ 1, 7, 8, 10, 14 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold writing or marketing software to writers and small businesses before language models could write the text. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Metigy", "years": "2014 to 2022", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "An AI marketing brain for small businesses.", "died": "Small businesses did not want recommendations to act on; they wanted the work done for them. The money went into generic insights that nobody used.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2338-metigy" }, { "name": "Draft", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A minimal cloud editor for writers with version control.", "died": "Google Docs covered the need for free. A narrow writing tool with a freemium plan could not pay for itself.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1605-draft" }, { "name": "Pressly", "years": "2011 to 2018", "funding": "US$2.9M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Content curation to keep a brand relevant with less effort.", "died": "Larger marketing suites added curation as one feature among many, and Pressly never grew beyond it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/462-pressly" }, { "name": "Wavii", "years": "2009 to 2013", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A news feed written by natural language processing.", "died": "Bought by Google before it found a way to earn money. The technology was interesting; the business was not.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/727-wavii" }, { "name": "WriteWith", "years": "2007 to 2010", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Group writing in the browser.", "died": "Google Docs shipped the same thing, free, with no funding to answer it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1237-writewith" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The five earlier companies either built writing tools whose core function a free product from Google soon matched, or sold marketing intelligence that small businesses did not have the time to act on. In both cases the product helped a person write or decide; the person still did the work.", "GPT-3 changed what a three-person company could sell: the text itself, for a few dollars a month, with the model rented by the call and no research team. Rytr's bet was that a cheap, simple layer on top of a rented model would find millions of users before the model's owner or a funded competitor took the market. It found two million in 18 months and was sold to a funded competitor, Copysmith, a month before ChatGPT appeared in November 2022 and made plain text generation free for everyone." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The timing, no.", "text": "A new model API in 2021 left room for a cheaper, simpler product in a market that already existed, and the sale closed just before free chat interfaces removed the price advantage. The method is still available: a form that hides the prompt, an AppSumo launch, search pages and affiliates instead of ads, and a price well under the incumbents, with a company small enough to live on it.", "steps": [ "Enter an existing AI product category with a lower price and a simpler interface, not a new category.", "Sell the first version on a deal site to get paying customers and public reviews on the first day.", "Pick two marketing channels only, for example search ranking and an affiliate program, and write every page for a query you want to rank for.", "Keep the team at two or three people so the low price still leaves a profit, and sell before the model owner makes the basic use case free." ], "open": "Any new model API whose first products are priced for agencies: voice, video, image and code generation tools where a US$9 plan with a form interface does not yet exist." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported revenue and no price", "text": "The US$83,333 a month comes from one founder interview in November 2021, with no later revenue figure before the sale. The buyer did not disclose a price, so the value of the exit is unknown; the page shows the last public revenue figure instead." }, { "title": "Users are not customers", "text": "All the large numbers, from 30,000 to 8 million, are counts of people who signed up, mostly on the free plan. The founder's 300,000 figure in November 2021 is also a sign-up count. No source gives the number of paying subscribers." }, { "title": "The model owner can make the product free", "text": "ChatGPT launched in November 2022, one month after the sale, and gives the same plain text generation for nothing. A layer on top of a rented model has no cost advantage over the model's owner." }, { "title": "A crowded category", "text": "Tracxn counts 473 active competitors for Rytr. The price fell from US$29 to US$9 within a year, and Latka's 2025 estimate of US$1.2 million a year, if right, is close to the 2021 run rate." }, { "title": "The acquirer's own position", "text": "Copysmith is a funded competitor in the same category and faces the same pressure from free tools. Rytr's future depends on its owner, not on its founders." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Starter Story, 28 November 2021: I Built A Simple AI Writing Tool That Makes $60K/Year", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/i-built-a-simple-ai-writing-tool-that-makes-60k-year", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full (the public part of the article). Founder interview with a profile box showing US$83.3K revenue a month, 2 founders and 1 employee. Source for the launch dates, the AppSumo day, the user count, the growth rate, the team size and the tools used. The page title says US$60K a year, which contradicts the body; this page uses the body." }, { "title": "MarTech Series, 6 October 2022: Copysmith Announces Acquisition of Frase & Rytr, Launches Copyrytr", "url": "https://martechseries.com/content/content-marketing/copysmith-announces-acquisition-of-frase-rytr-launches-copyrytr/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. The buyer's press release with quotes from both CEOs. Source for the sale, the 18 months since launch and millions of creators. No price." }, { "title": "Digital Media Story, 6 October 2022: Copysmith Acquires Popular AI Content Tools Frase & Rytr", "url": "https://digitalmediastory.com/copysmith-acquires-frase-rytr/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Carries the press release with the About Rytr paragraph: over 2 million writers, freelancers and marketers." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 8 October 2022: (News) Frase & Rytr Acquired by Copysmith AI!", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/news-frase-rytr-acquired-by-copysmith-ai-2070049f2c", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A community repost of the press release." }, { "title": "Preqin company profile: Rytr LLC", "url": "https://www.preqin.com/data/profile/asset/rytr-llc/514604", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Gives Wilmington, Delaware as headquarters and lists one completed add-on deal by Copysmith on 6 October 2022 with the deal size left blank." }, { "title": "Tracxn company profile: Rytr", "url": "https://tracxn.com/d/companies/rytr/__HOCvuIDiKJVareX0OVnJlDAPrjiz0twZ64SjvgkJIio", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public part. Source for the two founders' names, no funding rounds, the 7 October 2022 acquisition date and the competitor count." }, { "title": "Napier B2B podcast, 13 March 2023: A Napier Podcast Interview with Abhi Godara, Rytr", "url": "https://www.napierb2b.com/2023/03/a-napier-podcast-interview-with-abhi-godara-rytr/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the transcript in full. Source for the founder's background, the GPT-3 timing, the close to 5 million customers and how the product formats prompts and outputs." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine, rytr.me home page, 4 August 2021", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20210804085117/https://rytr.me/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Shows 30,000+ users, the 5,000-character free plan and the US$29 a month unlimited plan." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine, rytr.me home page, 4 November 2021", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20211104192022/https://rytr.me/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Shows 250,000+ users." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine, rytr.me home page, 27 February 2022", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20220227204611/https://rytr.me/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Shows 800,000+ users and the US$9 and US$29 plans." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine, rytr.me home page, 2 September 2022", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20220902051851/https://rytr.me/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Shows 2,000,000+ users and 10,000+ extension installs, a month before the sale." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine, rytr.me home page, 2 March 2023", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20230302032123/https://rytr.me/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Shows 5,000,000+ users." }, { "title": "Latka company page: Rytr revenue 2025, estimate", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/rytr.me", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party estimate of US$1.2 million a year for July 2025 and a headcount of 11 from LinkedIn." }, { "title": "Rytr pricing page, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://rytr.me/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the current plans, the yearly prices and the 8,000,000+ claim. The monthly prices are calculated from the two-months-free rule stated on the page." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/talknotes/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/talknotes.md", "slug": "talknotes", "name": "Talknotes", "country": "France", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI voice-note to text app", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "exit", "evidence": "B", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "14 August 2023", "outcomeLabel": "Sold for US$200K, July 2024", "sticker": "Sold for $200K", "outcomeUsd": 200000, "months": 11, "teamLabel": "1 founder, no employees", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Paid ads", "group": "voice-audio", "channel": "paid-ads", "trend": "sold", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 2, "copyable": 3, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Exit", "B2C", "Productivity" ], "product": "You speak into your phone or browser. Talknotes transcribes the recording with a speech-to-text model and rewrites it in a style you pick: a clean transcript, a short note, a task list, a formal email, a blog post or a video script. It works in more than 50 languages and exports to text, email or a link.", "why": "A marketer who had learned to code one year earlier built it in a week, found that paid ads could buy customers for about US$50 each with a yearly plan that paid the ad bill up front, and sold the business for cash eleven months after launch, when the bugs and the support load became more than one person wanted to carry.", "summary": [ "Talknotes is a voice-note app: a program that records what you say, turns the audio into text, and then rewrites that text into a usable document. The transcription uses Whisper, OpenAI's speech-to-text model, which the founder called through the OpenAI API, a paid interface that lets one program send audio to another company's model and get text back. A second model call turns the raw transcript into the style the user picked. Because each note costs the company money at the model provider, the product is sold as a subscription.", "Nico Jeannen, a French marketer who had managed more than US$1 million of ad spend for clients before he learned to code in 2022, built the first version in about one week and showed it on X on 14 August 2023. It made US$1,500 in the first 20 days from startup directories and his X followers, fell to almost nothing when he replaced one-time passes with subscriptions, reached US$100 a month of recurring revenue on 22 September 2023, and US$2,000 a month in November 2023 after a first place of the day on Product Hunt. Facebook ads then became the main sales channel. In April 2024 he reported about US$5,000 a month in revenue, US$4,000 of it recurring, from more than 900 paying customers.", "In May 2024 he listed the business on Acquire.com, a marketplace for small software companies, after a day of bugs cut sales by 71% and burned him out. He accepted US$200,000 in cash rather than wait for a higher offer with conditions. Acquire.com, which ran the sale, confirmed the all-cash price in September 2024, which is why the headline number is grade B. The monthly revenue figures are the founder's own, grade C. The buyer has not been named in public, and the product is still sold at talknotes.io under new owners." ], "factsCaption": "A one-week prototype that reached about US$7,500 a month in recurring revenue and sold for US$200,000 in cash after eleven months, with the price confirmed by the marketplace that ran the deal", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade B value was confirmed by Acquire.com, the marketplace that listed the business and handled the sale. A grade C value is a founder statement in his blog, his X posts or an interview, or a secondary account that quotes him. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A.", "timelineLead": "From a bad experience with the dictation feature in Google Docs to a US$200,000 wire transfer in eleven months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Talknotes prices in October 2026, read from the company's pricing page, with the pre-sale prices of July 2024 from the Wayback Machine for comparison (grade C)", "note": "Today there is one plan with all features and a 7-day free trial. The yearly price is US$197, which is US$16.42 a month. In July 2024, just before the sale, the founder sold two plans, Plus at US$11.97 a month and Pro at US$49 a month, with notes limited to 20 minutes on Plus and a credit system for longer notes on Pro, and a launch offer of US$69.10 a year. The customer never pays the model provider; the company pays OpenAI for every note.", "rows": [ [ "Talknotes, all features, 2026", "16.42", "19.97", "unlimited notes, 2-hour recordings, iOS and Android" ], [ "Plus, July 2024", "5.76 (launch offer)", "11.97", "unlimited notes up to 20 minutes" ], [ "Pro, July 2024", "", "49", "credits for 2-hour notes, guest recorder link" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Sale price", "value": "US$200,000, all cash", "grade": "B", "note": "Acquire.com, the marketplace that listed the business, wrote on 19 September 2024 that he \"secured an all-cash $200,000 deal in weeks\". Its headline says US$250,000, its text says US$200,000; the founder's own posts say US$200,000.", "src": [ 1, 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue at the sale", "value": "about US$7,500 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's announcement post on X, quoted by No-Code Exits and SoFarBot: \"I took it from $0 to $7500 MRR in just 11 months.\" The original post could not be opened.", "src": [ 3, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Sale price as a multiple of yearly recurring revenue", "value": "about 2.2 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$7,500 times 12 is US$90,000 a year; US$200,000 divided by US$90,000 is 2.22.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Total sales before the sale", "value": "US$77,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in a Starter Story video interview, March 2025: Talknotes \"generated 77,000 of sales before I sold it for 200,000 last July\".", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, April 2024", "value": "about US$5,000, of which US$4,000 recurring", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's Starter Story interview, 4 April 2024. More than 900 paying customers, recurring revenue growing about 10% a month, churn under 10%.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Cost to win one customer with ads", "value": "about US$50", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's Starter Story interview. He says the yearly plan, sold at a large discount, paid the ad cost up front.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Earlier offer refused", "value": "US$150,000 in cash at US$3,000 a month recurring", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's Starter Story interview, April 2024.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Sales in the first 20 days", "value": "US$1,500", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on the Talknotes blog and on Indie Hackers, 1 September 2023. Sold as one-year passes, one click to Stripe, no account.", "src": [ 7, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Cost to build the first version", "value": "under US$10", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's Starter Story interview: the only cost was OpenAI API calls during three or four days of coding.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder statements throughout. He reinvested only revenue from the product into ads.", "src": [ 4, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the sale", "value": "11 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: August 2023 to July 2024. The founder uses the same figure.", "src": [ 6, 3 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2022", "what": "Jeannen, a French marketer and former e-commerce seller who has managed more than US$1 million of ad spend, loses his main client, locks himself in a hotel room for two months and learns to code from an online course.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 13 ] }, { "when": "February 2023", "what": "He sells MakeLogo.ai, an AI logo generator built in 48 hours, for US$65,000 on Acquire.com three months after launch.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 5 ] }, { "when": "August 2023", "what": "The dictation feature in Google Docs fails him while he drafts a post. He builds a voice-to-text prototype on Whisper in three or four days and a landing page in the rest of the week.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 2 ] }, { "when": "14 August 2023", "what": "Soft launch on X: more than 4,000 visitors and 800 sign-ups in the first days. He then submits the app to every startup directory he can find.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 2 ] }, { "when": "1 September 2023", "what": "US$1,500 in sales in 20 days, as one-year passes.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "September 2023", "what": "He replaces one-year passes with subscriptions, because transcription costs money every month. Sales fall from US$150 a day to zero. US$100 a month of recurring revenue on 22 September.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 2 ] }, { "when": "October to November 2023", "what": "First place of the day on Product Hunt. Recurring revenue goes from US$500 to US$2,000 a month in under a month. Most traffic now comes from Facebook and Google, not from his X account.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 8 ] }, { "when": "4 April 2024", "what": "About US$5,000 a month in revenue, more than 900 customers, ads as the main channel at about US$50 per customer. He has already refused a US$150,000 cash offer.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "17 April 2024", "what": "The demo on the landing page breaks and sales fall 71%. Two bugs in the mobile app lock out users for a day and Apple rejects the fix. He writes that he is burned out.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 2 ] }, { "when": "May 2024", "what": "He lists Talknotes on Acquire.com at US$200,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 14 ] }, { "when": "July 2024", "what": "The sale closes for US$200,000 in cash after a problem with the escrow service. He turns down a higher offer with conditions in order to close within weeks.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 1, 8, 3 ] }, { "when": "19 September 2024", "what": "Acquire.com publishes a podcast episode and a page on the sale, confirming the all-cash US$200,000 deal.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "17 August 2025", "what": "He writes that he has not built anything of note since the sale, that he has enough money to live for about 20 years, and that losing the pressure took away his purpose.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "2026", "what": "He builds AdKit, an ads research tool, back in the field he knows. Talknotes is still sold by its new owners at US$19.97 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 12 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A one-week product on a rented model", "text": "Whisper did the transcription and a second model call did the rewriting, so the product was a recording interface, a style picker and a payment form. The first version cost under US$10 in API calls. That is why the founder could afford to treat it as one of 17 experiments and drop it if the first week brought no sales." }, { "title": "Test with money, not sign-ups", "text": "The launch page had one button that went straight to Stripe for a one-year pass, no account needed. When free sign-ups were allowed for a few days in September 2023, there were many sign-ups and no sales, so he removed the free plan again. US$1,500 in 20 days was the signal to continue." }, { "title": "Subscriptions, because every note costs money", "text": "Each note is a paid API call, so a one-year pass would have left the company paying for users who had stopped paying it. The switch to subscriptions cut sales to zero for weeks and the founder describes that period as the hardest of his career, but recurring revenue is what made the business sellable." }, { "title": "Paid ads with a yearly plan that pays for them", "text": "His trade was Facebook ads. At about US$50 per customer, a monthly plan took months to pay back, so he sold a yearly plan at a steep discount. The yearly payment arrived up front and funded the next round of ads. Growth stopped depending on his X account, which he notes made the business worth more to a buyer." }, { "title": "Sell for cash before the cost of continuing rises", "text": "After the April 2024 outage he saw months of bug fixing and support ahead, the two jobs he did not want. He listed within weeks and took US$200,000 in cash rather than a larger offer with conditions. A comparable sale had worked for him once before, with MakeLogo.ai." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's blog diary, his X posts and his interviews. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Transcription by OpenAI's Whisper model through the API; a second model call rewrites the transcript in the chosen style. The founder describes the first version as a single index.js file and a user interface in front of it.", "First version in plain JavaScript, HTML and CSS with a Node backend. Rebuilt on Nuxt, a Vue framework, in early 2024, with the mobile app and the web app merged into one code base in March 2024.", "Payments by Stripe. The first product was a one-year pass, then a monthly subscription, then Plus and Pro plans with a credit system for notes longer than 20 minutes.", "iOS and Android apps. A bug in the mobile app in April 2024 could not be fixed quickly because the app gave no error messages or logs.", "Feature requests collected with Canny, a public request board, and most requested features were built. A welcome email asked every new user how they planned to use the app.", "Marketing: startup directories at launch, a Product Hunt launch two months later, then Facebook ads at US$30 to US$100 a day. SEO content brought three sales in total, and he dropped it.", "Coding help from Cursor, ChatGPT and Copilot; analytics with Plausible; email with Bento." ], "src": [ 4, 2, 9, 7 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold voice or note-taking technology and failed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Tellme", "years": "1999 to 2011", "funding": "US$238M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Information and transactions by voice, over the telephone.", "died": "Speech recognition was weak and the telephony infrastructure was expensive. Smartphone apps with screens replaced voice menus. Microsoft bought it and shut it down.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/612-tellme" }, { "name": "VocalIQ", "years": "2011 to 2017", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A voice interface that understands context.", "died": "Apple, Google and Amazon built their own assistants with far more money. Apple bought the team and the product disappeared.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/719-vocaliq" }, { "name": "Voicery", "years": "2018 to 2021", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Natural-sounding text-to-speech for businesses.", "died": "Google, Amazon and Microsoft offered better speech synthesis at lower prices, bundled with their clouds. A small company could not charge a premium for its own model.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1004-voicery" }, { "name": "Transpose", "years": "2012 to 2018", "funding": "none recorded", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A flexible note-taking tool as an alternative to Evernote.", "died": "Charged US$14.99 to compete with Evernote with no funding and no reason for users to switch.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1849-transpose" }, { "name": "Storyline", "years": "2018 to 2021", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Build voice apps for Alexa without code.", "died": "Few people wanted voice apps, and the platform owners controlled the only way to make money from them.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1011-storyline" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Tellme, VocalIQ and Voicery built their own speech technology, which took tens of millions of dollars and still lost to the large companies' models. Talknotes built none. It rented Whisper for cents per note, so the model race was someone else's cost, and the whole product was the part the model providers do not sell: a recording button, a set of output styles and a subscription.", "Transpose and Storyline show the other risk, a product with no distribution. Talknotes had a founder whose trade was buying ads, and a price structure built around the cost of one ad-bought customer. That is also why the business could be sold: the buyer got an ad channel and a subscriber base, not a dependency on the founder's X account. What Talknotes did not have was a defense against the same model being available to everyone. The founder said in April 2024 that the same app could not be launched again because the novelty had worn off, and he sold three months later." ], "copy": { "verdict": "Yes, if you can buy customers at a known price.", "text": "A voice-note app on a rented model is a weekend project in 2026, and the sale shows the ceiling: about two times yearly recurring revenue for a one-person product with ad-driven growth. The method is the part worth copying. Validate with a payment, price so that a yearly plan pays for the ad that brought the customer, and decide early whether the exit is the plan.", "steps": [ "Build the smallest product on a rented model in a week, and launch with one button that takes payment, not a free sign-up.", "Submit to every directory and post on your own channels to get a first signal of sales, then stop counting on that traffic.", "Switch to subscriptions as soon as the product has a per-use cost, and accept the sales dip.", "Run paid ads only when a discounted yearly plan can cover the cost of one customer up front.", "Keep the business separable from yourself: paid traffic, clean accounts, a public feature board. Then a marketplace sale is possible within weeks." ], "open": "Any narrow use of speech-to-text where the output format matters more than the transcript: inspections, field reports, medical or legal dictation with the right compliance, and languages that the big assistants serve badly." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The revenue figures are self-reported", "text": "The US$7,500 a month figure comes from the founder's own announcement, quoted by newsletters; the original post could not be opened. Only the sale price has outside confirmation, and that confirmation is from the marketplace that earned a fee on the deal." }, { "title": "The headline was inflated", "text": "Acquire.com's page title says US$250,000 and its text says US$200,000. SoFarBot's check reached the same conclusion. This page uses US$200,000." }, { "title": "Exact dates differ", "text": "One interview page says the sale closed in June 2024, the founder said \"last July\" in March 2025, and a newsletter reported the completed sale on 4 July 2024. This page uses July 2024." }, { "title": "The buyer is unknown", "text": "No source names the buyer. The product is still sold at talknotes.io, now with a Texas postal address on the site, at a higher price than before the sale." }, { "title": "A one-person business is one outage from a crisis", "text": "A broken demo and two mobile bugs cut sales by 71% in a day and led directly to the decision to sell. The founder says the profit was never measured exactly, only the ad cost per customer." }, { "title": "The founder's own account of life after the sale", "text": "A year later he wrote that he had done little since and had lost his sense of purpose. A cash exit solved his money problem and removed his reason to work." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Acquire.com blog, 19 September 2024: Making $250k on His Second Sale on Acquire.com, Startup Acquisition Stories Ep #112", "url": "https://blog.acquire.com/startup-acquisition-episode-112/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the page text in full; the podcast audio was not listened to. The marketplace that listed and closed the sale confirms the all-cash US$200,000 deal, the 70% drop after the bug round and the listing reason." }, { "title": "Nico Jeannen's blog diary, 30 August 2023 onwards: TalkNotes, From $0 to $200,000 in 1 year", "url": "https://jeannen.com/blog/making-talknotes-io", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Dated diary entries from the launch to the sale note. Source for the directory strategy, the US$26 MRR, the US$2,000 MRR, the Facebook and Google traffic, the April 2024 outage and the US$200,000 note." }, { "title": "No-Code Exits newsletter, 25 September 2026: Nico Jeannen's $290K in Exits", "url": "https://nocodeexits.substack.com/p/three-exits-for-290000-then-a-year", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A secondary account that quotes the founder's sale post on X, including the US$7,500 MRR and the eleven months, and his post on life after the sale." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 4 April 2024: I Taught Myself To Code And Now Make $5K/Mo", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/talknotes-the-ai-voice-notes-app", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview in his own words. Source for the US$5,000 a month, the customer count, the ad cost, the refused offer, the Whisper prototype and the tech stack." }, { "title": "Starter Story video transcript, 31 March 2025: I Locked Myself In A Room, Made 17 Apps, and Sold 2 for $265,000", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/i-locked-myself-in-a-room-made-17-apps-sold-2-for-265-000", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the transcript sections on Talknotes and on his background. Source for the US$77,000 of sales before the sale and \"last July\"." }, { "title": "Nico Jeannen on X, 14 August 2023: Result of my soft launch for TalkNotes.io", "url": "https://x.com/nico_jeannen/status/1691035753088991232", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the launch date, 4,000 visitors and 800 sign-ups." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers product page for TalkNotes: the founder's posts of 1, 18 and 22 September 2023", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/product/talknotes", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the US$1,500 in 20 days, the one-click Stripe pass, the switch to subscriptions, the fall from US$150 a day to zero and the US$100 MRR date." }, { "title": "NextFounder newsletter, 4 July 2024: From Idea to $200K, The Talknotes Success Story", "url": "https://nextfounder.substack.com/p/from-idea-to-200k-the-talknotes-success", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A secondary summary of the founder's account written days after the sale. Source for the May 2024 listing, the US$1,500 MRR at Product Hunt and the escrow problem." }, { "title": "Nico Jeannen on X, 18 April 2024: Yesterday was the worst day I had since I started making apps", "url": "https://x.com/nico_jeannen/status/1780923502465540272", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the 71% sales drop, the mobile bugs, the Apple rejection and the 800 users." }, { "title": "Nico Jeannen on X, 17 August 2025: on the loss of purpose after selling Talknotes", "url": "https://x.com/nico_jeannen/status/1957054052204007817", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the statement that the sale left him enough money for about 20 years." }, { "title": "No CS Degree, 10 July 2024: $200k exit after learning to code", "url": "https://www.nocsdegree.com/200k-exit-after-learning-to-code/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part; the rest is behind a subscription. Gives June 2024 as the sale month and the learning-to-code background." }, { "title": "Talknotes pricing page, read 12 October 2026, and the Wayback Machine copy of 12 July 2024", "url": "https://talknotes.io/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both in full. The current page gives one plan at US$19.97 a month or US$197 a year. The archived page gives the Plus and Pro plans sold just before the sale." }, { "title": "Nico Jeannen's blog, 8 January 2023 post about his background, reached from the blog index", "url": "https://jeannen.com/blog", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post in full; it is listed on the blog index as the post of 8 January 2023. Source for his nationality, French, and his earlier work in e-commerce and ads." }, { "title": "SoFarBot, 8 September 2026: TalkNotes actually sold for $200K", "url": "https://www.sofarbot.com/stories/talknotes-nico-jeannen-sold-250k-france", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A secondary account that checked the US$250,000 headline against the text and the founder's post, and reached US$200,000. Also quotes the founder's rule of reinvesting only the product's revenue." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/nightcafe/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/nightcafe.md", "slug": "nightcafe", "name": "NightCafe", "country": "Australia", "sector": "Consumer software", "productType": "AI image generator with a community", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "12 November 2019", "outcomeLabel": "US$30K a month with 2 people, October 2021", "sticker": "$30K/mo with 2 people", "outcomeUsd": 360000, "months": 23, "teamLabel": "1 founder, 2 people by October 2021, 9 staff by August 2024", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Timing", "group": "photos", "channel": "communities", "trend": "unknown", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Creative tools" ], "product": "A website where anyone can type a text prompt and get an image from one of many AI models, then share it in a community with daily challenges, chat rooms and streaks. NightCafe trains no models of its own: it rents models from OpenAI, Google, Black Forest Labs and others, and sells credits and subscriptions.", "why": "It was already online in 2019, when the only AI art was style transfer. When open-source text-to-image models appeared in mid-2021, it added them within weeks, and a Reddit post sent a crowd to the only simple website that offered them. It then kept the crowd with community features instead of better models.", "summary": [ "NightCafe is a text-to-image website: you type a sentence, an AI model draws it. The model is not NightCafe's own. It is an aggregator, a service that connects to many model providers through their APIs and shows them in one interface, with a credit system, where each image costs a number of credits that the user earns daily or buys. The site also has daily challenges, chat rooms, and a feed where users comment on each other's images.", "Angus Russell, a software engineer in Australia, launched the first version on 12 November 2019 as a side project. For almost two years it covered its own costs at best. In mid-2021 he added VQGAN+CLIP, one of the first open-source text-to-image models, and in early October 2021 a Reddit post sent so much traffic that the site crashed: one day earned 15 times the previous daily record, about US$17,000. On 9 October 2021 he reported US$30,000 a month on his Indie Hackers page. That is a run rate, one month of revenue multiplied by 12, of US$360,000 a year, 23 months after launch. NightCafe was then two people: Russell, who still worked as a software engineer at Atlassian, and his partner Elle, who ran the business side.", "The company kept growing after that, with more people. In August 2024 TechCrunch reported, from a source close to the company that it did not name, about US$4 million a year in revenue and about US$2 million in profit with nine staff. Both money figures on this page are grade C: the first is the founder's own entry, made in the week of a traffic peak, and the second comes from an unnamed source. The user counts, 25 million users and more than one billion images, come from a Google Cloud customer story, grade B. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that sold creative tools on top of technology they did not own." ], "factsCaption": "A side project of two people that reported US$30,000 a month in October 2021, 23 months after launch, and later reached about US$4 million a year with nine staff", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade B value comes from a company other than NightCafe that put its own name on it, here Google Cloud. A grade C value is a founder statement, a journalist's unnamed source, or a reviewer. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A. The rows marked \"with 9 staff\" describe the larger company of 2024 and are not the headline of this page.", "timelineLead": "From a website that sold wall prints nobody bought to US$30,000 a month with two people, in 23 months, and then to one billion generated images with a larger team. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "NightCafe PRO plans in October 2026: plan names and credits from the pricing page's code; the prices load by script and could not be read, so the price range is from TechCrunch (August 2024) and a reviewer (grade C)", "note": "Every user gets 5 free credits a day for logging in and 3 more for the daily challenge. Subscriptions give monthly credits that do not expire, a cheaper top-up price per credit, and, from the Hobbyist plan up, unlimited base images on a set of fast models. Annual billing is shown as 40% off and quarterly as 15% off. TechCrunch reported the range as US$4.79 to US$50 a month in August 2024; the reviewer site There's An AI For That lists paid plans from US$12.49 a month in 2026. Credit packs are also sold without a subscription.", "rows": [ [ "AI Beginner", "", "", "100 credits a month; shown only to some users" ], [ "AI Hobbyist", "", "from 12.49 (reviewer)", "200 credits a month; unlimited base images on tier 1 models" ], [ "AI Enthusiast", "", "", "500 credits a month; unlimited on tiers 1 to 2" ], [ "AI Creator", "", "", "850 credits a month; unlimited on tiers 1 to 3" ], [ "AI Artist", "", "", "1,400 credits a month; unlimited on tiers 1 to 4" ], [ "AI Professional", "", "up to 50 (TechCrunch, 2024)", "2,500 credits a month; unlimited on tiers 1 to 4" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month, October 2021", "value": "US$30,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Self-reported by the founder on his Indie Hackers product page, last updated 9 October 2021. The site marks it as not independently verified. It was entered in the week of the Reddit traffic peak, so it may show a peak and not a normal month.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the October 2021 figure", "value": "US$360,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$30,000 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team, October 2021", "value": "2 people", "grade": "C", "note": "SmartCompany, 12 October 2021: the founder, a software engineer at Atlassian, runs NightCafe with his fiancée Elle Moule. It was his side business.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2021 figure", "value": "23 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: November 2019 to October 2021.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Best single day, October 2021", "value": "about US$17,000", "grade": "C", "note": "TechCrunch, 2024, on the Reddit event. SmartCompany in October 2021 reported it as about 15 times the previous daily record, without an amount.", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Server capacity added in the Reddit week", "value": "about 500 times", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder to SmartCompany. Two days produced more images than all the time before.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "B", "note": "Google Cloud writes bootstrapped and without significant outside investment. TechCrunch writes entirely bootstrapped.", "src": [ 4, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Own AI models", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Co-founder to TechCrunch: NightCafe has no internal AI or machine-learning capability. It runs some open models on its own servers and calls the rest through APIs.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per year, August 2024, with 9 staff", "value": "about US$4 million annualized", "grade": "C", "note": "TechCrunch, 31 August 2024, from a source close to the company, not named. Reached with nine staff, so it is not the headline of this page. On the record the co-founder said only that the company is profitable most months.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Profit per year, August 2024, with 9 staff", "value": "about US$2 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Same unnamed source: a gross margin of nearly 50%, after expenses including payroll for nine staff.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month from the August 2024 figure", "value": "about US$333,000", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$4 million divided by 12.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from the October 2021 run rate to August 2024", "value": "about 11 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$4,000,000 divided by US$360,000 is 11.1. The two figures come from different sources of grade C, so the multiple is rough.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Staff, August 2024", "value": "9", "grade": "C", "note": "TechCrunch. Plus 5 paid moderators through an outsourcing firm in Indonesia and 20 volunteer moderators paid in site features.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Subscribers, August 2024", "value": "20,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Co-founder Elle Russell to TechCrunch. About 1 million people visit each month.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Subscription prices, August 2024", "value": "US$4.79 to US$50 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "TechCrunch. Credit packs are sold separately.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Registered users", "value": "more than 25 million", "grade": "B", "note": "Google Cloud customer story, 2025, and TechCrunch, August 2024. The founder says tens of millions of authorized users in the Google text.", "src": [ 4, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Images generated", "value": "more than 1 billion", "grade": "B", "note": "Google Cloud customer story. The company blog said the same in November 2024, and TechCrunch wrote nearly a billion in August 2024.", "src": [ 4, 6, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Engineering team, 2025", "value": "4 people", "grade": "B", "note": "Google Cloud customer story.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the August 2024 figure", "value": "57 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: November 2019 to August 2024.", "src": [ 3, 5 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2019", "what": "Russell, who has a design degree and had co-founded design startups, cannot find wall art he likes for his house in Sydney. He builds a site to create AI art with neural style transfer and sell it as prints. Nobody buys prints.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "12 November 2019", "what": "He posts on Indie Hackers that he launched the Creator as a minimum product with a few styles. About 30 people from Facebook and Reddit try it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "December 2019 to January 2020", "what": "Unsplash image search, anonymous use without sign-up through Firebase, and style masks as the feature that sets it apart. He starts a new job the next day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "April 2020", "what": "Number 3 on Google for \"AI Art Generator\", more than 100 creations a day. He turns to revenue: product mockups for every image.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "Between April 2020 and October 2021", "what": "A user generates thousands of images and raises the hosting bill by a few hundred dollars. He adds a credit limit; users ask to buy more credits. The site reaches break-even almost at once. Elle, his partner and an accountant, joins to run the business side. TechCrunch gives no date for this.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "Mid-2021", "what": "After OpenAI shows DALL-E, he adds the open-source VQGAN+CLIP text-to-image model and rents hundreds of GPUs for it. By 16 August 2021 his posts on X show images made from text prompts.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 8 ] }, { "when": "Early October 2021", "what": "An image made on NightCafe is posted to r/oddlyterrifying, a Reddit group with 1.3 million members. The site crashes. Rendering servers are scaled up about 500 times. Two days produce more images than all the time before. One day earns 15 times the previous record, about US$17,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "9 October 2021", "what": "The headline figure: the founder sets the revenue on his Indie Hackers page to US$30,000 a month. NightCafe is two people, and he still works at Atlassian.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "After October 2021", "what": "Russell quits Atlassian to work on NightCafe full time. The exact date is not given.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "2023", "what": "Fine-tuning: users train a model on their own images. Each fine-tuned model is approved by moderators.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "31 August 2024", "what": "TechCrunch, now with nine staff: about US$4 million a year in revenue and about US$2 million profit, both from an unnamed source close to the company. On the record: 25 million users, 20,000 subscribers, no plans for an enterprise product.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "17 November 2024", "what": "Five years of NightCafe; more than one billion creations.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "22 October 2025", "what": "Google Cloud announces a customer story about NightCafe: 25 million users, 1 billion images, an engineering team of four, bootstrapped.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 4, 8 ] }, { "when": "24 June 2026", "what": "NightCafe Select, a storytelling feature, is announced. The company page says more than one billion artworks.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 7 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Timing", "text": "NightCafe existed before text-to-image AI. When the open-source VQGAN+CLIP model appeared in mid-2021 there was no simple website for it, and NightCafe became that website within weeks, with the sign-up-free flow it had built in 2019. The Reddit crowd of October 2021 went to the only easy option." }, { "title": "Credits, not prints", "text": "The first business model, selling wall prints, failed. The credit limit was added to stop one heavy user from raising the hosting bill, and users immediately asked to buy more credits. The accidental model became the real one: pay for images, not for objects." }, { "title": "Rent every model, own none", "text": "The company says it has no machine-learning capability. It runs open models on rented GPUs and calls OpenAI, Google and others through APIs. Each new model is added to the list, so the product does not fall behind when a better model appears, and the company carries no training cost." }, { "title": "Community as the moat", "text": "The co-founder says models will become commodities and competitors will compete on something else. NightCafe competes on daily challenges, streaks, chat rooms and contests, and names Leonardo, Civitai and Midjourney, the community-centred rivals, as its real competition." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the Google Cloud customer story (grade B), the TechCrunch interview and the founder's early Indie Hackers posts (grade C). The Google Cloud numbers describe the system in 2025, not in October 2021.", "items": [ "Firebase from the start, chosen for speed to market; Firestore is still the main database, with tens of billions of records.", "Cloud Run functions for workflows and API requests, more than 100 million invocations a day; Memorystore for Redis as a cache; more than 100 TB of images in Cloud Storage.", "Image generation through Vertex AI for Google's Imagen models, and through other providers' APIs; some open models such as Stable Diffusion run on the company's own rented servers.", "Anonymous users through Firebase so that a visitor can create an image before signing up, added in December 2019.", "AI-based prompt and image moderation, plus 5 paid moderators through an outsourcing firm and 20 volunteers.", "An engineering team of four for all of this in 2025; the founder says the managed services removed the need for dedicated infrastructure staff." ], "src": [ 4, 3, 5 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold creative tools to consumers on top of technology that someone else could ship for free. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Picnik", "years": "2005 to 2012", "funding": "US$3.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Photo editing in the browser, no download.", "died": "Google bought it and folded it into Google+, then shut it down.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/429-picnik" }, { "name": "Snipshot", "years": "2006 to 2009", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Quick browser photo edits for people who would not install software.", "died": "Bigger rivals and free alternatives.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1241-snipshot" }, { "name": "ElectricObjects", "years": "2014 to 2020", "funding": "US$3.2M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "A US$600 screen that shows subscription digital art on your wall.", "died": "Hardware costs and consumers who would not pay monthly for wall art; smart TVs did it better.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/114-electricobjects" }, { "name": "Kicksend", "years": "2011 to 2017", "funding": "US$2.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Share and print your photos.", "died": "Google Photos took sharing, Shutterfly owned printing.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/274-kicksend" }, { "name": "The Grid", "years": "2014 to 2020", "funding": "US$4.7M", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "Websites designed by AI, no designer needed.", "died": "The AI was not ready; the designs were clunky while rivals shipped polished tools.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/618-the-grid" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Picnik and Snipshot were the NightCafe of their day: a creative tool in the browser with no install. They died when the big platforms offered the same for free. ElectricObjects and Kicksend sold objects, screens and prints, and the objects killed the margins. The Grid promised AI creativity before the models could deliver it.", "NightCafe started with the ElectricObjects problem, prints nobody bought, and dropped it for credits. It avoided The Grid's problem by waiting: the site existed before the models were good, and added each model the week it became usable. Against the Picnik problem, free generation from OpenAI, Google and Microsoft, it does not compete on the model at all. It sells the community around the images, which a model provider does not ship. Whether that is enough when every phone generates images for free is the open question on this page." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The 2021 opening, no. The structure, partly.", "text": "Being the only simple website for VQGAN+CLIP in mid-2021 cannot be repeated. The structure can: an interface on top of models that someone else trained, paid in credits, built on managed cloud services by one engineer who kept his job, with a partner for the business side. By the founder's own report that was enough for US$30,000 a month. But it needed a crowd, and the crowd came after two years of side-project work, from one Reddit post that nobody planned.", "steps": [ "Build the interface before the model is good, so you are online the week it becomes usable.", "Charge for usage in credits, with a free daily amount, and never for objects.", "Rent every model through APIs and own none; add each new one as it appears.", "Spend the engineering time on community features, challenges, streaks and chat, because that is what the model providers do not sell." ], "open": "Any new generative medium where the first-party interfaces are poor and the hobbyist crowd has nowhere to gather: video, music, 3D, and game assets." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The headline is self-reported, in a peak week", "text": "The founder entered US$30,000 a month on Indie Hackers on 9 October 2021, days after the Reddit post. One day of that week earned about US$17,000. The figure may describe the peak and not a normal month, and no one outside checked it." }, { "title": "The larger figure is from an unnamed source", "text": "The US$4 million a year and the US$2 million profit of August 2024 were given to TechCrunch by a source close to the company. On the record the co-founder said only that NightCafe is profitable most months. No payment processor or filing confirms either money figure on this page." }, { "title": "Two people in 2021, nine staff in 2024", "text": "The headline figure belongs to two people, one of them with a full-time job elsewhere. The US$4 million figure belongs to a company of nine staff with outsourced moderators. Do not read the larger number as a two-person result." }, { "title": "The model providers give images away", "text": "OpenAI, Google and Microsoft ship free image generation inside their chat products. NightCafe's answer is community, and its competitors with the same answer, Midjourney, Leonardo and Civitai, raised money while it did not." }, { "title": "Copyright and moderation", "text": "The co-founder told TechCrunch that one court ruling against the model providers could force the company to rethink its business. The site allows images of political figures and mild adult content, and TechCrunch found copyrighted characters in its public gallery with little effort." }, { "title": "Prices could not be read", "text": "The pricing page loads prices by script. The ranges here come from a 2024 article and a reviewer, so the exact plan prices may differ." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Indie Hackers product page: NightCafe Creator revenue, self-reported", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/product/nightcafe-creator/revenue", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder-entered US$30,000 a month, last updated 9 October 2021, marked by the site as not independently verified. Source for the headline figure." }, { "title": "SmartCompany, 12 October 2021: How one Reddit post led to a 15x revenue boost for an Aussie AI art generator", "url": "https://www.smartcompany.com.au/startupsmart/reddit-post-15x-revenue-boost-ai-art-generator-nightcafe/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview in the week after the Reddit event. Source for the team of two, the Atlassian job, the 15x day and the 500x server scaling." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 31 August 2024: Before Midjourney, there was NightCafe, and it's still kicking", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/31/before-midjourney-there-was-nightcafe-and-its-still-kicking/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Interview with co-founder Elle Russell plus an unnamed source for the 2024 revenue and profit. Source for the founding story, the US$17,000 day, the 2024 staff and subscriber counts, and the prices." }, { "title": "Google Cloud customer story: NightCafe Studio, announced by Google Cloud on X on 22 October 2025", "url": "https://cloud.google.com/customers/nightcafe", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. A vendor's published case study with founder quotes; the page carries no date. Source for the user and image counts, the engineering team of four, the stack and the bootstrapped status." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers product timeline: NightCafe Creator, posts from November 2019 to April 2020", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/product/nightcafe-creator", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Six founder posts. Source for the launch date, the early features and the Google ranking." }, { "title": "NightCafe blog, 17 November 2024: 5 Years of NightCafe, Artist Spotlight", "url": "https://nightcafe.studio/blogs/blog/5-years-of-nightcafe-artist-spotlight", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the Wayback Machine; the live page returned a rate-limit error. Source for the five-year date and the one billion creations." }, { "title": "NightCafe: About NightCafe, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://creator.nightcafe.studio/about-nightcafe", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Company's own statement: founded 2019, more than one billion artworks." }, { "title": "Angus Russell on X: 16 August 2021, 12 October 2021, 3 September 2024, 22 October 2025 and 24 June 2026", "url": "https://x.com/Angus_Russell/status/1980833123916214468", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com. Founder posts text-to-image results, then links to the SmartCompany article, the TechCrunch article, the Google Cloud case study and the Select launch. His other posts since 2021 contain no money figures." }, { "title": "NightCafe pricing page, read 12 October 2026, and the reviewer There's An AI For That", "url": "https://creator.nightcafe.studio/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Plan names and credits read from the page's JavaScript; the prices load by script and could not be read. The starting price of US$12.49 a month is from theresanaiforthat.com/ai/nightcafe/." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/postiz/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/postiz.md", "slug": "postiz", "name": "Postiz", "country": "Israel, company registered in Hong Kong", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Open-source social media scheduler for people and AI agents", "aiType": "AI-leveraged", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "July 2024", "outcomeLabel": "US$263K a month recurring revenue, October 2026", "sticker": "$3.2M/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 3154788, "months": 27, "teamLabel": "1 founder, with 75 code contributors on GitHub and a hiring link on the site in 2026", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "open-source", "trend": "growing", "collections": [ "open-source" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-leveraged", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Social media marketing" ], "product": "A calendar that publishes posts to more than 30 social networks: X, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Bluesky, Discord and others. The whole code is open source, so anyone can run it on their own server for free; the company sells the hosted version from US$29 a month. Since 2025 AI agents such as Claude, ChatGPT and OpenClaw can connect to it through an MCP server, a command-line tool and a public API, so an agent drafts and schedules the posts and a person approves them in the calendar.", "why": "The founder took a twenty-year-old product category with no open-source entry and open-sourced all of it, which gave him millions of Docker downloads and 37,000 GitHub stars without a marketing budget. Revenue stayed small for a year. It multiplied when he turned the product toward people who automate their posting with n8n workflows and, from late 2025, with AI agents, which need an API-first scheduler and keep paying because they post without human effort.", "summary": [ "Postiz is a social media scheduler, a program that stores posts you write in advance and publishes them to several social networks at the chosen time through each network's interface. The founder says such tools have existed for almost twenty years; Buffer and Hootsuite are the best known. Postiz is open source: its full code is public under a license that lets anyone run and change it, so a developer can self-host it, meaning run it on their own server for free, while the company charges for the hosted version. In 2025 the founder added an MCP server, a standard interface through which an AI agent (a program that uses a language model to carry out tasks on its own) can list your channels, upload media and schedule posts. The product's 2026 positioning is a scheduler for agents, with a human who approves the calendar.", "Nevo David, an Israeli developer who had done growth work for the open-source company Novu, put postiz.com online in July 2024 and posted it on Hacker News and Reddit in late August. He wrote in November 2024 that it made US$700 a month, in January 2025 US$2,100 a month, and in November 2025 US$14,000 a month, all as a single developer with no outside money. Then the agent audience arrived. Stripe-verified figures published through TrustMRR show monthly recurring revenue (MRR, the subscription revenue of one month) of US$60,731 on 2 March 2026, US$87,530 on 2 April 2026, and US$262,899 on 12 October 2026, with 7,683 active subscriptions. That is a run rate of about US$3.15 million a year.", "The headline number is grade A: TrustMRR reads it from the company's Stripe account through an API key. The revenue before November 2025 is grade C, the founder's own posts. The page also shows five earlier companies that sold social posting or social marketing tools and died, and what is different this time." ], "factsCaption": "US$262,899 in monthly recurring revenue on 12 October 2026, verified from the company's Stripe account, after sixteen months at a few thousand dollars a month", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value is read from the company's Stripe account by TrustMRR through an API key. A grade B value is a count published by a platform (GitHub, Product Hunt, the Internet Archive). A grade C value is a founder statement in his own posts. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a tool for scheduling open-source launches to US$263,000 a month in 27 months, with the growth concentrated in the last ten. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Postiz prices in October 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C), plus the self-hosted edition", "note": "Every paid plan starts with a 7-day trial for US$0 and includes the MCP server, the command-line tool, the public API and webhooks. Yearly billing is about 20% cheaper than monthly. The pricing page states that a month that was paid for but not used is refunded in full. The open-source edition is free to run on your own server under the AGPL-3.0 license; you pay for the server and for the developer approvals of each social network yourself.", "rows": [ [ "Self-hosted, open source", "0", "0", "your own server, AGPL-3.0" ], [ "Standard", "23", "29", "5 channels, unlimited posts, 3 AI videos a month" ], [ "Team", "31", "39", "10 channels, unlimited team members, 100 AI images a month" ], [ "Pro", "39", "49", "30 channels, 300 AI images a month" ], [ "Ultimate", "79", "99", "100 channels, 500 AI images a month" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 12 October 2026", "value": "US$262,899", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from the company's Stripe account through an API key. Last synced 12 October 2026. MRR growth over the previous 30 days: 21.2%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the October 2026 MRR", "value": "about US$3.15 million a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 262,899 times 12 equals 3,154,788.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions, 12 October 2026", "value": "7,683", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, from Stripe.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average recurring revenue per subscription", "value": "about US$34 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 262,899 divided by 7,683 equals 34.22. Close to the price of the two cheapest plans, so most customers are on Standard or Team.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the 30 days to 12 October 2026", "value": "US$292,177", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, from Stripe. Growth of 49.0% over the previous 30 days. Revenue is higher than MRR because yearly plans are paid up front.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the twelve months to 12 October 2026", "value": "US$1,292,052", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, from Stripe. All-time revenue on the account: US$1,405,253.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue, November 2025 to September 2026", "value": "US$16,049 in November 2025, US$46,019 in February 2026, US$92,964 in April, US$152,041 in June, US$247,789 in September", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly timeline from Stripe. December 2025 was US$15,785; January 2026 US$18,300; March US$82,076; May US$117,503; July US$178,649; August US$192,599.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from November 2025 to September 2026", "value": "15.4 times in ten months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 247,789 divided by 16,049.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR during spring 2026", "value": "US$60,731 on 2 March, US$87,530 on 2 April, US$96,765 on 20 April, US$115,489 on 15 May", "grade": "A", "note": "Archived copies of the TrustMRR page, same Stripe source. Active subscriptions: 1,800, 2,668, 2,936 and 3,434 on those dates.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Date the run rate passed US$1 million a year", "value": "between 2 March and 2 April 2026", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$1 million a year equals US$83,333 of MRR, which lies between the 2 March and 2 April readings. The founder is reported to have announced this in April 2026; that post was not located, so the date rests on the Stripe data.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue on the Stripe account before November 2025", "value": "about US$120,765", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: all-time revenue of 1,405,253 minus the sum of the monthly timeline from November 2025 to 12 October 2026 (1,284,488). This is all the revenue of the first sixteen months, July 2024 to October 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's own figure, September 2026", "value": "US$2.2 million ARR, US$186,000 MRR", "grade": "C", "note": "His X article of 7 September 2026, repeated on the company blog the next day, which cites a public Stripe profile. Consistent with the Stripe revenue of US$192,599 for August 2026.", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's X profile, October 2026", "value": "US$245,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Profile text. Lower than the TrustMRR MRR of the same week; the profile text is updated by hand.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, November 2025", "value": "US$14,000 from subscriptions", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on dev.to, 21 November 2025, written as a single developer. The title says US$14,200. Stripe shows US$16,049 of revenue for that month, which includes yearly plans.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, July to August 2025", "value": "US$6,523, then US$12,648", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on Hacker News and dev.to. The dev.to text writes August 2024 for the second month; the Hacker News title says the jump took one month, so it is August 2025. The cause he gives: an official n8n node and cold email to owners of n8n communities on Skool.", "src": [ 6, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, January 2025", "value": "US$2,100, four months after launch", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on dev.to, 9 January 2025.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, November 2024", "value": "US$700", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on dev.to, 26 November 2024. He wrote in January 2025 that the product made only a few thousand dollars a month while its Docker image had passed 1.5 million downloads.", "src": [ 9, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Docker image downloads", "value": "26,000 in November 2024; 800,000 and then 1.5 million in January 2025; 4.79 million in November 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts. A Docker image is a packaged copy of the program that a self-hoster runs with one command. These downloads pay nothing.", "src": [ 9, 8, 10, 6 ] }, { "fact": "GitHub repository, 12 October 2026", "value": "37,096 stars, 7,191 forks, 75 contributors, AGPL-3.0 license", "grade": "B", "note": "GitHub's own counts through its API. The repository was created on 8 July 2023 as Gitroom. The license was changed from Apache-2.0 to AGPL-3.0 on 6 January 2025.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "Product Hunt launches", "value": "1,179 votes on 20 November 2024; 738 on 1 May 2025; 658 on 31 October 2025; 551 on 1 May 2026", "grade": "B", "note": "Vote counts from the Product Hunt launches page. The founder writes that the first launch finished first of the day, the week and the month.", "src": [ 12, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Prices at launch and now", "value": "US$30 a month for 5 channels in July 2024; US$29, 39, 49 and 99 by September 2024, unchanged in October 2026", "grade": "B", "note": "Archived copies of postiz.com from 28 July 2024 and of the pricing page from 21 September 2024, compared with the pricing page read on 12 October 2026. In July 2024 there was also a free plan with 1 channel and 30 posts a month; now there is a 7-day trial instead.", "src": [ 14, 15, 26 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "The company calls itself self-funded in November 2024 and a non-funded company in November 2025.", "src": [ 16, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 person, plus open-source contributors", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's words in November 2025: a single developer. In 2026 the site has a hiring link and the founder writes of a Postiz team running video pages; no headcount is published.", "src": [ 6, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Companies and location", "value": "Gitroom Limited, Hong Kong, receives the subscriptions; Gitroom LLC, Delaware, holds the social networks' developer approvals", "grade": "C", "note": "Company about page and terms of service. The founder wrote on Hacker News in December 2023 that he is Israeli and was choosing where to incorporate.", "src": [ 17, 18 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2026 figure", "value": "27 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: July 2024 to October 2026.", "src": [ 14, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2021", "what": "David, a full-stack developer, runs Linvo, a LinkedIn automation tool, alone and bootstrapped. It breaks the network's rules, has memory leaks, and he sells it for a low price.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 19 ] }, { "when": "2022 to early 2024", "what": "He works on growth at Novu, an open-source notification company, which reaches 31,000 GitHub stars. He writes 74 posts on dev.to with 1.18 million views and starts the Gitroom newsletter about open-source marketing.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 20, 13 ] }, { "when": "17 December 2023", "what": "He asks Hacker News where to incorporate, writes that he is Israeli, and discusses Hong Kong and Delaware.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 18 ] }, { "when": "21 to 26 March 2024", "what": "Gitroom, an open-source tool to schedule an open-source launch across Reddit, dev.to, X and LinkedIn, is posted on Hacker News and dev.to. Stack: Next.js and NestJS. The GitHub repository, created on 8 July 2023, is the one that later becomes Postiz.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 20, 11 ] }, { "when": "By 28 July 2024", "what": "postiz.com is live with the words Your ultimate AI social media scheduling tool, a free plan and a Launch plan at US$30 a month.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "24 August 2024", "what": "Show HN: I built a social media scheduling tool and open-sourced it. The repository is still named gitroom.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 21 ] }, { "when": "30 August 2024", "what": "A second Show HN lists 9 networks, basic analytics, AI copilots, team support and the stack. On the installation docs still saying Gitroom, he answers: it will be renamed to Postiz soon. The same week he posts it on r/selfhosted; the first request is a Docker image, which he builds first.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 22, 23, 6 ] }, { "when": "1 September 2024", "what": "The date the founder gives for creating Postiz. By 2 December it has almost 14,000 stars.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "21 September 2024", "what": "The pricing page shows Standard US$29, Team US$39, Pro US$49, Ultimate US$99, the same prices as in October 2026.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "20 November 2024", "what": "Product Hunt launch, 1,179 votes, first of the day, week and month according to the founder. The news post calls Postiz a self-funded startup.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 12, 16, 13 ] }, { "when": "26 November 2024", "what": "US$700 a month. 26,000 Docker downloads. Three to five support tickets a day from self-hosters.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "6 January 2025", "what": "License changed from Apache-2.0 to AGPL-3.0, which requires anyone who offers a modified version as a service to publish their changes.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "9 January 2025", "what": "US$2,100 a month after four months; 800,000 Docker downloads. Two weeks later he writes that 1.5 million downloads bring only a few thousand dollars a month, and that he launched a crypto coin whose 35% he valued at about US$500,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 10 ] }, { "when": "15 to 17 April 2025", "what": "Version 1.39.3 adds an MCP server, so an AI assistant can schedule posts to the 18 supported networks from a chat window. Second Product Hunt launch on 1 May, 738 votes.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 24, 16, 12 ] }, { "when": "July to August 2025", "what": "US$6,523 to US$12,648 a month in one month. He had noticed YouTube videos and Skool groups about automating social media with n8n, built an official n8n node (about an hour of work with Cursor, he says), cold-emailed the group owners with an offer, and his affiliate program grew. A moderator of a large paid community built a template with his affiliate link.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 6 ] }, { "when": "Autumn 2025", "what": "His daughter is born. He writes of massive burnout after a year of overwork. Third Product Hunt launch on 31 October: AI agents and MCP for 20+ channels, 658 votes.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 12 ] }, { "when": "21 November 2025", "what": "US$14,000 a month from subscriptions, as a single developer, with a target of US$20,000 in two months. 4.79 million Docker downloads. Stripe shows US$16,049 of revenue for the month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 6, 1 ] }, { "when": "30 January 2026", "what": "A skill for OpenClaw lets that agent schedule posts with one install command; he writes that people already use it. Twitch and Kick added. Revenue jumps from US$18,300 in January to US$46,019 in February.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 16, 1 ] }, { "when": "2 March 2026", "what": "MRR US$60,731 with 1,800 active subscriptions.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "2 April 2026", "what": "MRR US$87,530 with 2,668 subscriptions: a run rate above US$1 million a year. Fourth Product Hunt launch on 1 May: a scheduler for agents like OpenClaw, 551 votes.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 2, 12 ] }, { "when": "15 May 2026", "what": "MRR US$115,489 with 3,434 subscriptions.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "7 September 2026", "what": "He publishes an X article, I make $2.2m ARR, and this is how I sell SaaS, with a link to his public Stripe profile. 238,619 views. Stripe revenue for September: US$247,789.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 1 ] }, { "when": "12 October 2026", "what": "MRR US$262,899, 7,683 subscriptions. The site lists 17 documented AI agents and more than 30 channels.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 17 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Open source as the distribution channel", "text": "Social media schedulers had existed for twenty years without a serious open-source one. By making all of the code public, the founder could list the product in the self-hosting directories, post every minor version on r/selfhosted, dev.to and Hacker News, and reach developers who would never read a marketing page. Those developers mostly do not pay; they run the Docker image on their own server. He says so himself. What they give is links, stars, bug reports, 75 code contributors, and support for each other, which a one-person company cannot buy." }, { "title": "Sixteen months of small revenue, then a new audience", "text": "The founder reports US$700 a month in November 2024 and US$14,000 a month in November 2025. The first jump came when he noticed people automating their posting with n8n workflows and sold to them: an official n8n node, cold emails to the owners of n8n communities, an affiliate program. In his words, he did not change the product; he changed the audience. Automated users also leave less, because the workflow keeps posting without anyone opening the app." }, { "title": "The publishing layer for AI agents", "text": "An MCP server in April 2025, a command-line tool, a skill for OpenClaw in January 2026 and documentation for 17 agents made Postiz the part that an agent calls when it wants to post. The Stripe data show revenue multiplying 15 times between November 2025 and September 2026, the months in which agent frameworks spread. The AI is in the customer's agent; Postiz sells the publishing layer, with per-network rules, media upload and a calendar where a person approves." }, { "title": "Sell an outcome, not an alternative", "text": "In September 2026 the founder wrote that selling an agentic scheduler as an alternative to other schedulers has a ceiling near US$100,000 of MRR, because buyers compare features. His content instead teaches how to get views on X, on video pages and with TikTok slideshows, with Postiz as the tool in the background. One such article had 238,619 views. The same text warns that some of these tactics get accounts banned." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's technical posts, his Hacker News launch posts and the GitHub repository. They are grade B and C.", "items": [ "One repository managed with NX: a Next.js front end, a NestJS back end, Prisma as the database layer on PostgreSQL, Redis with BullMQ as the queue that fires each scheduled post, and worker processes that do the posting. Resend sends the emails.", "Each social network is a provider class with four methods: generate the OAuth2 login link, exchange the code for a token, refresh the token, post. OAuth2 is the standard by which a network lets a third-party app act for a user. Gitroom LLC in Delaware holds the developer approvals that the networks require.", "A Docker image was the first thing the community asked for and the first thing built; it is how most self-hosters install it, through Coolify, Portainer or Unraid. By November 2025 it had 4.79 million downloads.", "Interfaces for machines rather than people: a public API with webhooks, an n8n node, a Make.com integration, an MCP server at mcp.postiz.com, a command-line tool installed with npm, and installable skills for agents. The founder says the n8n node took about an hour with Cursor, an AI coding editor, starting from n8n's template.", "AI features inside the product, all bought from model providers: a writing copilot, image generation, and clipping long YouTube videos into captioned short clips, sold as monthly quotas on each plan.", "Marketing without a budget: self-hosting directories, Reddit, dev.to, Hacker News, four Product Hunt launches, cold email to community owners from a separate warmed-up domain, an affiliate program, and from 2026 long articles on X. TrustMRR records a domain rating of 72.", "Payments through Stripe, billed by Gitroom Limited in Hong Kong. The license moved from Apache-2.0 to AGPL-3.0 in January 2025." ], "src": [ 23, 22, 6, 7, 11, 17, 4, 26, 1 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold tools for posting to, or marketing on, social networks, and died. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Pixelpipe", "years": "2008 to 2013", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Post your photos, videos and audio to every social network and blog at once.", "died": "The networks added their own cross-posting and closed their interfaces to third parties. It grew users without a way to charge them.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/435-pixelpipe" }, { "name": "Argyle Social", "years": "2009 to 2013", "funding": "US$2.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A social media marketing tool for engagement and leads, connected to Pardot and Marketo.", "died": "Hootsuite and the other leaders had far larger marketing budgets. It depended on the networks' interfaces and shipped only small improvements.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1832-argyle-social" }, { "name": "PostRocket", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$610K", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "Post to your Facebook page at the moment the data says will reach the most people.", "died": "Built on one network. Facebook changed its ranking and its rules and sold its own advertising instead. Hootsuite and Buffer covered many networks.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/457-postrocket" }, { "name": "ThinkUp", "years": "2010 to 2017", "funding": "US$1M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Personal analytics from your own Twitter and Facebook activity.", "died": "The networks restricted their interfaces and built their own analytics. It never became a full management tool, and users moved to phones.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/624-thinkup" }, { "name": "Metigy", "years": "2014 to 2022", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "An AI marketing brain for small businesses: analyze the accounts, recommend content, predict results.", "died": "Pre-2022 models gave generic advice such as post more video. Small businesses signed up, felt overwhelmed and left within 60 to 90 days. US$14 million was spent.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2338-metigy" } ], "whatChanged": [ "All five sold access to networks they did not control, and three died when the networks closed or changed their interfaces. Postiz has the same dependence: every channel runs on a developer approval held by Gitroom LLC, and the founder's own article says that automated posting can get accounts banned. Argyle Social and PostRocket also lost to Hootsuite and Buffer, which had money for marketing. Postiz has none.", "Three things differ. First, open source gave Postiz the distribution that Argyle Social could not afford: millions of installs, 37,000 stars and the links that come with them, at the cost of giving the product away to developers. Second, the buyer changed. In 2025 and 2026 the thing that posts is often an n8n workflow or an AI agent, which needs an API, a command-line tool and a self-hostable option, and the incumbents were built for a person clicking in a browser. Third, Metigy sold AI advice, and its models could not give good advice. Postiz sells no advice. The intelligence sits in the customer's own agent, and Postiz sells the publishing layer that the agent needs." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The open-source method, yes. The timing, only partly.", "text": "Open-sourcing an existing category and marketing it to self-hosters is a documented method, and the founder has published every step. The revenue, though, came from a specific moment: automation users in 2025, then AI agents in 2026, arriving at a product that already had an API and a reputation. A copy started now would face Postiz itself, which is open source and already connected to 17 agents.", "steps": [ "Pick a product category that is old, large and without a serious open-source entry. Open-source all of it, with a Docker image on the first day, and list it in the self-hosting directories.", "Post every minor version to r/selfhosted, dev.to and Hacker News. Accept that developers will not pay and that support from self-hosters is the price of the exposure.", "Charge for the hosted version from the first month, and expect a year of a few thousand dollars a month.", "Watch for the audience that automates your category. Build the integrations they already use (n8n, Make, an MCP server, a command-line tool), then email the owners of their communities with an offer and an affiliate link.", "Publish content about the result the customer wants, with the product in the background, and link the payment processor's own figures instead of screenshots." ], "open": "Any established software category in which the next user will be an agent or a workflow rather than a person: the agent needs an API, a self-hostable option, and the rules of each destination encoded for it. Email marketing, advertising accounts, marketplaces listings and customer messaging are candidates." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The networks control the access", "text": "All 30 channels run on developer approvals and interfaces that Meta, X, TikTok and the others can change or revoke, which is how Pixelpipe, PostRocket and ThinkUp died. The founder's growth tactics (many pages per video, mobile proxies for TikTok, comment-for-link calls to action) are ones he says can get accounts banned." }, { "title": "The jump coincides with the spread of agents", "text": "Revenue multiplied 15 times between November 2025 and September 2026, the months when agent frameworks spread. If the agent frameworks or the networks themselves offer posting directly, a scheduler becomes a commodity. The product's AI label is positioning: the intelligence is in the customer's agent." }, { "title": "Small numbers that do not agree", "text": "The founder's X profile says US$245,000 a month while TrustMRR shows US$262,899 the same week. His November 2025 post says US$14,000 in the text and US$14,200 in the title, and writes August 2024 where it means August 2025. TrustMRR's founded date is 24 July 2024; the founder's own start date is 1 September 2024; the site was live by 28 July. None of these change the picture." }, { "title": "One person, and a stated burnout", "text": "The founder wrote in November 2025 of massive burnout after the birth of his daughter and a year of overwork. He also runs a second product, agent-media.ai, and in January 2025 launched a crypto coin, which he presented as worth more to him than the product at the time. The site has a hiring link but publishes no headcount." }, { "title": "Open source has a cost", "text": "7,191 forks and millions of Docker downloads pay nothing and generate support tickets. The AGPL-3.0 license, adopted in January 2025, stops competitors from selling a closed modified version, but a hosting company can still offer the unmodified program as a one-click install. The average subscription is about US$34 a month, so a small rise in churn costs a lot of customers." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile of Postiz, Stripe-verified metrics, data as of 12 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/postiz.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile. The revenue, MRR and subscription figures are read by TrustMRR from the company's Stripe account through an API key; the profile text (founded date, description) is founder-written and graded C." }, { "title": "TrustMRR profile of Postiz, archived copies of 2 March, 2 April, 20 April and 15 May 2026", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260402143739/https://trustmrr.com/startup/postiz", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the four archived pages at web.archive.org (timestamps 20260302012033, 20260402143739, 20260420205145, 20260515174532). Each states that revenue is verified with a Stripe API key. Source for the spring 2026 MRR and subscription counts." }, { "title": "Nevo David on X, 7 September 2026: I make $2.2m ARR, and this is how I sell SaaS with ChatGPT Astra", "url": "https://x.com/wickedguro/status/2096974398167392500", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the article text through api.fxtwitter.com. Founder's own statement with a link to his public Stripe profile. Source for the US$2.2 million ARR claim, the view count and the sales tactics." }, { "title": "Postiz blog, 8 September 2026: The $2.2M ARR SaaS marketing strategy", "url": "https://postiz.com/blog/saas-marketing-strategy-chatgpt-astra-2-2m-arr", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's own retelling of the X article, with the US$186,000 MRR figure and the MCP and command-line setup." }, { "title": "Nevo David's X profile, @wickedguro, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/wickedguro", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile JSON through api.fxtwitter.com: 23,287 followers, account created July 2025, profile text with the US$245,000 a month figure. His earlier handle, @nevodavid, no longer resolves." }, { "title": "Nevo David on dev.to, 21 November 2025: I did it! My open-source company now makes $14.2k monthly as a single developer", "url": "https://dev.to/nevodavid/i-did-it-my-open-source-company-now-makes-142k-monthly-as-a-single-developer-1179", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the dev.to API. Source for the November 2025 revenue, the Docker downloads, the n8n turn, the affiliate program, the non-funded status and the burnout." }, { "title": "Nevo David on Hacker News, 28 November 2025: My SaaS jumped from $6,523 to $12,648 monthly, here is how", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46076878", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the Hacker News API. Source for the n8n node, the cold email method, the Skool outreach and the community feature." }, { "title": "Nevo David on dev.to, 9 January 2025: You can open a startup in open-source and quit your daily job", "url": "https://dev.to/nevodavid/you-can-open-a-startup-in-open-source-and-quit-your-daily-job-3ld5", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the dev.to API. Source for the US$2,100 a month after four months, the 800,000 Docker downloads and the marketing channel list." }, { "title": "Nevo David on dev.to, 26 November 2024: I am making $700 monthly with my open-source scheduling tool", "url": "https://dev.to/nevodavid/i-am-making-700-monthly-with-my-open-source-scheduling-tool-you-can-do-it-too-33o7", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the dev.to API. Source for the November 2024 revenue, the 26,000 Docker downloads and the support load." }, { "title": "Nevo David on dev.to, 24 January 2025: You don't know it, but your open-source might be worth millions of dollars", "url": "https://dev.to/nevodavid/you-dont-know-it-but-your-open-source-might-be-worth-millions-of-dollars-47c", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the dev.to API. Source for the 1.5 million downloads, the statement that the product made only a few thousand a month, and the crypto coin." }, { "title": "GitHub repository gitroomhq/postiz-app, metadata read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://github.com/gitroomhq/postiz-app", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the repository metadata, the README, the contributor count and the LICENSE commit history through the GitHub API. Source for the stars, forks, contributors, creation date and license change." }, { "title": "Product Hunt, Postiz launches page", "url": "https://www.producthunt.com/products/postiz/launches", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the four launch dates and vote counts." }, { "title": "Nevo David on dev.to, 2 December 2024: I built an open-source social media scheduling, and it blew up", "url": "https://dev.to/nevodavid/i-built-an-open-source-social-media-scheduling-and-it-blew-up-415e", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the dev.to API. Source for the 1 September 2024 start date, the 14,000 stars, the Product Hunt ranking and the Novu background." }, { "title": "postiz.com as archived on 28 July 2024", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240728025541/https://postiz.com/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the archived page. Shows the product live with a free plan and a Launch plan at US$30 a month. Source for the July 2024 launch date." }, { "title": "Postiz pricing page as archived on 21 September 2024", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240921002655/https://postiz.com/pricing", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the archived page. Shows the four plans at US$29, 39, 49 and 99." }, { "title": "Postiz news page: posts of 20 November 2024, 17 April 2025, 30 January 2026 and 11 February 2026", "url": "https://postiz.com/news", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the four posts in full. Source for the self-funded statement, the MCP release, the OpenClaw skill and the Skool and Whop channels." }, { "title": "Postiz about page and terms of service, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://postiz.com/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both in full. Source for the two companies, their addresses, the 17 documented agents, the 30+ channels and the founder's description of the product." }, { "title": "Nevo David on Hacker News, 17 December 2023, in Ask HN: Where should I incorporate my business", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38671495", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the thread through the Hacker News API. The founder writes that he is Israeli and discusses Hong Kong and Delaware." }, { "title": "Nevo David on dev.to, 4 April 2024: I sold my startup because of bugs", "url": "https://dev.to/github20k/i-sold-my-startup-because-of-bugs-i-wish-i-had-this-serverless-repository-4l3a", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the dev.to API. Source for the Linvo background." }, { "title": "Nevo David on dev.to, 26 March 2024: My new open-source repository to schedule all your content", "url": "https://dev.to/github20k/my-new-open-source-repository-to-schedule-all-your-content-2f2a", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the dev.to API. Source for the Gitroom launch, the Novu work, the dev.to view counts and the first stack." }, { "title": "Show HN, 24 August 2024: I built a social media scheduling tool and open-sourced it", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41335868", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the thread through the Hacker News API. The first Hacker News post under the Postiz name; the repository link still says gitroom." }, { "title": "Show HN, 30 August 2024: Postiz, open-source social media scheduling tool", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41402138", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the thread through the Hacker News API. Source for the 9 networks, the Apache-2 license at the time, the stack and the rename from Gitroom." }, { "title": "Nevo David on dev.to, 3 September 2024: How I built my open-source social media scheduling tool", "url": "https://dev.to/nevodavid/how-i-built-my-open-source-social-media-scheduling-tool-dih", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the dev.to API. Source for the OAuth2 provider design, the Redis and BullMQ queue, Prisma and PostgreSQL, and the Reddit launch." }, { "title": "Hacker News, 15 April 2025: Postiz introduces MCPs, founder's comment", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43693497", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through the Hacker News API. The founder announces the MCP server and lists the 18 networks supported at the time." }, { "title": "Nevo David's public Stripe profile", "url": "https://profile.stripe.com/@wickedguro/m/5ymv2iAE", "grade": "A", "how": "Could not read; the page loads its figures by script. Listed because the founder links it as his proof. The same Stripe account is read through TrustMRR, source 1." }, { "title": "Postiz pricing page, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://postiz.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the plan prices, the yearly prices, the quotas, the trial and the refund rule." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/arcads/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/arcads.md", "slug": "arcads", "name": "Arcads", "country": "France", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI video ads with AI actors", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "January 2024", "outcomeLabel": "US$6M annual recurring revenue, May 2025", "sticker": "$6M ARR, 5 people", "outcomeUsd": 6000000, "months": 16, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders in a team of 5 at US$6M ARR (the interviewer counted 6), 8 people at US$10M ARR", "fundingLabel": "None until US$10M ARR, then a US$16M seed round in December 2025", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "video", "channel": "paid-ads", "trend": "growing", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Funded", "Running", "B2B", "Advertising" ], "product": "A marketer types a script, picks an AI actor from a library of more than 1,000 or creates a new one, and receives a short video of that actor speaking the script, in the style of a customer's phone video. The same ad can be made again with another face, another script or another language, so the marketer can test which version sells.", "why": "The two founders had bought video ads every week for their own mobile app, so they knew the buyer and the price. They sold AI-made ads as a service before they wrote the software. Then they advertised the product with its own output, and software agents did the growth work that a larger company hires people for.", "summary": [ "Arcads makes UGC ads with AI. UGC means user-generated content: a UGC ad is a short video that looks like a customer filmed it on a phone, and brands normally pay a person, a UGC actor, to record each one. In Arcads the person is an AI actor, a generated face and voice that speaks any script the marketer types. A company that advertises on Meta or TikTok needs many versions of each ad to find the one that sells, and Arcads produces each version in minutes.", "Romain Torres and Dylan Fournier founded this French company after they had run a marketing agency and then a mobile app studio. They took their first customers in January 2024. In an interview recorded on 16 May 2025, Torres said that Arcads had US$6 million in annual recurring revenue with a team of five people, and no outside investors. Annual recurring revenue (ARR) is the current monthly subscription revenue multiplied by twelve. On 14 November 2025 he said US$10 million with eight people, and showed his revenue dashboard on screen when the interviewer asked for proof. On 17 December 2025 the company announced a US$16 million seed round, the first sale of shares to professional investors, led by the investment group Eurazeo.", "This page uses the May 2025 figure as its headline, because that is the number reached with about five people. It is a founder statement, grade C. The November figure is grade B, because a person outside the company saw the dashboard. The page also shows four failed companies that sold cheap video advertising made by human creators, before a model could generate the person." ], "pricing": { "caption": "Arcads plans in October 2026: credit amounts from the company's help center, prices from a reviewer, because the prices appear only inside the app after sign-up (grade C)", "note": "A credit is the unit that the app charges for each generation. On Starter and Creator, unused credits expire at each renewal and the account pauses when they are used up. On Pro, Scale and Business, unused credits carry over and extra credits are billed. The prices of US$110 and US$220 come from a June 2026 review that describes a screenshot of the in-app price screen, taken when the same plans were described as 10 and 20 videos a month. They were not verified inside the app for this page, and no yearly prices were found.", "rows": [ [ "Free trial", "", "0", "3 days, 1,000 credits, card required; then the Starter price is charged" ], [ "Starter", "not found", "110", "8,000 credits a month" ], [ "Creator", "not found", "220", "16,000 credits a month" ], [ "Pro, Scale, Business", "custom", "custom", "More credits, unused credits carry over, extra credits billed" ] ] }, "factsCaption": "US$6 million in annual recurring revenue 16 months after the first customer, with five people and no investors, then US$10 million shown on a live dashboard six months later", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade B value was seen or confirmed by someone outside the company (the interviewer saw the revenue dashboard; the investor's law firm confirmed the round). A grade C value is a statement by the founders or the company, or a figure from a reviewer or a database. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A.", "timelineLead": "From a service delivered by hand in January 2024 to US$6 million in annual recurring revenue 16 months later, then a venture-funded company. Each entry carries its grade.", "facts": [ { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, 16 May 2025", "value": "US$6 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on camera. No document was shown in this interview. Six months later he showed a revenue graph that covers this period, but no one read the May value from it.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Team at US$6 million ARR", "value": "5 people, including the 2 founders", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's words: the team is still five people, engineers. The interviewer says six full-time employees twice in the same recording. The two counts were never reconciled.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "ARR per person, May 2025", "value": "US$1.2 million with 5 people, US$1.0 million with 6", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 6,000,000 divided by 5 equals 1,200,000, and divided by 6 equals 1,000,000.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue behind the headline", "value": "about US$500,000 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 6,000,000 divided by 12.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "ARR, April 2025", "value": "US$5 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: one month ago we were at 5 million.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from April to May 2025", "value": "20% in one month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 6 minus 5, divided by 5.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Date of US$1 million ARR", "value": "June 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: the first time was in June, I think. That is 5 months after the first customer (calculated).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue after the first week, January 2024", "value": "about US$5,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, in both interviews. At that time Arcads delivered the ads as a service and had no login page.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Paying customers, May 2025", "value": "close to 4,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "ARR, 14 November 2025", "value": "US$10 million", "grade": "B", "note": "The founder said the figure. The interviewer asked for proof, and the founder showed his live revenue dashboard on a shared screen, in euros. The interviewer is a podcast host who also runs a lending company, not a newsroom, and no payment processor has published the figure.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Team at US$10 million ARR", "value": "8 people, 2 of them in sales", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in November 2025. The company's own press release of 17 December 2025 says a team of seven.", "src": [ 2, 5 ] }, { "fact": "ARR per person, November 2025", "value": "US$1.25 million", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 10,000,000 divided by 8.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Paying customers, November and December 2025", "value": "more than 6,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's answer to the interviewer, and the company press release.", "src": [ 2, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Largest contract, November 2025", "value": "six figures a year", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder. The interviewer summarizes it as more than US$100,000 a year. Large customers grow by usage: they generate more videos each month.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Videos and other assets generated, December 2025", "value": "100,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Company press release.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding before December 2025", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in both interviews: bootstrapped, which means paid for by the company's own revenue. He said the two founders each own 50%.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Seed round, 17 December 2025", "value": "US$16 million, led by Eurazeo", "grade": "B", "note": "Confirmed by Jones Day, the law firm that advised Eurazeo, and by a quotation from a Eurazeo managing director in the announcement. Other investors: Alpha Intelligence Capital and the Sequoia Scout program.", "src": [ 5, 6, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Profit", "value": "profitable, amount not disclosed", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder refused to give a margin in both interviews. The press release says already profitable. Spending on ads, influencers and model providers is not public.", "src": [ 1, 2, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue, April 2026", "value": "US$15 million a year", "grade": "C", "note": "Latka database, marked confirmed by CEO. No interview or document for this figure was found.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Ad impressions of Arcads videos by June 2025", "value": "more than 1 billion", "grade": "C", "note": "Published by ElevenLabs, the voice supplier. The count itself most likely comes from Arcads; not verified.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the first customer to US$6 million ARR", "value": "16 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: January 2024 to May 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Before 2024", "what": "Torres and Fournier, who met as students about ten years earlier, run a marketing agency and then a mobile app studio. Its main product is WeFast, a weight-loss app for women with seven-figure revenue, which means at least US$1 million. Torres spends his days buying UGC ads for it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2, 3, 5 ] }, { "when": "January 2024", "what": "They decide to sell the app studio and start Arcads. The first customers are friends in the mobile app industry. Arcads delivers AI-made ads as a service, with no login page, to test whether brands will pay. About US$5,000 in monthly recurring revenue after one week.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "March 2024", "what": "The software is live. A customer posts an Arcads video on X and it spreads. Hundreds of sales arrive in one night, and monthly revenue jumps from about 5,000 to almost 64,000 euros. The product breaks under the load. The founders refund everyone.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "April 2024", "what": "Relaunch after one month of rebuilding.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "June 2024", "what": "US$1 million ARR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "April 2025", "what": "US$5 million ARR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "16 May 2025", "what": "US$6 million ARR with a team of five, close to 4,000 paying customers, and about 100 automation agents that do growth tasks. Torres says the company is bootstrapped and very profitable.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "June 2025", "what": "ElevenLabs publishes that every Arcads actor speaks with one of its voices.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "Mid-2025", "what": "Growth slows to about 10% a month for about two months, while Torres stops marketing to hire the first salesperson and build a sales process for large brands. The exact months are not stated.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "14 November 2025", "what": "US$10 million ARR, shown on the revenue dashboard. Eight people, more than 6,000 paying customers, growth above 20% a month, and 210 ads running in the company's Meta account, which the interviewer also sees on screen. Torres says he would refuse US$150 million for the company.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "17 December 2025", "what": "US$16 million seed round led by Eurazeo, to open an office in San Francisco. More than half of the users are in the United States.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 5, 6, 7 ] }, { "when": "April 2026", "what": "US$15 million in yearly revenue, according to the Latka database.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "July to October 2026", "what": "The help center lists five plans, from Starter to Business, and a 3-day free trial. The home page shows more than 1,000 AI actors and newer video models.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 11 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "The product is its own advertisement", "text": "The largest sales channel in May 2025 was paid ads on Meta, made with Arcads. In the founder's words: we use our own tool to promote our tool. Each ad shows a buyer what the product makes, and each test tells the team which feature is missing. In November 2025 the account ran 210 ads at once, and the best ones were translated into other languages." }, { "title": "The founders had been the customer", "text": "They ran a consumer app with seven-figure revenue and bought UGC ads for it every week. They knew what a marketer pays a human actor, how long delivery takes, and how many versions a campaign needs. The first buyers were friends in the same industry." }, { "title": "Sell the result before the software", "text": "In January 2024 there was no product to log in to. The founders made AI ads by hand and delivered them, to learn two things: whether brands pay for an AI-made ad, and whether they order again after they see the results. Only then did they build the software." }, { "title": "Rented models, own workflow", "text": "Arcads does not build the large video and image models. It integrates models from Google, ByteDance, Kling and ElevenLabs as they appear, and adds the actor library, the script-to-video steps and the translation. The founder says the company also builds some models of its own for narrow cases." }, { "title": "Agents instead of hires", "text": "Torres built about 100 agents in Gumloop, a tool that chains AI steps without code. One reads competitors' ad libraries every day, transcribes new ads, rewrites them for Arcads and posts them in Slack. Others find influencers and large advertisers and draft the first message. That work is why five people were enough at US$6 million." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the two recorded interviews, the ElevenLabs customer story and the company's own site. They are grade B and C.", "items": [ "Voices: ElevenLabs, chosen after tests of every large text-to-speech provider, according to ElevenLabs. Video and image generation: models from Google, ByteDance and Kling, selected by the app for each request, plus some models that Arcads builds itself for narrow cases.", "Stripe for payments, with each sale posted to a Slack channel. Intercom for the support chat. That chat is where the founders saw in March 2024 that the product had broken.", "A hook generator on a separate page of the site. A hook is the first sentence of an ad, the part that makes a viewer keep watching.", "About 100 Gumloop agents for growth work. The founder trains them with examples, not instructions: a Notion database of hooks that worked and a document of his best posts.", "Three sales channels in May 2025: paid ads made with the product, content by the founder and by partner creators, and direct contact with companies that spend heavily on ads. By November 2025 a two-person sales team came first, then paid ads, then paid influencers.", "Roles: Torres leads marketing and sales, Fournier leads product. The team of five in May 2025 was all engineers by the founder's description." ], "src": [ 1, 2, 8, 11 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold cheaper video advertising for brands when every video still needed a human in front of a camera. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "ClearMix", "years": "2020 to 2023", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Professional marketing videos without a film crew budget, made by freelance videographers and editors on demand.", "died": "The process was manual. Canva and Adobe added video tools, and AI editing tools automated the steps that ClearMix did by hand.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1336-clearmix" }, { "name": "FameBit", "years": "2013 to 2019", "funding": "US$1.75M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A self-service marketplace where a brand posts a campaign and YouTube creators apply to make the sponsored video.", "died": "Google bought it in 2016. YouTube then moved to larger brand deals, advertisers moved to Instagram and TikTok, and the marketplace was phased out.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/132-famebit" }, { "name": "CollabFinder", "years": "2013 to 2016", "funding": "US$150K", "cause": "No market need", "promise": "Automatic matching of brands with social media creators, without an agency.", "died": "About 60% of the matched pairs made their deal outside the platform, so the commission income collapsed. Brands wanted protection against fraud more than they wanted discovery.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/64-collabfinder" }, { "name": "Big Un", "years": "2013 to 2018", "funding": "US$20M", "cause": "Legal or regulatory", "promise": "Video reviews and testimonials for small local businesses, produced for them and published on its platform.", "died": "The database records that it overstated its revenue by 300% to 400% and its customer count about tenfold, while about 80% of customers left each year. The Australian regulator investigated and the company collapsed.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2337-big-un" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Before 2023, every video ad with a person in it needed that person. FameBit and CollabFinder matched brands with creators, and ClearMix sent freelance videographers. In each case a human had to be found, briefed, paid and waited for, so a brand could afford only a few versions of an ad. The marketplaces also had a second weakness: once a brand and a creator knew each other, they could work without the marketplace.", "Video and voice models removed the person. A script becomes a talking actor in minutes, and a second version with another face or another language costs one more generation. A reviewer puts the cost at about US$11 per finished video on the smallest Arcads plan. That changes how advertisers work: Arcads itself ran 210 ads at once in November 2025, a volume that would have needed a production team. The four companies above had to recruit humans for each video. Arcads rents the models and had five employees at US$6 million in annual recurring revenue." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The product, hard now. The method, yes.", "text": "AI video ads became a crowded market within two years. The Latka database lists HeyGen, Synthesia and Creatify as direct competitors, and a reviewer puts Creatify's first paid plan at US$19 a month against US$110 for Arcads. Every competitor can rent the same models. The part that can be repeated is the order of the work: the founders chose a task that they had paid for themselves for years, sold the result by hand first, and only then built software.", "steps": [ "Choose a task that you already buy from people every week, so you know the buyer, the price and what a good result looks like.", "Deliver the result as a service to a few buyers before you build the software, and check that they order again.", "Rent the models. Build the steps around them: a library, a simple path from input to output, variants and translation.", "Advertise the product with its own output, test many versions, and keep only the ads that pay for themselves.", "Automate each repeated growth task with an agent before you hire a person for it." ], "open": "Arcads serves general consumer advertising. Narrower versions are still open: video ads for one regulated industry with its rules built in, ads for one language market with local faces and accents, and the step after generation, which is deciding from campaign data which version to run next." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The headline is a founder statement", "text": "US$6 million in May 2025 was said on camera and not shown. The dashboard was shown only in November 2025, to an interviewer who also runs a lending company. No payment processor, auditor or newspaper has confirmed any revenue figure." }, { "title": "Team counts that do not agree", "text": "The founder said five people in May 2025 and the interviewer said six in the same recording. The founder said eight in November 2025 and the company's press release said seven in December 2025. The differences are small, but revenue per person depends on them." }, { "title": "It is no longer a five-person bootstrapped company", "text": "Since December 2025 Arcads has US$16 million from investors, a sales team and a plan for a San Francisco office. The numbers on this page describe the period before that. Later growth says less about what a small team can do without capital." }, { "title": "Rented models and unknown margins", "text": "Every video costs Arcads a payment to a model provider, and the founder would not say how large that cost is or how much goes to ads and influencers. Google and ByteDance, two of the providers, also sell advertising and could offer the generation step inside their own ad products." }, { "title": "Price and credits", "text": "Reviewers describe Arcads as one of the most expensive tools to start with, and quote users who used a month of credits in minutes while testing versions. Cheaper competitors use the same kind of models." }, { "title": "Ads with people who do not exist", "text": "The product makes a person who was never a customer recommend a product. The founder describes customers, some about 16 years old, who run TikTok accounts with AI characters for supplement brands. Disclosure rules for such ads differ by country and platform, and this page did not check them." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Founderpath, interview by Nathan Latka recorded 16 May 2025, published 8 July 2025: How Arcads Hit $6M ARR With a Five-Person Team and AI Agents", "url": "https://founderpath.com/resources/romain-torres-arcads-6m-arr-five-person-team-ai-agents", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full transcript on the page's watch view. Founder statements on camera. Primary source for the headline figure, the team of five, the launch story and the agents." }, { "title": "Founderpath, interview by Nathan Latka recorded 14 November 2025, published 10 December 2025: How Arcads Grew to $10M ARR in 20 Months With AI Video Ads and a Sales Team", "url": "https://founderpath.com/resources/romain-torres-arcads-10m-arr-ai-video-ads-sales", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the full transcript on the page's watch view. The founder shares his revenue dashboard and his Meta ads account on screen. Grade B for what the interviewer saw, grade C for the other statements. The automatic transcript has errors in some numbers, so only clearly stated figures are used." }, { "title": "Latka blog, by Nathan Latka, updated 31 August 2026: Arcads Revenue: Bootstrapped to $10M ARR in 22 Months, Shown Live on a Revenue Dashboard", "url": "https://getlatka.com/blog/arcads-revenue-ceo", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. The interviewer's written account of both recordings, with a dated table and the conflicts he found, including the five or six people in May 2025." }, { "title": "Latka database page for Arcads, updated 7 October 2026", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/arcads.ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the April 2026 revenue marked confirmed by CEO, the two headcount readings and the competitor list." }, { "title": "Arcads blog, 17 December 2025: Arcads.ai Raises 16 Million USD in Seed Funding to Accelerate Development in the United States", "url": "https://www.arcads.ai/blog/arcads-raises-16m-seed", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's press release, with a quotation from Eurazeo's managing director. Source for the investors, the founders' names, the team of seven, the 6,000 clients and the 100,000 assets a month." }, { "title": "Jones Day, December 2025: Eurazeo leads $16 million seed financing in Arcads.ai", "url": "https://www.jonesday.com/en/practices/experience/2025/12/eurazeo-leads-16-million-seed-financing-in-arcadsai", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. A short notice by the law firm that advised the lead investor. It confirms the round and the amount from the investor's side. No announcement on Eurazeo's own site was found." }, { "title": "Net Influencer, 19 December 2025: Arcads.ai Secures $16M Seed Funding To Expand AI Video Creation Platform", "url": "https://www.netinfluencer.com/arcads-ai-secures-16m-seed-funding-to-expand-ai-video-creation-platform/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Trade press that repeats the press release. It adds no reviewed numbers." }, { "title": "ElevenLabs customer story, 16 June 2025: Arcads gets more than a billion of ad impressions with ElevenLabs voices", "url": "https://elevenlabs.io/blog/arcads", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. A supplier's account with a founder quotation. Source for the voice provider and the impression count." }, { "title": "Arcads help center, 30 July 2026: How to buy more credits, and the article How the free trial works", "url": "https://help.arcads.ai/en/articles/13230774-how-to-buy-more-credits", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both articles in full. Source for the plan names, the monthly credits, the carry-over rule and the trial. The public site has no pricing page: the address arcads.ai/pricing returns page not found." }, { "title": "eesel AI blog, last edited 17 June 2026: Arcads AI pricing in 2026: plans, credits, and the real per-video cost", "url": "https://www.eesel.ai/en/blog/arcads-ai-pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A reviewer that describes a screenshot of the in-app price screen from another review. Source for the US$110 and US$220 prices, the cost per video and the user complaints. eesel sells other AI software and promotes it in the article." }, { "title": "Arcads home page, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://www.arcads.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the size of the actor library and the list of models. Not used for money figures." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/faceless-video/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/faceless-video.md", "slug": "faceless-video", "name": "Faceless.video", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Automated short videos for faceless channels", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "October 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$1M annual recurring revenue, August 2024", "sticker": "$1M ARR in 10 months", "outcomeUsd": 1000000, "months": 10, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders, one of them the only developer; 3 people on LinkedIn in August 2024", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "video", "channel": "creators", "trend": "growing", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Video" ], "product": "The customer picks a topic, a video style and a posting schedule. The service writes a story, edits it into a short video and posts it to the customer's TikTok, YouTube or Instagram account on that schedule. The customer never appears on camera and does not have to edit anything.", "why": "It sold the whole job, from the story to the posting, and not only a video editor. One paid thread by a known account on X brought the first customers, and creators who used the product then recommended it to their own audiences. One founder built everything on a no-code platform that he already knew from six failed products, so the first version was cheap and fast to change.", "summary": [ "Faceless.video makes and posts short videos for faceless channels. A faceless channel is a TikTok, YouTube or Instagram account whose videos never show the owner: a voice tells a story over pictures or game footage. The customer picks a topic, a style and a schedule, and the service writes each story, edits it into a video and posts it to the customer's account. The application was built on Bubble, a no-code platform, which is a tool for building a web application by arranging screens and rules in a visual editor instead of writing program code.", "Jacob Seeger, a songwriter and music producer with no programming training, built the application alone, after six earlier products of his had failed. His co-founder Alex Steinberg, a writer and director, had the idea and did the marketing. They launched in October 2023. Seeger says the business went from zero to US$1 million in annual recurring revenue within 10 months, with no investors. Annual recurring revenue (ARR) is the current monthly subscription revenue multiplied by twelve, so US$1 million of ARR is about US$83,000 a month. In July 2026 he said that monthly revenue is in six figures and that more than 2.5 million people have signed up. The site was open and selling plans on 12 October 2026.", "Every revenue figure on this page is a founder statement, grade C. Bubble repeated the US$1 million figure in its own customer story, but Bubble hosts the application and does not handle its payments. No payment processor has confirmed any number, and the founder gives no exact revenue figure after 2024. The page also shows five failed startups that promised easy video for everyone or that built their growth on another company's platform." ], "factsCaption": "US$1 million in annual recurring revenue ten months after launch, built by one developer on a no-code platform, with every revenue figure self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade B value comes from a company other than Faceless.video that put its own name on it and could observe it directly, here Bubble for the platform, the team and the user count, and the Internet Archive for old copies of pages. A grade C value is a statement by the founders, a figure that a supplier or a writer repeats from them, or a third-party estimate. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A.", "timelineLead": "From six failed products to US$1 million in annual recurring revenue 10 months after launch, and then the two years that followed. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Faceless.video plans in October 2026: monthly prices read from the company's pricing page; the yearly column is calculated from the page's \"Save 30%\" label (grade C)", "note": "A credit is the unit that the service charges for a video. Each plan gives two credits for each video in its limit, and the page says that other video types cost more or fewer credits. Unused credits carry over while the subscription is active. Extra credits cost US$8 for 10, US$35 for 50 or US$120 for 200. The yearly amounts load by script and could not be read, so the yearly column is 70% of the monthly price. A free trial exists. Starter Story's page, dated March 2025, records a free plan and plans up to US$99 a month, so the plans have changed since the headline figure.", "rows": [ [ "Starter", "about 14", "20", "30 credits, up to 15 videos a month, 1 social account" ], [ "Daily", "about 24.50", "35", "60 credits, up to 30 videos a month; marked most popular" ], [ "Double", "about 41.30", "59", "120 credits, up to 60 videos a month" ], [ "Studio", "about 104.30", "149", "350 credits, up to 175 videos a month, dedicated support" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, about August 2024", "value": "US$1 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in Indie Hackers, July 2026: from zero to US$1 million ARR within 10 months. Bubble's customer story of February 2025 says the same figure was reached in less than a year. Bubble hosts the application and does not handle its payments, so its figure is graded as a repeated founder figure.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Month of that milestone", "value": "about August 2024", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: October 2023 plus 10 months. No source names the month. Grit Daily called the company a seven-figure business on 16 August 2024.", "src": [ 1, 2, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to US$1 million ARR", "value": "10 months", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's statement. Bubble writes less than a year. Grit Daily dates the launch to late September 2023, Bubble to October 2023. An archived copy shows that the site already existed in July 2023, so the count starts at the public launch and not at the first version.", "src": [ 1, 2, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue at US$1 million ARR", "value": "about US$83,333", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 1,000,000 divided by 12. Starter Story's US$83.3K a month and the Indie Hackers label of more than US$83K a month are this same number, not separate measurements.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, July 2026", "value": "six figures, so at least US$100,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in Indie Hackers: \"We're currently at 6-figures in MRR.\" He gives no exact figure. Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is the subscription revenue of one month.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from August 2024 to July 2026", "value": "at least 20% in 23 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 100,000 divided by 83,333 is 1.20. This is only a lower limit, because six figures means any amount from US$100,000 to US$999,999. The first US$83,333 a month took 10 months.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Users, February 2025", "value": "more than 850,000", "grade": "B", "note": "Bubble's customer story. Bubble hosts the application's database and published the figure under its own name.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Sign-ups at other dates", "value": "275,000 in August 2024; 2.5 million in July 2026; 2.8 million in October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Grit Daily, the founder in Indie Hackers, and the company's home page, which reads \"Trusted by 2.8M+ creators\", in that order. A sign-up can be a free trial. It is not a paying customer.", "src": [ 4, 1, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Sign-up growth, August 2024 to October 2026", "value": "about 10 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 2,800,000 divided by 275,000 is 10.2. In the same period the stated monthly revenue went from about US$83,333 to at least US$100,000.", "src": [ 4, 8, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Paying customers", "value": "not published", "grade": "C", "note": "Grit Daily wrote of thousands of active users in August 2024. No source gives a count of paying subscribers.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Founders", "value": "2: Jacob Seeger and Alex Steinberg", "grade": "B", "note": "Bubble's story as archived on 16 April 2026: Seeger built the entire application, and Steinberg, a writer, director and animation studio founder, did the go-to-market work. Bubble changed the story on 22 April 2026. The present text names only Seeger and gives him a quotation that the earlier text gave to Steinberg. No source explains the change.", "src": [ 3, 2, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Team at the headline number", "value": "2 co-founders, of which 1 developer; 3 employees on LinkedIn", "grade": "C", "note": "Bubble: \"with just one Bubble Developer\". Grit Daily calls Seeger the app's sole developer. Latka records 3 employees in August 2024, from LinkedIn. No source reports contractors at that date.", "src": [ 2, 4, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Team in 2026", "value": "an in-house team, size not published", "grade": "C", "note": "The Indie Hackers interview has a section named \"Invest in an in-house team\". That section is behind the sign-in wall, so the size was not verified.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: \"completely bootstrapped\", which means paid for from its own revenue, and profitable. Bubble's title says bootstrapped. Starter Story lists the business as profitable.", "src": [ 1, 2, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Built on", "value": "Bubble, with integrations and custom code added", "grade": "B", "note": "Bubble's customer story calls Bubble the centerpiece of the product. In October 2026 the public home and pricing pages are served by Next.js, a code framework, and the home page still loads its images from Bubble's file servers. Whether the signed-in application still runs on Bubble was not verified.", "src": [ 2, 8, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Products the founder built before this one", "value": "6, none of which succeeded, over about two years", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers title and introduction. Grit Daily writes of two years of failed software products.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Cost of the first promotion", "value": "about US$200 to US$250 for one thread on X", "grade": "C", "note": "Not verified in the founder's own words. An AI-written summary of the Starter Story video says US$200 and hundreds of thousands of views. Readers of the Indie Hackers interview quote US$250 and 300,000 impressions. Grit Daily confirms a promotion by a known account on X at launch, without a price.", "src": [ 7, 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Price of one video on the Starter plan, October 2026", "value": "about US$1.33", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$20 a month divided by 15 videos. The company's home page compares this with US$150 to US$300 for each video from a hired editor, which is the company's own claim.", "src": [ 9, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Website visits per month", "value": "523,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story's database page, a third-party estimate with no date. It computes US$0.16 of revenue for each visitor from US$83.3K a month.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Latka's revenue estimate, September 2025", "value": "US$330,000 a year", "grade": "C", "note": "A third-party estimate, marked as such, and lower than the founder's figure. The same US$330,000 stands next to 17 other companies in the list on that page, so it looks like a default value and not a measurement.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "Confirmation by a payment processor", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR, which reads Stripe accounts, has a profile named Faceless Video. It belongs to a different product: its website is faceless-video.com, it was founded in April 2026, and its verified total revenue is US$19.90. It is not evidence for or against this story.", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "fact": "Location", "value": "Burbank, California, by Latka; terms of use under New Jersey law", "grade": "C", "note": "The company pages that were read name no legal entity. The founder's X profile reads: Founder of Faceless.video and Domno.co.", "src": [ 11, 8, 13 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Before 2023", "what": "Seeger works as a songwriter and producer and starts Domno, a music marketing agency. Over about two years he builds six software products on Bubble. None succeeds.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 1 ] }, { "when": "2023", "what": "Alex Steinberg sees faceless videos spreading on TikTok and wants a tool that makes and posts them for him. He asks Seeger, whom he knows through a friend's college contact. They decide to sell the tool as a service.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 4, 7 ] }, { "when": "23 July 2023", "what": "An Internet Archive copy of faceless.video from this date already offers automated content for faceless channels: pick a story, choose a background. The founder describes the first version as Reddit stories read aloud over Minecraft gameplay.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 10, 1 ] }, { "when": "Late September to October 2023", "what": "Launch. A paid thread by a known account on X brings many sign-ups and the first revenue at once, and the load causes technical faults that the team repairs.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 2, 7 ] }, { "when": "16 August 2024", "what": "Grit Daily reports more than 275,000 sign-ups, thousands of active users and a seven-figure business, with Seeger as the only developer.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "About August 2024", "what": "US$1 million in annual recurring revenue, 10 months after launch, by the founder's account.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "14 February 2025", "what": "Bubble publishes its customer story: US$1 million ARR in less than a year, more than 850,000 users, one Bubble developer. A new feature lets a business have an AI presenter promote its product.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "28 March 2025", "what": "Starter Story's page of this date lists the business with 2 founders, US$83.3K a month, profitable, and plans up to US$99 a month. The page was last changed on 20 April 2026.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "14 June 2025", "what": "Starter Story publishes a video interview with Seeger about building a US$1 million product without code.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 7 ] }, { "when": "22 April 2026", "what": "Bubble changes its customer story. The earlier text named both co-founders; the new text names only Seeger.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "21 July 2026", "what": "Indie Hackers interview: monthly recurring revenue in six figures, more than 2.5 million sign-ups, no investors, profitable.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "12 October 2026", "what": "The site is open and sells four plans from US$20 to US$149 a month. It shows 2.8 million creators, and a new connection lets a customer create and schedule videos from a chat with Claude or ChatGPT.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 9 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Sell the finished job, not a tool", "text": "The service does more than make one video from a text. It also finds the story, applies the chosen style and posts the result to the customer's account on a schedule. The customer's main decision is the topic. The founder calls it the first platform to run a faceless channel without the owner; that is his claim." }, { "title": "One paid thread, then recommendations", "text": "The founders paid a known account on X for one thread at launch, for about US$200 to US$250 by secondary accounts of the founder's interviews. It brought so many sign-ups that the application had faults. Later, creators who had found the product began to recommend it to their own audiences. A summary of the founder's video interview names that as one of the main sources of new users." }, { "title": "A tool the builder already knew", "text": "Seeger had built six products on Bubble before this one. He did not have to learn a tool while building, so he built the whole application in a few months, alone." }, { "title": "Two founders with separate work", "text": "Seeger built the product. Steinberg, a writer and director, did the go-to-market work, which means everything that brings the product to buyers: the message, the promotion and the partners. Neither waited for the other." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from Bubble's customer story, the founder's statements and what the public pages show in October 2026. Most are grade C.", "items": [ "The application was built on Bubble by one person. Bubble describes itself as the centerpiece, connected to other services through API calls and webhooks. A webhook is a message that one service sends to another when an event happens.", "The first version read Reddit stories aloud over Minecraft gameplay footage. Later versions produce complete AI short videos.", "A story has three possible origins: the AI writes it, the service takes it from a subreddit or a web search, or the customer types it.", "Posting uses the customer's own TikTok, YouTube or Instagram account, which the customer connects once, at a frequency that the customer sets.", "Readers of the Indie Hackers interview report that heavy video work was moved from Bubble to AWS Lambda and RunPod, two services that rent computing power for short periods. This comes from the part of the interview behind the sign-in wall and was not verified.", "In October 2026 the public pages are served by Next.js, with images still stored on Bubble's servers. An MCP server, a standard connection that lets an AI chat program call an outside service, lets Claude or ChatGPT operate a customer's account." ], "src": [ 2, 1, 8, 9 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database promised easy video for everyone, or built their growth on a platform that another company controlled. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Qwiki", "years": "2010 to 2015", "funding": "US$10M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Automatic multimedia stories made from text, in place of a page of search results.", "died": "High running costs and no revenue model. Yahoo bought it in 2013 and later closed it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/481-qwiki" }, { "name": "Viddy", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$30M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Filters and effects that make an amateur phone video look professional.", "died": "Users tried it once and did not return. Instagram added video in June 2013 for the users it already had.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2190-viddy" }, { "name": "Vine", "years": "2012 to 2016", "funding": "US$30M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Six-second looping videos that anyone could make and share.", "died": "Creators could not earn money there, so the best known ones moved to Instagram and YouTube. Twitter, its owner, gave it no priority.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/711-vine" }, { "name": "Meerkat", "years": "2015 to 2016", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Live video from a phone, announced to the user's Twitter followers.", "died": "All its growth came through Twitter. Twitter bought the competitor Periscope and cut Meerkat's access.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2194-meerkat" }, { "name": "PostRocket", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$610K", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "More reach for a Facebook page by choosing the best time for each post.", "died": "Facebook changed its API and its ranking rules. The product had no other platform to move to.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/457-postrocket" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Qwiki, Viddy and Vine sold easier video and still lost their users: the automatic result was expensive to produce, people did not come back, or the creators could not earn money. Meerkat and PostRocket show a second risk. A product that reaches its users only through another company's platform ends when that platform changes a rule.", "What changed is who does the work. Language, voice and image models now write the story, read it and assemble the video, so a company with two founders can sell up to 15 finished videos for US$20 a month, which is about US$1.33 for each video. Qwiki raised US$10 million for automatic video and found no revenue model. The second risk did not change. Faceless.video posts through TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, and each of them decides how many people see an automated video and whether an outside service may post at all." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The same product, with care.", "text": "The method can be repeated: learn one building tool well, release several small products, and test each one with a small paid promotion before spending more. The same product is harder today. Other services now sell automated short videos, and the three platforms control how far such videos travel.", "steps": [ "Pick one building tool, no-code or code, and build several small products with it until one sells.", "Sell the finished result that the customer wants, here a channel that keeps posting without the owner's work, and not only the tool.", "Test demand with one small paid post by an account that already has the right audience.", "Divide the work between two founders: one builds, the other writes the message and sells." ], "open": "Other content work that a person repeats by hand every day: clips from podcasts, product videos for small shops, property listings, newsletters. Bubble's story says the company itself added AI presenters for businesses in 2025." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported, and vague after 2024", "text": "The US$1 million figure is the founder's. Bubble and Starter Story repeat it and did not measure it. For 2026 the founder says only six figures a month. The payment-verified TrustMRR profile with almost the same name is another product." }, { "title": "Growth after the first year is not shown", "text": "The first US$83,333 a month took 10 months. Twenty-three months later the only public statement is at least US$100,000 a month. Sign-ups grew about 10 times in a similar period. The real figure may be much higher, but the founder did not publish it." }, { "title": "Three platforms control the product", "text": "Every video reaches viewers through TikTok, YouTube or Instagram. A rule against automated or repeated videos, or a change to posting access, would reduce what customers get for their money. Meerkat and PostRocket on this page ended that way." }, { "title": "The co-founder is missing from newer sources", "text": "Bubble's story named two co-founders until April 2026 and names one now. The Indie Hackers interview of July 2026 speaks of one founder. No source explains what changed, so the present ownership and team size are not verified." }, { "title": "No-code has a limit", "text": "The earlier Bubble story quotes a founder saying there is no intention to move off Bubble. By October 2026 the public pages run on a code framework, and readers of the Indie Hackers interview report that heavy work moved to other services. A copy of this method should expect to rewrite parts when usage grows." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Indie Hackers, 21 July 2026: Failing 6 times before hitting a 7-figure ARR in 10 months with no code, interview with Jacob Seeger by James Fleischmann", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/3FvQoHUh2SglJvAJGkSF", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free first section, the list of contents and the reader comments. The rest of the interview is behind a sign-in wall and was not read. Source for the 10 months, the six-figure monthly revenue and the 2.5 million sign-ups." }, { "title": "Bubble customer story, 14 February 2025, changed 22 April 2026: How Faceless.video Bootstrapped a 7-Figure Business", "url": "https://bubble.io/blog/faceless-video", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Published by the platform that hosts the application. Source for the launch month, the 850,000 users and the one developer. Bubble does not handle the company's payments, so its revenue figure is graded C." }, { "title": "Internet Archive copy of the Bubble customer story, saved 16 April 2026, before the change", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260416113221/https://bubble.io/blog/faceless-video/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. The earlier text names both co-founders, Jacob Seeger and Alex Steinberg, and their separate work." }, { "title": "Grit Daily, 16 August 2024: How Jacob Seeger Built a 7-Figure Tech Company with No Technical Experience, by Greg Grzesiak", "url": "https://gritdaily.com/jacob-seeger-tech-company-no-technical-experience/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The writer's biography says his own company helps entrepreneurs get media appearances, so the article may be promotional. Source for the 275,000 sign-ups, the launch in late September, the co-founder and the founder's background." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 28 March 2025: How This App Went From Zero To $1M ARR In One Year", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/faceless-video-breakdown", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part. A database page that summarises the Bubble and Grit Daily articles and adds a traffic estimate. The full article is for paying members." }, { "title": "Starter Story on YouTube, 14 June 2025: I Built a $1M SaaS 100% with No Code (Bubble)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9TUDb4sLE0", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the title, the date, the description and the chapter list. The spoken content could not be downloaded; it is cited from the summary in the next source." }, { "title": "Gistly, 3 August 2025: Build a $1M No-Code SaaS: Faceless Video Success", "url": "https://gist.ly/youtube-summarizer/build-a-1m-no-code-saas-faceless-video-success", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. An AI-written summary of the Starter Story video, so its details can be imprecise. Source for the US$200 thread and the recommendations by creators." }, { "title": "Faceless.video home page, about page, MCP connection page and terms of use, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://faceless.video/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, and read the page code to see what serves it. Source for the 2.8 million creators, the editor price comparison, the chat connection and the governing law." }, { "title": "Faceless.video pricing page, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://faceless.video/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The monthly prices and credit amounts are in the page. The yearly amounts load by script and could not be read." }, { "title": "Internet Archive copies of faceless.video, 23 July 2023 and 15 August 2024", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20230723003533/https://faceless.video/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the title and description tags. The page body loads by script and is empty in the archive." }, { "title": "Latka company page: Faceless.video revenue, estimate", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/faceless.video", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party estimate and a headcount from LinkedIn." }, { "title": "TrustMRR profile named Faceless Video, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/faceless-video.md", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the markdown profile. It describes a different product, faceless-video.com, founded on 22 April 2026 by another person, with US$19.90 of verified revenue. Listed here only to prevent confusion." }, { "title": "X profile of Jacob Seeger, @Jacob_Seeger, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/Jacob_Seeger", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile through the fxtwitter API: 608 followers. His posts were not read." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/kindroid/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/kindroid.md", "slug": "kindroid", "name": "Kindroid", "country": "USA", "sector": "Consumer software", "productType": "AI companion chat app", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-12", "launchLabel": "June 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$9M annual recurring revenue, March 2026", "sticker": "$9M ARR, 5 people", "outcomeUsd": 9000000, "months": 33, "teamLabel": "1 founder, 4 people at US$5M ARR, 5 people at US$9M ARR", "fundingLabel": "Seed funding from Pear VC, amount not disclosed (directories say US$1M to US$2M)", "primaryFactor": "Timing", "group": "companions-publishing", "channel": "unknown", "trend": "unknown", "collections": [ "phone-app" ], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 1, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Funded", "Running", "B2C", "AI companion" ], "product": "A chat app for adults in which the user creates an AI character, called a Kindroid, by writing its backstory, key memories, personality, appearance and voice. The user then talks to it by text, voice call or live video call, and the character can send generated pictures and short videos of itself. The character keeps a memory of earlier conversations. The app is for users aged 18 or older and runs on the web, iOS and Android.", "why": "It launched in June 2023, when open-source language models had become good enough for a small company to build a companion, and when users of older companion apps were looking for a new one. The user writes the character, so a character from another app can be moved in. The company sells a subscription, prices its add-ons at the cost of the extra computing, and published an update about every eight days in 2026.", "summary": [ "Kindroid is an AI companion app. An AI companion app is a chat program in which the user talks to one lasting character instead of a general assistant. The character is played by a large language model, a program trained on very large amounts of text that writes each reply one word at a time. In Kindroid the user writes the character's backstory, key memories, personality, looks and voice, then talks to it by text, by voice call or by live video call. The character can also send generated pictures of itself, which the app calls selfies. The app is for adults only, and its company describes the AI as unfiltered.", "Jerry Meng launched Kindroid in June 2023. The Verge described him in December 2024 as a 26-year-old who had left Stanford University without a degree. A recruiting advert for the company, on the job board of its investor Pear VC, says that Kindroid grew \"from 0 to $9M retentive ARR\" with \"a lean, 5-person team\" and that it is \"already profitable\". The earliest dated copy of that text is from 15 March 2026. Annual recurring revenue (ARR) is the subscription revenue of the current month multiplied by twelve, so US$9 million of ARR means about US$750,000 a month. The advert does not define the word \"retentive\", and it is not a standard accounting term. An earlier copy of the same advert, dated 14 September 2025, gives US$5 million and a team of 4.", "Every revenue number on this page is the company's own statement, grade C. No payment processor, investor or journalist has confirmed it. The customer story that ElevenLabs, a supplier, published about Kindroid contains no revenue number at all. This page also lists the known risks of the category with their sources: new laws on companion chatbots, app-store rules, and user safety. It ends with four failed companies that sold company or closeness as a product." ], "factsCaption": "US$9 million in annual recurring revenue with 5 people, 33 months after launch, stated only in the company's own job advert", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade B value comes from independent press or from a store's own listing. A grade C value is a statement by the company, a statement that a supplier repeats, or an estimate by a third party that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A: no payment processor or filing confirms the revenue.", "timelineLead": "From a launch in June 2023 to a claimed US$9 million in annual recurring revenue in 33 months, then the end of the free tier in October 2026. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Kindroid prices in October 2026: App Store prices from Apple's US listing, web prices from reviewers (grade C)", "note": "Kindroid's help page shows no prices. It says that the exact price appears at checkout and that the web is usually cheaper than the app stores, so the web prices here come from reviewers who wrote between April and June 2026. Ultra and MAX are add-ons that are billed monthly only, and each one needs the tier below it. A subscriber with all three pays US$98.97 a month on the web or US$113.97 through the App Store. Since 1 October 2026 there is no permanent free tier: a new account gets 50 messages and 5 selfies, then it becomes read-only until a 3-day trial or a subscription starts.", "rows": [ [ "Free preview", "0", "0", "50 messages and 5 selfies, then read-only" ], [ "Standard, web", "", "13.99", "reviewers; 10 Kindroids, 20 group chats, 1 million audio credits a month" ], [ "Standard, App Store", "13.33", "15.99", "US$159.99 a year, or US$42.99 for 3 months" ], [ "Ultra add-on, web", "", "24.99", "reviewers; added to Standard" ], [ "Ultra add-on, App Store", "", "28.99", "added to Standard" ], [ "MAX add-on, web", "", "59.99", "reviewers; added to Standard and Ultra" ], [ "MAX add-on, App Store", "", "68.99", "added to Standard and Ultra" ], [ "500,000 audio credits", "14.99 one-time", "", "App Store price; about 286 to 500 minutes of speech" ], [ "100 selfie credits", "11.49 one-time", "", "App Store price" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue in the job advert, March 2026", "value": "US$9 million", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's own recruiting text on the job board of its investor: \"from 0 to $9M retentive ARR\". The earliest dated copy is 15 March 2026, and a second copy is dated 7 April 2026. The advert does not define \"retentive\". No outside party has confirmed the figure.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month that this ARR means", "value": "about US$750,000", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 9,000,000 divided by 12 equals 750,000.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team at that figure", "value": "5 people", "grade": "C", "note": "The same advert: \"a lean, 5-person team\". The directory Tracxn also records 5 employees in its 2026 profile.", "src": [ 1, 15 ] }, { "fact": "ARR per person", "value": "US$1.8 million a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 9,000,000 divided by 5 equals 1,800,000.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Profit", "value": "profitable, no figure given", "grade": "C", "note": "Both versions of the advert say \"already profitable\". In June 2026 the company wrote that its change to free access \"isn't about money or any financial trouble, we're doing fine\".", "src": [ 1, 3, 7 ] }, { "fact": "ARR in the earlier version of the advert", "value": "US$5 million with 4 people", "grade": "C", "note": "A copy posted on Built In on 14 September 2025. The text says the figure was reached \"in just over a year\", so the figure may be older than this copy.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Change between the two versions of the advert", "value": "1.8 times, in copies dated 6 months apart", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 9 divided by 5 equals 1.8. The copies are dated September 2025 and March 2026.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Third-party estimate of App Store revenue", "value": "about US$250,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "An estimate by the app-research site ScreensDesign for the iOS app only, read on 12 October 2026. The site does not name its data source. It is not a company figure.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Share of the claimed revenue that this estimate covers", "value": "about one third", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 250,000 times 12 equals 3,000,000, and 3,000,000 divided by 9,000,000 equals 33.3%. The rest would come from web payments and Google Play. The company advises users to pay on the web.", "src": [ 1, 8, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Subscribers that US$750,000 a month would need at the Standard web price", "value": "about 53,600", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 750,000 divided by 13.99 equals 53,610, if every subscriber paid only the Standard price each month. The company does not publish its subscriber count.", "src": [ 1, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Launch", "value": "June 2023", "grade": "B", "note": "The Verge, 3 December 2024: launched in June of the year before by Jerry Meng, whom it describes as a 26-year-old who left Stanford University without a degree.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Release of the iOS app", "value": "2 August 2023", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's App Store record. The seller is Beautifully Incorporated, the legal name of the company.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Usage, March 2024", "value": "more than 500,000 people had tried the app; more than 90 minutes a day for the average user", "grade": "C", "note": "ElevenLabs customer story. ElevenLabs is a supplier and repeats what its customer told it.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Google Play listing, October 2026", "value": "more than 1 million downloads, 26,000 reviews, 4.4 stars", "grade": "B", "note": "Google's own listing, rated Mature 17+, last updated on 6 October 2026.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "App Store listing, October 2026", "value": "9,700 ratings, 4.8 stars, age rating 18+", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's own listing. Version 1.70 was released on 18 August 2026.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "App Store price compared with the web price", "value": "14% to 16% higher", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 15.99 divided by 13.99, 28.99 divided by 24.99, and 68.99 divided by 59.99. The company says web prices are lower because the processing fees are lower.", "src": [ 8, 10, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "yes, from Pear VC; the company does not state the amount", "grade": "C", "note": "The advert says the company is backed by investors and it is published on Pear VC's job board. Caplight records a seed round on 1 July 2024 and US$2 million in total. NeuronFeed records US$1 million. Tracxn records no funding at all. These directories do not agree.", "src": [ 1, 14, 15 ] }, { "fact": "Free tier", "value": "ended on 1 October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Company update log. Free accounts get a limited preview, then become read-only. The company's reason: the service is expensive to provide and a lower-quality free tier did not represent the product.", "src": [ 7, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Updates published in 2026", "value": "33 dated entries from 8 January to 12 October", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: counted in the company's update log. 277 days divided by 33 equals one entry every 8.4 days.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Open position, September 2026", "value": "1 Founding Engineer, US$200,000 to US$300,000 a year", "grade": "C", "note": "Published on Pear VC's job board on 3 September 2026. The salary range is from the Built In San Francisco copy.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the March 2026 figure", "value": "33 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: June 2023 to March 2026.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2023", "what": "Replika, an older companion app, blocks erotic content after Italian regulators act against it, then brings it back with filters. Some of its users look for another app.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "June 2023", "what": "Jerry Meng launches Kindroid. Users write their character's backstory and key memories themselves.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "2 August 2023", "what": "The iOS app is released on the App Store.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "23 September 2023", "what": "Soulmate, a competing companion app, announces that it is shutting down. The Verge follows one of its users, who moves his companion to Kindroid by describing her personality in words.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "1 March 2024", "what": "ElevenLabs publishes a customer story: Kindroid uses its voices, more than 500,000 people have tried the app, and the average user spends more than 90 minutes a day in it. The story gives no revenue number.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "1 July 2024", "what": "Seed round, as recorded by the directories Caplight and CB Insights. Pear VC is the named investor. The company has not published an amount.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "3 December 2024", "what": "The Verge publishes a long report on AI companions with Meng among the founders interviewed. Kindroid is working on better voices and on video calls.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "11 September 2025", "what": "The US Federal Trade Commission orders seven large companies, among them Character Technologies, Meta and OpenAI, to report how they test companion chatbots for harm to children and teens. Kindroid is not one of the seven.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "14 September 2025", "what": "A copy of Kindroid's job advert says US$5 million in ARR, a team of 4, and profitable.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2025", "what": "California's governor signs SB 243, a law on companion chatbots that covers any operator with users in the state.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "15 March 2026", "what": "A new copy of the job advert says US$9 million in ARR, a team of 5, and profitable.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "25 March 2026", "what": "Live AI video calls leave beta: the character moves its lips and hands in real time during a call.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "3 April 2026", "what": "Age verification starts for free accounts. An account that looks like a minor's must subscribe or pass a check by Yoti, an outside age-verification company.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 9 ] }, { "when": "April 2026", "what": "The Android app is unavailable on Google Play. The company calls it a technical issue that it fixed on its side on 14 April. On 21 April, 7 days later, the app is still not restored.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "2 June 2026", "what": "The log announces mobile app pricing changes and link-out purchases in the US apps, which means a button that opens the web checkout at web prices. The full announcement is on Discord and was not read.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 8 ] }, { "when": "1 October 2026", "what": "The permanent free tier ends. Free accounts get a limited preview and then become read-only. The old interface is retired.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "12 October 2026", "what": "The update log adds a new entry and the web app carries a build of the same day. The company still operates and still hires.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 7 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Timing", "text": "The Verge reports that by 2023 open-source language models had improved so fast that building a companion was far easier than a few months before, and that dozens of companies appeared. In the same year Replika blocked content that its users valued, and Soulmate closed in September. Kindroid, launched in June, was open when those users looked for a new app." }, { "title": "The user writes the character", "text": "A Kindroid is defined by text that the user writes: backstory, key memories and other attributes. The user in The Verge's report moved his companion from an app that was closing by interviewing her for a week and writing her personality down. The same design means the character does not depend on one model version, because the description stays when the model changes." }, { "title": "Subscribers pay for the computing", "text": "There are no ads and the company says it does not sell data. The Standard subscription pays for the main model. The Ultra and MAX add-ons give more memory, and the company writes that they are priced to cover the cost of dedicated servers, not to make a profit. Extra audio credits are sold at cost. In October 2026 it ended the free tier, with the reason that paying subscribers were funding it." }, { "title": "Web payments beside the app stores", "text": "The help pages tell users that the web is cheaper and more flexible. On this page's numbers the App Store price is 14% to 16% higher than the web price. The US apps offer a button that opens the web checkout, announced in June 2026." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's help pages and job adverts, from a supplier's customer story and from The Verge. They are grade B and C. The company does not publish which base models it uses.", "items": [ "Its own named language models, served on its own computing: the flagship model in October 2026 is called Polaris and the default is called Ember. The September 2026 job advert lists fine-tuning pipelines and the upkeep of GPU clusters among the engineer's tasks. Fine-tuning means training an existing model further on chosen examples.", "Voice from ElevenLabs in March 2024. The founder said this saved the time and cost of running voice models on Kindroid's own servers. Whether ElevenLabs is still the provider in 2026 is not verified.", "Memory in three types: persistent text written by the user, a cascaded memory for the medium term, and long-term memories that are retrieved when relevant. Larger memory is what the paid add-ons sell.", "Generated pictures, short videos and live video calls of the character, each with its own model versions and credit prices.", "Web app, iOS app since 2 August 2023, and Android app. Subscriptions are sold through the App Store, Google Play and a web checkout.", "Safety design: the company does not filter the model's replies. It scans user input and acts on accounts in three cases: plans for imminent self-harm, plans for imminent harm to others, and child sexual abuse material. A repeated self-harm detection shows crisis lines such as 988.", "Age checks: a paid subscription counts as proof of age. A free account that a behaviour model flags as a possible minor must subscribe or pass a selfie or ID check by Yoti.", "A public update log with 33 dated entries in 2026, and a page where paying subscribers comment on a policy before it changes." ], "src": [ 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold company or closeness as a product, two as home robots and two as private social apps. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Jibo", "years": "2012 to 2018", "funding": "US$73M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A social robot for the home that talks with the family and has a personality.", "died": "The robot was expensive to build and to buy. Voice assistants from Amazon and Google did the useful tasks for far less money, and the emotional connection alone did not justify the price.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/259-jibo" }, { "name": "Anki", "years": "2010 to 2019", "funding": "US$182M", "cause": "Ran Out of Cash", "promise": "Small AI robots, Cozmo and Vector, that play, learn and react like a pet.", "died": "Production costs and spending were high, the demand for home robots was too small, and the company could not raise more money.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/6-anki" }, { "name": "Path", "years": "2010 to 2018", "funding": "US$77M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A private social network limited to 150 close friends and family.", "died": "It could not earn enough from its users, its paid features found few buyers, and Facebook had far more resources.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/415-path" }, { "name": "Couple", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A private app for two partners to message, share photos and plan together.", "died": "Free general messengers such as WhatsApp did the same job, and the app found no clear way to earn money.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1183-couple" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Jibo and Anki tried to sell a companion as a machine. Each unit had to be manufactured, shipped and sold at a high price, and the conversation was limited, because language models that can hold a long conversation did not exist yet. Path and Couple sold closeness between people as a separate app, and free messengers offered the same thing without a charge.", "Language models changed the first problem. The conversation is now the product, it needs no hardware, and a team of five can serve it from rented or owned computing. Kindroid also charges for the part that the free messengers never had, which is a character that answers at any hour and remembers. What did not change is the cost side: Jibo and Anki died of production costs, and Kindroid writes that its service is expensive to provide and that its largest add-ons may lose money." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The app, hardly. The pricing logic, yes.", "text": "A companion app in 2026 needs its own model serving, picture, voice and video generation, age verification and a published safety protocol, and it must follow new laws in several places. Kindroid built these over three years with seed funding. The parts that a small founder can reuse are its pricing and its way of working with users.", "steps": [ "Let the user write and own the definition of the product's behaviour, so the value stays when the model changes.", "Charge a base subscription, and sell the heavy computing as add-ons priced at cost.", "Offer a web checkout beside the app stores, at a lower price, and say so in the help pages.", "Publish every change in a dated log, and ask paying users before a policy change." ], "open": "Products in which a model keeps a long memory of one user and the user pays for that continuity, in fields with fewer content and age rules than romance: language practice, coaching, and role-play tools for writers and game masters." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The headline figure is one line in a job advert", "text": "The US$9 million comes from recruiting text, which a company writes to attract candidates. The metric \"retentive ARR\" is not defined, no payment processor or journalist has confirmed it, and the company does not publish subscriber counts. The supplier page that first pointed to this story, by ElevenLabs, contains no revenue number. The advert also says the company was featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker and Business Insider; this page verified only The Verge." }, { "title": "New laws on companion chatbots", "text": "California's SB 243, signed on 13 October 2025, covers any operator with users in the state. It requires a notice that the chatbot is not human when a reasonable person could be misled, a published protocol against suicide and self-harm content, extra duties toward users known to be minors, and yearly reports from 1 July 2027. Kindroid publishes such a protocol on its moderation page. An injured person can sue for at least US$1,000 per violation. The Federal Trade Commission opened a study of companion chatbots in September 2025. Kindroid's own log says that laws requiring age checks are arriving worldwide. Each new rule is work for a team of five." }, { "title": "App-store rules", "text": "Apple's review guideline 1.1.4 forbids overtly sexual material. Kindroid is rated 18+ on the App Store and Mature 17+ on Google Play, and its moderation page describes an unfiltered AI that permits adult role-play. In April 2026 the Android app was unavailable on Google Play for at least 7 days; the company called it a technical issue. A removal from a store stops new installs and store billing there. During that outage the company told Android users to use the web app and to subscribe on the web." }, { "title": "User safety", "text": "The Verge describes users who formed strong attachments and suffered when an app changed its model or closed. Kindroid's policy is to leave the model unfiltered and to act only on accounts that plan imminent self-harm, plan harm to others, or produce child sexual abuse material; general expressions of despair do not trigger an intervention. The founder told The Verge that it is acceptable if a person finds more joy in an AI relationship than in a human one. A serious harm case at any companion app brings press attention and regulators to the whole category." }, { "title": "The cost of serving", "text": "The company writes that Kindroid is expensive to provide and that it expects to break even or lose money on the Ultra and MAX add-ons. It ended the free tier on 1 October 2026, which removes a cost and also removes the easiest way for new users to try the product for a long time. Profit depends on the price of computing and on how many preview users convert." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Kindroid job advert, Founding Engineer, copy on the Flare Capital job board dated 15 March 2026", "url": "https://careers.flarecapital.com/companies/bridgehealthai/jobs/70764263-founding-engineer-kindroid", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's own recruiting text, copied from Pear VC's job board; the board files it under a wrong company name. Earliest dated copy with the US$9 million figure, the team of 5 and the word profitable. The date is the posting date in the page's data." }, { "title": "Kindroid job advert, Founding Engineer, copy on Built In Montreal dated 7 April 2026", "url": "https://builtinmontreal.com/job/founding-engineer-kindroid/8247134", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The same text as source 1, under the name Pear VC. Confirms the wording and gives a second date." }, { "title": "Kindroid job advert, earlier version, copy on Built In dated 14 September 2025", "url": "https://builtin.com/job/founding-engineer/4460210", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The same advert with US$5 million and a 4-person team. The page says the advert was removed on 18 September 2025." }, { "title": "Pear VC job board on Ashby: Founding Engineer, Kindroid AI, published 3 September 2026", "url": "https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Pear-VC/68c48b6d-b2fe-4240-b190-6a4887e86e81", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the entry in the board's public data feed, because the page loads by script. The salary range comes from the copy at builtinsf.com/job/founding-engineer/11006924. Source for the legal name, the tasks and the open position." }, { "title": "The Verge, 3 December 2024, Josh Dzieza: The confusing reality of AI friends", "url": "https://www.theverge.com/c/24300623/ai-companions-replika-openai-chatgpt-assistant-romance", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Independent reporting with founder interviews. Source for the launch month, the founder's background, the Replika and Soulmate events and the user accounts." }, { "title": "ElevenLabs customer story, 1 March 2024: Kindroid gives voice to their AI companions with ElevenLabs", "url": "https://elevenlabs.io/customers/kindroid", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A supplier's page with a founder quotation. Source for the usage figures of March 2024. It contains no revenue number." }, { "title": "Kindroid help center: Update log", "url": "https://kindroid.ai/v2/docs/update-log/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through a text-rendering proxy because the page loads by script. Read the entries on free access, age verification, Google Play, pricing and video calls, and counted the dated entries. The site's HTML carries a build stamp of 12 October 2026. The log prints day and month only; the year follows from the age-verification article dated 3 April 2026 and from notes marked October 2026." }, { "title": "Kindroid help center: Subscriptions, and In-App Purchases", "url": "https://kindroid.ai/v2/docs/subscriptions/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through a text-rendering proxy. Source for the plan structure, the free preview, the add-on reasoning and the advice to pay on the web. The page gives no prices." }, { "title": "Kindroid help center: Moderation Guidelines, and Age Verification", "url": "https://kindroid.ai/v2/docs/moderation-guidelines/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the three cases, the crisis protocol and the age checks, through a text-rendering proxy." }, { "title": "Apple App Store listing: Kindroid: Your Personal AI, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kindroid-your-personal-ai/id6451038161", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the listing and Apple's lookup record. Source for the in-app prices, the age rating, the rating count, the seller name, the release date and the current version." }, { "title": "Google Play listing: Kindroid: Your Personal AI, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kindroid.app", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the listing. Source for the download band, the review count, the content rating and the date of the last update." }, { "title": "WeavAI review, 8 April 2026, updated 17 June 2026: Kindroid AI review 2026", "url": "https://weavai.app/blog/en/2026/04/08/kindroid-ai-review-2026-full-analysis-of-five-tier-memory-system-voice-calls-and-personalized-ai-companions/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the pricing table. A reviewer. Source for the web prices, which the reviewer pages at jenova.ai and aiinsightsnews.net repeat." }, { "title": "ScreensDesign app page: Kindroid: Your Personal AI", "url": "https://screensdesign.com/apps/kindroid/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the summary figures. A third-party estimate of iOS revenue and installs with no stated data source." }, { "title": "Caplight company page: Kindroid valuation and funding history", "url": "https://www.caplight.com/company/kindroid", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A directory. Source for the seed round date, the total of US$2 million and the investor. CB Insights lists two rounds with Pear VC, and NeuronFeed gives US$1 million." }, { "title": "Tracxn company page: Kindroid", "url": "https://tracxn.com/d/companies/kindroid/__szE5vZ6lc8XQf00Fzgbn3vHHrDyBKmIEtbLmvtzPZUY", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the summary. A directory. Source for the employee count. It records no funding, which conflicts with source 14." }, { "title": "Federal Trade Commission press release, 11 September 2025: FTC Launches Inquiry into AI Chatbots Acting as Companions", "url": "https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/09/ftc-launches-inquiry-ai-chatbots-acting-companions", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full through a text-rendering proxy, because the site refused a direct download. Source for the inquiry and the list of seven companies." }, { "title": "California Legislative Information: SB 243, Companion chatbots, chaptered 13 October 2025", "url": "https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB243", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the digest and the sections on operators, minors, reporting and civil action in the official bill text." }, { "title": "Apple App Review Guidelines, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read guideline 1.1.4 and section 3.1 on payments." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/umax/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/umax.md", "slug": "umax", "name": "Umax", "country": "USA", "sector": "Consumer software", "productType": "AI face-rating app", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "December 2023", "outcomeLabel": "Almost US$5M in its first year, December 2024", "sticker": "$5M in first year", "outcomeUsd": 5000000, "months": 12, "teamLabel": "1 founder, with freelancers and paid creators; staff count not published", "fundingLabel": "None reported", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "health-appearance", "channel": "creators", "trend": "falling", "collections": [ "phone-app" ], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Consumer apps" ], "product": "A phone app that scores a selfie. The user uploads a photo of his face, and the app returns a score up to 100 with ratings of the jawline, the cheekbones, the skin and masculinity, and tips such as starting a skin care routine. The results are shown after the user subscribes, at about US$4 a week, or invites three friends.", "why": "Young men were already posting photos online and asking strangers to rate their looks. Umax turned that habit into a private score from an AI model. One founder built it at almost no cost on a rented vision model, and creators in one small niche spread it, because a score makes a before-and-after video easy to show. Revenue was highest within months of the launch and has fallen since.", "summary": [ "Umax is a phone app for looksmaxxing, an online term for trying to raise one's physical attractiveness as far as possible, a trend followed mostly by boys and young men. The user uploads a selfie. A vision model, an AI model that takes an image as input and answers questions about it, returns a score up to 100, ratings of the jawline, the cheekbones, the skin and masculinity, and tips for improvement. The app calls OpenAI's GPT Vision model, so the founder did not train a model of his own. The results cost about US$4 a week.", "Blake Anderson, 23 years old in 2024, built it alone in November 2023, after he left the team of his first app, and released it at the start of December 2023. He says the best month brought about US$700,000, and he does not date that month. He told Fortune in July 2024 that the app made about US$500,000 a month, and Fortune wrote that it could not verify the amount. In December 2024 he said the app had made almost US$5 million in the past year, which is the headline figure of this page. Revenue then fell: about US$400,000 a month in November 2024 and US$270,000 in July 2025, the last figure he published. A run rate is one month of revenue multiplied by twelve. The US$6 million a year that many articles repeat is a run rate, and the founder's own total for the first twelve months is lower.", "Every revenue number on this page is a founder statement, grade C. One estimate from an app-data service is well below his figures. The page also reports the criticism: psychologists say that apps which score the faces of young users can feed anxiety about appearance. The app has had no update since June 2024. The page then shows five earlier consumer apps for young users that spread fast and closed." ], "factsCaption": "Almost US$5 million in the first twelve months from a face-rating app built by one person, then a decline, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founder in an interview, a podcast or an X post, or an estimate by a third party that says so. Fortune printed his monthly figure and wrote that it could not verify it. A grade B value is a record in Apple's or Google's app store: dates, ratings and prices, not revenue. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No revenue value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a selfie scorer coded by one person in November 2023 to almost US$5 million in twelve months, and then a decline. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Umax prices: in-app purchases listed in the App Store on 13 October 2026 (grade B), and the weekly price that Fortune and a16z recorded in 2024 (grade C)", "note": "The app is free to download. The App Store lists four prices for Weekly Premium and three for Monthly Premium. The founder says he tests prices and periods on different users with a paywall tool, and the listing does not say which price a new user sees today. Fortune recorded US$3.99 a week in July 2024, and a16z recorded US$4.99 a week in August 2024. At US$3.99 a week, a user who stays one year pays US$207.48. One further in-app purchase at US$3.99 is listed without a description.", "rows": [ [ "Weekly Premium", "", "3.99 a week", "Also listed at 4.99, 6.99 and 9.99 a week" ], [ "Monthly Premium", "", "9.99", "Also listed at 12.99 and 24.99 a month" ], [ "You as a 10/10", "", "", "Listed at 6.99; a generated picture of the user with a top score; the listing does not say if it is one-time" ], [ "Invite three friends", "0", "0", "Replaces the first weekly fee; did not work in Fortune's test in 2024" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue in the first twelve months, to December 2024", "value": "almost US$5 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in a Starter Story video interview published on 29 December 2024: \"In the past year we've done almost 5 million in revenue.\" The recording date is not given. Sales before the store's commission. This is the headline figure.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate stated by the founder, 4 October 2024", "value": "US$5 million a year", "grade": "C", "note": "His X post lists \"Umax ($5m arr)\". ARR, annual recurring revenue, is the current monthly subscription revenue multiplied by twelve.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, July 2024", "value": "about US$500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Fortune, 1 July 2024, \"according to Blake Anderson\". Fortune adds: \"The amount could not be independently verified.\"", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "That month as a yearly rate", "value": "US$6 million", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 500,000 times 12 equals 6,000,000. The founder said \"a little bit over $6 million in ARR\" on a podcast published in September 2024, and newsletters repeat it. It is a run rate from one month, not money collected in a year. The claim that it was reached 3.5 months after launch was not found in any source read for this page.", "src": [ 2, 7, 17 ] }, { "fact": "Best month", "value": "about US$700,000, month not stated", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on the Startup Ideas Podcast, November 2024: \"at our peak, we were around 700,000 in monthly revenue\". A newsletter dates his best month, for all his apps together, to February 2024. His X post of 2 January 2025 gives US$600,000 a month for the app he built on his own.", "src": [ 6, 18, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, November 2024", "value": "about US$400,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Same podcast: \"Now I think it's closer to 400,000\".", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Profit per month, December 2024", "value": "a little over US$100,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story interview. After creator payments, the store's commission and server costs. He adds that it used to be more.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Total sales on the Apple App Store, shown to Whop", "value": "US$4.2 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Whop article, 28 May 2025; the interview date is not given. The founder showed his dashboard to a Whop employee. Whop sells the founder's paid community, so it is not an independent reviewer. In the same interview: \"Umax is still doing 350 to 400(k) a month\" and \"Apple takes 30% of that\".", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue, July 2025", "value": "US$270,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's X post of 1 August 2025, which lists the July revenue of three apps. Umax is the smallest of the three. No later figure was found.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Fall from the best month to July 2025", "value": "61%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 700,000 minus 270,000 is 430,000, and 430,000 divided by 700,000 is 61.4%.", "src": [ 6, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Third-party estimate of revenue per month", "value": "US$330,000 in February 2024, US$170,000 in August 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "An estimate in the Chinese trade site Baijing, which names the app-data service Diandian Data. It puts total revenue near US$2 million by August 2024, where the founder's own figure was more than US$3 million. The article does not say if the estimate is before or after the stores' commission.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "Downloads", "value": "more than 7 million by July 2024, more than 10 million by November 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder to Fortune and on the podcast. Google Play shows more than 10 million downloads on Android in October 2026.", "src": [ 2, 6, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Users", "value": "90% male, ages 16 to 45", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder to Fortune.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Price, 2024", "value": "US$3.99 a week in July, US$4.99 a week in August", "grade": "C", "note": "Fortune and a16z. Both mention that inviting three friends replaces the payment; in Fortune's test this did not work.", "src": [ 2, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Cost of one year at US$3.99 a week", "value": "US$207.48", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 3.99 times 52.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Rank among generative-AI phone apps, August 2024", "value": "44th by monthly active users", "grade": "C", "note": "a16z, a venture capital firm, in the third edition of its Top 100 list. A competitor, LooksMax AI, is 43rd.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "Development cost", "value": "close to zero apart from the founder's time", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on the podcast: the face analysis is a call to GPT Vision, where it would earlier have needed his own facial recognition models.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Team when the figures were reached", "value": "1 founder, plus freelancers and paid creators", "grade": "C", "note": "He says he had the idea, designed and built the app and led most of the marketing, and that he did it on his own. He names Upwork freelancers for occasional work, and a podcast summary mentions employees. No count of staff is public.", "src": [ 1, 5, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "His X post: \"Reinvested every dollar and did it on my own.\" One Chinese article says he joined an accelerator with Umax; it does not name it, and no other source confirms it (not verified).", "src": [ 5, 9 ] }, { "fact": "App Store record, 13 October 2026", "value": "still listed; released 29 November 2023; last update 28 June 2024", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's listing: seller Improvement Tech LLC, version 1.4.3, 51,619 ratings with an average of 4.56, age rating 18+. A store record, not a revenue figure.", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "fact": "Google Play record, 13 October 2026", "value": "still listed; last update 19 April 2024", "grade": "B", "note": "More than 10 million downloads, 400,000 reviews, 4.5 stars, content rating Everyone.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Time since the last iPhone update", "value": "27 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 28 June 2024 to 13 October 2026.", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the headline figure", "value": "12 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: December 2023 to December 2024.", "src": [ 1, 7 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "July 2023", "what": "Anderson, a new graduate of Tulane University with no coding training, releases his first app, RizzGPT, a dating-message assistant. He taught himself to code with ChatGPT in May and June.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 8 ] }, { "when": "Before November 2023", "what": "He leaves the RizzGPT team after repeated conflict with a co-founder about who leads the company, and keeps his equity. He does not give the date.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "November 2023", "what": "He builds Umax alone, sleeping on his brother's couch. He says he spent Thanksgiving coding. The face analysis is a prompt to OpenAI's GPT Vision model.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "when": "29 November 2023", "what": "Apple's record gives this release date for Umax, under the seller Improvement Tech LLC; the version history dates version 1.0 to 30 November. The founder dates the launch to the start of December 2023.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 12, 7 ] }, { "when": "December 2023", "what": "A trade article says the app started with a video by a looksmaxxing creator, Sam Zia, and made about US$100,000 in its first month. No founder source read for this page confirms the name or the terms (not verified).", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "27 December 2023", "what": "Apple's record gives this release date for a competitor, LooksMax AI, 28 days after the release date of Umax.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "Early 2024", "what": "With revenue near US$200,000 a month and a copy on the market, he spends more than US$200,000 on creators in three days, almost all the app's income at that time. Revenue passes US$500,000 a month within five days. This account comes from a Chinese summary of his podcast; the podcast's own summary confirms the decision but not the numbers.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 7 ] }, { "when": "First half of 2024", "what": "The best month, about US$700,000. He does not date it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "May 2024", "what": "Cal AI, a calorie-tracking app that he co-founded with two teenage founders, is released. They run its operations. It has its own page on this site.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 9 ] }, { "when": "28 June 2024", "what": "Version 1.4.3, the last update of the iPhone app.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "1 July 2024", "what": "Fortune reports about US$500,000 a month and more than 7 million downloads, both from the founder, and writes that it could not verify the revenue. Psychologists in the article criticize the trend.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "21 August 2024", "what": "a16z ranks Umax 44th among generative-AI phone apps by monthly active users.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "4 October 2024", "what": "He posts on X that Umax is at US$5 million a year and that he no longer builds apps with this method.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "November 2024", "what": "On a podcast he says revenue is closer to US$400,000 a month and downloads are above 10 million.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "29 December 2024", "what": "Starter Story publishes his interview: almost US$5 million in the past year and a little over US$100,000 of profit a month. He now works on Apex, a paid community that teaches app building.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 8 ] }, { "when": "1 August 2025", "what": "He posts that Umax made US$270,000 in July 2025.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "Umax is still listed in the App Store and on Google Play, with no update since 2024. No revenue figure after July 2025 was found. The founder's posts in 2026 are about other products.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 12, 13, 19 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Distribution", "text": "Growth came from creators in one small niche. Anderson told Fortune that the videos that do well are before-and-after videos and that a Umax score puts a number on the change, and Fortune writes that users often show screenshots of the app in their own videos. He counts more than 1 billion impressions across platforms. He says creators are his most profitable channel, ahead of the app's own accounts and paid ads." }, { "title": "A niche that already spent money", "text": "People who wanted to look better were already buying skin care, hair care and face massage tools, and no software served them. His rule: when a niche spends heavily on physical products, that shows the niche pays, and software for the same problem can probably be built." }, { "title": "A rented vision model", "text": "A face scorer used to need a trained facial recognition model. With GPT Vision it became a prompt, written by one person in weeks. The same fact means that anyone else can write the prompt too." }, { "title": "A low weekly price behind a tested paywall", "text": "The user sees the results after subscribing. He says low prices bring more users, more recommendations between friends and better comments on social media. He tests prices and periods on different users with a paywall tool, which he says can raise revenue per download by 1.5 to 2 times." }, { "title": "All the money on one campaign", "text": "By a Chinese account of his podcast, when a copy appeared he spent almost all of the app's income on creators in three days, and monthly revenue more than doubled within five days. He describes himself as someone who has no second plan." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's interviews and podcasts. They are grade C. The stack is the one he described in December 2024.", "items": [ "The face analysis is a prompt to OpenAI's GPT Vision model, not a model trained by the founder. He says the upfront development cost was close to zero apart from his own time.", "He learned to code with ChatGPT in May and June 2023. A Chinese article that summarizes one of his podcasts says about 85% of Umax's code was generated by ChatGPT (not verified in a founder source).", "React Native with the Expo framework for the app, Node.js for the server, Cursor as the code editor, Figma for design, CapCut for marketing videos.", "Superwall, a paywall tool, to show different prices and subscription periods to different users. The App Store listing shows four weekly prices and three monthly prices.", "Freelancers from Upwork for occasional work. His method: hire five to ten people for one or two hours each, then keep the best one.", "Costs in his words: Apple keeps 15% of sales up to the first US$1 million and 30% above that, model costs are small unless the app generates images, and most of the money goes to marketing and staff.", "Marketing: paid creators first, also videos made in-house for the app's own accounts, and paid ads on Meta and TikTok." ], "src": [ 1, 6, 8, 10, 12 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five consumer apps in the Loot Drop database spread fast among young users and then closed. Three of them exposed teenagers and students to harsh judgement from other people. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Formspring", "years": "2009 to 2016", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Anonymous questions and brutally honest answers for teenagers.", "died": "Anonymous questions between teenagers turned into cyberbullying and bad press. It never earned enough from its large user base, and Ask.fm took its users.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/161-formspring" }, { "name": "Yik Yak", "years": "2013 to 2017", "funding": "US$73M", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "An anonymous message board for everyone within 5 miles, aimed at college campuses.", "died": "Bullying and harassment led to school bans. Anonymity made advertising hard to sell, and growth stopped.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/775-yik-yak" }, { "name": "Secret", "years": "2014 to 2015", "funding": "US$35M", "cause": "Team/Founder Conflict", "promise": "Share confessions with friends without your name.", "died": "The novelty faded, gossip and bullying damaged its name, and the founders disagreed about the direction.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/526-secret" }, { "name": "Yo", "years": "2014 to 2018", "funding": "US$1.5M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "An app that sends one word: Yo.", "died": "After the viral spike, users found nothing to come back for, and the app had no way to earn money.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/776-yo" }, { "name": "Meerkat", "years": "2015 to 2016", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Live video from your phone to your Twitter followers.", "died": "Its growth depended on Twitter's network. Twitter bought a competitor, Periscope, and cut Meerkat's access.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2194-meerkat" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Formspring, Yik Yak and Secret gave young users harsh judgement from other people, without names. All three grew fast, all three were blamed for bullying, and none found a way to earn enough money. Yo shows a second pattern: a novelty that spreads in days and gives users no reason to return. Meerkat shows a third: growth that depends on a platform that the company does not control.", "Umax differs in two ways. The judgement comes from a model and only the user sees it, so there is no content from other users to moderate. And it charged from the first day, with one founder and a rented model, so it made a profit where the earlier apps spent investors' money: US$73 million in the case of Yik Yak. The other patterns still apply. Psychologists criticize face scores for young users as critics once criticized anonymous judgement. Revenue fell 61% from the best month to July 2025, as the revenue of a novelty does. And the growth depends on creators, on TikTok and Instagram, and on the stores of Apple and Google." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. This product, with care.", "text": "The method is public. Anderson described it in interviews and wrote in October 2024 that he had used it three times in one year. A copy of the product itself is a weaker plan: a competitor was in the App Store 28 days after Umax, an Australian newspaper counted at least 26 face-rating apps in 2026, and Umax's own revenue has fallen since 2024. Anyone who copies the product also takes on the criticism described in the next section.", "steps": [ "Look for a niche where people already spend money on physical products and no software serves them.", "Build the one function with a rented model, and spend the saved time on distribution.", "Pay small creators inside the niche, measure each one, and add money only where the return is positive.", "Charge a low price from the first day, and test prices and periods with a paywall tool." ], "open": "In December 2024 Anderson said that there was still room for one app that covers the whole of personal appearance, and that Umax was only a first version. The method also works outside appearance: on a podcast in November 2024 he named career advice, journaling and language learning as app ideas." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Founder numbers only, and one lower estimate", "text": "No payment processor, buyer or journalist has confirmed any revenue figure. Fortune printed US$500,000 a month and added that it could not verify it. The dashboard was shown once, to an employee of Whop, a company that sells the founder's paid community. An estimate quoted by the trade site Baijing gives US$330,000 for February 2024 and US$170,000 for August 2024, well below the founder's figures for 2024." }, { "title": "A peak, then a decline", "text": "The US$6 million a year that many articles quote is one month multiplied by twelve. The founder's later figures are lower each time: US$5 million a year in October 2024, about US$400,000 a month in November 2024, US$270,000 in July 2025. No figure after July 2025 was found. The iPhone app was last updated on 28 June 2024 and the Android app on 19 April 2024. Both were still listed on 13 October 2026, but the product has not changed for more than two years." }, { "title": "Appearance scores and teenagers", "text": "In Fortune's 2024 article, Tom Hildebrandt, a clinical psychologist at Mount Sinai in New York, calls the effect of such feedback an erosion of the sense of self and says these products earn money from insecurity. In July 2026 the Sunday Telegraph in Australia quoted Erika Penney, president of the Australian Clinical Psychology Association: apps that rate appearance make adolescents obsess over their looks, and mild advice can lead to harder practices. A University of Colorado psychiatry professor gave similar warnings to parents in August 2026. The two 2026 articles are about the category and do not name Umax, and no study of Umax users was found. Anderson's answer to Fortune: he does not want a user to feel insecure to the point of anxiety, and he thinks that telling everyone that nothing needs work is also dangerous." }, { "title": "The community it grew from", "text": "Fortune describes looksmaxxing content as a range. At the mild end, creators tell boys to wash their faces. At the extreme end, they tell them to hit their jaws to cause small fractures, to have surgery or to take steroids. Umax's tips are of the mild kind, such as a skin care routine. Its audience came from the same videos and creators, and its name in both stores is Umax - Become Hot." }, { "title": "Store rules and age ratings", "text": "Apple's review guidelines say that apps used for objectification of real people, with hot-or-not voting as the example, do not belong on the App Store and may be removed without notice. Umax scores the user's own photo with a model, which is not voting, and it has stayed in the store since 2023. The rule shows how close the category is to the limit. Age is a second point: the App Store rates the app 18+, Google Play rates it Everyone, and the founder told Fortune that users are 16 to 45." }, { "title": "Growth bought from creators, and easy to copy", "text": "The founder calls creators his most profitable channel, and by one account he spent almost all the app's income on them in three days when a copy appeared. LooksMax AI ranked one place above Umax in a16z's list of August 2024. A product that is one prompt to a rented model has no technical protection. Its position depends on continued payments to creators and on the ranking rules of TikTok, Instagram and the App Store." }, { "title": "Weekly billing", "text": "US$3.99 a week reads as a small price and adds up to US$207.48 for a user who stays one year. Fortune's test found that the offer to replace the first fee by inviting three friends did not work." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Starter Story, 29 December 2024: He made $10M with 3 iPhone apps (video interview with transcript)", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/he-made-10m-with-3-iphone-apps", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the transcript in full. Founder interview. Source for the headline figure, the profit, how he built Umax alone, the split from his first team and the stack." }, { "title": "Fortune, 1 July 2024, by Alexandra Sternlicht: Inside the 'looksmaxxing' economy", "url": "https://fortune.com/2024/07/01/looksmaxxing-apps-rate-teen-boys-faces-mental-health", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Fortune reports the founder's revenue and download figures and writes that it could not verify the revenue. Source for the price, the user ages, the psychologists' criticism and the founder's reply." }, { "title": "Blake Anderson on X, 4 October 2024: RizzGPT ($2.4m arr), Umax ($5m arr)", "url": "https://x.com/blakeandersonw/status/1842349939088925146", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Founder post." }, { "title": "Blake Anderson on X, 1 August 2025: I made $3.94m in July 2025", "url": "https://x.com/blakeandersonw/status/1951306304393531687", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Founder post. Source for the July 2025 revenue of Umax." }, { "title": "Blake Anderson on X, 2 January 2025: Reinvested every dollar and did it on my own", "url": "https://x.com/blakeandersonw/status/1874935568397934745", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Founder post. It does not name the apps; the second of three is read as Umax from the order." }, { "title": "The Startup Ideas Podcast with Greg Isenberg, November 2024: How to build $1M+ Viral AI Apps, interview with Blake Anderson, transcript at Audioscrape", "url": "https://audioscrape.com/podcast/the-startup-ideas-podcast/episode/how-to-build-1m-viral-ai-apps", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part of the transcript, the first four minutes, and the episode notes. Source for the best month, the November 2024 revenue, the downloads and the GPT Vision statement." }, { "title": "Superhuman AI podcast, 3 September 2024: How Blake Anderson built a $6 Million app with ChatGPT, page at Podwise", "url": "https://podwise.ai/episodes/1919485", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the episode summary, the outline and the first two minutes of the transcript; the rest needs an account. Source for the launch date, the US$6 million run rate claim and the summary of the creator campaign." }, { "title": "Whop blog, 28 May 2025: How He Turned Looksmaxxing into $10 Million Dollars with ChatGPT", "url": "https://whop.com/blog/looksmaxxing-blake-anderson/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Written by a company that sells the founder's paid community. Source for the App Store total, the 350,000 to 400,000 a month statement and the marketing channels." }, { "title": "Baijing (白鲸出海), 24 September 2024: article in Chinese on a calorie app by teenage founders, with a section on Anderson's apps", "url": "https://www.baijing.cn/article/50157", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on Anderson in Chinese. A trade publication. Source for the third-party revenue estimate and the unverified account of the launch creator and the accelerator." }, { "title": "Huxiu (虎嗅), 23 February 2025: article in Chinese on Anderson, written from his podcast interviews", "url": "https://m.huxiu.com/article/4050088.html", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on Umax in Chinese. A secondary account; the podcast audio was not checked. Source for the three-day creator campaign and the share of generated code." }, { "title": "Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), 21 August 2024: The Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps, 3rd Edition", "url": "https://a16z.com/100-gen-ai-apps-3/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on aesthetics and dating apps. Source for the rank, the competitor's rank and the US$4.99 weekly price." }, { "title": "Apple App Store listing: Umax - Become Hot, read 13 October 2026, with Apple's iTunes Search API record", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/umax-become-hot/id6471026798", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Apple's store record. Source for the seller, the version dates, the ratings, the age rating, the in-app purchase prices and the release date of the competitor LooksMax AI." }, { "title": "Google Play listing: Umax - Become Hot, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.umax.tech", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Google's store record. Source for the Android downloads, the content rating and the last update date." }, { "title": "Apple, App Store Review Guidelines, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the passage on user-generated content. Source for the rule on objectification of real people." }, { "title": "Australian Psychological Society, 14 July 2026, reprint of a Sunday Telegraph article: Self-rating apps a bad look as users obsess over flaws", "url": "https://psychology.org.au/insights/aps-in-the-sunday-telegraph-self-rating-apps-a-bad", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. About the category of appearance-rating apps; it does not name Umax. Source for the count of 26 apps and the statement by Erika Penney." }, { "title": "University of Colorado Anschutz, 11 August 2026: Why Are Teens Asking AI to Rate Their Faces?", "url": "https://news.cuanschutz.edu/news-stories/why-are-teens-asking-ai-to-rate-their-faces", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Interview with Emily Hemendinger, associate professor of psychiatry. About the trend; it does not name Umax." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 7 May 2024, post by Rushab Jain: Reddit trend, $6M ARR beauty app for men", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/reddit-trend-6m-arr-beauty-app-for-men-57ec364606", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third party that repeats the US$6 million figure without a source. Cited only to show where the figure circulates." }, { "title": "Scale Nuggets newsletter, 27 August 2024: The 23-Year-Old Who's Making $11M/year with AI Apps", "url": "https://scalenuggets.beehiiv.com/p/23yearold-whos-making-11myear-ai-apps", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part; the rest is behind a subscription. A secondary account. Cited for the February 2024 best month." }, { "title": "Blake Anderson on X, 29 March 2026: Introducing core.so", "url": "https://x.com/blakeandersonw/status/2038276867464061056", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Shows that the founder's public work in 2026 is on other products." }, { "title": "Umax website", "url": "https://www.umaxapp.com", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. One page with a link to the App Store and the line that the app is owned and operated by Improvement Tech LLC. Not used for numbers." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/autoshorts-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/autoshorts-ai.md", "slug": "autoshorts-ai", "name": "AutoShorts.ai", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Automated faceless short videos with scheduled posting", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "January 2024", "outcomeLabel": "US$97K monthly recurring revenue, May 2025", "sticker": "$97K MRR, one person", "outcomeUsd": 1169000, "months": 16, "teamLabel": "1 founder, no employees in any source through June 2025", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "video", "channel": "partners", "trend": "flat", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Video" ], "product": "A web service that makes a short vertical video from a topic, with a script, a synthetic voice and generated images, and posts it to the customer's TikTok or YouTube account on a fixed schedule, from 3 times a week to twice a day. The customer sets up a series once, and the videos then arrive without more work.", "why": "It started in January 2024, when faceless channels were a rising trend and one video took one to two hours of work in four separate tools. The customers were mainly YouTubers, who then promoted the product for a commission, and Facebook ads returned many times their cost. The founder had built two earlier products that passed US$30,000 of MRR.", "summary": [ "AutoShorts.ai makes and posts faceless videos: short vertical videos in which no person appears on camera. The customer chooses a topic once, called a series. For every video the service writes a script with a language model, reads it with text to speech, which is software that turns text into a human-sounding voice, generates the pictures with an image model, renders the video, and posts it to the customer's TikTok or YouTube account. The plans differ only in how often it posts: 3 times a week for US$19 a month, once a day for US$39, twice a day for US$69.", "Eric Smith, a former Instagram software engineer in Florida who builds products alone, wrote that the idea came on 20 December 2023 and the first subscriber on 1 February 2024. He then posted his MRR on X at each step. MRR is monthly recurring revenue: the value of all active subscriptions for one month, where a yearly plan counts as one twelfth. It was US$1,000 on 28 February 2024, US$40,000 on 13 May and US$83,300 on 31 July 2024, which is US$1 million of ARR, annual recurring revenue, MRR times 12. After that the growth almost stopped: US$93,822 in September 2024 and US$97,452 in June 2025. Money collected in one month was higher, US$113,400 in November 2024 and US$138,000 in May 2025, because yearly plans are paid at once. He says he has no employees and no investors.", "Every number on this page is a statement by the founder on X, several with images of his own Stripe dashboard: grade C. No payment processor, buyer or journalist has confirmed them. The article that led to this story reports \"over $113,000 MRR\"; the founder's post gives US$113,400 as the revenue of November 2024, not as MRR. The page also shows the rules of YouTube and TikTok that such videos must pass, and what happened to earlier companies that sold video without effort." ], "factsCaption": "US$1 million of annual recurring revenue six months after the first subscriber, then recurring revenue that rose only 3.9% in nine months, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founder in a post on X, sometimes with an image of his own dashboard, or a statement by a site that repeats him. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From an idea in December 2023 to US$83,300 a month in recurring revenue by July 2024, then a plateau. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "AutoShorts.ai prices on 13 October 2026, read from the plan data inside the company's home page (grade C)", "note": "Each plan covers one series, which is one topic with its own posting schedule. A yearly plan costs 10 times the monthly price: US$190, US$390 or US$690 a year. Starter Story recorded the same three monthly prices in May 2024, so they did not change in 29 months. The plan records carry the creation dates 2 January 2024 for the monthly plans and 26 June 2024 for the yearly plans.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "videos carry a watermark; 1 video to try, per the founder and a reviewer" ], [ "Starter", "15.83", "19", "posts 3 times a week, 1 series" ], [ "Daily", "32.50", "39", "posts once a day, 1 series" ], [ "Hardcore", "57.50", "69", "posts twice a day, 1 series" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, May 2025", "value": "US$97,452", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 11 June 2025 on the results of May gives US$97,000, rounded. The Stripe dashboard image attached to the post, updated 11 June 2025, shows US$97,452.18. He took and posted the image himself.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Annual run rate from that MRR", "value": "about US$1.17 million a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$97,452.18 times 12 = US$1,169,426. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue collected in May 2025", "value": "US$138,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Same post. The gross volume chart in the image peaks at US$138,300. It is higher than MRR because a yearly plan is paid at once, and he had made the yearly plan easier to see in May. The founder writes: \"remember MRR != Revenue\".", "src": [ 1, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue collected in November 2024", "value": "US$113,400", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 2 December 2024, which calls it a slight decline. A listicle of September 2025 reports this as over US$113,000 MRR and names no source. It is one month of revenue, not MRR.", "src": [ 2, 13 ] }, { "fact": "One month of revenue, costs and profit, posted 5 September 2024", "value": "gross revenue US$112,928, MRR US$93,822, expenses US$44,069.59, profit US$68,858", "grade": "C", "note": "A table in an image posted by the founder. The post does not say which month the table covers.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Check of that cost table", "value": "the seven cost lines add up to US$50,969.59, not US$44,069.59", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 16,439.81 + 10,893 + 9,173.44 + 7,900 + 4,242.27 + 2,158.83 + 162.24. The difference is exactly US$6,900. With the sum of the lines, profit is US$61,958, which is 54.9% of revenue and not 61.0%.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Paid to AI model providers in that table", "value": "US$24,309 in the month, 21.5% of gross revenue", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: ElevenLabs text to speech US$10,893 + image generation US$9,173.44 + OpenAI US$4,242.27.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Marketing in that table", "value": "Facebook ads US$16,439.81 and affiliates US$7,900", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder calls marketing the biggest expense. The company's partner page offers affiliates a 30% recurring commission.", "src": [ 3, 14 ] }, { "fact": "MRR on 31 July 2024", "value": "US$83,300, equal to US$1 million of ARR", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 1 August 2024, with the words \"completely solo and with no funding\".", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the first subscriber to US$1 million of ARR", "value": "181 days", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 1 February 2024 to 31 July 2024.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "MRR steps in 2024", "value": "US$1,000 on 28 February, US$2,000 on 16 March, US$5,000 on 2 April, US$12,000 on 19 April, US$20,000 on 27 April, US$30,000 on 5 May, US$40,000 on 13 May, US$70,000 on 27 June, US$75,000 on 19 July", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts, most with a dashboard image. Indie Hackers and the eBiz Insider newsletter repeated these figures and did not measure them.", "src": [ 4, 5, 11, 12 ] }, { "fact": "MRR growth from September 2024 to June 2025", "value": "3.9% in nine months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: from US$93,822 to US$97,452.18.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Costs at US$40,000 MRR, May 2024", "value": "about US$10,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's reply of 17 May 2024: servers, AI models and Facebook ads.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Ad cost for one new customer, and the value of a customer", "value": "April 2024: about US$14 and about US$184. July 2024: US$20 and about 6 times that", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts of 21 April and 20 July 2024 about his Facebook ads.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Churn, July 2024", "value": "about 23%", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's reply of 19 July 2024: \"Churn is pretty bad, around 23%\". He does not name the period. For monthly subscriptions the usual period is one month.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Cost of free users, September 2024", "value": "about US$13,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 16 September 2024. In a test three days later, removing the free plan almost doubled conversions.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Volume", "value": "600 videos a day in early April 2024; more than 2.5 million AI images in June 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts of 4 April and 14 July 2024.", "src": [ 5, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 person", "grade": "C", "note": "\"Solo\" in his posts through 11 June 2025, with 3 to 4 hours of work a day. On 1 April 2025 he wrote that he sometimes thinks about hiring. His X profile on 13 October 2026 still says \"Solo indiehacker\".", "src": [ 1, 8, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "\"No funding\" on 1 August 2024 and \"Bootstrapped\" on 11 June 2025.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "MRR in the founder's X profile, read 13 October 2026", "value": "US$117,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Profile text without a date. No post with this figure was found, so it is not the headline.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "The founder's other products, November 2024", "value": "NicheScraper US$24,400 and CopyGenius US$9,500 in the month", "grade": "C", "note": "Same post as the AutoShorts figure. Both were larger earlier: NicheScraper came close to US$70,000 of MRR before March 2024, and CopyGenius lost US$30,000 of MRR.", "src": [ 2, 7, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the May 2025 figure", "value": "16 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: January 2024 to May 2025.", "src": [ 1, 12 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "January and February 2023", "what": "CopyGenius, his AI copywriting tool, goes from US$11,000 to US$14,000 of MRR in 11 days. A post of 13 February reports US$20,000 and credits Facebook ads without audience targeting.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "20 December 2023", "what": "The idea is formed. He builds a first version for his own use.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 6 ] }, { "when": "2 January 2024", "what": "The three monthly price plans are created in the site's database, at US$19, US$39 and US$69.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "Late January to 1 February 2024", "what": "Launch in the last week of January, according to Indie Hackers. His Stripe chart starts on 31 January. First subscriber on 1 February.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 5, 12 ] }, { "when": "25 March 2024", "what": "US$3,000 MRR. A connection to YouTube, requested by customers, multiplies the conversion rate by 4 to 6.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 9 ] }, { "when": "April 2024", "what": "600 videos a day force a rebuild of the rendering system. Facebook blocks his ads by mistake, so he asks affiliates to promote the product: MRR goes from US$6,000 on 14 April to US$12,000 on 19 April and US$20,000 on 27 April.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 9 ] }, { "when": "13 May 2024", "what": "US$40,000 MRR, with costs of about US$10,000 a month. Customers who are YouTubers publish videos about the product without being asked.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 6 ] }, { "when": "27 June 2024", "what": "US$70,000 MRR. He reports many copies of the product. Yearly plans are added on 26 June.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 14 ] }, { "when": "31 July 2024", "what": "US$83,300 MRR, which is US$1 million of ARR, six months after the first subscriber, alone and without investors.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "5 September 2024", "what": "He posts one month of accounts: gross revenue US$112,928, MRR US$93,822, profit US$68,858. Free users cost about US$13,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 7 ] }, { "when": "2 December 2024", "what": "November revenue: US$113,400, a slight decline. He has reduced marketing and works on the code and on search traffic.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "April and May 2025", "what": "He considers hiring and stays alone. Making the yearly plan easier to see raises monthly revenue from US$100,000 to about US$135,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "11 June 2025", "what": "Results of May: US$138,000 of revenue, US$97,452 of MRR, 3 to 4 hours of work a day. This is the last dated figure found.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "15 July 2025", "what": "YouTube renames its rule on repetitious content to inauthentic content and states that it covers mass-produced videos, which cannot earn ad money.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "1 October 2025", "what": "He writes that he has worked for some months on a new release for AutoShorts. This is the latest post about the product that could be read. The site's terms are updated on 15 October 2025.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 9, 14 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "The site is online with the same prices. The founder's profile reads US$117,000 MRR, without a date.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 14, 15 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Customers who are also the sales channel", "text": "The buyers are people who publish videos, so they already have an audience. The founder pays them a 30% recurring commission and wrote that reaching US$1 million a year was largely because of affiliates. When Facebook blocked his ads by mistake in April 2024, he put more work into affiliates, and MRR doubled in five days. He also found that each announced feature made earlier affiliates publish a new video." }, { "title": "Paid ads with a measured return", "text": "He bought Facebook ads in the first two months and published the result: about US$14 to win a customer worth about US$184 in April 2024, and US$20 against about six times that in July 2024. He increased spending only while the return stayed positive. In the cost table of September 2024, ads are the largest line." }, { "title": "A trend, a tedious task, automation", "text": "His stated formula: find a trend, find a tedious task that people do by hand because of the trend, and automate it. In early 2024 a faceless video took one to two hours across ChatGPT, a stock footage site, ElevenLabs and a video editor. He says this was the third product he built this way, and that being early gave time to improve a first version that was not very good." }, { "title": "The product shows itself", "text": "He ran test channels made with AutoShorts and put the link in the video descriptions. Viewers who wanted the same kind of channel became customers. He also found that customers stay when one of their videos gets many views, and that the first week of posting decides whether a customer cancels." }, { "title": "Small changes with large effects", "text": "The YouTube connection multiplied conversions by 4 to 6. A test without the free plan almost doubled conversions and cut costs and support requests. Showing the yearly plan more clearly took about one hour and raised monthly revenue by about 35%, although that change moves future payments forward and does not raise MRR by the same amount." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's posts on X and from the code of the company's site. They are grade C.", "items": [ "A Next.js web application. In May 2024 the founder named OpenAI and Replicate as the AI services. The cost table of September 2024 lists ElevenLabs for the voice, a provider for image generation, and OpenAI.", "He rents the image models from a provider and does not host them himself. He wrote that he would rather pay than carry that work.", "The first version took about six weeks: idea on 20 December 2023, first paying subscriber on 1 February 2024.", "At 600 videos a day in April 2024 the rendering system had to be rebuilt.", "In April 2025 he wrote that the application runs on one DigitalOcean server for US$96 a month with no load balancer. The September 2024 table shows US$2,158.83 for rendering and hosting servers together.", "Payments go through Stripe, as his dashboard images show.", "He answers support email and writes the code himself. Sales come from Facebook ads, affiliates, his own test channels and, since late 2024, search traffic." ], "src": [ 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 14 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database promised video or social media publishing without skill or staff. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "HighlightCam", "years": "2009 to 2012", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "An algorithm that finds the best moments in raw footage and edits the video for you.", "died": "Phones and consumer editing programs offered easier alternatives. Buyers adopted automatic editing slowly, and the company found no business model that could grow.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1636-highlightcam" }, { "name": "Fuzzwich", "years": "2007 to 2010", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Animated videos by drag and drop, with ready-made characters and scenes, for people without animation skill.", "died": "It did not grow beyond its early users and stayed on the desktop while viewers moved to phones and social media.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1655-fuzzwich" }, { "name": "ReelSurfer", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$1.25M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Cut a short clip from any online video and share it, with no editing skill.", "died": "YouTube and Facebook added clipping and sharing themselves, and mobile apps replaced the desktop tool.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1577-reelsurfer" }, { "name": "ClearMix", "years": "2020 to 2023", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Professional marketing videos for companies, fast and at low cost, through a network of freelance videographers and editors.", "died": "Canva and Adobe added video, and AI editing tools automated the manual work that ClearMix sold.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1336-clearmix" }, { "name": "Argyle Social", "years": "2009 to 2013", "funding": "US$2.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "One tool for marketers to publish on social networks and connect the results to sales leads.", "died": "Larger competitors with bigger marketing budgets took the market, and the product depended on the social platforms' APIs.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1832-argyle-social" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five sold easier video or easier publishing, and each lost when a larger company added the same function or when the manual work behind the service could be automated. ClearMix is the clearest case: the database says AI editing tools made its freelance process obsolete. AutoShorts stands on the other side of that change. It is one of the AI tools that removed the manual work.", "What differs in 2024 is that every part can be rented per use. A language model writes the script, a speech model reads it, an image model draws the pictures, and one engineer joined them in about six weeks. The cost per video is low enough to sell about 60 videos a month for US$69. What does not differ is the dependence. The predecessors depended on platforms that could add their feature. AutoShorts depends on TikTok and YouTube to accept automated posts, and on three model providers for every video." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The same product, with care.", "text": "The method is repeatable and the founder says he used it three times: a trend, a manual task, automation, then ads and affiliates. The same product is harder now. The founder reports many copies since June 2024, and Faceless.video, already on this site, reported US$1 million of ARR for about August 2024 with a similar product built without code. His own recurring revenue was nearly flat from September 2024 to June 2025.", "steps": [ "Find a trend and a task that people repeat by hand because of it. Build the tool first for your own use.", "Charge from the first week. Test Facebook ads early, and raise the budget only while a customer is worth several times the ad cost.", "Pay customers a recurring commission, and ask first those who already publish to an audience.", "Run public accounts made with your own product and link the product in every description.", "Show the yearly plan clearly, and test whether the free plan helps or costs." ], "open": "Tasks that creators or small businesses still do by hand around a rising format, in a field where the buyers publish online themselves and can act as affiliates." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported, and misquoted by others", "text": "All figures are the founder's posts and his own dashboard images. The listicle that led here turned one month of revenue, US$113,400, into MRR. His cost table of September 2024 does not add up: the lines sum to US$6,900 more than the stated total. TrustMRR, which verifies revenue through payment processors, answered \"Not found\" for three versions of the name on 13 October 2026; its profile AutoAIShorts is another product. Starter Story marks its page as estimated from public sources." }, { "title": "Recurring revenue stopped growing in late 2024", "text": "MRR was US$93,822 in September 2024 and US$97,452 in June 2025, a rise of 3.9% in nine months. The jump in revenue in May 2025 came from yearly plans paid at once. The last dated figure is from June 2025. The US$117,000 in his profile in October 2026 has no date and no post behind it." }, { "title": "YouTube does not pay for mass-produced videos", "text": "YouTube's monetization policy page, read 13 October 2026, says that since 15 July 2025 the rule once named \"repetitious content\" is named \"inauthentic content\" and covers content that is \"repetitive or mass-produced\". Its list of what cannot earn money includes AI-generated content made with generic templates that gives the impression of mass production, and image slideshows with little narrative. A second page requires creators to disclose realistic AI-generated content. A customer who buys AutoShorts to earn ad money from an automated channel is the case this rule describes." }, { "title": "TikTok limits automated posting", "text": "TikTok's Community Guidelines, effective 24 September 2026, require a label on AI-generated content that shows realistic scenes or people, list \"Using automation to run many accounts or send repetitive content\" as spam, and keep unoriginal or low-quality content out of the For You feed. Its developer rules allow about 15 posts a day per account through the posting API, keep posts from unaudited apps private, and say an app must not add its logo or watermark. An app can post publicly only after it passes TikTok's audit." }, { "title": "Every video is bought from three model providers", "text": "In the September 2024 table, ElevenLabs, an image generation provider and OpenAI together cost US$24,309, which is 21.5% of gross revenue. A price rise goes straight to the margin, and free users alone cost about US$13,000 a month. The same providers also sell products of their own: on 3 October 2024 the founder wrote that OpenAI had released a feature that did what the editor of his CopyGenius did, and did it better. In April 2025 he wrote that CopyGenius lost US$30,000 of MRR after ChatGPT appeared." }, { "title": "High churn, many copies, one person", "text": "The founder reported churn of about 23% in July 2024 and said the first week of posting decides whether a customer stays, which depends on platform algorithms that he does not control. An A/B test in September 2025 doubled churn instead of reducing it. Copies of the product have used his published tactics since mid-2024. Support, code and marketing all depend on one person who also runs other products." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "X post by Eric Smith, 11 June 2025: the results of May 2025, revenue and MRR", "url": "https://x.com/ericsmith1302/status/1932814243432153480", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API, and viewed the attached Stripe dashboard image. Source for the headline MRR, the May revenue, the team and the funding." }, { "title": "X post by Eric Smith, 2 December 2024: how the businesses did in November 2024", "url": "https://x.com/ericsmith1302/status/1863407307368858038", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. This is the origin of the figure in the listicle: US$113,400 of revenue for AutoShorts in November 2024, written as $113.4k." }, { "title": "X posts by Eric Smith, 4 and 5 September 2024: MRR back at US$93,000, and the monthly cost breakdown", "url": "https://x.com/ericsmith1302/status/1831745370822516792", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both posts in full through the fxtwitter API and viewed the cost table image. The sum of the cost lines was recalculated on this page." }, { "title": "X post by Eric Smith, 1 August 2024: US$83,300 of MRR alone, US$1 million of ARR on 31 July", "url": "https://x.com/ericsmith1302/status/1818801651446120696", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "X posts by Eric Smith, 18 March to 1 July 2024: MRR updates from US$2,000 to US$70,000", "url": "https://x.com/ericsmith1302/status/1807851248449622239", "grade": "C", "how": "Read seven posts in full through the fxtwitter API: 18 March, 4 April, 20 April, 28 April, 8 May, 16 May and 1 July 2024. Each repeats the dates of the earlier steps." }, { "title": "X replies by Eric Smith, 16 and 17 May 2024: growth channels, costs and technology", "url": "https://x.com/ericsmith1302/status/1791267610291572797", "grade": "C", "how": "Read five replies in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the US$10,000 of monthly costs, Next.js, OpenAI and Replicate, and the first version built for his own use." }, { "title": "X posts by Eric Smith, February to October 2024: the manual method, YouTube connection, ad returns, AI images, affiliates, churn, test channels, the free plan and OpenAI", "url": "https://x.com/ericsmith1302/status/1836893890957189540", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API: posts of 6 February, 22 and 25 March, 21 April, 14, 17, 19, 20 and 25 July, 12, 16 and 19 September, and 3 October 2024." }, { "title": "X posts by Eric Smith, 2025: his formula, hiring, CopyGenius, the single server, the yearly plan and a coming release", "url": "https://x.com/ericsmith1302/status/1925240492562030641", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API: posts of 1 January, 1, 16 and 21 April, 21 May and 1 October 2025." }, { "title": "X profile of Eric Smith, @ericsmith1302, and its embedded timeline, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/ericsmith1302", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile through the fxtwitter API: 17,274 followers, location Florida, profile text that gives US$117,000 of MRR for AutoShorts. Read the public embedded timeline, which listed 100 posts from January 2023 to October 2025; no later post was visible. Source for the 2023 CopyGenius posts, the US$3,000 step and the September 2025 churn test." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 24 May 2024, changed 18 August 2026: How Eric Smith Grew AutoShorts.ai To $92K MRR", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/autoshorts-ai-breakdown", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part. The page is marked as estimated from public sources and embeds the founder's posts. Source for the May 2024 prices, one founder, and his earlier work at Instagram." }, { "title": "eBiz Insider newsletter by Niall Doherty, issue 383, May 2024: Zero to $40K/Month in Less Than 6 Months", "url": "https://ebizfacts.beehiiv.com/p/ebiz-insider-newsletter-383", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. It quotes the founder's posts and links them. The same issue carries a paid advertisement for AutoShorts." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 21 May 2024: Faceless short maker tool makes $30k MRR, by Rushab Jain", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/faceless-short-maker-tool-makes-30k-mrr-33bb0ca91b", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full with the reader comments. A community summary of the founder's posts. Source for the launch in the last week of January 2024." }, { "title": "Sidetool, 26 September 2025: One-Person SaaS Success Stories: Real Revenue Numbers in 2025", "url": "https://www.sidetool.co/post/one-person-saas-success-stories-real-revenue-2025/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The first source for this story. It reports over US$113,000 MRR without a source or a date, and adds product details, such as paid priority processing, that were not found in the founder's posts read for this page. No fact on this page relies on it." }, { "title": "AutoShorts.ai home page, partner page and terms, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://autoshorts.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the home page and the plan data inside it. The other pages load by script, so their text was read from the script files. Source for the prices, the plan dates, the 30% commission, the Next.js framework and the terms dated 15 October 2025." }, { "title": "Internet Archive, list of captures of autoshorts.ai, January 2024 to August 2026", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240503092747/https://autoshorts.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the capture index only: a first capture on 4 January 2024 that redirects, then at least one capture in every month from May 2024 to August 2026, most of them working pages." }, { "title": "Argil, 6 April 2026, changed 2 October 2026: AutoShorts AI Review 2026: Features, Pricing, and Better Alternatives", "url": "https://www.argil.ai/blog/autoshorts-ai-review-2026-features-pricing-and-better-alternatives", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Written by a competitor that sells an alternative. It confirms the US$19 plan, one series per plan and the free video in 2026." }, { "title": "YouTube Help: YouTube channel monetization policies, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1311392?hl=en", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the 15 July 2025 update, on generic or repetitive content and on what is allowed to earn money. The platform's own rule page." }, { "title": "YouTube Help: Disclosing use of GenAI content, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/14328491?hl=en", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The platform's own rule page." }, { "title": "TikTok Community Guidelines, Integrity and Authenticity, effective 24 September 2026", "url": "https://www.tiktok.com/community-guidelines/en/integrity-authenticity", "grade": "C", "how": "The page loads by script; read the encoded text inside the page code. Sections on AI-generated content, spam and For You feed eligibility." }, { "title": "TikTok for Developers: Content Sharing Guidelines, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://developers.tiktok.com/doc/content-sharing-guidelines", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the audit requirement, the private posts of unaudited apps, the posting cap and the watermark rule." }, { "title": "TrustMRR, searched 13 October 2026: no profile for AutoShorts.ai", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/autoaishorts.md", "grade": "C", "how": "The addresses for the slugs autoshorts, autoshorts-ai and autoshortsai answered \"Not found\". Read the markdown profile AutoAIShorts: it belongs to another site, autoaishorts.com. Listed only to prevent confusion." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/docsbot-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/docsbot-ai.md", "slug": "docsbot-ai", "name": "DocsBot AI", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI chatbots trained on company documentation", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "9 March 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$1M annual recurring revenue, February 2026", "sticker": "$1M a year recurring", "outcomeUsd": 1000000, "months": 35, "teamLabel": "1 founder and owner; at US$1M ARR also 1 growth partner, a few employees and contractors", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Timing", "group": "support-agents", "channel": "search", "trend": "flat", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Customer support" ], "product": "A company connects its website, help center, files or old support tickets. DocsBot turns that material into a chatbot that answers customers or employees with links to the source passages, in a website widget, in Slack, by voice or through an API, and passes the conversation to a person when it cannot answer.", "why": "It opened in the week OpenAI released the ChatGPT API, after seven other AI products by the same founder had earned little. It sold to businesses, which stay longer than consumers. The last step to the first million came from higher prices and from removing the cheapest plan.", "summary": [ "DocsBot builds chatbots that answer from a company's own documentation. The method is retrieval-augmented generation (RAG): for each question the program first searches the company's documents for the passages that match, then gives those passages to a language model and asks it to answer only from them, with links to the sources. A company adds its website address, help-center articles, files or old support tickets, and gets a chat widget for its site, a bot for Slack, a voice agent, or an API.", "Aaron Edwards built it in four weeks while he was chief technology officer of WPMU DEV, a WordPress plugin and hosting company where he had worked since 2009. DocsBot was the eighth AI product that he launched in six months, and most of the others lost money or only covered their costs. The DocsBot beta opened on 9 March 2023, eight days after OpenAI released the ChatGPT API. One week later it had US$3,500 in monthly revenue, most of it from Japan, where one post about it was shown 2.3 million times. On 2 March 2026 he wrote that the company had crossed US$1 million in annual recurring revenue in February 2026. Annual recurring revenue (ARR) is the current monthly subscription revenue multiplied by twelve. That is 35 months after the beta, about four months later than he had planned, and he writes that a pricing change is what completed it.", "Every revenue number on this page is a statement by the founder, grade C: his blog, his posts on X, and an interview in an independent WordPress publication. No payment processor or buyer has confirmed the figures, and TrustMRR has no profile for the product. The figures do agree with each other across dates from 2023 to 2026. Edwards is the only owner, but he did not work alone: he hired a first employee one month after the launch, and a growth partner with a profit share joined in October 2025. The page also shows four failed startups that sold answers from a company's own knowledge before language models could read documents." ], "factsCaption": "US$1 million in annual recurring revenue 35 months after a beta launch, reported by the founder and not confirmed by a payment processor", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founder in his blog, on X or to a journalist, or a figure from a company page or a review site. The one grade B value was announced to the press by the buyer of his earlier product. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No revenue value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a free chatbot for WordPress documentation to US$1 million in annual recurring revenue in 35 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "DocsBot plans on 13 October 2026: monthly prices from the company's pricing page, yearly prices from a competitor's review (grade C)", "note": "Yearly billing gives two months free, so the yearly column is the monthly price times 10 divided by 12; the company's own page confirms US$124 for Standard. An AI credit is one standard chat answer; larger models and actions use more credits per answer. Add-ons per month: 5,000 more credits for US$49, one more bot for US$19, 10,000 more source pages for US$29, one more team user for US$19 (Business and Enterprise only). A chat widget without the DocsBot name needs the Business plan. Customers can also connect their own model API key and pay the model provider directly.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "1 bot, 50 source pages, 100 AI credits a month" ], [ "Personal", "41", "49", "1 bot, 5,000 source pages, 5,000 AI credits a month" ], [ "Standard", "124", "149", "3 bots, 15,000 source pages, 15,000 AI credits a month, 5 team users" ], [ "Business", "416", "499", "10 bots, 100,000 source pages, 60,000 AI credits a month, 10 team users" ], [ "Enterprise", "custom", "custom", "Custom quote" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, February 2026", "value": "more than US$1 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's blog, 2 March 2026: \"We finally crossed $1M ARR in February.\" He gives no exact figure and no day. He repeats the milestone in his article of 14 September 2026. No payment processor has confirmed it.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue that US$1 million ARR means", "value": "about US$83,333", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 1,000,000 divided by 12 equals 83,333.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "What the US$1 million covers", "value": "DocsBot, as far as the article says", "grade": "C", "note": "The article is about DocsBot's prices, plans and partner program. The founder's X profile says \"$1m+ ARR from my projects\", and he also owns Imajinn AI, a small image product. He does not publish the split.", "src": [ 1, 22 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the beta to US$1 million ARR", "value": "35 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: March 2023 to February 2026. The founder writes that he expected to arrive about four months earlier.", "src": [ 1, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 16 March 2023", "value": "US$3,500", "grade": "C", "note": "One week after the beta. Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is the subscription revenue of one month. He wrote that 95% of the customers were Japanese.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 21 March 2023", "value": "US$6,000", "grade": "C", "note": "He added that churn, the share of customers who cancel, was very high because there was no free trial.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "ARR of all his products together, 27 May 2023", "value": "US$250,000", "grade": "C", "note": "DocsBot, Imajinn AI and Infinite Uploads combined. Not a DocsBot figure.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "ARR of all his products together, 2 April 2024", "value": "US$500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "He calls DocsBot the main part and does not give the split. Infinite Uploads, still included here, never passed about US$3,000 MRR according to The Repository.", "src": [ 6, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Time from US$500,000 to US$1 million", "value": "22 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: April 2024 to February 2026. The step before, US$250,000 to US$500,000, took 11 months. The two earlier figures cover all his products, so the comparison is approximate. Growth slowed.", "src": [ 1, 6, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Effect of the price rise of about June 2025, after three months", "value": "MRR up 12.5%, subscribers down 2.6%", "grade": "C", "note": "He removed the lowest plan and raised the main plan by 50%. Churn rate down 14.7%, revenue per customer up 15.5%, customer lifetime value up 35.4%. Existing customers kept their old price, and about 15% upgraded on their own.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Growth in the second half of 2025", "value": "flat", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: growth went flat through most of the third and fourth quarter of 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Trend in 2026", "value": "fewer signups, more revenue per customer", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, 14 September 2026: revenue per customer and lifetime value climbed enough to cover the drop in signups, \"barely\". He has published no ARR figure after February 2026.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Share of paid checkouts that came from search", "value": "48.5% in 2024, 40.6% in 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "January to August of each year, from the company's analytics. AI assistants were the tracked source of 4.7% of paid checkouts in 2026, and 18.2% of the answers from people who booked a demo named an AI assistant.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Customers, October 2026", "value": "more than 3,000 businesses", "grade": "C", "note": "Company's about page. The home page also counts more than 75,000 users, which includes free accounts. About a quarter of customers were in Japan in October 2025.", "src": [ 14, 3 ] }, { "fact": "People at US$1 million ARR", "value": "1 owner, 1 growth partner, a few employees and contractors", "grade": "C", "note": "No exact count is published. First full-time employee in April 2023. In October 2025 the founder wrote of a few employees plus contractors, and of his son in marketing. LinkedIn lists 3 employees in October 2026, and Latka recorded 1 person there in July 2024.", "src": [ 4, 7, 11, 20, 21 ] }, { "fact": "The growth partner's stake", "value": "profit share and phantom equity, not shares", "grade": "C", "note": "Josh Dailey joined full-time on 1 October 2025 as Chief Growth Officer. Phantom equity is a contract that pays cash tied to the value of the company without giving ownership.", "src": [ 4, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's about page calls it a bootstrapped business, which means paid for from its own revenue. The founder kept his job as CTO until August 2023.", "src": [ 14, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Legal owner of DocsBot", "value": "UglyRobot, LLC, Delaware", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder's own company, separate from WPMU DEV, where he was an employee from 2009 to 2023 and then a part-time advisor.", "src": [ 14, 18, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Earlier product sold, November 2024", "value": "Infinite Uploads, price not disclosed", "grade": "B", "note": "The buyer, ClikIT, announced the purchase to the press. The founder writes that the offer was close to his asking price of 3 times ARR, with about 40% paid at once and the rest over three years.", "src": [ 18, 19 ] }, { "fact": "Cost of the SOC 2 Type II audit, 2025", "value": "US$1,200 for the auditor", "grade": "C", "note": "SOC 2 is a security audit that business customers ask for. The compliance tool was quoted at US$4,000 to US$6,000 a year. He expects US$5,000 to US$6,000 a year in total from now on.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Card payments in 2023 up to 16 October", "value": "3,240, with 0 disputes", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on X, as an argument for selling to businesses.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "List price of the middle plan, monthly billing, August 2026", "value": "DocsBot US$149, Chatbase US$150, SiteGPT US$129", "grade": "C", "note": "From DocsBot's own comparison page, checked by the company on 25 August 2026. Competitors' reviews of DocsBot recommend their own cheaper plan or a price per ticket.", "src": [ 17, 25, 26 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's stated goal, October 2026", "value": "US$5 million ARR", "grade": "C", "note": "Text of his X profile. In October 2025 he and his partner told The Repository that they plan to grow the company for three to five years and then sell it.", "src": [ 22, 3 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2009 to 2023", "what": "Edwards is chief technology officer of WPMU DEV, which sells WordPress plugins and hosting. He sees how much work the same support questions cost.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 23 ] }, { "when": "2021", "what": "He launches Infinite Uploads, a cloud storage plugin for WordPress, with his friend Josh Dailey. It never passes about US$3,000 in monthly recurring revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 6 ] }, { "when": "2022 to early 2023", "what": "He teaches himself Python and React and launches eight AI products in six months while employed. Most lose money or only cover their costs.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 6 ] }, { "when": "February 2023", "what": "He releases ChatWP, a free chatbot trained on the WordPress documentation, and asks testers on a waiting list whether they would use the same thing for their own business. They say yes.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "9 March 2023", "what": "Beta of DocsBot, eight days after OpenAI released the ChatGPT API. Customers bring their own OpenAI key, so the product has no model cost and can offer a free plan.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "13 March 2023", "what": "A Japanese technology account posts about DocsBot. The post is shown 2.3 million times. The servers go down, and more than 50 support tickets arrive in Japanese.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "16 to 21 March 2023", "what": "US$3,500 in monthly recurring revenue after one week, US$6,000 five days later.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 9 ] }, { "when": "10 April 2023", "what": "He hires his first full-time employee.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "27 May 2023", "what": "All his products together reach US$250,000 ARR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "1 August 2023", "what": "He leaves the CTO role for a part-time advisory role and works full-time on his own products.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "5 November 2023", "what": "OpenAI is about to release its own chatbot builder. He writes that it will work as a free trial of his product, and four days later he connects DocsBot to it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "2 April 2024", "what": "All his products together reach US$500,000 ARR. He names US$1 million as the next goal.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "25 November 2024", "what": "He sells Infinite Uploads to ClikIT to spend his time on DocsBot.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 18, 19 ] }, { "when": "About June 2025", "what": "He removes the lowest plan and raises the main plan by 50%. After three months MRR is 12.5% higher with 2.6% fewer subscribers.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "1 to 3 October 2025", "what": "Josh Dailey joins as Chief Growth Officer with a profit share. DocsBot completes its SOC 2 Type II security audit.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 7 ] }, { "when": "July to December 2025", "what": "Growth is flat.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "February 2026", "what": "ARR passes US$1 million after a pricing change that was planned for close to a year. The consumer plan is removed, and an agency partner program starts.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "17 June 2026", "what": "New pricing by AI credits, with add-ons and the option to connect the customer's own model API key.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "14 September 2026", "what": "He reports a real drop in signups in 2026. Higher revenue per customer covers it, in his word, barely.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "5 to 7 October 2026", "what": "Nearly 90 product announcements in the twelve months since the partner joined. A business podcast publishes an episode with him titled The $1M/Year AI Business Anyone Can Start.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13, 23 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "The product runs and announces a week of releases for 2 to 6 November 2026.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 24 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Timing", "text": "OpenAI released the ChatGPT API on 1 March 2023. Edwards rewrote his nearly finished product for it the same day and called the result more powerful, faster and 10 times cheaper. The beta opened eight days later, and a single post in Japan brought the first paying customers. In October 2025 he said that it was a blessing to be at the very beginning of the public excitement about AI." }, { "title": "Seven launches before the one that paid", "text": "An image plugin spread widely on X and almost nobody paid. An avatar product made about US$9,000 and then demand ended. He writes that the consumer products attracted visitors who wanted to try a new toy and not pay. Each launch reused code from the last, so the eighth product took four weeks." }, { "title": "Business customers", "text": "A company that puts a support bot on its site keeps paying while the bot answers tickets. By mid-October 2023 he reported 3,240 card payments in that year without one dispute. The company names Sony Network Communications, Sentry and StellarWP as customers." }, { "title": "A price rise completed the million", "text": "About June 2025 he removed the cheapest plan, raised the main plan by 50% and gave new features only to the new plans. He reported 2.6% fewer subscribers and 12.5% more MRR after three months. He then writes that a pricing change planned for close to a year, rolled out before February 2026, is what moved ARR past US$1 million. He does not describe its details." }, { "title": "Search as the main channel", "text": "In 2024, 48.5% of paid checkouts started from a search engine: documentation, pages that compare DocsBot with each competitor, and free tools. In the year to October 2026 the company added about 1,000 pages and now offers its site in eight languages. The share from search still fell to 40.6% in 2026." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's blog, his posts on X and his interview with The Repository. They are grade C.", "items": [ "A free test first: ChatWP answered questions from the WordPress documentation. The waiting list asked each tester whether they wanted the same for their own business.", "He taught himself Python and React in 2022 to build these products. The first DocsBot took four weeks of work, night and day, while he was employed.", "At launch every customer connected their own OpenAI key and paid OpenAI directly. That removed the model cost and the rate limits from the product, and it allowed a free plan.", "The retrieval part is the product: more than 38 kinds of sources, scheduled refresh of sources, a vector database (a database that finds passages by meaning) that was replaced in the year to October 2026, and storage in the US or the EU.", "DocsBot answers its own support tickets, many of them in Japanese, Portuguese, French and Italian.", "The SOC 2 Type II security audit was done with a compliance tool and an auditor who charged US$1,200. His son, a business student, wrote the policies.", "The team: contract developers and administrators, a few employees, his son in marketing, and since October 2025 a growth partner. The founder leads product and engineering.", "Analytics in PostHog connect the first source of each visitor to the paid checkout." ], "src": [ 3, 8, 11, 13, 7, 4, 2, 15, 26 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised to answer questions from a company's own written knowledge, or to talk to its customers, before language models could read documents. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Answerly", "years": "2013 to 2016", "funding": "US$550K", "cause": "Product failure", "promise": "FAQ chatbots that answer support tickets so that people handle only the difficult cases.", "died": "The software matched each question to an answer that someone had written by hand. Every customer needed months of FAQs and decision trees, and real questions were phrased in too many ways.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2168-answerly" }, { "name": "Niles", "years": "2017 to 2020", "funding": "US$2.8M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A bot in Slack that answers employees' questions from the company's knowledge.", "died": "Slack improved its own search, and the bot needed constant retraining that a small customer base could not pay for.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1031-niles" }, { "name": "Omniref", "years": "2015 to 2018", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "One place where developers explain and annotate source code, so that documentation answers the reader's question.", "died": "People had to write every explanation, and there was no community to write them. GitHub and Stack Overflow already had the readers.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1119-omniref" }, { "name": "RightHello", "years": "2014 to 2022", "funding": "US$600K", "cause": "Ran out of cash", "promise": "Live chat for online shops that turns visitors into buyers.", "died": "A person had to answer every chat. Intercom raised US$240 million while RightHello had US$600,000, and Zendesk included chat in its support product.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2260-righthello" } ], "whatChanged": [ "In each of the four, a person had to write the answer in advance. Answerly's customers wrote FAQs and decision trees for months. Omniref waited for developers to annotate code. RightHello needed a human in every chat. The documentation that a company already had was of no use to the software, because the software could not read it.", "Retrieval-augmented generation removed that step. The company points the product at the documentation it already has, and the model reads the matching passages at the moment of the question. One developer built the first DocsBot in four weeks. Niles shows the risk that remains: its platform, Slack, added the feature itself. For DocsBot the platform is the model provider, and OpenAI released its own chatbot builder eight months after the DocsBot beta." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The product, hardly. The method, yes.", "text": "Chat with your documents was copied hundreds of times in 2023, and the founder wrote in 2024 that he lost millions in market share to a competitor that released a simpler product a few days before him. Chatbase, already on this site, showed its demo 35 days before the DocsBot beta and reports US$1 million ARR after 117 days; DocsBot needed 35 months. SiteGPT, also on this site, launched 21 days after DocsBot and reported US$190,000 a year in December 2025. The method is repeatable: many small launches, a free test with a question about willingness to pay, business customers, and a price that follows the value.", "steps": [ "Launch small products one after another and reuse the code. Stop the ones that people try and do not pay for.", "Before building the paid product, release a free version on public data and ask the testers whether they want it for their own business.", "Release the first version smaller than feels comfortable. The founder says his had too many features, and that a simpler product could have been first on the market.", "Sell to businesses, then remove the cheapest plan when it brings customers who cost more in support than they pay." ], "open": "The founder points to agencies: firms that set up and maintain AI agents for local businesses that will not do it themselves. A documentation bot built for one industry, with that industry's integrations and rules, is the other open version." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The model providers ship the same feature", "text": "In November 2023 OpenAI released a chatbot builder inside ChatGPT. The founder wrote that it would have few data sources, no refresh, and no logs, reports or escalation, and that it would work as a free trial of his product. That argument holds only while the providers' versions stay simple. This page found no measurement of how many customers chose a provider's own tool instead." }, { "title": "Price competition", "text": "DocsBot's own comparison page lists its Standard plan at US$149 a month, Chatbase Standard at US$150 and SiteGPT Growth at US$129. Competitors publish reviews of DocsBot that send readers to their own cheaper plan or to a price per ticket. With prices this close, each company competes on limits, and DocsBot keeps the widget without its name for the US$499 plan." }, { "title": "Dependence on model API prices", "text": "At launch the customer paid OpenAI directly. Now DocsBot sells AI credits: one credit per standard answer, more for larger models, and US$49 a month for 5,000 more. The company writes that stronger models and longer tasks cost more to run. If a provider raises prices, DocsBot must raise credit prices or lose margin; in March 2023 one API release made the product 10 times cheaper, so the dependence works in both directions." }, { "title": "Fewer signups in 2026", "text": "The founder reports a real drop in signups in 2026 and a falling share of checkouts from search. He asks how long higher revenue per customer can cover weaker acquisition, and answers that he does not know yet." }, { "title": "Founder-reported and not exact", "text": "The headline is one sentence in a blog post, without a dashboard image or an exact figure, and nothing newer has been published in the eight months since. The earlier figures of US$250,000 and US$500,000 cover all his products, so the growth curve of DocsBot alone is not public. Two of his statements about 2025 do not fit well: 12.5% more MRR in the three months to September, and growth that was flat through most of the third and fourth quarter." }, { "title": "Not a one-person company at the million", "text": "He founded and owns it alone, but the million was reached with a growth partner, a few employees, contractors and his son. The headcount is not published. His profile still describes a solo business, and his own article of October 2025 is titled No Longer a Solopreneur." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Aaron Edwards' blog, 2 March 2026: We finally hit $1M ARR in February", "url": "https://uglyrobot.dev/articles/1m-arr", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The origin of the headline number. Source for the month, the flat second half of 2025, the pricing change and the removed consumer plan." }, { "title": "Aaron Edwards' blog, 14 September 2026: We Had Fewer Signups. Better Customers Barely Made Up for It.", "url": "https://uglyrobot.dev/articles/fewer-signups-better-customers", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, and compared with his X post of the same day (status 2099524190818783717, read through api.fxtwitter.com). Source for the 2026 trend and the channel shares." }, { "title": "The Repository, 16 October 2025, by Rae Morey: From Treehouses to Tech: The Lifelong Friendship Behind DocsBot", "url": "https://www.therepository.email/from-treehouses-to-tech-the-lifelong-friendship-behind-docsbot", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. An independent WordPress publication that interviewed the founder and his partner. It did not review financial documents. Source for the background, ChatWP, the Japanese customers and the plan to sell." }, { "title": "Aaron Edwards' blog, 1 October 2025: No Longer a Solopreneur", "url": "https://uglyrobot.dev/articles/no-longer-a-solopreneur", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the team before October 2025 and the partner's profit share and phantom equity." }, { "title": "Aaron Edwards' blog, 10 September 2025: Raising Prices: A Scary Decision That Paid Off", "url": "https://uglyrobot.dev/articles/raising-prices", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the price rise and its five percentages." }, { "title": "Aaron Edwards' blog, 2 April 2024: article on reaching $500K ARR after launching 8 products in 6 months", "url": "https://uglyrobot.dev/articles/500k-mrr", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the combined US$500,000 ARR, the list of failed products and the remark about the earlier competitor." }, { "title": "Aaron Edwards' blog, 3 October 2025: Finally SOC 2 Certified as a Solo Founder", "url": "https://uglyrobot.dev/articles/soc2-certified-solo-founder", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on cost and team. Source for the audit cost and the phrase a few employees plus contractors." }, { "title": "Aaron Edwards on X, 16 March 2023: launch-week thread with US$3,500 MRR", "url": "https://x.com/uglyrobot/status/1636411123623948288", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com, with the next post of the thread (status 1636411126056402944) on the Japanese post and its 2.3 million impressions." }, { "title": "Aaron Edwards on X, 21 March 2023: $6k MRR for DocsBot", "url": "https://x.com/uglyrobot/status/1638250896168480780", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Aaron Edwards on X, 27 May 2023: all products combined reach $250k ARR", "url": "https://x.com/uglyrobot/status/1662534640651886592", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Aaron Edwards on X, 9 March 2023: announcement of the DocsBot beta, and six other posts of 2023", "url": "https://x.com/uglyrobot/status/1633813195168141312", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com: the beta (9 March), own OpenAI keys (23 February, status 1628837619114168322), the ChatGPT API rewrite (1 March, 1631053661555027969), the first employee (10 April, 1645421900271693825), leaving the CTO role (1 August, 1686411609592287239) and the payment count (16 October, 1714000953362243928)." }, { "title": "Aaron Edwards on X, 5 November 2023: on OpenAI's coming chatbot builder", "url": "https://x.com/uglyrobot/status/1721185684713513099", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com. The follow-up of 9 November 2023 on connecting DocsBot to it was read in the profile timeline embed." }, { "title": "Aaron Edwards' blog, 5 October 2026: One Year of Building DocsBot with Josh", "url": "https://uglyrobot.dev/articles/one-year-with-josh", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the product work of 2026, the new pages and languages, and the vector database change. It gives no revenue figure." }, { "title": "DocsBot about page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://docsbot.ai/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the legal operator, the bootstrapped status, the customer count and the named customers." }, { "title": "DocsBot pricing page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://docsbot.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Gives the monthly prices, the limits and the add-ons, and US$124 for Standard on yearly billing. The other yearly prices come from the SiteGPT review below." }, { "title": "DocsBot news, 17 June 2026: AI Credits Are Here So DocsBot Can Grow With You", "url": "https://docsbot.ai/article/docsbot-ai-credits-update", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the credit rules, the own-key option and the statement on model costs." }, { "title": "DocsBot comparison page: Chatbase alternative, details checked by the company on 25 August 2026", "url": "https://docsbot.ai/comparisons/chatbase-alternative", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the price sections. The company's own comparison, so it favors DocsBot. Source for the three list prices." }, { "title": "WP Tavern, 4 December 2024: ClikIT Acquires UglyRobot's Infinite Uploads and Big File Uploads Plugins", "url": "https://wptavern.com/clikit-acquires-uglyrobots-infinite-uploads-and-big-file-uploads-plugins", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Reports the buyer's announcement and states that UglyRobot, LLC is owned by Aaron Edwards. The price is not disclosed." }, { "title": "Aaron Edwards' blog, 9 December 2024: I sold Infinite Uploads!", "url": "https://uglyrobot.dev/articles/infinite-uploads-aquired", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the offer and the closing. Source for the deal terms and the closing date." }, { "title": "LinkedIn company page of DocsBot, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/docsbot", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public page data: company size 2 to 10, 3 employees listed. LinkedIn counts only people who list the company themselves." }, { "title": "Latka company page: UglyRobot, LLC", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/docsbot.ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. No revenue figure. It records 1 person on LinkedIn in July 2024." }, { "title": "Aaron Edwards' X profile, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/uglyrobot", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the US$5 million goal and the phrase $1m+ ARR from my projects." }, { "title": "Aaron Edwards' blog, 7 October 2026: From Listening to The Koerner Office to Sitting in the Studio", "url": "https://uglyrobot.dev/articles/the-koerner-office", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the podcast episode and its title. The audio was not heard." }, { "title": "DocsBot news list, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://docsbot.ai/articles/category/news", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the list. Shows releases through 2026 and the announcement for 2 to 6 November 2026." }, { "title": "eesel AI, 28 September 2026: DocsBot AI pricing in 2026: plans, credits, and the real cost", "url": "https://www.eesel.ai/blog/docsbot-pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the plan sections. A competitor's review that recommends its own price per ticket. Cited for the price competition." }, { "title": "SiteGPT, updated 11 October 2026: DocsBot AI Review 2026", "url": "https://sitegpt.ai/blog/docsbot-ai-review", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the pricing sections. A competitor's review. Source for the yearly prices of US$41, US$124 and US$416." }, { "title": "YesPress directory profile of DocsBot AI, updated 5 September 2026", "url": "https://yespress.io/products/docsbot-ai.md", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A directory that repeats the February 2026 milestone with the words according to founder Aaron Edwards. Not an independent confirmation." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/magai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/magai.md", "slug": "magai", "name": "Magai", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "One subscription for many AI models", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "April 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$31.7K a month recurring revenue, March 2024", "sticker": "$31.7K MRR on Stripe", "outcomeUsd": 380947, "months": 11, "teamLabel": "1 founder with freelance developer help from 2023; 6 people by April 2025, 7 named in October 2025, 12 by his count in May 2026", "fundingLabel": "No money raised for Magai; investors in his two earlier products, their stake in Magai not verified", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "ai-model-tools", "channel": "audience", "trend": "flat", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "AI chat" ], "product": "One chat window and one bill for the models of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI and others, plus image and video models. You can change the model in the middle of a conversation. Magai pays the model providers for every message, and the customer pays Magai a flat monthly price that starts at US$20.", "why": "The founder had written a marketing blog for ten years, so his own readers bought on the first day. He built the first version in 8 weeks with the no-code tool Bubble, because he had no money for developers. He sold one thing that the model makers do not sell: all of their models in one subscription.", "summary": [ "Magai is a model aggregator: a product that gives access to the AI models of several companies through one account. The customer pays one subscription and can talk to GPT, Claude, Gemini or Grok in the same chat. Magai calls each provider through its API, the interface that lets one program send requests to another, and pays the provider for every message. Several other products have similar names. This page is about Magai at magai.co, which some summaries of a 2025 video spell \"Magi\".", "Dustin W. Stout of Bakersfield, California built it alone in 8 weeks with Bubble, a no-code tool, which means a tool for building web applications by arranging visual blocks instead of writing program code. Plans were on sale by 8 April 2023. A chart on Stripe, the payment processor, shows US$31,745.58 of MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the sum of all active subscriptions counted per month, in March 2024. In a Starter Story episode of 11 October 2025 he said the business made \"almost US$100,000 a month\". By then the company's site named 7 people. Indie Hackers repeated \"nearly US$100,000\" in February 2026, so the claims show no growth between those two dates.", "The headline number on this page is the Stripe figure, grade A, because Stripe itself hosts the chart. It is from the first year, when the founder ran the business without a staff: the company's about page named only him until 2025. The later figure of almost US$100,000 a month is a founder statement, grade C, and no document for it is public. The share of revenue that remains after paying the model providers is not published for any date. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that sold other companies' products for one flat price." ], "factsCaption": "A Stripe-hosted figure of US$31,745.58 a month after the first year, then founder statements of almost US$100,000 a month in October 2025 and February 2026", "factsRead": "How to read this table: the grade A value comes from a chart that Stripe hosts on its own domain. A grade C value is a statement by the founder or his company, or a third-party estimate that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No one outside the company has confirmed the figures after March 2024.", "timelineLead": "From a bank balance of US$230.17 to a Stripe-recorded US$31,745.58 a month in 11 months, and then to a team of 7. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Magai prices on 13 October 2026, read from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "Yearly billing costs US$200, US$400 or US$2,000 a year, which the page calls a saving of 17%. Each plan includes model usage equal to its own monthly price, and the page says that how far the usage goes depends on the models chosen. It does not say at what rate usage is counted, so the margin cannot be computed from the page. There is no free plan and no trial; every plan has a 30-day refund. In October 2025 the founder described two plans: US$20 for one user and US$40 for a team of up to five.", "rows": [ [ "Standard", "16.67", "20", "US$20 of usage a month; standard models; 100 scheduled task runs" ], [ "Pro", "33.33", "40", "US$40 of usage a month; also the most expensive models; 1,000 scheduled task runs" ], [ "Ultra", "166.67", "200", "US$200 of usage a month; unlimited scheduled task runs" ], [ "Extra user on Standard", "", "20", "per user" ], [ "Usage top-up", "5 to 20 one-time", "", "US$5, US$10 or US$20 without changing plan" ], [ "Enterprise", "custom", "", "above ten seats, through sales" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, March 2024", "value": "US$31,745.58", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe profile of the account @heymagai, MRR chart for March 2023 to March 2024. The chart gives US$70.66 for the period before. The founder posted the link on 5 May 2026 and called it year 1.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the March 2024 figure", "value": "about US$381,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$31,745.58 times 12 = US$380,946.96. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, October 2025", "value": "\"almost US$100,000\"", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's words in the Starter Story episode of 11 October 2025. The video title says $100K a month and the podcast version says $99K a month. He gave no exact figure, and the transcript mentions no dashboard.", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the October 2025 statement", "value": "under US$1.2 million a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$100,000 times 12 = US$1,200,000 as the upper limit; US$99,000 times 12 = US$1,188,000.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, February 2026", "value": "\"nearly US$100,000\"", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers, 25 February 2026. The same level as four months earlier, so the two statements show no growth.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, October 2023", "value": "US$23,000 with 1,010 paying subscribers", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers, 19 October 2023, and the founder's comment of 21 October 2023. He counted about 1,500 paid users in total; some had lifetime deals from his earlier products.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Average revenue per paying subscriber, October 2023", "value": "about US$22.77 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$23,000 divided by 1,010.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 30 June 2023", "value": "US$6,600", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X: from US$0 in less than 90 days.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "Lifetime-deal sale, 5 to 20 June 2023", "value": "US$114,238 in 15 days, of which Magai received US$57,119", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's blog. Sold through the deal site RocketHub with a 50/50 split: 475 sales and 45 refunds. One-time prices of US$99, US$199 and US$399.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue recorded by Latka", "value": "US$267,600 a year as of October 2023; estimate of US$588,100 for October 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "A third party. The 2023 value has no recorded source; divided by 12 it is US$22,300 a month, close to the founder's US$23,000. The 2024 value is Latka's own estimate.", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "fact": "Share of revenue left after model costs", "value": "not published", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder says API costs and Stripe fees were paid out of revenue, and that the first year was profitable because he paid no staff. No source that was read gives a percentage.", "src": [ 5, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Fixed bills at the start", "value": "a domain name and the Bubble subscription", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on the Bubble forum, 5 May 2026. API costs and Stripe fees came out of revenue.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's money before Magai", "value": "US$230.17 in the bank; US$30,000 earned in all of 2022", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's blog. Two earlier products had failed and US$65,000 was lost.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Time to build the first version", "value": "8 weeks, alone", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's blog and the Starter Story episode. He learned Bubble from an online course.", "src": [ 4, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Team size by date", "value": "1 in 2023; 6 in April 2025; 7 in October 2025; 12 in May 2026; 8 named in October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers 2023, company press release, the company's about page on 3 October 2025 and 13 October 2026, and the founder's forum post of 5 May 2026. The count of 12 is his own and may include part-time people.", "src": [ 6, 8, 10, 5, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per person from the October 2025 statement", "value": "at most about US$171,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$1,200,000 divided by 7 people = US$171,429.", "src": [ 3, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found for Magai", "grade": "C", "note": "Latka lists no funding. The founder writes that his two earlier products attracted investors. A reader's comment on the 2023 Indie Hackers interview says he kept those investors for Magai; the interview text needs a login, so this is not verified.", "src": [ 14, 4, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Audience before the launch", "value": "\"over 100,000 email subscribers\" in 2025; \"over 20,000\" newsletter subscribers in 2023", "grade": "C", "note": "Two founder statements that differ. The first is from the Starter Story episode and speaks of ten years in total, the second from his Indie Hackers comment of 21 October 2023, with more than 30,000 blog visitors a month.", "src": [ 3, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the Stripe figure", "value": "11 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: April 2023 to March 2024. The site showed a waiting list on 8 March 2023 and sold plans by 8 April 2023.", "src": [ 1, 13 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2014", "what": "Stout, a marketing blogger and consultant, starts a WordPress plugin company with partners. It is his first software product.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 7 ] }, { "when": "2020 to 2022", "what": "He leaves that company with money for about 18 months. Two new products fail, US$65,000 is lost, and his bank balance falls to US$230.17. He earns US$30,000 in all of 2022.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "November 2022 to early 2023", "what": "ChatGPT appears. He finds it has no chat search and no folders, learns Bubble from an online course, and builds Magai alone in 8 weeks.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 3 ] }, { "when": "8 March 2023", "what": "magai.co shows a sign-up form for a beta list.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "April 2023", "what": "Plans are on sale by 8 April, with GPT-4, chat folders and a 7-day trial. He says he had customers on the first day and US$1,500 of MRR after 30 days.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13, 4, 3 ] }, { "when": "5 to 20 June 2023", "what": "A 15-day lifetime-deal sale on RocketHub brings US$114,238, of which he receives US$57,119. Before it, Magai had about 200 subscribers and about US$4,000 of MRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "30 June 2023", "what": "US$6,600 of MRR in less than 90 days.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "19 October 2023", "what": "Indie Hackers reports US$23,000 of MRR, reached, in its words, without marketing. He counts 1,010 paying subscribers.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "March 2024", "what": "The Stripe chart for the first twelve months ends at US$31,745.58 of MRR.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "2 April 2025", "what": "A company press release says that Magai was first run by one person and that the team is now six, with new people in support, development and content.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "11 October 2025", "what": "Starter Story publishes the episode in which he says almost US$100,000 a month. Eight days earlier the about page named 7 people.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 3, 10 ] }, { "when": "February 2026", "what": "Version 3, written fully in custom code without Bubble, is ready. Indie Hackers reports nearly US$100,000 of MRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "30 April to 5 May 2026", "what": "Users of the Bubble forum doubt a short clip about the story. He answers with the Stripe chart, and writes that Magai supports 12 team members and has almost fully left Bubble.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 1 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "The site sells three plans from US$20 to US$200 a month and names 8 people. No revenue figure newer than February 2026 was found.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12, 11 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Readers before the product", "text": "He had written a blog about marketing for ten years. When Magai opened, he told the readers of his blog and newsletter, and they bought without any advertising. He gives two different sizes for this audience, more than 20,000 newsletter subscribers in 2023 and more than 100,000 email subscribers in 2025, but both statements describe the same method." }, { "title": "One bill instead of five", "text": "The Magai pricing page lists five subscriptions, among them ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro, at US$20 a month each. Magai sells access to the models behind all of them from US$20, with features that ChatGPT lacked in early 2023, such as search in old chats and folders." }, { "title": "Commissions that repeat", "text": "The affiliate program was part of the first version. A person who refers a customer is paid again every month that the customer pays, so the referrer earns more from customers who stay." }, { "title": "It pays the model bill itself", "text": "TypingMind, also on this site, sells only the chat interface, and its customer pays the model provider with their own API key, so TypingMind has no cost per message. Magai pays the providers out of a flat subscription, so every heavy user lowers its profit, and it has not published how much is left." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's blog, his forum posts and the Starter Story episode. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The interface was built in Bubble in 8 weeks, with a small amount of code that the founder could write himself. He had no developer training and learned from one online course.", "OpenRouter is the single access point for the language models, and fal.ai for image, video and audio models. Some providers are connected directly; he says his OpenAI account has the highest usage tier.", "Stripe takes the payments, ConvertKit sends the email, Google Analytics shows how the app is used, and Ahrefs tracks the search ranking.", "The first hired developer built a proxy server that streams model answers word by word, after a Bubble plugin for this did not work as needed.", "There is no free plan. In 2023 there was a 7-day trial with 10,000 words; in 2026 there is a 30-day refund instead.", "A small team of developers rewrote the product in custom code, because, the founder writes, the limits of Bubble were stopping progress. Version 3 was ready in February 2026, and the move was almost complete in May 2026." ], "src": [ 3, 4, 5, 7, 13 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold access to other companies' products through one subscription or one interface. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Oyster", "years": "2012 to 2016", "funding": "US$17M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Unlimited e-books for one monthly fee.", "died": "Publishers asked for high fees, so a wide choice of books at a flat price lost money. Amazon competed with lower prices and its own reading device.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/408-oyster" }, { "name": "Rdio", "years": "2010 to 2015", "funding": "US$125M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "All music for one monthly fee, with your friends' playlists.", "died": "Music licenses were expensive, and Spotify had more money for partnerships, a free plan and winning users.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1892-rdio" }, { "name": "SetJam", "years": "2009 to 2013", "funding": "US$2.1M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "One place to find and watch shows from every streaming service.", "died": "It lacked the license agreements to show the content itself, and Netflix and Hulu grew their own libraries until fewer people needed an aggregator.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/532-setjam" }, { "name": "Singly", "years": "2011 to 2016", "funding": "US$2.7M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "One API for the data of many social networks.", "died": "It depended on the APIs of other companies, which were not reliable. Appcelerator bought it in 2013 and moved attention away from the product.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/548-singly" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the four sold other companies' products under one price or one interface, and each depended on suppliers that could raise the cost, refuse the license or sell the same bundle themselves. Magai is the same structure. It buys every answer from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and the others, and those companies sell their own US$20 subscriptions to the same customers.", "Three things differ. First, the suppliers publish their API prices and sell to anyone, so Magai needs no license negotiation, and with several suppliers no single one can stop it. Second, the plans are not unlimited: each includes a fixed amount of usage and sells top-ups, which limits the loss on a heavy user. Oyster sold unlimited use. Third, the starting cost was a domain name and a Bubble subscription, not US$17 million. What is unknown is the margin, and the one time Magai sold lifetime access, in June 2023, the founder wrote that he would not do it again soon because each lifetime customer keeps costing money." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The build, yes. The first customers, only with an audience.", "text": "A working model aggregator can be built today with OpenRouter, fal.ai and a no-code tool or an AI coding tool, for almost no money. What cannot be copied in 8 weeks is the ten years of blog readers who bought on the first day. The market is also fuller than in April 2023: Poe and other aggregators sell a similar bundle, and the model makers sell their own apps.", "steps": [ "Use the leading product in a new market every day, and list what it lacks. His list was chat search, folders and saved prompts.", "Build the first version with tools you can learn in weeks, and sell it before you can afford developers.", "Tell the readers you already have, and pay affiliates a commission on every month their referrals pay.", "Give each plan a fixed amount of usage and sell top-ups. Do not sell unlimited or lifetime access to a product with a cost per use.", "Rewrite in custom code only when revenue pays for developers and the first tool limits the product." ], "open": "Bundles for a specific profession, where the buyer wants one bill and one set of data rules: the Magai site now has pages for schools, lawyers, health professionals and agencies." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The verified number is old", "text": "Stripe confirms US$31,745.58 a month in March 2024. The figure of almost US$100,000 a month is the founder's word in two interviews, and neither shows a document. The Stripe chart he posted in May 2026 stops in March 2024, and a forum user asked why." }, { "title": "The margin is not public", "text": "Every message costs Magai money, and the model providers set the price. A revenue figure for an aggregator says less than the same figure for a product without usage costs. The founder says the first year was profitable because he paid no staff; the company now supports 8 to 12 people." }, { "title": "It is no longer a one-person business", "text": "The founder built and sold the product alone in 2023. When he said almost US$100,000 a month, the site named 7 people. Revenue per person at that level is at most about US$171,000 a year before model costs." }, { "title": "A 2023 number in a 2025 press release", "text": "The press release of 2 April 2025 says that Magai made over US$114,000 in two weeks shortly after the team grew. The founder's own blog reports US$114,238 in 15 days for the lifetime-deal sale of June 2023, of which half went to the deal site. The press release gives no date, so the two may be the same event." }, { "title": "Numbers change when others retell them", "text": "A short clip that reached the Bubble forum said US$1,000 on day one and US$10,000 in month two. In the episode itself the founder says US$3,000 in the first month, US$4,000 in the second and US$10,000 in the third. Forum users called the story false because of the clip." }, { "title": "The suppliers are also the competitors", "text": "OpenAI, Anthropic and Google sell their own subscriptions to the same customers and can add any feature that Magai has. What Magai keeps is all models in one place, and its own site lists Poe, which sells the same, among the products it compares itself with." }, { "title": "Lifetime customers", "text": "In June 2023, 475 lifetime plans were sold for one payment each, and 45 were refunded. The usage of the others is a cost for as long as they use the product." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Stripe profile of Magai (@heymagai): MRR chart, March 2023 to March 2024", "url": "https://profile.stripe.com/heymagai/Eq3J6NJP", "grade": "A", "how": "The page loads by script, so its text could not be read. Read the preview image that Stripe generates for the page and serves from files.stripe.com: MRR US$31,745.58, plus 44,827.23%, US$70.66 in the previous period. The founder posted this link on the Bubble forum on 5 May 2026." }, { "title": "Starter Story on YouTube, 11 October 2025: I built a $100K/month AI app", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV7bBCAABg4", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the title, the date, the view count and the description, which names Dustin Stout, magai.co and his X account. YouTube blocked the download of the captions, so the spoken words were read in the next source." }, { "title": "StationLM transcript of the podcast version: I built a $99K/month AI app, Starter Story", "url": "https://stationlm.com/analysis/8983e86d-8bc6-4bde-9b6b-aad98110bd44", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full transcript. It is a machine transcript and writes the product name as Magi. Source for the words almost $100,000 a month, the first-year figures, the tools and the 2025 plans." }, { "title": "Magai blog, Dustin W. Stout, 5 July 2023: Making $114,238 in 15 days: WTF Just Happened?", "url": "https://magai.co/making-100k-in-15-days/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder's own account. Source for the money lost before Magai, the 8-week build, the lifetime-deal sale and its split." }, { "title": "Bubble forum, 30 April to 5 May 2026: $99k/ month with an app that started on Bubble", "url": "https://forum.bubble.io/t/99k-month-with-an-app-that-started-on-bubble/395590", "grade": "C", "how": "Read all 29 posts through the forum's JSON. The founder writes as dustinstout on 4 and 5 May 2026. Source for the 12 team members, the first-year costs, the move away from Bubble and the doubts of other users." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 19 October 2023: Hitting $20k MRR in 6 months without marketing", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/hitting-20k-mrr-in-6-months-without-marketing-xM7jCg4vt06pAJNFWgJy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the open introduction and the comments, where the founder answers. The interview text needs a login and was not read." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 25 February 2026: From broke to $100k MRR in four years", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/from-broke-to-100k-mrr-in-four-years-hS1wen0srjGNIWZxSnV9", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the open first section and the comments, where the founder answers on 12 March 2026. The rest needs a login and was not read." }, { "title": "Newsfile press release, 2 April 2025: AI Platform Magai Expands Team, Reaches Key Milestone Amid Growing Demand", "url": "https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/243520/AI-Platform-Magai-Expands-Team-Reaches-Key-Milestone-Amid-Growing-Demand", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A paid release by the company. Source for the team of six and the place, Bakersfield, California." }, { "title": "Dustin W. Stout on X, 30 June 2023: $0-$6.6k MRR in less than 90 days", "url": "https://x.com/DustinWStout/status/1674903697124651009", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Magai about page in the Wayback Machine, 3 October 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20251003071640/https://magai.co/about/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the team list: 7 named people. Also read the copies of 7 June 2023, 2 October 2024 and 1 April 2025, which name only the founder, and of 17 May 2026." }, { "title": "Magai about page and press page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://magai.co/about/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The about page names 8 people. The press page gives the founding year 2023, the founder and California." }, { "title": "Magai pricing page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://magai.co/pricing/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The yearly prices are in the page's embedded data." }, { "title": "Magai home page in the Wayback Machine, 8 April 2023", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20230408212407/https://magai.co/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, and the copy of 8 March 2023, which shows only a beta sign-up form. The first prices load by script and could not be read." }, { "title": "Latka company page: Magai revenue", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/magai.co", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. One value without a recorded source, one estimate, and a count of 1 employee on LinkedIn in October 2024." }, { "title": "Better Launch playbook page: 7 tactics from Dustin, Magi, $100K/month", "url": "https://www.betterlaunch.co/playbooks/episodes/dustin-magi", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A summary of the Starter Story episode with quotations. It gives only the first name and spells the product Magi." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/headlime/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/headlime.md", "slug": "headlime", "name": "Headlime", "country": "Netherlands", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI copywriting tool", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "exit", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "29 June 2020", "outcomeLabel": "Sold for seven figures, March 2021", "sticker": "Sold for seven figures", "outcomeUsd": 1000000, "months": 9, "teamLabel": "1 founder, with a copywriter and a customer support person listed on the About page", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Timing", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "audience", "trend": "sold", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Exit", "B2B", "Marketing content" ], "product": "A web tool that writes marketing text. The user describes a product in a few sentences, picks a type of text (Facebook ad, Google ad, headline, value proposition, blog post, or landing page, the single web page that an advertisement links to) and a language, and gets several drafts written by GPT-3, OpenAI's text model. A document editor has a button that continues a blog post, and a page builder produces a landing page with text, design and code. Each generation costs credits, and the plan sets the number of credits per month.", "why": "The founder already sold a small template tool for headlines when OpenAI gave GPT-3 to a first group of developers. He asked OpenAI's chief technology officer for access by email in June 2020, received it, and spent five months rebuilding the tool around the model. When that version came out in December 2020 there were few such tools and he had an audience on X from showing his work in public. He says revenue went from US$1,000 to US$20,000 a month by February 2021. He sold in March 2021, when new competitors appeared every week.", "summary": [ "Headlime is an AI copywriting tool: a web program that writes marketing text, such as advertisements, headlines and blog paragraphs, from a short description of the product. It runs on GPT-3, the text model that OpenAI made available to a first group of developers in 2020 through an API, an interface that lets one program send requests to another. Headlime adds the forms, the prompts that the founder tested against each other, an editor and a landing page builder, and it uses the DeepL translation service for other languages. The user never writes a prompt.", "Danny Postma, a Dutch designer and marketer who by his own account could not yet program at the start of 2019, launched it from Bali on 29 June 2020 as a generator of headlines from 200 fixed templates. He sold it first as a lifetime deal, a single payment for permanent access. In the same month he asked OpenAI's chief technology officer for GPT-3 access by email and received it. He rebuilt the product around the model in five months and released that version in December 2020. He says monthly recurring revenue (MRR: the sum of all subscription payments in one month) went from US$1,000 at the start of December 2020 to US$20,000 in February 2021. On 30 March 2021 he announced the sale of Headlime to Conversion.ai, the company now called Jasper.", "The price was never published. Postma says \"seven figures\", the interview site Failory titled his account \"+$1M\", and a report by TechPP on the day after the announcement says that neither side disclosed the terms. The figure of about US$1 million that many articles give matches a guess by another founder, Pieter Levels, who multiplied US$20,000 by 12 months and by 4. Every money number on this page is therefore grade C: a statement by the seller or an estimate by an outsider. No statement by the buyer about the price was found. The page also shows what happened to earlier small companies that sold marketing and writing software." ], "factsCaption": "A sale for an undisclosed seven-figure price, nine months after launch and less than four months after the GPT-3 version came out; every money number comes from the seller or from an outside estimate", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founder in an interview, in his posts on X or on the company's website, a journalist's report of such statements, or an outside estimate that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B: no filing, payment processor or buyer has published a price or a revenue figure for Headlime.", "timelineLead": "From a US$19 ebook of headline templates to a sale to a competitor, nine months after launch. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Headlime prices on headlime.com in October 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C). The page shows monthly prices only", "note": "The pricing page shows no yearly plan, so the yearly column is empty. Credits are used only for AI generation. The page says that 1,500 credits are about 25 blog posts or 75 landing pages, and that extra credits cost US$10 for 200. White label means that the customer can show the tool under its own brand. The Business price is for 3 members; a slider on the page goes up to 100 members, and the prices for more members load by script and could not be read. US$59 a month is the price that the founder says he reached before the sale, after US$9 and then US$29. The site has had no new features since March 2021, and this page did not test whether a new subscription can still be bought.", "rows": [ [ "Individual", "", "59", "1,500 credits a month, 1 user, no white label" ], [ "Business", "", "399", "3 members, unlimited use under a fair-use rule, white label" ], [ "Extra credits", "10 one-time", "", "200 credits" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Sale price", "value": "seven figures; the exact price was never published", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, in the Failory interview of January 2022 and in the title of his Indie Hackers thread of July 2021. Asked for the price in that thread, he answered only with zipped-mouth emoji.", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Lowest price consistent with the published statements", "value": "more than US$1,000,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Failory's headline for the founder's interview reads \"+$1M\". This page uses US$1,000,000 as its headline figure because it is the lowest value that fits that statement, not because anyone stated it as the price.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Outside estimate of the price, 31 March 2021", "value": "about US$1 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Pieter Levels, another founder, on X, marked by him as a guess: US$20,000 times 12 months times 4. It is not a statement by the buyer or the seller. Later articles give about US$1 million without naming a source.", "src": [ 7, 6, 17 ] }, { "fact": "The same estimate, recomputed", "value": "US$960,000", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 20,000 times 12 times 4 = 960,000.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Price terms according to the press", "value": "not disclosed by either side", "grade": "C", "note": "TechPP, 31 March 2021, and They Got Acquired, 21 April 2022. The second outlet asked the founder for comment and got no reply.", "src": [ 5, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Buyer", "value": "Conversion.ai, later called Jarvis and now Jasper", "grade": "C", "note": "Seller's announcement on the Headlime blog and on X. TechPP reports comments by the buyer's founder, Dave Rogenmoser, in Facebook groups. An announcement by the buyer itself was not found. Jasper's chief executive confirms the earlier company name in a 2022 interview that does not mention Headlime.", "src": [ 3, 4, 5, 2, 16 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, February 2021", "value": "US$20,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, Failory interview. Levels wrote \"$20K+ MRR\" on the day after the announcement.", "src": [ 2, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, start of December 2020", "value": "US$1,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, Failory interview. December 2020 is the month in which the GPT-3 version came out.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from December 2020 to February 2021", "value": "20 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 20,000 / 1,000 = 20. The seller's announcement says revenue grew 100% month over month from November 2020.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Yearly run rate at US$20,000 a month", "value": "US$240,000", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 20,000 times 12.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Price as a multiple of that run rate, if the price was exactly US$1,000,000", "value": "about 4.2 times or more", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 1,000,000 / 240,000 = 4.17. The real multiple is unknown, because the price and the revenue on the day of signing are unknown.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Sales in the first weeks after launch", "value": "more than US$60,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, Failory interview: most of it from a limited lifetime deal. Not verified.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Lifetime deal tiers at launch", "value": "200 at US$49, 200 at US$89, 200 at US$129", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, Indie Hackers thread.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue if all 600 lifetime plans in those tiers sold", "value": "US$53,400", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 200 times 49 + 200 times 89 + 200 times 129. This is less than the US$60,000 in the row above, so that figure must include other sales. The founder does not explain the difference.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Subscription price steps", "value": "US$9, then US$29, then US$59 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, Indie Hackers thread. He says he kept raising the price to find the highest price that customers accept, and growth did not slow.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Access to GPT-3", "value": "requested by email from OpenAI's chief technology officer in June 2020", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder. In a 2024 interview he names Greg Brockman and says he was in the first batch of users.", "src": [ 1, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Time to build", "value": "about 3 weeks for version 1; 5 months for the GPT-3 version", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder. The Failory interview says one month for version 1.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Acquisition offers", "value": "2, in February 2021", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, Failory interview and a 2023 podcast. He names only the buyer.", "src": [ 2, 12, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Length of the sale process", "value": "about 1 week of due diligence, about 2 weeks for the contract, 1 to 2 weeks for transfer and payment", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, Indie Hackers thread. Due diligence is the buyer's check of the seller's information. The contract was an asset purchase agreement, by which the buyer takes over the product and its customers and not the legal company. The money was held in escrow, which means by a third party, until the assets were transferred.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 founder, 1 copywriter, 1 customer support person", "grade": "C", "note": "The About page. The founder says he worked on Headlime by himself; They Got Acquired counts \"Founder + 2 Members\".", "src": [ 14, 2, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Customers", "value": "\"1,182+ companies\" on the home page", "grade": "C", "note": "Company statement. A reader of the founder's thread quoted the same number in July 2021, so the counter has not changed since then.", "src": [ 13, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Hosting cost", "value": "US$5 a month for the app server", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: one Digital Ocean app. He says GPT-3 was a major part of the monthly cost and does not give the amount.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: he paid his costs from a freelance job of two days a week. Levels and They Got Acquired describe the company as bootstrapped, which means paid for from its own income, without investors.", "src": [ 1, 7, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Legal form", "value": "Dutch sole proprietorship", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, Indie Hackers thread. This is why the country on this page is the Netherlands, although he built the product in Bali, Indonesia.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the announcement of the sale", "value": "9 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 29 June 2020 to 30 March 2021 is 274 days, which is 9 months and 1 day. The founder says 8 months, which is the time from the launch to the offers in February 2021.", "src": [ 8, 4 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2015", "what": "Postma, then 21 and a freelance conversion specialist (a consultant who raises the share of website visitors that buy), starts Landingfolio, a gallery of landing page designs. He says it made no money for four years.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "April 2020", "what": "In lockdown in Bali he lists products that he could build quickly. One is a tool made from an ebook of headline templates that he and a friend had sold for US$19.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "June 2020", "what": "He emails OpenAI's chief technology officer to ask for GPT-3 access and gets it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 11 ] }, { "when": "29 June 2020", "what": "Launch on Product Hunt and X as a headline generator with 200 templates and a limited number of lifetime plans, on the domain headlime.io. It is second product of the week on Product Hunt. He says the first weeks brought more than US$60,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 9, 2 ] }, { "when": "July to November 2020", "what": "Other people copy the template tool. He spends five months rebuilding Headlime around GPT-3.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 12 ] }, { "when": "24 October 2020", "what": "The archived home page still sells templates for headlines, emails and Facebook ads, does not mention AI, and is signed \"Creator of Headlime.io\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "December 2020", "what": "Version 2 with GPT-3 comes out. Monthly recurring revenue is US$1,000 at the start of the month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "February 2021", "what": "US$20,000 in monthly recurring revenue. Two companies offer to buy Headlime. He says he was close to burnout.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "when": "17 March 2021", "what": "A TechCrunch writer tests Headlime for an article on GPT-3 startups and writes that he is impressed.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "30 March 2021", "what": "Postma announces on X and on the Headlime blog that Conversion.ai has bought Headlime. He takes a strategic role at the buyer. Headlime will get bug fixes but no new features.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 3 ] }, { "when": "31 March 2021", "what": "TechPP reports that the price is not disclosed and that buyers of the lifetime deal keep Headlime but get no new features and not most of the buyer's product. Pieter Levels guesses a price of about US$1 million.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 7 ] }, { "when": "1 July 2021", "what": "In a public question thread on Indie Hackers he describes the sale process and declines to give the price or the revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "18 January 2022", "what": "Failory publishes his interview: \"seven figures\", and the buyer is now called Jarvis.ai.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "9 August 2023", "what": "On a podcast he says he sold Headlime because he was afraid to build a team, and that he now has the same choice with HeadshotPro, his AI headshot product, which has its own page on this site.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "headlime.com still loads, with the 2021 acquisition notice, a 2020 copyright line, a sign-up page and prices of US$59 and US$399 a month. The help site does not respond. Whether new customers can still pay was not tested.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Timing", "text": "Postma had a working copywriting product with paying customers in the month when GPT-3 reached its first developers. He did not wait for general access: he wrote to OpenAI's chief technology officer and was admitted. The GPT-3 version came out in December 2020, when few products of this kind existed. Three months later a competitor had raised close to US$3 million and, in his words, competitors appeared every week." }, { "title": "A lifetime deal first, then rising subscription prices", "text": "The first version was a simple tool that filled blanks in 200 headline templates. A limited lifetime deal in three price tiers brought, by his account, more than US$60,000 in the first weeks. During the five months of rebuilding he also had a freelance job of two days a week, which he says paid his costs. After the rebuild he sold subscriptions and raised the price from US$9 to US$29 and then to US$59 a month." }, { "title": "Showing the work in public was the sales channel", "text": "He posted progress and previews of the GPT-3 version on X while he built it. He names X, Facebook groups and word of mouth as the main channels, and says paid ads on Google never worked. He says the public posts led to the TechCrunch test. They also led to the buyer: according to They Got Acquired, the founders of Conversion.ai knew Headlime because they followed him on X." }, { "title": "Selling instead of growing the company", "text": "In February 2021 he saw three options: raise venture money and work 80 hours a week, stay self-funded and hire, or sell. He was doing support, development and marketing by himself and says he was afraid to hire. He sold to a competitor. The process took about four to five weeks from due diligence to payment." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's Indie Hackers thread and the Failory interview. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Front end in Nuxt (Vue), server in Node.js with Express, database MongoDB on MongoDB Atlas, hosting on Heroku and Digital Ocean. The app server cost US$5 a month.", "Text generation by GPT-3 through OpenAI's API, and DeepL for other languages. The pricing page lists 11 languages.", "Prompts chosen by A/B tests, which compare two versions on real users: he compared which prompt's results users marked as favourites, then tested the winner again.", "Interface parts mostly from Tailwind CSS components, to release faster.", "Version 1 took about three weeks. Version 2 took five months, and he says the last three were small bug fixes.", "Free use without a trial period. The user pays on reaching a paid feature, and limited-time offers by email move free users to paid plans.", "Code, documentation and help desk were written so that another company could take them over. Due diligence was one Notion document with the buyer's questions and his screenshots as answers.", "The company was a Dutch sole proprietorship. The sale was an asset purchase with payment through escrow." ], "src": [ 1, 2, 13 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold software that promised small businesses less marketing or writing work. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Metigy", "years": "2014 to 2022", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "An AI marketing brain for small businesses.", "died": "Small businesses wanted the work done for them, not recommendations. The money went into generic advice that few customers used.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2338-metigy" }, { "name": "Argyle Social", "years": "2009 to 2013", "funding": "US$2.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A social media marketing tool that saves marketers work.", "died": "Larger companies with bigger marketing budgets won the customers while Argyle released small updates.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1832-argyle-social" }, { "name": "Marketfox", "years": "2017 to 2020", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Automated marketing for online shops.", "died": "Mailchimp and other large marketing automation companies had more money and more features.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1035-marketfox" }, { "name": "Userfox", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$700K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Simple automated email marketing for online shops.", "died": "Mailchimp dominated the market, and Userfox did not have the money to compete.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1199-userfox" }, { "name": "Draft", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A minimal cloud editor for writers with version control.", "died": "Google Docs covered the need for free. A narrow writing tool with a free plan could not pay for itself.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1605-draft" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five sold a narrow marketing or writing tool, and in four cases a larger company with more money or a free product won the customers. Headlime was in the same position by March 2021. The founder wrote that competitors appeared every week, TechPP reported that Copy.ai had raised close to US$3 million that month, and other people had copied his first version completely.", "Two things differ. First, the text was written by a model that none of the earlier companies had. Before GPT-3 a template tool could only fill blanks, which is what Headlime version 1 did. For some months in late 2020 the model was the advantage, because few developers had access. Second, Postma did not try to compete with the larger companies for years. He sold to one of them nine months after launch, at a time when he says revenue doubled every month. The cost of that choice is visible on headlime.com today: a product with no new features since 2021." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The early access, no. The sequence, yes.", "text": "Getting a new model before most developers was one email and some luck, and the founder says he is not sure it would work again. The sequence can be repeated: own a small paid tool with customers in one niche, put a new model into it as soon as an API exists, raise the price while growth continues, and decide early whether to raise money, hire or sell.", "steps": [ "Start with a small tool for which you already have the content, and sell a limited lifetime deal to get the first customers and the first money.", "When a new model appears, ask for access directly and rebuild the tool around it, even if that discards work you paid for.", "Show the work in public while you build, so that customers and possible buyers know the product on release day.", "Raise the price in steps and watch whether growth slows.", "Keep code, documentation and support in a state that another company can take over, in case a buyer appears." ], "open": "Small paid tools with an existing customer group and one task that a new kind of model can now do. The same sequence applies each time a model for a new type of output, such as voice, video or structured documents, becomes available through an API." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The price is not known", "text": "\"Seven figures\" covers everything from US$1,000,000 to US$9,999,999. The seller gives no number, the buyer said nothing in public about the price, and the US$1 million in many articles matches another founder's guess from the day after the announcement. The headline figure on this page is the lowest value of that range." }, { "title": "The revenue figures are the seller's own", "text": "US$1,000 and US$20,000 a month come from one interview, ten months after the sale. No dashboard, payment processor or journalist has confirmed them. Asked in July 2021 for the revenue at the time of sale, he declined to answer." }, { "title": "\"8 months\" is rounded", "text": "The launch on Product Hunt was on 29 June 2020 and the announcement on 30 March 2021, which is nine months. The founder's accounts also differ on details: version 1 took three weeks or one month, and one interview places GPT-3 two months after the launch while his own thread has him asking for access in the launch month." }, { "title": "The product stopped", "text": "Headlime has had no new features since March 2021. Buyers of the lifetime deal kept access to a product that no longer changes and did not get the buyer's product. A reader who had supported Headlime early complained about that in the founder's thread. The site is still online in October 2026, but this page did not test whether it still generates text or takes payments." }, { "title": "The early advantage is gone", "text": "The advantage was access to GPT-3 before most developers had it. By the month of the sale a competitor had raised close to US$3 million. Today any developer can call a text model, and chat assistants write marketing text directly, so a copy of Headlime would start with no advantage." }, { "title": "Profit is unknown", "text": "The founder says GPT-3 was a major part of the monthly cost and gives no amount. Revenue is known only as two monthly figures, so neither the total revenue of the nine months nor the profit can be computed." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Indie Hackers, 1 July 2021: Danny Postma, Zero to 7 Figure Exit in 8 Months with Headlime, AMA", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/zero-to-7-figure-exit-in-8-months-with-headlime-ama-227d89ae0e", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with the founder's answers. Source for the price steps, the lifetime deal tiers, the GPT-3 email, the technology, the sale process, the legal form and his refusal to give the price." }, { "title": "Failory, 18 January 2022: Building & Selling a SaaS for +$1M in 8 Months, interview with Danny Postma", "url": "https://www.failory.com/interview/headlime", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview. Source for the US$1,000 and US$20,000 monthly figures, the US$60,000 launch, the five-month rebuild, the two offers and the words \"seven figures\"." }, { "title": "Headlime blog: Headlime and Conversion.ai Join Forces in Artificial Copywriting, first saved by the Internet Archive on 30 March 2021", "url": "https://headlime.com/blog/headlime-and-conversionai-join-forces-in-artificial-copywriting", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on the live site. The seller's announcement. Source for the buyer, the plan to merge the two tools, the end of new features and the 100% monthly growth claim. The date comes from the Internet Archive index." }, { "title": "Danny Postma on X, 30 March 2021: thread announcing the acquisition", "url": "https://x.com/dannypostma/status/1376918885807480835", "grade": "C", "how": "Read ten posts of the thread through the fxtwitter API. Source for the announcement date, the \"8 months\" and his new role." }, { "title": "TechPP, 31 March 2021: Conversion.ai Acquiring Headlime is Bad News for Headlime Users", "url": "https://techpp.com/2021/03/31/conversion-ai-headlime-acquisition/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A journalist's report. Source for the undisclosed terms, the comments of the buyer's founder, the effect on lifetime-deal buyers and the Copy.ai funding." }, { "title": "They Got Acquired, 21 April 2022: In less than a year, this founder bootstrapped and sold an AI copywriting platform", "url": "https://theygotacquired.com/saas/headlime-acquired-by-conversion-ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A journalist's report based on public sources; the founder did not answer its request for comment. Source for the undisclosed terms, the team count and how the buyer knew the product." }, { "title": "Pieter Levels on X, 31 March 2021: estimate of the sale price", "url": "https://x.com/levelsio/status/1377095814963589125", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. An outside guess, marked as such by its author." }, { "title": "Product Hunt launch page of Headlime as saved by the Internet Archive, 12 August 2020", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20200812044414/https://www.producthunt.com/posts/headlime", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the launch post and the first comments. The live page could not be opened. Source for the launch date of 29 June 2020, the product-of-the-week rank and the lifetime plans." }, { "title": "Danny Postma on X, 29 June 2020: launch thread", "url": "https://x.com/dannypostma/status/1277497120090537989", "grade": "C", "how": "Read four posts of the thread through the fxtwitter API. Source for the launch date and the headlime.io domain." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 17 March 2021: Okay, the GPT-3 hype seems pretty reasonable", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/17/okay-the-gpt-3-hype-seems-pretty-reasonable/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on Headlime. A journalist's own test of the product. It gives no revenue or user numbers." }, { "title": "Unite.ai, 20 February 2024: interview with Danny Postma", "url": "https://www.unite.ai/danny-postma-founder-of-headshotpro-interview-series/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the answers about Headlime and GPT-3. Source for the name of OpenAI's chief technology officer and the first batch of users." }, { "title": "The Bootstrapped Founder, 9 August 2023: Danny Postma, an indie hacker's business evolution", "url": "https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/danny-postma-an-indie-hackers-business-evolution/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the parts of the transcript about Headlime. Source for the three options, the two interested buyers, the copies of version 1 and the later product." }, { "title": "Headlime pricing page and home page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://headlime.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the pricing table, the languages, the customer counter and the state of the site in 2026. The help site help.headlime.com did not respond." }, { "title": "Headlime About page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://headlime.com/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the three team members and the origin of the tool as a spreadsheet of templates." }, { "title": "Headlime home page as saved by the Internet Archive, 24 October 2020", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20201024023456/https://headlime.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Shows the product as a template tool for headlines four months after launch." }, { "title": "Sacra, 16 November 2022: Dave Rogenmoser, CEO and co-founder of Jasper, on the generative AI opportunity", "url": "https://sacra.com/research/dave-rogenmoser-jasper-generative-ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the answer on the company's first product. Source only for the fact that Jasper was called Conversion.ai at launch. It does not mention Headlime." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 3 November 2023: Danny Postma built and sold AI writing tool for ~$1m in 8 months, by Hazel Lim", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/danny-postma-built-and-sold-ai-writing-tool-for-1m-in-8-months-full-story-7da7a7edf7", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A community summary of a longer article on thetinyempires.com, which could not be opened. An example of the US$1 million figure given without a source." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers podcast, episode 278, 5 May 2023: Growing a Portfolio of AI Products Past $300k After a 7-Figure Exit with Danny Postma", "url": "https://bizarro.dev.to/theindiehackerspodcast/278-growing-a-portfolio-of-ai-products-past-300k-after-a-7-figure-exit-with-danny-postma", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the episode title on the DEV Community mirror. The audio was not transcribed. Shows that the podcast also describes the sale only as seven figures." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/softgen/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/softgen.md", "slug": "softgen", "name": "Softgen", "country": "Germany, now USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI app builder", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "exit", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "July 2024", "outcomeLabel": "US$500K to US$600K ARR when sold at an undisclosed price, March 2025", "sticker": "Sold at $500K ARR", "outcomeUsd": 500000, "months": 8, "teamLabel": "1 founder until November 2024, then 2 people at the sale", "fundingLabel": "None reported", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "build-software", "channel": "search", "trend": "sold", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Exit", "Vibe coding" ], "product": "A person describes a web application in plain language. Softgen's AI agent writes a Next.js project with a database, user login and payments, shows a live preview, and changes the app when the person gives feedback. The code goes to the user's own GitHub repository.", "why": "A technical founder released an early full-stack AI app builder in July 2024, and revenue stayed flat for four months. Then a second person joined who worked only on distribution, and annual recurring revenue grew about 25 times in four months. They sold the product while the growth was visible and kept their company for the next product.", "summary": [ "Softgen is an AI app builder: a website where a person describes a web application in plain language and an AI model writes the code. This way of working is called vibe coding, which means that you build software by describing it to an AI model instead of writing the code yourself. Softgen builds full-stack apps. Full-stack means both the frontend, the part that the user sees, and the backend, the part that stores data and handles logins and payments.", "Marko Kraemer, then 19 and from Frankfurt, released Softgen in July 2024 as a product of his company Kortix AI. Revenue stayed at about US$2,000 a month until late November 2024, when Domenico Gagliardi joined to work on growth. Gagliardi wrote on 8 April 2025 that they had grown Softgen from US$20,000 to almost US$600,000 in annual recurring revenue in 90 days, and on 15 April 2025 that it was US$500,000 in four months. Annual recurring revenue (ARR) is the current monthly subscription revenue multiplied by twelve. Arising Ventures, a holding company in the United States, bought Softgen in March 2025. A holding company is a company that buys other companies and keeps them. No party has published the price. Kraemer writes that it was seven figures.", "The revenue figures at the sale are statements by the two founders, grade C, and the two figures by Gagliardi differ by US$100,000. The buyer later published US$52,000 of monthly revenue for Softgen under its ownership, grade B, which is the same level. This page shows each number with its grade. It also shows five failed startups that promised software without programmers before language models could write it." ], "factsCaption": "About US$500,000 to US$600,000 in annual recurring revenue eight months after launch, then a sale at a price that no party has published", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade B value was stated by the buyer, Arising Ventures, on the Softgen websites that it now controls. A grade C value is a statement by one of the two founders, or by a third party that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A.", "timelineLead": "From a side project to a sale in 8 months, and the buyer's changes after the sale. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Softgen plans in October 2026, from the structured data in the company's homepage and the description of its pricing page (grade C)", "note": "The pricing page loads its table by script, so the yearly prices could not be read. A credit pays for AI work. Credits do not expire while the subscription runs, and unused credits move to the next month on Pro. Earlier prices: in October 2024 the launch offer was US$39 a month for Starter and US$49 a month for Pro. From 14 August 2025 the buyer charged US$33 a year plus AI usage at a 15% markup. The monthly credit plans in the table replaced that model.", "rows": [ [ "Free trial", "0", "0", "trial credits, no card needed" ], [ "Starter", "not read", "25", "500 Softgen credits a month" ], [ "Pro", "not read", "49", "1,500 Softgen credits a month" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "ARR at the sale, second founder's post of 8 April 2025", "value": "almost US$600,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Domenico Gagliardi on X: from US$20,000 to almost US$600,000 ARR in 90 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "ARR at the sale, same founder's article of 15 April 2025", "value": "US$500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "From US$20,000 to US$500,000 ARR in 4 months. His profile line also says 0.5M ARR. This page uses the lower figure as the headline number.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue within four months, first founder's profile", "value": "US$50,000", "grade": "C", "note": "A third-party summary of Marko Kraemer's LinkedIn profile, not read at LinkedIn itself. Calculated: 50,000 times 12 equals 600,000.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue under the buyer, about October 2025", "value": "US$52,000, profitable", "grade": "B", "note": "Stated by the current owner on its overview page, which is a sales document. The page has no exact date; it describes the 15 months after the July 2024 launch. Monthly revenue at that time included yearly licenses and AI usage fees, so it is not the same measure as recurring revenue.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the buyer's figure", "value": "US$624,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 52,000 times 12 equals 624,000.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Sale price", "value": "not published", "grade": "C", "note": "Kraemer writes on his own site that Softgen was acquired for seven figures. The buyer has stated no price.", "src": [ 5, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Buyer and date of the sale", "value": "Arising Ventures, March 2025", "grade": "B", "note": "The owner's timeline gives March 2025, and the footer of softgen.ai reads An Arising Ventures Enterprise. Gagliardi announced the sale on 8 April 2025.", "src": [ 4, 8, 1 ] }, { "fact": "What was sold", "value": "the Softgen product, not the founders' company", "grade": "C", "note": "Before the sale the footer read a Kortix AI Corp Product. Kortix stayed with the founders. Softgen now belongs to Softgen Labs Inc. The legal form of the deal is not published.", "src": [ 10, 8, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, July to November 2024", "value": "about US$2,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Gagliardi's article of 9 February 2025: steady at 2k MRR since July or August. Calculated: 2,000 times 12 equals 24,000, close to the US$20,000 ARR in his later posts.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Growth in ARR, late November 2024 to March 2025", "value": "25 to 30 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 500,000 divided by 20,000 equals 25, and 600,000 divided by 20,000 equals 30.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "People at the sale", "value": "2", "grade": "C", "note": "Gagliardi writes that Kraemer was mostly alone on the project until he joined in late November 2024. Gagliardi kept a full-time job until early February 2025. Other staff or contractors: not verified.", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Website views per week", "value": "from 3,000 to 8,000 up to more than 100,000 in 3 months", "grade": "C", "note": "Gagliardi on X, 20 March 2025.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding for Softgen", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "Gagliardi: bootstrapped, no VC. The owner's page calls Softgen the most established brand among app builders without venture capital. A wiki reports that Kortix, the founders' company, raised US$4 million in 2025: not verified.", "src": [ 1, 4, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Registered users, about October 2025", "value": "186,000", "grade": "B", "note": "Owner's page, which also states 900 active paying customers and 400 new users a day. The homepage in October 2026 still shows 186,000.", "src": [ 4, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue per paying customer", "value": "about US$58", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 52,000 divided by 900 equals 57.78.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Team under the buyer", "value": "5 people", "grade": "B", "note": "Owner's page: a chief executive, a chief technology officer, two senior engineers and one person for product and growth. The chief executive, KJ Erickson, also leads Arising Ventures.", "src": [ 4, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the sale", "value": "8 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: July 2024 to March 2025.", "src": [ 4, 6 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "April 2024", "what": "Kraemer, who had built websites and run a software studio since his school years in Frankfurt, starts Kortix AI.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15, 5 ] }, { "when": "12 July 2024", "what": "He posts a demo on X: Softgen, which he calls an autonomous AI developer, builds a copy of X in less than 10 minutes. The post gets about 100,000 views. The buyer later dates the public launch to July 2024 and calls it a side project.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 4 ] }, { "when": "August to November 2024", "what": "Monthly recurring revenue stays at about US$2,000. In October the site offers Starter at US$39 a month and Pro at US$49 a month and counts more than 200 makers.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 10 ] }, { "when": "Late November 2024", "what": "Gagliardi, who had run more than 15 side projects next to a full-time job, meets Kraemer and joins to work on growth.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "when": "Early February 2025", "what": "Gagliardi leaves his full-time job. The site counts more than 500 makers.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 10 ] }, { "when": "20 March 2025", "what": "Gagliardi posts that weekly website views rose from 3,000 to 8,000 up to more than 100,000 in three months. The first activity he names is automated submission to hundreds of directories.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "March 2025", "what": "Arising Ventures acquires Softgen.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "8 April 2025", "what": "Gagliardi announces the sale on X: from US$20,000 to almost US$600,000 ARR in 90 days, no venture capital, no office.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "15 April 2025", "what": "In an article he gives US$500,000 ARR in four months and writes that the two founders are working on their next AI product.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "14 August 2025", "what": "The buyer changes the pricing to US$33 a year plus AI usage at a 15% markup, and calls it wholesale pricing.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "23 September 2025", "what": "The Softgen account on X calls the product the world's first AI co-op.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "About October 2025", "what": "The owner's overview page states 186,000 registered users, 900 paying customers, US$52,000 of monthly revenue and a team of 5.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "Softgen is online as An Arising Ventures Enterprise with monthly plans at US$25 and US$49. Kraemer leads Kortix, which publishes open-source software for AI agents.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 8, 9, 5, 14 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Early in a new category", "text": "Softgen was public in July 2024. The current owner calls it the first full-stack AI builder on the market, and Gagliardi calls it one of the first. Being early gave it a working product and paying users. It did not give it growth: revenue stayed near US$2,000 a month for four months." }, { "title": "A second person for distribution", "text": "Kraemer built the product and worked on it mostly alone. Gagliardi met him in November 2024 and took over the growth work. In the next four months ARR went from about US$20,000 to US$500,000 or more, which is 25 to 30 times. For the first two of those months Gagliardi still had a full-time job." }, { "title": "Search traffic from automated directory listings", "text": "Gagliardi's public thread names the first of three activities. They submitted Softgen to hundreds of web directories with an automation tool to collect backlinks. A backlink is a link from another website to yours, and search engines rank a site higher when it has many. Weekly views rose from between 3,000 and 8,000 to more than 100,000 in three months. The other two activities in the thread were not read for this page." }, { "title": "A fast sale to an operator", "text": "Softgen was sold eight months after launch and four months after the growth started. The buyer is a holding company that runs small software companies with its own staff, and its chief executive became the chief executive of Softgen. The founders kept their company, Kortix, and moved to its next product." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the first founder's launch post, archived copies of the Softgen website and the current owner's overview page. They are grade B and C.", "items": [ "The first public demo, on 12 July 2024, showed Softgen's AI agent building a copy of the X website in less than 10 minutes.", "In October 2024 each project started from a Next.js boilerplate, which is a prepared project skeleton, with Tailwind CSS and Shadcn UI for the interface. Firebase supplied login, database and file storage. Stripe or Lemon Squeezy handled payments, and Resend sent email.", "The user gives instructions in a chat and can upload images. The agent works in an autonomous mode or an interactive mode. A development server shows a live preview, each change is kept in a version history that can be reverted, and the code can be exported to GitHub.", "The first plans counted AI revisions: 100 a month on Starter and 200 a month on Pro.", "Under the buyer the stack changed: Next.js and Vite as frameworks, Daytona sandboxes as the development environment, Supabase as the backend, Vercel for deployment, and a choice of models from Anthropic, Google and OpenAI.", "Growth work was cheap and automated: directory submissions for backlinks, and a founder who posted the numbers in public." ], "src": [ 6, 10, 4, 7 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database promised websites or software without programmers, before language models could write an application. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Builder.ai", "years": "2016 to 2025", "funding": "US$445M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Custom apps for people who cannot program, built by an AI assembly line instead of expensive developers.", "died": "The database records that a US$20,000 app cost up to US$35,000 to deliver, because offshore developers did most of the work that was sold as AI.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2170-builderai" }, { "name": "Kite DevTool", "years": "2014 to 2024", "funding": "US$21M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "AI code completion inside the programmer's editor, seven years before GitHub Copilot.", "died": "Its own models, built before large language models, could not match Copilot, which also reached developers through GitHub and VS Code. The free product never earned enough.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2491-kite-devtool" }, { "name": "The Grid", "years": "2014 to 2020", "funding": "US$4.7M", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "Websites that an AI designs for you, with no designer.", "died": "The AI of that time produced designs of uneven quality. Wix, Squarespace and WordPress gave more reliable results, and users left.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/618-the-grid" }, { "name": "Crejo.Fun", "years": "2020 to 2022", "funding": "US$3M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "A drag-and-drop builder so that creators in India could make their own mobile apps without programming.", "died": "Creators needed a larger audience first. An app of their own meant design, updates and promotion work that they did not want.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2303-crejofun" }, { "name": "Infogami", "years": "2005 to 2008", "funding": "US$12K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Anyone can build a dynamic website without coding.", "died": "WordPress won that market with open-source software and plugins. The founder joined Reddit, and the product ended there.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1672-infogami" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five promised that a person who cannot program would get working software. Before 2023 the software still had to be written or designed by people, or by AI that was not good enough. Builder.ai hid developers behind the word AI and lost money on each app. The Grid and Kite built their own AI and were passed by better tools. From 2024, language models could write a complete small application from a description, and a company could rent them by usage. One 19-year-old built Softgen as a side project, and two people brought it to about US$500,000 of ARR without outside money.", "The same change let many others in. Base44, another AI app builder on this site, was sold to Wix in June 2025 for about US$80 million in cash, a price with grade A evidence. Softgen was sold three months earlier at a price that no party has published, and it now competes with products that have much more money." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The product, hard. The growth method and the early sale, yes.", "text": "A general AI app builder now competes with Lovable, Bolt, Replit, v0 and Base44, which Softgen's own homepage names. The parts that can be repeated are different: add a person for distribution to a working product that does not grow, build search traffic with cheap automated work, and sell to an operator while growth is visible.", "steps": [ "Release a working product early in a new category and charge for it, even when revenue is small.", "If you are a technical founder and revenue is flat for months, add a partner whose only job is distribution.", "Automate the cheap growth tasks first, such as directory submissions for backlinks, and measure weekly visits.", "Decide early whether you want to run the product for years. If not, sell while growth is visible. This sale closed eight months after launch." ], "open": "An app builder for one industry or one country, with the integrations and rules of that market already built in. The general product is crowded. The owner's own plan is to earn money from templates, services and agents that are sold around the builder." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Numbers that do not agree", "text": "The same founder gave almost US$600,000 ARR in 90 days on 8 April 2025 and US$500,000 ARR in four months on 15 April 2025. The start level is US$20,000 ARR in those posts and US$2,000 a month, which is US$24,000 a year, in his February article. The founding year is 2023 in a review and a wiki, and 2020 in one news page, while the launch was in July 2024." }, { "title": "No price, and no figure from the buyer for the date of the sale", "text": "Seven figures is the first founder's phrase, so the price is between US$1 million and US$10 million if he is exact. Arising Ventures writes that its ideal acquisition has US$3 million to US$30 million of revenue, and Softgen was far below that. The buyer has not confirmed the ARR at the sale." }, { "title": "Deleted and automatic sources", "text": "Gagliardi deleted both articles from Medium, so this page read them from the Internet Archive, and only the public part of each. One news page that dates the sale to 22 May 2025 is written by AI and contains a quotation that it labels hypothetical. It is not used for any fact here." }, { "title": "Revenue stayed at the same level after the sale", "text": "The buyer's US$52,000 a month, about seven months after the sale, equals the level that the founders reported at the sale. The same page claims 20% to 30% monthly growth, which does not fit a level that did not change. The page calls itself a deck and names a contact at an outside advisory firm, which suggests that it is written for investors or buyers. The page does not say so. The homepage in October 2026 shows the same 186,000 users as that page." }, { "title": "Thin margins against funded competitors", "text": "Under the buyer, Softgen sold AI usage at a 15% markup and a license at US$33 a year, and then returned to monthly plans at US$25 and US$49. The owner's page says it gives up margin on purpose to be the cheapest. Competitors with venture capital can sell below cost for longer." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Domenico Gagliardi on X, 8 April 2025: Softgen.ai has been acquired by Arising Ventures", "url": "https://x.com/dom_gag_96/status/1909498247355515295", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Founder statement. Source for almost US$600,000 ARR in 90 days, the buyer and the bootstrapped status. His handle was DG_9_6 at that time." }, { "title": "Domenico Gagliardi on Medium, 15 April 2025: We Sold our AI startup (500k ARR), What's next", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250513101521/https://gagliardidomenico.medium.com/we-sold-our-ai-startup-500k-arr-whats-next-f4c1f89c248d", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public part in the Internet Archive copy of 13 May 2025. The author deleted the original, and the rest was for Medium members only. Source for US$500,000 ARR in 4 months and the month in which he joined." }, { "title": "Domenico Gagliardi on Medium, 9 February 2025: I quit my full-time job: now bootstrapping a startup", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260116224123/https://gagliardidomenico.medium.com/i-quit-my-full-time-job-now-bootstrapping-a-startup-158fb5002329", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public part in the Internet Archive copy. The author deleted the original. Source for the US$2,000 monthly revenue before he joined and for Kraemer working mostly alone." }, { "title": "Softgen overview page by the current owner: The Original Full-Stack AI Builder", "url": "https://teaser.softgen.ai/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full on 13 October 2026, with the page's script file for the numbers that the page shows as animated counters. A sales document by the buyer's side, with no exact date. Source for the sale month, the monthly revenue, the user and customer counts, the team and the later stack." }, { "title": "Marko Kraemer's personal site", "url": "https://markokraemer.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder statement. Source for his age and origin, for acquired for seven figures, and for his current work at Kortix." }, { "title": "Marko Kraemer on X, 12 July 2024: Softgen, our new autonomous AI developer", "url": "https://x.com/markokraemer/status/1811886439455674775", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the first public demo and its view count." }, { "title": "Domenico Gagliardi on X, 20 March 2025: thread on website traffic", "url": "https://x.com/dom_gag_96/status/1902723039743156592", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the first two posts of the thread through api.fxtwitter.com. The remaining posts could not be opened. Source for the weekly views and the directory submissions." }, { "title": "Softgen homepage, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://softgen.ai/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full, with the structured data inside the page. Controlled by the buyer. Source for the footer An Arising Ventures Enterprise, the company name Softgen Labs Inc., the user count, the named competitors and the two plan prices." }, { "title": "Softgen pricing page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://softgen.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the page description only: Starter US$25 a month with 500 credits, Pro US$49 a month with 1,500 credits. The price table loads by script and could not be read." }, { "title": "Internet Archive copies of the Softgen homepage, 8 October 2024 and 7 February 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20241008173841/https://softgen.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both in full. Source for the footer Softgen, a Kortix AI Corp Product, the launch prices, the maker counts and the first technology stack." }, { "title": "Techleap Finder news entry, April 2025: Softgen AI sold for $500k ARR", "url": "https://finder.techleap.nl/news/feed/softgen-ai-sold-for-500k-arr", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A short summary of the Medium article on a startup map that runs on Dealroom data. Its title can be misread: US$500,000 is the revenue, not the price. It lists Softgen in Frankfurt and Arising Ventures in San Francisco. No link between Softgen and the Netherlands was found." }, { "title": "Arising Ventures website", "url": "https://www.arisingventures.com/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the buyer's structure as a long-term holding company, its chief executive and its usual revenue range. The page does not name Softgen and gives no price." }, { "title": "Happenstance profile of Marko Kraemer", "url": "https://happenstance.ai/u/efb190ff-0def-4de5-a376-936912e0b532", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the summary section. An automatic summary of his LinkedIn profile. Source for US$50,000 monthly recurring revenue within four months." }, { "title": "AI wiki on Miraheze: Kortix", "url": "https://ai.miraheze.org/wiki/Kortix", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the history section. A wiki with no named author. Cited for Gagliardi's role and for the Kortix funding claim, which is not verified." }, { "title": "Peerlist resume of Marko Kraemer", "url": "https://peerlist.io/markokraemer/resume", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the experience section. Source for the start of Kortix AI in April 2024 and of Softgen in June 2024." }, { "title": "Fahim AI review, 2026: I Tested Softgen AI for 60 Days", "url": "https://www.fahimai.com/softgen", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the pricing and company sections. A reviewer's account of the US$33 a year model. It gives a founding year of 2023 and yearly revenue of about US$550,000 without a source." }, { "title": "Softgen on X, 23 September 2025", "url": "https://x.com/SoftgenAI/status/1970553075656991136", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the co-op description." }, { "title": "Signalbase news page, 22 May 2025: Arising Ventures Acquires Softgen AI", "url": "https://www.trysignalbase.com/news/acquisitions/softgen-ai-acquired-by-arising-ventures-acquisition", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. An AI-written page with a quotation that it labels hypothetical. Cited only for the conflicting date and founding year." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/coco-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/coco-ai.md", "slug": "coco-ai", "name": "CoCo AI", "country": "France", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "WhatsApp marketing app for Shopify stores", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "exit", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "4 July 2024", "outcomeLabel": "US$500K to US$600K ARR when sold for an undisclosed seven-figure price, February 2025", "sticker": "Sold at $500K ARR", "outcomeUsd": 500000, "months": 7, "teamLabel": "2 named founders in a team of 4, later 3", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "sales", "trend": "sold", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Exit", "B2B", "E-commerce" ], "product": "An app for Shopify stores that sends marketing messages on WhatsApp and answers shoppers with an AI assistant trained on the store's catalog: reminders for abandoned carts, campaigns to subscribers, product advice in 96 languages. The store pays a monthly plan plus a charge for the WhatsApp conversations.", "why": "After a first product of their own that nobody bought, the founders copied a kind of Shopify app that already earned money, and sold it in France, where few competitors sold it. They found customers only by cold outreach, with tools that cost about US$380 a month. By their account they sold the company seven months after the App Store launch, when sales outside France became hard.", "summary": [ "CoCo AI is an app for online stores built on Shopify. It connects the store to the WhatsApp Business API, the paid interface that lets a company send WhatsApp messages by program instead of by hand. The app sends a reminder when a shopper leaves an abandoned cart, which is a basket of products that was filled but not paid, it sends campaigns to subscribers, and an AI assistant that knows the store's catalog answers questions and recommends products.", "Romàn Czerny and Pierre-Eliott Lallemant, two French founders, built it with a team of three to four people and no investors. The app launched on the Shopify App Store on 4 July 2024. They found customers only by cold outreach, which means writing to people who have never heard of you: about 1,700 emails a day plus LinkedIn messages. Czerny writes that MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the income that repeats every month, was more than US$50,000 before the sale. Lallemant gives €500,000 of ARR, annual recurring revenue, which is the same measure for a year. In early 2025 they sold the company to a buyer that they describe as an American fund, for a price that Czerny calls seven figures.", "Every money number on this page is a statement by one of the two founders, made after the sale, grade C. The buyer has never been named and the price has never been published. One fact was checked independently: the Shopify App Store listing named the founders' French company on 23 January 2025 and a developer in the state of New York on 18 April 2025. The page also shows four earlier companies that sold chat and marketing tools to online stores and closed." ], "factsCaption": "A WhatsApp marketing app that reached about US$50,000 a month and was sold seven months after its App Store launch, on the founders' own statements", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by a founder, a reading of the App Store listing, or an estimate by a third party that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. Grade A appears on one row only, the employee band from the French state company register, which is not a money number. No money number of CoCo AI is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a first product that nobody bought to a sale, in about two years, of which seven months on the Shopify App Store. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "CoCo AI prices in October 2026, under the new owner, from the company's pricing page and the Shopify App Store listing (grade C)", "note": "All plans are billed monthly, so there is no yearly price. WhatsApp message fees are charged on top, per conversation, at Meta's rate for each country. The company's page gives the limits as sessions; the App Store listing gives the same two prices with limits of 10,000 and 1 million messages a month and a 14-day free trial. Under the founders, in November 2024, the listing showed a free Light plan, Starter at US$59 a month and Pro at US$159 a month, each plus WhatsApp conversation charges.", "rows": [ [ "Pro", "not offered", "159", "up to 100,000 sessions a month" ], [ "Scale", "not offered", "399", "up to 1,000,000 sessions a month, account manager" ], [ "Enterprise", "not offered", "custom", "unlimited sessions, managed service" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "MRR before the sale, first founder's blog post of 25 April 2025", "value": "more than US$50,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Romàn Czerny: \"MRR before acquisition: over $50,000 — and still growing when we sold\". The same post says the growth from zero took \"just a few months\" and, in its subtitle, 6 months.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "ARR before the sale, second founder's podcast of 19 May 2025", "value": "€500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Description of Pierre-Eliott Lallemant's episode, in French: the company reached €500,000 of ARR very quickly before it was resold to an American fund. The recording was not listened to.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "ARR before the sale, interview of 18 January 2026", "value": "US$500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Description of Czerny's video interview: he grew the app to US$500,000 ARR and sold it for seven figures. The title of his April 2025 blog post and an article of July 2025 give the same figure. This page uses it as the headline number because it is the lower one.", "src": [ 3, 1, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the US$50,000 monthly figure", "value": "US$600,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 50,000 times 12 equals 600,000. That is 20% above the US$500,000 ARR that the same founder also gives. The two figures are not reconciled anywhere, so the page shows the range.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Sale price", "value": "seven figures, exact amount not disclosed", "grade": "C", "note": "One founder's statement in the January 2026 interview, repeated in the video description and in the chapter title \"The 7-Figure Exit\". Seven figures means at least US$1 million and less than US$10 million. No buyer, broker or marketplace has confirmed it.", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Buyer", "value": "not identified, described as an American fund", "grade": "C", "note": "The podcast description and a later case study say an American fund. Since April 2025 the App Store listing has shown the developer as \"Coco\" at a street address in White Plains, New York. Tracxn and a partner directory give Anguilla as the company's location. No name was found.", "src": [ 2, 9, 5, 13, 16 ] }, { "fact": "Month of the sale", "value": "February 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "The month comes from a machine-made summary of the January 2026 interview and was not verified against the recording. It agrees with the App Store listing, which named the French company on 23 January 2025 and the developer in New York on 18 April 2025, and with the blog post of 25 April 2025, which speaks of the sale as done.", "src": [ 4, 6, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Launch on the Shopify App Store", "value": "4 July 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "The date on the listing. The website my-coco.ai was already online on 1 March 2024 and sold the product through demonstrations.", "src": [ 5, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the App Store launch to the sale", "value": "7 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: July 2024 to February 2025. The interview description says the sale came 2 years after the start; the summary says the founders started in 2023 with a first product that failed.", "src": [ 5, 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Cost of the sales tools", "value": "about US$380 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's blog post: about US$150 for LinkedIn tools, US$150 for the cold email tools and US$80 for direct messages on X.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Sales tools as a share of monthly revenue", "value": "about 0.8%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 380 divided by 50,000 equals 0.76%. Salaries and the WhatsApp fees are not in this number.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Cold emails per day", "value": "about 1,700", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's blog post. On LinkedIn the reply rate was about 23%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Share of demonstrations that became customers", "value": "50% to 70%", "grade": "C", "note": "Description of the January 2026 interview. The summary of the interview says the rate fell to 15% to 20% in Germany and Spain.", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "4 people at first, later 3", "grade": "C", "note": "From the machine-made summary of the interview: marketing, product and programming. Not verified against the recording. Only Czerny and Lallemant are named in public sources.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Employees of the French company, 2024", "value": "3 to 5", "grade": "A", "note": "French state company register: the employee band of Neural Odyssey for 2024. The company was created in Paris on 12 September 2024 with Lallemant as its manager, and it was still active in October 2026.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's blog post: \"We didn't raise.\" Tracxn lists the company as unfunded.", "src": [ 1, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Reviews on the App Store", "value": "4 in August 2024, 30 in November 2024, 51 in January 2025, 58 in April 2025, 51 in October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Read on the listing and on its archived copies. The rating was 5.0 until January 2025, 4.8 in April 2025, and is 4.9 now.", "src": [ 6, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Stores with the app installed, October 2026", "value": "221", "grade": "C", "note": "A third-party estimate by Store Leads. It puts 46.2% of these stores in France.", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per store, if 221 stores paid US$50,000", "value": "about US$226 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 50,000 divided by 221. The result is between the Pro price of US$159 and the Scale price of US$399, so the founders' figure is plausible. The store count is from October 2026 and the revenue from early 2025, so this is not a proof.", "src": [ 1, 12, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Employees under the new owner, 30 June 2026", "value": "2", "grade": "C", "note": "Tracxn's count, a third-party figure.", "src": [ 13 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2023", "what": "The founders start with a WhatsApp version of an American product that lets shoppers buy by text message. After about 6 months it has one or two pilot customers and no traction. This entry comes from a summary of the 2026 interview.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "1 March 2024", "what": "The website my-coco.ai is online: an AI chatbot on WhatsApp for Shopify stores, sold through demonstrations.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "4 July 2024", "what": "The app launches on the Shopify App Store. In the interview Czerny says it copied Shopify apps that already earned money and was built in about 2 weeks.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 3, 4 ] }, { "when": "4 August 2024", "what": "One month after the launch the listing shows 4 reviews. The developer named on it is a company in Sarrebourg, France.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "28 August 2024", "what": "WideBundle, the maker of another Shopify app, presents CoCo AI to its own users with a 20% discount.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "12 September 2024", "what": "The company Neural Odyssey is registered in Paris, with Lallemant as manager.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "7 November 2024", "what": "The listing shows 30 reviews, all of 5 stars, and plans at US$0, US$59 and US$159 a month plus WhatsApp charges. The developer named on it is now Neural Odyssey, Paris.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "23 January 2025", "what": "51 reviews. The developer on the listing is still Neural Odyssey, Paris.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "February 2025", "what": "The founders sell CoCo AI to a buyer that they call an American fund, at more than US$50,000 of MRR, for a price that Czerny calls seven figures. According to the interview summary, marketplaces offered a low price because the revenue history was shorter than a year, and he found the buyer himself in about 2 months.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2, 3, 4 ] }, { "when": "18 April 2025", "what": "The listing shows a new developer, \"Coco\", with an address in White Plains, New York, 58 reviews and a rating of 4.8.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "25 April 2025", "what": "Czerny publishes the outreach method, the tools, their cost and the sales presentation on the blog of his next company.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "19 May 2025", "what": "Lallemant tells the story on the French podcast EcomPreneurs: €500,000 of ARR, then a sale to an American fund.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "October 2025 to August 2026", "what": "What the founders did next: GojiberryAI, a tool that finds sales leads. It is a different and larger company and not part of this story. TrustMRR shows US$1,801,629 of revenue in total from its Stripe account, synced on 14 August 2026.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 17, 18 ] }, { "when": "18 January 2026", "what": "Czerny gives a 48-minute video interview about both companies. Its description says US$500,000 ARR and a seven-figure sale.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "CoCo AI is still sold: 4.9 stars from 51 reviews, plans from US$159 a month, a review dated 4 August 2026, and an estimated 221 stores. The terms on its website still name Neural Odyssey as the developer.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 10, 12 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A copied product in a market that did not have it", "text": "The first product moved an American idea, buying by text message, to WhatsApp, and stores did not pay for it. For the second, the founders looked for Shopify apps that already earned US$2 million to US$3 million a year, copied one, and sold it in France, where few competitors sold such an app. In Czerny's account it took about two weeks to build, and the first 5 to 10 customers came within two days from people he already knew. These details come from the interview summary." }, { "title": "Cold outreach as the only sales channel", "text": "About 1,700 emails a day, LinkedIn messages and direct messages on X, each with one goal: a demonstration. The founders tried search traffic, influencers and paid ads, and write that none of them worked as well. The tools cost about US$380 a month." }, { "title": "Revenue that grows with the customer's messages", "text": "The price was a monthly plan plus a charge for WhatsApp conversations. A store that sends more campaigns pays more, so revenue can grow without new customers. This is called usage-based pricing." }, { "title": "A sale at the first sign of a limit", "text": "According to the interview summary, the founders had contacted almost every suitable store in France, and in Germany and Spain far fewer demonstrations became customers. Two team members wanted to sell. They sold seven months after the App Store launch, to a buyer found by direct contact." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's blog post, the app's listing and terms, and the description and a summary of his interview. They are grade C.", "items": [ "A Shopify app: the store installs it from the App Store. The terms say that Shopify handles the payment; the pricing page of October 2026 says that plans are billed through Stripe.", "WhatsApp access through 360dialog, a provider that gives access to the WhatsApp API. WhatsApp fees are charged per conversation at Meta's rates.", "An AI assistant trained on the store's product catalog. It answers customers and recommends products, and the listing says it works in 96 languages.", "Connections to Klaviyo and to the Shopify checkout, and pop-up windows that collect WhatsApp subscribers.", "Sales by outreach: LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Waalaxy for LinkedIn, Apollo, Clay and Instantly for email, DriPy for messages on X. The blog post says the first region was Brazil; the interview says the main market was France.", "A short sales presentation sent after the first reply or before the demonstration. The founder published it." ], "src": [ 1, 5, 10, 3, 4 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold chat, chatbots or marketing automation to online stores and closed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Vanti", "years": "2019 to 2024", "funding": "US$18M", "cause": "No market need", "promise": "AI chatbots that guide shoppers to a product and sell it in a conversation.", "died": "Brands did not see better sales than with a normal store page. Each customer was costly to win and to connect.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2508-vanti" }, { "name": "RightHello", "years": "2014 to 2022", "funding": "US$600K", "cause": "Ran out of cash", "promise": "Live chat that turns store visitors into buyers.", "died": "Intercom raised US$240 million and added the same functions. A small chat tool could not keep pace.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2260-righthello" }, { "name": "Answerly", "years": "2013 to 2016", "funding": "US$550K", "cause": "Product/tech failure", "promise": "Chatbots that answer customers' frequent questions, so that people handle only the hard ones.", "died": "Language software of that time could not understand real questions. Each customer needed months of manual setup.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2168-answerly" }, { "name": "Marketfox", "years": "2017 to 2020", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Automatic marketing messages for online stores.", "died": "Mailchimp, HubSpot and Klaviyo offered more functions and more connections, with far more money.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1035-marketfox" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The four companies promised what CoCo AI promises: a program that talks to shoppers and brings them back to buy. Vanti and Answerly failed mainly because the chatbot did not work well enough or needed months of setup for each customer. RightHello and Marketfox failed because larger companies sold the same functions.", "Three things differ for CoCo AI. First, a language model can read a product catalog and answer in 96 languages without months of manual setup; the company says that setup takes 30 minutes. Second, the channel is WhatsApp, where the company claims that shoppers open 90% of the cart messages, and the Shopify App Store gives a small team a place where stores look for apps and a billing system. Third, the founders did not try to outlast the larger competitors: they sold after seven months. The risk that ended the four predecessors is still there, and it now belongs to the buyer." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The result, only with care.", "text": "Copying a kind of app that already earns money, then selling it by outreach in a country where few competitors sell it, needs no capital and no audience. The result on this page is less certain than the method: the revenue and the price are the founders' statements, and the founders say that the method stopped working outside their home market.", "steps": [ "Look in an app store for a category where several apps earn money, and for a country or language where nobody sells them actively.", "Build the smallest working copy and sell it first to people you can reach directly.", "Send outreach every day with one goal, a demonstration, and measure how many demonstrations become customers.", "Charge by usage, so that revenue grows when the customer grows.", "If you want to sell early, write to owners of several apps in the same store. Marketplaces pay little for a revenue history shorter than a year." ], "open": "App categories where the leaders earn millions of dollars a year and nobody sells actively in your country or language, on Shopify or on another app store." }, "watch": [ { "title": "No buyer, no price, no outside check", "text": "The buyer is called an American fund and has never been named. The price is the two words seven figures in one interview. No payment processor, broker, journalist or buyer has confirmed the revenue. The only independent fact is that the App Store listing changed from a French to a United States developer between 23 January and 18 April 2025." }, { "title": "The founders' numbers do not match exactly", "text": "US$50,000 a month is US$600,000 a year, but the same founder also says US$500,000 ARR, and the other founder says €500,000. The time to reach it is given as 6 months, as 9 months and as part of 2 years. All statements were made after the sale." }, { "title": "Revenue by usage is not strictly recurring", "text": "The founder calls the figure MRR, but part of it was charges for messages, which rise and fall with each store's campaigns. The sources do not say whether the figure is before or after the WhatsApp fees that go to Meta." }, { "title": "Several details come from a summary of a video", "text": "The captions of the January 2026 interview could not be downloaded. The team size, the month of the sale, the reasons for selling and the way the buyer was found come from a machine-made summary of it and are marked as such." }, { "title": "Little sign of growth after the sale", "text": "The review count went from 58 in April 2025 to 51 in October 2026. A third party estimates 221 stores, 1.0% more than a quarter earlier, and another counts 2 employees. By the interview summary, the founders sold because growth outside France was hard." }, { "title": "The share of the AI in the revenue is unknown", "text": "The product is sold as an AI assistant, but the founder's own description of April 2025 lists cart reminders, campaigns and alerts and does not mention AI. Part of the revenue would exist without the AI." }, { "title": "Two platforms control the product", "text": "Meta sets the price and the rules of WhatsApp messages, and Shopify controls the listing and the access to stores. A change by either one can remove the margin or the product." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Gojiberry blog, Romàn Czerny, 25 April 2025: I used this pitch deck to bootstrap my SaaS to $500K in annual recurring revenue in 9 months", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20251005184601/https://blog.gojiberry.ai/blog/i-used-this-pitch-deck-to-bootstrap-my-saas-to-500k-in-annual-recurring-revenue-in-9-months", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in the Wayback Machine copy of 5 October 2025; the live address now redirects to the company's home page. Founder's own account. Source for the MRR before the sale, the outreach tools and their cost." }, { "title": "EcomPreneurs podcast, episode 37, 19 May 2025: Pierre-Eliott Lallemant, SaaS B2B: CoCo.ai & Gojiberry.ai (in French)", "url": "https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/ecompreneurs/episodes/p--37--PIERRE-ELIOTT-LALLEMANT--SAAS-B2B--COCO-AI--GOJIBERRY-AI-e331mm7", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the episode description, the chapter list and the publication date in the page data. Did not listen to the recording. Source for the €500,000 ARR and the American fund." }, { "title": "Florian Darroman on YouTube, 18 January 2026: I Built 2 SaaS Apps to $50K MRR: Here's My 90-Day Playbook (interview with Romàn Czerny)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDVDLvnfn4k", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the video description, the chapter list and the date in the downloaded page. The captions could not be downloaded, so the recording itself was not read. Source for US$500,000 ARR, the seven-figure sale and the 50% to 70% close rate." }, { "title": "YouTubeSummary: machine-made summary of the same interview", "url": "https://youtubesummary.com/summary/IDVDLvnfn4k", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. An automatic summary of source 3, not checked against the recording. Source for the team size, the month and reasons of the sale, and the first failed product." }, { "title": "Shopify App Store listing: Coco: AI Cart Recovery & Chat, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.shopify.com/coco-ai-cart-recovery", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full: developer name and address, launch date, rating, reviews, plans and connections." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copies of the Shopify App Store listing: 4 August 2024, 7 November 2024, 23 January 2025 and 18 April 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20241107211711/https://apps.shopify.com/coco-whatsapp-ai-cart-recovery-1", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the developer block, the rating, the review count and the plans in four copies. The copies of January and April 2025 are the Czech-language versions of the page. Source for the change of developer." }, { "title": "French state company register (Recherche d'entreprises): Neural Odyssey, SIREN 933118853", "url": "https://recherche-entreprises.api.gouv.fr/search?q=933118853", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the register record: creation date, address, manager, status and employee band for 2024. An official register, used here for the team only, not for money." }, { "title": "We Are Founders, 24 July 2025: From Zero Sales to 100 Customers in 60 Days: How GojiberryAI Got the Pivot Right", "url": "https://www.wearefounders.uk/from-zero-sales-to-100-customers-in-60-days-how-gojiberryai-got-the-pivot-right/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A secondary article based on Lallemant's account. Repeats US$500,000 ARR before the sale." }, { "title": "Superframeworks case study, 31 December 2025: $33K Revenue in 4 Months, the Gojiberry AI case study, and its newsletter of 28 February 2026", "url": "https://superframeworks.com/case-study/gojiberry", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both in full. A secondary account. Says €500,000 ARR, US$50,000 MRR and a sale to an American fund, without a source for the buyer." }, { "title": "CoCo AI website: pricing page, home page and terms and conditions, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://my-coco.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the three pages in full. Source for the current plans, the billing, the 30-minute setup claim, the use of 360dialog and the developer named in the terms (https://my-coco.ai/terms-conditions/)." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of my-coco.ai, 1 March 2024", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20240301110741/https://my-coco.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The earliest archived copy of the website. Shows the product before the App Store launch." }, { "title": "Store Leads report on the app, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://storeleads.app/reports/shopify/app/coco-whatsapp-ai-cart-recovery-1", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public part of the report. A third-party estimate of installs and countries." }, { "title": "Tracxn company profile: CoCo AI", "url": "https://tracxn.com/d/companies/coco-ai/__I_pdBSJl6VZm7d2I7elJmnJYnARDiKGHCfZyA77gkE4", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public part of the profile: founding year, location, funding and employee count. Third-party data." }, { "title": "Zero G Talent profile of Romàn Czerny", "url": "https://zerogtalent.com/people/rom-n-czerny", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A short biography in the founder's own words: a Shopify app that grew to US$500,000 ARR before he sold it in 2025." }, { "title": "WideBundle blog, 28 August 2024: Discover CoCo AI", "url": "https://blog.widebundle.com/discover-coco-ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A partner's presentation of the app with a discount for its users." }, { "title": "Avenue Z partner directory: Coco, partner for WhatsApp commerce", "url": "https://avenuez.com/coco-select-partner-for-whatsapp-commerce-avenuez/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the entry. Gives the location as Anguilla. No owner is named." }, { "title": "TrustMRR profile of GojiberryAI, the founders' next company", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/superfruits", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile in the local copy. Revenue comes from the company's Stripe account, last synced on 14 August 2026. Used for one timeline entry only; it is a different business." }, { "title": "Romàn Czerny on X, 15 December 2025: I grew gojiberry.ai from $0 to $33,000 in 4 months", "url": "https://x.com/romanbuildsaas/status/2000504783384219872", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter interface. Confirms the founder's account name and his next company." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/my-askai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/my-askai.md", "slug": "my-askai", "name": "My AskAI", "country": "United Kingdom", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI customer-support agent inside existing help desks", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "February 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$40K a month recurring revenue, July 2025", "sticker": "$40K MRR, two founders", "outcomeUsd": 480000, "months": 29, "teamLabel": "2 founders, no employees", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Price", "group": "support-agents", "channel": "platform", "trend": "growing", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Customer support" ], "product": "A company connects My AskAI to the help desk it already uses, such as Intercom or Zendesk, and gives it the help center, the website and past tickets to read. The agent then answers customer questions inside that help desk, or writes a draft as an internal note for a human agent. When it cannot answer, it hands the conversation to a person in the same tool, with a summary.", "why": "The founders sold the idea before they built it, and built it with a no-code tool so that one person could change it every day. Then they cut the product down to the one use that brought 70% of the revenue. They placed it inside the help desks that customers already pay for, and priced it below the AI agents that the help-desk vendors sell themselves.", "summary": [ "My AskAI sells an AI agent for customer support that works inside the help desk a company already uses. A help desk is the software in which support staff receive and answer customer messages; Intercom, Zendesk, Freshdesk, Gorgias and HubSpot are examples. The agent reads the company's help center, website and past tickets, answers the customer in the same chat window, and passes the conversation to a human in the same tool when it cannot answer. The company charges a monthly plan with a price per ticket.", "Alex Rainey, a former Accenture consultant and founder of a travel-insurance startup, and Mike Heap, a former Ernst & Young accountant and product manager, launched it in London in late February 2023. The first version was a general tool: upload any document, then ask questions about it. Rainey built it alone on Bubble, a no-code tool, which is a visual editor that produces a working web application without written program code. Revenue reached about US$14,000 a month by May 2023 and US$20,000 by November 2023, then stayed between US$20,000 and US$25,000 until the middle of 2024. About a year after launch the founders narrowed the product to customer support, which already brought 70% of the revenue, and rebuilt it in about six weeks. In July 2025 Rainey reported about US$40,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR), which is the subscription revenue of one month, still with two people and no investors.", "Every revenue number on this page is a founder statement, grade C. The numbers were published in eight places between April 2023 and July 2025, and they agree with each other except for a few points that the page lists. No figure after July 2025 is public. Chatbase, SiteGPT and DocsBot AI, which are already on this site, started from the same 2023 idea and sell their own chat agent; My AskAI differs in the no-code build and in the choice to work inside other vendors' help desks. At the dates each one reported, it was smaller than Chatbase (US$10 million a year) and DocsBot AI (US$1 million a year) and larger than SiteGPT (US$190,000 a year)." ], "factsCaption": "About US$40,000 in monthly recurring revenue in July 2025 with two founders, no employees and no investors, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement in an interview or on a company page, or a third-party estimate that says so. A grade B value was recorded by an independent party. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A: no payment processor has published these numbers.", "timelineLead": "From a US$99 presale to about US$40,000 in monthly recurring revenue in 29 months, with about seven months without growth in between. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "My AskAI plans in October 2026, from the structured data in the source of the company's pricing page and from the company's blog (grade C)", "note": "The visible pricing page loads by script, so the prices were read from the structured data in the page source. It lists two plans, each after a 30-day free trial. It does not show a yearly price or the limit of the Scale plan. The company advertises a price from US$0.10 a ticket and says that a typical chat ticket uses about one credit. If a customer uses all 1,000 credits of the Pro plan, one credit costs US$0.199 (199 divided by 1,000). A company blog post of June 2026 mentions an offer of 50% off the first three months. Enterprise prices are on request.", "rows": [ [ "Pro", "not shown", "199", "1,000 credits a month, about 1 credit per chat ticket" ], [ "Scale", "not shown", "499", "not shown in the page data" ], [ "Enterprise", "custom", "custom", "on request" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, July 2025", "value": "about US$40,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder Alex Rainey in an Indie Hackers interview published on 10 July 2025. He also gives it as about US$500,000 a year. This is the latest dated revenue figure found.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the July 2025 figure", "value": "US$480,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 40,000 times 12 equals 480,000. A run rate is the current month multiplied by twelve. The founder rounds it to about US$500,000.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "People in the company, July 2025", "value": "2, both founders", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder statement in the same interview. In June 2024 Starter Story listed 2 founders and 0 employees, and an agency wrote blog content for them. The company's LinkedIn page still showed 2 employees on 13 October 2026.", "src": [ 1, 3, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate per person", "value": "US$240,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 480,000 divided by 2.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder statements in 2024 and 2025: the first version was paid with cash from earlier projects, and the founders say they want to stay without investors. Rainey's earlier company, Pluto, raised US$1.5 million. That money is not part of My AskAI.", "src": [ 1, 4, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Support conversations handled, July 2025", "value": "more than 75,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder statement.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Gross margin, July 2025", "value": "about 82%", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder statement, with the cost of the AI models included. In June 2024 Heap gave 85% to 90% gross margin and 50% to 55% net margin.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Customers who cancel per month (churn)", "value": "12% to 13% in January 2024, 3% in July 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Churn is the share of paying customers who cancel in one month. In the 2025 interview Rainey says it fell from 9% to 3% after better onboarding and analytics.", "src": [ 7, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue, 31 May 2024", "value": "US$25,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Published by Bubble, the maker of the tool the product is built with, in its customer story. Bubble does not handle the payments, so the figure is the founders' own and is graded C. The same story gives more than 40,000 registered users.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the May 2024 figure", "value": "US$300,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 25,000 times 12 equals 300,000.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Yearly revenue as stated in June 2024", "value": "US$300,000", "grade": "C", "note": "In the title of a podcast episode of 11 June 2024 with Heap, and in the title of his Starter Story interview of 18 June 2024. The summary box on the Starter Story page shows US$20,000 a month, which is US$240,000 a year.", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "One project outside the subscriptions, before June 2024", "value": "about US$100,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Heap: one piece of work that came from a LinkedIn message, for about one week of work. It is not recurring revenue.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "MRR, January 2024", "value": "more than US$20,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Newsletter interview with Rainey, 29 January 2024.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "MRR, November 2023", "value": "US$20,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Title of a No Code MBA video interview with Heap, published on 3 November 2023. Only the title, the date and the description were read.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "MRR, 18 May 2023", "value": "about US$14,000, just over 300 paying users", "grade": "C", "note": "Both founders in an Indie Hackers interview, about three months after launch.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Average revenue per paying user, May 2023", "value": "about US$47 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 14,000 divided by 300 equals 46.67. The lowest plan in October 2026 costs US$199 a month.", "src": [ 5, 10 ] }, { "fact": "MRR, 11 April 2023", "value": "US$6,000, more than 13,000 sign-ups", "grade": "C", "note": "Rainey, about six weeks after launch.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Presale before the product existed, early 2023", "value": "about US$5,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Just over 50 people paid US$99 each within two weeks, on the description alone. Check: 50 times 99 equals 4,950.", "src": [ 3, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Cost and time of the first version", "value": "under US$1,000, two to three weeks", "grade": "C", "note": "Rainey says three weeks and under US$1,000 for Bubble and OpenAI. Heap says about two weeks.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Share of revenue from customer support before the product was narrowed", "value": "70%", "grade": "C", "note": "Heap, in an interview on a supplier's blog, June 2024.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "First archived home page that describes a support agent inside Intercom or Zendesk", "value": "16 June 2024", "grade": "B", "note": "Wayback Machine. The snapshot of 10 October 2023 still describes a general AI assistant for any content. The wording changed between those two dates. An archive proves what the page said, not that its claims were true.", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from May 2024 to July 2025", "value": "60% in 14 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: from 25,000 to 40,000 is plus 60%. May 2024 to July 2025 is 14 months.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to US$40,000 MRR", "value": "29 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: February 2023 to July 2025.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Customers, October 2026", "value": "more than 200 companies", "grade": "C", "note": "Company's LinkedIn page, read on 13 October 2026. The same page says more than one million tickets resolved in total. No revenue figure after July 2025 was found.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "Third-party estimate for October 2024", "value": "US$212,500 a year", "grade": "C", "note": "GetLatka marks this value as its own estimate. It is lower than the founders' figures for the middle of 2024. No founder statement confirms a fall in revenue.", "src": [ 16 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Autumn 2022", "what": "Heap and Rainey meet through a friend. They build a tool that writes university application statements with fine-tuned AI models. It gets a few paying users, and OpenAI tells them to shut it down.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 4, 5 ] }, { "when": "End of 2022", "what": "They build No Code AI Model Builder in a few days for a hackathon. It makes about US$3,500 in sales in a few months. They sell it later to work only on My AskAI.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 5 ] }, { "when": "Early 2023", "what": "A page inside the model builder offers a new product that does not exist yet. Just over 50 people pay US$99 each in two weeks, about US$5,000. At the end of January both founders decide to stop looking for other work and to build it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 5 ] }, { "when": "Late February 2023", "what": "My AskAI launches, with a Product Hunt launch. Rainey built it on Bubble in two to three weeks for under US$1,000. The product: upload content, ask a question, get an answer.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 3, 6 ] }, { "when": "11 April 2023", "what": "US$6,000 MRR and more than 13,000 sign-ups. Marketing so far: Twitter, Product Hunt and AI tool directories, with no paid ads.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "18 May 2023", "what": "About US$14,000 MRR with just over 300 paying users.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "3 November 2023", "what": "US$20,000 MRR, in the title of a video interview. The archived home page of October 2023 still sells a general AI assistant for any content.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 15 ] }, { "when": "January 2024", "what": "More than US$20,000 MRR, with 12% to 13% of customers cancelling each month. The newsletter describes the product as a customer-support AI tool.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "Early 2024", "what": "The founders narrow the product to customer support, about 12 months after launch. Support was 70% of revenue. Rainey rebuilds the product for this use in about six weeks.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2, 9 ] }, { "when": "31 May 2024", "what": "Bubble publishes a customer story: US$25,000 in monthly revenue, more than 40,000 registered users, no staff except the two founders.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "June 2024", "what": "A podcast episode and a Starter Story interview with Heap give US$300,000 a year. Heap says the company is profitable.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "when": "16 June 2024", "what": "The archived home page reads: your AI agent for customer support, add to your existing live chat providers, like Intercom or Zendesk.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "10 July 2025", "what": "About US$40,000 MRR, more than 75,000 support conversations a month, churn at 3%, still two people. Rainey says the goal for 2025 is US$1 million a year and that it will be hard to reach.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "The company is running. Its blog published customer case studies in September 2026, and its LinkedIn page shows 2 employees, more than 200 customer companies and five supported help desks. No revenue figure after July 2025 is public, so the trend since then is not known.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 11, 12 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A narrower customer", "text": "The first product was a tool to chat with any content, used by students, law firms and support teams. The founders say this made it hard to choose features and to describe the product. Support was 70% of revenue, so they rebuilt the product for support teams of software companies only. Reported churn fell from 12% to 13% a month in January 2024 to 3% in July 2025. In May 2023 the average paying user paid about US$47 a month; in 2026 the lowest plan costs US$199." }, { "title": "Inside the tool the customer already has", "text": "A support team does not replace its help desk. It installs My AskAI from the help desk's app marketplace, and the agent answers in the same inbox and hands over to human agents there. The company says a standard setup takes 10 to 15 minutes. This removes the largest cost of a new support tool, which is the move away from the old one." }, { "title": "A lower price than the host's own AI", "text": "My AskAI advertises a price from US$0.10 a ticket. Intercom's own agent, Fin, costs US$0.99 per outcome, which Intercom counts at most once per conversation when the issue is resolved or Fin completes a workflow. Zendesk charges US$1.50 to US$2.00 for each automated resolution above the included number. The units are not the same: My AskAI counts tickets, and the two hosts count resolved cases. The founders used the price difference as the main message on their site, and say that most new customers find them through Google or ChatGPT when they look for an alternative." }, { "title": "A no-code build keeps the team at two", "text": "Rainey is the only developer. He built the first version in weeks and ships changes almost daily, without pull-request reviews. Heap, who does not program, handles finance, customers, design and testing. Both say they try to automate a task before they hire for it. The cost is dependence on Bubble, which is covered below." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from founder interviews and from the blogs of two suppliers, Bubble and Pinecone. They are grade B and C.", "items": [ "Bubble, a no-code editor, for about 80% of the core application: the screens and the workflows. The back end outside Bubble is written in Python. The company moved to Bubble's Enterprise tier when daily traffic reached 50,000 requests, and in 2025 it was moving more of its hosting to its own AWS account.", "Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG): the program first searches the customer's content for the few passages that match a question, then gives only those passages to the language model. This keeps answers tied to the customer's own documents.", "In June 2024: Pinecone as the vector database, LangChain to split text into pieces of 400 tokens with 20 tokens of overlap, OpenAI models for embeddings and answers, Carbon to read websites and third-party sources, and Portkey as a gateway that switches to a second model when the first one fails and caches answers.", "Demand was tested with a US$99 presale before any code existed. The first version took two to three weeks and under US$1,000. The rebuild for customer support took about six weeks.", "Early growth came from AI tool directories, replies to large accounts on Twitter, AI newsletters and a Product Hunt launch about once a month. The founders say each of these stopped working within months. By 2025 most growth came from search, with site text that compares the price with Intercom Fin and Zendesk AI. The founders hold an onboarding call with every serious customer.", "Two people run the company through Slack and a simple roadmap in Notion, with one meeting in person each week. They use Cursor and ChatGPT for their own work." ], "src": [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 9 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database either automated customer support before language models could do it, or built their product inside a platform that another company owned. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Answerly", "years": "2013 to 2016", "funding": "US$550K", "cause": "Product failure", "promise": "FAQ chatbots that deflect support tickets so humans handle only the complex cases.", "died": "The language processing of the time could not handle real customer questions. Every customer had to write FAQs and decision trees by hand, so setup took months.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2168-answerly" }, { "name": "Hipmob", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Customer chat inside mobile apps.", "died": "Intercom and Zendesk added chat features that matched it. With little funding it could not give customers a reason to switch.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1184-hipmob" }, { "name": "Niles", "years": "2017 to 2020", "funding": "US$2.8M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A bot inside Slack that answers staff questions from the company's knowledge.", "died": "Slack was its only platform. Slack improved its own search, and the bot lost its value to customers.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1031-niles" }, { "name": "Flux", "years": "2015 to 2018", "funding": "US$7M", "cause": "Founder conflict", "promise": "One inbox for Slack, email, WhatsApp and other messaging apps.", "died": "The external platforms kept changing and breaking the integrations. The team spent its money on repairs instead of its own priorities.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1901-flux" }, { "name": "PostRocket", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$610K", "cause": "Product failure", "promise": "Better timing of posts, so that a company's Facebook page reaches more people.", "died": "The product relied on Facebook's API. Facebook changed the API and its rules in favor of its own advertising products, and PostRocket had no second platform.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/457-postrocket" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Before 2023, a support bot needed its answers written by hand. Answerly's customers spent months on FAQs and decision trees, and the bot still failed when a question was phrased in a new way. Language models removed that work: My AskAI reads the help center and past tickets that a company already has. The build also became cheaper. One founder without an engineering team built the first version in two to three weeks for under US$1,000, with a no-code editor and a rented model.", "The second cause of death in this list did not change. Niles, Flux and PostRocket depended on a platform that another company owned, and each platform owner improved its own feature or changed its rules. My AskAI is in the same position with Intercom and Zendesk, and both now sell their own AI agents. Two things differ so far. The hosts charge per resolved case at prices that leave room for a cheaper add-on, and My AskAI works with five help desks, so one host cannot end it alone." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The 2023 launch, no. The method, yes.", "text": "The first product, chat with your documents, was copied hundreds of times in 2023, and the founders say that the early marketing channels stopped working within months. What can be repeated is the sequence: sell before building, build with a tool that one person can change daily, find the use that pays, and attach the product to software the customer already pays for. The limit is that the host can lower its price or change its marketplace rules.", "steps": [ "Sell a presale before you build. Here, 50 buyers at US$99 in two weeks decided which product to make.", "Build the first version with a no-code tool or an AI coding tool, so that one person can ship changes every day.", "Look at which use brings most of the revenue, and rebuild the product for that use only. Here it was 70%.", "Work inside the software the customer already uses, so that nobody has to switch, and price the product below the host's own feature.", "Talk to every serious customer during onboarding. The founders say this and better analytics cut churn from 9% to 3%." ], "open": "The same position, a cheaper AI layer inside a tool the customer keeps, is open for help desks that the large vendors serve less well, such as regional help-desk products or a single industry with its own rules. In June 2024 Heap named online shops as the larger market; by 2026 the company's case studies include online shops." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The hosts sell their own AI agents", "text": "Intercom's pricing page lists Fin at US$0.99 per outcome and says that Fin also works with other help desks, including Zendesk and Freshdesk. Zendesk includes AI agents in every Suite and Support plan and charges US$1.50 to US$2.00 for each extra automated resolution. My AskAI describes itself as a replacement for the host's native AI at a lower price. If the hosts lower their prices, the main reason to install it becomes weaker." }, { "title": "Dependence on marketplaces and APIs", "text": "The company's own description says that the product works through approved app and marketplace integrations of each help desk. A host can change its API, its approval rules or its fees. No source shows that a host has restricted My AskAI so far. Niles and PostRocket in the list above closed after their platform owner changed its product or its rules." }, { "title": "Dependence on Bubble and on one developer", "text": "About 80% of the core application runs on Bubble, and Rainey is the only developer. He reports a few large outages during growth, which ended with a move to Bubble's Enterprise tier, and says he should have upgraded earlier. The company is moving parts of the system to Python and its own AWS account." }, { "title": "No figure after July 2025", "text": "The founders published revenue openly from 2023 to the middle of 2025. In July 2025 Rainey said the goal of US$1 million a year for 2025 would be hard to reach. No later figure was found. The signs in October 2026 are indirect: 2 employees, more than 200 customer companies and an active blog. No payment processor has confirmed any number, and no TrustMRR profile was found for the company." }, { "title": "Numbers that do not agree", "text": "The Starter Story page of June 2024 says US$300,000 a year in its title and US$20,000 a month in its summary box. In 2025 Rainey summarized the history as US$10,000 MRR in month four, a stall, a change of direction and US$40,000 MRR six months later; the dated figures show US$14,000 in month three, US$20,000 in November 2023, US$25,000 in May 2024 and US$40,000 in July 2025. Bubble's story says the founders sold the first version of the tool at the change of direction; the founders' own interviews say they sold the earlier model builder. GetLatka estimates US$212,500 a year for October 2024, below the founders' figures." }, { "title": "A stall, and no proof of a fall", "text": "The sources show about seven months without growth, from US$20,000 in November 2023 to between US$20,000 and US$25,000 in June 2024. No founder statement found for this page reports a fall in revenue. The one lower value, for October 2024, is a third-party estimate." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Indie Hackers, 10 July 2025, interview by James Fleischmann: Bootstrapping to $40k MRR after his VC-backed startup failed", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/LF1CwRs1vL3oVLcuoIoE", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in the Wayback Machine copy of 2 May 2026. The live page shows only the first section without a login; that section contains the headline figure. Founder interview. Primary source for the July 2025 revenue, the team size, the margin, the churn and the stack." }, { "title": "Bubble customer story, 31 May 2024: How My AskAI Is Leveling Up the Customer Support Game", "url": "https://bubble.io/blog/myaskai/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. A supplier's account with founder quotes. Bubble can observe that the application runs on its platform. It does not handle the payments, so the revenue figure in it is graded C." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 18 June 2024, interview with Mike Heap: I Built A $300K/Year AI Business For Less $50 Bucks", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/my-askai-your-ai-chatbot-for-customer-support", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the start, the presale, the launch, the growth channels, churn and the current numbers. Founder interview." }, { "title": "Grow Your B2B SaaS podcast, 11 June 2024: S4E7, How MyAskAI bootstrapped with a team of 2 to $300k ARR, with Michael Heap", "url": "https://getreditus.com/podcast/s4e7-how-myaskai-bootstrapped-with-a-team-of-2-to-300k-arr-with-michael-heap", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the show notes and the transcript sections on the start, the presale, Bubble and the two-person team. The US$300,000 figure is in the title and the show notes." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 18 May 2023, interview by Darko Gjorgjievski: Making $14,000 in MRR with a custom ChatGPT tool", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/making-14-000-in-mrr-with-a-custom-chatgpt-tool-9f25e8fe11", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Interview with both founders. Source for the May 2023 revenue, the paying users, the presale and the earlier products." }, { "title": "NoCodeLife, 11 April 2023, interview by Kieran Ball: $0 to $6k MRR in 1.5 months with a no-code app", "url": "https://www.nocodelife.com/from--0-to--6k-mrr-in-1.5-months-with-a-no-code-app", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Interview with Alex Rainey. Source for the launch date and the April 2023 revenue." }, { "title": "SaaStrappers newsletter, 29 January 2024: Interview with Alex Rainey, AI bootstrapped startup generating $20K+ MRR", "url": "https://saastrappers.beehiiv.com/p/11-interviews-alex-rainey", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on revenue, funding and churn." }, { "title": "No Code MBA on YouTube, 3 November 2023: Growing an AI app on Bubble to $20k MRR within months", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QxrW3k6NAY", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the title, the date and the description only, not the video. The title spells the guest's name as Mike Kean; Mike Heap's own page lists this video as his interview." }, { "title": "Pinecone blog, 14 June 2024: RAG Brag with My AskAI founders, Mike Heap and Alex Rainey", "url": "https://www.pinecone.io/blog/rag-brag-myaskai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the change of direction and on the architecture. A supplier's blog, but every statement in it is a founder's answer." }, { "title": "My AskAI pricing page, read 13 October 2026, with the company blog post of 22 June 2026 on AI customer service for solo founders", "url": "https://myaskai.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "The visible page loads by script. Read the structured data in the page source for the two plan prices and the free trial, and the blog post for the credits in the Pro plan." }, { "title": "My AskAI company page on LinkedIn, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/myaskai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public page without a login. Company-written text. Source for 2 employees, more than 200 customers, more than one million tickets and the supported help desks." }, { "title": "My AskAI blog: pages about the two founders, updated February and September 2026", "url": "https://myaskai.com/blog/about-mike-heap-cofounder-my-askai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both pages in full. Source for the founders' earlier jobs and products, and for the list of their interviews. The blog index showed new case studies dated 10 September 2026." }, { "title": "Intercom Fin pricing page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://fin.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the plan section. Source for US$0.99 per outcome and for the statement that Fin works with other help desks." }, { "title": "Zendesk pricing page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.zendesk.com/pricing/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on AI agents and automated resolutions. Source for the included AI agents and the prices of US$1.50 and US$2.00 per extra automated resolution." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine snapshots of the My AskAI home page: 13 March 2023, 10 October 2023, 16 June 2024 and 28 February 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20240616085929/https://myaskai.com/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the page title and the description of each snapshot. An independent archive of the company's own page. Source for the dates between which the product changed from a general assistant to a support agent." }, { "title": "GetLatka company page for My AskAI, updated 10 August 2026", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/myaskai.com", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party database. Its value for October 2024 is marked as an estimate. Cited only for that conflict." }, { "title": "LinkedIn post by Tomasz Wesolowski, 10 July 2025, on a conference talk by Alex Rainey", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tomaszwesolowski_how-do-you-build-a-6-figure-saas-without-activity-7349050522416340992-v_3_", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A listener's summary of the talk. The date was computed from the post's ID. It confirms the two founders, the Bubble Enterprise plan and the integrations. Not used for numbers." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/boltai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/boltai.md", "slug": "boltai", "name": "BoltAI", "country": "Vietnam", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Native Mac app for many AI models", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "May 2023", "outcomeLabel": "More than US$500K total revenue, January 2026", "sticker": "$500K+ total revenue", "outcomeUsd": 500000, "months": 32, "teamLabel": "1 founder, with help from his wife since August 2023", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "ai-model-tools", "channel": "audience", "trend": "unknown", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Productivity software" ], "product": "A Mac app that puts many AI models in one chat window and behind one keyboard shortcut that works inside any other Mac app. You connect your own account at OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or another provider, or run a model on your own Mac, so BoltAI never pays for the model. You pay once for the app and get one year of updates.", "why": "It appeared in spring 2023, when people used ChatGPT in a browser tab and Mac users had to copy text between the browser and their other apps. The founder showed every step on X, one well-known founder reposted it, and AI directories and the Setapp app subscription brought buyers after that. He raised the price from US$19 to US$79 and kept the app running alone.", "summary": [ "BoltAI is a native app for the Mac. A native app is written for one operating system with that system's own tools, here Apple's Swift language, so it starts fast and can work inside other apps through a keyboard shortcut. It is a client for AI models: you paste your own API key, a password that lets a program call a model provider on your account, and BoltAI sends your text to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or a model that runs on your own Mac. It is sold as a perpetual license: you pay once, you may use the version you bought for as long as you want, and you get one year of updates.", "Daniel Nguyen, a product engineer in Ho Chi Minh City, built the first version in a weekend in March 2023 and started selling it in May 2023. It had made about US$14,000 in total by September 2023. In September 2024 he said it made about US$15,000 a month on average, from license sales and from the Setapp app subscription. In March 2025 Indie Hackers reported US$15,000 to US$30,000 a month and wrote that this revenue is not recurring. He then spent more than three months in 2025 writing the app again from the start. Version 2 began to charge at the start of November 2025 and had taken US$1,162 by 16 November. In January 2026 his GitHub profile said BoltAI had made more than US$500,000 in total. The research for this page found no monthly figure for the whole product after March 2025.", "Every number on this page is a founder statement or an interview with him, grade C. No payment processor or buyer has confirmed them. TypingMind, also on this site and also built by one Vietnamese founder, is a web app, and BoltAI is a native Mac app. Both let customers bring their own API key, so neither pays for model usage. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that built a better client for someone else's platform." ], "factsCaption": "A one-time purchase that made more than US$500,000 in 32 months, with a best reported level of US$15,000 to US$30,000 a month in March 2025, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founder on his own pages, on X or in an interview, or a secondary account that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B. Most of the revenue is one-time license sales, so a monthly figure here is the revenue in that month and not recurring revenue, unless the row says recurring.", "timelineLead": "From a weekend prototype to more than US$500,000 in total revenue in 32 months, with a complete rewrite in the middle. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "BoltAI prices in October 2026, read from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "All plans are one-time payments in US dollars for a perpetual license with one year of updates. After that year the customer may keep the last version received, or renew: individual licenses renew at 40% off the price first paid, team seats at US$79 per seat per year. Cloud Sync, the mobile app and new updates stop when the renewal lapses, so the renewal is the recurring part of the price. The page says a Windows version is coming soon. BoltAI is also included in the Setapp app subscription. In every case the customer pays the model provider separately for usage.", "rows": [ [ "Essential", "79 one-time", "", "1 desktop device; 512 MB cloud storage" ], [ "Pro", "99 one-time", "", "2 desktop devices and 1 mobile device; 1 GB cloud storage" ], [ "Pro+", "199 one-time", "", "3 desktop devices and 2 mobile devices; 5 GB cloud storage" ], [ "Team Perpetual", "99 one-time per seat", "", "5 seats minimum; 10 GB shared storage" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Total revenue of BoltAI, by January 2026", "value": "more than US$500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's GitHub profile, last edited 27 January 2026: BoltAI is \"my top revenue generating product ($500K+)\". It gives no breakdown by year or by source.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average revenue per month over the 32 months", "value": "about US$15,600", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$500,000 divided by the 32 months from May 2023 to January 2026. A lower bound, because the profile says more than US$500,000.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, March 2025 (the highest level reported)", "value": "US$15,000 to US$30,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers interview, 6 March 2025. Revenue in that month, mostly one-time license sales. The article says: \"his revenue is not recurring\".", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Average month in the same interview", "value": "about US$25,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Not verified. This part of the interview needs a login. Two secondary summaries of the interview report it, together with a founder estimate of a margin close to 90%.", "src": [ 19 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month of all three products, March 2025", "value": "US$18,000 to US$34,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers header. BoltAI, plus PDF Pals at US$1,000 to US$2,000 a month, plus KTool at US$1,500 monthly recurring revenue. The three ranges add up to US$17,500 to US$33,500.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, September 2024", "value": "about US$15,000 on average", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's unedited interview: license sales on the website plus subscription revenue through Setapp. The Indie Hackers article prints it as US$10,000 a month in one-time sales and US$5,000 recurring, and does not say which product the recurring part belongs to.", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Twelve months at those monthly levels", "value": "US$180,000 at the 2024 average; US$180,000 to US$360,000 at the 2025 range", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$15,000 times 12, and the range of US$15,000 to US$30,000 times 12. These are not recurring run rates: a one-time sale must be made again every month.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "First 16 days of paid sales of version 2, November 2025", "value": "US$1,162", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post with a screenshot of the Stripe app: gross volume from 1 to 16 November 2025, against US$0 in the same days of October. It shows only the account of version 2. Sales of version 1 in those days are not public.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Pace of version 2 sales in those 16 days, per 30 days", "value": "about US$2,200", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$1,162 divided by 16 days, times 30. The first days after a release are not a normal month, and renewals and Setapp revenue may be counted elsewhere.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Total revenue of BoltAI by 28 September 2023", "value": "about US$14,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on Indie Hackers, four months after the launch.", "src": [ 8, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Total revenue of all his products by 19 April 2024", "value": "US$100,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X and his newsletter of 1 May 2024, two years after he left his job. BoltAI was the largest part.", "src": [ 10, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Customers", "value": "more than 7,000 in September 2024; more than 8,000 in March 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's interview and his post on X.", "src": [ 3, 7 ] }, { "fact": "New customers per month to September 2024", "value": "about 440", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 7,000 customers divided by the 16 months from May 2023 to September 2024.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Price of a license", "value": "raised in steps from US$19 to US$79 by September 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's interview. At US$79 the monthly revenue was slightly lower than at US$39, with about half the number of customers, fewer refunds and fewer support requests. He kept US$79. Secondary summaries of the 2025 interview give a first price of US$9; not verified.", "src": [ 3, 19 ] }, { "fact": "Cost of model usage for BoltAI", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Customers use their own API keys and pay the provider. Chats are stored on the customer's Mac.", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Updates shipped", "value": "more than 100 by September 2024; 55 releases in the twelve months to October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's interview, and a count of the monthly totals on the company's changelog page, November 2025 to October 2026.", "src": [ 3, 16 ] }, { "fact": "Time spent on the rewrite, 2025", "value": "more than 3 months", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 2 November 2025. Version 2 had about 80% of the features of version 1 at its public beta on 6 October 2025 and about 95% on 2 November.", "src": [ 5, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "one person in March 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "His words: \"One-person company\". His wife left her job in August 2023 to help with the products. A freelancer hired in 2024 left the same year.", "src": [ 7, 13, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X and the company's about page.", "src": [ 7, 16 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's followers on X", "value": "38,000 in May 2024; 77,145 in October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "His newsletter, and his public profile read on 13 October 2026.", "src": [ 10, 21 ] }, { "fact": "His other products", "value": "PDF Pals: about US$25,000 in total and 700 paid customers by September 2024. KTool: US$1,500 monthly recurring revenue in March 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's interviews. Indie Hackers lists PDF Pals as revenue per month and only KTool as recurring revenue.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Starter Story's figure, November 2024", "value": "US$15,000 \"MRR\"", "grade": "C", "note": "A secondary account built on the September 2024 interview. It calls the figure monthly recurring revenue. The founder's own text says average monthly revenue, mostly one-time sales.", "src": [ 18 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the January 2026 figure", "value": "32 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: May 2023 to January 2026.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "About 2009", "what": "Nguyen earns his first money online by selling a plugin for the forum software Invision Power Board. He leaves college and runs a WordPress consulting business that reaches US$100,000 in revenue, then closes it and works as a product engineer at startups.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "Before 2022", "what": "Two products of his own fail: WordPress themes and plugins, and StatusBoard, an uptime monitoring service that he closes after about six months.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "2022", "what": "He joins the founders' community on X, leaves his job and releases KTool, which sends web articles to Kindle e-readers. It takes more than a year to reach US$1,000 in monthly recurring revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 9, 10 ] }, { "when": "28 March 2023", "what": "With one year of savings left, he learns the OpenAI API to find freelance work, builds a Mac prototype in a weekend and posts a demo on X with the question \"Is this good enough to ship?\"", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12, 8, 3 ] }, { "when": "May 2023", "what": "BoltAI goes on sale as a one-time purchase. Growth is slow at first. Later a repost by Pieter Levels makes it spread widely on X; the founder gives no date for it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "21 August 2023", "what": "His wife leaves her job to help with the products.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "28 September 2023", "what": "BoltAI has made about US$14,000. PDF Pals, a second Mac app that a BoltAI customer asked for, has made about US$6,000 in four months.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 9 ] }, { "when": "19 April 2024", "what": "US$100,000 in total revenue from all products, two years after he left his job.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 11 ] }, { "when": "September 2024", "what": "About US$15,000 a month on average, more than 7,000 customers, more than 100 updates, price raised to US$79. BoltAI is also in Setapp, which adds subscription revenue. A freelancer he hired has left.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "when": "20 January 2025", "what": "He writes on Hacker News that BoltAI pays for his full-time work, and that he will add a subscription because cloud features have running costs that a one-time price cannot cover.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "6 March 2025", "what": "Indie Hackers reports US$15,000 to US$30,000 a month for BoltAI. This is the highest level on record.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "23 March 2025", "what": "He posts: one-person company, two years, more than 8,000 customers, no outside money, profitable.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "Mid-2025", "what": "New users leave because the app is slow, and the old code is hard to change. He writes the app again from the start. It takes more than three months, and he publishes almost nothing in that time.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 14 ] }, { "when": "6 October 2025", "what": "Version 2 opens as a public beta, free to use, with optional Cloud Sync.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "2 November 2025", "what": "He turns on payment for version 2 and posts that it has made US$0 so far. He calls November the test of the decision to rewrite.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "16 November 2025", "what": "Version 2 has taken US$1,162 in 16 days.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "27 January 2026", "what": "His GitHub profile says BoltAI has made more than US$500,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "12 October 2026", "what": "Version 2.18.0 is released. The site sells licenses at US$79 to US$199, offers a mobile app in beta for iPhone, iPad and Android, and says a Windows version is coming soon. Current monthly revenue is not public.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15, 16, 20 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Distribution through the founder's own posts", "text": "He showed the prototype on X before it was finished and posted each new feature every week. A repost by a well-known founder, Pieter Levels, made the app spread widely after a slow start. He also listed the app in AI directories and paid for clicks in the one that converted best, wrote help articles that search engines found, and built small free Mac apps that link to BoltAI. One of them, ShotSolve, sent 1,700 visitors." }, { "title": "A native app for a product that people used in the browser", "text": "In 2023 people used ChatGPT in a browser tab. BoltAI put it behind a keyboard shortcut inside Xcode, Apple Notes and any other Mac app, which was the founder's own daily problem. He later added a full chat window, because only expert users understood the shortcut." }, { "title": "No model cost, so a one-time price works", "text": "Customers bring their own API key and pay the provider. Chats stay on the customer's Mac. The app has almost no cost per customer, so a single payment of US$19 to US$79 could pay for it, and one person could serve about 440 new customers a month." }, { "title": "A higher price for fewer customers", "text": "He raised the price from US$19 to US$79. Revenue at US$79 was slightly lower than at US$39, and he kept US$79 because he had about half the number of customers, with fewer refunds and fewer support requests. He says a founder who works alone must also optimize for his own happiness, not only for revenue." }, { "title": "A second channel that recurs", "text": "Setapp is a subscription service for Mac apps, and BoltAI receives subscription revenue from Setapp customers. The Setapp team also promoted the app, and many customers who found it there bought a license directly." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's interview of September 2024, his announcement of version 2 and the company's pages. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Swift, SwiftUI and AppKit for the app, SQLite for local storage, and Sparkle for updates. The first version was built in a weekend.", "The website uses Next.js and Tailwind CSS on Cloudflare Pages and Workers. The app files are served from Cloudflare R2.", "Payments in 2024 went through Lemon Squeezy and Stripe. The pricing page in 2026 names Stripe.", "Version 2, released in October 2025, is a new app written from the start: macOS 13 or later, sandboxed by default, a new chat renderer that he tested with a chat of 43,000 messages.", "Cloud Sync in version 2 is optional and runs on Supabase with row-level security. API keys can be encrypted with a passphrase that only the customer knows.", "Models: hosted providers through the customer's own API keys, local models through Ollama and LM Studio, and tools through MCP servers." ], "src": [ 3, 14, 15, 16 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database built a better client for a platform that they did not control, or sold software once and could not pay for the updates. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Sunrise", "years": "2012 to 2016", "funding": "US$8M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "One calendar app for all your calendar accounts, on every device.", "died": "Microsoft bought it in 2015 and closed it a year later, after moving its features into Outlook.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1957-sunrise" }, { "name": "Mailbox", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A faster mail app, with swipe gestures and a snooze button.", "died": "Dropbox bought it and closed it. Google and Apple added the same features to their free mail apps, and it had no clear revenue model.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/314-mailbox" }, { "name": "Nuzzel", "years": "2012 to 2019", "funding": "US$5.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "The news that your friends share, collected from Twitter and Facebook.", "died": "It depended on the APIs of the two platforms. They changed the rules and offered a similar feature for free.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/378-nuzzel" }, { "name": "Tap to Learn", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Learning games for children on tablets, each sold as a one-time purchase.", "died": "One-time purchases limited its revenue. Competitors with subscriptions could pay for a constant flow of new content.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1181-tap-to-learn" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The first three built a better client for mail, calendars or social feeds that belonged to someone else, and the owner of the platform added the feature, changed the rules or bought the app and closed it. The fourth sold its software once and could not pay for new work. BoltAI carries both risks. The model makers now offer their own Mac apps, and the founder wrote in January 2025 that a perpetual license is not sustainable once the product has cloud features with running costs.", "Three things differ. First, the platform is a paid API, and there are several providers plus models that run on the customer's own Mac, so the providers earn money each time BoltAI is used and no single one can end it. Second, the app has no usage cost and almost no server cost, so one person stayed profitable at a few hundred buyers a month. Third, the license was never unlimited: it includes one year of updates, and version 2 ties Cloud Sync and the mobile app to a yearly renewal. That renewal is the answer to the one-time problem, and no figure shows yet how many customers pay it." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The structure, yes. The 2023 opening, no.", "text": "In May 2023 there were few native Mac clients for ChatGPT. Now there are many, including those of the model makers. What remains available is the structure: a desktop app with no usage cost, sold once with a year of updates, by a person who can build native software and who shows the work in public. The same case also shows the limit: each sale happens once, the founder stopped publishing revenue during the rewrite, and he is now adding recurring parts.", "steps": [ "Build the native tool for a problem you have every day, in a weekend, and show it before it is finished.", "Charge from the first version, and let customers bring their own API key, so the model is never your cost.", "Raise the price until refunds and support requests fall to a level one person can handle.", "Sell a year of updates with the license and a renewal after it, and put anything with a running cost behind the renewal." ], "open": "Native desktop and mobile clients for new kinds of models, and for systems that the model makers serve late. BoltAI's own pricing page still lists its Windows version as coming soon." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported, and no monthly figure found after March 2025", "text": "The total of more than US$500,000 is one line in the founder's GitHub profile. The last monthly figure for the whole product that this research found is from March 2025. What the app makes per month in 2026, and whether revenue went up or down after the rewrite, is not verified." }, { "title": "One-time revenue does not recur", "text": "Most of the money is license sales, and each sale happens once. Indie Hackers states that the revenue is not recurring. Starter Story still printed the September 2024 average as MRR, so check the label on every BoltAI figure you read elsewhere." }, { "title": "The rewrite cost months of sales effort", "text": "New users were leaving because of slow performance, and the fix was a new app that took more than three months. Version 2 took US$1,162 in its first 16 days of paid sales, far below the levels of early 2025, though sales of version 1 in those days are not public." }, { "title": "The platform owner can ship the same feature", "text": "Three predecessors on this page ended when the platform shipped the same feature or bought the app. The model makers now have their own Mac apps. BoltAI's answer is to support every provider and local models in one app." }, { "title": "One person", "text": "In September 2024 he wrote that the largest risk for a business like his is the founder's health, after his fourth COVID infection and after a freelancer he had just hired left. He planned a small team then and called it a one-person company six months later." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Daniel Nguyen's GitHub profile text, last edited 27 January 2026", "url": "https://github.com/longseespace", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, as the raw README file, and checked its edit dates through the GitHub API. Source for the total of more than US$500,000 and the PDF Pals customer count." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 6 March 2025: Making $30k/mo from an AI product with a perpetual license", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/cRvgt7fySrr3M76MSVas", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public part: the header, the introduction and the product list with revenue ranges. The rest needs a login and the Wayback Machine has no copy. Source for the US$15,000 to US$30,000 range and the statement that the revenue is not recurring." }, { "title": "Daniel Nguyen's newsletter, 29 September 2024: Sep 2024: Interview on Indie Hackers", "url": "https://newsletter.danielnguyen.me/p/sep-2024-interview-on-indie-hackers", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The founder's unedited answers to the Indie Hackers interview. Source for the launch month, the US$15,000 average, the customer count, the price steps, the earlier products and the technical stack." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 11 September 2024: How going viral on X helped this solopreneur reach $15k/mo with his native AI apps", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/ZBbFBKrpwqZQkQsy7Bcs", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public part and the comments. The full answers are in the founder's newsletter. Source for the split into one-time sales and recurring revenue, and for his comment that customers bring their own API key." }, { "title": "Daniel Nguyen on X, 2 November 2025: I made $0 from BoltAI v2 so far", "url": "https://x.com/daniel_nguyenx/status/1984806813439836490", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the reasons for the rewrite, its length and the start of paid sales." }, { "title": "Daniel Nguyen on X, 16 November 2025: I made $1,162 so far with BoltAI v2", "url": "https://x.com/daniel_nguyenx/status/1990052287298105421", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API and looked at the attached Stripe screenshot. A screenshot posted by the founder is still a founder statement." }, { "title": "Daniel Nguyen on X, 23 March 2025: I'm proud of BoltAI. One-person company, 2 years, 8,000+ customers", "url": "https://x.com/daniel_nguyenx/status/1903858042317488447", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 28 September 2023, post by the founder: I reached $20k in revenue with my 2 smol AI apps", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/i-reached-20k-in-revenue-with-my-2-smol-ai-apps-22d6c018eb", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the origin of the product and the first revenue total." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 4 October 2023: 1 year as a bootstrapped founder: Daniel Nguyen discusses growing 3 tools to $32k in revenue", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/1-year-as-a-bootstrapped-founder-growing-3-tools-to-32k-revenue-daniel-nguyen-2eea694a9c", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A case study in the founder's words. Source for the first channels and the KTool figure." }, { "title": "Daniel Nguyen's newsletter, 1 May 2024: $100K revenue after 2 years indie hacking", "url": "https://newsletter.danielnguyen.me/p/100k-revenue-after-2-years-indie", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the US$100,000 total and the follower count in 2024." }, { "title": "Daniel Nguyen on X, 19 April 2024: After 2 years indie hacking, I've just reached the $100k revenue milestone", "url": "https://x.com/daniel_nguyenx/status/1781306247054241844", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Gives the date of the milestone." }, { "title": "Daniel Nguyen on X, 28 March 2023: Is this good enough to ship?", "url": "https://x.com/daniel_nguyenx/status/1640765174914387968", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. The first public demo of the prototype." }, { "title": "Daniel Nguyen on X, 21 August 2023: My wife just quit her job to help me growing our indie products", "url": "https://x.com/daniel_nguyenx/status/1693465089805005238", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "BoltAI changelog, 6 October 2025: BoltAI v2 is here", "url": "https://feedback.boltai.com/changelog/boltai-v2-is-here", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the release of version 2, its license terms and its technical changes." }, { "title": "BoltAI pricing page and renewal page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://boltai.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, together with https://boltai.com/renew for the renewal discount. Source for the pricing table." }, { "title": "BoltAI changelog, about page and home page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://boltai.com/changelog", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the release list and its monthly counts, the about page and the home page. Source for the current version, the release counts and the statement of no outside funding." }, { "title": "Hacker News comment by the founder (user longnguyen), 20 January 2025", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42765344", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the Hacker News API. The account's profile names BoltAI and his X account. Source for his view on perpetual licenses and subscriptions." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 10 November 2024: How Daniel Nguyen Grew Bolt AI to $15K MRR Rapidly", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/bolt-ai-breakdown", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A secondary account of the September 2024 interview. Used only to show that it labels the figure as MRR." }, { "title": "SoFarBot, 14 September 2026: How BoltAI sold up to $30K/month, and an API Token article of 11 August 2026 on the same interview", "url": "https://www.sofarbot.com/stories/boltai-daniel-nguyen-25000-monthly-sales", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both in full. Secondary summaries of the March 2025 interview, which could not be opened in full. Used only for the row marked not verified." }, { "title": "BoltAI documentation: BoltAI Mobile, getting started", "url": "https://boltai.com/docs/boltai-mobile/getting-started", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on the beta. Source for the state of the mobile app." }, { "title": "Daniel Nguyen's profile on X, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/daniel_nguyenx", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through the fxtwitter API. Confirms the account name, the follower count and that he still presents himself as the builder of BoltAI." }, { "title": "Setapp listing for BoltAI, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://setapp.com/apps/boltai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the listing. Confirms that BoltAI is still offered in the Setapp subscription." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/revid-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/revid-ai.md", "slug": "revid-ai", "name": "Revid.ai", "country": "France", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI short-video generator and publisher for social media", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "April 2024", "outcomeLabel": "US$500K a month, September 2026", "sticker": "$500K/month, down from $680K", "outcomeUsd": 6000000, "months": 29, "teamLabel": "Founder and a CTO co-founder; 4 people on Revid in February 2026, no later count; the studio runs 7 products", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "video", "channel": "search", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Video" ], "product": "A web application that turns an idea, a link or an existing viral video into a finished short video for TikTok, Instagram and YouTube: script, generated images or video, voice, captions, music and posting. Customers pay a subscription that includes credits, and each second of generated video costs credits.", "why": "It began as a tool for product launch videos, which a customer needs once. The founder saw customers use it for social videos, which they need every week, and built a second product for that use from the same code. Free tools that rank on Google and his audience on X brought the customers. Credits priced per second kept the price of each video above the cost of the model that made it.", "summary": [ "Revid.ai makes short-form videos, vertical videos of some seconds to a few minutes for TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. The user gives an idea, a link or an existing viral video. The product writes a script, calls video-generation models (programs such as Seedance, Veo or Sora that produce moving images from a text description), adds a voice, captions and music, and posts the result. Customers pay a subscription that includes credits, units that are spent on each second of generated video, so a customer who generates more pays more.", "Thibault (Tibo) Louis-Lucas, a French engineer who had already sold an earlier software business, took over a small product-video tool named Typeframes from its maker in September 2023; he later gave the price as US$50,000. In April 2024 he forked it, which means he copied the code to start a second product, and named the copy Revid. Revid reached US$10,000 of MRR (monthly recurring revenue, the sum of all subscription payments for one month) at its Product Hunt launch on 24 June 2024. On 18 February 2026 he wrote that it made US$680,000 a month with a team of 4, the highest figure he has published. On 28 September 2026 he wrote that it generates US$500,000 a month; that latest figure is the headline of this page. Revid is the largest of the seven products of his studio TMAKER, and he wrote in March 2026 that all products together had passed US$1 million a month. This page keeps the two figures apart.", "Every Revid number on this page is a founder statement, or a value read from a chart that he published, grade C. No payment processor and no buyer has confirmed them, and Revid has no profile on TrustMRR. One smaller product of the same studio, SuperX, does have a TrustMRR profile verified through Stripe, and its verified revenue agrees with its line on the founder's chart. The page also lists the fall of about 26% between the February and the September figure, two founder statements about costs that do not agree with each other, the platform rules on mass-produced AI video, and four earlier companies that failed with a similar promise." ], "factsCaption": "A product-video tool taken over in September 2023 for US$50,000, forked into Revid in April 2024, reported at US$680,000 a month in February 2026 and at US$500,000 a month in September 2026, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement, a value read by eye from a chart that he published, or an estimate by a third party that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. The one grade A value is payment-processor data for SuperX, another product of the same studio; it is not a Revid figure.", "timelineLead": "From a product-video tool taken over for US$50,000 to US$500,000 a month, in 36 months, after a higher figure in February 2026. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Revid prices read from the company's pricing page on 13 October 2026 (grade C)", "note": "The page shows Growth as reduced from US$99 to US$39, with the words \"Discount locked in forever\". A Hobby plan is shown at the same US$39 with a shorter feature list and no stated credit amount. The company's About page also names an Elite plan at US$89 a month, which the pricing page did not show on that day. Plan credits refill each month and do not accumulate; Credit Boost packs are one-time purchases that do not expire. Credits are spent per second of generated video: 15 credits for 5 seconds with the cheapest model, 100 credits for 5 seconds with Seedance 2.5 or Veo 3, 130 with Sora 2.", "rows": [ [ "Hobby", "", "39", "videos from text or links; no credit amount stated" ], [ "Growth", "32", "39", "2,000 credits a month, 3 Auto-Mode workers; shown as reduced from US$99" ], [ "Ultra", "166", "199", "12,000 credits a month, 10 Auto-Mode workers" ], [ "Ultra, 30,000 credits", "", "459", "30,000 credits a month" ], [ "Ultra, 50,000 credits", "", "749", "50,000 credits a month" ], [ "Ultra, 100,000 credits", "", "1,459", "100,000 credits a month" ], [ "Ultra, 200,000 credits", "", "2,799", "200,000 credits a month" ], [ "Credit Boost, smallest", "49 one-time", "", "1,000 credits" ], [ "Credit Boost, largest", "1,900 one-time", "", "100,000 credits" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revid revenue per month, 28 September 2026", "value": "US$500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post: he acquired Typeframes three years ago \"and turned it into an asset generating $500,000 per month\". A round figure in a post that promotes the product, with no chart. It is the latest dated Revid figure and the headline of this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the September 2026 figure", "value": "about US$6 million a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$500,000 times 12.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Highest published figure: revenue per month, 18 February 2026", "value": "US$680,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post: \"$680k MRR with a team of 4\". The chart attached to the post is titled \"Revid.ai - 30-day revenue\", so the figure is the revenue of the last 30 days and can include one-time credit packs. The last point of the chart reads about US$660,000.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Change from February to September 2026", "value": "a fall of about 26%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$500,000 minus US$680,000, divided by US$680,000. Both figures are rounded by the founder, so the size of the fall is approximate.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revid on the founder's portfolio chart, 9 March 2026", "value": "about US$660,000 of a total of about US$1.04 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Read by eye from the chart \"All Projects\" in his post. The Revid line is labelled \"Revid Total\"; the line of Outrank, the second product, is labelled \"Outrank (MRR)\" and reads about US$325,000. The post does not explain the difference between the two labels.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revid's share of the portfolio, March 2026", "value": "about 63%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 660,000 divided by 1,040,000, from the chart readings above.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revid revenue per month, April 2026", "value": "more than US$600,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Peter Yang's newsletter of 26 April 2026, which shows the founder's chart. In his posts from 20 May to 13 October 2026, the only later Revid figure is the one of 28 September.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Revid in 2025", "value": "passed US$500,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 27 April 2026. On his chart the line passes US$500,000 between October and November 2025.", "src": [ 5, 2 ] }, { "fact": "The curve, read from the 30-day revenue chart", "value": "about US$35,000 (October 2024), US$95,000 (January 2025), US$215,000 (April 2025), US$340,000 (July 2025), US$450,000 (October 2025), US$595,000 (January 2026)", "grade": "C", "note": "Values at the first day of each month, read by eye from a chart without data labels, so each can be wrong by about US$10,000. The line falls from about US$345,000 to about US$318,000 between July and August 2025, and is flat from December 2025 to January 2026.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "MRR at the Product Hunt launch, 24 June 2024", "value": "US$10,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's launch post. One subscription gave access to both Typeframes and Revid.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "MRR of Typeframes and Revid together, 30 April 2024", "value": "more than US$8,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post, in which he looks for a technical co-founder.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "MRR of Typeframes, December 2023", "value": "US$4,000, from zero in September 2023", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in a podcast interview published 24 January 2024. Typeframes was not a subscription product before he changed it.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Revid, Feather and SuperX together, September 2024", "value": "about US$28,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers article of 11 September 2024, from the part that is public. It agrees with the total line of the founder's chart for that month.", "src": [ 12, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from the launch figure", "value": "68 times at the highest figure (20 months), 50 times in September 2026 (27 months)", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$680,000 and US$500,000 divided by US$10,000; June 2024 to February 2026 and to September 2026.", "src": [ 1, 2, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Payments collected, 10 November 2025 to 12 October 2026", "value": "101,491", "grade": "C", "note": "Image in the founder's post of 13 October 2026, with at least one payment on each of 337 days.", "src": [ 20 ] }, { "fact": "Average payment implied by that count", "value": "about US$55 to US$75", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 101,491 payments in 337 days is about 9,035 per 30 days; US$500,000 to US$680,000 divided by 9,035. This fits a price list that starts at US$39, but it is a consistency check and not a proof.", "src": [ 20, 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Team on Revid, February 2026", "value": "4 people", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post. The About page names two founders, Thibault Louis-Lucas (CEO) and Nicolas Coutureau (CTO). Latka counts 4 employees on LinkedIn in July 2025. The About page says that both founded the company in 2023, but on 30 April 2024 the founder was still looking in public for a technical co-founder, so the date when Coutureau joined is not verified. The names of the other two people were not found, and no count after February 2026 was found.", "src": [ 2, 6, 8, 26 ] }, { "fact": "People across the studio, 2026", "value": "7 \"co-makers\"; US$38,000 for team and freelancers in August 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts of 19 September and 5 September 2026. The figures cover all seven products, not Revid alone.", "src": [ 23, 16 ] }, { "fact": "Sign-ups, August 2024 to July 2026", "value": "more than 3,000,000", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's About page, from its own analytics. It also states more than 100,000 videos rendered and more than 30,000 published to social networks each month.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: \"no VC. no investors. just revenue.\" He said in January 2024 that money from the sale of his earlier company paid for the first developer.", "src": [ 5, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Price of Typeframes, September 2023", "value": "US$50,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 28 September 2026. In the interview of January 2024 he said that he did not pay the full value in cash and that the deal included a share of the tool's future revenue. How the US$50,000 was split is not stated.", "src": [ 1, 7 ] }, { "fact": "The price, measured in revenue of September 2026", "value": "3 days", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$50,000 divided by US$500,000, times 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Model cost stated by the founder, August 2026", "value": "about US$0.10 per second of Seedance 2.5 video", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 8 August 2026: \"that's the price WE pay\", before upscaling, storage and failed attempts.", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "fact": "Price a customer pays for the same second", "value": "US$0.39 on Growth, US$0.33 on Ultra", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 100 credits for 5 seconds; US$39 for 2,000 credits and US$199 for 12,000 credits. That is 3.9 and 3.3 times the model cost stated above, if the customer spends all credits on this model.", "src": [ 13, 14, 15 ] }, { "fact": "Spending of the whole studio, August 2026", "value": "US$269,250, of which AI and APIs US$68,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 5 September 2026. The other lines: French taxes US$100,000, team and freelancers US$38,000, affiliates and creators US$37,000, servers and tools US$9,000, food US$250. The lines add up to US$252,250, which is US$17,000 less than the stated total.", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "fact": "Spending on AI models stated four weeks earlier", "value": "more than US$300,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 8 August 2026. It does not agree with the US$68,000 for AI and APIs in the row above; the ratio is 4.4. He has not explained the difference.", "src": [ 15, 16 ] }, { "fact": "SuperX, another product of the studio: verified revenue", "value": "US$30,356 in February 2026; US$21,670 in the last 30 days", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR profile, verified through Stripe, data as of October 2026. The SuperX line on the founder's chart of 9 March 2026 reads about US$30,000, so one small line of that chart agrees with payment-processor data. This is not a verification of the Revid line.", "src": [ 25, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Latka's revenue estimate for Revid, July 2025", "value": "US$440,000 a year", "grade": "C", "note": "A third-party estimate, marked as such by Latka. The founder's chart reads about US$340,000 a month for the same date, which is about US$4.08 million a year, or 9 times the estimate.", "src": [ 26, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the fork to the September 2026 figure", "value": "29 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: April 2024 to September 2026. From the takeover of Typeframes in September 2023 it is 36 months. The highest figure came 22 months after the fork.", "src": [ 6, 1, 2, 7 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2022", "what": "Louis-Lucas and his co-founder sell Tweet Hunter and Taplio to lempire; that sale is another story on this site. He writes later that he left lempire in 2024 and started again with no investors. Another of his posts gives 2024 as the year of the sale.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 3 ] }, { "when": "September 2023", "what": "He takes over Typeframes, a tool that makes product videos from text, from its maker, who had stopped working on it. He later gives the price as US$50,000; in 2024 he says the deal included a share of future revenue, so that he did not pay the full value in cash. He changes the product to subscriptions.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 1 ] }, { "when": "December 2023", "what": "Typeframes reaches US$4,000 of MRR. He calls it a side project and hires one developer for it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "April 2024", "what": "He forks Typeframes into Revid, for short social videos. On 30 April the two products together make more than US$8,000 of MRR, and he looks in public for a technical co-founder who will work for low pay and equity.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 8 ] }, { "when": "24 June 2024", "what": "Product Hunt launch of Revid at US$10,000 of MRR. He writes that he started work on Typeframes nine months before.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 10 ] }, { "when": "22 August 2024", "what": "Most new subscriptions now come through Revid. Both products share one code base, one database and one set of subscriptions, and he asks his followers if he should close Typeframes.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "11 September 2024", "what": "Indie Hackers reports that Revid, Feather and SuperX together make about US$28,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "January 2025", "what": "The 30-day revenue of Revid is about US$95,000 on the founder's chart.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "July to August 2025", "what": "The first fall on the chart: from about US$345,000 to about US$318,000 in one month, then growth again.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "Late 2025", "what": "Revid passes US$500,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 2 ] }, { "when": "18 February 2026", "what": "\"$680k MRR with a team of 4\", with a chart of 30-day revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "9 March 2026", "what": "He writes that his five products together passed US$1 million a month. On the chart, Revid is about US$660,000 of it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "26 April 2026", "what": "A podcast interview with Peter Yang: Revid alone makes more than US$600,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "27 May 2026", "what": "He asks who would buy shares of his holding company and writes that the products together make US$1 million a month \"with very decent margin\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 21 ] }, { "when": "August 2026", "what": "Revid cuts the credit price of AI video by half because, he writes, the models got cheaper. He says the product was rebuilt around a library of viral videos, and that most of the AI video tools he has advised, at least 7, \"dipped\" in the last six months.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17, 18, 19 ] }, { "when": "15 September 2026", "what": "He buys an advertisement on TrustMRR that tells customers of a competitor, Higgsfield, to change to Revid. The site owner removes it after 13 minutes and refunds him.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 24 ] }, { "when": "28 September 2026", "what": "He writes that the tool he acquired for US$50,000 now generates US$500,000 a month. That is below the figures of February and April.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "Revid is running: 101,491 payments since 10 November 2025, and the pricing page is live. His site still describes the studio as a US$1 million a month portfolio, the same round figure as in March.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 20, 13, 30 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Distribution", "text": "Three channels fed the product. The founder has more than 210,000 followers on X and posts each launch and each figure there. The site carries many free tools, each made for one search query, for example an MP3 to MP4 converter or a TikTok script generator, so that people who search Google for a small task land on Revid. And the other products of the studio send customers to each other." }, { "title": "Start from a product that already has users", "text": "He did not start from an empty repository. Typeframes had users, a brand and a working video editor, and its maker had stopped working on it. The price was US$50,000, and the deal included a share of future revenue, so he did not pay the full value in cash." }, { "title": "Follow what customers do, not the plan", "text": "Typeframes was sold for product launch videos. A founder needs one of those per launch, so subscriptions ended after one month. Customers were using the editor for short social videos, which a business needs every week. Revid was built for that use from the same code, and by August 2024 most new subscriptions came through it." }, { "title": "Credits priced per second", "text": "Each second of generated video costs credits, and each credit has a price. At the stated model cost of US$0.10 per second, a Growth customer pays US$0.39 for that second. Competitors sell plans named unlimited; Revid states a price per second, refunds failed generations, and cut the price by half in August 2026 when the models got cheaper." }, { "title": "A studio of small teams", "text": "TMAKER runs seven products. The founder calls the people who build them with him co-makers and counted 7 of them in September 2026. Revid has its own CTO co-founder. The products use each other: Outrank writes the Revid blog, and Revid makes the videos for the other products." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's posts, a podcast interview and the company's own pages. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The video editor is built on Remotion, a library that renders video from React code, with Next.js for the web application. The April 2024 post asks for a co-founder who is an expert in both.", "Revid and Typeframes ran on one code base, one database and one set of subscriptions, with conditions in the code that changed the feature set for each brand.", "The video itself comes from rented models: Seedance 2.5, MiniMax Hailuo H3, Wan 3.0, Google Veo 3 and OpenAI Sora 2, chosen per scene. The founder writes that every competitor has access to the same models.", "A library of about 2.77 million viral short videos with public engagement data (snapshot of 15 September 2026) is used to choose the hook and the format before a video is generated.", "Publishing uses the official TikTok, YouTube and Instagram integrations. Payments go through Stripe.", "Every function is also available through a public API, an MCP server and a command-line tool, so that AI agents can order videos without the web interface." ], "src": [ 8, 11, 6, 14, 18 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised automatic or easy video for everyone, or built a tool that posts media to social networks owned by other companies. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Qwiki", "years": "2010 to 2015", "funding": "US$10M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Automatic narrated videos made from text, images and voice, in place of a page of search results.", "died": "High running costs and no revenue model. Yahoo bought it in 2013 and later closed it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/481-qwiki" }, { "name": "Tout", "years": "2010 to 2016", "funding": "US$40M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A fast and simple way to record and share short video updates.", "died": "Vine and Instagram had larger networks and more money. Tout did not change its product or find revenue in time.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/652-tout" }, { "name": "Pixelpipe", "years": "2008 to 2013", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Post photos, videos and audio to many social networks at once.", "died": "The networks added their own cross-posting and closed their APIs. It had no clear way to earn money.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/435-pixelpipe" }, { "name": "Mixed Media Labs", "years": "2010 to 2013", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Tools to combine text, images and video into one story and share it on any platform.", "died": "It was built for the web when users moved to phone apps such as Instagram, and it could not raise more money.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1200-mixed-media-labs" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Qwiki produced narrated videos from text in 2010 and closed because each video cost too much to make and nobody paid for it. Tout and Mixed Media Labs gave consumers free tools and lost them to the social networks. Pixelpipe posted to networks that later closed their APIs and added the same function themselves. All four depended on platforms that they did not own, and none had a paying customer with a repeating need.", "Three things differ for Revid. First, the customer is a business that needs new videos every week as marketing and pays from US$39 a month. Second, the video is made by models that are rented per second, so the cost of a video is known before it is made and is charged to the customer through credits. Third, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram now offer official publishing integrations. The dependence has not gone: the models belong to a few providers and the audience belongs to the platforms, and both set rules that Revid must follow. Two similar products on this site, Faceless.video (US$1 million a year, August 2024) and AutoShorts.ai (US$97,000 a month, May 2025), sell automated faceless channels to creators. Revid reports about five times the AutoShorts figure, sells mainly to founders and small businesses, and charges by the second." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The size, not without his audience.", "text": "Each step of the method is open to one person: take over a small product that its maker has left, watch what customers do with it, and build for that use. The size is another matter. The founder had money from an earlier sale, more than 210,000 followers on X, and a studio whose products send customers to each other. He also writes that every AI video tool now has the same models, and Revid's own figure fell by about a quarter between February and September 2026.", "steps": [ "Look for a small product with users whose maker has stopped working on it, and offer a share of its future revenue so that you need little cash.", "Charge from the first day, and change one-time licenses to subscriptions if the use repeats.", "Find the use that customers return for every week, and build a separate product for it from the same code.", "Build one free tool for each search query that your customers type into Google.", "Price by usage when each use has a real cost, and lower the price when your cost falls." ], "open": "Small tools with users and no active maker, in fields that new models have just changed: audio, music video, product photography, presentations." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported, and the word MRR is used loosely", "text": "All Revid figures are the founder's posts and his own charts. The chart behind the US$680,000 figure is titled 30-day revenue, which can include one-time credit packs, and its last point reads about US$660,000. TrustMRR, which verifies revenue through payment processors, answered \"Not found\" for the names revid, revid-ai, revidai and tmaker on 13 October 2026. The September 2026 figure of US$500,000 is a round number in a post that promotes the product. Latka's estimate for July 2025 is about one ninth of the founder's figure. The one outside check is indirect: the Stripe-verified revenue of SuperX agrees with its line on the same chart." }, { "title": "Revenue has fallen since February 2026", "text": "The founder's own figures go down: US$680,000 on 18 February 2026, about US$660,000 on his chart of 9 March, \"more than US$600,000\" on 26 April, and US$500,000 on 28 September, a fall of about 26% in seven months. From March to September 2026 he describes the whole studio with the same figure, US$1 million a month, while the list of products grew from five to seven. In August 2026 he wrote that most of the AI video tools he advised \"dipped\" in the last six months, and he cut Revid's credit prices by half. On 20 July 2026 he wrote that churn has cost the studio more growth than anything else. His chart also shows a fall of about 8% in the summer of 2025, after which growth returned; no source shows yet if it returns this time." }, { "title": "Two cost statements that do not agree", "text": "On 8 August 2026 he wrote that he spends more than US$300,000 a month on AI models. On 5 September 2026 he listed the spending of the whole studio for August: US$269,250 in total, of which US$68,000 for AI and APIs. Both cannot be exact. The lines of the second list also add up to US$17,000 less than its total. Profit has not been published; the only statement is \"very decent margin\"." }, { "title": "Every video is bought from a few model providers", "text": "By the founder's figures, a 30-second video costs about US$3 in model fees, and a customer makes 3 to 10 attempts for one good result. Google's public price list on 13 October 2026 gives US$0.40 per second for Veo 3.1 Standard and US$0.10 for Veo 3.1 Fast; a Growth customer pays Revid US$0.39 per second for Veo 3, and Revid does not say which version it buys or at what price. If customers spend all their credits on the most expensive models, the margin on a plan can be small. The founder also states that all competitors rent the same models, so the video quality is no protection." }, { "title": "YouTube does not pay for mass-produced video", "text": "YouTube's monetization policy page, read 13 October 2026, says that since 15 July 2025 the rule once named \"repetitious content\" is named \"inauthentic content\" and covers content that is \"repetitive or mass-produced\". Its examples of content that cannot earn money include AI-generated content made with generic templates and image slideshows with little narrative. Revid sells Auto-Mode workers that create a new video on a schedule and can post it, and names operators of faceless channels among its customers. A customer who expects advertising income from such a channel is the case this rule describes." }, { "title": "TikTok labels AI video and limits automation", "text": "TikTok's Community Guidelines, effective 24 September 2026, require a clear label when AI is used to show realistic people or scenes, list \"Using automation to run many accounts or send repetitive content\" as spam, and keep low-quality or unoriginal content out of the For You feed. Revid posts through the official integrations, so a change in these rules or in the integrations changes the product on the same day." }, { "title": "One founder, seven products, mixed reviews", "text": "The founder wrote in August 2026 that he still does customer support on all 6 products, and a seventh was launched in September. Revid's own page reports 4.0 of 5 on Trustpilot from 301 reviews. The Product Hunt page shows 4.1 from 7 reviews, with complaints about credits, reliability and support. A competitor, Higgsfield, bought five sponsor places on TrustMRR for US$7,495 a month in September 2026, which shows what rivals spend on marketing." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 28 September 2026: I acquired Typeframes for $50,000 and turned it into an asset generating $500,000 per month", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/2104526662910025988", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the headline figure and the purchase price. The post carries a demo video and no chart." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 18 February 2026: $680k MRR with a team of 4", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/2024068923256168688", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com, and looked at the attached chart \"Revid.ai - 30-day revenue\". Source for the highest published figure, the team size and the dated curve." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 9 March 2026: yes, I crossed $1,000,000 / month", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/2030954308326273489", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com, and looked at the attached chart \"All Projects\". Source for the portfolio total and the line of each product." }, { "title": "Peter Yang, Creator Economy newsletter, 26 April 2026: How This Solo Founder Bootstrapped 5 AI Products to 1M+ / Month", "url": "https://creatoreconomy.so/p/how-this-solo-founder-bootstrapped-to-1m-a-month-tibo-louis-lucas", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public part: the introduction, the chapter list, the chart caption and the five rules. The rest is for paying subscribers. Source for the April 2026 figure." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 27 April 2026: let me introduce myself again", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/2048696207652896877", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the 2022 sale, the year he left the buyer, the statement on investors and the 2025 milestone." }, { "title": "Revid: About page and key facts, last updated 12 October 2026", "url": "https://www.revid.ai/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's own page. Source for the founders, the legal entity TMAKER SARL, the April 2024 rename, the sign-ups, the models and the review score." }, { "title": "The Bootstrapped Founder (Arvid Kahl), 24 January 2024: Thibault Louis-Lucas, Selling a $10M SaaS and Building Another One", "url": "https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/thibault-louis-lucas-selling-a-10m-saas-and-building-another-one/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the transcript section on Typeframes. Source for the September 2023 takeover, the revenue-share deal, the US$4,000 of MRR and the first developer." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 30 April 2024: Looking for a CO-FOUNDER", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/1785262592333689328", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the US$8,000 of MRR, the shared video editor and the Remotion and Next.js stack." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 24 June 2024: LAUNCH DAY", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/1805134609182810469", "grade": "C", "how": "Read as the quoted post inside his reply of the same day (status 1805214927583322300), through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the US$10,000 of MRR and the shared subscription." }, { "title": "Product Hunt: revid.ai, launched 2024", "url": "https://www.producthunt.com/products/revid-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the maker's launch comment and the review summary. Source for the nine months of work on Typeframes and the review score." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 22 August 2024: Should I kill Typeframes?", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/1826564175453171939", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the one-time use of product videos and the shared code base." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers (James Fleischmann), 11 September 2024: Here's how Tibo sold two products for $8M, and why he'll never do it again", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/heres-how-tibo-sold-two-products-for-8m-and-why-he-ll-never-do-it-again-iwykhfENoZqJgRLU33zv", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public part; the rest needs an account. Source for the US$28,000 a month of three products." }, { "title": "Revid pricing page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.revid.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, plans and questions. Source for the pricing table." }, { "title": "Revid AI Credit Costs: Complete Reference, last updated October 2026", "url": "https://www.revid.ai/llm/revid-ai-credit-costs.md", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's own table of credits per 5 seconds for each model." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 8 August 2026: as someone who spends more than $300,000 / month in AI models", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/2085999680186450326", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the model cost per second and the monthly spending claim." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 5 September 2026: I spent $269,250 in August", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/2096169005446766743", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the spending list of the whole studio." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 13 August 2026: we just cut AI video prices in HALF on Revid", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/2087827339157623294", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 18 August 2026: Revid isn't a video generator anymore", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/2089699020696371359", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the rebuilt product and the statement that all tools have the same models." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 27 August 2026: I've advised at least 7 AI video gen tool and most of them dipped", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/2092949060147634346", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 13 October 2026: we collected 100k+ payments on Revid in less than a year", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/2109981296369807417", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com, and looked at the attached image with the count of 101,491 payments." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 27 May 2026: who would be interested in buying share of my holding company?", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/2059546985376383392", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 17 September 2026: tools I pay for to run my $1m MRR portfolio", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/2100559180981514461", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Shows the portfolio figure that he used in September 2026." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 19 September 2026: my 7 co-makers who build with me", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/2101242456154993130", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 15 September 2026: I paid $1,499 for an ad on TrustMRR", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/2099878708982980825", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com, with the quoted post by the owner of TrustMRR on the US$7,495 a month paid by Higgsfield." }, { "title": "TrustMRR profile: SuperX (another product of the same studio)", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/superx.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile. Revenue verified through a Stripe API key, last synced 12 October 2026. Used only to test the founder's chart; it holds no Revid data. Requests for revid, revid-ai, revidai and tmaker returned \"Not found\"." }, { "title": "Latka company page: revid.ai revenue 2025, estimate", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/revid.ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party estimate of revenue and a headcount from LinkedIn, both for July 2025." }, { "title": "YouTube Help: YouTube channel monetization policies, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1311392?hl=en", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the 15 July 2025 update and on generic or repetitive content. The platform's own rule page." }, { "title": "TikTok Community Guidelines, Integrity and Authenticity, effective 24 September 2026", "url": "https://www.tiktok.com/community-guidelines/en/integrity-authenticity", "grade": "C", "how": "The page loads by script; read the encoded text inside the page code. Sections on AI-generated content, spam and For You feed eligibility." }, { "title": "Google: Gemini API pricing, Veo 3.1, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the Veo 3.1 table of prices per second. The provider's public list price; Revid's own contract price is not public." }, { "title": "Tibo Maker (tmaker.io), home page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.tmaker.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The founder's own site. Source for the list of seven products and the portfolio claim." }, { "title": "Collab365 Spaces, 29 April 2026: Solo founder scales AI tools to over $1m a month without staff", "url": "https://spaces.collab365.com/posts/solo-founder-scales-ai-tools-to-over-1m-a-month-wi-GIx6v9", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A short summary of Peter Yang's interview, not an independent source. Its title says \"without staff\", which the founder's own posts contradict." }, { "title": "Typist: summary of Peter Yang's video interview of 26 April 2026", "url": "https://iamtypist.dev/tools/youtube-summary/how-this-solo-ai-founder-bootstrapped-5-products-to-1m-month-tibo-louis-lucas-0UnZnonMN9o", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. An AI-written summary of the video, so its details can be imprecise; the video itself could not be downloaded. Used only as a second account of the Typeframes change and of the use of contractors." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 20 July 2026: churn has cost us more growth than anything else", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/2079136760580235437", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through the account timeline endpoint of api.fxtwitter.com, which returned his posts from 20 May to 13 October 2026. The same download was searched for Revid figures; the only one after April 2026 is the post of 28 September." }, { "title": "Tibo Louis-Lucas on X, 22 August 2026: higher price = lower churn", "url": "https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/2091095568005116164", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through the account timeline endpoint of api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the statement that he still does support on all 6 products." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/neural-frames/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/neural-frames.md", "slug": "neural-frames", "name": "Neural Frames", "country": "Germany", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI music-video generator for musicians", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "9 January 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$120K a month, June 2025", "sticker": "$1.4M/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 1440000, "months": 29, "teamLabel": "1 founder, alone in November 2023, 5 people in February 2025, 17 names on the About page in October 2026", "fundingLabel": "None; AWS cloud credits for the first version", "primaryFactor": "Timing", "group": "video", "channel": "search", "trend": "growing", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Video" ], "product": "A web application that turns a song into a music video. The musician uploads an audio file; a feature named Autopilot writes a storyboard, renders each scene with a rented video model and cuts the scenes to the beat. Customers pay a subscription from US$39 a month that includes credits, and buy more credits when they run out.", "why": "It began in January 2023 as an easy web interface for animation with Stable Diffusion, when the alternative was an open-source library that only programmers could run. Three months later the founder rebuilt it for one group of customers: musicians, who need a video for every song they release and cannot pay a film crew. He calls this the best decision he made.", "summary": [ "Neural Frames is an AI music-video generator, a web application that produces a video for a song. A musician uploads an audio file. A feature named Autopilot analyses the rhythm and the structure of the song, writes a storyboard, and sends each scene to a text-to-video model, a neural network that produces a short video clip from a written description. The result is audio-reactive, which means that cuts and effects follow the beat of the music. Customers pay a subscription from US$39 a month that includes credits, units that are spent for each rendered clip, and they can buy more credits at any time.", "Nicolai Klemke, a German physicist who did his PhD at the DESY research centre in Hamburg, released the first version on 9 January 2023 as an easy interface for animation with the open-source image model Stable Diffusion. In April 2023 he rebuilt it for musicians. He worked alone for most of 2023 and reported US$17,000 of monthly recurring revenue at the end of October 2023. He then reported US$500,000 of revenue for the year 2024, nearly US$70,000 for the month of February 2025 with five people, and a Stripe total of US$1 million since launch on 28 April 2025. On 4 June 2025 he entered US$120,000 a month on his Indie Hackers page, which is a run rate of US$1.44 million a year. He says the company has never taken outside capital.", "Every revenue number on this page is a founder statement, grade C: an interview, posts on X, a screenshot that he published, and a self-reported field. No payment processor or buyer has confirmed them, and the last public figure is from June 2025. Two other numbers circulate. Starter Story's US$204,000 a year is the October 2023 figure times 12. Latka's US$871,200 a year for October 2024 is an estimate, and it is higher than the founder's own total for 2024. In October 2026 the company's About page lists 17 people. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies with a similar promise." ], "factsCaption": "From US$17,000 a month in October 2023 to US$120,000 a month in June 2025, with a team of about five and no outside capital, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement, a value read from a screenshot that he published, a reviewer, or an estimate by a third party that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a physics PhD and a first web project to US$120,000 a month, in 29 months, and then to a company with 17 names on its About page. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Neural Frames prices read from the company's pricing page on 13 October 2026 (grade C)", "note": "Yearly billing is shown as 33% off: US$312, US$792 and US$2,388 a year. Credits arrive every month, also on yearly billing. Unused credits carry over while the subscription is active, up to 300% of one month's amount. More credits can be bought at any time as top-ups; the top-up prices and the cost calculator load by script and could not be read. The page says that the cost of an Autopilot video depends on its length and on the chosen model, and that the smallest plan is not recommended for Autopilot. Calculated at the monthly price: a credit costs about 1.6 US cents on the smallest plan and about 1.2 US cents on the largest.", "rows": [ [ "Neural Knight", "26", "39", "2,400 credits a month; 7 AI models; 1080p, no 4K" ], [ "Neural Ninja", "66", "99", "7,200 credits a month; 10 AI models; 4K upscaling" ], [ "Neural Nirvana", "199", "299", "24,000 credits a month; 10 AI models; priority upscaling" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month, 4 June 2025", "value": "US$120,000", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder's own entry on the Indie Hackers product page. The page says that the figure was last updated on June 4, 2025 and has not been independently verified. The page calls it monthly revenue and does not say how much of it is recurring.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the June 2025 figure", "value": "US$1.44 million a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$120,000 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the month of February 2025", "value": "nearly US$70,000, profitable", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 27 February 2025. In the same post: five people, no outside capital.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Total revenue from January 2023 to 28 April 2025", "value": "€876,800, which was US$1,000,249 on that day", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X with a screenshot of the Stripe \"Gross volume\" chart and a currency conversion. He wrote that this is revenue and that profit is much lower. The screenshot was published by the founder; nobody outside checked it.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Highest week on that Stripe chart", "value": "about €18,500", "grade": "C", "note": "Read from the screenshot: the top label of the weekly chart is €18,482.09, and the highest point is in April 2025.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly rate at that highest week", "value": "about US$91,000 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: €18,482.09 at the rate of 1.1408 from the same post is US$21,084 a week; times 52, divided by 12. It lies between the February figure and the June figure.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the year 2024", "value": "US$500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 9 January 2025: \"Last year, we hit $500k in revenue.\" Calculated: an average of about US$41,700 a month.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, end of October 2023", "value": "US$17,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview with Starter Story, published 16 November 2023. More than 400 paying users, 1 founder, 0 employees. Starter Story's list of AI businesses shows the same figure as US$204,000 a year, which is US$17,000 times 12.", "src": [ 5, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from October 2023 to June 2025", "value": "7.1 times in 20 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$120,000 divided by US$17,000.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue of the first version, early 2023", "value": "about US$400 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Latka's estimate for October 2024", "value": "US$871,200 a year, 4 employees", "grade": "C", "note": "A third-party estimate, marked EST. on Latka's page, which also says that the company has not published its revenue. It is 1.74 times the founder's own total for the whole of 2024. The headcount is from LinkedIn.", "src": [ 6, 4 ] }, { "fact": "An event organiser's figure, 1 May 2025", "value": "more than US$1 million of yearly recurring revenue, without funding", "grade": "C", "note": "Imagine AI Live, announcing his talk. A third party, not a founder figure. It agrees with the Stripe chart of three days earlier: US$21,084 a week times 52 is about US$1.10 million.", "src": [ 12, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Cloud cost, October 2023", "value": "about US$7,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview: the main cost of the business. Calculated: 41% of the US$17,000 of monthly recurring revenue at that time.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Share of single credit purchases, August 2025", "value": "almost 50% of revenue", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 3 August 2025, with a weekly revenue chart whose amounts are hidden. About half of revenue is therefore not a subscription.", "src": [ 19 ] }, { "fact": "Weekly revenue, November 2025", "value": "an all-time record, two weeks in a row; no amount published", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 7 November 2025. This is the last public revenue statement that was found.", "src": [ 18 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 person in November 2023, 5 in February 2025, 17 names in October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story interview, founder's post, and the company's About page read on 13 October 2026. The About page says that he worked alone for a little under a year.", "src": [ 5, 2, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post, February 2025: \"we've never raised outside capital\". The site says \"No VC money\" in October 2026. The first version ran on AWS cloud credits.", "src": [ 2, 8, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's background", "value": "PhD in physics at DESY in Hamburg, one year in a job, then the Entrepreneur First accelerator", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview. A CrossRef record lists a 2020 conference paper under his name on high-harmonic generation from solids, which is the laser subject that he describes. He left the accelerator without a company.", "src": [ 5, 41 ] }, { "fact": "Videos made on the platform", "value": "1 million by February 2025, more than 2 million by October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 12 February 2025 and the company's pricing page.", "src": [ 24, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Autopilot videos exported in one week, October 2026", "value": "more than 3,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 12 October 2026. Calculated: one finished video about every 3.4 minutes.", "src": [ 29 ] }, { "fact": "Email list", "value": "313,000 addresses in June 2025, 500,000 in June 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts on X about two newsletters.", "src": [ 25, 26 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue through affiliates, total by January 2025", "value": "US$40,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 5 January 2025.", "src": [ 32 ] }, { "fact": "Taxes and social contributions, August 2026", "value": "more than €800,000 a year", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post in German, 13 August 2026, written in the second person. It does not name the company. Not verified as a company figure, and it is not a revenue figure.", "src": [ 30 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue goal", "value": "10 times the February 2025 revenue by December 2027", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 27 February 2025. Calculated: about US$700,000 a month.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the June 2025 figure", "value": "29 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: January 2023 to June 2025.", "src": [ 4, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2019 to 2022", "what": "During a physics PhD at DESY in Hamburg, Klemke writes simulation code and decides that he wants to keep programming. After one year in a job he joins the Entrepreneur First accelerator and leaves it without a company.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "Late 2022", "what": "He starts an interface for Stable Diffusion animation, alone, in about seven weeks of programming with help from ChatGPT. It is his first web application. AWS cloud credits pay for the servers.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 8 ] }, { "when": "9 January 2023", "what": "The first version is released.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "15 January 2023", "what": "His Show HN post gets 247 points and 72 comments. This and a Reddit post overload the servers. The first version makes about US$400 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 5 ] }, { "when": "April 2023", "what": "He takes the site offline, rewrites it for musicians with a timeline editor and custom models, and releases it again.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 35 ] }, { "when": "End of October 2023", "what": "US$17,000 of monthly recurring revenue, more than 400 paying users, 130,000 visitors since April. Cloud costs are about US$7,000 a month. He is still the only person.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "2024", "what": "US$500,000 of revenue in the year. Latka counts 4 employees on LinkedIn in October.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 6 ] }, { "when": "December 2024", "what": "He writes that text-to-video rendering is still extremely expensive and that an unlimited plan at US$99 was hard to make profitable. He cuts AWS costs with reserved instances and spot GPUs.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13, 22 ] }, { "when": "February 2025", "what": "One million videos created. Nearly US$70,000 of revenue in the month, profitable, five people, no outside capital.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 24, 2 ] }, { "when": "28 April 2025", "what": "The Stripe total since January 2023 passes US$1 million.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "7 to 15 May 2025", "what": "Autopilot: a full-length music video from a song in two clicks. A quiet release on 7 May, the public release on 15 May. One day later he writes that usage has moved to the new product, that revenue is up and that margins are down.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16, 15 ] }, { "when": "4 June 2025", "what": "He enters US$120,000 a month on Indie Hackers. On the same day he writes that the company made more in one day than his monthly PhD salary, and that all of it goes to people and servers.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 17 ] }, { "when": "June 2025", "what": "Google traffic falls. The company starts paid advertising and reports a conversion rate five times higher after tests. Some customers cost more to serve than they pay.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 20, 14 ] }, { "when": "November 2025", "what": "A weekly revenue record two weeks in a row. The company looks for a third engineer.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 18, 31 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "Short-Form Studio, templates for vertical clips, is announced to an email list of 500,000 addresses.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 26 ] }, { "when": "August 2026", "what": "Interview on the TBPN programme on 10 August. On 21 August the two original editors, frame-by-frame and text-to-video, are retired in favour of Autopilot and Short-Form Studio.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 28, 27 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "17 names on the About page, which still says \"No VC money\". More than 3,000 Autopilot videos are exported in one week. No revenue figure has been published since November 2025.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 29 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Timing", "text": "In January 2023 the open-source library Deforum could make these animations, but the user had to copy a code repository and run it. He put the same technique behind a web page. Later, AI music tools such as Suno made it easy to produce a song, and the founder sees each of these songs as one that needs a video; in February 2026 he wrote: \"Audio supply is going through the roof, and we're here to visualize all of it!\"" }, { "title": "One customer group", "text": "The first tagline was \"Text-to-video for everybody\". Many early users were musicians and he had made music himself, so he rebuilt the product for music videos. He writes that this made the product easier to build and easier to sell." }, { "title": "Search traffic first, advertising later", "text": "Paid ads failed in 2023. Pages and blog posts written for search terms with little competition, free small tools and YouTube tutorials brought the customers, and Google was the source of a large part of revenue until 2025. When the ranking fell in 2025, the company started paid advertising and tested its sign-up pages." }, { "title": "Credits pass the rendering cost to the customer", "text": "A flat unlimited plan at US$99 was hard to make profitable. Plans now include a fixed number of credits, and each clip costs credits according to its length and model. By August 2025 single credit purchases were almost half of revenue." }, { "title": "Autopilot", "text": "The timeline editor gave control but took long to learn. Autopilot produces a full video from a song in two clicks and in less than 15 minutes. Within a week most usage had moved to it, and in August 2026 the old editors were retired." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's interview and posts and from the company's site. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The first version used Stable Diffusion with the frame-by-frame animation technique of the open-source library Deforum. The April 2023 version added a timeline and custom models trained for each user.", "A React frontend and Python on the servers. The founder had not built a web application before; he wrote the first version in about seven weeks with help from ChatGPT.", "AWS, with GPU servers that scale up and down with demand. In March 2025 the main backend was still one EC2 instance that served 100,000 people a month, with about 20 requests a second at peak.", "In October 2026 the site names Kling, Seedance and Runway as the video models that it offers. These models belong to other companies; Neural Frames adds the song analysis, the storyboard, character consistency and the editing.", "Stripe for subscriptions and credits, PostHog for analytics, Rewardful for affiliates, who had brought US$40,000 of revenue by January 2025.", "Marketing through search pages, free tools, YouTube tutorials and an email list that grew from 313,000 to 500,000 addresses in one year." ], "src": [ 5, 23, 10, 32, 25, 26 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database promised easy animation or video for people without film skills, rented GPUs to consumers for a flat monthly price, or built a creative tool on music that they did not own. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Fuzzwich", "years": "2007 to 2010", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Animation for everyone: drag, drop and animate, with no training.", "died": "Its desktop tool lost to Adobe and to mobile apps. It found no business model and no further funding.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1655-fuzzwich" }, { "name": "Real Artists", "years": "2016 to 2019", "funding": "US$3M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A cloud animation studio for independent artists and small studios.", "died": "Larger tool makers added the same collaboration features to products that the customers already used. Small customers could not pay enough to fund growth.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1073-real-artists" }, { "name": "Viddy", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$30M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Filters and effects that make amateur phone video look professional.", "died": "Instagram added video in June 2013 for its existing users. People tried Viddy once and did not return.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2190-viddy" }, { "name": "Blade (Shadow)", "years": "2015 to 2021", "funding": "US$110M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "A high-end gaming PC streamed from the cloud for about US$35 a month.", "died": "Each subscriber needed about US$1,000 of GPU hardware, which became outdated before the subscription had paid for it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2162-blade-shadow" }, { "name": "Jamglue", "years": "2006 to 2009", "funding": "US$200K", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "Music remixing in the browser for anyone, without studio equipment.", "died": "Audio processing in a browser was too weak at the time, and permissions for remixed songs were costly and complicated. SoundCloud took the users.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1671-jamglue" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Fuzzwich, Real Artists and Viddy gave people without training a way to make animation or polished video, and each lost when a larger company added the same function to a product that people already used. Blade rented GPUs to consumers for a flat monthly price, and the hardware cost more than the subscriptions returned. Jamglue let people remix music that belonged to others and could not afford the permissions.", "Three things differ for Neural Frames. First, the customer has a repeating need: every released song needs a video for YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. Second, the company owns no GPUs. It rents servers, uses video models from other companies, and charges the customer credits for each clip; it had a flat unlimited plan and no longer offers one. Third, the customer uploads the song and stays responsible for the rights to it. The risks have not gone. The founder reports low or negative margins on some customers, and the makers of the video models sell video generation to the same musicians." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The January 2023 opening, no.", "text": "A web page in front of Stable Diffusion animation was new in January 2023 and is not new now. What can be repeated is the sequence: put a hard open-source technique behind a simple interface, watch who pays, rebuild the product for that one group, and charge per unit of rendering so that the model cost is the customer's cost. The founder had no web development experience and no funding.", "steps": [ "Take an open-source AI technique that works but needs programming skill, and put it behind a web page.", "Release early, also to Hacker News and Reddit, and look at who the paying users are.", "Rebuild the product and every page of the site for that one group.", "Sell credits per rendered unit, not unlimited use, when each output costs GPU time.", "Write search pages and free small tools for the exact words that this group types." ], "open": "Other groups that need media for every item they publish and cannot pay a studio: podcasters, audiobook authors, game modders, teachers. The video-model makers serve everybody, so the opening is in the workflow of one group." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported, and the last figure is from June 2025", "text": "All revenue numbers are founder statements. The US$120,000 a month is a field that the founder filled in himself, and the Stripe total is a screenshot that he posted. Since June 2025 he has published records without amounts. Latka's estimate for October 2024 is 1.74 times his own total for 2024, so third-party estimates of this company are not reliable." }, { "title": "Rented GPUs and low margins", "text": "Cloud servers cost about US$7,000 a month when recurring revenue was US$17,000 a month, which is 41%. In December 2024 he wrote that text-to-video is still extremely expensive. After Autopilot he wrote \"revenue is up, margins are down\", and in June 2025 that margins are \"so bad if not to say negative\" on some customers. The company was profitable in February 2025; no profit statement was found after Autopilot." }, { "title": "The model makers sell to the same customers", "text": "Neural Frames offers the Kling, Seedance and Runway video models, which belong to other companies. Those companies, and Google and OpenAI, also sell video generation directly to anyone. Runway alone raised more than US$300 million in April 2025. A PCMag reviewer wrote in May 2026 that the available models are not the most advanced and that a video can also be made by prompting Google's Veo directly. The founder's answer is that the storyboard and image steps around the model matter as much as the model. He also writes of \"the great commoditization of the late 2020's\", and that competitors give away video generation with investors' money." }, { "title": "Music rights", "text": "The pricing page says that the customer is responsible for the rights to any music that is uploaded. Some customers bring songs made with AI music tools, and the site has a page for Suno songs. Such tools have been in dispute with record companies: Universal Music and Udio settled copyright litigation in October 2025. Warner Music and Suno announced in November 2025 that Suno will move to licensed models in 2026 and will limit downloads. A song that cannot be downloaded cannot be uploaded to another tool." }, { "title": "Search ranking", "text": "Google was the source of a large part of revenue. In 2025 the ranking began to move up and down, sometimes to the second page for important search terms, and the founder writes that AI search terms have become more competitive. The company now also pays for advertising." }, { "title": "A larger team with fixed costs", "text": "The headline figure was reached with about five people. The About page now lists 17, and in September 2026 the founder wrote that he wants to hire more. Salaries are fixed costs, and no revenue figure for 2026 is public, so revenue per person cannot be calculated today." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Indie Hackers product page: neural frames revenue, self-reported, last updated 4 June 2025", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/product/neural-frames/revenue", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The page states the monthly revenue, the date of the last update and that the figure has not been independently verified." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 27 February 2025: reintroduction, nearly $70k this month, five people, never raised outside capital", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1895100208825917463", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the February 2025 revenue, the team size, the funding statement and the revenue goal." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 28 April 2025: crossed a nice milestone today, with a Stripe gross volume screenshot", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1916913883912024535", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the text and both attached images: the Stripe chart with €876.8K since January 2023 and a conversion to US$1,000,249.06." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 9 January 2025: two years since the first version, $500k in revenue last year", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1877366478099361882", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the launch date and the 2024 revenue." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 16 November 2023: How A Doctorate In Physics Built An AI Video Generation Tool [$17K MRR]", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/neural-frames", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview. Source for the background, the first version, the relaunch, the October 2023 figures, the cloud cost and the early marketing." }, { "title": "Latka company page: Neural Frames revenue, estimate for October 2024", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/neuralframes", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party estimate marked EST., and a headcount from LinkedIn." }, { "title": "Starter Story list: AI-based businesses and how much they make", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/ideas/ai-based-business/how-much-do-they-make", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the entry for neural frames: US$204,000 a year, from the US$17,000 of the interview." }, { "title": "Neural Frames About page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.neuralframes.com/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 17 team names, the solo first year and the statement about VC money." }, { "title": "Neural Frames pricing page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.neuralframes.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the plans, the credit rules, the two million videos and the statement on music rights. The cost calculator loads by script and could not be read." }, { "title": "Neural Frames home page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.neuralframes.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the video models that are offered." }, { "title": "Hacker News, 15 January 2023: Show HN: Create your own video clips with Stable Diffusion", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34389041", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the record through the Hacker News search API: title, date, points, number of comments and author. The comments were not read." }, { "title": "Imagine AI Live on X, 1 May 2025: Neural Frames powers $1M+ in ARR without funding", "url": "https://x.com/ImagineAILive/status/1917987383527784778", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text in the founder's timeline, where he reposted it. A statement by an event organiser." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 10 December 2024: text2video is still extremely expensive", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1866419136999391255", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 12 June 2025: day 924, margins on some customers", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1933185236306731436", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 16 May 2025: revenue is up, margins are down", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1923498284406251973", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text and the quoted post through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 15 May 2025: Today, we're releasing Autopilot", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1922980444665946147", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text in the founder's timeline, with the post of 8 May 2025 about the quiet release." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 4 June 2025: more money in one day than a month of PhD salary", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1930382903701090810", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 7 November 2025: all-time weekly revenue record for the second week in a row", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1986884987333857433", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the text and the attached image, which shows customer ratings and no amounts." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 3 August 2025: single credit purchases are almost 50% of revenue", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1951981383540199689", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the text and the attached chart. The amounts on the chart are hidden." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 25 June 2025: day 938, Google traffic, paid ads and conversion rate", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1937933805438087467", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text in the founder's timeline." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 25 September 2025: Google rankings as a risk", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1971203026275733579", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text in the founder's timeline." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 19 December 2024: cost cutting on AWS", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1869674086130999638", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text in the founder's timeline." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 22 March 2025: the main backend is one EC2 instance", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1903533481306550500", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text in the founder's timeline." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 12 February 2025: one million videos created", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1889747724548911259", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the text in the founder's timeline." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 11 June 2025: day 923, newsletter to 313k people", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1932847206303990256", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the text in the founder's timeline." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 10 June 2026: newsletter to 500k people, Short-Form Studio", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/2064732625701371965", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text and the quoted company post through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 21 August 2026: goodbye to the frame-by-frame and text-to-video editors", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/2090812309576785985", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 11 August 2026: on new video models and the TBPN interview", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/2087194300085936206", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text through api.fxtwitter.com, with his post of 10 August 2026 that quotes the programme's guest list. The interview itself was not heard." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 12 October 2026: more than 3000 Autopilot videos exported last week", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/2109570017318867020", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 13 August 2026, in German: more than 800,000€ a year in taxes and social contributions", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/2087854336831258688", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text through api.fxtwitter.com. One sentence in the second person; it does not name the company." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 3 November 2025: We're hiring a third engineer", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1985267399361278297", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 5 January 2025: affiliates have brought in $40k in revenue", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1875917283945820329", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text in the founder's timeline." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 7 October 2025: on companies that offer free access to AI video models", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/1975422560566145285", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 25 September 2026: the great commoditization of the late 2020's", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/2103474349961285755", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text through api.fxtwitter.com, with his post of 24 September 2026 about hiring." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 5 June 2025: Niching down, by nicollegah", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/niching-down-pHcx4osADy88QSkWhWfu", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The founder's short account of the first tagline and the move to music videos." }, { "title": "PCMag, 5 May 2026: I Made a Song and Music Video With AI. Can You Tell What's Wrong With Them?", "url": "https://uk.pcmag.com/ai/164766/i-made-a-song-and-music-video-with-ai-can-you-tell-whats-wrong-with-them", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on making the video. A reviewer who used Suno and Neural Frames." }, { "title": "Runway, 3 April 2025: Series D funding announcement", "url": "https://runwayml.com/news/runway-series-d-funding", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's own announcement of more than US$300 million." }, { "title": "Universal Music Group, 29 October 2025: UMG and Udio announce strategic agreements and settle copyright infringement litigation", "url": "https://www.universalmusic.com/universal-music-group-and-udio-announce-udios-first-strategic-agreements-for-new-licensed-ai-music-creation-platform/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the headline and the first paragraphs of the press release." }, { "title": "Warner Music Group, 25 November 2025: Warner Music Group and Suno forge partnership", "url": "https://www.wmg.com/news/warner-music-group-and-suno-forge-groundbreaking-partnership", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the licensed models planned for 2026 and the download limits." }, { "title": "Neural Frames page: Turn Your Suno Song into an AI Music Video, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.neuralframes.com/suno-to-video", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the first sections. Shows that the company addresses users of AI music tools." }, { "title": "CrossRef record: Role of intraband dynamics on circularly polarized high-harmonic generation from solids, Nicolai Klemke, 2020", "url": "https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1364/up.2020.th3b.6", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the metadata record only: title, author, conference and year. The paper itself was not read." }, { "title": "Nicolai Klemke on X, 26 February 2026: on Robert Scoble's Unaligned podcast", "url": "https://x.com/nicolaiklemke/status/2027099427505053770", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full text through api.fxtwitter.com. The podcast itself was not heard." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/castmagic/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/castmagic.md", "slug": "castmagic", "name": "Castmagic", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI content from audio and video recordings", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "9 February 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$1M a year run rate, November 2023", "sticker": "$1M ARR in 9 months", "outcomeUsd": 1000000, "months": 9, "teamLabel": "3 co-founders, then about 10 people in May 2024, then 2 full-time employees in August 2025", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "launches", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Marketing content" ], "product": "Upload or link a recording, such as a podcast episode, a webinar or a Zoom call, and get a transcript with speakers and timestamps. From that transcript the product writes show notes, newsletters, social posts, blog articles and quotes, and cuts captioned clips, with prompts that the customer can edit. Subscriptions are priced by the hours of recordings transcribed and start at US$19 a month.", "why": "Two podcast hosts had the show notes problem themselves and already knew many creators. A lifetime deal on AppSumo brought about 10,000 users and about US$350,000 in the first months, and paid creators and affiliates brought subscribers after that. Three founders with different skills worked for equity, so the company needed no investors.", "summary": [ "Castmagic is a content repurposing tool: it takes one long recording, such as a podcast episode, a webinar or a sales call, and writes the short pieces that are published around it: show notes, a newsletter, social posts, a blog article and captioned clips. A speech-to-text model, a program that converts recorded speech into written words, first makes a transcript. A large language model, a program that writes text from instructions, then writes each piece from that transcript and from prompts that the customer can edit. Customers pay a subscription priced by the hours of recordings transcribed.", "Blaine Bolus and Ramon Berrios, the two hosts of the business podcast DTC Pod, and Justin Tormey, a software engineer, started it with less than US$1,000 and no investors, which founders call bootstrapped: paid for by the founders and by customers only. Bolus announced it on 9 February 2023. A lifetime deal, a one-time payment for permanent access, on the deal site AppSumo in March 2023 brought about US$350,000 in sales and about 10,000 users. In November 2023, nine months after the announcement, a podcast that interviewed the founders reported US$1 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR, the subscription income of one month multiplied by twelve), and Berrios later wrote that the product passed US$100,000 a month in those nine months. In May 2024 two articles based on interviews with Bolus gave almost US$2 million in ARR and a team of around ten people. In August 2025 Berrios wrote that Castmagic had two full-time employees and made \"6 figures a month\" at a profit, and in November 2025 he announced a second company.", "Every number on this page is a founder statement, on X, in interviews or on the company's AppSumo page, grade C. No payment processor or buyer has confirmed them. The two records for mid-2025 do not agree: Latka lists US$770,000 a year from a founder webinar, which is less than \"6 figures a month\". The headline is the first million, reached by three people. The page also shows that the founders have reported no growth since mid-2024, and what happened to earlier companies that sold tools for writing and packaging content." ], "factsCaption": "Three co-founders at US$1 million a year nine months after launch, a claimed peak near US$2 million in 2024, and no growth reported since, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement on X, in an interview or on a sales page, a statement that a journalist or host repeats from the founders, or a third-party record that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a show notes problem on the founders' own podcast to US$1 million a year in nine months, then a peak, a smaller team and a co-founder's new company. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Castmagic prices in October 2026, read from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "Yearly billing is about 30% cheaper than monthly billing. Every plan includes a library of transcribed hours and unlimited AI outputs, and more hours can be bought. The Team plan adds seats at US$19 each per month. In May 2023 the entry plan cost US$39 a month for 200 minutes of audio a month. The AppSumo page shows a second deal with a founder message dated February 2025: yearly tiers at US$59 and US$169, and lifetime tiers at US$399, US$699 and US$999. It is marked sold out.", "rows": [ [ "Hobby", "19", "29", "30 transcribed hours, 3 seats" ], [ "Starter", "48", "69", "100 transcribed hours, 5 seats, API access" ], [ "Team", "139", "199", "400 transcribed hours, 5 seats included" ], [ "Business and Scale", "from 699", "from 999", "custom volume, sold by demo" ], [ "AppSumo lifetime tiers, 2025 deal", "399 to 999 one-time", "", "sold out in October 2026" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, November 2023", "value": "US$1 million", "grade": "C", "note": "A host of the podcast Probably Something, announcing his interview with Berrios and Bolus on 28 November 2023: \"went from $0 - $1m ARR in just 9 months\". Berrios wrote the same on Indie Hackers on 13 July 2024: \"$1M ARR in under 9 months with 0 capital\".", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month after nine months", "value": "more than US$100,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Berrios on X, 19 July 2024. His YouTube channel said \"6 figures per month\" on 8 July 2024.", "src": [ 1, 23 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from US$100,000 a month", "value": "US$1.2 million a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 100,000 times 12. It agrees with the US$1 million ARR claim for the same nine months.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the announcement to US$1 million ARR", "value": "9 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: February 2023 to November 2023. The founders also give March 2023 as the launch, the month of the AppSumo deal.", "src": [ 6, 3, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Team at that figure", "value": "3 co-founders", "grade": "C", "note": "Tormey on engineering, Bolus on product, support and community, Berrios on growth. Berrios wrote that they needed nobody else at the start and took no salary at first. He announced Castmagic as his next company on 4 September 2023; before that he ran Trend.io. No employee count for November 2023 is published.", "src": [ 1, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Starting capital and outside funding", "value": "less than US$1,000, no investors", "grade": "C", "note": "Berrios on X and Indie Hackers; Bolus wrote \"fully bootstrapped\" in August 2023; Refresh Miami wrote the same in May 2024.", "src": [ 1, 2, 15, 5, 7 ] }, { "fact": "AppSumo lifetime deal, 2023", "value": "about US$350,000 in sales, about 10,000 users", "grade": "C", "note": "Berrios in the Starter Story interview. This is one-time revenue, not recurring. The launch was prepared in two weeks.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue \"in 5 months\", 17 August 2023", "value": "US$500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Bolus on X. He does not say whether this is a yearly rate or total sales. If it is total sales, the AppSumo deal would be 70% of it.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month in the Starter Story interview", "value": "more than US$120,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Published 22 June 2024. Berrios says in it that the company started about 10 months before, so the figure is probably from the end of 2023 or the start of 2024. The recording date is not given. He adds growth of more than 20% a month.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from US$120,000 a month", "value": "US$1.44 million a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 120,000 times 12. Starter Story rounds it to US$1.4 million in its title.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Peak claim, May 2024", "value": "almost US$2 million ARR", "grade": "C", "note": "Business Athletes newsletter, 18 May 2024, and Refresh Miami, 21 May 2024, both after talking to Bolus. In February 2025 Bolus wrote on AppSumo: \"nearly $2M in annual revenue\".", "src": [ 8, 7, 9 ] }, { "fact": "US$2 million a year as a monthly figure", "value": "US$166,667 a month, 38.9% above US$120,000", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 2,000,000 divided by 12, compared with the Starter Story figure.", "src": [ 7, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Team, May 2024", "value": "around ten people", "grade": "C", "note": "Refresh Miami. Bolus told Business Athletes that the developers work from several countries.", "src": [ 7, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue, August 2025", "value": "\"6 figures a month\", at a profit", "grade": "C", "note": "Berrios on X, 5 August 2025. He gives no exact figure. It is the same wording as for November 2023, and below the May 2024 claim.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Team, August 2025", "value": "2 full-time employees, offshore", "grade": "C", "note": "Berrios on X. Latka lists 7 employees in June 2025, taken from LinkedIn.", "src": [ 10, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Latka's records for June 2025", "value": "US$770,000 a year (founder webinar) and US$1 million (LinkedIn)", "grade": "C", "note": "Latka attributes the first figure to the founder at a June 2025 webinar and the second to LinkedIn. The webinar itself could not be opened: not verified.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "US$770,000 a year as a monthly figure", "value": "about US$64,167 a month, 61.5% below the US$2 million peak claim", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 770,000 divided by 12, and 1 minus 770,000 divided by 2,000,000. This is less than six figures a month, so it does not agree with the August 2025 post.", "src": [ 11, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Marketing spend", "value": "under 20% of revenue", "grade": "C", "note": "Berrios, Starter Story interview. One person ran marketing, with contractors.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Net churn", "value": "single digits", "grade": "C", "note": "Berrios, Starter Story interview. He does not give the period.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Creator program, 2023", "value": "more than 10 million views and six figures in revenue", "grade": "C", "note": "Berrios on X, 21 August 2024.", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "fact": "Users", "value": "over 60,000 in July 2024; \"over 100,000 customers\" in February 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Berrios on X and Bolus on AppSumo. The company's own pricing page said 75,000+ creators served in October 2026, so the counts do not agree.", "src": [ 14, 9, 18 ] }, { "fact": "Entry price, May 2023 and October 2026", "value": "US$39 a month, then US$29 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the monthly price of the Hobby plan is 25.6% lower. The limit changed from 200 minutes a month to a library of 30 hours.", "src": [ 19, 18 ] }, { "fact": "The same function in other products", "value": "Buzzsprout (announced May 2023), Riverside, Descript, Podbean", "grade": "C", "note": "Each company's own page or press release. All four write show notes or episode descriptions from a recording that the customer already records, edits or hosts with them.", "src": [ 24, 25, 26, 27 ] }, { "fact": "A customer's comparison with a general chat model, April 2025", "value": "30 minutes of rewriting after GPT, 2 minutes after Castmagic", "grade": "C", "note": "One customer's post, quoted by Berrios. In September 2024 Berrios wrote that Google's NotebookLM described his business better than he could.", "src": [ 28, 29 ] }, { "fact": "Sale of the company", "value": "none announced", "grade": "C", "note": "No source read for this page mentions a sale. The site was live and selling on 13 October 2026.", "src": [ 18, 20, 21 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Before 2023", "what": "Bolus and Berrios host DTC Pod, a podcast about consumer brands. All three founders had started companies before: Bolus co-founded Seated and Omnipanel, both backed by venture investors; Berrios ran Trend.io, later bought by Soona; Tormey co-founded Upside, later sold to Ampla.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 8, 20 ] }, { "when": "9 February 2023", "what": "Bolus announces castmagic.io on X: it turns podcast audio into summaries, quotes, timestamps and ready-to-post text.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "March 2023", "what": "On 9 March the product connects to the GPT-3.5 Turbo API. On 15 March the founders hold a launch panel at SXSW. A lifetime deal on AppSumo, prepared in two weeks, brings about US$350,000 and about 10,000 users.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17, 4, 9 ] }, { "when": "26 May 2023", "what": "Buzzsprout, a podcast hosting company, announces Cohost AI, which writes episode titles, descriptions, chapter markers and transcripts as part of its hosting service.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 24 ] }, { "when": "17 August 2023", "what": "Bolus on X: \"$500K in 5 months\", with no outside money.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "4 September 2023", "what": "Berrios, whose company Trend.io was bought by Soona, announces Castmagic as his next company, with Bolus and Tormey.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13, 20 ] }, { "when": "14 November 2023", "what": "Three releases: Pages, which drafts text from several recordings, an iOS app for recording, and a Zapier app.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "28 November 2023", "what": "A podcast interview with Berrios and Bolus is announced with the claim of US$0 to US$1 million ARR in nine months.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "May 2024", "what": "Almost US$2 million ARR and a team of around ten people, in two articles written after interviews with Bolus.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 8 ] }, { "when": "22 June 2024", "what": "Starter Story publishes its interview with the three founders: more than US$120,000 a month, growth above 20% a month, marketing under 20% of revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "July 2024", "what": "Berrios writes that Castmagic serves over 60,000 users and processes 1 million minutes a month, and repeats US$1 million ARR in under nine months on Indie Hackers and on X.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14, 2, 1 ] }, { "when": "February 2025", "what": "A second AppSumo deal. Bolus writes there that Castmagic serves over 100,000 customers and has reached nearly US$2 million in annual revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "April 2025", "what": "YouTube changes its terms and blocks downloads by other tools. Importing YouTube links into Castmagic starts to fail, and the founders tell customers to download the file themselves and upload it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "June 2025", "what": "Latka records US$770,000 a year from a founder webinar, and US$1 million and 7 employees from LinkedIn.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "5 August 2025", "what": "Berrios on X: 2 full-time employees, offshore, and \"6 figures a month\" at a profit.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "4 November 2025", "what": "Berrios announces Ripe, a new company that runs customer surveys by AI phone calls. His X profile, read on 13 October 2026, says he is building Ripe and still names Castmagic. He has not written that he left.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12, 21 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "The site sells plans from US$19 a month and a connector that lets the Claude chat model read a customer's library. Bolus's profile says \"Bootstrapped Castmagic to 130K+ MRR\", with no date. No sale is announced.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 18, 20, 21 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Distribution before the product", "text": "The founders hosted a podcast, met the show notes problem in their own work, and knew other hosts and creators who had it too. Berrios calls this an unfair distribution advantage, and names the podcast and the founders' relationships with creators as its two parts." }, { "title": "A lifetime deal as the launch", "text": "AppSumo asked whether they could launch in two weeks, and they did. The deal brought about 10,000 users and about US$350,000, paid once. Berrios says they accepted one-time revenue because they needed a brand, a base of users and feedback. The cost is that those users can use transcription and model capacity for as long as the company exists." }, { "title": "Three founders, three separate jobs, no salaries", "text": "Engineering, product with support, and growth each had one owner. All three worked for equity and took no salary at first, so the first US$1,000 was enough. They live in three cities, hold two 30-minute calls a week and meet in person for at least one week every quarter." }, { "title": "Creators paid per view", "text": "Berrios searched Instagram and hashtags for creators in nearby fields, paid some of them per thousand views and signed others as affiliates, and kept marketing under 20% of revenue. He says the program produced more than 10 million views and six figures in revenue." }, { "title": "A workflow around the model output", "text": "Show notes alone are a single model output. Castmagic added a library of the customer's recordings, prompts that the customer can edit, clips, integrations with Zoom and Zapier, an API and, by 2026, a connector to Claude. Berrios's answer to the question about ChatGPT was that the product solves a workflow, not one output." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founders' interview with Starter Story, their posts on X and the company's site. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Justin Tormey built it in Elixir with Phoenix and LiveView, so the front end and the back end are written in one language.", "The first landing page was a Webflow template, so that development time went to the product. In October 2026 the site's HTML names the Astro framework as its generator.", "The first version was built in two weeks to meet the AppSumo launch date. The founders say that in those weeks you have to accept an imperfect product.", "On 9 March 2023 the product connected to the GPT-3.5 Turbo API and added a newsletter writer and a thread writer.", "Pricing is a subscription with a cap on usage. The founders compare what they spend on language models and transcription with the price of each plan.", "November 2023 added Pages, an iOS app and a Zapier app. By October 2026 the site also lists a Zoom integration, a REST API and an MCP (Model Context Protocol) connector, a standard way to give a chat model access to outside data." ], "src": [ 4, 17, 20, 18, 22 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold a tool for writing, summarising or packaging content, and lost to a larger platform that offered the same function inside a product people already used. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Wavii", "years": "2009 to 2013", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Short summaries of the news, written automatically by language software.", "died": "No clear way to charge for summaries. Google bought it and closed it as a separate product.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/727-wavii" }, { "name": "Draft", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A simple online editor for writers, with version control.", "died": "Google Docs added the same functions inside a larger free product. A free plan with no path to revenue could not pay the costs.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1605-draft" }, { "name": "Hyperink", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$1.4M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Turn what an expert knows into an e-book quickly, with marketing included.", "died": "Amazon's self-publishing tools did more for less, and free online content lowered what readers would pay.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1192-hyperink" }, { "name": "Vook", "years": "2009 to 2017", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "E-books with video and audio mixed into the text.", "died": "Few readers wanted them, production was expensive, and Kindle and iBooks owned distribution.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/721-vook" }, { "name": "Pressly", "years": "2011 to 2018", "funding": "US$2.9M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Collect and distribute content for a brand with less work.", "died": "Larger marketing platforms added content curation to full product suites, and social networks added their own distribution tools.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/462-pressly" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five sold one step of content production as a separate product, and a platform that already held the writer or the audience added that step. Castmagic is in the same position. The companies that hold the recording, such as Buzzsprout, Riverside, Descript and Podbean, now write show notes inside their own products, and Buzzsprout announced this three months after Castmagic's announcement.", "Two things differ. First, the cost: a language model made the writing step cheap to build, so three people built the product in two weeks with less than US$1,000 and reached profit, while the five predecessors raised between US$120,000 and US$5 million. A company with no investors can become smaller and stay alive, which is what the smaller team of 2025 suggests. Second, the founders owned their distribution through a podcast and creator contacts. Podsqueeze, also on this site, sells the same idea with two founders and reports about €16,000 a month, flat since 2024. Castmagic's reported figures are about six to ten times that, and neither company reports growth since 2024." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The launch method, yes. The speed of 2023, no.", "text": "The method is clear: build for a problem that you meet in work you already do in public, launch through a deal marketplace to get the first users and their feedback, and pay creators per view to reach the rest. The speed came from the date: Castmagic was on sale three months before Buzzsprout, a podcast host, announced the same function as part of its hosting service. Each of the three founders had also started a company before, and two of them hosted a podcast.", "steps": [ "Do the work in public first. The founders met the problem on their own podcast and already had relationships with the creators who became the market.", "Divide the work among co-founders with different skills, and pay with equity until customers pay.", "Use a deal marketplace for the launch, and count in advance what the one-time buyers will cost you in later years.", "Pay creators and affiliates per thousand views, and keep marketing under 20% of revenue.", "Sell the workflow around the model output, such as a library, prompts in the customer's voice and integrations, because the output itself becomes a free feature in other products." ], "open": "Recordings that no platform turns into text for its users yet: sales calls, coaching sessions, research interviews, internal meetings and events. Castmagic itself moved toward these uses and toward connecting its library to chat models." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported, and the 2025 records disagree", "text": "No payment processor, buyer or journalist has seen the accounts. For mid-2025 Berrios writes \"6 figures a month\", while Latka lists US$770,000 a year from a founder webinar, which is about US$64,167 a month. The profile figure of 130K+ MRR has no date." }, { "title": "The peak was not held", "text": "The founders gave almost US$2 million a year in May 2024 and again in February 2025. In August 2025 the wording, six figures a month, was the same as for November 2023, and three months later one co-founder announced a new company. The team was 2 full-time employees after around ten people, although the two counts may not be measured in the same way. At best this is no growth in 21 months." }, { "title": "Hosts and recording tools ship the same feature", "text": "Buzzsprout announced Cohost AI in May 2023. Riverside sells AI Show Notes that write summaries, takeaways and chapters in one click. Descript writes show notes with its Underlord assistant. Podbean AI writes titles and show notes. Each of these already holds the recording, so the customer does not have to upload it to a second product." }, { "title": "General chat models do the same job", "text": "A customer whom Berrios quoted in April 2025 compared the two: 30 minutes of rewriting after GPT, 2 minutes after Castmagic. That difference is what the subscription pays for, and it can shrink with each new model. In September 2024 Berrios wrote that Google's NotebookLM described his business better than he could. In 2026 Castmagic sells a connector that lets Claude read the customer's library, so part of the writing now happens in the chat model." }, { "title": "\"ARR\" next to one-time sales", "text": "About US$350,000 of the first year came from lifetime licenses, which do not recur, and the August 2023 figure of US$500,000 does not say what it measures. Lifetime buyers keep using transcription and model capacity that the company pays for. A second AppSumo deal followed in 2025." }, { "title": "It depends on other platforms' rules", "text": "In April 2025 YouTube changed its terms and Castmagic's YouTube import began to fail. The founders wrote that Descript had removed the same feature. The pricing page lists YouTube import again in October 2026." }, { "title": "Lower prices, and counts that differ", "text": "The entry plan costs US$29 a month in 2026 against US$39 in 2023. The pricing page gives 75,000+ creators, the about page 35,000+, and the founders' AppSumo message over 100,000 customers." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ramon Berrios on X, 19 July 2024: how we built Castmagic into a $100k+ MRR in 9 months", "url": "https://x.com/ramongberrios/status/1814299456587608433", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Founder's own post. Source for the monthly figure, the starting capital, the three roles and the unpaid start." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 13 July 2024: Boostrapping AI startup Castmagic to $1M in under 9 months, by Ramon Berrios", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/boostrapping-ai-startup-castmagic-to-1m-in-under-9-months-27bf7c9402", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A short post by the founder with no detail beyond the claim. No comments." }, { "title": "X post by a host of the podcast Probably Something, 28 November 2023: episode with Ramon Berrios and Blaine Bolus", "url": "https://x.com/tim__msk/status/1729512027171811339", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. The host repeats the founders' claim; Bolus reposted it. The episode itself was not listened to." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 22 June 2024: They Make $1.4M/Year With AI, video interview with the three founders", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/they-make-1-4m-year-with-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full transcript on the page. Source for the monthly revenue, growth, churn, marketing share, the AppSumo figures, the stack and the founders' earlier companies." }, { "title": "Blaine Bolus on X, 17 August 2023: $500K in 5 months, fully bootstrapped", "url": "https://x.com/bbols4/status/1692181574186320221", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Founder's own post." }, { "title": "Blaine Bolus on X, 9 February 2023: Introducing castmagic.io", "url": "https://x.com/bbols4/status/1623705770490576897", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. The first public announcement found; used as the launch date." }, { "title": "Refresh Miami, 21 May 2024: It's not just magic, it's AI! Meet the Miami startup turning conversations into content", "url": "https://refreshmiami.com/news/its-not-just-magic-its-ai-meet-the-miami-startup-turning-conversations-into-content/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A journalist's article after an interview with Bolus. Source for US$2 million ARR, the team of around ten and Justin Tormey's full name. The article does not say that the journalist saw documents." }, { "title": "Business Athletes newsletter, 18 May 2024: Blaine Bolus", "url": "https://businessathletes.beehiiv.com/p/business-athletes-blaine-bolus", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. An interview with Bolus. Source for almost US$2 million ARR in a year and the distributed team." }, { "title": "AppSumo: Castmagic deal page, with the founders' messages of February and April 2025", "url": "https://appsumo.com/products/castmagic/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 13 October 2026. Source for the deal tiers, the customer count, the annual revenue claim, the March 2023 launch and the YouTube import problem." }, { "title": "Ramon Berrios on X, 5 August 2025: 2 full time employees and 6 figures a month", "url": "https://x.com/ramongberrios/status/1952877485827248501", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Founder's own post. The newest dated revenue statement found." }, { "title": "Latka company page: Castmagic revenue 2025", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/castmagic.io", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 13 October 2026. It attributes US$770,000 to a founder webinar in June 2025, and US$1 million and 7 employees to LinkedIn. The webinar is not linked and could not be checked." }, { "title": "Ramon Berrios on X, 4 November 2025: launching Ripe", "url": "https://x.com/ramongberrios/status/1985735079390281778", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. His timeline from July 2024 to October 2026 was also read page by page." }, { "title": "Ramon Berrios on X, 4 September 2023: starting my next company", "url": "https://x.com/ramongberrios/status/1698751514846658919", "grade": "C", "how": "Read as the quoted post inside Blaine Bolus's repost of the same day. Names both co-founders by their X handles." }, { "title": "Ramon Berrios on X, 5 July 2024: just over 12 months ago we started Castmagic", "url": "https://x.com/ramongberrios/status/1809226184598732994", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the user count and the minutes processed." }, { "title": "Ramon Berrios on X, 29 July 2024: I've bootstrapped 2 companies to 7 figures in ARR in under 12 months", "url": "https://x.com/ramongberrios/status/1817890873159356904", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the distribution advantage of the podcast." }, { "title": "Ramon Berrios on X, 21 August 2024: the influencer program", "url": "https://x.com/ramongberrios/status/1826291719211515972", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the views and revenue of the creator program." }, { "title": "Blaine Bolus on X, 9 March 2023: upgrades pushed to Castmagic this week; also his posts of 15 March and 14 November 2023", "url": "https://x.com/bbols4/status/1633917415317987328", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in his timeline through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the GPT-3.5 Turbo date, the SXSW launch panel and the November 2023 releases." }, { "title": "Castmagic pricing page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.castmagic.io/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, including the monthly prices that the page's HTML carries next to the yearly ones. Source for the pricing table and the 75,000+ creators count." }, { "title": "Castmagic pricing page, Wayback Machine copy of 31 May 2023", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20230531100016/https://www.castmagic.io/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 2023 prices and limits." }, { "title": "Castmagic about page and home page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.castmagic.io/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the founders' earlier companies, the 35,000+ count, the Claude connector and the API and MCP features. The page links the third founder to another person's LinkedIn profile; his name here follows Refresh Miami and his own X profile." }, { "title": "X profiles of Blaine Bolus (@bbols4), Ramon Berrios (@ramongberrios) and Justin Tormey (@j_tormey), read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/bbols4", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the three profile texts through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the 130K+ MRR line, for Berrios's work on Ripe and for Tormey's role." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 28 December 2024: How 3 Founders Took Castmagic from $0 to $1.4M/Year Quickly", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/castmagic-breakdown", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A written summary that the page marks as estimated from public sources. It repeats the interview figures." }, { "title": "Ramon Berrios's YouTube channel, 8 July 2024: How I Built (And Lost) A Million-Dollar Business", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx_8moLRo6s", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the video description only. Source for the 6 figures per month line and the publication date." }, { "title": "Podnews press release, 26 May 2023: Buzzsprout Introduces AI Tool For Your Podcasting Workflow", "url": "https://podnews.net/press-release/buzzsprout-podcast-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A competitor's own announcement of Cohost AI." }, { "title": "Riverside: AI Show Notes product page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://riverside.com/show-notes", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the description of the feature. A competitor's own page." }, { "title": "Descript: Generate Podcast Show Notes, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.descript.com/tools/podcast-show-notes-generator", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the description of the feature. A competitor's own page." }, { "title": "Podbean AI product page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.podbean.com/ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on automated titles and show notes. A competitor's own page." }, { "title": "Ramon Berrios on X, 27 April 2025, quoting a customer's comparison of GPT and Castmagic", "url": "https://x.com/ramongberrios/status/1916502712105025785", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in his timeline through api.fxtwitter.com, with the quoted post of 25 April 2025. A customer's opinion, repeated by the founder." }, { "title": "Ramon Berrios on X, 15 September 2024: Google launched NotebookLM", "url": "https://x.com/ramongberrios/status/1835387177137738106", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/creativeclaw/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/creativeclaw.md", "slug": "creativeclaw", "name": "CreativeClaw", "country": "Israel", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Image, video and audio generation tools inside AI assistants", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "April 2026", "outcomeLabel": "US$108K in the last 30 days, October 2026", "sticker": "$108K in 30 days", "outcomeUsd": 142846, "months": 6, "teamLabel": "1 founder", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "ai-model-tools", "channel": "platform", "trend": "falling", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Creative tools" ], "product": "A remote MCP server that gives an AI assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT tools to generate images, video, speech, music and 3D models with models from Google, OpenAI, ElevenLabs and others. The user installs one plugin or adds one address, logs in once and buys credits from CreativeClaw: US$10 for 1,000 credits, with a published credit cost for each model.", "why": "People already pay for an assistant and already ask it for pictures and video. CreativeClaw sells inside that conversation, so it needs no interface of its own, no sales calls and no provider accounts on the customer's side. Revenue stayed under US$5,300 a month for five months, then rose about 18 times in September 2026, after the founder had packaged the server for ChatGPT and prepared its entry in the plugin directories. He has not published the cause of the rise.", "summary": [ "CreativeClaw is a remote MCP server for making images, video and audio. MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard, created by Anthropic, for connecting an AI assistant to outside programs. An MCP server is a program that offers the assistant a list of tools: functions with a name, a description and typed inputs, such as generate_image or generate_video. The assistant reads the list and decides during a conversation when to call one. Remote means that the server runs on the vendor's machines, and the user only adds one address or installs one plugin in Claude or ChatGPT. A product can be sold this way because the server knows who is calling. The user logs in once with OAuth, a standard login in which one service acts for a user without seeing the password, and the server then charges each tool call to that user's balance of prepaid credits. CreativeClaw's server card lists 48 tools. They send the request to image, video, speech and 3D models of other companies and return a file.", "Itay Dressler, an engineer in Tel Aviv, made the first commit on 30 March 2026 and announced the product on X on 13 April 2026. He wrote that he works on it full time as a \"Solo bootstrapped builder\". Before that he was a co-founder and the technology chief of theGist, a workplace AI company that raised US$7 million in 2022 and closed in September 2025. The payment records of CreativeClaw, which TrustMRR reads from the payment provider Polar, show US$30 in April, US$5,254 in August and US$92,894 in September 2026. On 13 October 2026 the last 30 days stood at US$108,177, and the total since the start at US$142,846. About 76% of all the money that the business has ever received arrived in those 30 days.", "The revenue figures are grade A: they come from the payment provider through an API key, not from the founder. They are gross receipts for credits. They do not show what CreativeClaw pays the companies whose models it resells, so the margin is not verified. One strong month in a business that is six months old is also not a trend, and this page does not multiply the month into a yearly figure. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that grew inside a platform owned by someone else." ], "factsCaption": "US$142,846 received in about six months, of which US$108,177 in the last 30 days, read from the payment provider; costs and margin are not public", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read by TrustMRR from CreativeClaw's account at the payment provider Polar through an API key, last synced on 13 October 2026 at 11:56 UTC. A grade C value is a statement by the founder or the company, or a press report. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. Grade A covers money received. It does not cover costs, margin, profit or the number of users.", "timelineLead": "From a first commit to US$108,177 in 30 days, in about six months, of which the first five brought less than US$5,300 a month each. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "CreativeClaw prices on 13 October 2026, from the company's pricing file and home page (grade C)", "note": "There is one price: US$10 buys 1,000 credits, so one credit is US$0.01. The site says that there is no subscription and that purchased credits do not expire. Each generation costs a published number of credits: 16 credits (US$0.16) for one image with the default model at 1K resolution, 75 credits (US$0.75) for a five-second video with the default model at 720p, 400 credits (US$4.00) for five seconds with Veo 3.1, and 20 credits (US$0.20) for 1,000 characters of speech with ElevenLabs v4. Credits are deducted before a generation starts and returned if it fails because of a server error. The customer pays the assistant maker separately for the assistant.", "rows": [ [ "Free credits at signup", "0", "", "100 credits; no card" ], [ "Credits", "10 one-time", "", "1,000 credits; do not expire" ], [ "Done-for-you brand theme", "249 one-time", "", "named in the signup form; not described on the pages read" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days, at 13 October 2026", "value": "US$108,177", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from the Polar account by API key, synced 13 October 2026 at 11:56 UTC. One 30-day period, not a yearly figure. The copy cached one day earlier showed US$109,037 for its own 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue since the start, at 13 October 2026", "value": "US$142,846", "grade": "A", "note": "Same source and sync. The first payment was in April 2026. This is the money figure that this site stores for the story.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Share of all revenue that arrived in the last 30 days", "value": "about 76%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 108,177 / 142,846 = 75.7%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue by month, 2026", "value": "April US$30; May US$365; June US$1,715; July US$2,735; August US$5,254; September US$92,894; October to the 13th US$39,854", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly table. March 2026 is US$0.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "September 2026 compared with August 2026", "value": "17.7 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 92,894 / 5,254.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "First 12 days of September 2026", "value": "US$21,930, about US$1,828 a day", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the September total minus days 13 to 30 of the daily table. The value for 13 September, US$4,388, is in the copy cached on 12 October and has left the live table. About 11 times the daily average of August, so the rise began in the first days of the month.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Daily revenue, 14 September to 12 October 2026", "value": "US$2,056 to US$6,927 a day; highest on 16 September", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR daily table, 29 full days. The largest day is 6.5% of the table's total, so the month is many small purchases and not a few large payments.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average per day, peak week and after", "value": "US$5,211 for 14 to 20 September; US$3,117 for 21 September to 12 October", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the daily table. The later level is about 40% below the peak week and stayed between US$2,056 and US$4,422 for 22 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR and active subscriptions", "value": "US$10,540 a month; 203 subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot. MRR is monthly recurring revenue. The site says there is no subscription, and no page read for this story explains what the payment provider counts as one. Not verified: what these subscriptions are.", "src": [ 1, 2, 7 ] }, { "fact": "30-day revenue compared with MRR", "value": "10.3 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 108,177 / 10,540. Recurring revenue can be at most about one tenth of the month; the rest is one-time credit purchases.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Price", "value": "US$10 for 1,000 credits; 100 free credits at signup", "grade": "C", "note": "Company pricing file. One credit is US$0.01. No subscription, and purchased credits do not expire.", "src": [ 2, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Examples of what a generation costs", "value": "image 16 credits (US$0.16); five-second video 75 credits (US$0.75); 1,000 characters of speech 20 credits (US$0.20)", "grade": "C", "note": "Company pricing file, default models: Nano Banana 2.1 at 1K, Gemini Omni Flash at 720p, ElevenLabs v4.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "One cost point given by the founder", "value": "speech sold at US$0.20 per 1,000 characters; provider API price US$0.08", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: (0.20 - 0.08) / 0.20 = 60% before other costs, for this one model. The API price is from the founder's post of 30 September 2026, which also mentions a 72% provider discount until 12 October; it is not clear if US$0.08 is before or after it. Not a margin for the business.", "src": [ 16, 2 ] }, { "fact": "What the verification does not cover", "value": "costs, margin, profit and user numbers", "grade": "C", "note": "The profile says that profit margin is not shown in the public file, and that no analytics account is connected. The models belong to other companies, so part of each dollar goes to them.", "src": [ 1, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Users", "value": "more than 10,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 9 September 2026. The home page says 10,000+ creators and 148,000+ finished generations. Not verified.", "src": [ 11, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Usage on 13 September 2026", "value": "more than 24 hours of generated video in one day", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 14 September 2026. Not verified.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Customers", "value": "small business owners and individual creators who buy without a sales call", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts of 16 and 27 September 2026, which name small business owners, restaurant owners and a musician. He calls the business B2C; the TrustMRR profile text says B2B.", "src": [ 18, 15, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 person", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR profile text, the founder's X profile (solo founder) and his launch post. In the public repository, 129 of 135 commits are his, 3 are from one other account and 3 are signed by coding agents.", "src": [ 1, 18, 9, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR profile text says Bootstrapped; the launch post says Solo bootstrapped builder.", "src": [ 1, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's previous company", "value": "theGist: US$7 million raised in 2022, closed in 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "CTech and TechCrunch. Dressler was co-founder and technology chief. The company had 10 employees at the round and about 15 people in 2023, and said it would return the money raised to investors.", "src": [ 20, 21, 22 ] }, { "fact": "Reach of the founder's own X account", "value": "414 followers; 315 views of the launch post", "grade": "C", "note": "Follower count from the TrustMRR profile, views read on 13 October 2026. Too small to explain the revenue.", "src": [ 1, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Pages on the company site", "value": "287, of which 106 examples, 57 blog posts and 22 about ChatGPT", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: a count of the addresses in the sitemap file on 13 October 2026.", "src": [ 29 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2026 figure", "value": "6 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: April 2026 to October 2026.", "src": [ 1, 9 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "15 November 2022", "what": "Dressler is co-founder and technology chief of theGist, which announces US$7 million of pre-seed funding from StageOne Ventures and Aleph and has 10 employees. Earlier he was VP of Engineering at OpenWeb, co-founder and CTO at Salaryo, and VP R&D at Gong.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 20, 22 ] }, { "when": "3 September 2025", "what": "CTech reports that theGist is closing and will return the money raised to investors.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 21 ] }, { "when": "30 March 2026", "what": "First commit in the public repository: a Creative Claw plugin for Claude with image and video generation skills.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "31 March 2026", "what": "Dressler replies to a post on X: \"I did point #1 - built the MCP server\". The site is online and says \"Inside Claude\"; its FAQ says detailed pricing will be available at launch.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 27 ] }, { "when": "13 April 2026", "what": "Public announcement on X, in Hebrew. He writes that he has decided to work on it full time as a \"Solo bootstrapped builder\". The post has 315 views.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "April 2026", "what": "The first payments arrive: US$30 in the month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "May to August 2026", "what": "Revenue of US$365, US$1,715, US$2,735 and US$5,254 a month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "16 June and 20 July 2026", "what": "A Codex version of the plugin is added, then a ChatGPT version is packaged.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "27 August to 1 September 2026", "what": "Packages for Grok Bot, Cursor, Hermes and OpenClaw, listing files for the Glama and Smithery directories, and a commit named \"Prepare Claude plugin directory submission\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "1 to 12 September 2026", "what": "US$21,930 arrives in 12 days, about four times the whole of August.", "grade": "X", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "9 September 2026", "what": "Dressler: \"wild ride. @CreativeClawCo just crossed 10k users.\"", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "11 September 2026", "what": "The company posts that it is the fastest-growing startup on Unicorne, a ranking built on TrustMRR data, with +1,055% growth. Dressler writes that he did not believe this would happen to him and that he is mostly keeping the servers running.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "14 September 2026", "what": "He writes that people generated more than 24 hours of video in one day, and that he is in contact with Chinese model companies to lower costs by buying from them directly.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "15 September 2026", "what": "He announces that a company, Creative Claw Ltd, is now registered.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "16 September 2026", "what": "The highest day in the daily table: US$6,927.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "30 September 2026", "what": "September closes at US$92,894, which is 17.7 times August.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "US$108,177 in the last 30 days and US$142,846 since the start. MRR is US$10,540 with 203 subscriptions.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "The product is running: the status file marks every component operational, and the repository received a commit on the same day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 28, 8 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Sold inside the assistant", "text": "The customer never opens a CreativeClaw application. The product is a plugin in Claude and in ChatGPT, and the same server is packaged for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Grok Bot, Hermes and OpenClaw. The founder's X account had 414 followers and his launch post had 315 views, so the customers did not come from his audience. The signup form asks where the person heard of the product and lists Claude and ChatGPT first." }, { "title": "One account in place of many", "text": "A marketer who wants an image from a Google model, a video from another model and a voice from ElevenLabs would need three accounts, three bills and API keys. CreativeClaw holds the provider accounts and sells one balance of credits. Packaged instructions named skills tell the assistant which model fits a job and how to write the prompt for it." }, { "title": "Credits, a low first price, no subscription", "text": "New accounts get 100 free credits without a card, and a purchase is US$10. Every model has a published credit cost. Customers pay before they generate, so the business holds the money before it owes the model provider. The founder wrote on 27 September 2026 that people come in, try and pay without a single sales call." }, { "title": "New models on the day of release", "text": "When a provider releases a model, CreativeClaw adds it within about a day and posts a demonstration: GPT Image 2.5 on 8 September, ElevenLabs v4 on 29 September, Nano Banana 2.1 on 6 October 2026. The founder writes that his own Claude setup now detects a new model, tests it, adds it and publishes the demonstration video." }, { "title": "Pages written for search and for AI crawlers", "text": "The sitemap lists 287 pages: 106 examples with their costs, 57 blog posts and 22 pages about ChatGPT, several of them comparisons with named competitors. The site also publishes an llms.txt file, a pricing file in markdown and a server card, which are written for AI assistants to read. What caused the rise of September is not stated in any source read for this story." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's developer pages, its terms, its public GitHub repository and the founder's posts. They are grade C.", "items": [ "A remote MCP server at app.creativeclaw.co/mcp over the Streamable HTTP transport, with a second endpoint for the ChatGPT app. The server card lists 48 tools.", "Login by OAuth 2.1 with PKCE through Clerk, asking only for the profile and email scopes. The customer never handles a provider API key.", "Payments through Polar. Tools named get_credits_balance, get_credits_link and purchase_credits let the assistant show the balance and give the user a purchase link.", "Generated files are stored on Cloudflare R2 and get permanent addresses.", "Models come from Google, fal.ai, Pika, OpenAI, ElevenLabs and Cartesia. fal.ai is a host that sells access to models of other companies, for example GPT Image 2.5 and MiniMax H3 Max.", "The plugin and its skills are in a public GitHub repository: 135 commits by 13 October 2026, of which 52 in September. 129 are by the founder, 2 are signed Cursor Agent and 1 Claude Agent.", "The founder builds with Claude. He wrote on 6 October 2026 that adding a new model and the English posts run automatically, and that he still writes the Hebrew posts himself." ], "src": [ 6, 3, 7, 8, 1, 19, 17 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database grew inside a platform owned by another company, or sold supply that larger companies also sold directly. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Meerkat", "years": "2015 to 2016", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Live video from your phone to your Twitter followers.", "died": "Its growth depended on Twitter's follower graph. Twitter bought a competitor, Periscope, and Meerkat lost the channel.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2194-meerkat" }, { "name": "BranchOut", "years": "2010 to 2017", "funding": "US$49M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A professional network built inside Facebook.", "died": "Facebook changed its API rules, and the way BranchOut gained users stopped working. LinkedIn kept the market.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/30-branchout" }, { "name": "Viddy", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$30M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Filters and effects that make phone video look polished.", "died": "Instagram added video in June 2013 for the users it already had. People tried Viddy once and did not return.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2190-viddy" }, { "name": "FiftyThree", "years": "2011 to 2019", "funding": "US$45M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Paper, a drawing app for the iPad, and a stylus named Pencil.", "died": "Apple released its own Pencil and Procreate offered more features. The hardware part raised costs.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/144-fiftythree" }, { "name": "Hipmunk", "years": "2010 to 2020", "funding": "US$55M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A clearer search across other companies' flights and hotels.", "died": "Google Travel and Expedia offered the same search with more supply. The pandemic of 2020 ended it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/214-hipmunk" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five reached its customers through a platform that it did not own, or sold supply that belonged to larger companies, and each lost when the owner changed the rules or offered the same thing itself. CreativeClaw does both at once. It reaches customers through the plugin directories of Anthropic and OpenAI, and it sells generations from models that belong to Google, OpenAI, ElevenLabs and others. Those companies publish their own connectors: ElevenLabs has had an official MCP server since March 2025, fal has one with a plugin for ChatGPT and Codex, and CreativeClaw's own comparison page lists Runway, HeyGen, Higgsfield and Kling as ChatGPT plugins.", "Three things differ. First, MCP is an open standard that several assistants support, so one server is installed in Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor and others, and no single assistant maker controls all of the distribution. Second, the assistant makers run directories and ask for connectors, so for now the platform owner helps this kind of product. Third, customers pay before they generate and every model has a published price, so the business needs no capital and can change a price when a provider does. None of this protects the margin, which no outside source has measured." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The structure, yes. The month, not on demand.", "text": "The structure is open to any engineer: a remote MCP server, OAuth login, prepaid credits and an entry in the plugin directories. It needs no capital, because customers pay first. What cannot be planned is the rise of September 2026: with the same product, revenue had been under US$5,300 a month for five months, and the founder has not said what changed. A copy also competes with the model providers, who now publish their own connectors.", "steps": [ "Choose a paid job that people already ask an assistant for and that the assistant cannot do alone. Build a remote MCP server whose tools do it.", "Use OAuth login and a prepaid credit balance, so each tool call is charged to a known user and you never pay the provider before the customer pays you.", "Publish the cost of every tool call, and give free credits without asking for a card.", "Package the server for every assistant, and submit it to each plugin directory and each MCP directory.", "Add each new model on the day its provider releases it, and post a demonstration made with it." ], "open": "Paid work that an assistant cannot do alone and that needs accounts at several providers, for example printed mail, phone calls and text messages, or purchased data. The same three parts apply: tools, login and credits." }, "watch": [ { "title": "One strong month is not a trend", "text": "About 76% of all revenue arrived in the last 30 days. Daily revenue was highest on 16 September 2026 at US$6,927 and has stayed between US$2,056 and US$4,422 since 21 September, about 40% below the peak week. Six weeks of data cannot say if this level will hold. This page shows the month as a month and does not turn it into a yearly figure." }, { "title": "Gross receipts; the margin is not verified", "text": "TrustMRR verifies money received. It does not see what CreativeClaw pays Google, fal.ai, ElevenLabs and the other providers, and the public profile shows no profit margin. The one cost point that the founder has given, for one speech model, implies about 60% before other costs. In mid-September he was still looking for lower model costs." }, { "title": "Prepaid credits are work still owed", "text": "Revenue is counted when a customer buys credits. The provider's charge comes later, when the credits are used, and purchased credits do not expire. A month with large purchases therefore contains costs that have not arrived yet." }, { "title": "Distribution depends on the assistant makers", "text": "The plugin sits in directories that Anthropic and OpenAI control. The Claude plugin needs a paid Claude plan, and on Team and Enterprise plans an administrator may have to allow it. The repository history shows changes made to pass each maker's listing review. CreativeClaw's terms say that the service relies on AI assistant platforms. A rule change or a removal would close the main sales channel." }, { "title": "The providers and the assistants can ship the same thing", "text": "ElevenLabs publishes an official MCP server. fal, which CreativeClaw's terms name as a model provider, has its own MCP server and a ChatGPT plugin that makes images, video and audio with browser login and no API key. CreativeClaw's comparison page names six other video plugins in ChatGPT. The ChatGPT menu itself has an Images entry beside Plugins." }, { "title": "A subscription count that the site does not explain", "text": "TrustMRR shows US$10,540 of MRR and 203 active subscriptions. The pricing file, the terms and the FAQ all say that there is no subscription. No page read for this story explains the difference. In either case recurring revenue is at most about one tenth of the month, so nine tenths must be earned again each month." }, { "title": "One person runs it", "text": "On 11 September 2026 the founder wrote that he was mostly keeping the servers running and sleeping little. Support, model updates, directory reviews and billing problems all go to him. He announced the registration of the company on 15 September 2026, after the money had started to arrive." }, { "title": "User and usage counts are self-reported", "text": "The 10,000 users, the 148,000 generations and the 24 hours of video in a day are statements by the founder and the company. No analytics account is connected to the TrustMRR profile." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile of CreativeClaw, revenue from the payment provider Polar", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/creativeclaw", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/creativeclaw.md) on 13 October 2026, and the copy cached on 12 October 2026. Revenue comes from the company's Polar account through an API key, last synced on 13 October 2026 at 11:56 UTC. Source for every revenue figure, the monthly and daily tables, MRR and the subscription count. The profile text (team size, funding, audience) is written by the founder and is grade C." }, { "title": "CreativeClaw pricing file, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://creativeclaw.co/pricing.md", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The machine-readable twin of the pricing page. Source for the credit price, the free credits and the credit cost of each model." }, { "title": "CreativeClaw home page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://creativeclaw.co/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the product description, the FAQ on MCP, the list of model providers, the user and generation counts, and the signup form." }, { "title": "CreativeClaw about page: a letter from the founder", "url": "https://creativeclaw.co/about/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the founder's own account of why he built it and of his earlier roles." }, { "title": "CreativeClaw: how to connect", "url": "https://creativeclaw.co/how-to-connect/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on Claude, Claude Code, ChatGPT and Codex. Source for the plugin directory links, the Smithery link and the Claude plan requirement." }, { "title": "CreativeClaw developer page in markdown, and the MCP server card", "url": "https://creativeclaw.co/developers.md", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on connection, OAuth and tools, and the tool names in the server card at /.well-known/mcp.json. The card lists 48 tools; the developer page says 49." }, { "title": "CreativeClaw terms of service", "url": "https://creativeclaw.co/terms/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on credits, refunds and third-party services." }, { "title": "GitHub repository CreativeClawCo/creative-claw-marketplace: record and commit history", "url": "https://github.com/CreativeClawCo/creative-claw-marketplace", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the repository record and the titles, dates and authors of all 135 commits through the GitHub API on 13 October 2026. Source for the first commit, the dated packaging and directory steps, and the commit counts." }, { "title": "Itay Dressler on X, 13 April 2026: launch thread of three posts", "url": "https://x.com/itaydressler/status/2043684250742882770", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. In Hebrew, translated on this page; the words Solo bootstrapped builder are in English in the original. 315 views when read." }, { "title": "Itay Dressler on X, 31 March 2026: I did point #1 - built the MCP server", "url": "https://x.com/itaydressler/status/2039033130233782468", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. A reply to another user's post." }, { "title": "Itay Dressler on X, 9 September 2026: just crossed 10k users", "url": "https://x.com/itaydressler/status/2097621344296796478", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. It quotes the company post of 8 September, whose image shows CreativeClaw in second place on a ranking of fastest-growing startups." }, { "title": "Itay Dressler on X, 11 September 2026, and the company posts of the same day about first place on Unicorne", "url": "https://x.com/itaydressler/status/2098382958184857833", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com, with the image of the ranking. The founder's post is in Hebrew, translated on this page. The company post with the +1,055% figure is https://x.com/CreativeClawCo/status/2098406859371581627." }, { "title": "Itay Dressler on X, 14 September 2026: more than 24 hours of video in one day", "url": "https://x.com/itaydressler/status/2099445975282589897", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. In Hebrew, translated on this page. Source for the usage statement and the talks with model companies about cost." }, { "title": "Itay Dressler on X, 15 September 2026: the company is registered", "url": "https://x.com/itaydressler/status/2099965701150683470", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. In Hebrew, translated on this page." }, { "title": "Itay Dressler on X, 27 September 2026: on selling", "url": "https://x.com/itaydressler/status/2104231440506294635", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. In Hebrew, translated on this page." }, { "title": "Itay Dressler on X, 30 September 2026: thread on ElevenLabs v4, post 9 on price", "url": "https://x.com/itaydressler/status/2105268619038875833", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in the timeline pages from api.fxtwitter.com. In Hebrew, translated on this page. Source for the provider's API price as the founder states it." }, { "title": "Itay Dressler on X, 6 October 2026: new models are added automatically", "url": "https://x.com/itaydressler/status/2107524119235526734", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. In Hebrew, translated on this page." }, { "title": "Itay Dressler on X: timeline, 2023 to 13 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/itaydressler", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the 49 posts that the api.fxtwitter.com timeline returned, in four pages. Source for the profile text, the posts of 16 and 24 September 2026 and the absence of posts between 17 April and 9 September 2026 in that reply." }, { "title": "CreativeClaw on X: timeline, 31 March to 6 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/CreativeClawCo", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the 48 posts that the api.fxtwitter.com timeline returned, in four pages. Source for the dates on which new models were added." }, { "title": "CTech, 15 November 2022: Israeli startup theGist raises $7 million to increase workplace productivity using generative AI", "url": "https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/hksaghzuj", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Press report. Source for the founders, the round, the 10 employees and Dressler's earlier roles." }, { "title": "CTech, 3 September 2025: AI startup theGist shuts down, plans to return investor funds", "url": "https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/jeyngl375", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Press report. Source for the closure and the team of about 15 people in 2023." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 15 November 2022: TheGist uses AI to summarize Slack channels and threads", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/15/thegist-uses-ai-to-summarize-slack-channels-and-threads/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A second report of the same funding round." }, { "title": "Model Context Protocol documentation: What is the Model Context Protocol (MCP)?", "url": "https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/getting-started/intro", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the introduction. Source for the definition of MCP and the list of assistants and tools that support it." }, { "title": "CreativeClaw, updated 29 September 2026: What is the best ChatGPT plugin to generate videos in 2026?", "url": "https://creativeclaw.co/chatgpt/best-video-plugins/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the opening sections. The company's own comparison; it names six other ChatGPT video plugins." }, { "title": "GitHub repository elevenlabs/elevenlabs-mcp: The official ElevenLabs MCP server", "url": "https://github.com/elevenlabs/elevenlabs-mcp", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the repository record through the GitHub API on 13 October 2026: created 14 March 2025, 1,536 stars." }, { "title": "fal documentation: fal MCP server", "url": "https://docs.fal.ai/model-apis/mcp", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Describes fal's own MCP server and its plugin for ChatGPT and Codex." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of creativeclaw.co, 1 April 2026", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260401130909/https://creativeclaw.co/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The earliest copies are from 31 March and 1 April 2026. Source for the first positioning and the pricing text before launch." }, { "title": "CreativeClaw status file, 13 October 2026", "url": "https://creativeclaw.co/status.json", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. All four components are marked operational, updated on 13 October 2026 at 08:27 UTC." }, { "title": "CreativeClaw sitemap and llms.txt, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://creativeclaw.co/sitemap-0.xml", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full and counted. 287 addresses. The llms.txt file at the site root lists the pages for AI assistants." }, { "title": "ChatGPT plugin page for CreativeClaw", "url": "https://chatgpt.com/plugins/creativeclaw", "grade": "C", "how": "Downloaded on 13 October 2026. The listing loads by script and could not be read; only the page menu was read. The address comes from the company's connect page." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/seobot/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/seobot.md", "slug": "seobot", "name": "SEObot", "country": "USA, listed as Turkey on TrustMRR", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI agent that writes and publishes search-optimized articles", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "26 September 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$888K in the last 12 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$888K in 12 months", "outcomeUsd": 888125, "months": 37, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders: John Rush (chief executive) and Vitalik May (technology chief)", "fundingLabel": "None, by the founder's statement", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "seo-ai-search", "channel": "audience", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Search marketing" ], "product": "A customer enters a website address. SEObot reads the site, chooses search phrases, makes a plan of articles, writes the articles with language models and publishes them to the customer's blog every week. The customer pays a monthly plan of article credits and can approve, edit or decline each article.", "why": "The founder had about 117,000 followers on X and more than 20 other products for the same customers, so the tool had buyers before it had a public launch. It sold a finished result, a published article, for about US$3.50 to US$5.44. Payment records show about US$100,000 a month at the end of 2025 and a fall in every month since January 2026.", "summary": [ "SEObot is an AI agent for SEO. An AI agent here is a program that plans and carries out a chain of tasks with language models, with no person directing each step. SEO, search engine optimization, is the work of making web pages appear high in Google's results so that people visit them without paid advertising. A customer enters a website address. SEObot studies the site, chooses search phrases, writes articles and publishes them to the customer's blog every week. Plans in the company's help center start at US$49 a month for 9 articles.", "John Rush announced it on X on 26 September 2023. He runs it with one partner, Vitalik May, who writes the code, and they split ownership 50/50. Rush also runs a studio of more than 20 small products under the name MarsX; this page counts SEObot only. TrustMRR, a site that reads revenue from a company's Stripe account through an API key, shows US$888,125 for the 12 months to 13 October 2026 and US$1,899,549 since the first payment. An API key is a password that lets one program read data from another program.", "Two points need care. First, the founder said \"almost 120K MRR\" in an interview in May 2025. MRR, monthly recurring revenue, is the subscription revenue of one month. The public payment records start in November 2025, and no month in them is above US$103,105. This page shows both numbers and does not decide why they differ. Second, revenue has fallen in every month since January 2026: the last 30 days brought US$37,817, about half of the 12-month average of US$74,010. The page also explains Google's spam policy of March 2024 against pages produced in bulk to gain rankings, which is the main risk for a customer who buys articles from a machine." ], "factsCaption": "US$888,125 in 12 months from the Stripe account of a two-person product, with the last 30 days at about half of the 12-month average", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read by TrustMRR from the company's Stripe account through an API key, last synced on 13 October 2026 at 14:14 UTC. A grade C value is a statement by a founder or by the company's own pages. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. Grade A covers money received in that Stripe account. It does not cover invoices paid outside Stripe, costs, margin or profit.", "timelineLead": "From a waiting list to about US$100,000 a month in 26 months, then eight monthly falls in a row. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "SEObot plans from the company's help-center article dated 15 September 2025; the home page on 13 October 2026 still says that subscriptions start at US$49 a month (grade C)", "note": "One credit is one article. Credits do not expire, and unused credits are refunded only within 7 days of purchase. The company publishes no yearly price, so the yearly column is empty. The help center says that the complete list of plans is shown only after a customer has set up a website, so the plans today may differ from this list. Only the US$99 and US$499 plans are named in the help center (Pro and Enterprise). The FAQ on the home page also offers a full refund on the US$49 plan after the first article. Agencies that order 300 or more articles pay US$3.50 per article. On 18 May 2025 the home page said that subscriptions started at US$19 a month.", "rows": [ [ "US$49 plan", "", "49", "9 articles a month" ], [ "Pro", "", "99", "20 articles a month" ], [ "US$199 plan", "", "199", "50 articles a month" ], [ "Enterprise", "", "499", "100 articles and 20 directory listings a month" ], [ "US$570 plan", "", "570", "150 articles a month" ], [ "US$1,050 plan", "", "1050", "300 articles a month" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue in the 12 months to 13 October 2026", "value": "US$888,125", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from the Stripe account by API key, synced 13 October 2026 at 14:14 UTC. The copy cached one day earlier showed US$889,399 for its own 12 months.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days, at 13 October 2026", "value": "US$37,817", "grade": "A", "note": "Same profile. A second line on the profile, called a snapshot, shows US$38,082. Change against the 30 days before: minus 10.3%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 3 months and the last 6 months", "value": "US$127,902 and US$307,606", "grade": "A", "note": "Same profile.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue since the first payment", "value": "US$1,899,549", "grade": "A", "note": "The all-time line of the profile. The profile gives 23 September 2023 as the founding date.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue by month, November 2025 to September 2026", "value": "Nov US$99,433; Dec US$98,888; Jan US$103,105; Feb US$93,999; Mar US$85,954; Apr US$75,669; May US$63,803; Jun US$57,391; Jul US$50,806; Aug US$48,380; Sep US$40,732", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly table. October 2026 to the 13th: US$13,967. Months before November 2025 are not public.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR and active subscriptions", "value": "US$37,197 a month; 515 subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot. MRR change over 30 days: minus 10.5%. The payment provider is Stripe; the profile says that SEObot is not sold through a merchant of record.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average month of the last twelve", "value": "US$74,010", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 888,125 divided by 12 equals 74,010.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Latest 30 days against that average", "value": "51.1% of it, so 48.9% lower", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 37,817 divided by 74,010 equals 0.511. The first half of the 12 months brought US$580,519 (888,125 minus 307,606) and the second half US$307,606, a fall of 47.0%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Highest month to latest full month", "value": "US$103,105 in January 2026 to US$40,732 in September 2026, minus 60.5%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 40,732 divided by 103,105 equals 0.395. Each month from February to September 2026 is lower than the month before.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average revenue per subscription", "value": "about US$72 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 37,197 divided by 515 equals 72.23, between the US$49 plan and the US$99 plan.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue received before the 12-month window", "value": "US$1,011,424 in about 24.7 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 1,899,549 minus 888,125. From 23 September 2023 to 13 October 2025 is about 24.7 months, so the average is about US$41,000 a month. This total can contain some months near US$100,000 in 2025. It cannot confirm or exclude US$120,000 in May 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's statement, mid-May 2025", "value": "\"almost 120K MRR\"", "grade": "C", "note": "Interview with Nathan Latka, published on 12 June 2025. While he shows his Stripe screen he says that revenue has two channels, Stripe and enterprise invoices, and that the Stripe channel is \"over 100K a month\". He also says that he sells credits. The public payment records do not cover May 2025.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "That statement next to the payment records", "value": "US$120,000 stated; US$103,105 in the highest verified month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 120,000 is 16.4% above January 2026, the highest month in the public records, and 20.7% above November 2025, the earliest. The two numbers belong to different months, so this is not a direct check. See the first item under what to watch.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's statement, November 2025", "value": "\"100K MRR\" and \"we make 100K a month\"", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story podcast, published 11 November 2025; the recording date is not given. The payment records show US$99,433 for November 2025, a difference of 0.6%. This statement agrees with the records.", "src": [ 4, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Cost of the language models", "value": "about US$30,000 a month on US$100,000, a 70% margin", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on Starter Story, November 2025. Not verified: TrustMRR sees money received, not costs.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "People who build and run SEObot", "value": "2", "grade": "C", "note": "John Rush, chief executive, has the idea, builds the first version and promotes the product. Vitalik May, technology chief, writes the code and the help-center articles. They split ownership 50/50. Product Hunt lists the same two people as makers.", "src": [ 2, 6, 12, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per person", "value": "about US$444,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 888,125 divided by 2 equals 444,062.50.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Share of the founders' time spent on customer support, May 2025", "value": "almost 80%", "grade": "C", "note": "Rush in the Latka interview: customers cannot connect their content systems, and the two of them were building nothing new.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "Rush says that he builds with no venture money, after ten years in venture-funded companies. No source read for this story names an investor in SEObot.", "src": [ 2, 19 ] }, { "fact": "Yearly revenue of the whole studio, not counted in the headline", "value": "US$2M (March 2024), US$3.5M (May 2025), US$3M (November 2025)", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder statements for 20 to 26 products together. None of the three totals is verified. If both of his May 2025 numbers are right, SEObot was 41.1% of the total (calculated: 120,000 times 12 equals 1,440,000, divided by 3,500,000).", "src": [ 13, 2, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Another product of the same founder, for comparison", "value": "TinyAdz: US$58,356 in 12 months", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, Stripe by API key. John Rush is listed as co-founder. He offered it for sale at US$75,000 on 30 August 2026 and at US$49,000 on 4 September 2026. It is 6.6% of SEObot's 12-month revenue (calculated: 58,356 divided by 888,125).", "src": [ 15, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Entry price", "value": "US$19 a month in May 2025; US$49 a month from September 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Archived home page of 18 May 2025; help-center article of 15 September 2025; home page of 13 October 2026. Calculated: 49 divided by 19 equals 2.58 times.", "src": [ 8, 6, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Price per article", "value": "US$5.44 on the smallest plan; US$3.50 on the largest", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 49 divided by 9 equals 5.44; 1,050 divided by 300 equals 3.50.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Work behind one article", "value": "727 prompts, 126 jobs, 2 hours, US$6", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 5 December 2024. The post does not say whether US$6 is the cost to produce the article or its price.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Articles written", "value": "more than 100,000 by May 2025; more than 200,000 by October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Home page claims, together with 0.6 billion and then 1.2 billion search impressions for customers' sites. Not verified.", "src": [ 8, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Followers of the founder on X", "value": "117,867", "grade": "C", "note": "Read on 13 October 2026. The TrustMRR profile shows 116,621.", "src": [ 14, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Country", "value": "USA by its terms of service; Turkey on TrustMRR", "grade": "C", "note": "The terms are under the law of Delaware and name only \"SEObot AI\". The TrustMRR profile lists the country code TR. Rush grew up in the Caucasus and studied in Norway, by a 2025 newsletter. No source read for this story says where Vitalik May lives; Ukraine is not verified.", "src": [ 7, 1, 18 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the announcement to the headline date", "value": "37 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: September 2023 to October 2026.", "src": [ 9, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Late 2022", "what": "Rush starts work on SEObot for his own products. On 27 December 2024 he writes: \"Two years ago, I started SEObot!\"", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "7 September 2023", "what": "The address seobotai.com shows a waiting list for \"SeoBOT\", \"starting with MarsVerse projects\", which are Rush's own products.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "26 September 2023", "what": "Rush announces \"an AI SeoBot\" on X and asks readers to request access. TrustMRR gives 23 September 2023 as the founding date.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 1 ] }, { "when": "November 2023 to June 2024", "what": "The home page still offers a waiting list and says \"We're onboarding new users every day\". Rush later says that about six months of closed use by people he knew came first, and that the public opening was 12 to 14 months before mid-May 2025, which is March to May 2024.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 2 ] }, { "when": "5 March 2024", "what": "Google announces a spam policy against \"scaled content abuse\": many pages generated mainly to manipulate search rankings, by automation, by people or by both.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "9 March 2024", "what": "Rush describes his studio as a profitable holding company with US$2 million of yearly revenue and 20 products. This is the whole studio, not SEObot.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "5 December 2024", "what": "Rush describes how the agent works: one article takes about 2 hours and runs 727 prompts and 126 jobs.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "27 December 2024", "what": "SEObot launches on Product Hunt, with Vitalik May and John Rush as makers. Rush writes that users' sites had 0.6 billion search impressions and 15 million clicks.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12, 11 ] }, { "when": "Mid-May 2025", "what": "In an interview with Nathan Latka, Rush says \"almost 120K MRR\", two people, and almost 80% of their time on customer support. The home page offers plans from US$19 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 3, 8 ] }, { "when": "15 September 2025", "what": "The help center lists six plans, from US$49 a month for 9 articles to US$1,050 a month for 300 articles.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "November 2025", "what": "The first month in the public payment records: US$99,433. On the Starter Story podcast, published on 11 November, Rush says \"100K MRR\".", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "when": "January 2026", "what": "The highest month in the public payment records: US$103,105.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "February to September 2026", "what": "Revenue falls in each of eight months, to US$40,732 in September. On 27 February Rush writes that he is building a second version of the agent interface for SEObot and five other bots.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 14 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "TrustMRR shows US$37,817 for the last 30 days, 515 active subscriptions and US$1,899,549 since the first payment. The product is on sale from US$49 a month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 5 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Buyers before the launch", "text": "Rush had a large following on X (117,867 followers in October 2026) and more than 20 products and directories for the same customer, a founder without a marketing team. He says that growth came about 30% from search, 30% from cross-promotion between his own products and 30% from social media. SEObot itself has a button that sends the customer to ListingBott, another product of his." }, { "title": "A finished result, not a writing tool", "text": "The customer enters a website address and receives published articles. There is no editor to learn and no prompt to write. The price is per article, through credits, so a customer who wants more articles pays more, and the model cost of each article is covered by its price." }, { "title": "Built for his own sites first", "text": "Rush says that he built SEObot because he needed it for his own 11 software products and 20 directories. His own sites are the public examples on the home page, and he posts their traffic results. That gave the product test data and marketing material at the same time." }, { "title": "Two people on an equal split", "text": "Rush tests the idea and sells; a technical partner builds. On SEObot the partner is Vitalik May, with 50% of the ownership. The same contract is used across the studio, which is how one person can be a founder of more than 20 products." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founders' posts and interviews and from the product's own pages. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The agent splits one article into a tree of small tasks: research in Google results, an outline, the text, fact checks, internal links and images. The founder counted 727 prompts and 126 jobs for one article, over about 2 hours.", "The language models are rented through the APIs of OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. Rush says that he uses all three and changes between them as each one improves, and that the model cost is about 30% of revenue.", "Finished articles go straight to the customer's content system: WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, Ghost, Framer, Wix, Notion, HubSpot or Unicorn Platform, or any other site through a REST API and webhooks.", "Billing is by credits through Stripe: one credit is one article and credits do not expire. By the founder's account, large customers pay by invoice outside Stripe.", "The marketing site is built on Unicorn Platform, a website builder that Rush bought for about US$800,000, and the help center runs on Intercom.", "Demand was tested with a waiting list in September 2023 and with a closed group for about six months, before the public opening in 2024 and the Product Hunt launch on 27 December 2024." ], "src": [ 10, 4, 5, 6, 2, 8, 18 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold marketing results or cheap content before language models could write an article. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Metigy", "years": "2014 to 2022", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Machine learning that does the work of a marketing team for a small business.", "died": "Its software gave general advice, such as post more video, and the owner still had to do the work. Small businesses wanted the work done for them, and many left within two or three months.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2338-metigy" }, { "name": "Pressly", "years": "2011 to 2018", "funding": "US$2.9M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A platform that helps a brand collect and publish content with less effort.", "died": "It only collected content that other people had written. Larger marketing suites added the same feature next to analytics and search tools, and Pressly did not expand quickly enough.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/462-pressly" }, { "name": "Hyperink", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$1.4M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "E-books on narrow subjects, produced quickly by experts.", "died": "Every book needed paid people to write it and to market it. Amazon's self-publishing tools and free articles on the web reduced what readers would pay.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1192-hyperink" }, { "name": "Waterproof Digital Camera", "years": "2013 to 2017", "funding": "None", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "A review website for one product type, built to earn sales commissions from search visitors.", "died": "It used aggressive search tactics that Google's rules forbid. Google's updates removed its rankings, and its single product category left it nothing else to sell.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2023-waterproof-digital-camera" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Before 2023, software could advise on marketing but could not do the work. Metigy's models produced general advice, and the business owner still had to write every post. Pressly could only collect what other people had written. Hyperink needed paid writers for every book. The promise \"we do your content for you\" needed people, and people cost more than small customers would pay.", "Language models removed the writer. SEObot's founder counts 727 model calls for one article, and the article sells for US$3.50 to US$5.44. Two people serve 515 subscriptions. The problem of the fourth predecessor did not change: Waterproof Digital Camera lived on Google's rankings and ended when Google changed its rules. An article agent sells pages that are worth their price only while Google ranks them, and in March 2024 Google wrote a policy about pages made in bulk for that purpose." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. This exact product, with care.", "text": "An agent that delivers a finished result for a small monthly price is still open to two people, and the build is ordinary: rented models, a queue of tasks and connections to content systems. But the verified revenue of this product has fallen in every month since January 2026, and its starting advantage was the founder's audience of about 117,000 followers and more than 20 other products that send customers. A copy without that distribution starts from zero.", "steps": [ "Build the tool for your own sites first, and publish the results with real traffic numbers.", "Sell the finished result, a published article, and price it per unit so that heavy users pay their own model cost.", "Test demand with a waiting list and a closed group for some months before a public launch.", "Work with one technical partner on an equal split: one person sells and supports, the other builds.", "Connect the product to the systems that customers already use, so that delivery needs no manual step." ], "open": "Agents that deliver one finished marketing result for one kind of business are still open: content in the local language of one country, product pages for online shops, or pages written to be quoted by AI answer engines. Each needs proof that the pages help readers, because Google's policy judges the value of a page to users and not the method that produced it." }, "watch": [ { "title": "A founder figure above the payment records", "text": "In mid-May 2025 the founder said that SEObot was doing \"almost 120K MRR\". The public payment records start in November 2025, and their highest month is US$103,105, in January 2026. The sources allow four explanations and do not allow a choice between them. One: May 2025 was a higher month than any month since November 2025; that month is not public. Two: part of the revenue is paid by invoice outside Stripe, as the founder said in the same interview, and TrustMRR reads the Stripe account only. Three: he sells credits, so \"MRR\" in his sentence may mean all money received in a month and not only subscriptions. Four: the number was rounded up. His later statement, \"100K MRR\" in November 2025, agrees with the records to within 1%." }, { "title": "Revenue is falling", "text": "The last 30 days brought US$37,817 against a 12-month average of US$74,010. From January to September 2026 each month was lower than the one before, minus 60.5% in total. The sources give no reason. Three dated facts from the same period may or may not be connected: the entry price rose from US$19 to US$49 between May and September 2025, the founder said in May 2025 that many more people now compete for search traffic with AI, and in February 2026 he announced a rebuilt version. The headline is a figure for the past 12 months and not a forecast: at the rate of the last 30 days, a year brings about US$454,000 (calculated: 37,817 times 12 equals 453,804)." }, { "title": "Google's policy on pages made in bulk", "text": "On 5 March 2024 Google added a spam policy against \"scaled content abuse\". The policy page, as read in October 2026, defines it as the case where \"many pages are generated for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings and not helping users\", with \"little to no value to users, no matter how it's created\". The first example in Google's list is \"Using generative AI tools or other similar tools to generate many pages without adding value for users\". Sites that break the policy \"may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all\". The policy does not forbid AI writing; Google's announcement says that automation is spam \"if the primary purpose is manipulating ranking in Search results\". For a customer this means two things. The risk is on the customer's own website, because the penalty applies to the site that publishes the pages and not to the tool. And a customer who lets the agent publish without review, on subjects where the site adds nothing new, is close to the example in the policy. SEObot's own FAQ says that its article quality sometimes matches an average human writer, sometimes falls short and occasionally exceeds it, and the product lets the customer approve, edit or decline every article." }, { "title": "No public figure on customers who stay", "text": "A customer whose pages stop ranking has no reason to buy more articles. SEObot publishes impressions and clicks for all customers together, 1.2 billion and 30 million, and no figure for how many customers stay. TrustMRR keeps the churn history behind a login. The fall in revenue is consistent with customers leaving, but the public records do not show the cause." }, { "title": "One founder, more than 20 products", "text": "Rush says that he brings a product to about US$50,000 a month, pauses, brings it to US$100,000, pauses again and moves to other tools. In May 2025 almost 80% of the two founders' time on SEObot went to customer support. In the same interview he said that he never sells a product; in August 2026 he offered another one, TinyAdz, for sale. The totals he gives for the studio, US$3.5 million and later US$3 million a year, are not verified and are not SEObot's figures." }, { "title": "Margin not verified", "text": "TrustMRR verifies money received. The 70% margin and the US$30,000 a month of model costs are founder statements from November 2025, when revenue was about US$100,000 a month. No source shows the margin at the revenue of October 2026." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile of SEOBOT, revenue read from Stripe by API key", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/seobot.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile on 13 October 2026 (revenue last synced 13 October 2026 at 14:14 UTC) and compared it with a copy cached one day earlier. The revenue, MRR and subscription figures come from the Stripe account. The profile text is written by the founder and is grade C." }, { "title": "Founderpath, 12 June 2025: How John Rush Built $3.5M ARR With AI Agents and Two-Person Teams (interview by Nathan Latka)", "url": "https://founderpath.com/resources/john-rush-marsx-3-5m-arr-ai-agents-two-person-teams", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full transcript, 170 passages, on the /watch page of this resource. Founder interview. Source for \"almost 120K MRR\", the two revenue channels, the team of two, the 50/50 split, the support load and the statement about venture money. The founder shows his Stripe screen to the interviewer; this page did not see it, so the figures stay grade C." }, { "title": "GetLatka interview page, interview date 15 May 2025: How MarsX.dev Reached $3.5M ARR Across 20 AI-Powered Tools in 2025", "url": "https://getlatka.com/interviews/marsxdev-john-rush-2025", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the summary and the metrics table. The same interview as the Founderpath resource; used for the interview date." }, { "title": "Starter Story podcast, 11 November 2025: I Make $250K/Month From 20 Apps, transcript on StationLM", "url": "https://stationlm.com/analysis/8497b902-dcf6-4000-b194-848da288e3b2", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full transcript on this third-party page; did not watch the video. Source for \"100K MRR\", the 70% margin, the model costs, the studio total of US$3 million and the partner arrangement. The recording date is not given." }, { "title": "SEObot home page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://seobotai.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the starting price, the features, the content systems, the FAQ on article quality, the count of 200,000 articles and the two founders' contact accounts. The address /pricing returns an error page; the price is on the home page." }, { "title": "SEObot Help Center, 15 September 2025, by Vitalik May: What's SEObot pricing?", "url": "https://docs.seobotai.com/en/articles/10644453-what-s-seobot-pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, together with the article on plan upgrades dated 27 February 2025. Source for the pricing table, the plan names Pro and Enterprise, and the rule that credits do not expire." }, { "title": "SEObot terms of service, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://seobotai.com/terms-of-service", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on credits, refunds and governing law. Source for the Delaware clause and the 7-day refund rule." }, { "title": "Internet Archive copies of seobotai.com, 7 September 2023 to 18 May 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20230907095905/https://seobotai.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read four copies: 7 September 2023 (waiting list), 18 November 2023 and 23 June 2024 (waiting list, onboarding new users every day), 18 May 2025 (subscriptions from US$19 a month, 100,000 articles)." }, { "title": "John Rush on X, 26 September 2023: first announcement of SeoBot", "url": "https://x.com/johnrush/status/1706770428163678332", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com, as the post quoted inside his post of 27 February 2026." }, { "title": "John Rush on X, 5 December 2024: We've built a real AI AGENT", "url": "https://x.com/johnrush/status/1864535178133250318", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com, as a repost in Vitalik May's timeline. Source for 727 prompts, 126 jobs, 2 hours and US$6." }, { "title": "John Rush on X, 27 December 2024: Two years ago, I started SEObot!", "url": "https://x.com/johnrush/status/1872553029570060585", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the start of the work and the Product Hunt launch." }, { "title": "Product Hunt: SEObot, launched 27 December 2024", "url": "https://www.producthunt.com/posts/seobot", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the data inside the page. Source for the launch date and the two makers." }, { "title": "John Rush on X, 9 March 2024: How I Startup!", "url": "https://x.com/johnrush/status/1766266602712891859", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the studio total of US$2 million and 20 products." }, { "title": "John Rush and Vitalik May on X: profiles and timelines, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/johnrush", "grade": "C", "how": "Read page by page through api.fxtwitter.com/2/profile/johnrush/statuses. The interface returned 98 posts back to 14 February 2026 only, so older revenue posts could not be searched. The handle changed from johnrushx to johnrush, by his post of 11 August 2026. Source for the follower count, the posts of 27 February, 30 August and 4 September 2026, and Vitalik May's profile text." }, { "title": "TrustMRR profile of TinyAdz, revenue read from Stripe by API key", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/tinyadz.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile on 13 October 2026. Another product with John Rush as co-founder. Used only to keep SEObot's figures apart from the rest of the studio." }, { "title": "Google Search Central blog, 5 March 2024: What web creators should know about our March 2024 core update and new spam policies", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on the new spam policies and on scaled content abuse. Google's own statement of its rules." }, { "title": "Google Search Central: Spam policies for Google web search, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on scaled content abuse and the sentence on the consequences. Google's own statement of its rules." }, { "title": "No-Code Exits newsletter, 29 August 2025: How John Rush is Building an AI Empire Without VC or Employees", "url": "https://nocodeexits.substack.com/p/250k-users-and-30-million-views-on", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the founder's background. It gives no revenue figure for SEObot." }, { "title": "John Rush's personal site", "url": "https://johnrush.me/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the product list and for his own description: seven venture-funded startups, then bootstrapping." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/verbi/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/verbi.md", "slug": "verbi", "name": "Verbi", "country": "Canada", "sector": "Consumer software", "productType": "AI language tutor app", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "2 April 2026", "outcomeLabel": "US$251K verified revenue in 6 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$251K in 6 months", "outcomeUsd": 250824, "months": 6, "teamLabel": "The founder and his girlfriend at first; the profile says 2 to 5 people, plus paid video creators", "fundingLabel": "None reported; the profile says bootstrapped", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "learning", "channel": "creators", "trend": "falling", "collections": [ "phone-app" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Education" ], "product": "A phone app for practicing a foreign language by speaking. The learner talks out loud with an AI tutor in short voice lessons and free role plays, and gets feedback after each attempt. Around that sit a daily word feed, quizzes, verb drills, listening clips and a progress score. Nine languages. The download is free and the lessons need a subscription, listed in the US App Store at US$7.99 or US$8.99 a week or US$29.99 to US$79.99 a year.", "why": "The tutor is an AI model, so the company pays for computing and has no teacher to pay by the hour. That allows a yearly price of US$47.99 to US$79.99. Customers came from a very large number of short videos on TikTok and Instagram: first slideshows that the founder's own tool generated and that two people posted from about 12 accounts, then videos by paid creators. Yearly plans are paid in full on the first day, so the cash arrived early. Half of all revenue came in September 2026, and daily sales have fallen since.", "summary": [ "Verbi is an iPhone and Android app for learning to speak a foreign language. The learner holds a button, speaks, and an AI tutor answers in that language, gives corrections and scores the session. This needs speech recognition, software that turns recorded speech into text, and a language model, a program trained on large amounts of text that writes the tutor's replies. Verbi rents both from outside AI providers, which its privacy policy does not name. The app is free to download and sells a subscription as an in-app purchase, a payment made inside the app that Apple or Google collects, keeping a commission.", "Pedro Machado, a software engineer in Vancouver who also teaches web development on YouTube, released it on 2 April 2026. The publisher is Acadia Labs Inc., a Canadian company. It was his second app: the first, a dream journal released in February 2026, reached about US$100 a month. For Verbi he and his girlfriend posted short videos on about 12 TikTok and Instagram accounts, most of them slideshows generated by a tool he built, and later he paid creators for UGC, user-generated content: videos that look like an ordinary user's post but are paid for by the company. Revenue was US$685 in April, US$53,969 in July and US$128,225 in September. By 13 October 2026 the total was US$250,824, with 4,569 active subscriptions and MRR, monthly recurring revenue, of US$21,136. MRR is the sum of all active subscriptions with each one converted to its price per month, so a yearly plan of US$47.99 counts as US$4.00.", "The revenue, MRR and subscription figures are grade A: TrustMRR read them from the company's account at RevenueCat, a service that manages in-app subscriptions for app developers and records the payments made through Apple and Google. The profile does not say whether its revenue is before or after the store's commission; RevenueCat's own documentation defines its standard revenue figure as before store fees and taxes. Everything about the method comes from the founder's posts, grade C. The app is six months old, half of its revenue came in one month, and no yearly subscriber has reached a renewal date yet. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that sold conversation practice with human teachers." ], "factsCaption": "US$250,824 in verified revenue in the six months after launch, half of it in September 2026, read from the company's RevenueCat account", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read by TrustMRR from the company's RevenueCat account through an API key; it is not a founder statement. A grade B value is published by Apple or Google. A grade C value is a founder statement, a profile field that the founder filled in, or a vendor's document. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows named in its note.", "timelineLead": "From a first app with US$45 of monthly recurring revenue in March 2026 to US$250,824 of verified revenue for the second app by October 2026. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Verbi in-app purchases listed in the US App Store on 13 October 2026 (grade B); the listing does not say which price a new user is shown", "note": "The app is free to download and a subscription is required for full access. Apple's listing shows ten in-app purchases: seven yearly and three weekly, and no monthly plan. Several plans appear more than once at different prices, which usually means that the developer tests prices. The first column shows the yearly price divided by 12, computed on this page. The Canadian storefront lists the same plans in Canadian dollars: yearly from 39.99 to 108.99 and weekly at 9.99 or 11.99. A Google Play reviewer describes a free trial of 3 days. Prices on Google Play and on the web purchase page were not read.", "rows": [ [ "Pro, yearly at US$47.99", "4.00", "", "listed under three names at this price" ], [ "Pro, yearly at US$59.99", "5.00", "", "named Verbi Annual Pro Plan" ], [ "Pro, yearly at US$69.99", "5.83", "", "named Verbi Yearly - Pro" ], [ "Premium, yearly at US$79.99", "6.67", "", "named Verbi Premium Yearly Plan" ], [ "Pro, yearly with discount at US$29.99", "2.50", "", "named Verbi Yearly Pro Plan - Discount" ], [ "Pro, weekly", "", "7.99 a week", "also listed at US$8.99 a week; counted as US$31.96 or US$35.96 a month in MRR" ], [ "Download", "0", "0", "lessons need a subscription" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Verified revenue, all time to 13 October 2026", "value": "US$250,824", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from the RevenueCat API, last synced on 13 October 2026 at 17:59 UTC. The first revenue is in April 2026. The cached profile of 12 October showed US$249,315. This is the headline figure.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue, 30 days to 13 October 2026", "value": "US$64,495 in one month", "grade": "A", "note": "One month of sales. It is not a yearly rate and should not be multiplied by 12: the profile marks it 38.3% below the 30 days before.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue by calendar month, 2026", "value": "April US$685, May US$3,247, June US$9,561, July US$53,969, August US$36,812, September US$128,225, October to the 13th US$18,325", "grade": "A", "note": "The monthly table of the profile. The seven values add up to the all-time total.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Share of September 2026 in all revenue", "value": "51.1%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 128,225 / 250,824. July, August and September together are 87.3%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per day, early September against early October 2026", "value": "about US$6,312 a day, then about US$1,451 a day", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the September total minus the profile's daily values for 14 to 30 September leaves US$82,053 for 1 to 13 September, divided by 13. The daily values for 1 to 12 October add up to US$17,417, divided by 12. The second value is 77% lower.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Best single day", "value": "US$16,889 on 2 September 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "RevenueCat chart in the founder's X post of 3 September, read from the image. He wrote that he had never imagined a \"16k day\". His posts do not state the cause of that day.", "src": [ 18 ] }, { "fact": "MRR, 13 October 2026", "value": "US$21,136", "grade": "A", "note": "Up 33.3% in 30 days according to the profile. RevenueCat converts each active subscription to one month: a yearly price is divided by 12 and a weekly price is multiplied by 4.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions, 13 October 2026", "value": "4,569", "grade": "A", "note": "RevenueCat counts paid subscriptions that have not expired. A subscriber who has cancelled stays in the count until the paid period ends.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Average MRR per active subscription", "value": "US$4.63 a month, or US$55.51 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 21,136 / 4,569, and that result times 12. In MRR a yearly plan at US$47.99 counts as US$4.00 a month and one at US$59.99 as US$5.00, while a weekly plan at US$7.99 counts as US$31.96. An average of US$4.63 fits a base that is almost all yearly plans. The real mix of plans and countries is not published.", "src": [ 1, 5, 6 ] }, { "fact": "The same average on earlier dates", "value": "US$7.21 on 12 July, US$5.01 on 21 July, US$4.49 on 2 September 2026", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the founder's RevenueCat screenshots: MRR of US$6,781 with 941 subscriptions, US$5,899 with 1,178, and US$10,070 with 2,241. Between 12 and 21 July the subscriptions rose and the MRR fell, which fits weekly plans ending while yearly plans were added. On 16 July he wrote that his MRR does not grow because he optimizes for the yearly plan.", "src": [ 11, 16, 18 ] }, { "fact": "30-day revenue compared with MRR", "value": "3.05 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 64,495 / 21,136. A yearly plan is paid in full on the day of purchase but adds only one twelfth of its price to MRR. Most of the revenue is therefore new sales, which stop when new buyers stop.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Is the revenue before or after the store's commission?", "value": "the profile does not say", "grade": "C", "note": "RevenueCat's documentation defines its Revenue figure as gross: before store fees and taxes, minus refunds. It reports the amount after taxes and commission separately, under the name Proceeds. TrustMRR's FAQ says only that it imports \"the available revenue\" from RevenueCat, and that its rebuilt figures can differ from a provider's own by up to 30%.", "src": [ 1, 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Apple's commission on a subscription", "value": "30% in a subscriber's first year, or 15% in the Small Business Program", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's developer pages: the developer receives 70% of the price in the subscriber's first year and 85% after it, or 85% from the start when enrolled in the Small Business Program, which is open to developers with up to US$1 million in proceeds in the prior calendar year. Whether Acadia Labs is enrolled is not public.", "src": [ 20 ] }, { "fact": "What would remain after Apple's commission, as an illustration", "value": "US$213,200 at 15%, or US$175,577 at 30%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 250,824 times 0.85 and times 0.70, as if the whole amount were gross App Store sales. The split between the App Store, Google Play and web sales is not published, so this row only shows the size of the commission.", "src": [ 1, 20 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "55%", "grade": "C", "note": "A field of the TrustMRR profile that is not in its list of verified metrics. 55% of US$64,495 is US$35,472 (calculated). On 12 July 2026 the founder wrote \"80% margins\". The costs are not published.", "src": [ 1, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Figures on the day Verbi joined TrustMRR, 28 August 2026", "value": "MRR of about US$8,500, 30-day revenue of about US$29,000, about 1,900 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR's own X post. It also gave the total revenue as about US$29,000, the same as the 30-day figure, while the profile today shows US$53,969 for July alone. The first import probably held only 30 days of history; TrustMRR does not explain the difference.", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's dashboard, 28 days to 21 July 2026", "value": "US$46,092 of revenue, 1,178 active subscriptions, 1,134 active trials, 33,240 new customers", "grade": "C", "note": "RevenueCat Overview screenshot in his X post, read from the image. He wrote \"45k in the last 28 days\", up from 10k, and that one working video format is enough. A new customer in RevenueCat is a newly created user ID, which is not the same as a store download.", "src": [ 16, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's dashboard, 2 September 2026", "value": "6,167 active trials, 2,241 active subscriptions, 56,323 new customers in 28 days", "grade": "C", "note": "RevenueCat Overview screenshot in his X post of 2 September, read from the image. On 21 July the same screen showed 1,134 active trials.", "src": [ 18, 16 ] }, { "fact": "First six weeks", "value": "2,570 downloads and US$387 of MRR", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's X post of 23 May 2026, with \"around 3k USD\" in the same line. TrustMRR shows US$3,932 for April and May together (calculated: 685 + 3,247). He also gives about 10% to 14% \"initial conversion\" and 15% to 40% \"trial conversion\".", "src": [ 12, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Who posted the videos, June 2026", "value": "the founder and his girlfriend, on 12 TikTok and Instagram accounts", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's X post of 3 June 2026. No paid creator had been hired yet.", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "fact": "Volume and cost of the videos, May 2026", "value": "more than 60 posts a day, of which he made 2 himself; under US$5 for thousands of generated videos", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's X post of 13 May 2026, when Verbi had 100 active subscriptions. He built an internal tool that generates TikTok and Instagram slideshows. On 2 June he added that each extra phone costs US$100 and holds 3 TikTok and 3 Instagram accounts.", "src": [ 13, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Advertising spend up to 9 June 2026", "value": "US$0", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's X post: US$4,300 of revenue in 28 days with about US$500 of MRR and no ad spend. In the same post he starts to hire creators and to boost videos on TikTok, which normally means paying the platform to show a post to more people.", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "fact": "Paid creators", "value": "a first group of 10 by 21 July 2026; a campaign manager sought on 10 September", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's X posts. What the creators are paid is not published.", "src": [ 16, 11 ] }, { "fact": "App Store rating, United States, 13 October 2026", "value": "4.6 out of 5 from 386 ratings", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's listing. The Canadian storefront has 57 ratings with an average of 4.4. Google Play shows 4.0 stars from 501 reviews and more than 50,000 downloads.", "src": [ 6, 7, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Versions released", "value": "18 between 2 April and 2 September 2026", "grade": "B", "note": "Counted in the version history of the App Store listing. The notes first mention a voice practice mode in version 4.0 on 3 June 2026. No version is listed after 5.6.3 of 2 September.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "2 to 5 people", "grade": "C", "note": "A field of the TrustMRR profile filled in by the founder, not verified. His posts name himself and his girlfriend, then paid creators. His X profile also lists a job as a software engineer at Twitch.", "src": [ 1, 11, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's audience", "value": "about 293,000 YouTube subscribers and 1,425 X followers", "grade": "C", "note": "The PedroTech channel page and his X profile on 13 October 2026. The channel teaches web development. His posts credit TikTok and Instagram videos for the sales, not this audience.", "src": [ 19, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "The TrustMRR profile says bootstrapped, a field filled in by the founder.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "AI model providers", "value": "not named", "grade": "C", "note": "The privacy policy says that microphone audio is streamed to third-party AI providers for transcription, replies and lesson delivery, and that scoring, translations and grammar feedback are processed by AI providers. It names none of them.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Benchmark for renewals, not about Verbi", "value": "nearly 30% of annual subscriptions are cancelled in the first month", "grade": "C", "note": "RevenueCat's State of Subscription Apps 2025 report, drawn from apps that use its platform. It also says that most apps with cheap annual plans keep up to 36.0% of users after a year. Verbi's own renewal rate cannot exist before April 2027.", "src": [ 21 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the headline figure", "value": "6 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 2 April 2026 to 13 October 2026 is 194 days. Apple's record gives the release as 1 April 2026 at 07:00 UTC; the version history and the founder say 2 April.", "src": [ 6, 12 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2025 and earlier", "what": "Machado publishes web development tutorials on his YouTube channel, PedroTech, and announces them on X.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 19 ] }, { "when": "5 February 2026", "what": "His first app, Lucidia, a dream journal, is released in the App Store by Acadia Labs Inc. He built it with his girlfriend.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 6 ] }, { "when": "10 March 2026", "what": "Lucidia has 6 subscribers, 57 trials and US$45 of MRR from about 12 TikTok posts a day. On 27 March it reaches US$100 of MRR, and he moves his attention to a new app, Verbi.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "2 April 2026", "what": "Verbi version 1.0 appears in the App Store. Four updates follow in April, with a home screen widget, verb drills, crosswords and three more languages.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "13 May 2026", "what": "100 active subscriptions. He makes 2 videos a day himself and posts more than 60, generated by his own tool.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "23 May 2026", "what": "2,570 downloads and US$387 of MRR after about six weeks.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "3 June 2026", "what": "Version 4.0 adds a voice practice mode. The same day he writes that sales are rising fast with no paid creator yet: he and his girlfriend post on 12 accounts.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 14 ] }, { "when": "9 June 2026", "what": "US$4,300 of revenue in 28 days and no ad spend. He starts to hire creators.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "21 June 2026", "what": "Paid subscriptions have doubled in 20 days. He has cut the number of TikTok accounts by half and kept the ones that work.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "5 to 12 July 2026", "what": "He writes that one video spread widely. On 12 July his dashboard shows US$33,484 in 28 days and 941 active subscriptions.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "21 July 2026", "what": "US$46,092 in 28 days. A first group of 10 paid creators is complete.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "22 July 2026", "what": "A web version and a web purchase page go live. The first 9 customers pay outside the App Store.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "July 2026", "what": "Verified revenue for the month: US$53,969, after US$9,561 in June.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "28 August 2026", "what": "Verbi joins TrustMRR with about US$8,500 of MRR and about 1,900 active subscriptions.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "2 September 2026", "what": "US$16,889 of revenue in one day, 6,167 active trials, and MRR passes US$10,000. Version 5.6.3 is released the same day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 18, 6 ] }, { "when": "10 September 2026", "what": "He looks for a manager for what he calls a mid-sized group of creators.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "US$128,225 of verified revenue, the best month and 51.1% of all revenue to date.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "14 September to 12 October 2026", "what": "Daily revenue falls from US$4,096 on 14 September to between US$863 and US$1,951 a day in October.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "US$250,824 in total, 4,569 active subscriptions and MRR of US$21,136. The app is live in the App Store and on Google Play.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 6, 8 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Many cheap videos on many accounts", "text": "In May 2026 he made 2 videos a day himself and posted more than 60, most of them slideshows that his own tool generated at under US$5 for thousands of videos. Each extra phone cost US$100 and held 3 TikTok and 3 Instagram accounts. His stated rule is to copy the kind of video that other apps in the category already post, then to vary it. In June he cut the number of TikTok accounts by half and kept the ones that performed best. Up to 9 June 2026 he had spent nothing on advertising." }, { "title": "One format that worked, then paid creators", "text": "In early July 2026 one video spread widely, and revenue for 28 days went from about US$10,000 to US$46,092. He wrote that one working format is enough. He then paid a first group of 10 creators to make more videos, and in September he looked for a manager for the group." }, { "title": "Yearly plans, paid on the first day", "text": "The App Store lists weekly and yearly plans and no monthly plan. The average MRR per subscription, US$4.63, fits a base that is almost all yearly plans. A yearly buyer pays the full price at once, so revenue for 30 days was 3.05 times MRR, and that cash can pay for the next videos immediately. The cost is that MRR looks small, and that nobody knows yet how many of these buyers will renew." }, { "title": "A tutor that is rented, not employed", "text": "The voice lessons run on outside AI providers that transcribe the learner's speech, write the tutor's replies and score the session. There is no teacher to recruit, schedule or pay by the hour, which is what allows a yearly price of US$47.99 to US$79.99. The voice practice mode arrived in version 4.0 on 3 June 2026, and 87.3% of all revenue came in the three full months after it." }, { "title": "A first app that failed at low cost", "text": "Lucidia, the dream journal, did not pass about US$100 of MRR. He wrote that it did not really solve a problem, so videos with many views brought few buyers. He kept the method and changed the product to language learning." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "The technology list is the founder's entry on the TrustMRR profile. The other details come from his posts, the privacy policy and the store listing. They are grade C, except the version history, which Apple publishes.", "items": [ "React Native for the app, Node.js for the server and RevenueCat for subscriptions. His first app was built with Expo, a toolkit for React Native.", "Outside AI providers transcribe the learner's speech in real time, generate the tutor's replies, and do the scoring, translations and grammar feedback. The privacy policy names none of them.", "He writes code with Cursor, an AI code editor, together with Claude, and runs a long audit prompt for bugs, leftover text, security and performance before each release.", "18 versions in five months: vocabulary and a home screen widget first, then verb drills and word games, three more languages on 29 April, the voice practice mode on 3 June, a new voice curriculum on 14 July and an interface in more languages on 24 August.", "Videos: an internal tool that generates TikTok and Instagram slideshows, phones at US$100 each for 3 TikTok and 3 Instagram accounts, and later paid creators.", "Sales through Apple and Google in-app purchases, and since 22 July 2026 also through a web app and a web purchase page with other billing partners." ], "src": [ 1, 6, 9, 10, 11, 13, 17 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold the same promise, speaking a language with a tutor, and used human teachers. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "VIPKid", "years": "2013 to 2021", "funding": "US$1.1B", "cause": "Legal/Regulatory", "promise": "One-to-one video English lessons for Chinese children with North American teachers.", "died": "China's 2021 tutoring rules banned foreign teachers and foreign curriculum, which was the whole product.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2522-vipkid" }, { "name": "Meten EdtechX", "years": "2006 to 2024", "funding": "US$600M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Face-to-face English classes for adults in China, at a price far above apps.", "died": "Winning and teaching a student cost more than the student paid. The pandemic and regulation ended it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2353-meten-edtechx" }, { "name": "TutorGroup (iTutor)", "years": "2004 to 2021", "funding": "US$300M", "cause": "Legal/Regulatory", "promise": "Live online English lessons for learners in Asia with native-speaking tutors.", "died": "A high cost to win each student and tutors who left, and then the 2021 ban on foreign tutors in China.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2216-tutorgroup-itutor" }, { "name": "Hujiang", "years": "2001 to 2021", "funding": "US$187M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Online language courses for a very large free audience.", "died": "Most users never paid, and those who paid did not cover the cost of acquiring them. A failed stock listing exposed it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2556-hujiang" }, { "name": "Teacher Finder", "years": "2015 to 2019", "funding": "US$50K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Match language learners directly with private tutors, without a language school.", "died": "Larger tutor marketplaces offered more, and winning each customer became too expensive.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1962-teacher-finder" } ], "whatChanged": [ "All five sold what Verbi sells: practice in speaking a language with someone who answers. In all five that someone was a human teacher, paid by the hour, and the students had to be found by a sales team or by expensive advertising. The database records two ways they ended: the cost of winning and teaching a student was higher than what the student paid, or a regulator removed the teachers.", "Verbi replaces the teacher with AI models that it rents, which makes a yearly price of US$47.99 possible and let a very small team build and run it. It replaces the sales team with short videos that cost almost nothing to produce. What has not changed is the question that ended Hujiang and Meten: whether a learner stays long enough to repay the cost of winning that learner. Verbi's cost per new subscriber is not published, its margin is a founder entry, and its first yearly subscribers reach their renewal date in April 2027." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The September result, no.", "text": "The parts can be repeated by one or two people with little money: a narrow product on rented AI models, a yearly plan, and a very high volume of short videos tested on many accounts. The result cannot be ordered. The best month depended on videos that spread, and daily revenue was 77% lower one month later.", "steps": [ "Release a small first app to learn the store, the paywall and the video platforms, and stop it when the numbers stay low.", "Choose a product in which an AI model does work that a paid person used to do.", "Generate many cheap video variants, post them on several accounts, and keep only the accounts and formats that bring trials.", "Offer a yearly plan, so that the cash arrives before the cost of the next videos.", "When one format works, pay creators to repeat it, and add a web purchase page to pay less commission.", "Read revenue month by month next to MRR, and do not multiply the best month by 12." ], "open": "Speaking practice for one narrow need: a job interview in a second language, an oral exam, the vocabulary of one profession. Verbi's own reviews ask for more reliable speech recognition and for real grammar correction." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Half of the revenue came in one month", "text": "September 2026 brought US$128,225, which is 51.1% of everything the app has earned. Early September ran at about US$6,312 a day and early October at about US$1,451 a day, 77% lower. TrustMRR marks the last 30 days as 38.3% below the 30 days before. The 30-day figure is one month of sales and says little about the next twelve." }, { "title": "Apple and Google collect the money and keep a share", "text": "Apple's developer pages say that a developer receives 70% of a subscription price in the subscriber's first year, or 85% in the Small Business Program. Apple also decides on refunds: Verbi's terms say that the company cannot refund an App Store purchase itself. The TrustMRR profile does not say whether its revenue is before or after this commission, and RevenueCat's documentation defines its standard figure as before it. The web purchase page of July 2026, which the founder describes as selling \"without the apple tax\", reduces this dependence only for the customers who use it." }, { "title": "Customers come from short-video platforms", "text": "The founder's posts credit TikTok and Instagram videos for the sales, and a Google Play review begins with \"TikTok brought me here\". The method uses generated slideshows and many accounts on many phones; in March 2026 he asked on X whether a device may hold only 3 TikTok accounts. A platform can close accounts or show such videos to fewer people. His posts mention no other source of customers of similar size; on 22 July he wrote that he would soon try paid ads for the web version. Paid creators and promoted posts are a cost that the first months did not have: he wrote \"80% margins\" in July, and the profile shows 55%." }, { "title": "No yearly subscriber has renewed yet", "text": "The first yearly plans were sold in April 2026, so the first renewals fall due in April 2027. RevenueCat's State of Subscription Apps 2025 report says that nearly 30% of annual subscriptions are cancelled in the first month, that most apps with cheap annual plans keep up to 36.0% of users after a year, and that on weekly plans fewer than 5% of payers reach month six. RevenueCat's count of active subscriptions includes people who have already cancelled and are waiting for the paid period to end." }, { "title": "The AI providers are not named", "text": "The privacy policy says that the learner's audio is streamed to third-party AI providers and names none. If they charge by use, as model providers usually do, a subscriber who practices a lot costs more than one who stops, and a change of price or policy by a provider changes the margin. Reviews in the US App Store in July and October 2026 report speech recognition that rejects correct answers, a limit of 3 minutes on a voice session, and mistakes in generated exercises." }, { "title": "Team, costs and the founder's time are not verified", "text": "The founder's X profile lists a job as a software engineer at Twitch and a YouTube channel next to Verbi. The team size of 2 to 5, the bootstrapped status and the 55% margin are fields that he filled in. TrustMRR verifies revenue, MRR and subscriptions only, and its FAQ says that its rebuilt figures can differ from a provider's own by up to 30%. Two reviews in the Canadian App Store, answered by the developer on 9 September 2026, say that a rebuilt version is harder to use." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile of Verbi, revenue read from RevenueCat by API key", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/verbi", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/verbi.md) live on 13 October 2026, and the cached copy of 12 October. Revenue, MRR and active subscriptions come from the RevenueCat API, last synced on 13 October 2026 at 17:59 UTC. The description, team size, funding, technology list and profit margin are entered by the founder, grade C." }, { "title": "TrustMRR on X, 28 August 2026: Verbi just joined TrustMRR", "url": "https://x.com/trust_mrr/status/2093428805314764903", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API, as a repost in the founder's timeline. Source for the figures on the day of listing." }, { "title": "TrustMRR FAQ, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/faq", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on payment providers, on the RevenueCat and App Store connections, and on why figures can differ from a provider's own." }, { "title": "RevenueCat documentation: Overview Metrics, and the Revenue chart page", "url": "https://www.revenuecat.com/docs/dashboard-and-metrics/overview", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both pages in full. Source for the definitions of Revenue (gross, before store fees and taxes), Proceeds, Active Subscriptions, Active Trials and New Customers. The Revenue chart page is at /docs/dashboard-and-metrics/charts/revenue-chart." }, { "title": "RevenueCat documentation: Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) chart", "url": "https://www.revenuecat.com/docs/dashboard-and-metrics/charts/monthly-recurring-revenue-mrr-chart", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the conversion of weekly and yearly prices to a monthly value." }, { "title": "Apple App Store listing, United States: Verbi: Speak a New Language, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6760734657", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full, with Apple's public lookup API for the app and for the developer account. Source for the description, the seller name, the rating, the in-app purchase prices, the release dates of Verbi and Lucidia, the version history and three user reviews." }, { "title": "Apple App Store listing, Canada: Verbi: Speak a New Language, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/id6760734657", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the rating, the in-app purchase prices in Canadian dollars and the reviews, with Apple's lookup API for the Canadian storefront." }, { "title": "Google Play listing: Verbi: Learn a New Language, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vocably.app", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the header, the description and the first reviews. Source for the stars, the review count, the downloads, the date of the last update and the review that mentions TikTok and a 3-day trial." }, { "title": "Verbi website, with its comparison page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.appverbi.com", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the home page and the comparison page in full. Company's own text. Source for the product description and the link to the web app." }, { "title": "Verbi privacy policy and terms, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://appverbi.com/privacy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the operating company, AI and voice processing, data sharing, and in the terms (https://appverbi.com/terms) the sections on subscriptions and refunds." }, { "title": "Pedro Machado on X: profile and timeline, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/pedrotech_", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and four pages of the timeline through the fxtwitter API, 74 posts back to April 2025, and four attached screenshots by eye. Source for his profile text and for the posts of 9, 10, 11 and 27 March (first app), 16, 19 and 21 May, 2, 4 and 21 June, 5, 12 and 16 July and 10 September 2026." }, { "title": "Pedro Machado on X, 23 May 2026: launched on April 2nd, downloads, conversion and MRR", "url": "https://x.com/pedrotech_/status/2058258876013891850", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Founder's own figures." }, { "title": "Pedro Machado on X, 13 May 2026: 100 active subscriptions and the slideshow tool", "url": "https://x.com/pedrotech_/status/2054587807331647600", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Founder's own figures." }, { "title": "Pedro Machado on X, 3 June 2026: two people posting on 12 accounts", "url": "https://x.com/pedrotech_/status/2062246547178590457", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "Pedro Machado on X, 9 June 2026: 4.3k in 28 days with no ad spend", "url": "https://x.com/pedrotech_/status/2064150772770877766", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Founder's own figures." }, { "title": "Pedro Machado on X, 21 July 2026: 45k in the last 28 days and 10 creators", "url": "https://x.com/pedrotech_/status/2079628371802390972", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API, and the attached RevenueCat screenshot by eye." }, { "title": "Pedro Machado on X, 22 July 2026: web app and web purchase page", "url": "https://x.com/pedrotech_/status/2080044086699118838", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "Pedro Machado on X, 3 September 2026: a 16k day, quoting his post of 2 September on 10k MRR", "url": "https://x.com/pedrotech_/status/2095556239703068852", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both posts in full through the fxtwitter API, and the two attached RevenueCat screenshots by eye. The post of 2 September is https://x.com/pedrotech_/status/2095173251957948756." }, { "title": "YouTube channel PedroTech, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@PedroTechnologies", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the channel name, description, subscriber count and the link to his X account in the page data." }, { "title": "Apple Developer: Auto-renewable subscriptions, and the App Store Small Business Program, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://developer.apple.com/app-store/subscriptions/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the section on net revenue on the first page and the rules of the program at https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/. Source for the 70% and 85% shares and the US$1 million limit." }, { "title": "RevenueCat: State of Subscription Apps 2025", "url": "https://www.revenuecat.com/state-of-subscription-apps-2025/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the summary figures and the retention section. A vendor's benchmark from its own customers' data, not about Verbi." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/vid-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/vid-ai.md", "slug": "vid-ai", "name": "Vid.AI", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI generator of faceless short and long videos", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "September 2024", "outcomeLabel": "US$827K Stripe-verified revenue in 12 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$827K verified in 12 months", "outcomeUsd": 826663, "months": 25, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders, Priyam Raj (product, Bangalore) and Matt Par (chief executive, USA), and a development team of unstated size; the TrustMRR profile says 2 to 5 people, LinkedIn lists 2", "fundingLabel": "None, by the founder's statement", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "video", "channel": "audience", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Video" ], "product": "A web application that turns an idea or a script into a finished video in which no person appears on camera: a script written by a language model, a synthetic voice, stock footage or AI images, captions and music. It makes vertical shorts and horizontal videos of up to 20 minutes, and it can upload to a YouTube channel that the customer connects. Customers pay a monthly or yearly subscription that includes credits. There is no free plan and no free trial.", "why": "A developer in Bangalore formed a company with an American YouTuber who already had an audience of people who want faceless channels, so customers paid from the first day. Affiliates receive 33% of every payment and brought about a tenth of all revenue, and Meta ads brought more. Nobody could use the product without paying, so no free user consumed paid AI models. Verified revenue reached about US$85,000 a month for six months, and then fell by half.", "summary": [ "Vid.AI makes faceless videos: videos in which no person appears on camera. The customer types an idea or pastes a script. A language model writes the script, a text to speech model, which is software that turns text into a human-sounding voice, reads it, stock footage or AI images fill the screen, and the service adds captions and music and renders a vertical short or a horizontal video of up to 20 minutes. Plans cost US$39, US$99 or US$199 a month and include credits, units that are used up as videos are made. There is no free plan.", "Priyam Raj, an engineer in Bangalore who sold two earlier products while he was a student, runs the product. His co-founder Matt Par, an American YouTuber, is the chief executive. Paid plans began on 27 September 2024, and the founder writes that the first day brought US$14,000 and the first month US$90,000. TrustMRR, a site that reads revenue from a company's payment processor, shows US$826,663 received through Stripe in the 12 months to 13 October 2026 and US$1,632,538 since the first payment. The same data shows a fall: US$89,846 in January 2026, US$41,609 in September 2026 and US$39,028 in the last 30 days. MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the value of all active subscriptions for one month, is US$47,175 from 715 subscriptions. The founders have offered the company for sale since August 2025, and it is listed on TrustMRR for US$1,500,000.", "The revenue figures on this page are grade A: TrustMRR read them from the Stripe account through an API key. The team, the costs, the marketing and the price of the domain are founder statements, grade C. Three similar products are already on this site, Faceless.video, AutoShorts.ai and Revid.ai, and all three rest on figures reported by their founders. This page adds monthly revenue verified by the payment processor for the same category, including the months in which it fell." ], "factsCaption": "US$826,663 in 12 months from the Stripe account of a two-founder product, with the last 30 days 43% below the 12-month average and 57% below the best month", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read by TrustMRR from the company's Stripe account through an API key, or from its Google Analytics account, last synced on 13 October 2026 at 14:07 UTC. A grade C value is a statement by a founder, an image of his own dashboard, or a page of the company. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. Grade A covers money received in that Stripe account. It does not cover sales through Digistore24 or Lemon Squeezy, which the privacy policy also names, and it does not cover costs, margin or profit.", "timelineLead": "From the first paid plans to about US$85,000 a month, then four monthly falls in a row and a listing for sale, in 25 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Vid.AI prices on 13 October 2026, read from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "A yearly plan costs US$369, US$947 or US$1,919, which is 20% to 21% less than twelve monthly payments, and the whole year of credits is given at the start. The page says plans carry 200 to 1,500 credits a month, and it states each allowance two ways: as one-minute shorts or as ten-minute videos, drawn from the same credits. All plans allow videos of up to 20 minutes. New subscribers on monthly plans can get 50% off the first month. Extra credits can be bought. Unused credits are refunded within 30 days of a payment. There is no free plan and no free trial; the page gives the reason: \"Every video costs us real compute to generate\". Checkout runs through Stripe, and the privacy policy also names Lemon Squeezy and Digistore24.", "rows": [ [ "Starter", "30.75", "39", "40 one-minute shorts or 4 ten-minute videos; video models Seedance 1 Pro Fast and Wan 2.2" ], [ "Plus", "78.92", "99", "80 shorts or 8 ten-minute videos; adds Veo 3.1 Fast, Seedance 2.5, Kling 2.5 Turbo Pro and HD images" ], [ "Pro", "159.92", "199", "300 shorts or 30 ten-minute videos; priority support; shown next to a crossed-out US$299" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue in the 12 months to 13 October 2026", "value": "US$826,663", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from the Stripe account by API key, synced 13 October 2026 at 14:07 UTC. The copy cached one day earlier showed US$826,218 for its own 12 months. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue since the first payment", "value": "US$1,632,538", "grade": "A", "note": "The all-time line of the profile. The profile gives 24 September 2024 as the founding date.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days, at 13 October 2026", "value": "US$39,028", "grade": "A", "note": "Same profile. Change against the 30 days before: minus 15.2%. Last 7 days: US$9,573. The best day of the 30 was US$2,312 and the worst US$406.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 3 months and the last 6 months", "value": "US$137,504 and US$347,623", "grade": "A", "note": "Same profile.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue by month, November 2025 to September 2026", "value": "Nov US$53,970; Dec US$84,294; Jan US$89,846; Feb US$89,123; Mar US$84,934; Apr US$82,626; May US$83,979; Jun US$61,905; Jul US$54,471; Aug US$52,082; Sep US$41,609", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly table. October 2026 to the 13th: US$14,922. Months before November 2025 are not public.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR and active subscriptions", "value": "US$47,175 a month; 715 subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot at the same sync. The profile reports the MRR change over 30 days as minus 27.3% and does not publish how it calculates MRR or that change.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average month, by period", "value": "US$68,889 over 12 months; US$57,937 over 6 months; US$45,835 over 3 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 826,663 divided by 12; 347,623 divided by 6; 137,504 divided by 3.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Last 30 days against the average month of the last twelve", "value": "43.3% lower", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$39,028 against US$68,889.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Best month against the last full month", "value": "minus 53.7%, from US$89,846 in January 2026 to US$41,609 in September 2026", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated. The largest fall in one month was June 2026: minus 26.3% from May. The six months from December 2025 to May 2026 average US$85,800; the four months from June to September 2026 average US$52,517.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "The two halves of the last 12 months", "value": "US$479,040, then US$347,623: minus 27.4%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 826,663 minus 347,623 gives the first six months.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue before the last 12 months", "value": "US$805,875, about US$64,000 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 1,632,538 minus 826,663, over the 384 days from 24 September 2024 to 13 October 2025. The business was therefore about as large in its first year as in its second.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR against the cash of the last 30 days", "value": "MRR is US$8,147 higher, 20.9%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 47,175 minus 39,028. Both figures carry the same sync time, and the copy of the day before shows the same gap, so a sync difference does not explain it. The sources support three causes and give no size for any of them. Yearly plans exist, and MRR in its usual definition counts one twelfth of a yearly plan each month while the cash arrives once a year. New monthly subscribers can pay half price in the first month. The privacy policy names a service that pauses subscriptions and sends reminders for failed payments, and a paused or unpaid subscription brings no cash.", "src": [ 1, 12, 14 ] }, { "fact": "MRR per active subscription", "value": "US$65.98", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 47,175 divided by 715. It lies between the Starter price of US$39 and the Plus price of US$99.", "src": [ 1, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Stripe gross volume by year, founder's image", "value": "US$823,000 from 21 July 2025 to 21 July 2026; US$729,000 in the 12 months before", "grade": "C", "note": "Image of his Stripe dashboard in the post of 21 July 2026. The earlier period starts before the launch, so its US$729,000 was collected in about ten months. Together with TrustMRR's later months, these gross figures are about 3% above TrustMRR's all-time total; gross volume is counted before refunds.", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "fact": "First day and first month, by the founder", "value": "US$14,000 on the first day; US$90,000 in the first month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 21 July 2026, written 22 months after the launch. No post from the launch weeks could be read. The chart in the same image shows a first peak of about US$12,000 in one day.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Gross volume from 1 January to 9 July 2025", "value": "US$438,222.29", "grade": "C", "note": "Image of his Stripe dashboard in the post of 9 July 2025, which gives the amount as 3.4 crore rupees (34 million rupees) and adds \"zero investors\".", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "MRR in the founder's Stripe images", "value": "US$44,003.77 on 17 August 2025; US$42,361.49 on 4 September 2025; US$52,254.92 on 4 September 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Images in the posts of 19 August 2025 and 4 September 2026. The second chart shows two highs close to US$80,000: one about three months after the launch and one early in 2026. The values of the highs were read from the chart and are approximate. From 4 September 2026 to the TrustMRR figure of 13 October 2026, MRR fell 9.7%.", "src": [ 3, 4, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Subscriber churn rate, 27 July to 17 August 2025", "value": "22.31%; 27.53% in the period before", "grade": "C", "note": "Stripe image in the post of 19 August 2025. Churn is the share of subscribers who cancel in a period. The image does not state the length of that period.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue that came through affiliates", "value": "US$175,029.94 by 22 September 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Image of the affiliate dashboard (Tolt) in the founder's post. On 12 November 2025 he wrote that affiliates had brought more than US$100,000 in 12 months. The program pays 33% of every payment for as long as the customer stays, with a 60-day tracking period.", "src": [ 6, 15 ] }, { "fact": "Affiliate share of all revenue", "value": "about 10.7%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 175,029.94 divided by 1,632,538, if both figures cover the whole life of the product. Checkouts outside Stripe would change this share.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Paid advertising", "value": "Meta ads; spending not published", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's reply of 4 September 2026: \"Currently we've just been doing Meta Ads\". The TrustMRR profile lists Meta Ads and Influencers as marketing channels. No source gives the ad budget or the cost of winning one customer.", "src": [ 3, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Price of the domain vid.ai", "value": "US$47,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts of 24 October 2025 and 21 July 2026. No source names the seller. A capture of 13 July 2022 in the Internet Archive reads \"vid.ai is for sale\". The October 2025 post says he bought the domain \"this year\", but the archive lists captures that answered normally at vid.ai from October 2024, and the company's changelog dates the product from July 2024. The purchase date is not verified.", "src": [ 2, 9, 19 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price and offers", "value": "US$1,500,000; 38 offers received; not sold", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR listing, first listed 15 September 2026. The seller sets the price. On 16 September the founder posted an image of an offer notice for US$1,500,000, and on 7 October an image of a payment page that reads US$2,500,000.", "src": [ 1, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price against revenue", "value": "1.8 times the last 12 months; 3.2 times the last 30 days taken for a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 1,500,000 divided by 826,663, and by 39,028 times 12 (468,336). The profile shows the second figure as its revenue multiple.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "69.0%", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot. Profit margin is not among the metrics that the profile says it reads from the payment provider, and the seller's note on the listing says \"Excludes owner distributions\". At that margin the last 30 days would leave about US$26,900.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Hosting bills", "value": "US$998.00, US$968.00 and US$1,002.64 for June, July and August 2026; about US$120 expected for September", "grade": "C", "note": "Images in the founder's posts of 4 and 26 September 2026, after a move from Render to Railway. These are server bills only. The cost of the AI models is not published.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Visitors in the last 30 days", "value": "46,286; US$0.84 of revenue per visitor", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot; the profile marks the Google Analytics API as connected.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Sign-ups against paying subscriptions", "value": "more than 226,000 sign-ups; 715 active subscriptions, about 0.3%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the founder's post of 26 September 2026 (grade C) and the TrustMRR subscription count (grade A). The company's site says 100K+ creators.", "src": [ 1, 7, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Price per video inside a plan", "value": "US$0.98 per one-minute short on Starter; US$1.24 on Plus; US$0.66 on Pro", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the monthly price divided by 40, 80 and 300 shorts. A ten-minute video costs US$9.75, US$12.38 or US$6.63 in the same way.", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "fact": "List prices of the rented models", "value": "Veo 3.1 Fast: US$0.10 per second of 720p video; ElevenLabs speech: US$0.08 per 1,000 characters", "grade": "C", "note": "The providers' own price pages, read 13 October 2026. Vid.AI does not publish what it pays, and it may buy the models through another provider at another price.", "src": [ 22, 23 ] }, { "fact": "Model cost of one minute at list prices", "value": "US$6.00 for 60 seconds of generated video; about US$0.07 for one minute of narration", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 60 times 0.10; and 900 characters times 0.08 divided by 1,000, if one minute is 150 words of 6 characters. A one-minute short sells for US$0.98 on Starter, so a plan cannot pay for videos generated entirely by a video model.", "src": [ 12, 22, 23 ] }, { "fact": "The founder's public figures against the verified ones", "value": "\"around $90k a month\" on 9 July 2026, when June was US$61,905; \"$70k/mo\" in his profile on 13 October 2026, when the last 30 days were US$39,028", "grade": "C", "note": "The post and the profile text are his own. The comparison uses the TrustMRR figures. Sales through Digistore24 or Lemon Squeezy are not in the Stripe figure, and their size is not published.", "src": [ 11, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "2 co-founders and a development team of unstated size", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder's site names \"my co-founder Matt\". Matt Par's profile on X reads CEO of TubeMagic and VidAI. LinkedIn lists 2 employees, Priyam Raj and Matt Par. The TrustMRR profile says 2 to 5 people. On 1 October 2026 the founder wrote \"My entire dev team\", and from January to March 2026 he looked for one more developer at 80,000 to 90,000 rupees a month.", "src": [ 1, 10, 16, 17, 18 ] }, { "fact": "Legal entity", "value": "VidAI LLC", "grade": "C", "note": "Named in the terms and the privacy policy, last updated 27 September 2026. Neither page gives a state of registration or an address. TrustMRR shows the country as US. The founder's site says that his own holding company, Priyam Ventures, is in India.", "src": [ 1, 14, 16 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "\"zero investors\" in the post of 9 July 2025; \"Bootstrapped\" on the TrustMRR profile, which the founder writes.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the first paid plans to the October 2026 figure", "value": "25 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: September 2024 to October 2026.", "src": [ 1, 13 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2019 to January 2024", "what": "Priyam Raj builds Timenite, a website, in 2019, and then Morise.ai, AI software for YouTube creators, while he studies computer science. His site says both were acquired, Timenite in 2023 and Morise.ai in January 2024, when he was 21.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "13 July 2022", "what": "A capture of vid.ai in the Internet Archive reads \"vid.ai is for sale\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 19 ] }, { "when": "31 July to 18 September 2024", "what": "The changelog begins on 31 July with captions timed to the narration. The editor for faceless shorts arrives on 9 September, a home page with prices on 13 September, and gameplay backgrounds on 18 September.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "24 to 27 September 2024", "what": "TrustMRR gives 24 September as the founding date. On 27 September the changelog records subscription plans with monthly credits. The founder later writes that the first day brought US$14,000 and the first month US$90,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2, 13 ] }, { "when": "January and February 2025", "what": "TubeMagic, the pair's other product for YouTubers, is at more than US$1 million of annual recurring revenue on 10 January and US$1.5 million on 15 February, by the founder's posts. The first post excludes US$200,000 to US$300,000 a year sold through Digistore24.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "June 2025", "what": "The Vid.AI editor appears on screen in the segment \"AI Slop\" of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on HBO. The founder posts a screenshot of the segment and his Stripe chart of that day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "9 July 2025", "what": "The founder posts US$438,222.29 of gross volume since 1 January, with \"zero investors\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "15 July 2025", "what": "YouTube renames its rule on repetitious content to inauthentic content and states that it covers content that is repetitive or mass-produced, which cannot earn ad money.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 20 ] }, { "when": "19 August 2025", "what": "First public offer to sell: \"We're looking to sell Vid.AI\". The attached Stripe images show MRR of US$44,003.77 and a subscriber churn rate of 22.31%.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "2 November 2025", "what": "The founder announces the listing on TrustMRR, with the Stripe account connected. Revenue of November, read from Stripe: US$53,970.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 11 ] }, { "when": "December 2025 to May 2026", "what": "Six months between US$82,626 and US$89,846. January 2026 is the best month in the public data.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "28 January to 11 March 2026", "what": "The founder looks for a developer for the video rendering code, at 80,000 to 90,000 rupees a month, remote.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "Revenue falls 26.3% in one month, to US$61,905. No source states the cause.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "21 July 2026", "what": "The founder writes that the company is \"formally open to acquisition conversations\" and gives MRR of about US$65,000. His Stripe image shows US$823,000 of gross volume in 12 months. July revenue on TrustMRR is US$54,471.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "4 September 2026", "what": "He looks for an agency or operator to \"turn around a ~$50k MRR AI SaaS\" and writes that the only marketing at that time is Meta ads. Hosting moves from Render to Railway.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 10 ] }, { "when": "15 to 30 September 2026", "what": "Listed for sale on TrustMRR at US$1,500,000 on 15 September. The changelog records 20 releases in the month, against 2 in August: animated avatars, a connection that lets Claude or ChatGPT make videos, more languages. The terms and the privacy policy are updated on 27 September. September revenue is US$41,609.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 7, 13, 14 ] }, { "when": "7 October 2026", "what": "\"vid.ai is for sale\", with an image of a payment page that reads US$2,500,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "TrustMRR sync: US$39,028 in the last 30 days, MRR US$47,175, 715 subscriptions, 38 offers received, still listed. The site is online and its changelog has an entry for this day.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 13 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A developer and a creator with an audience", "text": "The founder writes that he \"partnered with a creator\" and ran the product from Bangalore. The creator is Matt Par, whose profile says he runs more than 12 YouTube channels and helps people with YouTube, and whose channel the home page shows with \"1 Billion+ Views\". By the founder's account, customers paid on the first day. The privacy policy shows the sales tools of a creator: a webinar service, the Digistore24 checkout, course access and partner communities." }, { "title": "A third of every payment to affiliates, for life", "text": "The affiliate program pays 33% of each payment for as long as the customer stays, tracks a referral for 60 days and pays monthly through Tolt. By 22 September 2026 it had brought US$175,029.94 of revenue, about a tenth of the total. The buyers are people who publish videos, so many of them have an audience to which they can recommend the tool." }, { "title": "Paid Meta ads", "text": "In September 2026 the founder wrote that Meta ads were the only marketing in use at that time, and the privacy policy lists the Meta Pixel and Google Ads tags. He has not published the budget or the cost of winning a customer, so this page cannot say whether the ads pay for themselves." }, { "title": "No free use", "text": "Every video uses paid AI models and paid stock footage, and the site gives this as the reason for having no free trial. A new subscriber on a monthly plan can get 50% off the first month, and unused credits are refunded within 30 days. The founder of AutoShorts.ai, a similar product on this site, reported that free users cost him about US$13,000 a month; Vid.AI never had that cost." }, { "title": "A short name, and verified revenue used as publicity", "text": "The founder paid US$47,000 for vid.ai and names the domain first when he describes what a buyer would get. He connected Stripe to TrustMRR in November 2025 and posted the company's rank there in November and December 2025. His post of 16 September 2026 about an offer received through TrustMRR had more than 770,000 views." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's privacy policy, pricing page and changelog and from the founder's posts on X. They are grade C.", "items": [ "A Next.js web application. The founder's hiring post names Remotion, a library that builds video from program code, for the rendering, and the privacy policy says Amazon Web Services stores the media and renders the videos.", "Scripts and images come through OpenRouter, a service that passes requests to models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and xAI. Replicate supplies image generation and the animated avatar videos.", "Voices come from ElevenLabs: the home page offers 33 narrators on the v4 or v2 voice models, and any voice from the ElevenLabs library.", "Moving images use rented video models: Seedance 1 Pro Fast and Wan 2.2 on Starter, and Veo 3.1 Fast, Seedance 2.5 and Kling 2.5 Turbo Pro on Plus and Pro. They make a 5-second intro and, as an option that uses more credits, turn the still images of the scenes into moving ones.", "Stock footage and music come from Storyblocks, photos from Pexels.", "Payments go through Stripe, with Lemon Squeezy and Digistore24 as other checkouts. Churnkey handles cancelling, pausing and failed-payment reminders. Tolt tracks affiliates.", "Hosting cost about US$1,000 a month on Render until August 2026 and about US$120 a month on Railway after that.", "Since September 2026 an MCP server, a standard connection for AI assistants, lets Claude or ChatGPT create a video from a chat with the customer's credits.", "The founder wrote that the team works without daily meetings, through voice notes and recorded videos, and that the developers use AI coding tools on a team plan." ], "src": [ 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database promised video without skill or staff, or built their product on a platform that another company controlled. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Qwiki", "years": "2010 to 2015", "funding": "US$10M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Stories with pictures, sound and narration, generated automatically from information that people usually read as text.", "died": "The platform was expensive to run, users did not change their habits, and it had no lasting revenue model. Yahoo bought it in 2013 and later closed it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/481-qwiki" }, { "name": "HighlightCam", "years": "2009 to 2012", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "An algorithm that finds the best moments in raw footage and edits the video for you.", "died": "Operating costs were high, and phones and consumer editing programs offered easier alternatives and then added similar functions.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1636-highlightcam" }, { "name": "Fuzzwich", "years": "2007 to 2010", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Animated videos by drag and drop, for people without animation skill.", "died": "It found no lasting business model, did not grow beyond its early users, and stayed on the desktop while viewers moved to phones and social media.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1655-fuzzwich" }, { "name": "ClearMix", "years": "2020 to 2023", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Professional marketing videos at low cost, made by freelance videographers on demand.", "died": "Canva and Adobe added video, and AI editing tools automated the manual work that ClearMix sold.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1336-clearmix" }, { "name": "PostRocket", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$610K", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "More reach for Facebook pages, by choosing the time and form of each post from data.", "died": "Facebook changed its API and its ranking rules, which removed the value of the product, and larger tools covered several platforms.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/457-postrocket" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Four of the five sold easier video, and they failed because the technology was too costly to run, or because a larger company added the same function, or because the manual work behind the service could be automated. Vid.AI stands on the other side of that change: every step that needed people or expensive computing in 2010 can now be rented per use, and two founders with a small development team joined the steps into one product. The site sells a one-minute short for about US$1.", "What did not change is the dependence. PostRocket lost its value when Facebook changed its rules. A customer of Vid.AI needs YouTube, TikTok and Instagram to show the videos and, for many customers, to pay for them, and since July 2025 YouTube states that mass-produced content cannot earn ad money. The verified data on this page shows a second thing that did not change: a tool that many competitors can build keeps its customers only for a short time. Revenue was halved in eight months while the product stayed online and kept improving." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The partnership, yes. The same product, not now.", "text": "The repeatable part is the structure: one person builds, one person already has the audience that needs the tool, and affiliates are paid a share for life. The product itself is a weak choice today. The category is crowded, Vid.AI's own verified revenue fell by more than half between January and September 2026, the founders have tried to sell it for 14 months, and YouTube's rules now exclude the automated channels that this kind of tool was first sold for.", "steps": [ "If you can build but have no audience, find a creator whose followers already ask for the tool, and make that person a co-founder.", "Charge from the first day and offer no free plan when every use costs you money at a model provider.", "Pay affiliates a recurring share, and recruit first the customers who publish to an audience.", "Connect your payment account to a public verification service early. It gives you publicity while you grow and a record that buyers trust when you sell.", "Read your churn rate every month. If about a fifth of subscribers leave in a period, as this founder's own chart showed in August 2025, growth must come from new customers every month, and it stops when marketing stops." ], "open": "Tools for an audience that an existing creator already teaches, in a field where the result does not depend on one platform's rule about automated content." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Verified revenue fell by more than half in eight months", "text": "The Stripe data shows US$89,846 in January 2026 and US$41,609 in September 2026, a fall of 53.7%, with the largest step in June 2026. The last 30 days, US$39,028, are 43.3% below the average month of the last twelve. The headline figure of this page describes the past year and not the present rate. No source states why June fell; the founder's request of 4 September 2026 names retention, affiliates and paid growth as the things to repair." }, { "title": "The founder's own figures are higher than the verified ones", "text": "On 9 July 2026 he wrote that the product \"does around $90k a month\"; the verified figure for June was US$61,905. His profile still read \"$70k/mo\" on 13 October 2026, when the last 30 days were US$39,028. MRR, US$47,175, is also 20.9% above the cash of the last 30 days, which the sources explain only in part: yearly plans, half-price first months, and paused or unpaid subscriptions. Sales through Digistore24 and Lemon Squeezy are outside the Stripe figure and are not published." }, { "title": "For sale since August 2025, and not sold", "text": "The first public offer to sell is dated 19 August 2025, when MRR was US$44,004. The listing on TrustMRR asks US$1,500,000 and shows 38 offers, and the company was still listed on 13 October 2026. The asking price is 1.8 times the revenue of the last 12 months but 3.2 times the present yearly rate. The profit margin of 69% on the listing is not read from the payment processor, and the seller's note says it excludes owner distributions." }, { "title": "YouTube does not pay for mass-produced videos", "text": "YouTube's monetization policy page, read 13 October 2026, says that since 15 July 2025 the rule once named \"repetitious content\" is named \"inauthentic content\" and covers content that is \"repetitive or mass-produced\". Its list of what cannot earn money includes \"AI-generated content made with generic or unoriginal templates giving the impression of mass production\" and image slideshows with little narrative. The TrustMRR profile of Vid.AI promises \"monetizable AI videos on Autopilot\", which is the case this rule describes, and in June 2025 the product appeared in a television segment named \"AI Slop\". The revenue data does not show an immediate effect: the best months came five to ten months after the rule." }, { "title": "TikTok requires labels and treats repetitive automation as spam", "text": "TikTok's Community Guidelines, effective 24 September 2026, require creators \"to label AI-generated or significantly edited content that shows realistic-looking scenes or people\", list \"Using automation to run many accounts or send repetitive content\" as spam, and keep \"Low-quality or minimally edited content\" out of the For You feed. On 22 April and 8 October 2026 the founder asked his followers how to create and upload TikTok accounts for the United States from another country; the posts do not say for which product." }, { "title": "The video models cost more than a video sells for", "text": "Google's price list, read 13 October 2026, gives Veo 3.1 Fast at US$0.10 per second at 720p. Sixty seconds generated entirely by that model would cost US$6.00, while a one-minute short sells for US$0.98 on Starter and US$1.24 on Plus. A subscription at these prices could not pay for videos generated entirely by such a model. The product builds its videos from still images and stock footage, and uses video models for a 5-second intro and, for more credits, for motion in the scene images. ElevenLabs lists speech at US$0.08 per 1,000 characters, about US$0.07 for one minute of narration if a minute is 150 words of 6 characters. The company publishes none of its model costs, and a price change at a provider goes directly to its margin." }, { "title": "A crowded category with high churn", "text": "The site carries comparison pages against Crayo, SendShort, AutoShorts and Short.ai, and three similar products are already on this site. The founder's Stripe image of August 2025 showed a subscriber churn rate of 22.31%, after 27.53% in the period before. Of more than 226,000 people who signed up, 715 held an active subscription on 13 October 2026. The founder also runs a studio with several other products, so his attention is divided." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile of Vid.AI, revenue read from Stripe by API key", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/vidai-llc.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile on 13 October 2026 (revenue last synced 13 October 2026 at 14:07 UTC) and compared it with a copy cached one day earlier. The revenue, MRR and subscription figures come from the Stripe account, and the visitor count from Google Analytics. The profile text, the team size, the funding line, the profit margin and the sale listing are written or set by the founder and are grade C." }, { "title": "X post by Priyam Raj, 21 July 2026: launch figures, the domain price, and open to acquisition", "url": "https://x.com/priymrj/status/2079631496676245834", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API, with his reply that links the TrustMRR profile, and viewed the attached Stripe image: gross volume of US$823K from 21 July 2025 to 21 July 2026, US$729K in the previous period." }, { "title": "X posts by Priyam Raj, 4 September 2026: looking for someone to turn around a US$50,000 MRR product", "url": "https://x.com/priymrj/status/2095749062477877296", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post and three replies in full through the fxtwitter API and viewed the Stripe MRR chart: US$52,254.92, against US$42,361.49 one year earlier. Source for the Meta ads statement." }, { "title": "X post by Priyam Raj, 19 August 2025: We're looking to sell Vid.AI", "url": "https://x.com/priymrj/status/1957702721194054033", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API and viewed both Stripe images: MRR of US$44,003.77 and a subscriber churn rate of 22.31% for 27 July to 17 August." }, { "title": "X post by Priyam Raj, 9 July 2025: 3.4 crore rupees halfway through the year, zero investors", "url": "https://x.com/priymrj/status/1942898972760166828", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API and viewed the Stripe image: gross volume of US$438,222.29 since 1 January 2025, written with Indian digit grouping." }, { "title": "X posts by Priyam Raj on affiliates: 12 and 18 November 2025 and 22 September 2026", "url": "https://x.com/priymrj/status/2102253418769518716", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the three posts in full through the fxtwitter API and viewed the affiliate dashboard image of 22 September 2026: revenue of US$175,029.94." }, { "title": "X posts by Priyam Raj on the sale: 16, 26 and 30 September and 7 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/priymrj/status/2107862980633239584", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the four posts in full through the fxtwitter API and viewed two images: a TrustMRR notice of an offer of US$1,500,000 and a payment page that reads US$2,500,000. Source for the 226,000 sign-ups." }, { "title": "X posts by Priyam Raj, 30 June 2025: Vid.AI on Last Week Tonight", "url": "https://x.com/priymrj/status/1939815277023437097", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post and his reply in full through the fxtwitter API and viewed the screenshot: a YouTube page titled \"AI Slop: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)\" with the Vid.AI editor on screen. The reply names Matt Par's account." }, { "title": "X post by Priyam Raj, 24 October 2025: bought vid.ai for US$47,000", "url": "https://x.com/priymrj/status/1981580647891407068", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. The post says \"this year\"; see the Internet Archive source for the conflict with the 2024 captures." }, { "title": "X posts by Priyam Raj on the team, hiring and hosting: 28 January, 11 March, 8 July, 4 and 26 September and 1 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/priymrj/status/2016498842271977930", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API and viewed the image of three Render invoices. Source for Remotion, the developer budget, the development team and the hosting bills." }, { "title": "X profile and timeline of Priyam Raj, @priymrj, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/priymrj", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and 43 pages of the timeline through the fxtwitter API, from 13 October 2026 back to November 2024, where the API stops. Source for the profile text, the posts of 9 July 2026, 2 November 2025, 10 January and 15 February 2025, and the two questions about TikTok accounts. No post from the launch weeks of 2024 could be read." }, { "title": "Vid.AI pricing page and home page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://vid.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both pages in full. Source for the three plans, the yearly prices, the video allowances, the model names, the first-month discount, the refund rule and the absence of a free trial." }, { "title": "Vid.AI changelog, July 2024 to 13 October 2026", "url": "https://vid.ai/changelog", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the entries of 2024 in full and the later entries by search, and counted the releases per month from the page's own headings. Source for the dates of the first features and of the subscription plans." }, { "title": "Vid.AI privacy policy and terms, last updated 27 September 2026", "url": "https://vid.ai/privacy-policy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both in full. The contracting company is VidAI LLC; the pages give no state of registration and no address. Source for the list of service providers, the three checkouts and the YouTube upload permission." }, { "title": "Vid.AI affiliate program page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://vid.ai/affiliate", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 33% recurring commission, the 60-day tracking period and the payout rules." }, { "title": "Priyam Raj's personal site, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://priyamraj.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the home page in full. His own account of his earlier products, the two acquisitions, his studies and \"my co-founder Matt\"." }, { "title": "LinkedIn company page: Vid AI", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/vidai-llc/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public page without signing in: company size 2 to 10, 2 employees listed, Priyam Raj and Matt Par." }, { "title": "X profile of Matt Par, @MattParOfficial, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/MattParOfficial", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile through the fxtwitter API. It reads: 12+ YouTube channels, helping you with YouTube, CEO of TubeMagic and VidAI." }, { "title": "Internet Archive, captures of vid.ai from 2022 to 2025", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20220713185914/https://vid.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the capture list and the capture of 13 July 2022, which reads \"vid.ai is for sale\". The list shows working captures from October 2024. The capture of 9 October 2024 loads its text by script and could not be read." }, { "title": "YouTube Help: YouTube channel monetization policies, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1311392?hl=en", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the 15 July 2025 update, on generic or repetitive content and on what is allowed to earn money. The platform's own rule page." }, { "title": "TikTok Community Guidelines, Integrity and Authenticity, effective 24 September 2026", "url": "https://www.tiktok.com/community-guidelines/en/integrity-authenticity", "grade": "C", "how": "The page loads by script; decoded and read the text inside the page code. Sections on AI-generated content, spam and For You feed eligibility." }, { "title": "Google Gemini API pricing, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the Veo 3.1 section: US$0.40 per second for Standard, US$0.10 for Fast and US$0.05 for Lite at 720p. This is Google's own list price. Vid.AI may buy the model through another provider at another price." }, { "title": "ElevenLabs API pricing, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://elevenlabs.io/pricing/api", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the text to speech prices: US$0.08 per 1,000 characters for the v4, v3 and multilingual models, US$0.04 for the fast models. List prices; a large customer may pay less." }, { "title": "Aiolum stories of Faceless.video, AutoShorts.ai and Revid.ai", "url": "https://aiolum.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the three story files in full. All three use founder-reported revenue, grade C. Source for the comparison and for the cost of free users at AutoShorts.ai." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/magicslides/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/magicslides.md", "slug": "magicslides", "name": "MagicSlides", "country": "India", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI presentation generator and Google Slides add-on", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "January 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$723K total since launch, October 2026", "sticker": "$723K total, now $9K/mo", "outcomeUsd": 722575, "months": 45, "teamLabel": "1 founder; 10 to 12 people at the peak, by his own account; he wrote in September 2026 that he dismissed the whole team", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "documents-data", "channel": "platform", "trend": "falling", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Presentations" ], "product": "A user gives a topic, a text, a PDF, a web address or a YouTube link, and a language model writes a slide presentation from it. MagicSlides runs as an add-on inside Google Slides and as a web application that exports editable PowerPoint, PDF and Google Slides files. Since July 2026 the same account also includes AI tools for spreadsheets, documents, meeting notes and a design canvas, under the name Magic Suite.", "why": "It appeared in January 2023 inside Google Slides, a program where people already work, when writing slides from one sentence was new, and users showed it to each other without paid advertising. A blog about presentation topics then brought about 80% of new users from Google search, by the founder's account. Both channels weakened: search traffic fell, and Google added the same function to Slides. The verified total is real, and so is the fall: monthly revenue fell by half between February and July 2026.", "summary": [ "MagicSlides is an AI presentation generator. It started as a Google Slides add-on. An add-on is a small program that a user installs from the Google Workspace Marketplace, Google's catalog of extensions for its office programs, and that then runs inside Google Slides. The user types a topic, or gives a PDF, a web address or a YouTube link, and a language model writes the slides. Today it is also a web application that exports editable PowerPoint files.", "Sanskar Tiwari, a developer in India who taught himself to code, built the first version in about one week in January 2023 and announced it on Reddit. He took no investment. Payment data that TrustMRR reads from his Stripe account shows US$722,575 paid by customers between the launch and 13 October 2026. That is a total since launch, not a yearly rate. The present level is much lower: US$8,804 in the last 30 days, and US$10,621 of monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the subscription revenue of one month, from 785 subscriptions. Verified revenue was between US$19,000 and US$20,500 a month from November 2025 to February 2026, and it fell to about US$10,000 a month by July 2026. The founder writes that the peak was about US$29,000 of MRR.", "This was not a one-person business for its whole life. The founder writes that the team reached 10 to 12 people, of which 4 or more wrote blog articles full time, because search engine optimization (SEO), the practice of writing pages so that a search engine shows them to people who search, brought about 80% of new users. He writes that changes in Google's ranking reduced that traffic in the third year. In September 2026 he wrote that he had dismissed the whole team, and he listed the product for sale at US$700,000. This page grades every number: the totals and monthly figures come from the payment processor (grade A), and the reasons for the fall are the founder's account (grade C). The page also shows four failed startups that generated presentations automatically or depended on a platform that another company controlled." ], "factsCaption": "US$722,575 of Stripe-verified revenue in 45 months, with the monthly level in 2026 at about half of its level in late 2025", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read from the Stripe account by TrustMRR through an API key. A grade B value was published by Google or by independent press. A grade C value is a founder statement, a sale-listing detail or a third-party estimate. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From an add-on built in one week to US$722,575 in total revenue in 45 months, with a fall by half during 2026. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "MagicSlides plans for individuals on 13 October 2026, read from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "The page shows yearly billing first: US$80, US$149 and US$279 a year, with the label Save 17%. Next to each yearly price it shows a second, higher figure (US$8, US$16 and US$29), which this page reads as the price with monthly billing. Calculated check: 80 divided by 8 times 12 equals 0.83, which agrees with the label. A license belongs to one Google account. Team, enterprise and API prices are on separate tabs that were not read. The company's update note of 23 May 2026 describes a new set of plans named Free, Premium, Plus and Enterprise, but the pricing page still showed Essential, Pro and Premium on the day it was read. Prices of earlier years could not be read from archived copies.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "limit not shown on the pricing page; the home page offers a free start without a credit card" ], [ "Essential", "6.67", "8", "10 presentations a month, up to 10 slides each" ], [ "Pro", "12.42", "16", "50 presentations a month, up to 15 slides each" ], [ "Premium", "23.25", "29", "50 presentations a month, support for 50 or more slides, a choice of models, and the spreadsheet, document, meeting and canvas tools" ], [ "Done By Us", "99 one-time", "", "a designer builds one presentation in 48 to 72 hours; shown as reduced from US$500" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Verified revenue since launch, January 2023 to 13 October 2026", "value": "US$722,575", "grade": "A", "note": "Read from the Stripe account by TrustMRR through an API key. This is the sum of all payments in about 45 months. It is not a yearly rate and it is not profit.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue, last 30 days", "value": "US$8,804", "grade": "A", "note": "Revenue last synced on 13 October 2026. The profile reports a change of minus 16.9% against the 30 days before.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue, last 3, 6 and 12 months", "value": "US$29,150, US$64,662 and US$181,570", "grade": "A", "note": "", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Share of the total that came in the last 12 months", "value": "25.1%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 181,570 divided by 722,575 equals 0.251. Three quarters of the money was earned before October 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue before the last 12 months", "value": "US$541,005, about US$16,400 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 722,575 minus 181,570 equals 541,005. From mid-January 2023 to mid-October 2025 is about 33 months, and 541,005 divided by 33 equals 16,394. The public profile does not show these months one by one.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue per month, November 2025 to February 2026", "value": "US$20,465, US$19,132, US$19,189, US$19,135", "grade": "A", "note": "A level period. The average is US$19,480.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue per month, March to September 2026", "value": "US$17,275, US$15,074, US$12,209, US$12,123, US$9,623, US$9,931, US$10,427", "grade": "A", "note": "The average of July, August and September is US$9,994.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Change from February 2026 to July 2026", "value": "minus 49.7%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 9,623 divided by 19,135 equals 0.503. Spread evenly over the five months, that is a fall of about 12.8% each month.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 13 October 2026", "value": "US$10,621 from 785 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "The profile reports a change of minus 7.5% in 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per subscription", "value": "about US$13.53 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 10,621 divided by 785.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Yearly run rate at the present level", "value": "US$105,648 to US$127,452", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 8,804 times 12, and 10,621 times 12. A run rate is the present monthly figure multiplied by twelve. It assumes that the fall stops.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "75%", "grade": "C", "note": "A profile snapshot. The profile does not say that costs are read from a verified source, so this is treated as the founder's figure.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Peak monthly recurring revenue", "value": "about US$29,000, date not given", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's article of 27 July 2026. No month in the public verified data reaches this level, because the public monthly table starts in November 2025. It is compatible with the verified average of US$16,400 a month before that date, but it is not confirmed.", "src": [ 4, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's statement of the level on 27 July 2026", "value": "around US$19,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Does not agree with the verified data: July 2026 was US$9,623 and June 2026 was US$12,123. The figure matches the months from November 2025 to February 2026. An event page of 23 July 2026 gives about US$13,000 of MRR.", "src": [ 4, 1, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's figure for all his products together", "value": "about US$330,000 a year, with MagicSlides as 88% of it", "grade": "C", "note": "Book description and personal site, read 13 October 2026. Calculated: 88% of 330,000 equals 290,400. The verified MagicSlides revenue of the last 12 months is US$181,570, which is 63% of that. The claim describes an earlier and higher period.", "src": [ 6, 7, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified total across the founder's 9 listed products", "value": "US$858,144, of which MagicSlides is 84.2%", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR founder page. The other products are kept apart from the headline: SheetAI US$52,000, Blurweb US$33,000, BlurScreen US$17,000, SlackNotify US$15,000, MagicForm US$11,000, AskVideo US$4,200, MagicChat US$2,600 and a second MagicSlides listing with US$775, as rounded on that page. The share is calculated: 722,575 divided by 858,144.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Team at the peak", "value": "10 to 12 people, of which 4 or more full-time blog writers", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's about page. The founder's personal site still showed 10 team members in October 2026. Latka counted 2 people who named the company as employer on LinkedIn in July 2025.", "src": [ 3, 6, 16 ] }, { "fact": "Team in September 2026", "value": "the founder alone, by his statement", "grade": "C", "note": "X post of 1 September 2026: he fired his whole team to work with Claude Code. A video description of 13 September 2026 says he now manages his products with zero developers. Not confirmed by a third party.", "src": [ 5, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "The profile says bootstrapped. The founder writes that he never raised money for any product.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Share of new users that came from search, at the peak", "value": "about 80%", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's about page. No analytics account is connected to the TrustMRR profile, so no traffic figure confirms it.", "src": [ 3, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Google Workspace Marketplace listing, 13 October 2026", "value": "more than 1 million installs, rating 4.65 of 5 from 1,483 ratings", "grade": "B", "note": "Counts published by Google on the listing, which was last updated on 12 October 2026. Google shows installs as a rounded band.", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price on TrustMRR", "value": "US$700,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Listed for sale on 3 September 2026. The listing records 8 offers and still has the status listed for sale on 13 October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price compared with revenue", "value": "6.63 times the present yearly run rate, 0.97 times all revenue since launch", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 700,000 divided by 105,648 equals 6.63, and 700,000 divided by 722,575 equals 0.97. TrustMRR shows the same multiple of 6.6.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to this total", "value": "45 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: January 2023 to October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2021 to 2022", "what": "Tiwari sells small tools: a browser extension that blurs private data on screen, and SheetAI, an add-on that puts a language model inside Google Sheets. He writes that SheetAI made about US$2,000 of MRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 4, 18 ] }, { "when": "January 2023", "what": "A stranger asks him on Twitter for a pitch deck for SheetAI. He builds a Google Slides add-on that generates the slides, in about one week, and announces it on Reddit. The TrustMRR profile gives 16 January 2023 as the founding date.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 4, 1 ] }, { "when": "February to July 2023", "what": "He describes the add-on as free in a post of 20 February 2023. An archived copy of the site from mid-2023 shows a free plan with 3 presentations a month and paid Pro and Premium plans.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 17 ] }, { "when": "June and July 2024", "what": "He writes that the add-on has 1 million installs and that he spends US$1,000 on OpenAI, without naming the period. He hires interns and writes several times that he is hiring.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "2023 to 2025", "what": "Over these three years the product becomes a web application with PDF, web address, Word and Excel inputs and an API. The team reaches 10 to 12 people. Four or more writers publish blog articles full time, and search brings about 80% of new users. The dates of the peak are not given.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "Third year, 2025", "what": "By the founder's account, Google's content updates reduce the blog's traffic, new registrations slow down, and for the first time the product loses more MRR than it gains.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "28 October 2025", "what": "Google announces that the Gemini app can generate a slide presentation from a prompt or an uploaded file and export it to Google Slides.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "November 2025 to February 2026", "what": "Verified revenue stays between US$19,132 and US$20,465 a month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "March to July 2026", "what": "Verified revenue falls every month, from US$17,275 in March to US$9,623 in July.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "29 June 2026", "what": "Google starts the rollout of full, editable, multi-slide presentations generated by Gemini inside Google Slides.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "July 2026", "what": "The company renames the product family Magic Suite and adds AI tools for spreadsheets, documents, meeting notes and a design canvas. The founder writes that he started paid advertising about this time, after years without it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 5 ] }, { "when": "1 September 2026", "what": "The founder writes on X that he fired his whole team to work with Claude Code.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "3 September 2026", "what": "MagicSlides is listed for sale on TrustMRR at US$700,000. The seller's message says that nothing is broken and that he is open to offers.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "Verified revenue since launch is US$722,575. MRR is US$10,621 from 785 subscriptions. The listing shows 8 offers and no sale.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A tool inside the program where people already work", "text": "The first version was an add-on in the Google Workspace Marketplace. A person who is preparing slides opens the add-on menu, finds the tool and uses it in the same window. Google's listing shows more than 1 million installs. The founder's rule is that people pay inside work tools and do not pay inside games." }, { "title": "Timing", "text": "In January 2023 a language model could not reliably return structured output, so the founder chained three or four calls to get a title and bullet points that fit a slide. A presentation that filled itself in was new. He writes that users made videos about it without being paid, and that some of these videos have millions of views." }, { "title": "A blog as the growth engine", "text": "The company published lists of presentation topics and guides, written by 4 or more full-time writers. By the founder's account this brought about 80% of new users. It also brought the largest cost and the largest dependency: the team grew to 10 to 12 people, and the traffic belonged to Google's ranking." }, { "title": "Many inputs and a file that the user can edit", "text": "The product accepts a topic, a PDF, a web address, a YouTube link, Word and Excel files, and returns an editable PowerPoint or Google Slides file. The founder names the editable file, the add-on and the number of input formats as the reasons to choose it over more polished competitors." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's articles and posts and from the profile fields that he filled in on TrustMRR. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The first version took about one week: a Google Slides add-on that turned a topic into an outline of slides. Three or four chained model calls produced a title and bullet points, because models in early 2023 did not return clean structured output.", "The web application is built with Next.js and hosted on Vercel, and Stripe handles the subscriptions, according to the profile.", "The models are rented. In June 2024 the founder wrote that he spent US$1,000 on OpenAI, without naming the period. In October 2026 the pricing page lists models from several providers under the Premium plan, in two groups named premium models and standard models.", "Marketing was search and YouTube, with no paid advertising until mid-2026. The founder then started Meta ads and writes that an AI assistant reads the advertising dashboard for him.", "The product is owned by IndianAppGuy Tech Private Limited in Bengaluru, which also sells SheetAI, MagicForm, BlurWeb, BlurScreen and other small tools.", "From September 2026, by the founder's statement, the code is written with Claude Code and without employed developers." ], "src": [ 1, 4, 5, 10, 18 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database either generated presentations automatically or grew through a platform that another company controlled. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "LiveLoop", "years": "2010 to 2015", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Turn PowerPoint files into live documents that several people edit at the same time.", "died": "The product was an extension of PowerPoint, so only Microsoft users could want it. Microsoft bought the company in 2015 and built the same functions into Office.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/302-liveloop" }, { "name": "Qwiki", "years": "2010 to 2015", "funding": "US$10M", "cause": "No market need", "promise": "Automatically generated, narrated presentations of images and video as the answer to a search query.", "died": "Each presentation was expensive to generate, and users did not change from text results. Yahoo bought the company in 2013 and later closed the product.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/481-qwiki" }, { "name": "Meerkat", "years": "2015 to 2016", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Live video from a phone to the user's Twitter followers.", "died": "All of its growth came through Twitter's network of followers. Twitter bought a competitor, Periscope, and removed Meerkat's access to that network in March 2015.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2194-meerkat" }, { "name": "Upworthy Insider", "years": "2015 to 2020", "funding": "US$12M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Selected stories with a social purpose that spread widely on Facebook.", "died": "Readers arrived through Facebook's News Feed. Facebook changed its ranking to show less content from publishers, the traffic fell, and the company had no second channel.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/692-upworthy-insider" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Before language models, an automatic presentation needed a custom pipeline. Qwiki raised US$10 million to assemble narrated presentations from images and text, and each one was expensive to produce. In January 2023 one developer chained three or four calls to a rented model and had a working add-on within a week. The cost of building the product fell from millions of dollars to almost nothing.", "The platform risk did not change. LiveLoop extended PowerPoint, and Microsoft built the same functions into Office. Meerkat and Upworthy grew through one platform's distribution and lost it when the platform changed its rules. MagicSlides has both dependencies: users found it through Google search and the Google Workspace Marketplace, and Google now generates presentations inside Slides itself. The difference from the predecessors is cost. They had investors and salaries to pay. A business without investors can continue at US$10,000 a month, and that is what the verified data shows in October 2026." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The 2023 start, no. The method, partly.", "text": "The opening of January 2023 is closed: Google generates presentations inside Slides, and funded companies such as Gamma sell the same function with far larger teams. What a reader can still copy is the method of placing a small paid tool inside a marketplace where people already do paid work. The founder's own record also shows the limit of that method: one channel that the platform owner controls is enough to start a business and not enough to keep it growing.", "steps": [ "Build the tool as an add-on in a marketplace where people already work, such as Google Workspace, Chrome, Slack or Shopify, and put a price on it in the first week.", "When a model newly does one thing, ship the simplest product that uses it. The first MagicSlides only produced an outline of slides.", "Build a second channel before the first one weakens. MagicSlides took about 80% of new users from search and started paid advertising only in 2026.", "Keep costs low enough that the business survives when revenue falls by half. Hire writers only while their articles return more than they cost." ], "open": "The founder names the remaining gap himself: tools that people search for by task, such as PDF to PPT, web address to PPT, or a converter from another presentation product, instead of general blog articles. Whether these tools can replace the lost search traffic is not shown by the data yet." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The platform owner shipped the same function", "text": "Google announced presentation generation in the Gemini app on 28 October 2025. On 29 June 2026 it started the rollout of full, editable, multi-slide presentations generated by Gemini inside Google Slides, for the Business Standard and Plus plans, the Enterprise Standard and Plus plans, and Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers. An add-on that writes slides inside Google Slides now competes with a function that Google places in the same window. The verified fall began in March 2026, before that rollout, so the data does not show this function as the first cause. Its effect on MagicSlides is not established." }, { "title": "One marketplace listing", "text": "More than 1 million installs came through a single listing in the Google Workspace Marketplace. Google decides the ranking, the review rules and the existence of the listing. The founder now names this marketplace as a main channel. No source shows whether the listing's rank changed, so a loss of rank is not established." }, { "title": "Search traffic that Google controls", "text": "By the founder's account about 80% of new users came from blog articles, and Google's content updates reduced that traffic in the third year. This is the only cause that he gives for the fall. No analytics account is connected to the verified profile, so no traffic number confirms it. Price changes as a cause are not established either: the plans were reworked in May 2026, after the fall had started." }, { "title": "Funded competitors", "text": "Gamma, which also generates presentations, announced a US$68 million funding round at a valuation of US$2.1 billion in November 2025. Its founder stated US$100 million of annual recurring revenue, 70 million users and about 50 employees. The MagicSlides about page says that it is not the most polished AI presentation tool in 2026. No source measures how many customers moved to Gamma." }, { "title": "A falling business offered for sale", "text": "The asking price of US$700,000 is 6.63 times the present yearly run rate and almost equal to all revenue collected since launch. MRR fell by 7.5% in the last 30 days. The listing records 8 offers in about six weeks and no sale. A buyer would pay for a stream of payments that was about twice as large in February 2026." }, { "title": "A total earned mostly with a team", "text": "The headline is the sum of 45 months. At its peak the team had 10 to 12 people, by the founder's account, and the dates of that peak are not given. One person built and launched the product, and one person runs it now by his own statement, but the money in between was not earned alone. The public data cannot separate the periods, because the monthly table starts in November 2025." }, { "title": "Numbers that do not agree", "text": "The founder's article of 27 July 2026 says that the product sits around US$19,000 a month, while verified revenue for July 2026 was US$9,623. His personal site showed US$330,000 of annual recurring revenue and 10 team members in October 2026, while the verified MRR of all his listed products together is US$12,079, about US$145,000 a year. User counts are 1 million on the about page and 2.3 million on the home page. Presentations created are 1.3 million on the about page and 10 million on the home page." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile of MagicSlides.app, revenue read from Stripe by API key", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/magicslides-app.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile on 13 October 2026 (revenue last synced 13 October 2026 at 18:06 UTC) and compared it with a copy cached one day earlier, which showed US$722,503. The revenue, MRR and subscription figures come from the Stripe account. The profile text, the funding line, the user count, the profit margin and the sale listing are written by the founder and are grade C." }, { "title": "TrustMRR founder page of Sanskar Tiwari: 9 startups with verified revenue", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/founder/IndianAppGuy", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full on 13 October 2026. Source for the total of US$858,144 across his listed products and for the rounded total of each other product." }, { "title": "MagicSlides about page: The MagicSlides Story", "url": "https://www.magicslides.app/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 13 October 2026. Written by the founder. Source for the origin, the peak team of 10 to 12 people, the 80% share of search, and his explanation of the fall. An archived copy of 14 April 2026 shows a shorter, general text in this section, so the present story was written after that date." }, { "title": "Founder's article, 27 July 2026: Put More Buy Buttons on the Internet", "url": "https://www.sanskartiwari.io/articles/put-more-buy-buttons-on-the-internet", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the SheetAI revenue, the one-week build, the chained model calls, the peak of about US$29,000 of MRR, the statement of around US$19,000 a month, and the statement that he never raised money." }, { "title": "Sanskar Tiwari on X, posts from 2023 to 2026", "url": "https://x.com/IndianAppGuy/status/2094886415314407836", "grade": "C", "how": "Read as JSON through api.fxtwitter.com: 151 posts from 27 August to 2 October 2026 from the timeline, and 578 older posts whose addresses are stored in the Wayback Machine. Posts used: 1 September 2026 (the linked post, fired the whole team), 28 August 2026 (2093224563308183815, small team), 28 September 2026 (2104537886268002790, no ads until three months earlier), 29 June 2024 (1806913730447323212, 1 million installs and OpenAI cost), 2 July 2024 (1808033363623563765, interns), 20 February 2023 (1627580641855537153, free add-on), 17 September 2026 (2100472371643834574, advertising read by an AI assistant), 29 September 2026 (2104821007102149099, videos made by users). The timeline between February 2025 and August 2026 could not be read." }, { "title": "Founder's personal site, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.sanskartiwari.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the home page and the about page. Source for the claims of US$330,000 of annual recurring revenue, 25 products and 10 team members." }, { "title": "Amazon listing of the founder's book: Stop Learning to Code, How a Call-Center Kid Built 25 Products and $330K a Year", "url": "https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H8F4S4CS", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the book description only, not the book. Source for the statement that MagicSlides is 88% of his revenue and that he works with a small team." }, { "title": "Luma event page, 23 July 2026: The honest playbook behind launching 25 products and making $330k", "url": "https://luma.com/13nluzu2", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Written by the event host. Source for the figure of about US$13,000 of MRR in July 2026." }, { "title": "YouTube, Ishan Sharma channel, 13 September 2026: How I'd Start a Business With Claude Code in 2026, with Sanskar Tiwari", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z_RDr5py10", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the video description, not the video. Source for the statement that he moved from a team of developers to zero developers." }, { "title": "MagicSlides pricing page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.magicslides.app/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the Individual tab in full. The Team and Enterprise tab and the API tab were not read." }, { "title": "MagicSlides updates page", "url": "https://www.magicslides.app/updates", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the entries from April to September 2026. Source for the Magic Suite release of July 2026 and the plan change of 23 May 2026." }, { "title": "Google Workspace Marketplace listing: MagicSlides, AI PPT Maker for Google Slides", "url": "https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/magicslides_app_gpt_for_slides/371894645570", "grade": "B", "how": "Read on 13 October 2026. The install band and the rating are published by Google, not by the founder." }, { "title": "Google Workspace Updates, 30 June 2026: Create fully native and editable presentations with Gemini in Google Slides", "url": "https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2026/06/create-fully-native-and-editable-presentations-with-Gemini-in-Google-Slides.html", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Google's own announcement. Source for the rollout date and the plans that receive the function." }, { "title": "Google Workspace Updates, 28 October 2025: Generate presentations in the Gemini app", "url": "https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2025/10/generate-presentations-in-gemini-app.html", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Google's own announcement." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 10 November 2025: AI PowerPoint-killer Gamma hits $2.1B valuation, $100M ARR, founder says", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/10/ai-powerpoint-killer-gamma-hits-2-1b-valuation-100m-arr-founder-says/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the opening paragraphs. The funding round is a company announcement reported by the press. The revenue, user and employee figures are statements of Gamma's founder." }, { "title": "Latka company page for MagicSlides App", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/magicslides.app", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party estimate of about US$220,000 a year for July 2025 and a LinkedIn count of 2 people. Used only for the team comparison." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of the MagicSlides pricing page, 5 June 2023, and of the home page, 2023", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20230605034330/https://www.magicslides.app/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the archived text. The plan names and limits are readable. The prices are filled in by script and are missing from the archived copies." }, { "title": "IndianAppGuy Tech Private Limited, company site", "url": "https://www.indianappguy.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the home page and the about page. Source for the company name, the Bengaluru address and the list of other products." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/low-content-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/low-content-ai.md", "slug": "low-content-ai", "name": "Low Content AI", "country": "Italy, listed as United Kingdom on TrustMRR", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI generator of coloring, puzzle and journal books for Amazon KDP", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "August 2024", "outcomeLabel": "US$642K total since launch, October 2026", "sticker": "$642K total, now $16K/mo", "outcomeUsd": 642409, "months": 26, "teamLabel": "1 named founder; team size not published; the UK company named on the site in 2025 reported 1 employee", "fundingLabel": "No outside funding found; not stated by the founder", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "companions-publishing", "channel": "creators", "trend": "flat", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Self-publishing" ], "product": "A web application for people who sell simple books through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing. The user describes a book, and AI models produce its pages: line drawings for coloring books, puzzles and mazes for activity books, text and layouts for journals and planners, and a description for the Amazon listing. A subscription buys credits. By the terms of service one generated image costs 200,000 credits, so the smallest plan, with 40 million credits a month, pays for about 200 images.", "why": "It sold one narrow job to a group that already existed: people who learn from YouTube channels and paid courses how to publish many simple books on Amazon. The product carries that group's own word in its name, tutorial channels in English and Italian showed it from January 2025, and the site runs an affiliate script. Two thirds of the US$642,409 came in the first 14 months, at about US$30,300 a month. The last 12 months average about US$17,600 a month.", "summary": [ "Low Content AI is a web application that produces the pages of simple books with AI. Its customers publish through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Amazon's self-publishing service: a person uploads a book file, Amazon lists the book in its store, and Amazon prints one copy each time a buyer orders one, a method called print on demand. The publisher holds no stock and receives a royalty, which is a share of each sale. A low-content book is a book with little or no text to read, such as a notebook, a planner or a journal. Amazon's help page defines it as a book with \"minimal or no content on the interior pages\". Publishers use the term more widely and include coloring books and puzzle books, which Amazon's own page does not count as low-content. The tool generates drawings, puzzles, text and listing descriptions for all of these.", "The founder named on TrustMRR is Brian Donatiello, whose X profile gives Milan as his location. TrustMRR gives 6 August 2024 as the founding date. Payment data that TrustMRR reads from the product's Stripe account shows US$642,409 paid by customers between the launch and 13 October 2026. That is a total since launch, not a yearly rate. The timing matters: US$430,839, which is 67% of it, came in the first 14 months, an average of about US$30,300 a month. The last 12 months brought US$211,570, an average of about US$17,600 a month. The present level is US$16,125 in the last 30 days and US$14,672 of monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the subscription revenue of one month, from 334 subscriptions. The public month-by-month table starts in November 2025 and stays between US$13,402 and US$25,642 without a clear direction. So the larger fall happened earlier, in months that the public profile does not show one by one.", "Two things on this page are not verified, and the page says so where they matter. The first is the team: TrustMRR names one founder, but an archived copy of the site from January 2025 names a British company, Wealthy Magnet LTD, as the copyright holder, and the public register lists other people as its directors. The second is the sales channel: tutorial videos about KDP, an affiliate script (an affiliate is a partner who is paid a commission for each buyer that he sends) and an advertising pixel are visible, but no source says which of them brought the money. The founder has published no revenue figure of his own, so there is no claim to compare with the verified data. He has listed the product for sale at US$800,000 since December 2025. The customers' income depends on Amazon's rules about AI-generated books, which the last section quotes. The page also shows five failed startups that sold tools or services to people who publish books." ], "factsCaption": "US$642,409 of Stripe-verified revenue in 26 months, of which 67% came in the first 14 months; the last 12 months average about US$17,600 a month", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read from the Stripe account by TrustMRR through an API key. A grade B value was published by Amazon about its own rules or by independent press. A grade C value is a profile detail written by the seller, a page of the company, an unaudited company filing, a founder post, a YouTube video or an advice site. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a login page in August 2024 to US$642,409 in total revenue in 26 months, with two thirds of it in the first 14 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Low Content AI plans on 13 October 2026, read from the company's home page and its page script. Prices are in euros (grade C)", "note": "The home page shows yearly billing first: €390, €490 and €990 a year, with the label Save 16.6%. The monthly prices of €39, €49 and €99 are in the page script, behind the Pay Monthly switch. The yearly column below is the yearly price divided by 12. Calculated check: 390 divided by 12 times 39 equals 0.833, which agrees with the label. Credits pay for generation. The site calls the unit credits and the terms of service call it tokens: one image costs 200,000 and one generated word about 1.33, so 40 million credits pay for 200 images if nothing else is generated. An archived copy of 3 January 2025 shows €292.50, €367.50 and €742.50 a year with the label Save 20%; each is exactly 75% of today's yearly price. Whether that was a lower list price or a temporary discount could not be read. The home page has a button that says Get Started for Free; the limit of the free use is not shown. There is no separate pricing page: the address /pricing returns an error page.", "rows": [ [ "Basic", "€32.50", "€39", "40 million credits a month, about 200 images; basic templates" ], [ "Pro", "€40.83", "€49", "60 million credits a month, about 300 images; priority generation, advanced templates" ], [ "Star", "€82.50", "€99", "110 million credits a month, about 550 images; unlimited templates, API access" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Verified revenue since launch, August 2024 to 13 October 2026", "value": "US$642,409", "grade": "A", "note": "Read from the Stripe account by TrustMRR through an API key. This is the sum of all payments in about 26 months. It is not a yearly rate and it is not profit. A copy cached one day earlier showed US$642,278.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue, last 30 days", "value": "US$16,125", "grade": "A", "note": "Revenue last synced on 13 October 2026 at 14:38 UTC. The profile reports a change of minus 3.1% against the 30 days before.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue, last 3, 6 and 12 months", "value": "US$46,172, US$103,979 and US$211,570", "grade": "A", "note": "", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Share of the total that came in the last 12 months", "value": "32.9%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 211,570 divided by 642,409 equals 0.329. Two thirds of the money was earned before mid-October 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue before the last 12 months", "value": "US$430,839, about US$30,300 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 642,409 minus 211,570 equals 430,839. From 6 August 2024 to 13 October 2025 is 433 days, or 14.22 months, and 430,839 divided by 14.22 equals 30,298. The public profile does not show these months one by one, so the highest month is not known.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average of the last 12 months", "value": "about US$17,600 a month, 58% of the earlier average", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 211,570 divided by 12 equals 17,631, and 17,631 divided by 30,298 equals 0.58.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue per month, November 2025 to January 2026", "value": "US$15,796, US$13,402, US$14,824", "grade": "A", "note": "The average is US$14,674.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue per month, February to June 2026", "value": "US$22,366, US$17,869, US$17,504, US$25,642, US$18,338", "grade": "A", "note": "The average is US$20,344. May 2026 is the highest month in the public table.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue per month, July to September 2026", "value": "US$14,791, US$16,253, US$16,499", "grade": "A", "note": "The average is US$15,848, which is 22.1% below the average of February to June. September 2026 is 4.5% above November 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Last 6 months compared with the 6 months before", "value": "minus 3.4%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the last 12 months minus the last 6 months equals 107,591, and 103,979 divided by 107,591 equals 0.966. Inside the last year the level moved up and down but did not fall much.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 13 October 2026", "value": "US$14,672 from 334 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "The profile reports a change of minus 16.7% in 30 days. The copy cached one day earlier showed US$14,706 and 336 subscriptions.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per subscription", "value": "about US$43.93 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 14,672 divided by 334. The plans cost €39, €49 and €99 a month. No exchange rate was applied on this page.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Yearly run rate at the present level", "value": "US$176,064 to US$193,500", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 14,672 times 12, and 16,125 times 12. A run rate is the present monthly figure multiplied by twelve. It assumes that the level stays the same.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "75%", "grade": "C", "note": "A profile snapshot. The profile does not say that costs are read from a verified source, so this is treated as the seller's figure.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Sale listing", "value": "asking US$800,000; first listed on 16 December 2025; 12 offers received", "grade": "C", "note": "Listing details on the TrustMRR profile, set by the seller. Calculated: 800,000 divided by 211,570 equals 3.8 times the revenue of the last 12 months. The profile shows a multiple of 4.1, which equals 800,000 divided by twelve times the revenue of the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Founder", "value": "Brian Donatiello; 1 startup on TrustMRR", "grade": "C", "note": "Named on the TrustMRR profile and founder page. His X profile gives Milan as his location and calls him the founder of OSIAX, a company that builds AI agents for business processes. He writes that he built AI systems for clients for years and that he built a career on Upwork, a marketplace for freelance work.", "src": [ 2, 7, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's own revenue statements", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "His X account was created on 10 December 2025. The 26 posts that could be read, from 4 July to 24 September 2026, are about OSIAX and AI coding and do not name Low Content AI. So there is no founder claim to compare with the verified data.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Company named on the site on 3 January 2025", "value": "Wealthy Magnet LTD, London", "grade": "C", "note": "The archived home page ends with: Copyright @ Wealthy Magnet LTD, 27 Old Gloucester Street, London. The British company register shows a company of that name at that address, incorporated on 17 September 2024, with the activity code for educational support services. Its four directors since then are other people, all resident in Italy. The founder's name does not appear, and his relation to the company is not verified. On 15 May 2026 and today the site footer names no company.", "src": [ 5, 6, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Employees of that company, 17 September 2024 to 30 September 2025", "value": "1 on average", "grade": "C", "note": "Micro-entity accounts filed on 5 November 2025, not audited. They show net assets of 354,000, printed with a euro sign and tagged as pounds in the data, and no profit and loss statement. The register states that it does not check the accuracy of filed information.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Team size", "value": "not published", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR names one founder. No page that was read names an employee or a co-founder. Not verified.", "src": [ 1, 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "No investor, funding round or funding line was found on the profile, the site, the company register or the founder's posts. The founder has not stated it.", "src": [ 1, 6, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Law of the terms of service", "value": "Italian law, Court of Milan", "grade": "C", "note": "Terms last updated on 9 January 2025. TrustMRR shows the United Kingdom as the country. This page gives Italy as the country because the founder's location, the terms and the residence of the directors of the named company all indicate Italy.", "src": [ 4, 1, 6, 7 ] }, { "fact": "YouTube tutorials that link to the tool, January and February 2025", "value": "5 videos by 4 channels, 5,740 views together", "grade": "C", "note": "Dates and view counts as YouTube showed them on 13 October 2026: Dare Digital on 1 January (691 views) and 7 February (286), Digitaledu in Italian on 7 January (2,395), Mariana Montoya on 3 February (2,111) and Blaze Goldburst on 25 February (257). These views are too few to explain the revenue. Other videos may exist that the search did not return.", "src": [ 10, 11, 12, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Other sales channels visible in the page code", "value": "an Endorsely affiliate script and a Meta advertising pixel", "grade": "C", "note": "Read on 13 October 2026. Endorsely describes itself as affiliate program software for subscription software: it records which partner sent a paying customer. The commission rate, the number of partners and the advertising budget are not public.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Cost of one generated image to the customer", "value": "about €0.16 to €0.20", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the terms and the monthly prices: 39 divided by 200 images equals 0.195, 49 divided by 300 equals 0.163, and 99 divided by 550 equals 0.18.", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Users, seller's estimate", "value": "about 1,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Profile text. The home page says thousands of creators. The verified number is 334 active subscriptions.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Amazon's rule on AI content", "value": "AI-generated text, images and translations must be declared when a book is published", "grade": "B", "note": "Amazon's content guidelines, read on 13 October 2026. The Guardian reported on 20 September 2023 that Amazon had introduced the requirement one week earlier.", "src": [ 14, 16 ] }, { "fact": "Amazon's limit on new titles", "value": "three a day for each publisher, since September 2023", "grade": "B", "note": "The Guardian, 20 September 2023, from Amazon's statement to the newspaper. Amazon said that the number may be adjusted. Amazon's own forum page loads by script and could not be read, so the present number is not verified.", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "fact": "Amazon's definition of a low-content book", "value": "minimal or no content on the interior pages; puzzle books and coloring books are not generally included", "grade": "B", "note": "Amazon's help page, read on 13 October 2026. Low-content books are not eligible for the free ISBN that KDP gives to other books.", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "fact": "Reports of closed KDP accounts", "value": "described as increasingly common; no count is published", "grade": "C", "note": "Two advice sites for self-publishers, in articles of October and December 2025, and one author's own account of January 2024. Amazon publishes no number of terminations.", "src": [ 17, 18, 19 ] }, { "fact": "Competing AI tools for low-content books that were read for this page", "value": "3", "grade": "C", "note": "KDP Builder, with a free start of 75 credits. Low Content Studio, founded on 29 June 2026, with US$4.86 of verified revenue. A third tool that the channel JeffSetLife promoted through an affiliate link on 30 June and 21 July 2026. This is not a full count of the market.", "src": [ 20, 22, 21 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the latest figure", "value": "26 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: August 2024 to October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "6 August 2024", "what": "Founding date on the TrustMRR profile. The Wayback Machine first captured lowcontent.ai on 10 August 2024, and the privacy policy is dated 16 August 2024.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 5, 4 ] }, { "when": "17 September 2024", "what": "Wealthy Magnet LTD is incorporated in London, by the British company register. The site names it as copyright holder in January 2025.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 5 ] }, { "when": "1 January 2025", "what": "The earliest YouTube tutorial found that links to the tool: the channel Dare Digital lists it as the software used in the video.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "3 January 2025", "what": "The archived site shows three yearly plans at €292.50, €367.50 and €742.50, and a login page with one option, a Google account.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "6 to 9 January 2025", "what": "A Product Hunt account for the tool is created on 6 January. An Italian review video appears on 7 January. The terms of service, under Italian law, are dated 9 January.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 10, 4 ] }, { "when": "February 2025", "what": "Three more tutorials: Mariana Montoya on 3 February, Dare Digital on 7 February and Blaze Goldburst on 25 February.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12, 11, 13 ] }, { "when": "August 2024 to October 2025", "what": "US$430,839 of verified revenue in the first 14 months, about US$30,300 a month on average. Calculated from the verified totals; these months are not public one by one.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "November 2025 to January 2026", "what": "Verified revenue of US$15,796, US$13,402 and US$14,824: about half of the earlier average.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "10 to 16 December 2025", "what": "The founder opens his X account on 10 December and the product is listed for sale on TrustMRR on 16 December. A post of 17 July 2026 says that he had spent the last 7 months building an AI sales team product, which places the start of that work in the same weeks.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 1 ] }, { "when": "February to June 2026", "what": "A higher period: US$22,366 in February and US$25,642 in May, the highest month in the public table.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "30 June 2026", "what": "JeffSetLife, a KDP channel, presents a different new AI tool for low-content books through an affiliate link. The video has 5,410 views; a second video of 21 July has 9,347.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 21 ] }, { "when": "July to September 2026", "what": "Verified revenue of US$14,791, US$16,253 and US$16,499.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "US$642,409 in total. US$16,125 in the last 30 days. MRR of US$14,672 from 334 subscriptions, down 16.7% in 30 days. Asking price US$800,000, with 12 offers received.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A product named with the customer's own word", "text": "People who publish notebooks, planners and coloring books on Amazon call their business low-content publishing. The product and its domain use exactly that word, with AI added. A person who searches YouTube for a low-content AI tool finds videos that show it, next to videos that show its competitors." }, { "title": "A market that is taught by channels and courses", "text": "The customers learn the business from YouTube channels and paid courses, and those teachers need tools to show. Five tutorials in English and Italian linked to the tool in January and February 2025, and the site runs an affiliate script that can pay a partner for each buyer. The same channels link to several other tools in the same videos. No source says which share of the sales came this way." }, { "title": "Output that is ready for one platform", "text": "The promise is not a general image generator. It is a book file that Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing accepts, with the listing description as well. The customer pays to skip the steps between a drawing and a book that can be sold." }, { "title": "Yearly plans shown first, and credits with a known cost", "text": "The home page shows yearly prices first, from €390 to €990, and a yearly price is collected on the first day. This may be one reason why the first 14 months were stronger than the next 12, but the public data cannot confirm it. Each plan gives a fixed number of credits, and one image costs 200,000 of them, so the cost of serving a customer has an upper limit. The profile shows a profit margin of 75%, which is the seller's figure." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details were read from the site's code, its terms of service and archived copies. The founder has not published a description of how he built it. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The site is a Next.js application. Next.js is a framework for web applications written with React, and the pages load their script files from the framework's standard /_next/ path.", "Payments run on Stripe. TrustMRR reads the revenue from the Stripe account through an API key.", "In the archived copy of January 2025 the login page has one option: continue with a Google account.", "Generation is metered. The terms count the user's prompt, internal steps such as title generation and tool selection, and the generated output. One image costs 200,000 units and one generated word about 1.33.", "The pages do not say which AI models produce the images and the text.", "By the terms, a paying user owns the generated text and images and may keep using them after cancelling.", "The page code loads an Endorsely affiliate script and a Meta advertising pixel. The largest plan lists API access." ], "src": [ 3, 4, 5, 1 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold tools or services to people who write and publish books, in a market where Amazon owns the store. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Hyperink", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$1.4M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Help experts produce e-books for small niches quickly.", "died": "Self-publishing platforms gave authors more reach and better tools at lower cost, and niche titles earned too little.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1192-hyperink" }, { "name": "Booktrope", "years": "2015 to 2018", "funding": "US$1M", "cause": "Ran Out of Cash", "promise": "Publish a book with a team of editor, designer and marketer who share the royalties instead of charging fees.", "died": "The model was complex to run and did not reach scale. Kindle Direct Publishing gave authors a simpler path.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1125-booktrope" }, { "name": "Vook", "years": "2009 to 2017", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "E-books with video and audio inside the text.", "died": "Readers and publishers did not adopt the format, and Kindle and Apple's iBooks had the distribution.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/721-vook" }, { "name": "Curious Fictions", "years": "2018 to 2021", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A place where authors sell short stories directly to readers.", "died": "Kindle Direct Publishing and Wattpad already had the readers. Subscriptions and tips brought too little money.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1018-curious-fictions" }, { "name": "Hiptype", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Analytics that show publishers how readers read their e-books.", "died": "Publishers adopted it slowly, and Amazon and Apple kept their own reading data.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1582-hiptype" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five tried to sell something to authors or publishers while Amazon owned the store and the readers. Three of them offered another path to publication and lost to Amazon's own path. Low Content AI does not compete with Kindle Direct Publishing. It supplies it: the customer still publishes on Amazon, and the tool only makes the files. That is why a small product could collect US$642,409 without a store, readers or publisher contracts of its own.", "What changed is the cost of producing a page. In the 2010s a niche book needed an expert and an editor, and Hyperink and Booktrope existed to organise such people. Now an image model draws a coloring page for about €0.16 to €0.20 at this tool's prices. The dependence did not change. The tool's customers earn only while Amazon accepts their books, and Amazon answered the large number of AI-made books in 2023 with a duty to declare them and a daily limit on new titles. The predecessors lost to Amazon as a competitor. This business can lose to Amazon as the maker of the rules." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. This market, with care.", "text": "The method is to choose a group that already pays for courses and tools around one narrow way of earning money, to name the product with the group's own word, and to give its teachers a reason to show the product. That can be repeated elsewhere. This market is harder now: the verified level is a little more than half of the early average, new tools appear every few months, and the customers' income depends on what Amazon accepts.", "steps": [ "Find a group that has a specific name for its work and already buys tools for it. Use that name in the product name and the domain.", "Make the output ready for the platform where the group sells: the right page size, the right file format, and the listing text.", "Sell credits that map directly to your own cost for each image or word, so that every plan has a known margin.", "Give tutorial channels and course sellers an affiliate link, and expect them to show your competitors as well.", "Read the platform's rules before your customers do, and tell them plainly what they must declare." ], "open": "Other marketplaces where individuals sell simple products in volume and learn the method from channels and courses: print-on-demand clothing, digital planners and printable pages, stock images, and listing text for small sellers." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Amazon requires a declaration of AI-generated content", "text": "Amazon's content guidelines say: \"We require you to inform us of AI-generated content (text, images, or translations) when you publish a new book or make edits to and republish an existing book through KDP.\" Content created by an AI tool counts as AI-generated \"even if you applied substantial edits afterwards\". Every book made with this tool falls under that definition. The guidelines add: \"You are responsible for verifying that all AI-generated and/or AI-assisted content adheres to all content guidelines, including by complying with all applicable intellectual property rights.\" The Guardian reported on 20 September 2023 that Amazon had introduced the requirement one week earlier. The risk stays with the publisher, not with the tool." }, { "title": "Amazon's definition of low-content is narrower than the market's", "text": "Amazon's help page says: \"A low-content book has minimal or no content on the interior pages. Low-content books are generally repetitive, and designed to be filled in by the user. This does not typically include activity books, such as puzzle books or coloring books, which generally do not feature repetitive content on each page.\" Its table lists notebooks, planners, journals and log books as low-content, and puzzle books and coloring books as not generally low-content. The page also says that low-content books \"are not eligible for the free KDP ISBN\"; an ISBN is the international number that identifies one edition of a book. The same guidelines forbid \"content that's typically disappointing to customers\". A customer of the tool has to know which of Amazon's categories each book belongs to." }, { "title": "A limit of three new titles a day", "text": "In September 2023 Amazon wrote on its KDP forum, as quoted by the Guardian: \"in order to help protect against abuse, we are lowering the volume limits we have in place on new title creations\". Amazon told the newspaper that the limit is three titles a day and may be adjusted. The method that this market teaches is volume: the page of one competing tool says that successful low-content publishers build catalogs of 50 to more than 200 products. A tool can make a book in minutes, but the platform accepts three new titles a day from one publisher." }, { "title": "Publishers report closed accounts", "text": "Kindlepreneur, an advice site for self-publishers, wrote in an article updated on 27 October 2025 that suspended or terminated accounts are \"becoming increasingly common\" and that \"in most cases, account actions are triggered by an automated system rather than human review\". The site selfpublishing.com wrote on 15 December 2025 that closures often follow when authors \"release numerous low-content books that repeat the same templates or layouts\", and that \"uploading too many AI-generated titles in a short period can make your account seem suspiciously high-volume\". One author wrote on 23 January 2024 that Amazon terminated her account and that she believes the cause was that she did not declare the use of AI on a book cover. These are reports and advice, not counts: Amazon publishes no number of terminations. A publisher who loses the account has no reason to renew a yearly plan." }, { "title": "The level is a little more than half of the early average", "text": "The first 14 months averaged about US$30,300 a month and the last 12 about US$17,600. Inside the last year the months move between US$13,402 and US$25,642 without a clear direction, but MRR fell by 16.7% in the 30 days to 13 October 2026. The product has been for sale since 16 December 2025 at US$800,000, which is 3.8 times the revenue of the last 12 months, and the founder's posts since July 2026 are about a different company. He wrote on 31 July 2026, about his years on a freelance marketplace: \"Platforms can change the rules overnight.\" The same sentence describes the position of his customers on Amazon." }, { "title": "Many competing tools, sold the same way", "text": "KDP Builder offers an AI generator for low-content books with a free start of 75 credits. Low Content Studio, founded on 29 June 2026, sells plans at US$19 and US$49 a month and has US$4.86 of verified revenue. JeffSetLife, a KDP channel, promoted another new AI tool for low-content books through an affiliate link in two videos in June and July 2026, with 5,410 and 9,347 views. The image and text models behind such tools are open to every developer, so the product itself is easy to copy. What is hard to copy is a place in the tutorials of the channels, and the channels show several tools at once." }, { "title": "Who owns it, and who sent the first buyers, is not clear", "text": "TrustMRR names one founder and the United Kingdom. The site named Wealthy Magnet LTD as copyright holder in January 2025; that company's directors are other people resident in Italy, its activity code is educational support services, and the terms of service are under Italian law. A buyer of the business should ask where the customers of the first year came from." }, { "title": "Testimonials that cannot be checked", "text": "The home page shows three short testimonials signed Sarah M., John D. and Emma R., with the same wording as in the archived copy of January 2025, and it says that thousands of creators use the tool. The verified number is 334 active subscriptions, and the seller's own estimate on TrustMRR is about 1,000 users." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile of Low Content AI, revenue read from Stripe by API key", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/low-content-ai.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile on 13 October 2026 (revenue last synced 13 October 2026 at 14:38 UTC) and compared it with a copy cached one day earlier, which showed US$642,278. The revenue, MRR and subscription figures come from the Stripe account. The profile text, the founding date, the country, the user estimate, the profit margin and the sale listing are written by the seller and are grade C." }, { "title": "TrustMRR founder page of Brian Donatiello: 1 startup with verified revenue", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/founder/briandonatiello", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full on 13 October 2026. It showed a total of US$642,683 after a later sync, one startup, and the link to his X account." }, { "title": "Low Content AI home page and its page script", "url": "https://www.lowcontent.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 13 October 2026, with the script file that holds the plan data. Source for the product description, the yearly and monthly prices, the credits of each plan, the testimonials, the affiliate script and the advertising pixel. The address /pricing returned an error page. The home page of Endorsely was read for the description of its service." }, { "title": "Low Content AI terms and conditions, last updated 9 January 2025, and privacy policy, last updated 16 August 2024", "url": "https://www.lowcontent.ai/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both in full. Source for the cost of an image and of a word, the ownership of generated content, the renewal and refund rules, and the choice of Italian law and the Court of Milan." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of lowcontent.ai, 3 January 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250103163222/https://www.lowcontent.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the archived home page and the archived login page of the same day in full, and the list of captures, which starts on 10 August 2024. Source for the earlier prices and for the footer that names Wealthy Magnet LTD. A copy of 15 May 2026 shows today's prices and no company name." }, { "title": "Companies House, the British company register: Wealthy Magnet LTD, company number 15962341", "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/15962341", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the overview, the officers, the persons with significant control, the filing history and the micro-entity accounts for the period to 30 September 2025. The register states that it does not check the accuracy of filed information. The founder's name is not in these records." }, { "title": "Brian Donatiello on X: profile and posts of 4 July to 24 September 2026", "url": "https://x.com/briandonatiello", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and the 26 most recent posts through api.fxtwitter.com; older posts could not be opened. Source for his location, the date the account was created, his freelance background, the post of 17 July 2026 about 7 months of work on a new product, and the post of 31 July 2026 about platforms. No post names Low Content AI or gives a revenue figure." }, { "title": "OSIAX home page", "url": "https://www.osiax.com", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 13 October 2026. Source for the founder's present company and his description of his earlier work for clients. It does not name Low Content AI." }, { "title": "Product Hunt profile: Low Content Ai", "url": "https://www.producthunt.com/@lcai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the account date of 6 January 2025, the launch month and the product description that names coloring books, games and activity books." }, { "title": "YouTube, Digitaledu, 7 January 2025: SCOPRI Come Creare Libri per Amazon KDP in Modo Semplice e Veloce!", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsQ-PCF6Emk", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the video description, the date and the view count; the video was not watched. An Italian review that lists coloring books, activity books, puzzle books, maze books and listing descriptions, and links to the tool." }, { "title": "YouTube, Dare Digital, 1 January 2025: I'M Using This SECRET Amazon KDP App to Make Passive Income! (and a second video of 7 February 2025)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq9g_DEIWWs", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the descriptions, dates and view counts of both videos; the videos were not watched. Both list lowcontent.ai as the software used." }, { "title": "YouTube, Mariana Montoya, 3 February 2025: How to make low content book for KDP using AI", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F78B54OV4WU", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the description, the date and the view count; the video was not watched. The first line links to the tool." }, { "title": "YouTube, Blaze Goldburst, 25 February 2025: Low Content AI: Software for Creating Profitable Amazon KDP Low Content Books!", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WJHv_7Bdq4", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the title, the description, the date and the view count; the video was not watched. A promotional video for the tool." }, { "title": "Amazon KDP help: Content Guidelines, section on artificial intelligence content", "url": "https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200672390", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the section on AI content and the section on disappointing content on 13 October 2026. Source for the quoted rule texts." }, { "title": "Amazon KDP help: Low-Content Books", "url": "https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GGE5T76TWKA85DJM", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full on 13 October 2026. Source for Amazon's definition, the table of examples and the ISBN rule." }, { "title": "The Guardian, 20 September 2023: Amazon restricts authors from self-publishing more than three books a day after AI concerns", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/20/amazon-restricts-authors-from-self-publishing-more-than-three-books-a-day-after-ai-concerns", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the limit of three titles a day, Amazon's forum statement as quoted, and the timing of the AI declaration rule. Amazon's own forum page loads by script and could not be read." }, { "title": "Kindlepreneur, updated 27 October 2025: Amazon KDP Account Suspension: Causes, Prevention, and Solutions", "url": "https://kindlepreneur.com/amazon-kdp-account-suspension/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on warnings, suspensions and terminations. An advice site for self-publishers, not Amazon." }, { "title": "selfpublishing.com, 15 December 2025: Your Amazon KDP Account Was Closed - Now What?", "url": "https://selfpublishing.com/amazon-kdp-account-was-closed/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the reasons for closure. An advice site, not Amazon." }, { "title": "Jessica Shepherd's blog on Goodreads, 23 January 2024: KDP/Amazon Terminated My Account", "url": "https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/24443366-kdp-amazon-terminated-my-account-i-am-more-powerful-than-amazon", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. One author's own account of a termination and of what she believes caused it. Not confirmed by Amazon." }, { "title": "KDP Builder: AI Low-Content Book Generator for Amazon KDP", "url": "https://kdpbuilder.com/ai-low-content-book-creator", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 13 October 2026. A competing tool. Source for its free start and for the statement about catalogs of 50 to more than 200 products." }, { "title": "YouTube, JeffSetLife, 30 June 2026: NEW AI Tool Makes Creating Low Content KDP Books Easier Than Ever (and a second video of 21 July 2026)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y7tAk7VgR8", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the descriptions, dates and view counts of both videos, and followed the short link of the tool, which leads to an affiliate marketplace and not to lowcontent.ai. The videos were not watched." }, { "title": "TrustMRR profile of Low Content Studio", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/low-content-studio.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile on 13 October 2026. A competing tool founded on 29 June 2026. Its verified revenue is grade A; its prices are profile text." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/localrank/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/localrank.md", "slug": "localrank", "name": "LocalRank", "country": "Canada", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Local SEO software for agencies: rank tracker, directory listings and AI-written articles", "aiType": "AI-leveraged", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "14 March 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$730K total since launch, October 2026", "sticker": "$730K total, now $21K/mo", "outcomeUsd": 729565, "months": 19, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders: Jacky Chou (marketing) and a developer whom the site names only as Peter; total headcount not published, LinkedIn gives the range 2 to 10", "fundingLabel": "No outside funding found in any source", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "seo-ai-search", "channel": "audience", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 1, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-leveraged", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Search marketing" ], "product": "Software for marketing agencies and local businesses that want to appear higher in Google Maps and in local search results. One subscription covers a rank tracker that checks positions from a grid of points on the map, one-click listing of a business on more than 550 directories, scheduled posts and review replies for Google Business Profile, a database of local business contacts, and AI-written articles that aim to make ChatGPT and other assistants recommend the business.", "why": "The founder had an audience before the product existed: a daily YouTube show about SEO since 2023 and an X account that has 62,000 followers today, so the first customers cost nothing. A developer co-founder built the software with AI coding tools. The product started as one plain rank tracker at US$19 a month, grew into a bundle at US$57 to US$2,997 a month, and by July 2025 the first payment of a new customer from a paid ad covered the cost of that ad.", "summary": [ "LocalRank sells tools for local SEO. SEO means search engine optimization; local SEO is the work of making a business appear higher when a person nearby searches Google or Google Maps for a service, for example a dentist or a plumber. The product has four main parts. A rank tracker measures the position of a business for a keyword from a grid of points on the map, because the result changes from street to street. A citation builder submits the name, address and phone number of the business to more than 550 directory sites in one click; such a listing is called a citation. A third part schedules posts and review replies on Google Business Profile, the free listing that Google shows for a business in Maps. The fourth part, added later, uses the GPT-4o model to write articles of the type \"best plumber in Denver\" and publishes them on a network of sites, so that AI assistants find and repeat the name of the business.", "Jacky Chou, who has run the SEO agency Indexsy since 2014 and reports the income of more than ten businesses in public every month, started LocalRank with a developer whom the site names only as Peter. The site was an empty WordPress installation on 22 February 2025, and Chou announced a soft launch on X on 14 March 2025. Stripe payment records, read through TrustMRR on 13 October 2026, show US$729,565 of revenue since the start and US$431,459 in the last twelve months. The business is now much smaller than at its peak: verified revenue was US$55,941 in November 2025 and US$20,797 in September 2026, and the current MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the sum of all active subscriptions counted per month, is US$20,557 from 207 subscriptions. Chou's own monthly reports put the peak earlier, at US$68,038 in August 2025.", "The headline total is grade A, because it comes from the payment processor and not from the founder. The founder's own monthly figures are grade C and are about 11% higher than the verified ones in the months where both exist. LocalRank is on this site as AI-leveraged, not AI-native: its core is ordinary SEO tooling, the AI features came after the launch, and the founder describes the product as \"vibe coded\", which means that an AI model wrote most of the code for the two people who built it. It has been listed for sale since 5 December 2025 at US$1,789,000. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that sold marketing tools to small businesses or depended on Google's rules." ], "factsCaption": "US$729,565 of Stripe-verified revenue in 19 months, with a peak in the second half of 2025 and a fall of 63% in verified monthly revenue from November 2025 to September 2026", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from Stripe payment records, read through the TrustMRR profile on 13 October 2026. A grade C value is a statement by the founder or by the company's own pages. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows that it cites.", "timelineLead": "From an empty WordPress site to US$68,000 in one month, by the founder's figures, in six months, and then a fall to about US$21,000 a month of verified revenue. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "LocalRank prices on 13 October 2026, read from the company's home page, its citations page and its white label page (grade C)", "note": "The four plans are subscriptions; the first column is the price per month when the customer pays for a year. Sign-up is free and the home page promises a refund if rankings do not rise in 90 days. The cheapest plan cost US$19 a month at the launch in March 2025, when the product was only a rank tracker, US$29 in June 2025, and US$57 from September 2025. The white label plans are a service: the agency sells local SEO under its own name and LocalRank does the work. The Academy is a paid community on Skool with 156 members on the day of reading; the sources do not say whether its payments are inside the Stripe figures on this page.", "rows": [ [ "Starter", "47.50", "57", "1 location; 10,000 rank tracker credits a month" ], [ "Pro", "247.50", "297", "10 locations; 50,000 credits; AI autopilot for Google Business Profile; Review Booster" ], [ "Scale", "372.50", "497", "unlimited locations; 200,000 credits; 5 AI-written articles a month" ], [ "Enterprise", "1,664.17", "2,997", "unlimited locations, articles and boosts; 300,000 credits" ], [ "Indexing run, add-on", "20 one-time", "", "per run; asks search engines to read the new listings sooner" ], [ "White label, Simple Local SEO", "", "290", "per location; audit, weekly rank tracking, 300 citations" ], [ "White label, Authority Local SEO", "", "990", "per location" ], [ "Local Rank Academy", "", "79", "community on Skool; the page says the price rises to US$89 at 175 members" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Verified revenue, all time, to 13 October 2026", "value": "US$729,565", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe payment records through an API key, as shown on the TrustMRR profile. Revenue last synced on 13 October 2026. The profile gives 22 February 2025 as the founding date.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue, last 12 months", "value": "US$431,459", "grade": "A", "note": "Same profile. Last 6 months: US$165,783. Last 3 months: US$64,791. Last 30 days: US$20,117.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR and active subscriptions, 13 October 2026", "value": "US$20,557 from 207 subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "Same profile. It reports MRR growth of minus 22.9% over the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue by month, November 2025 to September 2026", "value": "US$55,941; 44,099; 41,813; 37,684; 38,047; 41,185; 30,949; 33,433; 24,621; 25,298; 20,797", "grade": "A", "note": "The public profile shows only the last twelve calendar months. October 2026 stood at US$7,828 after 13 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Change in verified monthly revenue, November 2025 to September 2026", "value": "minus 62.8%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 20,797 divided by 55,941, minus 1. The average of July to September 2026 (US$23,572) is 50.1% below the average of November 2025 to January 2026 (US$47,284).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue before the last 12 months", "value": "US$298,106 in about 7.7 months, or about US$38,900 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 729,565 minus 431,459, over the 233 days from 22 February to 13 October 2025. The averages for the last 12 months and the last 3 months are US$35,955 and US$21,597 a month.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's own monthly figures, March 2025 to September 2026", "value": "first month US$11,433; peak US$68,038 in August 2025; US$26,231 in September 2026; sum US$804,042", "grade": "C", "note": "From the data behind the founder's Public Revenue Project page. July 2025 was US$66,703, which is 1.83 times June 2025 (US$36,462).", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's figures against the verified figures", "value": "11.4% higher over November 2025 to September 2026", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$438,856 against US$393,867. The gap is 6.7% to 12.4% in each month to June 2026 and 23.1% to 26.1% in July to September 2026. The sources do not explain the gap; revenue outside the Stripe account that TrustMRR reads is one possible cause, not verified.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "The company's own open metrics page, 13 October 2026", "value": "270 active subscriptions; MRR US$36,209; revenue in the last 28 days US$26,430", "grade": "C", "note": "These are higher than the TrustMRR values of the same day (207 subscriptions, MRR US$20,557). The page does not say how it counts. Earlier snapshots: 349 subscriptions on 15 May 2025, 452 on 11 July 2025, 447 on 6 December 2025, 385 on 19 April 2026.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in 28 days divided by MRR, on the company's open page", "value": "1.83 in May 2025; 1.65 in July 2025; 1.26 in December 2025; 0.86 in April 2026; 0.73 in October 2026", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the five readings of the page. In 2025 the business collected far more cash in a month than its monthly subscriptions explain. That fits payments that do not repeat monthly: yearly plans paid at once and one-time add-ons, which the price pages of that time list. No source shows a one-time lifetime deal.", "src": [ 5, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Launch offer", "value": "30% off for life with the code X30, and 20% off with the code LAUNCH20", "grade": "C", "note": "A discount on a subscription, not a one-time lifetime purchase. The launch post had 27,686 views when it was read.", "src": [ 6, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Where the launch revenue came from", "value": "80% from one YouTube video with 1,800 views, 20% from one X post with 30,000 views", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 22 March 2026. In July 2025 he wrote that US$37,000 of LocalRank revenue in four weeks came mostly from YouTube.", "src": [ 16, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Paid advertising", "value": "first-order profitable by 8 July 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's words: \"We're first order profitable with Localrank .so\" and \"Feels good to crack paid\". The image in the post is an ads report with 5 purchases at US$27.34 each. He does not publish the total ad spend.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Price of the cheapest plan", "value": "US$19 a month in March 2025, US$29 in June 2025, US$57 from September 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Archived copies of the home page. The top plan went from US$149 to US$1,997 and then to US$2,997 a month as citations, leads and AI articles were added.", "src": [ 6, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "2 co-founders; total headcount not published", "grade": "C", "note": "The About page names Jacky Chou and Peter as co-founders. Chou calls the pair \"marketer + developer\". The LinkedIn page gives a company size of 2 to 10 and lists one employee. In August 2025 Chou advertised for a developer, a salesperson and an intern.", "src": [ 4, 8, 24, 13 ] }, { "fact": "How the software is built", "value": "with AI coding tools", "grade": "C", "note": "Chou wrote of \"a 5 month old vibe coded b2b saas\" in August 2025; the image in the post is a Google result for \"local rank tracker\" with LocalRank in first place. He required that a new developer \"must use claude or cursor\", and wrote that the pair used more than US$2,000 of Claude Code credits a day while building two further products.", "src": [ 15, 13, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Site claim: \"500+ paying agencies\"", "value": "not supported by the subscription counts", "grade": "C", "note": "The claim is on the home page from June 2025 to today. The highest subscription count in any reading of the company's own open page is 452, and the verified count today is 207.", "src": [ 6, 3, 5, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Sale listing", "value": "asking US$1,789,000; listed 5 December 2025; 15 offers received", "grade": "C", "note": "Listing data on the TrustMRR profile, set by the seller. The profile also shows a profit margin of 85% for the last 30 days; that value is not in the list of metrics that TrustMRR verifies.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price against revenue", "value": "7.4 times the last 30 days annualized; 4.1 times the last 12 months; 2.5 times all revenue since launch", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 1,789,000 divided by 241,404, by 431,459 and by 729,565.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "The founder's other businesses", "value": "4 startups with US$4,463,237 of verified revenue in total on TrustMRR; LocalRank is US$729,565 of it", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR founder page, read 13 October 2026. In his own report for September 2026, LocalRank is US$26,231 of US$297,428, which is 8.8%. No figure on this page includes the other businesses.", "src": [ 21, 2, 19 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "No source names an investor. The LinkedIn page says privately held.", "src": [ 24, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the launch to the October 2026 reading", "value": "19 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: March 2025 to October 2026.", "src": [ 7, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2014", "what": "Jacky Chou starts Indexsy, an SEO agency, during an internship in Berlin.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 20 ] }, { "when": "2023", "what": "He starts daily YouTube uploads about SEO. His reported income from all businesses reaches its highest month, US$506,693, in November 2023.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 20, 2 ] }, { "when": "2024", "what": "His reported total falls from US$481,550 in January 2024 to US$239,839 in April 2024. Chou writes that a Google update removed his content sites; Starter Story describes the cause as AI and Google's algorithm updates.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 16, 17 ] }, { "when": "22 February 2025", "what": "localrank.so is an empty WordPress installation with one default post dated 21 February. TrustMRR gives this day as the founding date.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 1 ] }, { "when": "14 March 2025", "what": "Soft launch on X with a video and the code X30 for 30% off for life. The site sells \"The No Frills Local Rank Tracker\" from US$19 a month. Chou's first monthly figure, for March, is US$11,433.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 6, 2 ] }, { "when": "15 May 2025", "what": "The company's open page shows 349 active subscriptions, MRR of US$18,088 and US$33,129 of revenue in 28 days.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "June 2025", "what": "The home page changes to \"The AI-Powered Local SEO Software\" and adds the citations builder at US$29 to US$1,997 a month. Local Leads, a database of local business contacts, opens on 23 June.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 32 ] }, { "when": "8 July 2025", "what": "Chou writes that paid ads are first-order profitable. A few days earlier he announced Review Booster and wrote that the road to US$1 million of yearly recurring revenue was nearly 50% complete. July revenue is US$66,703 by his figures.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 9, 2 ] }, { "when": "August 2025", "what": "The highest month in the founder's figures: US$68,038. He advertises for a full-stack developer who \"must use claude or cursor\", a salesperson and an intern in Vancouver, and calls the product \"vibe coded\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 13, 15 ] }, { "when": "September 2025", "what": "The separate plans become one bundle at US$57, US$297, US$447 and US$1,997 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "November 2025", "what": "US$55,941 of verified revenue, the first and highest month in the public Stripe history.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "5 December 2025", "what": "LocalRank is listed for sale on TrustMRR. The two top plans now cost US$497 and US$2,997 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "when": "22 March 2026", "what": "Starter Story publishes a video on Chou's 13 businesses. He writes that 80% of LocalRank's launch revenue came from YouTube. Verified revenue for March is US$38,047; he reports updates that improved retention.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17, 16, 18, 1 ] }, { "when": "By October 2026", "what": "The home page sells LLM Citations, articles written by GPT-4o and published on more than 550 sites, and an AI Recommendation Monitor for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity. Neither is on the archived page of 8 December 2025.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 22, 6 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "US$20,797 of verified revenue, the lowest full month in the public history. Chou's report for the month groups LocalRank with six other software products.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 19 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "US$729,565 verified since the start, MRR of US$20,557 from 207 subscriptions, still listed for sale at US$1,789,000.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "An audience first, a product second", "text": "Chou had published a video about SEO every day since 2023 and posted his income every month. He wrote that LocalRank grew to more than US$65,000 a month in three months because he had talked about SEO for 600 days. The buyers of a local rank tracker are SEO agencies, and they were already watching him." }, { "title": "One plain tool, then a bundle at a higher price", "text": "The first version was a rank tracker at US$19 a month. Citations, a leads database, review requests and AI articles followed within months, and the plans became one bundle from US$57 to US$2,997 a month. Each new part was a public post, and each post was a reason for agencies to look again." }, { "title": "Paid ads only after the organic channel worked", "text": "For the first four months the sources name only YouTube and X as channels. In July 2025 the first payment of a customer from an ad began to cover the cost of that ad, which is what first-order profitable means, and revenue by his figures rose from US$36,462 in June to US$66,703 in July." }, { "title": "Two people and AI coding tools", "text": "A marketer and a developer built and sold the product. Chou describes it as vibe coded, which means that the developer describes what he wants and an AI model writes most of the code. The same pair launched other software products in the same months." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's pages and from the founder's posts on X. They are grade C. The sources do not name the programming language, the hosting or the data providers.", "items": [ "The marketing site is WordPress: the first archived copy, of 22 February 2025, is a default WordPress installation. The application runs separately at app.localrank.so.", "The developer co-founder, Peter, wrote in 2024 that he had worked as an engineer at Amazon and that he codes with AI editors such as Cursor.", "Chou wrote of \"a 5 month old vibe coded b2b saas\" in August 2025, above an image of LocalRank in first place on Google, and asked that a new developer \"must use claude or cursor\". He wrote that the pair used more than US$2,000 of Claude Code credits a day while building two further products.", "The AI inside the product: the LLM Citations page says that GPT-4o writes articles of more than 1,000 words, which are published on a network of more than 550 sites and indexed in 2 to 4 hours. The plans also list an \"AI Autopilot\" for Google Business Profile; the page describes scheduled posts and review replies and does not name the model.", "The rank tracker and the leads database are sold by credits: 10,000 to 300,000 tracker credits a month, and lead credits that are charged only for email addresses.", "Payments go through Stripe. TrustMRR reads the Stripe account with an API key, and the company also publishes its own open metrics page." ], "src": [ 6, 3, 30, 15, 13, 14, 22, 1, 5 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five records in the Loot Drop database sold marketing tools to small businesses, or lived on the rules of a platform that they did not control. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Metigy", "years": "2014 to 2022", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "An AI marketing adviser for small businesses that cannot pay for a marketing team.", "died": "Its advice was generic. Small businesses wanted the work done for them, not a dashboard of suggestions, and they left soon after signing up.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2338-metigy" }, { "name": "SumAll", "years": "2011 to 2019", "funding": "US$15M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "One dashboard for all the marketing and sales data of a small business.", "died": "Free tools from larger companies, such as Google Data Studio, did the same job. Small businesses did not see enough value for the price and cancelled.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/587-sumall" }, { "name": "LocalOn", "years": "2013 to 2016", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Websites, social media links and local SEO for small local shops, with no coding.", "died": "Shopify and Wix offered more. LocalOn had too little money to add features fast enough.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1548-localon" }, { "name": "Argyle Social", "years": "2009 to 2013", "funding": "US$2.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A social media marketing tool that connects to marketing automation software.", "died": "Larger competitors spent more on marketing, and the product depended on the APIs of the social platforms.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1832-argyle-social" }, { "name": "Waterproof Digital Camera", "years": "2013 to 2017", "funding": "none recorded", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "An affiliate blog that reached the top of Google with aggressive SEO methods.", "died": "Google's algorithm updates removed its rankings, and the traffic and the commissions went with them.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2023-waterproof-digital-camera" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The five predecessors show two ways to fail. Metigy, SumAll, LocalOn and Argyle Social sold software to small businesses that did not see enough value and cancelled, while larger companies offered the same functions free or in a bigger package. The affiliate blog shows the second way: income that exists only as long as Google's ranking rules allow it. Chou knows the second way from his own history: he writes that a Google update removed his content sites.", "LocalRank differs in three points. It sells to agencies, which resell the result to many local businesses and understand the tools, and not to the shop owner. It was built by two people with AI coding tools, so it needed no investor. And its first customers came from an audience that the founder already had. What did not change is the first risk: verified monthly revenue fell by 63% in ten months, and the count of subscriptions on the company's own page fell from 452 to 270." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The audience, no. The sequence, yes.", "text": "The start of LocalRank depended on years of daily videos and public income reports by one person, and that cannot be copied quickly. The order of the steps can be: a plain tool for a buyer who already listens to you, a low first price, more tools and higher prices as customers ask, and paid ads only when the first payment covers the ad. The fall after the peak is the part to study before copying. A launch to your own audience brings a wave of customers once, and the business afterwards is as large as the number of customers who stay.", "steps": [ "Teach one subject in public on a fixed schedule before you have a product, on the platform where buyers watch long content. For this product, YouTube brought four times the launch revenue of X.", "Launch one plain tool at a low monthly price to that audience, and announce every addition in public.", "Add the tools that customers request and move them into one bundle with higher prices.", "Start paid ads after the organic channel works, and continue only while the first payment of a new customer covers the ad.", "Connect a payment-verified page to your revenue, so that buyers and readers can check your figures.", "Measure from the first month how many customers cancel, because new sign-ups from an audience slow down after the launch." ], "open": "Tools for agencies that sell visibility in AI answers. A member of LocalRank's own community wrote that this offer is \"a lot more interesting to people compared to local SEO\". The demand is new, and the rules of Google and of the AI companies for such content are not settled." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The trend is down", "text": "Verified revenue fell from US$55,941 in November 2025 to US$20,797 in September 2026, minus 62.8%, and TrustMRR reports MRR growth of minus 22.9% for the last 30 days. The headline total of US$729,565 is a sum since the launch; the present level is about US$21,000 a month. No source gives the reason for the fall. In March 2026 the founder wrote that updates had improved retention, which shows that cancellations were a known problem." }, { "title": "Google's rules on reviews and fake engagement", "text": "The plans include Review Booster, described on the home page as \"Farm 5 star reviews on autopilot\". Google's policy for Maps says that merchants may not \"selectively solicit positive reviews from customers\" or offer incentives for reviews, and that fake engagement is removed. Google reported that it blocked or removed more than 292 million policy-violating reviews and more than 13 million fake Business Profiles in 2025, and that it can pause new reviews on a profile. The sources do not say whether Review Booster asks only satisfied customers. The white label page also sells \"CTR setup/management\", which it describes as click-through rate optimization, and \"PBN Citations\"; PBN is the usual short form of private blog network. If Google restricts the profile of a customer, the customer loses the result that the tool sold." }, { "title": "Google's spam policies and the AI articles", "text": "LLM Citations publishes GPT-4o articles that place the customer first, on what the page calls its own network of more than 550 sites. Google's spam policies name as scaled content abuse the use of generative AI tools \"to generate many pages without adding value for users\", name automated link creation as link spam, and count \"attempting to manipulate generative AI responses in Google Search\" as spam. The home page calls the method \"Fully Google-safe\". That is the seller's statement, and Google decides." }, { "title": "Google answers local questions with its own AI", "text": "On 12 March 2026 Google introduced Ask Maps, a conversation with Gemini inside Google Maps, first in the USA and India. Google says the answers use information from more than 300 million places and reviews from more than 500 million contributors, and that they are personalized for each user. A position on a map grid, which is what a rank tracker measures, describes such an answer less well. LocalRank's reply is its AI Recommendation Monitor, a new product in a new market." }, { "title": "Three sets of figures that do not agree", "text": "The founder's monthly figures are 7% to 26% above the Stripe-verified ones, and the company's own open page shows 270 subscriptions and MRR of US$36,209 on the day when TrustMRR shows 207 and US$20,557. The home page has said \"500+ paying agencies\" since June 2025, and no subscription count in any source reaches 500. Use the grade A rows." }, { "title": "For sale, and one product among many", "text": "LocalRank has been listed since 5 December 2025 at US$1,789,000, which is 7.4 times the present yearly rate of revenue while revenue falls. The founder runs an agency, a community and several other software products, wrote in June 2025 that he and his co-founder would launch a new B2B product every month, and now reports LocalRank inside a group of seven. The first customers came from his personal audience, so a buyer should ask which channel will sell the product after the sale." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile: LocalRank.so, revenue last synced 13 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/localrank-so", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile in full (https://trustmrr.com/startup/localrank-so.md) on 13 October 2026. Revenue, MRR and subscriptions come from Stripe through an API key. The description, the user estimate, the profit margin and the sale listing are entered by the seller, grade C." }, { "title": "Jacky Chou: The Public Revenue Project, monthly income by source from January 2022 to September 2026", "url": "https://jackychou.com/open", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full the JSON data that the page loads (jackychou.com/api/revenue). Founder's own figures. Source for the LocalRank column from March 2025 and for the totals of all his businesses." }, { "title": "LocalRank home page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://localrank.so/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the product parts, the four plans with monthly and yearly prices, the guarantee and the claim of 500+ paying agencies." }, { "title": "LocalRank About page: The Team Behind LocalRank", "url": "https://localrank.so/about/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names two co-founders, Peter (first name only) and Jacky Chou, and shows a post from the company's community." }, { "title": "LocalRank open metrics page, read live on 13 October 2026 and in Wayback copies of 15 May 2025, 11 July 2025, 6 December 2025 and 19 April 2026", "url": "https://localrank.so/open/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read all five copies in full. The company's own counter of subscriptions, MRR and revenue in the last 28 days. It does not say how it counts." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copies of the LocalRank home page: 22 February, 14 March, 20 June, 11 September and 8 December 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250314194003/https://localrank.so/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read all five copies in full. Source for the empty first site, the launch prices, the launch code LAUNCH20 and the price changes." }, { "title": "Jacky Chou on X, 14 March 2025: soft launch, 30% lifetime off with X30", "url": "https://x.com/indexsy/status/1900589788480368679", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. 27,686 views when read. It quotes his post of 13 March 2025 about his co-founder." }, { "title": "Jacky Chou on X, 27 June 2025: The ultimate co-founder combo now: marketer + developer", "url": "https://x.com/indexsy/status/1938628256061853772", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names the X account of his developer co-founder and the plan to launch a new B2B product every month." }, { "title": "Jacky Chou on X, 5 July 2025: Review Booster is coming soon, with his quoted post of 2 July 2025 on 350 citation sites", "url": "https://x.com/indexsy/status/1941324581954023454", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both posts in full. The post of 2 July says: Road to $1M ARR, nearly 50% complete." }, { "title": "Jacky Chou on X, 8 July 2025: We're first order profitable with Localrank .so", "url": "https://x.com/indexsy/status/1942453179691712663", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with its image: an ads report that shows 5 website purchases at US$27.34 per purchase. Source for the start of profitable paid advertising." }, { "title": "Jacky Chou on X, 16 July 2025: $37k Localrank revenue in the last 4 weeks, mostly from YouTube", "url": "https://x.com/indexsy/status/1945346609400963298", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder claim about the channel." }, { "title": "Jacky Chou on X, 2 August 2025: How did I grow LocalRank to $65k+/mo in 3 months, quoting his income report for July 2025", "url": "https://x.com/indexsy/status/1951663799788081267", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both posts in full. The quoted report gives LocalRank US$66.7k for July 2025." }, { "title": "Jacky Chou on X, 4 August 2025: We're looking to hire for the following roles for Localrank or new ventures", "url": "https://x.com/indexsy/status/1952388380140208326", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the three open roles and the requirement to use Claude or Cursor." }, { "title": "Jacky Chou on X, 13 August 2025: launching 2 b2b saas, over $2k in Claude Code credits used per day", "url": "https://x.com/indexsy/status/1955656654982422605", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. About two further products built by the same pair, not about LocalRank alone." }, { "title": "Jacky Chou on X, 28 August 2025: a 5 month old vibe coded b2b saas", "url": "https://x.com/indexsy/status/1961125247769538723", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with its image: a Google result page for the search local rank tracker with LocalRank in first place. The age of five months matches the launch in March 2025." }, { "title": "Jacky Chou on X, 22 March 2026: YouTube converts 15x better than X, our LocalRank .so launch", "url": "https://x.com/indexsy/status/2035829427704336753", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the split of launch revenue between the X post and the YouTube video." }, { "title": "Starter Story on YouTube, 22 March 2026: I Make $250K/Month From 13 Businesses (After Losing Everything to AI)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spiC5m6AJNs", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the title, the description and the chapter list on the video page. The captions could not be downloaded, so nothing spoken in the video is cited." }, { "title": "Jacky Chou on X, 31 March 2026: I made $246,799.12 in March 2026", "url": "https://x.com/indexsy/status/2039019229010407499", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Says that updates to the LocalRank group of products improved retention." }, { "title": "Jacky Chou on X, 30 September 2026: I made $297,428.43 in September 2026", "url": "https://x.com/indexsy/status/2105336741326717100", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. LocalRank is reported inside a group of seven software products at US$62,847.62." }, { "title": "Jacky Chou on X, 27 August 2026: Here's what happened every year, 2014 to 2026", "url": "https://x.com/indexsy/status/2092992208781922566", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the start of Indexsy in 2014, the daily YouTube uploads from 2023 and the move to software in 2025." }, { "title": "TrustMRR founder page: Jacky Chou, 4 startups with verified revenue", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/founder/indexsy", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full on 13 October 2026. Totals for all his listed startups: US$4,463,237 of revenue and US$87,525 of MRR. Used only to keep the other businesses apart from LocalRank." }, { "title": "LocalRank product page: LLM Citations", "url": "https://localrank.so/llm-citations/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for GPT-4o, the article length, the network of 550+ sites and the indexing time." }, { "title": "LocalRank pages: White-Label Local SEO, and Local Citation Building Services", "url": "https://localrank.so/white-label-seo/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both pages in full. Source for the white label prices and contents, the indexing add-on at US$20 a run and the list of directories." }, { "title": "LinkedIn company page: LocalRank.so", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/localrankso/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public page without login. Company size 2 to 10 employees, privately held, one employee listed. The numbers are entered by the company." }, { "title": "Local Rank Academy page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://localrank.so/academy/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A Skool community at US$79 a month with 156 members." }, { "title": "Google: Maps User Generated Content Policy, Fake and Misleading Content and Behavior", "url": "https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/7400114?hl=en", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the sections on fake engagement and rating manipulation. Google's own policy text." }, { "title": "Google Search Central: Spam policies for Google web search", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the introduction and the sections on link spam and scaled content abuse. Google's own policy text." }, { "title": "Google blog, 12 March 2026: How we're reimagining Maps with Gemini", "url": "https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/maps/ask-maps-immersive-navigation/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Google's announcement of Ask Maps." }, { "title": "Google blog, 16 April 2026: New ways we're protecting businesses on Maps", "url": "https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/maps/new-ways-were-protecting-businesses-on-maps/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the counts of removed reviews and profiles in 2025 and for the pause of reviews on a profile." }, { "title": "Peter (@pwang_szn) on X, 19 and 28 February 2024: on AI code editors and on his time as an engineer at Amazon", "url": "https://x.com/pwang_szn/status/1762876412992663883", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both posts and his profile through the fxtwitter API. His own statements about his background." }, { "title": "Jacky Chou's personal site, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://jackychou.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Lists LocalRank as his second product by revenue and states US$2.92M of revenue in 2025 across his products, a founder claim that covers all of them." }, { "title": "Jacky Chou on X, 23 June 2025: Local Leads is officially live on Localrank", "url": "https://x.com/indexsy/status/1937203977260793874", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the opening date of the leads database and its billing by email address." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/boothie/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/boothie.md", "slug": "boothie", "name": "Boothie", "country": "Turkey", "sector": "Consumer software", "productType": "AI photo restyling app", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "23 June 2026", "outcomeLabel": "US$141K verified revenue in 16 weeks, October 2026", "sticker": "$141K in 16 weeks", "outcomeUsd": 141030, "months": 4, "teamLabel": "1 founder, a sole proprietorship; no source presents a second person, and the team size is not published", "fundingLabel": "None reported; the founder says he launched with no money", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "photos", "channel": "creators", "trend": "flat", "collections": [ "phone-app" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Consumer apps" ], "product": "A phone app for iPhone and Android. The user picks a look, such as digicam flash, golden hour or vintage photobooth, and takes or uploads a selfie. The app sends the photo to Google's Gemini image model and returns the same person in that look within seconds. A free editor with film filters runs on the phone without AI. AI pictures cost credits, which come with a weekly subscription or in packs.", "why": "The demand existed before the app: photos that look as if a compact digital camera from the 2000s took them have been a trend on TikTok since at least 2022. Boothie sells that look without the camera, for a small weekly price, to the people who already post such photos. The founder says every user came from TikTok picture posts made by about a dozen accounts in three countries, with no paid advertising. One person could build it because the image model is rented from Google and paid for by the picture.", "summary": [ "Boothie is a phone app that changes the look of a selfie. The user picks a look and takes or uploads a photo, and the app returns the same person as if a different camera had taken the picture. The best-known look is the digicam look. Digicam is short for digital camera; online, the word means the style of a cheap compact camera from the 2000s: a hard direct flash, strong colours and some grain. Boothie does not compute the new picture itself. Its privacy policy says that the app sends the photo to Gemini, an image model from Google, which is an AI model that takes a picture and a written instruction and produces a new picture. A free editor with film filters runs on the phone without AI. An AI picture costs credits, units that the user buys and the app subtracts for each generation; credits come with a weekly subscription or in packs.", "Keremcan Şeker, who trades as a sole proprietor in Turkey, released the app in Apple's App Store on 23 June 2026 and on Google Play on 15 September 2026. The revenue on this page is not his statement. He connected the app's RevenueCat account to TrustMRR, a public database of startup revenue. RevenueCat is a service that app developers place between their app and the app stores: it handles in-app purchases and subscriptions, and it records every purchase, renewal and refund. TrustMRR read that record through an API key: US$141,030 from 23 June to 13 October 2026, which is 16 weeks. RevenueCat's Revenue measure is gross revenue: what customers paid, minus refunds, before the app store keeps its commission and before sales tax. By calendar month the revenue was US$4,727 in the last 8 days of June, US$27,329 in July, US$43,734 in August and US$43,577 in September. It rose fast for two months and has been level since August, with a higher daily average in the first 12 days of October. The app is under four months old, so this page gives totals for stated periods and no yearly rate.", "The profile also shows MRR, monthly recurring revenue, of US$51,764. That is more than the US$44,405 that customers paid in the last 30 days, and the reason is the method. Three of Boothie's four subscription plans are sold by the week, and RevenueCat counts each active weekly subscription as four payments. MRR is therefore the amount that the 2,216 active subscriptions would pay in one month if none of them cancelled, and weekly subscribers cancel often. The founder writes that every user came from TikTok carousels, posts made of several pictures that the viewer swipes through, published by \"almost a dozen persona accounts\", a term that usually means accounts that post as invented characters, and that he spent nothing on advertising. That text is from his sale listing: the business has been offered for sale since September 2026, now for US$1.5 million. This page could not find those accounts or any dated post by him about marketing. It then shows five earlier photo and video apps that grew fast and closed." ], "factsCaption": "US$141,030 in verified gross revenue in the 16 weeks after launch, level at US$43,734 and US$43,577 in August and September 2026, read from the developer's RevenueCat account", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read by TrustMRR from the developer's RevenueCat account through an API key; it is not a founder statement. A grade B value is published by Apple or Google in a store record. A grade C value is a founder statement, a profile field that the founder filled in, the company's own policy pages, or a vendor's document. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows named in its note.", "timelineLead": "From the first version on 23 June 2026 to US$141,030 of verified revenue and a sale listing by October 2026, in 16 weeks. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Boothie in-app purchases listed in the US App Store on 13 October 2026 (grade B), with periods and credits from the company's terms of 23 July 2026 (grade C)", "note": "The app is free to download, and the editor with film filters is free. Apple's listing gives seven in-app purchases with a name and a price but no period. The terms of service, dated 23 July 2026, say that Plus and Gold are weekly, with 5 and 10 credits a day that do not carry over to the next day. The terms give higher prices than the listing: US$7.99 a week for Plus and US$12.99 a week for Gold, with a possible discount on the first week, no free trial and no yearly plan. The terms do not mention the two Pro plans. Credit packs are sold only to subscribers. Prices differ by country: the German store lists Plus at 8.99 euros and the Turkish store at 249 Turkish lira. Google Play lists in-app purchases from US$2.99 to US$11.99 per item. The third column holds the listed price with its period.", "rows": [ [ "Boothie Plus", "", "6.99 a week", "5 credits a day per the terms; counted as US$27.96 a month in MRR" ], [ "Boothie Gold", "", "9.99 a week", "10 credits a day per the terms; counted as US$39.96 a month in MRR" ], [ "Boothie Pro Weekly", "", "7.99 a week", "credits not published; counted as US$31.96 a month in MRR" ], [ "Boothie Pro Monthly", "", "19.99", "credits not published" ], [ "10 Credits Pack", "2.99 one-time", "", "subscribers only; not counted in MRR" ], [ "25 Credits Pack", "5.99 one-time", "", "subscribers only; not counted in MRR" ], [ "60 Credits Pack", "11.99 one-time", "", "subscribers only; not counted in MRR" ], [ "Editor with film filters", "0", "0", "runs on the phone, no AI" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Verified revenue, all time to 13 October 2026", "value": "US$141,030", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from the RevenueCat API, last synced on 13 October 2026 at 18:28 UTC. The first revenue is in June 2026. The cached profile of 12 October showed US$139,181. Gross sales, as the next row explains. This is the headline figure.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "What the revenue figure measures", "value": "customer payments minus refunds, before store commission and taxes", "grade": "C", "note": "RevenueCat's documentation defines Revenue this way, and defines a separate measure, Proceeds, as revenue minus its estimate of taxes and store commission. TrustMRR's FAQ does not say which RevenueCat measure it imports; for its direct App Store connection it says that revenue is customer sales before Apple's commission. The FAQ also says that its figures can differ from a provider's own by up to 30%.", "src": [ 5, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue by calendar month, 2026", "value": "June from the 23rd US$4,727, July US$27,329, August US$43,734, September US$43,577, October to the 13th US$21,663", "grade": "A", "note": "The monthly table of the profile. The five values add up to the all-time total. August and September together are 61.9% of it.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per day, by month", "value": "June US$591, July US$882, August US$1,411, September US$1,453, 1 to 12 October US$1,741", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: each monthly total divided by its days (8, 31, 31 and 30), and the profile's daily values for 1 to 12 October, US$20,896, divided by 12. August is 60.0% above July. September is 0.4% below August.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Trend", "value": "fast rise to August, level in August and September, higher in early October; no spike", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the profile's daily table, 29 full days from 14 September to 12 October: the first 14 days average US$1,376 and the last 14 days US$1,665, which is 21.0% more. Inside September, days 1 to 13 average US$1,603 and days 14 to 30 average US$1,338. The lowest day is US$1,053 (28 September) and the highest is US$2,734 (Saturday 10 October). The six days above US$1,700 are one Friday, two Saturdays and three Sundays.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue, 30 days to 13 October 2026", "value": "US$44,405 in one month", "grade": "A", "note": "One month of sales, not a yearly rate. The profile marks it 3.5% below the 30 days before, which puts those earlier 30 days at about US$46,000 (44,405 / 0.965).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR, 13 October 2026", "value": "US$51,764", "grade": "A", "note": "Up 22.2% in 30 days according to the profile. RevenueCat converts each active paid subscription to one month: a weekly price is multiplied by 4 and a monthly price by 1. Credit packs and other one-time purchases are not counted.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions, 13 October 2026", "value": "2,216", "grade": "A", "note": "RevenueCat counts paid subscriptions that still give access. A subscriber who has cancelled stays in the count until the paid week or month ends.", "src": [ 1, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Average MRR per active subscription", "value": "US$23.36 a month, which is US$5.84 a week", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 51,764 / 2,216, and that result divided by 4. In MRR, a weekly plan at the US price counts as US$27.96 (Plus), US$31.96 (Pro Weekly) or US$39.96 (Gold), and the monthly plan counts as US$19.99. The average is 83.5% of the lowest weekly value, so many subscriptions pay less than the US weekly price. Possible reasons are lower prices in other countries, a discounted first week, and the monthly plan. The profile does not give the split.", "src": [ 1, 6, 8, 12 ] }, { "fact": "MRR against the last 30 days of revenue", "value": "MRR is US$7,359 higher, or 16.6%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 51,764 minus 44,405. MRR is a count at one moment that assumes every active weekly subscription pays four times. Revenue is what was paid, and it includes credit packs, which MRR leaves out. For an app sold by the week, MRR is an estimate that assumes no cancellations, not a record of money paid.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Figures on the day of listing, 23 September 2026", "value": "US$109,000 total revenue, MRR US$38,000, 1,400 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR's posts on X, rounded there as $109k, $38k and 1.4k. In the 20 days to 13 October, MRR rose 36.2% and active subscriptions 58.3%, while revenue for 30 days moved only from $43k to US$44,405. The cause of that difference is not published.", "src": [ 2, 3, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Paying users, founder's count", "value": "9,800 in about three months", "grade": "C", "note": "Seller's message on the profile page: \"Three months in: $50K MRR, 9,800 paying users.\" The message is not dated and the count is not among the verified metrics.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Share of those paying users who still subscribe", "value": "about 22.6%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 2,216 active subscriptions / 9,800 paying users. About 77% of the people who ever paid no longer subscribe. Approximate: the two numbers have different dates, and one user can hold more than one subscription.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per paying user", "value": "about US$14.39", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 141,030 / 9,800. That is close to two weekly payments of US$6.99.", "src": [ 1, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price", "value": "US$1.5 million, down from US$2 million on 23 September 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Set by the seller. The profile gives 9 October 2026 as the first listing date, while TrustMRR's post of 23 September already announces the listing at US$2 million. The profile shows a multiple of 2.8 and 17 offers received. Calculated: 1,500,000 / (44,405 times 12) = 2.81, so the marketplace's multiple compares the price with twelve times the last 30 days of revenue.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "55.0%", "grade": "C", "note": "Shown on the profile. It is not in the profile's list of metrics that come from payment records, and the costs behind it are not published.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Store commission", "value": "15% at Apple for developers in its Small Business Program; on Google Play subscriptions 10% plus a 5% billing fee, or 15%, depending on the market", "grade": "C", "note": "Apple's and Google's own pages. Developers new to the App Store can qualify for Apple's program; whether this developer is enrolled is not verified. Calculated: if 15% applied to all sales, the developer's share of US$141,030 would be US$119,876 before taxes and costs.", "src": [ 16, 17 ] }, { "fact": "AI model", "value": "Google's Gemini, called from a Firebase backend", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's privacy policy and terms of 23 July 2026. They do not name the Gemini version. The policy says that photos are sent to the backend only to call the model and are not stored there.", "src": [ 11, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Google's list price for one generated image, October 2026", "value": "US$0.0336 to US$0.134", "grade": "C", "note": "Google's pricing page, for an image of 1,024 by 1,024 pixels: US$0.0336 with Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image, US$0.067 with Gemini 3.1 Flash Image and US$0.134 with Gemini 3 Pro Image. The same page marks Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, at US$0.039 an image, as deprecated with a shutdown date of 2 October 2026.", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "fact": "Model cost of one Plus week with every credit used", "value": "US$1.18 to US$2.35, against a price of US$6.99", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 5 credits a day times 7 days = 35 credits; 35 times US$0.0336 = US$1.18 and 35 times US$0.067 = US$2.35. After a 15% commission the developer keeps US$5.94 of the US$6.99. This assumes that one credit is one image of that size. The company publishes neither the model version nor the number of credits per image.", "src": [ 12, 14, 8 ] }, { "fact": "App Store ratings, 13 October 2026", "value": "Turkey 4.4 from 194 ratings, United States 4.5 from 30, Germany 4.3 from 15, United Kingdom 5.0 from 6", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's lookup API, version 1.6. Apple counts ratings for each country's store separately. Of the 245 ratings in these four stores, 79.2% are Turkish.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Written reviews, Turkish App Store", "value": "11, of which 6 give one star", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's review feed, 26 June to 12 September 2026. The repeated complaints are that the AI changed the user's face, that the daily credits ran out, and the price. One of the five-star reviews has a negative text. The US and German feeds returned no written reviews.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Google Play, 13 October 2026", "value": "more than 10,000 downloads, no rating shown", "grade": "B", "note": "The page data gives 15,605 downloads, a release date of 15 September 2026 and an update on 4 October 2026. The developer's page lists this one app.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "How users were found", "value": "TikTok carousels from \"almost a dozen persona accounts\" in the US, Germany and Turkey; no paid ads", "grade": "C", "note": "Seller's message on the profile, written for buyers; the accounts are offered as part of the sale. Not verified: this page did not find the accounts, and the founder's X account has no post about marketing. Two details agree with it: the website has a notice for visitors who arrive in TikTok's in-app browser, and the App Store listing is translated into German.", "src": [ 1, 10, 8, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's audience on X", "value": "33 followers, 6 posts", "grade": "C", "note": "Read through the fxtwitter API on 13 October 2026. The posts returned are three reposts of TrustMRR and one post in Turkish that is not about the business. The users did not come from a personal audience.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 founder named; team size not published", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR lists one founder. The seller in the App Store and the developer on Google Play carry his own name, and the terms call the business a sole proprietorship established in Türkiye. The app's bundle identifier contains a second given name next to his. No source presents a second person as part of the business, so this page names none.", "src": [ 1, 8, 9, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "Seller's message: \"Launched in June no money, no paid ads.\" No investor is named in any source read for this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Earlier apps by the founder", "value": "none found", "grade": "B", "note": "His App Store developer account and his Google Play developer page each list only Boothie, and his TrustMRR founder page lists one startup.", "src": [ 8, 9, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the headline figure", "value": "112 days, which is 16 weeks or about 3.7 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 23 June to 13 October 2026. The card on this site shows 4 months, rounded.", "src": [ 1, 8 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "23 June 2026", "what": "Versions 1.0 and 1.1 appear in Apple's App Store under the founder's own name. The last 8 days of June bring US$4,727.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 8, 1 ] }, { "when": "26 to 28 June 2026", "what": "The first written reviews arrive in the Turkish App Store: praise for the effects, and complaints about the price and about a changed face.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "July 2026", "what": "Versions 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 on 2, 15 and 23 July. Verified revenue for the month: US$27,329.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 8, 1 ] }, { "when": "23 July 2026", "what": "Privacy policy and terms are dated this day: Plus at US$7.99 a week with 5 credits a day, Gold at US$12.99 a week with 10 credits a day, no free trial, no yearly plan, pictures made by Google's Gemini.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 12 ] }, { "when": "August 2026", "what": "Verified revenue of US$43,734, the highest calendar month so far.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "1 September 2026", "what": "Version 1.5.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "15 September 2026", "what": "The Android version appears on Google Play.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "Verified revenue of US$43,577, 0.4% below August.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "23 September 2026", "what": "The founder connects RevenueCat to TrustMRR and lists the business for sale at US$2 million. TrustMRR posts US$109,000 total revenue, MRR of US$38,000 and 1,400 active subscriptions.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "9 October 2026", "what": "The listing date now shown on the profile. The asking price is US$1.5 million.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "10 October 2026", "what": "The best day in the profile's 30-day table: US$2,734, a Saturday.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "12 October 2026", "what": "Version 1.6, the seventh version in 16 weeks.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "US$141,030 all time, US$44,405 in the last 30 days, MRR of US$51,764, 2,216 active subscriptions and 17 offers received on the listing.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A look that people already wanted", "text": "Boothie did not have to create demand. The BBC reported in February 2023 that TikTok videos with the hashtag #digitalcamera had more than 220 million views in twelve months and that young people were buying cameras from the early 2000s. Boothie sells the result of such a camera without the camera, and names its looks after it: Y2K digicam, Powershot flash, night flash." }, { "title": "Many small TikTok accounts, no advertising", "text": "According to the founder, all users came from carousels posted by almost a dozen persona accounts in the United States, Germany and Turkey, and he paid for no ads. A carousel of before and after pictures shows the whole product in one post. This is his statement to buyers and this page could not check it. The store ratings fit a start in Turkey: 194 of 245 ratings in four stores are from Turkey." }, { "title": "A weekly price with a daily credit limit", "text": "A weekly price of US$6.99 is a small decision for someone who wants the look for one evening's photos. The daily limit of 5 or 10 credits, which do not carry over, puts an upper limit on what one subscriber can cost in model fees. Subscribers who want more buy credit packs." }, { "title": "A rented model and a free editor", "text": "The founder trained no model. The app sends the photo to Google's Gemini and pays by the picture, so the cost follows the usage and there was nothing to build before the first sale. The free editor with film filters runs on the phone and costs nothing to serve, so the app can be useful to people who never pay." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's privacy policy and terms, from the TrustMRR profile fields that the founder filled in, and from the store listings. They are grade C, except the store records, which are grade B.", "items": [ "Technology listed on the profile: Swift and React Native for the app, RevenueCat for purchases.", "The AI pictures come from Google's Gemini. The app sends the selected photo to a Firebase backend, which calls the model and returns the result. The policy says that photos and results are not stored on the server and that the history stays on the phone.", "The free mode, called Classic Photobooth in the policy, applies film filters on the phone and sends nothing.", "No account is needed. RevenueCat ties purchases to an anonymous identifier of the installation, and Firebase App Check confirms that requests come from an unmodified copy of the app.", "Analytics with PostHog record events such as paywall viewed, purchase started and daily credits used up. Crash reports go to Firebase Crashlytics. The policy says that screen recording and click capture are turned off.", "Seven versions in 16 weeks: 1.0 and 1.1 on 23 June, 1.2 on 2 July, 1.3 on 15 July, 1.4 on 23 July, 1.5 on 1 September and 1.6 on 12 October 2026. The Android version followed on 15 September.", "The legal pages are two Notion pages, and the website is a single page with store buttons." ], "src": [ 1, 11, 12, 8, 9, 10 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold photo or video effects, or grew on another company's platform, and closed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Viddy", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$30M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Filters that make a phone video look professional, shared with friends.", "died": "People tried it once and did not come back. Instagram added video in 2013, and Vine spread at the same time.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2190-viddy" }, { "name": "Mobli", "years": "2010 to 2017", "funding": "US$86M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A photo and video sharing app with filters, promoted by celebrities.", "died": "Instagram had started earlier and Facebook bought it. Mobli had no feature that made users switch.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/341-mobli" }, { "name": "Picnik", "years": "2005 to 2012", "funding": "US$3.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Photo editing and effects in the browser, with nothing to install.", "died": "Google bought it in 2010, moved the technology into Google+ and closed the service in 2012. Phone apps with built-in filters took the users.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/429-picnik" }, { "name": "Everalbum", "years": "2013 to 2019", "funding": "US$19.2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Unlimited photo storage with automatic sorting, sold by subscription.", "died": "It charged for features that Google Photos gave away free, and users chose the free one.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/125-everalbum" }, { "name": "Meerkat", "years": "2015 to 2016", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Live video from a phone to your Twitter followers.", "died": "All its growth came through Twitter. Twitter bought a competitor, Periscope, and cut Meerkat's access.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2194-meerkat" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The five earlier companies raised between US$3.5 million and US$86 million to build an effect together with the place where people share the result, or to grow on a platform that they did not control. Each lost when a larger company added the same effect or closed the access. Boothie is exposed to the same two risks: any app can add a digicam look, and all of its users come through TikTok.", "What differs is the cost of trying. Boothie builds no network and trains no model. It rents the image model from Google by the picture, sells through the app stores, and charged from the first week, so one person reached US$141,030 of verified sales in 16 weeks without investors. Viddy and Mobli needed tens of millions of dollars before they knew whether users would stay. Boothie will learn the same answer from its own weekly renewals, with little money at risk." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. This look, for a limited time.", "text": "A rented image model, a weekly price with a daily credit limit and picture posts on TikTok are open to anyone, and the founder says he started with no money. The digicam look is one trend among many and others sell it too, so a copy needs its own look and its own audience. What nobody can know yet is how long a weekly subscriber stays: the data covers 16 weeks.", "steps": [ "Choose a visual look that people already post and save, and check that it is spreading on TikTok in your language.", "Build the effect on a rented image model, and add free filters that run on the phone so the app is useful before payment.", "Sell by the week with a fixed number of credits a day, so that the model cost of one subscriber has an upper limit.", "Post before and after carousels from several accounts in each country, and measure which country pays.", "Connect the payment records to a public verification service early, so that the figures can be checked if you decide to sell." ], "open": "Other looks, and other countries and languages. The founder names two things he has not done: more content for the United States, and work on retention." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Weekly subscriptions end fast", "text": "RevenueCat's State of Subscription Apps 2025 report says that weekly plans lose 30% to 50% of subscribers at the first renewal and that weekly plan retention rarely exceeds 10% at six months. Boothie's own numbers agree with this: by the founder's count of 9,800 paying users, about 77% no longer subscribe, and the average paying user has paid about US$14. The churn rate itself is visible on TrustMRR only after login and was not read." }, { "title": "Sixteen weeks of data, and a seller's text", "text": "The verified record starts on 23 June 2026. It shows two months of growth and two level months, which is too short to tell a business from a trend. The description of the marketing comes from a sale listing. Its asking price was US$2 million on 23 September and US$1.5 million by 12 October 2026. TrustMRR also says that its figures can differ from the provider's own by up to 30%." }, { "title": "The model is rented, and the result is the complaint", "text": "Every AI picture is a paid call to Google's Gemini, at a list price of US$0.0336 to US$0.134 an image depending on the model. Google sets that price and retires models: its pricing page gives 2 October 2026 as the shutdown date of Gemini 2.5 Flash Image. Any competitor can rent the same model at the same price. The most frequent complaint in the written reviews is that the picture no longer looks like the user, which the website promises will not happen." }, { "title": "The look is a trend", "text": "The digicam look has been spreading on TikTok since at least 2022, and a visual trend can pass. Later versions of the app added film looks and a beauty editor. No source shows which looks the revenue depends on." }, { "title": "One platform brings all the users", "text": "The founder says that every user came from TikTok carousels posted by persona accounts. A change in how TikTok shows such posts, or the loss of those accounts, would stop new users. The accounts are not named in any source, so their reach could not be checked." }, { "title": "The stores take a share and set the rules", "text": "If the developer is in Apple's Small Business Program, Apple and Google each keep about 15% of a subscription payment, and the developer's share of the headline figure is near US$119,876 before costs. Apple's review guidelines say not to submit apps that are indistinguishable from what is already widely available (4.3), require a clear description of what a subscriber gets for the price (3.1.2), and require explicit permission before personal data is shared with a third-party AI (5.1.2). A photo of a face that is sent to Gemini falls under the last rule." }, { "title": "Many apps sell the same thing", "text": "The founder's own listing names four larger apps in the same category, Tezza, Prequel, Dazz Cam and WayShot, with yearly revenue figures that this page did not verify. Google Play shows a row of similar AI photo apps next to Boothie. Photo AI and HeadshotPro, the two other photo products on this site, train a model on the customer's own photos and sell on the web, and their figures are founder statements dated 37 and 43 months after launch. Boothie's figure is verified but covers 16 weeks, and it comes from small weekly payments inside app stores, which arrive faster and stop sooner." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile of Boothie, revenue read from RevenueCat by API key", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/boothie", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/boothie.md) live on 13 October 2026, and the cached copy of 12 October. Revenue, the monthly and daily tables, MRR and active subscriptions come from the RevenueCat API, last synced on 13 October 2026 at 18:28 UTC. The description, pricing model, technology list, marketing channel, profit margin, asking price and seller's message are entered by the founder, grade C. Also read the HTML page and the founder page for the full seller's message." }, { "title": "TrustMRR on X, 23 September 2026: Boothie just joined TrustMRR", "url": "https://x.com/trust_mrr/status/2102854405020369295", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API, as a repost in the founder's timeline. Source for the figures on the day of listing." }, { "title": "TrustMRR on X, 23 September 2026: Boothie is now listed for sale", "url": "https://x.com/trust_mrr/status/2102858179889840154", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Same figures, with the first asking price of US$2 million, which is the seller's own number, grade C." }, { "title": "TrustMRR FAQ, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/faq", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on payment providers, on the RevenueCat and App Store connections, and on why figures can differ from a provider's own. Also read https://trustmrr.com/llms.txt on what the RevenueCat connection imports." }, { "title": "RevenueCat documentation: Revenue chart", "url": "https://www.revenuecat.com/docs/dashboard-and-metrics/charts/revenue-chart", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the definitions of Revenue, Revenue net of taxes, and Proceeds." }, { "title": "RevenueCat documentation: Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) chart", "url": "https://www.revenuecat.com/docs/dashboard-and-metrics/charts/monthly-recurring-revenue-mrr-chart", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the conversion table (one week counts as price times 4), for what is left out of MRR, and for why MRR differs from revenue." }, { "title": "RevenueCat documentation: Active Subscriptions chart", "url": "https://www.revenuecat.com/docs/dashboard-and-metrics/charts/active-subscriptions-chart", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for what counts as an active subscription." }, { "title": "Apple App Store listing of Boothie: AI Photo Editor, with Apple's lookup API and review feed", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6775603987", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the US listing on 13 October 2026 for the seller, the version history and the in-app purchases; the German and Turkish listings for local prices; the lookup API for the release date and for ratings in the US, Turkish, German and UK stores; the developer lookup, which returns one app; and the customer review feeds of the Turkish, US and German stores." }, { "title": "Google Play listing of Boothie", "url": "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.esmakerem.boothie", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the listing and the developer page on 13 October 2026. Source for the developer name, the downloads, the release and update dates and the range of in-app prices." }, { "title": "Boothie website, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://boothieapp.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the list of looks, the promise that the face stays the same, the credits, and the notice for TikTok's in-app browser. The Wayback Machine has no earlier copy." }, { "title": "Boothie Privacy Policy, last updated 23 July 2026", "url": "https://puzzling-maize-c86.notion.site/Boothie-Privacy-Policy-3806b209577880b79317c0b9f5004733", "grade": "C", "how": "The page loads by script, so the text was read through Notion's public page interface. Read in full. Source for the AI provider, the backend, the analytics tools and the handling of photos." }, { "title": "Boothie Terms of Service, last updated 23 July 2026", "url": "https://puzzling-maize-c86.notion.site/Boothie-Terms-of-Service-3806b209577880a49d27d995e72219a0", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through Notion's public page interface, sections 1 to 8. Source for the legal form, the weekly plans, the daily credits and the credit packs." }, { "title": "X account of Keremcan Şeker, @keremcanseker_", "url": "https://x.com/keremcanseker_", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the whole timeline through the fxtwitter API on 13 October 2026: 33 followers and four posts returned, of which three are reposts of TrustMRR. No post about marketing, team or funding." }, { "title": "Google: Gemini Developer API pricing, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the image models. Source for the price per generated image and the shutdown notice for Gemini 2.5 Flash Image." }, { "title": "RevenueCat: State of Subscription Apps 2025", "url": "https://www.revenuecat.com/state-of-subscription-apps-2025/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on plan durations and retention. Source for the weekly plan retention and first-renewal churn. A vendor's report on the apps that use its service." }, { "title": "Apple: App Store Small Business Program", "url": "https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 15% commission rate and who qualifies." }, { "title": "Google Play Console Help: Service fees", "url": "https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/112622?hl=en", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the fee tables. Source for the fees on auto-renewing subscriptions." }, { "title": "Apple: App Review Guidelines, last updated 8 June 2026", "url": "https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read sections 3.1.2, 4.3 and 5.1.2." }, { "title": "BBC News, 6 February 2023, Mike Farrell: Digital cameras back in fashion after online revival", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64512059", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the age and size of the digital camera trend on TikTok." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/soundboost-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/soundboost-ai.md", "slug": "soundboost-ai", "name": "SoundBoost.ai", "country": "Turkey", "sector": "Consumer software", "productType": "AI audio mastering from text prompts", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "8 February 2024", "outcomeLabel": "US$218K verified revenue in 12 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$218K in 12 months", "outcomeUsd": 217705, "months": 32, "teamLabel": "4 co-founders at the release in February 2024; 5 people and 1 adviser on the About page in June 2025; 7 people and 1 adviser in October 2026", "fundingLabel": "One investor, a friend of the founder, amount not published; no venture round found; the founder called the company fully bootstrapped in January 2025", "primaryFactor": "Timing", "group": "voice-audio", "channel": "creators", "trend": "growing", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Funded", "Running", "B2C", "Music" ], "product": "A website and phone app that masters a song from a written request such as \"warm, powerful and wide stereo\". Each request comes back as a new revision that the user can compare with the earlier ones, and a Spotify link can serve as the reference for loudness and tone. The same subscription includes a splitter that separates a song into vocals, drums, bass and instruments. Since September 2026 the company also offers a generator that makes a music video from the song. Unlimited use costs US$16 a month or US$48 a year on the web.", "why": "For its first 20 months the product brought in about US$3,500 a month. Then three things came together: phone apps with weekly plans from August 2025, web plans with unlimited use at US$4 a month billed yearly, and a new group of customers, people who make songs with AI generators such as Suno and need the last step done for them. Monthly revenue rose 7.2 times between January and July 2026. No source states which of the changes caused the rise.", "summary": [ "SoundBoost.ai is a web and phone service for audio mastering, the last processing step before a song is released: it sets the loudness, the balance between low and high frequencies, and the dynamics (the difference between the quiet and the loud parts) of the finished mix. The user uploads a song and writes what the result should sound like, or pastes a Spotify link as a reference. The founder described the method in March 2024: an LLM, a large language model, the kind of AI program that reads and writes text, interprets the request and sets a signal chain, a row of audio processors (saturation, compression, stereo width, limiting and others) that then changes the sound. The company says that it wrote this mastering engine itself and that the engine first measures genre, tempo and LUFS, loudness units relative to full scale, the standard measure of perceived loudness that streaming services use to play all songs at a similar volume. A second tool does stem splitting: it separates a finished song into its parts, called stems (vocals, drums, bass and other instruments). The founder's posts show that this tool runs HTDemucs, an open-source model published by a researcher at Meta, on graphics processors.", "Berkan Cesur, a musician and former product manager in Istanbul, left his job in late 2022 and built the product with three friends. An archived copy of the company's About page from June 2023 says that the company was \"founded by four friends\". They released it on 8 February 2024 under the name Diktatorial Suite, earned US$450 in the first month by his count, and renamed it SoundBoost in June 2025 because, he wrote, 90% of the customers were American and could not pronounce the old name. An iPhone app followed on 15 August 2025, and an Android app is on Google Play today. TrustMRR, a public database of startup revenue, read the company's accounts at Stripe, the processor for card payments, which the website uses, and at RevenueCat, a service that records the subscriptions sold inside phone apps through Apple and Google. On 13 October 2026 it showed US$217,705 of revenue in the last 12 months, US$43,309 in the last 30 days and US$288,689 since the start. Monthly revenue stayed between US$5,200 and US$6,719 from November 2025 to February 2026 and then rose to US$42,678 in July 2026; 49% of the 12-month revenue came in the last three months. MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the sum of all active subscriptions with each one converted to its price per month, was US$25,874 from 2,675 active subscriptions.", "The revenue, MRR and subscription figures are grade A: records of two payment providers, read through API keys, not a founder statement. They are revenue, not profit, and the part from RevenueCat is gross revenue: by RevenueCat's definition, what customers paid minus refunds, before Apple or Google keeps its commission. Two facts on this page differ from the short version of the story. This is not a one-person business: the About page named four co-owners in 2024 and names seven people and one adviser in October 2026, and a friend of the founder says in public that he invested. And the fast growth is recent: before October 2025 the company had collected about US$71,000 in 20 months. No source states what caused the rise in 2026; the page lists the changes that came before it, and what happened to earlier companies that sold tools to independent musicians." ], "factsCaption": "US$217,705 of verified revenue in the 12 months to 13 October 2026, 49% of it in the last three months, read from the company's Stripe and RevenueCat accounts", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read by TrustMRR from the company's Stripe and RevenueCat accounts through API keys; it is not a founder statement. A grade B value is published by Apple or Google in a store listing. A grade C value is a founder or investor statement, a page of the company, a profile field that the founder filled in, or a vendor's document. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows named in its note.", "timelineLead": "From four friends who worked a year without income to US$43,309 of verified revenue in 30 days, 32 months after the release. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "SoundBoost prices on 13 October 2026: web plans from the plan data inside the company's pricing page (grade C), phone plans from the in-app purchases in the US App Store (grade B)", "note": "Every plan includes unlimited mastering and stem splitting; a free preview needs no account. On the web the yearly plans are billed at US$48 and US$72, which the page data shows as 75% below twelve monthly payments (US$192 and US$288). In the iPhone app the yearly plans cost US$49.99 and US$71.00, and there are weekly plans at US$9.99 and US$14.99, which do not exist on the web. A weekly plan kept for a full year costs US$519.48, about 10.8 times the web yearly plan (calculated). The first column is the yearly price divided by 12, computed on this page. The page data also holds two older plans with mastering credits, Pro at US$4.99 a month or US$34.99 a year, which the page does not show. Google Play prices were not read.", "rows": [ [ "Unlimited, web", "4.00", "16.00", "billed US$48 a year; 15 revisions per track" ], [ "Unlimited Plus, web", "6.00", "24.00", "billed US$72 a year; bulk mastering, unlimited revisions, drum, piano and guitar stems, priority queue" ], [ "Unlimited, iPhone app", "4.17", "17.99", "US$49.99 a year, or US$9.99 a week" ], [ "Unlimited Plus, iPhone app", "5.92", "24.99", "US$71.00 a year, or US$14.99 a week" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Verified revenue, last 12 months", "value": "US$217,705", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR profile, revenue last synced on 13 October 2026 at 23:06 UTC, from Stripe and RevenueCat together. The headline figure of this page. The profile does not publish the split between the two providers.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue, last 30 days", "value": "US$43,309", "grade": "A", "note": "Same profile. Last 7 days: US$12,010. The profile gives the growth of the 30-day figure as +51.2%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue, last 3 and last 6 months", "value": "US$106,752 and US$176,441", "grade": "A", "note": "Same profile.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue, all time", "value": "US$288,689", "grade": "A", "note": "Same profile. The profile field for the founding date says 8 November 2023; the public release was on 8 February 2024.", "src": [ 1, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue by calendar month", "value": "Nov 2025 US$5,948; Dec US$5,200; Jan 2026 US$5,959; Feb US$6,719; Mar US$9,146; Apr US$10,911; May US$14,425; Jun US$25,557; Jul US$42,678; Aug US$30,862; Sep US$35,978; 1 to 13 Oct US$20,728", "grade": "A", "note": "Same profile; it publishes no earlier months. These months add up to US$214,111; the remaining US$3,594 of the 12-month figure falls in the second half of October 2025 (calculated).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Share of the 12-month revenue that came in the last 3 months", "value": "49%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 106,752 divided by 217,705. The last 6 months hold 81%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Rise of monthly revenue from January to July 2026", "value": "7.2 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 42,678 divided by 5,959. August was 27.7% below July, and September was 16.6% above August.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue before the last 12 months", "value": "about US$70,984", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: all time minus last 12 months, 288,689 minus 217,705. This covers about 20 months, from the release on 8 February 2024 to the middle of October 2025, an average of about US$3,500 a month.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR, monthly recurring revenue", "value": "US$25,874", "grade": "A", "note": "Same profile. Growth in 30 days: +52.6%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions", "value": "2,675", "grade": "A", "note": "Same profile.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR per active subscription", "value": "US$9.67", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 25,874 divided by 2,675. This is above the web yearly plan (US$4.00 a month) and below the web monthly plan (US$16.00), so the customers hold a mix of plans.", "src": [ 1, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Yearly rates computed from the two figures", "value": "US$519,708 from the last 30 days; US$310,488 from MRR", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 43,309 times 12, and 25,874 times 12. Revenue is higher than MRR because a yearly plan counts in full in the month of sale, while MRR counts one twelfth of it. A month with many new yearly plans therefore shows more revenue than will repeat.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's own revenue figures in 2024", "value": "US$450 in the first month; US$1,516 in total by 19 April; US$2,000 by 5 May; US$3,000 by 28 May; MRR above US$3,500 at the end of July", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts. On 29 July 2024 he wrote that he would stop publishing revenue. These figures agree with the calculated average of about US$3,500 a month before October 2025.", "src": [ 5, 8, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Paying subscribers on 12 November 2025", "value": "1,000, with 33,000 users in total", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post. TrustMRR's verified revenue for November 2025 is US$5,948, which is US$5.95 per paying subscriber (calculated).", "src": [ 3, 1 ] }, { "fact": "People named on the company's About page", "value": "4 co-owners in May 2024; 5 people and 1 adviser in June 2025; 8 people and 1 adviser in January 2026; 7 people and 1 adviser in October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Live page and archived copies. The roles in October 2026: chief executive and product, design, front-end, design engineer, software developer, social media, customer support, and one adviser. The January 2026 list included an intern. The page does not say who works full time. On 3 May 2026 the founder wrote that his companies pay their interns.", "src": [ 10, 11, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue per person on the About page", "value": "about US$31,100 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 217,705 divided by the 7 people listed in October 2026, without the adviser. This is revenue before every cost, not pay.", "src": [ 1, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "one investor, amount not published", "grade": "C", "note": "Batuhan İçöz wrote \"I know I invested in the right startup\" on 16 August 2024 and \"i'm an investor\" on 1 July 2025; the company's account answered a third such post on 20 September 2026 with \"This guy believed us on day zero\". The founder wrote on 6 February 2025 that this friend has invested in almost everything he has done. Yet on 16 January 2025 the founder called the company \"a fully bootstrapped startup with no VC or investor backing\". The statements do not agree. No venture round was found.", "src": [ 9, 27, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Users, by the company's own counts", "value": "33,000 on 12 November 2025; 100,000 on 10 June 2026; 110,000 on 1 July 2026; 217,622 on the website on 13 October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder posts and the home page. The TrustMRR profile field \"Estimated user count\" says 628,739, which is close to the website's count of masterings (657,140), not to its count of musicians.", "src": [ 3, 8, 7, 12, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Share of users who make their songs with Suno", "value": "60%", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's reply to a Suno employee on 1 July 2026, in which he asked for access to Suno's API.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Share of customers in the USA", "value": "90% to 95%", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts of 5 June 2025 (90%), 4 December 2025 (95%) and 7 June 2026 (90%). He describes the company, DIKTATORIAL Inc., as American; he lives in Turkey.", "src": [ 8, 12 ] }, { "fact": "US App Store rating", "value": "4.6 of 5 from 140 ratings", "grade": "B", "note": "Read on 13 October 2026. Apple's data gives 4.64. Released on 15 August 2025; version 3.00 is dated 5 October 2026. The seller is DIKTATORIAL INC.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Google Play listing", "value": "4.5 stars from 217 reviews, more than 10,000 downloads", "grade": "B", "note": "Read on 13 October 2026; last updated on 30 September 2026. The release date of the Android app was not found.", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "fact": "Product Hunt launch, 26 March 2024", "value": "270 points", "grade": "C", "note": "Product Hunt page read in October 2026. The company's About page says it finished fourth among the products of that day; the rank could not be read on the Product Hunt page.", "src": [ 16, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Marketing spend in the first two months", "value": "US$0", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts of 15 March and 17 April 2024. The TrustMRR profile names word of mouth as the only marketing channel.", "src": [ 5, 8, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Landing page test, June and July 2024", "value": "sign-ups rose from about 9% of visitors to about 30%", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 29 July 2024, after two months of measuring two versions of the home page.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "How the app revenue is counted", "value": "before the stores' commission", "grade": "C", "note": "RevenueCat's documentation defines Revenue as the total paid minus refunds, and defines a separate figure, Proceeds, after the stores' taxes and commission. TrustMRR's FAQ says that it imports revenue from RevenueCat and does not mention a deduction. The share of app revenue inside the total is not published.", "src": [ 17, 18 ] }, { "fact": "Store commission for small developers", "value": "15% at Apple; 15% or less at Google for 99% of paying developers", "grade": "C", "note": "Apple's Small Business Program page, for developers with up to US$1 million of proceeds a year, and Google Play's service fee page. On a weekly plan of US$9.99 a 15% commission is US$1.50 (calculated).", "src": [ 19, 20, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Price of unlimited mastering at a music distributor", "value": "US$99 a year", "grade": "C", "note": "DistroKid's Mixea page: the first track is free, then US$99 a year for unlimited tracks. SoundBoost's web yearly plan costs US$48.", "src": [ 23, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Listed for sale", "value": "no", "grade": "C", "note": "The TrustMRR profile says that the startup is not listed for sale. Read on 13 October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the release to the October 2026 figure", "value": "32 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: February 2024 to October 2026.", "src": [ 8, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Late 2022", "what": "Cesur leaves a salaried job to work on music. He writes later that he had worked as a product manager for 12 years and has built websites for 20 years. He released his first own track in June 2020.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 3 ] }, { "when": "16 January 2023", "what": "He announces Diktatorial Suite, an AI mastering service, for the first quarter of 2023. The release comes a year later.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "30 June 2023", "what": "Sign-up for a closed test opens at diktatorial.com. The About page says the company was founded by four friends.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 11 ] }, { "when": "8 February 2024", "what": "Public release of Diktatorial Suite. In the first four days: 68 new members and 18 full masterings.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "15 March 2024", "what": "First month: 263 musicians, 1,048 masterings, 20 paid subscriptions, US$450 of revenue, US$0 spent on marketing. Cesur moves to a village near Bursa to work on the product for at least a year.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "26 March 2024", "what": "Launch on Product Hunt. He explains that an LLM interprets the request and controls the audio processors, and writes that four people built the product for a year without expecting income.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 16 ] }, { "when": "28 May 2024", "what": "5,000 masterings, 1,700 users and US$3,000 of revenue in total since the release.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "July 2024", "what": "Music reviewers on YouTube publish videos about the product; he writes that there is no commercial tie to them. A new home page triples the sign-up rate. MRR passes US$3,500, and he stops publishing revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 2 ] }, { "when": "16 August 2024", "what": "He writes that the older competitor eMastered runs ads with Diktatorial's name in the title, and offers 50% off to its customers who switch. His investor answers in public the same day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 9 ] }, { "when": "20 August 2024", "what": "Mixmag Türkiye writes about the product and describes a founding team of four with an adviser from Bilkent University.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "October and November 2024", "what": "Version 2.0 on 7 October. 30,000 masterings by 22 October, one every 15 seconds. A mastering API for selected partners on 8 November. A free Loudness Penalty tool that runs in the browser on 15 November.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "16 January 2025", "what": "First-year report: more than 15,000 users and 50,000 masterings, 20,000 of them from text requests.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "5 June 2025", "what": "The product is renamed SoundBoost, with 26,000 users. On 17 June the third version of the mastering engine adds six AI mastering engineers with different styles.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "15 August 2025", "what": "The iPhone app is released. Cesur wrote it himself in about four months with AI coding tools. Subscriptions in the app go through RevenueCat.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 13 ] }, { "when": "12 November 2025", "what": "1,000 paying subscribers and 33,000 users, by the founder's count. He writes that something changed for the product in the last few months.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "November 2025", "what": "The first month in TrustMRR's public history: US$5,948 of verified revenue.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "February to July 2026", "what": "Verified monthly revenue rises from US$6,719 to US$42,678.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "April 2026", "what": "The product's X account is suspended for about two weeks and then restored. The founder writes that the team had uploaded a few videos through a tool called Post-Bridge and does not know the reason.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "The servers move from Railway to a dedicated machine at Hetzner in Germany on 7 June. On 10 June: 100,000 musicians, 360,000 masters and 117,000 text requests.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "1 July 2026", "what": "Cesur asks Suno for access to its API and writes that 60% of his 110,000 users make their songs with Suno.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "August 2026", "what": "The investor buys the domain soundboost.com and writes that the founder now owes him US$15,000. The company announces the new domain on 22 August.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 27 ] }, { "when": "August and September 2026", "what": "Verified revenue is US$30,862 in August, 27.7% below July, and US$35,978 in September.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "16 September 2026", "what": "A Music Video Generator is released. Three days later lip sync is added, at no extra cost for subscribers during the launch period.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 27 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "TrustMRR shows US$217,705 in the last 12 months, US$43,309 in the last 30 days, MRR of US$25,874 and 2,675 active subscriptions.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Timing: AI song generators made new customers", "text": "The product was built for producers who mix their own songs. By July 2026 the founder counted 60% of users as people who make their songs with Suno. Such a user holds a finished song, has no mixing skills, and still needs the last step before a release. Customers' public posts list the tools in order: the song from Suno, the mastering from SoundBoost, the pictures and the video from other AI tools." }, { "title": "A written request, not a row of controls", "text": "The user writes \"more punch, softer cymbals\", and an LLM sets the processors. Each request returns a new revision that can be compared with the earlier ones. A person who does not know what a compressor does can still say what is wrong with the sound." }, { "title": "Unlimited use at a low price, weekly plans on the phone", "text": "On the web the yearly plan costs US$48 for unlimited masterings and stem splits. In the iPhone app, released in August 2025, the same service is also sold by the week at US$9.99. Verified revenue began to rise six months after the app appeared. The profile does not show how much of the revenue comes from the apps." }, { "title": "Musicians as the sales channel", "text": "The team spent nothing on marketing in the first two months. Reviewers on YouTube found the product in July 2024. Since 2025 customers post their songs on X and name the product, and the company shows customers' songs on its home page. The TrustMRR profile names word of mouth as the only channel. The founder also writes that posts on Reddit are a method he repeats." }, { "title": "Free tools that run in the browser", "text": "A loudness meter, a Loudness Penalty checker, a metadata editor, a vocal remover and a free mastering preview are open without payment. The first of them appeared in November 2024. No source measures how many subscribers they bring." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's posts, the company's pages and the TrustMRR profile fields. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Mastering: an LLM turns the written request into settings for audio processors: saturation, stereo width, compression, limiting, true-peak control and tape effects. The company says it wrote the engine itself, that a render takes about one minute, and that the current engine was trained on audio the company generated, not on customers' uploads.", "Stem splitting: HTDemucs, an open-source separation model, on graphics processors. In November 2025 the founder compared three graphics cards on a 3-minute track and wrote that the most expensive one was about 14% faster and that customers are happy with the speed.", "Web: Next.js for the pages, Python with Django for the server, Celery for the queue of audio jobs, Stripe for payments.", "Phone app: Expo and React Native, written by the founder in about four months with Cursor and Claude Code, his first app in ten years. RevenueCat handles the subscriptions and PostHog the usage statistics.", "Hosting: containers at Railway and Mac servers for audio processing in August 2025. After repeated instability he moved to a dedicated Hetzner server in Germany in June 2026 and wrote that response times fell to about a quarter, although 90% of customers are in the USA.", "Company: DIKTATORIAL Inc., which the founder describes as American. The people on the About page work in design, front-end and software development, social media and customer support." ], "src": [ 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 26, 1 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised musicians or listeners a professional result without a studio, a label or expensive equipment. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Jamglue", "years": "2006 to 2009", "funding": "US$200K", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "Remix and mix songs in the web browser, without studio equipment.", "died": "Processing audio in a browser was too hard at that time, the rights to the remixed songs were costly, and SoundCloud grew.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1671-jamglue" }, { "name": "PonoMusic", "years": "2012 to 2017", "funding": "US$6.2M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Studio-quality sound for listeners, with its own player and download store.", "died": "Few listeners paid for better sound quality while streaming on a phone was more convenient.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/452-ponomusic" }, { "name": "Earbits", "years": "2010 to 2018", "funding": "US$965K", "cause": "Ran Out of Cash", "promise": "Online radio where independent artists pay to reach listeners without a label.", "died": "Promotion paid by artists did not bring enough money, and the streaming services improved their own discovery of independent music.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/106-earbits" }, { "name": "Mint Songs", "years": "2020 to 2023", "funding": "US$3M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Let musicians sell their songs as NFTs and earn without the traditional industry.", "died": "The NFT market fell in 2022, and artists and fans lost interest.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/338-mint-songs" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Jamglue failed partly because a browser in 2006 could not process audio well. In 2026 SoundBoost renders a master in about one minute and runs its loudness meter inside the browser. PonoMusic and Mint Songs offered something that few musicians or listeners had asked for. Earbits took its money from independent artists, who have little of it, and the income was not enough.", "Two things differ for SoundBoost. First, mastering is a step that a song needs before release, so the customer already has the task; the product only has to do it at a price the customer accepts, here US$4 to US$16 a month on the web. Second, AI song generators have multiplied the number of people who hold a finished song and cannot master it. The weak point is the one that Earbits had: the payers are independent musicians, the price is low, and larger companies can add the same step to what they already sell." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The pricing and the positioning, yes. The audio engine, only with the skills.", "text": "The team had a founder who could judge sound, a developer for signal processing, a year without income before the release, and then 20 months at about US$3,500 a month. That part is expensive to repeat. What can be copied is the shape: one finishing step that every maker of some kind of content must do before publishing, done from a written request, sold as an unlimited subscription on the web and by the week on the phone, next to a fast-growing generator that leaves the step undone.", "steps": [ "Find the finishing step that a popular AI generator leaves undone, and ask its users where they stop.", "Let the user ask in plain words, and return every request as a new version that can be compared with the last one.", "Put free single-purpose tools on the site that run in the visitor's browser, so a first visit costs you no computing.", "Sell the same subscription on the web and in the phone app, and test weekly plans in the app.", "Show customers' work on your own pages and accounts, so that they have a reason to name the product in public." ], "open": "Finishing steps for other AI-made media: cleaning and levelling AI voice recordings for podcasts, sound and colour finishing for AI video, and print preparation for AI images." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Seven people, and revenue is not profit", "text": "The verified figures are revenue. Seven people and an adviser are listed on the About page, which gives about US$31,100 of revenue per person per year before any cost. No source publishes salaries, profit or the amount the investor put in, and the founder and the investor describe the funding differently." }, { "title": "Most of the revenue is three months old", "text": "49% of the 12-month revenue came in the last three months. July 2026 was the highest month, and August was 27.7% lower. The 30-day revenue (US$43,309) is well above MRR (US$25,874), so a large part is new sales and yearly plans paid in full, sold at 75% below the monthly price. Yearly plans sold since the rise began have not reached a renewal date yet." }, { "title": "The cost of audio processing with unlimited plans", "text": "Every master and every stem split uses computing time, and the founder runs stem splitting on graphics processors. He compares cards for speed, and in 2026 he moved to another host after instability that, he wrote, was losing him customers. The plans are unlimited from US$4 a month, so a heavy user costs more than a light one and pays the same. The company publishes no cost figures." }, { "title": "Older and larger competitors", "text": "LANDR says that more than 5 million musicians trust its AI mastering and also sells a plugin and an API. iZotope's Ozone has had an AI Master Assistant since 2017. eMastered, which describes itself as an online mastering engine made by Grammy-winning engineers and powered by AI, ran ads with the product's old name in 2024, the founder wrote. DistroKid, a music distributor, sells unlimited mastering under the name Mixea for US$99 a year, inside the service that musicians already use to release songs. BandLab's mastering page could not be opened for this research, so nothing about it is verified here." }, { "title": "Dependence on Suno's users", "text": "By the founder's count, 60% of users come with songs made in Suno, and he has asked Suno for API access. Suno's own pricing page already lists stem separation in its paid plans, from US$8 a month billed yearly, and in its highest plan a studio with effects and automation. If Suno adds a mastering step, the largest group of customers may no longer need a separate product." }, { "title": "App stores and platforms", "text": "Subscriptions sold in the apps pass through Apple and Google. Apple's Small Business Program sets the commission at 15% for developers below US$1 million of yearly proceeds, and Google's fee page says that 99% of paying developers qualify for 15% or less. The RevenueCat part of the verified revenue is counted before this commission. The stores decide whether an app stays listed, and the product's X account was suspended for two weeks in April 2026 without a stated reason." }, { "title": "Limits of the evidence", "text": "TrustMRR publishes monthly figures only from November 2025, does not split Stripe from RevenueCat, and says that its own figures can differ from a provider's dashboard by up to 30%. The founder stopped publishing revenue in July 2024. User counts are the company's own and rise very fast: from 33,000 to 217,622 in eleven months." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile of SoundBoost.ai (formerly Diktatorial), revenue last synced 13 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/soundboost-ai-formerly-diktatorial.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile in full on 13 October 2026. The revenue, MRR and subscription figures come from the company's Stripe and RevenueCat accounts through API keys and are grade A. The description, founding date, user count, tech stack and marketing channel are founder-written fields, grade C." }, { "title": "Berkan Cesur on X, 29 July 2024: MRR above US$3,500, and the result of the landing page test", "url": "https://x.com/berkan_cesur/status/1817923260807307757", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com, in Turkish, with the post it quotes. Source for the last revenue figure he published and for the sign-up rates." }, { "title": "Berkan Cesur on X, 12 November 2025: 1,000 paying subscribers and 33,000 users", "url": "https://x.com/berkan_cesur/status/1988658259134165266", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the subscriber count and for the date he left his job." }, { "title": "Berkan Cesur on X, 26 March 2024: how the LLM controls the signal processing, and four people working a year without income", "url": "https://x.com/berkan_cesur/status/1772689191651955116", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com, in Turkish. Source for the method and for the number of people who built the product." }, { "title": "Berkan Cesur on X, 15 March 2024: report on the first month", "url": "https://x.com/berkan_cesur/status/1768639964311334964", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com, in Turkish. Source for the first-month counts, the US$450 and the zero marketing spend." }, { "title": "Berkan Cesur on X, 15 August 2025: the iPhone app and its tech stack", "url": "https://x.com/berkan_cesur/status/1956427936124309650", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the thread of five posts through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the app release, the four months of work, RevenueCat, Django, Celery, Railway and the Mac servers." }, { "title": "Berkan Cesur on X, 1 July 2026: 60% of 110,000 users create with Suno", "url": "https://x.com/berkan_cesur/status/2072355154473476529", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. A reply to a Suno employee." }, { "title": "Berkan Cesur's X timeline, September 2021 to October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/berkan_cesur", "grade": "C", "how": "Read 732 posts page by page through api.fxtwitter.com, many of them in Turkish. Source for the dated events not covered by the single posts above: the 2023 announcements, the release on 8 February 2024, the 2024 statistics, the rename, the customer shares by country, the server move, the user counts and his statements about funding and staff." }, { "title": "Batuhan İçöz on X, 1 July 2025: \"@soundboostai (i'm an investor)\"", "url": "https://x.com/batuhan/status/1939949157998862505", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com, together with his posts of 16 August 2024, 14 August 2026 and 20 September 2026. Source for the investment and for the purchase of the .com domain. No amount is stated." }, { "title": "SoundBoost About page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://soundboost.ai/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with the script file that holds the team list, because the list loads by script. Source for the company's own history, the engine statements and the eight names with their roles." }, { "title": "Archived copies of the About page, 2023 to 2026 (Wayback Machine)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20240529012503/https://diktatorial.com/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the copies of 30 June 2023, 29 May 2024, 17 January 2025 and 13 June 2025, and the team script of the copy of 29 January 2026. Source for the size of the team at each date." }, { "title": "SoundBoost pricing page and home page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://soundboost.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both pages in full. The page shows the yearly price; the monthly prices and the older plans were read from the plan data inside the page source. Source for the web prices, the feature lists, the free tools, the company name and the website's own counts." }, { "title": "US App Store listing: Audio Mastering - SoundBoost, by DIKTATORIAL INC", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/audio-mastering-soundboost/id6745907940", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the listing and Apple's lookup data on 13 October 2026. Source for the release date, the version, the rating and the six in-app purchases." }, { "title": "Google Play listing: Audio Mastering - SoundBoost", "url": "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.soundboost2.ai", "grade": "B", "how": "Read on 13 October 2026. Source for the stars, the number of reviews, the download range and the date of the last update." }, { "title": "Mixmag Türkiye, 20 August 2024: Diktatorial Suite, a new online mastering tool supported by AI", "url": "https://mixmag.com.tr/read/diktatorial-suite-yapay-zeka-destekli-yeni-nesil-online-mastering-araci-tech", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, in Turkish. A short article that repeats the company's statement. Source for the founding team of four and the adviser." }, { "title": "Product Hunt: DIKTATORIAL Suite, launched 26 March 2024", "url": "https://www.producthunt.com/posts/diktatorial-suite", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the page text. The launch date and the points were readable; the rank of the day was not." }, { "title": "RevenueCat documentation: Revenue chart", "url": "https://www.revenuecat.com/docs/dashboard-and-metrics/charts/revenue-chart", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the definitions. Revenue is the total minus refunds; a separate figure, Proceeds, subtracts the stores' taxes and commission. Also read the page on the MRR chart." }, { "title": "TrustMRR FAQ", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/faq", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on verification and on RevenueCat. It says that TrustMRR imports revenue, MRR and subscription history from RevenueCat and that its figures can differ from a provider's dashboard by up to 30%. It does not say that store commission is subtracted." }, { "title": "Apple: App Store Small Business Program", "url": "https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on the 15% commission and the limit of US$1 million of proceeds." }, { "title": "Google Play Console Help: Service fees", "url": "https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/112622?hl=en", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the overview. Source for the statement that 99% of paying developers qualify for a fee of 15% or less." }, { "title": "LANDR: AI Mastering, Online Audio Mastering", "url": "https://www.landr.com/online-audio-mastering/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for LANDR's own claim of more than 5 million musicians and for its plugin and API. Its prices load by script and were not read." }, { "title": "eMastered pricing page", "url": "https://emastered.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the visible text; the prices load by script and were not read. Source only for how the company describes itself." }, { "title": "DistroKid: Mixea, instant online music mastering", "url": "https://distrokid.com/mixea/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the price of US$99 a year for unlimited mastered tracks." }, { "title": "iZotope: Ozone 12", "url": "https://www.izotope.com/en/products/ozone.html", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the product description. Source for the AI Master Assistant and the year 2017." }, { "title": "Suno pricing page", "url": "https://suno.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 13 October 2026. Source for the stem separation in the Pro and Premier plans and the studio in the Premier plan." }, { "title": "Demucs README on GitHub (facebookresearch/demucs)", "url": "https://github.com/facebookresearch/demucs", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the README. Source for what HTDemucs is: a Hybrid Transformer model under the MIT license that separates drums, bass, vocals and other stems. The author writes that the repository is no longer maintained." }, { "title": "SoundBoost's X account, February 2024 to October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/soundboostcom", "grade": "C", "how": "Read 227 posts page by page through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the product announcements, the new domain, the Music Video Generator and the reply to the investor." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/glossa-live/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/glossa-live.md", "slug": "glossa-live", "name": "Glossa.live", "country": "Cyprus", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Live AI voice translation for churches", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "1 June 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$182K Stripe-verified revenue in 12 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$182K in 12 months", "outcomeUsd": 182185, "months": 16, "teamLabel": "1 named founder; LinkedIn lists 3 people at the company; the headcount is not published", "fundingLabel": "None reported; ElevenLabs gave a grant of usage credits in February 2026", "primaryFactor": "Price", "group": "voice-audio", "channel": "search", "trend": "growing", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Translation" ], "product": "A church connects the audio of its service, from a microphone or the sound desk, to Glossa in a browser and starts a stream. Glossa turns the speech into text, translates the text, and reads the translation aloud with a synthetic voice. Each visitor scans a QR code, picks one of more than 100 languages on a phone, and listens with earphones or reads the captions. The church needs no receivers and no interpreter booth. It pays for the minutes of speech in each language, not for the number of listeners.", "why": "Churches with members from many countries meet every week, and the older solutions cost too much for most of them: an interpreter for each language, or radio receivers to hand out and collect. Glossa charges US$5 for one hour of speech in one language, counts by the minute, and charges nothing for silence, songs or extra listeners, so a small church can start with four free hours and then a few dollars a week. The product is shaped for this one buyer: captions go into ProPresenter and OBS, which churches already run, and a church can fix how names, Bible quotations and its own terms are translated. A very small team can offer this because the speech recognition and the voices are rented from model companies and paid by use.", "summary": [ "Glossa.live translates a church service while it is being spoken. A church connects its microphone or sound desk to Glossa in a browser, and each visitor scans a QR code and hears or reads the service in another language on a phone. Three AI steps run in sequence. Speech recognition turns the speaker's audio into text. Machine translation turns that text into text in the listener's language. Text to speech reads the translated text aloud with a synthetic voice; with voice cloning, the synthetic voice is modelled on a 30-second recording of the pastor. The company's help center says to expect a delay of about 2 to 5 seconds, because the system waits for the end of a sentence before it translates. The text of the web app itself names Deepgram for speech recognition and ElevenLabs for voice cloning. No source names the translation model.", "The founder appears on TrustMRR, a public database of startup revenue, as Anton K. LinkedIn's page for the company and a post that he wrote about the product give the full name, Anton Karbanovich. The company is INDX Ltd. in Limassol, Cyprus. The revenue on this page is not his statement. He connected the company's Stripe account to TrustMRR, and TrustMRR read the payment records through an API key: US$182,185 in the 12 months to 13 October 2026, US$31,434 of it in the last 30 days, and US$190,082 since the first payment. The monthly figures rise, but not evenly: US$7,040 in November 2025, US$4,052 in December, US$20,676 in April 2026, down to US$16,479 in June, and US$31,765 in September 2026, the highest month. The last three months brought 44.2% of the twelve-month total.", "Two figures on the profile seem to disagree, and the pricing explains them. MRR, monthly recurring revenue, is US$14,505 from 99 subscriptions, but customers paid US$31,434 in the last 30 days, 2.17 times as much. Glossa sells three monthly plans, at US$99, US$299 and US$499, and only these count as MRR. It also sells pay as you go: no monthly fee, and US$5 for each language-hour, which is one hour of speech translated into one language, paid from a balance that the church fills in advance. Payments into that balance, hours above the allowance of a plan, and yearly plans paid in one payment are revenue but not MRR. The profile does not publish the split. The team size is not published either: LinkedIn lists three people, and no outside investment appears in any source. This page grades every number by its evidence, and it shows five failed startups that sold speech, listening or translation technology before such models could be rented." ], "factsCaption": "US$182,185 of verified revenue in the 12 months to 13 October 2026, US$31,434 of it in the last 30 days, read from the company's Stripe account", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read by TrustMRR from the company's Stripe account through an API key; it is not a founder statement. A grade B value is a record kept by an outside platform: Apple, Google, X, LinkedIn's follower counter or the Internet Archive. A grade C value is a statement by the founder or the company, a profile field that the founder filled in, or another company's own page. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows named in its note.", "timelineLead": "From an archived church translation page in February 2025 to US$31,765 of verified revenue in September 2026. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Glossa.live prices on 13 October 2026, from the pricing section of the company's home page and from its help center (grade C)", "note": "A language-hour is one hour of speech translated into one language: a one-hour service in three languages uses three. Use is counted by the minute and only while someone speaks. Silence, songs and music are not counted, and the number of listeners does not change the price. Pay-as-you-go use is paid from a prepaid balance, which the customer fills manually or by automatic top-up. The yearly column is calculated from the saving printed under each plan (US$598 a year for Advanced, US$998 for Premium), which equals two free months, or 16.7%. The switch above the plans says 18% for yearly billing, so two statements in the same section differ. In the copy that was read, the saving for Standard is damaged and shows only the digits 98; US$198 follows the same rule. If a church uses all included hours, one hour costs US$3.96 on Standard, US$2.99 on Advanced and US$2.00 on Premium. A new customer and the customer who referred it each get US$20 of credit. The same four prices appear in the archived copy of 14 December 2025.", "rows": [ [ "Free trial", "0", "0", "4 language-hours, no card needed" ], [ "Pay As You Go", "", "5 per language-hour", "No monthly fee; counted by the minute of speech; paid from a prepaid balance" ], [ "Standard", "82.50", "99", "25 language-hours a month, then US$4 per extra hour" ], [ "Advanced", "249.17", "299", "100 language-hours a month, then US$3 per extra hour; voice cloning; phone support" ], [ "Premium", "415.83", "499", "250 language-hours a month, then US$2 per extra hour; voice cloning; phone support" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue in the last 12 months, to 13 October 2026", "value": "US$182,185", "grade": "A", "note": "Read by TrustMRR from the company's Stripe account through an API key, last synced on 13 October 2026 at 14:53 UTC. It is the money that customers paid, before Stripe's fees and before the cost of the AI services. The copy cached on 12 October showed US$181,280.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days", "value": "US$31,434", "grade": "A", "note": "Same profile and sync. The copy of 12 October showed US$33,641, mainly because one day with US$3,319 (13 September) then left the 30-day window. A second line of the same profile, called last 30 days revenue snapshot, says US$33,143; the profile does not explain the difference.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue, all time", "value": "US$190,082", "grade": "A", "note": "The founder's page on TrustMRR, read a few minutes later, showed US$190,483.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 3 months and in the last 6 months", "value": "US$80,545 and US$136,629", "grade": "A", "note": "", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Share of the 12-month revenue that came in the last 3 months", "value": "44.2%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 80,545 divided by 182,185.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Last 6 months compared with the 6 months before", "value": "3.0 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 182,185 minus 136,629 equals 45,556 for the earlier half; 136,629 divided by 45,556 equals 3.00.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue, November 2025 to February 2026", "value": "US$7,040, US$4,052, US$6,048, US$6,511", "grade": "A", "note": "The public monthly table starts in November 2025. December was 42.4% below November.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue, March to June 2026", "value": "US$11,214, US$20,676, US$18,382, US$16,479", "grade": "A", "note": "April was 84.4% above March; Easter Sunday was 5 April 2026. May was 11.1% below April and June 10.4% below May.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue, July to September 2026", "value": "US$21,970, US$22,783, US$31,765", "grade": "A", "note": "September was 39.4% above August and is the highest month. It is 4.51 times November 2025 (calculated: 31,765 divided by 7,040).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "October 2026, first 13 days", "value": "US$13,753", "grade": "A", "note": "Calculated from it: US$1,058 a day, against US$1,059 a day in September (31,765 divided by 30). October is level with September so far, not above it.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue before the monthly table starts", "value": "US$9,409", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 190,082 all time minus 180,673, the sum of the twelve monthly rows. Of this, US$7,897 came before 14 October 2025 (190,082 minus 182,185). The profile gives no monthly detail for that period.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR (monthly recurring revenue), 13 October 2026", "value": "US$14,505", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe subscriptions only, which are the Standard, Advanced and Premium plans. The profile says it grew 26.4% in 30 days. The copy of 12 October showed US$13,907 and 97 subscriptions.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions", "value": "99", "grade": "A", "note": "", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average MRR per subscription", "value": "US$146.52", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 14,505 divided by 99. Standard costs US$99 and Advanced US$299, so most subscriptions must be Standard. If all 99 were Standard, MRR would be US$9,801.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue of the last 30 days that MRR does not explain", "value": "US$16,929, which is 53.9%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 31,434 minus 14,505. This part consists of payments into the prepaid balance for pay-as-you-go use, charges for hours above a plan's allowance, and yearly plans paid in one payment. The profile does not publish the split.", "src": [ 1, 7, 8 ] }, { "fact": "The last 30 days repeated for a year", "value": "about US$377,000", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 31,434 times 12 equals 377,208. This is a run rate, which is a multiplication and not a forecast. MRR times 12 is US$174,060.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "65%", "grade": "C", "note": "Shown on the TrustMRR profile. The profile's list of verified metrics does not include it and does not say which costs are counted, so it is treated as a founder figure.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Founder", "value": "Anton Karbanovich", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR shows him as Anton K. with the X handle @karbanovich. His X profile gives Cyprus as location and links to glossa.live. LinkedIn's company page lists Anton Karbanovich among its people, and a post of 6 February 2026 on PromptZone under that name presents Glossa.", "src": [ 2, 3, 11, 12 ] }, { "fact": "People who work on it", "value": "3 listed on LinkedIn; not published by the company", "grade": "C", "note": "LinkedIn's public company page says 3 employees and gives the size band 2 to 10. LinkedIn counts people who name the company as employer in their own profiles. Company posts say we; the founder writes my startup. The blog is signed Glossa Team. No source lists roles or says who works full time.", "src": [ 3, 5, 9, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "No investor and no funding round appear in any source that was read. On 18 February 2026 the company thanked ElevenLabs for a grant. ElevenLabs' grant page describes 33,000,000 characters of use over 12 months, which is credit for its service and not money.", "src": [ 5, 27 ] }, { "fact": "Legal entity", "value": "INDX Ltd., Limassol, Cyprus, registration number HE443934", "grade": "C", "note": "From the footer of the site. Apple's App Store names the same company as seller. The Cyprus company register was not read.", "src": [ 6, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Founding date", "value": "1 June 2025 on TrustMRR; 2024 on LinkedIn", "grade": "C", "note": "The company entered both dates. An archived copy of the site from 7 February 2025 already has the title Glossa and the description Real-time Translation Service for Churches. This page counts from June 2025.", "src": [ 1, 11, 15 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the founding date to the headline figure", "value": "16 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: June 2025 to October 2026. Counted from the archived copy of February 2025 it is 20 months.", "src": [ 1, 15 ] }, { "fact": "Delay between the speaker and the translation", "value": "about 2 to 5 seconds", "grade": "C", "note": "Help center: the system waits for the end of a sentence, translates it in a second or two, and then plays the audio. There is no button to skip to the live moment, by design. The app store descriptions say no delay.", "src": [ 7, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Languages", "value": "more than 100 advertised", "grade": "C", "note": "The sitemap holds 92 language pages. The archived copy of 14 December 2025 said more than 80.", "src": [ 6, 10, 15 ] }, { "fact": "Services translated on one Sunday", "value": "more than 500, with 42,500 minutes", "grade": "C", "note": "Company post of 7 September 2026 about the day before. 42,500 minutes are 708 hours. A post of 19 August 2026 reported more than 400 services on the Sunday before. The posts do not say whether a minute is counted once per language.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Minutes translated in one week", "value": "more than 65,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Company post of 5 August 2026.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Check of the reported use against the verified revenue", "value": "inside the possible range", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 65,000 minutes are 1,083 hours; at US$2 to US$5 an hour that is US$2,167 to US$5,417 a week. Verified revenue was US$4,961 a week in July 2026 and US$5,145 a week in August (monthly figure divided by 31, times 7).", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Largest event that the company names", "value": "ARISE ASIA conference: more than 3,000 attendees, 10 languages", "grade": "C", "note": "Company post of 5 August 2026. Not confirmed by the organizer in any source read.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Number of customers", "value": "not published", "grade": "C", "note": "The site says hundreds of churches. The TrustMRR field estimated user count says 2,000. Neither is verified. The verified count is 99 active subscriptions; pay-as-you-go customers are not counted anywhere.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Phone apps", "value": "iPhone app released 22 March 2026; Android app with more than 500 downloads", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's lookup record and the Google Play listing. The US App Store shows 2 ratings; an independent review notes that one of them appears to carry the founder's first name. Listeners do not need an app: a browser is enough.", "src": [ 13, 14, 16 ] }, { "fact": "Social media audience", "value": "105 followers of the founder on X; 2 of the company on X; 12 on LinkedIn", "grade": "B", "note": "Read on 13 October 2026. The company's X account was created on 6 September 2025.", "src": [ 3, 5, 11 ] }, { "fact": "List price of streaming speech recognition at Deepgram, Nova-3 model", "value": "US$0.0077 a minute", "grade": "C", "note": "Deepgram's pricing page, pay-as-you-go column, read on 13 October 2026, with a promotional price of US$0.0048. Calculated: about US$0.46 an hour at the regular price. What Glossa pays is not published.", "src": [ 8, 25 ] }, { "fact": "List price of synthetic speech at ElevenLabs", "value": "US$0.04 to US$0.08 for 1,000 characters", "grade": "C", "note": "ElevenLabs' API pricing page, read on 13 October 2026; the price depends on the model. Its startup grant gives 33,000,000 characters in 12 months. Which model Glossa uses, and for which voices, is not published.", "src": [ 8, 26, 27 ] }, { "fact": "Live translation in general products", "value": "Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Apple AirPods", "grade": "C", "note": "From the makers' own pages. Google Meet: six languages paired with English, 90 minutes for each meeting, not in live streams. Microsoft Teams: Interpreter agent announced on 19 November 2024. Apple: Live Translation in AirPods announced on 9 September 2025 for five languages.", "src": [ 22, 23, 24 ] }, { "fact": "Published prices of two competitors", "value": "Wordly: about US$1,500 for 10 hours. OneAccord: US$150 a month for 5 hours", "grade": "C", "note": "From their own pages. Calculated: US$150 an hour at Wordly for all languages together, and US$30 an hour at OneAccord. Glossa charges US$5 an hour for each language. KUDO and Interprefy, which sell AI speech translation next to human interpreters, publish no prices on their home pages.", "src": [ 18, 19, 20, 21 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "7 February 2025", "what": "The earliest archived copy of glossa.live with content has the title Glossa and the description Real-time Translation Service for Churches.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "1 June 2025", "what": "The founding date on the TrustMRR profile; LinkedIn gives the year 2024. An archived copy of 10 June 2025 describes real-time AI translation for churches and events in more than 100 languages.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 11, 15 ] }, { "when": "6 September 2025", "what": "The company's X account is created.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "November 2025", "what": "The first month in the public verified table: US$7,040. Customers had paid US$9,409 before it. December brings US$4,052, the lowest month in the table.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "14 December 2025", "what": "An archived copy shows the four prices of today, four free hours, more than 80 languages and the sentence that hundreds of churches use it.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "6 February 2026", "what": "Anton Karbanovich presents Glossa in a post on PromptZone: translation for churches at US$5 for each language and hour.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "18 February 2026", "what": "The company thanks ElevenLabs on X for a \"33mln grant\". ElevenLabs' grant page describes 33,000,000 characters of use in 12 months. Two days later the company announces captions inside ProPresenter through an API.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 27 ] }, { "when": "22 March 2026", "what": "The iPhone app is released by INDX Ltd.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "April 2026", "what": "US$20,676, the first month above US$20,000 and 84.4% above March. Easter Sunday was 5 April.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "6 May 2026", "what": "The founder posts on X: \"My vibe-coded startup for churches just hit 20k+ Revenue\", with a link to a Stripe profile. The verified April figure agrees with the post.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 3, 4 ] }, { "when": "May and June 2026", "what": "Revenue falls to US$18,382 and then to US$16,479.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "5 August 2026", "what": "The company reports more than 65,000 translated minutes in one week, and a conference, ARISE ASIA, with more than 3,000 attendees and 10 languages.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "6 September 2026", "what": "A Sunday with more than 500 services and 42,500 translated minutes, by the company's post of the next day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "US$31,765, the highest month, 39.4% above August.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "TrustMRR reads US$182,185 for the last 12 months, US$31,434 for the last 30 days, MRR of US$14,505 and 99 subscriptions. The business is not listed for sale.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A price that a small church can pay without a contract", "text": "Pay as you go costs US$5 for one hour of speech in one language, counted by the minute. Silence, songs and extra listeners cost nothing, and there is no hardware to buy. By the help center's own example, a 90-minute service with about 50 minutes of speech in two languages costs about US$8.30. Wordly, which sells to events and to churches, starts at about US$1,500 for a package of 10 hours. OneAccord, which sells only to churches, starts at US$150 a month for 5 hours." }, { "title": "One kind of customer with a weekly need", "text": "A church meets every Sunday, so use repeats every week without a new sale. The company reported more than 400 services on one Sunday in August 2026 and more than 500 on one Sunday in September. The product follows the way a service runs: a QR code that never changes, captions inside the presentation software, and written instructions for Bible quotations, names and church terms. The founder's X profile says: \"I love my God and my family. I build AI startups.\"" }, { "title": "Rented models, sold again by the minute", "text": "The costly parts are speech recognition and synthetic voices. The text of the web app names Deepgram and ElevenLabs for them, and both charge by use. The company does not train or host these models. Its own work is the connection between the steps, the meter that counts speech per language, the page for listeners and the links to church software. The help center says that when the models improve, the gain reaches customers with nothing to update." }, { "title": "Found by search, then shown to everyone in the room", "text": "The site publishes a page for each of 92 languages, each in 17 interface languages, and 34 blog posts that each explain how to reach one language community. One testimonial on the site describes finding Glossa during a weekend when a conference was short of interpreters. Every listener scans the product's QR code, so each service shows the product to everyone who listens. A referral gives US$20 of credit to both sides. The company's own social media accounts have almost no followers." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's own pages, from the text of its web app, and from founder and company posts. They are grade C unless an item says otherwise. No interview with the founder was found.", "items": [ "Three AI steps in sequence, as the company's blog describes them: speech recognition, machine translation, text to speech. The system waits for a complete sentence before it translates, which is the main cause of the delay of 2 to 5 seconds.", "Speech recognition: the interface text of the web app offers a custom dictionary \"supported on Nova-2 and Nova-3 general streaming models\". Nova is the name of Deepgram's models, and the app handles messages that carry Deepgram's name. A church can add names and terms so that they are recognized.", "Voices: the interface text says that custom voices are made with ElevenLabs voice cloning. The help center asks for a 30-second sample of the speaker. The pricing section lists voice cloning under the Advanced and Premium plans.", "Translation: no source names the model. A church steers it with instructions in plain language, for example which Bible version to follow and how to translate an abbreviation. Large language models are steered in this way, so a language model is the likely translator. This is an inference from the help center, not a statement by the company.", "Web app: the page source shows a React app that loads Supabase (a hosted database with login), Stripe for payments and PostHog for usage analytics, and that keeps WebSocket connections open for the live text. The TrustMRR profile lists Next.js, React, Cloudflare and Stripe. The founder calls the product vibe-coded, a word for software whose code an AI coding tool wrote from descriptions in plain language.", "Billing: a prepaid balance with a top-up button and an optional automatic top-up for pay-as-you-go use, and three monthly plans in Stripe. The meter counts minutes of speech per language. The interface text says that streaming is disabled when the balance is critically low.", "Fit with church equipment: captions for ProPresenter, OBS, vMix and Proclaim, an RTMP input, a page to embed in the church website, webhooks and an API. Apps for iPhone and Android exist, and a browser is enough for listeners.", "How customers find it: 1,745 addresses in the sitemap, among them 52 blog posts; a help center with 35 articles; four free hours without a card; US$20 of credit for a referral; a presentation that a member can send to the church leadership; a listing in faith.tools, a directory of software for churches. Whether the company pays for advertising is not published." ], "src": [ 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 17 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold speech, listening or translation technology before AI models could be rented by the minute. None of them sold to churches; they are here for the technology and for the reason they closed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "TurboTranslations", "years": "2014 to 2023", "funding": "US$150K", "cause": "Ran out of cash", "promise": "Faster and cheaper translation through a marketplace of freelance human translators.", "died": "Every text needed paid human work. Neural machine translation improved quickly from 2016, and with US$150,000 the company could not change its model.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2263-turbotranslations" }, { "name": "Tellme", "years": "1999 to 2011", "funding": "US$238M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Information and transactions over the telephone by voice, with automatic speech recognition.", "died": "Smartphone apps replaced telephone voice services, and the voice assistants of Google and Amazon took the remaining users. Microsoft bought the company in 2007 and later ended the product.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/612-tellme" }, { "name": "VocalIQ", "years": "2011 to 2017", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A voice interface that learns from context, so that speaking to a computer works like a conversation.", "died": "As an independent company it could not compete with Apple, Google and Amazon. Apple bought it in 2015 and put the technology into Siri.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/719-vocaliq" }, { "name": "Doppler Labs", "years": "2013 to 2018", "funding": "US$51M", "cause": "No market need", "promise": "Smart earphones that filter and change the sounds around the wearer in real time.", "died": "The Here One earphones worked, but too few people bought them. Manufacturing delays raised the costs, and Apple's AirPods showed that buyers wanted simple wireless earphones.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/93-doppler-labs" }, { "name": "SoundFocus", "years": "2012 to 2017", "funding": "US$1.8M", "cause": "No market need", "promise": "A phone app that adjusts audio to a person's hearing, for people with mild hearing loss who do not want a hearing aid.", "died": "The market was smaller than expected. Users chose hearing aids or general products such as Apple's AirPods, and new customers cost too much to win in a small market.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/567-soundfocus" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Before AI models could be rented, a church had two ways to translate a service. It could seat a bilingual volunteer or a paid interpreter for each language. Or it could buy radio receivers: the company's own guide gives US$500 to US$3,000 for a starter kit with 10 to 20 receivers, and each language still needs an interpreter. Speech technology existed, but a company had to build it. Tellme raised US$238 million from 1999 for speech recognition over the telephone. Doppler Labs spent US$51 million on earphones that process sound in real time. TurboTranslations organized human translators in a marketplace and closed in 2023, after machine translation had become good enough for most text.", "Now each step can be rented. Deepgram lists streaming speech recognition at less than one US cent a minute, and ElevenLabs lists synthetic speech at US$0.04 to US$0.08 for 1,000 characters. A very small company can connect the steps, add a meter and a QR code, and sell one hour of translation into one language for US$5. Glossa collected US$182,185 of verified revenue in twelve months with three people listed on LinkedIn and no reported investment. The same change removes the protection. Any competitor can rent the same models, and the owners of the largest platforms are building translation into meeting software and earphones." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The church market already has several sellers.", "text": "The parts are public and rented: speech recognition, translation and voices are sold by the minute or by the character. At least five companies already sell live translation to churches or events. What Glossa added is a price that a small church can pay without a committee decision, and a product shaped for one kind of customer. The same method fits other groups that meet regularly with listeners in several languages. Every copy carries the same risk: large platforms are adding translation to products that people already own.", "steps": [ "Choose a customer group that has the same need every week, so that use repeats without new selling.", "Rent each model step and pay by use. Put your own work into setup, billing and the tools that the customer already runs.", "Charge by use with no minimum, count only what the customer values (speech, not silence), and give enough free hours for one real test.", "Let the customer correct the model in plain words: a list of names and terms for recognition, and written instructions for translation.", "Publish one page for each language and each community, and a help center that answers the questions of the volunteer who operates the system." ], "open": "Groups outside churches that meet regularly with listeners in several languages: school meetings for parents, city council sessions, trade union meetings, residents' meetings of housing associations, and safety training in factories and on building sites. In each case the buyer has little money and no interpreter, which is the situation of a small church." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Large platforms add live translation to products that people already have", "text": "Google Meet has Speech Translation, which speaks a participant's words in another language in a voice like the speaker's. Google's help page, read on 13 October 2026, lists six languages paired with English and a limit of 90 minutes for each meeting, and says that the feature does not work in live streams. Microsoft announced an Interpreter agent for Teams meetings on 19 November 2024: speech-to-speech interpretation that can imitate the speaker's voice. Apple announced Live Translation in AirPods on 9 September 2025 for face-to-face conversations in five languages, with four more promised by the end of 2025. None of these is built for a hall with one speaker and listeners in many languages, and their language lists are short. But a visitor who gets a usable translation from earphones that he or she already owns does not need the church to buy anything." }, { "title": "Dedicated competitors, some cheaper to start and some much larger", "text": "Wordly sells AI translation for events and has a page for churches. Its pricing page says that prices start at about US$1,500 for a package of 10 hours, which is US$150 an hour for all languages together. KUDO and Interprefy sell AI speech translation next to human interpreters for conferences. OneAccord sells live translation only to churches, says that more than 200 churches trust it, and starts at US$150 a month for 5 hours. In 2026 the Vatican began to offer the liturgy in St. Peter's Basilica in 60 languages through a QR code, built with the company Translated. For a church that needs one to three languages, Glossa's price of US$5 to US$15 an hour is far below the two published prices. A price is the easiest thing for a competitor to change, and all of them can rent the same models." }, { "title": "Accuracy for religious language is claimed, not measured", "text": "The site says that its AI is trained on biblical texts and handles theological terms correctly. The mechanisms that the help center documents are simpler: a dictionary of names and terms for the speech recognition, and written instructions for the translator, for example which Bible version to follow. No source gives an error rate. The company's blog says that modern systems are more than 95% accurate from English to Spanish, with no measurement behind the figure. An independent review by Jaeden Schafer of Learn of Christ, updated on 9 August 2026 and written from documents without a test, says that \"biblically trained\" does not guarantee theological fidelity, that names, negation and quotations need a check by a native speaker, and that a cloned voice makes a wrong translation sound like the pastor's own words. The help center itself says that accuracy depends on the audio, that some languages are stronger than others, and that sung words cannot be transcribed. The same review notes that one of the two App Store ratings appears to carry the founder's first name." }, { "title": "The models are rented, and their prices set the margin", "text": "Deepgram's list price for streaming speech recognition with the Nova-3 model is US$0.0077 a minute, about US$0.46 an hour; a promotional price of US$0.0048 a minute was shown on 13 October 2026. ElevenLabs' API list price for text to speech is US$0.04 to US$0.08 for 1,000 characters, depending on the model. An example with assumed values, 150 words a minute and 6 characters a word: one hour of continuous speech is 54,000 characters, which costs US$2.16 to US$4.32 for each language at list price. Glossa sells an extra hour for US$2 on its Premium plan. Volume contracts cost less than list prices, captions need no voice, and no source says which service produces the standard voice or the translation, so the real cost is not known. The TrustMRR profile shows a profit margin of 65% for the last 30 days without saying which costs it counts. The grant that ElevenLabs describes on its grant page covers 33,000,000 characters in 12 months. By the same assumed values that is about 611 hours of speech, less than the 708 hours that the company reported for one Sunday in September 2026. If a provider raises a price, changes its terms or retires a model, Glossa must follow." }, { "title": "Revenue follows the church calendar and single events", "text": "December 2025 was 42.4% below November. April 2026, the month of Easter, was 84.4% above March, and May and June were 11.1% and 10.4% below the month before. In the last 30 days the four Sundays brought US$1,838 on average, and all full days US$1,058. Use is concentrated in a few hours on Sunday: the company reported more than 500 services on one Sunday. A technical failure in those hours reaches most customers at the same time. One conference had more than 3,000 attendees in 10 languages according to the company; an event of that size adds revenue that does not repeat every month. The first 13 days of October 2026 average US$1,058 a day, the same as September, so the latest data show a level month and not further growth." }, { "title": "Twelve months of data and a team that is not described", "text": "The public monthly table starts in November 2025. Churn, the share of subscribers who cancel in a period, is visible on TrustMRR only after login and was not read. TrustMRR shows the founder as Anton K.; his full name comes from LinkedIn and from one post. LinkedIn lists 3 people, and the contact section of the site links a Telegram account under another person's name. No source says who writes the code, who answers customers, or whether anyone works full time. The founder calls the product vibe-coded. Hundreds of services run in the same hours on a Sunday, and keeping them running depends on a very small team." }, { "title": "Statements that differ or could not be checked", "text": "The founding date is 1 June 2025 on TrustMRR and 2024 on LinkedIn, and an archived copy shows the site in February 2025. The profile gives two figures for the last 30 days: US$31,434 in its table and US$33,143 in a snapshot line. The yearly discount is 18% on the switch of the pricing section and 16.7% by the printed amounts. The site says that hundreds of churches use it and shows the names SBC, Hillsong, PCA, CCA and UMC; no source confirms what relation these organizations have to Glossa, and the four testimonials give a first name and an organization only. The profile field for the estimated user count says 2,000. The app descriptions say no delay, and the help center says 2 to 5 seconds. The Stripe profile that the founder linked as proof loads by script, and its figures could not be read; the TrustMRR figures do not depend on it." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile of Glossa.live, revenue read from Stripe by API key", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/glossa-live", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/glossa-live.md) live on 13 October 2026, and the cached copy of 12 October. Revenue, the monthly and daily tables, MRR and active subscriptions come from the Stripe API, last synced on 13 October 2026 at 14:53 UTC. The description, founding date, pricing model, user count, technology list and profit margin are entered by the founder, grade C." }, { "title": "TrustMRR founder page: Anton K. (@karbanovich)", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/founder/karbanovich", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 13 October 2026. It lists one startup, Glossa.live, a total revenue of US$190,483, and one product update by the founder." }, { "title": "Anton K. on X, 6 May 2026: My vibe-coded startup for churches just hit 20k+ Revenue", "url": "https://x.com/karbanovich/status/2051942453633032632", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API, with his profile and the 18 posts of his timeline that the API returned. Source for his words about the product, his location, his follower count and the link to the Stripe profile." }, { "title": "Stripe profile of Glossa.live, gross volume", "url": "https://profile.stripe.com/@glossa_live/m/PbYwExG2", "grade": "C", "how": "Could not read the figures: the page loads by script. Only the page title was read, which names Glossa.live and gross volume. It shows that the profile exists. It is not used for any number." }, { "title": "Glossa on X (@glossa_ai), posts of February to October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/glossa_ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read 40 posts and the profile through the fxtwitter API. Used: 18 February 2026 (ElevenLabs grant, post 2024028403834212816), 20 February (ProPresenter), 5 August (65,000 minutes; ARISE ASIA), 19 August (400 services), 7 September (42,500 minutes and 500 services, post 2096932510340919750), 6 October (complete sentences)." }, { "title": "Glossa.live home page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://glossa.live/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, as text and as page source. Source for the features, the pricing section, the testimonials, the FAQ, the company name and registration number in the footer, the contact links and the scripts that the page loads." }, { "title": "Glossa Help Center", "url": "https://glossa.tawk.help/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the five category pages and 11 of the 35 articles in full: pricing, plans, what counts as use, the free trial, the delay, low accuracy, voice cloning, custom translation instructions, language limitation and the referral program." }, { "title": "Glossa web app, main script with the interface text, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://glossa.live/assets/index-lRaHPqE7.js", "grade": "C", "how": "Downloaded and searched as text; not run. Source for the names Deepgram and ElevenLabs, the Nova model names, and the words for the balance, the top-up and the automatic top-up. No translation provider is named in it." }, { "title": "Glossa blog, 18 March 2026: How AI Translation Works for Church Services", "url": "https://glossa.live/blog/ai-translation-church-services", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the three steps, the 95% accuracy claim and the statement on delay. Signed Glossa Team." }, { "title": "Glossa.live sitemap, with the blog post of 23 May 2026 on translation systems for churches", "url": "https://glossa.live/sitemap.xml", "grade": "C", "how": "Counted the addresses with a script: 1,745 in total, 1,656 language pages (92 languages in 18 versions), 52 blog posts. Read the post https://glossa.live/blog/best-translation-systems-for-churches in full, for the cost of radio receivers." }, { "title": "LinkedIn company page: Glossa", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/glossa-live", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public page without login on 13 October 2026. Source for the 3 employees, the size band, the founding year 2024, the 12 followers, and the founder's full name in the list of people. The founder's own LinkedIn profile could not be opened." }, { "title": "PromptZone, 6 February 2026, post by Anton Karbanovich: Glossa", "url": "https://www.promptzone.com/anton_karbanovich_1b1cec4/glossa-2l5e", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A short presentation of the product by the founder under his full name." }, { "title": "Apple App Store listing: Glossa - AI Church Translation, with Apple's lookup record", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/glossa-ai-church-translation/id6759844333", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the US listing and the lookup record on 13 October 2026. Source for the seller INDX Ltd., the release date, the number of ratings and the description text." }, { "title": "Google Play listing: Glossa - AI Church Translation", "url": "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=live.glossa.translate", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the listing on 13 October 2026. Source for the download count." }, { "title": "Internet Archive copies of glossa.live, 7 February 2025 to 16 April 2026", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250207200243/https://glossa.live/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the list of captures and five copies: 7 February, 10 June and 18 September 2025, 14 December 2025 and 16 April 2026. The archive proves the date of each text; the text itself is the company's. Source for the early descriptions and for the prices in December 2025." }, { "title": "Learn of Christ, updated 9 August 2026, review by Jaeden Schafer: Glossa Review 2026", "url": "https://learnofchrist.com/resources/glossa", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The reviewer states that the review is based on published documents and store data, not on use of the product. Source for the risks of accuracy and voice cloning." }, { "title": "faith.tools directory entry for Glossa", "url": "https://faith.tools/app/glossa", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A directory of software for churches. It repeats the claims of the company's site and cites that site." }, { "title": "Wordly pricing page and church translation page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.wordly.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the pricing text and the page https://www.wordly.ai/church-translation. Source for the starting price." }, { "title": "OneAccord home page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.oneaccord.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for its starting price, its number of churches and its number of languages." }, { "title": "KUDO home page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://kudo.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the product descriptions. Not used for numbers." }, { "title": "Interprefy home page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.interprefy.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the product descriptions. Not used for numbers." }, { "title": "Google Meet Help: Learn about Speech Translation", "url": "https://support.google.com/meet/answer/16221730", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 13 October 2026. Source for the languages, the limit of 90 minutes and the exclusion of live streams." }, { "title": "Microsoft, 19 November 2024: Introducing Copilot actions, new agents, and tools to empower IT", "url": "https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2024/11/19/introducing-copilot-actions-new-agents-and-tools-to-empower-it-teams/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on the Interpreter agent in Teams." }, { "title": "Apple Newsroom, 9 September 2025: Introducing AirPods Pro 3", "url": "https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/09/introducing-airpods-pro-3-the-ultimate-audio-experience/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on Live Translation." }, { "title": "Deepgram pricing page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://deepgram.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the table of streaming prices. Source for the Nova-3 list price and the promotional price." }, { "title": "ElevenLabs API pricing page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://elevenlabs.io/pricing/api", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the text-to-speech prices for each model." }, { "title": "ElevenLabs startup grants page, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://elevenlabs.io/startup-grants", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the description of the grant and its questions and answers. Source for the 33,000,000 characters and the 12 months." }, { "title": "Mezha, 2026: Vatican to translate masses in real time using AI", "url": "https://mezha.ua/en/news/vatican-ai-translation-308634/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A news report that cites Engadget. Source for the 60 languages and the company Translated." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/polsia/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/polsia.md", "slug": "polsia", "name": "Polsia", "country": "France, now USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI agents that build and run small online companies", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "December 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$775K a month in subscriptions, August 2026", "sticker": "Company-reported $775K/mo", "outcomeUsd": 9300000, "months": 8, "teamLabel": "1 founder, no employees; a law firm and partner companies do some of the work", "fundingLabel": "US$1M pre-seed in 2025, then US$30M at a US$250M valuation in May 2026, both as stated by the founder", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "build-software", "channel": "audience", "trend": "unknown", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 1, "capital": 3 }, "tags": [ "Cautionary", "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Funded", "Running", "B2C", "AI agents" ], "product": "You describe a business idea, or you let the product choose one. Polsia then creates a company name, a website, an email inbox and a payment account. Its AI agents write code, send sales emails, post on X and run Meta adverts. One agent chooses one task every night, does it, and emails you a report.", "why": "The founder made his own fundraising the advertisement. In February 2026 he let the product answer investor emails in public, next to a live revenue counter. A new customer needs only an idea, so thousands of people tried the product each day. The counter annualized all money that entered the platform, so it grew faster than the subscription revenue.", "summary": [ "Polsia sells AI agents that build and run a small online company for a customer. An AI agent is a program in which a language model decides the next action and performs it with tools. Examples of tools are a code editor, an email account and an advertising account. The customer gives an idea. Polsia creates a website, an inbox and a payment account. One agent does one task every night and reports by email. The customer pays a monthly subscription and buys credits for extra tasks.", "Ben Broca, who also uses the name Ben Cera, launched it alone in December 2025. He is a former manager at CloudKitchens. In February 2026 he let the product answer investor emails in public, and he showed a live counter of the company's run rate. A run rate is the revenue of a recent period, multiplied to a full year. Here it is the last 30 days times twelve. The counter passed US$1 million on 28 February 2026 and US$10 million in May 2026. In May he announced an investment of US$30 million at a US$250 million valuation. He has no employees.", "The famous number is not annual recurring revenue (ARR), which is the monthly subscription revenue times twelve. The counter also annualized one-time credit purchases, advertising money that customers send through Polsia to Meta, and the sales of the customers' own companies. On 23 May 2026, subscriptions were 47.5% of the counter. This page therefore uses the subscription figure from the company's own public data: US$774,984 a month on 27 August 2026. Every number here is reported by the company, grade C. No payment processor, auditor or journalist has checked the payment records. The founder says that churn is about 50% in the first month. Churn is the share of paying customers who cancel in a period." ], "factsCaption": "A public counter that passed US$10 million five months after launch, about half of it subscriptions, with every figure reported by the company itself", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value has one of three origins. It is a founder statement, a figure from the company's own dashboard, or a press or reviewer report that did not check payment records. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B. The dashboard figures come from copies that the Internet Archive saved on the dates shown.", "timelineLead": "From a first payment of US$19 to US$775,000 a month in subscriptions in 8 months, next to a public counter that always showed more. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Polsia prices in October 2026: plans from a reviewer on 15 September, credit steps and fees from the company's terms and app code (grade C)", "note": "Polsia has no public price page. Prices appear after sign-up, and the reviewer found two different price lists inside the product on the same day. The yearly column is empty because the product shows the yearly option only as two months free. One credit pays for one agent task. On top of the plan, Polsia keeps 3% of every payment that the customer's company receives and holds the money for 31 days. It also keeps 20% of every advertising budget. The terms of June 2026 still took 20% of customer payments. The first plan, in February 2026, was US$49 a month.", "rows": [ [ "Standard", "", "20", "1 company, 20 credits a month, no Meta adverts" ], [ "Pro", "", "50", "3 companies, 50 credits a month, Meta adverts" ], [ "Max", "", "200", "10 companies, 200 credits a month" ], [ "Max 2", "", "500", "25 companies, 500 credits a month" ], [ "Max 3", "", "1,000", "50 companies, 1,000 credits a month" ], [ "Extra task credits", "", "19 to 999", "15 to 1,000 credits a month, in 7 steps" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Subscription revenue per month, 27 August 2026", "value": "US$774,984", "grade": "C", "note": "The field mrr on the company's public dashboard, in the copy that the Internet Archive saved on 29 August 2026. The dashboard lists 20,382 paying users on that date.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Subscription run rate, 27 August 2026", "value": "about US$9.3 million a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 774,984 times 12 equals 9,299,808. The dashboard's own field arr shows 9,299,809. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Counter shown to the public, 29 August 2026", "value": "US$15,532,004", "grade": "C", "note": "The field arr_usd, which the live page showed as the run rate. It is 12 times the money received in the last 30 days, from every source.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "What the counter contained, 29 August 2026", "value": "subscriptions 60.9%, one-time purchases 27.0%, customers' money 12.0%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the 30-day fields: subscriptions US$788,489, credit packs US$332,370, domains US$17,619, advertising budgets US$120,279, sales of customers' companies US$35,576. Their sum times 12 equals the counter to the dollar. The rounded shares add to 99.9%. Under the terms, 80% of an advertising budget goes to Meta, and 97% of a customer's sales belongs to the customer.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "What the counter contained, 23 May 2026, one day after the funding news", "value": "subscriptions 47.5%, one-time purchases 28.9%, customers' money 23.6%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the same fields. Counter US$9,762,253; subscriptions US$386,643 a month; credit packs US$162,805; boosts, a paid extra, US$72,157; advertising budgets US$162,387; sales of customers' companies US$29,529.", "src": [ 1, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Subscription run rate, 22 May 2026", "value": "US$4,630,500", "grade": "C", "note": "The dashboard's own field arr: US$385,875 a month times 12, from 5,830 paying users. On that day the founder announced an annual run rate close to US$10 million.", "src": [ 1, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Date when the counter passed US$1 million", "value": "28 February 2026 as first shown; 6 March 2026 in the later version", "grade": "C", "note": "Copies saved in March 2026 show US$1,098,344 for 28 February. Copies saved from 15 April 2026 show US$590,378 for the same day and US$1,086,102 for 6 March. The company changed its history between 29 March and 15 April. This page found no explanation.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Subscription run rate when the counter passed US$1 million", "value": "US$443,208 on 1 March 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "An independent developer copied the dashboard data that day: US$36,934 a month from 592 paying users. On 6 March he copied US$923,232 from 1,193 paying users. No archived copy exists for those two days.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to US$1 million on the counter", "value": "74 days, not 30", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 16 December 2025, the first payment in the history, to 28 February 2026. The claim of 30 days counts from 26 January 2026, when the counter showed US$20,585. That is 33 days.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "The investor's version", "value": "US$1 million ARR within one month of launch, US$3 million one month later", "grade": "C", "note": "True Ventures, 23 March 2026. The archived counter shows US$1 million 74 days after the first payment and US$3 million 8 days after that. The post does not say how the investor checked the figures.", "src": [ 5, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Paying users", "value": "592 on 1 March, 5,830 on 22 May, 20,382 on 27 August 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Dashboard field paying_users. The Wall Street Journal reported 10,000 paying customers on 29 July 2026. The dashboard showed 11,761 on 24 July.", "src": [ 1, 6, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Subscription revenue per paying user", "value": "US$66 a month in May, US$38 a month in August 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Dashboard field arpu. The first plan cost US$49 a month. A reviewer reported an entry plan of US$20 a month by August 2026.", "src": [ 1, 3, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Customers who leave (churn)", "value": "about 50% in the first month, about 50% again in the second", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, 27 May 2026. The dashboard field for 30-day paid churn showed 48% on 22 May (2,689 of 5,598) and 81.5% on 27 August 2026 (13,712 of 16,820). Polsia's own email agent told one interviewer that 85% of customers stay in month two. The two statements do not agree.", "src": [ 4, 1, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Cost of AI models per day, 18 March 2026", "value": "US$27,272", "grade": "C", "note": "Dashboard field daily_ai_cost. In May 2026 the founder said that his bill from Anthropic was about US$1 million a month, and US$1.5 million in the last month.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "AI cost compared with subscription revenue, 18 March 2026", "value": "about 4 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 27,272.11 times 30 equals 818,163 a month, against subscription revenue of US$205,100 a month. The field showed US$13,624 a day on 22 May and US$3,192 a day on 11 July 2026. In that period the founder moved to cheaper models.", "src": [ 1, 6, 15 ] }, { "fact": "Funding", "value": "US$1 million in mid-2025; US$30 million at a US$250 million valuation, announced 22 May 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder statements. Press reports name Sound Ventures, True Ventures, Offline Ventures, Adjacent, Tekton Ventures, Drysdale Ventures and Vaynerfund. True Ventures confirmed that it invested. This page found no investor statement of the amount.", "src": [ 7, 4, 16, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Valuation compared with the subscription run rate of 22 May 2026", "value": "54 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 250,000,000 divided by 4,630,500 equals 54.0. Against the counter of US$9,762,253 it is 25.6 times.", "src": [ 1, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Employees", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, and the Wall Street Journal on 29 July 2026. He told Fortune that a law firm and an infrastructure company work for him as outside partners.", "src": [ 6, 13, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Customer companies that are still active, 29 August 2026", "value": "24,187 of 386,353 created (6.3%)", "grade": "C", "note": "Dashboard fields companies and total_companies; the share is calculated. On 23 May 2026 it was 7,704 of 123,493 (6.2%).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Sales of all customer companies together, 30 days to 29 August 2026", "value": "US$35,576", "grade": "C", "note": "Dashboard field user_company_30d. This money belongs to the customers; Polsia keeps a fee of 3%.", "src": [ 1, 18 ] }, { "fact": "Average sales per active customer company in those 30 days", "value": "US$1.47", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 35,576.24 divided by 24,187.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Customer companies that earned at least one dollar", "value": "about 10%", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, 27 May 2026. The best company he had seen made US$3,000 to US$4,000. In February 2026 the best one made about US$50 a month. In April 2026 he told Rest of World that about one-sixth had revenue.", "src": [ 4, 3, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Independent proof of the revenue", "value": "none public", "grade": "C", "note": "Not verified by anyone outside the company. On 27 May 2026 an interviewer asked the founder to show his Stripe account. He declined and said that he would post it on X; this page did not find such a post. TrustMRR has no Polsia profile. The one Polsia-hosted company listed there shows US$0.00 of verified revenue.", "src": [ 4, 19, 17 ] }, { "fact": "Public dashboard", "value": "online from February to September 2026, gone by 12 October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "The Internet Archive holds 24 copies from 22 February to 29 August. A reviewer read it on 15 September and reported subscriptions of US$915,309 a month inside a counter of US$18.71 million. On 12 October the address returned an error.", "src": [ 1, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Trustpilot score", "value": "1.8 of 5 in August, 2.9 on 15 September, 3.3 on 2 October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Reported by two reviewers who sell competing products. On 2 October there were 347 reviews, 30% of them with one star. Trustpilot blocked the download for this page.", "src": [ 10, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the August 2026 figure", "value": "8 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: December 2025 to August 2026.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Mid-2025", "what": "Broca raises a pre-seed round of US$1 million. During 2025 he builds four products alone. Three make nothing.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "October 2025", "what": "He starts the product that became Polsia: a company that makes companies. The name is AI slop, spelled backwards. He chose it on purpose.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 12 ] }, { "when": "16 December 2025", "what": "The dashboard history starts on this day with a run rate of US$228, which is one subscription of US$19 a month. The founder dates the launch to the middle of December.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 4 ] }, { "when": "26 January 2026", "what": "The counter shows a run rate of US$20,585.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "when": "17 February 2026", "what": "He posts on X that the product will raise its own money. It answers investor emails from his inbox for 14 days, next to a public live dashboard. The counter shows US$208,516 that day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 1 ] }, { "when": "26 February 2026", "what": "In a recorded interview the host reads US$693,608 on the live dashboard. The founder says that the number counts all cash that enters the platform. The best customer company makes about US$50 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "28 February 2026", "what": "The counter passes US$1 million. The next day the dashboard data show a subscription run rate of US$443,208 from 592 paying users.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 8 ] }, { "when": "7 March 2026", "what": "He posts a run rate of US$2.5 million, up from US$1 million in one week. The subscription run rate on 6 March is US$923,232.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 8 ] }, { "when": "9 March 2026", "what": "An independent developer publishes two findings: the live page exposes customers' chats and personal data, and the counter is about twice the subscription figure.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "17 to 18 March 2026", "what": "The founder writes that the past week almost broke him: every supplier reached its rate limits. The dashboard shows AI costs of US$27,272 a day and subscription revenue of US$205,100 a month from 3,218 paying users.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 1 ] }, { "when": "23 March 2026", "what": "True Ventures announces its investment and repeats the US$1 million and US$3 million figures.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "April 2026", "what": "Between 29 March and 15 April the company replaces the history of the counter with lower values for February and March.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "29 April 2026", "what": "Rest of World reports on a factory trainer in China who pays US$199 a month, a quarter of his salary. His Polsia company has 7 sign-ups and no payment.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "22 May 2026", "what": "He announces US$30 million at a US$250 million valuation and a run rate that approaches US$10 million. The subscription run rate that day is US$4,630,500.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 1 ] }, { "when": "27 May 2026", "what": "In a second interview he confirms the run-rate method and a churn of about 50% in the first month. He gives a model bill of about US$1 million a month. He declines to show his Stripe account.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "29 July 2026", "what": "The Wall Street Journal reports 10,000 paying customers and a path to US$10 million of revenue in 2026, with no employees. Broca says that he lost money on many accounts and moved to open-source models.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "27 August 2026", "what": "The dashboard shows subscription revenue of US$774,984 a month from 20,382 paying users. The public counter shows US$15.5 million two days later.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "15 September 2026", "what": "A reviewer reads US$915,309 a month in subscriptions and 29,132 active companies of 484,592 created. The terms now take 3% of customer payments, not 20%.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 18 ] }, { "when": "12 October 2026", "what": "The address of the public dashboard returns an error, and the app no longer has a live page.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 18 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Distribution", "text": "The fundraising was the advertisement. On 17 February 2026 the founder posted that the product would raise its own money. He opened a live page with the revenue counter and the agents' work. The counter went from US$208,516 that day to US$1,098,344 eleven days later. He says that each post raised the numbers, and that the higher numbers brought more investors and more posts." }, { "title": "No step between idea and company", "text": "A new user types an idea or presses a button that chooses one. Before any payment, Polsia makes a company name, a market report, a live website and an inbox, and posts about the company on X. The founder says that each extra question would lower the share of users who pay. On 22 May 2026 the dashboard showed 3,767 new sign-ups in one day and 21.7% of trials that became paid, 4,467 of 20,548." }, { "title": "A counter that includes customers' money", "text": "The live number was 12 times the last 30 days of all money received. That money included subscriptions, one-time credit packs, advertising budgets that go to Meta, and the sales of customers' companies. When the interviewer asked, the founder described this method himself. From March to May 2026 the number that people shared was about twice the subscription revenue. The counter was correct as a sum, but investors and press called it ARR, and it was not." }, { "title": "Credits on top of the subscription", "text": "The subscription pays for one automatic task each night. A customer who wants more work at once buys credits, at about US$1 to US$2 per task. On 29 August 2026 one-time credit packs were 25.7% of all money received. The cost is on the same side. The founder says that a task cost him about US$2 with Claude. A task cost US$20 to US$30 when an agent repaired a large code base." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from founder interviews, press reports and the company's terms. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Built on Anthropic's Claude with the Claude Agent SDK. An SDK (software development kit) is a set of ready code; this one is for programs in which the model calls tools. In February 2026 the agent that plans strategy ran on Claude Opus 4.6.", "Each customer company receives a web server, a database, a GitHub account, an email address, a Stripe payment account and a Meta advertising account. Polsia manages all of them, so the customer connects nothing.", "A chief-executive agent runs every night. It reads the state of the company, chooses one task, gives it to an engineering, marketing or support agent, and emails the customer a report.", "The advertising agent writes the advert and generates a video of an invented person with OpenAI's Sora 2. It uploads the video to Meta and stops adverts that perform badly. The customer sets a budget from US$10 a day.", "Suppliers that the founder named in May 2026: Sapiom, Blaxel, Anchor Browser, AgentMail, Stripe, Render, Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta, X, GitHub, Postmark and Amazon Web Services.", "The founder writes Polsia itself with Claude Opus and uses OpenAI Codex as a second reviewer for bug fixes. His own tools cost about US$800 a month. He says that he no longer reads the code.", "By June 2026 the founder had moved tasks from Anthropic's models to open-source models on rented graphics processors. He says that the price was about 100 times lower." ], "src": [ 3, 12, 15, 16, 6 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database promised to do the work of a small company for a customer who could not do it alone. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Builder.ai", "years": "2016 to 2025", "funding": "US$445M", "cause": "Unit economics", "promise": "Custom apps for founders who cannot code, built by AI from reusable parts.", "died": "Each US$20,000 project cost US$25,000 to US$35,000 to deliver, and offshore developers did most of the work that was sold as AI.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2170-builderai" }, { "name": "Metigy", "years": "2014 to 2022", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "No market need", "promise": "AI marketing advice for small businesses that cannot pay a marketing team.", "died": "It gave advice on a dashboard. Small businesses wanted the work done for them, and they left within 60 to 90 days.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2338-metigy" }, { "name": "Dukaan", "years": "2020 to 2024", "funding": "US$17M", "cause": "Unit economics", "promise": "An online store in 30 seconds for small merchants.", "died": "It signed more than 5 million merchants. Most sold very little, could not pay even US$10 a month, and left.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2425-dukaan" }, { "name": "Zirtual", "years": "2011 to 2015", "funding": "US$5.5M", "cause": "Ran out of cash", "promise": "Virtual assistants on a monthly subscription for busy founders.", "died": "It hired assistants faster than revenue grew, could not pay salaries in August 2015 and closed without notice.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1850-zirtual" }, { "name": "Trada", "years": "2008 to 2015", "funding": "US$19M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Google advertising for small businesses, managed by outside experts.", "died": "Human experts did not scale at a profit, and Google automated the same work inside its own tools.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/655-trada" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five sold the work of a company function to people who could not do that work themselves. Each found that the work cost more than those customers could pay. Builder.ai used human developers behind an AI label. Zirtual and Trada used human staff. Dukaan and Metigy gave tools to customers who earned too little to stay.", "The founder says that the models of late 2025 were the first that could use any tool and stay on a task without a person. Polsia does with a model what Builder.ai did with offshore staff, so one person can serve 20,000 paying users. The old problems did not go away. In March 2026 the model bill was about four times the subscription revenue. The founder says that half of new customers leave in the first month. Like Dukaan's merchants, most Polsia companies earn almost nothing: US$1.47 each in 30 days, on average. The founder says that the US$30 million lets him accept low margins and offer a free version." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The public fundraising, no. The measurement lesson, yes.", "text": "The growth came from one founder's public fundraising on X and a pre-seed round of US$1 million. The model bill was about US$1 million a month before revenue covered the costs. Few people can repeat that. What a reader can copy is smaller. Remove every step between an idea and a first result, and charge for usage on top of a subscription. A reader can also do the opposite of the counter: report subscriptions, one-time sales and customers' money as three separate numbers.", "steps": [ "Let a new customer see a finished result before the first payment, with no setup.", "Sell a low subscription for the automatic work and credits for work on demand.", "Measure the cost of each task from the first day. Polsia's cost per task rose when customers' code bases grew.", "Publish recurring revenue, one-time revenue and pass-through money separately, with churn next to them." ], "open": "Agents that do one function well for a small business that already has customers, for example bookkeeping, appointments or adverts for one trade. Such a customer has revenue to protect and a reason to stay." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The famous number is not ARR", "text": "The counter was 12 times the last 30 days of all money received. Subscriptions were 47.5% of it in May 2026 and 60.9% in August. Advertising budgets and the sales of customers' companies pass through Polsia; most of that money is not Polsia's revenue." }, { "title": "Company-reported only", "text": "No payment processor, auditor or journalist has confirmed the revenue. The founder declined to show his Stripe account in an interview. The company changed the history of its counter once, to lower values, and removed the public dashboard by October 2026." }, { "title": "Half of new customers leave in the first month", "text": "The founder gives about 50% churn in month one and about 50% again in month two. The dashboard field showed 81.5% for the 30 days to 27 August 2026. A run rate assumes that the current month repeats twelve times, so new sign-ups must replace the customers who leave." }, { "title": "Costs were above revenue", "text": "In March 2026 the model cost was about four times the subscription revenue. The founder told the Wall Street Journal that he lost money on many accounts. The business now runs on cheaper open-source models and has US$30 million of investment. This page found no public figure for profit or loss." }, { "title": "Most customer companies earn nothing", "text": "The founder says that about 10% of companies earned at least one dollar. All customer companies together sold US$35,576 in the 30 days to 29 August 2026. A customer who pays every month and earns nothing has a reason to cancel." }, { "title": "Complaints and privacy", "text": "Reviewers report a Trustpilot score of 3.3 of 5, with 30% one-star reviews. The complaints are tasks marked as done but not delivered, credits used on failed tasks, and refunds refused. In March 2026 the live page exposed customers' chats and personal data. Agents have sent emails that customers did not approve." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Internet Archive: 24 saved copies of Polsia's public dashboard data, 22 February to 29 August 2026", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260829045311/https://polsia.com/api/public/live/dashboard", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the saved data of 22 of the 24 copies in full, with a script. The company published these figures itself. The archive proves what the company showed on each date, not that the payments exist. The live address returned an error on 12 October 2026." }, { "title": "Internet Archive: saved copy of the dashboard's daily history, 12 August 2026", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260812183901/https://polsia.com/api/public/live/metric-history?metric=arr&days=365", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Daily values from 16 December 2025 to 11 August 2026, in the later and lower version of the series." }, { "title": "Mixergy, 2 March 2026, interview by Andrew Warner: This AI generates $689K", "url": "https://mixergy.com/interviews/this-ai-generates-689k/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the transcript in full. Recorded on 26 February 2026; the host read the live dashboard during the call. Source for what the counter includes, the first price, the 20% share and the nightly agent." }, { "title": "Mixergy, 27 May 2026, interview by Andrew Warner: Polsia: AI Agent + Zero Employees = $10M Run Rate", "url": "https://mixergy.com/interviews/is-polsia-a-250m-scam-i-asked-the-founder-to-his-face/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the transcript in full. Source for the run-rate method in the founder's words, the churn, the share of companies with revenue and the Anthropic bill. Also the source for the pre-seed round, the launch month and the Stripe request." }, { "title": "True Ventures, 23 March 2026, Tony Conrad: Polsia: The One-Person Company Is No Longer a Metaphor", "url": "https://www.trueventures.com/blog/polsia-one-person-company-no-longer-a-metaphor", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. An investor's announcement. It repeats the US$1 million and US$3 million figures and does not say how they were checked." }, { "title": "The Wall Street Journal, 29 July 2026: The Rise of Million-Dollar Companies With Just One Employee", "url": "https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-rise-of-million-dollar-companies-with-just-one-employee-f36a77c1", "grade": "C", "how": "The page needs a subscription. Read the passages on Polsia in the copy that archive.ph saved on 28 September 2026. The article does not say that the reporter saw payment records." }, { "title": "Ben Cera on X, 22 May 2026: Polsia just raised $30M at a $250M valuation", "url": "https://x.com/Bencera/status/2057847644966547920", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com, together with his posts of 17 February, 7 March and 17 March 2026. Source for the funding announcement and the run-rate claims on those dates." }, { "title": "SiteBloom, 9 March 2026: Polsia claims a $3M ARR and streams all user chats via public URL", "url": "https://sitebloom.ch/writing/polsia-claims-3m-arr-and-exposes-user-chats/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. An independent developer copied the dashboard data on 1 and 6 March 2026. Source for the subscription figures on those dates and for the exposed customer chats." }, { "title": "Polsia, the receipts: an anonymous analysis by the X account NotOnKetamine, May 2026", "url": "https://zero-arr.vercel.app", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A hostile analysis of the dashboard data of 22 May 2026. Its arithmetic matches the archived copy. Its claims about human staff were not verified and are not used." }, { "title": "Preuve AI, updated 15 September 2026: Polsia Review (2026): Is It Legit? An Honest Founder Read", "url": "https://preuve.ai/blog/polsia-review", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The author sells a competing product and says so. Source for the plan prices, the dashboard values of 15 September and the Trustpilot scores." }, { "title": "Crevio, 2 October 2026: Is Polsia Legit? An Honest Review With the Founder's Own Numbers", "url": "https://crevio.co/blog/is-polsia-legit", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Crevio is a competitor. Source for the Trustpilot score on 2 October 2026 and the fee summary." }, { "title": "Lean AI Leaderboard, 8 May 2026, Henry Shi: How a Solo Founder Cloned Himself With AI That Now Runs 6000 Companies and Hit $6M+ ARR", "url": "https://henrythe9th.substack.com/p/how-a-solo-founder-cloned-himself", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Most answers came from Polsia's own email agent. Source for the founder's background, the Claude Agent SDK, the founder's own tools and the retention claim." }, { "title": "Fortune, 26 March 2026, Allie Garfinkle: The one-person unicorn: Myth, miracle, or the future of startups?", "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/03/26/the-one-person-unicorn-myth-miracle-future-of-startups-polsia/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the passages on Polsia. The writer says that she doubts revenue claims of AI startups. Source for the outside law firm and infrastructure partner." }, { "title": "Rest of World, 29 April 2026, Viola Zhou: I got stood up by an AI agent, and tracked down its human owner in China", "url": "https://restofworld.org/2026/ai-agent-china-one-person-company/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A reporter found a Polsia customer after his agent sent her an email. Source for the customer case and the founder's one-sixth figure." }, { "title": "GTMnow podcast, 1 June 2026: Inside the Company that Raised $30M at a $250M Valuation With 0 Employees", "url": "https://gtmnow.com/gtm-192-inside-the-company-that-raised-30m-at-a-250m-valuation-with-0-employees-ben-cera-polsia/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the transcript sections on pricing, costs, models and the fundraising. Source for the cost per task, the cheaper models and the period in Paris." }, { "title": "Pulse 2.0, 25 May 2026: Polsia: $30 Million At $250 Million Valuation Raised For AI Operations Platform", "url": "https://pulse2.com/polsia-30-million-at-250-million-valuation-raised-for-ai-operations-platform/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. It reports the founder's LinkedIn post. Source for the investor list and the supplier list." }, { "title": "RuntimeWire, 29 July 2026: Polsia's Ben Broca runs 10,000-customer AI business with zero employees", "url": "https://runtimewire.com/article/polsia-ben-broca-10-million-revenue-zero-employees", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part. It notes that the customer and revenue figures come from the founder, not from audited statements." }, { "title": "Polsia Terms of Service and app code, read 12 October 2026", "url": "https://polsia.com/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "The page loads by script, so the text was read in the app's JavaScript file. Source for the 3% and 20% fees, the 31-day hold, the credit steps and the missing live page." }, { "title": "TrustMRR profile of ad-flow.polsia.app, a customer company hosted on Polsia, not Polsia itself", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/ad-flow-polsia-app", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile. Stripe-verified revenue of US$0.00, data as of 12 October 2026. TrustMRR has no profile for Polsia itself, so this source verifies none of Polsia's own figures." }, { "title": "andrew.ooo, 4 March 2026, updated 8 October 2026: Polsia: How One Solo Founder Hit $1.5M ARR in 30 Days With Zero Employees", "url": "https://andrew.ooo/posts/polsia-1m-arr-30-days-zero-employees/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A publication that AI agents write under human supervision. Used to find other sources, not for numbers." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/trackai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/trackai.md", "slug": "trackai", "name": "TrackAI", "country": "Poland", "sector": "Health Care", "productType": "Calorie tracking from food photos", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-13", "launchLabel": "June 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$242K verified revenue in 12 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$242K in 12 months", "outcomeUsd": 242116, "months": 16, "teamLabel": "1 named founder; his sale notice speaks of a founding team; headcount not published", "fundingLabel": "None, according to the founder", "primaryFactor": "Paid ads", "group": "health-appearance", "channel": "paid-ads", "trend": "falling", "collections": [ "phone-app" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Consumer app" ], "product": "You photograph a meal. TrackAI returns the dishes it recognises, an estimated weight, the calories, and the protein, fat and carbohydrates. You can correct an ingredient or a weight, and the totals update. The app also shows daily and weekly statistics, sends meal reminders and gives rewards for days in a row.", "why": "It built a product that already sold well in English for Ukraine and Central and Eastern Europe: Ukrainian language, local dishes and lower local prices. The model that reads the photo is rented and the billing is a ready-made service. The only growth channel the founder names is paid advertising on Meta.", "summary": [ "TrackAI is a phone app that estimates the calories in a meal from a photo. The user photographs a plate, and a vision model returns the dishes it sees, their weight, the calories and the macros. A vision model is an AI model that takes an image as input and answers in text. Macros is the short name for the three macronutrients: protein, fat and carbohydrates. The app is in 15 languages, and its website names borscht and varenyky among the dishes it recognises. In the three App Store countries this page checked, Ukraine has 3,918 ratings, Poland 630 and the United States 54.", "Oleksandr Yashchuk, who is based in Kraków in Poland, released the app at the end of May 2025. He is the only person the sources name: the company blog calls him founder and product owner, and until spring 2026 both app stores listed him personally as the developer. The money figure on this page is not his claim. TrustMRR, a public directory of startup revenue, reads the sales from RevenueCat with an access key. RevenueCat is a service that phone apps use to sell subscriptions through Apple's and Google's stores and to count the revenue from both. On 13 October 2026 it showed US$242,116 of revenue in the last 12 months, US$21,699 in the last 30 days and 5,158 active paid subscriptions. RevenueCat's documentation describes its revenue figure as gross: before the stores take their commission and before sales tax. The business keeps less than the headline figure.", "One question is not answered. On 7 July 2026 Yashchuk offered TrackAI for sale on TrustMRR for US$600,000, and he lowered the price seven times, to US$180,000 on 18 August. By 13 October the offer was closed, and both app stores named a Swiss company, Stellar Marketing AG, as the developer. No source says that a sale happened or at what price. This page therefore counts the business as running and grades every number by its evidence. It also shows four failed companies that promised easier tracking of health habits before a phone could read a photo of a plate." ], "factsCaption": "US$242,116 of payment-verified revenue in 12 months and US$21,699 in the last 30 days, from a photo calorie counter built for Ukraine and Central and Eastern Europe, with an ownership question that the sources leave open", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read by TrustMRR from RevenueCat, the service that records the app's subscription payments. A grade B value comes from Apple, Google, a public register, a marketplace record or an archived page. A grade C value is a founder statement. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From the App Store release to US$242,116 of verified revenue in 12 months, then a sale listing and a new company name on the store pages. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "TrackAI Premium prices in October 2026, read from Apple's App Store pages for the United States and Ukraine (grade B), with the founder's own figures for comparison (grade C)", "note": "Apple lists the in-app purchases by name: week, month, year, and a year with a discount. The yearly column is the yearly price divided by 12: 49.99 divided by 12 equals 4.17, 33.90 divided by 12 equals 2.83, 42.99 divided by 12 equals 3.58. The Poland store charges 34.99 zł a month and 149.90 zł a year. The website says there is no free version, only a 3-day trial. The founder's TrustMRR text says freemium. The two statements do not agree.", "rows": [ [ "Premium, US App Store", "4.17", "11.99", "Year US$49.99, or US$39.99 with a discount. A week costs US$2.99" ], [ "Premium, Ukraine App Store", "2.83", "6.90", "Year US$33.90, or US$23.90 with a discount. A week costs US$2.99" ], [ "Premium, as the founder states it on TrustMRR", "3.58", "9.99", "Year US$42.99. A week costs US$5.99. Store and country not stated" ], [ "Free trial", "0", "0", "3 days, then a subscription, according to the website" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue in the 12 months to 13 October 2026", "value": "US$242,116", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR reads it from RevenueCat through an API key. Last synced 13 October 2026, 17:17 UTC. Gross revenue: before store commission and sales tax, after refunds, as RevenueCat defines revenue.", "src": [ 1, 8, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days", "value": "US$21,699", "grade": "A", "note": "7.7% lower than in the 30 days before, as the profile states.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "All-time revenue, June 2025 to 13 October 2026", "value": "US$278,257", "grade": "A", "note": "", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue before 13 October 2025", "value": "US$36,141", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 278,257 minus 242,116 equals 36,141. This is the first four and a half months.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 13 October 2026", "value": "US$19,716", "grade": "A", "note": "Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is the value of all active subscriptions expressed per month. 3.7% lower than 30 days earlier. It was US$21,306 on 4 August 2026.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Active paid subscriptions", "value": "5,158", "grade": "A", "note": "5,122 on 4 August 2026 and 5,158 on 20 August 2026 in the archived pages.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "MRR per active subscription", "value": "about US$3.82 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 19,716 divided by 5,158 equals 3.82. The Ukraine store price is US$6.90 a month or US$33.90 a year.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Highest month", "value": "US$27,412 in July 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "Monthly history: November 2025 US$12,210, December US$10,663, January 2026 US$17,337, February US$16,880, March US$25,956, April US$21,732, May US$24,031, June US$23,942, July US$27,412, August US$25,383, September US$21,949.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "September 2026 against the July 2026 peak", "value": "19.9% lower", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 21,949 divided by 27,412 equals 0.801.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Last 6 months against the 6 months before", "value": "43.0% higher", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 142,475 against 99,641, which is 242,116 minus 142,475.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Last 3 months against the 3 months before", "value": "0.3% higher", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 71,360 against 71,115, which is 142,475 minus 71,360. Growth stopped in the summer of 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Twelve-month revenue after a 15% store commission", "value": "about US$205,800", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 242,116 multiplied by 0.85 equals 205,799. An illustration only. It assumes the 15% rate of Apple's Small Business Program and of Google Play subscriptions, and it does not remove sales tax or advertising cost.", "src": [ 1, 14, 15 ] }, { "fact": "Payment data provider", "value": "RevenueCat, connected with an API key", "grade": "A", "note": "The payments themselves go through Apple's App Store and Google Play.", "src": [ 1, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's figures after 12 months, June 2026", "value": "US$20,000 MRR, more than 4,700 paying subscribers, more than 327,000 installs", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder-written description on TrustMRR. It also says the app was profitable from the second month.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Paying subscribers per install", "value": "about 1.4%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 4,700 divided by 327,000 equals 0.014. Both inputs are founder figures.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin", "value": "10%, then 90%, then 94%", "grade": "C", "note": "Not verified. TrustMRR's post of 7 July 2026 shows 10%. The archived page shows 90% on 4 August and 94% on 20 August, with the Meta Ads account not connected. The live profile shows 94%.", "src": [ 1, 2, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price on TrustMRR", "value": "US$600,000 on 7 July 2026, US$180,000 on 18 August 2026", "grade": "B", "note": "Recorded in the page data of the archived listing. Seven cuts in 42 days, 70% in total.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Last asking price against 12-month revenue", "value": "0.74 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 180,000 divided by 242,116 equals 0.74. TrustMRR's own multiple on 20 August was 0.61, which is 180,000 divided by twelve times the 30-day revenue of US$24,712.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Offers counted by TrustMRR", "value": "10 on 4 August 2026, 21 on 20 August 2026", "grade": "B", "note": "A counter in the archived page data. The content of the offers is not public.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Sale listing on 13 October 2026", "value": "closed", "grade": "B", "note": "The profile says the startup is not currently listed for sale. No source reports a sale or a price.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Developer named by the app stores", "value": "Oleksandr Yashchuk until spring 2026, Stellar Marketing AG in October 2026", "grade": "B", "note": "App Store: his name on 6 March 2026 in a price tracker. Google Play: his name on 15 April 2026 in an archived page. Both stores on 13 October 2026: Stellar Marketing AG, Zug, Switzerland. The App Store copyright line still names Yashchuk.", "src": [ 3, 4, 7, 16 ] }, { "fact": "Team size", "value": "not published", "grade": "C", "note": "One named founder. TrustMRR's record lists no co-founders. His sale notice says the founding team.", "src": [ 1, 2, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none, according to the founder", "grade": "C", "note": "The profile says fully self-funded. No investor is named anywhere.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "App Store ratings, 13 October 2026", "value": "Ukraine 3,918, Poland 630, United States 54", "grade": "B", "note": "Average 4.7 of 5 in Ukraine and Poland, 4.8 in the United States. From Apple's public lookup service.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Google Play, 13 October 2026", "value": "4.9 stars, about 4,680 reviews, more than 100,000 downloads", "grade": "B", "note": "On 15 April 2026 the archived page showed more than 1,000 downloads.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Website visitors in the last 30 days", "value": "78,056", "grade": "B", "note": "TrustMRR reads it from Google Analytics. The profile computes US$0.28 of revenue per visitor.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the headline date", "value": "16 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: June 2025 to October 2026. Apple gives 31 May 2025 as the release date in Ukraine and Poland.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "16 March 2025", "what": "The Internet Archive records the address trackai.app for the first time.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "31 May 2025", "what": "Release on the App Store in Ukraine and Poland, and on 2 June in the United States. The app's identifier, com.yashchuk.trackai, contains the founder's surname.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "Mid-2025", "what": "The founder writes later that the app was profitable from its second month and used no outside money.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "November 2025", "what": "First month in the public revenue history: US$12,210. The website already loads Google Analytics, a Meta Pixel and a TikTok pixel.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "when": "December 2025", "what": "Blog articles dated 7 and 8 December 2025 are signed by Yashchuk as founder and product owner. Topics: counting calories in home-cooked meals, calculating a daily intake. The archived site of 19 November 2025 had no blog.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "March 2026", "what": "Revenue rises from US$16,880 in February to US$25,956, an increase of 53.8%.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "15 April 2026", "what": "The Android version is on Google Play under the founder's own name, with more than 1,000 downloads.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "After 12 months the founder reports US$20,000 MRR, more than 4,700 paying subscribers and more than 327,000 installs.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "7 July 2026", "what": "TrackAI joins TrustMRR and is listed for sale on the same day at US$600,000. The sale notice says the founding team is committing to a new venture and that the new Android app brings more than half of new installs.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 2, 6 ] }, { "when": "July 2026", "what": "Best month in the history: US$27,412.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "20 July to 18 August 2026", "what": "Seven price cuts: US$450,000, US$400,000, US$350,000, US$300,000, US$250,000, US$200,000 and US$180,000. TrustMRR counts 21 offers by 20 August.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "28 August 2026", "what": "Apple's records show a second calorie app from Stellar Marketing AG with this release date: ModernBody - Food Scanner.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "28 September 2026", "what": "Yashchuk announces another app on X: AlertyPL, which warns of air alerts in Poland.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "RevenueCat data on TrustMRR: US$242,116 in 12 months, US$21,699 in 30 days, MRR US$19,716. The sale listing is closed. Both stores name Stellar Marketing AG as developer, and Google Play shows the name Modernbody above the app.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 3, 4 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A known product for a language market", "text": "Cal AI, which is on this site, had more than 15 million downloads and more than US$30 million in annual revenue when MyFitnessPal announced that it had bought it, so TrackAI's verified 12-month revenue is about 124 times smaller. What the small entrant does differently, by its own description, is the market: an app in Ukrainian and 14 other languages, local dishes such as borscht, varenyky and deruny, and buyers aged 25 to 45 in Ukraine and Central and Eastern Europe." }, { "title": "Rented parts", "text": "Nothing in the sources suggests that the company trained a model. The founder's profile lists React Native for the app and RevenueCat for the billing, and the website is made with a visual site builder. The team's own work is the food logic, the 15 languages and the screens around the photo." }, { "title": "Paid advertising as the stated channel", "text": "The profile names one marketing channel: Meta Ads, which means paid advertisements on Facebook and Instagram. The website has carried tracking scripts for Meta and TikTok advertising since at least November 2025. The founder did not build an audience first: he has 89 followers on X, and the posts this page read say nothing about how he found users." }, { "title": "Local prices and short plans", "text": "The Ukraine store charges US$6.90 a month and US$33.90 a year, against US$11.99 and US$49.99 in the US store. A weekly plan costs US$2.99 in both. The result is many subscribers who each pay little: US$3.82 of MRR per active subscription." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder-written part of the TrustMRR profile, from the source code of the website and from the store listings. They are grade B and C. The company does not publish which AI model reads the photos.", "items": [ "React Native for the phone app, according to the founder's profile. React Native is a framework that produces an iPhone app and an Android app from one code base written in JavaScript.", "RevenueCat for the subscriptions. It sits between the app and the two stores, records every purchase and renewal, and gives one revenue figure for both stores. TrustMRR reads that figure.", "The website is built with Framer, a visual website builder. Its source code names Framer in the archived copy of November 2025 and in October 2026.", "The same source code loads a Google Analytics tag, a Meta Pixel and a TikTok pixel. A pixel is a small script that reports visits to an advertising system, so that the system can count which advertisement brought a visitor.", "Distribution through Apple's App Store from 31 May 2025, and through Google Play by 15 April 2026 at the latest.", "The vision model is not named on the website, in the privacy policy or in the store text. The website says only that the app uses advanced AI and that its accuracy is good according to the company's own experiments.", "Marketing: Meta Ads is the only channel in the profile. The company also has a TikTok account with 46 videos and 1,948 followers, an Instagram account, a Facebook page and, since December 2025, a blog signed by the founder." ], "src": [ 1, 3, 4, 5, 17 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised easier tracking of health habits before a phone could read a photo of a meal. None of them is an exact earlier version of TrackAI: the database holds no failed calorie counter with founders that can be checked. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Airo Health", "years": "2016 to 2019", "funding": "US$4M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A wearable device that tracks stress, exercise and nutrition intake and gives advice in real time.", "died": "Apple and Fitbit improved faster. The device did not justify its price, producing and shipping hardware overwhelmed the company, and no further funding came.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1465-airo-health" }, { "name": "Jawbone", "years": "1999 to 2017", "funding": "US$930M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Bluetooth headsets and fitness wristbands that turn a person's daily data into health advice.", "died": "Fitbit and Apple took the market. Product recalls, weak customer service and long court cases used up the money and the attention.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/257-jawbone" }, { "name": "Habit Labs", "years": "2010 to 2013", "funding": "US$200K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Health Month, a web application in which people set health goals and keep them through game rewards and pressure from friends.", "died": "Users did not want to pay a subscription for it. MyFitnessPal and Fitbit added social and game features to products that were free or better known.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1623-habit-labs" }, { "name": "Habitual", "years": "2019 to 2021", "funding": "US$50K", "cause": "Ran out of cash", "promise": "A habit-tracking app with personal feedback that keeps daily routines going.", "died": "The product worked, but it had no marketing plan: no partners, no presence on social media, no campaigns. Competitors with data-driven marketing got the users.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1973-habitual" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Before vision models, an app could not look at a plate. A calorie counter needed the user to search a food database and enter each portion by hand. The founder's profile calls this manual logging the reason why people quit calorie tracking within days. The hardware route failed too: Airo Health promised a wearable that tracks nutrition intake and closed in 2019, and Jawbone spent US$930 million on wearables and their apps.", "A rented vision model changed the input. A photo replaces the search and the typing, and the model is paid per request, so a small team can offer the same function as a large company. The cost is accuracy: in a 2025 study, two leading general models were wrong by about 36% on average for the energy of a meal. Habitual's cause of death also still applies. When everyone can rent the same model, the difference is who reaches the users, and TrackAI's stated answer is paid advertising in one language region." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The profit is the open question.", "text": "Every part can be rented: a vision model, React Native, RevenueCat and the two app stores. What TrackAI added is a market choice, with Ukrainian language, local dishes and local prices, and paid advertising to reach that market. The sources do not show what the advertising costs. The founder's profit margin figures range from 10% to 94%, and he offered the business for sale 13 months after launch at a price that he cut by 70% in six weeks.", "steps": [ "Take a consumer AI app that already sells well in English, and check whether your language region has a version with local content and local prices.", "Rent the model and the billing. Put your own work into the local food data, the first screens and a price test for each country.", "Release on both stores. The founder's sale notice says the Android version brought more than half of new installs soon after its release.", "Connect your payment data to a public verifier early, so that readers and buyers can check the revenue.", "Measure what one paying subscriber costs in advertising before you increase the spending, and keep that record: a buyer will ask for it." ], "open": "Other language regions where no local photo calorie counter leads the store charts. A 2024 study of nutrition apps in Australia's stores concluded that AI food recognition needs more training on mixed dishes and on culturally diverse foods, which is the gap a local app can fill." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Who owns it now", "text": "The founder listed TrackAI for sale on 7 July 2026 and wrote that the founding team was committing to a new venture. On 13 October 2026 the listing was closed, and both stores named Stellar Marketing AG as developer, a company entered in the Zug commercial register in November 2024 with marketing consulting as its purpose. The register notice names one board member, who is not Yashchuk. The App Store copyright line, the blog and the TrustMRR profile still carry his name. No source states a sale, a price or the present team size." }, { "title": "Accuracy of a photo estimate", "text": "TrackAI's website gives no error figure. It says the accuracy is good according to the company's own experiments. Independent tests show large errors. A 2025 study gave 52 standard food photos to three general models: ChatGPT-4o and Claude 3.5 Sonnet had a mean absolute percentage error of 35.8% for energy, Gemini 1.5 Pro had errors between 64.2% and 109.9% across nutrients, and all three underestimated more as portions grew. A 2024 study of nutrition apps concluded that automatic energy estimates from food image recognition were inaccurate. Neither study tested TrackAI." }, { "title": "Cal AI and MyFitnessPal", "text": "MyFitnessPal has owned Cal AI since December 2025 and has a meal scan of its own. Cal AI now uses MyFitnessPal's database of 20 million foods. TrackAI's protection is language and local food, and a larger company can add both." }, { "title": "Subscription churn", "text": "TrackAI sells weekly, monthly and yearly plans after a 3-day trial. RevenueCat's 2025 report on subscription apps, across all categories, found that nearly 30% of yearly subscriptions are cancelled in the first month, and that after one year 44.1% of yearly subscribers, 17.0% of monthly subscribers and 3.4% of weekly subscribers remain. TrackAI's own churn is not public: TrustMRR shows it only to logged-in users. The public figures point down: MRR fell 3.7% in the last 30 days, and September 2026 revenue was 19.9% below the July peak." }, { "title": "Store commission and store rules", "text": "The headline figure is gross. Apple's Small Business Program lowers the commission to 15% for developers with up to US$1 million of proceeds a year, and Google Play charges 15% on automatically renewing subscriptions. At 15%, US$242,116 becomes about US$205,800 before sales tax and advertising cost. Apple's program page also says that when an app is transferred, its proceeds for the calendar year count for all accounts in the transfer. Every payment goes through the two stores, so their rules decide the price of each sale." }, { "title": "The rented vision model", "text": "The company does not say which model reads the photos. The provider of that model sets the price per image and can change the model. The 2025 study shows how much the choice matters: the error for energy was 35.8% with two of the models and much higher with the third. A buyer of the business also takes over this dependency." }, { "title": "Numbers that do not agree", "text": "Profit margin: 10% in TrustMRR's post of 7 July 2026, 90% on 4 August, 94% on 20 August and in October, about 95% in the sale notice. No advertising cost is verified. Prices: the founder's profile says US$5.99 a week, US$9.99 a month and US$42.99 a year, and Apple's US page says US$2.99, US$11.99 and US$49.99. The profile says freemium, and the website says there is no free version. Users: about 400,000 in the profile, and more than 327,000 installs in the description." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile of TrackAI, revenue synced 13 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/trackai", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/trackai.md) and the HTML page on 13 October 2026. Revenue, MRR and subscriptions come from RevenueCat through an API key. The description, the prices, the user count, the profit margin and the marketing channel are founder-written, grade C." }, { "title": "TrustMRR page of TrackAI as archived on 4 August and 20 August 2026", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260820070404/https://trustmrr.com/startup/trackai", "grade": "B", "how": "Read both archived copies in full, including the page data. Source for the sale listing, the eight asking prices with their dates, the offer counts and the founder's sale notice. The notice itself is a founder statement, grade C." }, { "title": "Apple App Store listing of Calorie Counter: TrackAI, and Apple's lookup service for the United States, Poland and Ukraine, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6740784584", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the listing pages of the three countries and the lookup records. Source for the seller name, the copyright line, the release dates, the ratings, the languages, the in-app prices and the seller's second app." }, { "title": "Google Play listing of Calorie Counter: TrackAI, read 13 October 2026, with the archived copy of 15 April 2026", "url": "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yashchuk.trackai", "grade": "B", "how": "Read both copies. Source for the developer name on each date, the downloads, the rating and the developer's company address." }, { "title": "TrackAI website: home page, questions and answers, blog, terms and privacy policy, read 13 October 2026, with the archived copy of 19 November 2025", "url": "https://trackai.app/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the product description, the trial, the founder's title, the blog dates and, from the page source code, the site builder and the tracking scripts." }, { "title": "X: TrustMRR's post of 7 July 2026 about TrackAI, and the founder's timeline", "url": "https://x.com/trust_mrr/status/2074619553808556516", "grade": "C", "how": "Read two pages of the timeline of @AlexYashchuk, December 2024 to October 2026, through api.fxtwitter.com. He reposted TrustMRR's post. The two pages contain no post of his own about TrackAI's marketing or revenue." }, { "title": "Swiss commercial register, entry of Stellar Marketing AG in Zug, and the company's website", "url": "https://www.zefix.ch/ZefixREST/api/v1/firm/1666200.json", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the register record and the founding notice of 21 November 2024, and the company's home and legal pages. Source for the seat, the date and the purpose. The website describes a digital marketing agency and does not mention TrackAI." }, { "title": "RevenueCat documentation: Overview metrics and Revenue chart", "url": "https://www.revenuecat.com/docs/dashboard-and-metrics/charts/revenue-chart", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the definitions of revenue, revenue net of taxes and proceeds on both pages (the second is https://www.revenuecat.com/docs/dashboard-and-metrics/overview). Source for the statement that revenue is before store fees and taxes." }, { "title": "TrustMRR notes for AI agents: how payment providers are connected", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/llms.txt", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the section on RevenueCat connections. It says that TrustMRR imports daily revenue, MRR and active subscriptions from RevenueCat's charts. It does not say that commission is deducted." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 2 March 2026, Julie Bort: MyFitnessPal has acquired Cal AI, the viral calorie app built by teens", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/02/myfitnesspal-has-acquired-cal-ai-the-viral-calorie-app-built-by-teens/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for Cal AI's downloads and revenue, the date the deal closed and the food database." }, { "title": "Fridolfsson and others, 2025, Current Developments in Nutrition: Performance Evaluation of 3 Large Language Models for Nutritional Content Estimation from Food Images", "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/41081011", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the abstract through the Europe PMC service, not the full paper. Source for the error figures of the three models." }, { "title": "Li and others, 2024, Nutrients: Evaluating the Quality and Comparative Validity of Manual Food Logging and Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Food Image Recognition in Apps for Nutrition Care", "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/39125452", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the abstract through the Europe PMC service, not the full paper. Source for the conclusion on automatic energy estimates and on culturally diverse foods." }, { "title": "RevenueCat, State of Subscription Apps 2025", "url": "https://www.revenuecat.com/state-of-subscription-apps-2025/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the sections on cancellations and on retention after one year. A benchmark across the apps that use RevenueCat, not a figure about TrackAI." }, { "title": "Apple Developer: App Store Small Business Program", "url": "https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the program rules. Source for the 15% rate, the US$1 million limit and the rule on transferred apps." }, { "title": "Google Play Console Help: Service fees", "url": "https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/112622?hl=en", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the fee table. Source for the 15% rate on automatically renewing subscriptions." }, { "title": "App Pricing Lab, listing of Calorie Counter: TrackAI, last updated 6 March 2026", "url": "https://apppricinglab.com/app/apple/6740784584", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party tracker of public App Store data. Cited only for the developer name on that date." }, { "title": "TikTok account of TrackAI, read 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.tiktok.com/@trackai.app", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public counters in the page data: followers, videos and likes. The videos themselves were not watched." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/voicy/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/voicy.md", "slug": "voicy", "name": "Voicy", "country": "United Kingdom", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI dictation app for every text field", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "September 2024", "outcomeLabel": "US$187K Stripe-verified revenue in 12 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$187K in 12 months", "outcomeUsd": 187354, "months": 25, "teamLabel": "1 founder with a day job, and a small team of unpublished size", "fundingLabel": "None; the About page says 100% bootstrapped", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "voice-audio", "channel": "search", "trend": "flat", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Productivity software" ], "product": "A dictation app for Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome, iPhone and Android. You press a keyboard shortcut and speak, and the text appears with punctuation in whatever app or website you are typing in. The speech is transcribed in the cloud by the open-source Whisper model through Groq's API, or, since 12 October 2026, offline on the computer.", "why": "It started as a free Chrome extension that the founder built for his father, then sold unlimited dictation everywhere for a low monthly price. The AI model is cheap to rent: Groq lists Whisper at US$0.04 to US$0.111 per hour of audio. Users came from Google: the site has more than 1,000 pages, one for each app and each need, and the founder says that an AI agent he made writes the blog posts.", "summary": [ "Voicy is a speech-to-text app: a program that turns spoken words into written text. It works by dictation, which means that you press a keyboard shortcut, speak, and the text appears in the field where your cursor is, in any app or website: Gmail, Word, Slack, ChatGPT or a code editor. The recognition is done by Whisper, a speech recognition model that OpenAI released as open source. Voicy's privacy policy says that the audio goes to the API of Groq, a cloud company that runs AI models for other companies; an API is a way for one program to call another program over the internet. Since 12 October 2026 the Mac, Windows and Linux apps can also transcribe offline, on the computer itself.", "Kourosh Ghaffari, a developer who describes himself as a solo founder from Iran, built the first version in London in 2024 for his father, who typed his emails with one finger. It started as a free Chrome extension, then became a Windows app and a Mac app with paid plans. On 13 October 2026 TrustMRR, a site that reads revenue directly from a company's payment account, showed US$187,354 of revenue in the last 12 months from Voicy's Stripe account (Stripe is a payment processor that takes card payments for online businesses), US$17,246 of it in the last 30 days, and MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the subscription income that repeats every month, of US$12,201 from 1,501 active subscriptions. The verified history starts in December 2025, so the 12-month figure is also the all-time figure on that account. The founder still has a day job, and he gives SEO, search engine optimization, the work of making pages appear high in Google results, as the reason for the growth: more than 1,000 pages bring 20,000 to 25,000 clicks a month.", "The revenue figures are grade A, because TrustMRR read them from Stripe through an API key. Everything about the team, the users and the marketing is the founder's own statement, grade C. Monthly revenue grew 2.16 times from December 2025 to April 2026 and has stayed between US$18,757 and US$20,564 a month since. AudioPen and Talknotes, also on this site, turn a voice note into clean text inside their own app. Voicy types into whatever text field is open, so its competitors are the dictation features that Apple and Microsoft build into their operating systems and other dictation apps such as Wispr Flow." ], "factsCaption": "US$187,354 of Stripe-verified revenue in the 12 months to 13 October 2026, US$17,246 of it in the last 30 days, and US$12,201 of MRR, read by TrustMRR from the company's Stripe account", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read by TrustMRR from Voicy's Stripe account through an API key; it is not a founder statement. A grade B value is a record kept by an outside platform: the Chrome Web Store or the Internet Archive. A grade C value is a statement by the founder or the company, or a profile field that the founder filled in. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a free Chrome extension for the founder's father to US$12,201 of monthly recurring revenue in about 25 months, while the founder kept a day job. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Voicy prices on 14 October 2026, read from the company's pricing page and the price answer on its home page (grade C)", "note": "Pro is US$8.49 billed monthly or US$82 billed yearly, which is US$6.83 a month and 19.5% less (the page rounds it to 20%). Lifetime is one payment of US$260, the price of about 31 months of monthly Pro, and it is never paid again. The Team plan needs at least 3 users; the page does not say how it is billed. Students and people with disabilities get 20% off, and the disability discount needs no proof. There is a 7-day money-back guarantee. In April and September 2025 the Internet Archive shows other plans: a 30-minute free trial, US$6.99 a month for 600 minutes and US$12.99 a month for unlimited recording, with no lifetime plan.", "rows": [ [ "Free trial", "0", "0", "30 minutes of recording, all features" ], [ "Pro", "6.83", "8.49", "unlimited recording and personal devices; US$82 a year" ], [ "Lifetime", "260 one-time", "", "unlimited recording and personal devices" ], [ "Team", "", "6.79", "per user, minimum 3 users; billing period not stated" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue in the last 12 months, to 13 October 2026", "value": "US$187,354", "grade": "A", "note": "Read by TrustMRR from Voicy's Stripe account through an API key, last synced on 13 October 2026 at 23:43 UTC. It equals the all-time total on that account, because the verified history starts in December 2025. The copy cached on 12 October showed US$186,894.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days, to 13 October 2026", "value": "US$17,246", "grade": "A", "note": "Same source. The stored 30-day snapshot shows US$17,268 and a fall of 14.0% from the 30 days before. It includes one-time Lifetime licences and yearly payments in full.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR, 13 October 2026", "value": "US$12,201 from 1,501 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "Monthly recurring revenue counts monthly plans at their price and yearly plans at one twelfth of the yearly price. Lifetime licences are not in it. TrustMRR shows MRR up 4.4% in the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Difference between 30-day revenue and MRR", "value": "US$5,045; revenue is 1.41 times MRR", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$17,246 minus US$12,201. Revenue can be above MRR because a US$260 Lifetime licence counts once in revenue and never in MRR, and a US$82 yearly payment counts in full in revenue but as US$6.83 in MRR. TrustMRR does not publish how much of each kind was sold.", "src": [ 1, 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue per month, December 2025 to September 2026", "value": "US$10,263 in December 2025, highest US$22,133 in April 2026, US$19,495 in September 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly timeline. Revenue grew 2.16 times from December to April, then stayed between US$18,757 and US$20,564 a month from May to September; September was 11.9% below April (calculated). October to the 13th: US$7,649.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR times 12", "value": "US$146,412 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$12,201 times 12. This counts only the subscriptions, not the Lifetime licences.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average MRR per active subscription", "value": "US$8.13", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$12,201 divided by 1,501. Close to the US$8.49 price of monthly Pro.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's MRR statements, September and October 2026", "value": "US$11,000 in September; US$12,000 in his profile in October", "grade": "C", "note": "Posts on X on 16, 17 and 30 September 2026, and his X profile read on 14 October. The TrustMRR figures give about US$11,687 of MRR 30 days before 13 October (calculated: US$12,201 divided by 1.044), so his statements agree with the verified figures.", "src": [ 15, 16, 19, 14, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Paying users, September 2026", "value": "over 2,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post, 30 September 2026. TrustMRR counts 1,501 active subscriptions. The sources do not explain the difference.", "src": [ 19, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Chrome extension users and rating", "value": "10,000 users; 4.6 stars from 102 ratings", "grade": "B", "note": "Chrome Web Store listing, read on 14 October 2026, marked Featured and updated on 7 September 2026. The company's home page says 10,000+ users and over 500 million words dictated.", "src": [ 10, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Visits from Google search", "value": "20,000 to 25,000 clicks a month to more than 1,000 pages", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts, 26 and 30 September 2026. He credits 'SEO + GEO'; GEO, generative engine optimization, means getting a product named in the answers of AI chat assistants. On 1 October he wrote that the site gets more than 1,000 clicks a day.", "src": [ 20, 19, 21 ] }, { "fact": "Speech recognition", "value": "the Whisper model through Groq's API, with servers in the EU and the US", "grade": "C", "note": "Voicy's privacy policy: the audio goes to Voicy's servers, then to Groq for transcription and for the text clean-up step, with Groq's zero data retention setting turned on. Voicy's Whisper page says that it uses OpenAI's Whisper API; the privacy policy names Groq.", "src": [ 6, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Groq's list price for Whisper", "value": "US$0.04 to US$0.111 per hour of audio", "grade": "C", "note": "Groq's documentation: US$0.04 for whisper-large-v3-turbo and US$0.111 for whisper-large-v3. At these prices, 10 hours of dictation a month cost US$0.40 to US$1.11 (calculated), against US$8.49 for monthly Pro. Voicy's own rates and the cost of the clean-up step are not published.", "src": [ 34 ] }, { "fact": "Offline mode", "value": "Mac, Windows and Linux, 25 languages, since 12 October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Changelog, version 3.0.0. The audio is then transcribed on the computer and is not sent to Voicy or to Groq. The sources do not name the model used offline.", "src": [ 8, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "90.0%", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot, outside its list of Stripe-verified metrics. The pricing page promises that the price will never be more than 20% above total costs, which allows a margin of at most 16.7% (calculated). The two figures do not agree unless the page counts costs that TrustMRR does not.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Price of unlimited recording", "value": "US$12.99 a month in 2025, US$8.49 a month in October 2026", "grade": "B", "note": "Internet Archive copies of the pricing page from 21 April and 16 September 2025, which also show a plan of US$6.99 a month for 600 minutes. Today's Pro is 34.6% cheaper than the 2025 unlimited plan (calculated).", "src": [ 12, 13, 5 ] }, { "fact": "iPhone app revenue, 3 September 2026", "value": "US$100 MRR, 0.9% of the total", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post.", "src": [ 24 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 founder with a day job, and a small team of unpublished size", "grade": "C", "note": "The About page says 'a small, bootstrapped team' and that support emails are read by 'me and the team'. The founder calls himself a solo founder (16 September 2026), works on Voicy 'after my 9-5' (17 September 2026) and has hired a growth person. His X profile gives his day job as product manager at Tiiny Host.", "src": [ 3, 15, 17, 18, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "About page: '100% bootstrapped, with no outside investment'. The TrustMRR profile says Bootstrapped. His X profile says 'Prev: Meetwaves (YC20)', an earlier company that is separate from Voicy.", "src": [ 3, 1, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Country", "value": "London, United Kingdom", "grade": "C", "note": "About page. The TrustMRR profile gives the country as AE, the United Arab Emirates. The sources do not explain the difference.", "src": [ 3, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's other income, not in these figures", "value": "RomeoSEO at US$269 MRR, and sponsored YouTube videos", "grade": "C", "note": "RomeoSEO is an SEO tool that he announced on 30 September 2026, with a goal of US$1,000 MRR by the end of 2026; his X profile gives its MRR. On 4 September 2026 he wrote that 4 to 5 sponsored videos a month can make him more money than his MRR. TrustMRR lists Voicy as his only startup with verified revenue.", "src": [ 14, 19, 28, 25, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the first public copy of the site to the October 2026 figures", "value": "25 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: September 2024 to October 2026.", "src": [ 11, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2024", "what": "Kourosh Ghaffari builds a dictation tool in London for his father, who types emails with one finger. He is already using AI to dictate his own writing.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "9 September 2024", "what": "First Internet Archive copy of usevoicy.com: a speech-to-text Chrome extension with grammar and punctuation 'powered by AI', and 'it's free'.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "21 April 2025", "what": "The pricing page shows paid plans: a 30-minute free trial, US$6.99 a month for 600 minutes and US$12.99 a month for unlimited recording.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "By December 2025", "what": "Voicy has become a Windows app and then a Mac app. The changelog starts at version 1.8.9 and calls the earlier versions 'Built over a loooong time'.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "December 2025", "what": "First month of the Stripe history that TrustMRR verifies: US$10,263. The profile gives 24 November 2025 as the founded date.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "April 2026", "what": "Highest verified month so far: US$22,133, 2.16 times December.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "22 May 2026", "what": "Version 2.2.0 adds the transcription of audio files.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "9 July 2026", "what": "Version 2.3.3: users who invite friends get free months of Pro, and users can sign in with Microsoft.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "2 September 2026", "what": "The founder writes that the 20% disability discount, given without proof, has saved users over US$10,000 in two years, 80% of it in the last four months. He first sold Voicy to 'tech bros like myself' and changed after dozens of user interviews.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 23 ] }, { "when": "3 September 2026", "what": "The iPhone app reaches US$100 of MRR, 0.9% of the total.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 24 ] }, { "when": "16 and 17 September 2026", "what": "He describes himself as a 27-year-old solo founder from Iran at US$11,000 MRR, works on Voicy after his 9-to-5 job, and calls AI dictation 'the most basic thing that EVERYONE built since wispr flow'.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15, 16, 17 ] }, { "when": "26 September 2026", "what": "The site has more than 1,000 pages and 20,000 clicks a month from Google. He pays Framer US$250 a month for it and starts to move it into his own code.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 20 ] }, { "when": "30 September 2026", "what": "He announces RomeoSEO, built on Romeo, the AI agent that he says writes Voicy's blog posts, and gives Voicy's numbers: US$11,000 MRR, over 2,000 paying users and 25,000 monthly clicks from Google.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 19 ] }, { "when": "12 October 2026", "what": "Version 3.0.0 adds offline dictation on Mac, Windows and Linux in 25 languages. The same day he writes that growth has slowed down and that he will check his Stripe dashboard only once a week.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 22 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "TrustMRR sync: US$187,354 in the last 12 months, US$17,246 in the last 30 days, MRR of US$12,201 and 1,501 active subscriptions.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A free extension first", "text": "The first product was a free Chrome extension that typed into any text field on any website. It collected users and ratings in the Chrome Web Store, which now marks it as Featured, with 10,000 users and 102 ratings. Paid plans and the desktop apps came later, and the free product became a 30-minute trial." }, { "title": "A page for every place where people type", "text": "The site has more than 1,000 pages, one for each app or need: dictation in Gmail, Word, Claude Code or Cursor, an alternative to Dragon or Apple Dictation, help for carpal tunnel syndrome, and versions in German, Spanish, French and Japanese. The founder says they bring 20,000 to 25,000 clicks a month from Google and that he wrote none of the blog posts himself: an AI agent that he built, Romeo, writes them." }, { "title": "The model is bought per hour, the product is sold per month", "text": "Voicy sends the audio to Whisper, an open model from OpenAI, running on Groq, which lists it at US$0.04 to US$0.111 per hour of audio. A customer pays US$8.49 a month for unlimited dictation. The product work is everything around the model: one shortcut that works in every app, punctuation, text replacements, custom modes and rewriting, on six platforms." }, { "title": "Low prices and discounts", "text": "Pro costs US$8.49 a month, 43% less than the US$15 of Wispr Flow's Pro plan (calculated). The price of unlimited recording fell from US$12.99 in 2025. Students and people with disabilities get 20% off, with no proof needed for the disability discount. The founder says that user interviews showed him that for some people dictation is an essential tool, not a way to write emails faster." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's pages, the founder's posts and the founder-written fields of the TrustMRR profile. They are grade C, except the Chrome Web Store record, which is grade B.", "items": [ "Desktop apps for Mac, Windows and Linux, a Chrome extension, and phone apps for iPhone and Android. The tech stack field on TrustMRR lists Electron, React, React Native, Kotlin and SwiftUI.", "Cloud transcription: the audio goes to Voicy's servers in the EU or the US (US servers only for US users), then to Groq's API, which runs the Whisper model and also does the text clean-up. Groq's zero data retention setting is on, and Voicy says that it stores no recordings or transcripts.", "Offline transcription on the computer since version 3.0.0 of 12 October 2026, in 25 of the more than 50 languages.", "Payments through Stripe, which TrustMRR reads through an API key.", "The website ran on Framer for US$250 a month until September 2026, when the founder moved it into his own code. His next steps, posted on 1 October 2026, were A/B tests with PostHog and Microsoft Clarity to see where visitors leave.", "Marketing: search pages and blog posts, the blog posts written by his own AI agent, a YouTube channel with 15,000 subscribers after 100 videos, free months for referrals, an affiliate program, and the founder's posts on X. No source mentions paid ads." ], "src": [ 1, 6, 8, 10, 20, 21, 26, 4 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database tried to sell a better way to type or to talk to a computer, against free tools from the companies that own the platform. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Whirlscape", "years": "2014 to 2017", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Minuum, a one-line phone keyboard that saved screen space.", "died": "The default keyboards on the phones got better AI predictions and users stayed with them. The new layout did not get past novelty.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1129-whirlscape" }, { "name": "Petalite", "years": "2014 to 2025", "funding": "US$12M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A privacy-first voice assistant that ran locally on the device.", "died": "It could not compete with the subsidized hardware, the training data and the ecosystems of the large technology companies, although its privacy was better.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2471-petalite" }, { "name": "Kite DevTool", "years": "2014 to 2024", "funding": "US$21M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "AI code completion inside the programmer's editor, years before GitHub Copilot.", "died": "The free version did not turn into enough paying users, and GitHub Copilot won with its distribution and a stronger OpenAI model.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2491-kite-devtool" }, { "name": "Tellme", "years": "1999 to 2011", "funding": "US$238M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Information and transactions by voice, over the phone.", "died": "Smartphones moved people to apps with screens, and the voice service did not adapt.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/612-tellme" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the four sold a better input tool, a keyboard, a voice assistant, a code completer or a voice service, and lost to a free tool from the company that owned the phone, the speaker or the code editor. Voicy is in the same position: Apple Dictation and Windows voice typing come with the operating system at no extra price, and Apple's guide says that its dictation adds punctuation by itself and has no time limit.", "Two things are different. First, the model is no longer the hard part. Whisper is open, and Groq rents it out at a few cents per hour of audio, so a solo developer can offer recognition in more than 50 languages without training a model, and can spend his time on the shortcut, the formatting and the six apps. Second, Voicy gets its users from search, not from an app store or a device: it has a page for every app, every competitor and every need, and the founder says that an AI agent that he built writes the blog posts." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The product, no. The method, yes.", "text": "A dictation app is easy to build in 2026, and the founder himself calls it the most basic idea that everyone built after Wispr Flow. The method is still open to copy: rent an open model by the hour, sell a flat monthly price, and get users from search pages written for each app and each need, including groups of users that the larger products do not target, such as people with disabilities.", "steps": [ "Start with a free browser extension that works in every text field, and collect ratings in the store.", "Use an open model through a pay-per-hour API, and check that a heavy user costs less than a dollar a month.", "Write one search page for each app, each competitor and each need, in several languages.", "Offer offline processing for people who will not send their voice to a server." ], "open": "Dictation for groups with specific needs, which Voicy already targets with its own pages: people with disabilities, carpal tunnel syndrome or dyslexia, users of older dictation software such as Dragon, and programmers who dictate prompts to coding agents." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The operating systems include dictation", "text": "Apple Dictation on the Mac and voice typing on Windows 10 and 11 come with the operating system at no extra price. Apple's guide says that its dictation inserts commas, periods and question marks in supported languages, has no time limit, and on some setups is processed on the device. Microsoft's voice typing uses Azure Speech services and needs an internet connection. Voicy's home page claims 99% accuracy against about 90% for both; that is the company's own comparison, with no published test." }, { "title": "Many dictation apps do the same thing", "text": "Wispr Flow has a free plan with 2,000 words a week on desktop and Pro at US$15 per user a month, or US$12 billed yearly. Superwhisper has a free tier with unlimited use of Whisper models, Pro at US$8.49 a month and a lifetime option. MacWhisper transcribes audio files with the Whisper, Qwen and Nvidia Parakeet models. The founder calls AI dictation 'the most basic thing that EVERYONE built since wispr flow', and on 29 September 2026 he answered a post that called Wispr Flow a feature, not a product, with 'We do the same thing'." }, { "title": "One model, one provider", "text": "Cloud transcription and the text clean-up both run on Groq's API. If Groq changes its prices, limits or terms, Voicy's costs change with them. Whisper is open source, so other providers can run the same model, and since 12 October 2026 the desktop apps can transcribe offline. The offline mode is only for Mac, Windows and Linux." }, { "title": "Lifetime licences do not recur", "text": "The US$260 Lifetime licence is paid once. It counts in the 30-day revenue, which is US$5,045 above MRR, but it is not paid again, while a lifetime user who dictates in the cloud still costs Groq fees every month. Yearly plans also count in full in the month when they are paid. The 12-month headline includes both kinds of payment; MRR, US$12,201, is the part that repeats." }, { "title": "Revenue flat since April 2026", "text": "Verified revenue grew 2.16 times from December 2025 to April 2026, then stayed between US$18,757 and US$20,564 a month. The last 30 days were 14.0% below the 30 days before, although MRR rose 4.4%. On 12 October 2026 the founder wrote that growth has slowed down. The verified history covers only the Stripe account that starts in December 2025; any earlier revenue is not shown." }, { "title": "A part-time founder with a second product", "text": "The founder has a day job as a product manager, makes sponsored YouTube videos, and launched a second product, RomeoSEO, in September 2026. The team size is not published. The About page says that Voicy is profitable, and TrustMRR shows a 90.0% profit margin for the last 30 days, which does not agree with the pricing page's promise that the price will never be more than 20% above total costs." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR: Voicy, payment-verified revenue profile, synced 13 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/voicy", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/voicy.md) in full, live copy synced on 13 October 2026 at 23:43 UTC, and compared it with the copy cached on 12 October. The revenue, MRR, subscription and monthly figures were read from Stripe through an API key. The description, founded date, pricing, funding, country, tech stack and profit margin fields are not in the verified list and are grade C." }, { "title": "TrustMRR founder page: Kourosh Ghaffari (@buildingwaves)", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/founder/buildingwaves", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. Ties the founder's name and X account to Voicy, his only startup with verified revenue on TrustMRR." }, { "title": "Voicy: About Voicy, our story", "url": "https://usevoicy.com/about/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the founder, the reason for the product, the founding in London in 2024, the team and the funding." }, { "title": "Voicy home page", "url": "https://usevoicy.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 14 October 2026. Source for the privacy answers, the price answer with the yearly price, the user and word counts, and the comparison with Apple and Windows dictation." }, { "title": "Voicy pricing page", "url": "https://usevoicy.com/pricing/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 14 October 2026. Source for the plans, the discounts and the fair pricing promise." }, { "title": "Voicy privacy policy", "url": "https://usevoicy.com/legal-pages/privacy-policy/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for Whisper, Groq, the server locations, the zero data retention setting and the offline mode." }, { "title": "Voicy: Best OpenAI Whisper alternative 2026", "url": "https://usevoicy.com/whisper-ai-alternative/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company says that it uses OpenAI's Whisper API and explains the low price by the small team." }, { "title": "Voicy changelog", "url": "https://usevoicy.com/changelog/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the release dates from December 2025 to 12 October 2026 and the order of the platforms." }, { "title": "Voicy refund policy", "url": "https://usevoicy.com/legal-pages/refund-policy/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 7-day money-back guarantee." }, { "title": "Chrome Web Store: Voicy, Voice to Text Powered by AI", "url": "https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/voicy-voice-to-text-power/hgegmplalfpnkfahiikedaghinbocfdd", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the listing on 14 October 2026. A record kept by Google: users, ratings, the Featured mark and the update date." }, { "title": "Internet Archive copy of usevoicy.com, 9 September 2024", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20240909101234/https://usevoicy.com/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. The earliest copy in the archive's index; it offers a free Chrome extension." }, { "title": "Internet Archive copy of the Voicy pricing page, 21 April 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250421105504/https://usevoicy.com/pricing", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 2025 plans and prices." }, { "title": "Internet Archive copy of the Voicy pricing page, 16 September 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250916040110/https://usevoicy.com/pricing", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. The same plans and prices as in April 2025." }, { "title": "Kourosh Ghaffari's X profile, @BuildingWaves", "url": "https://x.com/BuildingWaves", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through the fxtwitter API on 14 October 2026. The profile text gives Voicy at US$12,000 MRR, RomeoSEO at US$269 MRR, his job at Tiiny Host and Meetwaves as a previous company." }, { "title": "Kourosh Ghaffari on X, 16 September 2026: solo founder from Iran, US$11,000 MRR", "url": "https://x.com/BuildingWaves/status/2100166642043150608", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in his timeline through the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "Kourosh Ghaffari on X, 17 September 2026: the most basic thing that everyone built since Wispr Flow", "url": "https://x.com/BuildingWaves/status/2100597881334091796", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in his timeline through the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "Kourosh Ghaffari on X, 17 September 2026: work after his 9-to-5 job", "url": "https://x.com/BuildingWaves/status/2100589217076465971", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in his timeline through the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "Kourosh Ghaffari on X, 17 September 2026: hiring a growth person for Voicy", "url": "https://x.com/BuildingWaves/status/2100525773161435512", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in his timeline through the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "Kourosh Ghaffari on X, 30 September 2026: US$11,000 MRR, 2,000 paying users, Romeo", "url": "https://x.com/BuildingWaves/status/2105270107513700367", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in his timeline through the fxtwitter API. Source for the user count, the Google clicks and the AI agent." }, { "title": "Kourosh Ghaffari on X, 26 September 2026: 1,000 pages and 20,000 clicks a month", "url": "https://x.com/BuildingWaves/status/2103852055651811424", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in his timeline through the fxtwitter API. Source for the site size and the Framer cost." }, { "title": "Kourosh Ghaffari on X, 1 October 2026: raising the conversion rate", "url": "https://x.com/BuildingWaves/status/2105652380717175260", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in his timeline through the fxtwitter API. Source for the daily clicks, the move from Framer and the testing tools." }, { "title": "Kourosh Ghaffari on X, 12 October 2026: checking Stripe once a week", "url": "https://x.com/BuildingWaves/status/2109694679671505125", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in his timeline through the fxtwitter API. Source for the slower growth." }, { "title": "Kourosh Ghaffari on X, 2 September 2026: US$10,000 saved with the disability discount", "url": "https://x.com/BuildingWaves/status/2095060313997729832", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in his timeline through the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "Kourosh Ghaffari on X, 3 September 2026: US$100 MRR for the iPhone app", "url": "https://x.com/BuildingWaves/status/2095441636046381564", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in his timeline through the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "Kourosh Ghaffari on X, 4 September 2026: sponsored videos and MRR", "url": "https://x.com/BuildingWaves/status/2095892594664603709", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in his timeline through the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "Kourosh Ghaffari on X, 23 September 2026: 15,000 YouTube subscribers", "url": "https://x.com/BuildingWaves/status/2102779647071322612", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in his timeline through the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "Kourosh Ghaffari on X, 29 September 2026: reply to a post about Wispr Flow", "url": "https://x.com/BuildingWaves/status/2104936612375527601", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full with the quoted post in his timeline through the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "Kourosh Ghaffari on X, 20 September 2026: goal for RomeoSEO", "url": "https://x.com/BuildingWaves/status/2101677756132262199", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in his timeline through the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "Apple Support: Use Dictation on Mac", "url": "https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-dictation-mh40584/mac", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on starting Dictation, punctuation, time limits and on-device processing." }, { "title": "Microsoft Support: Use voice typing to talk instead of type on your PC", "url": "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/use-voice-typing-to-talk-instead-of-type-on-your-pc-fec94565-c4bd-329d-e59a-af033fa5689f", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the Windows 11 section on how voice typing works and what it needs." }, { "title": "Wispr Flow pricing page", "url": "https://wisprflow.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 14 October 2026. Source for the free plan limit and the Pro prices." }, { "title": "Superwhisper home page", "url": "https://superwhisper.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 14 October 2026. Source for the free tier, the Pro price and the lifetime option." }, { "title": "MacWhisper on Gumroad", "url": "https://goodsnooze.gumroad.com/l/macwhisper", "grade": "C", "how": "The page loads by script; read its title and description in the page source." }, { "title": "Groq documentation: Speech to text", "url": "https://console.groq.com/docs/speech-to-text", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the model and price tables. Source for the Whisper prices per hour of audio." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/superpower-chatgpt/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/superpower-chatgpt.md", "slug": "superpower-chatgpt", "name": "Superpower ChatGPT", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Browser extension for ChatGPT", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "December 2022", "outcomeLabel": "More than US$20K a month, August 2024", "sticker": "Over $20K a month", "outcomeUsd": 240000, "months": 20, "teamLabel": "1 founder, alone from 2022 to 2026", "fundingLabel": "None found", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "ai-model-tools", "channel": "platform", "trend": "unknown", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Productivity software" ], "product": "A free browser extension for the ChatGPT website that adds folders and subfolders, search in the full chat history, bulk export to TXT, Markdown, JSON and PDF, pinned messages, a prompt library and a tree map of conversation branches. A Pro plan removes the limits. It works inside the user's own ChatGPT account.", "why": "It shipped within a week of ChatGPT's release, when ChatGPT had no folders and weak search, and it was free, so it spread through the Chrome Web Store. A daily AI newsletter shown inside the extension turned the users into an audience that sponsors paid to reach, and a Pro plan added subscriptions ten months after launch.", "summary": [ "Superpower ChatGPT is a browser extension, a small program that the browser loads into a web page to add features to it. It runs on OpenAI's ChatGPT website and adds what the page lacked: folders and subfolders for conversations, search in the whole chat history, bulk export, pinned messages, a prompt library, highlights and a tree map of conversation branches. It does not sell access to an AI model; the user signs in to ChatGPT as usual, and OpenAI bills its own plans separately. The core features are free. A Pro plan costs US$10 a month billed yearly or US$15 billed monthly.", "Saeed Ezzati, a full-stack engineer in San Francisco with about ten years of experience, built the first version in three days and released it on the Chrome Web Store within a week of ChatGPT's release in late 2022. At the time he was posting the growth of the AI writing startup Copy.ai as \"our startup\". He kept the extension free and earned money from Superpower Daily, a daily AI newsletter that he showed inside it: about US$250 in March 2023, then US$100,000 to US$150,000 a year from the newsletter by November 2023. He switched on the Pro subscription in September 2023. In August 2024 Starter Story reported more than US$20,000 a month, and in July 2026 he wrote that the business has a five-figure MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the income that repeats every month, with 150,000 weekly active users and 350,000 newsletter subscribers. He still runs it alone.", "Every money figure on this page is the founder's own statement, grade C, and the 2026 figure is only a range: five figures means US$10,000 to US$99,999 a month. No payment processor has confirmed it. A TrustMRR profile with a similar name, Superpower for AI, belongs to a different seller and is not used here. The Chrome and Firefox user counts and ratings are the stores' own figures. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that built on a platform they did not control." ], "factsCaption": "A free extension that earned first from its newsletter, then also from a Pro plan, to more than US$20,000 a month in August 2024 and five figures a month in July 2026, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founder in his posts and interviews, by the company on its own pages, or a third-party estimate that says so. A grade B value is a count published by the Chrome Web Store, by Mozilla or by GitHub, not by the founder. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No money value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a three-day project in the first week of ChatGPT to a five-figure monthly business run by one person, in about three and a half years. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Superpower ChatGPT prices in October 2026, read from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "Pro is a subscription: US$120 billed once a year, which saves US$60 compared with paying US$15 each month. The Free plan keeps the core organization tools with limits. ChatGPT Plus and the other OpenAI plans are separate and are billed by OpenAI. The page also describes Showcase, where users publish AI image galleries; until 31 October 2026 Showcase sellers receive the sale price minus Stripe's processing fees, with no Superpower fee.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "core workspace tools, with caps" ], [ "Pro", "10", "15", "no caps; full tree map, highlights and annotations, audio player" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month, August 2024", "value": "more than US$20,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story video interview of 18 August 2024. Its description says he built the extension to over US$20,000 a month. The sources do not split this between Pro subscriptions and newsletter sponsors.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the August 2024 figure", "value": "more than US$240,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$20,000 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, July 2026", "value": "five figures, which means US$10,000 to US$99,999", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in the Indie Hackers article of 8 July 2026 and on X on 16 July 2026: \"5-figure MRR\". The article's header gives more than US$10,000 a month and says this is the total of the business, extension and newsletter together.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Newsletter revenue, November 2023", "value": "US$100,000 to US$150,000 a year", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder quoted in a customer story by beehiiv, the newsletter platform that he uses. Divided by 12 on this page: about US$8,333 to US$12,500 a month.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue, March and April 2023", "value": "about US$250 in March; about US$650 in April by the time of the interview", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview published 23 May 2023. The money came from newsletter sponsors and donations, because the extension was free. He expected about US$1,000 by the end of April.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Newsletter subscribers", "value": "96,000 in July 2023; more than 180,000 in September 2023; more than 350,000 in July 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts on X of 6 July 2023 and 1 September 2023, and the Indie Hackers article. In July 2023 he removed inactive subscribers on purpose to keep the count under 100,000; the open rate was 32%.", "src": [ 8, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Newsletter sponsor price, September 2023", "value": "minimum spend US$4,000, average US$6,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X of 1 September 2023. Some placements were already sold until November.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Chrome Web Store, 14 October 2026", "value": "100,000 users; 4.6 stars from about 3,700 ratings; Featured", "grade": "B", "note": "Google's own figures on the listing, which is titled Superpower for ChatGPT. Version 8.4.9, updated 13 October 2026. The developer has declared itself a trader under EU rules.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Firefox Add-ons, 14 October 2026", "value": "1,610 average daily users; 3.36 stars from 136 ratings", "grade": "B", "note": "Mozilla's own record. Listed since 22 January 2023, version 8.4.9. Calculated on this page: about 1.6% of the Chrome user count.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "Downloads and weekly active users, July 2026", "value": "more than 420,000 downloads; more than 150,000 weekly active users", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in the Indie Hackers article and on X. He also reports thousands of reviews across browser stores.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Installs, spring 2023", "value": "almost 80,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview published 23 May 2023. The Discord group then had almost 2,000 users.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Pro price, October 2026", "value": "US$10 a month billed yearly (US$120), or US$15 billed monthly", "grade": "C", "note": "Company pricing page. The Free plan costs nothing.", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "fact": "First paid plan", "value": "September 2023, almost ten months after launch", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X of 27 September 2023: \"Turned on Superpower ChatGPT Pro subscription last night. Almost 10 months after I first launched it.\"", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Product releases since December 2022", "value": "more than 500", "grade": "C", "note": "Company pricing page, which also calls it the first ChatGPT browser extension.", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 person", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, July 2026: \"I still run it as a solo founder.\"", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "No source mentions a funding round. A third-party teardown of July 2026 lists the stage as bootstrapped and revenue and funding as not disclosed.", "src": [ 1, 19 ] }, { "fact": "Public code of the early versions", "value": "1,703 stars and 277 forks on GitHub", "grade": "B", "note": "A fork is a copy of the code made by another GitHub user. GitHub's record of the repository saeedezzati/superpower-chatgpt: created 14 April 2023, last updated 18 June 2024.", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the August 2024 figure", "value": "20 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: December 2022 to August 2024.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Late 2022", "what": "ChatGPT launches. Ezzati, a full-stack engineer in San Francisco, builds the first version of the extension two or three days later, for his own use.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 1 ] }, { "when": "December 2022", "what": "Release on the Chrome Web Store, within a week of ChatGPT's release. In the same weeks he posts the user and revenue milestones of Copy.ai as \"our startup\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 7, 8 ] }, { "when": "22 January 2023", "what": "The Firefox version is listed.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "March to April 2023", "what": "About US$250 of revenue in March and about US$650 in April, from newsletter sponsors and donations. Almost 80,000 installs.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "14 April 2023", "what": "He publishes the code on GitHub, because some users do not install an extension whose code they cannot read.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14, 5 ] }, { "when": "6 July 2023", "what": "The newsletter has 96,000 subscribers and a 32% open rate.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "9 August 2023", "what": "The Chrome Web Store marks the extension as Featured.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "1 September 2023", "what": "More than 180,000 newsletter subscribers. Sponsor placements sold until November, from US$4,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "27 September 2023", "what": "He writes that he switched on the Pro subscription the night before, almost ten months after launch.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "17 November 2023", "what": "beehiiv reports that the newsletter earns US$100,000 to US$150,000 a year and that the extension and the newsletter together reach 380,000 people.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "26 November 2023", "what": "He asks Google in public about four look-alike ChatGPT extensions with the same screenshot. The next day he writes that more keep appearing.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "18 August 2024", "what": "Starter Story publishes a video interview: more than US$20,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "13 December 2024", "what": "OpenAI adds Projects to ChatGPT, with custom folders for chats, files and instructions.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "10 April 2025", "what": "OpenAI announces that ChatGPT memory can now refer to all past chats.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "8 July 2026", "what": "Indie Hackers interview: more than 420,000 downloads, 150,000 weekly active users, 350,000 newsletter subscribers, five-figure MRR, still one person.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "16 July 2026", "what": "Version 8, with an ad blocker for the sponsored cards inside ChatGPT and better export and print tools.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "Version 8.4.9 on the Chrome Web Store, with 100,000 users and 4.6 stars from about 3,700 ratings.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 10 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Speed", "text": "He built the first version in three days and released it within a week of ChatGPT's launch. In spring 2023 he said that no other extension offered folders and search, and that finding users had never been this easy. The company now calls it the first ChatGPT browser extension, with more than 500 releases since December 2022." }, { "title": "A newsletter inside the extension", "text": "He did not want to put ads in the middle of the ChatGPT interface, so he put a daily AI newsletter inside the extension, then moved it to beehiiv with a link back to the extension in every issue. It grew from 96,000 subscribers in July 2023 to more than 350,000 in 2026, with sponsor placements from US$4,000. By November 2023 it earned US$100,000 to US$150,000 a year." }, { "title": "Free first, Pro after ten months", "text": "The extension was free for almost ten months before he switched on a Pro subscription in September 2023. His rule is that the free plan must feel like the real product, not a demo, and that Pro is for heavier use, higher limits and advanced tools. Pro now costs US$10 a month billed yearly or US$15 monthly." }, { "title": "The stores as the sales channel", "text": "Users find it in the Chrome Web Store, which marked it as Featured in August 2023 and in October 2026 shows 100,000 users and 4.6 stars from about 3,700 ratings. A Firefox version has existed since January 2023. In his words, Reddit, reviews, Discord, emails and support all became his product research." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's interviews, his replies under the Indie Hackers article, the company's pages and the public code record. They are grade C, except the GitHub and store records, which are grade B.", "items": [ "Built in three days as a Chrome extension for his own use, on top of the ChatGPT web page, and released within a week of ChatGPT's launch.", "It is a workspace layer on OpenAI's page: the user signs in to ChatGPT as usual, and OpenAI bills its own plans separately.", "Written in JavaScript. The code of the early versions has been public on GitHub since April 2023; the public repository was last updated in June 2024.", "In spring 2023 the founder named GitHub, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, AWS and Discord as tools he uses. The Discord group had almost 2,000 users.", "The newsletter first appeared inside the extension. He then moved the issues and the contacts to beehiiv.", "Payments go through Stripe, according to the company's pricing page and the payment link on its home page.", "OpenAI shows different versions of ChatGPT to different users at the same time, so the extension supports several variants of the page, and each fix must pass Chrome Web Store review before users get it." ], "src": [ 5, 1, 6, 12, 13, 14, 11 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database built on top of a platform that they did not control, and the platform owner copied the feature, cut off access or kept changing the interface. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Xmarks", "years": "2006 to 2014", "funding": "US$9M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A browser extension that synced your bookmarks and tabs across browsers.", "died": "Chrome, Firefox and Safari built sync in, for free.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/762-xmarks" }, { "name": "Readability", "years": "2009 to 2015", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A browser extension for clutter-free reading of any web article.", "died": "Browsers added a free reader mode, and few readers paid.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/485-readability" }, { "name": "Xobni", "years": "2006 to 2013", "funding": "US$42M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A smarter inbox inside Microsoft Outlook.", "died": "It depended on Outlook, which Microsoft improved itself. Yahoo bought the remains.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/763-xobni" }, { "name": "Meerkat", "years": "2015 to 2016", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Live video from your phone to your Twitter followers.", "died": "Its growth ran on Twitter's network. Twitter bought a rival, Periscope, and cut off Meerkat's access.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2194-meerkat" }, { "name": "Flux", "years": "2015 to 2018", "funding": "US$7M", "cause": "Team/Founder Conflict", "promise": "One inbox for Slack, email, WhatsApp and the other messaging apps.", "died": "The platforms kept changing and breaking the integrations, and the money went into repairs.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1901-flux" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five built on a platform that it did not own. The platform owner then added the same feature for free, cut off access, or kept changing until the repairs cost more than the product earned. Superpower ChatGPT is in the same position on the ChatGPT website: OpenAI added Projects, with custom folders for chats, in December 2024 and memory across all past chats in April 2025, and every change to the page can break the extension.", "Two things differ. It was built by one person in a few days and is still run by one person, where the predecessors raised US$5 million to US$42 million. And it built a second asset that does not depend on the ChatGPT page: a newsletter with 350,000 subscribers that sponsors pay to reach. TypingMind, also on this site, replaces the ChatGPT window with its own app that calls the models through the customer's API key (a password that lets a program use a model on the customer's account), while Superpower ChatGPT adds features to OpenAI's own page, so its core features are free but it breaks when OpenAI changes the page." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The timing, no. The structure, yes.", "text": "Being first with folders and search for ChatGPT was possible only in the months after its launch in late 2022, and OpenAI has since built folders and memory itself. The structure can be copied: a free extension on a new product that is growing fast, an audience channel built into the extension, and a paid plan for heavy users once the free version is part of their daily work.", "steps": [ "When a new web product becomes popular and its interface lacks basic organization, ship an extension that adds it within days.", "Keep the core free, so that store ratings and word of mouth do the marketing.", "Put a channel inside the product, such as a daily newsletter, and sell sponsorships to that audience.", "Add a paid plan for heavy users once they depend on the free version.", "Test against every variant of the host page, because the host shows different versions to different users." ], "open": "The newer AI products whose web pages still lack organization tools. The TrustMRR profile of a different seller shows a suite of such extensions for Gemini, Claude, NotebookLM and ChatGPT, with most of its small verified revenue, US$14,533 in total, from the Gemini extension." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported, and only a range", "text": "All money figures are the founder's own. Five figures a month can mean anything from US$10,000 to US$99,999, and no source splits it between Pro subscriptions and newsletter sponsors. The more exact figure, more than US$20,000 a month, is from August 2024. A third-party teardown in July 2026 lists revenue as not disclosed." }, { "title": "OpenAI ships the same features", "text": "OpenAI added Projects, with custom folders for chats, on 13 December 2024, and memory that refers to all past chats on 10 April 2025. Each built-in feature removes a reason to install the extension. The extension now lets users move chats into OpenAI's projects as well as into its own folders." }, { "title": "Every change to the ChatGPT page can break it", "text": "The extension works by changing OpenAI's web page. The founder writes that ChatGPT's interface, its DOM structure (the tree of page elements that a script reads), its buttons and its routes kept changing, and that OpenAI runs experiments, so different users see different versions at the same time. In July 2026 he wrote that, starting over, he would invest earlier in automated testing and resilience against these changes." }, { "title": "Store review and store rules", "text": "Every update must pass Chrome Web Store review, which the founder says takes from a few hours to a few days, so users can leave while a finished fix waits. The store's spam policy forbids one developer or related accounts from publishing several extensions with duplicate functionality, and the founder has asked Google in public to explain four look-alike extensions." }, { "title": "Copycats and look-alike names", "text": "In November 2023 the founder showed four ChatGPT extensions with the same screenshot, all with 1,000,000+ users and all but one with exactly 22 five-star reviews, and the next day wrote \"They keep popping up\". The code of the early versions is public on GitHub with 277 forks. This extension's own store listing is titled Superpower for ChatGPT, and a different seller, in the Czech Republic and founded in December 2025, now sells a suite called Superpower for AI that includes an extension with the same name. Its TrustMRR profile shows US$14,533 of verified revenue in total." }, { "title": "Sponsor income must be sold again", "text": "In November 2023 the newsletter alone earned US$100,000 to US$150,000 a year from sponsors. Sponsors buy single placements, with a minimum spend of US$4,000 in September 2023, so this part of the revenue must be sold again and again." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Indie Hackers, 8 July 2026, by James Fleischmann: Building a free Chrome extension in 3 days and turning it into a 5-figure-MRR ecosystem", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/tech/building-a-free-chrome-extension-in-3-days-and-turning-it-into-a-5-figure-mrr-ecosystem-3rIbjigZxiFsrgqJjJYp", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part in full and the founder's replies under it, July 2026. The rest of the article is for subscribers and could not be read. Source for the 2026 figures, the solo team and the account of ChatGPT changes and store review." }, { "title": "Starter Story on YouTube, 18 August 2024: How I Built It: $20K/Month Chrome Extension", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty9ZcimL6VE", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the video page: title, description, publication date and view count. The captions could not be downloaded." }, { "title": "Podwise page for the Starter Story episode with Saeed Ezzati", "url": "https://podwise.ai/episodes/1866271", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free summary and chapter list, which include the monetization from free to premium features and the OpenAI risk. The transcript needs a login." }, { "title": "Superpower ChatGPT on X (@spchatgpt), posts of 16 to 31 July 2026: version 8 and the founder's thread on his Indie Hackers story", "url": "https://x.com/spchatgpt/status/2077833926115266581", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the account's 12 latest posts through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the 5-figure MRR post, the user counts, the version 8 release and the move-to-projects feature." }, { "title": "Founder Club, 23 May 2023: AI Chrome extension with 80,000 downloads and $1000 MRR", "url": "https://www.founderclub.com/saeed-ezzati/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview. Source for the early revenue, the installs, the tools and the reason for public code." }, { "title": "beehiiv blog, 17 November 2023: Superpower Daily: $150,000 Annual Revenue In Only 5 Months on beehiiv", "url": "https://blog.beehiiv.com/p/creator-spotlight-superpower-daily", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A customer story by the newsletter platform, with the founder's own figures. Source for the newsletter revenue, the move to beehiiv and the combined audience." }, { "title": "Saeed Ezzati on X (@eeeziii), 27 September 2023: the Pro subscription is switched on", "url": "https://x.com/eeeziii/status/1707052120036511857", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Saeed Ezzati on X (@eeeziii), timeline from 2020 to August 2026", "url": "https://x.com/eeeziii", "grade": "C", "how": "Read 245 posts page by page through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the newsletter posts of 6 July and 1 September 2023, the Featured post of 9 August 2023 and the Copy.ai posts of December 2022." }, { "title": "Saeed Ezzati on X (@eeeziii), 26 and 27 November 2023: look-alike ChatGPT extensions", "url": "https://x.com/eeeziii/status/1728702355812852194", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com, with the two follow-up posts of 27 November 2023." }, { "title": "Chrome Web Store listing of Superpower ChatGPT, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/superpower-chatgpt/amhmeenmapldpjdedekalnfifgnpfnkc", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Google's own user count, rating, version and developer details." }, { "title": "Firefox Add-ons record of Superpower ChatGPT, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://addons.mozilla.org/api/v5/addons/addon/superpower-chatgpt/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the public API record of the add-on page: daily users, ratings, creation date, version and author." }, { "title": "Superpower ChatGPT pricing page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://spchatgpt.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the plans, the release count, the Showcase fee terms and the statement that OpenAI bills its plans separately." }, { "title": "Superpower ChatGPT home page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://spchatgpt.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the links: Chrome Web Store, Firefox Add-ons, a Stripe payment link, Discord, Reddit and X." }, { "title": "GitHub repository saeedezzati/superpower-chatgpt", "url": "https://github.com/saeedezzati/superpower-chatgpt", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the repository record through the GitHub API: creation and last-update dates, stars, forks and language." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 13 December 2024, by Cody Corrall: ChatGPT now has Projects to organize your chats", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/snippet/2931159/chatgpt-now-has-projects-to-organize-your-chats/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for OpenAI's own folders feature." }, { "title": "OpenAI developer community forum, 10 April 2025: ChatGPT can now reference all past conversations", "url": "https://community.openai.com/t/chatgpt-can-now-reference-all-past-conversations-april-10-2025/1229453", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the first posts through the forum's JSON. Post 6 quotes OpenAI's announcement on X that memory can now reference all past chats." }, { "title": "Chrome Web Store program policies: Spam and abuse", "url": "https://developer.chrome.com/docs/webstore/program-policies/spam-and-abuse", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on duplicate extensions." }, { "title": "TrustMRR profile: Superpower for AI, a different seller", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/superpower-for-ai", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile, data as of October 2026. A suite of four extensions from a seller in the Czech Republic, founded December 2025, verified through Lemon Squeezy. Used only to show a look-alike name, not for this story's revenue." }, { "title": "Systemaic teardown, 26 July 2026: Superpower ChatGPT revenue, ad spend and growth channels", "url": "https://www.systemaic.com/teardowns/superpower-chatgpt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the summary section. A third-party estimate that lists revenue and funding as not disclosed and the stage as bootstrapped." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/nichesss/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/nichesss.md", "slug": "nichesss", "name": "Nichesss", "country": "Brazil", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI copywriting and business idea tool", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "December 2020", "outcomeLabel": "US$30K a month, January 2022", "sticker": "$30K/mo in early 2022", "outcomeUsd": 360000, "months": 13, "teamLabel": "1 founder, no employees or contractors", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "launches", "trend": "unknown", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Marketing content" ], "product": "A web app with more than 150 small writing tools built on OpenAI's GPT-3: business ideas from a 10-second quiz, blog posts, Facebook and Google ads, emails, social media posts, even poems. The user fills a short form and gets the text back in seconds. It sold mostly as a US$59 lifetime deal on AppSumo, next to monthly plans from US$19.", "why": "It arrived in December 2020, when GPT-3 access still came through a waitlist and only a few competitors existed, and it was priced at about 80% of their prices on purpose. A lifetime deal on AppSumo put it in front of buyers who try unknown software, and a Facebook Group and an email list kept those buyers coming back.", "summary": [ "Nichesss is a web app that writes marketing text and suggests business ideas. It runs on GPT-3, a large language model: a program trained on a very large amount of text that continues whatever text it is given. OpenAI sells access to the model through an API, an interface that lets one program send requests to another program over the internet and pay for each use. Nichesss puts more than 150 forms on top. For each form its code holds hand-picked examples of good copy, and it sends them to the model together with the user's answers. This method is a few-shot prompt: a request that contains a few finished examples, so that the model writes new text in the same form. Nichesss does not train a model of its own.", "Malcolm Tyson, a self-taught programmer and designer from the United States who had moved to Rio de Janeiro, got GPT-3 access in November 2020 and had a working app in December. In January 2021 he sold it on AppSumo, a marketplace for software deals, as a lifetime deal: one payment for permanent access. He made US$100,000 in the first month after AppSumo's share. In an interview published by Starter Story on 14 January 2022 he said the business brought in about US$30,000 a month, with no employees and costs of about US$2,200 a month.", "Every number on this page is the founder's own, grade C, and no new figure has been published since January 2022. The site still sells in October 2026, with the same plans since February 2024 and the same AppSumo deal, but ChatGPT, released free in November 2022, gives anyone the same kind of model without a form. This page shows the business at its best documented point, how it was built, and what happened to earlier products that depended on another company's platform." ], "factsCaption": "A one-person GPT-3 app that made US$100,000 in its launch month on AppSumo and about US$30,000 a month a year later, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founder, a page of the company or of its sales marketplace, or a press report of another party's estimate. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From GPT-3 access in November 2020 to an interview at US$30,000 a month in January 2022, then nearly five years with no new figures. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Nichesss prices in October 2026, read from the company's pricing page and home page and from the AppSumo deal page (grade C)", "note": "There is no yearly billing. The three monthly prices, US$19, US$39 and US$99, were the same in January 2021 and from January 2023 on; in January 2022 the page offered one US$19 plan with unlimited use. The limits changed often: 100 and 250 credits a month in January 2021, 200 and 500 short-form generations in January 2023, and the limits below since February 2024. A short-form generation is one short text, such as an ad or a title; long-form autowrite writes whole articles. The lifetime deal is sold on AppSumo against a list price of US$999, and AppSumo's page says that it includes unlimited tokens.", "rows": [ [ "Rookie", "", "19", "2,500 short-form generations a month, no long-form" ], [ "Intermediate", "", "39", "10,000 short-form generations a month, no long-form" ], [ "Pro", "", "99", "unlimited short-form; long-form: 1,000 generations and 100,000 words a month" ], [ "Lifetime deal on AppSumo", "59 one-time", "", "one plan; shown against US$999" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month, interview published 14 January 2022", "value": "about US$30,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview with Starter Story. The answers speak of ads 'come next year', so they were probably written in late 2021. Users were copywriters, small businesses and marketing agencies.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from that figure", "value": "about US$360,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$30,000 times 12. Starter Story's headline uses the same figure.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the first month on AppSumo, January 2021", "value": "US$100,000 after AppSumo's share", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview. His post on X of 1 March 2021 also says that he made US$100,000 in a month with GPT-3 and would stop sharing numbers.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Change from the launch month to the 2022 figure", "value": "about 70% lower", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: from US$100,000 to about US$30,000 a month. The two figures may not be measured the same way: the first is after AppSumo's share, and the interview does not say whether the second is.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "AppSumo's share of each sale", "value": "30%, or 50% for a better position on the site", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview. Nichesss was a marketplace deal, which AppSumo promotes less.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Lifetime deal price", "value": "US$59 one-time, shown against US$999", "grade": "C", "note": "AppSumo deal page in May 2021, December 2021, December 2022 and October 2026. The October 2026 page says that the deal includes unlimited tokens.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's part of one US$59 sale", "value": "US$41.30 at a 30% share, US$29.50 at 50%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$59 times 0.7 and times 0.5.", "src": [ 1, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly costs, interview of January 2022", "value": "US$200 for hosting and US$2,000 for AI generation", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview. No employees, no contractors and, at that time, no paid ads.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Costs as a share of revenue", "value": "about 7.3%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$2,200 divided by US$30,000.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Cost to run the app, February 2021", "value": "US$3,000, about US$1 per user per month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 1 March 2021.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Spending on GPT-3, January to March 2021", "value": "US$10,000 in about 70 days", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 25 March 2021. He had spent about US$30 while testing.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Users, interview of January 2022", "value": "about 12,000 in the app each month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview. About 100 signups a day, of which about 16 became paying accounts. The US was the biggest market, then India.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Email list and community", "value": "over 30,000 users on the email list, almost 10,000 in the Facebook Group", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview. Another answer in the same interview gives 9,000 for the group.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Reviews on the AppSumo deal page", "value": "201 in May 2021, 236 in December 2021, 268 in December 2022, 318 in October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "AppSumo page, live and in Wayback Machine copies. A review count is a sign of buyers, not a sales figure.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "New AppSumo reviews per month", "value": "about 5.0, then 2.7, then 1.1", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 35 reviews in the 7 months to December 2021, 32 in the 12 months to December 2022, 50 in the 46 months to October 2026.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Tool cards on the home page", "value": "166 in January 2023, 207 in December 2023, 209 in December 2024, 213 in December 2025 and October 2026", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: a count of the tool cards in Wayback Machine copies and in the live page. The heading has said 'Over 150 Tools' since January 2023.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 founder, no employees or contractors", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview: a self-taught programmer and designer who built and ran it alone.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview: no startup costs beyond a domain name and hosting. No source names an investor.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue field on Indie Hackers", "value": "US$530 a month, undated", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's product page, next to a first-sale entry of December 2020. Probably an early entry that was never updated (not verified).", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the January 2022 figure", "value": "13 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: December 2020 to January 2022.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "November 2020", "what": "Tyson gets access to OpenAI's GPT-3 API after asking an OpenAI co-founder on X, and starts writing the app. OpenAI still admits developers from a waitlist.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 12 ] }, { "when": "December 2020", "what": "A working first version. One blog-post tool is tested with paid traffic, and Facebook ads return about US$3 for each US$1 spent. The first sale comes through X.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 7 ] }, { "when": "January 2021", "what": "Listed on AppSumo as a lifetime deal: US$100,000 in the first month after AppSumo's share. The pricing page shows plans at US$19, US$39 and US$99 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 9 ] }, { "when": "February 2021", "what": "Launch on Product Hunt, 263 points. The founder says that it reached second place with the help of his users' group.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 11 ] }, { "when": "1 March 2021", "what": "He posts that he made US$100,000 in a month with GPT-3 and will stop sharing numbers. Running the app cost US$3,000 the month before, about US$1 per user.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "23 to 31 March 2021", "what": "He writes that buyers of GPT-3 copy tools pay US$40 a month for US$1 of content and promises to stay the cheapest. He reports US$10,000 spent on GPT-3 in about 70 days, and notes that few solo founders remain after ConversionAI, another GPT-3 copy tool, bought Headlime.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 5, 6 ] }, { "when": "3 September 2021", "what": "He asks AI21 Labs, another model maker, for API access 'without limits'. No source says that he added a second model.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "18 November 2021", "what": "OpenAI removes the GPT-3 waitlist. It still reviews applications before they go live.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "January 2022", "what": "The pricing page offers a single plan, US$19 a month with unlimited use. On 14 January Starter Story publishes the interview: about US$30,000 a month, 12,000 monthly users, no employees.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 9 ] }, { "when": "October 2022", "what": "OpenAI's price for Davinci, its strongest GPT-3 model, is US$0.02 per 1,000 tokens, down from US$0.06 in December 2021.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "30 November 2022", "what": "OpenAI releases ChatGPT, free during its research preview. Reuters reports a UBS estimate of 100 million monthly users in January 2023.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13, 14 ] }, { "when": "December 2022", "what": "The AppSumo deal adds images from DALL-E 2, 15 a month at no extra cost. The deal has 268 reviews.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "January 2023", "what": "Three plans again at US$19, US$39 and US$99, now with limits, and long-form articles on the top plan. The home page shows 'Over 150 Tools' and a US$59 lifetime deal.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 10 ] }, { "when": "February 2024", "what": "Monthly limits rise to 2,500 and 10,000 short texts. Prices and limits have not changed since.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "The site and the AppSumo deal are still on sale, with 213 tools and 318 AppSumo reviews. The founder's name is still in the footer, no source reports a sale, and no revenue figure has been published since January 2022.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 9, 10 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Early access and a lower price", "text": "He built the app in about a month, while GPT-3 access still came through a waitlist and only a few competitors existed. Buyers in Facebook groups complained that those competitors were expensive, so he set his price at about 80% of theirs. He lived in Brazil, where costs are lower than in the US, so the low price still paid." }, { "title": "A lifetime deal on AppSumo", "text": "AppSumo buyers pay once for software they have not heard of, if it does what it promises. The first month brought US$100,000 after AppSumo's share, and a year later the founder called AppSumo the bulk of his distribution. The price of this channel is a share of 30% to 50% of each sale, and buyers who never pay again." }, { "title": "One pattern for every tool", "text": "As the founder describes it, every tool works the same way: a short form, hand-picked examples of good copy, and a call to GPT-3. With one pattern for all tools, one person could reach more than 150 tools while costs stayed at about 7% of revenue." }, { "title": "A community as the sales channel", "text": "Buyers were invited to a Facebook Group of almost 10,000 people and an email list of over 30,000. The group told him what to build next. When he launched new features inside the app, the community bought them, and he relied on it to reach second place on Product Hunt." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's interview and posts (grade C) and from the source code of the public web pages, which any browser loads.", "items": [ "Built alone by a self-taught programmer and designer: started in November 2020, working first version in December 2020.", "OpenAI's GPT-3 API writes all the text. The code holds hundreds of examples of good copy, which go to the model together with the user's form answers.", "The first test was one blog-post tool with paid traffic from Facebook ads. When visitors understood it and bought, he added trial limits and a payment form.", "Costs in January 2022: US$200 a month for hosting and US$2,000 a month for AI generation. No startup costs other than a domain name and hosting.", "Analytics, according to the founder: Google Analytics, Segment and June.so, which shows the most active users and where users get stuck. The page source also loads Hotjar and the Facebook Pixel, and the pricing page loads Stripe's payment script.", "Later additions: images from OpenAI's DALL-E 2 (December 2022), long-form articles on the top plan (January 2023), and access to a Nichesss API for AppSumo buyers (October 2026 page)." ], "src": [ 1, 8, 9, 10 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database depended on another company's platform, or charged for something that people could then get free. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "PostRocket", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$610K", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "More reach for brands' Facebook pages by choosing the best time to post.", "died": "Facebook changed its API, and the product had no other base and no plan to change direction.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/457-postrocket" }, { "name": "BranchOut", "years": "2010 to 2017", "funding": "US$49M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Professional networking built inside Facebook.", "died": "Facebook changed its API rules and removed the growth channel that the company depended on.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/30-branchout" }, { "name": "Snipshot", "years": "2006 to 2009", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Simple photo editing in the browser, with nothing to install.", "died": "Larger competitors and free alternatives did the same job.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1241-snipshot" }, { "name": "Neeva", "years": "2019 to 2023", "funding": "US$77M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Search without ads for US$5 a month.", "died": "Few people would pay for search, and then ChatGPT changed what people expected from it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2288-neeva" } ], "whatChanged": [ "PostRocket and BranchOut were small products on Facebook's platform and ended when Facebook changed its API rules. Snipshot was a simple web tool that free alternatives replaced, and Neeva charged for a service that people then got free elsewhere. Nichesss carries both risks: it is a product on OpenAI's API, and since November 2022 OpenAI itself gives away a general version of what Nichesss sells.", "Three things differ. First, OpenAI sells its API and wants products built on it, and the price of its strongest GPT-3 model fell by two thirds between December 2021 and October 2022, which lowered Nichesss's costs instead of ending the business. Second, Nichesss had no investors and costs of about US$2,200 a month, so it did not need growth to survive, and its lifetime buyers had already paid. Third, the four earlier companies closed, while Nichesss is still on sale almost five years after its last published figure. No source shows what it earns today." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The GPT-3 window, no. The launch method, yes.", "text": "In late 2020 GPT-3 access was by waitlist, and a form that writes ads was new; since ChatGPT, anyone can ask the same kind of model for free. The method still works for any new model that most people cannot use directly: build a narrow tool in weeks, sell a lifetime deal to buyers who try unknown software, and keep them in a group and an email list.", "steps": [ "Get access to a new model early and ship one narrow tool within weeks.", "Test that tool with a small paid-ads budget before you build more.", "Launch with a lifetime deal on a deal marketplace, and count its 30% to 50% share in the price.", "Limit monthly use in every lifetime plan, because each active user keeps costing model fees.", "Gather buyers in a group and an email list, and build what they ask for." ], "open": "New image, video, voice and music models with waitlists or weak official interfaces, where a simple form for one job still saves the buyer time." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Founder figures only, and none since 2022", "text": "The US$100,000 launch month and the US$30,000 a month come from the founder's interview and posts. No payment processor, buyer or journalist has confirmed them, and in March 2021 the founder wrote that he would stop sharing numbers. The Indie Hackers page still shows US$530 a month, with no date." }, { "title": "ChatGPT made the basic service free", "text": "OpenAI released ChatGPT on 30 November 2022 and made it free during the research preview, and Reuters reported a UBS estimate of 100 million monthly users two months later. Anyone can now ask the model for an ad or a business idea without a form. The Nichesss home page still shows the same 'Over 150 Tools' and '300+ 5-Star Reviews on AppSumo' as in January 2023, and its count of tool cards has stayed at 213 since December 2025." }, { "title": "A thin layer over one model", "text": "The product is examples and forms on top of GPT-3, a model that any competitor can also buy. The founder wrote in March 2021 that buyers of GPT-3 copy tools paid US$40 a month for US$1 worth of content. That gap is the margin, and it is also what competitors and the model maker can take away. He asked AI21 Labs for access in September 2021, but no source shows a second model in use." }, { "title": "OpenAI sets the access, the rules and the price", "text": "Until 18 November 2021 developers waited for GPT-3 access, and OpenAI reviewed applications before they went live; the founder got in by asking an OpenAI co-founder on X. The Davinci price fell from US$0.06 to US$0.02 per 1,000 tokens between December 2021 and October 2022. That helped Nichesss, but a price rise or a rule change would reach it the same way." }, { "title": "Lifetime buyers keep costing money", "text": "A US$59 lifetime sale leaves US$29.50 to US$41.30 after AppSumo's share, and the AppSumo page says that the deal includes unlimited tokens. At the founder's February 2021 cost of about US$1 per user per month, an active buyer uses up that payment in about 30 to 41 months. Lower model prices since then reduce this cost, but no newer cost figure exists." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Starter Story, 14 January 2022: This Self-Taught Programmer Built A $360K/Year GPT-3 App", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/this-self-taught-programmer-built-a-360k-year-gpt-3-app", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full: the interview text loads without a login, although the page also shows a notice for premium members. Founder interview. Source for the monthly revenue, the AppSumo month, the costs, the users and the tools." }, { "title": "Malcolm Tyson on X, 1 March 2021: i Made $100k in a month using gpt-3", "url": "https://x.com/malcolmtyson/status/1366354125248745476", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Malcolm Tyson on X, 1 March 2021: How much does it cost to run nichesss?", "url": "https://x.com/malcolmtyson/status/1366355406654746624", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the US$3,000 monthly cost and the US$1 per user." }, { "title": "Malcolm Tyson on X, 25 March 2021: $10k spent on gpt-3 in the last ~70 days", "url": "https://x.com/malcolmtyson/status/1375182093148434437", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Malcolm Tyson on X, 23 March 2021: the gpt-3 marketing copy game", "url": "https://x.com/malcolmtyson/status/1374376135304224780", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the remark about US$40 a month for US$1 of content." }, { "title": "Malcolm Tyson's X timeline, February 2021 to August 2026", "url": "https://x.com/malcolmtyson", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the 298 posts that the fxtwitter timeline API returned. Source for the posts of 23 March 2021 (the cheapest in the marketplace), 31 March 2021 (Headlime), 20 August 2021 (an American living near Rio) and 3 September 2021 (AI21 Labs), and for the fact that no returned post after March 2021 mentions nichesss." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers product page: Nichesss", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/product/nichesss", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the founder-entered revenue field and the first-sale entry of December 2020." }, { "title": "AppSumo deal page for nichesss, live on 14 October 2026, and Wayback Machine copies of 28 May 2021, 22 December 2021 and 2 December 2022", "url": "https://appsumo.com/products/marketplace-nichesss/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the price, the review count and the plan text in all four. Source for the US$59 deal, the unlimited tokens, the DALL-E 2 images and the API access." }, { "title": "nichesss.com pricing page, live on 14 October 2026, and Wayback Machine copies of 9 January 2021, 29 January 2022, 27 January 2023 and 24 February 2024", "url": "https://nichesss.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, all five. Source for the plans and limits over time." }, { "title": "nichesss.com home page, live on 14 October 2026, and eight Wayback Machine copies from 9 January 2021 to 8 September 2026", "url": "https://nichesss.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, and counted the tool cards in each copy. Also read the page source for analytics and payment scripts, and the server header." }, { "title": "Product Hunt: Nichesss, biz ideas + content in under 60 seconds with AI", "url": "https://www.producthunt.com/products/nichesss", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the product page: launched in 2021, 263 points, and the founder's launch comment. The earliest comments in the page data are from 14 and 15 February 2021." }, { "title": "OpenAI, 18 November 2021: OpenAI's API Now Available with No Waitlist", "url": "https://openai.com/blog/api-no-waitlist/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in the Wayback Machine copy of 20 November 2021. Source for the end of the waitlist and the review before an application goes live." }, { "title": "OpenAI, 30 November 2022: Introducing ChatGPT", "url": "https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in the Wayback Machine copy of 2 December 2022. Source for the release date and the free research preview." }, { "title": "Reuters, 2 February 2023: ChatGPT sets record for fastest-growing user base - analyst note", "url": "https://www.reuters.com/technology/chatgpt-sets-record-fastest-growing-user-base-analyst-note-2023-02-01/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in the Wayback Machine copy of 4 February 2023. It reports a UBS estimate, so grade C." }, { "title": "OpenAI API pricing page, Wayback Machine copies of 4 December 2021 and 17 October 2022", "url": "https://openai.com/api/pricing/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the price table in both copies. Source for the Davinci price of US$0.06 and then US$0.02 per 1,000 tokens." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/coachvox-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/coachvox-ai.md", "slug": "coachvox-ai", "name": "Coachvox AI", "country": "UK", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI clones of coaches and creators", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "January 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$180K a year in revenue, November 2023", "sticker": "$180K/yr revenue in 2023", "outcomeUsd": 180000, "months": 10, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders and a remote team in 6 time zones; 0 employees listed in 2023", "fundingLabel": "15 new shares sold for cash in November 2022, filed as GBP 150,000; no investment fund among the shareholders in November 2022", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "voice-audio", "channel": "audience", "trend": "unknown", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Funded", "Running", "B2B", "Creator tools" ], "product": "A coach, author or creator uploads books, articles, podcast transcripts and course material. Coachvox turns them into a chat version of that person, which answers the audience in the creator's voice on a website, inside a course or in a members' group, and gives the creator the email address and the transcript of everyone who chats.", "why": "The founder sold places from design mockups to people in her own network before the product existed, and her Forbes column brought a quarter of the sign-ups at no cost. It sold creators what a general chatbot did not give them: the contact details of the people who chat, the transcripts, and the clone on their own site with their own brand.", "summary": [ "Coachvox AI sells AI clones to coaches, authors and other creators. An AI clone here is a chat program that answers questions the way one real person would, because it works from that person's books, articles, podcast transcripts and course material. Underneath is a large language model, a program trained on very large amounts of text that writes answers in normal language; the company's FAQ says its core engine comes from OpenAI. The creator puts the clone on a website, in a course or in a members' group. Everyone who chats gives an email address first, so the clone also works as a lead magnet, a free offer that a business uses to collect the contact details of possible customers.", "Jodie Cook, a British founder and Forbes contributor, sold her social media agency, JC Social Media, in 2021, in what she calls a seven-figure exit. Her next company, Coachvox Limited, registered in October 2021, first ran a platform for business coaching by voice note. It did not take off, and at the end of 2022 it turned to AI coaches. It sold places from design mockups to people in her network. On 5 September 2023 she told Starter Story that Coachvox AI had six figures of annual recurring revenue before its public launch. Annual recurring revenue is the current monthly subscription income multiplied by twelve. Starter Story lists the figure as US$180,000 a year, about US$15,000 a month, at a price of US$99 a month per creator. In November 2023 the revenue database Latka recorded the same US$180,000 with 150 customers, citing a post on X. In December 2023 the BBC reported that around 150 people had made clones with the company.", "Every revenue number on this page is grade C: a founder statement, or a third party that repeats one. No newer figure was found. It is not a one-person business: two co-founders, a technical lead who joined them and a remote team built it, and nine other shareholders held about 7% of the shares after new shares were sold for cash in November 2022. The page also shows five failed startups that sold an expert's time, or a bot that answered from a body of knowledge, before language models made this cheap." ], "factsCaption": "A founder-reported US$180,000 a year in late 2023, repeated by Latka two months later, with a BBC customer count that fits the price", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement, a third party that repeats one, a journalist's report of a company figure, or a filing on the UK company register, which does not check what companies file. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows it names. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From the sale of an agency, through a voice-note coaching platform that did not sell, to AI clones of about 150 creators in December 2023. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Coachvox AI price in October 2026, from the company's home page (grade C)", "note": "There is one plan with everything included. The page shows US$83 a month billed yearly, and its price switch shows US$99 billed monthly; yearly billing saves about two months. The free trial needs card details, has no contract, and comes with a quick-start bootcamp that the page says normally costs US$499. A done-for-you setup by the company's trainers is offered without a published price. In 2023 the price was also US$99 a month. Chats are unlimited under fair-use rules that the FAQ says affect fewer than 1% of accounts.", "rows": [ [ "Coachvox, one plan", "83", "99", "unlimited chats, fair use" ], [ "Quick-start bootcamp", "499 one-time", "", "included with the free trial, says the page" ], [ "Done-for-you setup", "", "", "price not published" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue rate, September 2023", "value": "US$180,000 a year; in the founder's words, six figures of annual recurring revenue before launch", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story lists 'How much money it makes: $180K/year' for the interview of 5 September 2023. The founder's own text says only 'six figures'.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Annual revenue, November 2023", "value": "US$180,000, with 150 customers", "grade": "C", "note": "Latka, a third-party revenue database, gives X (Twitter) as its source. The post itself could not be found or opened.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month from that figure", "value": "US$15,000", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$180,000 divided by 12. The product was less than a year old, so this is a yearly rate, not money received over twelve months.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "People with a clone on Coachvox, December 2023", "value": "around 150", "grade": "C", "note": "BBC News, 7 December 2023. Clients named by type: chief executives, an astrologer, a nutritionist, a fitness coach and a marriage counsellor. The article does not say how the count was obtained.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Cross-check: 150 creators at the 2023 price", "value": "US$178,200 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 150 times US$99 times 12. Close to US$180,000, if every creator paid the full monthly price, which no source states.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Price for creators, 2023", "value": "US$99 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, Starter Story interview. Some creators charge their own audience about US$10 a month for access to their clone.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Money spent on marketing to September 2023", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: 'We haven't spent any money on marketing yet.' Customers came from Forbes, X, Google, AI tool directories and creator groups.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Share of sign-ups from the founder's Forbes profile", "value": "25%", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, Starter Story interview, September 2023.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Cost to start", "value": "US$30,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story list page.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Team, 2023", "value": "2 founders, 0 employees", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story's company box, September 2023. The founder describes a remote team in six time zones, with a technical lead and a UX designer. Latka: 1 person listed Coachvox AI as employer on LinkedIn in November 2023.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "New shares sold before launch, 5 November 2022", "value": "15 ordinary shares for cash; amount paid filed as GBP 150,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Companies House share allotment form. It shows 'Amount paid: 150000' next to the 15 shares and does not say more clearly whether this is a total; this page reads it as the total, which is GBP 10,000 a share. Afterwards there were 11 shareholders: two with 100 shares each and nine with 1 to 5 shares. No company or fund is among them.", "src": [ 11, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Part of the company sold in November 2022", "value": "about 7%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 15 of 215 shares.", "src": [ 11, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Later share issues", "value": "68 Ordinary A shares by 21 November 2025, 2 more in April 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Companies House filings from August 2024 to April 2026. The November 2025 filing shows them paid at their nominal value of GBP 0.001194 each, with 0.1194 votes each. The filings do not say who received them.", "src": [ 10, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Company registered", "value": "8 October 2021, as Coachvox Limited", "grade": "C", "note": "Companies House. The registered office moved from Birmingham to London in March 2023.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "AI model behind the clones", "value": "OpenAI, with the company's own layer of logic and workflows", "grade": "C", "note": "Company FAQ: 'The core AI engine we use is OpenAI'. The 2023 interview also lists OpenAI in the stack. No source names the model version. The 2026 home page offers a connection to Anthropic's Claude for training the clone; no source says Claude writes the answers.", "src": [ 6, 1, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Price, October 2026", "value": "US$83 a month billed yearly, US$99 billed monthly", "grade": "C", "note": "Company home page. One plan.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Time from start to the November 2023 figure", "value": "10 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: January 2023, the start date that Starter Story records, to November 2023.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "The founder's previous company", "value": "JC Social Media, a social media agency founded in 2011, acquired in 2021", "grade": "C", "note": "Wikipedia, citing Business Live of 3 June 2021: the buyer was the marketing agency group Low&Behold. The founder calls it a seven-figure exit. Its revenue and staff are not part of this page.", "src": [ 14, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2011", "what": "Jodie Cook starts JC Social Media, a social media agency, in Birmingham.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "2021", "what": "She sells the agency to the marketing group Low&Behold, in what she calls a seven-figure exit, after meeting 12 possible buyers through a broker. She writes a book, Ten Year Career, during the sale.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14, 1 ] }, { "when": "8 October 2021", "what": "Coachvox Limited is registered. Its first product is a platform for business coaching by voice note, built by a Bubble agency.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 1 ] }, { "when": "5 November 2022", "what": "15 new shares are sold for cash, filed as GBP 150,000. Nine shareholders now hold 1 to 5 shares each beside two holders of 100.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 12 ] }, { "when": "End of 2022", "what": "The voice-note platform does not take off: coaches join, but have no clients on it, so the company has to sell twice. It turns to AI coaching.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 1 ] }, { "when": "Early 2023", "what": "Demos: Jodie AI, a business coach trained on her own content, and an unofficial AI version of a famous investor. Starter Story records January 2023 as the start. Places are sold from mockups with Typeform and a Stripe checkout page.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "13 April 2023", "what": "Startups Magazine reports AI versions of coaches in marketing, property, sales and mindfulness. One coach's clone answers the questions in her membership group that took her three to five hours a week.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "5 September 2023", "what": "Starter Story interview: six figures of annual recurring revenue before the public launch, US$99 a month, no marketing spend, a quarter of sign-ups from Forbes. Starter Story lists US$180,000 a year.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "November 2023", "what": "Latka records US$180,000 in annual revenue and 150 customers, citing X.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "7 December 2023", "what": "The BBC reports around 150 people with clones made through Coachvox AI, and names Delphi and Synthesia as other providers of AI clones.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "August 2024 to April 2026", "what": "The company issues Ordinary A shares in small numbers, 70 in total.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 13 ] }, { "when": "September to November 2024", "what": "The founder posts on X that 'Coachvox is how we sell Coachvox' and invites coaches to free live webinars on the company's site.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15, 16 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "Running: one plan at US$83 a month billed yearly, a free trial, a connection to Claude for training, and a partnership with the International Coaching Federation. Accounts to 31 October 2025 were filed on 17 July 2026.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 6, 10 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Sell from mockups", "text": "Coachvox AI sold creator places from design mockups, with a Typeform sign-up form and a Stripe checkout page, before the product existed. The first creators were friends and people from the founder's networks, and the team looked after them like agency clients. Their feedback became the list of features." }, { "title": "The founder's column as the sales channel", "text": "Jodie Cook writes about entrepreneurship and AI as a Forbes contributor. By September 2023 her contributor profile brought a quarter of all sign-ups, and the company had spent nothing on marketing. Later the founder sold through free webinars and posts, and the company's own clone talks to visitors on its site." }, { "title": "Give creators what the model maker does not", "text": "OpenAI lets anyone build a custom GPT, a chatbot made from their own documents. Coachvox sells the parts a creator's business needs: the email address of everyone who chats, transcripts and summaries, an embed on the creator's own site or course, and the creator's own brand on the chat window." }, { "title": "OpenAI underneath, workflows on top", "text": "The FAQ says the core engine is OpenAI, with the company's own logic and workflows on top and a database with a profile of each person who chats. The creator uploads files and answers questions about how they work; there is no prompt writing and no code." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's interview and the company's own pages. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The first product, coaching by voice note, was built by a Bubble agency. Bubble is a no-code builder: software made by arranging blocks on a screen instead of writing code.", "For Coachvox AI the founder wrote notes and drew diagrams in PowerPoint, a UX designer turned them into mockups, and a technical lead, a friend from a business mastermind group she had been part of, built the platform with a new team. The founder does not write the code.", "The core AI engine is OpenAI. On top, the company built its own logic and workflows, which it calls its cognitive engine, and a database with a profile of every person who chats with a clone.", "Stack named in 2023: Basecamp, Google Cloud Storage, Vercel, OpenAI, Hey email and Jira. Starter Story's tool list for the company adds Firebase, Mailchimp, Upwork for hiring, WP Engine, Xero, Google Workspace, Stripe, Google Analytics, WordPress and Adobe.", "In 2026 a clone can be trained from inside Anthropic's Claude through a connection, sends leads to a CRM through Zapier, and embeds on any page that accepts HTML.", "The team works remotely in six time zones. Each member writes a 'user manual' that says how they like to communicate and work." ], "src": [ 1, 6, 7 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold an expert's time on demand, or a bot that answered from a body of knowledge. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Arivale", "years": "2015 to 2019", "funding": "US$50M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Genetic and blood tests with a personal health coach for each customer.", "died": "Every customer needed a human coach. The database says it spent US$4,700 per customer to earn US$1,200 a year.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/8-arivale" }, { "name": "AirPair", "years": "2014 to 2017", "funding": "US$250K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Paid, on-demand help from expert software developers.", "died": "Developers took free answers on Stack Overflow instead of paying for an expert's time, and the marketplace never had enough experts and buyers at once.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1130-airpair" }, { "name": "Operator", "years": "2015 to 2020", "funding": "US$30M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "A personal shopper in your phone, part human and part AI.", "died": "The human part cost too much to run at scale.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/396-operator" }, { "name": "Niles", "years": "2017 to 2020", "funding": "US$2.8M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A Slack bot that answered staff questions from the company's own knowledge.", "died": "AI features became cheap and common, and Slack added its own.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1031-niles" }, { "name": "Charge Running", "years": "2021 to 2024", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Live running classes with a real coach in your ear.", "died": "Live coaching needed fixed times. AI fitness apps gave a personal feel without the schedule.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/895-charge-running" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Four of the five sold a person's time: a health coach, an expert developer, a personal shopper, a running coach. Each new sale needed more hours from people, so costs grew with revenue. Coachvox removes those hours. The creator's existing content answers the questions, and an extra conversation costs a fee to the model provider, not an hour of work.", "The fifth, Niles, is the warning. It answered questions from a company's knowledge inside Slack, and the platform it depended on built the same feature. Coachvox depends on OpenAI, which sells its own custom GPTs, and the BBC already listed other clone makers in 2023. Its defence is the business layer around the model: leads, transcripts, embeds and the creator's brand." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The product, yes. The sales method, only with an audience.", "text": "The software is reproducible: document upload, a model provider's API, an embed and an email form before the chat. The sales depended on a founder with a Forbes column, an earlier exit and a network of coaches who paid before the product existed. Without that audience, the same product would need paid customer acquisition, on which this story has no data.", "steps": [ "Sell places from mockups with a form and a payment link before you build.", "Sell to people who already have content and an audience: authors, coaches, course creators.", "Build what the model maker does not give them: the contact details of every user, transcripts, and an embed with their own brand.", "Use your own clone as your sales tool, as Coachvox does on its own site." ], "open": "Experts with a large archive and more questions than hours: consultants, trainers, newsletter writers, and companies that want one chat for their own internal know-how." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Old, self-reported numbers", "text": "The only revenue figures are from September and November 2023, and both are grade C: a Starter Story figure next to the founder's interview, and a Latka entry that cites an X post this page could not open. No figure since then was found." }, { "title": "Model makers and other clone makers", "text": "OpenAI lets anyone build a custom GPT from their own documents, and Coachvox keeps a page that explains why it is different. In December 2023 the BBC named Delphi, a US start-up, and Synthesia, a UK company that makes video avatars, as other providers of AI clones. The founder herself said in 2023 that a bigger company can release an update that wipes out an AI product with little depth." }, { "title": "An AI that speaks in a real person's name", "text": "A clone can give wrong or too simple advice under a real person's name. A property-investment creator told the BBC he worried his clone would sound 'too black-and-white' about money, and he tells users it is technology, not him. The director of education at a professional body for data scientists told the BBC that machines 'cannot be trusted' with the many parameters of human situations. The company promises a clear notice that users are chatting with AI. The pages read for this story do not say who is responsible when a clone gives harmful advice." }, { "title": "Dependence on OpenAI", "text": "The FAQ names OpenAI as the core engine. A price rise, a model change or a policy change at OpenAI changes the product and its costs. The 2026 Claude connection is for training the clone, and no source says the answers can come from another provider." }, { "title": "Not a one-person company", "text": "Two co-founders, a technical lead, a designer and a remote team in six time zones built it, and nine other shareholders held about 7% of the shares after the November 2022 share sale. Starter Story's count of 0 employees does not include this team." }, { "title": "Sales depend on the founder", "text": "In 2023 a quarter of sign-ups came from her Forbes profile, and the webinars and posts that sell the product are hers. No source shows how the company sells without her." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Starter Story, 5 September 2023: We Built An AI Coach For Creators And Hit 6-Figures Revenue Pre-Launch", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/jodie-cook", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, the interview text as the page serves it without a login. Founder interview. Source for the backstory, the first version, the price, the marketing channels, the team and the stack." }, { "title": "Starter Story: AI tool success stories, list page", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/ideas/ai-tool/success-stories", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the Coachvox AI entry. Source for US$180K/year and US$30K to start; its link for the revenue figure points to the interview above. The entry says 2021 for the start, which the interview contradicts." }, { "title": "Latka company page: Coachvox AI revenue 2023, updated 10 August 2026", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/coachvoxai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party database. Source for US$180K in November 2023 with X (Twitter) as its stated source, 150 customers and 1 LinkedIn employee." }, { "title": "BBC News, 7 December 2023, by MaryLou Costa: The people creating digital clones of themselves", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/news/business-67623614", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Journalist report. Source for the count of around 150 clones, the types of client, the competitors named and the outside experts' warnings." }, { "title": "Startups Magazine, 13 April 2023: Would you trust advice from an AI business coach?", "url": "https://startupsmagazine.co.uk/article-would-you-trust-advice-ai-business-coach", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Based on company statements. Source for the turn to AI coaching at the end of 2022 and the early examples." }, { "title": "Coachvox AI: FAQs page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://coachvox.ai/faqs/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the AI engine, the data, chat limits and the coaching federation. Source for OpenAI as the core engine." }, { "title": "Coachvox AI: home page with pricing, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://coachvox.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, including the script of the price switch. Source for the prices, the free trial, the Claude connection, Zapier and the embed." }, { "title": "Coachvox AI: Alternative to OpenAI's custom GPT creator", "url": "https://coachvox.ai/alternative-to-openai-gpt-creator/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's own comparison with OpenAI's GPTs." }, { "title": "Coachvox AI, 8 September 2025: Why professional coaches choose Coachvox", "url": "https://coachvox.ai/ai-software-professional-coaches/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the text through the site's WordPress search interface. Source for the promised notice that users are chatting with AI." }, { "title": "Companies House, the UK company register: Coachvox Limited, company number 13668167, filing history", "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13668167/filing-history", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full list of filings. The register does not check what companies file. Source for the registration date, the office move, the share issues and the accounts dates. The accounts are image files and could not be read." }, { "title": "Companies House: statement of capital after the allotment of shares on 5 November 2022", "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13668167/filing-history/MzM1OTMzNjU4MGFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, 3 pages. Source for the 15 shares and the amount paid." }, { "title": "Companies House: confirmation statement made on 5 November 2022", "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13668167/filing-history/MzM1OTMzNzcwMmFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the shareholder section for the number and size of holdings. The shareholders' names are not used on this page." }, { "title": "Companies House: statement of capital after allotments from 31 March to 21 November 2025", "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13668167/filing-history/MzUwMTY1NTUzNmFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, 3 pages. Source for the Ordinary A shares, their price and their votes." }, { "title": "Wikipedia: Jodie Cook", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodie_Cook", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for JC Social Media's founding and its 2021 sale to Low&Behold, which the article cites from Business Live." }, { "title": "Jodie Cook on X, 5 September 2024: We use our own product", "url": "https://x.com/jodie_cook/status/1831634418378645944", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through the fxtwitter API, as part of her timeline from September 2024 to October 2026, which contains no revenue figures." }, { "title": "Jodie Cook on X, 15 November 2024: Join me live", "url": "https://x.com/jodie_cook/status/1857402039099388376", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through the fxtwitter API. Source for the free webinars on the company's site." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/aicarousels/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/aicarousels.md", "slug": "aicarousels", "name": "aiCarousels", "country": "Sweden", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI carousel maker for LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "15 May 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$5K a month, November 2023", "sticker": "$5K MRR in 6 months", "outcomeUsd": 60000, "months": 6, "teamLabel": "1 founder, no employees, from 2023 to 2026", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Speed", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "search", "trend": "unknown", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Social media content" ], "product": "A web editor that turns a topic, a text, a web page or a YouTube video into a carousel post with several slides for LinkedIn, Instagram or TikTok. The AI writes the slides; the editor sizes the text and keeps the layout fixed, so a person who is not a designer gets a usable post in minutes. It also exports video and PowerPoint.", "why": "By the founder's account it was the first carousel maker with an AI writer, at a time when carousel posts were popular on LinkedIn, and it was built in ten days in public, so the launch had an audience. The launch coverage gave the domain backlinks, and search traffic became the largest source of users. Few design choices made it fast for people who are not designers.", "summary": [ "aiCarousels is a web tool that makes carousel posts, social media posts made of several slides that the reader swipes through, for LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok. The user gives a topic, a text, a web page or a YouTube video. The OpenAI API, a paid interface through which a program sends requests to OpenAI's models, writes the slide text, and the editor places it in fixed layouts with text that resizes itself. On LinkedIn a carousel is a PDF document that LinkedIn shows page by page.", "Fernando Pessagno, a product designer from Argentina who lives in Malmö, Sweden, built it in ten days in May 2023, in public on X and YouTube, after he heard that he might lose his job. It went live on 15 May 2023. On 28 November 2023 he told Starter Story that it made US$5,000 in MRR, monthly recurring revenue from subscriptions, with 95% of it profit, and two days later he posted a billing dashboard card that showed US$4,918.40. He works alone, and no source mentions outside money. In December 2024 he said that his two products, aiCarousels and ResumeMaker.Online, made US$180,000 a year together, and at the end of 2025 he wrote that his MRR had doubled, without a number.", "Every money figure on this page is the founder's own statement, grade C, and the last figure for aiCarousels alone is from November 2023. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that made content and design tools that depended on a bigger platform." ], "factsCaption": "A carousel tool built in ten days that reached US$5,000 a month six months after launch, by the founder's own account", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement in an interview or on X, a company page, or a third-party estimate that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a ten-day challenge during a vacation to a product rebuilt from zero in October 2026. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "aiCarousels prices in October 2026, from the plan settings in the editor page and the public plan list of its billing service, Outseta (grade C)", "note": "Pro and Team are subscriptions. The editor page shows Pro as US$15 a month; the billing service lists it at US$14.95. The yearly prices are US$120 for Pro and US$468 for Team, shown here per month. The free plan and the yearly Team plan were created on 6 October 2026, two days before the rebuilt product went live. The first paid plan, in 2023, was Time Saver PRO at US$9.95 a month.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "3 AI carousels and 10 AI pictures in total, 5 projects, watermark" ], [ "Pro", "10", "14.95", "1 seat, 60 AI carousels and 100 AI pictures a month, no watermark" ], [ "Team", "39", "59", "5 seats, 300 AI carousels and 400 AI pictures a month" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Recurring revenue per month (MRR), November 2023", "value": "US$5,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview with Starter Story, 28 November 2023, six months after launch. 95% of it was profit.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR on his billing dashboard, 30 November 2023", "value": "US$4,918.40", "grade": "C", "note": "An Outseta MRR card attached to his post on X. It is a screenshot, so it is still a founder statement.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the November 2023 figure", "value": "US$60,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$5,000 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Profit per month at that point", "value": "about US$4,750", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 95% of US$5,000.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Goal he had set for the first twelve months", "value": "US$2,500 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "He reached twice the goal in half the time.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue of his two products together, December 2024", "value": "US$180,000 a year, or US$15,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Post on X, 3 December 2024, and the Starter Story video of 2 December 2024. aiCarousels and ResumeMaker.Online together; no split between them is given. US$180,000 divided by 12 is US$15,000.", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Change in MRR during 2025", "value": "doubled", "grade": "C", "note": "Post on X, 30 December 2025. No figure, and no product named.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Paying users on launch day, 15 May 2023", "value": "5, or US$50 MRR", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Product Hunt launch, May 2023", "value": "9th of the day, 154 upvotes, 64 comments", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's Medium post and interview. He offered 50% off to Product Hunt users and had 23 sign-ups on his coming-soon page.", "src": [ 6, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Product Hunt launch of version 2.0, 6 November 2023", "value": "11th of the day, 240 upvotes, 50 comments", "grade": "C", "note": "A third-party record of the launch.", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "fact": "Time to build the first version", "value": "10 days", "grade": "C", "note": "A public challenge during his vacation, posted day by day on X, YouTube and Medium.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "First price, 2023", "value": "US$9.95 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Time Saver PRO in the public plan list of the billing service, created 18 April 2023. Pro at US$14.95 and Team at US$59 were created on 21 June 2023.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Largest source of traffic, November 2023", "value": "search engines", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview. He credits the domain name and the backlinks from the launch coverage.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "LinkedIn followers, November 2023", "value": "about 3,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Affiliate commission, October 2026", "value": "40% of every payment, for life", "grade": "C", "note": "Affiliate page: US$48 upfront for each yearly referral, which is 40% of the US$120 yearly Pro price. In September 2025 he wrote that \"the affiliate program\" had brought more headaches than revenue, without naming the product.", "src": [ 14, 22 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 person", "grade": "C", "note": "About page: a one-person team. Latka counts 1 person on LinkedIn in October 2024. In August 2026 he writes about running a solo business in Sweden.", "src": [ 11, 16, 24 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "No source mentions investors. In November 2024 he asks other bootstrapped founders in Sweden to contact him.", "src": [ 25 ] }, { "fact": "Latka's revenue estimate, October 2024", "value": "US$15,200 a year", "grade": "C", "note": "A third-party estimate, marked as such. It is about a quarter of the founder's run rate of November 2023.", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "fact": "AI model", "value": "OpenAI API; GPT-4o from May 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview and post on X. No later model is named in the sources.", "src": [ 1, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the November 2023 figure", "value": "6 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 15 May 2023 to 28 November 2023 is 197 days.", "src": [ 1, 8 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "July 2022", "what": "LinkedIn tests a native carousel post. Since 2019, PDF documents attached to posts show as slides that readers swipe, and users have made carousels that way.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "April 2023", "what": "Starter Story gives April 2023 as the start. The first paid plan in the billing service, Time Saver PRO at US$9.95 a month, has the creation date 18 April 2023.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 13 ] }, { "when": "May 2023", "what": "A day before his vacation, Pessagno hears that he may lose his job. He starts a ten-day challenge on X and YouTube to build and launch a product, and picks carousels because they are popular on LinkedIn and slow to design.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "when": "15 May 2023", "what": "Launch on Product Hunt: 9th product of the day, 154 upvotes and 64 comments. Five people pay on the first day, US$50 in MRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 6, 7, 8 ] }, { "when": "29 May 2023", "what": "His Medium post about the ten days appears in Startup Stash. By November it has almost 20,000 views, and his build updates have reached the front pages of Indie Hackers and HackerNoon.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 1 ] }, { "when": "21 June 2023", "what": "Two new plans appear in the billing service: aiCarousels PRO at US$14.95 a month and TEAM at US$59 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "September 2023", "what": "He has lost his job and works full-time on his own products. He marks the third anniversary on 1 September 2026.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 26, 1 ] }, { "when": "4 October 2023", "what": "Canva launches Magic Studio, its set of AI design tools.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 19 ] }, { "when": "6 November 2023", "what": "aiCarousels 2.0 on Product Hunt: 11th of the day, 240 upvotes. A carousel can now start from a topic, a text, a web address or a YouTube video.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "28 November 2023", "what": "Starter Story interview: US$5,000 MRR six months after launch, 95% of it profit, against a goal of US$2,500 in twelve months. Search traffic is the largest source of users. Both of his products are listed for sale.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "30 November 2023", "what": "His final MRR post on X, with an Outseta card that shows US$4,918.40. He writes that he will not share more MRR updates.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "December 2023", "what": "LinkedIn removes image carousels from normal posts, according to Guiding Tech, and leaves them to advertisers. PDF documents still show as carousels.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 18 ] }, { "when": "13 May 2024", "what": "aiCarousels moves to OpenAI's GPT-4o model.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "15 May 2024", "what": "Version 3.0, one year after the first launch: from a carousel generator to a set of AI tools for creators, such as a quote card maker and a LinkedIn post writer.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 11 ] }, { "when": "11 June 2024", "what": "A yearly Pro plan at US$120 is added.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "July 2024", "what": "He pays the affiliates, who get a 40% commission on every customer they refer.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 27 ] }, { "when": "2 and 3 December 2024", "what": "A Starter Story video titled I Make $15K/Month With 2 AI Apps says that his two products make more than US$15,000 a month. On X he writes US$180,000 a year in recurring revenue for aiCarousels and ResumeMaker.Online together.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 3 ] }, { "when": "5 December 2024", "what": "He writes that the first version had the full Google Fonts library and many color combinations, which users found hard, and that users want fewer options.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 31 ] }, { "when": "28 January 2025", "what": "He writes that he is building free tools instead of videos, and tools without AI, to keep the cost close to zero.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 28 ] }, { "when": "30 December 2025", "what": "He writes that his MRR doubled in 2025, with no figure and no product named.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "5 February 2026", "what": "He writes that a competitor with venture funding copied some of his free tools and left in the text that praised aiCarousels.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 21 ] }, { "when": "6 to 8 October 2026", "what": "A free plan and a yearly Team plan are created in the billing service. On 8 October he posts that the new aiCarousels is live, rebuilt from zero after almost a year of work.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13, 23 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Speed", "text": "He gave himself ten days, the length of his vacation, and built in public on X and YouTube so that he could not stop. The first version was basic and had many bugs, but by his account it was the first carousel tool with an AI writer, and five people paid on the first day." }, { "title": "Launch attention turned into search traffic", "text": "Coverage after the Product Hunt launch gave the domain backlinks, and by November 2023 search engines sent the most users. He then built free tools for LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok users, a method called engineering as marketing: each free tool is a page that people search for, and some of its users move to the paid product." }, { "title": "Fewer choices than Canva", "text": "Instead of competing with template libraries such as Canva or Envato, he aimed for few design choices: fixed positions and text that resizes itself. In December 2024 he wrote that the first version still had too many options, such as the full Google Fonts library, and that users who are not designers want fewer options and a usable post quickly." }, { "title": "Bought parts, low costs", "text": "Outseta handles accounts, billing through Stripe and support tickets, and the OpenAI API writes the text, so he built only the editor. With no staff, 95% of revenue was profit in November 2023." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's interview, his Medium post, his posts on X and the company's own pages. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The first version was built in ten days without a framework: HTML elements styled with CSS, and a small JavaScript script on the landing page. The founder says he has no formal programming education.", "Outseta, a no-code service, handles accounts, billing and support tickets, and connects to Stripe for the payments. The login on the site still goes through aicarousels.outseta.com in October 2026.", "The OpenAI API writes the slide text. The product moved to GPT-4o in May 2024.", "The tools listed on his Starter Story page include GoDaddy for hosting, Figma for design, Pexels for stock images, Ahrefs for search research, Rewardful for the affiliate program and TrustSpot for reviews.", "Users come from search traffic, free tools, Product Hunt launches, his posts on LinkedIn and X, pitches to the press, and Reddit. A Chrome extension is linked from the home page.", "The product was rebuilt from zero over almost a year and relaunched on 8 October 2026, with a free plan." ], "src": [ 1, 6, 9, 10, 29, 23 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database made content or design tools that depended on a bigger platform or competed with one. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "LiveLoop", "years": "2010 to 2015", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "PowerPoint with real-time collaboration.", "died": "Microsoft bought it in 2015 and then built the same features into Office.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/302-liveloop" }, { "name": "Invision", "years": "2011 to 2023", "funding": "US$350M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Design and prototype tools for product teams.", "died": "Figma offered real-time collaboration in the browser and took the users.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/251-invision" }, { "name": "Mixed Media Labs", "years": "2010 to 2013", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Create and share digital stories made of several kinds of media.", "died": "It stayed on the web while Instagram took the mobile users.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1200-mixed-media-labs" }, { "name": "Qwiki", "years": "2010 to 2015", "funding": "US$10M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Automatically generated multimedia stories instead of text search results.", "died": "High costs and little demand from users. Yahoo bought it, and Google and mobile video kept the audience.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/481-qwiki" }, { "name": "Koji", "years": "2016 to 2021", "funding": "US$16M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A no-code builder that lets creators make interactive content.", "died": "It was caught between Webflow and Bubble and could not turn free users into paying customers.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/284-koji" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five made a content or design tool that depended on a bigger company or competed with one. Microsoft bought LiveLoop, which improved PowerPoint, and then built the same features into Office. Invision lost designers to Figma. Mixed Media Labs and Qwiki made tools for telling stories while Instagram and Google owned the audience, and Koji could not turn free creators into paying customers. aiCarousels has the same exposure: LinkedIn decides how carousels appear in the feed, and Canva sells AI design tools to the same users.", "Two things differ. First, the costs: one person, bought accounts and billing, and an AI model paid per request, so US$5,000 a month was already a profit of about US$4,750, and the product did not need a large market to pay its owner. Second, the AI writes the content, which is the slow part for these users; the earlier tools only made layout or sharing easier. A feature change at LinkedIn or Canva can still hurt a product this small, but it does not need to win the market to survive." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The first place in the market, no.", "text": "Building in ten days in public, with bought accounts and billing and an AI API, is repeatable by one person. Being the first AI carousel maker is not: in 2026 there are many, including funded ones that copy his free tools.", "steps": [ "Pick a post format that people on one platform already make by hand, and automate the slow part.", "Build the first version in about ten days, in public, and buy the accounts, billing and AI model as services.", "Launch on Product Hunt, then turn the attention into search traffic with free tools for the same users.", "Keep the design choices few, and answer every support ticket yourself." ], "open": "Other formats that people make by hand for one platform: quote cards, infographics, slide decks and video versions of posts, as the founder's own later tools show." }, "watch": [ { "title": "One old figure, self-reported", "text": "The only figure for aiCarousels alone is from November 2023, and he stopped posting MRR after that. Later figures are for two products together (US$180,000 a year in December 2024) or have no number (doubled MRR in 2025). Latka's estimate for 2024 is about a quarter of the November 2023 run rate." }, { "title": "LinkedIn controls the format", "text": "LinkedIn carousels are PDF documents that LinkedIn shows page by page, a feature from 2019. LinkedIn tested a native carousel post in July 2022 and, according to Guiding Tech, removed image carousels from normal posts in December 2023. Each change in how LinkedIn shows documents changes how many people need a carousel tool." }, { "title": "Canva and the platforms", "text": "Canva launched Magic Studio, a set of AI design tools, on 4 October 2023, five months after aiCarousels went live. Canva already sells templates to the same users and has far more of them. The founder's answer is fewer options, and that answer is easy to copy." }, { "title": "Many competing carousel tools", "text": "Competitors such as PostNitro publish their own articles about AI carousel generators that promote their tools. The founder wrote in February 2026 that a competitor with venture funding copied some of his free tools. The Product Hunt topics where aiCarousels 2.0 launched hold more than 176,000 products." }, { "title": "One person, several products", "text": "He also runs ResumeMaker.Online, GeneratePPT and PreviewMyProfile, and in November 2023 both of his main products were listed for sale. He said then that working on aiCarousels alone had shown him the value of a single focus. The rebuilt product of October 2026 adds a free plan, and its effect on revenue is not known." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Starter Story, 28 November 2023: I Accidentally Built A SaaS in 10 Days & Quit My 9-5, interview with Fernando Pessagno", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/aicarousels", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview. Source for the ten-day build, the launch results, the US$5,000 MRR with 95% profit, the traffic sources and the tools list." }, { "title": "Fernando Pessagno on X, 30 November 2023: final MRR update, with an Outseta MRR card", "url": "https://x.com/Fer_MOMENTO/status/1730301822508597719", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post through api.fxtwitter.com and viewed the attached image, an Outseta MRR card for aiCarousels that shows US$4,918.40." }, { "title": "Fernando Pessagno on X, 3 December 2024: US$180K ARR with two SaaS businesses", "url": "https://x.com/Fer_MOMENTO/status/1863902078428426525", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post through api.fxtwitter.com. The figure covers two products together." }, { "title": "Starter Story on YouTube, 2 December 2024: I Make $15K/Month With 2 AI Apps", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4nsGvL4Fo0", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the title, the description and the publication date on the video page. The video itself was not watched." }, { "title": "Fernando Pessagno on X, 30 December 2025: 2025 has been kind, doubled MRR", "url": "https://x.com/Fer_MOMENTO/status/2006150053543501857", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post through api.fxtwitter.com. It gives no figure and names no product." }, { "title": "Fernando Pessagno on Medium (Startup Stash), 29 May 2023: From Zero to SaaS, Building And Launching a SaaS in 10 Days", "url": "https://medium.com/startup-stash/from-zero-to-saas-building-and-launching-a-saas-in-10-days-66e262615d66", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The founder's day-by-day account of the build and of the Product Hunt launch." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers product page: aiCarousels, with the post Launch! of 15 May 2023", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/product/aicarousels", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the product page and its first post." }, { "title": "Fernando Pessagno on X, 15 May 2024: aiCarousels v3.0, 365 days after the first launch", "url": "https://x.com/Fer_MOMENTO/status/1790696019300077988", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post through api.fxtwitter.com. It dates the first launch to 15 May 2023." }, { "title": "Fernando Pessagno on X, 13 May 2024: aiCarousels now runs on GPT-4o", "url": "https://x.com/Fer_MOMENTO/status/1790147611816567269", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Fernando Pessagno on X, 27 May 2024: where the users of aiCarousels come from", "url": "https://x.com/Fer_MOMENTO/status/1795011564375875830", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post through api.fxtwitter.com. A reply to a question about how he finds users." }, { "title": "aiCarousels About page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://www.aicarousels.com/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the founder's background and the one-person team." }, { "title": "aiCarousels editor page, plan settings in the page source, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://www.aicarousels.com/editor", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the plan settings in the page source (app version 2026.10.0): prices, seats and limits of the Free, Pro and Team plans." }, { "title": "Outseta public plan list for aiCarousels, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://aicarousels.outseta.com/api/v1/billing/plans", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the JSON list of seven plans with their prices and creation dates." }, { "title": "aiCarousels affiliate program page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://www.aicarousels.com/affiliates", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "Hunted.space: aiCarousels 2.0 Product Hunt launch overview, 6 November 2023", "url": "https://www.hunted.space/product/aicarousels-com/launches/aicarousels-2-0", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party record of the launch rank, upvotes, comments and topics, with the founder's launch comment." }, { "title": "Latka company page: aiCarousels revenue estimate and headcount", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/aicarousels.com", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party estimate and a headcount from LinkedIn." }, { "title": "Social Media Today, 21 July 2022, by Andrew Hutchinson: LinkedIn Launches Native Carousel Posting Option", "url": "https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-launches-native-carousel-posting-option/627881/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. A trade journalist's report of the LinkedIn test, with the history of PDF document posts since 2019." }, { "title": "Guiding Tech, updated 29 November 2024, by Lloyd Ingram: Use This Clever Workaround to Post Carousels on LinkedIn", "url": "https://www.guidingtech.com/use-this-clever-workaround-to-post-carousels-on-linkedin/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the removal of image carousels from normal LinkedIn posts in December 2023." }, { "title": "Canva Newsroom, 4 October 2023: Introducing Magic Studio, the power of AI, all in one place", "url": "https://www.canva.com/newsroom/news/magic-studio/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the announcement. The date is from the page data." }, { "title": "PostNitro blog, 30 May 2025: AI Carousel Generator, Create Engaging Posts in Minutes", "url": "https://postnitro.ai/blog/post/ai-carousel-generator", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the opening sections. A competitor's own article about its AI carousel generator." }, { "title": "Fernando Pessagno on X, 5 February 2026: a competitor with venture funding copied his free tools", "url": "https://x.com/Fer_MOMENTO/status/2019522035312128056", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Fernando Pessagno on X, 26 September 2025: the affiliate program and revenue", "url": "https://x.com/Fer_MOMENTO/status/1971567735768305776", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post through api.fxtwitter.com. It does not name the product." }, { "title": "Fernando Pessagno on X, 8 October 2026: The new aiCarousels is live", "url": "https://x.com/Fer_MOMENTO/status/2108105839039156266", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post through the api.fxtwitter.com timeline." }, { "title": "Fernando Pessagno on X, 27 August 2026: running a solo business in Sweden", "url": "https://x.com/Fer_MOMENTO/status/2092893379075919953", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the thread through the api.fxtwitter.com timeline." }, { "title": "Fernando Pessagno on X, 21 November 2024: bootstrapped founders in Sweden", "url": "https://x.com/Fer_MOMENTO/status/1859499898418114562", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Fernando Pessagno on X, 1 September 2026: three years on his own products", "url": "https://x.com/Fer_MOMENTO/status/2094696565101256770", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post through the api.fxtwitter.com timeline." }, { "title": "Fernando Pessagno on X, 27 July 2024: affiliate payday, 40% commission", "url": "https://x.com/Fer_MOMENTO/status/1817167093487255571", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Fernando Pessagno on X, 28 January 2025: free tools instead of videos", "url": "https://x.com/Fer_MOMENTO/status/1884288327677009988", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "aiCarousels home page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://www.aicarousels.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the page and its source. Source for the Outseta login link, the Chrome extension and the free tools." }, { "title": "Fernando Pessagno on X, 5 December 2024: the first version had too many design options", "url": "https://x.com/Fer_MOMENTO/status/1864586691614306519", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the thread through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/llm-gateway/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/llm-gateway.md", "slug": "llm-gateway", "name": "LLM Gateway", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "API gateway for AI models", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "22 May 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$1M in Stripe-verified gross receipts in 12 months, September 2026", "sticker": "$1M gross in 12 months", "outcomeUsd": 999309, "months": 16, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders, who made 85% of the code commits; size of any wider team not known", "fundingLabel": "None found", "primaryFactor": "Open source", "group": "ai-model-tools", "channel": "open-source", "trend": "growing", "collections": [ "open-source" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Developer tools" ], "product": "One API address, in the same format as OpenAI's API, that forwards each request to one of more than 200 models from more than 40 providers, such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, and records the cost of each request. Customers prepay credits at the providers' prices plus a 5% fee, bring their own provider keys for free, or run the open-source code on their own servers. DevPass is a monthly subscription for AI coding agents.", "why": "Every team that builds with AI models ends up with several provider accounts, keys, invoices and SDKs. One gateway with open code replaces them, and a developer can read the code before sending traffic through the hosted version. In 2026 the founders added DevPass, a flat monthly price for coding agents with an allowance of up to three times the price in model usage. The verified monthly receipts grew from US$57,994 in January 2026 to US$249,922 in August 2026; TrustMRR does not split them by product.", "summary": [ "LLM Gateway is an API gateway for large language models (LLMs). An API gateway is one server address that receives a program's requests and forwards each one to the right service; LLMs are the AI models that read and write text, such as the models behind ChatGPT. An application sends a request in the format of OpenAI's API, and the gateway passes it to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or one of more than 40 other providers, records the cost, and sends the request to another provider when the first one fails, which is called failover. The code is open source under the AGPLv3 licence: anyone may read, run and change it, but whoever offers a changed version as a network service must publish the changes. The hosted version sells prepaid credits at the providers' prices plus a 5% fee. OpenRouter, another gateway, works the same way: its own FAQ says it passes the providers' prices through without markup and charges a fee when customers buy credits.", "Two co-founders build it: Luca Steeb, and a developer who signs as Smakosh. The GitHub repository was created on 12 April 2025, and the founders give 22 May 2025 as the founding date. TrustMRR, a site that reads revenue directly from a company's payment processor, shows US$1,000,116 of Stripe receipts from the start to 7 September 2026. Of this, US$999,309 came in the twelve months from October 2025, and US$249,922 in August 2026 alone. In 2026 the company added DevPass, a subscription at US$29 to US$179 a month for AI coding agents. The operating company is Polar Lights LLC in Delaware. No funding round was found.", "The headline is gross receipts: all the money that customers paid, before the model providers are paid. On pay-as-you-go credits the business keeps the 5% fee, about 4.8% of each payment. On DevPass it keeps the price minus what the subscriber's usage costs, and that usage may reach three times the price at list rates; no source shows the result. The verified data stops on 7 September 2026, when the Stripe API key that TrustMRR used expired. An API key is a password that lets one program read another program's account. By a co-founder's own statement, the figures also leave out enterprise deals paid by bank wire." ], "factsCaption": "US$1 million of Stripe-verified gross receipts in about 16 months, with verification stopped on 7 September 2026. Most of the money passes on to the model providers.", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from Stripe through TrustMRR, as read up to 7 September 2026, the day the Stripe API key expired. A grade C value is the company's own page, a founder post, or a public record such as GitHub. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. The money figures are gross receipts, not the part that the business keeps.", "timelineLead": "From a GitHub repository in April 2025 to US$1 million of verified receipts in September 2026, in 16 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "LLM Gateway prices in October 2026, from the company's pricing page and DevPass page (grade C)", "note": "Pay-as-you-go customers buy credits and pay each provider's per-token price plus a flat 5% platform fee; cards from outside the US pay 1.5% more. With their own provider keys (bring your own key, BYOK) routing costs nothing. DevPass plans are monthly. From 15 October 2026 the DevPass allowance falls from 3 times to 2 times the price at each subscriber's first renewal on or after that date, and new subscriptions start at 2 times. Self-hosting the AGPLv3 code is free; code in the ee/ directory needs an enterprise licence in production.", "rows": [ [ "Free, pay as you go", "0", "0", "provider prices plus 5% fee on credits; BYOK free" ], [ "DevPass Lite", "", "29", "US$87 of usage at provider list rates (3x); US$58 from 15 October 2026" ], [ "DevPass Pro", "", "79", "US$237 of usage (3x); US$158 from 15 October 2026" ], [ "DevPass Max", "", "179", "US$537 of usage (3x); US$358 from 15 October 2026" ], [ "Enterprise", "custom", "", "volume discounts on credits, SLA, invoicing, 30-day trial" ], [ "Self-hosted", "0", "0", "AGPLv3; ee/ code needs a commercial licence" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Verified receipts in the 12 months to 7 September 2026", "value": "US$999,309", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data on TrustMRR. The twelve monthly figures from October 2025 to September 2026 add up to this total. Gross receipts: they include prepaid model credits that pass on to the providers.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified receipts, all time to 7 September 2026", "value": "US$1,000,116", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data on TrustMRR. By subtraction, only US$807 of it came before October 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified receipts in August 2026, the last full month", "value": "US$249,922", "grade": "A", "note": "Up from US$161,592 in July, US$101,431 in June and US$57,994 in January 2026. September 2026 has US$51,265 for its first days only.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Growth to August 2026", "value": "54.7% over July; 4.3 times January", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the monthly figures above.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from August 2026", "value": "about US$3.0 million a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$249,922 times 12 is US$2,999,064. One month only, gross, and the last full month before verification stopped.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue and active subscriptions", "value": "US$78,764 from 1,386 subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe snapshot stored on the profile at the last sync. Calculated: about US$56.83 per subscription a month. TrustMRR does not say which products the subscriptions are for.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Receipts in the last 30 days before verification stopped", "value": "US$259,539, up 54.6%", "grade": "A", "note": "Snapshot from the last sync on 7 September 2026. The daily table on the same profile shows US$0.00 for every later day, because no data arrives after the key expired.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "End of verified data", "value": "7 September 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "Last revenue sync at 02:22 UTC; the Stripe API key expired at 08:22 UTC the same day. Nothing after that date is verified.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Missing from the verified figures", "value": "enterprise deals paid by bank wire", "grade": "C", "note": "Co-founder's post on 7 September 2026: TrustMRR does not include them. Their size is not known.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "What the business keeps on pay-as-you-go credits", "value": "a 5% fee, about 4.8% of the payment", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the pricing table writes \"Pay per token + 5% fee\", so US$100 of credits costs US$105, and 5 divided by 105 is 4.76%. With the customer's own provider keys there is no fee.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Fee left after card processing on a US$105 payment", "value": "about US$1.66, or 1.6%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated at Stripe's list price for US cards, 2.9% plus 30 cents: US$3.35 of the US$5 fee goes to Stripe. LLM Gateway's real Stripe rate is not known.", "src": [ 3, 20 ] }, { "fact": "Upper limit of fee income in the all-time receipts", "value": "about US$47,625", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$1,000,116 times 5/105, as if every receipt were a credit purchase. Part of the money is DevPass subscriptions, whose margin no source shows.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "DevPass usage allowance", "value": "3 times the price, 2 times from 15 October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Company's DevPass page. Lite at US$29 a month gives US$87 of model usage at provider list rates, metered per request. Daily caps and tighter weekly caps on premium models also start on 15 October.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "2 co-founders", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR lists Luca Steeb and Smakosh as co-founders, and both X profiles say co-founder. Their two GitHub accounts made 4,104 of the 4,815 commits that GitHub counts, 85.2%. The About page speaks of a distributed team; its size is not known.", "src": [ 1, 2, 5, 9, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "No funding announcement in any downloaded source, and no page in the Y Combinator company directory. Not verified that none exists.", "src": [ 21 ] }, { "fact": "Company", "value": "Polar Lights LLC, Delaware", "grade": "C", "note": "The About page names it as the operator, at an address in Lewes, Delaware. The LICENSE file names LLMGateway, Inc. as the copyright holder; no source explains the difference.", "src": [ 2, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Open-source licence", "value": "AGPLv3, with a commercial licence for the ee/ directory", "grade": "C", "note": "Production use of the ee/ code needs an LLMGateway Enterprise licence for the correct number of user seats. Development and testing use is free.", "src": [ 2, 6 ] }, { "fact": "GitHub repository, 14 October 2026", "value": "1,686 stars, 193 forks, 39 contributors", "grade": "C", "note": "GitHub's own record. Created on 12 April 2025. The contributors include bots, among them dependabot and devin-ai-integration.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Traffic claimed by the company", "value": "more than 1 trillion tokens in more than 80 million requests", "grade": "C", "note": "Company's About page. Not verified.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Time from founding to US$1 million in receipts", "value": "16 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 22 May 2025 to 7 September 2026 is 473 days, or 15.5 months.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Status, October 2026", "value": "running", "grade": "C", "note": "New code was pushed on 14 October 2026, the company account announced new endpoints on 12 October 2026, and the changelog covers four products: LLM Gateway, DevPass, Lounge and Airside.", "src": [ 5, 11, 14 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "12 April 2025", "what": "The GitHub repository theopenco/llmgateway is created.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "22 May 2025", "what": "Founding date, as the founders entered it on TrustMRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "9 June 2025", "what": "A Hacker News post presents the site as an \"open-source Openrouter\". It gets 3 points.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "13 June 2025", "what": "The company account @llmgateway opens on X.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "October to December 2025", "what": "First months in the verified timeline: US$89 in October, US$10,920 in November, US$47,191 in December.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "31 March 2026", "what": "A commit by Smakosh renames the coding subscription to DevPass.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "26 April 2026", "what": "An admin page for DevPass subscribers is added to the code.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "7 May 2026", "what": "DevPass launches on Product Hunt.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "US$101,431 in one month, the first month above US$100,000.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "22 July 2026", "what": "Luca Steeb posts a response-time benchmark of LLM Gateway against OpenRouter on Hacker News.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "August 2026", "what": "US$249,922, the highest verified month. After problems with Stripe card disputes, Luca Steeb writes that \"card payments as a merchant really are a nightmare\".", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 9 ] }, { "when": "7 September 2026", "what": "All-time Stripe receipts pass US$1 million. Smakosh posts that the US$1 million is now verifiable but leaves out bank-wire deals. The Stripe key expires six hours after the last sync, and verification stops.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 8 ] }, { "when": "25 September 2026", "what": "Both co-founders present LLM Gateway on the DevNTell live stream on X.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "12 October 2026", "what": "The company announces new endpoints for OpenAI's Decisions API and Perplexity's Search API.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "15 October 2026", "what": "Scheduled: the DevPass allowance falls from 3 times to 2 times the price.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Open code that developers can check", "text": "The gateway, dashboard, API and worker are all AGPLv3 on GitHub, and self-hosting takes one Docker command. A developer can read the code before sending traffic through the hosted version, and can leave without losing the tool. An early public mention, on Hacker News in June 2025, described it as an open-source OpenRouter." }, { "title": "Prepaid credits at provider prices plus 5%", "text": "The hosted service sells model usage at each provider's own per-token price and adds a flat 5% fee when credits are bought. Customers pay before they use, so the business does not wait for its money. With their own provider keys, customers pay nothing to the gateway and still get the analytics, caching and failover." }, { "title": "A flat subscription for coding agents", "text": "DevPass costs US$29, US$79 or US$179 a month and meters up to three times that amount in model usage at list rates, for Claude Code, OpenCode and other agents. It got its name in March 2026. The verified monthly receipts rose fastest after that, from US$85,742 in April to US$249,922 in August 2026, but TrustMRR does not split receipts by product, so the share of DevPass is not known." }, { "title": "Paid features for companies", "text": "By the pricing page, Enterprise plans add volume discounts, custom routing, unlimited data retention, a 99.9% uptime SLA and invoicing, and the feature table names enterprise audit logs and enterprise guardrails. Separately, the licence puts the code in the ee/ directory under a paid licence for production use. Enterprise payments by bank wire are not in the Stripe figures." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's pages, its public GitHub repository and the co-founders' posts. They are grade C.", "items": [ "One public repository holds the gateway, the dashboard, the API and the worker, licensed AGPLv3. Self-hosting is one Docker command.", "The website moved from TanStack Start to Next.js in July 2025, by the changelog.", "The two co-founders made 85% of the commits that GitHub counts. Bots commit too: dependabot updates dependencies, and devin-ai-integration, the account of an AI coding agent, has 92 commits.", "Google Cloud hosts the application, the database and the file storage, Stripe takes the payments, Resend sends the email and PostHog records product analytics, by the company's sub-processor list of 19 August 2026. In August 2026 Luca Steeb complained in public about Stripe's handling of card disputes.", "A provider page lists, for each of 45 providers, the legal terms, the data handling and the contracting entity. The company says that it adds new models within 48 hours of their release.", "OpenCode has LLM Gateway built in, and Claude Code and other agents connect with two environment variables.", "Marketing: the company X account posts each new model, and the site has comparison pages against OpenRouter, LiteLLM, Portkey and Vercel AI Gateway." ], "src": [ 2, 5, 9, 4, 13, 11, 22, 14 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold one API in front of many services that other companies owned, or a developer platform that a larger company could give away. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Singly", "years": "2011 to 2016", "funding": "US$2.7M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "One API for a person's data from many social networks and online services.", "died": "It depended on other companies' APIs, which were not reliable. Zapier and IFTTT offered broader automation, and after Appcelerator bought it in 2013 the product lost its focus.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/548-singly" }, { "name": "Parse", "years": "2011 to 2016", "funding": "US$7M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A ready-made backend, so that app developers did not need their own servers.", "died": "Facebook bought it in 2013 and did not give it the resources it needed, while Google backed Firebase, a competing product.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/414-parse" }, { "name": "Solid", "years": "2017 to 2025", "funding": "US$81M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "One API that connects a company's business software, so that no one writes custom integrations.", "died": "Connecting everything to everything was harder than planned. Long sales cycles, a high cost to win each customer and high support costs were more than customers paid.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2479-solid" }, { "name": "Finantier", "years": "2021 to 2024", "funding": "US$3M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "One API to connect apps to the many banks of Southeast Asia.", "died": "The rules were different in each country and slowed its growth, and Plaid, a much larger rival, entered the region.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/885-finantier" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the four stood between developers and services that other companies owned. Singly broke when the social networks changed their APIs, Parse lost to a rival with Google behind it, Solid's cost of serving each customer was higher than what the customer paid, and Finantier lost to a larger rival. LLM Gateway has the same exposure: the model providers own the models, set the prices and write the terms, and Vercel and Cloudflare offer gateways with no fee at all.", "Two things differ. First, customers pay in advance and the gateway passes the providers' prices through, so the business needs little money of its own, and no funding round was found. Second, the code is open source, so a customer who stops paying can keep running it, which the company names as the reason that teams stay. Neither difference makes the margin larger: on pay-as-you-go credits the business keeps about 5% before card fees." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The margin, with care.", "text": "An open-source gateway that resells model usage needs little money to start, because customers prepay. But the fee is a few percent of the money that passes through, and large platforms offer the same function for free. The parts to copy are the open code that brings developers to the product, and products that earn more than a pass-through fee: a subscription and an enterprise licence.", "steps": [ "Publish the core under a licence such as AGPLv3, which allows self-hosting but makes anyone who sells a changed version as a service publish the changes.", "Sell prepaid credits at the providers' prices plus a small, stated fee, and let customers bring their own keys for free.", "Put the features that companies need, such as audit logs and guardrails, under a commercial licence.", "Test flat-price plans with care: an allowance of three times the price works only when most subscribers use much less." ], "open": "Gateways for other paid APIs that change fast: speech, image and video models, web search APIs, and the AI coding agents that need many models behind one key." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Gross receipts, not the business's revenue", "text": "The US$999,309 is what customers paid through Stripe. On pay-as-you-go credits about 95% passes on to the model providers, and the business keeps the 5% fee, about 4.8% of the payment, or about 1.6% after Stripe's list card fee. The margin on DevPass is not public, and no source gives a profit figure." }, { "title": "Verification stopped on 7 September 2026", "text": "The Stripe API key that TrustMRR reads expired that day, so every verified figure ends then, and the daily table shows US$0.00 for every later day. A co-founder says that enterprise deals paid by bank wire are missing, so the real total may be higher. Nothing after 7 September is verified in either direction." }, { "title": "Many competitors, some with no fee", "text": "OpenRouter uses the same model of pass-through prices and a fee on credits. LiteLLM is an open-source gateway with 61,218 GitHub stars, against 1,686 for LLM Gateway. Portkey sells a production plan at US$49 a month. Vercel AI Gateway charges no markup and no platform fee, and Cloudflare AI Gateway's core features are free. In August 2026 another gateway was posted on Hacker News as one that charges 0%." }, { "title": "Thin margins on resold model usage", "text": "DevPass gave three times its price in model usage at list rates. From 15 October 2026 it gives two times for the same price, with daily caps and tighter weekly caps on premium models. The company did not say why. A plan that gives more usage than its price makes money only when most subscribers use less than their allowance." }, { "title": "Dependence on the model providers' terms", "text": "Every request goes to a provider under that provider's terms; the company's provider page names, for each of 45 providers, the contracting party in the terms that apply to LLM Gateway's account. A provider that raises prices, limits resale or closes the account changes the product at once." }, { "title": "Two people, two company names", "text": "The work rests on two co-founders, who made 85% of the commits. The About page names Polar Lights LLC as the operator, while the licence file names LLMGateway, Inc.; no source explains which company owns the code." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR: LLM Gateway profile, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/llm-gateway", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/llm-gateway.md) in full. The revenue table, the monthly timeline, the MRR and the subscription count come from Stripe (grade A); the description, the co-founders and the founding date are founder-written (grade C). Last sync 7 September 2026; the Stripe key expired the same day." }, { "title": "LLM Gateway: About page", "url": "https://llmgateway.io/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 5% fee, the AGPLv3 licence, the ee/ directory, Polar Lights LLC and the traffic totals." }, { "title": "LLM Gateway: Pricing page", "url": "https://llmgateway.io/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the plans, the 5% fee, the fee for cards from outside the US and the BYOK rule." }, { "title": "LLM Gateway: DevPass page", "url": "https://llmgateway.io/devpass", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the plans, the notice of the change on 15 October 2026 and the agent list." }, { "title": "GitHub API: repository theopenco/llmgateway, its contributors and its organization", "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/theopenco/llmgateway", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the JSON records on 14 October 2026: creation date, last push, stars, forks, licence field and commits per contributor." }, { "title": "GitHub: LICENSE and ee/LICENSE of theopenco/llmgateway", "url": "https://github.com/theopenco/llmgateway/blob/main/LICENSE", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both files in full, as raw text." }, { "title": "GitHub: commit \"rebrand to DevPass\", 31 March 2026, and the next DevPass commits", "url": "https://github.com/theopenco/llmgateway/commit/ba3de02344f239c574a8a70a35bf83a5b4e02246", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the three oldest results of the GitHub commit search API for \"devpass\"." }, { "title": "Smakosh on X, 7 September 2026: TrustMRR and the US$1 million", "url": "https://x.com/smakosh/status/2096874683463278902", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Co-founder's post on the US$1 million and the bank-wire deals." }, { "title": "Luca Steeb on X: profile and recent posts", "url": "https://x.com/steebchen", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and the latest 20 posts through api.fxtwitter.com: co-founder bio, his own Stripe dispute posts of August 2026, and his repost of Developer DAO's announcement of the DevNTell live stream of 25 September 2026." }, { "title": "Smakosh on X: profile", "url": "https://x.com/smakosh", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and the latest 20 posts through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the co-founder bio." }, { "title": "LLM Gateway on X: profile and recent posts", "url": "https://x.com/llmgateway", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and the latest 20 posts through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the account's start date and the announcements of 12 October 2026." }, { "title": "Hacker News, 9 June 2025: LLM Gateway: open-source Openrouter", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44220561", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the story record through the Algolia Hacker News search API: title, date and points. The same search gave the benchmark post of 22 July 2026 and the post of 24 August 2026 about a gateway that charges 0%." }, { "title": "LLM Gateway: Provider information page", "url": "https://llmgateway.io/legal/providers", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the introduction and the first entries of the table of 45 providers." }, { "title": "LLM Gateway: Changelog", "url": "https://llmgateway.io/changelog", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the latest entries, to 22 September 2026, and the list of products." }, { "title": "OpenRouter: FAQ", "url": "https://openrouter.ai/docs/faq", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on pricing and fees. The fee rate itself loads by script and is not in the downloaded text." }, { "title": "Vercel documentation: AI Gateway pricing", "url": "https://vercel.com/docs/ai-gateway/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the introduction on markup and fees." }, { "title": "Cloudflare documentation: AI Gateway pricing", "url": "https://developers.cloudflare.com/ai-gateway/reference/pricing/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the pricing notes." }, { "title": "Portkey: Pricing page", "url": "https://portkey.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the plan table." }, { "title": "GitHub API: repository BerriAI/litellm", "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/BerriAI/litellm", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the JSON record on 14 October 2026: stars and description." }, { "title": "Stripe: Pricing page", "url": "https://stripe.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the line on card pricing in the US." }, { "title": "Y Combinator company directory: llm-gateway", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/llm-gateway", "grade": "C", "how": "Requested on 14 October 2026; the server answered 404, no such page. A missing page is weak evidence, not proof, that there was no Y Combinator funding." }, { "title": "LLM Gateway: Sub-processor list, version of 19 August 2026", "url": "https://llmgateway.io/legal/sub-processors", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the list of operational sub-processors in full." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/calyra/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/calyra.md", "slug": "calyra", "name": "Calyra", "country": "France", "sector": "Health Care", "productType": "AI calorie tracker app that estimates the nutrition of a meal from a photo", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "12 August 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$507K of revenue in 12 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$507K in 12 months", "outcomeUsd": 506567, "months": 14, "teamLabel": "1 founder, Maximilien Kender; NUTRIA SAS has a single shareholder and no salaried staff in the French register", "fundingLabel": "None found: €1,000 of share capital, and the profile says bootstrapped", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "health-appearance", "channel": "creators", "trend": "falling", "collections": [ "phone-app" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Health and fitness" ], "product": "An iPhone and Android app that estimates calories, macronutrients and micronutrients from a photo of a meal, with a barcode scanner for packaged food and a log of weight and BMI. It is free to download; the service needs a subscription after a 3-day free trial, at US$9.99 a month or US$49.99 a year in the US store.", "why": "One founder released it in August 2025, after Cal AI, released in April 2024, had shown that photo calorie counting sells. It has a hard paywall, a short trial and cheap yearly plans. It appears to have started in France: the French App Store shows 598 ratings against 138 in the US store. The owner lists TikTok as the only marketing channel.", "summary": [ "Calyra is an iPhone and Android app that estimates the calories in a meal from one photo. The user points the camera at a plate; the app names the foods, estimates the amounts, and logs calories, macronutrients, the protein, carbohydrate and fat that give the body energy, and micronutrients such as vitamins. A barcode scanner covers packaged food. The company's privacy policy says only that the photos are \"traitées par notre intelligence artificielle\", processed by our artificial intelligence; no source names the model or the provider behind it. The app is free to download, but the service needs a paid subscription after a 3-day free trial: in the US App Store, US$9.99 a month or US$49.99 a year, with a yearly offer at US$29.99.", "One person built it in Aix-en-Provence, France. The French state business register shows that Maximilien Kender registered a sole proprietorship, a business that a person owns directly without a separate company, trading as NUTRIA on 1 July 2025, the founding date on the TrustMRR profile, and that he is the president of NUTRIA SAS, registered on 28 November 2025. The app's terms of use name him as its publisher, and the company's legal notice describes NUTRIA SAS as a SASU, a French simplified joint-stock company with a single shareholder, with €1,000 of share capital. The app has been on the App Store since 12 August 2025, first under the name Nutria. Its sales are recorded by RevenueCat, a service that mobile apps use to manage in-app subscriptions on the App Store and Google Play. RevenueCat's standard revenue measure is what customers paid, minus refunds, before Apple and Google take their commission, the share of each sale that the store keeps, and before taxes; it reports the money after those deductions separately, as proceeds.", "TrustMRR, a site that publishes revenue read directly from a company's payment provider, reads this RevenueCat account with a key that the owner gave it. On 13 October 2026 it showed US$506,567 of revenue in the last twelve months, US$558,567 since launch, and a monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the value of all active subscriptions converted to one month, of US$46,051 from 14,523 active subscriptions. These figures are grade A, because they come from the payment provider and not from the founder. They show a young business that is not steady: monthly revenue fell from US$24,790 in December 2025 to US$7,383 in February 2026, rose every month to US$119,599 in August 2026, and fell to US$96,766 in September. On 6 October 2026 the owner listed the app for sale at US$1,500,000. Cal AI, a larger app of the same kind that MyFitnessPal bought in a deal that closed in December 2025, had more than US$30 million of annual revenue at the sale, about 59 times Calyra's last twelve months." ], "factsCaption": "US$506,567 of RevenueCat-verified revenue in the twelve months to 13 October 2026, from an app released 14 months earlier by one founder, with a peak of US$119,599 in August 2026", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from RevenueCat payment records, read through the TrustMRR profile on 14 October 2026 (last synced 13 October 2026), from the French state business register, or from the documentation of RevenueCat or Apple. A grade B value is store data computed by Apple or Google, a published study, or a press report. A grade C value is a statement by the company or its owner. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows that it cites.", "timelineLead": "From a sole proprietorship in Aix-en-Provence to US$506,567 in twelve months and a sale listing, in 15 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Calyra prices in the US App Store, read 14 October 2026, with the trial from the company's terms and site (grade C)", "note": "Apple lists three in-app purchases; the store page does not show the trial, which comes from the company's terms of use and its site. The site says no bank card is needed for the trial. There is no weekly plan in the US list. The yearly price is 58.3% below twelve monthly payments (US$119.88), and the offer is 40.0% below the yearly price.", "rows": [ [ "Free trial", "0", "0", "3 days, then a paid plan is needed" ], [ "Monthly", "", "9.99", "full access" ], [ "Yearly", "4.17", "", "US$49.99 a year" ], [ "Yearly, offer", "2.50", "", "US$29.99 a year, listed by Apple as an offer" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue in the 12 months to 13 October 2026", "value": "US$506,567", "grade": "A", "note": "RevenueCat payment records read by TrustMRR. RevenueCat's standard revenue measure is what customers paid minus refunds, before store commission and taxes; TrustMRR does not say that it uses another measure.", "src": [ 1, 10, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue since launch", "value": "US$558,567", "grade": "A", "note": "Calculated from the two totals: US$52,000 of it came before 13 October 2025, in the first two months on sale.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days", "value": "US$83,463", "grade": "A", "note": "The profile gives a change of -24.0% against the 30 days before.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue (MRR)", "value": "US$46,051 from 14,523 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "MRR converts each subscription to a monthly value: a yearly plan counts as one twelfth of its price. The profile gives a change of -0.8% in 30 days.", "src": [ 1, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Best month", "value": "US$119,599, August 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "111.0% above July (US$56,694). September 2026: US$96,766, 19.1% below August.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Lowest month in the published history", "value": "US$7,383, February 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "The monthly history starts in November 2025 (US$21,616). August 2026 was 16.2 times February.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per day, 1 to 12 October 2026", "value": "US$2,734 on average", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the profile's daily table: US$32,805 in 12 days, 29.1% below the August average of US$3,858 a day.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR per active subscription", "value": "US$3.17 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$46,051 / 14,523. The yearly plans cost US$2.50 to US$4.17 a month and the monthly plan US$9.99, so most active subscribers probably pay yearly.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue of the last 30 days against MRR", "value": "1.81 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$83,463 / US$46,051. A yearly plan is paid in full on the first day, so cash in a month with many new yearly sales is far above MRR.", "src": [ 1, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue after a 15% store commission", "value": "about US$430,582 in 12 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$506,567 x 0.85. Apple charges 15% to developers in its Small Business Program, open to those with up to US$1 million of proceeds a year. Enrollment is not verified, and taxes come off as well.", "src": [ 1, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "80.0%", "grade": "C", "note": "Shown on the profile. Costs do not come from RevenueCat, and the profile does not say how they were entered. Not verified.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price", "value": "US$1,500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Listed for sale on TrustMRR on 6 October 2026, with 2 offers received. The price is the seller's statement.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price as a multiple of revenue", "value": "2.96 times the last 12 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$1,500,000 / US$506,567. It is 2.71 times MRR x 12 (US$552,612). TrustMRR's own 1.5x divides by 12 times the last 30 days (US$1,001,556).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "US App Store prices", "value": "US$9.99 a month, US$49.99 a year, US$29.99 a year as an offer", "grade": "C", "note": "In-app purchases listed on the store page. No weekly plan. The terms add a 3-day free trial, and the site says no bank card is needed for it.", "src": [ 2, 5, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Ratings", "value": "4.7 of 5 from 138 ratings in the US App Store", "grade": "B", "note": "4.6 from 598 ratings in the French App Store, and 4.8 from 4.51 thousand reviews on Google Play, which shows more than 50,000 downloads.", "src": [ 2, 3, 9 ] }, { "fact": "App Store release", "value": "12 August 2025", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's lookup data. The company's site and terms still call the app Nutria, its first name.", "src": [ 3, 5, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Status on 14 October 2026", "value": "on sale in both stores, listed for sale as a business", "grade": "B", "note": "Version 1.4.4 of 4 October 2026 is the latest on the App Store. The Google Play listing is live under the same seller.", "src": [ 2, 3, 9, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 founder", "grade": "A", "note": "The register lists one president for NUTRIA SAS and marks both it and the earlier sole proprietorship as non-employers. The legal notice calls NUTRIA SAS a single-shareholder company (SASU). Contractors would not appear in the register.", "src": [ 4, 7, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "Share capital of €1,000 in the legal notice; the profile says bootstrapped.", "src": [ 7, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Other apps by the developer", "value": "none", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's lookup of developer account 1873299773 returns this one app.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Time from App Store release to the October 2026 figure", "value": "14 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 12 August 2025 to 13 October 2026, 427 days.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Cal AI at its sale, for comparison", "value": "more than US$30 million of annual revenue", "grade": "B", "note": "MyFitnessPal to TechCrunch, 2 March 2026; the deal closed in December 2025. That is about 59 times Calyra's last 12 months (calculated).", "src": [ 15 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "1 July 2025", "what": "A sole proprietorship trading as NUTRIA, classified as software publishing, is registered in Aix-en-Provence. TrustMRR gives the same date as the founding date.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 4, 1 ] }, { "when": "12 August 2025", "what": "The app appears on the App Store, first under the name Nutria.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 3, 6 ] }, { "when": "August to mid-October 2025", "what": "US$52,000 of revenue in the first two months, calculated from the profile's totals.", "grade": "X", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "28 November 2025", "what": "NUTRIA SAS, a single-shareholder company with €1,000 of share capital, is registered in Aix-en-Provence with the founder as president. It is the seller on both stores today.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 4, 7 ] }, { "when": "December 2025", "what": "US$24,790 of revenue, the best month of 2025 in the published history.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "February 2026", "what": "US$7,383, the lowest month in the published history.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "March to August 2026", "what": "Revenue rises every month: US$15,002, US$27,442, US$33,205, US$42,853, US$56,694, then US$119,599 in August.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "US$96,766, 19.1% below August.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "4 October 2026", "what": "Version 1.4.4, the fourth update after version 1.4.0 of 6 August 2026.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "6 October 2026", "what": "Listed for sale on TrustMRR at US$1,500,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "Last RevenueCat sync: US$506,567 in 12 months, MRR of US$46,051, 14,523 active subscriptions.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "One photo instead of typing", "text": "Older calorie apps make the user search a food database and type each portion. Calyra asks for one photo: the AI names the foods and estimates the amounts, and a barcode scan covers packaged food. The company's site says the results come in less than 3 seconds." }, { "title": "A hard paywall with a short trial", "text": "The terms say the service needs a paid subscription after a 3-day free trial. RevenueCat's 2025 report finds a median download-to-paying conversion of 12.11% for apps with a hard paywall against 2.18% for freemium apps. Most Health and Fitness apps give longer trials, of 5 to 9 days or more." }, { "title": "Yearly plans at a large discount", "text": "The yearly price is 58.3% below twelve monthly payments, and the offer is 40.0% below that. MRR of US$3.17 per active subscription suggests that most people chose a yearly plan. In RevenueCat's data, 44.1% of yearly subscribers still pay after a year, against 17.0% for monthly plans." }, { "title": "TikTok and the French market", "text": "The profile lists TikTok as the only marketing channel. The French App Store shows 598 ratings against 138 in the US store, and the company's site and terms are in French, so France appears to be the main market. This page could not see the videos or what they cost." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "The company publishes little about how the app is built. These items come from the store listings, the company's site and its legal pages, and are grade C.", "items": [ "An iPhone and iPad app (iOS 15.1 or later, 81.1 MB) and an Android app, both sold by NUTRIA SAS. The bundle name, com.nutria25.nutriaapp, keeps the first name of the app.", "Meal photos are \"traitées par notre intelligence artificielle pour identifier les aliments\" (processed by our artificial intelligence to identify the foods), in the words of the privacy policy, which names no model and no provider. The terms call it an image-recognition system.", "Barcode scanning for packaged food, a food database, and a recipe page that was added in an update.", "Subscriptions on both stores run through RevenueCat, and TrustMRR reads RevenueCat with a read-only key to publish the verified revenue.", "The website nutriatech.com is hosted on Vercel, according to the legal notice. The terms of use are a public Notion page." ], "src": [ 2, 8, 5, 1, 12, 7 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised that tracking food, activity or biology would become health advice that people pay for. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Airo Health", "years": "2016 to 2019", "funding": "US$4M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A wristband that tracked stress, nutrition intake and exercise and gave advice in real time.", "died": "Apple and Fitbit improved their own devices faster. The device did not justify its price, hardware production was hard, and new funding did not come.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1465-airo-health" }, { "name": "Jawbone", "years": "1999 to 2017", "funding": "US$930M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "UP fitness trackers that turned daily activity data into health insights.", "died": "Fitbit and Apple competed better. Product recalls, poor customer service and long lawsuits used up money and trust.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/257-jawbone" }, { "name": "Arivale", "years": "2015 to 2019", "funding": "US$50M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Scientific wellness: genome, blood and activity data with a personal coach, for US$3,500 up front and US$99 a month.", "died": "Each customer cost more than US$4,700 a year to serve, against US$1,188 a year of price after the first year.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/8-arivale" }, { "name": "Nutrigene", "years": "2018 to 2021", "funding": "US$3M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Liquid supplements mixed for each customer's DNA, lifestyle and health goals.", "died": "Customers were expensive to win, a personalized product was hard to scale, and simpler rivals such as Care/of sold more easily.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1010-nutrigene" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The four predecessors needed something physical to measure the body: a wristband, a fitness tracker, blood and genome tests, or a supplement mixed for each customer. Hardware and laboratories made every customer expensive, and two of them died of unit economics. Calyra measures nothing itself. The customer's own phone camera takes the picture and software estimates the calories, so one person could build it, and a new user costs little more than the processing of the photos and the store's commission.", "The cause that ended Airo Health and Jawbone has not gone away: larger companies with the same feature. Apple's search returns 183 calorie apps from 183 different sellers for one phrase, and MyFitnessPal, the largest of them by ratings, bought Cal AI and connected it to its own nutrition database. A photo calorie counter is now a common feature. What Calyra adds is a low yearly price, a start in French and a sales channel on TikTok, and a rival can copy each of these." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. An easy market, no.", "text": "Calyra shows that one person can build an AI photo calorie app and sell US$506,567 of subscriptions in twelve months, with numbers verified by the payment provider. Every part of the method is public: a camera screen, an image model, a barcode scanner, a hard paywall with a short trial, discounted yearly plans and short videos. That is also the problem. More than 180 look-alike apps compete for the same search words, so the business depends on the cost of each new subscriber, which no public source shows.", "steps": [ "Choose a daily task that people now do by typing and that one photo can replace.", "Put a paid subscription with a short free trial in front of the main feature, and sell the yearly plan at a large discount to twelve monthly payments.", "Use a subscription service such as RevenueCat for both app stores, and publish verified numbers if you may want to sell the business later.", "Start in your own language and country: Calyra has 598 ratings in the French App Store against 138 in the US store." ], "open": "Daily logging tasks that a photo can replace and that the large apps cover badly in a given language or country: drinks, medication, skin care, plant care." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Photo estimates are not exact", "text": "A 2023 systematic review of 52 studies found average calorie errors of 0.10% to 38.3% when AI estimated food from images, with smaller errors for single, simple foods. A 2025 study gave 114 meal photos to ChatGPT-4: it identified the foods with 93.0% precision but estimated medium and large portions poorly and underestimated 11 of 16 nutrients. A 2024 study of seven apps with photo recognition found their automatic energy estimates inaccurate. Calyra publishes no accuracy test on its site or store pages, and its site calls its AI \"la plus précise du marché\", the most accurate on the market, without data." }, { "title": "A crowded category of look-alike apps", "text": "On 14 October 2026, Apple's US search for \"ai calorie tracker\" returned 195 apps. 183 have a form of the word calorie in the name, each from a different seller, and 156 of those were first released after Cal AI on 8 April 2024. Calyra was number 148 in the list. MyFitnessPal has 2,377,347 ratings and Cal AI 370,360; Calyra has 138." }, { "title": "Churn after the first year", "text": "Yearly plans keep customers longest, but not most of them: RevenueCat's 2025 report finds 44.1% of yearly subscribers still paying after one year, 17.0% for monthly plans and 3.4% for weekly plans, which Calyra does not sell in the US store. Calyra's first yearly subscribers, from August to December 2025, reach their first renewal between August and December 2026, so the coming months test the business. In the last 30 days revenue fell 24.0% while MRR fell 0.8%." }, { "title": "For sale 15 months after founding", "text": "On 6 October 2026 the owner listed the app at US$1,500,000, 2.96 times its last twelve months of revenue. TrustMRR's own figure of 1.5x divides the price by twelve times the last 30 days, which upfront yearly payments make larger. A buyer gets revenue that more than doubled from July to August 2026 and then fell, costs that are not verified, and an app that one person runs." }, { "title": "Before commission, and one person", "text": "The verified revenue is most likely before Apple's and Google's commission and before taxes, so the owner receives less than the headline: about US$430,582 at a 15% commission. The register shows no salaried staff, so the business depends on one founder." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile: Nutria (9e3eaa), the Calyra app, revenue last synced 13 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/nutria-9e3eaa", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile in full (https://trustmrr.com/startup/nutria-9e3eaa.md) on 14 October 2026. Revenue, MRR and subscriptions come from RevenueCat through an API key (grade A). The description, the funding line, the TikTok channel, the profit margin and the sale listing are written by the owner (grade C)." }, { "title": "Apple App Store listing: Calyra - AI Calorie Tracker, US store, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/calyra-ai-calorie-tracker/id6748324995", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the prices, the rating, the version history, the seller and the size." }, { "title": "Apple lookup API: developer account 1873299773 (Nutria SAS) and its apps, US and French stores", "url": "https://itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=1873299773&entity=software", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full on 14 October 2026 for the US and French stores. Source for the release date, the seller name, the ratings in each country and the single app." }, { "title": "French state business register (Recherche d'entreprises): NUTRIA SAS, SIREN 995082831, and the sole proprietorship trading as NUTRIA", "url": "https://recherche-entreprises.api.gouv.fr/search?q=nutria", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full on 14 October 2026. Source for the creation dates, legal forms, activity codes, the president and the non-employer flag. Other companies named Nutria in the results are unrelated." }, { "title": "Nutria terms of use (Conditions Générales d'Utilisation), Notion page linked from the App Store listing", "url": "https://laser-carol-7ae.notion.site/Conditions-G-n-rales-D-Utilisation-223d5fa4ad3180c2856fd359537213ac", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through Notion's page API on 14 October 2026, in French. Source for the publisher's name, the 3-day free trial, the monthly or yearly subscription and the image-recognition system." }, { "title": "NutriaTech website, home page", "url": "https://nutriatech.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 14 October 2026, in French. Source for the trial without a bank card, the under-3-seconds claim and the most-accurate claim." }, { "title": "NutriaTech legal notice (Mentions légales)", "url": "https://nutriatech.com/mentions-legales", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the SASU form, the €1,000 share capital, the RCS number and the host, Vercel." }, { "title": "NutriaTech privacy policy (Politique de confidentialité), updated 15 September 2026", "url": "https://nutriatech.com/confidentialite", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, in French. Photos are processed by the company's own description of its AI; no model or provider is named." }, { "title": "Google Play listing: Calyra - AI Calorie Tracker", "url": "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nutria25.nutriaapp.beta", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the summary section on 14 October 2026: seller, rating, review count and download range." }, { "title": "RevenueCat documentation: Revenue chart", "url": "https://www.revenuecat.com/docs/dashboard-and-metrics/charts/revenue-chart", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the definitions section. Revenue is before taxes and store commission; Revenue (net of taxes) and Proceeds are separate measures." }, { "title": "RevenueCat documentation: Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) chart", "url": "https://www.revenuecat.com/docs/dashboard-and-metrics/charts/monthly-recurring-revenue-mrr-chart", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the definitions section. Source for how yearly plans are normalized to a month." }, { "title": "TrustMRR llms.txt: how TrustMRR connects to payment providers", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/llms.txt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the read-only RevenueCat key and the imported daily revenue, MRR and subscription history." }, { "title": "Apple Developer: App Store Small Business Program", "url": "https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the program description: 15% commission for developers with up to US$1 million of proceeds in the prior calendar year." }, { "title": "Apple search API: \"ai calorie tracker\", US store, 200-result limit", "url": "https://itunes.apple.com/search?term=ai+calorie+tracker&entity=software&country=us&limit=200", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full on 14 October 2026 and counted with python3: names, sellers, release dates and rating counts." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 2 March 2026: MyFitnessPal has acquired Cal AI, the viral calorie app built by teens", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/02/myfitnesspal-has-acquired-cal-ai-the-viral-calorie-app-built-by-teens/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for Cal AI's revenue and downloads at the sale and for the December 2025 closing." }, { "title": "RevenueCat, State of Subscription Apps 2025", "url": "https://www.revenuecat.com/state-of-subscription-apps-2025/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the public sections on plan durations, trials, paywalls and retention. Aggregate data from apps that use RevenueCat, not about Calyra." }, { "title": "Annals of Medicine, December 2023: AI-based digital image dietary assessment methods compared to humans and ground truth, a systematic review", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1080/07853890.2023.2273497", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the abstract through Europe PMC (PMC10836267). Source for the range of calorie errors in 52 studies." }, { "title": "Nutrients, February 2025: An Evaluation of ChatGPT for Nutrient Content Estimation from Meal Photographs", "url": "https://doi.org/10.3390/nu17040607", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the abstract through Europe PMC (PMC11858203). Source for the 114 photos, the 93.0% precision and the underestimated nutrients." }, { "title": "Nutrients, August 2024: Evaluating the Quality and Comparative Validity of Manual Food Logging and Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Food Image Recognition in Apps for Nutrition Care", "url": "https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16152573", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the abstract through Europe PMC (PMC11314244). Source for the finding on seven AI-enabled apps." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/rank-prompt/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/rank-prompt.md", "slug": "rank-prompt", "name": "Rank Prompt", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI search visibility tracking (AEO)", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "16 June 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$524K a year run rate, October 2026", "sticker": "$524K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 524064, "months": 16, "teamLabel": "4 partners and 1 founding engineer named; 6 people on LinkedIn, October 2026", "fundingLabel": "None found", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "seo-ai-search", "channel": "partners", "trend": "growing", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Marketing" ], "product": "Software that asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Claude, Gemini and Grok the questions that a brand's customers ask, records whether each answer names the brand and which web pages it cites, and then suggests fixes, writes articles and contacts the cited sites. Agencies can resell it under their own name.", "why": "Four owners of marketing agencies built it for their own clients, who asked whether AI recommended them. They launched it with plans made for agencies and a 30% lifetime commission for agencies that resell it. The average subscription now pays about US$206 a month, close to the price of the agency plans.", "summary": [ "Rank Prompt sells software for answer engine optimization (AEO), the work of making a brand appear in the answers of AI assistants, the way search engine optimization (SEO) makes a page appear in Google's list of links. The same work is also called generative engine optimization (GEO) or AI SEO. The product sends a customer's chosen questions, called prompts (the text that a person types into an AI assistant), to six AI engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode with AI Overviews, Claude, Gemini and Grok. It reads each answer, records whether it names the customer's brand and which pages it cites, and computes a visibility score: the share of answers that named the brand. For example, 9 questions on 3 engines give 27 answers; if 9 of them name the brand, the score is 33%. Then it suggests fixes and writes articles meant to be cited.", "Four people who ran digital marketing agencies, Nazareno Castro Bay, Ethan Kramer, Cole Feigl and Trevor Anderson, first built it as an internal tool for clients who asked \"Does AI recommend our brand?\". They launched it by press release from Miami on 16 June 2025, at US$29 a month, with a 30% lifetime revenue share for agencies. The company is Rank Prompt LLC in Florida. TrustMRR, a site that publishes revenue read directly from a company's payment processor, lists it under the X account of Tomas Marengo, whom the About page calls Founding Engineer. On 14 October 2026, Stripe data on TrustMRR showed MRR, monthly recurring revenue (the subscription revenue that comes in each month, with yearly plans counted as one twelfth of their price), of US$43,672 from 212 active subscriptions. That is about US$524,000 a year. Monthly revenue grew 5.5 times from November 2025 to September 2026.", "The revenue numbers on this page are grade A: they come from the payment processor. The team, the product description and the customer claims are company statements, grade C. The average subscription pays about US$206 a month, between the prices of the two agency plans, so most of the revenue comes from agencies and businesses, not individuals. The page also shows the large funded competitors, a study that found AI answers change from one run to the next, and three earlier companies that sold brands a measure of their visibility on platforms that they did not own." ], "factsCaption": "Stripe-verified revenue through TrustMRR: US$43,672 of monthly recurring revenue from 212 subscriptions in October 2026, 16 months after launch", "factsRead": "How to read this table: grade A values come from Stripe through TrustMRR. Grade C values are the company's own statements on its website, on LinkedIn or in its press release. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From an agency's internal tool to US$43,672 a month in verified recurring revenue, in 16 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Rank Prompt prices in October 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "The pricing page shows the price per month billed yearly and the yearly saving. The monthly prices (US$49, US$89, US$149 and US$299) are shown on the partner page. One credit runs one prompt on up to three engines; four to six engines cost two credits. The first report, 10 credits, is free without a card, and every paid plan has a 7-day free trial. At launch in June 2025 plans started at US$29 a month.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "10 credits, one full report, 3 brands" ], [ "Starter", "39", "49", "150 credits a month, 10 brands, owner only" ], [ "Pro", "71", "89", "500 credits a month, 100 brands, 2 team seats" ], [ "Agency", "119", "149", "1,000 credits a month, 500 brands, 10 seats, reports with your logo" ], [ "Agency Plus", "239", "299", "2,000 credits a month, 1,000 brands, 25 seats, app on your own domain" ], [ "Enterprise", "custom", "", "credits priced by volume" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 14 October 2026", "value": "US$43,672", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe, connected to TrustMRR by API key. Revenue last synced 14 October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from that MRR", "value": "about US$524,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$43,672 times 12 is US$524,064, the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions, 14 October 2026", "value": "212", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe through TrustMRR.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average MRR per active subscription", "value": "about US$206 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$43,672 divided by 212. Between the Agency plan (US$119 to US$149) and the Agency Plus plan (US$239 to US$299), far above Starter (US$39 to US$49). The customers are mostly agencies and businesses.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 12 months", "value": "US$280,608", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe through TrustMRR, to 14 October 2026. All-time revenue is US$289,312.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days", "value": "US$50,384", "grade": "A", "note": "Higher than MRR because yearly plans count in full on the day that they are paid. TrustMRR shows +38.6% against the 30 days before.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, November 2025 and September 2026", "value": "US$8,279 and US$45,493", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe through TrustMRR. The public monthly table starts in November 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from November 2025 to September 2026", "value": "5.49 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$45,493 divided by US$8,279.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Largest one-month rise", "value": "March 2026: from US$10,577 to US$21,245", "grade": "A", "note": "2.01 times February, calculated. No source read explains the rise.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Largest one-month fall", "value": "July 2026: from US$35,487 to US$29,612", "grade": "A", "note": "Minus 16.6%, calculated. August was flat at US$29,834, then September rose to US$45,493.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue from launch to mid-October 2025", "value": "US$8,704", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: all-time revenue US$289,312 minus the last 12 months, US$280,608.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Website visitors in the last 30 days", "value": "16,645, or US$3.03 of revenue per visitor", "grade": "A", "note": "Google Analytics connected to TrustMRR. Google Search Console is connected too.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team, October 2026", "value": "5 named people; LinkedIn lists 6 employees", "grade": "C", "note": "The About page names four people as Partner / Co-Founder and one as Founding Engineer. LinkedIn gives the company size as 2 to 10 employees, shows 6, and a job post for an AI Search Operations Analyst.", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "The launch press release names no investors, and LinkedIn lists the company type as Partnership. Not verified beyond these pages.", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Legal entity", "value": "Rank Prompt LLC, Miami, Florida", "grade": "C", "note": "Terms of service, last updated 4 October 2026, governed by Florida law. LinkedIn gives the same address in Coral Gables.", "src": [ 9, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Customer claims on the site", "value": "10,000+ customers; 5.0/5 on G2", "grade": "C", "note": "Not verified. The site does not say how it counts customers. The verified number of active paying subscriptions is 212. The TrustMRR profile text says 4.9/5 on G2.", "src": [ 12, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Partner commission", "value": "30% of every payment, for as long as the client stays", "grade": "C", "note": "Paid monthly through PartnerStack, 60-day cookie window. On Agency Plus at US$299 a month that is US$89.70 a month. TrustMRR revenue is counted before these payouts.", "src": [ 7, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2026 figure", "value": "16 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: June 2025 to October 2026. TrustMRR gives a founded date of 15 May 2025.", "src": [ 5, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Before June 2025", "what": "The four partners run digital marketing agencies. Their agencies get visitors from AI tools without knowing why, and clients ask whether AI recommends them. They build an internal tool to answer.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 3 ] }, { "when": "15 May 2025", "what": "Founded date given on the TrustMRR profile.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "16 June 2025", "what": "Launch by PR Newswire press release from Miami. It works with ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok. Plans from US$29 a month, and a partner program with a 30% lifetime revenue share for agencies.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "June to mid-October 2025", "what": "US$8,704 of revenue in total, calculated from the Stripe figures.", "grade": "X", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "November 2025", "what": "US$8,279 of revenue in the month, the first month of the public monthly table.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "January 2026", "what": "Backlink outreach and an email hub: the product finds contacts at the sites that AI cites and sends email campaigns to them.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "March 2026", "what": "Monthly revenue doubles, from US$10,577 in February to US$21,245.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "April 2026", "what": "Google Business Profile management with AI, a task board and new exports.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "Agency Suite and the Agency Plus plan: dashboard, client reporting, client portal and approvals, called the biggest release yet. Revenue that month: US$35,487.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 1 ] }, { "when": "July 2026", "what": "Monthly revenue falls 16.6% to US$29,612, and stays flat in August.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "A public REST API and an MCP server for AI agents; a lead widget and white-label domains for agencies. Revenue that month: US$45,493. A LinkedIn post advertises a job for an AI Search Operations Analyst.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 1, 4 ] }, { "when": "14 October 2026", "what": "MRR of US$43,672 from 212 active subscriptions, US$280,608 of revenue in the last 12 months, verified from Stripe.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Built inside agencies, sold through agencies", "text": "The four partners ran marketing agencies and built the tool for their own clients. The launch came with a 30% lifetime commission for agencies that bring clients, paid through PartnerStack. The Agency and Agency Plus plans add reports with the agency's logo, a client portal and the whole app on the agency's own domain. The average subscription, about US$206 a month, sits between the two agency prices." }, { "title": "Credits instead of features", "text": "In the words of the pricing page: \"The platform is the same on all four. What you are choosing is how much you can run and whose name is on the report.\" One credit runs one prompt on up to three engines, two credits on four to six. A customer who tracks more brands or more engines needs a bigger plan." }, { "title": "A free first report", "text": "Every account gets one full report on ChatGPT, Claude and Google AI Mode free, without a card, and the site offers free checkers and a free 20-lesson course. Paid plans start with a 7-day free trial." }, { "title": "A score that says it is noisy", "text": "The methodology page says that AI answers are not deterministic and that one report is \"an honest snapshot, not a verdict\". The company says this is why the product is built around tracking the same questions on a schedule, which is a reason to keep paying every month." }, { "title": "Frequent visible releases", "text": "The changelog shows releases in January, April, June, September (two) and October 2026. Each one added a reason for agencies to move up a plan: outreach, task boards, client portals, an API and white-label domains." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's own pages, from the source code of its public web page, and from the verification line on TrustMRR. The company pages are grade C.", "items": [ "Each prompt in a customer's set runs on each chosen engine at the time of the report, in the market's language and location. The company says nothing is cached or simulated.", "Each answer is read for the brands that it names and the sources that it cites. A brand counts as present when the answer names it or one of its configured aliases. The score is the share of answers that named the brand.", "Six engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode with AI Overviews, Claude, Gemini and Grok, on every plan. ChatGPT, Claude and Google AI Mode run when the customer picks none.", "The pages read do not say whether the engines are reached through their paid APIs or through their consumer apps, or which models write the articles. The built-in AI agent gets a budget of US$5 to US$25 a month, depending on the plan.", "September 2026: a public REST API (version 1) and an MCP server, a standard connection through which AI tools such as Claude Code or Cursor can read and use a customer's account. The site also lists webhooks.", "Integrations with Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, WordPress, Gmail for outreach emails and Google Business Profile.", "Payments run through Stripe, connected to TrustMRR by API key, without a merchant of record. The partner program runs on PartnerStack. The public website is built with Astro, a web framework, runs on Netlify, and loads PostHog product analytics, as its page source shows." ], "src": [ 6, 2, 12, 8, 1, 7 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Three companies in the Loot Drop database sold brands a measure of their visibility, or tools to raise it, on platforms that they did not own. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Klout", "years": "2008 to 2017", "funding": "US$40M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A score from 1 to 100 that measured how influential a person or a brand was on social networks.", "died": "Facebook, Twitter and Instagram built their own analytics, rival scores gave more detail, and changes to the platforms' API access limited the data that Klout could collect.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/280-klout" }, { "name": "Salorix", "years": "2009 to 2014", "funding": "US$3.3M", "cause": "Ran Out of Cash", "promise": "Machine learning that ranked social media conversations, so brands could see the themes and influencers in their market.", "died": "Its investors withdrew their support, at the same time as leaner competitors with newer AI methods arrived.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1845-salorix" }, { "name": "LocalOn", "years": "2013 to 2016", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Web tools and local search optimization, so small shops could be found online by nearby customers.", "died": "Shopify and Wix offered the same tools. It ran out of money before it found a difference that small businesses would pay for.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1548-localon" } ], "whatChanged": [ "All three sold a measure of visibility, or a way to raise it, on platforms owned by someone else. Klout's score lost its meaning when the social networks built their own analytics and limited access to their data. Salorix depended on investors who withdrew. LocalOn had nothing that larger platforms did not also offer. Rank Prompt faces the first and the third risk directly: six AI providers control the answers that it measures, and many other tools, some with far more money, measure the same thing.", "Two things differ. First, Rank Prompt has no investors to withdraw: its revenue is paid by customers, verified from Stripe, and it was paying from the first months. Second, its score is not a secret formula like Klout's: it is a count of real answers, and the customer can open and read every answer behind it. What has not changed is the dependence on the platforms. If OpenAI or Google close automated access or sell brands their own reports, the measurement loses its value." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The product, with difficulty. The sales channel, yes.", "text": "AI visibility tracking is now a crowded market with companies that have raised more than US$100 million. What can still be copied is the route: build a tool for the clients of your own agency, then sell it to other agencies with their name on the reports and a commission for life.", "steps": [ "Start from a question that your own clients already ask and that no tool answers.", "Sell credits tied to usage, so that heavy users pay more and light users can start cheap.", "Give agencies white-label reports, a client portal and a recurring commission, so that they resell it.", "Give the first report away without a card, and ship a visible release every month or two." ], "open": "Other new places where buyers ask a machine instead of searching: AI shopping assistants, voice assistants and AI agents that book or buy for their users. In each one, businesses cannot yet see how they appear." }, "watch": [ { "title": "A crowded market with large venture rounds", "text": "Profound raised a US$35 million Series B led by Sequoia on 12 August 2025, a US$96 million Series C at a US$1 billion valuation on 24 February 2026 (with fewer than 120 employees), and, as AI Weekly reported from Bloomberg, a US$180 million Series D at US$1.8 billion on 15 September 2026. Peec AI in Berlin, launched in February 2025, raised a US$21 million Series A on 18 November 2025, US$29 million in total, with more than 1,300 brands and agencies. Rank Prompt's own compare page lists Profound, Peec, Otterly.AI, Gauge and RankPill, and the SEO suites Semrush and Ahrefs." }, { "title": "AI answers change from one run to the next", "text": "A study by SparkToro and by Gumshoe, an AI tracking startup, reported by Search Engine Journal on 30 January 2026, ran 2,961 prompts on ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI Overviews. ChatGPT and Google returned the same list of brands less than 1% of the time across repeated runs of the same prompt, and the same list in the same order less than 0.1% of the time. The share of answers that name a brand was more stable than its position. Rank Prompt's score is that share, but a report with a few prompts is a small sample, so a change of a few points from one week to the next can be chance." }, { "title": "Dependence on the AI providers", "text": "The product works only as long as six providers let it ask questions automatically and get answers like the ones their users see. OpenAI's Terms of Use for ChatGPT, effective 1 January 2026, forbid users to \"Automatically or programmatically extract data or Output\". The pages read do not say whether Rank Prompt uses the providers' paid APIs or their consumer apps. Klout lost data when the social networks changed their API access." }, { "title": "Young, and a team of five or six", "text": "The product is 16 months old, the public monthly table covers 11 full months, and revenue fell 16.6% in July 2026 before rising again. Churn is not public. At the headline figure the About page names five people, four partners and one founding engineer, and LinkedIn lists six employees and an open job. TrustMRR lists only the engineer as founder." }, { "title": "Revenue is not profit", "text": "TrustMRR counts revenue before the 30% commission that partners receive for each client they bring, and before the cost of running prompts on six AI engines and the agent budget. Neither cost is public, so the profit is unknown." }, { "title": "Customer claims are not verified", "text": "The home page says 10,000+ customers and shows logos of Mastercard, P&G and 7-Eleven; the TrustMRR profile text names Mastercard, LVMH, Lenovo, Costco, AstraZeneca and Hyatt. None of this is verified, and the site does not say how it counts customers. The verified number of active paying subscriptions is 212." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR: Rank Prompt, Stripe-verified revenue, synced 14 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/rank-prompt", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (rank-prompt.md) in full. The revenue tables, monthly timeline, MRR and subscriptions come from Stripe through an API key; the description and customer names are founder-written, grade C." }, { "title": "Rank Prompt pricing page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://rankprompt.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the plans, credits, engines, brands, seats and the agent budget." }, { "title": "Rank Prompt About page", "url": "https://rankprompt.com/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the agency origin, the six engines and the names and roles of the team." }, { "title": "Rank Prompt company page on LinkedIn", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/rankprompt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public page. Source for the company size, the 6 employees, the company type, the address and the job post." }, { "title": "PR Newswire, 16 June 2025: Rank Prompt Launches as Pioneering Platform to Optimize Brand Visibility in AI Search Engines (as published by MarTech Series)", "url": "https://martechseries.com/predictive-ai/ai-platforms-machine-learning/rank-prompt-launches-as-pioneering-platform-to-optimize-brand-visibility-in-ai-search-engines/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's own press release. The same text on aijourn.com carries the dateline MIAMI, June 16, 2025. Source for the founders, the launch price and the partner program." }, { "title": "Rank Prompt methodology page: AI Visibility Methodology", "url": "https://rankprompt.com/methodology/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for how prompts are run, how answers are scored and the note that answers are not deterministic." }, { "title": "Rank Prompt partner program page", "url": "https://rankprompt.com/partners/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 30% commission, PartnerStack, the cookie window and the monthly prices." }, { "title": "Rank Prompt changelog", "url": "https://rankprompt.com/changelog/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Entries are dated by month. Three entries are dated December 2024, before the launch; they are not used here because the date may be an error." }, { "title": "Rank Prompt terms of service, last updated 4 October 2026", "url": "https://rankprompt.com/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the operator, payments, governing law and contact. Source for Rank Prompt LLC and Florida law." }, { "title": "TrustMRR founder page: Marengo (@tomymarengo)", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/founder/tomymarengo", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Links the profile to the X account TomyMarengo." }, { "title": "X profile of TomyMarengo", "url": "https://x.com/TomyMarengo", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com: the profile, whose bio says Building @RankPrompt, and the latest 20 posts. The text of none of them mentions revenue, and two have no text." }, { "title": "Rank Prompt home page", "url": "https://rankprompt.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, and the page source. Source for the customer claims, the engine list and the Astro framework." }, { "title": "Rank Prompt compare page", "url": "https://rankprompt.com/compare/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the list of tools that the company compares itself with." }, { "title": "Search Engine Journal, 30 January 2026, Matt G. Southern: AI Recommendations Change With Nearly Every Query: Sparktoro", "url": "https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ai-recommendations-change-with-nearly-every-query-sparktoro/566242/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A report of the SparkToro and Gumshoe study. The study itself was not downloaded." }, { "title": "Profound newsroom, 12 August 2025: Profound Raises $35M Series B as AI Search Becomes the Next Platform Shift", "url": "https://www.tryprofound.com/newsroom/profound-raises-35m-series-b-as-ai-search-becomes-the-next-platform-shift", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The competitor's own announcement." }, { "title": "Fortune, 24 February 2026, Lily Mae Lazarus: Exclusive: As AI threatens search, Profound raises $96 million to help brands stay visible", "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/02/24/exclusive-as-ai-threatens-search-profound-raises-96-million-to-help-brands-stay-visible/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the Series C, the US$1 billion valuation and the headcount." }, { "title": "AI Weekly, 15 September 2026, Alexis Dufresne: Profound Hits $1.8B on $180M Series D From Sequoia, Kleiner", "url": "https://aiweekly.co/alerts/ai-search-marketing-startup-profound-raises-180m-series-d-at-18b-led-by-sequoia", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A short summary of a Bloomberg report; the Bloomberg article was not read." }, { "title": "Tech.eu, 18 November 2025, Tamara Djurickovic: Peec AI raises $21M Series A to help brands win in AI search", "url": "https://tech.eu/2025/11/18/peec-ai-raises-21m-series-a-to-help-brands-win-in-ai-search/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the round, the total funding, the launch month and the 1,300 brands and agencies." }, { "title": "OpenAI Terms of Use, effective 1 January 2026", "url": "https://openai.com/policies/row-terms-of-use/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on what users may not do. These terms cover ChatGPT and other services for individuals; the page says that separate Business Terms govern the APIs." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/chatseo/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/chatseo.md", "slug": "chatseo", "name": "ChatSEO", "country": "France", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI agent for SEO, connected to Google Search Console", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "29 November 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$385K a year run rate, October 2026", "sticker": "$385K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 385032, "months": 11, "teamLabel": "3 co-founders and one more person on development, October 2026", "fundingLabel": "None, by the founders' statement", "primaryFactor": "Audience", "group": "seo-ai-search", "channel": "audience", "trend": "growing", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Search marketing" ], "product": "An AI agent for search engine optimisation. The customer enters a website and connects Google Search Console. ChatSEO reads the real clicks, impressions and positions, gives a short list of changes in order of impact, writes articles and page titles, and can publish them to WordPress, Shopify or Webflow. Plans cost €29 to €79 a month.", "why": "One co-founder, Paul Vengeons, had worked as an SEO consultant in France since 2020 and had more than 10,000 followers on X, and the agents follow his method. The answers come from the customer's own Search Console data, the price is a fraction of Semrush or an agency, and the co-founders post free SEO guides every day that send readers to a 7-day free trial.", "summary": [ "ChatSEO is an AI agent, a program that uses a language model to plan and carry out several steps of a task, for SEO (search engine optimisation: changing a website so that it appears higher in search results). The customer connects Google Search Console, Google's free service that reports which searches showed a site, at which position, and how many people clicked. ChatSEO reads that data, lists the changes to make in order, writes the articles and page titles, and can publish them to WordPress, Shopify or Webflow. According to the company's list of service providers, all its agents run on Anthropic's Claude models. Plans cost €29 to €79 a month.", "Three co-founders built it: Paul Vengeons, a French SEO consultant since 2020; Nicholas Dulait, who works on the product from Brussels; and Léo Leducq, a developer in Bordeaux who had shipped earlier SaaS products (software sold as a subscription and used in a web browser). The first verified revenue came in December 2025. On 14 October 2026 TrustMRR, a site that reads a startup's payment account directly, showed US$258,617 in total revenue from Stripe and MRR (monthly recurring revenue: what the active subscriptions bring in each month) of US$32,086. That is a run rate, the current monthly figure times 12, of US$385,032 a year. The company says it took no outside money. It is operated by GROW IT, a small French company with one or two employees in the official register.", "The revenue figures are grade A, because they come from the payment processor. The customer counts, the team and the growth story come from the founders' posts and the company's pages (grade C). The page also covers two limits of the promise to get customers '#1 on Google and ChatGPT': Google's rule against scaled content abuse, its name for publishing many pages mainly to manipulate rankings rather than to help readers, and a study published in January 2026 that found AI assistants give a different list of brands almost every time they answer the same question." ], "factsCaption": "A three-founder AI SEO agent at US$32,086 a month in Stripe-verified recurring revenue, 11 months after its founding date", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from TrustMRR, which reads the company's Stripe account and Google Analytics through their APIs. Grade B is the official French business register. Grade C values are the founders' posts on X and the company's own pages. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the sources it names.", "timelineLead": "From a founding date in November 2025 to a first US$50,000 month in October 2026. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "ChatSEO prices on 14 October 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C). The page shows euros only, so the US$ columns are converted at the European Central Bank rate of 13 October 2026, US$1.1188 per euro; the euro price is in brackets", "note": "Starter costs €29 a month, or €23 a month billed yearly; Pro €49 or €39; Ranker €79 or €63; Agency from €200 a month. One credit is one message to the agent, and the plans include 100, 200 and 400 credits a month. Every paid plan starts with a 7-day free trial with 30 credits. On day 7 the card is charged for the chosen cycle: one month, or the whole year at once. The first charge is refunded in full on request within 7 days. The pricing page says that 76% of customers choose Pro.", "rows": [ [ "Starter", "25.73 (€23)", "32.45 (€29)", "100 credits a month, 1 site" ], [ "Pro", "43.63 (€39)", "54.82 (€49)", "200 credits a month, 3 sites, Google Analytics, MCP server and API" ], [ "Ranker", "70.48 (€63)", "88.39 (€79)", "400 credits a month, 10 sites, up to 5 members" ], [ "Agency", "", "from 223.76 (from €200)", "custom credits, sites and team size" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Recurring revenue per month (MRR), 14 October 2026", "value": "US$32,086", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data that TrustMRR reads through an API key. TrustMRR shows MRR 1.6% lower than 30 days earlier.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Annual run rate from that MRR", "value": "US$385,032", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$32,086 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Total revenue since the start, to 14 October 2026", "value": "US$258,617", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe-verified. The figure for the last 12 months is the same, so all of it was earned within one year.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days, to 14 October 2026", "value": "US$52,124", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe-verified, 58.8% more than in the 30 days before. The founders called it their 'first 50k month' on 13 October.", "src": [ 1, 13 ] }, { "fact": "30-day revenue compared with MRR", "value": "1.62 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$52,124 divided by US$32,086. The terms of sale say an annual plan is charged for the whole year at once, while MRR counts one twelfth of it per month. That is the most likely reason for the gap, but TrustMRR does not split the revenue by plan.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per calendar month", "value": "US$9,803 in December 2025, US$28,582 in June 2026, US$41,359 in September 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe-verified monthly timeline. October 2026 had US$24,445 by 14 October.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from the first full month to the best month", "value": "4.22 times in 9 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$41,359 in September 2026 divided by US$9,803 in December 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions, 14 October 2026", "value": "732", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe-verified. Paul Vengeons wrote on 28 September 2026 that ChatSEO had 721 customers.", "src": [ 1, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per active subscription", "value": "about US$43.83 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$32,086 divided by 732. This is close to Pro billed yearly, €39 or about US$43.63, the plan that the pricing page says most customers choose.", "src": [ 1, 5, 24 ] }, { "fact": "MRR steps in Léo Leducq's words, 9 October 2026", "value": "'10k : 4 ans, 20k : 4 mois, 30k : 7 semaines' (10k in 4 years, 20k in 4 months, 30k in 7 weeks)", "grade": "C", "note": "His post begins 'On vient de passer les 30k de MRR avec ChatSEO' (we have just passed 30k of MRR with ChatSEO). He gives no currency and does not say whether the 4 years include his earlier products. Nicholas Dulait quoted it as '30K MRR €'.", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "fact": "Stripe MRR in euros", "value": "about €28,679", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$32,086 divided by the ECB rate of US$1.1188 per euro on 13 October 2026. So the founders' '30k' matches TrustMRR only if it is counted in US dollars. No source says how the founders count it.", "src": [ 1, 24, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Website visitors in the last 30 days", "value": "43,776", "grade": "A", "note": "From the connected Google Analytics account, through TrustMRR, with US$1.20 of revenue per visitor.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Users, company claim", "value": "more than 20,000 website owners and more than 200,000 SEO analyses", "grade": "C", "note": "About page, October 2026. Most users do not pay: 732 subscriptions are active.", "src": [ 4, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "3 co-founders and one more person on development", "grade": "C", "note": "The about page names the co-founders: Paul Vengeons (SEO), Nicholas Dulait (product) and Léo Leducq (software). A post by Nicholas Dulait on 9 October 2026 thanks three teammates on X: the two other co-founders and one more person, who posts about development work. TrustMRR: team size 2 to 5 people.", "src": [ 4, 12, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Employees in the official register", "value": "band '1 or 2 employees', 2024 data; the registered seat is marked as not an employer", "grade": "B", "note": "French business register record for GROW IT. The president is a natural person whose name is not public in this record.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "GROW IT, a single-shareholder simplified joint-stock company (SASU), share capital €1,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Legal notice of chatseo.app, which names Paul Vengeons as publication director. The register gives 5 February 2024 as the creation date and computer programming (code 62.01Z) as the activity.", "src": [ 8, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder-written TrustMRR profile says 'Bootstrapped'. Paul Vengeons wrote that his target was '30k/mois, soit 10k par associé' (30k a month, so 10k per partner), enough for all three to live from the company.", "src": [ 1, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Prices", "value": "€29, €49 and €79 a month, 20% less billed yearly; Agency from €200 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Pricing page, 14 October 2026. One credit is one message to the agent.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "AI models", "value": "Anthropic's Claude models for all agents, Perplexity's Sonar model for web search, Voyage AI for embeddings", "grade": "C", "note": "Sub-processor list, change log to 1 September 2026. Model calls go through the Vercel AI Gateway, and ChatSEO has no direct contract with Anthropic or Perplexity.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "Guarantee of results", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "The terms of service say ChatSEO does not guarantee that the results 'will be accurate or reliable'. The terms of sale say the service 'relies on AI technologies whose results cannot be guaranteed'. The only guarantee is a refund of the first charge.", "src": [ 7, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Affiliate commission", "value": "30% of each subscription, every month, for life", "grade": "C", "note": "Affiliate page. The sub-processor list names Tolt for referral tracking.", "src": [ 10, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Léo Leducq's earlier product", "value": "TikMatiz: US$98,692 in Stripe-verified revenue since January 2023, nothing in the last 3 months", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR profile of TikMatiz, a tool for short video content founded on 9 January 2023. His founder page lists it for sale.", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the founding date to the October 2026 figure", "value": "11 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: November 2025, the founded date on TrustMRR, to October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "9 January 2023", "what": "Léo Leducq founds TikMatiz, a tool for short video content. Over its life it takes in US$98,692, verified through Stripe.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "2023 and 2024", "what": "Internet Archive copies of www.chatseo.app show an earlier site with the same name: 'ChatGPT like you haven't seen it before', trained on Google's SEO documentation. No source says who ran it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 23 ] }, { "when": "5 February 2024", "what": "GROW IT, the company that now operates chatseo.app, is registered, with computer programming as its activity.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 11, 8 ] }, { "when": "About September 2025", "what": "Nicholas Dulait had paid for a coaching session with Paul Vengeons for the SEO of his previous startup, then sent him the idea. They look for a developer and find Léo Leducq. Paul later dates the start of the project to 'a year' before 28 September 2026.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 14 ] }, { "when": "24 September 2025", "what": "The company's X account, @ChatSEO_app, is created.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "29 November 2025", "what": "Founded date given on TrustMRR. The first customer reviews on the pricing page are dated 1 December 2025.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "when": "December 2025", "what": "First full month of verified revenue: US$9,803.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "28 May 2026", "what": "Paul Vengeons announces that ChatSEO can now find free backlinks, once 'le boss @iziatask' puts it into production.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "The team applies to list ChatSEO in the Shopify App Store.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "26 June 2026", "what": "Léo Leducq shares 'tout le playbook pour faire un SaaS à 20k MRR' (the whole method for a SaaS at 20k MRR), adding that the last time it was for 10k.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "1 September 2026", "what": "The sub-processor list adds the Vercel AI Gateway, which routes calls to Anthropic's Claude models, and Perplexity for web search.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "8 September 2026", "what": "The company replaces the ChatGPT-style logo that it had used for nine months.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "Best calendar month so far: US$41,359, verified.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "28 September 2026", "what": "Paul Vengeons: 721 customers, and '28k' passed that morning. The company account writes that many new users heard of it by word of mouth.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14, 17 ] }, { "when": "6 October 2026", "what": "Léo Leducq writes that Shopify suspended the app review until 4 November for one broken link.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "7 October 2026", "what": "A launch video presents ChatSEO as 'your SEO employee'. Two days later the company reports 50,000 views.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "9 October 2026", "what": "Léo Leducq: '30k de MRR'. The same day ChatSEO adds a white-label option, so that agencies can send its reports under their own logo.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12, 17 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "Nicholas Dulait and Paul Vengeons post 'first 50k month'.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13, 18 ] }, { "when": "14 October 2026", "what": "TrustMRR: US$258,617 in total, US$52,124 in the last 30 days, MRR of US$32,086 and 732 active subscriptions.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "An SEO consultant's audience as the first channel", "text": "Paul Vengeons has worked as an SEO consultant since 2020 and has 10,405 followers on X. The about page says that ChatSEO's agents follow his method, which aims at revenue rather than traffic numbers. On 28 September 2026 the company account wrote that many new users came by word of mouth." }, { "title": "The customer's own data", "text": "ChatSEO connects to Google Search Console with read-only access and answers from the site's real queries and pages. The about page contrasts this with ChatGPT, which 'has never seen your site'. The company says that the first recommendations arrive in about 4 minutes (median)." }, { "title": "Free guides every day, then a trial", "text": "The co-founders post long SEO guides on X. Paul Vengeons wrote on 10 October 2026 that one article by Nicholas Dulait had 580,000 views in two days. A launch video on 7 October had 50,000 views two days later. The posts link to the 7-day free trial, and affiliates earn 30% of every subscription for life." }, { "title": "A low price and an automatic first charge", "text": "Plans start at €29 a month, against €134 for Semrush and €119 for Ahrefs Lite in the company's own comparison. The free trial ends with an automatic charge on day 7, and an annual plan is paid for the whole year at once, which can make a month's revenue larger than MRR." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's sub-processor list, about page and pricing page. They are grade C.", "items": [ "All agents run on Anthropic's Claude models through the Vercel AI Gateway. Perplexity's Sonar model handles web search, and Voyage AI makes the embeddings (number vectors that represent text) used as memory across conversations.", "12 specialised agents cover on-page changes, internal links, indexing, structured data, backlinks, local SEO and visibility in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews.", "Data comes from the Google Search Console API with a read-only scope, from Google Analytics, from DataForSEO for keyword, search-result and backlink data, and from Firecrawl, self-hosted on the company's Hetzner servers, for reading web pages.", "Servers are rented from Hetzner in Germany. Stripe takes the payments, Resend sends transactional email, Customer.io sends marketing email, Crisp runs the support chat, Mixpanel measures product use and Sentry reports errors.", "Articles are published straight to WordPress, Shopify or Webflow. Pro and Ranker plans add an MCP server and a REST API, so other AI tools such as Claude, Cursor or ChatGPT can read and act on the customer's SEO data.", "Usage is sold in credits: one credit is one message to the agent." ], "src": [ 9, 4, 5 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold automated marketing or design work, or depended on one platform's ranking rules. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Metigy", "years": "2014 to 2022", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "AI marketing advice that would replace a marketing team for small businesses.", "died": "Small businesses wanted the work done for them, not general recommendations such as posting more video. The money ran out.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2338-metigy" }, { "name": "The Grid", "years": "2014 to 2020", "funding": "US$4.7M", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "Websites designed by AI, without paying a designer.", "died": "The AI was not ready. Its designs were inconsistent and worse than manual work or established tools.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/618-the-grid" }, { "name": "Waterproof Digital Camera", "years": "2013 to 2017", "funding": "US$0", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "An affiliate review blog built to rank on Google and earn Amazon commissions.", "died": "It relied on black-hat SEO tactics. Google's algorithm updates and penalties took its traffic away.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2023-waterproof-digital-camera" }, { "name": "Upworthy Insider", "years": "2015 to 2020", "funding": "US$12M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Positive viral stories, spread through Facebook.", "died": "Facebook changed its News Feed to show less content from publishers, and the traffic fell. There was no other channel.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/692-upworthy-insider" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The four predecessors failed in three ways that also apply to ChatSEO. Metigy sold advice that small businesses did not act on. The Grid trusted AI to do professional work before the AI could do it well. The camera blog and Upworthy depended on one platform's ranking rules, and the platform changed them.", "Two things are different now. Language models in 2025 and 2026 can read a site's real Search Console data and also write and publish the change, so the product does the work instead of only advising, which is what Metigy's customers wanted. And the price is €29 to €79 a month instead of an agency fee. The dependence on Google's ranking rules has not changed: every customer result still depends on how Google treats the pages that the agent helps to write." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The software, yes. The audience, not easily.", "text": "The technical parts are available to anyone: Claude models through a gateway, Google's free Search Console API, a paid keyword-data provider and a credit-based subscription. The hard part to copy is distribution: a co-founder who was already a known SEO consultant with an audience, and partners who publish free, detailed guides every day where the buyers read.", "steps": [ "Pair a specialist who already has an audience with a developer who has shipped SaaS products before.", "Build the agent on the customer's own data, so every recommendation points to a real page and a real query.", "Publish free, detailed guides every day, each with a link to a short free trial.", "Charge automatically at the end of the trial, offer a yearly plan, and pay affiliates a recurring share." ], "open": "Other expert services that small businesses buy as monthly retainers, where the customer's data sits behind a free API: paid advertising accounts, online-shop analytics, bookkeeping." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Google's rule on scaled content", "text": "On 5 March 2024 Google announced a spam policy on scaled content abuse: many pages made mainly to manipulate rankings rather than to help users, 'no matter whether content is produced through automation, human efforts, or some combination'. Its spam policy page, updated 28 August 2026, gives 'Using generative AI tools or other similar tools to generate many pages without adding value for users' as an example. ChatSEO writes and publishes articles straight to customers' sites. A customer who uses it to publish many thin pages puts the site at risk under this policy, and ChatSEO's terms disclaim any result." }, { "title": "'#1 on ChatGPT' is not a fixed position", "text": "The tagline promises '#1 on Google and ChatGPT'. A study by SparkToro with Gumshoe, reported by Search Engine Journal on 30 January 2026, asked ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI answers for brand recommendations 2,961 times in total, running each prompt 60 to 100 times on each platform. ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews returned the same list of brands less than 1% of the time, and the same list in the same order less than 0.1% of the time. The researchers say that the share of answers in which a brand appears is the useful measure, not a rank. Gumshoe sells AI tracking tools, and the article says so." }, { "title": "Many competitors, including the founders' own free guides", "text": "The about page compares ChatSEO with Semrush, Ahrefs, Mangools, Seobility and SEOptimer, and on 1 September 2026 Nicholas Dulait shared a list of '10 new SEO tools' that included ChatSEO. On this site, SEObot, an AI agent that writes and publishes articles, made about US$888,000 in its last 12 months to October 2026, and Rank Prompt, which tracks brand visibility in AI answers, reached a run rate of about US$524,000 a year in 16 months, against 11 months for ChatSEO's US$385,032. The co-founders' own guides teach readers to do SEO with Claude Code, which uses the same family of models as ChatSEO's agents." }, { "title": "A young business, and figures that do not line up", "text": "Revenue started in December 2025, so there is less than one year of history. In the 30 days to 14 October 2026, revenue rose 58.8% while MRR fell 1.6%, according to TrustMRR. Yearly prepayments after the 7 October launch video could explain this, but the profile does not say. The founders posted '28k' on 28 September and '30k de MRR' on 9 October, while the Stripe MRR on 14 October is US$32,086, about €28,679." }, { "title": "Other companies' platforms, and ownership", "text": "The agents depend on Anthropic's models through Vercel's gateway, the data on Google's Search Console API, and the Shopify app on Shopify's review, which suspended it until 4 November 2026 for one broken link. The name is close to ChatGPT, the logo was too for nine months, and an earlier site called ChatSEO used the same domain in 2023 and 2024. The legal notice describes the operator as a single-shareholder company, while three co-founders call themselves partners. The sources do not say how ownership is shared." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR: ChatSEO, verified revenue profile, synced 14 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/chatseo", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/chatseo.md) in full on 14 October 2026. Revenue, MRR, subscriptions and visitors come from the connected Stripe and Google Analytics accounts (grade A). The description, team size and funding lines are written by the founders (grade C)." }, { "title": "TrustMRR founder page: Léo (@iziatask)", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/founder/iziatask", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Links the founder's X account and lists his two startups, ChatSEO and TikMatiz, the second marked for sale." }, { "title": "TrustMRR: TikMatiz, verified revenue profile", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/tikmatiz", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/tikmatiz.md) in full on 14 October 2026. Stripe-verified totals of Léo Leducq's earlier product." }, { "title": "ChatSEO: About us", "url": "https://chatseo.app/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the three co-founders, the founding story, the user counts and the comparison with Semrush and Ahrefs." }, { "title": "ChatSEO: Pricing", "url": "https://chatseo.app/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 14 October 2026. Prices, credits, plan limits and the dated customer reviews." }, { "title": "ChatSEO: General Terms of Sale, GROW IT", "url": "https://chatseo.app/cgv", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the first-charge guarantee, credits, renewal and the free trial." }, { "title": "ChatSEO: Terms of Service", "url": "https://chatseo.app/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on credits, renewal, refunds and what the service does not guarantee." }, { "title": "ChatSEO: Legal notice", "url": "https://chatseo.app/legal-notice", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names the operating company, its legal form, share capital, register number, publication director and web host." }, { "title": "ChatSEO: Sub-processors, with a change log to 1 September 2026", "url": "https://chatseo.app/sub-processors", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the AI models, the hosting and the other services that the company uses." }, { "title": "ChatSEO: Affiliate program", "url": "https://chatseo.app/affiliate", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the commission terms." }, { "title": "French business register (Annuaire des Entreprises API): GROW IT, SIREN 984 879 932", "url": "https://recherche-entreprises.api.gouv.fr/search?q=984879932", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the JSON record in full on 14 October 2026: creation date, legal form, activity code, employee band, and the president's role (the name is not public)." }, { "title": "Nicholas Dulait on X, 9 October 2026: '30K MRR €', quoting Léo Leducq's post 'On vient de passer les 30k de MRR avec ChatSEO'", "url": "https://x.com/NicholasDulait/status/2108521375233163433", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API in his timeline, with the quoted post by @iziatask (status 2108464756231147563)." }, { "title": "Nicholas Dulait on X, 13 October 2026: 'first 50k month for chatseo'", "url": "https://x.com/NicholasDulait/status/2110096898082435384", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "Paul Vengeons on X, 28 September 2026: '721 clients'", "url": "https://x.com/VengeonsP/status/2104483004273807627", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API, as the post that the ChatSEO account quoted the same day." }, { "title": "Léo Leducq (@iziatask) on X, 6 October 2026: the Shopify App Store suspension", "url": "https://x.com/iziatask/status/2107391177645228460", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API, as reposted in the ChatSEO account's timeline. His own profile could not be opened through the API." }, { "title": "Léo Leducq (@iziatask) on X, 26 June 2026: the method for a SaaS at 20k MRR", "url": "https://x.com/iziatask/status/2070546750411051020", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through the fxtwitter API in the ChatSEO account's timeline. The text of the thread by Paul Vengeons that it quotes was not returned, so its content is not verified." }, { "title": "ChatSEO (@ChatSEO_app) on X: profile and posts from 28 May to 13 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/ChatSEO_app", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and the whole timeline that the fxtwitter API returns, 39 posts back to 28 May 2026, including reposts by the co-founders." }, { "title": "Paul Vengeons (@VengeonsP) on X: profile and posts from 9 to 14 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/VengeonsP", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and three pages of posts through the fxtwitter API. Older pages were not returned." }, { "title": "Nicholas Dulait (@NicholasDulait) on X: profile and posts from 3 to 14 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/NicholasDulait", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and three pages of posts through the fxtwitter API." }, { "title": "Google Search Central blog, 5 March 2024, Chris Nelson: What web creators should know about our March 2024 core update and new spam policies", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the section on scaled content abuse." }, { "title": "Google Search Central: Spam policies for Google web search, last updated 28 August 2026", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the section on scaled content abuse." }, { "title": "Search Engine Journal, 30 January 2026, Matt G. Southern: AI Recommendations Change With Nearly Every Query: SparkToro", "url": "https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ai-recommendations-change-with-nearly-every-query-sparktoro/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Reports the SparkToro and Gumshoe study and says that Gumshoe sells AI tracking tools." }, { "title": "Internet Archive copy of www.chatseo.app, 8 June 2023", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20230608174148/https://www.chatseo.app/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the captured home page. The capture list shows pages of about the same size until at least July 2024." }, { "title": "European Central Bank: euro foreign exchange reference rates, 13 October 2026", "url": "https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/eurofxref/eurofxref-daily.xml", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the US dollar rate, 1.1188 per euro, used to convert the euro prices and the MRR." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/fastwrite-io/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/fastwrite-io.md", "slug": "fastwrite-io", "name": "fastwrite.io", "country": "Germany", "sector": "Consumer software", "productType": "AI writing add-in for Microsoft Word", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "8 May 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$184K revenue in the last 12 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$184K in 12 months", "outcomeUsd": 183602, "months": 17, "teamLabel": "3 managing directors; 2 to 5 people according to TrustMRR", "fundingLabel": "None reported", "primaryFactor": "Niche", "group": "learning", "channel": "platform", "trend": "falling", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Education" ], "product": "An add-in for Microsoft Word, plus a web app, for German-speaking students who write seminar papers and theses. The student uploads the PDFs of the literature. While the student writes, fastwrite suggests the next sentence or a whole paragraph with a citation from those PDFs, and the Tab key accepts it. It also answers questions across all uploaded PDFs with the exact page, searches more than 20 million papers, and checks a draft against nine criteria that universities use for grading.", "why": "It puts the AI where German students already write, inside Word and in German, and each suggestion carries a citation from the student's own PDFs, so the student does not have to fear invented sources. A free plan without a time limit brings students in, and a monthly plan sold for the months in which they write turns some of them into paying customers.", "summary": [ "fastwrite is an add-in for Microsoft Word, a small program that runs inside Word and adds functions to it. A student uploads the PDFs of the literature for a seminar paper (Hausarbeit), a bachelor's thesis or a master's thesis. While the student types, fastwrite proposes the next sentence or a whole paragraph together with the matching citation, and the Tab key accepts it. The text comes from large language models, programs trained on very large amounts of text to continue a text; the privacy policy names OpenAI, Google (Gemini) and Anthropic (Claude) as the providers. To find the right passages, the documents are stored in a vector database, a database that stores text as lists of numbers so that passages with a similar meaning can be found, and each answer links the exact page. Plans cost €0, €22 and €35 a month, or about half with yearly billing.", "The Impressum, the legal notice that German law requires on a commercial website, names the operator: DocuTrust GmbH in Hamburg, a limited-liability company entered in the commercial register on 27 March 2025 with €25,000 of share capital and three managing directors. Two of them are public faces of the product. The blog's author, Moritz, is presented as a co-founder and PhD student, and Moritz Ledeganck is one of the managing directors. Timothy Williams, also a managing director, shows fastwrite.io as his project on Peerlist. On TrustMRR, a site that reads revenue directly from a company's payment processor, the founders give 8 May 2025 as the founding date, a team of 2 to 5 people and no outside funding. Its Stripe data show US$183,602 of revenue in the 12 months to 13 October 2026, US$202,018 in total, monthly recurring revenue (MRR, the subscription revenue of one month) of US$13,442 and 616 active subscriptions. Monthly revenue rose from US$9,185 in November 2025 to US$24,838 in March 2026, then fell to US$13,439 in September. On 12 October 2026 the business was listed for sale at US$320,000.", "The site does not promise text that AI detectors cannot find, and it does not sell finished papers. Its FAQ says: \"Der Einsatz von KI muss entsprechend der Richtlinien deiner Hochschule gekennzeichnet werden\" (the use of AI must be declared according to the rules of your university). That matters, because German universities ask students to sign an Eigenständigkeitserklärung, a declaration that they did the work alone and listed every aid, and a Universität Hamburg form for it asks students to tick each use of AI. The headline revenue is grade A, read by TrustMRR from Stripe. The team, product and usage details are the company's own statements, grade C. The page also shows four failed companies that built writing or email tools next to products of Microsoft or Google, or sold study help to students." ], "factsCaption": "US$183,602 of Stripe-verified revenue in twelve months from a Word add-in for German students, 17 months after its founding date, with the best month in March 2026", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read by TrustMRR from Stripe, the payment processor, through an API key. A grade B value comes from an official record: the commercial register, a university form or the European Central Bank. A grade C value is a statement by the company or its founders, or a platform page. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a company registration in Hamburg to a sale listing in 19 months, with the best month in March 2026. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "fastwrite plans in October 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C), converted from euros at the European Central Bank rate of 14 October 2026", "note": "The page sells in euros, with VAT included: Premium €22 and Ultimate €35 a month billed monthly. The yearly plan costs about half; the page shows Premium from €11 a month billed yearly, and its static text does not show the yearly Ultimate price, so that cell is empty. Dollar values use the reference rate of US$1.1195 per euro. The AI advisor is a chat that answers questions and gives feedback on the work. In July 2025 there was one paid plan, Premium, at €19.99 a month or €9.99 a month billed yearly, for Word on Windows only.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "1 project, 5 PDFs, 50 autocompletes a day, 5 AI-advisor messages a month" ], [ "Premium", "12.31", "24.63", "unlimited projects, PDFs and autocompletes, 20 AI-advisor messages a month, Deep Review" ], [ "Ultimate", "", "39.18", "as Premium, with 120 AI-advisor messages a month" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue in the last 12 months, to 13 October 2026", "value": "US$183,602", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from Stripe through an API key. The cached profile of 12 October showed US$183,616.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue since the start", "value": "US$202,018", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR all-time figure. US$18,416 of it came before the last 12 months (calculated: 202,018 minus 183,602).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, October 2026", "value": "US$13,442", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot. It fell 10.5% in the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions", "value": "616", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot from Stripe.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days", "value": "US$13,156", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, 2.9% less than in the 30 days before.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Best month", "value": "US$24,838 in March 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly timeline. November 2025 was US$9,185, February 2026 US$19,908 and April 2026 US$18,102.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, May to September 2026", "value": "US$14,018 to US$14,803, then US$13,439 in September", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly timeline.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "September 2026 compared with March 2026", "value": "45.9% lower", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 13,439 divided by 24,838 is 0.541.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Last 30 days compared with the 12-month average", "value": "14.0% lower", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 183,602 divided by 12 is US$15,300 a month, and 13,156 is 14.0% below that.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the current MRR", "value": "US$161,304 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 13,442 times 12. It is lower than the 12-month revenue because revenue has fallen since March.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per active subscription", "value": "about US$21.82 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 13,442 divided by 616. Premium costs €22 (US$24.63) billed monthly, and about half when billed yearly.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "65%", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot. The public profile does not say how costs are measured. 65% of US$13,156 is about US$8,551 (calculated).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Registered students", "value": "more than 30,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Company homepage. The founders' estimate on TrustMRR is 30,000 users.", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Writing projects, 4 June 2025 to 29 July 2026", "value": "14,311 projects by 12,409 users", "grade": "C", "note": "Company report of 5 August 2026, from its own database. 92.7% of users created exactly one project.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Language of the literature that students add", "value": "72% to 76% of recognizable titles are German", "grade": "C", "note": "Same report. 48.8% of projects use only German sources.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Operator", "value": "DocuTrust GmbH, Hamburg, register number HRB 191525", "grade": "B", "note": "Entered in the commercial register on 27 March 2025 for software development and sales, with €25,000 of share capital and three managing directors. The register shows three shareholders; their names are not on the free page.", "src": [ 8, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "2 to 5 people", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder-entered on TrustMRR. The Impressum names three managing directors.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR lists the company as bootstrapped. No investor appears in the downloaded sources.", "src": [ 1, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price, listed 12 October 2026", "value": "US$320,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Seller's price on TrustMRR, shown as a 2.0x revenue multiple. Calculated: 1.98 times the MRR run rate and 1.74 times the 12-month revenue. 0 offers at the time of reading.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "First paid plan, July 2025", "value": "€19.99 a month, or €9.99 a month billed yearly", "grade": "C", "note": "Earliest archived version of the site. Word on Windows only.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "Subscription terms", "value": "monthly or yearly, renewing automatically, VAT included", "grade": "C", "note": "Terms of DocuTrust GmbH, version of August 2025.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "What the site says about AI rules", "value": "AI use must be declared under the university's rules", "grade": "C", "note": "Homepage FAQ in German and English. The pricing page adds: check your exam regulations.", "src": [ 2, 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Declaration of independent work, Universität Hamburg form", "value": "each use of AI must be ticked", "grade": "B", "note": "A form for bachelor's coursework. One listed use is \"zum Formulieren einzelner Passagen\" (for wording individual passages). Missing or wrong statements can count as an attempt to cheat.", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "fact": "Copilot in Word for consumers", "value": "included in Microsoft 365 Personal and Family since 16 January 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Microsoft's announcement. The US price rose by US$3 a month, and subscribers get a monthly allotment of AI credits.", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "fact": "TikTok account, October 2026", "value": "948 followers, 33,232 likes, 31 videos", "grade": "C", "note": "Profile data read on 14 October 2026.", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "fact": "Exchange rate used on this page", "value": "US$1.1195 per euro, 14 October 2026", "grade": "B", "note": "European Central Bank reference rate.", "src": [ 18 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the founding date to the October 2026 figures", "value": "17 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: May 2025 to October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "20 February 2025", "what": "Date of the shareholder list and the articles of association of DocuTrust GmbH, two documents in the register file.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "27 March 2025", "what": "DocuTrust GmbH is entered in the Hamburg commercial register: software development and sales, €25,000 of share capital, three managing directors.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "8 May 2025", "what": "The founding date that the founders give on TrustMRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "4 June 2025", "what": "First writing projects in the company's own usage data.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "June 2025", "what": "fastwrite.io appears on Peerlist as a project of week 24 of 2025, under Timothy Williams's profile.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "14 July 2025", "what": "Earliest archived version of the site: \"Hausarbeit 3x schneller schreiben – direkt in Microsoft Word\" (write your seminar paper 3 times faster, directly in Microsoft Word). Windows only, Premium at €19.99 a month, a Mac version announced.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "17 July 2025", "what": "IndiePage posts on X that Timothy Williams made a €20 sale for fastwrite, about the price of one month of Premium at the time.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "November 2025", "what": "First month in TrustMRR's public monthly timeline: US$9,185.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "March 2026", "what": "Best month so far: US$24,838.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "May to August 2026", "what": "Revenue settles at US$14,018 to US$14,803 a month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "5 August 2026", "what": "The company publishes a usage report: 14,311 writing projects by 12,409 users since June 2025.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "18 August 2026", "what": "A blog guide explains new connectors that let Claude and ChatGPT search a student's fastwrite library.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 2 ] }, { "when": "12 October 2026", "what": "Listed for sale on TrustMRR at US$320,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2026", "what": "Last Stripe sync: US$183,602 in 12 months, MRR of US$13,442, 616 active subscriptions.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Inside the program where the paper is written", "text": "fastwrite adds its suggestions in Word, so the student does not copy text between a chat window and the document. The first version, in July 2025, ran only in Word on Windows. By October 2026 it also ran in Word on Mac and in the browser, with a web app for other devices." }, { "title": "Every suggestion names its source", "text": "The suggestions come from the PDFs that the student uploaded, and the answers link the exact page. An own-sources-only mode limits the text to the student's literature; when nothing fits, it gives a generic suggestion without a source instead of an invented reference. This answers the two fears of a thesis writer: invented references and plagiarism." }, { "title": "One language, one set of rules", "text": "The product, the site and the guides are in German, for German citation styles and German university rules. In the company's data, 72% to 76% of the recognizable titles that students add are German. The blog compares fastwrite with ChatGPT on exactly these points: real sources, page numbers and Word." }, { "title": "Free to start, paid for the writing months", "text": "The free plan does not expire and allows 50 autocompletes a day. Premium is sold for the months in which the student really writes, and can be cancelled at any time. According to the founders' TrustMRR profile, students come through TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit and email; a review on the homepage says a group of students found fastwrite on TikTok." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's privacy policy, its pages and founder-entered profiles. They are grade C.", "items": [ "A Word add-in for Windows, Mac and Word in the browser, and a web app for other devices such as iPad and Chromebook. The first version, in July 2025, ran only in Word on Windows.", "Microsoft's Office Add-ins platform runs one add-in, written with HTML, CSS and JavaScript, in Office on the web, Windows, Mac and iPad. The sources do not say whether fastwrite uses it; TrustMRR's founder-entered stack also names C# and Swift.", "Language models from OpenAI, Google (Gemini) and Anthropic (Claude), used by function and availability, according to the privacy policy of September 2026. The company says users' work never trains a model.", "Pinecone as the vector database that finds passages in the users' documents, and Voyage AI to rerank the search results.", "Appwrite Cloud with a data center in Frankfurt for login and database, Vercel for the web app, Stripe for payments, Umami for analytics without cookies, and Twilio SendGrid for the newsletter.", "Peerlist lists JavaScript, Python, Go, Appwrite and Cursor, an AI code editor, as building tools. TrustMRR also names Google Cloud.", "Connectors for Claude and ChatGPT, built on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard for connecting AI assistants to outside data, let those assistants search a student's fastwrite library.", "Marketing: TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit and email according to TrustMRR; ads inside ChatGPT, measured with OpenAI's ChatGPT Ads pixel, according to the privacy policy; an affiliate program in July 2025; and German guides on citation styles and university AI rules on the blog." ], "src": [ 6, 2, 4, 11, 17, 1, 12, 9 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database built on a platform that they did not own, sold writing software that a large company later gave away, or sold study help to students. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Xobni", "years": "2006 to 2013", "funding": "US$42M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A smarter inbox inside Microsoft Outlook.", "died": "Tied to Outlook, which Microsoft improved itself. Mobile phones made the desktop add-on less useful, and Yahoo bought the remains.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/763-xobni" }, { "name": "Draft", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$120,000", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A simple online editor for writers.", "died": "Google Docs gave most of the same functions away, and a freemium model on a narrow product could not compete.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1605-draft" }, { "name": "Flashnotes", "years": "2010 to 2016", "funding": "US$1.47M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A marketplace where students sold class notes and study guides to other students.", "died": "Course Hero and Chegg had better products and more money, and the quality of the notes could not be controlled.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/154-flashnotes" }, { "name": "Xuebajun", "years": "2013 to 2021", "funding": "US$150M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Photograph a homework problem and get an automatic solution.", "died": "It moved from homework help into an expensive tutoring marketplace, then Chinese rules banned the business.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2325-xuebajun" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The four failed in two ways that also apply to fastwrite. Xobni and Draft built a better tool for email or writing next to products owned by Microsoft and Google, and the owners added the same functions themselves. Flashnotes and Xuebajun sold study help to students, a market where larger competitors or new rules decided the outcome. In January 2025 Microsoft put Copilot into Word for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers, and universities now ask students to declare each use of AI.", "Two things differ. First, fastwrite does not build its own model. It buys model access from OpenAI, Google and Anthropic, so a team of 2 to 5 people can run it, and TrustMRR shows a 65% profit margin in the last 30 days. Second, it is narrow where Copilot is general: German-language sources, citations with page numbers from the student's own PDFs, and checks against university grading criteria. Whether that is enough is not yet known. Revenue in September 2026 was 45.9% below March, and the owners have put the business up for sale." ], "copy": { "verdict": "Yes, in another language or for another kind of rule-bound document.", "text": "The parts are available to anyone: language models bought by the call, a vector database for the user's own PDFs, and an add-in in the program where the work is written. What fastwrite added is a narrow group with fixed rules, German students with citation styles and grading criteria, reached in their own language on the channels they use. The same structure fits other language markets, and the same risks come with it: Microsoft can add the feature to Word, and customers may leave when the paper is handed in.", "steps": [ "Pick people who write long documents in Word under fixed rules, in a language that the large tools do not focus on.", "Ground every suggestion in the user's own documents, show the page, and give no source rather than an invented one.", "Offer a free plan without a time limit, and a monthly plan that can be cancelled after the writing months.", "Write guides for the rule questions that the group searches for, and post short videos where the group spends time." ], "open": "Academic writing in other languages, such as French, Spanish, Italian, Polish or Dutch, and other rule-bound documents written in Word, such as grant applications or legal briefs." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Revenue peaked in March 2026", "text": "Monthly revenue rose from US$9,185 in November 2025 to US$24,838 in March 2026, then fell to US$13,439 in September, 45.9% lower. MRR fell 10.5% in the last 30 days. One year of data cannot show whether March was a seasonal peak that will come back, or the end of a launch effect." }, { "title": "Customers stay for one paper", "text": "In the company's own data, 92.7% of users created exactly one project, and Premium is sold \"für die Monate, in denen du wirklich schreibst\" (for the months in which you really write), with cancellation at any time. Every semester therefore needs new customers. The company has not published sign-ups by month, and TrustMRR shows churn only after login, so the seasonal pattern cannot be checked from public data." }, { "title": "University rules on AI", "text": "Students sign an Eigenständigkeitserklärung with their written work. A Universität Hamburg form asks them to tick each use of AI, including \"zum Formulieren einzelner Passagen\" (for wording individual passages), and warns that missing or wrong statements can be treated as an attempt to cheat (\"Täuschungsversuch\"). fastwrite tells students to declare AI use and to check their exam regulations. Stricter rules on AI-written passages would reduce the value of the main feature." }, { "title": "Microsoft sells a writing assistant inside Word", "text": "Since 16 January 2025, Microsoft 365 Personal and Family include Copilot in Word with a monthly allotment of AI credits, after a US price rise of US$3 a month. fastwrite's own comparison table lists ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and NotebookLM, and its blog compares it with Jenni AI. Its answer is to be narrower: German sources, citations with page numbers and university grading criteria." }, { "title": "Built on platforms it does not control", "text": "The product lives inside Microsoft Word, and Microsoft sets the rules for how add-ins run and how they are distributed through Microsoft Marketplace. The text comes from OpenAI, Google and Anthropic, whose prices and terms the company does not set. The sources do not show whether fastwrite is listed in Microsoft Marketplace." }, { "title": "For sale while revenue falls", "text": "The owners listed the business on 12 October 2026 at US$320,000, which TrustMRR shows as 2.0 times revenue; it is 1.98 times the MRR run rate and 1.74 times the last 12 months (calculated). There were 0 offers at the time of reading. Churn, refunds and advertising spend are visible only to logged-in TrustMRR users, so a buyer must check them separately." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR: fastwrite.io, Stripe-verified profile, synced 13 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/fastwrite-io", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/fastwrite-io.md). Revenue, MRR and subscriptions come from its Verification Sources section (Stripe API key); the description, team size, funding, channels, tech stack and asking price are founder-written, grade C." }, { "title": "fastwrite.io homepage, German, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://fastwrite.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the features, the FAQ, the student count and the reviews." }, { "title": "fastwrite.io homepage, English, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://fastwrite.io/en", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the feature sections and the FAQ, for the English wording of the AI-rules answer." }, { "title": "fastwrite.io pricing page (Preise), read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://fastwrite.io/preise", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The yearly price of Ultimate is not in the page text." }, { "title": "fastwrite.io Impressum (legal notice)", "url": "https://fastwrite.io/impressum", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names the operator, the register number and the three managing directors." }, { "title": "fastwrite.io Datenschutzerklärung (privacy policy), version of September 2026", "url": "https://fastwrite.io/datenschutz", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on processors, language models, hosting, analytics, advertising and newsletter." }, { "title": "fastwrite.io AGB (terms and conditions), version of August 2025", "url": "https://fastwrite.io/agb", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the service, subscriptions, prices and cancellation." }, { "title": "North Data: DocuTrust GmbH, Hamburg, Amtsgericht Hamburg HRB 191525", "url": "https://www.northdata.de/DocuTrust+GmbH,+Hamburg/HRB+191525", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the free page: register publications, purpose, capital and the number of managing directors and shareholders. The shareholders' names are behind a paywall." }, { "title": "fastwrite blog index, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://fastwrite.io/blog", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the dated guides, the comparison posts and the author box for Moritz." }, { "title": "fastwrite Schreibreport 2026, 5 August 2026", "url": "https://fastwrite.io/blog/schreibreport-2026", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the method section and the first findings. Company data from its own database, not independently checked." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine: www.fastwrite.io on 14 July 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250714085752/https://www.fastwrite.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The earliest archived version of the site, with the first promise and prices." }, { "title": "Peerlist: fastwrite.io, project of Timothy Williams", "url": "https://peerlist.io/timothyj/project/fastwriteio", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with the profile page peerlist.io/timothyj. Source for the description, the week of listing and the building tools." }, { "title": "IndiePage on X, 17 July 2025: Timothy Williams just made a €20 sale for fastwrite", "url": "https://x.com/IndiePageApp/status/1945861217085530315", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com. Ties Timothy Williams to fastwrite and dates an early sale." }, { "title": "TikTok: @fastwrite.io profile, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://www.tiktok.com/@fastwrite.io", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile data in the page source: followers, likes and video count." }, { "title": "Universität Hamburg, Kulturwissenschaften: Eigenständigkeitserklärung für studienbegleitende Prüfungen (form)", "url": "https://www.kulturwissenschaften.uni-hamburg.de/sm/studium/dokumente/bachelor/eigenstaendigkeitserklaerung.pdf", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full (PDF). One university's form; rules differ between universities and subjects." }, { "title": "Microsoft 365 blog, 16 January 2025: Copilot is now included in Microsoft 365 Personal and Family", "url": "https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2025/01/16/copilot-is-now-included-in-microsoft-365-personal-and-family/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Microsoft's own announcement of Copilot in Word for consumers and the price change." }, { "title": "Microsoft Learn: Office Add-ins platform overview", "url": "https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/overview/office-add-ins", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the overview section on platforms and distribution." }, { "title": "European Central Bank: euro foreign exchange reference rates, 14 October 2026", "url": "https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/eurofxref/eurofxref-daily.xml", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the US dollar rate used in the pricing table." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/chatedu/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/chatedu.md", "slug": "chatedu", "name": "ChatEDU", "country": "USA", "sector": "Consumer software", "productType": "AI study app for students", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "12 December 2024", "outcomeLabel": "US$120K revenue in the last 12 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$120K in 12 months", "outcomeUsd": 120117, "months": 22, "teamLabel": "1 named founder; the sale offer includes 2 engineers for up to 3 months", "fundingLabel": "None found", "primaryFactor": "Niche", "group": "learning", "channel": "unknown", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Education" ], "product": "An AI study app. A student uploads class materials, such as PDFs, lecture slides, notes, images or YouTube videos, and gets answers with citations to those files, practice questions, flashcards, study guides, audio summaries and a topic-by-topic progress view. It runs on the web and, since May 2026, as an iOS app.", "why": "It starts from the student's own course files instead of general knowledge, so answers and practice questions point back to the material that the class uses. A free plan with monthly limits lets students try it, and Pro is sold by the week or by the month. Stripe shows about US$13,200 a month at the end of 2025; the seller says growth came with little to no marketing, and no source explains how students found it.", "summary": [ "ChatEDU is an AI study app from ChatEDU, Inc., a US company. A student creates a course and uploads class materials: PDFs, lecture slides, documents, images, pasted text or YouTube videos. The app then answers questions with citations, references to the place in the student's own files that supports each answer, and turns the same files into practice questions, flashcards, study guides and audio summaries that it calls podcasts. A progress view marks each topic as mastered, in progress or not started. The free plan allows 30 AI chats, 30 practice questions and 2 podcasts per calendar month, and 3 uploads; Pro costs US$20 a month or US$10 a week. No downloaded source says which AI models it uses.", "The money figures come from TrustMRR, a site that reads a startup's revenue directly from its payment processor, here Stripe, through an API key, a password that lets one program read data from another. On 14 October 2026 it showed US$174,644 in total revenue, US$120,117 in the last 12 months, and MRR (monthly recurring revenue, the subscription income expected each month) of US$7,040 from 362 active subscriptions. The public monthly history starts in November 2025. Its best month is December 2025 with US$13,243; September 2026 brought US$6,698, which is 49.4% less. In January 2026 the same page showed MRR of US$11,765 from 641 subscriptions. The founder named on the profile is Vasco Singh; no source names anyone else.", "The founder listed the business for sale on TrustMRR on 8 December 2025, in the best month of its public history. The asking price was US$390,000 in January 2026 and is US$220,000 in October 2026. Since July 2025, free general chatbots offer study features of their own, such as ChatGPT's study mode. The revenue numbers on this page are grade A because they come from Stripe through TrustMRR; the product details, the team and the sale terms are statements by the company or the seller, grade C. The page also shows earlier companies that tried to sell students a better way to study." ], "factsCaption": "A study app that Stripe shows at US$120,117 in twelve months, after a peak of about US$13,200 a month in late 2025 and a fall by half since then", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value is read by TrustMRR from Stripe through an API key. A grade C value is a statement by the company, the founder or the seller, or listing data on TrustMRR. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a chatbot for course files in 2024 to a business for sale in 2026, 22 months after its founding date. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "ChatEDU prices on 14 October 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "Pro is billed weekly or monthly, and the page shows no yearly plan. The free limits apply per calendar month; the upload allowance resets 30 days after the student reaches the limit. Uploads count files, pasted text and YouTube videos together.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "30 AI chats, 30 practice questions and 2 podcasts a month; 3 uploads" ], [ "Pro, monthly", "", "20", "unlimited chats, practice questions and uploads" ], [ "Pro, weekly", "", "10 a week", "unlimited chats, practice questions and uploads" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue in the last 12 months, to 14 October 2026", "value": "US$120,117", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe payments read by TrustMRR through an API key. The headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Total revenue since the start", "value": "US$174,644", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, synced 14 October 2026. On 12 January 2026 the same figure was US$93,391.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "MRR and active subscriptions, October 2026", "value": "US$7,040 from 362 subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot. Revenue in the last 30 days was US$6,888, 7.7% more than in the 30 days before.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the October 2026 MRR", "value": "about US$84,480 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$7,040 times 12. Lower than the 12-month figure, because revenue has fallen.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Best month in the public history", "value": "US$13,243, December 2025", "grade": "A", "note": "The public monthly history starts in November 2025 (US$13,179). Earlier months are not shown.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Fall from December 2025 to September 2026", "value": "49.4%, from US$13,243 to US$6,698 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the monthly history. October 2026 brought US$3,128 in its first 14 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR and subscriptions, January 2026", "value": "US$11,765 from 641 subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "Copy of the TrustMRR page in the Wayback Machine, 12 January 2026; the page labels the MRR as estimated. Revenue in the 30 days before was US$11,512.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Change from January to October 2026", "value": "MRR down 40.2%, subscriptions down 43.5%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$11,765 to US$7,040, and 641 to 362 subscriptions.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue before mid-October 2025", "value": "US$54,527", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: total revenue of US$174,644 minus the last 12 months, US$120,117. It covers about ten months after the founding date.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per subscription per month", "value": "about US$19.45", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$7,040 divided by 362. Close to the US$20 monthly Pro price.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin", "value": "45% in January 2026, 73.0% in the 30 days to October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Shown on the TrustMRR page. The January page calls it reported. It is not in the profile's list of Stripe-verified metrics.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Prices, October 2026", "value": "Free, or Pro at US$20 a month or US$10 a week", "grade": "C", "note": "Company pricing page. Free: 30 AI chats, 30 practice questions and 2 podcasts per calendar month, and 3 uploads.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price on TrustMRR", "value": "US$390,000 in January 2026, US$220,000 in October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Set by the seller. First listed on 8 December 2025. TrustMRR shows 11 offers received by October 2026. The price cut is 43.6% (calculated).", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Students claimed on the home page", "value": "200,000+", "grade": "C", "note": "Company claim with no source behind it. Stripe shows 362 active paid subscriptions in October 2026.", "src": [ 4, 1 ] }, { "fact": "iOS app", "value": "released 1 May 2026; version 1.0.5 on 10 October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Apple App Store record. Seller ChatEDU Inc., free to download, 4 ratings with an average of 5.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 named founder; 2 engineers offered for the handover", "grade": "C", "note": "Seller message on TrustMRR: \"2 engineers to support growth and marketing up to 3 months after sale.\" No source gives a headcount.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "No source names an investor, a funding round or an accelerator. The privacy notice reads like a template, with text still in square brackets, and has a standard section on data from shareholders and investors.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the founding date to the October 2026 figures", "value": "22 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: December 2024 to October 2026. The founding date is entered by the founder on TrustMRR; the domain had a web page in April 2024.", "src": [ 1, 13 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "18 April 2024", "what": "First copy of www.chatedu.io in the Internet Archive. Its text loads by script and could not be read.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "30 November 2024", "what": "The site offers \"Personalized AI Tools for Students\": practice questions generated from the student's materials, a chatbot that answers with citations to the student's files, and progress tracking by topic.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "12 December 2024", "what": "Founding date of ChatEDU Inc., as entered on TrustMRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "13 January 2025", "what": "Vasco Singh posts on X that ChatEDU \"dynamically identifies courses, extracts notes, and teaches content like your professors\", with an agent update going live that week.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "10 February 2025", "what": "Two blog articles on study methods: active recall, and the Feynman and Pomodoro methods. They are the only articles about studying on the site's blog.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "November and December 2025", "what": "Stripe revenue of US$13,179 and US$13,243 a month, the highest in the public history.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "8 December 2025", "what": "First listed for sale on TrustMRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "12 January 2026", "what": "MRR of US$11,765 from 641 subscriptions and US$93,391 in total revenue. Asking price US$390,000.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "1 May 2026", "what": "ChatEDU Inc. releases an iOS app on the App Store.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "June to September 2026", "what": "Revenue falls to US$8,795, US$7,549, US$6,707 and US$6,698 a month. September, the start of the new school year, is flat against August.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "2 September 2026", "what": "A redesign for web and iOS adds guided learning paths, chapter progress and topic-by-topic practice.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "14 October 2026", "what": "MRR of US$7,040 from 362 subscriptions and US$120,117 in the last 12 months. Asking price US$220,000. The founder's X profile names a job at another company, Arzana.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 12 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Start from the student's files", "text": "Every tool works on what the student uploads: lecture slides, PDFs, notes, images, pasted text or YouTube videos. Answers carry citations to those files, and the About page tells students to check answers and citations against the original materials and the instructor's guidance. Nothing on the site offers finished homework or text to hand in; the tools produce explanations and practice." }, { "title": "One upload, several study formats", "text": "The same file becomes a chat, practice questions, flashcards, a study guide and an audio summary. The student uploads once and studies the material in several forms. Since September 2026 a progress view marks each topic as mastered, in progress or not started." }, { "title": "Short billing periods", "text": "Pro is sold for US$10 a week or US$20 a month, with no yearly plan on the pricing page, so a student can pay for a few weeks and stop. Revenue per active subscription is about US$19.45 a month, close to the monthly price." }, { "title": "A free plan with monthly limits", "text": "The free plan allows 30 AI chats, 30 practice questions and 2 podcasts per calendar month, and 3 uploads. The pricing page presents Pro as the step after these limits: unlimited practice questions, chats and uploads." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's own pages, the page source of its site and the App Store record. They are grade C, except what the page source shows directly.", "items": [ "The web app is built with Next.js, a framework for React web sites; its images load through Next.js image addresses.", "The page source opens connections to Vercel's analytics scripts and to PostHog, a product analytics service that records how visitors use a site, and its file addresses carry Vercel deployment IDs.", "Payments run through Stripe. TrustMRR reads the revenue from Stripe through an API key, and the privacy notice names Stripe as the payment provider.", "No downloaded source names the AI models or the model provider.", "The site is offered in 15 languages, among them Spanish, Hindi, Japanese and Chinese.", "An iOS app, ChatEDU: Study Tool & AI Notes, has been on the App Store since 1 May 2026, released by ChatEDU Inc.", "Students can bring PDFs, slides, documents, images, pasted text and YouTube videos; the free plan counts all of them against 3 uploads." ], "src": [ 4, 1, 8, 10, 6 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database tried to sell students a better way to study, and failed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Flashnotes", "years": "2010 to 2016", "funding": "US$1.47M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A marketplace where college students sold their class notes and study guides to other students.", "died": "Course Hero and Chegg had better products and more money, and Flashnotes could not control the quality of the notes.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/154-flashnotes" }, { "name": "Grockit", "years": "2007 to 2015", "funding": "US$44.4M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Social, game-like test preparation for the SAT and the GMAT.", "died": "According to the database, Kaplan bought it in 2013 and the product faded inside the larger test-preparation company.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/196-grockit" }, { "name": "Knewton", "years": "2008 to 2020", "funding": "US$182.3M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Adaptive learning: software that changes each lesson to fit the student.", "died": "It spent its funding on complex AI that schools could not afford, while Khan Academy gave content away for free.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/281-knewton" }, { "name": "Kno", "years": "2009 to 2014", "funding": "US$73M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Interactive digital textbooks for students.", "died": "The large publishers made their own digital textbooks faster and cheaper than Kno expected.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/282-kno" }, { "name": "InstaGrok", "years": "2010 to 2013", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A search tool for students that showed results as a map of connected ideas.", "died": "Schools did not change their methods, and free tools such as Quizlet and Khan Academy kept the students.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1700-instagrok" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The five predecessors had to make or buy the study material: notes written by other students, digital textbooks, test-preparation courses, or adaptive lessons, for which Knewton raised US$182.3 million according to the database. ChatEDU has no content library. The student brings the material, and an AI model turns it into answers, questions, guides and audio. That is why a company with one named founder and no reported funding could reach about US$13,000 a month in Stripe revenue within a year of its founding date.", "The same fact is the risk. What ChatEDU does with a student's files, the general AI assistants now do as well: ChatGPT added a study mode for all logged-in users, including the free plan, on 29 July 2025, and Google's NotebookLM has turned uploaded documents into audio discussions since September 2024. In the database, several predecessors lost to free products such as Khan Academy and Quizlet. ChatEDU's revenue fell by half in the nine months after December 2025, while these free tools were available to every student; the sources do not say whether they caused the fall." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The timing is harder now.", "text": "A small team built a study app with no content of its own and reached about US$13,000 a month in Stripe revenue within a year. The method can be copied: the student supplies the material, an AI model does the work, and short billing periods fit the school calendar. The difficulty in 2026 is that free assistants from OpenAI and Google offer much of the same.", "steps": [ "Build on the user's own material, so you need no content library and every answer can cite its source.", "Turn one upload into several study formats: chat, practice questions, flashcards, guides and audio.", "Offer a free plan with monthly limits and a short paid period, such as one week, for exam time.", "Verify the revenue publicly, for example on TrustMRR, before you try to sell the business." ], "open": "Study tools for one exam or one profession, where the general assistants do not know the format: medical licensing exams, bar exams, professional certifications, and courses taught in languages other than English." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Revenue has halved since December 2025", "text": "Stripe shows US$13,243 in December 2025 and US$6,698 in September 2026, a fall of 49.4%. From January to October 2026, MRR fell 40.2% and active subscriptions 43.5%. The seller message on the listing says \"Growth is consistent with little to no marketing\"; no source explains the fall. The last 30 days were 7.7% above the 30 days before." }, { "title": "Free chatbots with study modes", "text": "OpenAI launched study mode in ChatGPT on 29 July 2025 for logged-in users on the Free, Plus, Pro and Team plans. Google's NotebookLM has made audio discussions of uploaded sources since 11 September 2024, the same idea as ChatEDU's podcasts. Both come from companies far larger than ChatEDU. The sources do not say how many ChatEDU users moved to them." }, { "title": "A school-year pattern without the September rise", "text": "Revenue was highest at the end of the autumn term, in November and December 2025. It fell 16.0% in January, rose 10.4% in March, and averaged US$7,684 a month from June to August. A business that follows the school year should rise again in September, but September 2026 was flat against August (0.1% lower). Only one school year of monthly figures is public, so the pattern cannot be compared with an earlier year." }, { "title": "For sale, at a lower price", "text": "Listed on TrustMRR since 8 December 2025. The asking price fell from US$390,000 in January 2026 to US$220,000 in October 2026, 43.6% less, with 11 offers received. The seller offers seller financing and 2 engineers for up to 3 months after the sale. In October 2026 the founder's X profile names a job at another company." }, { "title": "Claims on the home page", "text": "The home page says \"Join 200,000+ students\" and shows the logos of ten universities, among them Harvard, MIT and Stanford, under \"Trusted by top students\". No source supports these claims, and three of the six student quotes on the page carry the label \"Sample\". Stripe shows 362 active subscriptions." }, { "title": "What the figures do not cover", "text": "TrustMRR counts Stripe payments only. The iOS app has been on the App Store since May 2026, and the sources do not say whether it sells subscriptions through Apple, which would not appear here. The team size is not published; the only numbers are 1 named founder and 2 engineers offered for the handover." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR markdown profile: ChatEDU Inc., synced 14 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/chatedu-inc.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (data as of October 2026). The Stripe-verified revenue, MRR, subscriptions and monthly history are grade A; the description, profit margin, asking price and seller message are founder-written or listing data, grade C." }, { "title": "TrustMRR page for ChatEDU Inc., Wayback Machine copy of 12 January 2026", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260112175447/https://trustmrr.com/startup/chatedu-inc", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. Source for the January 2026 MRR, subscriptions, total revenue, profit margin and asking price." }, { "title": "TrustMRR founder page: Vasco Singh", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/founder/vascosingh", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Ties the founder and his X account to ChatEDU Inc." }, { "title": "ChatEDU home page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://chatedu.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with the page source. Source for the features, the 200,000 claim, the university logos, the sample quotes, the 15 languages and the services that the page loads." }, { "title": "ChatEDU About page", "url": "https://chatedu.io/en/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names ChatEDU, Inc. as the provider and tells students to check answers against their materials." }, { "title": "ChatEDU pricing page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://chatedu.io/en/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the free limits and the Pro prices." }, { "title": "ChatEDU Terms of Service", "url": "https://chatedu.io/en/terms-of-service", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the provider, the output and the governing law. Names ChatEDU, Inc., chooses Delaware law and gives a mailing address in New Jersey. It does not say where the company is incorporated." }, { "title": "ChatEDU Privacy Notice", "url": "https://chatedu.io/privacy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names ChatEDU, Inc. and Stripe as the payment provider; contains template text in square brackets." }, { "title": "ChatEDU blog, 2 September 2026: Introducing the new ChatEDU", "url": "https://chatedu.io/en/blog/introducing-the-new-chatedu", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the redesign and the link to the iOS app." }, { "title": "Apple App Store: ChatEDU: Study Tool & AI Notes", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chatedu-study-tool-ai-notes/id6761738958", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the App Store lookup record (itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=6761738958). Source for the seller, the release date, the version and the ratings." }, { "title": "Vasco Singh on X, 13 January 2025: AI agents are the most powerful tool a student can have today", "url": "https://x.com/VascoSingh/status/1878941084207980696", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. The only post about ChatEDU in the part of his timeline that the API returned." }, { "title": "Vasco Singh's X profile, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/VascoSingh", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the job named in the bio." }, { "title": "ChatEDU home page, Wayback Machine copy of 30 November 2024", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20241130220109/https://www.chatedu.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The archive's earliest copy, of 18 April 2024, loads its text by script and could not be read." }, { "title": "OpenAI, 29 July 2025: Introducing study mode", "url": "https://openai.com/index/chatgpt-study-mode/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the launch date and the plans that get study mode." }, { "title": "Google, 11 September 2024: NotebookLM now lets you listen to a conversation about your sources", "url": "https://blog.google/technology/ai/notebooklm-audio-overviews/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the opening section. Source for the Audio Overview feature and its date." }, { "title": "ChatEDU blog index", "url": "https://chatedu.io/en/blog", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Lists three posts: two on study methods dated 10 February 2025 and the redesign post of 2 September 2026." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/ai-toolbox/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/ai-toolbox.md", "slug": "ai-toolbox", "name": "AI Toolbox", "country": "Israel", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Browser extension for AI chat apps", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "September 2024", "outcomeLabel": "US$108.5K revenue in the last 12 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$109K in 12 months", "outcomeUsd": 108506, "months": 25, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders, still a two-person company in October 2026", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "ai-model-tools", "channel": "search", "trend": "growing", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Productivity" ], "product": "A Chrome extension that adds folders, full-text search, a prompt library, bookmarks and export in four formats to the web pages of ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok. It sells no AI: users keep their own accounts, and the search index of their chats stays in their browser.", "why": "Heavy users of AI chat apps lose old answers, because the apps had no folders, no filtered search and no bulk export. AI Toolbox adds these inside the apps, for four apps at once, sells them mostly as one-time licenses, and, by the seller's account, finds its buyers through search pages instead of ads.", "summary": [ "AI Toolbox is a browser extension, a small program that runs inside the Chrome browser and can add buttons and panels to the web pages you open. It adds folders, bookmarks, a prompt library, export to text, Markdown, JSON and PDF, and full-text search, which means search in the words of every message and not only in chat titles, to the web pages of ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok. It does not sell an AI model: users keep their own ChatGPT, Google, Anthropic or X accounts. The free plan has small limits. A paid plan for one AI app costs US$9.99 a month, US$59 a year or US$99 once, and all four apps cost US$199 once.", "Two developers, Adi Leviim and Mohammad El-Esawi, released it as ChatGPT Toolbox on the Chrome Web Store in September 2024 through their two-person company, Infi Developments. It had more than 8,000 users in February 2025. In April 2026 it added Gemini, Claude and Grok and took the name AI Toolbox, and in October 2026 the store shows 40,000 users. TrustMRR, a site that reads a seller's sales directly from the payment provider (the service that charges the buyer's card) through an API key (a password that lets one program read another program's data), shows US$108,506 of revenue in the 12 months to 14 October 2026, from Lemon Squeezy and Polar, and US$22,302 in September 2026 alone. The pricing page calls the lifetime license, one payment for permanent use, its most popular plan, and about 94% of the last 30 days of revenue does not repeat monthly. So the MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the subscription money that repeats every month, is only US$1,334.", "The revenue figures are grade A. The costs, the margin, the working hours and the claim of no advertising are the seller's own words, grade C, and this page marks them as claims. Adi Leviim has listed the business for sale on TrustMRR since January 2026, asking US$800,000. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that added order and search to a platform that they did not own." ], "factsCaption": "Revenue read from the payment providers by TrustMRR, grade A, next to store data, the company's own pages and the seller's claims", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value is a TrustMRR figure read from the Lemon Squeezy and Polar accounts, or from Google Analytics, through an API key. A grade C value is the company's or the seller's own statement, a store listing, or a third-party test. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a ChatGPT add-on with 8,000 users to a four-app extension that took in US$22,302 in one month, in 25 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "AI Toolbox prices on 14 October 2026, read from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "Each paid plan covers one AI app: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Grok. All Access Lifetime covers all four and any app added later. The page shows the US$99 lifetime price next to a crossed-out US$123, and All Access next to US$396, the price of four single lifetime licenses. Teams costs US$12 per seat per month billed yearly or US$15 billed monthly, with at least 2 seats. All paid plans have a 14-day money-back guarantee.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "2 folders, 2 bookmarks, 2 saved prompts, first 5 search results" ], [ "Premium, one AI app", "4.92", "9.99", "one AI app; US$59 a year" ], [ "Lifetime, one AI app", "99 one-time", "", "one AI app, all future updates" ], [ "All Access Lifetime", "199 one-time", "", "all four AI apps and any added later" ], [ "Teams", "12", "15", "per seat, all four AI apps, at least 2 seats" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Verified revenue, 12 months to 14 October 2026", "value": "US$108,506", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from the Lemon Squeezy and Polar accounts through API keys, synced 14 October 2026. All-time revenue: US$110,833.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue, last 30 days", "value": "US$21,509", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, same sync. Last 3 months: US$55,888. Last 6 months: US$84,122.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the last 30 days", "value": "about US$258,108 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$21,509 times 12. Most of this money is one-time payments, so the next 12 months can differ.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue by month", "value": "US$2,869 in November 2025, US$6,942 in May 2026, US$22,302 in September 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly table. Calculated: September 2026 is 7.8 times November 2025 and 3.2 times May 2026. July to September 2026 brought US$53,010, 2.05 times April to June.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue before mid-October 2025", "value": "US$2,327", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: all-time US$110,833 minus the 12-month US$108,506. This covers the first 13 months. The sources do not say whether some early sales went through an account that is not connected to TrustMRR.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue (MRR)", "value": "US$1,334 from 151 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot. Calculated: US$8.83 per subscription per month, between the US$4.92 of the yearly plan and the US$9.99 of the monthly plan.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Share of last-30-day revenue that does not repeat monthly", "value": "about 93.8%, or US$20,175", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$21,509 minus US$1,334, divided by US$21,509. This money comes from lifetime licenses and from yearly plans paid in advance.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Prices, October 2026", "value": "US$99 once per AI app, US$199 once for all four, or US$9.99 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Pricing page. Yearly plan: US$59 per AI app. Teams: US$12 per seat per month billed yearly. 14-day money-back guarantee.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Chrome Web Store users, 14 October 2026", "value": "40,000, rated 4.8 from 996 ratings", "grade": "C", "note": "Google's store listing. Version 5.0.54, updated the same day.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Chrome Web Store users, 9 August 2026", "value": "30,000, rated 4.6 from 559 ratings", "grade": "C", "note": "A third-party comparison of 25 ChatGPT extensions that read the store listings that day.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "Users, February 2025", "value": "more than 8,000", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's home page as saved by the Wayback Machine on 27 February 2025, when the product was still called ChatGPT Toolbox.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Website visitors, last 30 days", "value": "21,193, with US$1.03 of revenue per visitor", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from Google Analytics through its API. Google Search Console is also connected.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "2 co-founders", "grade": "C", "note": "The About page calls Infi Developments a two-person company and names Adi Leviim (product and front end) and Mohammad El-Esawi (back end and AI systems). TrustMRR's team-size field shows the range 2 to 5 people.", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR profile: Bootstrapped. No source mentions an investor.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Costs, margin and working time", "value": "under US$100 a month, about 93% margin, about 5 hours a week", "grade": "C", "note": "Seller's claims in the TrustMRR description. TrustMRR shows a 92.0% profit margin for the last 30 days, but costs are not in its list of verified sources. Not verified.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Advertising", "value": "none, by the seller's account", "grade": "C", "note": "Seller's claims: growth is 100% organic from a site built for Google and AI answer engines, and 37% of users come from organic Google search. Not verified.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price", "value": "US$800,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Set by the seller on TrustMRR, listed since 14 January 2026, 6 offers received. TrustMRR shows a revenue multiple of 3.1. Calculated: the price is 3.10 times the run rate above and 7.37 times the last 12 months.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2026 figure", "value": "25 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: September 2024 to October 2026.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Mid 2024", "what": "Two heavy ChatGPT users, each with hundreds of chats, find no folders, no search filters by date or role and no bulk export in ChatGPT, by the company's account.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "September 2024", "what": "ChatGPT Toolbox launches on the Chrome Web Store, and Infi Developments is founded the same month to publish it. The Wayback Machine first saves the website on 12 September; the product's X account opens on 24 September.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 11, 14 ] }, { "when": "27 February 2025", "what": "The home page says more than 8,000 users and offers a free year of the subscription, worth US$48, as a prize. Firefox and Edge versions are offered too.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "13 April 2025", "what": "Adi Leviim opens his X account, where he later calls himself co-founder of AI Toolbox.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "19 June 2025", "what": "First Wayback copy of OpenAI's help article on Projects in ChatGPT, a built-in way to group chats, files and instructions.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 18 ] }, { "when": "30 June 2025", "what": "ChatGPT Toolbox launches on Product Hunt, after a first launch there in 2024.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "Before mid-October 2025", "what": "Verified revenue in the first 13 months adds up to US$2,327.", "grade": "X", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "December 2025", "what": "Security researchers report that four browser extensions with more than 8 million users had collected people's AI chats since July 2025. AI Toolbox reads the same AI pages.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 16, 17 ] }, { "when": "14 January 2026", "what": "The business is listed for sale on TrustMRR. The asking price in October 2026 is US$800,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "April 2026", "what": "Version 5.0.0: Gemini, Claude and Grok modules join ChatGPT in one install, and the product is renamed AI Toolbox.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 2 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "Verified revenue: US$12,368 in the month, after US$6,942 in May.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "9 August 2026", "what": "A third-party test of 25 ChatGPT extensions reads 30,000 users and 4.6 stars from 559 ratings, and calls AI Toolbox the best folder-and-tags suite.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "6 September 2026", "what": "AI Toolbox 3.0 launches on Product Hunt. The company says it finished first for the day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 2 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "Verified revenue: US$22,302 in the month, 7.8 times November 2025.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "14 October 2026", "what": "The store shows 40,000 users, 4.8 stars from 996 ratings and version 5.0.54 released that day. TrustMRR shows US$108,506 in 12 months and MRR of US$1,334.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 4, 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Features the AI apps did not have", "text": "By the company's account, in mid-2024 ChatGPT had no folders, no search filters by date or role and no bulk export, and heavy users kept hundreds of chats. The extension added these inside ChatGPT's own sidebar, so users kept their habits and their AI subscription." }, { "title": "One set of tools for four AI apps", "text": "In April 2026 the Gemini, Claude and Grok modules joined ChatGPT in one install. Each paid plan covers one app, and All Access covers all four for US$199 once. One search box, one folder tree and one prompt library work across all four, which no single AI company offers." }, { "title": "One-time prices", "text": "A lifetime license costs US$99 per AI app, about ten months of the US$9.99 monthly price. TrustMRR counts a one-time payment as revenue in the month it arrives, but MRR counts only subscriptions. That is why the last 30 days brought US$21,509 while MRR is US$1,334." }, { "title": "Search pages instead of ads, by the seller's account", "text": "The seller says growth comes only from a website written for Google and for AI answer engines. The Wayback Machine first saved 168 pages of the site in all of 2025, and 607 new pages from July to September 2026, the quarter in which revenue was 2.05 times the quarter before (calculated). The site also publishes an llms.txt file, a plain-text summary written for AI models. Three Product Hunt launches, X accounts and a subreddit add to it." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's own pages and from the tech list on its TrustMRR profile, which the founders filled in. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The TrustMRR tech list names Next.js, TypeScript and Sass for the front end, and Node.js, Express, MongoDB, Redis, Nginx, DigitalOcean, Cloudflare, GitHub Actions and Resend for the back end.", "The extension keeps a copy of the user's chats in IndexedDB, a database built into the browser, and runs search and automatic topic tags on the user's device.", "Folders, saved prompts, bookmarks and settings are stored on the company's servers, encrypted at rest, so that they follow the user to other devices.", "Three features, PDF export, pulling a long chat into a new one, and carrying a chat to another AI app, send the text of one chosen chat to the servers. The two summary features pass that text to the OpenAI API.", "Payments went through Lemon Squeezy and now go through Polar; some old subscriptions are still billed by Lemon Squeezy. A purchase is matched to the user's AI account by email address.", "Version 5.0.0 came out in April 2026 and version 5.0.54 on 14 October 2026. Since late August 2026 the extension can show notices to users without a store update." ], "src": [ 1, 7, 2, 5, 4 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database added order, search or sync on top of a platform that they did not control. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Xobni", "years": "2006 to 2013", "funding": "US$42M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Search and contact tools inside Microsoft Outlook.", "died": "Tied to one email program. Microsoft improved Outlook itself and users moved to phones. Yahoo bought what was left.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/763-xobni" }, { "name": "Xmarks", "years": "2006 to 2014", "funding": "US$9M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Sync bookmarks and tabs across browsers and devices.", "died": "Chrome, Firefox and Safari built sync in, for free.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/762-xmarks" }, { "name": "Readability", "years": "2009 to 2015", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Clean reading of any web article, without ads and clutter.", "died": "Browsers added a free reader mode, and few readers paid.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/485-readability" }, { "name": "Sunrise", "years": "2012 to 2016", "funding": "US$8M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "One calendar app for calendars from Google, Microsoft and others.", "died": "Microsoft bought it in 2015 and closed it a year later, moving its features into Outlook.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1957-sunrise" }, { "name": "Kippt", "years": "2012 to 2017", "funding": "US$400K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A bookmarking tool to save, organize and share web content.", "died": "Pocket and Evernote did the same job, and its sharing features did not bring new users.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/278-kippt" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five added order, search or sync to something that it did not own: Outlook, the browser, web articles, calendars and bookmarks. Each raised venture money and had to become large. Then the platform built the feature itself, or a bigger company bought it or did the same job, and the add-on lost its reason to exist. AI Toolbox makes the same bet on ChatGPT and three other AI apps, and OpenAI has already added Projects to ChatGPT.", "Three things differ. Two people run it without outside money, so, by the seller's account, it makes a profit at a size at which the predecessors could not have survived. It covers four AI apps, so one platform change does not end it, and its search and folders across all four apps are something no single AI company sells. And it took its money early, through one-time licenses: that made it profitable quickly, but it leaves a long support promise to whoever owns it next." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. This niche, only with care.", "text": "Two developers built more than US$100,000 a year of revenue by adding the missing parts of AI chat apps, with no outside money and no servers that store the chats. The method is repeatable: find what heavy users of a fast-growing web app keep asking for, build it inside that app, and sell it once at about ten months of a subscription. The niche itself is now crowded: one comparison tested 25 ChatGPT extensions in August 2026, and the AI apps keep adding folders and projects.", "steps": [ "Read the reviews and forum posts of a fast-growing web app, and list the features that its heavy users ask for and do not have.", "Build those features inside the app's own page, and keep the user's data in the browser so that server costs stay small.", "Offer a free plan with small limits, a monthly price, and a one-time price of about ten months of the monthly price.", "Write one help or comparison page for each question that users type into search engines, and publish an llms.txt summary for AI answer engines.", "When a second and a third app grow, add a module with the same features and sell one bundle for all of them." ], "open": "New AI apps with heavy users and weak history tools: AI search engines, AI image and video generators, voice assistants, and the web versions of AI coding tools." }, "watch": [ { "title": "It lives inside other companies' web pages", "text": "The extension adds buttons and panels to the pages of ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok. The company's changelog says these apps change their interfaces without notice and that a change can hide a button the extension attaches to; its terms say such changes may affect features temporarily or permanently. It also depends on the Chrome Web Store, whose policies say Google may change them at any time." }, { "title": "The AI apps add the same features", "text": "OpenAI's help center describes Projects in ChatGPT, which group chats, files and instructions and can take old chats with a Move to project option; the Wayback Machine has a copy of that article from June 2025. Three of the five predecessors on this page lost to a platform that built the feature itself. AI Toolbox's answer is search, folders and export across four AI apps at once." }, { "title": "Lifetime plans are paid once and supported for years", "text": "About 94% of the last 30 days of revenue does not repeat monthly. The terms promise lifetime buyers all future updates, and All Access buyers every new AI app the extension adds, for as long as the extension works. Each lifetime buyer adds support work for years while the money arrives once. The seller names turning one-time plans into subscriptions as a task for a buyer." }, { "title": "Extensions that collected AI chats", "text": "In December 2025 The Register and The Hacker News reported Koi Security's finding that Urban VPN Proxy and three other extensions, with more than 8 million users, had collected people's prompts and answers on ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok and other AI apps since July 2025, and that the data was sold for marketing. One of them had a Featured badge from the Chrome Web Store. AI Toolbox reads the same pages. Its privacy policy says chats stay in the browser, except for short previews of bookmarked messages and three features that send one chosen chat to its servers, two of them on to the OpenAI API for a summary. So the listing's line that no chat content leaves the browser says more than the policy does." }, { "title": "For sale, with access to users' browsers", "text": "The business has been listed on TrustMRR since 14 January 2026 at US$800,000, with 6 offers, and was still listed after 273 days (calculated to 14 October 2026). A buyer would take over an extension that about 40,000 people let read their AI chat pages. The Register notes that the store's Limited Use policy allows user data to move when a business changes owner." }, { "title": "Seller numbers that this page could not check", "text": "The margin, the costs under US$100 a month, the 5 hours a week, the zero ad spend, the 1,700 paying customers, the 47,000 monthly users and the 23,000-member subreddit are the seller's words. The listing also says revenue grew from US$2,900 a month in May, but the verified table shows US$6,942 for May 2026; US$2,869 is the figure for November 2025." }, { "title": "The growth is recent", "text": "Calculated from TrustMRR: 77.5% of the 12-month revenue came in the last 6 months and 51.5% in the last 3 months. The verified history is short, and it depends on new one-time sales every month." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR markdown profile: AI Toolbox, synced 14 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/ai-toolbox.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile in full. Revenue, MRR, subscriptions and visitors are read through the Lemon Squeezy, Polar and Google Analytics APIs (grade A). The description, seller message, team size, funding, tech list and costs are founder-written (grade C)." }, { "title": "AI Toolbox: About Infi Developments, the team behind AI Toolbox", "url": "https://ai-toolbox.co/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the two co-founders, the two-person company and the dated history." }, { "title": "AI Toolbox pricing page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://ai-toolbox.co/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for every price in the pricing table." }, { "title": "Chrome Web Store listing: AI Toolbox: Folders, Prompts, Advanced Search & Export for AI Chats, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ai-toolbox-folders-prompt/jlalnhjkfiogoeonamcnngdndjbneina", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Google's store data: users, rating, version, update date and the trader details, which place the publisher in Ramla, Israel." }, { "title": "AI Toolbox changelog: every release since 2024", "url": "https://ai-toolbox.co/changelog", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the April 2026 rename, the version numbers and the statement on interface changes by the AI apps." }, { "title": "AI Toolbox Terms of Service, last updated 1 October 2026", "url": "https://ai-toolbox.co/terms-of-services", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on lifetime licenses and on third-party dependencies. The terms name Infi Developments as publisher but give no registration number or address." }, { "title": "AI Toolbox Privacy Policy, last updated 1 October 2026", "url": "https://ai-toolbox.co/privacy-policy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on data kept in the browser, data on the servers, OpenAI processing, payment processors and analytics." }, { "title": "Product Hunt: AI Toolbox product page and its three launches", "url": "https://www.producthunt.com/products/chatgpt-toolbox", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the launch list and the summary. Source for the launches in 2024, on 30 June 2025 and on 6 September 2026." }, { "title": "gptprotools.com: 25 Best ChatGPT Chrome Extensions Compared (2026), updated 5 October 2026", "url": "https://gptprotools.com/blog/best-chatgpt-chrome-extensions", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the comparison table and the AI Toolbox entry. A third-party test that read the store listings on 9 August 2026." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine: ai-toolbox.co home page, 27 February 2025, then ChatGPT Toolbox", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250227162736/https://www.ai-toolbox.co/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 8,000 users and the US$48 yearly subscription offered as a prize." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine capture index for ai-toolbox.co", "url": "http://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=ai-toolbox.co*&fl=timestamp,original,statuscode&collapse=urlkey&limit=20000", "grade": "C", "how": "Downloaded the index and counted with python3 the first capture of each HTML page per quarter. A capture date shows when the archive first saw a page, not when the page was written." }, { "title": "AI Toolbox llms.txt, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://ai-toolbox.co/llms.txt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the opening section. A summary of the site written for AI models." }, { "title": "Adi Leviim on X (@adileviim): profile and posts from 4 to 14 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/adileviim", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and the timeline through api.fxtwitter.com: 53 of his own posts, all product tips. The timeline API returned nothing older than 4 October 2026." }, { "title": "AI Toolbox on X (@get_ai_toolbox): profile", "url": "https://x.com/get_ai_toolbox", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the date the account opened, 24 September 2024." }, { "title": "TrustMRR founder page: Adi Leviim", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/founder/adileviim", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Lists one startup with verified revenue, AI Toolbox, and no other product." }, { "title": "The Register, 16 December 2025: Chrome, Edge privacy extensions quietly snarf AI chats", "url": "https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/16/chrome_edge_privacy_extensions_quietly/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Reports Koi Security's research, the Featured badge and the gap in the Limited Use policy." }, { "title": "The Hacker News, 15 December 2025: Featured Chrome Browser Extension Caught Intercepting Millions of Users' AI Chats, by Ravie Lakshmanan", "url": "https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/featured-chrome-browser-extension.html", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. A second report of the same research." }, { "title": "OpenAI Help Center: Projects in ChatGPT", "url": "https://help.openai.com/en/articles/10169521-projects-in-chatgpt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The article gives no launch date; the first Wayback copy of it is from 19 June 2025." }, { "title": "Chrome for Developers: Chrome Web Store Program Policies", "url": "https://developer.chrome.com/docs/webstore/program-policies/policies", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on user data, Limited Use and policy changes." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/visualizee-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/visualizee-ai.md", "slug": "visualizee-ai", "name": "Visualizee.ai", "country": "Poland", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI rendering for architects", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "21 September 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$8.1K a month recurring revenue, October 2026", "sticker": "$98K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 97668, "months": 37, "teamLabel": "1 founder, part-time next to a full-time job; the operating company has a second shareholder and board member", "fundingLabel": "None found", "primaryFactor": "Simplicity", "group": "real-estate", "channel": "search", "trend": "flat", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Architecture" ], "product": "A web app where an architect or interior designer uploads a SketchUp screenshot, a sketch or a photo and types what to change. A chat assistant called Vizzy returns a photoreal render, or a short video, that keeps the rest of the design. Plans cost US$15 to US$80 a month.", "why": "For two years it was a powerful node editor that architects did not want, and it made about US$150 a month. The founder replaced it with a chat box where you say what you want, and changed one-time payments to subscriptions. Stripe revenue then grew 5.3 times from November 2025 to March 2026. His salary paid for the slow years.", "summary": [ "Visualizee is a rendering tool for architects and interior designers. Rendering means making a realistic picture of a building or a room from a 3D model or a drawing; done the classic way, it needs a 3D artist and hours of computer time. Here the user uploads a SketchUp screenshot, a sketch or a photo, types what to change, and a chat assistant called Vizzy returns a photoreal image in 30 seconds to 2 minutes, or a short video. Plans cost US$15, US$35 or US$80 a month. Behind the assistant are image models, AI programs that generate a picture from a text request and a reference image. The site does not say which ones it uses.", "Piotr Obidowski builds it next to a full-time job; the company that operates it is registered in Poland. He launched it on Product Hunt on 21 September 2023. For about two years it made about US$150 a month. In his account the cause was the interface: a node editor, a screen where the user connects boxes into a chain of processing steps, when architects only wanted a render by lunch. He replaced it with the chat assistant and moved from one-time payments to subscriptions. Stripe data shows US$1,737 of revenue in November 2025 and US$9,251 in March 2026. On 14 October 2026 the MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the subscription revenue of one month, was US$8,139 from 288 active subscriptions.", "The revenue figures are Stripe data that TrustMRR reads through an API key, grade A. The account of why sales changed is the founder's own, grade C. From April to September 2026 revenue stayed between US$8,852 and US$9,929 a month, and the large design-software makers now sell the same feature inside the programs that architects already use." ], "factsCaption": "Stripe-verified revenue of US$87,384 in twelve months and US$8,139 of monthly recurring revenue in October 2026, after two years at about US$150 a month", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read from Stripe by TrustMRR through an API key, or comes from an official Polish register. A grade C value is a founder statement, a founder-written profile field or the company's own page. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a node editor that made about US$150 a month to a chat assistant near US$10,000 a month, in 37 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Visualizee prices on 14 October 2026, read from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "Each plan is one monthly allowance that can be spent at any quality: a Pro render counts as about 2 Fast renders, an Ultra render as about 4. Fast takes about 30 seconds, Pro under a minute, Ultra about 2 minutes and goes up to 4K. Yearly billing saves 25%: Hobby costs US$135, Pro US$315 and Max US$720 a year. Extra render packs can be bought at any time, 15% cheaper on Pro and 30% cheaper on Max. Paid renders have no watermark and include a commercial license.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "5 Fast renders, watermarked, up to 1K, personal use only" ], [ "Hobby", "11.25", "15", "about 90 Fast, or 15 Pro plus about 60 Fast a month; images up to 2K" ], [ "Pro", "26.25", "35", "about 240 Fast, 120 Pro or 65 Ultra a month; 4K images, 1080p video" ], [ "Max", "60", "80", "about 600 Fast, 300 Pro or 160 Ultra a month; 4K video" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 14 October 2026", "value": "US$8,139", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data read by TrustMRR through an API key. Two days earlier the profile showed US$8,104.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the October 2026 MRR", "value": "about US$97,700 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 8,139 times 12 equals 97,668. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the twelve months to 14 October 2026", "value": "US$87,384", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data on TrustMRR.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in all time, to 14 October 2026", "value": "US$89,547", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data on TrustMRR. No source mentions an earlier payment provider.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue before mid-October 2025", "value": "US$2,163", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 89,547 minus 87,384. Over the 26 months from August 2023 that is about US$83 a month. The founder remembers about US$100 to US$150 a month. Either way, almost all revenue came after the change of interface.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue, November 2025 to March 2026", "value": "US$1,737, US$2,726, US$5,264, US$6,976, US$9,251", "grade": "A", "note": "Monthly revenue timeline on TrustMRR. The founder writes that the line turns where the chat interface shipped.", "src": [ 1, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from November 2025 to March 2026", "value": "5.3 times in four months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 9,251 divided by 1,737 equals 5.33.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue, April to September 2026", "value": "between US$8,852 and US$9,929, average US$9,489", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the six monthly values on TrustMRR. September 2026 is 10.8% below April 2026. Revenue in the last 30 days, US$8,684, is 2.8% below the 30 days before.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Visualizee revenue in September 2026, founder's post", "value": "US$8,832", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 2 October 2026, next to US$9,669 from his full-time job and US$634.10 from his second product. The Stripe figure for September is US$8,852.", "src": [ 5, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions, 14 October 2026", "value": "288", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data on TrustMRR.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR per active subscription", "value": "about US$28 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 8,139 divided by 288 equals 28.26, between the monthly prices of Hobby (US$15) and Pro (US$35).", "src": [ 1, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Product Hunt launch, 21 September 2023", "value": "25 upvotes; 4,000 visitors and 200 signups in 4 days", "grade": "C", "note": "The upvotes are from an archived copy of the launch page made early on launch day, so the final count may be higher; the page names Piotr Obidowski as the maker. The visitors and signups are the founder's count. Revenue barely moved, he writes.", "src": [ 12, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue for about two years after launch", "value": "about US$100 to US$150 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts. The first sales were one-time payments.", "src": [ 3, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the chat assistant to about US$10,000 a month", "value": "about six months", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 6 October 2026. The best Stripe month so far is April 2026, with US$9,929.", "src": [ 4, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Credit packs bought by people who already subscribe", "value": "97%", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's count from 10 months of Stripe data, post of 8 October 2026.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "Most common cancellation reason", "value": "only needed for occasional projects: 5 of the last 11 cancellations", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 14 October 2026.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Estimated users", "value": "25,000", "grade": "C", "note": "A founder-written field on TrustMRR, not a Stripe figure.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "66%", "grade": "C", "note": "Shown on TrustMRR as a snapshot. The profile does not say how costs are entered, so this page does not treat it as verified.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 founder, working on it before and after a full-time job", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts: no meetings, no calls, no standups for his products, and Claude Code does most of the typing.", "src": [ 11, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "Obidowski Company Sp. z o.o., in the court register since 22 December 2015, share capital PLN 5,000", "grade": "A", "note": "Polish court register (KRS 0000593281) and the tax register. The terms of service name this company as the operator. Two private persons hold the shares, 60% and 40%; no company or fund holds any. The board has two members and there is no supervisory board. The public register masks personal names.", "src": [ 20, 19, 18 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "No investor appears in the share register, and no source read for this page mentions a funding round, an accelerator or a grant. Grants and loans would not show in a share register.", "src": [ 20, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Second product of the founder", "value": "Viztunr.com, US$792 MRR", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data on the founder's TrustMRR page. A try-on tool for car tuning shops. Its customers came from cold email, he writes.", "src": [ 2, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2026 figure", "value": "37 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: September 2023 to October 2026.", "src": [ 12, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "22 December 2015", "what": "Obidowski Company Sp. z o.o., the company that now operates Visualizee, enters the Polish court register. Its main registered activity is software.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 20 ] }, { "when": "10 August 2023", "what": "Founding date of Visualizee, as entered on its TrustMRR profile.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "21 September 2023", "what": "Launch on Product Hunt, made by Piotr Obidowski, with an offer of 20% off for life. 25 upvotes in the archived copy from early on launch day. The product is a node editor. 4,000 visitors and 200 signups in four days, and almost no revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12, 3 ] }, { "when": "2023 to 2025", "what": "About US$100 to US$150 a month from one-time payments, for about 700 days. The founder keeps his full-time job. Stripe shows US$2,163 in total before mid-October 2025.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 6, 1 ] }, { "when": "Late 2025 (exact date not stated)", "what": "He deletes the node editor and replaces it with a chat assistant, Vizzy, and replaces one-time payments with subscriptions.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 6 ] }, { "when": "November 2025 to March 2026", "what": "Stripe revenue grows from US$1,737 to US$9,251 a month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "April 2026", "what": "The best month so far: US$9,929.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "After the chat assistant (dates not stated)", "what": "Video, more models, car renders, a public API and an MCP server, so that AI assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT can create renders directly.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 15 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "US$8,852 on Stripe. The founder reports US$8,832, a little less than the US$9,669 from his full-time job, and writes that he has not yet reached US$10,000 in a month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 5, 3 ] }, { "when": "9 October 2026", "what": "He writes that Starter Story covered his story: 2 years of failing, then US$10,000 a month. The Starter Story page read for this story is an AI-compiled profile that names SEO and Product Hunt as the growth channels.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 25 ] }, { "when": "14 October 2026", "what": "MRR US$8,139 from 288 active subscriptions. Not listed for sale on TrustMRR.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Delete the expert interface", "text": "The first product was a node editor: to get a render, an architect had to connect boxes into a processing chain. In the founder's words, it was powerful, and architects did not want powerful; they wanted a render by lunch. The chat assistant asks for one sentence, such as: make it a real living room in warm evening light, keep the layout and the camera. Revenue followed within months." }, { "title": "Subscriptions with an allowance, and packs on top", "text": "One-time payments became monthly plans of US$15, US$35 and US$80, each a pool of renders that can be spent at three qualities. Extra packs were meant for people who dislike subscriptions, but 97% of pack buyers already subscribe, so packs work as a top-up for heavy users." }, { "title": "A salary paid for the slow years", "text": "The founder never quit his job. He writes that the 9-to-5 paid for 700 days of almost no revenue, and that a salary removes the pressure to look successful in public posts. No investor appears in the company's share register." }, { "title": "Search pages instead of ads", "text": "Product Hunt brought visitors but no revenue. The founder says he focused on SEO, search engine optimization, the work of making pages appear in Google results. The site has a page for each competitor (ReRender AI, Vizcom, ArchiVinci, Rendair AI, Midjourney) and pages for single tasks such as sketch to render or furnishing an empty room. An affiliate program exists but, he writes, he barely promoted it." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's posts, the founder-written parts of the TrustMRR profile and the company's own pages. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Next.js, React and TypeScript in the browser; Supabase for the database and accounts, Vercel for hosting and Stripe for payments. The founder uses the same stack for all of his products.", "Claude Code, an AI coding tool, does most of the typing; the founder decides what to build. He holds no meetings, calls or standups for his products.", "The user talks to Vizzy, a chat assistant, and gets images at three qualities: Fast in about 30 seconds, Pro in under a minute, Ultra in about 2 minutes and up to 4K, plus short videos.", "No page or post read for this story names the image models behind it. The founder writes that he added more models, and that a better AI model did not bring more customers. The FAQ says uploads are not used to train AI models.", "A public API and an MCP server. MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is a standard way for AI assistants to call outside tools, so Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor can request a render directly.", "Lifecycle emails and invoicing run on their own, including KSeF, the Polish national system for electronic invoices. He builds nothing that he cannot leave alone for a week.", "The free plan attracted account farms. Sign-ups from about 121,000 throwaway email domains are now blocked." ], "src": [ 1, 10, 11, 14, 16, 15, 3 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised people a finished picture of a room or a design without the usual cost. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Modsy", "years": "2015 to 2022", "funding": "US$72.7M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "3D pictures of your own room with new furniture in it, before you buy.", "died": "Behind each 3D room were hours of work by human designers, so costs grew with every customer. It never came close to a profit.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2521-modsy" }, { "name": "Laurel & Wolf", "years": "2014 to 2019", "funding": "US$25M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Online interior design by professional designers for a flat fee.", "died": "The flat fees did not cover the cost of finding customers, and quality fell as the designer network grew.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2012-laurel--wolf" }, { "name": "Tastemaker", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$1.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Affordable interior design for people who cannot pay a designer.", "died": "Service from a scattered group of designers was uneven, and competitors with more money and more technology, such as Houzz and Modsy, offered the same.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1572-tastemaker" }, { "name": "Invision", "years": "2011 to 2023", "funding": "US$350M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Software for designers to show their designs and hand them over to developers.", "died": "Figma offered real-time collaboration in the browser, and Invision could not keep up with it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/251-invision" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Modsy, Laurel & Wolf and Tastemaker sold pictures of a finished room, and each picture needed hours of a human designer. Their costs grew with every customer, and the money ran out first. Invision had software costs, not designer costs, but lost when a competitor offered what designers wanted inside a better platform.", "Visualizee takes the human out of the picture: an image model produces it in under a minute, and on the Pro and Max plans a client-ready render costs the customer about US$0.25 to US$0.27. With no staff and no investors, about US$9,000 a month is a working business. The risk that remains is the Invision risk: large design-software makers now ship the same feature inside the programs that architects already pay for." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The product, late. The method, yes.", "text": "AI rendering for architects is now a crowded market with large vendors in it, so a copy of the product starts late. The method is general: keep a salary while the product finds its form, watch where new users stop, and replace an expert interface with plain requests.", "steps": [ "Keep your job until the product pays. Here a salary paid for 700 days of almost no revenue.", "Watch the first session of new users and remove the step where they stop. Here that meant deleting the node editor.", "Sell a monthly allowance by subscription, and sell extra packs to subscribers who run out.", "Write one search page for each competitor and for each task that people type into Google." ], "open": "Other trades that pay for a picture before they build: kitchens, gardens, car wraps and paint colors, shop fronts. The founder's second product sells car try-ons to tuning shops through cold email." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Growth has stopped for now", "text": "Revenue rose from US$1,737 in November 2025 to US$9,929 in April 2026, then stayed below that: US$8,852 in September 2026, and the last 30 days were 2.8% below the 30 days before. The founder's goal of US$10,000 in a month was not reached by September 2026." }, { "title": "The large design-software makers ship the same feature", "text": "Chaos, the maker of V-Ray and Enscape, bought EvolveLAB and its AI visualization tool Veras on 19 February 2025. Trimble launched SketchUp AI on 10 December 2025, with AI Render, formerly SketchUp Diffusion, which turns a SketchUp model and a text prompt into images in seconds, sold as a monthly subscription. A SketchUp screenshot is the first kind of input that Visualizee's home page names. Specialist competitors are also many: Visualizee's own site has comparison pages for ReRender AI, Vizcom, ArchiVinci, Rendair AI and Midjourney." }, { "title": "Renders that change the design", "text": "Ibrahim Fawakherji, writing on ArchUp on 15 July 2026, described a project of his own in which an AI tool, asked only to make a finished 3D model realistic, changed the street width and the sidewalk, added elements, removed part of the facade and redrew the entrance, with no warning, and charged for each failed attempt. Visualizee's own pricing page shows smaller cases: at Fast quality a stone wall becomes flat plaster, and at Pro quality a frame sits a little higher than in the model. Its promise is a render that keeps everything else, and that is the claim a buyer should test." }, { "title": "Dependence on image-model providers", "text": "The site does not say which image models it uses. If they come from outside providers, as the founder's mention of adding more models suggests but does not prove, then the quality, the speed and the cost per render depend on companies that also sell to every competitor. A price change by a provider changes the margin; a better public model narrows the gap. The founder himself lists 'better AI model = more customers' among the beliefs that turned out wrong." }, { "title": "Price pressure from general image generators", "text": "Midjourney, a general image generator, starts at US$10 a month, or US$8 a month billed yearly, against US$15 for Visualizee's smallest paid plan. Visualizee's answer is that it keeps the architect's layout and camera, while a general generator invents a new image; a buyer who only needs mood pictures may not pay the difference." }, { "title": "Architects render in bursts", "text": "The most common cancellation reason is that the customer needs renders only for occasional projects: 5 of the last 11 cancellations, the founder wrote on 14 October 2026. A monthly subscription works against that rhythm, and he is adding a reminder email before renewal, which costs some revenue." }, { "title": "One person, part-time, several products", "text": "In September 2026 the founder's full-time job paid more than Visualizee. He also runs Viztunr and started a third product, morga.ai, on 10 October 2026. The operating company has two shareholders, both private persons, with 60% and 40%, and a two-person board; whether the second person works on the product is not known. The headline figure was reached with one person building." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR markdown profile: Visualizee.ai, revenue synced 14 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/visualizee-ai.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile in full on 14 October 2026, and compared it with a cached copy of 12 October. The revenue, MRR and subscription figures are in its Verification Sources section, read from Stripe through an API key. The description, founding date, pricing summary, user estimate, profit margin and tech stack are founder-written or unexplained and are treated as grade C." }, { "title": "TrustMRR founder page: Piotr Obidowski (@pobidowski)", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/founder/pobidowski", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. Lists his two startups with verified revenue, Visualizee.ai and Viztunr.com, and their MRR." }, { "title": "Piotr Obidowski on X, 11 October 2026: Two years at $150/month. Here's everything that changed, in order", "url": "https://x.com/pobidowski/status/2109265760770052449", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the Product Hunt numbers, the node editor, the later features and the September 2026 figures." }, { "title": "Piotr Obidowski on X, 6 October 2026: Visualizee sat at ~$150/month for two years", "url": "https://x.com/pobidowski/status/2107380534666010725", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the change from the node editor to the chat assistant and the six months to about US$10,000 a month." }, { "title": "Piotr Obidowski on X, 2 October 2026: I've made $19,133.10 in September 2026", "url": "https://x.com/pobidowski/status/2105909042275389539", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. His three income lines add up to US$19,135.10, two dollars more than his total." }, { "title": "Piotr Obidowski on X, 26 September 2026: My first Visualizee sales were one-time payments", "url": "https://x.com/pobidowski/status/2103786243117269016", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the early revenue and the change to subscriptions." }, { "title": "Piotr Obidowski on X, 26 September 2026: the affiliate program and SEO", "url": "https://x.com/pobidowski/status/2103844790345576766", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Piotr Obidowski on X, 14 October 2026: Visualizee's #1 cancellation reason", "url": "https://x.com/pobidowski/status/2110362235474411644", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Piotr Obidowski on X, 8 October 2026: credit packs next to subscriptions", "url": "https://x.com/pobidowski/status/2108082887593722183", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Piotr Obidowski on X, 7 October 2026: How I ship 3 products next to a full-time job", "url": "https://x.com/pobidowski/status/2107722342113689722", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for Claude Code, the stack and the automated invoicing." }, { "title": "Piotr Obidowski's X profile and timeline, 24 September to 14 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/pobidowski", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and three pages of posts, about 60, through api.fxtwitter.com; the API returned nothing older. Source for the profile text, the posts on meetings, free-plan abuse, the revenue chart, Starter Story, Viztunr and morga.ai." }, { "title": "Product Hunt: Visualizee.ai, Render Rapidly. Reveal Reality., archived 21 September 2023", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20230921074920/https://www.producthunt.com/posts/visualizee-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in the Wayback Machine copy of the launch day. Names the maker, the featured date, the upvotes and the launch discount." }, { "title": "Visualizee pricing page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://visualizee.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the plans, the allowances, the yearly prices and the quality examples." }, { "title": "Visualizee home page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://visualizee.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the chat assistant Vizzy, the video feature and the comparison and task pages." }, { "title": "Visualizee MCP server page", "url": "https://visualizee.ai/mcp", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the opening section on connecting AI assistants." }, { "title": "Visualizee FAQ", "url": "https://visualizee.ai/faq", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full and searched for model names; none is given. Source for the statement that uploads are not used to train AI models." }, { "title": "Visualizee: Visualizee and Midjourney compared", "url": "https://visualizee.ai/comparison/midjourney", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's own comparison; its footer links the comparison pages for the other competitors." }, { "title": "Visualizee Terms of Service", "url": "https://visualizee.ai/terms-of-service", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the company and on contact. Names Obidowski Company Sp. z o.o. and VAT number PL9471986146 as the operator." }, { "title": "Polish Ministry of Finance, VAT taxpayer register: NIP 9471986146, 14 October 2026", "url": "https://wl-api.mf.gov.pl/api/search/nip/9471986146?date=2026-10-14", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full (JSON). Links the VAT number in the terms to court register number KRS 0000593281 and shows an active VAT status." }, { "title": "Polish court register (KRS), current extract for KRS 0000593281, as of 10 April 2026", "url": "https://api-krs.ms.gov.pl/api/krs/OdpisAktualny/0000593281?rejestr=P&format=json", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full (JSON) from the Ministry of Justice public API. Source for the registration date, share capital, shareholdings, board and main activity. The API masks personal names." }, { "title": "Chaos press release, 19 February 2025: Chaos Acquires EvolveLAB and its AEC AI Tools", "url": "https://www.chaos.com/press/chaos-acquires-evolvelab-and-its-aec-ai-tools", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. The buyer's own announcement." }, { "title": "Trimble press release, 10 December 2025: Trimble Launches SketchUp AI", "url": "https://news.trimble.com/Trimble-Launches-SketchUp-AI-a-New-Suite-of-AI-Powered-Modeling-Visualization-and-Help-Tools", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The vendor's announcement of its own product." }, { "title": "ArchUp, Ibrahim Fawakherji, 15 July 2026: The Trial of AI: Who Pays for the Hallucination?", "url": "https://archup.net/who-pays-for-ai-hallucination/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. An architect's account of an AI render that changed a finished model." }, { "title": "Midjourney documentation: Comparing Midjourney Plans", "url": "https://docs.midjourney.com/hc/en-us/articles/27870484040333-Comparing-Midjourney-Plans", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the price table." }, { "title": "Starter Story: Visualizee.ai, revenue, growth and monetization", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/businesses/visualizee-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The page says it was compiled by Starter Story's AI research system from public sources and not written by the founder. Used only for the growth channels it lists." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/koe/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/koe.md", "slug": "koe", "name": "Koe", "country": "United States", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI film generator and editor that works from one sentence", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "10 April 2026", "outcomeLabel": "US$88K a year run rate, October 2026", "sticker": "$88K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 88224, "months": 6, "teamLabel": "1 named founder, who writes solo founder; no headcount in any source", "fundingLabel": "None found", "primaryFactor": "Timing", "group": "video", "channel": "launches", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Video" ], "product": "A web app that writes a storyboard from one sentence, keeps the characters the same from scene to scene, generates each scene with video models rented from other companies (LTX, Kling, Seedance), and lets the user edit and export the film. Users pay with prepaid credits, on plans from US$12 to US$600 a month.", "why": "It put the newest video models, among them ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 from 14 April 2026, inside a storyboard editor that keeps characters consistent. Revenue grew from US$645 in May 2026 to US$32,697 in July. Then it fell by three quarters by September, and no source says why.", "summary": [ "Koe is a web app that turns one sentence into a short film. It writes a storyboard, a list of scenes with one still picture for each scene, keeps the same characters from scene to scene, and then sends each scene to a text-to-video model, an AI model that turns a description or a picture into a moving clip. Koe does not train these models. They are made by Lightricks (LTX), Kuaishou (Kling) and ByteDance (Seedance), and Koe pays for each use through an API, an interface that lets one program buy work from another company's servers. Users pay with credits, prepaid units that each generated scene uses up. Plans cost US$12 to US$600 a month.", "Koe launched on Product Hunt on 10 April 2026 and got 6 upvotes. The launch was submitted by Hong Xuan Kow, and the maker's comment says \"I'm Xuan, solo founder of Koe\". On 14 April Koe added ByteDance's Seedance 2.0. Stripe records, read by TrustMRR, show US$645 of revenue in May, US$7,177 in June and US$32,697 in July. On 16 July the founder posted a Stripe screenshot with about US$10,100 in MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the subscription revenue of one month. Then revenue fell: US$20,414 in August and US$8,616 in September. On 14 October 2026 the MRR was US$7,352 from 360 subscriptions, a run rate of US$88,224 a year, and total revenue was US$73,304.", "The revenue numbers are grade A, because TrustMRR reads them from Stripe, the payment processor, through an API key. The founder's posts and Koe's own pages are grade C. No source explains the fall after July, and no source gives a headcount. Under terms dated 15 September 2026, Koe also offers to turn authors' books into paid video series. The page also shows five earlier companies that promised easy video for everyone or sold stories as short paid video." ], "factsCaption": "A video app that made US$32,697 in its best month and had US$7,352 in MRR six months after launch, with revenue verified from Stripe", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value is read by TrustMRR from Stripe, the payment processor, through an API key. A grade C value is a founder statement, a company page, a price list or an encyclopedia article. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a Product Hunt launch with 6 upvotes to US$10,000 in MRR in three months, then a fall by three quarters. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Koe plans in October 2026, from the company's pricing page and home page (grade C)", "note": "The pricing page shows monthly prices and says that yearly billing saves 20%. The home page shows Hobby at US$10 and Starter at US$24 a month billed yearly, which saves US$24 and US$72 a year. The yearly prices of the larger plans load by script and were not read. A 6-second scene on the entry model, LTX 2.3 Pro, uses about 80 credits including its start frame; Kling and Seedance scenes cost more. Credits are spent when a generation starts and are not refunded. One-time credit packs never expire.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "720p with watermark; still frames only, motion needs a plan" ], [ "Hobby", "10", "12", "800 credits a month, 1080p with watermark" ], [ "Starter", "24", "30", "2,500 credits a month, no watermark" ], [ "Pro", "", "90", "8,000 credits a month" ], [ "Team", "", "240", "22,000 credits a month, 4K, priority queue" ], [ "Ultra", "", "600", "60,000 credits a month, 4K, API access" ], [ "Enterprise", "", "custom", "custom LoRA character training, single sign-on" ], [ "Credit packs", "5.99 to 109.99 one-time", "", "100 to 3,000 credits, never expire" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 14 October 2026", "value": "US$7,352", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, from the Stripe API. 360 active subscriptions. Two days earlier the profile showed US$7,568 and 367 subscriptions.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from that MRR", "value": "US$88,224 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 7,352 times 12. Revenue in the last 30 days, US$7,380, is almost equal to the MRR, so one-time payments do not raise this figure.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue, all time to 14 October 2026", "value": "US$73,304", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, from Stripe. Equal to the last-12-months figure, so there was no revenue before April 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue by month, 2026", "value": "April US$70, May US$645, June US$7,177, July US$32,697, August US$20,414, September US$8,616, 1 to 14 October US$3,684", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly timeline, in UTC calendar months.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Best month", "value": "July 2026, US$32,697", "grade": "A", "note": "4.56 times June, and 44.6% of all revenue to date (calculated).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Fall from July to September 2026", "value": "73.6%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 1 minus 8,616 divided by 32,697. August was 37.6% below July, and September 57.8% below August.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Last 30 days against the two months before", "value": "US$7,380 against US$16,677 a month, or 44%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 40,734 for the last 3 months minus 7,380 for the last 30 days, divided by 2, is 16,677; 7,380 divided by 16,677 is 0.443. TrustMRR shows the last 30 days 22.5% below the 30 days before them.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR, 16 July 2026", "value": "about US$10,100", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post: Koe has reached 10k in MRR, and monthly revenue grew 10 times in less than a month. The attached Stripe screenshot shows US$10.1K MRR, US$32,200 gross volume and US$30,400 net volume from sales for April 2025 to July 2026.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Change in MRR, 16 July to 14 October 2026", "value": "minus 27.2%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 7,352 divided by 10,100, minus 1. Revenue fell much faster than MRR.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "July revenue against the mid-July MRR", "value": "3.24 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 32,697 divided by 10,100. The difference comes from payments outside the mid-July MRR: one-time credit packs, yearly plans paid in advance, and subscriptions that started after 16 July or ended soon after they started. The sources do not split it.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "MRR per active subscription", "value": "about US$20.42 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 7,352 divided by 360. Between the monthly prices of Hobby (US$12) and Starter (US$30).", "src": [ 1, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "93.0%", "grade": "C", "note": "A TrustMRR snapshot that is not in its list of metrics read from the payment provider. The profile does not say which costs it subtracts, so this page does not use it.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Launch", "value": "10 April 2026, on Product Hunt", "grade": "C", "note": "6 upvotes, 1 comment, 68th product of the day. The first Stripe revenue, US$70, came in the same month.", "src": [ 3, 4, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Founded date on the TrustMRR profile", "value": "8 April 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Entered by the founder. The Stripe screenshot also starts its range in April 2025, but revenue starts in April 2026.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 named founder; no headcount in any source", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR and Product Hunt name one founder, who writes 'solo founder of Koe'. The careers page says 'We keep the team small' and lists open roles in research and engineering.", "src": [ 1, 4, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "Koe is not in the Y Combinator company directory, and no source reports a funding round. The About page gives an email address for press and investors.", "src": [ 15, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Video models on the plans", "value": "LTX 2.3 Pro, Kling 3.0 and Kling O3, Seedance 2.0", "grade": "C", "note": "Pricing page feature table. The privacy policy names ByteDance/BytePlus (Seedance), OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, fal.ai, Lightricks/LTX and ElevenLabs as AI model providers.", "src": [ 7, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Credits for one 6-second scene on the entry model", "value": "about 60 for motion plus 20 for the start frame", "grade": "C", "note": "Pricing page answer for LTX 2.3 Pro. It adds that Kling and Seedance cost more, without numbers.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "What a user pays for that scene", "value": "US$0.80 to US$4.79, or US$0.13 to US$0.80 a second", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 80 credits at US$0.01 a credit (Ultra, US$600 for 60,000 credits) up to US$0.0599 a credit (a pack of 100 credits for US$5.99). On Hobby, at US$0.015 a credit, the scene costs US$1.20.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "List price of a 6-second clip at model providers", "value": "US$0.48 to US$2.40", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 6 seconds of Veo 3.1 on the Gemini API at US$0.08 a second (Lite, 1080p) to US$0.40 (Standard). Kling v3 Pro on fal.ai is US$0.14 a second, or US$0.84 for 6 seconds. Koe's own costs are not published.", "src": [ 16, 17 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2026 figure", "value": "6 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 10 April 2026 to 14 October 2026, 187 days.", "src": [ 3, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "28 February 2025", "what": "The founder opens the X account @xuan_xuan_hh. Its bio says: founder, math olympiad medalist, ex-Meta.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "8 April 2025", "what": "The founded date that the founder entered on TrustMRR. Stripe records no revenue for the next twelve months.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "18 March 2026", "what": "Koe's X account @koedotsh is created, with New York City as its location.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "10 April 2026", "what": "Launch on Product Hunt as Koe, AI Film Studio: type one sentence, get a complete cinematic film. 6 upvotes, 68th of the day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "when": "14 April 2026", "what": "Koe adds Seedance 2.0 and Kling Omni v3. ByteDance had started its own consumer version of Seedance 2.0 outside China on 26 March, in CapCut, and the United States was not among the first markets.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 21 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "Revenue reaches US$7,177 in the month, up from US$645 in May.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "16 July 2026", "what": "The founder posts that Koe has reached US$10,000 in MRR and that monthly revenue grew 10 times in less than a month. The post had 289 views.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "July 2026", "what": "Best month: US$32,697 of verified revenue. ByteDance releases Seedance 2.5 on 31 July.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 21 ] }, { "when": "17 August 2026", "what": "Koe 2.0 is announced, available exclusively with Seedance 2.0 models. August revenue is US$20,414.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 1 ] }, { "when": "15 September 2026", "what": "Platform Terms and Author Terms, version 2026-09-15. Koe offers to turn a book into a season of 18 to 24 episodes for US$499 and to sell it on a storefront at koe.show, keeping 20% of each sale.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 11, 14 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "Revenue falls to US$8,616 in the month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "24 September 2026", "what": "OpenAI shuts down the Sora API, after it closed the Sora app on 26 April.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 20 ] }, { "when": "14 October 2026", "what": "MRR is US$7,352 from 360 active subscriptions, and total verified revenue is US$73,304. Koe is not listed for sale.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "An editor on top of rented models", "text": "Koe does not train a video model. It writes the storyboard, keeps characters consistent, and sends each scene to LTX, Kling or Seedance. When a provider releases a better model, Koe adds it within days: Seedance 2.0 and Kling Omni v3 on 14 April 2026, and Koe 2.0, announced as available only with Seedance 2.0 models, on 17 August." }, { "title": "Timing with a new model", "text": "Koe offered Seedance 2.0 from 14 April 2026. ByteDance's own consumer version, started outside China on 26 March, did not include the United States in its first markets. Revenue rose from US$645 in May to US$32,697 in July. No source links the two; the dates are the only evidence." }, { "title": "Free still frames, paid motion", "text": "The free plan makes storyboards and still frames, and motion clips need a paid plan. The user sees the look of the film before paying for the expensive step, the generation of video." }, { "title": "Credits spent at the start of each generation", "text": "Plans give a monthly number of credits, and packs of 100 to 3,000 credits can be added. Credits are used when a generation starts, whether or not the user keeps the result, and they are not refunded." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from Koe's own pages: the privacy policy, the pricing page and the terms. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The site is a Next.js web app; its page source shows the Next.js markers. It runs on Vercel and Railway.", "Supabase stores account data and signs users in. Cloudflare R2 and the Cloudflare network store and serve the videos.", "Stripe takes the payments. PostHog and Sentry measure usage and errors. Meta Pixel and the Conversions API measure the ads for the author program.", "AI model providers for frames, videos, audio and assistant answers: ByteDance/BytePlus (Seedance), OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, fal.ai, Lightricks/LTX and ElevenLabs.", "Video models on the plans: LTX 2.3 Pro as the entry model, Kling 3.0 and Kling O3, and Seedance 2.0. Enterprise adds LoRA training, a small add-on model trained on a customer's own character images.", "Public channels: a Product Hunt launch, X posts by the founder and by the company with 18 to 388 views each, a Discord server, a subreddit and a referral program. No source says which channel brought the July customers." ], "src": [ 9, 7, 10, 3, 5, 6, 8 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database promised that anyone could make good video without skills, or tried to sell stories as short paid video. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "HighlightCam", "years": "2009 to 2012", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Professional-looking video edits, made automatically by an algorithm.", "died": "Smartphone apps and free editing software did the same job, and the market did not see the need.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1636-highlightcam" }, { "name": "Fuzzwich", "years": "2007 to 2010", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Simple animation for people with no animation skills.", "died": "It stayed on the desktop while users moved to phones, and Adobe had more money.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1655-fuzzwich" }, { "name": "Viddy", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$30M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Filters that make phone videos look professional.", "died": "Instagram added video in 2013 and Vine spread fast; Viddy lost its users to both.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2190-viddy" }, { "name": "Vook", "years": "2009 to 2017", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Books combined with video.", "died": "Readers kept reading plain e-books, and publishers did not adopt the format.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/721-vook" }, { "name": "Quibi", "years": "2018 to 2020", "funding": "US$1.75B", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Short premium episodes for phones, behind a paywall.", "died": "Lockdowns removed the commute it was designed for, and free short video on TikTok kept the audience.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1891-quibi" } ], "whatChanged": [ "HighlightCam, Fuzzwich and Viddy promised that anyone could make good-looking video without skills. They had to build the effects themselves, and larger platforms (phone apps, Adobe, Instagram) added the same features for free. Vook and Quibi tried to sell stories as video, and readers and viewers did not pay for the format. Koe's offer to turn books into paid video seasons, in terms dated 15 September 2026, is the same bet as Vook and Quibi, with AI cutting the production price to US$499 a season.", "What is different: the hard part, the video model, is now rented by the second from companies that compete to sell it, so one person can build the editor around it. The same fact is the risk. Google, Runway and Kuaishou sell the same or similar models directly, and Runway includes Kling 3.0 and Seedance 2.5 in its own plans. An editor on top of rented models keeps its customers only while its workflow is better than the model makers' own apps." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The July spike, no.", "text": "One person built a storyboard editor on top of rented video models and reached about US$10,000 in MRR three months after launch. The spike came with new models and faded within two months. What remains, US$7,352 a month from 360 subscriptions, is what the workflow itself holds.", "steps": [ "Build the workflow that the model makers do not build: storyboard, consistent characters, a timeline and export.", "Sell prepaid credits priced per model and per second, and spend them when the generation starts.", "Give cheap still frames for free and charge for the expensive motion step.", "Add each new model within days of its release and post about it, but do not depend on one model.", "Connect Stripe to a public revenue page, so that readers and buyers can check the numbers." ], "open": "Narrow uses where a general video app is weak: music videos from lyrics, ads for small brands, series from books, and countries where a new model is not yet sold directly." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Revenue fell by three quarters after July", "text": "Verified revenue was US$32,697 in July 2026, US$20,414 in August and US$8,616 in September, 73.6% below July. MRR fell less, from about US$10,100 on 16 July (founder's screenshot) to US$7,352 on 14 October, minus 27.2%. No source explains the fall. Possible causes that this page could not verify: a launch spike of one-time credit purchases, users moving to other apps after Seedance 2.5 (31 July) and wider Seedance access, or cancelled subscriptions. In the last 30 days revenue averaged US$246 a day and in the last 7 days US$269 a day, so the fall has slowed to the level of the subscriptions." }, { "title": "The model makers sell to the same users", "text": "Google sells Veo 3.1 and its Flow video studio inside Google AI plans: AI Plus at US$4.99 a month with 200 Flow credits, AI Pro at US$19.99 with 1,000 Flow credits and a limited Veo 3.1 Lite trial, and AI Ultra from US$99.99 with Veo 3.1. Runway's Standard plan costs US$12 a month billed yearly and includes Kling 3.0, and its Pro plan lists Seedance 2.5. Kuaishou runs Kling as its own service. Runway raised US$315 million in February 2026. OpenAI closed the Sora app on 26 April 2026 and the Sora API on 24 September 2026, so even a large maker can leave this market." }, { "title": "Video generation is paid by the second", "text": "Veo 3.1 costs US$0.05 to US$0.60 a second on the Gemini API, and Kling v3 Pro US$0.14 a second on fal.ai; fal.ai bills Seedance 2.0 by tokens. A 6-second scene on Koe's cheapest model brings Koe US$0.80 to US$4.79, depending on the plan or pack. Koe does not publish the credit price of Kling and Seedance scenes, so its margin cannot be computed. TrustMRR shows a 93.0% profit margin for the last 30 days but does not say which costs it counts. Credits are not refunded when a user discards a result, so the user pays for failed generations." }, { "title": "Dependence on model providers", "text": "Koe 2.0 was announced as available exclusively with Seedance 2.0 models. In February 2026 Disney and Netflix sent ByteDance cease-and-desist letters over Seedance 2.0, and in March two US senators asked ByteDance to shut it down. If a provider raises prices, restricts access or closes a model, as OpenAI did with the Sora API, Koe must move its users to another model, and its product changes with it." }, { "title": "Platform rules on AI video and likeness", "text": "YouTube requires creators to disclose realistic AI-generated content, and its inauthentic content policy, renamed and clarified on 15 July 2025, excludes mass-produced or repetitive videos from monetization; Koe's pricing page tells users they can earn YouTube ad revenue. TikTok labels AI-generated content automatically when it is uploaded from some other platforms with C2PA Content Credentials, metadata that records how a file was made. Meta adds AI info labels. Koe's own Platform Terms forbid real people's likenesses or voices without their written permission." }, { "title": "Little evidence about the team and the new product", "text": "Only one person is named: the founder, who writes 'solo founder of Koe' on Product Hunt. The careers page lists open research and engineering roles and says the team is small, but no source gives a headcount. The book-season product is sold under terms dated 15 September 2026, and TrustMRR does not split revenue by product. The home page says Koe was featured in Rolling Stone, Billboard, Wired and Variety; this page could not verify that." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile of Koe (listed as Hong Xuan Kow), revenue verified from Stripe, synced 14 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/hong-xuan-kow", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile in full and compared it with a copy cached on 12 October 2026. Revenue, MRR and subscriptions come from the Stripe API; the description, founded date and pricing text are written by the founder (grade C)." }, { "title": "The founder's X post, 16 July 2026: Koe has reached 10k in MRR", "url": "https://x.com/xuan_xuan_hh/status/2077723437729284451", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com, with the attached screenshot of the Stripe dashboard." }, { "title": "Product Hunt: Koe, AI Film Studio, launched 10 April 2026", "url": "https://www.producthunt.com/products/koe-ai-film-studio", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the page and its page data. Source for the launch date (scheduled 10 April 2026, 00:01 Pacific time) and the description." }, { "title": "Hunted.space launch record: Koe, AI Film Studio", "url": "https://hunted.space/product/koe-ai-film-studio", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 6 upvotes, the 68th place of the day, the name of the person who submitted it and the maker's comment." }, { "title": "Koe's X account @koedotsh, posts from April to August 2026", "url": "https://x.com/koedotsh", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and its 11 visible posts through api.fxtwitter.com, two pages." }, { "title": "The founder's X profile @xuan_xuan_hh", "url": "https://x.com/xuan_xuan_hh", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile through api.fxtwitter.com. The full timeline returned an error, so only the 10 posts with images or video were read." }, { "title": "Koe pricing page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://koe.sh/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, including the answers to its questions in the page data." }, { "title": "Koe home page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://koe.sh/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, including the answers to its questions in the page data." }, { "title": "Koe Privacy Policy", "url": "https://koe.sh/privacy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the AI model providers and the other service providers." }, { "title": "Koe Platform Terms, version 2026-09-15", "url": "https://koe.sh/terms/platform", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the credit rules, the storefront split and the likeness rule." }, { "title": "Koe Author Terms, version 2026-09-15", "url": "https://koe.sh/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the book seasons at US$499, the legal entity Koe Platforms and Delaware law." }, { "title": "Koe About page", "url": "https://koe.sh/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "Koe Careers page", "url": "https://koe.sh/careers", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. It lists open roles but gives no headcount." }, { "title": "koe.show, the storefront for author-owned series", "url": "https://koe.show/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "Y Combinator company directory, yc-oss mirror", "url": "https://yc-oss.github.io/api/companies/all.json", "grade": "C", "how": "Searched all 6,297 company records for Koe and koe.sh. No match." }, { "title": "Google Gemini API pricing", "url": "https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the Veo 3.1 section, prices per second." }, { "title": "fal.ai pricing", "url": "https://fal.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the list of video model prices." }, { "title": "Google AI plans", "url": "https://gemini.google/subscriptions/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the plan cards for AI Plus, AI Pro and AI Ultra." }, { "title": "Runway pricing", "url": "https://runwayml.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the plan cards and their model lists." }, { "title": "Wikipedia: Sora (text-to-video model)", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sora_(text-to-video_model)", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the article text through the Wikipedia API. Source for the shutdown dates." }, { "title": "Wikipedia: Seedance", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seedance", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the Wikipedia API. Source for the release dates, the copyright disputes and the CapCut rollout." }, { "title": "Wikipedia: Veo (text-to-video model)", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veo_(text-to-video_model)", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the Wikipedia API. Source for Veo in the Gemini app and in Google Flow." }, { "title": "Wikipedia: Kling AI", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kling_AI", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the Wikipedia API." }, { "title": "Wikipedia: Runway (company)", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runway_(company)", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the Wikipedia API. Source for the funding rounds." }, { "title": "YouTube Help: Disclosing use of GenAI content", "url": "https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/14328491", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "YouTube Partner Program policies", "url": "https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1311392", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on inauthentic content and its 15 July 2025 update." }, { "title": "TikTok newsroom, 9 May 2024: Partnering with our industry to advance AI transparency and literacy", "url": "https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/partnering-with-our-industry-to-advance-ai-transparency-and-literacy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The TikTok help page on AI-generated content loads by script and could not be read." }, { "title": "Meta newsroom: Our Approach to Labeling AI-Generated Content and Manipulated Media", "url": "https://about.fb.com/news/2024/04/metas-approach-to-labeling-ai-generated-content-and-manipulated-media/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with its 1 July 2024 update." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/the-influencer-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/the-influencer-ai.md", "slug": "the-influencer-ai", "name": "The Influencer AI", "country": "Singapore", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI influencer and product-image generator", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "8 May 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$50.8K revenue in the last 12 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$51K in 12 months", "outcomeUsd": 50824, "months": 17, "teamLabel": "1 founder; LinkedIn lists him as the only employee", "fundingLabel": "None found", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "video", "channel": "launches", "trend": "growing", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Marketing content" ], "product": "A web app that creates one AI person, from chosen traits or from 1 to 4 photos of the user, and then generates photos, talking videos, outfit try-ons and product shots of that same person for Instagram, TikTok, ads and online shops. Plans cost US$19 to US$199 a month and include credits that each image or video second uses up.", "why": "General image generators make a new face with every prompt, so a brand or creator cannot build a recognizable character with them. This app saves the face once and generates everything else from it. One developer found users through AI directories, free single-feature tools and, later, guides written for search. Credits make the model costs grow with use.", "summary": [ "The Influencer AI makes an AI influencer, a person who does not exist, or an AI copy of a real person, who appears in social media posts as if real. The user designs the face by choosing traits such as age, hair and body, or uploads 1 to 4 photos to make an AI clone, a saved copy of the user's own face. The app then generates new photos, talking videos with lip sync, where the mouth moves to match the spoken words, virtual try-ons, where an uploaded garment is shown on the person, and product shots, all with the same face. The buyers are creators, brands and online shops that want UGC-style content, short videos that look as if an ordinary user filmed them, without hiring anyone to film. Plans cost US$19 to US$199 a month and include credits, units that each generation uses up: 1 credit for a photo, 1 or 2 credits for each second of video.", "Zeeshaan Lakdawala, a software developer who lives in Barcelona, launched it on 8 May 2025, two months before he sold his earlier AI headshot app, The Multiverse AI, for US$115,000. The company behind it, Thunderbus Pte. Ltd., is registered in Singapore. He found users through launch directories in the first weeks, free single-feature tools, and later guides and comparisons written for search engines. In the twelve months to 14 October 2026 it took in US$50,824, and its MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the total of all active subscriptions for one month, was US$4,962 from 138 subscriptions. Revenue has been uneven: US$5,692 in January 2026, US$2,685 in May, US$4,909 in September. In February 2026 he wrote that the revenue was about equal to his family's living costs and that he was not yet taking any of it out.", "The revenue figures are grade A. They are published by TrustMRR, a site that reads a startup's payment records directly from its payment processor, here Stripe, through an API key, a password that lets one program read another program's data. Everything else, from the team size to the user counts and the way the business found customers, comes from the founder's posts on X and the company's own pages, grade C. The page also shows the 2026 rules on labeling AI-generated people, and four earlier companies that sold images or creator content to brands and shoppers." ], "factsCaption": "A one-person subscription app with US$50,824 in Stripe-verified revenue in twelve months and US$4,962 in monthly recurring revenue, October 2026", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from the payment processor's records as published by TrustMRR on 14 October 2026. A grade C value is a statement by the founder or the company. A grade X value was computed on this page from the rows that it names.", "timelineLead": "From a sold headshot app to a one-person AI influencer studio, in 17 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "The Influencer AI prices in October 2026, read from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "All plans are billed month to month. The pricing page shows no yearly option, and the company's own comparison guide lists its price as \"No yearly plan\". 1 credit buys 1 photo; video costs 1 or 2 credits per second and lip sync 1 credit per second. New users get a 3-day free trial with 10 credits, and a card is required. The \"save\" labels on the page compare the price per credit with the Starter plan: 19 cents on Starter, 15.6 cents on Creator, 14.1 cents on Professional and 13.3 cents on Enterprise. Pre-made influencers are unlimited on every plan.", "rows": [ [ "Starter", "", "19", "100 credits; 1 custom influencer a month; videos up to 5 seconds; no AI Clone" ], [ "Creator", "", "39", "250 credits; 3 custom influencers a month; videos up to 10 seconds; AI Clone" ], [ "Professional", "", "99", "700 credits; 8 custom influencers a month; videos up to 15 seconds; AI Clone" ], [ "Enterprise", "", "199", "1,500 credits; 16 custom influencers a month; videos up to 15 seconds; AI Clone" ], [ "Extra credits", "0.24 per credit one-time", "", "bought at any time on top of a plan" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Verified revenue in the last 12 months, to 14 October 2026", "value": "US$50,824", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe records read by TrustMRR through an API key, last synced 14 October 2026. The headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue since the start", "value": "US$65,383", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, same sync.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue in the last 30 days", "value": "US$5,548", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR. The 30 daily values in the profile add up to the same amount (checked on this page).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue (MRR), October 2026", "value": "US$4,962, from 138 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR metric snapshot. The profile shows MRR growth of 13.0% in the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the MRR", "value": "US$59,544 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$4,962 times 12.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average MRR per active subscription", "value": "about US$36 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$4,962 divided by 138. This lies between the US$19 and US$39 plans.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue before mid-October 2025", "value": "US$14,559", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: all-time revenue minus the last 12 months. This covers about the first five months after the May 2025 launch.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Highest and lowest full month in the public table", "value": "January 2026: US$5,692. May 2026: US$2,685", "grade": "A", "note": "Monthly table from November 2025. May was 52.8% below January (calculated). September 2026 was US$4,909, 82.8% above May (calculated).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Third quarter of 2026 against the second", "value": "US$13,844 against US$9,466, up 46.2%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the monthly table: July to September against April to June.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's pay, February 2026", "value": "none taken; revenue about equal to his family's living costs", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post, 2 February 2026: \"We don't take any of it out yet though, still living off savings.\"", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "No funding round appears in the founder's posts, on the LinkedIn page or on the TrustMRR profile. The founder says he lives off savings.", "src": [ 17, 23, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team, October 2026", "value": "1 founder; LinkedIn lists him as the only employee", "grade": "C", "note": "LinkedIn's company-size field says 2 to 10 employees, a range that the company chooses. TrustMRR lists one founder.", "src": [ 23, 22, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Users claimed by the company", "value": "more than 10,000 creators, 1,600 AI influencers built and 65,000 photos and videos", "grade": "C", "note": "Home page, October 2026. Not verified.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Most common subjects among paying users", "value": "fitness, fashion, travel, food, finance and business", "grade": "C", "note": "Company guide, September 2026. It says the account type that pays most often is a personal influencer brand rather than an experiment.", "src": [ 25 ] }, { "fact": "The founder's previous company", "value": "The Multiverse AI, an AI headshot app, sold in July 2025 for US$115,000, about 0.5 times its annual recurring revenue", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts. His X biography says he built it to more than US$350,000 in revenue. A May 2025 post, which does not name the app but matches its dates, says it reached US$34,000 a month at a 70% profit margin and then fell by 80%. The posts do not fit exactly (calculated: an 80% fall from US$34,000 leaves about US$6,800 a month, while 0.5 times annual recurring revenue implies about US$19,000 a month).", "src": [ 12, 5, 22 ] }, { "fact": "Paid advertising test, September 2026", "value": "US$310 for the top place on the outbid daily board", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post. He needed about 4 customers from it to break even.", "src": [ 20 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2026 figure", "value": "17 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: May 2025 to October 2026.", "src": [ 4, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2023 to 2024", "what": "Lakdawala builds The Multiverse AI, an app that turns selfies into AI headshots, with two partners. He later writes that it reached US$34,000 a month at a 70% profit margin, then fell by 80% from the summer of 2024.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 22 ] }, { "when": "4 March 2025", "what": "Founding date of The Influencer AI, as entered on its TrustMRR profile.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "8 May 2025", "what": "Launch post on X: brands use AI images and video, but it is hard to keep one consistent person across the outputs, and this product solves that.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "14 to 16 May 2025", "what": "Launch on the Uneed directory, then a listing on There's An AI For That, which he says brought one conversion and, within a day, more visitors than all his other sources together in the previous 14 days.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 8 ] }, { "when": "27 May 2025", "what": "Virtual try-on added, built on FASHN AI's try-on model.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "15 June 2025", "what": "He launches a free Virtual Try On tool with no sign-up, 3 uses a day, and calls such free tools his side project. The site now has five of them, each linking back to the app.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 29 ] }, { "when": "1 July 2025", "what": "Launch on Product Hunt.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "July 2025", "what": "He sells The Multiverse AI for US$115,000 and writes that he now works on The Influencer AI, which is \"picking up steam\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "6 September 2025", "what": "A user publishes a step-by-step guide to the app on X. It says the photo editor uses Google's Nano Banana model.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "17 October 2025", "what": "Most users dropped off at the pricing step of a hard paywall, so he adds a 7-day free trial and tracks it with PostHog.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "12 January 2026", "what": "He lists the business on TrustMRR and posts a chart of a \"revenue rollercoaster\" in the previous three months.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "2 February 2026", "what": "Revenue is about equal to his family's living costs in Barcelona. He is still living off savings.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "January to May 2026", "what": "Verified monthly revenue falls from US$5,692 to US$2,685.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "3 June 2026", "what": "The Influencer AI 2.0: one consistent person, or a clone of the user, for UGC, social media, shop listings and ads.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 18 ] }, { "when": "15 July 2026", "what": "He removes the hard paywall completely, so that people see more of the app at each step from visitor to trial user, and writes that the funnel is improving.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 19 ] }, { "when": "31 August 2026", "what": "Instagram announces that it will limit the reach of accounts that show AI-generated people without its \"AI-generated profile\" label.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 30 ] }, { "when": "2 September 2026", "what": "He pays US$310 for the top place on the outbid board for one day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 20 ] }, { "when": "20 September 2026", "what": "He compares two models for NSFW detection, the automatic screening of sexual content, on the app, and writes that the one called jev is faster, more accurate and cheaper than GPT-5.6 Luna.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 21 ] }, { "when": "14 October 2026", "what": "TrustMRR sync: US$50,824 in the last 12 months, US$65,383 in total, MRR US$4,962 from 138 subscriptions. Not listed for sale.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "One face that stays the same", "text": "General image generators make a new person with each prompt. Here the face is saved once, from chosen traits or from 1 to 4 photos, and every later photo, clip, edit and try-on is generated from it. The company says it tests new image and video models as they are released and switches when one is better, so the user does not have to follow model releases." }, { "title": "Credits tie model use to payment", "text": "Each plan includes a fixed number of credits: 1 for a photo, 1 or 2 for each second of video. The price per credit falls from 19 cents on Starter to 13.3 cents on Enterprise, and extra credits cost 24 cents. A heavy user buys more credits instead of using more model time for the same price." }, { "title": "Many small sources of visitors", "text": "AI directories and Product Hunt in May to July 2025, five free single-feature tools that link back to the app (the try-on tool of June 2025 needed no sign-up), nine guides and comparisons written for search, an affiliate program that pays 25% of each payment for a year, and one US$310 ad. The founder wrote that the affiliate program also brings backlinks, links from other sites that help search ranking. No traffic data is public: the TrustMRR profile has no analytics or Search Console connection, so the share of each source is not known." }, { "title": "Trial experiments, one at a time", "text": "Until October 2025 users had to pay before they could see the app, and most dropped off at the pricing step. He added a 7-day trial, measured it, and in July 2026 removed the paywall completely. In October 2026 the site offers a 3-day trial with 10 credits and asks for a card to prevent abuse." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's posts, a user's public guide, archived copies of the site and the company's own pages. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The site is a Next.js web app: the image paths in archived copies of its pages are Next.js paths.", "The models are rented from model companies, not trained by the business. The site does not name them; it says it runs the latest frontier image and video models. A user's guide from September 2025 says the photo editor used Google's Nano Banana model, and the try-on launched in May 2025 on FASHN AI.", "In September 2026 the founder compared two models for NSFW detection, the automatic screening of sexual content, on the app.", "The clone setup changed. The founder's TrustMRR description mentions 10 input photos, and the September 2025 user guide says 5 or more photos and about 5 minutes of training. In October 2026 the site asks for 1 to 4 photos and says there is no training and no waiting.", "Payments run through Stripe, which TrustMRR reads through an API key. The trial funnel is measured with PostHog.", "The company is Thunderbus Pte. Ltd., registered in Singapore, under Singapore law. The founder works from Barcelona. No source names anyone else working on the business." ], "src": [ 29, 14, 9, 21, 1, 15, 24, 22 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database tried to give brands or shoppers images and content without a real photo shoot or with someone else's creators. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "FameBit", "years": "2013 to 2019", "funding": "US$1.75M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A self-service marketplace where brands paid YouTube creators to make sponsored videos.", "died": "Google bought it in 2016. The database says YouTube then turned to large brands, and TikTok took much of the creator market.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/132-famebit" }, { "name": "Modsy", "years": "2015 to 2022", "funding": "US$72.7M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Computer-made 3D images of furniture inside a customer's own room, so that people could buy without seeing it in person.", "died": "Each design needed paid human designers, customers were expensive to find and rarely came back, and it never reached a profit.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2521-modsy" }, { "name": "Seerslab", "years": "2016 to 2019", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Augmented-reality effects for selfies and short videos.", "died": "The large social apps did not adopt it, and Snapchat's own filters won.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1463-seerslab" }, { "name": "Polyvore", "years": "2007 to 2019", "funding": "US$22M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Outfit collages made from the product images of many shops, so that fashion fans could style clothes without a photo shoot.", "died": "Yahoo bought it, and it could not compete with Pinterest and Instagram for users.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/451-polyvore" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The four companies sold content or effects that someone else could make more cheaply or give away. FameBit sold access to human creators; after Google bought it, YouTube turned to large brands and TikTok took much of the creator market. Modsy made computer images of rooms, but each one needed paid designers, so every sale cost too much. Seerslab made selfie effects and lost to Snapchat's own filters. Polyvore let users style outfits from shop photos and lost its users to Pinterest and Instagram. All four raised outside money, from US$1.75 million to US$72.7 million.", "The Influencer AI pays no designers and no creators. A rented model renders each image or clip, and the customer pays for it in credits, so the main cost grows with use instead of ahead of it. One person runs it, and about US$5,000 a month already roughly matches the founder's family costs, where the predecessors raised millions. The open risk is the Seerslab one: Instagram, TikTok and the model makers can add the same feature to their own apps." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The market is crowded.", "text": "Nothing here needed money or an audience: a product built on models that other companies train, sold as a subscription with credits, and found through directories, free tools and search pages. The same method fits any task where people want the same AI output again and again. But the company's own comparison names seven competitors in this category, and verified revenue has stayed between about US$2,700 and US$5,700 a month for a year.", "steps": [ "Pick one thing that general image tools do badly, here the same face in every picture, and build only that.", "Sell credits instead of unlimited use, so that each generation is paid for by the user who makes it.", "Put free, no-sign-up versions of single features on their own pages, each linking back to the paid app.", "List the product on AI directories in launch week and count the visitors from each one.", "Change the trial one step at a time and measure each change." ], "open": "Consistent people for niches that the general tools ignore: catalog models for small clothing shops, presenters for training videos in many languages, and labeled AI personas for brands that must follow the 2026 disclosure rules." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Disclosure rules now decide reach", "text": "On 31 August 2026 Instagram announced that it will limit the reach of accounts that show AI-generated people without its \"AI-generated profile\" label (TechCrunch). Meta shows an \"AI info\" label on content that it detects as made by an AI tool, and the company's own guide says TikTok requires its AI-generated content label on realistic synthetic people. In the EU, Article 50 of the AI Act applies from 2 August 2026: a deployer, the person or company that uses an AI system under its own authority, must disclose that a deep fake is artificially generated. A deep fake is AI-made image, audio or video content that resembles existing persons, objects, places or events and would falsely appear authentic (AI Act text; date from the European Commission). The company tells users to label every account and post as AI." }, { "title": "Paid posts by AI people are still ads", "text": "In the US, the Federal Trade Commission's Endorsement Guides call for a clear disclosure of any material connection with a brand, such as payment. In its 2023 revision the FTC wrote that the new definition of an endorser covers virtual influencers and also writers of fake reviews. The FTC says that the responsibility for disclosing rests with the influencer and the brand, not the platform, so a brand that pays for posts by an AI persona carries that duty." }, { "title": "Audience trust", "text": "Instagram said that people do not like finding out that a profile that seemed human shows an AI-generated person, and TechCrunch reported growing frustration with AI-generated content as AI influencers become common. If audiences avoid labeled AI accounts, the creators who pay for this tool lose their reason to pay." }, { "title": "Misuse of a real person's likeness", "text": "The clone is made from 1 to 4 photos. The site says to use your own photos or get explicit permission, and the terms forbid infringing the rights of others, but none of the pages read for this story describes a check that the photos show the account holder. A clone of someone else without consent is the kind of deep fake that the new rules target." }, { "title": "Dependence on model providers", "text": "The business trains no models of its own. Its quality, its cost per credit and its features depend on image and video models from other companies, which can change prices, add watermarks or ship the same feature themselves. A user wrote in September 2025 that Google's Veo clips carry SynthID watermarks that TikTok detects and flags; that claim is not verified." }, { "title": "Competition and small, uneven revenue", "text": "The company's own comparison lists seven competitors, from APOB AI at US$15 a month to Influencer Studio at US$49, and general tools such as ChatGPT also make images, though with a new face each time. Verified revenue swung between US$2,685 and US$5,692 a month over the last year, with 138 subscriptions in October 2026, and the founder was not yet paying himself in February 2026." }, { "title": "Fan-platform demand", "text": "The home page cites a virtual model said to earn up to €10,000 in a strong month from brand deals and subscriptions, and lists fan platforms among ways to earn; one guide names Fanvue next to Patreon. The same company's comparison sends fan-platform content to two other tools, and in September 2026 the founder was testing NSFW detection. Whether the product stays a marketing tool depends on keeping that line." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile: The Influencer AI (Stripe-verified revenue, synced 14 October 2026)", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/the-influencer-ai", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/the-influencer-ai.md) in full on 14 October 2026. Grade A for the Verification Sources metrics: revenue by period, the daily and monthly tables, MRR and subscriptions. The description, founding date and insights are founder-written, grade C." }, { "title": "The Influencer AI home page, October 2026", "url": "https://www.theinfluencer.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the features, the clone and builder, the user claims, the affiliate terms, the consent advice in the FAQ and the earning section." }, { "title": "The Influencer AI pricing page, October 2026", "url": "https://www.theinfluencer.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the plans, credits, cost per credit, trial and extra credits." }, { "title": "Zeeshaan Lakdawala on X, 8 May 2025: Just launched The Influencer AI", "url": "https://x.com/zeeshaanl/status/1920416356811305357", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the launch date and the problem statement." }, { "title": "Zeeshaan Lakdawala on X, 13 May 2025: the earlier SaaS that hit US$34,000 a month", "url": "https://x.com/zeeshaanl/status/1922252380646551648", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the earlier company's revenue and its 80% fall." }, { "title": "Zeeshaan Lakdawala on X, 13 May 2025: 3 learnings", "url": "https://x.com/zeeshaanl/status/1922253498458030120", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. His lessons from the earlier company, including a skipped blog feature that later ranked first on Google." }, { "title": "Zeeshaan Lakdawala on X, 14 May 2025: launched on Uneed", "url": "https://x.com/zeeshaanl/status/1922554749951365160", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Zeeshaan Lakdawala on X, 16 May 2025: listed on There's An AI For That", "url": "https://x.com/zeeshaanl/status/1923358612715438318", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the directory's traffic compared with his other sources." }, { "title": "The Influencer AI on X, 27 May 2025: Try On with FASHN AI", "url": "https://x.com/theinfluencerai/status/1927490631779209248", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. The company account names the try-on model provider." }, { "title": "Zeeshaan Lakdawala on X, 15 June 2025: a free Virtual Try On tool", "url": "https://x.com/zeeshaanl/status/1934206062795628951", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the free no-sign-up tools." }, { "title": "Zeeshaan Lakdawala on X, 1 July 2025: launch on Product Hunt", "url": "https://x.com/zeeshaanl/status/1939956282535936199", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Zeeshaan Lakdawala on X, 15 July 2025: We sold The Multiverse AI for US$115K", "url": "https://x.com/zeeshaanl/status/1945076177086869742", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the sale price and the multiple." }, { "title": "Zeeshaan Lakdawala on X, 29 July 2025: affiliate program and backlinks", "url": "https://x.com/zeeshaanl/status/1950269834106982616", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "A user's guide on X, 6 September 2025: how to make AI UGC with The Influencer AI", "url": "https://x.com/consumerxai/status/1964306755686375669", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. The author calls the founder a close friend, so this is not an independent review. Source for the Nano Banana editor, the clone setup in 2025 and the SynthID claim." }, { "title": "Zeeshaan Lakdawala on X, 17 October 2025: a 7-day trial replaces the hard paywall", "url": "https://x.com/zeeshaanl/status/1979157816561578209", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the paywall drop-off and PostHog." }, { "title": "Zeeshaan Lakdawala on X, 12 January 2026: listed on TrustMRR", "url": "https://x.com/zeeshaanl/status/2010650914991026660", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com, with his post from the same hour (status 2010648674477445629) about the revenue rollercoaster of the previous three months. The chart image was not read." }, { "title": "Zeeshaan Lakdawala on X, 2 February 2026: revenue equal to family costs, living off savings", "url": "https://x.com/zeeshaanl/status/2018299636776095824", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "The Influencer AI on X, 3 June 2026: The Influencer AI 2.0", "url": "https://x.com/theinfluencerai/status/2062173081955692975", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Zeeshaan Lakdawala on X, 15 July 2026: hard paywall removed", "url": "https://x.com/zeeshaanl/status/2077340889580515479", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Zeeshaan Lakdawala on X, 2 September 2026: top of the outbid board for US$310", "url": "https://x.com/zeeshaanl/status/2095084074675085390", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Zeeshaan Lakdawala on X, 20 September 2026: models compared for NSFW detection", "url": "https://x.com/zeeshaanl/status/2101739236118483264", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. The linked image was not read." }, { "title": "Zeeshaan Lakdawala's X profile and timeline, read October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/zeeshaanl", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and all 173 posts that api.fxtwitter.com returned, July 2021 to October 2026. Source for his biography, location and the absence of any funding or team posts." }, { "title": "The Influencer AI company page on LinkedIn", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-influencer-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public page. Source for the company-size field and the single listed employee." }, { "title": "The Influencer AI terms of service", "url": "https://www.theinfluencer.ai/terms-of-service", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the legal entity, the usage rules and the governing law." }, { "title": "The Influencer AI guide, updated 17 September 2026: How to Create an AI Influencer in 2026", "url": "https://www.theinfluencer.ai/blog/how-to-create-an-ai-influencer", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on paying users, cloning and disclosure. Source for the paying users' subjects, the consent advice and the platform rules as the company summarizes them." }, { "title": "The Influencer AI guide, updated 2 October 2026: Best AI Influencer Generators in 2026", "url": "https://www.theinfluencer.ai/blog/best-ai-influencer-generators", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the comparison table and the picks. Source for the competitors, their prices and the line that sends fan-platform content to other tools." }, { "title": "The Influencer AI guide: How to Create an AI Influencer Like Aitana Lopez", "url": "https://www.theinfluencer.ai/blog/how-to-create-an-ai-influencer-like-aitana-lopez", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on monetization, which names Fanvue and Patreon." }, { "title": "The Influencer AI blog index and sitemap, October 2026", "url": "https://www.theinfluencer.ai/blog", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with the sitemap at https://www.theinfluencer.ai/sitemap-0.xml (23 pages, among them the blog index, eight blog posts, a UGC guide and five free tools)." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine capture list for theinfluencer.ai", "url": "http://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=theinfluencer.ai*", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the capture list. It holds captures of home-page links tagged as coming from the free try-on and photo-editor pages on 15 July 2025, the first blog capture on 29 December 2025, and Next.js image paths." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, Lauren Forristal, 31 August 2026: Instagram puts new limits on undisclosed AI profiles", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/31/instagram-puts-new-limits-on-undisclosed-ai-profiles/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for Instagram's new label, the reach limits and Instagram's statement on what users want." }, { "title": "Federal Trade Commission: FTC's Endorsement Guides, What People Are Asking", "url": "https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking", "grade": "B", "how": "The FTC site refused the download; read the Wayback Machine copy of 13 October 2026, the sections on platform disclosure tools and responsibility." }, { "title": "Federal Register, 26 July 2023: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising", "url": "https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/07/26/2023-14795/guides-concerning-the-use-of-endorsements-and-testimonials-in-advertising", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the section on the revised definition of an endorser, which discusses virtual influencers." }, { "title": "EU AI Act, Article 50: transparency obligations for providers and deployers of certain AI systems", "url": "https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/50/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the deep fake disclosure duty and the definition of a deep fake." }, { "title": "European Commission: Guidelines on the transparency obligations under the AI Act", "url": "https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/guidelines-ai-transparency-obligations", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the date of application, 2 August 2026, and the Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-generated Content." }, { "title": "Meta newsroom: Our approach to labeling AI-generated content and manipulated media", "url": "https://about.fb.com/news/2024/04/metas-approach-to-labeling-ai-generated-content-and-manipulated-media/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full, with its later updates. Source for the AI info label." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/pet-plus-us/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/pet-plus-us.md", "slug": "pet-plus-us", "name": "Pet Plus Us", "country": "USA", "sector": "Photography", "productType": "AI portraits of people together with their pets", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "6 September 2026", "outcomeLabel": "US$27.8K verified revenue in 30 days, October 2026", "sticker": "$27.8K in 30 days", "outcomeUsd": 27833, "months": 1, "teamLabel": "1 founder, Or Hirschhorn, by his own TrustMRR profile; the seller is TYGP Technologies, LLC", "fundingLabel": "None reported; the profile says bootstrapped", "primaryFactor": "Paid ads", "group": "photos", "channel": "paid-ads", "trend": "growing", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Photography" ], "product": "A web studio that turns one photo of each person and one photo of each pet into a single AI-generated portrait of them together, in a chosen scene. The first three previews are free and watermarked. The first portrait costs US$19 and each additional one US$10, as a one-time purchase, and a portrait can be sent as a gift or printed on a framed print, mug, ornament or blanket.", "why": "It sells a picture that most pet owners do not have and cannot easily take: a good photo of themselves together with their pet. The customer sees a free preview before paying, so an ad only has to bring a person to the upload page. The founder says the sales come from ads, and the site says it advertises on Facebook and Instagram. Verified daily revenue rose from US$76 on 15 September 2026 to US$1,099 on 22 September.", "summary": [ "Pet Plus Us is a web studio that makes one portrait of a person together with their pet from separate photos. The customer uploads one clear photo of each person and each animal and chooses a \"look\", such as a scene by the sea. An image model, an AI program that creates a new picture from written instructions and reference photos, then draws everyone in the same scene. The company's privacy page says that the model comes from OpenAI. The first three looks come as free previews with a watermark, a visible mark printed over the image so that it cannot be used without paying. The first portrait costs US$19 and each additional one US$10, as a one-time purchase, a single payment with no subscription. Framed prints, mugs, ornaments and blankets cost US$29 to US$179.", "Or Hirschhorn, a founder in Miami with 26 followers on X, runs it through TYGP Technologies, LLC. The domain was registered on 19 August 2026, and his profile on TrustMRR, a website that reads a company's revenue directly from its payment processor, gives 6 September 2026 as the founding date. The payment processor here is Stripe, the service that takes the card payments. TrustMRR shows US$27,833 of revenue in the 30 days to 14 October 2026, about US$1,100 a day since late September, and no subscriptions. The founder writes that the sales are one-time purchases from ads and that the business has been profitable every day. On 28 September 2026, 22 days after the founding date, he listed it for sale at US$75,000.", "The revenue figures are grade A, read from the Stripe account. The all-time total of US$33,579 is not all from this product: US$4,903 arrived in March and April 2026, four months before the domain existed, and no source says what that money was for. This page therefore uses only the last 30 days. Costs, ad spend and profit are not verified. The page also shows earlier companies that sold printed keepsakes made from customers' photos, sold gifts, or bought pet-owner customers with advertising, and why they failed." ], "factsCaption": "Stripe-verified revenue of US$27,833 in the 30 days to 14 October 2026, all from one-time purchases, 38 days after the founding date", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read by TrustMRR from the Stripe account through its API, or comes from an official record such as the domain registry or a public company's results. A grade C value is the founder's or the company's own statement, or a third party's. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a domain registered on 19 August 2026 to a business listed for sale 40 days later. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Pet Plus Us prices on 14 October 2026, read from the company's own pages (grade C)", "note": "Every price is a one-time purchase; there is no subscription. A customer can choose up to 12 looks, and the first 3 get free, watermarked previews with no account or card. Every paid order includes two free re-rolls, which make the same portraits again from the same photos. Keepsake prices include standard delivery in the US and the matching digital portrait; tax is added at checkout. Prints are delivered to US addresses only.", "rows": [ [ "First portrait", "19 one-time", "", "full-resolution download, 2 free re-rolls" ], [ "Each additional portrait", "10 one-time", "", "in the same order, up to 12 looks" ], [ "Gift, one portrait", "19 one-time", "", "personal note and digital reveal" ], [ "Gift, three portraits", "33 one-time", "", "personal note and digital reveal" ], [ "Mug, 11 oz", "29 one-time", "", "US delivery included" ], [ "Christmas ornament, ceramic heart", "29 one-time", "", "US delivery included" ], [ "Framed print, 8 x 10 in", "89 one-time", "", "US delivery included" ], [ "Blanket, 50 x 60 in", "99 one-time", "", "US delivery included" ], [ "Sets of print, blanket and mug", "109 to 179 one-time", "", "2 or 3 pieces, US delivery included" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Verified revenue, 30 days to 14 October 2026", "value": "US$27,833", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from the Stripe account through an API key, synced on 14 October 2026. The daily rows for 15 September to 14 October add up to the same amount. All of it came after the founding date.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue, September and 1 to 14 October 2026", "value": "US$28,675", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly timeline: US$12,755 in September and US$15,920 in October so far. The same amount as the profile's figure for the last 3 months.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue, all time", "value": "US$33,579", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, 14 October 2026. It includes US$4,903 from March and April 2026, which this page does not count as Pet Plus Us revenue.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the same Stripe account before the domain existed", "value": "US$4,903: US$153 in March and US$4,750 in April 2026, 14.6% of the all-time total", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: from the monthly timeline. The domain was registered on 19 August 2026, and there is no revenue from May to August. The founder's TrustMRR page lists no other startup, and no source says what this money was for.", "src": [ 1, 3, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue from 1 to 12 September 2026", "value": "US$643", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the September total minus the daily rows for 13 to 30 September (13 and 14 September from a copy of the profile saved on 12 October). How much of it came before the 6 September founding date is not shown.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Daily revenue, 15 and 22 September 2026", "value": "US$76 on 15 September 2026, US$1,099 on 22 September", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR daily table, UTC dates; the public table shows only the last 30 days. A rise of about 14.5 times in one week (calculated).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average revenue per day, 22 September to 13 October 2026", "value": "about US$1,129", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the mean of 22 full days in the daily table. The lowest was US$763 on 4 October, the highest US$1,732 on 8 October.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Recurring revenue", "value": "US$0 a month, 0 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR. All sales are one-time purchases.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "45.0%", "grade": "C", "note": "Shown in TrustMRR's metric snapshots. The profile verifies only the Stripe revenue and does not say where the cost figures come from, so the margin is not verified. The founder writes \"Profitable every day since launch.\"", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Profit implied by that margin", "value": "about US$12,525 in 30 days", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 45.0% of US$27,833. Not verified, because the margin is not.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Paid orders in the 30 days, upper limit", "value": "at most 1,464", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$27,833 divided by US$19, the smallest possible order. The real number is lower, because many orders add portraits, gifts or prints.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Prices", "value": "US$19 for the first portrait, US$10 for each additional one; gifts US$19, or US$33 for three; keepsakes US$29 to US$179", "grade": "C", "note": "Company pages, 14 October 2026. The first three previews are free, and each paid order includes two free re-rolls.", "src": [ 4, 7, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Image model", "value": "an OpenAI model; the model's name is not given", "grade": "C", "note": "Privacy page, updated 27 September 2026: OpenAI \"Checks photos for harmful content and generates your portraits.\"", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Where customers come from", "value": "paid ads on Facebook and Instagram", "grade": "C", "note": "Privacy page: \"We advertise on Facebook and Instagram\". The founder calls the sales \"one-time purchases from ads\". No source gives the ad spend.", "src": [ 6, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Partner program", "value": "30% of the net revenue from each sale that a partner's link brings, paid weekly", "grade": "C", "note": "Partner page. Net revenue is the price less tax, refunds and production cost. No source says how many sales come from partners.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "Search visibility", "value": "Domain Rating 0 out of 100", "grade": "C", "note": "Ahrefs Domain Rating shown on TrustMRR, synced on 13 October 2026. It measures links from other sites, which help search ranking, so search engines are unlikely to bring many customers yet.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price", "value": "US$75,000", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR listing, first listed on 28 September 2026, with 13 offers and 2,252 interested buyers by 14 October. The price is about 0.2 times the last 30 days of revenue times 12, and about 2.2 times all revenue so far (calculated).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team and funding", "value": "1 person, bootstrapped", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder-written TrustMRR profile. The terms name TYGP Technologies, LLC as the seller. No source mentions outside investors.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Domain registered", "value": "19 August 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "Registry record (RDAP) of the .com registry. The registrar is Cloudflare.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Meta's average price per ad, April to June 2026", "value": "up 12% on a year earlier", "grade": "A", "note": "Meta's second-quarter 2026 results, 29 July 2026. Ad impressions rose 14%. This is an average over all of Meta's advertisers, not the cost of Pet Plus Us.", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the founding date to the headline figure", "value": "38 days", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 6 September to 14 October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "March and April 2026", "what": "US$4,903 of revenue arrives in the Stripe account that Pet Plus Us later uses: US$153 in March and US$4,750 in April, almost all of it after 14 April. Nothing arrives from May to August.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "11 and 14 April 2026", "what": "The founder's three public posts on X: two about AI coding tools that run generated code in a sandbox, one asking people to share their project links. None mentions Pet Plus Us.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "19 August 2026", "what": "The domain pet-plus-us.com is registered through Cloudflare.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "6 September 2026", "what": "Founding date on the TrustMRR profile. US$643 of revenue arrives between 1 and 12 September (calculated).", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "15 September 2026", "what": "US$76 of revenue, the first day in the 30-day daily table read on 14 October.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "22 September 2026", "what": "US$1,099 in one day. Every day after that, up to 13 October, brings at least US$763.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "27 September 2026", "what": "The privacy page is updated. It names OpenAI as the portrait generator and says that the company advertises on Facebook and Instagram.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "28 September 2026", "what": "Listed for sale on TrustMRR, 22 days after the founding date. The founder writes that it has been profitable every day since launch.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "8 October 2026", "what": "The terms are updated with the refund rules and a note that Christmas order-by dates include extra time for the busy season.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "8 October 2026", "what": "Best day in the daily table: US$1,732.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "14 October 2026", "what": "US$27,833 in the last 30 days and US$33,579 all time, with no subscriptions. Asking price US$75,000, 13 offers.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A picture people do not have", "text": "Most pet owners have many photos of their pet and few good photos of themselves with it. The studio needs only one photo of each, taken separately, and draws them together in a chosen scene. The home page answers the first question a buyer has, \"Do we need a photo together?\", with \"Nope.\"" }, { "title": "Free preview, then payment", "text": "The first three looks come as free, watermarked previews, with no account or card. The customer pays only after seeing the result, which lowers the risk of buying from an ad. So that one person cannot create unlimited free previews, the site counts uploads and preview requests per person and stores the IP address and email only as hashes, scrambled codes from which the original cannot be read back." }, { "title": "Paid ads measured per order", "text": "The company advertises on Facebook and Instagram. Meta's pixel, a small script on the home page, and messages sent from the company's server tell Meta when a preview is viewed, when checkout opens and when a payment clears. The privacy page says this measures which advertisements lead to orders. The founder says the sales come from ads." }, { "title": "Small first price, larger orders", "text": "The first portrait is US$19 and each additional look US$10. Gift versions add a personal note and a digital reveal. Printed keepsakes, made by print partners and delivered in the US, add US$29 to US$179 to an order. A partner program pays creators 30% of the net revenue from the sales that their links bring." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's own pages and from the site's public response headers. They are grade C unless marked.", "items": [ "Portraits: an OpenAI image model draws them from the customer's photos and the chosen look, and OpenAI also screens the uploads for harmful content. The site does not say which OpenAI model. It says that it does not train models on customers' photos.", "Hosting: Vercel serves the site and stores the photos and portraits privately. The site's response headers name Vercel as the server (grade B).", "Payments: Stripe takes the card payment, so the card number never reaches the company's servers. TrustMRR reads the revenue from the same Stripe account.", "Email: Resend sends the portraits and the order links.", "Analytics: PostHog records usage events and session recordings, to show where people give up.", "Ads: Meta's pixel runs on the home page, the order finder and the legal pages, and the server reports previews, checkouts and payments to Meta. The pixel does not run on the order pages, so Meta never sees the link to a portrait.", "Cost control: uploads and preview requests are counted per person, with the IP address and email stored as hashes.", "Printed keepsakes come from unnamed specialist print partners and ship to US addresses only. The site is in English and Spanish." ], "src": [ 6, 4, 5, 7 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold keepsakes made from customers' photos, sold gifts, or bought pet-owner customers with heavy advertising. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Picplum", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$1M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Prints of your phone photos, mailed to family members.", "died": "Larger rivals had more money and better-known brands, printing and shipping costs were high, and sharing on Instagram and Facebook reduced the demand for paper prints. It had nothing that rivals could not copy.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1603-picplum" }, { "name": "Picwing", "years": "2008 to 2011", "funding": "US$1.2M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Printed photos mailed to grandparents who did not use social networks.", "died": "Shutterfly and Snapfish were bigger and offered more, digital sharing lowered the value of prints, and winning a customer cost more than the customer paid over time.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1647-picwing" }, { "name": "Kicksend", "years": "2011 to 2017", "funding": "US$2.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Send batches of photos privately to family and order prints for them.", "died": "Shutterfly and Snapfish already had the printing customers and retail partners, Google and Apple added cloud photo sharing, and printing as the main source of revenue became a weakness.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/274-kicksend" }, { "name": "Pets.com", "years": "1998 to 2000", "funding": "US$110M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Pet supplies ordered online and delivered to the door.", "died": "Expensive advertising, including Super Bowl ads, did not create loyal customers, shipping heavy pet food cost more than it earned, and the company went public too early.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/424-petscom" }, { "name": "Wantful", "years": "2011 to 2013", "funding": "US$5.4M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Personal gift suggestions for birthdays and holidays.", "died": "It moved from gifts into general online shopping and met Amazon there. As recommendation algorithms became common, its one advantage disappeared.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1924-wantful" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Picplum, Picwing and Kicksend sold the printing and mailing of photos that people already had. Free sharing on phones made those prints less needed, and Shutterfly and Snapfish were larger. Pets.com showed what happens when a pet business pays more for advertising and shipping than its customers bring in, and Wantful lost its gift niche when it tried to sell everything.", "Pet Plus Us sells an image that did not exist before the order: a portrait of a person and a pet who were never photographed together. An image model makes it from the uploaded photos, so the digital product needs no stock and no shipping, and the prints are made by partners only after payment. Ad platforms now receive each preview, checkout and purchase as an event, so the seller can see which ads lead to orders. What has not changed is the cost of buying every customer with ads, and no source shows that cost for Pet Plus Us." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The product, yes. The ad results, unknown.", "text": "Building the studio needs an image-model API, a payment page and hosting, and many apps already sell AI pet portraits. What the sources show is the part that is harder to copy: one specific promise, a free preview before payment, and ads that the founder says have been profitable every day. No source shows the ad spend, so a reader cannot check that last part.", "steps": [ "Choose a picture that people want and cannot easily take, such as a person and a pet together, and say it in one line.", "Give a free, watermarked preview before payment, and count previews per person so that free use stays limited.", "Send preview, checkout and purchase events to the ad platform, so that you can see which ads lead to orders.", "Add gift versions and printed keepsakes, made by print partners after payment, so that one order can be worth more than the first US$19." ], "open": "Other pictures that people want and cannot take: children with grandparents who live far away, a team with its office dog, a couple in the place where they met. Each needs the consent of the people shown, under the image model's rules." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Five weeks old, and already for sale", "text": "The founding date is 6 September 2026, the profile shows daily figures only for the last 30 days, and the business was listed for sale on 28 September, 22 days after the founding date. The asking price of US$75,000 is about 0.2 times the last 30 days of revenue times 12. No source says why the founder sells so early or for so little, and five weeks of data cannot show whether the sales last." }, { "title": "Not all of the verified total is this product", "text": "US$4,903 of the US$33,579 all-time total arrived in March and April 2026, four months before the domain was registered. The founder's TrustMRR page lists only Pet Plus Us, and of his three public posts on X, all from April 2026, two are about AI coding tools and one asks people to share their project links. No source says what the earlier money was for, so this page uses only the last 30 days." }, { "title": "Paid ads, and ad prices that rise", "text": "The founder says the sales are one-time purchases from ads, and the site advertises on Facebook and Instagram. With no subscriptions and a Domain Rating of 0, almost every sale has to be bought again with ads. Meta's average price per ad rose 12% in the year to June 2026. TrustMRR shows a 45.0% profit margin, but the ad spend behind it is not verified." }, { "title": "Gifts are seasonal", "text": "Much of the product is sold as a gift. The keepsakes page gives Christmas order-by dates of 3 December for framed prints and 7 December for blankets, mugs and ornaments, and the terms say these include extra time for the busy season. The verified figures cover only September and October, so no source shows sales after the holidays." }, { "title": "Easy to copy", "text": "A February 2026 buyer's guide compares five AI pet-portrait apps, from Neolemon to PetPortrait.AI, and lists more. The photo-editing app BeautyPlus offers an AI pet portrait generator on its website. TrustMRR lists Pet Characters, an AI pet-portrait product founded in November 2025, with US$2.28 of revenue in total. Building such a product is easy; selling it is the hard part." }, { "title": "One model provider and its rules", "text": "Every portrait depends on OpenAI. OpenAI's usage policies, in force since 29 October 2025, forbid the \"use of someone’s likeness, including their photorealistic image or voice, without their consent in ways that could confuse authenticity\", and they protect people under 18. A customer can upload a photo of anyone, so the business depends on OpenAI's screening, and a change in OpenAI's rules, prices or models changes the product. The privacy page says that OpenAI may keep abuse-monitoring logs of the photos for up to 30 days." }, { "title": "Refunds and reviews", "text": "Each paid order includes two free re-rolls. A portrait that is still clearly wrong is refunded in full if the customer writes within 14 days of delivery; a change of mind is not refunded. A printed piece is reprinted once, free, within 30 days. We found no public customer reviews, and Trustpilot did not let us download its page. The verified revenue for 8 October fell by US$19 between the 12 and 14 October readings, the price of one portrait, which may be a refund." }, { "title": "A founder with almost no public record", "text": "The founder has 26 followers on X, none of his three public posts mentions Pet Plus Us, and we found no interview or LinkedIn text about him. The site's contact address uses a different first name from the founder's, and no source says whether a second person helps." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR markdown profile of Pet Plus Us, synced 14 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/pet-plus-us.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile in full on 14 October 2026 and compared it with a copy saved on 12 October. Stripe-verified revenue by day and month, MRR, the listing, and the founder-written insights (grade C)." }, { "title": "TrustMRR startup page of Pet Plus Us", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/pet-plus-us", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the founder's whole message to buyers, including \"Profitable every day since launch\" and \"one-time purchases from ads\"." }, { "title": "TrustMRR founder page of Or Hirschhorn", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/founder/orhirschhorn", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. Lists one startup, Pet Plus Us, with the same verified total of US$33,579." }, { "title": "Pet Plus Us home page", "url": "https://pet-plus-us.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 14 October 2026, with its response headers. Source for how it works, the prices, the re-rolls, the legal entity in the footer and the Vercel server." }, { "title": "Pet Plus Us terms, last updated 8 October 2026", "url": "https://pet-plus-us.com/legal/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for TYGP Technologies, LLC, the refund rules, US-only delivery and the busy Christmas season." }, { "title": "Pet Plus Us privacy page, last updated 27 September 2026", "url": "https://pet-plus-us.com/legal/privacy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for OpenAI, Vercel, Stripe, Resend, PostHog and Meta, the ads on Facebook and Instagram, and the per-person preview limits." }, { "title": "Pet Plus Us keepsakes page", "url": "https://pet-plus-us.com/keepsakes", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the print, mug, ornament and blanket prices and the Christmas order-by dates." }, { "title": "Pet Plus Us gift page", "url": "https://pet-plus-us.com/gift", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the gift prices." }, { "title": "Pet Plus Us partner program page", "url": "https://pet-plus-us.com/affiliates", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 30% revenue share." }, { "title": "RDAP record of pet-plus-us.com at the .com registry", "url": "https://rdap.verisign.com/com/v1/domain/pet-plus-us.com", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full on 14 October 2026. Source for the registration date and the registrar." }, { "title": "Or Hirschhorn on X: profile and posts", "url": "https://x.com/OrHirschhorn", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and the whole public timeline through the FxTwitter API: 3 posts, from April 2026; the profile counts 11 posts. No post mentions Pet Plus Us." }, { "title": "Meta, 29 July 2026: Meta Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results", "url": "https://investor.atmeta.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2026/Meta-Reports-Second-Quarter-2026-Results/default.aspx", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the section on Family of Apps ad metrics. Source for the 12% rise in the average price per ad." }, { "title": "OpenAI usage policies, effective 29 October 2025", "url": "https://openai.com/policies/usage-policies/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on privacy, likeness and minors." }, { "title": "Neolemon, 23 February 2026: Best AI Pet Portrait Apps in 2026", "url": "https://www.neolemon.com/blog/best-ai-pet-portrait-apps/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the comparison sections. The publisher sells one of the five apps it compares." }, { "title": "BeautyPlus: AI Pet Portrait Generator", "url": "https://www.beautyplus.com/ai-pet-portrait-generator", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the opening sections. Shows a photo-editing app that offers AI pet portraits." }, { "title": "TrustMRR markdown profile of Pet Characters", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/pet-characters.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile. An AI pet-portrait product founded on 3 November 2025, with US$2.28 of verified revenue in total." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/appalchemy/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/appalchemy.md", "slug": "appalchemy", "name": "AppAlchemy", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI app designer and app builder", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "11 February 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$118.6K revenue in the last 12 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$119K in 12 months", "outcomeUsd": 118592, "months": 20, "teamLabel": "1 founder and no employees throughout; his searches for a co-founder (May 2025) and a part-time developer (October 2025) have no known result", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "build-software", "channel": "communities", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "No-code" ], "product": "An AI tool that draws the screens of a mobile app from a text description or a reference image, refined in a chat and exported as HTML (design.appalchemy.ai, since February 2025). Since July 2026 also an AI app builder that turns a description into React Native code for iOS and Android, with a live preview on the user's phone (appalchemy.ai).", "why": "He solved a problem he had paid for himself and shipped the simplest version in about two weeks. Then he wrote useful Reddit posts with the product link in the middle and posted each one in many related subreddits. With 70 to 115 followers on X, he says this brought over 1 million views and about 20,000 signups by July 2025.", "summary": [ "AppAlchemy is two AI products run by one founder. The first, at design.appalchemy.ai, draws the screens of a mobile app from a text description or a reference image; the user asks for changes in a chat and exports the result as HTML or a share link. The second, launched in July 2026 at appalchemy.ai, is a no-code app builder, a service that makes software for people who do not write code: the user describes an app, and the service writes React Native code, a framework in which one code base runs as both an iOS and an Android app, and shows it live on the user's phone. Both products sell monthly credits, units of AI work that each request uses up, and both bill through one Stripe account.", "Diego Roshardt, who signs as \"Dro\" and gives Miami as his location on X, says he had the idea after he paid a designer on Upwork hundreds of dollars for an app design and more for every change. He built the first version in about two weeks, started marketing it on Reddit right away, and found his paying customers there while his X account had 70 to 115 followers. He posted MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the money that subscriptions bring in each month, of US$3,219 on 23 April 2025, US$10,000 on 20 May and US$17,000 on 14 June. TrustMRR, a site that reads a startup's revenue directly from its payment processor, the company that charges the customers' cards, shows Stripe revenue of US$18,298 in October 2025, the best month in its public data, and US$243,652 in total by 14 October 2026.", "After October 2025, revenue was lower than in the month before in 9 of 11 months. September 2026 brought US$5,860, 68% below the best month, and on 14 October 2026 MRR was US$5,408 from 193 active subscriptions. The founder writes that he stopped marketing in early 2026 and that he is burned out. He has listed the business for sale on TrustMRR at US$27,500, down from US$75,000 in March 2026. The revenue figures on this page come from Stripe and are grade A; what the founder says about customers, costs and reasons is grade C." ], "factsCaption": "A solo AI design tool that made US$18,298 in its best Stripe-verified month, October 2025, then fell by two thirds to US$5,860 in September 2026 and was put up for sale at US$27,500", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from Stripe through TrustMRR's API connection. A grade C value is the founder's own statement in posts, an interview or his TrustMRR text, or a third party's report. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a two-week first version to a for-sale listing at US$27,500, in 20 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "AppAlchemy prices on 14 October 2026, from the pricing pages of both products; the design tool's yearly prices from the founder's TrustMRR text (grade C)", "note": "The design tool's yearly plans give 5 months free; the founder's TrustMRR text gives them as US$210, US$350 and US$700 a year, shown here per month. The app builder's page shows monthly prices only, and the founder's TrustMRR text gives US$100 for Max where the page shows US$200. Neither page lists a free plan, and used credits are not refunded.", "rows": [ [ "Design tool Starter", "17.50", "29.99", "4 apps, 3,000 AI credits a month" ], [ "Design tool Pro", "29.17", "49.99", "10 apps, 5,000 AI credits a month" ], [ "Design tool Ultimate", "58.33", "99.99", "unlimited apps, 10,000 AI credits a month" ], [ "Design tool Enterprise", "", "199.98", "unlimited apps, 20,000 AI credits a month, priority support" ], [ "App builder Pro", "", "20", "100 credits a month, code export" ], [ "App builder Max", "", "200", "1,000 credits a month, priority throughput" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue in the best month on record, October 2025", "value": "US$18,298", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data through TrustMRR, in the archived profile of 14 September 2026. The public monthly data start in October 2025, so an earlier month could have been higher.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate in that month", "value": "about US$219,576 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$18,298 times 12. Revenue has since fallen, so this was a peak rate, not today's.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Months from founding to the best month", "value": "8", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: February 2025 to October 2025. The founding date, 11 February 2025, is the founder's entry on TrustMRR.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue, November 2025 to September 2026", "value": "from US$17,427 down to US$5,860", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data through TrustMRR: US$17,427, 13,455, 11,577, 9,602, 10,347, 8,862, 7,303, 9,943, 6,498, 6,220 and 5,860. The archived September copy gives the same values.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Fall from the best month to September 2026", "value": "68%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 1 minus 5,860 / 18,298, over 11 months. Revenue was lower than in the month before in 9 of those 11 months.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "MRR and active subscriptions, 14 October 2026", "value": "US$5,408 and 193", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data through TrustMRR. On 14 September 2026 they were US$6,411 and 221, so MRR fell 15.6% in 30 days.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Total revenue, February 2025 to 14 October 2026", "value": "US$243,652", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data through TrustMRR. US$118,592 of it came in the last 12 months and US$5,411 in the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue from February to September 2025", "value": "about US$115,991, or US$14,499 a month on average", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the all-time total minus the 13 published months from October 2025 to 14 October 2026. These are the months before the public monthly data.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "TrustMRR figures on 15 March 2026", "value": "US$10,507 in 30 days, 439 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "Archived TrustMRR page. All-time revenue was US$194,808 and TrustMRR's estimated MRR US$13,750.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "MRR posted by the founder, April to June 2025", "value": "US$3,219, then US$10,000, then US$17,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Posts on X on 23 April, 20 May and 14 June 2025. On 24 June and 2 July he wrote that it makes around US$20,000 a month.", "src": [ 5, 7, 8, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in August 2026, the month of a newsletter's US$17K MRR headline", "value": "US$6,220", "grade": "A", "note": "The Startups.fyi newsletter of 11 August 2026 repeated the founder's figure from the Starter Story interview of 9 July 2025. Revenue in August 2026 was 37% of that figure.", "src": [ 12, 4, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Customers, signups and traffic, July 2025", "value": "more than 1,000 paying customers, about 20,000 signups, about 20,000 visits a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in the Starter Story interview. He says the signups came 'purely from Reddit'.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Reach from Reddit", "value": "over 1 million views, at no cost", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in the interview and on X, 3 July 2025, when he had 115 followers on X.", "src": [ 4, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Costs, July 2025", "value": "AI APIs about US$2,500 a month, Cursor US$20, Vercel about US$40; margin about 70%", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in the Starter Story interview. The AI APIs were the largest cost.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price", "value": "US$27,500, listing dated 11 September 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Seller's listing on TrustMRR. The price was US$120,000, then US$75,000 in March 2026, and US$45,000 in June 2026 according to a third-party capture.", "src": [ 1, 3, 18 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price as a multiple", "value": "0.42 times MRR times 12; 0.23 times the last 12 months of revenue", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 27,500 / (5,408 x 12) and 27,500 / 118,592. TrustMRR shows 0.4x. At the profile's 90% margin on US$5,411 a month, the price equals about 5.6 months of profit.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 person, no employees", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's TrustMRR entries. He looked for a marketing co-founder on 8 May 2025 and for a part-time Next.js developer on 14 October 2025; no source shows that anyone joined.", "src": [ 1, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR entry 'Bootstrapped'. The design tool's FAQ says it is not a venture-funded startup.", "src": [ 1, 17 ] }, { "fact": "Users and customers to date, founder's count", "value": "230,000 registered users, 4,700 paying customers", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's TrustMRR text, October 2026. The same text gives a 'Peak month $19K net, Aug 2025', which the public Stripe months, starting in October 2025, cannot confirm.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Early 2025", "what": "He pays a designer on Upwork hundreds of dollars for an app design, and extra for each small change, and decides to build an AI tool for the job.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "11 February 2025", "what": "Founding date on TrustMRR. He builds the first version in about two weeks and starts posting on Reddit at once.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "when": "23 March 2025", "what": "His first post on X that names AppAlchemy.ai, as a tool to 'create apps in hours'.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "23 April 2025", "what": "Posts MRR of US$3,219.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "25 April 2025", "what": "Publishes his Reddit method with screenshots of his posts' metrics: 'you can get your first 100 paid users through Reddit with 0 marketing cost'.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "8 May 2025", "what": "Looks for a marketing and distribution co-founder. No source shows that one joined.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "20 May 2025", "what": "Posts that he reached US$10,000 MRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "14 June 2025", "what": "Posts US$17,000 MRR 'in couple months with no audience': Reddit first, then influencers on X and Instagram.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "June 2025", "what": "Adds yearly plans. On 24 June and 2 July he writes that the product makes around US$20,000 a month, and he starts building a separate consumer app.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 11 ] }, { "when": "9 July 2025", "what": "Starter Story interview: about US$17,000 MRR, more than 1,000 paying customers, about 20,000 signups from Reddit, about 70% margin.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "October 2025", "what": "US$18,298 in revenue, the best month in the public Stripe data.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "22 October 2025", "what": "Posts 'Day 1 of growing Kodo to 10K MRR', about a different product.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "15 March 2026", "what": "US$10,507 in revenue in the last 30 days and 439 active subscriptions; US$194,808 in total.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "15 March 2026", "what": "For sale at US$75,000, down from US$120,000. The profile says revenue fell after he 'stepped back from marketing to focus on improving the product'.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "Asking price US$45,000 and MRR of US$7,906, according to a third-party capture of the TrustMRR page dated 27 June 2026.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 18 ] }, { "when": "July 2026", "what": "Launches the AI app builder at appalchemy.ai, which writes React Native code. By October the founder counts 6,500 signups for it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 14 ] }, { "when": "11 September 2026", "what": "Date of the current listing at US$27,500. The seller says he is burned out, has not marketed since early 2026, and priced it to close by 30 September.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "14 October 2026", "what": "Still listed, with 97 offers received. MRR US$5,408 from 193 active subscriptions; US$243,652 in total revenue.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A problem he had paid for", "text": "Before AppAlchemy he paid a designer on Upwork hundreds of dollars for an app design, and extra for each small change. He built a tool that does the same job in a chat, which he described as 'like Cursor but for designing mobile apps', and released the simplest version after about two weeks." }, { "title": "Reddit posts that teach first", "text": "His method, from the interview and his posts: use Reddit daily first, because posts from a new account are filtered out; list 5 to 10 related subreddits; write one useful post about the problem, with the product link in the middle; post it in all of them. Where a subreddit forbids self-promotion, also link a complementary product, in his case Cursor. He says this gave over 1 million views at no cost." }, { "title": "Credits tie the price to the model cost", "text": "Neither pricing page lists a free plan. Each plan includes a monthly number of AI credits, and used credits are not refunded because, in the FAQ's words, the costs of generative AI are extremely high. In July 2025 the AI APIs cost about US$2,500 a month against about US$17,000 in MRR. Yearly plans came in June 2025; today they give 5 months free." }, { "title": "Influencers after Reddit", "text": "After Reddit he worked with influencers on X and Instagram, on short-form video, although people told him that this would not work for a business product. His own following was small: the Starter Story host found 70 followers on his X account in mid-2025." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's interview of July 2025, his posts, his TrustMRR text and the company's own pages. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Next.js and React, written with the AI code editor Cursor, which cost US$20 a month in July 2025. On 25 June 2025 he moved to the Cursor Ultra plan.", "UI component libraries such as Chakra UI or Ant Design, and only widely used frameworks, because, he says, AI writes better code for the libraries that are most used on the web.", "Firebase for login and database in July 2025. The October 2026 profile lists Supabase and Firebase backends.", "Hosting on Vercel, about US$40 a month in July 2025.", "AI models through APIs, about US$2,500 a month in July 2025, the largest cost. The profile's tech stack lists OpenAI and Anthropic; no source names the exact models.", "The app builder writes React Native code that runs live on the user's own phone after a scan of a code; the user owns the code and can export it. Sign-in works with a Google account.", "Payments through Stripe, one account for both products. The profile shows a 90.0% profit margin for the last 30 days; no source shows how the costs behind it were measured." ], "src": [ 4, 1, 11, 13, 14 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database promised that people without design or coding skills could make apps, or sold tools to design them. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Builder.ai", "years": "2016 to 2025", "funding": "US$445M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Custom apps for non-technical customers, built by an AI-powered assembly line.", "died": "In the database's words, it sold US$20,000 apps that cost US$35,000 to build, while offshore developers did work presented as AI.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2170-builderai" }, { "name": "Appcubator", "years": "2013 to 2016", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "A drag-and-drop tool to create apps with no coding.", "died": "The market was not ready for no-code, and more flexible tools such as Bubble won.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1160-appcubator" }, { "name": "Crejo.Fun", "years": "2020 to 2022", "funding": "US$3M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "A drag-and-drop mobile app builder so that creators in India could own their audience.", "died": "Creators needed more followers, not another app to manage and promote.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2303-crejofun" }, { "name": "Pixate", "years": "2012 to 2016", "funding": "US$3.6M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Native mobile app prototypes without writing code.", "died": "Google bought it, and design work moved to web-based tools such as Figma.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/434-pixate" }, { "name": "Invision", "years": "2011 to 2023", "funding": "US$350M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "One platform to take a design from designers to developers.", "died": "Figma's real-time collaboration in the browser took its customers.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/251-invision" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The five predecessors either had people do the work behind an AI label, as the database says of Builder.ai, or sold a drag-and-drop editor that was too limited, or lost to Figma. AppAlchemy's language models do write the screens and the code, so one founder could serve over 1,000 paying customers for about US$2,500 a month in AI costs (July 2025), without staff or investors.", "What did not change is the competition. Pixate and InVision lost to a larger platform, and AppAlchemy now competes with Figma's own prompt tool, Figma Make (May 2025), and with app builders that raised hundreds of millions of dollars. The founder says revenue fell because he stopped marketing; by his account, new customers came from his own posting, not from the product alone." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The Reddit method, yes. The product category, much harder in 2026.", "text": "Shipping a simple paid tool in weeks and posting useful Reddit threads in many subreddits is a method anyone can repeat for almost no money. The product is harder to repeat: AI app design and app building are now crowded with funded companies and Figma itself, and AppAlchemy's own revenue fell by two thirds within a year.", "steps": [ "Build for a cost you paid yourself, and measure it: the designer's fee and the price of each change.", "Ship the smallest useful version in weeks and, as he advises, start selling it, in credits that cover the model cost.", "Use Reddit daily before you post, list 5 to 10 related subreddits, and post one useful thread in all of them with the link in the middle.", "Keep marketing after the first success; this founder says revenue fell once he stopped." ], "open": "Narrow tools where an AI chat replaces a complex editor. The founder's own suggestion in June 2025: 'take product you have used that has a cumbersome drag n drop/no-code UI and replace that with a chat interface and generative ai.'" }, "watch": [ { "title": "Revenue fell by two thirds", "text": "Stripe shows US$18,298 in October 2025 and US$5,860 in September 2026, a fall of 68% in 11 months, with lower revenue than in the month before in 9 of them. MRR fell 15.6% in the 30 days to 14 October 2026, and active subscriptions went from 439 in March 2026 to 193. The founder's reason is that he has not marketed since early 2026; no source shows churn or cohort data." }, { "title": "A crowded field of funded builders", "text": "Lovable raised US$200 million at a US$1.8 billion valuation in July 2025, US$330 million at US$6.6 billion in December 2025 and US$400 million at US$13.3 billion in August 2026. Replit raised US$250 million at US$3 billion in September 2025. Bolt.new raised a US$105.5 million Series B and was valued at about US$700 million in January 2025, according to Sacra. For mobile apps, Vibecode raised a US$9.4 million seed round (reported in August 2025), Rork a US$15 million seed round (April 2026), and Figma launched Figma Make on 7 May 2025. In July 2026 the founder wrote that software had been the ideal business for solo founders because of its scalability, 'high barriers to entry' and location freedom, and that the change was felt 'a lot stronger since ~Opus 4.5'." }, { "title": "Apple's rules for generated apps", "text": "App Review Guideline 4.2.6 says: 'Apps created from a commercialized template or app generation service will be rejected unless they are submitted directly by the provider of the app's content.' Guideline 4.3(b) says: 'Don't submit apps that are indistinguishable from what's already widely available.' So customers must submit the apps under their own developer accounts, and each app must differ from what is already available. The app builder's pricing page offers a live preview and code export; it does not describe App Store submission." }, { "title": "For sale at 0.4 times revenue", "text": "The asking price is US$27,500: 0.42 times the current MRR times 12, 0.23 times the last 12 months of revenue, and about 5.6 months of profit at the profile's 90% margin. It was US$120,000, then US$75,000 in March 2026 and US$45,000 in June 2026. The seller says he is 'burned out', is 'exploring new projects', and priced it 'under what i'd keep collecting' to close by 30 September 2026. On 14 October 2026 it was still listed, with 97 offers received." }, { "title": "Numbers that do not match", "text": "The seller's message says 300 active subscriptions (240 monthly, 60 annual); Stripe shows 221 on 14 September 2026 and 193 on 14 October 2026. In July 2025 the founder said more than 1,000 paying customers at about US$17,000 MRR, which is under US$17 each, below the cheapest monthly plan of US$29.99; yearly plans or counting past customers could explain it, but no source says. His 'Peak month $19K net, Aug 2025' cannot be checked, because the public Stripe months start in October 2025." }, { "title": "Two products, one Stripe account", "text": "No source splits the revenue between the design tool and the app builder. The founder writes that the design tool 'drives most revenue' and that the builder, launched in July 2026, had 6,500 signups. Many daily totals equal sums of design-tool prices, for example US$79.98 = US$29.99 + US$49.99. The terms and privacy pages name no company, address or governing law, so the public pages do not show which legal entity owns the products." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR, AppAlchemy markdown profile, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/appalchemy.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile in full (data as of October 2026, revenue last synced 14 October 2026). Revenue, MRR and subscriptions come from Stripe through an API key, grade A. The description, additional info, team size, funding, tech stack and the seller's message are founder-written, grade C." }, { "title": "TrustMRR, AppAlchemy markdown profile, Wayback Machine copy of 14 September 2026", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260914232959/https://trustmrr.com/startup/appalchemy.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile in full (archived copy). Source for the October 2025 month, which the live profile no longer shows; the other months match the live profile." }, { "title": "TrustMRR, AppAlchemy page, Wayback Machine copy of 15 March 2026", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260315190347/https://trustmrr.com/startup/appalchemy", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the archived page text in full. Stripe-verified totals of 15 March 2026 (grade A), the asking price then, and the founder's sentence on the decline (grade C). The monthly chart loads by script and is not in the copy." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 9 July 2025: How I Used Reddit to Hit $17K MRR (With ZERO Audience)", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/how-i-used-reddit-to-hit-17k-mrr-with-zero-audience", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the page and its interview transcript in full. The transcript is machine-made and writes the product name as 'App Akamai'. Founder statements to the host, Pat Walls. Also published as a YouTube video the same day." }, { "title": "Diego Roshardt on X, 23 April 2025: MRR $3,219", "url": "https://x.com/DiegoRoshardt/status/1914855969621745752", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Diego Roshardt on X, 25 April 2025: first 100 paid users through Reddit", "url": "https://x.com/DiegoRoshardt/status/1915574552442388894", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. The screenshots of post metrics were not read." }, { "title": "Diego Roshardt on X, 20 May 2025: $10k MRR", "url": "https://x.com/DiegoRoshardt/status/1924631628137066847", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Diego Roshardt on X, 14 June 2025: $17k MRR with no audience", "url": "https://x.com/DiegoRoshardt/status/1933691452586144084", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the first post and replies 2 and 3 of the thread through api.fxtwitter.com. Reply 1 was not in the timeline pages." }, { "title": "Diego Roshardt on X, 2 July 2025: makes around $20k/month", "url": "https://x.com/DiegoRoshardt/status/1940209797879799853", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Diego Roshardt on X, 3 July 2025: over 1M impressions from Reddit, then influencers", "url": "https://x.com/DiegoRoshardt/status/1940601585362473187", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Diego Roshardt's X profile and timeline, posts from February 2025 to September 2026", "url": "https://x.com/DiegoRoshardt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and every timeline page through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the location, the co-founder search, the yearly plans, the Cursor Ultra plan, the consumer app, the developer search, the Kodo post and the July 2026 post on software." }, { "title": "Startups.fyi newsletter, 11 August 2026: $17K MRR From Reddit Alone", "url": "https://startupsfyi.beehiiv.com/p/17k-mrr-from-reddit-alone-an-18-year-old-s-1k-ai-canvas-and-dog-parents-ditching-1-500-boarding-fees", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on App Alchemy. It repeats the July 2025 Starter Story figure and links to the video." }, { "title": "AppAlchemy app builder pricing page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://appalchemy.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "AppAlchemy terms of service, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://appalchemy.ai/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Says the service generates React Native code; names no company entity, address or governing law." }, { "title": "AppAlchemy privacy policy, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://appalchemy.ai/privacy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Sign-in via Google; no company entity named." }, { "title": "AppAlchemy design tool pricing page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://design.appalchemy.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The monthly prices are in the page text; the yearly prices are not, so they come from the founder's TrustMRR text." }, { "title": "AppAlchemy design tool FAQ, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://design.appalchemy.ai/faq", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for HTML export, the refund rule and the statement that it is not venture-funded." }, { "title": "SoFarBot, 20 September 2026: AppAlchemy, the two-week mobile-design MVP, Reddit distribution and the truth behind $17K MRR", "url": "https://www.sofarbot.com/stories/appalchemy-diego-roshardt-17000-mrr", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party summary of the Starter Story transcript and of a VibeCrowd capture of the TrustMRR page. Used only for the June 2026 asking price and MRR; the capture itself was not read." }, { "title": "Apple, App Review Guidelines, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read sections 4.2 and 4.3. Apple's own published rules." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 17 July 2025: Lovable becomes a unicorn with $200M Series A just 8 months after launch", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/17/lovable-becomes-a-unicorn-with-200m-series-a-just-8-months-after-launch/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 18 December 2025: Vibe-coding startup Lovable raises $330M at a $6.6B valuation", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/18/vibe-coding-startup-lovable-raises-330m-at-a-6-6b-valuation/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 12 August 2026: Lovable confirms new $13.3B valuation, raises another $400M", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/12/lovable-confirms-new-13-3b-valuation-raises-another-400m/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "Bloomberg News on Bloomberg Law, 10 September 2025: AI Coding Startup Replit Valued at $3 Billion With New Funding", "url": "https://news.bloomberglaw.com/antitrust/ai-coding-startup-replit-valued-at-3-billion-with-new-funding", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the opening paragraphs." }, { "title": "Sacra, Bolt.new company page", "url": "https://sacra.com/c/bolt-new/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the funding and revenue sections. A research firm's estimates." }, { "title": "InfotechLead, 9 April 2026: Rork raises $15 mn to scale AI-powered mobile app development platform", "url": "https://infotechlead.com/tech/rork-raises-15-mn-to-scale-ai-powered-mobile-app-development-platform-94966", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "Grit Daily, 19 August 2025: Vibecode Boosts App Democratization with New $9M Seed Round", "url": "https://gritdaily.com/vibecode-boosts-app-democratization-with-seed-round/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. The text gives US$9.4 million." }, { "title": "Figma blog, 7 May 2025: Introducing Figma Make", "url": "https://www.figma.com/blog/introducing-figma-make/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the header and the date. Figma's own announcement." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/founderpal/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/founderpal.md", "slug": "founderpal", "name": "FounderPal", "country": "United States", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI marketing strategy generator", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "8 April 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$203K total revenue, October 2026", "sticker": "$203K total revenue", "outcomeUsd": 202983, "months": 42, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders, a married couple, no employees", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "search", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Marketing content" ], "product": "A web app that turns a short description of a business into a marketing strategy, customer profiles, ideas and a task list, using GPT-4 with long prompts written by two marketers. Free AI tools bring the visitors; the full strategy is sold for a one-time payment.", "why": "It put the founders' marketing method behind a simple form at the time when people were trying to do marketing with ChatGPT and getting weak answers. A one-time price matched a need that comes rarely, and free tools brought search traffic without paid ads.", "summary": [ "FounderPal is an AI wrapper for marketing: a product that sends what the user types to another company's AI model, together with its own long instructions, called prompts, and shows the answer in its own screens. The user describes a product, waits about five minutes and gets a marketing strategy, customer profiles and a list of tasks. It calls OpenAI's GPT-4 model through the API, the paid connection that lets a program use the model, and it was built without code in Bubble, a service that makes web apps from visual building blocks. The paid strategy is sold by one-time payment, a single charge instead of a monthly subscription.", "Dan Kulkov and his wife Sveta Bay sold marketing guides and prompt collections under the name MakerBox before they started FounderPal. The founders say their first version, a tweet ideas generator released in April 2023, failed. The second product, Marketing Strategy Generator, launched on 11 September 2023 and made US$1,249 on the first day and US$18,709 in the next 58 days. In March 2024 the couple reported 800 paying customers and around US$10,000 a month, with 2 founders, no employees and no outside money. Stripe data read by TrustMRR, a site that takes revenue figures directly from a company's payment account, show US$202,983 in total revenue by 14 October 2026, about 90% of it earned before November 2025.", "Since then, revenue has fallen to almost nothing: US$4,074 in November 2025, US$298 in September 2026, and the MRR, the monthly recurring revenue from subscriptions, is zero. The total is grade A, from the payment processor. The monthly figures before November 2025 are the founders' own statements, grade C. No sale of the business was found, and the founders' recent posts are about other products. The page also shows earlier companies that sold marketing help to small businesses and failed." ], "factsCaption": "About US$203,000 of Stripe-verified revenue in three years, 90% of it before November 2025, then a fall to about US$250 a month", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from Stripe through TrustMRR's API connection, on the live profile or on an archived copy. A grade C value is a founder's statement in posts or interviews, or a third party's page. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a tweet ideas generator that failed to US$203,000 of verified revenue, then a steep fall, in 42 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "FounderPal prices in 2026 as given by a competitor's comparison page, because the FounderPal pricing page loads its prices by script and could not be read (grade C)", "note": "The title of the pricing page on 14 October 2026 reads 'Lifetime Deal with a 50% Discount'. In March 2024 the founders sold access for one strategy or for unlimited strategies, each by one-time payment. In September 2024 Dan Kulkov said the lifetime deal had become an annual pass with credits, and the code of the pricing page still counts credits for strategies and personas. TrustMRR showed US$182 of MRR in March 2026 and none in October 2026. The free tools and a free demo need no payment.", "rows": [ [ "Free tools and demo", "0", "0", "free AI tools and a free demo strategy" ], [ "One strategy", "69 one-time", "", "1 marketing strategy; competitor's comparison page" ], [ "Unlimited strategies", "199 one-time", "", "unlimited strategies; competitor's comparison page" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Total revenue, to 14 October 2026", "value": "US$202,983", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data through TrustMRR's API connection. TrustMRR gives 23 October 2023 as the founding date and the United States as the country.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the 12 months to 14 October 2026", "value": "US$22,179", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data through TrustMRR. US$4,820 in the last 6 months, US$1,489 in the last 3 months and US$248 in the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue earned before November 2025", "value": "US$182,742, about 90% of the total", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$202,983 minus the monthly figures from November 2025 to 14 October 2026, which add up to US$20,241.50. The public data do not show how the earlier amount was spread over the months.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average revenue per month before November 2025", "value": "about US$7,300", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$182,742 over the 25 calendar months from October 2023, the founding month on TrustMRR, to October 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Best month in the public Stripe data, November 2025", "value": "US$4,074", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data through TrustMRR. The public monthly data start in November 2025, so earlier months were probably higher: the founders reported around US$10,000 a month in March 2024 (grade C).", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue, November 2025 to September 2026", "value": "from US$4,074 down to US$298", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data through TrustMRR: US$4,074, 1,965, 3,603, 2,868, 1,945, 1,413, 991, 695, 1,844, 446 and 298. October 2026 to the 14th: US$99.50.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Fall in monthly revenue, November 2025 to September 2026", "value": "92.7%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$298 is 7.3% of US$4,074.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in 30 days on archived TrustMRR pages", "value": "US$3,175 (23 February 2026), US$2,668 (15 March 2026), US$1,261 (13 May 2026)", "grade": "A", "note": "Archived copies of the TrustMRR page. All-time revenue on 13 May 2026 was US$199,156, so US$3,827 was added in the five months after.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "MRR and active subscriptions, 14 October 2026", "value": "US$0 and 0", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data through TrustMRR. On 15 March 2026 the archived page showed US$182 of MRR, so a small recurring plan existed then.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the last 30 days", "value": "about US$2,976 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$248 times 12.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Launch of Marketing Strategy Generator, September 2023", "value": "US$1,249 on the first day, US$18,709 in the next 58 days", "grade": "C", "note": "Dan Kulkov's post on X, 9 November 2023. Together US$19,958 (calculated).", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the first 6 months and per month, March 2024", "value": "US$60,000; around US$10,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Sveta Bay in the Starter Story interview of 19 March 2024: 800 paying customers, all one-time payments. The goal for 2024 was 3,000 paying customers and US$30,000 a month.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue of Marketing Strategy Generator, September 2024", "value": "around US$100,000 in 10 months", "grade": "C", "note": "Dan Kulkov in No Code Exits, 27 September 2024. He called it stable and growing.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in two years, October 2025", "value": "about US$215,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Dan Kulkov in Indie Hackers, 9 October 2025. This is about US$32,000 more than the Stripe total before November 2025 (calculated). No source explains the difference.", "src": [ 6, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Paying customers", "value": "800 (March 2024); more than 1,800 (February 2025)", "grade": "C", "note": "The founders in Starter Story and in Dan Kulkov's Product Hunt comment. The TrustMRR profile text estimates 2,363 users.", "src": [ 4, 13, 1 ] }, { "fact": "AI cost per marketing strategy, 2024", "value": "about US$1", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story, March 2024: GPT-4 through the OpenAI API with long prompts. The first month cost US$150 for Bubble and OpenAI together.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Team and funding", "value": "2 founders, 0 employees, no outside funding", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story, March 2024. Dan Kulkov calls Sveta Bay his wife and co-founder. In 2024 they worked from Ubud, Bali, Indonesia.", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Product Hunt launch of the full platform, 3 February 2025", "value": "13th of the day, 81 points, 21 comments", "grade": "C", "note": "Product Hunt page data.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Dan Kulkov's other products on TrustMRR, kept apart from FounderPal", "value": "ClipsPal US$5.2K and ActivationPal US$0 in total", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data through TrustMRR's founder page: US$208,179 across his three listed products, of which US$203K is FounderPal.", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "fact": "The founders' other revenue, kept apart from FounderPal", "value": "MakerBox about US$130,000 in 3 years", "grade": "C", "note": "Dan Kulkov, October 2025, who also gave about US$10,000 a month for his three products together. In March 2024 Indie Hackers reported US$20,000 a month for all of the couple's products together.", "src": [ 6, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the first version to the October 2026 figure", "value": "42 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: April 2023 to October 2026.", "src": [ 10, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "14 March 2023", "what": "Dan Kulkov posts a first experiment built with Bubble and the ChatGPT API: describe your business, get 15 headline options for a landing page.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "8 April 2023", "what": "First product, Marketing Co-Pilot AI: 60 tweet ideas in 5 minutes. Dan Kulkov later calls it the first version of FounderPal; the founders say this first version failed.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 13, 4 ] }, { "when": "11 September 2023", "what": "Launch of Marketing Strategy Generator: describe your product, wait 5 minutes, get a marketing strategy. US$1,249 on the first day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 8 ] }, { "when": "23 October 2023", "what": "The founding date given on the TrustMRR profile.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "9 November 2023", "what": "US$18,709 in the 58 days after launch.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "6 February 2024", "what": "Version 2.0 of Marketing Strategy Generator, with a new design and deeper AI answers.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "6 March 2024", "what": "Indie Hackers reports that Sveta Bay and her partner make US$20,000 a month from all their marketing products together.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "19 March 2024", "what": "Starter Story interview: US$60,000 in 6 months, 800 paying customers, around US$10,000 a month in one-time payments, 2 founders and no employees.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "27 September 2024", "what": "Dan Kulkov: around US$100,000 in 10 months. The lifetime deal has become an annual pass with credits, Google search is the main channel, and the back end has moved to Xano.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "3 February 2025", "what": "Product Hunt launch of the full platform: strategy, ideas, funnel improvement, an AI assistant, keyword research and SEO articles. More than 1,800 paying customers. 13th of the day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "9 October 2025", "what": "Dan Kulkov: FounderPal made about US$215,000 in two years.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "November 2025", "what": "US$4,074, the best month in the public Stripe data.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "15 March 2026", "what": "US$2,668 in 30 days and US$182 of MRR.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "13 May 2026", "what": "US$199,156 in total; US$1,261 in 30 days.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "14 October 2026", "what": "US$202,983 in total, US$248 in the last 30 days, no active subscriptions.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "Dan Kulkov's website still lists FounderPal as one of eight projects. Both founders' recent posts are about iOS apps, an analytics product called ActivationPal and browser games.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15, 16 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Buttons instead of prompts", "text": "The founders saw people do marketing with ChatGPT using short prompts and getting weak answers. They put their own marketing method into long prompts for GPT-4 behind a form: describe the product, wait 5 minutes, get a strategy. In their words, people prefer clicking buttons to typing to ChatGPT." }, { "title": "Pay once for a rare need", "text": "Most users do not need a new marketing strategy every week, so the founders sold one strategy or unlimited strategies for a single payment instead of a subscription. They said a US$199 one-time AI tool is easier to sell than one at US$39 a month." }, { "title": "Free tools as the sales channel", "text": "They built small free AI tools, launched each one on X, Product Hunt, Reddit and Hacker News, made a YouTube video and a blog post about it, and listed it in directories. They say they never asked for backlinks. Google search became the main source of customers. The Wayback index also lists hundreds of template pages, for example at least 324 pages of marketing agencies by city." }, { "title": "An audience and a cheap build", "text": "Both founders wrote about marketing on X and had sold digital marketing products before. The paid product was built in Bubble in 3 weeks, and its first version cost US$150 in its first month, so each test was cheap." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founders' interviews and posts (grade C) and from the page source of the website on 14 October 2026.", "items": [ "Bubble, a no-code builder, at US$32 a month: the paid product was built in 3 weeks, with Bubble as front end and back end in the first version, which cost US$150 in its first month together with OpenAI.", "OpenAI's GPT-4 through the API with long prompts, about US$1 of AI cost per strategy in 2024. The founders chose GPT-4 over the cheaper GPT-3.5 on purpose.", "Later the back end moved to Xano, because Bubble introduced workload-based pricing and the many free tools caused high usage.", "Stripe for payments, verified by TrustMRR. ConvertKit and Resend for email, Plausible for analytics, Senja for customer testimonials and Tella for videos.", "The page source today still loads Bubble, the Xano JavaScript library and Tolt's affiliate script, and the site has an affiliate page. The code of the pricing page has credit counters for strategies and personas.", "Marketing: free tools launched on X, Product Hunt, Reddit and Hacker News, YouTube videos, blog posts and directories. Newsletter sponsorships, pay-per-click ads on the Uneed directory and TikTok were also tried." ], "src": [ 4, 5, 17, 1 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold marketing software or advice to small businesses and failed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Metigy", "years": "2014 to 2022", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "An AI marketing advisor that would replace a marketing team for small businesses.", "died": "Small businesses wanted someone to do the marketing for them, not recommendations. The generic advice was not used.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2338-metigy" }, { "name": "ContestMachine", "years": "2007 to 2010", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Online contests that brands could set up themselves at a low price.", "died": "Marketing suites added contests as one feature among many, and a tool that did only one thing could not compete.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1659-contestmachine" }, { "name": "Marketfox", "years": "2017 to 2020", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Marketing automation for online shops.", "died": "Mailchimp and other large tools offered the same and had far more money.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1035-marketfox" }, { "name": "Argyle Social", "years": "2009 to 2013", "funding": "US$2.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A social media marketing tool to save time and raise engagement.", "died": "Larger competitors with bigger marketing budgets won, and the product changed only in small steps.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1832-argyle-social" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The four sold marketing help to small businesses and failed for two reasons: the buyers wanted the work done for them, and larger suites added the same feature. FounderPal sold to the same kind of buyer, founders with little money for marketing, and met both problems in a new form: general AI chatbots that anyone can ask for a marketing plan, and competitors that sell similar reports.", "What differed was the cost. The predecessors raised between US$20,000 and US$14 million. FounderPal raised nothing, was built without code, paid about US$1 in AI cost per strategy and found its customers through free tools instead of a sales team. That is how two people made about US$200,000 in three years without investors. It did not avoid the fall in demand: verified monthly revenue fell by 92.7% between November 2025 and September 2026." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The launch method, yes. A lasting business, not shown.", "text": "Two people without code and without investors reached around US$10,000 a month within six months, with long prompts behind a simple form, a one-time price and free tools that brought search traffic. The same method did not keep the revenue: with no subscriptions, revenue fell as soon as new sales fell, and verified revenue is now about US$250 a month.", "steps": [ "Write down a method that you already sell as a service, and turn it into long prompts behind a form.", "Charge once for a result that people need rarely, such as a strategy, instead of a monthly fee.", "Build small free tools around the paid product and launch each one on X, Product Hunt, Reddit and Hacker News.", "Add a recurring product early, because one-time sales must be won again every month." ], "open": "Rare, high-value documents that small businesses need and that a general chatbot does not produce well without guidance: plans for one specific industry, grant applications, pricing studies." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Revenue has almost stopped", "text": "Stripe-verified revenue fell from US$4,074 in November 2025 to US$298 in September 2026, and was US$248 in the 30 days to 14 October 2026. No source gives the reason. The founders' recent posts are about iOS apps and other products, and Dan Kulkov's website lists FounderPal as one of eight projects." }, { "title": "One-time payments do not recur", "text": "Every sale must be won again each month. The founder said in 2024 that the revenue 'can fluctuate' and stays stable only while traffic and conversion stay stable. MRR was US$182 in March 2026 and is zero now, with no active subscriptions, so nothing carries revenue forward when new sales slow down." }, { "title": "Free general chatbots", "text": "The product is GPT-4 behind long prompts, and the founders built it because people were already doing marketing with ChatGPT. OpenAI offers ChatGPT with a free plan, so what a buyer pays for is the prompt design and the form around a model that is also available in ChatGPT." }, { "title": "Competitors at similar or lower prices", "text": "Comparison pages from competitors in 2026 list FounderPal next to Foundra at US$39 a month, Preuve AI at US$59 per report and ValidatorAI, which is free. These pages are written by the competitors themselves." }, { "title": "Founder totals are higher than Stripe", "text": "Dan Kulkov's figure of about US$215,000 in two years (October 2025) is about US$32,000 more than the Stripe total for the same period. The founders' early figures, such as US$10,000 a month in March 2024, have no payment-processor check." }, { "title": "Who owns it now", "text": "The 2024 sources name Sveta Bay and Dan Kulkov as co-founders. The TrustMRR profile names only Dan Kulkov. No sale or transfer was found, and the legal entity could not be read from the website, whose pages load their text by script." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile of FounderPal, data as of 14 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/founderpal", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/founderpal.md) in full. The revenue, MRR and subscription figures are from its Verification Sources (Stripe API key), grade A. The description, founding date, country and user estimate are founder-written, grade C." }, { "title": "TrustMRR page of FounderPal, Wayback copy of 13 May 2026", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260513190058/https://trustmrr.com/startup/founderpal", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. Source for the all-time revenue and the 30-day revenue on 13 May 2026." }, { "title": "TrustMRR page data of FounderPal, Wayback copies of 23 February 2026 and 15 March 2026", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260315190312/https://trustmrr.com/startup/founderpal?_rsc=2hng6", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full after decompressing both archived data files; the other copy is https://web.archive.org/web/20260223114855/https://trustmrr.com/startup/founderpal?_rsc=2hng6. Source for the 30-day revenue on both dates and the MRR on 15 March." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 19 March 2024: We Made $60,000 From A Product We Built In 3 Weeks", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/founderpal", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Sveta Bay's own account. Source for the revenue, customers, team, costs, AI model, pricing logic and Product Hunt method." }, { "title": "No Code Exits, 27 September 2024: How Dan Kulkov grew FounderPal to $100,000 revenue with free tools", "url": "https://nocodeexits.substack.com/p/how-dan-kulkov-grew-founderpal-to", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Interview with Dan Kulkov. Source for the co-founders, the tools, the move from lifetime deal to annual pass and the marketing channels." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 9 October 2025, by James Fleischmann: After losing his job, this founder grew a portfolio of indie hacking tools to $10k/mo", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/after-losing-his-job-this-founder-grew-a-portfolio-of-indie-hacking-tools-to-10k-mo-CiXnqXRQSDchBZOhUoS7", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part; the rest is for subscribers. Source for Dan Kulkov's revenue per product." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 6 March 2024, by James Fleischmann: Winning SEO by building free AI tools", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/winning-seo-by-building-free-ai-tools-kAG8LZJZ3fu7Pr1RBTeB", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free introduction only. Source for the combined US$20,000 a month of all the couple's products." }, { "title": "Dan Kulkov on X, 9 November 2023: Marketing Strategy Generator earned $1249 on the launch day", "url": "https://x.com/DanKulkov/status/1722414634484084850", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Dan Kulkov on X, 11 September 2023: launch of Marketing Strategy Generator", "url": "https://x.com/DanKulkov/status/1701128753408319990", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Dan Kulkov on X, 8 April 2023: Meet our first no-code product, Marketing Co-Pilot AI", "url": "https://x.com/DanKulkov/status/1644673704427651072", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Dan Kulkov on X, 14 March 2023: Built something fun with Bubble and ChatGPT API", "url": "https://x.com/DanKulkov/status/1635502797549637634", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Dan Kulkov on X, 6 February 2024: Marketing Strategy Generator 2.0", "url": "https://x.com/DanKulkov/status/1754846672897912884", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Product Hunt: FounderPal, AI marketing platform for Founders, launched 3 February 2025", "url": "https://www.producthunt.com/products/founderpal", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the page data: launch date, daily rank, points, comments and the maker's comment by Dan Kulkov." }, { "title": "TrustMRR founder page of Dan Kulkov, October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/founder/dankulkov", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. Stripe-verified totals of his three listed products." }, { "title": "Dan Kulkov's website, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://dankul.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Lists FounderPal among his eight projects." }, { "title": "Recent X posts of Dan Kulkov and Sveta Bay, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/sveta_bay", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the latest 20 posts of each account (@DanKulkov and @sveta_bay) through api.fxtwitter.com. Used only for what they work on now." }, { "title": "FounderPal website: home page, pricing page and their page source, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://founderpal.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "The pages are built with Bubble and draw their text by script, so only page titles, descriptions, loaded scripts and the page code could be read. The prices are not in the code." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine index of founderpal.ai", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/*/founderpal.ai*", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the first 5,000 rows of the capture index. Source for the first capture on 5 June 2023 and the counts of template pages." }, { "title": "Starter Story: How FounderPal Makes Money", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/businesses/founderpal/monetization", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder quotes on one-time payments." }, { "title": "Starter Story list: AI-based businesses and how much they make", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/ideas/ai-based-business/how-much-do-they-make", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the FounderPal entry. It says Sveta Bay co-launched the business and gives US$10,000 a month." }, { "title": "Foundra: Foundra vs FounderPal, 2026", "url": "https://www.foundra.ai/compare/foundra-vs-founderpal", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Written by a competitor. Source for FounderPal's prices and Foundra's price." }, { "title": "Preuve AI: FounderPal alternatives and competitors, updated 24 September 2026", "url": "https://preuve.ai/compare/alternatives-to/founderpal", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Written by a competitor. Source for rival tools and their prices." }, { "title": "OpenAI: ChatGPT pricing", "url": "https://openai.com/chatgpt/pricing/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the plan names. Shows that ChatGPT has a free plan." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/screenshot-to-code/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/screenshot-to-code.md", "slug": "screenshot-to-code", "name": "Screenshot to Code", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI tool that turns screenshots and screen recordings into front-end code", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "15 November 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$62.8K revenue in the last 12 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$63K in 12 months", "outcomeUsd": 62779, "months": 35, "teamLabel": "1 founder; no co-founder or staff found", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Open source", "group": "build-software", "channel": "open-source", "trend": "falling", "collections": [ "open-source" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Developer tools" ], "product": "A web app that turns a screenshot, a mockup, a Figma design or a screen recording of a website into front-end code: HTML with Tailwind or CSS, React, Vue, Bootstrap or Ionic. The code is open source under the MIT licence and free to run with your own model keys. The hosted version at screenshottocode.com sells monthly credits, so the user needs no API key and no setup.", "why": "The founder released it as a free open-source tool nine days after he wrote that the new GPT-4 Vision and Turbo API previews allowed only 100 requests a day. Hacker News and GitHub trending brought the repository more than 35,000 stars in under three months, and the README sends readers on to the paid hosted version for people who do not want to set up keys and servers. It had made US$1,000 within 19 days, with a Stripe payment link and no user accounts.", "summary": [ "Screenshot to Code turns a picture of a web page or an app into working code. It sends the image to a vision model, an AI model that reads images as well as text, and asks it to write the page in HTML, React or Vue. The project is open source: the code is public on GitHub under the MIT licence, and anyone may run, change or sell it. To run it yourself you need an API key, a password that lets a program call a model provider such as OpenAI on your account and at your cost, and you must start a backend server and a frontend. The hosted version at screenshottocode.com does this for you and sells credits, prepaid units of use: 1 credit buys one generation or one edit.", "Abi Raja, a founder in New York whose company WhimsyWorks, Inc. also makes Pico, an AI app builder, posted the tool on 15 November 2023. The next day it reached the front page of Hacker News, and three days later it was first on GitHub trending. On 4 December 2023 he wrote that it had made US$1,000. By 14 October 2026 the Stripe account showed US$259,933 in total revenue, of which US$197,154, 75.8%, came before October 2025. The last 30 days brought US$4,567 and the monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the subscription income expected every month, was US$4,303 from 281 subscriptions. That day he listed the business for sale at US$38,000, because he is starting a full-time job.", "The revenue numbers are read from the Stripe account by TrustMRR through an API key, grade A. The repository counts and the old prices come from public records, grade B: GitHub, Hacker News, and copies of the site's code kept by the Wayback Machine. The reasons for the sale, the profit margin and the user count are the founder's words, grade C. The page also shows earlier companies that promised to turn designs into code, and what killed them." ], "factsCaption": "Stripe-verified revenue of US$62,779 in the last 12 months and US$259,933 since the account began, three quarters of it before October 2025, and a sale listing at US$38,000", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value is read from the Stripe account by TrustMRR through an API key. A grade B value is a public record: GitHub's counters, Hacker News, or the site's own code as archived by the Wayback Machine. A grade C value is a statement by the founder. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a free open-source tool to US$259,933 of verified revenue and a sale listing, in 35 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Screenshot to Code prices in October 2026, read from the hosted app's code because the pricing page loads by script (grade B)", "note": "Yearly plans cost US$90 and US$240 a year, shown as 50% off the monthly price. Pro gives 5 times the credits of Hobby, and 1 credit pays for one generation or one edit. Earlier prices from archived copies of the site's code: 100 generations for US$15 one-time in December 2023, then subscriptions at US$15 or US$40 a month, or US$150 or US$400 a year, in February 2024. The terms say credits are non-refundable and unused credits may expire.", "rows": [ [ "Hobby", "7.50", "15", "100 credits a month" ], [ "Pro", "20", "40", "500 credits a month" ], [ "Open-source code, run yourself", "0", "0", "you pay the model providers through your own API keys" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Verified revenue, all time to 14 October 2026", "value": "US$259,933", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from Stripe through an API key, synced 14 October 2026. The account belongs to WhimsyWorks, Inc., which also sold Pico; no source says whether any Pico revenue is in this total, so the headline uses the last 12 months.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue, last 12 months", "value": "US$62,779", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, same sync. Last 6 months: US$30,755. Last 3 months: US$14,029. Last 30 days: US$4,567, 3.7% less than the 30 days before.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue earned before the last 12 months", "value": "US$197,154, which is 75.8% of the total", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: all-time revenue minus the last 12 months. It was earned in the 23 months from November 2023 to October 2025, an average of US$8,585 a month.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue by month, November 2025 to September 2026", "value": "US$5,080 in November 2025, highest US$6,478 in May 2026, US$4,727 in September 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly table; only the last 12 months are public, and the Wayback Machine holds no copy of the profile. Calculated: September 2026 is 27.0% below May 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Fall from the early average to the last 30 days", "value": "46.8% lower", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$4,567 in the last 30 days against the US$8,585 average month before October 2025. Average month in the last 12 months: US$5,232. No source explains the fall.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue (MRR)", "value": "US$4,303 from 281 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot, down 9.7% in 30 days. Calculated: US$15.31 per subscription per month, close to the US$15 monthly Hobby price; a run rate of US$51,636 a year.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin", "value": "60% over 12 months; 40.0% in the last 30 days", "grade": "C", "note": "The 12-month figure is the founder's sale message; the 30-day figure is a TrustMRR snapshot whose costs are not among its verified sources. The founder writes that a recent switch to cheaper AI models should lift the 30-day margin.", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price, listed 14 October 2026", "value": "US$38,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Set by the founder: about 1 times trailing twelve-month profit for a quick sale. Calculated: 0.61 times 12-month revenue, 0.74 times the MRR run rate, 1.01 times 12-month profit at the stated 60% margin (US$37,667).", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Users, subscribers and work time, October 2026", "value": "258,000 registered users, about 300 subscribers, under 2 hours a week", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's sale message. Calculated: 281 subscriptions are 0.11% of registered users.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, March 2024", "value": "US$100,000 (does not name the product)", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on 3 April 2024: he hit 100k ARR a couple of weeks before. The post does not say whether this is Screenshot to Code alone or the whole company, which also sold Pico. Calculated: US$8,333 a month, close to the US$8,585 average above.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "First revenue", "value": "US$1,000 by 4 December 2023", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post, 19 days after the release: no login and no user accounts, only a Stripe payment link for credits and a simple ledger on the backend.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "GitHub repository, 14 October 2026", "value": "80,363 stars and 9,816 forks, MIT licence", "grade": "B", "note": "GitHub API. Created on 14 November 2023; last push 9 October 2026. The founder reported 35,000+ stars in February 2024 and 40,000+ in March 2024.", "src": [ 3, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's share of the code", "value": "1,276 of 1,457 counted commits, 87.6%", "grade": "B", "note": "GitHub contributors API. 28 other accounts made the rest, the largest with 41 commits.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Hacker News launch, 16 November 2023", "value": "358 points and 90 comments", "grade": "B", "note": "Show HN post by the founder, read through the Algolia HN API.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Team and funding", "value": "1 person, bootstrapped", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder-written fields on TrustMRR. In 130 of his posts from June 2023 to May 2026 there is no hire, co-founder or funding round.", "src": [ 1, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Time from release to the October 2026 figure", "value": "35 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 15 November 2023 to 14 October 2026.", "src": [ 7, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "August 2023", "what": "The founder's company, WhimsyWorks, Inc., sells Pico, an AI app builder. He reports US$5,591 MRR for Pico in July 2023.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "6 November 2023", "what": "He writes that the GPT-4 Vision and Turbo API previews allow only 100 requests a day, too few to ship a product.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "15 November 2023", "what": "Release post on X: an open-source tool built with GPT-4 Vision and DALL-E, free to try with your own OpenAI API key. The repository was created the day before.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 3 ] }, { "when": "16 November 2023", "what": "Show HN post: 358 points and 90 comments. He reports 500+ GitHub stars in 24 hours and the Hacker News front page.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 8, 10 ] }, { "when": "19 November 2023", "what": "First on GitHub trending, he writes.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "29 November 2023", "what": "First Wayback Machine copy of screenshottocode.com, the hosted version.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "3 December 2023", "what": "The archived site code offers 100 code generations for US$15 through a Stripe payment link, or the free path with your own OpenAI key.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "4 December 2023", "what": "US$1,000 in revenue, with no accounts and no login. Still MIT licensed and free with your own key.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "8 February 2024", "what": "In replies under a post that is now deleted, he offers the business to serious buyers: a 70K+ mailing list, about 1,000 page views a day with no outbound marketing, 35,000+ stars, and the first two search results for screenshot to code. He still ran it in October 2026.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "9 February 2024", "what": "The archived site code now sells subscriptions: US$15 or US$40 a month, or US$150 or US$400 a year.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "21 March 2024", "what": "Second Show HN: turn a video of an app into a working prototype with Claude Opus.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 24 ] }, { "when": "24 June 2024", "what": "Adds Claude 3.5 Sonnet. In his tests it beats GPT-4o in 56% of cases, ties in 19%, loses in 25%.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "22 January 2026", "what": "README update: the best models are now Gemini 3 and Claude Opus 4.5.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "May 2026", "what": "Verified revenue reaches its highest month in the public table: US$6,478.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "Verified revenue: US$4,727 in the month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "14 October 2026", "what": "Listed for sale at US$38,000 because the founder starts a full-time job. All-time revenue US$259,933, MRR US$4,303, 281 subscriptions.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 2 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Open source as the sales channel", "text": "The free repository is the marketing. It reached the Hacker News front page and GitHub trending in its first week, and the founder counted about 1,000 page views a day with no outbound marketing by February 2024. The README's first line sends readers to the hosted product, with tracking tags added in June 2026. In the sale message he writes that the 80,000-star repository drives steady organic traffic." }, { "title": "Charge for convenience, not for the code", "text": "The code is free, but running it needs model keys, a Python backend and a JavaScript frontend. The hosted version needs only a card. It began as a Stripe payment link for 100 generations at US$15 with no accounts at all, and became a subscription with monthly credits within three months. The backend of the hosted version is closed source." }, { "title": "Switch to the best model, measured by tests", "text": "When model providers released better models, the founder added them, and he compared some of them on his own test set first: GPT-4 Turbo in April 2024, GPT-4o in May 2024, Claude 3.5 Sonnet in June 2024, Gemini 3 and Claude Opus 4.5 in January 2026. He wrote in March 2024: models come and go but evals are forever." }, { "title": "Very little running work", "text": "The founder states that the business needs under 2 hours a week. 28 other accounts made 12.4% of the commits. The largest of them, with 41 commits, is named claude: its commits carry the address noreply@anthropic.com and a Claude Code session link, so Anthropic's coding agent wrote part of the 2026 work." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the public repository and the site's code (grade B) and from the founder's posts and sale message (grade C).", "items": [ "A React and Vite frontend and a Python FastAPI backend, managed with Poetry and pnpm, with a Docker setup. A headless Chromium browser through Playwright lets the agent render the page it wrote and visually check its work.", "Output stacks: HTML with Tailwind, HTML with CSS, React with Tailwind, Vue with Tailwind, Bootstrap, and Ionic with Tailwind.", "Models at launch: GPT-4 Vision for code and DALL-E for images. In October 2026 the README lists Gemini 3 Flash Preview and Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview as the best models, then GPT-5.5, GPT-5.4 Mini, Claude Opus 4.6 and Claude Opus 4.8, with z-image-turbo on Replicate for images. Gemini also extracts the real logos and images from the screenshot.", "The first paid version had no accounts: a Stripe payment link sold credits, and a simple ledger on the backend counted them. Today the hosted app's code includes Clerk for login, PostHog for product analytics, Intercom for support chat and Sentry for error reports.", "To capture a screenshot from a web address, the app calls ScreenshotOne, an outside screenshot service. Its founder wrote in November 2023 that his sign-ups jumped because of this tool.", "The backend server runs on Render, at backend-screenshot-to-code.onrender.com, since at least December 2023, and Plausible counts site visits and clicks.", "The hosted backend is closed source and is part of the sale. The terms name WhimsyWorks, Inc., with a New York address, and choose Delaware law." ], "src": [ 5, 15, 13, 9, 10, 2, 16, 6 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database promised to turn designs or descriptions into working software before vision models existed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Pagedraw", "years": "2018 to 2021", "funding": "US$1.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Turn Sketch design files into React code.", "died": "It bet on Sketch when designers moved to Figma, and developers preferred to write the final code by hand.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1006-pagedraw" }, { "name": "Haiku", "years": "2018 to 2021", "funding": "US$1.2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Turn designers' high-fidelity designs and animations into code.", "died": "It could not keep up with Figma and Adobe XD, and the 2020 downturn ended the company.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1013-haiku" }, { "name": "The Grid", "years": "2014 to 2020", "funding": "US$4.7M", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "Websites designed automatically by AI, with no designer.", "died": "The AI of the time produced clumsy designs, while competitors offered polished site builders.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/618-the-grid" }, { "name": "Pixate", "years": "2012 to 2016", "funding": "US$3.6M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Build mobile app prototypes without writing code.", "died": "Google bought it and then set it aside as Figma grew.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/434-pixate" }, { "name": "Builder.ai", "years": "2016 to 2025", "funding": "US$445M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Custom apps built by an AI-assisted assembly line instead of expensive developers.", "died": "Apps that sold for about US$20,000 cost about US$35,000 to build, and much of the work called AI was done by offshore developers.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2170-builderai" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The five predecessors needed a design file in a known format, hand-written conversion rules or the weak AI of their time, and they raised between US$1.2 million and US$445 million to build it. In January 2018 a different open-source project with the same name already translated screenshots into HTML with neural networks; it reached 71 points on Hacker News. In November 2023 a general vision model, GPT-4 Vision, could read any screenshot and write the code, so one person could build the product on top of an API, with no training data and no design-file parser. The founder released it nine days after he wrote that the GPT-4 Vision and Turbo API previews allowed only 100 requests a day.", "The same change works for everyone. A model provider sells the ability that the product depends on, and the founder's own early posts note rate limits and outages of that API. Vercel announced in October 2023 that v0 would add image-to-code, and its documentation now says that v0 turns uploaded screenshots and Figma designs into working applications. Lovable and Bolt start projects from Figma designs, and ChatGPT and the Claude API accept images directly. The advantages of Screenshot to Code that the sources show are its open-source repository, which brings the traffic, and its price. No source describes a technology that others cannot copy." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The timing, no. The method, yes.", "text": "Being the first open-source screenshot-to-code tool on GPT-4 Vision depended on November 2023, and today v0, Lovable, Bolt and the chat apps accept screenshots and designs too. The method is still available: release a useful open-source tool on the day a new model ability appears, and sell a hosted version to the users who do not want to manage keys and servers.", "steps": [ "Build a small open-source tool around a model ability that has just been released, and post a demo video on X and Show HN on the same day.", "Keep the free version fully working with the user's own API key, so developers star and share it.", "Sell the hosted version from the first weeks, even with only a payment link and a ledger, then move to monthly credits.", "Test each new model on your own examples and switch quickly, so the hosted version stays better than a self-run copy with an old setup." ], "open": "New model abilities that need keys and setup to try, such as video understanding, realtime voice and computer-use agents, where a free repository can find users and a hosted version can charge for convenience." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Revenue is falling", "text": "The average month before October 2025 brought US$8,585; the last 30 days brought US$4,567, 46.8% less. The public monthly table peaked at US$6,478 in May 2026 and fell to US$4,727 in September 2026, and MRR fell 9.7% in 30 days. No source explains why." }, { "title": "AI builders and model makers do the same job", "text": "v0 by Vercel says it converts uploaded screenshots, mockups and Figma designs into working applications. Lovable and Bolt start projects from Figma designs. ChatGPT accepts image inputs, and the Claude API takes images as input. A user who already pays for one of these tools may not need a separate product." }, { "title": "The free code is almost the same product", "text": "The repository is MIT licensed with 80,363 stars and 9,816 forks, and its README explains how to run it with your own keys. Only 281 of 258,000 registered users pay. The hosted backend is closed source, but anyone can sell a hosted copy of the open code." }, { "title": "Dependence on model providers", "text": "Every generation is a paid call to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or Replicate. The founder states a 60% margin over 12 months, while the 30-day snapshot shows 40.0%, and he writes that cheaper models should lift it. Early posts recorded a 100-requests-a-day limit and API outages." }, { "title": "For sale, and the owner is leaving", "text": "Listed on 14 October 2026 at US$38,000, about one year of profit by the founder's numbers, because he starts a full-time job. The sale includes domains, the closed-source backend, Stripe and users. The message does not say whether the GitHub repository, which brings the traffic, changes hands. Month-by-month revenue before November 2025 is not public, and the profile does not say whether the Stripe account ever carried revenue of Pico, the company's other product." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR markdown profile: Screenshot to Code (WhimsyWorks, Inc.), synced 14 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/screenshot-to-code-whimsyworks-inc.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile in full. Revenue, MRR and subscriptions are read from Stripe through an API key (grade A). Team size, funding, user estimate, profit margin and description are founder-written or not verified (grade C)." }, { "title": "TrustMRR startup page: Screenshot to Code, with the message from the founder", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/screenshot-to-code-whimsyworks-inc", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the page text in full. Source for the founder's sale message: the reason, the pricing at about 1 times profit, the user count, the margin and what the sale includes." }, { "title": "GitHub API: repository abi/screenshot-to-code, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/abi/screenshot-to-code", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. GitHub's own counters: stars, forks, licence, creation and last push dates." }, { "title": "GitHub API: contributors of abi/screenshot-to-code", "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/abi/screenshot-to-code/contributors", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full, with anonymous contributors included. Commit counts per account, summed on this page." }, { "title": "Screenshot to Code README on GitHub, October 2026", "url": "https://github.com/abi/screenshot-to-code/blob/main/README.md", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full from the raw file. Source for the stacks, the default models, the API keys and the setup steps." }, { "title": "GitHub API: the last 100 commits that changed the README", "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/abi/screenshot-to-code/commits?path=README.md", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the commit dates and messages. Source for the dated model changes in 2026." }, { "title": "Abi Raja on X, 15 November 2023: the release post", "url": "https://x.com/_abi_/status/1724923096774185100", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com. Names GPT-4 Vision and DALL-E." }, { "title": "Hacker News, 16 November 2023: Show HN: Convert any screenshot into clean HTML code using GPT Vision (OSS tool)", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38285228", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the thread through the Algolia HN API: points, comment count and the founder's replies." }, { "title": "Abi Raja on X, 4 December 2023: Hit $1k revenue with screenshot to code", "url": "https://x.com/_abi_/status/1731766806887452726", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com in full." }, { "title": "Abi Raja's posts on X, June 2023 to May 2026", "url": "https://x.com/_abi_", "grade": "C", "how": "Read 130 of his own posts page by page through api.fxtwitter.com/2/profile/_abi_/statuses. Source for the stars, GitHub trending, the February 2024 sale offer, the model changes, the API limits, Pico's MRR and the ScreenshotOne post that he quoted." }, { "title": "Abi Raja on X, 3 April 2024: hit 100k ARR a couple of weeks ago", "url": "https://x.com/_abi_/status/1775612588350452072", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com in full. The post does not name the product." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine capture list for screenshottocode.com", "url": "http://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=screenshottocode.com*", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the list in full. Source for the first capture date of the site and the dated copies of its code." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of the hosted app's code, 3 December 2023", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20231203id_/https://screenshottocode.com/assets/index-595f36b1.js", "grade": "B", "how": "Searched the downloaded code for prices and services: 100 generations for US$15 by Stripe payment link, the own-key option, ScreenshotOne, Plausible and Render." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of the hosted app's code, 9 February 2024", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20240209id_/https://screenshottocode.com/assets/index-60bb3dbc.js", "grade": "B", "how": "Searched the downloaded code for prices: subscriptions at US$15 and US$40 a month, US$150 and US$400 a year." }, { "title": "The hosted app's live code, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://screenshottocode.com/assets/index-CK-VrwOE.js", "grade": "B", "how": "Searched the downloaded code for the pricing block and service names. The pricing page itself loads by script and shows no text without it." }, { "title": "Screenshot to Code Terms of Service, last updated 15 June 2026", "url": "https://screenshottocode.com/legal/terms-of-service.html", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names WhimsyWorks, Inc., Delaware law, the New York address and the credit rules." }, { "title": "Abi Raja's X profile", "url": "https://x.com/_abi_", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com/_abi_: 2,492 followers, location New York, and his own description of Pico and his earlier company." }, { "title": "Vercel blog, 11 October 2023: Announcing v0: Generative UI", "url": "https://vercel.com/blog/announcing-v0-generative-ui", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Lists transforming images to code as a planned feature." }, { "title": "v0 documentation: FAQs", "url": "https://v0.app/docs/faqs", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on using your own designs." }, { "title": "Lovable documentation: FAQ", "url": "https://docs.lovable.dev/introduction/faq", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on design and on attached images." }, { "title": "Bolt home page", "url": "https://bolt.new/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Offers to start a project from Figma." }, { "title": "Claude Platform documentation: Vision", "url": "https://docs.claude.com/en/docs/build-with-claude/vision", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on providing images through the API." }, { "title": "OpenAI Help Center: ChatGPT Image Inputs FAQ", "url": "https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8400551-chatgpt-image-inputs-faq", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "Hacker News search results for screenshot-to-code (Algolia HN API)", "url": "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=screenshot-to-code&tags=story", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the second Show HN of 21 March 2024 and the different 2018 project of the same name." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/iacrea/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/iacrea.md", "slug": "iacrea", "name": "IACrea", "country": "France", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI virtual staging and marketing images for real-estate agents", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "March 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$10.4K a month (€10K MRR), December 2024", "sticker": "$125K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 124740, "months": 21, "teamLabel": "Founder and a technical co-founder, no employees reported; since March 2025 a company with three officer companies", "fundingLabel": "None reported", "primaryFactor": "Niche", "group": "real-estate", "channel": "partners", "trend": "growing", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Real estate" ], "product": "A web and mobile app for real-estate agents that furnishes, redecorates and enhances property photos with AI, turns them into short videos and 2D floor plans, and publishes them to social networks and Meta ads. Agents pay a monthly subscription that includes credits, and each AI action uses some of them.", "why": "The founder knew image AI from data science and chose real-estate agents as customers, because they need attractive photos of every new property, every month. She sold in French first, listed the tool on directory sites, paid affiliates who already reached agents, met agents at real-estate events, and cut cancellations with credits that carry over and yearly plans.", "summary": [ "IACrea is a French web and mobile app that makes marketing images for real-estate agents. Its first feature, and still its core, is virtual staging: an AI model furnishes or redecorates a photo of an empty or dated room, so that a buyer can picture the home lived in (in French, \"home staging virtuel\"). Today it also enhances phone photos, turns photos into short videos, draws 2D floor plans from an iPhone scan, schedules social-media posts and runs Meta ad campaigns for a property. Agents pay a monthly subscription that includes credits, units that each AI action uses up. The name puts IA, the French abbreviation of intelligence artificielle, first; a podcast about the business wrote it AICrea.", "Pauline Clavelloux, a data scientist who worked nine years at IBM, started it in March 2023 after side products that failed: a crypto trading-alert service with zero sales, an AI portrait tool that made a few hundred euros and was sold, and a Twitter data tool that ended when Twitter announced a price of US$42,000 a month for its API. She first offered redecoration to anyone, then sold to agents, who need new photos every month. A co-founder does all the technical work. In December 2024 she wrote that IACrea had crossed €10,000 of MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the subscription revenue of one month, during the year. That is a run rate, the monthly figure times 12, of about €120,000 or US$124,740 a year, 21 months after launch. The same year she cut cancellations from about 40% to 4.65%, turned down a buyout offer and left IBM. In December 2025 she wrote that IACrea grew 40% in 2025.", "Every revenue number on this page is a statement by the founder or comes from interviews with her, grade C. No payment processor or buyer has confirmed them, and the figures from October to December 2024 differ slightly. The company facts come from the French state business register, grade A. The page also shows earlier companies that sold room design or online photo editing and failed, and the French rules and competitors that now surround AI images in property advertising." ], "factsCaption": "A credit-based AI photo tool for real-estate agents that its founder says crossed €10,000 a month in recurring revenue in 2024, 21 months after launch, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founder, an interview with her, or the company's own pages. Grade A values come from the French state business register. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No revenue value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From an instant home-staging page with 940 photos in May 2023 to a marketing tool for agents with two plans and mobile apps, in three and a half years. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "IACrea prices on 14 October 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C). Prices are in euros before VAT; the US$ columns are converted at the European Central Bank rate of 14 October 2026, US$1.1195 per euro", "note": "The page offers monthly billing without commitment, or yearly billing with one month free; the yearly columns are calculated as 11 months' price spread over 12. One credit pays for 10 photo edits, 1 video animation or 10 visuals, and a Meta ad campaign needs at least 60 credits. Extra credits cost €1 each, but a footnote on the same page gives €1.50 per credit once the included credits are used up. The page's embedded script data also contains the amounts €20 and €60 with yearly amounts of €220 and €660; they do not match the displayed prices, and this table uses the displayed ones.", "rows": [ [ "Solo", "25.66 (€22.92)", "27.99 (€25)", "15 AI credits a month; 1 phone licence with 30 enhanced photos a month" ], [ "Agence", "66.70 (€59.58)", "72.77 (€65)", "45 AI credits a month; 3 phone licences with 40 enhanced photos each" ], [ "Extra user, Agence plan", "12.31 (€11)", "13.43 (€12)", "5 more credits and 40 enhanced photos a month" ], [ "Unlimited 2D plans", "10.26 (€9.17)", "11.20 (€10)", "option, per authorised iPhone" ], [ "Extra credit", "", "1.12 (€1)", "one-off, per credit" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue reached in 2024", "value": "more than €10,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter, 19 December 2024: 'IACrea crossed €10k MRR during the year!' She does not give the month or say whether it stayed above that level.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "That MRR in US dollars", "value": "about US$10,395 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: €10,000 × 1.0395, the European Central Bank rate of 19 December 2024.", "src": [ 1, 26 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from that MRR", "value": "about €120,000, or US$124,740, a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the monthly figure times 12. This is the headline number of this page. A run rate is a projection, not revenue earned in a calendar year.", "src": [ 1, 26 ] }, { "fact": "MRR in a podcast published on 8 November 2024", "value": "'$8K MRR'", "grade": "C", "note": "The host's description of the Solos episode: 'We dive into her experience growing AICrea to $8K MRR'. The audio was not transcribed, so the currency is not verified. If the founder meant euros, it is about US$8,316 (calculated at 1.0395).", "src": [ 2, 26 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in a video interview, 15 October 2024", "value": "'$10K/Month', or 'an AI home staging app to $100,000/year'", "grade": "C", "note": "Title and description of the Starter Story video. They are the channel's summary of the founder's account.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "The founder's recurring revenue from all her products, November 2024", "value": "€100,000 a year", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter, 6 November 2024: 'I reached my first €100k ARR milestone'. ARR is annual recurring revenue. The post does not split it by product. Her site and X profile in 2026 still give €100k+ ARR.", "src": [ 4, 17 ] }, { "fact": "Growth in 2025", "value": "+40%", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter, 27 December 2025: 'IACrea grew by +40% this year.' She does not say whether this is revenue or MRR. Her goal for 2025 had been €50,000 MRR.", "src": [ 8, 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR at the end of 2025 if the 40% applies to MRR", "value": "about €14,000", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: €10,000 × 1.4. An illustration only: the founder gives no amount for 2025, and €10,000 was a level crossed during 2024, not a December figure.", "src": [ 1, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue headline, May 2024", "value": "'IACrea from 0 to 40k€'", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter, 23 May 2024, above a chart titled 'Revenue by month for IACrea'. The chart is an image and was not read. The text does not say whether €40,000 is total revenue so far or another measure.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Churn rate", "value": "about 40% early in 2024, 4.65% in December 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter. Churn is the share of subscribers who cancel; she does not give the period it is measured over. She cut it with credits that carry over, better image quality and yearly plans.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Launch", "value": "March 2023", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: 'Fast forward to March 2023, I dived into iacrea, an instant home staging service.' On 9 May 2023 the home page counted 940 photos 'créées depuis mars 2023' (created since March 2023).", "src": [ 5, 15 ] }, { "fact": "Seller in the 2023 terms of sale", "value": "Upopy SASU", "grade": "C", "note": "Archived terms of 1 June 2023. Customers bought credits one at a time or by monthly subscription, and subscription credits did not carry over to the next month.", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "fact": "Upopy in the register", "value": "created 21 March 2023, software publishing (code 58.29C), the founder as manager", "grade": "A", "note": "French state register, UPOPY, SIREN 950997221. It is the president of IACrea SAS.", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company since 2025", "value": "IACrea SAS, created 1 March 2025 in Paris, computer programming (code 62.01Z)", "grade": "A", "note": "Register: its president is UPOPY, the founder's company, and two other companies are directors general. The employee band is empty ('NN'), and the register search does not show shareholders. Today's terms of sale name IACrea SAS as the seller.", "src": [ 16, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Team, November 2024", "value": "2 people: the founder and a technical co-founder", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter: 'my co-founder manages everything technical—maintenance, improvements, and developing new features.' The sources do not name the co-founder. In May 2024 she wrote 'My partner and I are visible and reachable'.", "src": [ 4, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "No source mentions investors, grants or an accelerator. In 2024 she turned down a buyout offer because 'the offer wasn't good enough'.", "src": [ 1, 16 ] }, { "fact": "Share of website traffic from directory sites, May 2024", "value": "40%", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter. Cold email: 'Only 1% clicked on the link to try IACrea'. Ads and event sponsorship: 'Thousands of euros invested' with a 'return on investment close to zero'.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Competitors counted by the founder, November 2024", "value": "more than 30", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter: 'I counted more then 30 IACrea's competitors'.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Price of the Solo plan, October 2026", "value": "€25 a month before VAT, about US$27.99", "grade": "C", "note": "Pricing page, 14 October 2026: 15 AI credits a month and one phone licence. Converted at the ECB rate of 14 October 2026, US$1.1195 per euro.", "src": [ 11, 26 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the headline figure", "value": "21 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: March 2023 to December 2024.", "src": [ 5, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Name", "value": "IACrea, written AICrea in the podcast", "grade": "C", "note": "IA is the French abbreviation of intelligence artificielle. In April 2026 the founder wrote that the name is 'super natural in French' but that in English '“IA” means nothing'.", "src": [ 2, 9 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Before 2023", "what": "During the Covid lockdown she and a developer friend build a crypto trading robot; the trading-alert service they sell from it gets zero sales. An AI portrait tool makes a few hundred euros and is sold. A Twitter data tool ends when Twitter announces US$42,000 a month for its API.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "March 2023", "what": "IACrea opens as 'an instant home staging service': upload a photo of a room, choose a style such as Scandinavian or industrial, and get the AI's version in 10 seconds to 15 minutes.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 15 ] }, { "when": "9 May 2023", "what": "First archived copy of the site: 940 photos created since March 2023. Upopy, the founder's company, sells the credits one at a time or by monthly subscription.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15, 14 ] }, { "when": "February 2024", "what": "She writes that she knew InteriorAI existed but aimed at better photo quality and the French market first, and that IACrea now brings 'comfortable recurring revenue'.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "May 2024", "what": "'IACrea from 0 to 40k€'. She explains the method: sell to real-estate agents, list the tool on directory sites (40% of traffic), pay affiliates such as photographers and real-estate trainers, and meet agents at events.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "15 October 2024", "what": "Starter Story publishes a video interview titled 'How I Built It: $10K/Month AI Image Generator'.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "6 November 2024", "what": "Her products together reach €100,000 in annual recurring revenue. A co-founder does all the technical work. She counts more than 30 competitors.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "8 November 2024", "what": "The Solos podcast, hosted by Martin Donadieu, publishes 'From IBM to $8K MRR: How This Solo Founder Cracked AI for Real Estate'.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "19 December 2024", "what": "'IACrea crossed €10k MRR during the year.' Churn falls from about 40% to 4.65%. She turns down a buyout offer, ends nine years at IBM and works full time on her products. Goal for 2025: €50,000 MRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "1 March 2025", "what": "IACrea SAS is created in Paris, with the founder's company as president and two other companies as directors general.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "27 December 2025", "what": "'IACrea grew by +40% this year.' It moves from a virtual-staging tool to 'a full marketing tool for real estate agents', and some partnerships are 'still being finalized'.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "August to September 2026", "what": "Credits now stay valid for three months while the subscription is active, to keep agents through the summer holidays. Printed flyers arrive for real-estate events.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 18 ] }, { "when": "14 October 2026", "what": "Two plans, Solo at €25 and Agence at €65 a month before VAT, for photos, video, 2D plans, social posts and Meta ad campaigns, with apps on iOS and Android. The home page announces a stand at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles in November 2026.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 10 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "One profession with a monthly need", "text": "She first offered redecoration to anyone, then dropped private individuals because 'they don’t renovate their homes regularly and want ultra-customization'. Real-estate agents need attractive photos of every new property they list, so the need repeats every month and fits a subscription." }, { "title": "Credits, not unlimited use", "text": "Each AI action uses credits from a monthly allowance: one credit pays for 10 photo edits or one video. The cost of running the models therefore grows only with paid use. When churn was about 40%, she let unused credits carry over and added yearly plans; churn fell to 4.65%." }, { "title": "Low-cost channels that grow over time", "text": "Directory sites brought 40% of the traffic and backlinks, links from other sites that raise a page's rank in search engines. Affiliates who already reach agents, such as photographers and real-estate trainers, earn a recurring commission. The founders meet agents at real-estate events. Paid ads and cold email did not work." }, { "title": "One sells, one builds", "text": "The founder, a data scientist with image-AI skills, does sales, marketing and partnerships. A co-founder does maintenance, improvements and new features. She chose the French market first, against an English-language competitor that already existed." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "The sources say little about the technical stack. These details come from the company's own pages, from what its website shows publicly, and from the founder's newsletter. They are grade C unless marked.", "items": [ "The founder had 'skills in AI with images' from her data-science work. Since at least November 2024 a co-founder has handled all technical work.", "No source names the image or video models. The privacy policy says customer images are used « pour améliorer notre algorithme d'intelligence artificielle » (to improve our artificial-intelligence algorithm).", "The website is served by Vercel, a hosting service, according to its response headers, and its page loads files from Supabase, a hosted database and file-storage service (visible in the page source, grade B).", "Card payments go through Stripe, according to the terms of sale.", "Mobile apps on the App Store and Google Play take and enhance photos; 2D floor plans come from a scan on iPhone Pro models.", "Meta ad campaigns are published from IACrea's own Meta page, and IACrea forwards the contacts of interested people to the agent." ], "src": [ 5, 4, 13, 12, 10 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised to show people a better-looking home, to edit photos online, or to give real-estate agents new software, and failed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Tastemaker", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$1.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Affordable online interior design for middle-income households, by professional designers.", "died": "It depended on freelance designers, so quality varied and growth was slow. Better-funded rivals offered the same service.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1572-tastemaker" }, { "name": "Laurel & Wolf", "years": "2014 to 2019", "funding": "US$25M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Flat-fee interior design consultations online.", "died": "The flat fees did not cover the cost of finding customers, and adding designers lowered quality.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2012-laurel--wolf" }, { "name": "Snipshot", "years": "2006 to 2009", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Edit photos in the browser without desktop software.", "died": "Larger tools such as Picnik and free alternatives offered more, and its small feature set did not grow.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1241-snipshot" }, { "name": "REPitchbook", "years": "2021 to 2022", "funding": "None", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Software that collects and analyses listings and market data for real-estate agents and investors.", "died": "It was built before asking real-estate professionals what they needed.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1867-repitchbook" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Tastemaker and Laurel & Wolf sold the promise that virtual staging sells today: see what a room could look like. Each design needed a paid human designer, so every sale carried a large cost, and quality varied as they added designers. Snipshot sold browser photo editing to casual users, who had free alternatives. REPitchbook built software for real-estate agents before asking them what they needed.", "IACrea differs on each point. An image model does the designer's work, so one more photo edit uses a tenth of a credit, about €0.10 at the extra-credit price, instead of hours of work. It sells to professionals who need new images for every listing and pay monthly, not to households that redecorate once. And the founder talked to many agents before building for them. What has not changed is competition: she counted more than 30 rivals in 2024, and the software makers and listing portals that agents already pay are adding the same features." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. This product, only with a new angle.", "text": "AI virtual staging for agents is now a crowded category: a French agency-software maker bought a staging startup in December 2025, and a general image model edits a photo from one sentence for US$0.039. The method still works in other fields: pick a profession with a repeating visual need, sell credits on a subscription, and reach the customers through directories, affiliates who already serve them, and their trade shows.", "steps": [ "Choose a profession that needs the same AI output every month, not a consumer who needs it once.", "Talk to many of those professionals before building, as she did with agents.", "Price by credits so that model costs follow revenue, and let unused credits carry over to reduce churn.", "List the product on niche directories, pay recurring commissions to affiliates who reach the customers, and go to their trade shows." ], "open": "Other professions that publish photo listings every week, such as holiday rentals, used cars and hotels, and real-estate agents in countries with other languages." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported, and the figures do not line up exactly", "text": "Every revenue figure comes from the founder or from interviews with her, grade C, and IACrea has no TrustMRR profile. The figures are close but differ: '$10K/Month' in a video of 15 October 2024, '$8K MRR' in a podcast published on 8 November 2024, and 'crossed €10k MRR during the year' on 19 December 2024. The podcast host writes dollars; the founder counts in euros. For 2025 there is only '+40%', with no amount." }, { "title": "French listing rules apply to every image", "text": "The consumer institute INC writes: « Le classement du bien au regard de sa performance énergétique doit être mentionné dans les annonces relatives à la vente ou la location » (the energy-performance class of the property must be stated in sale and rental advertisements). On AI embellishment, the government answered a deputy's written question on 14 July 2026 that the consumer code « permet déjà de sanctionner les professionnels qui diffuseraient des annonces présentant les biens de manière abusive » (already allows sanctions against professionals who publish advertisements that present properties abusively), and that AI staging « ne se distingue pas fondamentalement » (does not differ fundamentally) from home staging before visits or retouched photos. The duty falls on the agent who publishes, so IACrea's customers need images that stay truthful." }, { "title": "EU AI Act labels since 2 August 2026", "text": "MySweetImmo, a French real-estate news site, writes that the AI Act's transparency rules apply to agencies since 2 August 2026: « Un visuel de home staging réalisé par IA doit être signalé lorsqu’il peut être pris pour une représentation authentique du logement » (an AI home-staging image must be labelled when it could be taken for a true picture of the home). It gives fines of up to €15 million or 3% of worldwide annual turnover. A listing text written with AI needs no automatic label, the same article says." }, { "title": "Agency software and portals add the same features", "text": "La Boîte Immo, which makes the Hektor agency software, launched Smartpix, an app that improves property photos with virtual staging, in May 2024, and bought HOQI, a French AI home-staging startup, in December 2025. In June 2025 leboncoin's head of product for real estate said that from the end of June all users would get « un assistant rédactionnel basé sur l’IA » (an AI-based writing assistant) that « génèrera une description d’annonce à partir de quelques critères » (will generate a listing description from a few criteria). Agents already pay for these platforms, so a separate subscription has to offer more." }, { "title": "General image models are cheap", "text": "Google released Gemini 2.5 Flash Image on 26 August 2025. It makes targeted edits from a plain-language instruction, such as removing a person from a photo, for US$0.039 per image through Google's API. The founder wrote in November 2024 that with AI tools 'the real challenge today isn’t building—it’s breaking through'." }, { "title": "The models behind the product are not disclosed", "text": "No source names the image or video models that IACrea uses. If they come from an outside provider, that provider's prices and rules set IACrea's costs and limits; if they are its own, it must keep up with models such as Google's. Credit pricing lets the company pass a cost change on to customers." }, { "title": "Two founders, three officer companies", "text": "The podcast calls her a solo founder, but her own newsletter of 6 November 2024 says a co-founder does all the technical work, so this page counts a team of 2. Since March 2025 the business has run in IACrea SAS, whose officers are the founder's company and two other companies. The register search does not show who owns the shares or how many people work there." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Pauline_cx newsletter, 19 December 2024: 2024 recap, growth, wins and new challenges", "url": "https://paulinecx.beehiiv.com/p/2024-recap-growth-wins-and-new-challenges", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder's own account. Source for the €10,000 MRR, the churn figures, the refused buyout offer and the end of her IBM job." }, { "title": "Solos podcast, hosted by Martin Donadieu, 8 November 2024: From IBM to $8K MRR: How This Solo Founder Cracked AI for Real Estate", "url": "https://castbox.fm/channel/Solos-id5226090", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the episode title, date, description and chapter list on the Castbox channel page. The audio was not transcribed." }, { "title": "Starter Story on YouTube, 15 October 2024: How I Built It: $10K/Month AI Image Generator", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjCa8IFjM2E", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the title, date and description on the video page. The video was not watched." }, { "title": "Pauline_cx newsletter, 6 November 2024: I reached my 100k ARR goal, new one 500k ARR", "url": "https://paulinecx.beehiiv.com/p/i-reached-my-100k-arr-goal-new-one-500k-arr", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the €100,000 ARR across her products, the technical co-founder and the 30 competitors." }, { "title": "Pauline_cx newsletter, 23 January 2024: overview of her SaaS products", "url": "https://paulinecx.beehiiv.com/p/pauline-cx-saas-overview", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the earlier failed products and the March 2023 start." }, { "title": "Pauline_cx newsletter, 23 May 2024: user acquisition, IACrea from 0 to 40k€", "url": "https://paulinecx.beehiiv.com/p/user-acquisition", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The revenue chart is an image and was not read. Source for the target customer, directories, affiliates, events and the failed channels." }, { "title": "Pauline_cx newsletter, 28 February 2024: startup idea taken", "url": "https://paulinecx.beehiiv.com/p/startup-idea-taken", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the competitor that already existed and the French-market focus." }, { "title": "Pauline_cx newsletter, 27 December 2025: 2025, not everything went as planned", "url": "https://paulinecx.beehiiv.com/p/2025-not-everything-went-as-planned", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 40% growth and the repositioning." }, { "title": "Pauline_cx newsletter, 11 April 2026: the name mistakes I made", "url": "https://paulinecx.beehiiv.com/p/the-name-mistakes-i-made-so-you-won-t-have-to", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the founder's comment on the name IACrea." }, { "title": "IACrea home page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://iacrea.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the current features, the mobile apps and the November 2026 trade-show stand." }, { "title": "IACrea pricing page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://iacrea.com/fr/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, including the footnotes. Source for the plans, credits and options." }, { "title": "IACrea terms of sale and terms of use (CGV and CGU), read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://iacrea.com/fr/cgv", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with the CGU at https://iacrea.com/fr/cgu. Source for the seller IACrea SAS, Stripe payments and the Meta ad campaigns." }, { "title": "IACrea privacy policy, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://iacrea.com/fr/politique-confidentialite", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on purposes and service providers. Names no AI model provider." }, { "title": "IACrea terms of sale, Wayback Machine copy of 1 June 2023", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20230601044035/https://iacrea.com/cgu-cgv", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for Upopy SASU as seller and the 2023 credit rules." }, { "title": "IACrea home page, Wayback Machine copy of 9 May 2023", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20230509144012/https://iacrea.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The first archived copy. Source for the original features and the counter of 940 photos since March 2023." }, { "title": "French state business register (Recherche d'entreprises): IACREA, SIREN 941695157, and UPOPY, SIREN 950997221", "url": "https://recherche-entreprises.api.gouv.fr/search?q=iacrea", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the JSON records of IACREA, UPOPY and the two other officer companies. Source for legal forms, creation dates, activity codes, officers and the empty employee band." }, { "title": "Pauline Clavelloux's personal site, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://paulinecx.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for her name, her list of products and the €100k+ ARR claim." }, { "title": "Pauline_Cx on X, posts of 25 August and 11 September 2026", "url": "https://x.com/Pauline_Cx/status/2092175352164454813", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com, with the last 99 posts of her timeline. Source for the credit rollover and the event flyers." }, { "title": "Institut national de la consommation (INC), 8 October 2018: Ventes immobilières : le contenu minimal des annonces publiées par un professionnel", "url": "https://www.inc-conso.fr/content/ventes-immobilieres-le-contenu-minimal-des-annonces-publiees-par-un-professionnel", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the sections on price, fees and energy display." }, { "title": "Assemblée nationale, written question no. 13930 of 31 March 2026, with the government's answer of 14 July 2026", "url": "https://questions.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/17/questions/QANR5L17QE13930", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the question summary and the answer on misleading embellishments." }, { "title": "MySweetImmo, 4 August 2026, updated 4 September 2026: Immobilier : ce que l'AI Act change vraiment pour les agences depuis le 2 août 2026", "url": "https://www.mysweetimmo.com/2026/08/04/immobilier-ce-que-lai-act-change-vraiment-pour-les-agences-depuis-le-2-aout-2026/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on AI-written listings, AI home staging and fines." }, { "title": "MySweetImmo, 9 June 2025, by Ariane Artinian: L'IA va transformer les annonces immobilières (interview with leboncoin's head of product for real estate)", "url": "https://www.mysweetimmo.com/2025/06/09/immobilier-lia-va-transformer-les-annonces-immobilieres-iris-porto-leboncoin/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for leboncoin's AI writing assistant." }, { "title": "MySweetImmo, 28 May 2024: Pros de l'immo : La Boîte Immo intègre l'IA à ses outils pour accroître votre efficacité", "url": "https://www.mysweetimmo.com/2024/05/28/pros-de-limmo-la-boite-immo-integre-lia-a-ses-outils-pour-accroitre-votre-efficacite/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the opening sections. Source for Smartpix and Hektor Voice." }, { "title": "MySweetImmo, 4 December 2025: Immobilier : La Boîte Immo rachète HOQI, startup spécialiste du home staging assisté par IA", "url": "https://www.mysweetimmo.com/2025/12/04/immobilier-la-boite-immo-rachete-hoqi-startup-specialiste-du-home-staging-assiste-par-ia/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. The buyer's statement to the press." }, { "title": "Google Developers Blog, 26 August 2025: Introducing Gemini 2.5 Flash Image", "url": "https://developers.googleblog.com/en/introducing-gemini-2-5-flash-image/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the sections on editing and price." }, { "title": "European Central Bank: euro foreign exchange reference rates, 19 December 2024 and 14 October 2026", "url": "https://data-api.ecb.europa.eu/service/data/EXR/D.USD.EUR.SP00.A", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the CSV series: US$1.0395 per euro on 19 December 2024 and US$1.1195 on 14 October 2026." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/questgen-supermeme/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/questgen-supermeme.md", "slug": "questgen-supermeme", "name": "Questgen and Supermeme.ai", "country": "India", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI quiz generator and AI meme generator", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "December 2020", "outcomeLabel": "US$6.5K a month, July 2026", "sticker": "$78K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 78000, "months": 67, "teamLabel": "1 founder on Questgen, 3 co-founders on Supermeme, no employees, all with other jobs", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "learning", "channel": "open-source", "trend": "falling", "collections": [ "open-source" ], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Education" ], "product": "Three small AI web apps from one founder, run beside his full-time job. Questgen turns text, PDFs, web pages, images or videos into quizzes (multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blank) and exports them in the file formats that school learning systems import. Supermeme.ai, built with two co-founders, turns a sentence into memes: it finds fitting meme templates and writes the captions. AiArtist.io, the newest, makes short motion-graphics videos from text.", "why": "Questgen started as free open-source code on GitHub whose README sends readers to questgen.ai, where the paid plans are. Both apps then won search traffic for exact phrases such as \"AI meme generator\", and Supermeme says it has spent nothing to acquire its users. Costs are low: in June 2022 the founder said his two products were profitable at US$500 and US$100 a month. So a part-time team with no investors can keep them running.", "summary": [ "Questgen and Supermeme.ai are micro-SaaS products: small software services that are sold by subscription and run by one or a few people. Questgen is a quiz generator for teachers and trainers. You paste text or upload a PDF, and it writes multiple-choice, true/false and fill-in-the-blank questions that you can edit and export into a learning management system (LMS), the software that schools and companies use to run courses and tests. Supermeme turns a sentence into memes: it searches thousands of meme templates for one that fits and writes the captions, and its site says it is \"powered by OpenAI\". With a third app, AiArtist.io, they had more than 2.5 million registered users in July 2026.", "Ramsri Goutham Golla is an engineer from India who worked about six years in Silicon Valley and moved back in 2018. In August 2020 he published Questgen as open-source code, code that anyone may read, use and change, built on T5 models, language models that turn one text into another. By January 2022 the website sold plans and an API, a way for other programs to call the service. That month he and two partners he knew only online, Nico Botha and Sanjeev NC, started Supermeme. In June 2022 he said his two products made US$500 and US$100 a month. Supermeme's own pitch page showed US$25,000 a year in ARR (annual recurring revenue) by April 2023 and US$65,000 by March 2025, and the apps together peaked at US$100,000 ARR in 2025. On 30 July 2026 Indie Hackers reported US$6,000 to US$7,000 a month in MRR (monthly recurring revenue) for the three apps. Two days later he wrote that Supermeme makes US$4,400 a month. Questgen has earned more than US$150,000 since its launch.", "Every money figure on this page is a statement by the founder, his co-founders or their own web pages, grade C. No payment processor or buyer has confirmed any of them. They fit together across four years: in 2025 and again in 2026, Supermeme's figure is about two thirds of the total. They also show a decline, because the July 2026 run rate is about 22% below the 2025 peak. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that made quizzes for classrooms or funny images for chats." ], "factsCaption": "A part-time portfolio of three AI apps that peaked at US$100,000 a year in 2025 and made US$6,000 to US$7,000 a month in July 2026, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founder, his co-founders or the companies' own web pages, including older versions of those pages saved by the Wayback Machine. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From an open-source research library in 2020 to three paid apps run beside a full-time job, in 67 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Prices in October 2026 from the three products' own pricing pages (grade C). Supermeme's monthly prices are read from the plan data inside its page, which shows yearly prices first", "note": "Questgen's yearly plan is US$100 a year, shown here as US$8.33 a month. Supermeme gives 10 free credits a month with a watermark; one credit is one generation with up to 8 meme options. Its page data and FAQ also list a Pro plan at US$13.99 a month billed yearly or US$19.99 monthly, with 1,000 API requests, but the page did not show it as a plan card. AiArtist sells a one-time pass that lasts one year, and its page says the price rises with every 50 new customers.", "rows": [ [ "Questgen Basic", "0", "0", "20 free runs" ], [ "Questgen Pro", "8.33", "15", "unlimited runs, fair use" ], [ "Supermeme Free", "0", "0", "10 credits a month, watermark" ], [ "Supermeme Solo", "6.49", "9.99", "100 credits a month (about 800 memes), 1 brand kit, 100 API requests" ], [ "Supermeme Startup", "19.99", "34.99", "unlimited credits, 10 brand kits, 2,000 API requests" ], [ "Supermeme Enterprise", "83.99", "99.99", "unlimited brand kits, 5,000 API requests" ], [ "AiArtist yearly pass", "99 one-time", "", "100 credits a month for one year, launch offer" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month of the three apps, July 2026", "value": "US$6,000 to US$7,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers interview, 30 July 2026. The article's header gives US$6.5K a month and its text \"nearly $7k MRR\". Covers Questgen, Supermeme and AiArtist together.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the July 2026 figure", "value": "about US$78,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$6,500 times 12. The range gives US$72,000 to US$84,000.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Peak of the three apps, 2025", "value": "US$100,000 ARR", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers interview. His X profile in October 2026 still says \"3 AI SaaS Apps to $100k ARR with no employees\".", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Fall from the 2025 peak to July 2026", "value": "about 22%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$78,000 a year against US$100,000.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Supermeme revenue per month, 1 August 2026", "value": "US$4,400", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X. That is about 63% to 68% of the July 2026 total, so Questgen and AiArtist make about US$1,600 to US$2,600 a month together (calculated).", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Supermeme ARR on its pitch page, by March 2025", "value": "US$65,000, with 750,000 signups", "grade": "C", "note": "First seen in the Wayback capture of 20 March 2025 and still on the live page in October 2026, so it is not current. The page says its customer acquisition cost is US$0, from organic channels and word of mouth.", "src": [ 7, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Supermeme ARR on its pitch page, by April 2023", "value": "US$25,000, with 140,000 signups", "grade": "C", "note": "Wayback capture of 2 April 2023, unchanged until at least November 2024. The same answer says 100,000 signups came through organic channels.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Questgen total revenue since launch, July 2026", "value": "more than US$150,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers interview. The founder dates the launch \"4 years ago\"; the website was already online in December 2020.", "src": [ 1, 16 ] }, { "fact": "Total revenue of the three apps, August 2026", "value": "more than US$300,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 6 August 2026: \"3 Apps, 3 Years, $ 300K+ Revenue\".", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "His two micro-SaaS products, June 2022", "value": "US$500 and US$100 a month, both profitable", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview in the languagetech newsletter, 26 June 2022. He did not say which product earned which amount. His Udemy courses had made US$6,700 in total.", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "fact": "Registered users, July 2026", "value": "more than 2.5 million in total, more than 2 million of them at Supermeme and more than 150,000 at Questgen", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers interview. Questgen's home page also says \"Trusted by 150,000+ users\".", "src": [ 1, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Paying accounts, upper limit", "value": "at most about 1,000", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$6,500 a month divided by the cheapest paid price, Supermeme Solo at US$6.49 a month, is about 1,000, or 0.04% of 2.5 million registered users. Every payer on a higher plan makes the real number lower.", "src": [ 1, 12 ] }, { "fact": "AiArtist.io paying users, July 2026", "value": "more than 20", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers interview. Recently launched, sold as a US$99 one-time yearly pass.", "src": [ 1, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Supermeme's Product Hunt launch", "value": "first place of the day", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in the Indie Hackers interview. The launch date was not verified.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "Questgen: 1 person. Supermeme: 3 co-founders. No employees", "grade": "C", "note": "Questgen's Team page calls him its \"solo developer\"; a January 2022 version of the site spoke of \"the founders\". Supermeme's Team page lists three co-founders who formed the team in January 2022 and had not met in person. The founder works full-time as a data scientist, and the two co-founders list other jobs.", "src": [ 9, 17, 8, 1, 19 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Supermeme's Team page: \"completely bootstrapped\". The founder's X profile: \"bootstrapping\".", "src": [ 8, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Company behind Questgen", "value": "QuestgenAI, Inc.", "grade": "C", "note": "Copyright line on the Questgen website. Where it is registered was not verified.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the first Questgen website to the July 2026 figure", "value": "67 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: December 2020 to July 2026.", "src": [ 16, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2013 to 2018", "what": "After a master's degree at Arizona State University in 2013, he works about six years in Silicon Valley, then moves back to India in 2018 to combine freelance work with his own products.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "4 August 2020", "what": "GitHub records the creation of the open-source Questgen.ai library, MIT license. Its README today says it uses three T5 models and sends readers to questgen.ai.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "25 December 2020", "what": "First Wayback Machine capture of questgen.ai: a simple page for \"A question generation AI to automatically generate assessments for education\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "16 January 2022", "what": "The Questgen site now has pricing and an API for companies, for example US$999 a month for 50,000 calls, and says it uses \"AI algorithms like GPT-3\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "January 2022", "what": "Three people who know each other only online start Supermeme. Its first page, captured on 27 January 2022, says \"Coming Soon\" and names GPT-3.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 18 ] }, { "when": "26 June 2022", "what": "He tells the languagetech newsletter that his two micro-SaaS products make US$500 and US$100 a month and are profitable.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "2 April 2023", "what": "Supermeme's pitch page shows US$25,000 ARR and 140,000 signups, with nothing spent to acquire users.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "20 March 2025", "what": "The same page now shows US$65,000 ARR and 750,000 signups.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "2025", "what": "The apps together peak at US$100,000 ARR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "30 July 2026", "what": "Indie Hackers interview: US$6,000 to US$7,000 a month for three apps, more than 2.5 million registered users, and more than US$150,000 earned by Questgen since launch. He works full-time as a data scientist.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "1 August 2026", "what": "He writes that Supermeme makes US$4,400 a month \"even post the ChatGPT Work and Claude Cowork revolution\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "6 August 2026", "what": "He gives more than US$300,000 as the total revenue of the three apps.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "All three sites are live with current prices. No source reports a sale of any of them.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 12, 13 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Open source first", "text": "Questgen began as a free library on GitHub, with 951 stars and 302 copies (forks) in October 2026. The top of its README says \"Try advanced question generation models for free\" and links to questgen.ai. The code shows what the product does; the hosted version saves the work of installing models and word lists." }, { "title": "One search page for each exact task", "text": "Questgen has a page for each task that a teacher might type into a search engine: MCQ generator, true/false generator, PDF to quiz, video to quiz, Bloom's taxonomy quiz. The founder wrote in August 2026 that Supermeme tries to keep the first or second search result for \"AI meme generator\". Supermeme's pitch page gives its customer acquisition cost as US$0." }, { "title": "Output that fits the next system", "text": "Questgen exports quizzes as QTI 2.1, Moodle XML, GIFT, AIKEN, Respondus text and CSV for D2L Brightspace, formats that school learning systems import. That removes the step of copying each question by hand. Supermeme puts a customer's logo, colors and mascot on memes and offers an API, for the same reason: the output goes straight into the customer's work." }, { "title": "Partners with the missing skills", "text": "Supermeme has an AI developer (Golla), a full-stack developer (Botha) and a meme creator (Sanjeev NC). They work mostly asynchronously in a WhatsApp group. In 2022 Golla advised technical founders to take an SEO course and to partner with someone with a complementary skill set." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder, the companies' own pages and the public Questgen code. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The open-source Questgen library is written in Python. Its README says it uses three T5 models: one for yes/no questions, one for multiple-choice questions, FAQs and paraphrasing, and one for answers. Wrong answer options come from Sense2vec word vectors, a table of words with related meanings.", "The hosted Questgen reads text, PDFs, web pages, images and videos, and its home page says it makes up to 150 quizzes from 100,000 words in one click. In January 2022 the site said it used \"AI algorithms like GPT-3\". The sources do not say which models it uses today.", "Supermeme named GPT-3 on its first page in January 2022, and its footer today says \"powered by OpenAI\". It writes captions in more than 110 languages, searches templates by meaning, and offers a REST API and an MCP server, a standard connection that lets AI assistants such as Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor make memes.", "AiArtist chains a language model with image and video models to make videos of up to 8 seconds. Its page does not name the models.", "The Supermeme team works mostly asynchronously in a WhatsApp group; the three had not met in person when the Team page was written.", "No outside money. The founder has a full-time data-science job, and the two Supermeme co-founders list other jobs in their X profiles." ], "src": [ 14, 10, 17, 18, 12, 13, 8, 1, 19 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database made quizzes for classrooms or funny images for chats. They lost to free features from larger platforms or never found a way to charge. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Guggy", "years": "2017 to 2020", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Turn the text of a chat message into a matching GIF.", "died": "Chat apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger offered GIFs themselves. Guggy had no way to make money, and users did not stay after the first try.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1429-guggy" }, { "name": "Riffsy", "years": "2013 to 2019", "funding": "US$10.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "GIFs on demand from a phone keyboard.", "died": "Pushed out by Giphy and Tenor, with no plan to make money and no large partner.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/506-riffsy" }, { "name": "Socrative", "years": "2010 to 2013", "funding": "US$750K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Classroom quizzes answered on students' phones instead of clicker devices.", "died": "Free products from large technology companies and slow adoption by schools. The quiz tool did not become a sustainable business.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1697-socrative" }, { "name": "Blendspace", "years": "2010 to 2013", "funding": "US$150K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Drag-and-drop digital lesson plans for teachers.", "died": "Google Classroom took the market, and the free plan did not turn into revenue.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1693-blendspace" }, { "name": "QuizUp", "years": "2013 to 2020", "funding": "US$27M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Real-time trivia quiz battles on any topic.", "died": "It did not find a way to make money from its players, lost to live-hosted rivals, and was neglected by the company that bought it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/479-quizup" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The five promised the same two things as this portfolio: quizzes for teachers, and funny images made from a few words. Each died for one of two reasons. A larger platform offered the feature for free (Google Classroom, WhatsApp, Messenger), or many users never turned into payers. Both risks are visible here. Google Forms added quiz generation with Gemini in July 2026, and 2.5 million registered users produce about US$6,500 a month.", "Three things differ. First, AI now writes the questions and the captions, so a part-time team can serve millions of users without writing content by hand. Second, the apps charged early and stayed small: no venture money, no employees, and costs low enough that both were profitable at a few hundred dollars a month in 2022. A business that does not need growth to survive can live on revenue that would end a funded company. Third, they compete on the work around the AI output: export formats for school systems, brand kits for marketing teams, an API and an MCP server." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The 2020 head start, no.", "text": "Questgen had public code and a website by 2020, and Supermeme started in what its team page calls \"the pre-ChatGPT era\". A new quiz or meme generator today starts against free features from Google and OpenAI. The method still works for a new narrow task: free open code, one search page for each exact need, and output in the formats that the customer's other systems read.", "steps": [ "Publish a small open-source library that does one task well, and link the hosted version at the top of its README.", "Build one web page for each exact task that people search for, such as \"PDF to quiz\" or \"AI meme generator\".", "Export into the file formats that the customer's systems already import.", "Find partners with the skills you lack, and keep costs near zero so that a part-time product is profitable at a few hundred dollars a month." ], "open": "Narrow, repeated work tasks where the output must go into another system: test banks for training platforms, branded content for marketing teams, and tools that AI assistants call through an API or an MCP server." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported and falling", "text": "Every money figure comes from the founder, his co-founders or their own pages. The July 2026 run rate is about 22% below the 2025 peak. Supermeme's pitch page still shows US$65,000 ARR from early 2025, while the founder's US$4,400 a month in August 2026 equals about US$52,800 a year." }, { "title": "Free chatbots do the same job", "text": "OpenAI made ChatGPT for Teachers free for verified US K-12 teachers on 19 November 2025. Its page now says the free period runs through June 2028; eWeek reported June 2027 at launch. Any general chatbot can write quiz questions or meme captions. The founder himself presents Supermeme's US$4,400 a month as surviving \"the ChatGPT Work and Claude Cowork revolution\", and one section of his interview is titled \"Competing with big dogs\"." }, { "title": "Education platforms build it in", "text": "Google Forms started rolling out quiz generation with Gemini on 24 July 2026, from a prompt or from Docs, Slides and PDFs in Google Drive, on paid Workspace, Education Plus and Google AI Pro and Ultra plans. Quizlet launched Q-Chat on 1 March 2023, an AI tutor built on OpenAI's ChatGPT API that quizzes students. Questgen's answer is export into other systems, but a teacher who builds quizzes inside Google Forms needs no export step." }, { "title": "Meme templates belong to someone", "text": "On 7 June 2024 a US federal appeals court, the Eighth Circuit, upheld a jury verdict that a congressman's campaign committee infringed the copyright in the \"Success Kid\" meme photo by using it in a fundraising post. The jury had rejected the committee's fair use defense. The photographer had registered the photo in 2012 and licensed it to companies such as Coca-Cola and Microsoft. Damages were US$750, the legal minimum. Supermeme's own guide says that the images behind most memes are copyrighted and that marketing is commercial use, which weighs against fair use. Marketing teams are Supermeme's main target." }, { "title": "Built on one model provider", "text": "Supermeme says it is \"powered by OpenAI\" and named GPT-3 on its first page in 2022. OpenAI also gives away the chat product that competes with it. A price change, a rule change or a better free feature at the provider reaches Supermeme directly. Questgen's open-source roots use T5 models that anyone can run on their own servers, but the sources do not say which models the paid service uses now." }, { "title": "Many users, few payers", "text": "At the cheapest paid price, US$6,500 a month means at most about 1,000 paying accounts among 2.5 million registered users, or 0.04%. Supermeme has more than 2 million of those users and about two thirds of the revenue." }, { "title": "A part-time team", "text": "The founder has a full-time job as a data scientist and runs three apps; his two Supermeme partners list other jobs in their X profiles. Each person holds one role: if one of the three stops, a product loses its only developer, its only AI developer or its only meme creator." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Indie Hackers, 30 July 2026, by James Fleischmann: This full-time data scientist built a $7k/mo portfolio of side projects", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/quOo7AXtrGlePopsGslc", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free introduction and the table of contents in full. The rest of the article needs an Indie Hackers account and was not read. The lead link indiehackers.com/interview/eda6679953 now opens the case-study database, whose card for this interview shows \"$6.5K MRR\"." }, { "title": "Ramsri Goutham Golla on X, 1 August 2026: Supermeme makes 4400$ MRR", "url": "https://x.com/ramsri_goutham/status/2083487374533922928", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com, from the founder's timeline." }, { "title": "Ramsri Goutham Golla on X, 6 August 2026: 3 Apps, 3 Years, $ 300K+ Revenue", "url": "https://x.com/ramsri_goutham/status/2085297426307727380", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com, from the founder's timeline." }, { "title": "Ramsri Goutham Golla, X profile, read October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/ramsri_goutham", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile through api.fxtwitter.com: 15,580 followers and the bio quoted on this page. His timeline was read back to May 2026." }, { "title": "Supermeme.ai pitch-deck page, read October 2026", "url": "https://www.supermeme.ai/pitch-deck", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Its figures carry no date; the dates come from Wayback captures. 17 captures from May 2022 to August 2026 were downloaded, one per quarter, and 7 of them contain the figures as text." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine capture of the Supermeme.ai pitch-deck page, 2 April 2023", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20230402231859/https://www.supermeme.ai/pitch-deck", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the archived page in full. Source for US$25,000 ARR and 140,000 signups. The captures of October 2023, July 2024 and November 2024 show the same text." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine capture of the Supermeme.ai pitch-deck page, 20 March 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250320151930/https://www.supermeme.ai/pitch-deck", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the archived page in full. The first checked capture that shows US$65,000 ARR and 750,000 signups." }, { "title": "Supermeme.ai Team page: Meet the Supermeme.ai Founders and Team", "url": "https://www.supermeme.ai/team", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the three co-founders, their roles, the start in January 2022 and \"completely bootstrapped\"." }, { "title": "Questgen Team page", "url": "https://www.questgen.ai/team", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for \"solo developer of Questgen\" and the link to the 2022 interview." }, { "title": "Questgen home page, read October 2026", "url": "https://www.questgen.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the user count, the input types and the export formats." }, { "title": "Questgen pricing page, read October 2026", "url": "https://www.questgen.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the prices and the QuestgenAI, Inc. copyright line." }, { "title": "Supermeme.ai pricing page, read October 2026", "url": "https://www.supermeme.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, including the plan data inside the page, which holds the monthly prices." }, { "title": "AiArtist.io pricing page and home page, read October 2026", "url": "https://www.aiartist.io/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both in full; the home page is www.aiartist.io. Source for the one-time pass and the description of the video pipeline." }, { "title": "GitHub: ramsrigouthamg/Questgen.ai, question generation library", "url": "https://github.com/ramsrigouthamg/Questgen.ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the README in full and the repository record through the GitHub API: created 4 August 2020, MIT license, 951 stars and 302 forks in October 2026." }, { "title": "languagetech newsletter, 26 June 2022: Building and Monetizing AI Micro-SaaS: Interview with Ramsri Golla", "url": "https://languagetech.substack.com/p/building-and-monetizing-ai-micro", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. An interview by the newsletter's author, linked from the Questgen Team page. Source for the background, the 2022 revenue and where both ideas came from." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine capture of questgen.ai, 25 December 2020", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201225060350/https://questgen.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the archived page in full. The first capture of the domain." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine capture of questgen.ai, 16 January 2022", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20220116231211/https://questgen.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the archived page in full. Source for the plans, the company API and the GPT-3 wording." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine capture of supermeme.ai, 27 January 2022", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20220127185052/https://supermeme.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the archived page in full. Supermeme before launch: \"Coming Soon\" and GPT-3." }, { "title": "X profiles of the Supermeme co-founders Nico Botha (@nwbotha) and Sanjeev NC (@yenceesanjeev), read October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/nwbotha", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both profiles through api.fxtwitter.com; the second is x.com/yenceesanjeev. They tie both people to Supermeme and list their other jobs." }, { "title": "Supermeme.ai guide by Sanjeev NC, 20 June 2023, updated 24 August 2026: Are Memes Copyrighted?", "url": "https://www.supermeme.ai/meme-marketing/are-memes-copyrighted", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Written by a Supermeme co-founder, and it says it is not legal advice." }, { "title": "US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, opinion filed 7 June 2024, on the Success Kid meme photo", "url": "https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/24/06/223623P.pdf", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full, 13 pages. An official court record about meme copyright in general, not about this business." }, { "title": "Google Workspace Updates, 30 July 2026: Use Gemini in Google Forms to quickly create a new quiz", "url": "https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2026/07/use-gemini-in-google-forms-to-quickly-create-a-new-quiz.html", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Google's own announcement, with the rollout dates and the plans that include the feature." }, { "title": "Training Industry, 1 March 2023: Quizlet Launches \"Q-Chat,\" AI Tutor Built with OpenAI API", "url": "https://trainingindustry.com/press-release/personalization-and-learning-pathways/quizlet-launches-q-chat-ai-tutor-built-with-openai-api/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Quizlet's press release as published by Training Industry." }, { "title": "OpenAI, 19 November 2025: A free version of ChatGPT built for teachers", "url": "https://openai.com/index/chatgpt-for-teachers/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in October 2026. OpenAI's own page; it now gives June 2028 as the end of the free period." }, { "title": "eWeek, 19 November 2025: OpenAI Launches ChatGPT for Teachers With Free Access Through 2027", "url": "https://www.eweek.com/news/chatgpt-for-teachers-launch-openai/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. A news report from the launch day, which gave June 2027 as the end of the free period." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/virtual-staging-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/virtual-staging-ai.md", "slug": "virtual-staging-ai", "name": "Virtual Staging AI (VSAI)", "country": "USA, team mostly in Germany", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI virtual staging of listing photos", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "exit", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "February 2023", "outcomeLabel": "Sold to Zillow for an undisclosed price after US$1M ARR, October 2024", "sticker": "$1M ARR, sold to Zillow", "outcomeUsd": 1000000, "months": 20, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders; 9 employees at the sale in October 2024, mostly in Munich", "fundingLabel": "No external funding reported; US$250,000 from the founders, friends and family", "primaryFactor": "Niche", "group": "real-estate", "channel": "unknown", "trend": "sold", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Exit", "B2B", "Real estate" ], "product": "A web app for real estate agents and photographers. The agent uploads a photo of a room, chooses the room type and a furniture style, and gets back the same room with furniture in about 10 to 15 seconds. It can also remove existing furniture. Plans are monthly subscriptions sized by the number of photos, and the top plan includes an API.", "why": "In 2023, general image generators that were asked to furnish a room also changed the room: the founder said DALL-E might turn a window into a wall painting or add a door, which misrepresents a property. VSAI's own model finds the floor, the ceiling, the mirrors and the doors first and only then adds furniture. It cost US$12 to US$69 a month in early 2024, while VSAI's comparison page lists other staging services at US$16 to US$29 per photo with 12 to 48 hours of waiting. Zillow, the listing portal where such photos end up, bought it.", "summary": [ "Virtual Staging AI, or VSAI, sells virtual staging: furniture and decoration added by software to a photo of an empty room, so that people who look at a home for sale online can see how a room could be used. An agent could also pay someone to do this by hand in Photoshop, photo by photo. VSAI does it with an image model, a neural network trained to create or change pictures. According to the founder, the model first works out the 3D structure of the room, meaning where the floor, the ceiling, the mirrors and the doors are in space, and then places furniture that fits, so that the room itself is not changed. The agent uploads a photo, chooses the room type and a style, and gets the staged photo in seconds.", "Michael Bonacina, the co-founder and CEO, was looking for an apartment in Boston to study at Harvard when he saw a listing that showed the space furnished. After a class on startup research and development, he and another Harvard student, Mikhail Andreev, started VSAI at the Harvard Innovation Labs in 2023; the website was online by 21 February 2023. They put in US$250,000 from their own money and from friends and family, and raised no outside funding. In February 2024 they told TechCrunch that VSAI had 4,500 paying monthly subscribers, made more than 500,000 images a month and had reached US$1 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), the yearly value of the subscriptions active at that moment, in ten months. Zillow Group, the Seattle listing company, bought VSAI in a deal that closed on 7 October 2024, for a price that was not disclosed. Its nine employees, most of them in Munich, joined Zillow's AI and tech teams, and in September 2025 Zillow built the technology into its premium listings.", "The sale is grade A: Zillow announced it in a press release and named it in its proxy statement, a document that a listed US company files with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) before its shareholder meeting. The revenue and subscriber numbers are the founders' statements to a journalist, grade C, and no later number was published. With nine employees at the sale, VSAI is at the upper end of what this site calls a small team. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that sold pictures of furnished rooms made by human designers, and to a photo editor that a platform bought." ], "factsCaption": "A bootstrapped image-model subscription that reported US$1 million in annual recurring revenue within ten months, then sold to Zillow for an undisclosed price", "factsRead": "How to read this table: grade A is Zillow's own press release or SEC filing, or the official text of a law. Grade B is a journalist's report. Grade C is a founder statement to the press, a product review or the company's own web page. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No source gives the sale price.", "timelineLead": "From a website online in February 2023 to a sale to Zillow 20 months later, and a feature on Zillow's own listings 11 months after that. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Virtual Staging AI prices on its own pricing page, read 14 October 2026, under Zillow's ownership (grade C)", "note": "The page shows each plan's price per month with yearly billing and says that yearly billing saves up to 50%. The monthly-billing prices are switched in by a script and could not be read. The Basic plan already includes unlimited renders and downloads, furniture removal and no watermark. Earlier prices: US$29 to US$299 a month in May 2023 (Inman review), and US$12 a month for 6 photos to US$69 a month for 250 photos in February 2024 (TechCrunch).", "rows": [ [ "Basic", "16", "", "6 photos a month; billed US$192 a year" ], [ "Standard, for agents", "19", "", "20 photos a month; billed US$228 a year" ], [ "Professional, for top producers", "39", "", "60 photos a month; billed US$468 a year" ], [ "Enterprise, for teams, brokerages and photographers", "79", "", "150 photos a month; billed US$948 a year; includes the API" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Sale", "value": "to Zillow Group; the deal closed on 7 October 2024", "grade": "A", "note": "Zillow's press release. Zillow's proxy statement, filed with the SEC on 16 April 2025, repeats it: \"In October 2024, we acquired Virtual Staging AI Inc.\"", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Sale price and terms", "value": "not disclosed", "grade": "B", "note": "Inman: \"Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.\" Neither Zillow document gives a price.", "src": [ 5, 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, February 2024", "value": "US$1 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founders to TechCrunch, 23 February 2024: reached \"over the past 10 months\" without outside investors. No later figure was published.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue implied by that ARR", "value": "about US$83,000 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$1 million divided by 12 is US$83,333.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Paying subscribers, February 2024", "value": "4,500", "grade": "C", "note": "Founders to TechCrunch: \"4,500 monthly paid subscribers\".", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per subscriber implied", "value": "about US$18.50 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$83,333 a month divided by 4,500 subscribers is US$18.52. That fits the plans of US$12 to US$69 a month at the time.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Images made per month, February 2024", "value": "more than 500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founders to TechCrunch: \"over half a million renders per month\".", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per image implied", "value": "about 17 US cents", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$83,333 a month divided by 500,000 images a month is US$0.167.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Money put in before the sale", "value": "US$250,000 from the founders, friends and family", "grade": "C", "note": "TechCrunch, February 2024: no external funding had been raised.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Team at the sale", "value": "9 employees, mostly in Munich", "grade": "B", "note": "GeekWire: the nine employees joined Zillow's AI and tech team. Zillow: \"Most of the VSAI team is based in Munich\". GeekWire does not say whether the nine include the two founders.", "src": [ 3, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team on the company's careers page", "value": "10 people and 2 machine-learning advisers", "grade": "C", "note": "Undated page, read in October 2026. It lists the two co-founders, research and full-stack engineers, and two customer-success managers.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Prices, May 2023", "value": "US$29 to US$299 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Inman review. The top plan was to include API access. Free images carried a watermark.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Prices, February 2024", "value": "US$12 a month for 6 photos to US$69 a month for 250 photos", "grade": "C", "note": "TechCrunch.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Prices, October 2026", "value": "US$16 to US$79 a month with yearly billing", "grade": "C", "note": "Company pricing page: 6 to 150 photos a month.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Website online", "value": "by 21 February 2023", "grade": "C", "note": "First capture of virtualstagingai.app by the Internet Archive. Zillow dates the founding to 2023.", "src": [ 12, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the first website capture to the sale", "value": "20 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: February 2023 to October 2024.", "src": [ 12, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Use inside Zillow", "value": "Virtual Staging in Zillow Showcase, from 10 September 2025", "grade": "A", "note": "Zillow calls it \"the first major integration of technology from Virtual Staging AI\". A buyer who views a Showcase listing taps an icon on a room photo and chooses a design style.", "src": [ 7 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Before February 2023", "what": "Michael Bonacina, looking for an apartment in Boston to study at Harvard, sees a listing that shows its rooms furnished. After a class on startup research and development, he and Mikhail Andreev, another Harvard student, decide to build a virtual staging startup.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "21 February 2023", "what": "virtualstagingai.app is online, in its first Internet Archive capture. Zillow later dates the founding to 2023, at the Harvard Innovation Labs.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12, 1 ] }, { "when": "19 May 2023", "what": "Inman reviews it: upload a photo, choose a room type, wait for the render. Plans from US$29 to US$299 a month; free images carry a watermark.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "23 February 2024", "what": "The founders tell TechCrunch: 4,500 paying subscribers, more than 500,000 images a month, US$1 million in ARR within 10 months, no outside investors. Plans from US$12 to US$69 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "7 October 2024", "what": "Zillow Group's acquisition of VSAI closes. The price is not disclosed.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "when": "8 October 2024", "what": "GeekWire reports that the nine employees, mostly in Munich, join Zillow's AI and tech team, and that Zillow plans to offer the technology through its own products.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "16 April 2025", "what": "Zillow's proxy statement names the acquisition in its list of the company's 2024 events.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "10 September 2025", "what": "Zillow launches Virtual Staging in Showcase, its premium listing format, as the first major use of VSAI's technology.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "10 October 2025", "what": "California's AB 723 is enacted as Chapter 497: agents must disclose digitally altered listing images, furniture included, and link to the original photo.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "1 January 2026", "what": "AB 723 takes effect.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "A study by Coraly, reported by HousingWire, finds signs of digital change in 10.8% of main listing photos on the four largest US portals, and no visible disclosure on more than 90% of them.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "14 October 2026", "what": "virtualstagingai.app still sells plans from US$16 a month, under Zillow's ownership.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Niche", "text": "General image generators could add furniture to a photo, but they also changed the room. The founder told TechCrunch that DALL-E \"might turn the window into a wall painting, or it might add an additional door\", and that this misrepresents the property. VSAI built a model for this one task: it finds the floor, the ceiling, the mirrors and the doors first, and then adds furniture in the style the agent chose. For a listing photo, an unchanged room matters more than a beautiful picture." }, { "title": "A price per photo close to zero", "text": "VSAI's own comparison page lists other staging services at US$16 to US$29 per photo, with 12 to 48 hours of waiting. VSAI sold a monthly subscription that started at US$12 a month for 6 photos in February 2024, returned each image in seconds and allowed unlimited new attempts. At about US$83,000 a month of revenue and 500,000 images a month, one image brought in about 17 US cents." }, { "title": "Built for agents who are not technical", "text": "TechCrunch reports that the company wanted an easy tool partly because, according to the National Association of Realtors, the median age of its agents in the United States is 60. The product has three steps: upload a photo, choose a room type and a style, download. Free use left a watermark on the image, so an agent could see the result before paying." }, { "title": "A buyer that owns the listing page", "text": "The staged photos end up on listing portals. Zillow bought the team and, eleven months later, built the technology into Showcase, its premium listing format: a home buyer taps an icon on a room photo and chooses a design style, such as Scandinavian or farmhouse. The stand-alone website kept selling subscriptions to agents." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "The sources say little about the technology. These points come from the founder's interview, a review and the company's own pages, grade C, and from the page source of an archived copy of the website, grade B.", "items": [ "Its own image model for one task: it works out the 3D structure of the room, then chooses furniture for the room type and style that the agent picked. The sources do not name a base model or describe the training data.", "Each photo comes back in 10 to 15 seconds, with unlimited new renders of the same photo. Furniture removal is included even in the cheapest plan.", "More than 500,000 images a month in February 2024, for 4,500 paying subscribers.", "The careers page lists two team members with doctorates in computer vision from TU Munich, and one who was an assistant researcher at the lab that developed Stable Diffusion.", "API access was announced for the top plan in 2023 and is part of the Enterprise plan today. The current site also runs an affiliate program that pays 30% commission on referrals.", "In May 2024 the website was a Next.js application whose images were served from Firebase Storage, as the page source of an Internet Archive copy shows." ], "src": [ 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 18 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold software pictures of furnished or edited rooms, or were bought by a platform. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Modsy", "years": "2015 to 2022", "funding": "US$72.7M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "3D pictures of your own room with furniture you could buy.", "died": "Each design still needed paid human designers, customers were expensive to win and rarely came back, and it never made a profit.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2521-modsy" }, { "name": "Laurel & Wolf", "years": "2014 to 2019", "funding": "US$25M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Online interior design by professional designers for a flat fee.", "died": "The flat fees did not cover the cost of finding customers, and quality fell as the designer network grew.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2012-laurel--wolf" }, { "name": "Tastemaker", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$1.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Affordable online interior design for middle-income households.", "died": "Competitors, uneven quality from freelance designers, and too little cash.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1572-tastemaker" }, { "name": "Picnik", "years": "2005 to 2012", "funding": "US$3.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Photo editing in the browser, with nothing to install.", "died": "Google bought it in 2010, moved its technology into other products such as Google+, and shut it down in 2012.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/429-picnik" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Modsy, Laurel & Wolf and Tastemaker sold what VSAI sells, a picture of a furnished room, but each picture needed paid human designers. Their costs grew with each customer, and the database gives unit economics or competition as the cause. VSAI's extra cost for one more image is computing time. At about US$83,000 a month in revenue and more than 500,000 images a month in early 2024, one image brought in about 17 US cents, far below the US$16 or more per photo that VSAI's comparison page lists for other staging services.", "Picnik shows the other risk for a small product: Google bought it, used its technology in other products and closed it two years later. Zillow has so far done something different: it kept virtualstagingai.app selling to agents and built the technology into its own listings. What separates VSAI from the first three is that one model replaced the designer, so a small team could serve 4,500 subscribers without outside investors." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. Virtual staging itself is crowded now.", "text": "VSAI found a task where general image models failed in a way that mattered to the customer, built a narrow model that does not fail that way, and sold it as a cheap self-serve subscription. By 2026 many tools sell virtual staging: one competitor shows US$30,688 of Stripe-verified revenue in 30 days, and Zillow lets buyers restyle rooms on its own listings. The opening is in the next task of the same kind.", "steps": [ "Find a professional photo or document task where a general AI model changes something that must stay the same: walls, doors, text, measurements.", "Build or adapt a model that keeps those parts fixed, and show the before and after on the home page.", "Price per month by volume, low enough that an agent can pay without asking anyone, and let free users see a watermarked result.", "Put an API in the top plan, so photographers and software platforms can build you into their own work." ], "open": "Other listing-photo and document edits that must stay true: floor plans from photos, renovation previews that keep the measurements, and tools that create the disclosure and the link to the original photo that California now requires." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Nine people, and only founder numbers for revenue", "text": "VSAI had nine employees at the sale, at the top of what this site calls a small team. The US$1 million ARR and the 4,500 subscribers are the founders' statements to TechCrunch in February 2024. No later revenue number and no sale price were published, so the size of the exit is unknown." }, { "title": "Disclosure rules for altered photos", "text": "California's AB 723, in force since 1 January 2026, requires agents who advertise with a digitally altered image, including one with furniture added, to say so on or next to the image and to link to the original photo. Changes to lighting, color, cropping and exposure are excluded. The National Association of Realtors' Code of Ethics already requires its members to present a \"true picture\" in advertising, in Article 12, and MLS rules copy that standard." }, { "title": "Buyers who feel misled", "text": "In the study reported by HousingWire in June 2026, 10.8% of main listing photos on the four largest US portals showed signs of digital change, and more than 90% of those had no visible disclosure. A representative of the MLS company CRMLS, quoted by HousingWire, described buyers who used listing photos as evidence in claims: in one case a fire had been added digitally to a fireplace, and the chimney and flue needed US$25,000 to US$30,000 of repairs." }, { "title": "Many competitors, and the platform itself", "text": "VSAI's comparison page lists Styldod, Padstyler, BoxBrownie and Stuccco, which take 12 to 48 hours and charge from US$16 to US$29 per photo. AI tools now compete on price: Refined Listings, a US virtual staging and marketing toolkit, shows US$30,688 of Stripe-verified revenue in the last 30 days on TrustMRR. And Zillow now lets home buyers restyle rooms on its own Showcase listings." }, { "title": "What a sale to a platform means for a small team", "text": "The team now works inside Zillow's AI and tech teams, and the product's future depends on Zillow's plans. Zillow said it would offer the technology \"through Zillow's product suite\", and the stand-alone website still sells subscriptions in October 2026. Picnik, a browser photo editor that Google bought, was closed two years after the sale." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Zillow Group press release, 8 October 2024: Zillow Group acquires AI company offering virtual staging", "url": "https://www.zillowgroup.com/news/zillow-group-acquires-ai-company-offering-virtual-staging/", "grade": "A", "how": "The live page refused the download (HTTP 403). Read in full from an Internet Archive copy. Source for the closing date, the founders, the Munich team and the plan to offer the technology through Zillow's products." }, { "title": "Zillow Group proxy statement (Schedule 14A), filed with the SEC on 16 April 2025", "url": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1617640/000161764025000056/z-20250415.htm", "grade": "A", "how": "The SEC site refused the download. Read the list of 2024 events in an Internet Archive copy of January 2026, which names the acquisition of Virtual Staging AI Inc." }, { "title": "GeekWire, 8 October 2024: Zillow Group acquires VSAI, a virtual staging tool that adds furniture to real estate listings", "url": "https://www.geekwire.com/2024/zillow-group-acquires-vsai-a-virtual-staging-tool-that-adds-furniture-to-real-estate-listings/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the nine employees, the Munich base and the Harvard origin." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 23 February 2024: Virtual Staging AI helps Realtors digitally furnish rooms within seconds", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/23/virtual-staging-ai-helps-realtors-digitally-furnish-rooms-within-seconds/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview. Source for the ARR, the subscribers, the images a month, the prices, the model description and the US$250,000." }, { "title": "Inman, 9 October 2024: Super App Stronger, Zillow Acquires Virtual Staging AI", "url": "https://inman.com/2024/10/09/super-app-stronger-zillow-acquires-virtual-staging-ai/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the free part of the article. Source for the statement that the terms were not disclosed." }, { "title": "Inman, 19 May 2023: Virtual Staging AI ensures you'll never market an empty room again: Tech Review", "url": "https://www.inman.com/2023/05/19/virtual-staging-ai-ensures-youll-never-market-an-empty-room-again-tech-review/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A product review. Source for the 2023 prices, the workflow and the watermark on free images." }, { "title": "Zillow press release, 10 September 2025: Zillow brings AI-powered Virtual Staging to Showcase listings", "url": "https://zillow.mediaroom.com/2025-09-10-Zillow-brings-AI-powered-Virtual-Staging-to-Showcase-listings", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. Source for the first major use of VSAI's technology inside Zillow and the design styles." }, { "title": "Virtual Staging AI pricing page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://www.virtualstagingai.app/prices", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Shows prices with yearly billing. The monthly-billing prices are switched in by a script and could not be read." }, { "title": "Virtual Staging AI home, API and affiliate pages, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://www.virtualstagingai.app/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Pages of the product under Zillow's ownership. Source for the turnaround time, the API in the Enterprise plan and the 30% affiliate commission." }, { "title": "Virtual Staging AI careers page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://www.virtualstagingai.app/career", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. An undated list of team members by first name and role. Source for the team size and backgrounds; this story names only the two co-founders." }, { "title": "Virtual Staging AI comparison page on BoxBrownie competitors, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://www.virtualstagingai.app/boxbrownie-competitors", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. VSAI's own comparison of staging services by price per photo and turnaround time." }, { "title": "Internet Archive capture list for virtualstagingai.app", "url": "http://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=virtualstagingai.app", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the list of captures. The first capture is from 21 February 2023." }, { "title": "California Assembly Bill 723 (2025), Real estate: digitally altered images: disclosure, chaptered text (Chapter 497)", "url": "https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB723", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. The official text of the new Section 10140.8 of the Business and Professions Code." }, { "title": "HousingWire, 24 June 2026: Most AI-altered listings go undisclosed, California law bans it", "url": "https://www.housingwire.com/articles/most-ai-altered-listings-go-undisclosed-california-law-bans-it/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Reports the Coraly study of listing photos and the date AB 723 took effect." }, { "title": "HousingWire, 16 April 2026: When listings lie: AI staging pushes real estate into an ethics gray zone", "url": "https://www.housingwire.com/articles/when-listings-lie-ai-staging-pushes-real-estate-into-an-ethics-gray-zone/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the NAR Article 12 true-picture standard and the fireplace claim." }, { "title": "The Close, 25 June 2026: AI Listing Photos Are Now a Disclosure Risk for Agents", "url": "https://theclose.com/news-ai-listing-photo-disclosure/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on the NAR Code of Ethics and MLS rules." }, { "title": "TrustMRR profile of Refined Listings, a competing virtual staging toolkit", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/refined-listings", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (local cache, revenue last synced 12 October 2026). The revenue is verified through Stripe; the description is written by the seller." }, { "title": "Internet Archive copy of virtualstagingai.app, 25 May 2024", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20240525232438/https://www.virtualstagingai.app/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the page source. Source for Next.js and Firebase Storage before the sale." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export of failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/topicalmap/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/topicalmap.md", "slug": "topicalmap", "name": "Topical Map AI", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Topical map generator for SEO", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "exit", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-14", "launchLabel": "March 2024", "outcomeLabel": "Sold at an undisclosed price after US$6K to US$7K a month, October 2025", "sticker": "Sold after $6K-7K/month", "outcomeUsd": 72000, "months": 19, "teamLabel": "1 founder who built and ran it, and 3 partners named on the site by January 2025", "fundingLabel": "None reported", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "seo-ai-search", "channel": "partners", "trend": "sold", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Exit", "B2B", "SEO" ], "product": "A web tool that turns one topic into a topical map: hundreds of search keywords, found and grouped by AI models into clusters of related articles, so that a blogger or an SEO worker can plan a whole site in minutes instead of hours. It sold a monthly number of credits to bloggers, freelancers and agencies.", "why": "The founder built it in about three days to remove the part of blogging he hated, keyword research and content planning. Then he took partners, SEO people who had the audience he did not have, and they promoted it. Revenue reached US$7,000 to US$8,000 a month about eight months after the launch, and he sold the product after he had stopped working on it.", "summary": [ "Topical Map AI (topicalmap.ai) builds a topical map, a plan of related articles that together cover one subject, for search engine optimization (SEO), the work of making web pages appear high in Google's results. The user types a topic, for example \"home automation\". The tool asks AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic for hundreds of keywords, the words and questions that people type into a search engine, and sorts them into clusters, groups of keywords that one article or one section of a site can answer. SEO workers believe that Google ranks a site higher when it covers a subject completely, and they call this topical authority. The company's page in 2025 said that an SEO worker needs more than 10 hours for this work and the tool needs 60 seconds.", "Pete McPherson ran the blog, podcast and YouTube channel Do You Even Blog. After ChatGPT appeared, he moved all his work to AI in early 2023 and started to build apps by having AI write the code, with no experience as a developer. He built Topical Map AI in about three days in March 2024 to solve his own problem and first sold it as a US$49 one-time purchase. From April to November 2024 he took partners who promoted it to their SEO audiences, and he wrote that revenue grew to US$7,000 to US$8,000 a month. In a video of 28 December 2024 he said that it earned US$6,000 to US$7,000 a month, as reported by eBiz Facts. He then left it alone for about ten months and sold it at a price he has not published; his article of 3 October 2025 reports the sale. The buyer, Megan Ragab, writes on the site that she bought it in 2025 and runs it today.", "Every money figure on this page is the founder's own statement, grade C, and one of them is known only from a third party's summary of his video. No payment processor or buyer has confirmed a number, and neither the partners' share of the revenue nor the sale price is public. The page also shows what happened to earlier businesses that depended on traffic from a platform they did not control, or that sold a content tool against larger competitors." ], "factsCaption": "A topical map tool built in about three days that reached US$6,000 to US$8,000 a month in 2024 and was sold at an undisclosed price in 2025, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founder, his partner or the company's own pages, or a third party's summary of the founder's words. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a blogger's switch to AI in 2023 to a tool built in three days and sold about 19 months after its launch. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Topical Map AI prices in October 2026, set by the buyer, from the company's home page (grade C)", "note": "Prices are per month with monthly billing. The page has a switch for yearly billing that says \"SAVE 17%\", but the yearly prices load by script and could not be read; on yearly billing the Basic plan gives 20 maps a month instead of 25. There is a 30-day refund if fewer than 10 credits were used, and users can add their own OpenAI key to cut costs. Under the founder the prices were lower: a US$49 one-time offer for 100 maps in April 2024, then US$29, US$59 and US$99 a month for 30, 100 and 250 credits in 2025, or US$290, US$590 and US$990 a year.", "rows": [ [ "Basic", "", "56", "25 maps a month, 20 on yearly billing" ], [ "Pro", "", "104", "46 maps a month, 5 maps at once" ], [ "Enterprise", "", "179", "80 maps a month, 3 seats, API with 100 requests a day" ], [ "Agency", "", "374", "139 maps a month, 5 seats, white-label exports, API with 200 requests a day" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month, December 2024", "value": "US$6,000 to US$7,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's video of 28 December 2024, in the summary by eBiz Facts of 20 January 2025: \"TopicalMap.ai, which now earns $6-7K per month\". The speech in the video could not be transcribed for this page.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, April to November 2024", "value": "grew to US$7,000 to US$8,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's own article of 3 October 2025, after he took partners who promoted the product. He calls it mostly passive for him.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the December 2024 range", "value": "about US$72,000 to US$84,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the range times 12. The outcome value on this page is the low end, US$72,000.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Sale", "value": "sold at a price that has not been published", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's article of 3 October 2025: \"Sold Topical Map AI after 10 months of ignoring it\". His projects page: \"Built, launched, and successfully sold the product.\" The buyer writes on the home page that she bought it in 2025.", "src": [ 1, 10, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue at the time of the sale", "value": "not published", "grade": "C", "note": "The latest figure is from December 2024, about ten months before the sale was reported.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Earnings from the two companies he sold", "value": "more than US$350,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's article. The figure covers Topical Map AI and FABB AI together and does not separate revenue from sale proceeds. FABB AI was listed for US$45,000 in December 2024 and sold within 10 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Portfolio revenue in 2024", "value": "about US$100,000 from several AI-coded apps", "grade": "C", "note": "Title of the founder's video of 28 December 2024, and eBiz Facts: \"$100,000+ Revenue in 1 Year\". This is not Topical Map AI alone.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Time to build the first version", "value": "about 3 days, March 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's article. He built it to solve his own problem with keyword research and content planning.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Launch offer, April 2024", "value": "US$49 one-time for 100 topical maps", "grade": "C", "note": "Archived home page of 13 April 2024, shown as US$50 off a price of US$99, for the launch only.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Plans in 2025", "value": "US$29, US$59 and US$99 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Archived home page of 20 January 2025: 30, 100 and 250 credits a month, or US$290, US$590 and US$990 a year.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "AI models in the product, 2025", "value": "\"the latest OpenAI & Anthropic\" models", "grade": "C", "note": "Archived home page of 20 January 2025. The founder's projects page says that he integrated OpenAI.", "src": [ 7, 10 ] }, { "fact": "People named as the builders, January 2025", "value": "4", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder, the SEO trainer Charles Floate and two people listed with Merged.ca. Charles Floate called the founder \"my business partner\" in a video of 2 September 2024.", "src": [ 7, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Legal form, April 2024", "value": "a sole proprietorship owned solely by Pete McPherson", "grade": "C", "note": "Archived terms of 13 April 2024, under the law of Michigan. The terms today name the buyer as the sole owner.", "src": [ 5, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "A sole proprietorship in April 2024. The buyer's page today shows \"$0 VC funding (proudly bootstrapped)\".", "src": [ 5, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Use by October 2026", "value": "more than 4,000 accounts and 12,000 maps", "grade": "C", "note": "Buyer's home page, counted since the launch.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the reported sale", "value": "19 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: March 2024 to October 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "January 2023", "what": "Pete McPherson, who runs the blog, podcast and YouTube channel Do You Even Blog, decides after the release of ChatGPT to move all his work to AI.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "March 2023", "what": "He sees a YouTube video in which ChatGPT writes code and starts to build his first app, with no experience as a developer.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "August 2023", "what": "He tries again: an app that takes three weeks to build grows at once to US$1,000 a month in recurring revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "October 2023", "what": "FABB AI, a Fully Autonomous Blog Bot, makes about US$3,000 a month. A health emergency makes him pause all his work.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "March 2024", "what": "He builds Topical Map AI in about three days to solve his own problem, makes \"a few grand\" and then leaves it to run.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "13 April 2024", "what": "The first archived copy of the site: \"1,000 keywords in 1 click\", US$49 one-time for 100 topical maps. The terms name him as the sole owner.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 6 ] }, { "when": "April to November 2024", "what": "He takes partners who promote the product. Revenue grows to US$7,000 to US$8,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "2 September 2024", "what": "The SEO trainer Charles Floate publishes an interview with him, \"Meet The Dev - Topical Map AI\", and calls him \"my business partner\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "December 2024", "what": "He lists FABB AI for sale at US$45,000, and it sells within 10 days.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "28 December 2024", "what": "His video \"How I made $100k last year from AI-coded apps\". eBiz Facts reports from it that Topical Map AI earns US$6,000 to US$7,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "20 January 2025", "what": "The home page names four builders and sells plans at US$29, US$59 and US$99 a month, with OpenAI and Anthropic models.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "3 October 2025", "what": "His guest article on Making Sense of Cents reports that he sold Topical Map AI after ten months of ignoring it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "The buyer, Megan Ragab, runs a rebuilt version at US$56 to US$374 a month, with more than 4,000 accounts created and a 40% recurring commission for affiliates.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 18 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Distribution through partners", "text": "The founder says he hates marketing. He took partners who already had the audience he needed, SEO people with their own followers, and revenue grew to US$7,000 to US$8,000 a month about eight months after the launch. He describes his usual offer to a partner like this: he builds the app, gives the support and runs everything, about 97% of the work; the partner promotes it; they split the monthly profits and the sale 50/50." }, { "title": "His own problem, built in days", "text": "He started from the part of blogging that he hated, keyword research and content planning, and built the first version in about three days with AI writing the code. A product this small costs little time to test. His rule is to decide in the third month whether to stop a project or keep it." }, { "title": "Charge from the first version", "text": "The first offer was a US$49 one-time deal for 100 maps. By 2025 it was a subscription with a fixed number of credits a month, from US$29 to US$99, which limits how much model use each customer can cause." }, { "title": "Built to sell", "text": "Before each project he asks, \"Can I sell this in 12 months?\" or \"Can I make this 90% passive?\" He sold FABB AI ten days after he listed it, and sold Topical Map AI after ten months without work on it. He writes that buyers look for stable revenue, an easy transition and an interesting brand, and that he would have earned more if he had not paused both companies." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's article, the page of his December 2024 video, his projects page and archived copies of the product's site. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Built by a founder with no experience as a developer, by having AI write the code, which he calls vibe-coding. He recommends the AI code editor Cursor, or Windsurf.", "Stack: SvelteKit for the web app, Firebase as the database and backend, Stripe for payments. The description of his December 2024 video, which lists topicalmap.ai among his builds, adds Resend for emails, Zapier for automation and Cursor.", "His projects page lists OpenAI, SvelteKit and Firebase for Topical Map AI. The 2025 site offered \"the latest OpenAI & Anthropic\" models.", "Each plan had a monthly number of credits: 30, 100 or 250 in 2025. Paying customers also got a private Discord community.", "Customers came through partners with SEO audiences. By his account his own Do You Even Blog audience is a large asset for all his products. He was disappointed by every Product Hunt launch that he tried.", "The buyer has rebuilt it since 2025, with four map types, exports, team seats, an API and an option to use your own OpenAI key." ], "src": [ 1, 3, 10, 7, 8 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five businesses in the Loot Drop database lived on traffic or attention that another company controlled, or sold a content tool against larger competitors. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Waterproof Digital Camera", "years": "2013 to 2017", "funding": "None", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "An affiliate blog of camera reviews, built with aggressive SEO methods to earn commissions from Amazon through Google traffic.", "died": "Google's algorithm updates removed the search traffic that the site was built on.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2023-waterproof-digital-camera" }, { "name": "Upworthy Insider", "years": "2015 to 2020", "funding": "US$12M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Positive stories written to spread through Facebook.", "died": "Facebook changed the algorithm of its feed, and the traffic fell. There was no second source of readers.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/692-upworthy-insider" }, { "name": "Room 77", "years": "2010 to 2017", "funding": "US$43.7M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Detailed data on hotel rooms and their prices.", "died": "Large travel companies competed with it, and Google reduced its role, according to the database.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/512-room-77" }, { "name": "Hyperink", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$1.4M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "E-books on niche topics, produced quickly for small audiences.", "died": "Self-published books and free content online filled the same niches, and Amazon controlled the store.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1192-hyperink" }, { "name": "Pressly", "years": "2011 to 2018", "funding": "US$2.9M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A simple platform for brands to collect and publish content with less work.", "died": "Competitors sold full suites that included the same function, and Pressly did not grow beyond it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/462-pressly" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five earned its income from attention that another company controlled: Google's search results, Facebook's feed or Amazon's store. When that company changed its ranking or competed directly, the traffic and the income went away. Topical Map AI sells to people who are in that position with Google: bloggers, freelancers and agencies whose sites depend on search traffic. Google's helpful content system, updated on 14 September 2023 and made part of its core ranking in March 2024, is designed to lower content \"made primarily to gain search engine traffic\", and a Pew Research Center study found that people click a normal result about half as often when Google shows an AI summary.", "Two things differ. Topical Map AI is a tool, not a content site, so it did not need its own pages to rank: its customers carried that risk, and its partners brought customers to it directly. And it took about three days to build, with a small stack, so the founder could sell it as soon as he stopped working on it. The buyer now carries the risk that fewer people will pay to plan content for Google while Google answers more questions itself." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The product, only with a partner who has the audience.", "text": "A small tool that removes one tedious step for people who already pay for tools, built in days with AI writing the code, is still easy to copy, and the founder's own account says that the hard part was finding customers, which he solved with partners. The weak point is the market: SEO tools are many, a larger tool such as Surfer already has a topical map feature, and AI summaries in Google now take clicks from the customers' own sites.", "steps": [ "Pick a task that you do yourself every week and dislike, and build the smallest tool that does it, in days, with an AI code editor.", "Charge from the first version: a low one-time price for early users, then monthly plans with a fixed number of credits so that model costs stay inside the price.", "Find a partner who already has your customers' attention, and offer a share of the profit and of a later sale for promoting it.", "From the first day, keep the product easy to hand over: stable revenue, little support work and a clear brand, which the founder says is what buyers look for." ], "open": "Small tools for other groups whose work is still manual and repeated: newsletter writers, podcast producers and YouTube creators, and tools for visibility in AI assistants instead of in Google." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported, partly second-hand, and old", "text": "Both revenue figures come from the founder, and the December 2024 figure is known only from the summary of his video by eBiz Facts. The latest figure is about ten months older than the reported sale, and he says that he ignored the product in that time, so the revenue at the sale is unknown. The sale price is not public." }, { "title": "The money was shared", "text": "The home page named four people as the builders in 2025. The founder describes his usual partner deal as a 50/50 split of the monthly profits and of the sale, and says that he has made it twice, but he does not say what the split was for Topical Map AI. His figure of more than US$350,000 covers two companies together." }, { "title": "Google decides whether the customers' sites get traffic", "text": "A topical map is a method to rank in Google. Google's helpful content update of 14 September 2023 aimed at content made mainly to gain search traffic. In March 2024 that system became part of Google's core ranking, and a new policy against scaled content abuse covers many pages made to manipulate rankings, \"no matter how it's created\". Core updates followed in August, November and December 2024 and in March, June and December 2025. A customer who publishes AI articles from a map in large numbers is in the group that these rules aim at." }, { "title": "AI answers take clicks from websites", "text": "Pew Research Center tracked the browsing of 900 U.S. adults in March 2025. When Google showed an AI summary, users clicked a normal result in 8% of visits, against 15% without one, and clicked a link inside the summary in 1% of visits. If websites get fewer clicks, their owners have less reason to pay for a tool that plans content for search." }, { "title": "Larger SEO tools have the same feature", "text": "Surfer, a larger SEO content tool, documents its own Topical Map tool in its help center. A small stand-alone tool has to compete with features that customers may already have in a tool they pay for." }, { "title": "Model providers set the costs and the rules", "text": "The product depends on models from OpenAI and Anthropic, so their prices and limits set its costs; the buyer's page now lets users add their own OpenAI key to cut costs. The building method depends on providers too: in March 2026 the founder wrote that usage limits made Claude Code \"unusable\" for him, and three days later that he had cancelled his Anthropic subscription." }, { "title": "A new owner rebuilt it", "text": "The buyer writes that she did not build the first version and has been fixing and rebuilding it since she bought it. She raised the monthly prices from US$29 to US$99 to between US$56 and US$374. The figures on this page describe the founder's version, not the business today." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Pete McPherson, guest article on Making Sense of Cents, 3 October 2025: How I've Made $350,000 From AI-Built Apps", "url": "https://www.makingsenseofcents.com/2025/10/how-ive-made-350000-from-ai-built-apps.html", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The founder's own account. Source for the dated timeline, the build in three days, the US$7,000 to US$8,000 a month, the partners, the sale and the stack." }, { "title": "eBiz Facts, Niall Doherty, 20 January 2025, updated 9 March 2025: He Made $100,000 Last Year From AI-Coded Apps", "url": "https://ebizfacts.com/pete-mcpherson-100k-ai-coded-apps-1-year/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A short profile that summarizes the founder's video. Source for the US$6,000 to US$7,000 a month. Also read in the copy syndicated on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/25441508-he-made-100-000-last-year-from-ai-coded-apps" }, { "title": "Pete McPherson, YouTube channel Code Playbook, 28 December 2024: How I made $100k last year from AI-coded apps", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPS4RYrxqI4", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the video page and its description, which list his stack and his builds. The speech could not be transcribed, so the revenue figure is cited from eBiz Facts." }, { "title": "Charles Floate, YouTube, 2 September 2024: Meet The Dev - Topical Map AI - Pete McPherson", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1b23mb49z4", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the video page and its description, in which Charles Floate calls the founder his business partner." }, { "title": "Topical Map AI terms and conditions, archived 13 April 2024", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240413185916/https://topicalmap.ai/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the sole proprietorship owned by Pete McPherson and the law of Michigan." }, { "title": "Topical Map AI home page, archived 13 April 2024", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20240413184543/https://topicalmap.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The first archived copy. Source for the launch offer and the founder's own description of the problem." }, { "title": "Topical Map AI home page, archived 20 January 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250120183512/https://topicalmap.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, and compared with the archived copies of 22 April, 15 July, 12 August and 6 September 2025, which show the same builders and plans, and of 16 December 2025 and 10 February 2026, which show the buyer's new site. Source for the builders, the plans and the AI models." }, { "title": "Topical Map AI home page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://topicalmap.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the buyer's statement, the current prices and limits, the account and map counts and the own OpenAI key option." }, { "title": "Topical Map AI terms and conditions, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://topicalmap.ai/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The terms now name the buyer as the sole owner." }, { "title": "Pete McPherson, projects page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://petemcpherson.com/projects", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the sale statement and the stack of Topical Map AI. It dates the product 2023 to 2025, while his article dates the build to March 2024." }, { "title": "Pete McPherson on X (@doyouevenblog), posts of 3 October 2025 and 24 and 27 March 2026", "url": "https://x.com/doyouevenblog/status/2036470062438121978", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the timeline through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the link to his article and for his posts on Claude Code limits and the cancelled Anthropic subscription." }, { "title": "Google Search Central: A guide to Google Search ranking systems", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ranking-systems-guide", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the section on the helpful content system, which says it became part of the core ranking systems in March 2024." }, { "title": "Google Search Central blog, 5 March 2024: What web creators should know about our March 2024 core update and new spam policies", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the section on scaled content abuse." }, { "title": "Google Search Status Dashboard: History for Ranking", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/updates/ranking", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the list of ranking updates from 2023 to 2025. The address leads to the Google Search Status Dashboard." }, { "title": "Pew Research Center, 22 July 2025: Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results", "url": "https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the click rates with and without an AI summary." }, { "title": "Surfer help center: Topical Map", "url": "https://docs.surferseo.com/en/collections/12374402-topical-map", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the collection page, which documents a competitor's Topical Map tool." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." }, { "title": "Topical Map AI affiliate program page, read 14 October 2026", "url": "https://topicalmap.ai/aff", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The buyer's affiliate program with a 40% recurring commission." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/vidon-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/vidon-ai.md", "slug": "vidon-ai", "name": "Vidon.ai", "country": "United Kingdom", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI tool that turns blog posts and other text into videos", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "May 2022", "outcomeLabel": "US$6K a month, October 2022", "sticker": "$6K/mo in 5 months", "outcomeUsd": 72000, "months": 5, "teamLabel": "1 founder; 3 employees listed in October 2022; 1 in later accounts", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "video", "channel": "sales", "trend": "unknown", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Video" ], "product": "A web app that turns a blog post, an article or any written text into a short video with a generated voice, animated titles and stock images and clips, for YouTube, TikTok, other social networks and the customer's own web pages. You paste a link or write in an editor that looks like a text document, and the app builds the video. Today it also plans and publishes the videos to social media.", "why": "Content marketing agencies already had hundreds of articles and wanted video without cameras or editors. The company found them with cold email: for each large prospect it turned a recent post from the prospect's own blog into a video and sent it free, which often started a conversation. About six agencies with large contracts paid most of the first US$6,000 a month.", "summary": [ "Vidon.ai turns written content into video. A customer pastes the address of a blog post, or writes in an editor that looks like Google Docs, and the app reads the text aloud with speech synthesis, a model that turns text into a spoken voice, and puts titles, images and stock clips around it. The result is a short video for YouTube, TikTok and other social networks, or for the blog page itself. The company sold this to content marketing agencies, and used it on its own site for programmatic SEO: search engine optimization, the work of making pages rank higher in Google, done by a program that creates many pages from a template and a database, here each page with its own generated video.", "Alex Robinson, a founder with a background in artificial intelligence, started it in London in May 2022, from a problem at his previous startup: video got more engagement than text, but it took too much time and equipment. On 23 October 2022 he told Starter Story that it made US$6,000 a month in MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the subscription revenue that repeats every month, that it had helped more than 200 companies turn written content into video, and that it had no investors and was profitable from the first day. His company, Vidon AI Ltd, files micro-entity accounts, the shortest yearly accounts that UK law allows for very small companies: a balance sheet with no sales line. They show its net assets, what the company owns minus what it owes, growing from GBP 13,845 in August 2023 to GBP 57,203 in August 2024 and GBP 188,777 in August 2025, with one employee.", "The revenue figure is the founder's own statement, grade C, and no later source gives revenue. The accounts are filed by law but not audited, so they are grade C as well. The filing history shows no new shares, so the rise in net assets is profit after tax that stayed in the company: GBP 131,574 in the year to August 2025, three times the GBP 43,358 of the year before. The page also shows earlier companies that promised video without the work, and what changed after 2022: video models from Google and OpenAI, and a YouTube rule against mass-produced videos." ], "factsCaption": "US$6,000 a month five months after the start, in the founder's words, then three years of growing net assets in the company's filed accounts, all grade C", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement, a page of the company, or a figure from accounts that the company filed without an audit. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a one-button prototype to a company with GBP 188,777 in net assets, in a little over three years. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Vidon.ai prices in October 2026, read from the code of the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "The page shows the same numbers in US dollars, pounds or euros, depending on the visitor's location. The yearly prices are labelled a 40% flash sale for a limited time, but the page's code sets the end of the sale to the next 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, 20th, 24th or 28th of the month, so the sale never ends. Each video exports in 3 aspect ratios. Teams can ask the sales team for a custom plan.", "rows": [ [ "Individual", "29", "49", "10 videos a month; voiceovers, stock media, publishing to social media" ], [ "Business", "89", "149", "40 videos a month; brand kits, API access, analytics, video translation, bulk creation, video hosting" ], [ "Custom", "on request", "", "custom plan through the sales team" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month, October 2022", "value": "US$6,000 in recurring revenue", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview with Starter Story, 23 October 2022, five months after the start in May 2022. Most of it came from about six content marketing agencies with large contracts.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the October 2022 figure", "value": "US$72,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$6,000 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Companies served by October 2022", "value": "more than 200", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview: the product had helped more than 200 small and large companies turn written content into video. The interview does not say how many of them paid.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: no investment was taken, and the business was profitable from the first day. His X profile says he is bootstrapping. The filing history shows no share issue.", "src": [ 1, 4, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Net assets, 31 August 2023", "value": "GBP 13,845", "grade": "C", "note": "Micro-entity accounts for the first period, 17 August 2022 to 31 August 2023: current assets GBP 17,093, a provision of GBP 3,248 for liabilities, no debts.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Net assets, 31 August 2024", "value": "GBP 57,203", "grade": "C", "note": "Micro-entity accounts: current assets GBP 81,358, a provision of GBP 24,155 for liabilities, no debts.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Net assets, 31 August 2025", "value": "GBP 188,777", "grade": "C", "note": "Unaudited micro-entity accounts: current assets GBP 232,365, debts due within one year GBP 43,588. Approved by the director on 14 May 2026.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Profit kept in the company, year to August 2025", "value": "GBP 131,574", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: net assets of GBP 188,777 minus GBP 57,203. With no new shares in the filing history, the rise is profit after tax that stayed in the company. Any dividends paid to the owner would come on top.", "src": [ 4, 6, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Profit kept in the company, year to August 2024", "value": "GBP 43,358", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: GBP 57,203 minus GBP 13,845. The year to August 2025 kept about three times as much.", "src": [ 5, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Employees", "value": "an average of 0 in the first period, then 1 in each of the next two years", "grade": "C", "note": "Company accounts. Starter Story's page listed 1 founder and 3 employees in October 2022, and the interview speaks of a small team.", "src": [ 1, 5, 6, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Main costs, October 2022", "value": "video rendering and the speech generation AI", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview. Marketing used only free channels, email and content.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Prices, October 2026", "value": "US$49 or US$149 a month; US$29 or US$89 a month billed yearly", "grade": "C", "note": "Read from the code of the pricing page. 10 or 40 videos a month.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Company status, October 2026", "value": "Active", "grade": "C", "note": "Companies House. Accounts filed on 14 May 2026, confirmation statement dated 30 July 2026. One director, Alexander Robinson, who signs the accounts as Alex Robinson and is listed as the person with significant control.", "src": [ 2, 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Referral links to the site", "value": "48 different referral tags, October 2022 to June 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Wayback Machine index of captured addresses. Many tags name AI tool directories, for example betalist, futuretools.io and toolspedia.io. No source says how many customers they brought.", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "fact": "Followers of the founder's X account, October 2026", "value": "43", "grade": "C", "note": "The profile says he is building vidon.ai and building in public. Its latest posts, January and February 2024, are almost daily video tips. His own audience was not the sales channel.", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the start to the October 2022 figure", "value": "5 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: May 2022 to October 2022.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "April 2021", "what": "The domain vidon.ai shows a different product: AI-personalized sales videos made with a deepfake that looks and talks like the seller. No source says who ran it or whether it was the founder's previous startup.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "May 2022", "what": "Alex Robinson starts Vidon.ai in London and gives himself six months to build and test it, without investment. The first version is one button: paste a blog's address and get a video.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "2022", "what": "Content marketers like the result but cannot edit the video. After two months of feedback the team designs version 2 in Figma: an editor that looks like Google Docs or Notion.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "12 July 2022", "what": "The founder opens his X account, @alex_vidon_ai.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "17 August 2022", "what": "Vidon AI Ltd is registered in England and Wales, with Robinson as the only director.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "17 September 2022", "what": "The company blog publishes a guide to programmatic SEO. The company's own API made a video for each page of its learning center.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 1 ] }, { "when": "23 October 2022", "what": "Starter Story interview: US$6,000 a month, most of it from about six agencies, and more than 200 companies helped. Cold email is the most profitable channel.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "31 August 2023", "what": "End of the first accounting period: net assets GBP 13,845 and an average of 0 employees.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "31 August 2024", "what": "Net assets GBP 57,203 and an average of 1 employee.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "15 July 2025", "what": "YouTube renames its repetitious content policy to inauthentic content and says that it includes mass-produced videos, which cannot earn money.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15, 16 ] }, { "when": "31 August 2025", "what": "Net assets GBP 188,777 and an average of 1 employee. The year kept GBP 131,574 of profit in the company.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "14 May 2026", "what": "The 2025 accounts are approved and filed. The company is Active.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 4, 7 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "Latest capture of the site in the Wayback Machine index. AI tool directories still link to it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "The site sells two plans, US$49 and US$149 a month, for 10 and 40 videos, with a sale on yearly plans that never ends.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A free sample made from the prospect's own post", "text": "The first customers came from targeted cold emails to content marketing agencies. The emails to large prospects carried a video made from a recent post on the prospect's own blog, which the prospect could use as it liked. The founder said this often opened a conversation. Cold email was still the most profitable channel in October 2022." }, { "title": "Reuse what the customer already has", "text": "Agencies and blog owners already had hundreds of articles. Vidon.ai did not ask them for new work, cameras or editors: the text became the script, the voice was generated, and stock media filled the screen." }, { "title": "An editor that looks like a text document", "text": "Version 1 had no editing, and that was the main complaint of content marketers. Version 2 looks like Google Docs or Notion, so a blog writer could edit a video by editing text: a heading becomes an animated title, an image becomes a scene." }, { "title": "Programmatic video SEO on its own site", "text": "The company used its own API to make a video for every page of its learning center, and described the method on its blog in September 2022. The founder expected search to replace cold email as the main channel. No later source says whether it did." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's interview and the code of the company's current website. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Version 1 was one button: paste the address of a blog post and get a video. Content marketers liked it but could not edit the result.", "Version 2, prototyped in Figma after two months of feedback, is a document editor: text is read by a generated voice, a heading becomes an animated title and a dropped image becomes part of the video.", "A small version of the editor was put on the homepage as a demo, because the first website did not turn visitors into users.", "In 2022 the main costs were video rendering and the speech generation AI. No source names the speech provider.", "The homepage today lists Realistic AI Voiceovers, ChatGPT and URL to Video as features, and the plans include a stock media library of more than 12 million items. It does not say what ChatGPT does in the product.", "The website is a single-page app built with Vue. Its code loads HubSpot, Google Analytics, PostHog and the Chatwoot support chat, and it asks Drift's location service for the visitor's country to show prices in dollars, pounds or euros.", "In 2022 the company named five tools: HubSpot for analytics, customer records (CRM), email and the blog, Notion for tasks and documents, Fullstory for website monitoring, Webflow for the website and Figma for design.", "The team alternated weeks: one week building, the next week marketing." ], "src": [ 1, 8, 9 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database promised video without the skill or the work. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Qwiki", "years": "2010 to 2015", "funding": "US$10M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Search results turned automatically into narrated multimedia stories.", "died": "High running costs and users who preferred text. Yahoo bought it, and Google and the large mobile video apps won the users.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/481-qwiki" }, { "name": "ClearMix", "years": "2020 to 2023", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Professional marketing videos without a studio budget, made by freelance videographers on demand.", "died": "Canva and Adobe added video, and AI made its manual process obsolete.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1336-clearmix" }, { "name": "HighlightCam", "years": "2009 to 2012", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Automatic editing that found the best moments in raw footage.", "died": "Smartphone apps and consumer editing software such as iMovie did the job well enough, and its costs were high.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1636-highlightcam" }, { "name": "Fuzzwich", "years": "2007 to 2010", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Simple animated videos for casual users and small businesses, with no animation skills needed.", "died": "It stayed on the desktop while users moved to phones, and larger tools from Adobe won.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1655-fuzzwich" }, { "name": "ReelSurfer", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$1.25M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Clip and share parts of online videos without editing skills.", "died": "YouTube and Facebook built the same functions into their own platforms.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1577-reelsurfer" } ], "whatChanged": [ "All five sold video creation as a separate tool, and all five lost to a larger product that added the feature or made it unnecessary: Google and mobile video for Qwiki, Canva and Adobe for ClearMix, phone apps for HighlightCam and Fuzzwich, YouTube and Facebook for ReelSurfer. Qwiki also carried the high cost of making narrated video by machine in 2010.", "Two things differ for Vidon.ai. Generated voices and cloud rendering made each video cheap enough that the business was profitable from the first day, with one founder and no investors. And it sold to businesses with a budget, content agencies, rather than to consumers. The risk is the one ReelSurfer met: since 2024 Google and OpenAI have released models that make a video from a text prompt, and Google also owns YouTube, one of the platforms that these videos are made for." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The sales method, yes. The product, only in a niche.", "text": "Turning blog posts into videos was a gap in 2022. Since 2024 the model makers sell video generation directly, so a general text-to-video tool is harder to start now. The sales method still works: make the prospect's own sample before the first message, sell to agencies that serve many clients, and keep the costs to rendering and speech models.", "steps": [ "Pick buyers who already have a lot of raw material: agencies, publishers, shops with many product pages.", "Before the first email, turn one of the prospect's own pages into the product's output and send it free.", "Start with a few large accounts, then spread the revenue over more customers.", "Use your own product to create the pages that bring search traffic." ], "open": "Narrow content types with many pages, such as product catalogs, property listings or software documentation, sold to the agencies that manage them." }, "watch": [ { "title": "One old, self-reported revenue figure", "text": "The only revenue figure is the founder's interview from October 2022. No later post, interview or payment processor gives revenue, and TrustMRR shows no profile for it. The accounts show money kept in the company, not sales, and nobody audits them." }, { "title": "A few large customers", "text": "In October 2022 most revenue came from about six content agencies. The founder said he wanted to depend less on them. No later source says whether he did." }, { "title": "The model makers now make video from text", "text": "Google announced its video model Veo in May 2024 and released Veo 3, which also makes sound, in May 2025. OpenAI opened Sora to paying ChatGPT users in the United States and Canada on 9 December 2024 and released Sora 2 with a phone app on 30 September 2025. A customer can now get a video from a text prompt without a separate tool." }, { "title": "YouTube's rule on mass-produced videos", "text": "On 15 July 2025 YouTube renamed its repetitious content policy to inauthentic content and said that it includes repetitive or mass-produced content, which cannot earn money in its Partner Program. The Business plan sells bulk creation and 40 videos a month. Customers who post many similar generated videos may lose that income, and with it their reason to pay." }, { "title": "Dependence on model providers", "text": "Rendering and the speech model were the main costs in 2022, and the sources do not name the providers. A provider can change prices or close a model: OpenAI announced on 24 March 2026 that it would close Sora, shut the app on 26 April 2026 and the API on 24 September 2026. No source says that Vidon.ai used Sora; the case shows what a provider can do." }, { "title": "A sale that never ends", "text": "The pricing page shows a 40% flash sale on yearly plans that ends at midnight on a date that the page's code moves forward every few days. Customers who notice may distrust the list price." }, { "title": "Team size is unclear", "text": "Starter Story listed 3 employees in October 2022, but the company's first accounts report an average of 0 employees and the next two report 1. The accounts do not count the other people as employees, and no source names them." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Starter Story, 23 October 2022: How This AI Tool Hit $6K MRR In Just 5 Months", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/vidon-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview with Alex Robinson. Source for the revenue, the customer count, the team shown on the page, the cold email method, the costs and the 2022 tools." }, { "title": "Companies House, the UK company register: Vidon AI Ltd, company number 14301168", "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14301168", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the overview. Source for the status, the incorporation date, the activity code and the dates of the latest accounts and confirmation statement. The register does not check what companies file." }, { "title": "Companies House: Vidon AI Ltd, officers", "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14301168/officers", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the officer list: one director, appointed on 17 August 2022. Only the name and role are used on this page." }, { "title": "Companies House: Vidon AI Ltd, filing history", "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14301168/filing-history", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full list of 13 filings, August 2022 to August 2026. Source for the absence of any share issue and for the person with significant control." }, { "title": "Companies House: micro-entity accounts for 17 August 2022 to 31 August 2023", "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14301168/filing-history/MzQwNjY1NjY5MmFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=xhtml&download=1", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full (the iXBRL file). Source for the current assets, the provision, the net assets and the average of 0 employees. Approved on 5 January 2024." }, { "title": "Companies House: micro-entity accounts for the year to 31 August 2024", "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14301168/filing-history/MzQ0MzY0NTgxMmFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=xhtml&download=1", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full (the iXBRL file). Source for the net assets and the average of 1 employee. Approved on 16 November 2024." }, { "title": "Companies House: unaudited micro-entity accounts for the year to 31 August 2025", "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14301168/filing-history/MzUyMTY5OTQ5MWFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=xhtml&download=1", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full (the iXBRL file). Source for the net assets, the debts, the audit exemption and the average of 1 employee. Approved on 14 May 2026." }, { "title": "Vidon.ai pricing page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://vidon.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "The page loads its prices by script. Read the page's own script file for the plans, the prices, the video limits and the sale countdown." }, { "title": "Vidon.ai homepage, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://vidon.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the page and its main script file for the feature list, the founder's title and the services that the page loads." }, { "title": "Vidon blog, 17 September 2022: Programmatic SEO - Ultimate Guide", "url": "https://blogs.vidon.ai/programmatic-seo-using-video", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The founder's write-up of the search campaign named in the interview." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers: Vidon.ai product page", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/product/vidon-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names Alex Robinson as founder. Shows no revenue." }, { "title": "Alex Robinson on X: @alex_vidon_ai", "url": "https://x.com/alex_vidon_ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and the latest 20 posts through api.fxtwitter.com. No post gives a revenue figure." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine: www.vidon.ai on 30 April 2021", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210430044659/https://www.vidon.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Shows a different product on the same domain, with no name of the people behind it." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine: index of captured vidon.ai addresses", "url": "http://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=vidon.ai*&output=txt&fl=timestamp,original,statuscode&collapse=urlkey&limit=400", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the list of 326 captured addresses, April 2021 to June 2026. Source for the referral tags and the latest capture." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, Sarah Perez, 9 July 2025: YouTube prepares crackdown on mass-produced and repetitive videos, as concern over AI slop grows", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/09/youtube-prepares-crackdown-on-mass-produced-and-repetitive-videos-as-concern-over-ai-slop-grows/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the date and purpose of the policy update." }, { "title": "YouTube Help: YouTube channel monetization policies, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1311392?hl=en", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on the 15 July 2025 update." }, { "title": "Wikipedia: Sora (text-to-video model)", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sora_(text-to-video_model)", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the first release, Sora 2 and the discontinuation." }, { "title": "Wikipedia: Veo (text-to-video model)", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veo_(text-to-video_model)", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the introduction and the development section for the release dates." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/traxy-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/traxy-ai.md", "slug": "traxy-ai", "name": "traxy", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "LinkedIn lead finder for sales teams", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "1 May 2026", "outcomeLabel": "US$53.8K a month recurring revenue, October 2026", "sticker": "$645K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 645024, "months": 5, "teamLabel": "2 to 5 people, by the founder's TrustMRR entry, October 2026", "fundingLabel": "About 7 angel investors by September 2026, amounts not stated", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "sales", "trend": "growing", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Funded", "Running", "B2B", "Sales" ], "product": "A LinkedIn lead finder for B2B sales teams. You list LinkedIn profiles to watch; traxy collects the people who like, comment on or repost their posts, scores each one against your ideal buyer, adds an email address and phone number, and an AI agent can write and send the first message.", "why": "The founder already ran a LinkedIn ghostwriting agency and built the lead tool that the agency needed. He sold it with the tool itself: traxy found the leads, and his team contacted them. Daily posts on X added trials, and credit-based prices let heavy users pay more.", "summary": [ "traxy is a lead generation tool, software that finds people who may buy and gets their contact details, for B2B sales teams. It works on LinkedIn only. A customer adds LinkedIn profiles to a watchlist, a list of accounts to follow: their own, their competitors', well-known voices in their market. When someone likes, comments on or reposts a post from those profiles, traxy scores that person from 1% to 100% against the customer's ICP, the ideal customer profile, a description of the buyer by job title, seniority, company size and industry. People above a threshold become leads. For extra credits, prepaid units that each action costs, it adds the lead's email and phone number. An AI \"Outbound Agent\" can research each lead and write the first message. Plans start at US$149 a month.", "Ben Buaron, a founder in New York who also runs Windmill Growth, a LinkedIn ghostwriting agency, launched traxy on 1 May 2026, after the first Stripe payments in March. By his posts, MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the subscription money that comes in every month, reached US$10,000 on 17 July, US$20,000 on 28 August and US$30,000 on 11 September 2026. On 23 September he connected Stripe to TrustMRR, a site that reads revenue directly from a company's payment processor, and it showed US$40,000. On 15 October 2026 it shows US$53,752 of MRR from 243 active subscriptions and US$58,301 of revenue in the last 30 days: a run rate of about US$645,000 a year, five months after launch. By the founder's account, most customers came from outreach to leads that traxy itself found, and many trials from his posts on X.", "The revenue, MRR and subscription figures are grade A, because TrustMRR reads them from Stripe. Everything else, including the team size and how the product collects its data, comes from the founder's posts and the company's own pages, grade C. The largest risk is the data source. LinkedIn's User Agreement forbids software that scrapes, which means collects automatically by a program, profiles and other data from LinkedIn. traxy says it needs no LinkedIn login and does not say how it collects the engagement; its home page quotes customers who call it scraping. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that sold sales data or depended on another company's platform." ], "factsCaption": "A LinkedIn lead tool that reached US$53,752 of Stripe-verified MRR about five months after launch", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value is read from Stripe by TrustMRR. A grade C value is a founder post on X or a statement on the company's own pages. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a placeholder domain to US$53,752 of monthly recurring revenue, five months after launch. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "traxy prices on 15 October 2026, from the company's pricing page and FAQ (grade C); yearly prices are calculated from the 20% discount that the page states", "note": "Prices follow the monthly credit volume. One credit qualifies one engagement against the ICP; an email costs 3 credits and a phone number 5, charged only when found. Credits reset every month with no rollover. 15,000 credits and more add automated sending; 30,000 and more add the Outbound Agent and its onboarding. The 30,000, 50,000 and 75,000-credit sizes load their prices by script and could not be read. A Design Partner pays 50% of a Pro or Scale plan in return for two posts a month about traxy on LinkedIn or X. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial.", "rows": [ [ "Pro", "119", "149", "5,000 credits a month" ], [ "Scale, smallest size", "239", "299", "15,000 credits a month, automated sending" ], [ "Scale, largest size", "879", "1,099", "100,000 credits a month" ], [ "DFY Outbound (done for you)", "", "1,099", "3-month minimum; traxy's team runs the outbound" ], [ "Enterprise and Agencies", "custom", "custom", "custom volume; agencies get 30% off each client account" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue (MRR), 15 October 2026", "value": "US$53,752", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from Stripe through an API key; revenue last synced on 15 October 2026. MRR growth in the last 30 days: +42.7%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from that MRR", "value": "about US$645,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$53,752 times 12 is US$645,024. The founder rounds it down to \"$500k arr\" in his post of 5 October 2026.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days, to 15 October 2026", "value": "US$58,301", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR. 77.6% more than in the 30 days before.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue by calendar month, 2026", "value": "March US$545, April US$3,436, May US$5,761, June US$10,182, July US$11,955, August US$21,415, September US$45,007", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly table. October up to the 14th: US$32,392.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "September revenue compared with August", "value": "2.1 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$45,007 divided by US$21,415.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "All-time revenue to 15 October 2026", "value": "US$130,693", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR. The same as the last twelve months: all of it is from 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions, 15 October 2026", "value": "243", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR. There were 177 on 23 September 2026.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Average MRR per active subscription", "value": "about US$221 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$53,752 divided by 243. The cheapest plan costs US$149 a month, so many customers pay for larger plans or the done-for-you service.", "src": [ 1, 22 ] }, { "fact": "MRR on 23 September 2026", "value": "US$40,000 a month", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR's post on X when the profile was connected: US$41,000 of revenue in 30 days, US$88,000 in total, 177 active subscriptions.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "MRR steps reported by the founder", "value": "US$10,000 on 17 July, US$20,000 on 28 August, US$30,000 on 11 September 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 11 September 2026: 77, 42 and 14 days for the three steps, counted from 1 May.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "MRR on 3 August and 31 August 2026", "value": "US$13,500 and US$20,600", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts. On 31 August he also listed 78 active trials and 68 booked demos.", "src": [ 6, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Paying users", "value": "80 on 12 August, 100 on 21 August 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts. The home page says \"1,000+\" teams use traxy, which counts sign-ups; Stripe shows 243 active subscriptions in October.", "src": [ 5, 19, 23, 1 ] }, { "fact": "traxy's share of the founder's income", "value": "US$22,000 of US$142,210 in August, US$47,000 of US$166,342 in September 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's monthly income posts. The rest, US$120,000 and US$119,000, came from Windmill Growth, his ghostwriting agency, which manages more than 150 LinkedIn profiles. TrustMRR shows US$21,415 and US$45,007 for traxy in those months.", "src": [ 9, 8, 1, 40, 41 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "2 to 5 people", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder's entry on TrustMRR. His posts mention a head of go-to-market (3 August 2026), a first customer-support hire (13 August) and \"our lean team\" (14 October). His agency, a separate company, has 4 full-time writers.", "src": [ 1, 6, 14, 15, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "about 7 angel investors by 13 September 2026, amounts not stated", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts. On 23 September he mentioned a \"mini pre-seed round\". He wrote that from then on only clients may invest. The TrustMRR entry says bootstrapped.", "src": [ 12, 13, 11, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Legal entity", "value": "traxy, inc., 54 Spring St, New York", "grade": "C", "note": "Privacy policy and terms of service. New York law governs the terms.", "src": [ 25, 24 ] }, { "fact": "Founded and launched", "value": "founded 30 January 2026, launched 1 May 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Founded date from the TrustMRR entry, launch date from the founder. Stripe shows US$545 of revenue in March 2026, before the public launch.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2026 figure", "value": "5 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: May 2026 to October 2026.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "28 January 2026", "what": "traxy.ai shows a placeholder page: \"AI Solutions for Tomorrow\" and a contact form.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 26 ] }, { "when": "30 January 2026", "what": "Founded date in the TrustMRR entry.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "March to April 2026", "what": "First Stripe revenue before the public launch: US$545 in March and US$3,436 in April.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "1 May 2026", "what": "Public launch, by the founder's account.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "19 May 2026", "what": "The archived home page sells \"LinkedIn Engagement into Qualified Pipeline\" with three plans, Lite, Pro and Scale, at US$63, US$119 and US$239 a month for 2, 5 and 15 monitored profiles.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 27 ] }, { "when": "17 July 2026", "what": "US$10,000 of MRR, 77 days after launch.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "3 August 2026", "what": "US$13,500 of MRR. The founder promises his head of go-to-market a Rolex watch for US$100,000 of MRR by the end of September.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "12 August 2026", "what": "80 paying users and 5 to 7 trials a day. He asks his followers how to scale a self-serve product.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "13 August 2026", "what": "First customer-support hire.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "21 August 2026", "what": "100 paying users.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 19 ] }, { "when": "26 to 29 August 2026", "what": "A done-for-you outbound service is offered at US$499 a month for up to 3 senders. One post on X brings 20 times the usual daily sign-ups, and the app crashes.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 20, 10 ] }, { "when": "31 August 2026", "what": "US$20,600 of MRR, 78 active trials and 68 booked demos. traxy made US$22,000 of the founder's US$142,210 income in August.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 9 ] }, { "when": "11 September 2026", "what": "US$30,000 of MRR, 14 days after US$20,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "13 September 2026", "what": "About 7 angel investors so far, all found through X. From now on only clients may invest.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "23 September 2026", "what": "Stripe connected to TrustMRR: US$40,000 of MRR, 177 active subscriptions, US$88,000 of total revenue.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "1 October 2026", "what": "September income: US$47,000 from traxy and US$119,000 from Windmill Growth.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "5 October 2026", "what": "\"5 months after launching traxy hit $500k arr.\" Goal: US$1 million by 31 December. He also writes about bugs and churn.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "15 October 2026", "what": "US$53,752 of MRR, 243 active subscriptions and US$58,301 of revenue in the last 30 days, all verified from Stripe. The done-for-you service now costs US$1,099 a month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 22 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Engagement is the signal", "text": "A like or comment on a relevant post shows that a person is active on LinkedIn and interested in the topic now. traxy re-checks the engagement on each watched post every 2 hours, scores each person who engaged with \"a model weighing 30+ variables\", and keeps only the ones who fit the customer's ICP. The FAQ advises watching competitors, investors, employees and well-known voices in the market, because their audience overlaps with the buyer." }, { "title": "The product finds its own customers", "text": "The founder sells traxy with traxy. On 10 September 2026 he wrote that the stack of traxy for leads, Claude for research, HeyReach for LinkedIn messages and Smartlead or Instantly for email \"took us to $25k MRR in 4 months\". His posts on X add to it: on 30 August he wrote that two months of posting had brought 3 angel investors, 95 trials and around US$8,000 of MRR." }, { "title": "Credits instead of seats", "text": "Each engagement that traxy checks costs 1 credit, an email 3 credits and a phone number 5. So a customer who watches busy profiles pays more, and larger sizes add automated sending and the Outbound Agent. The average active subscription pays about US$221 a month, well above the US$149 entry price." }, { "title": "An agency as the first user and a sales channel", "text": "The founder runs Windmill Growth, a ghostwriting agency with 4 full-time writers, and uses traxy for his own companies. On 22 August 2026 he wrote that he uses only traxy to find leads for two companies, had canceled Sales Navigator, Apollo and ZoomInfo, US$1,700 a month, for traxy at US$499 a month, and had booked 79 meetings from traxy alone. Other agencies resell it: they get 30% off each client account, and traxy's own team runs outbound for customers who pay for the done-for-you service." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's FAQ, terms and pricing pages and from the founder's posts. They are grade C.", "items": [ "LinkedIn is the only data source. The FAQ says setup takes 60 seconds: paste a LinkedIn profile URL, and \"No account authentication on LinkedIn is required\". Engagement on watched posts is re-checked every 2 hours. The site does not say how the engagement is collected.", "The terms describe the service as software that analyzes LinkedIn engagement, builds a LinkedIn feed for the customer's ICP and runs \"automated and semi-automated LinkedIn outreach\", partly with technology licensed from third parties that act as subprocessors.", "Each person who engages gets an ICP fit score from \"a model weighing 30+ variables\": job title, seniority, company size, industry, growth stage and behavior. No source names the AI model or the model provider inside the product.", "An MCP server lets customers ask their own AI assistant, such as Claude, Codex or Cursor, for their leads after a one-time OAuth login. MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is a standard way for an AI assistant to call an outside service.", "Integrations: Slack, Zapier, Clay, HeyReach, Meta Ads, webhooks and CSV export. Payments run through Stripe.", "The founder writes code with OpenAI's Codex agent, for example asking it for a QA plan with 50 edge cases for the team's tester. A post of 20 August 2026 shows that the database runs on Supabase.", "traxy's own outbound, by the founder's post of 10 September 2026: traxy finds the leads, Claude does the research, HeyReach sends the LinkedIn messages, and Smartlead or Instantly sends the email." ], "src": [ 21, 24, 22, 16, 38, 39, 1 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold sales data, depended on another company's platform, or sold web scraping. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "BranchOut", "years": "2010 to 2017", "funding": "US$49M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A professional network built on top of Facebook.", "died": "Facebook changed its API rules, and the growth that came through Facebook ended. LinkedIn kept the market.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/30-branchout" }, { "name": "Elucify", "years": "2016 to 2019", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Fresh business contact data for sales teams, collected from its users.", "died": "ZoomInfo and Clearbit had larger and more reliable databases. Crowdsourced data was hard to keep accurate, and users would not pay for data that was often out of date.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1078-elucify" }, { "name": "Slik", "years": "2017 to 2020", "funding": "US$1.2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Sales intelligence that finds and ranks leads for sales teams.", "died": "LinkedIn Sales Navigator and ZoomInfo offered the same with more data. Slik could not keep its data fresh, and customers left.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1439-slik" }, { "name": "Argyle Social", "years": "2009 to 2013", "funding": "US$2.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Social media marketing with lead generation, connected to Pardot and Marketo.", "died": "Larger marketing suites with bigger budgets won the buyers. It depended on the social platforms' APIs and their data-access rules.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1832-argyle-social" }, { "name": "Dashblock", "years": "2019 to 2022", "funding": "US$3M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Turn any web page into an API without code: web scraping for non-programmers.", "died": "Websites kept changing, and keeping the scrapers working took constant engineering work.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1374-dashblock" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Elucify and Slik sold sales data and lost to ZoomInfo and LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which had more data and kept it fresher. BranchOut and Argyle Social grew on other companies' platforms and lost when the rules changed or the larger players moved in. Dashblock sold scraping and spent its engineering on websites that kept changing. traxy carries all of these risks at once: it sells data about LinkedIn members, it depends on access to LinkedIn, and it competes with LinkedIn's own Sales Navigator.", "Two things are different. First, the data is not a static database that goes out of date: it is who engaged with a relevant post in the last hours, so freshness is the product, and a model scores each person while an agent drafts a message for each one. Second, the founder had customers before the product: his own agency, and other agencies that run LinkedIn accounts for clients and resell traxy to them. It also gave traxy a sales channel that does not depend on ads, and Stripe shows revenue even before the public launch: US$545 in March 2026." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The data source is the hard part.", "text": "Turning engagement on relevant posts into ranked leads is a method that anyone with a sales audience can copy, and the founder's posts show the steps. The difficult part is getting the data in a way that the platform allows and that data-protection law accepts. A copy that depends on scraping LinkedIn carries the same legal risk as traxy.", "steps": [ "Start from a service business that you already run, and build the tool that this business needs.", "Choose a signal that shows interest now, such as engagement on a competitor's post, instead of a static contact list.", "Price by usage, with credits, so that the heaviest users pay the most.", "Use the product to find its own customers, and post the revenue and named customer results often." ], "open": "The same idea on sources with official or licensed data access: a company's own website visitors, its own social accounts through the platforms' official APIs, GitHub activity, and community forums that sell API access." }, "watch": [ { "title": "LinkedIn forbids this kind of data collection", "text": "traxy's main product is data about LinkedIn members: who engaged with which post, their job and company, and for extra credits their email and phone number. LinkedIn's User Agreement, effective 3 November 2025, says that members must not \"Develop, support or use software, devices, scripts, robots or any other means or processes (such as crawlers, browser plugins and add-ons or any other technology) to scrape or copy the Services, including profiles and other data from the Services\". traxy says that it \"doesn't authenticate with LinkedIn\" and watches \"public engagement\", but not how it collects it. Its home page quotes a customer: \"Now I’m scraping engagement on my posts and a few competitor posts with traxy.\" Its privacy policy says it works with LinkedIn \"exclusively through user-authorized connections\", which the no-login setup in the FAQ does not match. If LinkedIn blocks the collection or sues, the product stops." }, { "title": "Courts: public data is not a free pass", "text": "In hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn, the US Ninth Circuit appeals court ruled for hiQ, a company that collected public LinkedIn profiles, and affirmed that decision again in April 2022. But in November 2022 a district court in California ruled that hiQ had breached LinkedIn's User Agreement, and the case ended in a settlement. In January 2025 LinkedIn sued Proxycurl, a data company with about US$10 million of revenue. Proxycurl shut down on 4 July 2025 to comply with its settlement with LinkedIn, and its founder wrote that \"there is no winning in fighting this\"." }, { "title": "European data-protection law covers the people in the lists", "text": "Under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a company that uses a person's data for marketing without consent must rely on Article 6(1)(f), its legitimate interests, which do not apply \"where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject\". When the data was not collected from the person, Article 14 requires the company to say \"from which source the personal data originate\", \"at the latest at the time of the first communication to that data subject\". Under Article 21 the person can object \"at any time\" to direct marketing, including profiling. traxy's privacy policy makes each customer the data controller and traxy a processor, so these duties fall on the customer who contacts a lead in Europe." }, { "title": "US cold-email rules", "text": "Under the CAN-SPAM Act (15 U.S.C. 7704), every commercial email must clearly identify itself as an advertisement or solicitation unless the recipient agreed in advance, must offer a way to opt out, and must carry \"a valid physical postal address of the sender\". Sending to a person more than 10 business days after an opt-out request is unlawful. The sender is responsible, and traxy's Outbound Agent writes the messages and can send them automatically." }, { "title": "Platform access can be priced or closed", "text": "Reddit shows what a platform can do with its data. In 2023 it started to charge for its API: the developer of the Apollo app was quoted US$12,000 for 50 million requests, about US$20 million a year, and Apollo and other apps shut down when the change took effect on 30 June 2023. In February 2024 Reddit licensed its content to Google for about US$60 million a year, and later made a deal with OpenAI. traxy's own news page reported on 5 October 2026 that Reddit is closing its public API and RSS feeds (not verified here). traxy reads only LinkedIn, and its terms say that it \"cannot guarantee that LinkedIn will remain interoperable with the Services\"." }, { "title": "Larger competitors, and LinkedIn itself", "text": "The founder names the tools that his customers replace with traxy: LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Apollo and ZoomInfo. On 24 September 2026 he congratulated the team of Trigify, a competitor, and offered its users a free first month. LinkedIn owns the data and sells Sales Navigator; if it adds the same feature, traxy has no data that LinkedIn lacks." }, { "title": "One founder, two companies, some related revenue", "text": "The founder also runs Windmill Growth, his LinkedIn ghostwriting agency, which made US$119,000 in September 2026 against traxy's US$47,000. The founder is also a customer: on 22 August he wrote that he pays US$499 a month for traxy and uses only traxy to find leads for two companies. The team of 2 to 5 people is his own entry on TrustMRR, and no source shows which people work for which company. About 7 angel investors have joined, while the TrustMRR entry says bootstrapped." }, { "title": "Very young, with churn that the founder admits", "text": "The figures cover five months since launch. On 5 October 2026 the founder wrote about \"bugs and churn\" and a feature that took 30 days to code. The home page's \"1,000+\" teams count sign-ups, not the 243 paying subscriptions. One day, 13 October 2026, brought US$9,490 of revenue, and the profile does not say what was sold." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR: traxy.ai, data as of 15 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/traxy-ai", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/traxy-ai.md), revenue synced on 15 October 2026. The revenue, MRR, growth and subscription figures in its Verification Sources section are read from Stripe through an API key, grade A. The description, founded date, team size, funding and pricing fields are written by the founder, grade C." }, { "title": "TrustMRR on X, 23 September 2026: traxy.ai joins TrustMRR", "url": "https://x.com/trust_mrr/status/2102586388680208437", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. TrustMRR's automatic post with the Stripe-verified figures on the day the profile was connected." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 5 October 2026: 5 months after launching traxy hit $500k arr", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2107116124231901412", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com (the founder's timeline, read on 15 October 2026). Source for the ARR claim, the year-end goal, the bugs and churn, and the agency's 4 full-time writers." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 11 September 2026: how long each $10k MRR took", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2098439078966390940", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the dates of the first three US$10,000 steps of MRR." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 12 August 2026: i launched traxy on May 1st", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2087516303330296047", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the launch date, the 80 paying users and the trial rate." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 3 August 2026: the MRR goal for the head of go-to-market", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2084381324379332947", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the US$13,500 of MRR on 3 August and the head of go-to-market." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 31 August 2026: the biggest week at traxy", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2094422537866236329", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the US$20,600 of MRR, 78 active trials, 68 booked demos and the waitlist for the done-for-you service." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 1 October 2026: income in September 2026", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2105668684958064870", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the split of the founder's income between Windmill Growth and traxy." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 31 August 2026: income in August 2026", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2094484915534405941", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the August split between Windmill Growth and traxy." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 29 August 2026: 20 times the daily sign-ups from one post", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2093705914763108722", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the sign-up spike and the crash." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 30 August 2026: what two months of posting brought", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2094070669818368384", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the 3 new angel investors, 95 trials and around US$8,000 of MRR attributed to posting on X." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 13 September 2026: about 7 angel investors from X", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2099177676871495912", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the angel investors and the rule that only clients may invest." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 23 September 2026: the mini pre-seed round", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2102848862633308499", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. A one-line post; no amount or investor is named." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 13 August 2026: the first customer-support hire", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2087909041053823230", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the first CS hire." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 14 October 2026: managed services and a lean team", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2110377644940288237", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the customer-support work and the words \"our lean team\"." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 10 September 2026: the traxy outbound stack", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2098175594332615124", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the tools used to find traxy's own customers and the US$25,000 of MRR in 4 months." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 22 August 2026: tools canceled for traxy", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2090962870762705300", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the canceled Sales Navigator, Apollo and ZoomInfo, the US$499 a month paid for traxy and the 79 meetings." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 24 September 2026: message to Trigify users", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2103113331435618670", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for Trigify as a competitor." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 21 August 2026: 100 paying users", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2090865893949444123", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 26 August 2026: the US$499 done-for-you offer", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2092717183658836394", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the first price of the done-for-you service." }, { "title": "traxy FAQ, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.traxy.ai/faq", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the no-login setup, the 2-hour refresh, the fit-score model, the credit prices, Stripe, the integrations and the MCP server." }, { "title": "traxy pricing page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.traxy.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The page shows the Pro price and the plan features; the middle Scale sizes load their prices by script and could not be read." }, { "title": "traxy home page, Markdown version, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://traxy.ai/index.md", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the product description, the 1,000+ claim and the customer quotes about scraping." }, { "title": "traxy Terms of Service, last updated 1 August 2026", "url": "https://www.traxy.ai/terms-of-service", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the services, third-party technology, acceptable use, LinkedIn and governing law." }, { "title": "traxy Privacy Policy, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.traxy.ai/privacy-policy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the legal entity, the address, the controller and processor roles and the LinkedIn access statement." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine: traxy.ai on 28 January 2026", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260128235852/https://traxy.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A placeholder page." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine: traxy.ai on 19 May 2026", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260519121710/https://traxy.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the product and the plans soon after launch." }, { "title": "LinkedIn User Agreement, effective 3 November 2025", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the list of things members agree not to do. LinkedIn's own text." }, { "title": "Wikipedia: hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiQ_Labs_v._LinkedIn", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the appeals-court rulings, the November 2022 breach ruling and the settlement." }, { "title": "Proxycurl blog, 4 July 2025: Proxycurl Shuts Down. Thank you.", "url": "https://nubela.co/blog/goodbye-proxycurl/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The founder's own account of LinkedIn's lawsuit and the shutdown." }, { "title": "Wikipedia: Reddit API controversy", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Reddit_API_controversy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the pricing and the impact on third-party apps." }, { "title": "Wikipedia: Reddit", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on AI integration. Source for the Google and OpenAI licensing deals." }, { "title": "traxy news page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.traxy.ai/news", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the list of stories. Source for traxy's own report on Reddit's API and RSS feeds, not verified independently." }, { "title": "GDPR Article 6, Lawfulness of processing (gdpr-info.eu)", "url": "https://gdpr-info.eu/art-6-gdpr/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. The text of the regulation, reproduced by an independent publisher." }, { "title": "GDPR Article 14, Information to be provided where personal data have not been obtained from the data subject (gdpr-info.eu)", "url": "https://gdpr-info.eu/art-14-gdpr/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. The text of the regulation, reproduced by an independent publisher." }, { "title": "GDPR Article 21, Right to object (gdpr-info.eu)", "url": "https://gdpr-info.eu/art-21-gdpr/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. The text of the regulation, reproduced by an independent publisher." }, { "title": "15 U.S. Code 7704, Other protections for users of commercial electronic mail (Cornell LII)", "url": "https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/7704", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the sections on required content and opt-out requests. The FTC's own guide could not be downloaded." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 26 September 2026: a QA plan from Codex", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2103978533324558751", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the use of Codex." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 20 August 2026: the database in Supabase", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2090582834171748779", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for Supabase." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 14 September 2026: warm outbound on LinkedIn for a ghostwriting agency", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2099565589320605716", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for Windmill Growth as the founder's ghostwriting agency." }, { "title": "Ben Buaron on X, 8 September 2026: managing more than 150 LinkedIn profiles", "url": "https://x.com/benbuaron_/status/2097351388309168429", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the size of the agency's LinkedIn work." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/supergrow/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/supergrow.md", "slug": "supergrow", "name": "Supergrow", "country": "India", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI writer and scheduler for LinkedIn posts", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "April 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$32.2K revenue in 30 days, February 2026", "sticker": "$32K in 30 days", "outcomeUsd": 386592, "months": 34, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders; LinkedIn lists 8 people in October 2026 (no count for February 2026)", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "audience", "trend": "falling", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Marketing" ], "product": "A web app that writes LinkedIn posts in the member's own style from an idea, a voice note, a video, an article or a short interview with an AI, then schedules and publishes them. Team plans add approvals, a shared calendar and analytics for each employee. It can also be used from inside Claude and ChatGPT.", "why": "It entered a market where people already paid for tools such as Taplio, and did the one core task better: writing the post. The founders' public posts brought the first customers and a lifetime-deal platform, and that deal paid for growth without investors. Subscriptions, partnerships with LinkedIn influencers, affiliates and a move to team plans came after.", "summary": [ "Supergrow is a web app that writes and schedules LinkedIn posts for founders, creators, ghostwriters and marketing teams. A member types an idea, records a voice note, adds a YouTube video, an article or a PDF, or talks for 10 to 15 minutes with an AI interviewer, and the app turns it into drafts in the member's own style, then publishes them at a chosen time. The text comes from third-party large language models, programs trained on large amounts of text that write new text from an instruction; the company does not say which ones. In October 2026 it costs US$39 a month for one account and US$199 a month for five.", "Deven Bhooshan, a software engineer based in India who had worked at Amazon and GoJek, started it in April 2023 with Utsav Patel, after Twitter's new API prices ended his previous product. An API is the interface through which one program uses another company's service. The two founders posted their progress and their numbers in public on LinkedIn and X, and sold a lifetime deal, one payment for permanent access, through RocketHub for US$65,000 in total. Then they moved the business to subscriptions. The founder reported US$14,310 of monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the monthly value of all active subscriptions, in August 2024, and US$230,000 a year from more than 800 recurring customers in April 2025. They raised no outside money and trade as Supergrow Innovations LLP, a limited liability partnership, a company form in which each partner's personal liability is limited, registered in Bangalore.", "The headline is grade A. TrustMRR, a site that reads revenue directly from a company's payment account, read US$32,216 of payments in the 30 days to 28 February 2026 from Supergrow's Stripe account, the payment processor that charges its customers' cards, through an API key, a password that lets one program read another program's data. Then the key expired, so nothing newer is verified. The same profile shows MRR of US$79,479, about 2.5 times the payments, without saying why, so this page uses the payments. The company has two founders, and LinkedIn lists 8 people there in October 2026." ], "factsCaption": "Stripe-verified payments of US$32,216 in the 30 days to 28 February 2026, when the verification stopped, after a founder-reported US$230,000 a year in April 2025", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read by TrustMRR from Supergrow's Stripe account and stops on 28 February 2026. A grade C value is a founder statement, a company page or a third-party page. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a Twitter tool ended by an API price change to Stripe-verified payments of US$32,216 in 30 days, in 34 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Supergrow prices in October 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial. The page says yearly billing saves up to 20%, and its questions section gives the yearly prices: Pro US$31 a month and Teams US$189 a month. In August 2026 a competitor's review listed a US$19 Starter plan and a US$139 Teams plan with four accounts; the October page shows neither.", "rows": [ [ "Pro", "31", "39", "1 LinkedIn account" ], [ "Teams", "189", "199", "5 accounts" ], [ "Enterprise", "custom", "custom", "more than 5 executives" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Verified revenue in the 30 days to 28 February 2026", "value": "US$32,216", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from Stripe through an API key. 14.0% more than in the 30 days before. This is the headline figure.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the 30-day figure", "value": "about US$386,592 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$32,216 times 12.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue by month", "value": "November 2025: US$30,247. December: US$39,107. January 2026: US$29,842. February: US$29,760", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly table. Calculated: February is 1.6% below November and 23.9% below December. January and February together are 14.1% below November and December together.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) at the last sync", "value": "US$79,479, with 2,315 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot, up 24.9% in 30 days. Calculated: it is 2.47 times the payments of the same 30 days, or US$34.33 per subscription against US$13.92 collected. The profile does not explain the gap, so this page does not use MRR as the headline.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "All-time verified revenue", "value": "US$474,580 to 28 February 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR. The profile does not say from which date the Stripe history starts.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue before mid-October 2025", "value": "about US$334,161", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$474,580 minus the five months in the monthly table. Those five months add up exactly to the profile's 12-month figure of US$140,419, so the October 2025 value covers only part of that month.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "State of the verification", "value": "Stripe key expired. Last sync 28 February 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "No newer data reached TrustMRR, so the profile shows US$0 for the last 3 and 6 months. Calculated: 229 days between the last sync and 15 October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, April 2025", "value": "US$230,000, from more than 800 recurring customers", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's blog, 21 April 2025. Calculated: about US$19,167 a month.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "MRR, August 2024", "value": "US$14,310", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's monthly report on X, 2 September 2024: up 20.88% in a month, 1,629 signups, 168 new paying customers, 2,986 posts published through the app.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue and MRR, November 2023", "value": "US$36,449 revenue. US$1,716 MRR", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's report on LinkedIn, 1 December 2023: revenue up 1,381% and MRR up 28% on October, 226 new paying customers. More than US$32,000 came from a lifetime deal for agencies, of which the founders expected to keep 50%.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Lifetime deal on RocketHub, total", "value": "US$65,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's blog. He writes that most deal platforms keep 30% to 50% of sales. A buyer's review on RocketHub's page says the highest tier cost US$240 one-time for 50 LinkedIn accounts.", "src": [ 2, 4, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from August 2024 to February 2026", "value": "2.25 times in 18 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$32,216 of verified payments in 30 days against the founder's US$14,310 MRR. The two figures are different measures, so the multiple is approximate.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "2 co-founders. LinkedIn lists 8 people in October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Deven Bhooshan is CEO and Utsav Patel is CMO; both are the partnership's designated partners. One product engineer joined in August 2024. LinkedIn gives the company size as 2 to 10 employees. No source gives the headcount at February 2026.", "src": [ 5, 7, 3, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, April 2025: the lifetime deal gave enough money to grow \"without needing to raise external funding\". Investors approached the founders; no round is reported.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "Supergrow Innovations LLP, Bangalore", "grade": "C", "note": "A limited liability partnership, LLPIN ACH-0505, incorporated on 7 May 2024 with paid-up capital of ₹10,000. The terms of service name it as the operator, under Indian law.", "src": [ 6, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Prices, October 2026", "value": "US$39 a month for one account, US$199 for five", "grade": "C", "note": "Pricing page. US$31 and US$189 a month when billed yearly. 7-day free trial.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "Affiliate commission", "value": "30% of every payment, for the life of the customer", "grade": "C", "note": "Company page. It also claims a trial-to-paid conversion rate of 12% to 14%.", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "fact": "Time from start to the February 2026 figure", "value": "34 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: April 2023, when the founder says he started Supergrow, to February 2026.", "src": [ 2, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2015 to 2023", "what": "Deven Bhooshan works at Amazon in 2015, co-founds MindIQ, an AI chatbot builder, in 2016, joins GoJek in 2017, and consults for other teams from 2021 to 2023.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "Before April 2023", "what": "His previous product, Honeypot, which found sales leads on Twitter, makes US$12,000 a year when Twitter's new API prices end it. Another founder whose Twitter tool was hit the same way contacts him and becomes his co-founder.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "April 2023", "what": "He starts Supergrow after studying Taplio, AuthoredUp and ContentIn. The first version does one thing: it turns a short paragraph into a LinkedIn post, with one click to generate and two to publish.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "November 2023", "what": "A lifetime deal for agencies brings in more than US$32,000. The month's revenue is US$36,449 and MRR is US$1,716. A Black Friday discount sells 15 annual plans.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "After the lifetime deal", "what": "The lifetime deal on RocketHub totals US$65,000. Subscription pricing launches on Product Hunt, where Supergrow becomes #1 Product of the Week; visitors pay US$1 for the first month, and more than half stay at the full price.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "7 May 2024", "what": "Supergrow Innovations LLP is incorporated in Bangalore with the two founders as designated partners.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "August 2024", "what": "MRR reaches US$14,310 in the best month of growth so far. The company starts a blog for search traffic and hires a product engineer.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "21 April 2025", "what": "The founder writes that Supergrow makes US$230,000 a year from more than 800 recurring customers, and that it is moving from individual buyers to companies.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "November 2025 to February 2026", "what": "Stripe shows US$30,247, US$39,107, US$29,842 and US$29,760 in the four months.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "28 February 2026", "what": "Last sync with TrustMRR: US$32,216 in 30 days, MRR of US$79,479 and US$474,580 all-time. The Stripe key then expired, on a date the profile does not show, and nothing newer is verified.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "31 July 2026", "what": "LinkedIn adds a \"Seems like AI slop\" report option and says it already shows such posts less outside the writer's own network.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 19 ] }, { "when": "24 August 2026", "what": "Taplio, a competitor, reviews Supergrow on its own blog and lists plans at US$19, US$39 and US$139 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 21 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "Supergrow is listed in Claude's connector directory, so Claude and ChatGPT users can draft posts and read analytics from their AI assistant. In the same month LinkedIn removes its own AI option for rewriting posts.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 11, 20 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "Pro costs US$39 a month and Teams US$199. LinkedIn lists 8 people at the company. The founder also builds a second product, WarmDogo, an agent that finds sales leads.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 8, 14 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Pick a market that already pays", "text": "The founder studied the tools that people already used, Taplio, AuthoredUp and ContentIn, and found that none wrote good posts, the one task users needed most. Supergrow's first version did only that. He writes that a competitor's venture funding is no proof of a market; paying customers are." }, { "title": "Public posts brought the first customers", "text": "Both founders posted progress, decisions and numbers on LinkedIn and X. The founder writes that the first customers came from his LinkedIn network, and that the lifetime-deal platform and investors contacted them because of those posts." }, { "title": "A lifetime deal paid for the start", "text": "RocketHub sold one-time lifetime access for a total of US$65,000, and kept a share; in November 2023 the founder expected half. He writes that this money let them grow without investors, and that only about 10% of lifetime buyers use the product actively, so the cost of supporting them stayed small." }, { "title": "Then subscriptions, influencers and affiliates", "text": "Subscription pricing launched on Product Hunt with a US$1 first month. The co-founder ran partnerships with LinkedIn influencers as a second channel, and an affiliate program pays 30% of every renewal. Search traffic came late: the blog started only in August 2024, which the founder calls a mistake." }, { "title": "From individuals to teams", "text": "For two years most buyers were individuals, and the founder writes that business buyers cancel less and pay more predictably. By 2026 the product is sold to marketing teams: a US$199 plan for five executives, approval steps, leaderboards and an Enterprise plan." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's blog post, his posts and the company's own pages. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The first version had one-click post generation and two-click publishing, and nothing else: no analytics, no scheduling, no dashboards.", "Posts are written by third-party large language models, according to the terms of service. No source names the models. The founder names OpenAI's GPT-3 as one reason he started.", "Feedback ran through Intercom chat, then Canny for feature requests, with Microsoft Clarity and Mixpanel to see what users did, and 3 to 4 customer calls a week. The founder says he watched every user's session recording, sometimes more than 300 a day, for almost a year.", "They refused to build automated LinkedIn direct messages, although many users asked for it.", "Inputs besides typed ideas: voice notes, YouTube videos, articles, PDFs, and a 10 to 15 minute interview with an AI interviewer called PostCast.", "In 2026 Supergrow added an MCP server, a standard connection that lets AI assistants use another app's functions. Claude and ChatGPT connect by signing in, and Supergrow is listed in Claude's connector directory.", "Payments run through Stripe." ], "src": [ 2, 6, 15, 23, 11, 10, 1 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database built a tool on top of a social network that they did not control. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "BranchOut", "years": "2010 to 2017", "funding": "US$49M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A professional network like LinkedIn, built inside Facebook.", "died": "Facebook changed its API rules and cut off the growth that the product depended on.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/30-branchout" }, { "name": "PostRocket", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$610K", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "More reach for Facebook pages through data-driven post timing.", "died": "Facebook changed its API, and the company had no plan for another product.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/457-postrocket" }, { "name": "Pixelpipe", "years": "2008 to 2013", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Post photos and videos to every social network at once.", "died": "The networks closed their APIs and built cross-posting in themselves.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/435-pixelpipe" }, { "name": "Klout", "years": "2008 to 2017", "funding": "US$40M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A score from 1 to 100 for a person's influence on social media.", "died": "Facebook and Twitter built better analytics themselves.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/280-klout" }, { "name": "ThinkUp", "years": "2010 to 2017", "funding": "US$1M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Personal analytics on a user's social media activity, beyond likes and retweets.", "died": "It stayed a desktop product while social media moved to phones, and it did little marketing.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/624-thinkup" } ], "whatChanged": [ "All five depended on a social network's API or its users, and the network ended them by changing its rules or by building the feature itself. Supergrow makes the same bet on LinkedIn. LinkedIn released its own AI post writer in 2023, forbids unauthorized automated posting, commenting and liking, and in 2026 started to show low-effort AI posts to fewer people.", "Three things differ. Supergrow charged from the start and took no outside money, so it needs far less revenue than the funded predecessors to stay alive. It writes the content, a task that LinkedIn itself stepped back from: in September 2026 it removed its AI option for rewriting posts, and by October it offered Premium members a proofreader that only edits the member's own words. And it moved toward companies, which buy for many employees and cancel less. LinkedIn's actions against AI posts could still reduce its customers' reach, and with it their reason to pay." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The same market, with care.", "text": "Every step of the method is documented by the founder and needs little money: study paying competitors, post in public, pay for the start with a lifetime deal, then sell subscriptions. The market for LinkedIn writing tools is now crowded, and LinkedIn acts against generic AI posts, so a new entrant needs a narrower buyer and output that reads like a real person.", "steps": [ "Choose a market where people already pay, use the competitors every day, and do their weakest core task better.", "Post your progress and numbers where your buyers are. The founder's first customers, the deal platform and the investors' interest all came from those posts.", "Sell a lifetime deal for cash and feedback, and plan for the platform to keep 30% to 50% of it.", "Switch to subscriptions with a launch offer, then add a channel that is not your own posts, such as influencers or affiliates paid from each renewal." ], "open": "Tools for companies that want many employees to post about their work (called employee advocacy), and other professional platforms where people must post regularly but the platform does not write for them." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Verified figures stop in February 2026", "text": "TrustMRR's Stripe key expired, and the last sync was on 28 February 2026, 229 days before this page was written. The 75 posts in the founder's X timeline from December 2025 to October 2026 give no newer revenue figure. The company still sells and ships updates, but nothing after February 2026 is verified." }, { "title": "MRR and payments disagree", "text": "The same profile shows MRR of US$79,479 but payments of US$32,216 in 30 days, and 2,315 active subscriptions while the founder-written part of the profile estimates 1,200 users. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial. No source explains the gap, so this page uses the payments." }, { "title": "LinkedIn writes, then restricts, AI posts", "text": "By 26 September 2023 LinkedIn had launched its own tool that drafts a post from a member's ideas. On 31 July 2026 it added an option to report posts that \"seem like AI slop\", said it already shows such posts less outside the writer's network, and said it uses better classifiers, programs that sort posts automatically, to find them. In September 2026 it removed its own AI rewriting option. A tool whose output reads as generic may cost its customers their reach." }, { "title": "LinkedIn's rules on automation", "text": "LinkedIn's User Agreement, effective 3 November 2025, forbids bots or other unauthorized automated methods to create, comment on, like or share posts, and its help pages warn that members who use such tools risk restricted accounts. Supergrow schedules posts, writes AI comments and publishes for team members. Its home page calls it a LinkedIn Verified Partner; this page could not check that claim." }, { "title": "Many competing tools", "text": "Taplio, AuthoredUp and ContentIn were there first. Taplio now reviews Supergrow on its own blog and offers the same Claude connection. The founder writes that copycats duplicated his product. Supergrow's own prices changed within two months in 2026, from US$19, US$39 and US$139 to US$39 and US$199." }, { "title": "A team of eight, not two", "text": "There are two founders, and LinkedIn lists 8 people at the company in October 2026, within a stated size of 2 to 10 employees. No source gives the headcount at the February 2026 figure. At eight people, Supergrow is near the upper limit of a small team on this site." }, { "title": "Dependence on model providers", "text": "The writing comes from third-party large language models that the company does not name. The providers set their prices, rules and quality, and the same models are available to every competitor and to LinkedIn." }, { "title": "A second product", "text": "In 2026 the founder also builds WarmDogo, an agent that finds sales leads, so Supergrow no longer has all of his time." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR: Supergrow, revenue verified through Stripe", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/supergrow", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/supergrow.md) in full on 15 October 2026. Its Verification Sources section says Stripe through an API key, the key expired, last revenue sync 28 February 2026. Source for every grade A figure. The profile text, such as the user estimate and the B2C label, is founder-written, grade C." }, { "title": "Deven Bhooshan's blog, 21 April 2025: From Zero to $230K ARR: The Indie Hacker's Playbook", "url": "https://blog.devenbhooshan.in/from-zero-to-250k-arr-the-indie-hackers-playbook", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The founder's own account. Source for the start date, Honeypot, the competitor study, the RocketHub total, Product Hunt, the funding statement, the feedback tools and the two mistakes." }, { "title": "Deven Bhooshan on X, 2 September 2024: August report for Supergrow", "url": "https://x.com/devenbhooshan/status/1830499307704725723", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the August 2024 MRR, signups, customers, the start of the blog and the first engineer." }, { "title": "Deven Bhooshan on LinkedIn, 1 December 2023: November report for Supergrow", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/posts/devenbhooshan_november-report-for-supergrow-36449-activity-7136252559794552833-PJWX", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public post. The date comes from the post's ID. Source for the November 2023 revenue, MRR, customers and the lifetime deal for agencies." }, { "title": "Supergrow: About us", "url": "https://www.supergrow.ai/about-us", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names Deven Bhooshan as CEO and co-founder and Utsav Patel as CMO and co-founder. Its user count (1,200+) appears older than the TrustMRR data." }, { "title": "Supergrow: Terms of Service", "url": "https://www.supergrow.ai/tos", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the operator, AI output, third-party services and governing law." }, { "title": "Falcon Ebiz: Supergrow Innovations LLP, LLPIN ACH-0505", "url": "https://www.falconebiz.com/LLP/SUPERGROW-INNOVATIONS-LLP-ACH-0505", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A commercial copy of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs register, not the register itself. Source for the incorporation date, the paid-up capital and the two designated partners. Finanvo.in gives the same incorporation date." }, { "title": "LinkedIn: Supergrow company page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://in.linkedin.com/company/supergrowai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public page. Company size 2 to 10 employees, 8 people listed as employees." }, { "title": "Supergrow pricing page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.supergrow.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, including the questions section that gives the yearly prices." }, { "title": "Supergrow blog, 29 September 2026: What's new in Supergrow: September 2026", "url": "https://www.supergrow.ai/blog/whats-new-in-supergrow-september-2026", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the contents and the summary. Written by Deven Bhooshan. Shows that the product is still developed." }, { "title": "Supergrow changelog", "url": "https://www.supergrow.ai/changelog", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the entries on the MCP connection for Claude and ChatGPT." }, { "title": "Supergrow affiliate program", "url": "https://www.supergrow.ai/affiliate-program", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the commission and the claimed trial-to-paid rate." }, { "title": "RocketHub: Supergrow lifetime deal", "url": "https://www.rockethub.com/deal/supergrow", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the deal page and its 8 customer reviews. A buyer's review gives the US$240 price of the top tier." }, { "title": "Deven Bhooshan's website", "url": "https://devenbhooshan.in/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the founder's career and the second product, WarmDogo." }, { "title": "Deven Bhooshan on X, 17 September 2026: watching session recordings", "url": "https://x.com/devenbhooshan/status/2100531285714456923", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. His timeline from 21 December 2025 to 13 October 2026, 75 posts as the API lists them, was read for revenue figures and has none." }, { "title": "LinkedIn User Agreement, effective 3 November 2025", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on what members must not do and on generative AI features." }, { "title": "LinkedIn Help: Prohibited software and extensions", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1341387", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "Digital Works, 26 September 2023: LinkedIn's AI-powered writing tool for posts", "url": "https://digitalworks.dk/en/artikler/linkedins-ai-powered-writing-tool-for-posts", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A Danish agency's description of LinkedIn's tool that drafts posts." }, { "title": "ProPakistani, 31 July 2026: LinkedIn Finally Adds a Button To Kill All That AI Slop", "url": "https://propakistani.pk/2026/07/31/linkedin-finally-adds-a-button-to-kill-all-that-ai-slop/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Reports LinkedIn's statements; LinkedIn's own announcement was not read." }, { "title": "Metricool, 2 October 2026: LinkedIn Swaps Its AI Post Writer for a Proofreading Tool", "url": "https://metricool.com/linkedin-post-proofreader/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "Taplio blog, 24 August 2026: Supergrow Review 2026", "url": "https://taplio.com/blog/supergrow-review", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the verdict and the plan sections. Written by a competitor, as the page itself says." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." }, { "title": "Supergrow home page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.supergrow.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the input types, the length of a PostCast interview and the \"LinkedIn Verified Partner\" claim." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/adspirer/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/adspirer.md", "slug": "adspirer", "name": "Adspirer", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI agent and MCP server for ad campaigns", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "November 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$54.7K MRR verified by Stripe at the last sync, June 2026", "sticker": "$54.7K MRR in June 2026", "outcomeUsd": 656208, "months": 7, "teamLabel": "1 founder; LinkedIn lists 2 employees in October 2026", "fundingLabel": "None found; the profile says bootstrapped", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "platform", "trend": "growing", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Advertising" ], "product": "An AI agent for paid advertising that works inside ChatGPT, Claude, Claude Code, Cursor and other AI assistants. It connects to the customer's ad accounts at Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, Amazon and ChatGPT Ads, researches keywords, builds campaigns (always created paused), reports results and finds wasted spend. Scheduled agents can also watch the accounts and make reversible changes. The customer pays the ad platforms directly.", "why": "It went where the users already were: an app in ChatGPT's app store, a plugin in Claude's directory and in Claude Code, and setups for Cursor and Codex, in the months when these directories were new. It charges per tool call instead of a share of ad spend, so a small advertiser starts at US$49 a month. And it applied to the platforms' own API programs; the company says Google approved it in June 2026 and Amazon admitted it to its partner network.", "summary": [ "Adspirer is an MCP server: a program that offers tools to AI assistants through the Model Context Protocol, an open standard by which a chat assistant such as ChatGPT or Claude calls outside software. Its tools act on a customer's ad accounts at Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, Amazon and ChatGPT Ads: they research keywords, build campaigns, read results, change budgets and find wasted spend, all from a conversation. Each action is a tool call, one request from the assistant to one tool, and the price is a monthly number of them: 15 free, 150 for US$49, 600 for US$99 and 3,000 for US$199. The ad money goes from the customer to the platforms and never passes through Adspirer, so all of the subscription fee is the business's revenue.", "Abhilash Mekala, who describes himself as formerly at Meta and Uber and is based in San Francisco, created the public code repository on 27 October 2025 and took the first payment, US$25, in November 2025. He submitted a ChatGPT app with 36 tools on 20 December 2025, added Meta Ads on 5 January 2026, and became an official Claude Code plugin on 30 March 2026. Revenue read from Stripe by TrustMRR went from US$1,073 in February to US$68,747 in June 2026. At the last sync, on 29 June 2026, MRR (monthly recurring revenue, the subscription money that repeats every month) was US$54,684 from 742 active subscriptions, and customers had paid US$70,229 in the previous 30 days. The operating company is BETSONAGI LLC, d/b/a Adspirer. The profile lists a team of one, LinkedIn lists two employees, and no funding was found.", "The money figures are grade A, from Stripe, but they stop on 29 June 2026. The profile now says that the Stripe API key, a password that lets one program read another program's account, has expired, and it gives no expiry time. Nothing after 29 June is verified in either direction. The team size, the platform approvals, the tool counts and the agents come from the company, the founder or a partner. The page also shows what ended earlier companies that ran ads for small businesses: mostly the platforms' own automation." ], "factsCaption": "Stripe-verified MRR of US$54,684 and US$70,229 paid in 30 days at the last sync on 29 June 2026, seven months after the first payment; nothing later is verified", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from Stripe through TrustMRR, as read up to the last sync on 29 June 2026; the Stripe API key has expired since then. A grade C value is the company's own page, a founder post, a partner's page or a public record such as GitHub or LinkedIn. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From the first payment in November 2025 to US$54,684 of verified MRR seven months later, then no verified data. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Adspirer prices in October 2026, from the company's pricing page and its llms.txt file (grade C)", "note": "Each plan is a monthly number of tool calls; the pricing page calls them tasks. Annual billing costs US$485, US$999 or US$2,000 a year, 15.9% to 17.5% less than twelve monthly payments. Every plan includes all ad platforms and the ChatGPT and Claude integrations, and the scheduled Ad Ops agents come with the paid plans. Ad spend is paid by the customer to the ad platforms and is not part of these prices.", "rows": [ [ "Free Forever", "0", "0", "15 tool calls a month" ], [ "Plus", "40.42", "49", "150 tool calls a month; US$485 a year" ], [ "Pro", "83.25", "99", "600 tool calls a month; US$999 a year" ], [ "Max", "166.67", "199", "3,000 tool calls a month; US$2,000 a year" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "MRR at the last sync, 29 June 2026", "value": "US$54,684", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe through TrustMRR, last revenue sync on 29 June 2026 at 14:31 UTC. The profile says the Stripe API key has expired and gives no expiry time. MRR grew 30.0% in the 30 days before the sync.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Money paid in the 30 days before the sync", "value": "US$70,229, up 25.2%", "grade": "A", "note": "Snapshot stored at the 29 June sync. The daily table for 16 September to 15 October 2026 shows US$0.00 for every day, because no data has arrived since.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Gap between the 30-day payments and MRR", "value": "US$15,545, or 28.4% above MRR", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$70,229 minus US$54,684. A likely reason, not stated on the profile: an annual plan (US$485, US$999 or US$2,000) counts in full as a payment on the day it is paid, but only one twelfth of it counts in MRR. Ad spend is not the reason: the terms say that the platforms charge it to the customer directly.", "src": [ 1, 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the MRR", "value": "about US$656,208 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$54,684 times 12. This is the headline value in dollars a year.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue by month", "value": "US$25 (November 2025), US$1,073 (February 2026), US$21,553 (March), US$36,411 (April), US$56,108 (May), US$68,747 (June, to the 29th)", "grade": "A", "note": "Monthly timeline on the profile; no payments in December 2025 or January 2026. The six months add up to US$183,917, the all-time total on the profile.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from month to month", "value": "+68.9% (April), +54.1% (May), +22.5% (June)", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the monthly timeline. Growth slowed, but every month was higher than the one before. June 2026 was 3.19 times March.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions at the last sync", "value": "742", "grade": "A", "note": "Snapshot from the 29 June 2026 sync.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR per active subscription", "value": "about US$73.70 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$54,684 divided by 742. Between the monthly prices of Plus (US$49) and Pro (US$99).", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Profile windows that end today", "value": "US$0.00 in the last 3 months; US$141,117 in the last 6 months", "grade": "A", "note": "These windows end on 15 October 2026, but no data exists after 29 June, so they undercount. Calculated: the 6-month figure contains US$16,262 from part of April plus all of May and June.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin in the 30 days before the sync", "value": "82.0%", "grade": "C", "note": "Shown on the profile, which does not say where the costs come from. This page treats the cost side as founder-supplied.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "What the business keeps of each payment", "value": "the whole subscription fee; no ad spend passes through", "grade": "C", "note": "Terms of Service, section 6: all advertising spend is charged directly by the advertising platforms to the customer's own accounts, and Adspirer does not receive, hold, manage or process it.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Prices, October 2026", "value": "Free, then US$49, US$99 and US$199 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "For 15, 150, 600 and 3,000 tool calls a month. The founder wrote in December 2025 that per-tool-call pricing replaced a share of ad spend.", "src": [ 3, 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 person on the profile; LinkedIn lists 2 employees", "grade": "C", "note": "The TrustMRR team size is founder-written. The LinkedIn company page, read 15 October 2026, gives the size band 2-10 employees and shows 2 people. No count exists for June 2026.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "The profile says bootstrapped. No funding round was found on the company's pages, its newsroom or the founder's posts.", "src": [ 1, 9, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "BETSONAGI LLC, d/b/a Adspirer", "grade": "C", "note": "Terms of Service and privacy policy. The terms are governed by the laws of Delaware.", "src": [ 2, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Tools offered to the AI assistants", "value": "36 in December 2025; 430 documented tools in October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's thread on the ChatGPT app submission, 20 December 2025, and the company's llms.txt file. Anthropic's plugin page describes 91 tools in the Claude Code plugin.", "src": [ 5, 3, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Claude Code plugin installs", "value": "2,950", "grade": "C", "note": "Anthropic's plugin directory page, read 15 October 2026. Installs are not customers; many are free accounts.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Estimated users", "value": "about 2,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder-written field on the profile.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Scale claimed by a partner", "value": "about 3,000 customer environments and about 50 million MCP tool calls a day", "grade": "C", "note": "BlueRock's customer story. Not verified. Calculated: 3,000 accounts on the Max plan's 3,000 calls a month would make about 300,000 calls a day, so the 50 million cannot be billed tool calls.", "src": [ 12, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the first payment to the headline", "value": "7 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: November 2025 to June 2026. The profile gives 1 January 2026 as the founding date, after the first payment.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "27 October 2025", "what": "The founder creates the public GitHub repository ads-mcp, which later holds the plugins and skills for Claude Code and Cursor.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "November 2025", "what": "First verified payment: US$25.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "11 to 16 December 2025", "what": "The founder posts that agencies charging a share of ad spend gain from bloated budgets, and that Adspirer charges per tool call instead. He also writes that AI tool builders should think about MCP distribution.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "20 December 2025", "what": "He submits Adspirer v1.0, the first ChatGPT app, to OpenAI's review. Each of its 36 tools needed annotations; he says it took about two hours.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "5 January 2026", "what": "Meta Ads support goes live: Facebook and Instagram campaigns from ChatGPT or Claude. Three platforms: Google, TikTok and Meta.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "15 February 2026", "what": "He posts a video on creating Google Ads campaigns from Claude Code and hosts an event listed on Luma, Build Your AI Marketing Stack with OpenClaw.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "March 2026", "what": "Verified revenue reaches US$21,553, from US$1,073 in February.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "30 March 2026", "what": "Adspirer becomes an official Claude Code plugin, installed from the plugin directory.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 7 ] }, { "when": "April to May 2026", "what": "Verified revenue: US$36,411 in April, US$56,108 in May.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "13 June 2026", "what": "The company announces Google Ads API approval \"at the agency level\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "14 June 2026", "what": "The company announces admission to the Amazon Ads Partner Network. Amazon Ads becomes its sixth ad platform.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "29 June 2026", "what": "Last Stripe sync: MRR US$54,684, 742 active subscriptions, US$70,229 paid in 30 days, US$68,747 in June. No verified data after this day.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "14 July 2026", "what": "Launch of Ad Ops agents, which run on a schedule at a level the advertiser chooses, from watch-and-alert to autonomous reversible changes.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "8 October 2026", "what": "Latest push to the public GitHub repository. The founder still posts on X on 13 October. No new revenue figure.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 5 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Distribution", "text": "In December 2025 the founder wrote that users do not adopt because of features but because you showed up where they already were. Adspirer is an app in ChatGPT's app store, a plugin in Claude's directory and an official Claude Code plugin with 2,950 installs, with setups for Cursor, Codex, Windsurf and OpenClaw. The sign-in during the install creates the free account, so the assistant's directory is the shop window." }, { "title": "Tools instead of screens", "text": "The founder wrote that ChatGPT and Claude are the interface, so he builds tools, not a dashboard. In a test he posted on 22 March 2026, the MCP tools built a full Performance Max campaign in 20 seconds with 15 tool calls, while Perplexity's computer-use agent, which works through the ad screens, needed 15 minutes." }, { "title": "Price per tool call, not per ad spend", "text": "Agencies and many ad tools charge a percentage of ad spend. Adspirer charges for the number of tool calls, so an advertiser with US$1 million of spend pays the same as one with US$10,000 if both use the same number of tools, in the founder's words. A small advertiser can start for US$49 a month." }, { "title": "Platform approvals and guardrails", "text": "The company applied to the platforms' API programs: it announced Google Ads API approval and admission to the Amazon Ads Partner Network in June 2026. To make an AI acting on real budgets acceptable, new campaigns are created paused, new spend waits for approval, every action is logged, and autonomous agents may only make changes from a list of reversible ones." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's own pages, the founder's posts and the technology list on the TrustMRR profile. They are grade C.", "items": [ "A remote MCP server at mcp.adspirer.com/mcp. Assistants connect over Streamable HTTP or SSE and sign in with OAuth 2.1 with PKCE. The company says it does not collect or store the passwords of the connected accounts.", "Ad accounts connect through each platform's own authorization: OAuth or another approved method for Google, Microsoft, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok and Amazon, and an API key for ChatGPT Ads. Contact data sent to a platform as a conversion is hashed with SHA-256 first.", "The technology list on the profile names Next.js, FastAPI, Google Cloud, Docker, Redis, GraphQL, Clerk, Stripe, Datadog, Twilio and GitHub Actions, and the model providers Anthropic and OpenAI. In chat use the customer's own assistant is the model; no source says which model runs the scheduled agents.", "The ChatGPT app passed OpenAI's review: every tool needed annotations (readOnlyHint, destructiveHint, openWorldHint), at least five test cases and three negative test cases, and the server had to prove ownership of its domain.", "Plugins and skills for Claude Code and Cursor are in a public GitHub repository under the MIT license. The documentation runs on Mintlify and has its own llms.txt file for AI agents.", "Runtime security and monitoring for the MCP traffic come from BlueRock, according to BlueRock's customer story." ], "src": [ 3, 14, 1, 5, 8, 12 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised to take ad management off a small advertiser's hands, and failed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Trada", "years": "2008 to 2015", "funding": "US$19M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A marketplace of paid-search experts who ran small businesses' Google AdWords campaigns.", "died": "Human experts were costly to scale, and Google's own automated campaign tools reduced the need for them.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/655-trada" }, { "name": "Automate Ads", "years": "2015 to 2018", "funding": "US$1.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Automated management of Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns.", "died": "Facebook and Google kept improving their own ad tools, and the product depended on their APIs.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1100-automate-ads" }, { "name": "Metigy", "years": "2014 to 2022", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "An AI marketing brain for small businesses that recommended content and ad spend.", "died": "Its recommendations were generic. Small businesses wanted the work done for them, not a dashboard of advice, and the money ran out.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2338-metigy" }, { "name": "Admazely", "years": "2012 to 2014", "funding": "US$2.3M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Simple retargeting ads for small web shops.", "died": "Small shops had small ad budgets, so each customer cost more to acquire than it brought in.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1830-admazely" } ], "whatChanged": [ "All four sold a layer between small advertisers and the large ad platforms, and in three of them the platforms' own tools or the customers' small budgets ended it. Adspirer makes the same bet on the same platforms, and the platforms are still adding automation: Performance Max for all Google advertisers since November 2021, AI Max for Search campaigns from May 2025, and a Meta Advantage+ setup that applies AI to sales, app and leads campaigns from February 2025.", "Three things differ. The work that Trada paid human experts for, and that Metigy only recommended, is now done by a language model inside an assistant that the customer already pays for, so Adspirer builds tools, not screens, and the work gets done rather than suggested. It is found in the assistants' app directories instead of through sales. And the price is per tool call, not a share of ad spend, so a small advertiser pays US$49 a month and the business never holds ad money. None of this protects it from the platforms deciding to offer the same agent themselves." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The early timing, no longer.", "text": "In late 2025 the app directories inside ChatGPT and Claude were new and had few ad tools, and Adspirer was in them early. That opening is narrower now: a GitHub organization named Google Ads, linked to Google's developer site, publishes an open-source Google Ads MCP server, and Pipeboard offers a free plan for Meta. The method still works for any professional software with a public API that a specialist uses every day: wrap the API as tools, list them where the assistants are, and charge per call.", "steps": [ "Pick one paid job with official APIs and wrap each action as a tool, with reading and writing separated.", "Publish it in the assistants' directories: ChatGPT's app store, Claude's plugin directory, Claude Code and Cursor.", "Apply early for the platforms' API access levels and partner programs, because the reviews take time.", "Charge per tool call, with a free tier large enough to test in one session.", "Create every change paused or reversible, require approval for new spend, and write the terms so that the customer owns the spend." ], "open": "Jobs that run through official APIs and cost specialists hours each week: retail media, email marketing platforms, app store ads, and cloud cost management." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Verification stopped on 29 June 2026", "text": "The profile says the Stripe API key that TrustMRR reads has expired, with no expiry time. Every verified figure ends on 29 June, and the daily table shows US$0.00 for every day since, which says nothing in either direction. The latest signs that the business runs are the agents launch on 14 July, a push to the public repository on 8 October and a post by the founder on 13 October 2026, none of them with a figure." }, { "title": "The platforms automate the same job", "text": "Google made Performance Max available to all advertisers on 2 November 2021 and announced AI Max for Search campaigns on 6 May 2025. Meta made its Advantage+ setup apply AI to sales, app and leads campaigns from February 2025, and on 3 June 2025 MediaPost, citing The Wall Street Journal, reported a plan to let brands create and target ads with Meta's AI tools by 2026. Each step moves part of what an agent like Adspirer does into the platform's own product." }, { "title": "API access is granted, and can be withdrawn", "text": "The Google Ads API has access levels that each need an application: Basic Access allows 15,000 operations a day, Standard Access has no daily limit. LinkedIn opens its Advertising API only to approved developers. Adspirer's privacy policy shows a partner duty too: for data received through Meta's Muse connector platform it must notify Meta of an incident within 48 hours. Adspirer says it holds Google approval \"at the agency level\", a term that Google's access page does not use. Automate Ads, a predecessor, depended on the same kind of access." }, { "title": "An AI agent spending real budgets", "text": "The terms say that AI output can include incorrect values, \"for example, budget or bid amounts\", that Adspirer is not liable for ad spend or budget overruns, and that its liability is capped at the customer's most recent monthly fee. The guardrails are the company's own: campaigns are created paused, new spend waits for approval, and autonomous agents may only make changes from a list of reversible ones. No outside party has tested them." }, { "title": "Competitors, including free ones", "text": "The GitHub organization googleads, named Google Ads and linked to Google's developer site, publishes an open-source Google Ads MCP server, created on 3 October 2025, with 1,042 stars; its README lists tools that read account data. Pipeboard's Meta Ads MCP server has a free plan, a Meta Business Partner badge and 1,305 stars. Adspirer's own comparison page lists Ryze AI, Optmyzr, Smartly, Skai, Madgicx, Bïrch, Opteo and Adzviser." }, { "title": "Claims that no one outside has checked", "text": "BlueRock's customer story gives about 3,000 customer environments and about 50 million MCP tool calls a day, which cannot be billed calls (about 300,000 a day even if every account were on the Max plan). The Google and Amazon approvals appear only on Adspirer's own newsroom, and the team size of one is the founder's own entry, while LinkedIn lists two employees." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR: Adspirer profile, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/adspirer", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/adspirer.md) in full. Revenue, the monthly timeline, MRR and the subscription count come from Stripe (grade A); the description, team size, funding, user estimate, technology list and founding date are founder-written (grade C). Last revenue sync 29 June 2026 at 14:31 UTC; the Stripe API key has expired, with no expiry time given." }, { "title": "Adspirer Terms of Service", "url": "https://www.adspirer.com/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the operating company, the separation of ad spend, the AI-output clauses and the liability cap." }, { "title": "Adspirer llms.txt file", "url": "https://www.adspirer.com/llms.txt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's machine-readable summary: product, MCP server address and sign-in method, platforms, assistants, tool count, prices, GitHub repository and documentation." }, { "title": "Adspirer pricing page", "url": "https://www.adspirer.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the page and its embedded price data. The plan cards load by script; the prices were read from the page's metadata, which matches the llms.txt file." }, { "title": "Abhilash Mekala on X (@abhilashreddi): profile and posts from 9 December 2025 to 13 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/abhilashreddi", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and two pages of the timeline through api.fxtwitter.com in full. The third page returned no posts. Source for the pricing posts, the ChatGPT app submission, the platform launches and the Claude Code plugin." }, { "title": "LinkedIn: Adspirer company page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/adspirer", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public page. Source for the size band of 2-10 employees and the 2 employees listed." }, { "title": "Claude plugin directory: Adspirer Ads Agent, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://claude.com/plugins/adspirer-ads-agent", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Anthropic's listing, made by Adspirer, with the install count and the tool count." }, { "title": "GitHub repository amekala/ads-mcp: README and repository record", "url": "https://github.com/amekala/ads-mcp", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the README in full and the repository record through the GitHub API: created 27 October 2025, last push 8 October 2026, MIT license." }, { "title": "Adspirer newsroom, 13 June 2026: Adspirer Earns Google Ads API Approval at the Agency Level", "url": "https://www.adspirer.com/newsroom/adspirer-google-ads-api-agency-approval", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's own announcement; Google's side was not found." }, { "title": "Adspirer newsroom, 14 June 2026: Adspirer Approved as an Amazon Ads Partner; Amazon Ads Now Live", "url": "https://www.adspirer.com/newsroom/adspirer-amazon-ads-partner", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's own announcement." }, { "title": "Adspirer newsroom, 14 July 2026: Adspirer Launches Autonomous Ad Ops Agents", "url": "https://www.adspirer.com/newsroom/adspirer-ad-ops-agents", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the autonomy levels and the rule that auto-apply covers only reversible changes." }, { "title": "BlueRock customer story: How Adspirer secures the full lifecycle of AI advertising operations", "url": "https://www.bluerock.io/customers/adspirer", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A partner's marketing page. Source for the customer environments and the tool calls a day, which this page could not verify." }, { "title": "Adspirer About page", "url": "https://www.adspirer.com/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the guardrails: paused campaigns, approval for consequential moves, activity log." }, { "title": "Adspirer Privacy Policy", "url": "https://www.adspirer.com/privacy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on connected platforms, authorization, security incidents and the operating company." }, { "title": "Google Ads API: Access levels and permissible use", "url": "https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/api-policy/access-levels", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Google's rules for API access levels and daily operation limits." }, { "title": "Google Ads and Commerce blog, 2 November 2021: Performance Max campaigns launch to all advertisers", "url": "https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/performance-max/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Date and scope of the launch." }, { "title": "Google Ads and Commerce blog, 6 May 2025: Introducing AI Max for Search campaigns", "url": "https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/google-ai-max-for-search-campaigns/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Date and rollout of AI Max for Search." }, { "title": "Search Engine Land, 7 February 2025: Meta simplifies Advantage+ campaign setup, adds leads campaigns", "url": "https://searchengineland.com/meta-advantage-campaign-setup-leads-campaigns-451713", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Trade press report on Meta's streamlined Advantage+ setup." }, { "title": "MediaPost, 3 June 2025: Meta Plans To Automate All Ad Creation By 2026: Report", "url": "https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/406315/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Trade press report citing The Wall Street Journal; the Journal's article was not read." }, { "title": "Microsoft Learn: LinkedIn Marketing API, increasing access", "url": "https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/linkedin/marketing/increasing-access", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. LinkedIn's rules for access to the Advertising API." }, { "title": "GitHub repository googleads/google-ads-mcp: README and repository record", "url": "https://github.com/googleads/google-ads-mcp", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the README and the repository record through the GitHub API: created 3 October 2025, 1,042 stars. The organization record names it Google Ads and links to developers.google.com/ads; GitHub does not mark it verified." }, { "title": "GitHub repository pipeboard-co/meta-ads-mcp: repository record", "url": "https://github.com/pipeboard-co/meta-ads-mcp", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the repository record through the GitHub API: description, created 11 April 2025, 1,305 stars." }, { "title": "Adspirer blog: 10 Best AI Tools for PPC Managers in 2026", "url": "https://www.adspirer.com/blog/best-ai-tools-ppc-managers-2026", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's own comparison, with a disclosure that Adspirer is its product. Source for the competitor names." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/lancer-app/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/lancer-app.md", "slug": "lancer-app", "name": "Lancer", "country": "North Macedonia", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI agent that bids on Upwork jobs", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "June 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$17.7K a month recurring revenue, October 2026", "sticker": "$212K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 212196, "months": 16, "teamLabel": "2 founders and no employees (January and July 2026)", "fundingLabel": "None found; no loans in the company's 2025 accounts", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "partners", "trend": "falling", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Sales" ], "product": "An AI agent for Upwork. It reads the Upwork job feed against filters that the customer sets, checks with AI whether each job fits, writes a proposal and the answers to the screening questions from the customer's own knowledge base, and submits it from the customer's Upwork account, with optional boosting. Replies are tracked in an inbox. An MCP server and a REST API let the customer's own AI agent run it.", "why": "The founder had the problem himself. Upwork had become his agency's best sales channel, but 10,000 jobs a day are posted around the clock and he could cover only about 8% of them by hand. He built the tool for his own agency and charged agency owners a business price from the start. Two Upwork coaches, who advise freelancers and agencies, switched their clients to it as affiliates, and that produced most of the growth.", "summary": [ "Lancer is an AI agent, a program that uses a language model to decide and act on its own instead of only answering questions, for Upwork, a marketplace where clients post jobs and freelancers apply with written proposals. It reads the Upwork job feed against filters that the customer sets, such as budget and the client's past spending and hire rate, and runs an AI check on whether each job fits. For the jobs that pass, it writes a proposal from a knowledge base that the customer wrote, answers the job's screening questions, and submits the proposal from the customer's own Upwork account. Proposals use Connects, credits that freelancers buy from Upwork. Lancer charges US$149 to US$499 a month.", "Ivan Nedelkovski, from Skopje in North Macedonia, started a software development agency, MVP Masters, in 2020 and grew it to 15 full-time staff before he exited it in 2025 to start a product studio. In 2024 his agency spent US$800 on Upwork and won three contracts worth US$240,000 over the next twelve months, but he could watch only a small part of the job posts by hand. He built Lancer for his own agency first, had paying users at about US$300 a month five months after the first line of code, and launched in June 2025. TrustMRR, a site that reads a startup's revenue directly from its payment processor, shows Stripe revenue that grew from US$6,434 in December 2025 to US$26,665 in September 2026. The MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the monthly value of all active subscriptions, was US$17,683 on 15 October 2026, down 17.2% in 30 days. That is a run rate, the current monthly figure times 12, of about US$212,000 a year. Two people run it, and it has been for sale since January 2026, now at US$699,999.", "The revenue figures are grade A: TrustMRR reads them from Stripe. The team size, the history and the growth channel are the founder's words, grade C. The Estonian company that operates Lancer, MVP Masters OÜ, files annual reports that show its 2024 revenue came from programming work and that it made a loss in 2025. The largest risk is the platform: Upwork's terms forbid bots and user-interface automation outside its official tools, and Upwork offers its own AI that drafts proposals. The page also shows earlier companies that died when the platform they were built on changed its rules." ], "factsCaption": "An AI agent for Upwork, run by two people, with Stripe-verified recurring revenue of US$17,683 a month in October 2026, down 17.2% in 30 days, listed for sale at US$699,999", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from Stripe through TrustMRR, from Upwork's own published terms and announcements, or from the Estonian company register and the annual reports filed there. A grade C value is a statement by the founder, the company or a third-party site. An X value was computed on this page from the sources it names.", "timelineLead": "From an agency's own Upwork problem to a product for sale, in 16 months after launch. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Lancer prices in October 2026, from the company's pricing page and the price data in its page source (grade C)", "note": "There is no yearly plan, so the yearly column is empty. Each plan is billed monthly or by the quarter, and the quarterly price is sold as 'Pay 2, get 1 free'. The cheaper plan charges by lead, a conversation started with a client: the page says 'We charge per conversation started.' Proposals also use the customer's own Upwork Connects, which Lancer can top up automatically. The page also says '33% upgrade to Unlimited within 90 days'.", "rows": [ [ "Pay-Per-Lead", "", "149", "1 Upwork account; unlimited proposals; quarterly: US$299 a quarter (about US$99 a month) with 15 leads a quarter, then US$19 each" ], [ "Unlimited", "", "499", "several Upwork accounts; setup done for you; monthly check-ins; quarterly: US$999 a quarter (about US$333 a month)" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue (MRR), 15 October 2026", "value": "US$17,683", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data read by TrustMRR through an API key, last synced 15 October 2026. 111 active subscriptions.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from that MRR", "value": "about US$212,196 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$17,683 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Change in MRR over the last 30 days", "value": "down 17.2%, from about US$21,356", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot. The starting value is calculated: US$17,683 divided by 0.828.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days, to 15 October 2026", "value": "US$15,267", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR: 44.5% less than the 30 days before, and 42.7% below September 2026 (calculated). Plans can be paid by the quarter, which can make single months uneven; the profile does not show how much of each month this is.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue by month, from Stripe", "value": "US$6,434 (December 2025) to US$26,665 (September 2026)", "grade": "A", "note": "November 2025 US$7,947; February 2026 US$8,858; March US$17,255; June US$19,804; July US$26,645; August US$19,725; September US$26,665; October to the 15th US$7,448.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average revenue a month, July to September 2026", "value": "US$24,345, 35.6% more than April to June (US$17,955)", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the monthly table. The growth of the summer did not continue into the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 12 months, and all time", "value": "US$186,772 and US$210,283", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR. Revenue in 2025 was about US$41,100 (calculated: all-time revenue minus the 2026 months).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price", "value": "US$699,999, listed since 13 January 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Seller's listing on TrustMRR, which shows 26 offers received. No sale is reported.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price as a multiple", "value": "3.75 times the last 12 months of revenue, 3.3 times the run rate", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$699,999 divided by US$186,772 and by US$212,196. TrustMRR shows 3.8.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Seller's update on the listing", "value": "\"It's now doing $27K months!\"", "grade": "C", "note": "Seller's message, not dated. It matches revenue in July (US$26,645) and September 2026 (US$26,665). It is not MRR, which was US$17,683 on 15 October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR and team, 29 July 2026", "value": "US$20,000 with a two-person team", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in the Indie Hackers interview; the article header says revenue above US$25,000 a month. The October MRR is 11.6% lower (calculated).", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's figures, 10 January 2026", "value": "first US$10,000 month three months after launch, then \"around $10K MRR\"", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story interview. Stripe revenue from November 2025 to February 2026 was US$6,434 to US$8,858 a month, below this.", "src": [ 3, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "2 founders, 0 employees", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story profile, January 2026, and \"a two-person team\" in July 2026. The founder calls himself co-founder; no source read names the other founder.", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Payroll of the operating company, third quarter of 2026", "value": "no labour taxes paid, no employee count reported", "grade": "C", "note": "Inforegister, a site that shows Estonian company and tax data: 'No labour taxes paid' and 'Number of employees is missing'. The 2024 annual report shows labour costs of €4, and the 2025 report shows none.", "src": [ 13, 14, 15 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "MVP Masters OÜ, Tallinn, Estonia, registry code 16911123", "grade": "A", "note": "Estonian e-Business Register: registered 31 January 2024, share capital €1. Lancer's about page names it as the operator. MVP Masters is also the name of the founder's agency.", "src": [ 12, 4, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company, 2024", "value": "€533,455 revenue, €287,532 profit", "grade": "A", "note": "Annual report for 31 January to 31 December 2024. All revenue came from programming. Lancer had not launched yet.", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company, 2025", "value": "€141,215 revenue, €189,323 loss", "grade": "A", "note": "Annual report 2025: €293,099 spent on goods, materials and services. No loans. Equity fell from €292,789 to €103,466, by exactly the loss (calculated). The report does not say how much went to Lancer.", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "fact": "The founder's agency before Lancer", "value": "15 full-time staff and seven-figure revenue", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in the Indie Hackers interview: started in 2020, exited in 2025 to start a product studio whose first product was Lancer.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Upwork result that led to the product, 2024", "value": "US$800 spent, 3 contracts, US$240,000 in 12 months", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story. With 10,000 jobs posted a day, he estimated that he covered 8% of them by hand.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "First price and first revenue", "value": "about US$300 a month; about US$800 MRR before launch", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story: paying users five months after the first line of code.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Customers", "value": "more than 400 freelancers and agencies", "grade": "C", "note": "Lancer's about page, October 2026. TrustMRR counts 111 active subscriptions on 15 October 2026.", "src": [ 4, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Main growth channel", "value": "two Upwork coaches as affiliates", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story: \"Most of our growth came from those two experts as affiliates.\" Also the founder's LinkedIn posts, and bids on Upwork jobs that asked for manual bidders. No paid acquisition by January 2026.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Offers before the current listing", "value": "several, from US$100,000 to US$150,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story, January 2026, after the listing on TrustMRR. None was accepted.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Launch date", "value": "June 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in Starter Story. TrustMRR gives 24 April 2025 as the founded date. Lancer's about page says January 2024, the month the Estonian company was registered.", "src": [ 3, 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2026 figure", "value": "16 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: June 2025 to October 2026.", "src": [ 3, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2020", "what": "Nedelkovski, from Skopje, who dropped out of university twice, starts a software development agency. It grows to 15 full-time staff and seven-figure revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "31 January 2024", "what": "MVP Masters OÜ is registered in Estonia with €1 of share capital. It later operates Lancer.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "2024", "what": "His agency opens a new Upwork account: US$800 spent, three contracts in one quarter, US$240,000 over the next 12 months. He builds a prototype that finds and answers jobs for his own agency, and two agency-owner friends close clients with it in the first week.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "16 October 2024", "what": "Upwork announces that Uma, its AI, will create tailored proposal drafts for freelancers.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "31 December 2024", "what": "The Estonian company closes its first year with €533,455 of revenue, all from programming, and €287,532 of profit.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "24 April 2025", "what": "The founded date on Lancer's TrustMRR profile. Paying users at about US$300 a month arrive five months after the first line of code, and MRR is about US$800 before the launch.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "when": "June 2025", "what": "Public launch. The first users come from his network, through a LinkedIn post that asked for beta testers.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "2025", "what": "The founder exits the agency to start a product studio. Lancer is its first product.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "23 July 2025", "what": "Upwork writes that Uma \"begins the transition from utility companion to always-on work agent\", starting with interviews that Uma runs for clients during the proposal process.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "September 2025", "what": "The first US$10,000 month, three months after launch, in the founder's words. Two Upwork coaches who recommend tools to their clients become affiliates.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "November 2025 to February 2026", "what": "Stripe revenue of US$6,434 to US$8,858 a month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "10 January 2026", "what": "Starter Story interview: two founders, no employees, \"around $10K MRR\", no money spent on paid acquisition, and offers of US$100,000 to US$150,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "13 January 2026", "what": "Listed for sale on TrustMRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "March 2026", "what": "Revenue almost doubles, from US$8,858 in February to US$17,255.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "29 July 2026", "what": "Indie Hackers interview: US$20,000 MRR with a two-person team.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "July to September 2026", "what": "The best months so far: US$26,645 in July, US$19,725 in August, US$26,665 in September.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "5 October 2026", "what": "Upwork's API & MCP Terms, version 2.4, take effect. They forbid user-interface automation and the use of Upwork content taken outside its official tools, and they describe AI agents that submit proposals through the official API.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "15 October 2026", "what": "MRR is US$17,683, down 17.2% in 30 days, with 111 active subscriptions. The asking price is US$699,999, and the listing shows 26 offers.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Distribution", "text": "Most of the growth came from two Upwork coaches, freelancers who advise agency owners and other freelancers on how to win work on Upwork. One had sent his clients to a team of manual bidders in Pakistan, the other to an established competitor. After a demo, both recommended Lancer as affiliates. The founder added LinkedIn posts, and an Upwork profile of his own that used Lancer to bid on jobs that asked for manual bidders." }, { "title": "Built for his own agency first", "text": "The founder used Upwork as his agency's sales channel and measured it: US$800 of spend, three contracts and US$240,000 in a year. The problem was coverage, with 10,000 new jobs a day around the clock. He built the tool for himself, gave it to two agency-owner friends, and then sold it to people who run the same kind of business." }, { "title": "A business price from the first user", "text": "Paying users came before the launch, at about US$300 a month. Today the plans cost US$149 or US$499 a month, and the cheaper one charges by lead, a conversation started with a client, instead of by proposal sent. One customer on the pricing page reports a first project of US$12,000 won through Lancer." }, { "title": "Filter first, then write", "text": "Each job passes the customer's filters and an AI suitability check before a proposal is written, and each proposal draws on a knowledge base that the customer writes. The company presents this as the opposite of the bots that Upwork forbids: fewer proposals, each one addressed to the job. It says its server rejects changes that remove the budget and client-quality filters unless the customer explicitly opts in." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's pages and documentation, the founder's interviews, the founder-entered part of the TrustMRR profile and the company's annual report. They are grade C, except the annual report.", "items": [ "Next.js and TypeScript for the web app; Node.js and Elasticsearch on the server; Stripe for subscriptions (the tech-stack section of the TrustMRR profile).", "Hosting and database on Google Cloud and Firebase. AI requests go through OpenRouter, a service that sends each request to one of several model providers and falls back to another. No source read names the models.", "The pipeline: campaign filters over the Upwork job feed, an AI suitability pass on every match, a proposal and screening answers written from the customer's knowledge base, then submission through the customer's connected Upwork account, which Lancer calls a bidder account, with optional boosting.", "An MCP server, a standard interface that lets AI assistants such as Claude or ChatGPT call a product's functions, and a REST API with webhooks let the customer's own agent or software run campaigns and submit bids.", "Intercom for support chat, Resend for email, PostHog and DataFast for analytics, and Cal.com for booking calls, as listed among the subprocessors in the privacy policy.", "Paying users came five months after the first line of code. The 2025 income statement of the operating company shows €293,099 spent on goods, materials and services and no labour costs." ], "src": [ 1, 8, 7, 6, 3, 15 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database built a product on top of another company's platform and died when that platform changed its rules, cut off access or built the feature itself. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "BranchOut", "years": "2010 to 2017", "funding": "US$49M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Professional networking built on Facebook's social graph.", "died": "Facebook changed its API rules and removed the channel that its whole growth plan depended on.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/30-branchout" }, { "name": "Meerkat", "years": "2015 to 2016", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Live video from your phone to your Twitter followers.", "died": "Its growth ran through Twitter's API. Twitter bought a competitor, Periscope, and cut Meerkat off.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2194-meerkat" }, { "name": "PostRocket", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$610K", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "More reach for Facebook pages, from data on when to post.", "died": "Facebook changed its API, and the company had no plan for a different product.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/457-postrocket" }, { "name": "Automate Ads", "years": "2015 to 2018", "funding": "US$1.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Software that runs digital ad campaigns automatically.", "died": "The ad platforms' own tools and smaller rivals did the same work.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1100-automate-ads" }, { "name": "Beetailer", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$250K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Online stores inside Facebook pages, so that likes turn into sales.", "died": "Facebook decided to build commerce features itself.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1197-beetailer" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five depended on one platform's permission, and lost when the platform changed its rules or did the same job itself. Lancer makes the same bet on Upwork. It submits proposals through its customers' Upwork accounts, Upwork writes the rules for bots and automation, and since October 2024 Upwork has offered its own AI that drafts proposals for freelancers.", "Two things differ. First, Upwork's API and MCP terms of October 2026 describe AI agents that submit proposals through its official API, so an approved way to build this kind of product exists; no source read says whether Lancer uses it. Second, the buyers are agencies that pay US$149 to US$499 a month to win contracts, so Lancer sells on the quality of its filter and of the replies, not on the number of proposals." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The platform bet, with care.", "text": "The part that repeats is the path: automate a sales task that your own business already does and measures, sell it at a business price to people who run the same business, and find the few advisers who already recommend tools to those buyers. The part that does not repeat easily is the platform: Upwork sets the rules, controls the accounts and offers its own AI proposal writer.", "steps": [ "Pick a sales task that your own business pays for and measure it first; here, US$800 of Upwork spend brought US$240,000 of contracts.", "Charge a business price from the first users, before the public launch.", "Find the advisers who already recommend tools to your buyers, show them the product, and pay them as affiliates.", "Read the platform's terms on bots and automation before you build, use its official API where one exists, and keep a human review step." ], "open": "Other marketplaces where sellers answer posted requests by hand, such as public tenders, procurement portals and recruiting boards. Each has its own terms, which you must read first." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Upwork's rules on bots and automation", "text": "Upwork's Terms of Use (version 4.12, effective 10 September 2025) say that users may not \"use a robot, spider, scraper, or similar mechanisms on our site without written permission\", and forbid \"using generative AI or other tools to substantially bolster your job proposals or work product if such use is restricted by your client\". Its API & MCP Terms (version 2.4, effective 5 October 2026) forbid developers and agents to use Upwork content obtained through \"headless browsing, web-browser plug-ins\" and similar interface techniques, or \"any user-interface automation technique designed to obtain access beyond your authorized scope\". The same terms describe an agent that submits proposals \"through the Upwork API\", with the account owner responsible for the content. Lancer submits proposals from customers' own accounts and writes that \"Upwork prohibits bots that mass-apply\". No source read says whether Lancer uses the official API. If it does not, its customers' accounts, and so the business, depend on how Upwork applies these rules." }, { "title": "Upwork offers its own AI proposal writer", "text": "On 16 October 2024 Upwork announced that Uma, its AI, would \"create tailored proposal drafts\" for freelancers with \"custom AI models trained on winning proposals\". On 23 July 2025 it wrote that Uma \"begins the transition from utility companion to always-on work agent\", starting with interviews that Uma runs for clients during the proposal process. The owner of the marketplace is building the same function that Lancer sells." }, { "title": "One marketplace, one access point", "text": "In the company's own words, \"Lancer works on Upwork only — not Fiverr, Toptal, Contra, LinkedIn or cold email\". Every proposal goes through a connected Upwork account. A change in Upwork's access rules, API permissions or account policies reaches every customer at the same time." }, { "title": "For sale while revenue falls", "text": "The business has been listed since 13 January 2026 and asks US$699,999, 3.75 times the last 12 months of revenue. The seller's message says \"$27K months\". That matches revenue in July and September 2026, not recurring revenue: MRR was US$17,683 on 15 October 2026, down 17.2% in 30 days, and revenue in the last 30 days was US$15,267. The founder's January 2026 figure of about US$10,000 MRR was also above the Stripe revenue of those months." }, { "title": "Competitors with more customers", "text": "GigRadar sells an \"AI bidder that applies to the right jobs 24/7\", says \"4,000+ companies\" use it, and also offers an Upwork MCP. Vollna sells \"Upwork Auto Bidding, AI Proposals & Job Qualification\", says it is \"Trusted by 4,500+ Upwork freelancers and agencies\" and offers a 14-day free trial. These are the companies' own claims. Lancer says it has more than 400 users; TrustMRR shows 111 active subscriptions." }, { "title": "Two founders, inside the agency's company", "text": "Two founders run Lancer. The Estonian company that operates it paid no labour taxes in the third quarter of 2026, and its 2025 accounts show no labour costs. That company, MVP Masters OÜ, has the name of the founder's former 15-person agency. Its 2024 revenue, €533,455, all came from programming, and in 2025 it spent €293,099 on goods, materials and services and lost €189,323. The reports do not say who did the work on Lancer or what it cost. No source read names the second founder." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR: Lancer.app, data as of 15 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/lancer-app", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/lancer-app.md) in full. Revenue, MRR and subscriptions come from Stripe through an API key (grade A); the founded date, description, tech stack and sale listing are founder-written (grade C)." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 29 July 2026, by James Fleischmann: Exiting his agency and hitting $10k MRR within 60 days of launching his SaaS", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/selling-his-agency-and-hitting-10k-mrr-within-60-days-of-launching-his-saas-sTo5m9qfhxXbruvhBIyH", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public part: the introduction and the first section, with the MRR, the team size and the agency background. The rest of the article needs a free sign-in and was not read. Reader comments were not used." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 10 January 2026: I Built an AI Agent That Makes $10K/Month", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/lancer", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder interview. Source for the launch date, the first price, the growth channels, the team of 2 founders and 0 employees, and the offers." }, { "title": "Lancer: About page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://lancer.app/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for what the product does, the customer count, the company's view of Upwork's bot rules and the legal entity." }, { "title": "Lancer: Pricing page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://lancer.app/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with the structured price data in the page source." }, { "title": "Lancer: llms.txt, the product summary for AI agents", "url": "https://lancer.app/llms.txt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for 'Upwork only' and for the MCP server and REST API." }, { "title": "Lancer documentation, full text (llms-full.txt)", "url": "https://docs.lancer.app/llms-full.txt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on how Lancer works, bidder accounts and connecting an MCP client. No model names found." }, { "title": "Lancer: Privacy policy, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://lancer.app/privacy-policy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on subprocessors." }, { "title": "Upwork Legal Center: Terms of Use version 4.12 (effective 10 September 2025) and API & MCP Terms of Use version 2.4 (effective 5 October 2026)", "url": "https://www.upwork.com/legal", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the sections on prohibited uses, misrepresentation and agent-generated content. Upwork's own published terms." }, { "title": "Upwork press release, 16 October 2024: Upwork Expands AI Innovation and Unveils New Solutions for Better Work Outcomes with Upwork Updates Fall 2024 Release", "url": "https://www.upwork.com/press/releases/upwork-updates-fall-2024-release", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the section on Uma. Upwork's own announcement as a public company (Nasdaq: UPWK)." }, { "title": "Upwork blog, 23 July 2025: Upwork Updates Summer 2025: AI Innovation that Amplifies Human Brilliance", "url": "https://www.upwork.com/blog/updates-summer-2025", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the section on Uma as a work agent. Upwork's own announcement." }, { "title": "Estonian e-Business Register: MVP Masters OÜ, registry code 16911123", "url": "https://ariregister.rik.ee/eng/company/16911123", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. Official register: registration date, share capital, address and the list of annual reports." }, { "title": "Inforegister: MVP Masters OÜ, employee and tax data", "url": "https://www.inforegister.ee/en/16911123-MVP-MASTERS-OU", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the employee and tax sections. A third-party site that shows Estonian company and tax data. Its 2026 turnover figures are forecasts and are not used." }, { "title": "MVP Masters OÜ annual report 2024 (31 January to 31 December 2024), filed 29 June 2025", "url": "https://ariregister.rik.ee/eng/company/16911123/file/9013112046", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full (in Estonian). A statutory filing. Source for revenue, labour costs, profit and the main activity." }, { "title": "MVP Masters OÜ annual report 2025, filed 16 September 2026", "url": "https://ariregister.rik.ee/eng/company/16911123/file/9014634979", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full (in Estonian). A statutory filing. Source for revenue, costs, loss, cash and equity." }, { "title": "GigRadar home page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://gigradar.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the product description and the customer claim. A competitor's own page." }, { "title": "Vollna home page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.vollna.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the product description and the customer claim. A competitor's own page." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/1clickwebsite-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/1clickwebsite-ai.md", "slug": "1clickwebsite-ai", "name": "1ClickWebsite.ai", "country": "United States", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI WordPress site generator for agencies", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "June 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$14K a month in subscriptions, October 2026", "sticker": "$168K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 167904, "months": 16, "teamLabel": "1 founder, who also runs a second product", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Niche", "group": "build-software", "channel": "audience", "trend": "growing", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Website builders" ], "product": "A web app that turns a short form, or a business name found on Google, into a complete WordPress site for a local business: a page for every service and service area, AI-written text and images, search settings, hosting on its own servers, and an AI agent for later edits. Agencies sell the sites to their clients as their own work.", "why": "The founder had sold this product by hand in his own agency, so he knew what agencies deliver: WordPress, a real page builder, and pages for each service and each town. The tool fills designer-made templates with AI text, so the output is consistent. It sells to agencies that build sites every month, which fits a monthly subscription, and it found them through his own posts and videos, with no ads.", "summary": [ "1ClickWebsite.ai makes complete WordPress sites, WordPress being the free, open-source software that many businesses use to run their websites, for local service businesses such as roofers, plumbers and lawyers. An agency answers five questions, or gives only a business name that the tool looks up on Google, and in about five minutes it gets a site with AI-written text, AI images, pages for each service and service area, and search settings: page titles, descriptions, schema (structured data that tells search engines what a page is about) and a sitemap. The sites are white label, which means they carry no 1ClickWebsite name, so the agency sells them as its own work. Plans cost US$49 to US$297 a month, and an Unlimited plan costs US$1,297 a month.", "Bennett Black ran a web design agency that sold websites, search optimization and hosting to local businesses and reached US$10,000 a month. He wrote that he shut it down in 2024. He built this tool in early June 2025 with the AI coding tools Cursor and Claude, and Version 1.0 launched that month. On 17 August 2025 he reported US$1,700 in MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the amount that subscriptions bring in each month, with no funding and no ads. On 15 October 2026 the Stripe data on TrustMRR showed MRR of US$13,992 from 401 active subscriptions and US$15,608 of revenue in the last 30 days, about US$168,000 a year at the current MRR. He also runs a second product, LocalProspects.ai, a tool for finding local sales leads.", "The headline numbers are grade A: TrustMRR reads them from Stripe, the payment processor, through an API key, a password that lets one program read data from another, which the founder connected. So they are payment records, not screenshots. The launch date, the team of one, the absence of funding and the way the product is built come from the founder's posts and the company's own pages, grade C. The page also shows earlier website builders that failed, and the Google rules against pages made in large numbers to rank in search, which matter for a product that can generate thousands of pages a month." ], "factsCaption": "Stripe-verified subscription revenue of US$13,992 a month, 16 months after a solo launch with no funding", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from Stripe through TrustMRR's API connection. A grade C value is a statement by the founder or the company's own pages. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a web agency for local businesses to a site generator with 401 paying subscriptions, in 16 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "1ClickWebsite.ai prices on 15 October 2026, from the company's home page and Unlimited plan page (grade C)", "note": "The page offers annual billing with three months free, but the annual prices load by script and could not be read, so that column is empty. Plans count new sites a month, agent credits for the AI editing agent, and mini sites, the demo sites made for prospects. A 14-day money-back guarantee covers the first plan. The TrustMRR profile still lists an older Expert plan at US$197 a month. In July 2025 the plans were US$49, US$149 and US$349 a month for 3, 15 and 45 sites.", "rows": [ [ "Starter", "", "49", "3 new sites and 30,000 agent credits a month" ], [ "Professional", "", "97", "10 new sites, 100,000 agent credits and 1,000 mini sites a month" ], [ "Agency", "", "297", "35 new sites, 300,000 agent credits and 10,000 mini sites a month; 5 team members" ], [ "Unlimited", "", "1,297", "or US$2,991 every three months (US$997 a month); customer's own OpenAI key; one 100-site server, more at US$50 a month" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue (MRR), 15 October 2026", "value": "US$13,992", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data read through an API key by TrustMRR, last synced 15 October 2026. MRR grew 4.2% in the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days", "value": "US$15,608", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data. 15.3% more than in the 30 days before, according to the profile.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the October 2026 MRR", "value": "about US$167,904 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$13,992 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions", "value": "401", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data, October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR per active subscription", "value": "about US$34.89 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$13,992 divided by 401. This is below the US$49 Starter price. The profile does not say which plans, discounts or hosting subscriptions make up the 401.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Best month", "value": "US$15,492, September 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe monthly timeline. 8.7 times the US$1,774 of November 2025, the first month shown (calculated).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average revenue a month, July to September 2026", "value": "US$13,380, against US$6,540 for April to June 2026", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the Stripe monthly timeline: 104.6% higher.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 12 months, and all time", "value": "US$84,889 and US$91,816", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data, October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue before November 2025", "value": "about US$8,701", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: all-time revenue minus the twelve monthly values from November 2025 to October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "86.0%", "grade": "C", "note": "Shown on the TrustMRR profile among the metric snapshots. Costs are not part of the Stripe payment data, and the profile does not say where they come from.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR, 17 August 2025", "value": "US$1,700", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on X, 60 days after launch. Two days earlier he wrote US$1,600 a month.", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Launch", "value": "June 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Version 1.0 in the company's changelog. TrustMRR gives a founding date of 14 June 2025, and the founder wrote on 17 August 2025 that he had launched 60 days earlier.", "src": [ 3, 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2026 figure", "value": "16 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: June 2025 to October 2026.", "src": [ 3, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Sites generated", "value": "more than 1,000 by July 2025, more than 5,000 by October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's home page, archived on 15 July 2025 and read on 15 October 2026.", "src": [ 8, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's earlier agency", "value": "US$10,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on X: a web design agency that sold websites, search optimization and hosting to local businesses, shut down in 2024.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Team and funding", "value": "1 person, no funding", "grade": "C", "note": "The TrustMRR profile text, written by the founder, gives a team size of 1 person and Bootstrapped. The founder wrote \"No funding. No ads.\" in August 2025.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Combined MRR of his two products, 11 October 2026", "value": "US$22,800", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on X, for 1ClickWebsite.ai and LocalProspects.ai together. The second product passed US$100,000 a year in recurring revenue on 25 September 2026.", "src": [ 9, 10 ] }, { "fact": "MRR of the second product implied by these figures", "value": "about US$8,808", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$22,800 minus US$13,992. The two figures are four days apart, so this is an estimate.", "src": [ 9, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Twilio bill for SMS verifications, February 2026", "value": "US$7,300", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on X, 16 February 2026. He asked why fraud prevention was not on by default.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "Legal entity", "value": "not named", "grade": "C", "note": "The terms say they are governed by US law and the law of the state where 1ClickWebsite.ai is organized or operates, without naming a company, so no state register entry could be checked.", "src": [ 26 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2023 to 2024", "what": "The founder's X account, BoldSlate, posts search optimization advice for electricians and other trades for his web agency, which sells websites, search optimization and hosting to local businesses.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13, 4 ] }, { "when": "2024", "what": "He shuts down the agency, which had reached US$10,000 a month, to build software instead.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "June 2025", "what": "He builds the first version with Cursor and Claude and launches Version 1.0: WordPress sites from basic business details, with pages, text, images, SEO basics and hosting. TrustMRR lists the founding date as 14 June 2025.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 5, 1 ] }, { "when": "7 July 2025", "what": "He posts that the tool builds complete US$2,000 WordPress sites in under 10 minutes and that early access opens the next week.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "8 July 2025", "what": "Progress post: the prototype is built and people have paid for it. He announces ten times more server capacity and one free run without a credit card.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "15 July 2025", "what": "The archived home page shows plans at US$49, US$149 and US$349 a month for 3, 15 and 45 sites, and more than 1,000 sites generated.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "15 August 2025", "what": "US$1,600 a month, ten weeks after he coded the tool. A user built a roofing site in five minutes and sold it for US$99 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "17 August 2025", "what": "US$1,700 in MRR, 60 days after launch, with no funding and no ads, only organic content and Facebook posts.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "November 2025", "what": "First month in the public Stripe timeline: US$1,774.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "16 February 2026", "what": "A US$7,300 Twilio bill for SMS verifications. He asks why fraud prevention is not on by default.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "5 June 2026", "what": "Version 2.0: sites are built on OCF, the company's own structured editing layer, which makes them easier to edit by hand and by the Website Agent.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "Monthly revenue doubles to US$10,025, from US$4,757 in May.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "June to October 2026", "what": "YouTube videos on selling websites to local businesses, such as building sites in under five minutes and creating 300 demo sites at once.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "3 July 2026", "what": "Lead Gen accepts a CSV list of businesses and makes a demo site for each one.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "10 August 2026", "what": "The Site Creation API is available on every plan, with an agent skill for Claude Code, Codex and Cursor.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "Best month so far: US$15,492.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "25 September 2026", "what": "His second product, LocalProspects.ai, passes US$100,000 a year in recurring revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "7 October 2026", "what": "An MCP server lets ChatGPT, Claude, GoHighLevel and other AI tools create and edit sites from a business name.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "11 October 2026", "what": "Combined MRR of both products: US$22,800. Goal: US$35,000 by the end of the year, with four to five videos a week.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "14 October 2026", "what": "Agency plan at US$297 a month with branded preview links, 35 sites and 10,000 demo sites a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "when": "15 October 2026", "what": "MRR of US$13,992 from 401 active subscriptions, and US$15,608 in the last 30 days.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Built from his own agency work", "text": "He sold websites, search optimization and hosting to local businesses until 2024, so the product makes what such agencies deliver: WordPress with full admin access, a real page builder, a page per service and per area, and premium plugins already licensed. In July 2025 he wrote that agencies do not want to leave their existing tools, which is why the sites are plain WordPress." }, { "title": "Templates first, AI second", "text": "The AI does not design the site. Professionally designed templates fix the layout, and the model writes the text and makes the images for each page. The founder's argument in July 2025 was that other AI builders made sites that needed another ten hours of fixing, while his templates give consistent results." }, { "title": "A tool for the sale, not only for the build", "text": "Lead Gen takes a CSV list of businesses and makes a small demo site for each one, so the agency can send an owner a link to a possible new site. The founder's method, posted in October 2026: find businesses with a bad website and recent reviews, build a demo, send the link by text or social message, close the deal on a video call, and then also sell search optimization." }, { "title": "Customers from his own posts", "text": "In August 2025 he wrote that the product had no funding and no ads, only organic content and Facebook posts. In 2026 he added YouTube videos on how to sell websites to local businesses, an affiliate program that pays 30% of each referred subscription for as long as it lasts, and connections to ChatGPT, Claude and GoHighLevel." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's posts, the company's pages and one generated sample site. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Coded in early June 2025 with Cursor and Claude (AI coding tools), n8n (a workflow automation tool) and Supabase (a hosted database service), in the founder's words. He calls the method vibe coding: describing the program to AI tools instead of writing every line.", "The web app uses Next.js and TypeScript, with Supabase and Stripe, according to the tech stack on the TrustMRR profile.", "The generated sites are WordPress. Version 1 used the Breakdance page builder, with ACF Pro, Slim SEO Pro and FlyingPress Pro licenses included. Version 2, released on 5 June 2026, uses OCF, the company's own layer of structured fields for text, images, colors and sections. Search settings are managed with Slim SEO.", "AI models write the text and make the images. The Unlimited plan asks the customer for an OpenAI API key, so at least that plan runs on OpenAI models. No source names the exact models.", "Sites are created on the company's own servers (1ClickHosting, managed WordPress) with preview links on temporary subdomains, and can be moved to any host with a migration plugin.", "Since July 2026 customers can connect their own AI coding agent through a WordPress application password. Since October 2026 an MCP server (Model Context Protocol, a standard way for AI assistants to call outside tools) lets ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor and GoHighLevel create and edit sites.", "In July 2025 he announced one free run that needed two-factor verification instead of a credit card. In February 2026 the founder received a US$7,300 Twilio bill for SMS verifications.", "The affiliate program runs on PromoteKit: the affiliate login on the home page links to it." ], "src": [ 5, 1, 8, 2, 3, 14, 18, 7, 11 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database tried to make building websites easy for people who are not web designers, and failed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "The Grid", "years": "2014 to 2020", "funding": "US$4.7M", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "Websites designed automatically by artificial intelligence, without a designer.", "died": "Its AI produced designs of uneven quality, worse than manual work or the finished tools of its rivals.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/618-the-grid" }, { "name": "WebCake", "years": "2013 to 2016", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Simple website creation for small and medium-sized businesses.", "died": "Wix and Squarespace offered more features and easier tools. It had little money and nothing that set it apart.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1541-webcake" }, { "name": "LocalOn", "years": "2013 to 2016", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Websites and online tools for small local shops, with no coding.", "died": "It could not stand apart from Shopify and Wix, and it ran out of cash.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1548-localon" }, { "name": "Sosh", "years": "2012 to 2013", "funding": "US$2.3M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "A visual drag-and-drop website builder that removes the handoff between designer and developer.", "died": "Too complex for beginners and too limited for professionals.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/565-sosh" }, { "name": "GeoCities", "years": "1994 to 2009", "funding": "US$45M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Free websites for everyone, grouped in themed neighborhoods.", "died": "Yahoo bought it for US$3.57 billion and did not develop it. Users moved to MySpace and Facebook.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/180-geocities" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The Grid promised in 2014 that artificial intelligence would design websites, and its AI was not good enough. WebCake, LocalOn and Sosh sold do-it-yourself builders to small businesses and lost to Wix, Squarespace and Shopify, which had more money and more features. GeoCities gave everyone a free homepage and lost its users to social networks.", "Two things differ. First, language models can now write usable text for a plumber's service page, and 1ClickWebsite asks them only for that, inside layouts that designers made, so the AI does only the part it does well. Second, it does not sell to the small business, which buys a website once and leaves. It sells to agencies, which build sites every month and resell them, so a monthly subscription matches how they work. The large competitors are still there, and they now have AI builders too: WordPress.com since April 2025, Hostinger, Wix and Squarespace." ], "copy": { "verdict": "Yes, if you have done the agency work yourself.", "text": "The method is to automate the work you used to do for clients, and sell the tool to the people who still do it. It needs no new research: templates, a model API and WordPress. What made it sell was the founder's knowledge of what local-business agencies deliver and where they learn, and a sales method that he teaches in public with the tool as one step.", "steps": [ "Choose a service you have delivered many times, where every client gets nearly the same thing.", "Fix the quality with templates, and let the model fill in only the text and images.", "Sell to the businesses that resell the result every month, not to the end customer who buys once.", "Publish the full sales method, with your tool as one step in it, on the channels your buyers watch." ], "open": "Other deliverables that agencies repeat for every client: landing pages for ads, Google Business Profile content, review replies and monthly reports. The same site generator in more languages is another, and the product already supports seven." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Google's rules on pages made at scale", "text": "On 5 March 2024 Google added a spam policy against scaled content abuse: many pages generated mainly to manipulate search rankings, whether automation or humans made them. Its doorway rule covers sites or pages created to rank for specific, similar searches, and its site reputation abuse rule covers third-party pages published on a site to use that site's ranking signals. The product makes service-area pages for every site and up to 10,000 demo sites a month on the Agency plan, and the sample demo site checked here had no noindex tag, the instruction that keeps a page out of Google's index. Google judges the purpose of the pages, so agencies that sell these sites for search carry the risk." }, { "title": "WordPress and the hosting companies build AI sites too", "text": "WordPress.com launched a free AI website builder on 9 April 2025, which TechCrunch described as a way to compete with Squarespace and Wix, which already had AI builders. Hostinger sells an AI Website Builder with hosting, domain and email included, and says the sites appear on Google and in AI search automatically. In July 2025 the founder named Hostinger's AI builder as the option he wanted to replace. His argument is design quality and agency features: white label, export and a real page builder." }, { "title": "Many AI builders already make WordPress sites", "text": "10Web says it plans the site, builds every page and runs it, starting from a prompt, a link or a file. ZipWP offers a free WordPress AI website builder. The founder himself compares 1ClickWebsite with GoHighLevel, Elementor and Lovable. The product's difference is narrow: local service businesses, resale by agencies, and demo sites for sales. A larger company can copy any one of these features." }, { "title": "Dependent on OpenAI and the AI assistants", "text": "The text, the images and the editing agent run on AI models. The Unlimited plan requires the customer's OpenAI API key, which shows that at least that plan runs on OpenAI; no source names the models behind the other plans. A price rise, a rate limit or a policy change at OpenAI changes the cost of every site. The newest feature, the MCP connection, also depends on ChatGPT, Claude and GoHighLevel continuing to support outside tools." }, { "title": "One founder, two products", "text": "Bennett Black also runs LocalProspects.ai, which passed US$100,000 a year in recurring revenue on 25 September 2026. On 11 October 2026 he gave combined MRR of US$22,800 for both products and a goal of US$35,000 by the end of the year, with four to five videos a week. One person divides his time between two products, a YouTube channel and customer support. The terms of service do not name the company that sells the service." }, { "title": "Customers who are new agencies", "text": "Part of the marketing speaks to people who want to start a web agency: video titles promise sites built in five minutes and sold for US$2,000, and 300 demo sites at once. Such customers keep paying only while they find clients. The founder wrote in August 2025 that he does not sell courses and does not tell people to get rich quick." }, { "title": "A short record", "text": "The Stripe data cover 16 months. September 2026 was the best month at US$15,492. In the first 15 days of October revenue per day was 17.4% below the September average (calculated), while MRR grew 4.2% in 30 days. Monthly revenue also fell in April and May 2026 before it doubled in June." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR, 1clickwebsite.ai profile (Stripe-verified revenue, data as of 15 October 2026)", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/1clickwebsite-ai", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/1clickwebsite-ai.md) on 15 October 2026. Grade A for the Stripe metrics in its Verification Sources section; the profile text, team size, funding and tech stack are founder-written, grade C." }, { "title": "1ClickWebsite.ai home page with features, pricing and FAQ, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://1clickwebsite.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the plans, the WordPress and hosting details, the site count and the affiliate login." }, { "title": "1ClickWebsite.ai Updates, the product changelog from Version 1.0 (June 2025) to Version 2.92 (14 October 2026)", "url": "https://www.1clickwebsite.ai/updates", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the launch month and the dated features." }, { "title": "Bennett Black on X, 17 August 2025: Last year, I shut down my $10k/month agency", "url": "https://x.com/BoldSlate/status/1956897136068456514", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the opening post and parts 1, 5 and 6 of the thread through the api.fxtwitter.com timeline JSON. Source for the earlier agency, the launch 60 days before, the US$1,700 MRR and the absence of funding and ads." }, { "title": "Bennett Black on X, 15 August 2025: I vibe coded this tool 10 weeks ago. It now makes $1.6k/month", "url": "https://x.com/BoldSlate/status/1956237169338597846", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the build tools and the user who sold a roofing site." }, { "title": "Bennett Black on X, 7 July 2025: I built a tool that generates complete $2,000 WordPress sites in under 10 minutes", "url": "https://x.com/BoldSlate/status/1942062959426982061", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Bennett Black on X, 8 July 2025: My progress so far building 1ClickWebsite.ai, and why he is building it", "url": "https://x.com/BoldSlate/status/1942434971366355433", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the three-post thread in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the comparison with Hostinger's AI builder and the reasons for WordPress and Breakdance." }, { "title": "1ClickWebsite.ai home page archived by the Wayback Machine, 15 July 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250715222933/https://www.1clickwebsite.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the first prices, the site count and the included plugins." }, { "title": "Bennett Black on X, 11 October 2026: Can posting 4-5 videos/week grow my saas?", "url": "https://x.com/BoldSlate/status/2109144488786698386", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the combined MRR and the goal." }, { "title": "Bennett Black on X, 25 September 2026: Local Prospects just hit 100k ARR today", "url": "https://x.com/BoldSlate/status/2103599537344692520", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Bennett Black on X, 16 February 2026: a $7.3k bill in Twilio SMS verifications", "url": "https://x.com/BoldSlate/status/2023498882454634984", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Bennett Black on X, 4 October 2026: selling websites to local businesses is so easy in 2026", "url": "https://x.com/BoldSlate/status/2106867387568193704", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the four-step sales method." }, { "title": "Bennett Black's X account @BoldSlate, posts from November 2023 to October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/BoldSlate", "grade": "C", "how": "Read 174 posts and the profile through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the agency posts of 2023 and 2024, the San Diego location and the comparison with GoHighLevel, Elementor and Lovable (6 October 2026)." }, { "title": "1ClickWebsite.ai Unlimited plan page", "url": "https://www.1clickwebsite.ai/unlimited", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on pricing, servers and the OpenAI key." }, { "title": "1ClickWebsite.ai affiliate program page", "url": "https://www.1clickwebsite.ai/affiliate", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the program description and the first answers of its FAQ. Source for the 30% recurring commission and the 10% coupon." }, { "title": "Bennett Black's YouTube channel, video list", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@BennettBlack1/videos", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the channel's video feed with titles and dates, June to October 2026." }, { "title": "bennettblack.me, the founder's page", "url": "https://bennettblack.me/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Lists his two products, 1ClickWebsite.ai and LocalProspects.ai." }, { "title": "A sample demo site for a roofing company, linked from the 1ClickWebsite.ai home page", "url": "https://35525037-ridgeline-roofing-co.x4k8.temphost024.com", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the page source, the response headers and robots.txt on 15 October 2026. Source for the OCF plugin and the missing noindex tag." }, { "title": "Google Search Central Blog, 5 March 2024: What web creators should know about our March 2024 core update and new spam policies", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the sections on the new spam policies." }, { "title": "Google Search Central: Spam policies for Google web search", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the sections on doorway abuse and scaled content abuse." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 9 April 2025, by Sarah Perez: WordPress.com launches a free AI-powered website builder", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/09/wordpress-com-launches-a-free-ai-powered-website-builder/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the opening paragraphs." }, { "title": "Hostinger AI Website Builder product page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.hostinger.com/ai-website-builder", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the opening sections. The page metadata gives a publication date of 12 March 2025." }, { "title": "10Web AI Website Builder product page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://10web.io/ai-website-builder/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the opening sections." }, { "title": "ZipWP, Free WordPress AI Website Builder, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://zipwp.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the opening sections." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." }, { "title": "1ClickWebsite.ai Terms and Conditions", "url": "https://www.1clickwebsite.ai/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on customer responsibility and governing law. No company name is given." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/notis-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/notis-ai.md", "slug": "notis-ai", "name": "Notis", "country": "Switzerland", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI assistant inside messaging apps", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "November 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$13.5K MRR verified by Stripe, October 2026", "sticker": "$13.5K MRR in October 2026", "outcomeUsd": 161448, "months": 35, "teamLabel": "1 founder; the company has a second partner; he paid salaries in 2025 and freelancers, numbers not stated", "fundingLabel": "None; the founder says US$0 raised", "primaryFactor": "Paid ads", "group": "voice-audio", "channel": "paid-ads", "trend": "falling", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Productivity" ], "product": "An AI assistant that you reach by message. You send a voice note, a text, a screenshot or a forwarded email on WhatsApp, Telegram, iMessage, Slack or email, and it writes notes, tasks, draft posts and CRM updates into Notion and more than 1,000 other connected apps. It started as a voice-to-Notion tool. In 2026 it added a desktop app, a cloud computer, automations, and connections to Claude, ChatGPT and coding agents.", "why": "It reached people inside the chat app that they already open all day, so capturing an idea on a phone took one voice note. It aimed first at Notion users, whom the company told that ideas get lost on the phone. Ads on Facebook and Google then paid for fast growth in early 2026, until the founder stopped them in August 2026 because the costs were larger than the revenue.", "summary": [ "Notis is an AI assistant, a program that takes a request written or spoken in ordinary language and carries it out with a large language model. People reach it through the chat apps they already use. A voice note or a text on WhatsApp, Telegram, iMessage, Slack or email becomes a formatted note, a task, a draft post or a CRM update (customer relationship management software, where a sales team records contacts and deals) in Notion or one of more than 1,000 connected apps. On WhatsApp it works through the WhatsApp Business API, the paid interface through which a company's software sends and receives WhatsApp messages. Its language models come from OpenAI.", "Florian \"Flo\" Pariset started building it in summer 2023 and launched the paid version in November 2023. He runs it through Mind the Flo Sàrl, a Swiss limited liability company registered in August 2024, and calls himself a team of one who works with AI agents; he has also paid salaries and freelancers, and he says he raised US$0. On 15 October 2026 his Stripe account, read by TrustMRR, showed MRR (monthly recurring revenue: the subscription income of one month, with a yearly plan counted as one twelfth of its price) of US$13,454 from 446 active subscriptions, and US$200,983 of revenue in the last twelve months. Monthly revenue peaked at US$39,398 in March 2026 and was US$11,628 in September 2026.", "The founder's own account explains the fall. On 9 August 2026 he wrote that Notis had made US$215,000 of gross revenue, while OpenAI had charged US$50,000, Facebook and Google US$160,000 for ads, and Stripe US$35,000 for fees, refunds and chargebacks (card payments that the customer's bank reverses after a dispute). That left minus US$30,000, and he stopped all ads that day. The revenue figures on this page are grade A, from Stripe; the costs are his statement, grade C. The page also shows earlier companies that sold an assistant to busy people, or built on top of another company's platform that later offered the same feature." ], "factsCaption": "Stripe-verified revenue that rose to US$39,398 in March 2026 and fell to US$11,628 in September 2026, beside the founder's own account of costs larger than revenue", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from Stripe through TrustMRR's API connection. A grade C value is a statement by the founder in his newsletter, blog or X posts, or a page of the company, a platform or a register. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from other rows.", "timelineLead": "From a tool the founder built for himself in summer 2023 to a Stripe-verified US$13,454 a month in October 2026, with fast growth in early 2026 and a fall after the ads stopped. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Notis prices: the pricing page loads plan prices by script, so the yearly prices come from the founder's TrustMRR profile of October 2026 and the monthly prices from the company changelog of 2 December 2025 (grade C)", "note": "Each paid plan includes a usage budget: US$20 a month on Pro, US$59 on Pro+ and US$149 on Ultra. Model use, paid tools, voice and cloud computer work are charged at twice the provider's cost, and extra use can be billed On-Demand within a limit that the customer sets. A paid plan starts with a 7-day trial with US$20 of usage. In December 2025 the changelog gave Pro+ at US$39 a month and said the yearly plan was 20% cheaper; the October 2026 profile gives US$39 a month billed yearly, so prices have changed and today's monthly prices are not verified. The free plan is the Notis CLI, a command-line tool, inside Claude Code, Codex or Cursor.", "rows": [ [ "Free (Notis CLI)", "0", "0", "inside Claude Code, Codex or Cursor; no card" ], [ "Pro", "13", "19", "US$20 of usage a month; monthly price as of December 2025" ], [ "Pro+", "39", "39", "US$59 of usage a month; monthly price as of December 2025" ], [ "Ultra", "99", "99", "US$149 of usage a month; monthly price as of December 2025" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue (MRR), 15 October 2026", "value": "US$13,454", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data read by TrustMRR through an API key, last synced 15 October 2026. The profile gives a 30-day MRR change of minus 13.6%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from that MRR", "value": "about US$161,448 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$13,454 × 12. The headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 12 months, to 15 October 2026", "value": "US$200,983", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe through TrustMRR. The last 6 months were US$88,478.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days", "value": "US$9,595", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe through TrustMRR. The profile gives a 30-day revenue change of minus 14.0%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR compared with the last 30 days of revenue", "value": "40% higher", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$13,454 / US$9,595 = 1.40. One likely reason, not stated in the source: MRR counts a yearly plan as one twelfth of its price each month while the cash arrives at once, so when fewer yearly plans are sold, cash falls below MRR.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Best month and latest full month", "value": "US$39,398 in March 2026; US$11,628 in September 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe monthly timeline on the profile, November 2025 to October 2026. November 2025 was US$9,383.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue, July to September 2026, against April to June 2026", "value": "US$40,118 against US$60,460: minus 34%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the Stripe monthly timeline. September 2026 was 70.5% below March 2026, and March 2026 was 4.2 times November 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions, October 2026", "value": "446", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe through TrustMRR.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR per active subscription", "value": "about US$30 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$13,454 / 446 = US$30.17.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "All-time revenue on the connected Stripe account", "value": "US$235,100", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe through TrustMRR. The profile's founded date is 25 September 2024, after the Swiss company was registered; the founder dates the paid launch to November 2023.", "src": [ 1, 4, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's figure: gross revenue from subscriptions, 9 August 2026", "value": "US$215,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Stripe all-time revenue at the end of July 2026", "value": "US$206,220", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$235,100 minus the August, September and October 2026 months. The founder's figure of 9 August is 4.3% higher; the sources do not explain the difference.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's costs to 9 August 2026", "value": "OpenAI US$50,000; Facebook and Google ads US$160,000; Stripe US$35,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter. The Stripe amount covers chargebacks, fees and refunds.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's result after those costs", "value": "minus US$30,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter. He adds that, counting licenses, freelancers and other costs, he is US$100,000 poorer than when he started, and that his own payout is zero.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Ads as a share of gross revenue", "value": "74%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$160,000 / US$215,000. OpenAI was 23% and Stripe 16% of the same revenue.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's figure: MRR, 19 June 2025", "value": "around US$1,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on the company blog. He wrote that a paid user cost less than the user's first-year value, and that he was self-funding salaries.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "MRR growth, June 2025 to October 2026", "value": "about 13.5 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$13,454 / US$1,000. The June 2025 figure is the founder's (grade C), the October 2026 figure is Stripe's (grade A).", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's figures, 18 June 2026", "value": "MRR stable; new trials minus 75%; new subscribers minus 58%; trial conversion plus 47%; churn minus 20%", "grade": "C", "note": "X post. He wrote that Notis was profitable \"at our very humble scale\".", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Churn, August 2026", "value": "13%", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter: the lowest since launch. The period of the rate is not stated.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Users", "value": "17,000 founders (May 2026); 1,000 paying teams (July 2026)", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's X post of 3 May 2026, and his LinkedIn post as quoted in the July 2026 changelog. Stripe showed 446 active subscriptions in October 2026; the sources do not say how each count was made.", "src": [ 7, 11, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "Mind the Flo Sàrl, Morlon, Switzerland, founded 8 August 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "Swiss commercial register (Zefix), UID CHE-345.958.711; the founding notice was published on 16 August 2024. Capital CHF 20,000 in two equal parts of 10,000 shares: the founder, as managing director and president, and a second partner who is also a managing officer. The privacy policy names the company as the operator of Notis.", "src": [ 10, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 founder", "grade": "C", "note": "His page calls him a team of one who works with AI agents; the TrustMRR profile says 1 person. He wrote of paying salaries in June 2025 and of freelancers in August 2026, without numbers. LinkedIn lists 2 employees.", "src": [ 9, 1, 3, 2, 19 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "His page says US$0 raised. The register shows only the two partners' capital. He wrote that Y Combinator rejected Notis twice.", "src": [ 9, 10, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the paid launch to the October 2026 figure", "value": "35 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: November 2023 to October 2026.", "src": [ 4, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Summer 2023", "what": "Pariset starts building Notis for himself, because he was losing ideas between tasks.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "November 2023", "what": "The paid version launches: an assistant next to a Notion workspace that can be reached from anywhere.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "8 August 2024", "what": "Mind the Flo Sàrl is founded in Morlon, Switzerland, with CHF 20,000 of capital held by two partners. The register publishes it on 16 August.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "13 May 2025", "what": "Notion releases AI Meeting Notes and Enterprise Search in Notion 2.51.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "19 June 2025", "what": "Pariset writes that Notis is at about US$1,000 MRR and that he is self-funding salaries. His growth tests: an ambassador program for Notion users, lists of startups that run on Notion taken from Product Hunt, X posts against Notion AI, and an affiliate program.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "18 September 2025", "what": "Notion 3.0 rebuilds Notion AI as Agents that do multi-step work across pages and connected tools such as Slack, Google Drive and GitHub.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "18 October 2025", "what": "WhatsApp adds an \"AI Providers\" section to its Business API terms, in force from 15 January 2026, that bars general-purpose AI assistants.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "4 November 2025", "what": "The Notis blog presents the product as a work hub that acts in Notion, not another WhatsApp chatbot.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 18 ] }, { "when": "November 2025 to March 2026", "what": "Stripe revenue rises from US$9,383 to US$39,398 a month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "15 January 2026", "what": "Meta's rules take effect. OpenAI, Perplexity and Microsoft have announced that their WhatsApp chatbots will stop working. Regulators in the EU, Italy and Brazil have opened antitrust probes.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "31 January 2026", "what": "Slack becomes a full channel. In March 2026 the iMessage channel adds RCS, WhatsApp and SMS on one phone number.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "23 April 2026", "what": "Pariset writes that Y Combinator rejected Notis twice.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "3 May 2026", "what": "Version 3: a desktop app, skills, a cloud computer and memory. The founder writes that 17,000 founders use Notis.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 7 ] }, { "when": "18 June 2026", "what": "He writes that Notis is profitable at its small scale, that churn and trial conversion improved, and that new trials fell 75% and new subscribers 58%.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "9 August 2026", "what": "Newsletter post \"I give up.\": US$215,000 of gross revenue against US$245,000 of OpenAI, ad and Stripe costs. He stops all ads.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "18 to 23 August 2026", "what": "A free plan (the Notis CLI inside coding agents), and paid plans that send work to the customer's own ChatGPT or Claude subscription.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 12, 22 ] }, { "when": "27 August 2026", "what": "He writes that within 30 days he will finish moving Notis away from Notion.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "15 October 2026", "what": "Stripe shows US$13,454 MRR, 446 active subscriptions and US$9,595 in the last 30 days.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "The chat app is the interface", "text": "There is no new app to learn first. A voice note on WhatsApp, in any of more than 50 languages, becomes a page, a task or a database row in Notion, and the link comes back in the chat. The same assistant later came to Telegram, iMessage, Slack, email and a desktop app, so the product does not depend on one messaging channel." }, { "title": "A first market of Notion users", "text": "In 2025 the founder aimed at people who already kept their work in Notion: an ambassador program, lists of startups that run on Notion taken from Product Hunt, and X posts showing that Notis could query Notion databases from a chat, which he said Notion AI could not do." }, { "title": "Paid ads, then no ads", "text": "In June 2025 he wrote that a paid user cost less than the user's first-year value. By August 2026 Facebook and Google had received US$160,000, three quarters of the gross revenue. Stripe revenue peaked at US$39,398 in March 2026. In June 2026 he reported new trials down 75%; on 9 August he stopped all ads; September 2026 brought US$11,628." }, { "title": "A usage budget, and the customer's own AI subscription", "text": "Each paid plan includes a dollar budget of usage, and model use, paid tools, voice and cloud work are charged at twice the provider's cost. Since August 2026 a customer can connect a ChatGPT or Claude subscription, so that the model work is paid by that subscription and not by Notis, whose OpenAI bill had reached US$50,000. The founder wrote that about US$400 of his own subscriptions did more than US$30,000 of work at API prices in one month." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's own pages and the founder's posts and profile entries (grade C), except the GitHub activity, which TrustMRR reads from the connected repository.", "items": [ "Next.js for the front end; Python and Supabase on the server; Stripe for payments (founder's entries on the TrustMRR profile).", "Language models from OpenAI. Since July 2026 the Medium and High settings run on GPT-5.6 Sol and Low on GPT-5.6 Luna; in August 2026 voice transcription moved to OpenAI's gpt-transcribe. The OpenAI bill reached US$50,000 by August 2026.", "Messaging through the official WhatsApp Business API, Telegram, Slack (January 2026), iMessage with RCS, WhatsApp and SMS on one number (March 2026), email, and a desktop app (May 2026). The privacy policy lists Twilio and ElevenLabs for messaging and voice.", "Connections to the customers' apps run partly through Composio, an integration service that creates and stores the login tokens. The privacy policy also lists Google Cloud and Supabase for hosting, Intercom for support, and PostHog, Langfuse and Google Analytics for measurement.", "Notis also works as an MCP server (Model Context Protocol, a standard way for AI assistants to call outside tools) and as a command-line tool inside Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, ChatGPT and Notion AI.", "The founder builds with AI coding agents. TrustMRR's connection to his GitHub shows 2,752 contributions in the last year." ], "src": [ 1, 11, 13, 14, 20, 9, 2 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database promised an assistant that takes work off busy people, or a tool that competes inside another company's product or market. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Zirtual", "years": "2011 to 2015", "funding": "US$5.5M", "cause": "Ran Out of Cash", "promise": "Virtual assistants for busy executives and founders: hand off email and scheduling.", "died": "It hired a large staff of assistants before checking that it could pay them, and ran out of cash in the middle of the expansion.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1850-zirtual" }, { "name": "Exec", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$3.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "An on-demand assistant for errands, cleaning and personal tasks.", "died": "It offered every kind of task and did none of them best. Customer acquisition was expensive, margins were thin, and TaskRabbit won by focusing.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/128-exec" }, { "name": "Operator", "years": "2015 to 2020", "funding": "US$30M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "A personal shopper in your phone, run by people and AI together.", "died": "Each request needed expensive human work, and the costs stayed higher than the service could earn against Amazon.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/396-operator" }, { "name": "Niles", "years": "2017 to 2020", "funding": "US$2.8M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A bot inside Slack that answers questions from the company's own knowledge.", "died": "AI answers became common and cheap, and Slack added similar features itself.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1031-niles" }, { "name": "Transpose", "years": "2012 to 2018", "funding": "None", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "First called KustomNote: flexible notes and data organization for businesses, as an alternative to Evernote.", "died": "Without outside money it could not give users of the established note tool a strong enough reason to switch.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1849-transpose" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Zirtual, Exec and Operator sold the promise that Notis sells, an assistant that takes small tasks off busy people, but every task needed paid human work, and each ran out of money or margin. Niles worked inside Slack and lost when Slack offered similar features. Transpose tried to take users from Evernote and could not give them a reason to move.", "Two things are different now. A language model does the task, so a request costs cents of model use instead of an assistant's wage: OpenAI charged Notis US$50,000 against US$215,000 of revenue, and since August 2026 customers can send the model work to their own ChatGPT or Claude subscription. What has not changed is the cost of finding customers and the risk of the platform. Notis spent more on ads than on models, Notion now ships its own agents, and WhatsApp limits AI providers on its business interface. The founder's answer is more channels and a move away from Notion." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The product idea, yes. The growth method, no.", "text": "One person can build an assistant that lives in a chat app and writes into the tools people already use, with AI models and an integration service. The part not to copy is the growth: by the founder's own account he spent US$160,000 on ads against US$215,000 of revenue and ended with less money than he started with.", "steps": [ "Start with one group that already keeps its work in one tool, here Notion users, and solve the problem of capturing work from a phone.", "Use the chat apps' official business interfaces, and offer several channels, so that one platform's rule change does not end the product.", "Price by usage with the model cost passed on, or let customers bring their own AI subscription.", "Before raising an ad budget, compare the cost of each paying user with what that user pays after refunds, chargebacks, payment fees and model costs." ], "open": "Assistants for the tools of one profession, such as a CRM for salespeople, a bug tracker for developers or expense software for freelancers, reached from the chat app that the profession already uses." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Revenue is falling", "text": "Stripe revenue fell from US$39,398 in March 2026 to US$11,628 in September 2026. July to September 2026 was 34% below April to June, and MRR fell 13.6% in the last 30 days. The founder stopped all ads on 9 August 2026." }, { "title": "Costs larger than revenue", "text": "By his own account to 9 August 2026, OpenAI, ads and Stripe took US$245,000 out of US$215,000 of revenue, and with licenses and freelancers he was US$100,000 poorer than at the start. In June 2026 he wrote that Notis was profitable at its small scale, and his page still says profitable. These are his statements, grade C; TrustMRR verifies revenue, not costs." }, { "title": "Notion now has its own agents", "text": "Notion released AI Meeting Notes on 13 May 2025 and rebuilt Notion AI as Agents on 18 September 2025, with access to Slack, Google Drive and GitHub. In June 2025 Pariset called the dependence on Notion's API the main risk for Notis. On 27 August 2026 he wrote that he was finishing a move away from Notion within 30 days." }, { "title": "WhatsApp's rule on AI providers", "text": "Since 15 January 2026 the WhatsApp Business terms bar AI providers when the AI is the primary, not incidental or ancillary, function, as Meta decides at its sole discretion. Meta told TechCrunch that businesses that use AI to serve their own customers, such as a travel company's support bot, are not affected. Notis is a task tool, not a general chatbot, but its AI is its main function, so the wording could cover it. No source shows Meta acting against Notis; in October 2026 its WhatsApp page still says it works inside the official WhatsApp Business API." }, { "title": "Dependence on other companies", "text": "The models come from OpenAI, most of the marketing money went to Facebook and Google, the payments run on Stripe, and the product writes into Notion and other apps through their APIs. In June 2025 the founder wrote that WhatsApp had already been briefly unavailable to Notis." }, { "title": "Funded competitors", "text": "The founder names Viktor, which he says raised a US$75 million Series A led by Accel and has four times as many paid users as Notis. TechCrunch names Poke, backed by General Catalyst, among the WhatsApp assistants that the rule would likely affect. ChatGPT, Claude and Notion's own agents compete for the same work." }, { "title": "User counts that do not match", "text": "The founder wrote of 17,000 founders using Notis in May 2026 and of 1,000 paying teams in July 2026. Stripe showed 446 active subscriptions in October 2026. The sources do not say how each count was made." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR, notis.ai markdown profile, data as of 15 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/notis-ai.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile. Grade A for the Stripe metrics in its Verification Sources section: MRR, revenue by period, the monthly timeline and subscriptions. The team, funding, pricing, user count and tech stack fields are founder-written, grade C." }, { "title": "Florian Pariset's newsletter Sunday scaries with Flo, 9 August 2026: I give up.", "url": "https://mindtheflo.substack.com/p/i-give-up", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Linked from his X post of 10 August 2026. Source for the gross revenue, the costs, the churn, the freelancers, the end of the ads and the Viktor comparison." }, { "title": "Notis blog, 19 June 2025: The messaging-first wedge, what's actually working for Notis right now", "url": "https://www.notis.ai/blog/the-messaging-first-wedge-what-s-actually-working-for-notis-right-now/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder's post. Source for the US$1,000 MRR, the salaries, the growth tests and the Notion API risk." }, { "title": "Notis blog, 21 January 2026: Notis, the messaging-first AI assistant that actually runs your Notion", "url": "https://notis.ai/blog/notis-the-messaging-first-ai-assistant-that-actually-runs-your-notion", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the start in summer 2023 and the paid launch in November 2023." }, { "title": "Florian Pariset on X, 18 June 2026: profitability, churn and trials", "url": "https://x.com/mindtheflo/status/2067567172616847483", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Florian Pariset on X, 27 August 2026: finishing the move away from Notion", "url": "https://x.com/mindtheflo/status/2092991131017437363", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Florian Pariset on X, 3 May 2026: 17,000 founders", "url": "https://x.com/mindtheflo/status/2050862956838322398", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Florian Pariset on X, 23 April 2026: Y Combinator rejected Notis twice", "url": "https://x.com/mindtheflo/status/2047384975251472656", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Notis, About Flo page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.notis.ai/mindtheflo/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder's page: team of one, US$0 raised, profitable, and the Viktor comparison." }, { "title": "Swiss commercial register (Zefix): Mind the Flo Sàrl, CHE-345.958.711, with the founding notice of 16 August 2024", "url": "https://www.zefix.admin.ch/ZefixREST/api/v1/firm/1652876.json", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the register record and its founding notice in the official gazette. Only names and roles are used here." }, { "title": "Notis changelog, August 2025 to August 2026", "url": "https://help.notis.ai/changelog", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the dated entries. Source for the release dates, the December 2025 prices, the models and the quotation of the founder's LinkedIn post of July 2026." }, { "title": "Notis pricing page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.notis.ai/pricing/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The plan prices load by script and are not in the page text; the included usage, the trial and the billing rules are." }, { "title": "Notis privacy policy, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.notis.ai/policies/privacy/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the operating company and the processors: OpenAI, Twilio, ElevenLabs, Google Cloud, Supabase, Stripe, Intercom, PostHog, Langfuse, Google Analytics and Composio." }, { "title": "Notis WhatsApp channel page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.notis.ai/channels/whatsapp/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the official WhatsApp Business API and the 50+ languages." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, Ivan Mehta, 18 October 2025, updated 15 January 2026: WhatsApp changes its terms to bar general-purpose chatbots from its platform", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/18/whatssapp-changes-its-terms-to-bar-general-purpose-chatbots-from-its-platform/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Journalist's report with Meta's confirmation and the text of the new terms." }, { "title": "Notion release notes, 13 May 2025: Notion 2.51, AI Meeting Notes, Enterprise Search and more", "url": "https://www.notion.com/releases/2025-05-13", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the release title and summary. Notion's own announcement." }, { "title": "Notion release notes, 18 September 2025: Notion 3.0, Agents", "url": "https://www.notion.com/releases/2025-09-18", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Notion's own announcement." }, { "title": "Notis blog, 4 November 2025: Notis isn't another WhatsApp chatbot, it's your work hub", "url": "https://www.notis.ai/blog/notis-isn-t-another-whatsapp-chatbot-it-s-your-work-hub/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "LinkedIn, Notis company page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/notis-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public page without login: 2 employees listed, 147 followers." }, { "title": "Notis for Notion page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.notis.ai/for/notion/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the MCP connector for Notion AI and the 1,000+ apps." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." }, { "title": "Florian Pariset on X, 22 August 2026: work routed to the subscriptions customers already pay for", "url": "https://x.com/mindtheflo/status/2091065543763661100", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/superbulletai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/superbulletai.md", "slug": "superbulletai", "name": "SuperbulletAI", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI game builder for Roblox Studio", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "2 August 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$19.2K revenue in the last 30 days, October 2026", "sticker": "$230K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 230028, "months": 14, "teamLabel": "1 founder, solo at launch; no other team member named in October 2026", "fundingLabel": "Saudi accelerator investors named by the company, amount not disclosed", "primaryFactor": "Niche", "group": "build-software", "channel": "communities", "trend": "growing", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Funded", "Running", "B2C", "Developer tools" ], "product": "A desktop app and Roblox Studio plugin that builds parts of a Roblox game from a written request: game systems, user interfaces, animations, visual effects, sounds and 3D builds, written straight into the user's project after the AI has read it. Users pay for AI tokens with a monthly plan or one-time top-ups, and can install ready-made systems from a marketplace.", "why": "The founder had made Roblox games for nine years, with 200 million visits on his own games, and his launch post on the official Roblox developer forum was read 112,656 times. He launched free, with 1 million tokens a month, and charged US$20 a month for heavy use. Then he added top-ups and a marketplace of tested systems that the AI installs, instead of writing every system from nothing.", "summary": [ "SuperbulletAI is an AI game builder for Roblox, an online platform where people play games that other users make. Roblox games are made in Roblox Studio, Roblox's free editor, and programmed in Luau, Roblox's version of the Lua programming language. SuperbulletAI is a desktop app with a Studio plugin, an add-on that runs inside Studio, so its AI can read the whole project and write code, user interfaces, animations, visual effects and sounds into it. The AI is made of large language models, programs trained on very large amounts of text that can write text and code; its roadmap and release notes name Anthropic's Claude, OpenAI's GPT-4.1 and DeepSeek. Customers pay for tokens, the units of text that a language model reads and writes: 1 million a month are free, 11 million cost US$20 a month.", "The founder posts as Froredion on X, on the Roblox Developer Forum and on TrustMRR. On 2 August 2025 he launched SuperbulletAI on the forum, free for everyone, after what he called two months of solo development. He wrote that he had started making Roblox games at 12, was now 21, and had 200 million visits on his own games. The studio's own site names one founder, Erickson Talaue, as studio head and co-founder with \"200M+ visits as solo creator\", and shows the seat of a technical co-founder as open. Superbullet Studios also makes Roblox games and says it is partnered with Do Big Studios, a Roblox game publisher. In February 2026 the founder wrote that the company was venture-funded, had 25,000 registered users and made about US$12,000 a month. The website names two Saudi investors, Merak Capital and Impact46.", "The headline number is grade A. TrustMRR, a site that reads revenue directly from a company's payment processor through an API key, shows US$19,169 of Stripe revenue in the 30 days to 15 October 2026, and MRR, monthly recurring revenue from subscriptions, of US$12,256 from 619 active subscriptions. Monthly Stripe revenue rose from US$12,083 in March to US$18,044 in September 2026. Stripe is not the only payment route: the website's code also has checkouts for Tebex and Lemon Squeezy, so money taken there, and everything before February 2026, is not in these figures. The investment, the user counts and the claims about the models are the company's own statements, grade C." ], "factsCaption": "Stripe-verified revenue of US$19,169 in 30 days and US$12,256 MRR in October 2026, 14 months after a free launch on the Roblox developer forum", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from TrustMRR, which reads the company's Stripe account through the Stripe API. A grade C value is a statement by the founder or the company, on X, on the forum, or in the website's own text and code. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a free launch post on the Roblox developer forum to US$18,044 of Stripe revenue in one month, in 13 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "SuperbulletAI prices in October 2026, read from the plan list in the website's JavaScript code because the pricing page loads by script (grade C)", "note": "A token is a unit of text that a language model reads or writes. The Pro plan includes 11 million tokens a month with no daily limit, and unused tokens roll over to the next month. The yearly Pro plan costs US$192 and gives 120 million tokens at once, 20% less than twelve monthly payments. One-time top-ups come in 11 sizes, from US$20 for 10 million tokens to US$2,000 for 1 billion tokens. Systems and templates in the marketplace are paid with these credits.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "1M tokens a month, 150K a day" ], [ "Pro", "16", "20", "11M tokens a month, no daily limit" ], [ "Token top-up, smallest", "20 one-time", "", "10M tokens" ], [ "Token top-up, largest", "2,000 one-time", "", "1B tokens" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days, to 15 October 2026", "value": "US$19,169", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from the Stripe API, last synced 15 October 2026. The profile's stored snapshot shows US$19,189 and growth of 10.6% over the 30 days before. The account belongs to Superbullet, LLC, which also runs a Roblox game studio; the profile does not split revenue by product.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, October 2026", "value": "US$12,256 from 619 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, Stripe API. Growth of 2.1% in the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the last 30 days", "value": "about US$230,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$19,169 × 12 = US$230,028. MRR × 12 is US$147,072, the part that renews without a new purchase.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Part of the last 30 days above the monthly subscription value", "value": "about 36%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: (US$19,169 − US$12,256) ÷ US$19,169. The plan list sells one-time top-ups and a yearly plan paid at once, which count fully as revenue but not as MRR; TrustMRR does not break the difference down.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Stripe revenue by month, 2026", "value": "US$5,088 (February), US$12,083 (March), US$15,408 (June), US$18,044 (September)", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly timeline. February is the first month of the Stripe account. September is the best full month. Calculated: 49.3% more in September than in March.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Last three full months against the three before", "value": "16.9% more", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: July to September 2026, US$47,432, against April to June, US$40,585.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "All Stripe revenue to date", "value": "US$115,237", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, February to 15 October 2026. Payments taken through Lemon Squeezy or Tebex, and everything before February 2026, are not included.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Other payment providers", "value": "Lemon Squeezy and Tebex, besides Stripe", "grade": "C", "note": "The website's code has a Lemon Squeezy checkout, a Tebex checkout, and a Stripe checkout with a step that moves a subscriber from Tebex to Stripe. An internal revenue panel in the same code splits money between Stripe and Tebex.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue stated by the founder, February 2026", "value": "about US$12,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 18 February 2026. Stripe recorded US$5,088 in that month, so most of it, if the statement is right, came through the other providers.", "src": [ 8, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue and users in the founder's X profile, October 2026", "value": "about US$14,000 a month and more than 29,000 users", "grade": "C", "note": "The profile also says US$0 was spent on marketing. Read 15 October 2026.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Registered users", "value": "more than 25,000 (18 February 2026) and more than 29,000 (27 February 2026)", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts on X. The website's page description says \"Join 1M+ creators\", which no other source supports.", "src": [ 8, 10, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Marketplace", "value": "added 25 February 2026, paid with credits", "grade": "C", "note": "Release notes add the \"marketplace platform\" on 25 February 2026, and the terms have a marketplace section. The website's internal metrics code calls marketplace volume \"Credit spent on systems and templates. Already-recognised revenue changing hands, not new cash\", split into what the platform keeps and what creators earn. No source states the split.", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Launch", "value": "2 August 2025, free for everyone", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on the Roblox Developer Forum, after \"2 months of intense solo development\". Every user got 1 million free tokens a month.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Reach of the launch post", "value": "112,656 views, 986 likes and 216 posts", "grade": "C", "note": "Counters of the forum thread, read 15 October 2026.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Releases of the app", "value": "184, from 27 July 2025 to 15 October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Release list on the downloads page. Calculated: about 2.9 a week over 445 days.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's background", "value": "9 years of Roblox games, 200 million visits on his own games", "grade": "C", "note": "Launch post, and the studio site's founder entry: \"200M+ visits as solo creator\" and \"Contributed to 5B+ visits as tech lead\".", "src": [ 2, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Team, October 2026", "value": "1 named founder", "grade": "C", "note": "The studio site shows the technical co-founder seat as \"[Looking for co-founder]\", lists COO, CMO, CFO and CTO roles without names, and marks its team section \"Work-In-Progress\". No headcount is published.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Investors named on the website", "value": "Merak Capital and Impact46, Saudi Arabia", "grade": "C", "note": "Under \"Invested By\": \"Sovereign-backed by Saudi Arabia — through the National Development Fund and Social Development Bank\". The Merak logo links to the launch of Exel by Merak, Merak's gaming fund and accelerator. No amount is given.", "src": [ 3, 15 ] }, { "fact": "Investment terms of Exel by Merak", "value": "US$300,000 per company, as equity", "grade": "C", "note": "Jawlah, 18 August 2025: 17 startups in the first cohort received US$5.1 million in total, with founding support from the National Development Fund and the Social Development Bank. The article does not name Superbullet.", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "fact": "Seed round", "value": "US$3 million to US$4 million, said to be close in February 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 8 February 2026. On 18 February he listed \"Seed round millions of dollars\" under what is coming. No investor or news report that we found confirms it.", "src": [ 9, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Minimum age of users", "value": "13", "grade": "C", "note": "Terms of service. The privacy policy asks users between 13 and 18 to review it with a parent or guardian. The roadmap calls the free plan \"perfect for students and indie developers\".", "src": [ 5, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Governing law of the terms", "value": "Saudi Arabia", "grade": "C", "note": "Terms of service, section 12. TrustMRR lists the company's country as the US.", "src": [ 5, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2026 figure", "value": "14 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 2 August 2025 to 15 October 2026, 439 days.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "About 2016", "what": "The founder starts making Roblox games at 12, by his own account. Over nine years his own games reach 200 million visits.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "May to June 2025", "what": "First features, by the roadmap: reading a Studio project, generating user interfaces and game systems, and models based on GPT-4.1 and Claude Sonnet 4.0.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "27 July 2025", "what": "Earliest release in the public list, version 0.1.12, with file search, grep and console-reading tools.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "2 August 2025", "what": "Launch on the Roblox Developer Forum after two months of solo development, free with 1 million tokens a month. Version 0.2.0 adds the free plan the same day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 4 ] }, { "when": "21 August 2025", "what": "Release notes add models named BulletGPT-5, BulletMindV1 and BulletLearnV1. The founder presents BulletLearn on the forum as \"The Duolingo for Roblox Scripting\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 13 ] }, { "when": "3 December 2025", "what": "Claude Opus 4.5 is added to the app.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "8 December 2025", "what": "Founding date of Superbullet, LLC, as entered on TrustMRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "17 January 2026", "what": "The founder explains the plan on X: Roblox has about 70 libraries and Python more than 500,000, so SuperbulletAI will build reusable Roblox libraries for its AI.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "February 2026", "what": "First month of the Stripe account that TrustMRR reads: US$5,088.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "18 February 2026", "what": "The founder writes that the company is venture-funded, has more than 25,000 registered users and makes about US$12,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "25 to 27 February 2026", "what": "Marketplace added on 25 February. On 27 February the founder announces the platform as live, with more than 29,000 users after six months of beta.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 10 ] }, { "when": "March 2026", "what": "Stripe revenue reaches US$12,083 in the month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "26 April 2026", "what": "Settings for Opus 4.7, an Anthropic model, are added; a fix for DeepSeek models follows on 30 April.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "Best month so far: US$18,044 of Stripe revenue.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "15 October 2026", "what": "US$19,169 in the last 30 days and US$12,256 MRR from 619 subscriptions. Version 0.4.6 adds procedural map generation.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 4 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A builder from the platform's own community", "text": "The founder had nine years of Roblox games behind him and launched where Roblox developers read: the official developer forum. The post was read 112,656 times. His X profile says the company spent nothing on marketing; its channels were forum posts, demo videos on X and a Discord server." }, { "title": "Free tokens, then paid tokens", "text": "Every user gets 1 million tokens a month free. Heavy users pay US$20 a month for 11 million, or buy top-ups from US$20 to US$2,000. In the last 30 days revenue was 1.56 times MRR, so a large part came from purchases other than monthly renewals." }, { "title": "Reusable systems instead of new code", "text": "The founder's argument is that Roblox has few shared libraries, so an AI writes every system from nothing and makes mistakes. SuperbulletAI installs tested templates and marketplace systems and lets the AI adapt them. He wrote that a movement system with sliding and sprinting costs US$0.02 to add this way, against US$20 to US$100 of model cost in other tools; that comparison is his own." }, { "title": "Inside Studio, shipped often", "text": "The app reads the project, the output log and the console, writes into Studio directly, and keeps checkpoints so that changes can be undone. It shipped 184 versions in 445 days, about three a week, and added new models such as Claude Opus 4.5 in December 2025." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the website's code and text, its documentation and the founder's posts. They are grade C.", "items": [ "A desktop app for Windows and Mac with a Roblox Studio plugin. It reads the project's properties, hierarchy and files, the output log and the console, and keeps checkpoints so that changes can be undone.", "Models: the roadmap lists GPT-4.1 and Claude Sonnet 4.0 in June 2025; release notes add Claude Opus 4.5 in December 2025, and settings for Opus 4.7 and a DeepSeek fix in April 2026. In February 2026 the founder offered users the option to work with their own Claude or ChatGPT subscription alongside it.", "BulletMindV1, a model of its own, appears in the release notes of August 2025, but the home page still calls it \"Coming soon\" and says its development begins at 2,000 subscribers. Which models run under the Bullet names is not stated.", "3D models come through Roblox's own Cube 3D generation, by the documentation. Code follows a framework that the company calls SuperbulletFrameworkV1-Knit, and the app works with Rojo, a tool that syncs code files on disk with Studio.", "The website uses Firebase for sign-in and has its own backend. Checkouts go through Stripe, Tebex and Lemon Squeezy.", "Marketing: the founder's forum posts, demo videos on X and a Discord community. The X profile says US$0 on marketing." ], "src": [ 4, 3, 23, 8, 2, 7 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised to make writing code or building games easier, or built a service on another company's game. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Kite DevTool", "years": "2014 to 2024", "funding": "US$21M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "AI code completion inside the programmer's editor.", "died": "GitHub Copilot, with OpenAI's Codex model and Microsoft's distribution, gave better suggestions to more developers. The free product never made enough money.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2491-kite-devtool" }, { "name": "Minefold", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Minecraft servers that any player could start in a click.", "died": "A server for each user cost too much without a very large user base, and cloud companies and the game platforms added similar features themselves.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1177-minefold" }, { "name": "Crejo.Fun", "years": "2020 to 2022", "funding": "US$3M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "A no-code builder for apps and games, for creators in India.", "died": "A general tool for creators who needed more followers, not another app to run and promote.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2303-crejofun" }, { "name": "CodeMao", "years": "2015 to 2021", "funding": "US$360M", "cause": "Legal/Regulatory", "promise": "Game-like coding lessons for children aged 7 to 16, with 30 million registered users.", "died": "China's Double Reduction Policy of July 2021 banned for-profit tutoring for school-age children and removed about 95% of its revenue.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2554-codemao" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Kite and Minefold show the two usual endings for a tool built on someone else's platform. A bigger company with more distribution ships the same feature, as GitHub Copilot did to Kite, or the platform owner builds it in, as game platforms did to Minefold's servers. SuperbulletAI faces both: Roblox adds mesh generation, a playtest agent and a connection point for outside AI agents to Studio every few months, and general coding agents can already edit Studio through it.", "Two things are different. First, large language models made the product possible for one person: the founder built and launched it in two months on models from Anthropic, OpenAI and DeepSeek instead of building a model from the start. Second, it sells what Roblox and the general agents do not have: tested, Roblox-specific systems and templates, sold through a marketplace and installed by the AI. Whether that library stays ahead of Roblox's own tools is the open question." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The niche needs years on the platform.", "text": "A solo developer reached US$12,256 of verified monthly recurring revenue 14 months after launch by selling AI to the community he had worked in for nine years. The pattern works on other creation platforms, but it depended on a public record that the community could check.", "steps": [ "Choose one creation platform with its own editor and language, where you have shipped work that its developers can check.", "Launch free on the platform's official developer forum, with a monthly token allowance, and answer the critical replies yourself.", "Charge a flat monthly plan for a fixed number of tokens, and sell one-time top-ups to heavy users.", "Build a library of tested, reusable systems that the AI installs and adapts, so each request needs fewer model calls." ], "open": "Other platforms where people build games or apps inside one company's editor, with a scripting language that general coding tools know less well." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Roblox builds the same tools", "text": "Roblox's own Assistant was available to everyone in Studio by March 2025. On 20 March 2025 Roblox released Cube 3D, a 1.8-billion-parameter model for 3D generation. On 19 March 2026 it extended mesh generation in Assistant and added tools to its Studio MCP server, the standard interface through which outside AI agents such as Claude edit Studio; on 9 April 2026 it added a playtest agent, and on 19 August 2026 support for several connected AI clients. SuperbulletAI's FAQ says Roblox Assistant takes 52 to 53 seconds for a user interface that SuperbulletAI makes in 18; that test is its own." }, { "title": "Roblox's terms decide what the tool may do", "text": "The Roblox Terms of Use, in the version effective 1 November 2026, say that Roblox may monitor use of its APIs and \"may suspend access to the APIs by you or your API Client without notice\" if it believes the terms are broken, and that it may restrict AI tools for specific age groups of users. SuperbulletAI's release notes track the expiry of users' Roblox API keys, and its demos upload assets to Roblox automatically, so a change in these rules reaches it directly." }, { "title": "One platform, one kind of customer", "text": "All revenue comes from people who make Roblox games, and the product does not work without Roblox Studio. Minefold, above, depended on Minecraft in the same way. The studio's partnership with Do Big Studios, a Roblox game publisher, ties the company further to the same platform." }, { "title": "Competitors at the same price", "text": "Ropilot, a Roblox AI agent that also works with Claude, ChatGPT and Blender, now sells Ropilot Plus for US$20 a month, the price of SuperbulletAI Pro; in February 2026 the founder said it cost US$50. Lemonade calls itself \"The first agent for making games on Roblox\". A reply to the launch post said that GitHub Copilot with Rojo gives the same result." }, { "title": "Only part of the money is verified", "text": "TrustMRR reads only the Stripe account, which starts in February 2026. The website's code also takes payments through Tebex and Lemon Squeezy, so the true total may be higher, and part of the rise from February to March 2026 may be subscribers moved from Tebex to Stripe. Some company claims do not agree: the site says \"Join 1M+ creators\" while the founder says 29,000 users, and BulletMindV1 is listed as added in August 2025 but called \"Coming soon\" on the home page." }, { "title": "The funding is not confirmed", "text": "The founder calls the company venture-funded and wrote in February 2026 that a US$3 million to US$4 million seed round would close soon. The site shows Merak Capital and Impact46 as investors. No investor statement or news report that we found names Superbullet, and no amount is public. The terms are governed by Saudi law, while TrustMRR lists the company in the US." }, { "title": "Users from age 13", "text": "The founder started making Roblox games at 12. SuperbulletAI accepts users from 13, asks users between 13 and 18 to read its privacy policy with a parent, and calls its free plan \"perfect for students\". Paid AI plans sold to teenagers bring duties around consent, refunds and personal data. CodeMao, above, shows how fast rules for children's products can remove a business." }, { "title": "Headcount not published", "text": "Only one founder is named. The site's team section is empty and four executive roles have no names. The founder writes \"we\", and the roadmap describes libraries made by \"real human programmers\" and animators, so other people may work on it; how many is not known." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR: Superbullet, LLC, verified revenue profile, data as of 15 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/superbullet-llc", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile. Revenue, MRR and subscription figures in its Verification Sources section come from the Stripe API (grade A); the description and founding date are founder-written (grade C)." }, { "title": "Roblox Developer Forum, 2 August 2025: SuperbulletAI launched the most powerful AI Game Builder for Roblox, and it's free for everyone to try", "url": "https://devforum.roblox.com/t/superbulletai-launched-the-most-powerful-ai-game-builder-for-roblox-and-its-free-for-everyone-to-try/3856417", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the first post and the first replies through the forum's JSON interface. Founder's launch post; source for the launch date, the solo development, his background and the thread counters." }, { "title": "SuperbulletAI home page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://superbullet.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the pre-rendered page text in full, and the investor section in the site's JavaScript code. Source for the product description, the investor logos and the BulletMindV1 note." }, { "title": "SuperbulletAI pricing, downloads, roadmap and FAQ pages, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://superbullet.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "These pages load by script; read their text in the site's JavaScript bundle. Source for the plans and top-ups, the 184 dated releases, the roadmap, the payment providers and the FAQ comparison with Roblox Assistant." }, { "title": "SuperbulletAI terms of service and privacy policy", "url": "https://superbullet.ai/terms-of-service", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on age, governing law and the marketplace in the site's JavaScript bundle." }, { "title": "Superbullet Studios website, About section", "url": "https://superbulletstudios.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "The page loads by script; read the founders, team and partner text in its JavaScript bundle." }, { "title": "Froredion on X, profile", "url": "https://x.com/froredion", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile through api.fxtwitter.com on 15 October 2026. Source for the revenue, user and marketing figures in the bio." }, { "title": "Froredion on X, 18 February 2026: Superbullet is a Roblox AI game creation platform", "url": "https://x.com/froredion/status/2024250000642101461", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com, with a second version of the post from the same evening. Source for venture-funded, 25,000 users, about US$12,000 a month and the seed round plan." }, { "title": "Froredion on X, 8 February 2026: Ropilot is essentially just Claude Code, repackaged", "url": "https://x.com/froredion/status/2020622731109347580", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the US$3 million to US$4 million seed round claim and the competitor's price then." }, { "title": "Froredion on X, 27 February 2026: Introducing SuperbulletAI", "url": "https://x.com/froredion/status/2027339207983906892", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for 29,000 users and six months of beta." }, { "title": "Froredion on X, 17 January 2026: Roblox AI sucks, not because of AI", "url": "https://x.com/froredion/status/2012544492231086227", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the library argument." }, { "title": "Froredion on X, 22 March 2026: Advanced Movement System now added to Superbullet", "url": "https://x.com/froredion/status/2035725288051785828", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the US$0.02 cost comparison." }, { "title": "Roblox Developer Forum search results for SuperbulletAI", "url": "https://devforum.roblox.com/search?q=superbulletai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the result list through the forum's JSON interface. Source for the titles and dates of the founder's posts, including BulletLearn on 21 August 2025." }, { "title": "Jawlah, 18 August 2025: Exel by Merak accelerator invests $5.1 million in 17 gaming startups", "url": "https://jawlah.co/en/40480", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the US$300,000 per company and the backing of the accelerator. It does not name Superbullet." }, { "title": "Merak Capital, 17 November 2024: Merak Capital launches Exel by Merak to empower gaming startups", "url": "https://merak.capital/blog/merak-capital-launches-exel-by-merak-to-empower-gaming-startups-as-global-leaders-2", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The SuperbulletAI site links to an older address of this page, which returns a not-found page; no Wayback copy of that address exists." }, { "title": "Roblox Developer Forum, 20 March 2025: [Beta] Cube 3D Generation Tools and APIs for Creators", "url": "https://devforum.roblox.com/t/beta-cube-3d-generation-tools-and-apis-for-creators/3558947", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the announcement through the forum's JSON interface. Roblox's own statement." }, { "title": "Roblox Developer Forum, 19 March 2026: Assistant Updates: Mesh Generation, New MCP Server Tools, Screenshot Tool, and More", "url": "https://devforum.roblox.com/t/assistant-updates-mesh-generation-new-mcp-server-tools-screenshot-tool-and-more/4527258", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the announcement through the forum's JSON interface." }, { "title": "Roblox Developer Forum, 9 April 2026: [Studio Beta] Studio Assistant & MCP Playtest Agent", "url": "https://devforum.roblox.com/t/studio-beta-studio-assistant-mcp-playtest-agent/4566767", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the announcement through the forum's JSON interface." }, { "title": "Roblox Developer Forum, 19 August 2026: Studio MCP: Multi-Agent Improvements and Connected AI Clients", "url": "https://devforum.roblox.com/t/studio-mcp-multi-agent-improvements-and-connected-ai-clients/4820583", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the announcement through the forum's JSON interface." }, { "title": "Roblox Terms of Use, version effective 1 November 2026", "url": "https://en.help.roblox.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004647846-Roblox-Terms-of-Use", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on AI Tools and Roblox APIs in the Creator Terms." }, { "title": "Ropilot home page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://ropilot.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A competing Roblox AI agent; source for its current price." }, { "title": "Lemonade home page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://lemonade.gg/", "grade": "C", "how": "The page loads by script; read its title and description only." }, { "title": "SuperbulletAI documentation", "url": "https://docs.superbulletstudios.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the contents page. Source for the framework, Rojo and Cube 3D chapters." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/genppt/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/genppt.md", "slug": "genppt", "name": "GenPPT", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI presentation generator (web app)", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "May 2024", "outcomeLabel": "US$110.6K in the last 12 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$110.6K in 12 months", "outcomeUsd": 110559, "months": 29, "teamLabel": "1 owner, Ilias Ism, who bought it in about August 2025; one developer hired during his first year; run by him alone with a daily AI coding routine by September 2026", "fundingLabel": "None found in any source", "primaryFactor": "Search", "group": "documents-data", "channel": "search", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Productivity software" ], "product": "A web app that turns a topic, notes, a PDF, a Word file, a spreadsheet, a YouTube link or a web page into a slide deck. The user approves an outline and a visual concept, then each slide is generated as one designed full-slide image, edited by chat, and exported to PowerPoint (.pptx), PDF or PNG.", "why": "It is run by a search marketer: its pages target what people type into Google, and its best month came from a list article on another company's blog that ranked there. A US$1 trial that needs a card turns visitors directly into subscribers at US$25 a month or US$99 a year.", "summary": [ "GenPPT is an AI presentation generator, a program that writes and designs slides from a short request. The user gives a topic, notes, a PDF, a Word file, a spreadsheet, a YouTube link or a web page. GenPPT drafts a slide-by-slide outline, the user approves it and a visual concept, and then AI models generate every slide as one designed image that the user can change by chat and export to PowerPoint (.pptx), PDF or PNG. The models are bought through OpenRouter, a service that sells access to many AI models through one programming interface, and from Google Gemini. There is no free plan. A paid trial, a short first period that the customer pays a small amount for, costs US$1 for three days with a card and then becomes US$25 a month or US$99 a year unless the user cancels.", "The site was online by 25 May 2024, the date of its first copy in the Wayback Machine, a public archive of web pages. Ilias Ism, who also runs the link-building software LinkDR, the tracker AI SEO Tracker and MagicSpace, an SEO agency (search engine optimization: the work of making pages rank high in Google), wrote on 1 August 2026 that he bought GenPPT a year earlier and rewrote the whole app. TrustMRR, a site that reads revenue directly from a company's payment accounts, shows US$110,559 of revenue in the 12 months to 15 October 2026 and US$7,997 of MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the subscription money that repeats every month, from 543 active subscriptions. The best month was January 2026, at US$20,330. By his account, a listicle, an article written as a ranked list, on another company's blog ranked on Google at that time and sent about 18,000 visitors. Since September 2026 he calls GenPPT 'entirely touchless': a daily routine with the coding agent Codex reviews user chats and slides and deploys fixes.", "The revenue figures are grade A: TrustMRR reads them from GenPPT's Stripe and Lemon Squeezy accounts with an API key, a password that lets one program read another program's data. Everything else on this page, including the purchase, the costs and the traffic sources, is the owner's own statement, grade C. Revenue was about US$9,500 a month from February to July 2026 and about US$7,100 in August and September, 26% lower. He paused Google Ads on 16 September 2026 after paying US$4 to US$7 a click, and on 30 September wrote 'Just SEO from now on'. The business has been listed for sale on TrustMRR since 19 February 2026, at US$125,000 in October 2026, and the seller's note gives no reason." ], "factsCaption": "US$110,559 of verified revenue in 12 months under an owner who bought the product, with revenue down about a quarter since August 2026 and the business listed for sale at US$125,000", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from GenPPT's Stripe and Lemon Squeezy accounts, or from its DataFast analytics, which TrustMRR reads by API key. A grade B value is supported by archived page source. A grade C value is a statement by the owner on X, on his blog or on GenPPT's pages, or a value that the seller typed into TrustMRR. A grade X value was computed on this page from the values its note names.", "timelineLead": "From a template tool archived in May 2024 to a product that one owner bought, rebuilt and listed for sale. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "GenPPT prices on 15 October 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "There is one paid plan and no free plan. A new user pays US$1 for a 3-day trial with a card; if the user does not cancel, the plan price is charged. The page shows the yearly price as US$8 a month; US$99 divided by 12 is US$8.25. The page says the yearly plan saves US$201, or 67%, against 12 monthly payments.", "rows": [ [ "Trial, 3 days", "", "1 one-time", "card required; the chosen plan starts after 3 days unless cancelled" ], [ "Paid plan", "8.25", "25", "20 full-slide image decks a month; unlimited slide edits in chat; export to PowerPoint and PDF without watermark" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue in the 12 months to 15 October 2026", "value": "US$110,559", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from the Stripe and Lemon Squeezy accounts by API key, last synced 15 October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, October 2026", "value": "US$7,997 from 543 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot. MRR fell 8.6% over the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR per active subscription", "value": "about US$14.73 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$7,997 divided by 543. It lies between the yearly plan (US$8.25 a month) and the monthly plan (US$25).", "src": [ 1, 10 ] }, { "fact": "MRR times 12", "value": "US$95,964 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the October 2026 MRR.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, February to July 2026", "value": "US$9,165 to US$9,754, average US$9,540", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly timeline. The average is calculated on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in August and September 2026", "value": "US$6,976 and US$7,215", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly timeline. Their average, US$7,096, is 25.6% below the February to July average (calculated). October 2026 up to the 15th: US$2,883.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Best month", "value": "January 2026, US$20,330", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly timeline. 2.13 times the February to July average (calculated). The owner wrote that his best revenue month came mostly from one listicle on another company's blog (see below).", "src": [ 1, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue since the first recorded sale", "value": "US$175,247", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR all-time figure. US$64,688 of it came before mid-October 2025 (calculated: all time minus the last 12 months). That earlier period includes months before the current owner bought GenPPT, and no source splits it between the owners.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Visitors sent by one StoryChief listicle", "value": "about 18,000, converting at 11.9%", "grade": "C", "note": "Owner's blog, updated 10 June 2026. The listicle 'Best AI Presentation Makers' was published in December and ranked on Google through January and February. His own Google visitors converted at 4.7% and direct visitors at 1.9%. When the listicle left the first page of Google, referrals fell 95%. He had rewritten that article himself earlier.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "Visitors in the last 30 days", "value": "17,089, with US$0.41 of revenue per visitor", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot from DataFast analytics, connected by API key.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Google Ads spend", "value": "US$8,900 in June 2026, US$3,100 in July and in August, paused on 16 September 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Owner's monthly spending posts. The June ads equal 94% of June revenue, US$9,498 (calculated). He wrote that he paid US$4 to US$7 a click against Gamma, Beautiful.ai and ChatGPT.", "src": [ 6, 5, 4, 7 ] }, { "fact": "GenPPT costs in July and in September 2026", "value": "US$4,900 in each month", "grade": "C", "note": "Owner's posts. July: Google Ads US$3,100, AI APIs and tokens US$1,400, software and hosting US$400. September: no ads, videos by paid creators US$2,500, AI APIs and tokens US$1,500 through OpenRouter, software and hosting US$900. The costs equal 51% of July revenue and 68% of September revenue (calculated).", "src": [ 5, 3 ] }, { "fact": "GenPPT costs in August 2026", "value": "US$28,900, of which US$20,000 for a 'new acquisition (30DR+)'", "grade": "C", "note": "Owner's post. DR is Domain Rating, the 0 to 100 score that the SEO tool Ahrefs gives a site for the strength of the links pointing to it. The post does not say what was bought. AI APIs and tokens were US$5,300 that month.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "80%", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot; the profile does not say where the cost figures come from. The owner's own September costs, US$4,900 against US$7,215 of revenue, give about 32% (calculated).", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Return on the purchase", "value": "'3x ROI from the acquisition so far'", "grade": "C", "note": "Owner, 30 September 2026. ROI is return on investment. He has not published the purchase price, so the figure cannot be checked.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Users", "value": "100,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Owner's post of 2 June 2026; the site says 'Trusted by 100,000+ professionals'. A user is not a payer: TrustMRR shows 543 active subscriptions.", "src": [ 8, 11, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue of the owner's other products, in a blog post updated 10 June 2026", "value": "LinkDR 'low five figures' a month, AI SEO Tracker about US$200 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Owner's blog, which gives GenPPT as about US$10,000 a month at the same time. Low five figures means at least US$10,000. Eleven of the twelve months in the GenPPT profile are below US$10,000, so LinkDR's sales are not inside it.", "src": [ 9, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Payment accounts behind the revenue", "value": "Stripe and Lemon Squeezy, both GenPPT's", "grade": "B", "note": "TrustMRR reads both by API key. The archived home page of 10 September 2025 loads Lemon Squeezy's scripts with the store name 'genppt'. The terms of 2 October 2026 say subscriptions are processed by Stripe. On 31 July 2026 the owner linked the TrustMRR profile as 'GenPPT revenue'.", "src": [ 1, 16, 13, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "Superleuk, LLC d/b/a GenPPT", "grade": "C", "note": "About page and terms. d/b/a means 'doing business as'. The terms choose the laws of Switzerland; TrustMRR lists the country as US.", "src": [ 12, 13, 1 ] }, { "fact": "People", "value": "the owner alone; one developer hired during his first year", "grade": "C", "note": "Owner's posts of 1 August and 30 September 2026. No investor appears in any source.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price", "value": "US$125,000, listed since 19 February 2026, 12 offers received", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR listing, written by the seller. US$125,000 is 1.13 times the last 12 months of revenue and 1.49 times 12 months of the last-30-day revenue (calculated); TrustMRR shows 1.5x.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the first archived page to the October 2026 figure", "value": "29 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: May 2024 to October 2026. About 14 months under the current owner, counting from August 2025 (calculated).", "src": [ 15, 2, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "25 May 2024", "what": "First copy of genppt.com in the Wayback Machine. TrustMRR gives 1 June 2024 as the founding date.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15, 1 ] }, { "when": "3 July 2024", "what": "The home page offers PowerPoint generation from themed templates, an upgrade called GenPPT+ with unlimited PowerPoints and a 500-character input, and says '506 creators present faster'.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "About August 2025", "what": "Ilias Ism buys GenPPT; on 1 August 2026 he dated the purchase 'a year ago'. In the following year he hires a developer and rewrites the app three times while fighting churn, the loss of paying users.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "10 September 2025", "what": "The archived home page loads Lemon Squeezy's scripts, including its affiliate script, for the store 'genppt', and offers a 3-day trial.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "November 2025 to July 2026", "what": "Verified revenue of US$7,019 to US$9,754 in every month except January 2026.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "December 2025 to February 2026", "what": "A StoryChief listicle, 'Best AI Presentation Makers', ranks on Google and sends about 18,000 visitors. January 2026 is the best verified month, at US$20,330.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 1 ] }, { "when": "19 February 2026", "what": "Listed for sale on TrustMRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "2 June 2026", "what": "He posts 'GenPPT → 100k users'.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "By 10 June 2026", "what": "In a blog post updated on 10 June he writes that GenPPT revenue was down 16% and traces most of the fall to the listicle leaving the first page of Google.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "US$8,900 spent on Google Ads for GenPPT, against US$9,498 of verified revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 1 ] }, { "when": "1 August 2026", "what": "After watching 'a painful user session' he deletes the rewritten app again and writes that he will rebuild it until it is the best product on the market.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "4 August 2026", "what": "New website and a slide engine rebuilt from scratch: full-slide visual designs, LinkedIn and Instagram carousels, pitch-deck templates, automatic web research with screenshots.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "August 2026", "what": "GenPPT costs US$28,900, including US$20,000 for a 'new acquisition (30DR+)' that the post does not describe. Verified revenue falls to US$6,976.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 1 ] }, { "when": "16 September 2026", "what": "All Google Ads paused. He writes that any keyword with 'AI' in it has become too expensive.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "30 September 2026", "what": "He writes that GenPPT is 'entirely touchless', with a daily Codex routine that reviews chats and slides and deploys fixes; '3x ROI from the acquisition so far, but still hard to grow MRR'; marketing is SEO only from now on.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "15 October 2026", "what": "TrustMRR: US$110,559 in 12 months, MRR US$7,997, 543 active subscriptions, asking price US$125,000.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Search, including pages that others own", "text": "The owner is a search marketer, and the site is built for Google: comparison pages such as 'Gamma alternative' and 'Tome alternative', free generator pages, and a blog. TrustMRR lists blog, content marketing, SEO and Google Ads as its channels and gives the domain a Domain Rating of 50. Its best month came from a listicle on another company's blog that ranked on Google; those visitors converted at 11.9%, against 4.7% for GenPPT's own Google visitors." }, { "title": "A US$1 trial with a card", "text": "There is no free plan. A visitor pays US$1 for three days, and the plan starts unless the visitor cancels. The terms explain why refunds are rare: AI generation uses compute as soon as it runs, so payments are generally not refunded once paid features have been used." }, { "title": "Buy a product, then rebuild it", "text": "He did not start GenPPT; he bought it, with users and revenue, in about August 2025. The first year went into fighting churn with a hired developer and three rewrites, and August 2026 into a new slide engine that generates each slide as one designed image." }, { "title": "AI keeps it running", "text": "By September 2026 he describes GenPPT as 'entirely touchless': a daily routine with the Codex coding agent reviews user chats and generated slides, fixes problems and deploys the fixes. AI APIs and tokens cost US$1,400 to US$5,300 a month between July and September 2026." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the owner's posts and GenPPT's own pages. They are grade C, except the payment providers, which TrustMRR confirms.", "items": [ "A Next.js web app. The seller's note on TrustMRR says 'Good high-quality nextjs code'.", "AI text, research and image generation through OpenRouter and Google Gemini, by the privacy policy of 26 September 2026. On 9 September 2026 he tested two new OpenAI image models against gpt-image-2 on 11 slide cases inside GenPPT; no source says which model runs for customers.", "The user approves an outline and a visual concept first. Then each slide is generated as a full image, edited by chat, and exported to .pptx, PDF or PNG in 16:9, 1:1 or 9:16.", "Hetzner servers and database in Finland, Cloudflare for delivery and R2 file storage, Resend for email, PostHog for product analytics and Sentry for errors, by the privacy policy. Vercel and Supabase were in his July and August cost lists; on 30 September 2026 he wrote that he cut them.", "In August 2026 he deleted 88,000 lines of custom chat-workflow code and replaced it with tools from Vercel and a second vendor that the post names only by its X account.", "Payments went through Lemon Squeezy in 2025 and through Stripe in the terms of October 2026; TrustMRR reads both accounts.", "Code is written with Cursor, which is in his GenPPT cost lists for July and August 2026, and since September 2026 a daily Codex routine checks the product and deploys fixes." ], "src": [ 1, 14, 8, 11, 12, 3, 5, 4, 13, 16 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Three companies in the Loot Drop database offered a better way to make presentations or to find things, and ended when a larger company offered the same thing itself. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "LiveLoop", "years": "2010 to 2015", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "PowerPoint with real-time collaboration on one shared deck.", "died": "Microsoft bought it in 2015 and built the same features into Office.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/302-liveloop" }, { "name": "Qwiki", "years": "2010 to 2015", "funding": "US$10M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Search results turned into automatically generated multimedia stories.", "died": "High costs, user resistance and a sale to Yahoo; it lost out to Google and the large mobile video services.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/481-qwiki" }, { "name": "Hipmunk", "years": "2010 to 2020", "funding": "US$55M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Travel search that sorted flights by inconvenience instead of price alone.", "died": "Google's own travel search took its users, and COVID-19 hit the travel industry.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/214-hipmunk" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the three offered a better way to make or find something, and a larger company then offered the same thing itself: Microsoft built LiveLoop's features into Office, and Google's own travel search took Hipmunk's users. GenPPT faces both moves at once. Copilot in PowerPoint, the Gemini app with export to Google Slides, and Canva's Magic Design all make designs or slides from a prompt, and GenPPT finds its buyers through Google search, the channel that Hipmunk lost.", "Two things differ. The AI models are sold to anyone through an API, so one person can produce a deck of the same kind as the large companies without building a model, and pays only for each use. And GenPPT does not need the whole market: 543 subscriptions at about US$15 a month on average make about US$8,000 of MRR. The risk that remains is that a funded company competes for the same searches: Gamma, with US$100 million of annual recurring revenue by its chief executive's account, bids on the same Google keywords." ], "copy": { "verdict": "Partly: the purchase can be copied, the growth is not shown.", "text": "Buying a small AI product that already has paying users, then running it alone with AI coding tools, is a method that anyone with some capital can repeat. What brought the revenue here was search traffic, and this owner also runs a link-building business and an SEO agency. The record shows the limits as well: six months near US$9,500 a month, then about US$7,100 after the best referral page left Google and the paid ads stopped.", "steps": [ "Buy a product whose revenue a payment provider confirms, and find out where its buyers come from before you change it.", "Track the pages on other sites that send you buyers, such as listicles and comparisons, not only your own rankings.", "When every use costs you model fees, charge a small paid trial with a card instead of offering a free plan.", "Compare ad spend with revenue every month; in June 2026 the ads here cost 94% of revenue.", "Give routine maintenance to a daily AI coding routine so that the product does not need staff." ], "open": "Narrow AI tools that produce a finished file, such as a deck, a carousel or a report, for buyers who search for that file by name." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Revenue is falling", "text": "Verified revenue fell from about US$9,500 a month (February to July 2026) to about US$7,100 (August and September), 26% lower, and MRR fell 8.6% in the last 30 days. On 30 September 2026 the owner wrote that MRR is still hard to grow despite marketing experiments." }, { "title": "For sale, with no reason given", "text": "GenPPT has been listed on TrustMRR since 19 February 2026, at US$125,000 in October 2026, about 1.1 times its last 12 months of revenue, with 12 offers received. The seller's note says only 'Good high-quality nextjs code'. The listing does not say whether the daily Codex routine and the owner's search work continue after a sale." }, { "title": "Microsoft, Google and Canva offer the same feature", "text": "Microsoft announced on 16 March 2023 that Copilot in PowerPoint creates presentations from a simple prompt. Google added slide generation to the Gemini app on 28 October 2025, with export to Google Slides. Canva's Magic Design, announced on 4 October 2023, makes designs from a written prompt. These features come inside office and design tools that people already have." }, { "title": "Gamma has money for the same keywords", "text": "TechCrunch reported on 10 November 2025 that Gamma raised a US$68 million Series B at a US$2.1 billion valuation, led by Andreessen Horowitz; its chief executive said it had US$100 million of annual recurring revenue and 70 million users with about 50 employees. The owner paused Google Ads in September 2026 after paying US$4 to US$7 a click against Gamma, Beautiful.ai and ChatGPT, and on 14 October 2026 he estimated with Ahrefs that Gamma gets 3.7 million organic visits a month." }, { "title": "Search traffic on pages it does not own", "text": "The best month came mostly from one listicle on StoryChief's blog. When it fell off the first page of Google, referrals fell 95%, and the owner wrote that none of his own tracking tools had seen it. In the same post he found a Google AI Overview, the AI answer above Google results, citing his competitors. Rankings and AI answers can change without notice." }, { "title": "The models belong to others", "text": "Every deck is made with models bought through OpenRouter and Google Gemini, at US$1,400 to US$5,300 a month for AI APIs between July and September 2026. A provider's price change goes straight into GenPPT's costs, and the same models are open to every competitor." }, { "title": "The same field as MagicSlides", "text": "MagicSlides, another AI presentation maker on this site, shows US$181,975 in the 12 months to 12 October 2026 on TrustMRR, 1.65 times GenPPT's US$110,559." }, { "title": "The founding story is unclear", "text": "GenPPT's About page says 'Founded by Ilias Ism', but he wrote on 1 August 2026 that he bought it a year earlier, and the site was online from May 2024. No source names the first owner or the purchase price, so the US$64,688 earned before mid-October 2025 cannot be split between the two owners." }, { "title": "The profit figures disagree", "text": "TrustMRR shows an 80% profit margin for the last 30 days but does not say where the costs come from. The owner's own September 2026 costs give about 32%." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile of GenPPT, revenue read from Stripe and Lemon Squeezy by API key", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/genppt.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile on 15 October 2026 (revenue last synced 15 October 2026 at 09:30 UTC). Revenue, MRR, subscriptions and the monthly timeline come from the Stripe and Lemon Squeezy accounts; visitors come from DataFast. The founding date, tech stack, channels, user estimate and sale listing are written by the seller and are grade C. The profile does not say where the profit-margin costs come from." }, { "title": "Ilias Ism on X, 1 August 2026: I bought GenPPT a year ago and rewrote the whole app", "url": "https://x.com/illyism/status/2083356999979249958", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the purchase about a year earlier, the hired developer and the three rewrites." }, { "title": "Ilias Ism on X, 30 September 2026: I spent US$27,581 in September 2026", "url": "https://x.com/illyism/status/2105346708070879463", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the September costs, the end of Google Ads, Vercel and Supabase, the daily Codex routine and the '3x ROI' statement." }, { "title": "Ilias Ism on X, 31 August 2026: I spent US$72,480 in August 2026", "url": "https://x.com/illyism/status/2094441099070685635", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the August costs, including US$20,000 for an acquisition." }, { "title": "Ilias Ism on X, 31 July 2026: I spent US$51,123 in July 2026", "url": "https://x.com/illyism/status/2083124259505750196", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API, with his reply of the same day that links the TrustMRR profile as 'GenPPT revenue'. Source for the July costs." }, { "title": "Ilias Ism on X, 30 June 2026: I spent about US$55,081 in June 2026", "url": "https://x.com/illyism/status/2071976506759286824", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the June Google Ads spend." }, { "title": "Ilias Ism on X, 16 September 2026: Just paused all Google Ads on GenPPT", "url": "https://x.com/illyism/status/2100288296492417292", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through the fxtwitter API. Source for the pause and the cost per click." }, { "title": "Ilias Ism's posts on X, 22 May to 15 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/illyism", "grade": "C", "how": "Read all 343 posts that the fxtwitter timeline API returned; earlier posts were not available. Source for the 100,000 users post (2 June), the rebuild (4 August), the chat-code replacement (17 August), the image-model test (9 September) and the Gamma traffic estimate (14 October)." }, { "title": "Ilias Ism's blog: Outputmaxxing, your AI tool should ship outputs, not reports (updated 10 June 2026)", "url": "https://il.ly/blog/outputmaxxing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the StoryChief listicle, the conversion rates, the 16% fall and the revenue of his other products." }, { "title": "GenPPT pricing page", "url": "https://genppt.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 15 October 2026." }, { "title": "GenPPT home page", "url": "https://genppt.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 15 October 2026. Source for the inputs, the exports, the comparison pages and the user claim." }, { "title": "GenPPT About page", "url": "https://genppt.com/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names the company, Superleuk, LLC d/b/a GenPPT, and says 'Founded by Ilias Ism'." }, { "title": "GenPPT Terms of Service, updated 2 October 2026", "url": "https://genppt.com/blog/terms-of-service", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on payments, refunds and governing law." }, { "title": "GenPPT Privacy Policy, updated 26 September 2026", "url": "https://genppt.com/blog/privacy-policy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on analytics and service providers. Source for the AI, hosting, email and analytics providers." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of genppt.com, 3 July 2024, and the list of captures for 2024 and 2025", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240703095603/https://genppt.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read this copy in full and the capture list, whose first capture is 25 May 2024." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of genppt.com, 10 September 2025", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250910211642/https://genppt.com/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full, including the page source, which loads Lemon Squeezy's scripts for the store 'genppt'." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 10 November 2025: AI PowerPoint-killer Gamma hits $2.1B valuation, $100M ARR, founder says", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/10/ai-powerpoint-killer-gamma-hits-2-1b-valuation-100m-arr-founder-says/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A journalist's report of the funding round; the revenue, user and employee numbers are the chief executive's statements." }, { "title": "Google Workspace Updates, 28 October 2025: Generate presentations in the Gemini app", "url": "https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2025/10/generate-presentations-in-gemini-app.html", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Google's own announcement." }, { "title": "Microsoft, 16 March 2023: Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot, your copilot for work", "url": "https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/03/16/introducing-microsoft-365-copilot-your-copilot-for-work/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on the Microsoft 365 apps. Microsoft's own announcement." }, { "title": "Canva Newsroom, 4 October 2023: Magic Studio", "url": "https://www.canva.com/newsroom/news/magic-studio/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on Magic Design. Canva's own announcement, dated 4 October 2023 in the page data." }, { "title": "TrustMRR profile of MagicSlides.app", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/magicslides-app.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the copy cached in this pipeline (revenue last synced 12 October 2026); not fetched again. Source for the one-line comparison." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/dalea-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/dalea-ai.md", "slug": "dalea-ai", "name": "Dalea AI", "country": "Brazil", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI content planner, script writer and video editor for Instagram and TikTok", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "20 March 2026", "outcomeLabel": "US$6.7K MRR verified by Stripe, October 2026", "sticker": "$6.7K MRR in October 2026", "outcomeUsd": 80784, "months": 7, "teamLabel": "1 founder; no co-founder or staff named in any source", "fundingLabel": "Stipend for equity from Shiva, a Brazilian pre-seed programme; amount not public", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "creators", "trend": "growing", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Funded", "Running", "B2C", "Social media" ], "product": "A web app for creators and small businesses on Instagram and TikTok. It reads the user's connected account, plans two weeks of posts, writes video scripts in the user's voice, designs carousels and edits the talking-head videos that the user records. A library of other creators' viral videos, with transcripts and an analysis of each opening line, lets the user turn a video that worked into a new script. US$9.90 a month or US$60 a year per brand. The user still publishes the posts.", "why": "The founder went where his buyers were. He stopped posting on X, where other founders are, and sold through short-form video on Instagram and TikTok, at the lowest price he could charge, in many countries and languages at once. Stripe data shows revenue of US$289 in June 2026 and US$13,041 in September 2026.", "summary": [ "Dalea AI is a web app for creators, freelancers and small businesses that sell through short-form video: vertical videos of a few seconds to a few minutes on Instagram Reels and TikTok. The user connects an Instagram or TikTok account through OAuth, a standard login flow that lets one app read another app's data without seeing the password. Dalea then reads the user's posts and metrics, plans two weeks of content, writes video scripts in the user's voice, designs carousels (posts of several images that the viewer swipes through) and edits the talking-head videos that the user records. Its library, which the FAQ says holds more than 50,000 viral videos from other creators, shows each video's transcript and an analysis of its hook, the first one or two sentences that make a viewer stay, and turns a chosen video into a new script for the user. It costs US$9.90 a month or US$60 a year per brand. The user still publishes the posts.", "Bruno Kalil, a Brazilian founder whose earlier education app had more than 100,000 downloads and came close to US$2,000 a month, released the first version, the MVP (minimum viable product: the smallest version that customers will pay for), on 20 March 2026 under the name SagaAI. He charged the lowest price he could, did demo calls with the first ten customers and used one acquisition channel, short-form videos. On 14 April 2026 it had 16 active subscriptions and US$104 of MRR, monthly recurring revenue: the subscription money that repeats every month, with a yearly plan counted as one twelfth of its price. Renamed Dalea AI, it went from 33 to almost 286 subscribers in the month to 10 August 2026, after he found what he called the right channel for his ICP, his ideal customer profile: the exact kind of buyer the product is for. On 15 October 2026 TrustMRR, a site that reads a startup's payment account through an API key and publishes the figures, showed US$6,732 of MRR, 1,027 active subscriptions and US$14,351 of revenue in the last 30 days, all from Stripe.", "The money figures are grade A, because TrustMRR reads them from Stripe. Two points need care. First, the revenue of the last 30 days is about twice the MRR, because a yearly plan is paid at once, US$60, while MRR counts it as US$5 a month. Second, Dalea is not bootstrapped, which means funded only by its own revenue: it is one of 12 companies in the portfolio of Shiva, a Brazilian programme that pays founders monthly stipends for up to 12 months in exchange for equity, a share of the company, of 5% to 15%. The founder is the only person that any source ties to the business. The page also covers the questions that a library built from other creators' videos raises: platform rules on unoriginal content, automated data collection and copyright." ], "factsCaption": "A Stripe-verified subscription business that went from US$104 to US$6,732 of MRR in six months, most of it after June 2026", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from TrustMRR's connection to the company's Stripe account. The grade B value is TrustMRR's own post of its figures on an earlier date. A grade C value is the founder, the company's own pages, or Shiva and the press about Shiva. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows that its note names.", "timelineLead": "From a waitlist in February 2026 to 1,027 paying subscriptions in October 2026, seven months after launch. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Dalea AI prices on 15 October 2026, from the company's home page and FAQ (grade C)", "note": "One plan with every feature. A brand is one profile with Instagram and TikTok connected. The yearly plan is US$60 billed at once, and the page labels yearly billing \"-49%\". The page says the price shown is the one for the visitor's region and is the final price; our download showed US dollars, so the price in reais could not be read. There is no free plan and no free trial, payment is by card only, and the Portuguese FAQ mentions a 7-day guarantee for a refund.", "rows": [ [ "One brand", "5.00", "9.90", "all features; up to 30 carousels and 20 edited videos a month" ], [ "Each extra brand", "5.00", "9.90", "the same limits for each brand" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue (MRR), 15 October 2026", "value": "US$6,732", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from Stripe through an API key; revenue last synced on 15 October 2026. TrustMRR shows MRR growth of 20.7% over the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days, to 15 October 2026", "value": "US$14,351", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR revenue table. The snapshot stored on the same profile is US$14,556, the figure in the lead for this story. Growth over the previous 30 days: 34.7%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions, 15 October 2026", "value": "1,027", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR. The home page says the product is used by more than 1,500 creators, and the founder-written profile estimates 1,500 users.", "src": [ 1, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the MRR", "value": "US$80,784 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$6,732 times 12. This is the headline number in outcomeUsd.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Why the 30-day revenue is about twice the MRR", "value": "2.13 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$14,351 divided by US$6,732. A yearly plan is paid at once, US$60, and all of it counts as revenue on the day of payment, but MRR counts it as US$5 a month. MRR per active subscription is US$6.56 (US$6,732 divided by 1,027), between the yearly US$5.00 and the monthly US$9.90. If those were the only two prices, about 68% of subscriptions would be yearly. Extra brands, regional prices and refunds are not in this simple model, so 68% is an estimate.", "src": [ 1, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue by month, 2026", "value": "March US$17.99, April US$168, May US$290, June US$289, July US$2,647, August US$9,176, September US$13,041, 1 to 15 October US$6,995", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly revenue timeline. Calculated on this page: 97.4% of all revenue came from July onward, and September was 42.1% above August.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Daily revenue in October against September", "value": "11.5% higher", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 1 to 14 October, US$6,785 in 14 days, or US$484.6 a day, against US$434.7 a day in September (US$13,041 divided by 30). 15 October is a partial day and is left out.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue since launch, to 15 October 2026", "value": "US$32,698", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, all time.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR on 14 April 2026, under the name SagaAI", "value": "US$104, with 16 active subscriptions", "grade": "B", "note": "TrustMRR's own post on X when SagaAI joined, with US$98 of revenue in 30 days. The founder wrote the same day that it had passed US$100 of MRR with 15 subscribers, three weeks after the launch.", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from 14 April to 15 October 2026", "value": "MRR 64.7 times, subscriptions 64.2 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$6,732 divided by US$104, and 1,027 divided by 16.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Subscribers, July to August 2026", "value": "from 33 to almost 286 in one month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 10 August 2026: \"in just a month Dalea went from 33 to almost 286 subscribers, and 10x the revenue\". He gives the reason as finding \"the right channel for your ICP\" but does not name the channel in the post.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "MRR in local currency, 11 August 2026", "value": "more than 10,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post: \"hit 10k MRR\", then \"it's in your local currency\". He works from Brazil, so the currency is the real. He gave no US dollar value.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Customers outside Brazil, 6 October 2026", "value": "more than 100, in 24 countries", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post in Portuguese: \"Dalea já teve mais de 100 clientes gringos em 24 países\" (Dalea has already had more than 100 foreign customers in 24 countries). On 11 August he wrote of subscribers in 19 countries.", "src": [ 8, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Visitors on the best day, 11 to 12 August 2026", "value": "2,300, with 25 new subscriptions", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post. He wrote that conversion had been above 2% but that the traffic from X lowered it.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "A week in June 2026", "value": "250 visitors, 29 signups, 2 subscribers", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 24 June 2026, still under the name SagaAI.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Price", "value": "US$9.90 a month, or US$60 a year (US$5.00 a month), per brand", "grade": "C", "note": "Company pages, 15 October 2026. The founder-written TrustMRR profile gives the same prices. Prices are shown for the visitor's region.", "src": [ 11, 13, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Size of the viral video library", "value": "more than 50,000 videos", "grade": "C", "note": "Company FAQ. The founder-written TrustMRR description says \"Explore and remix +10.000 viral contents and creators\". The two counts differ and neither page is dated.", "src": [ 13, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Limits and languages", "value": "30 carousels and 20 edited videos a month per brand; 23 languages", "grade": "C", "note": "Company FAQ. The video editor recognizes speech in 8 languages and accepts videos of up to 5 minutes.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Direct publishing to Instagram or TikTok", "value": "not yet available", "grade": "C", "note": "Company FAQ: \"Today Dalea creates, plans and edits, and you publish on Instagram or TikTok yourself. Direct publishing from Dalea is coming in the next few weeks.\" The company's comparison page with Buffer marks auto-posting as available; this page follows the FAQ.", "src": [ 13, 19 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 founder", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR lists one founder. The October 2026 post that announces his panel describes it as \"um painel sobre solopreneurs construindo produtos globais\" (a panel about solopreneurs building global products). No source names a co-founder or an employee.", "src": [ 1, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Outside money", "value": "a stipend for equity from Shiva; amount not public", "grade": "C", "note": "Shiva's July 2026 portfolio update lists Dalea AI among its 12 \"Stars\". The press reports that Shiva pays \"bolsas mensais, concedidas por até 12 meses em troca de participação acionária\" (monthly stipends, granted for up to 12 months in exchange for equity) and takes 5% to 15% of each company. Shiva raised US$10 million led by Monashees with Endeavor Catalyst. Dalea's own terms are not public.", "src": [ 7, 9, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "not named", "grade": "C", "note": "The terms of use name no legal company. They say Brazilian law applies and disputes go to the courts of São Paulo. No company register entry for Dalea was found.", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "fact": "The founder's earlier product", "value": "an education app with more than 100,000 downloads", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 23 February 2026: \"even though I almost got to $2k/month, the perspective wasn't great to keep growing\". He advises against selling to students, who have little money and leave when they graduate.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2026 figure", "value": "7 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 20 March 2026 to 15 October 2026 is 209 days, about 6.9 months.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "22 to 27 February 2026", "what": "Building in public on X as SagaAI: more than 30 waitlist signups in a week, ten demo calls booked in a week, and a landing-page test that raised conversion by 70%.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "20 March 2026", "what": "The MVP is released under the name SagaAI. TrustMRR later records this date as Dalea AI's founding date.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "when": "14 April 2026", "what": "US$104 of MRR and 16 active subscriptions when it joins TrustMRR. The founder names three lessons: the lowest possible price, demo calls for the first ten customers, and one channel, short-form videos.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "when": "18 June 2026", "what": "The founder's blog post on reaching his first 1,000 Instagram followers in 98 videos and three months, with simple one-take videos.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 18 ] }, { "when": "24 June 2026", "what": "A slow week: 250 visitors, 29 signups and 2 subscribers. Revenue for June is US$289.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 1 ] }, { "when": "July 2026", "what": "Revenue rises to US$2,647.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "10 August 2026", "what": "Now called Dalea AI: from 33 to almost 286 subscribers in one month. Second place in TinyLaunch's ranking of launches for 3 to 9 August.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 6 ] }, { "when": "11 to 12 August 2026", "what": "MRR passes 10,000 in local currency. Subscribers in 19 countries. A record 2,300 visitors in a day, with 25 new subscriptions.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "August 2026", "what": "Revenue of US$9,176. On 1 September the founder writes \"so close to $10k\".", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "when": "1 September 2026", "what": "Shiva's founder, Lucas Marques, posts the July 2026 portfolio update that lists Dalea AI among 12 Stars. The founder reposts it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "Revenue of US$13,041, 42.1% more than in August.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "6 October 2026", "what": "More than 100 foreign customers in 24 countries. The founder is announced for a Shiva panel on solopreneurs in São Paulo on 17 October.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "15 October 2026", "what": "Stripe-verified: US$6,732 of MRR, 1,027 active subscriptions, US$14,351 in the last 30 days and US$32,698 since launch.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "One channel, where the buyers are", "text": "In February 2026 the founder was posting on X, where other founders are. By April he had stopped, because his buyers are \"more on Instagram/TikTok\", and he named \"Focusing only on one acquisition channel (short-form videos)\" as one of the three things that helped most. He already knew the format: in 2025 he grew a page for his earlier app to more than 25,000 followers with more than 200 videos. In August he wrote that a post that went viral on X brought visitors who rarely signed up." }, { "title": "A low price, sold in every country from the start", "text": "US$9.90 a month, or US$5 a month on a yearly plan, prices set per region, an app in 23 languages, and customers in 24 countries by October 2026. In April the founder put \"Charging the lowest possible price on launch\" first among his lessons. In August he advised other founders to \"go global from the start\"." }, { "title": "Start from the user's own account and from videos that already worked", "text": "Instead of a blank chat, Dalea reads the connected Instagram or TikTok account, keeps a brand memory of what the user prefers, and matches it with the library of viral videos. In the FAQ's words: \"The scripts follow formats that have already worked, not generic text.\" That is its answer to the obvious competitor, a general chat assistant: \"ChatGPT starts from scratch in every conversation; Dalea starts from your profile.\"" }, { "title": "Yearly plans bring the cash forward", "text": "A yearly plan costs US$60 at once. Revenue in the last 30 days was 2.13 times the MRR, which suggests that many subscribers chose the yearly plan; this page estimates about 68%. That money arrived up to a year earlier than monthly payments would have brought it." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's own pages and the founder's posts. They are grade C, except the Stripe connection, which TrustMRR confirms. No page names the AI models.", "items": [ "A web app hosted with Vercel. Data is stored in Supabase, on AWS infrastructure, and the social-platform access tokens are stored encrypted.", "Instagram and TikTok accounts connect through OAuth to the Meta and TikTok APIs. Dalea receives the username, profile picture, follower count and post metrics, and says it never sees the passwords.", "Payments through Stripe, which TrustMRR reads through an API key. Cards only, billed monthly or yearly. Sign-up with a Google account.", "Product analytics with PostHog.", "An MCP server (Model Context Protocol, a standard way for AI assistants to call outside tools) lets clients such as Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code or Cursor read and change a user's brands, content calendar and scripts.", "A public roadmap where subscribers vote on features, with each vote weighted by the subscriber's plan and time as a subscriber. Almost 10% of subscribers voted in the first couple of weeks, according to the founder in August 2026.", "The pages do not name the models that write the scripts, design the carousels or recognize speech in the editor, and they do not say how the library videos and the pasted links are collected." ], "src": [ 16, 1, 17, 6, 13, 11 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database built tools for posting, curating or measuring on social networks that they did not control. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "PostRocket", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$610K", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "Better reach for brands' Facebook pages, by choosing when and what to post from engagement data.", "died": "Facebook changed its API, and PostRocket had no other product to move to.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/457-postrocket" }, { "name": "Trapit", "years": "2011 to 2019", "funding": "US$21.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "AI that finds and curates content for people and marketers to share.", "died": "Large technology companies offered the same thing, and it stayed a niche tool for marketers.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/658-trapit" }, { "name": "ThinkUp", "years": "2010 to 2017", "funding": "US$1M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Personal analytics on what your Twitter and Facebook posts achieved, beyond likes.", "died": "People moved to phones and to the platforms' own apps. Keeping many social-network API connections working cost too much, and marketing was neglected.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/624-thinkup" }, { "name": "Pixelpipe", "years": "2008 to 2013", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Post photos, videos and audio to many social networks at once.", "died": "The social networks closed their APIs and built cross-posting in themselves.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/435-pixelpipe" }, { "name": "Memolane", "years": "2010 to 2013", "funding": "US$2.3M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "One timeline of your posts, pulled from many social networks.", "died": "It depended on third-party APIs that changed and limited requests, and it found no way to make money from the timelines.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/330-memolane" } ], "whatChanged": [ "All five depended on social networks that could change their rules, close an API or build the feature themselves, and that is how most of them ended. Dalea depends on Instagram and TikTok in the same way: for the account connection, for the metrics that it analyzes, and for the viral videos in its library.", "Two things differ. First, the AI writes the script and edits the video, so the product does the production work that the creator or a freelancer did before, which a scheduler or an analytics dashboard did not do. Second, the customer pays from the first day, at US$9.90 a month, and the founder sells in many countries and languages at once. The five predecessors raised between US$610,000 and US$21.5 million in the database; Dalea made US$32,698 of Stripe-verified revenue in its first seven months, with a stipend from Shiva as its only known outside money." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The library, with care.", "text": "The method is repeatable: pick one kind of buyer, sell on the platform where that buyer already spends time, charge a low price from the first day and sell in many countries at once. Copy the library idea with care: ideas and formats are free to reuse, but the videos and their exact words belong to their creators, and the platforms limit automated collection.", "steps": [ "Choose the platform where your buyers are, not where other founders are, and post short videos there yourself.", "Charge from launch at the lowest price you can, and do demo calls with the first ten customers.", "Offer a yearly plan: it brings cash early, at the cost of a lower monthly figure.", "Start every output from the user's own data, such as the connected account and past posts, so the result is not generic AI text.", "Show prices per region and support many languages from the first version." ], "open": "Other platforms and formats where small businesses must post often and run out of ideas: LinkedIn posts, YouTube Shorts, Pinterest, and markets in languages other than English." }, "watch": [ { "title": "A library built from other creators' videos", "text": "The founder-written profile says users \"remix\" viral content; the product pages say \"adapt\": \"Choose a reference and use the adaptation option to create a script with your brand context, audience and tone.\" The library shows transcripts of the spoken words when available. The user publishes the result, and the terms say \"You are solely responsible for the content you publish\" and that Dalea \"does not guarantee that generated content will be accurate, original, or suitable for any specific purpose.\"" }, { "title": "Platform rules on unoriginal content", "text": "In April 2022 the head of Instagram said: \"If you create something from scratch, you should get more credit than if you are resharing something that you found from someone else.\" Instagram became less likely to recommend reposts and accounts that reshare other users' content, and in 2024 it said it would label reposts with a link to the original creator and remove aggregator posts from recommendations. TikTok's guidelines list \"Unoriginal Content and Intellectual Property Rights\" and do not allow \"reposts of copyrighted or trademarked material without permission\". A script that the user records again is new content, but a close copy can lose reach." }, { "title": "Automated collection of platform data", "text": "TikTok's terms forbid users to \"scrape, crawl, export or otherwise extract any data or content in any form, for any purpose, from the Platform using any automated system or software\" unless TikTok approves it in writing. Dalea's connection to the user's own account goes through OAuth with the platforms' permission. The pages do not say how the library of other creators' videos, or a video from a pasted link, is collected, so whether that fits these rules could not be checked. Instagram's terms page could not be downloaded." }, { "title": "Copyright protects the words, not the idea", "text": "Brazil's copyright law says that \"as idéias, procedimentos normativos, sistemas, métodos, projetos ou conceitos matemáticos como tais\" (ideas, normative procedures, systems, methods, projects or mathematical concepts as such) are not protected (Law 9.610 of 1998, article 8). US law says the same in 17 U.S.C. section 102(b): protection does not \"extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery\". A hook format or a topic can be reused; a script that repeats another creator's exact words is closer to copying the protected expression." }, { "title": "Competitors, including free ones", "text": "Dalea compares itself with the schedulers Buffer and Later. Buffer's own page shows a free plan for up to 3 channels that includes an AI Assistant, and an Essentials plan at US$5 a month per channel billed yearly. General chat assistants also write scripts for free or for a subscription. Dalea's answer is its profile analysis and library, which others can build too." }, { "title": "Dependence on AI model providers that it does not name", "text": "No page says which models write the scripts, design the carousels or recognize speech in the video editor. At US$5 to US$9.90 a month with up to 20 edited videos and 30 carousels per brand, a rise in model or transcription prices, or a change in a provider's terms, would fall on Dalea's margin." }, { "title": "An investor holds a share", "text": "Dalea is in the portfolio of Shiva, which gives stipends in exchange for 5% to 15% of a company. The amount Dalea received and the share Shiva holds are not public. The founder is the only person named in any source, and his posts and Shiva's are grade C." }, { "title": "Young revenue, measured two ways", "text": "97.4% of all revenue came from July to mid-October 2026, so most yearly plans were sold recently and the first yearly renewals come in mid-2027; until then the renewal rate is unknown. Prices depend on the visitor's region, so the US dollar prices on this page may differ from what customers in Brazil pay." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR: Dalea AI, Stripe-verified profile, synced 15 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/dalea-ai", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/dalea-ai.md) in full. The revenue, MRR, subscription and monthly figures are in its Verification Sources data from Stripe (API key), grade A. The description, prices and user estimate are founder-written, grade C." }, { "title": "Bruno Kalil on X, 14 April 2026: Week 3 of growing a global SaaS from Brazil (@trysagaai)", "url": "https://x.com/brunokalil_/status/2044178421706830037", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the 20 March launch, the first 15 subscribers and the three lessons." }, { "title": "TrustMRR on X, 14 April 2026: SagaAI by @brunokalil_ just joined TrustMRR", "url": "https://x.com/trust_mrr/status/2044201585547321745", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com, as a repost in the founder's timeline. TrustMRR's own post of its figures on that day; the earlier profile page it links was not opened." }, { "title": "Bruno Kalil on X, 24 June 2026: Last week on @trysagaai", "url": "https://x.com/brunokalil_/status/2069612216551194933", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Bruno Kalil on X, 10 August 2026: in just a month Dalea went from 33 to almost 286 subscribers", "url": "https://x.com/brunokalil_/status/2086887326894915688", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. The post had 21 replies, which could not be read, so the channel that he means is not known." }, { "title": "Bruno Kalil's posts on X, 22 February to 6 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/brunokalil_", "grade": "C", "how": "Read two pages of the timeline in full through api.fxtwitter.com/2/profile/brunokalil_/statuses, 39 posts with reposts. Source for the dated posts on the earlier app, the local-currency MRR, the countries, the visitors, the roadmap and the TinyLaunch ranking." }, { "title": "Lucas Marques on X, 1 September 2026: Shiva portfolio update, July 2026", "url": "https://x.com/LucasMarquesSv/status/2094770932422164927", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post and its image in full. The image lists Dalea AI among the 12 \"Stars no portfólio\". The founder reposted it." }, { "title": "Bruno Kalil on X, 6 October 2026, quoting the Shiva Hack announcement", "url": "https://x.com/brunokalil_/status/2107513623040217187", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full with the quoted post, in Portuguese. The translations on this page are ours." }, { "title": "ABC da Comunicação, 2026: Shiva levanta US$ 10 milhões com Monashees para ajudar empreendedores construírem produtos globais usando IA", "url": "https://www.abcdacomunicacao.com.br/shiva-levanta-us-10-milhoes-com-monashees-para-ajudar-empreendedores-construirem-produtos-globais-usando-ia/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, in Portuguese. Source for Shiva's monthly stipends for up to 12 months in exchange for equity, and its definition of a Star as a team of at most three people." }, { "title": "Brazil Journal, 2026: O pre-seed da Shiva, que quer bancar startups criadas só com AI", "url": "https://braziljournal.com/o-pre-seed-da-shiva-que-quer-bancar-startups-criadas-so-com-ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, in Portuguese. Source for the US$10 million round and the 5% to 15% stake that Shiva takes." }, { "title": "Dalea AI home page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://usedalea.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, including the pricing section and its FAQ. Source for the features, the prices, the region note and the user count." }, { "title": "Dalea AI home page in Portuguese, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://usedalea.ai/pt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the pricing section and its FAQ. Source for the 7-day guarantee." }, { "title": "Dalea AI FAQ, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://usedalea.ai/en/faq", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the library size, the limits, the languages, the missing direct publishing and the comparison with ChatGPT." }, { "title": "Dalea AI: Viral video library for Instagram and TikTok", "url": "https://usedalea.ai/en/features/viral-video-library", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for how the library and the adaptation option are described." }, { "title": "Dalea AI Terms of Use, updated 13 October 2026", "url": "https://usedalea.ai/en/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "Dalea AI Privacy Policy, updated 8 March 2026", "url": "https://usedalea.ai/en/privacy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for OAuth, Supabase, Vercel and PostHog." }, { "title": "Dalea MCP server documentation", "url": "https://usedalea.ai/docs/mcp", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the overview and the list of tools." }, { "title": "Bruno Kalil, Dalea blog, 18 June 2026: How I Got My First 1,000 Instagram Followers in 98 Videos", "url": "https://usedalea.ai/en/blog/how-i-got-my-first-1000-instagram-followers", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "Dalea vs. Buffer, the company's comparison page", "url": "https://usedalea.ai/en/compare/dalea-vs-buffer", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Its claims about Buffer were checked against Buffer's own page." }, { "title": "Buffer pricing page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://buffer.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on the Free and Essentials plans." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 20 April 2022: Instagram to improve its ranking system to better highlight original content", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/20/instagram-ranking-system-recommend-original-content/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Quotes the head of Instagram and an Instagram spokesperson." }, { "title": "Gigazine, 2 May 2024: Instagram announces measures to prioritize original content and reduce the number of aggregator accounts", "url": "https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20240502-instagram-updated-algorithm-prioritizes-original-content", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A summary of Instagram's 2024 announcement, with links to it." }, { "title": "TikTok: Policies and engagement, summary of the Community Guidelines", "url": "https://www.tiktok.com/safety/en/policies-and-engagement/fyf-standards", "grade": "B", "how": "The page loads its text by script; read the section on integrity and authenticity in the page data." }, { "title": "TikTok Terms of Service (United States)", "url": "https://www.tiktok.com/legal/page/us/terms-of-service/en", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the section on what users may not do." }, { "title": "Brazil, Law 9.610 of 19 February 1998 (copyright law)", "url": "https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/l9610.htm", "grade": "B", "how": "Read articles 7 and 8, in Portuguese. The translation on this page is ours." }, { "title": "17 U.S.C. section 102, Subject matter of copyright: In general (Cornell Legal Information Institute)", "url": "https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/102", "grade": "B", "how": "Read section 102(b)." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/threadmaster/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/threadmaster.md", "slug": "threadmaster", "name": "ThreadMaster", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI thread writer and scheduler for social media", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "August 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$5.2K MRR and US$91.5K in 12 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$5.2K MRR verified by Stripe", "outcomeUsd": 62112, "months": 14, "teamLabel": "1 named founder; no source says who else works on it", "fundingLabel": "None reported for ThreadMaster; the founder's other company, Syllaby, raised US$400,000", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "unknown", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Social media" ], "product": "A web app that writes threads, series of connected posts, for X, Threads, Facebook and LinkedIn with an OpenAI model. The user starts from one of 15 or more templates that carry engagement scores, and the app publishes or schedules the result. One plan at US$9 a month.", "why": "The founder, who has millions of followers, turned a post format that was going viral on his own Facebook page into templates and sold the tool for about US$5. It made US$26,522 in about two months, and then revenue fell. No source says which channel brought most customers.", "summary": [ "ThreadMaster is a web app that writes threads, a series of connected posts that people read as one piece, for X, Threads, Facebook and LinkedIn. The user types a topic or a rough draft and picks one of 15 or more templates, each shown with an engagement score. A large language model, a program trained on a very large amount of text to write new text, from OpenAI expands it into an opening line, a body and a call to action. The app then publishes the thread or schedules it for later, and it includes a library of more than 100 images. It costs US$9 a month, with one plan.", "Austin Armstrong, who ran a video marketing and SEO agency for about 12 years and is now CEO of the AI video company Syllaby, launched ThreadMaster in August 2025 at US$4.95 one-time. By November 2025 it cost US$5.00 a month. A separate company, FastProducts LLC, owns it. Its revenue is checked by TrustMRR, a site that reads a startup's payments directly from its payment processor, here Stripe. On 15 October 2026 TrustMRR showed MRR, monthly recurring revenue from subscriptions, of US$5,176 from 1,038 active subscriptions, US$91,524 of revenue in the last 12 months and US$118,046 since launch.", "The revenue is real, and it is falling. The best month in the verified table was November 2025, with US$10,108; the first half of October 2026 brought US$1,654. Every revenue number on this page is grade A. The descriptions of the product, its model, its owner and its founder come from the company's own pages and from interviews, grade C. The page also shows earlier companies that built tools on top of social platforms that they did not control." ], "factsCaption": "Stripe-verified revenue through TrustMRR: US$5,176 MRR and US$91,524 in 12 months in October 2026, down from a best month of US$10,108 in November 2025", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from Stripe through TrustMRR. A grade B value is an independent record, such as a company register or a platform's own rules. A grade C value is a statement by the company or the founder, or a third party's record of an interview. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a US$4.95 copy-and-paste tool in August 2025 to US$5,176 of monthly recurring revenue in October 2026, with the best month in November 2025. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "ThreadMaster prices on 15 October 2026, from the company's pricing page and FAQ (grade C)", "note": "There is one plan, billed monthly, with no free tier and no yearly price on the page. The FAQ describes a one-time US$99 lifetime plan that appears on the pricing page only while the offer runs. Every plan includes 12 months of WhisperJot Local, a voice-to-text app from the same company, which then costs US$5 a month unless cancelled. The launch price in August 2025 was US$4.95 one-time, and in November 2025 it was US$5.00 a month.", "rows": [ [ "Pro, the only plan", "", "9", "unlimited drafts; 100 published X posts a month; boost packs inside the app for more" ], [ "Lifetime offer, when it runs", "99 one-time", "", "limited-time offer" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "MRR, 15 October 2026", "value": "US$5,176", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe, through TrustMRR. Down 8.6% in the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 12 months", "value": "US$91,524", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe, through TrustMRR, to 15 October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue since launch", "value": "US$118,046", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe, through TrustMRR.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions", "value": "1,038", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe, through TrustMRR.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days", "value": "US$5,871, down 42.5% on the 30 days before", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe, through TrustMRR. The profile's stored snapshot gives US$5,895 for the same period and the fall of 42.5%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Best month in the 12-month table", "value": "US$10,108, November 2025", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe, through TrustMRR. December 2025 was US$8,925 and January 2026 US$9,019.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Lowest full month", "value": "US$5,606, June 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "July 2026 was US$5,622. August and September 2026 rose to US$8,590 and US$8,237; no source explains the rise.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue from 1 to 15 October 2026", "value": "US$1,654", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe, through TrustMRR. The month was not finished.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Daily revenue, first half of October 2026", "value": "about US$110 a day, against US$279 a day in the second half of September", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: averages of the daily table on the profile. A fall of 60.5%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue before mid-October 2025", "value": "US$26,522", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: revenue since launch minus the last 12 months. It covers about the first two months after the August 2025 launch.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the current MRR", "value": "US$62,112 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: MRR times 12. This is the headline number of this page. It is 32.1% below the average month of the last 12 months, US$7,627.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR per active subscription", "value": "US$4.99 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$5,176 divided by 1,038. Close to the US$5.00 price of November 2025 and below today's US$9. The sources do not say what each subscriber pays.", "src": [ 1, 3, 12 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "95.0%", "grade": "C", "note": "A TrustMRR snapshot. Costs are not among the metrics that TrustMRR lists as verified.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Price today", "value": "US$9 a month, one plan; a US$99 one-time lifetime plan while that offer runs", "grade": "C", "note": "Pricing page and FAQ, 15 October 2026. No free tier.", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Earlier prices", "value": "US$4.95 one-time in August 2025; US$5.00 a month in November 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Wayback Machine copies of the home page.", "src": [ 11, 12 ] }, { "fact": "AI model", "value": "OpenAI GPT; GPT-3.5-turbo on the launch page", "grade": "C", "note": "The terms say that the service uses OpenAI's GPT technology; the current pages name no model. A fallback generator with fixed patterns runs when the AI is unavailable.", "src": [ 5, 11, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Owner", "value": "FastProducts LLC, a Wyoming limited liability company", "grade": "C", "note": "Terms and privacy policy. The footer gives an address at 701 Tillery St, Austin, Texas.", "src": [ 5, 6, 2 ] }, { "fact": "The owner in the Wyoming register", "value": "Inactive, Administratively Dissolved (Tax)", "grade": "B", "note": "OpenCorporates' copy of the register, read 15 October 2026. The date of this status and the names of the two officers need a login and were not read.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Founder", "value": "Austin Armstrong, the only named founder", "grade": "C", "note": "The site's author page and TrustMRR. No source says who writes the code or how many people work on ThreadMaster.", "src": [ 7, 1 ] }, { "fact": "The founder's main company", "value": "Syllaby Inc.: team of 11, US$400,000 of total funding, about US$130,000 MRR", "grade": "C", "note": "Latka, from an interview of 23 June 2026. LinkedIn lists Syllaby at 2 to 10 employees. No source links Syllaby to ThreadMaster.", "src": [ 17, 18 ] }, { "fact": "The founder's audience", "value": "about 5 million followers, about 2.1 million of them on Facebook; 6,377 on X", "grade": "C", "note": "Latka's profile and the X profile. The home page says over 4 million.", "src": [ 17, 14, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Affiliate commission", "value": "50% of every payment, for as long as the customer pays", "grade": "C", "note": "Paid monthly through Tolt.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Published X posts included", "value": "100 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Drafting is unlimited; boost packs inside the app give more X posts.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2026 figure", "value": "14 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: August 2025 to October 2026.", "src": [ 1, 11 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "January 2023", "what": "Austin Armstrong co-founds Syllaby Inc., an AI video tool, after about 12 years running Socialty Pro, a video marketing and SEO agency.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "13 August 2025", "what": "The founding date of ThreadMaster, as entered on TrustMRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "15 August 2025", "what": "The first full copy in the Wayback Machine: a generator of threads to copy and paste into Facebook, LinkedIn, X and Threads, using OpenAI GPT-3.5-turbo, with 10 or more scored templates and 100 or more images. Price US$4.95 one-time.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "Mid-August to mid-October 2025", "what": "US$26,522 of verified revenue in about the first two months, calculated from the TrustMRR totals.", "grade": "X", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "4 November 2025", "what": "The site charges US$5.00 a month. The founder writes that his own Facebook posts, white text on a black background and business quote images, inspired the tool.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "November 2025", "what": "The best month in the verified table: US$10,108.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "The lowest full month: US$5,606, 44.5% below November 2025.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "23 June 2026", "what": "In a Latka interview the founder gives Syllaby's figures: about US$130,000 MRR, about 3,400 paying customers, a team of 11 and US$400,000 of funding.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "13 July to 28 September 2026", "what": "A weekly blog runs on the site, with posts on writing threads and on when to post.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 27 ] }, { "when": "August and September 2026", "what": "Revenue rises to US$8,590 and US$8,237. No source says why.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "14 October 2026", "what": "The founder posts that he has acquired his first company, Anderro, an affiliate marketing marketplace.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "15 October 2026", "what": "MRR of US$5,176 from 1,038 active subscriptions, and US$1,654 in the first half of October.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "The product costs US$9 a month and publishes to X, Threads, Facebook Pages and LinkedIn, with analytics, a developer API and an MCP server.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 9 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "The founder's own post format", "text": "The idea came from Armstrong's own Facebook posts: threads of white text on a black background and business quote images, which he writes were the posts that went viral for him. ThreadMaster sells that format as templates, each with an engagement score that the site says comes from real performance data, together with a library of more than 100 images." }, { "title": "A very low price, raised over time", "text": "US$4.95 one-time at launch in August 2025, US$5.00 a month by November 2025, US$9 a month in October 2026. The 1,038 active subscriptions bring US$4.99 a month each on average, which suggests, but does not prove, that many subscribers kept an older price." }, { "title": "From copy and paste to a weekly tool", "text": "The first version wrote text for the user to copy and paste. By October 2026 the product publishes and schedules to X, Threads, Facebook Pages and LinkedIn, shows analytics on past posts, and offers an API and an MCP server, so that a customer has a reason to open it every week." }, { "title": "Reach that the founder already had", "text": "The home page sells the tool with the founder's reach: over 4 million followers and hundreds of millions of people a month. Latka records about 5 million followers, 2.1 million of them on Facebook. A 50% recurring affiliate commission, free tools and a weekly blog add other channels. No source says which channel brought most customers." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's own pages and from archived copies of them. They are grade C, except the Stripe connection, which TrustMRR confirms.", "items": [ "Text generation through OpenAI. The launch page of August 2025 named GPT-3.5-turbo; the terms of October 2026 say only OpenAI's GPT technology. A fallback generator with fixed patterns runs when the AI is unavailable.", "Payments through Stripe on the web, confirmed by TrustMRR's Stripe connection. Subscriptions in the iPhone and Android apps are paid through Apple and Google, and RevenueCat passes their status to ThreadMaster.", "Publishing through the platforms' own connections to X, Threads, Facebook Pages and LinkedIn, with 100 published X posts a month in the plan and boost packs for more.", "A REST API and an MCP server for Claude Code, Cursor and Claude Desktop, with the same quotas as the app, a duplicate guard and daily platform caps.", "Google Analytics and PostHog measure use of the site, only with the visitor's consent. Tolt runs the affiliate program.", "The web front end is a React app: the page source loads react-dom and jsx-runtime script files.", "The legal owner is FastProducts LLC, a Wyoming company with an address in Austin, Texas. The same company offers WhisperJot, a voice-to-text app that comes free for 12 months with every plan." ], "src": [ 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database built tools for posting on, or measuring, social platforms that they did not control. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Pixelpipe", "years": "2008 to 2013", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Post photos and video to many social networks at once.", "died": "The large platforms closed their APIs and built cross-posting themselves.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/435-pixelpipe" }, { "name": "Klout", "years": "2008 to 2017", "funding": "US$40M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A score from 1 to 100 for a person's influence on social media.", "died": "Facebook and Twitter built better analytics themselves, and the single score lost its value. It depended on the platforms' APIs.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/280-klout" }, { "name": "ThinkUp", "years": "2010 to 2017", "funding": "US$1M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Personal analytics on your own social media posts, beyond likes and reposts.", "died": "It stayed a desktop product while social media moved to phones, and it did little marketing.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/624-thinkup" }, { "name": "Nuzzel", "years": "2012 to 2019", "funding": "US$5.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "The news that your friends share, collected from Twitter and Facebook.", "died": "It depended on the Twitter and Facebook APIs, and the platforms began to offer the same service for free.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/378-nuzzel" }, { "name": "Upworthy Insider", "years": "2015 to 2020", "funding": "US$12M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Positive stories written and packaged to spread on Facebook.", "died": "It depended on Facebook's feed. A change in Facebook's ranking cut its reach, and it had no second channel.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/692-upworthy-insider" } ], "whatChanged": [ "All five depended on platforms that they did not own: their APIs, their feeds or their data. Each one died when the platform closed access, changed its ranking or built the same feature itself. ThreadMaster has the same dependence. It posts through the X, Threads, Facebook and LinkedIn connections, and X's rules already forbid some kinds of automated posting.", "Two things differ. First, the costs are small: the text comes from a rented model, and the business reports a 95% profit margin, so it does not need outside money to survive a fall in revenue. Second, it sells the writing, not only access to the platform: if publishing through one platform stops, the templates and drafts still work by copy and paste, as the first version did. The low cost also makes the product easy to copy, and X and Meta now build their own AI into the feed." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The product, yes. The reach behind it, no.", "text": "A thread writer is a prompt to a rented model, a template library and the platforms' posting connections, and one person can build it. The harder part to copy is the founder: his own posts went viral, he has millions of followers, and the home page sells the tool with that reach. The first two months brought US$26,522 at a price of about US$5, although no source says how many of those buyers came from his audience. The verified figures also show the limit of such a start: within seven months revenue fell to about half of its best month.", "steps": [ "Take a post format that already works on your own account, and sell it as templates with a measured score for each one.", "Launch to your own audience at a very low price, then raise the price for new customers.", "Add publishing, scheduling and analytics, so that customers use the tool every week.", "Pay affiliates a recurring share, and publish free tools and search pages for the people who do not follow you." ], "open": "Any post format that you have proven with your own account, such as LinkedIn text posts or quote images, on a platform where the official app does not yet write it for the user." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Revenue is falling", "text": "The best month in the verified table was November 2025, with US$10,108. June 2026 brought US$5,606. After a rise in August and September 2026, the first half of October brought about US$110 a day, 60.5% less than the second half of September, and the last 30 days are 42.5% below the 30 days before. The current MRR, US$5,176, is 32.1% below the average month of the last year." }, { "title": "The founder runs a larger company", "text": "Armstrong is CEO and co-founder of Syllaby Inc., an AI video tool with a team of 11, US$400,000 of funding and about US$130,000 of MRR, according to his Latka interview of June 2026; LinkedIn lists Syllaby at 2 to 10 employees. He also writes that he invests US$5,000 in about 10 startups a year, and he bought a company in October 2026. ThreadMaster belongs to a different company, FastProducts LLC. No source says who writes its code or whether Syllaby staff work on it." }, { "title": "Platform rules on automation", "text": "X's automation rules forbid duplicate or very similar posts, automated posts about trending topics, automated replies sent to reach many users, and applications that claim to get users more followers. AI reply bots need X's written approval, and X can remove posts from search or suspend accounts. An example response in Meta's Threads API documentation shows a posting quota of 250 in 86,400 seconds, that is 24 hours. ThreadMaster says that it applies a duplicate guard and daily platform caps." }, { "title": "The platforms build their own AI", "text": "X has its own assistant, Grok, and may share public posts and their engagement data with xAI to train it. A news report of 13 May 2026 says that Meta is testing a Meta AI account on Threads that answers in public under posts, in five countries. Neither source says that these assistants write threads for users, but both platforms now build AI into the products that ThreadMaster depends on." }, { "title": "Competitors with AI writing", "text": "ThreadMaster's own comparison page names Typefully, Tweet Hunter, Hypefury, Taplio, Buffer and Hootsuite. Hypefury's pricing page lists a US$6 a month plan for one platform and a US$19 a month plan, and its feature list includes AI trained on the user's own posts. Typefully's pricing page, downloaded the same day, showed no prices in its text." }, { "title": "One model provider", "text": "The terms name only OpenAI, and AI-generated content is also subject to OpenAI's usage policies. A change in OpenAI's prices or rules reaches ThreadMaster directly. The fallback generator with fixed patterns is the only alternative that the company describes." }, { "title": "The owner's legal status", "text": "OpenCorporates' copy of the Wyoming register lists FastProducts LLC as Inactive, Administratively Dissolved (Tax). The terms still name it as the owner of ThreadMaster. The date of the entry needs a login and was not read." }, { "title": "What the Stripe figures cover", "text": "Subscriptions in the iPhone and Android apps are paid through Apple and Google, outside Stripe, so the verified figures may not include them. The same company also offers WhisperJot, and the profile does not say whether the connected Stripe account carries only ThreadMaster." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR: ThreadMaster profile, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/threadmaster", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/threadmaster.md) in full. Revenue, the monthly and daily tables, MRR and the subscription count come from Stripe through an API key (grade A). The description, founding date, founder, price and the profit margin, which depends on costs, are founder-entered or not listed as verified (grade C). Last revenue sync 15 October 2026 at 10:39 UTC." }, { "title": "ThreadMaster home page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://threadmaster.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the founder's introduction, the features and the footer that names FastProducts LLC." }, { "title": "ThreadMaster pricing page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://threadmaster.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the US$9 plan, the X posting allowance and the WhisperJot bundle." }, { "title": "ThreadMaster FAQ, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://threadmaster.ai/faq", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the US$99 lifetime offer, the fallback generator and the included features." }, { "title": "ThreadMaster Terms of Service, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://threadmaster.ai/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the owner, on OpenAI and on discontinuation of the service." }, { "title": "ThreadMaster Privacy Policy, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://threadmaster.ai/privacy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for Stripe, the app-store subscriptions through RevenueCat, OpenAI, Google Analytics, PostHog and Tolt." }, { "title": "ThreadMaster author page: Austin Armstrong, Founder", "url": "https://threadmaster.ai/authors/austin-armstrong", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names the founder and the origin of the idea." }, { "title": "ThreadMaster AI Thread Writer page", "url": "https://threadmaster.ai/features/ai-thread-writer", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for how the writer and the scored templates work." }, { "title": "ThreadMaster Developer API page", "url": "https://threadmaster.ai/developers", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the REST API, the MCP server, the duplicate guard and the platform caps." }, { "title": "ThreadMaster affiliate program page", "url": "https://threadmaster.ai/affiliate", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 50% recurring commission paid through Tolt." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine: threadmaster.ai on 15 August 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250815194446/https://threadmaster.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The earliest full copy; the capture list shows a first capture on 14 August 2025. Source for the launch features, GPT-3.5-turbo and the US$4.95 one-time price." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine: threadmaster.ai on 4 November 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20251104144032/https://threadmaster.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the US$5.00 monthly price and the founder's note on his Facebook posts." }, { "title": "OpenCorporates: FastProducts LLC, Wyoming company number 2024-001405293", "url": "https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_wy/2024-001405293", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the public part of the record: status, company type and registered address. Dates and officers need a login and were not read." }, { "title": "Austin Armstrong (@SocialtyPro) on X, profile read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/SocialtyPro", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the description CEO of @trySyllaby and the follower count." }, { "title": "Austin Armstrong on X, 14 October 2026: I just acquired my first company", "url": "https://x.com/SocialtyPro/status/2110484717967446065", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in the timeline JSON from api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Austin Armstrong on X, 15 October 2026: I write $5K checks into about 10 startups a year", "url": "https://x.com/SocialtyPro/status/2110710438254067743", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in the timeline JSON from api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Latka: Austin Armstrong, CEO and Co-Founder at Syllaby Inc., interview of 23 June 2026", "url": "https://getlatka.com/people/austin-armstrong-96383-mqr7dknl", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for Syllaby's team size, funding, MRR and customers, and for the founder's follower counts. The figures come from a founder interview." }, { "title": "LinkedIn: Syllaby company page", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/syllaby", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public page. It lists 2 to 10 employees, which differs from Latka's team size of 11." }, { "title": "X Help Center: Automation rules", "url": "https://help.x.com/en/rules-and-policies/x-automation", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. X's own rules." }, { "title": "X Help Center: About Grok", "url": "https://help.x.com/en/using-x/about-grok", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the sections on the data that X shares with xAI." }, { "title": "Mezha, 13 May 2026: Threads has added an AI function similar to Grok in X", "url": "https://mezha.ua/en/news/threads-dodav-shi-funkciyu-yak-u-grok-311221/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A news report that cites Engadget and The Verge." }, { "title": "Meta for Developers: Threads API troubleshooting, Wayback copy of 6 June 2026", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260606001147/https://developers.facebook.com/docs/threads/troubleshooting", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the section on publishing quotas. The live page returned an error to a script, so the archived copy was read." }, { "title": "ThreadMaster alternatives page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://threadmaster.ai/alternatives", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's own comparison, which names its competitors." }, { "title": "Hypefury pricing page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://hypefury.com/pricing/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "Typefully pricing page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://typefully.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Could not read the prices: the downloaded page has none in its text. Cited only as a competitor that ThreadMaster names." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." }, { "title": "ThreadMaster blog index, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://threadmaster.ai/blog", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the list of posts and their dates." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/adle/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/adle.md", "slug": "adle", "name": "Adle", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI media buyer for ad campaigns", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "27 September 2022", "outcomeLabel": "US$9.9K MRR verified by Stripe at the last sync, September 2026", "sticker": "$9.9K MRR in September 2026", "outcomeUsd": 118224, "months": 48, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders; LinkedIn lists 8 employees in October 2026", "fundingLabel": "Parallel18 accelerator grant in 2024; no venture round found", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "sales", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Advertising" ], "product": "A web app that creates, launches and adjusts ad campaigns on Meta, Google, TikTok and LinkedIn from a written request. It writes the ads, makes images and videos, works in the customer's own connected ad accounts, and shows which ads to pause or give more budget. Agencies run it themselves from US$499 a month; for brands, Adle's staff run it for US$499 a month plus 15% of the ad spend.", "why": "The founders first ran a marketplace that paid creators in free products, and saw that their clients' results were decided inside the ad platforms. In 2024 they rebuilt the company around ad buying, sold it themselves through demos to agencies and brands, and added a plan where their own staff run the ads. Stripe shows revenue almost four times higher in March 2026 than in October 2025, then a fall.", "summary": [ "Adle is an AI media buyer. A media buyer is the person who plans, buys and adjusts paid advertising; Adle does this work as software on Meta, Google, TikTok and LinkedIn. The customer writes a request, and Adle builds the campaign, makes the ad text, images and videos, launches it through each platform's API, the official interface that lets one program operate another, and then shows which ads to pause and which to give more budget. Customers connect their own ad accounts with OAuth, a standard way to give an app limited access to an account without sharing the password. The ads therefore run in the customer's own accounts, and Adle charges only its own fees.", "The operating company, Clapp Technologies, LLC, started in September 2022 as Buzzly, a marketplace where brands gave creators free products in exchange for social media posts. The co-founders are Alejandro Reyes Bradford, the chief executive, and Daniel Ruiz Ortega, the chief operating officer. In June 2024 Buzzly joined Parallel18, an accelerator, a program that gives young companies training, contacts and money, run in Puerto Rico with grants. In September 2024 the accelerator described Buzzly as a tool that creates TikTok and Meta campaigns from a short prompt. The founders write that they closed the marketplace and kept the ad-buying part, now sold as Adle. Stripe data on TrustMRR, a site that reads revenue directly from a company's payment provider, shows US$4,347 of revenue in October 2025, US$16,855 in March 2026 and US$9,587 in September 2026, and MRR (monthly recurring revenue, the subscription revenue of one month) of US$9,852 from 14 active subscriptions.", "The headline number is grade A, but it is not current. The Stripe key that TrustMRR uses expired on 30 September 2026, so no revenue after that date is recorded, and monthly revenue had already fallen 43.1% from the March peak. The team is larger than in most stories here: LinkedIn lists 8 employees, and the brand plan includes a human media buyer. The page also shows four failed companies that sold automated or outsourced ad buying, or a creator marketplace like Buzzly's first product." ], "factsCaption": "US$9,852 of monthly recurring revenue and US$131,066 in twelve months, read from Stripe, in data that stops on 30 September 2026", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from Stripe, the payment processor, through TrustMRR's connection to the company's Stripe account. A grade C value is a statement by the company, its founders, its accelerator or LinkedIn. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a creator marketplace founded in September 2022 to an AI media buyer with US$9,852 of MRR, in 48 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Adle prices in October 2026, read from the script that draws the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "The pricing page shows only \"Plans from $499/mo\" until the visitor chooses agency or brand; the plan details are in the page's script. Agency plans are monthly subscriptions with credits: a campaign costs 5 credits, an AI image 3 and an AI optimization 2. Extra credits cost from US$49 for 65 to US$636 for 1,200 a month, and extra AI videos from US$75 for 4. The brand plan, Adle Scale, adds 15% of the ad spend to US$499 a month: with US$10,000 of ad spend a month, the brand pays US$1,999 to Adle and the US$10,000 to the ad platforms. No yearly price is shown. The terms say there are no free trials and regular plans are not refundable.", "rows": [ [ "Studio, for agencies", "", "499", "600 credits, 15 AI videos, 10 advertisers, 5 users" ], [ "Agency, for agencies", "", "999", "1,500 credits, 50 AI videos, 25 advertisers, 12 users" ], [ "Enterprise", "", "custom", "price not shown" ], [ "Adle Scale, for brands", "", "499 plus 15% of ad spend", "done for you, with a customer success manager and a media buyer" ], [ "Extra credits", "", "49 to 636", "65 to 1,200 credits" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue at the last sync, 30 September 2026", "value": "US$9,852", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data read by TrustMRR. 14 active subscriptions at the same time.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from that MRR", "value": "about US$118,224 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 9,852 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last twelve months", "value": "US$131,066", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data read by TrustMRR. The twelve monthly figures from October 2025 to September 2026 add up to US$131,064; the difference is rounding.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Total revenue recorded from Stripe", "value": "US$258,260", "grade": "A", "note": "All time. US$127,194 of it came before mid-October 2025 (calculated: 258,260 minus 131,066).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Best month", "value": "US$16,855 in March 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "October 2025 was US$4,347, so March 2026 was 3.88 times as much (calculated).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in September 2026", "value": "US$9,587", "grade": "A", "note": "43.1% below March 2026 (calculated). July to September 2026 together, US$30,140, were 28.4% below April to June, US$42,098 (calculated).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue shown for the last 30 days", "value": "US$3,793", "grade": "A", "note": "The gap to the MRR comes from stale data. TrustMRR last synced at 08:06 UTC on 30 September 2026, and its Stripe API key expired at 14:06 UTC that day. The 30-day window, 16 September to 15 October, holds only 15 days of synced data, and the daily rows from 16 to 30 September add up to exactly US$3,793. The snapshot saved at the last sync shows US$10,086 for its own 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Daily revenue, 16 to 30 September 2026", "value": "US$0 to US$999 a day", "grade": "A", "note": "The days with revenue show US$75, US$299, US$499, US$924, US$997 and US$999. These are the sizes of the plan prices and add-on packs (US$499, US$999, US$75 for 4 extra AI videos), not of advertising budgets.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Average MRR per active subscription", "value": "about US$704", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 9,852 divided by 14 equals 703.71.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Ad spend inside the revenue", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "Customers connect their own Meta, TikTok and Google business accounts with OAuth, so the ads run in their accounts. The brand plan charges 15% of ad spend as Adle's fee. No source shows ad money passing through Adle's Stripe account.", "src": [ 2, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Early figures after the relaunch", "value": "19 paying customers and US$7,000 MRR after the first month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder-written story page, undated. It also claims 1 cancellation in 4 months and a gross margin of about 88%.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Offer for the ads module", "value": "a US$10,000 setup and US$5,000 a month license", "grade": "C", "note": "Story page, undated: a company tried to buy the ads module, and the founders offered a license instead of a sale.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Users in 2024", "value": "hundreds of businesses", "grade": "C", "note": "Parallel18's spotlight post, 16 September 2024. Not a count of paying customers.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Team, October 2026", "value": "2 co-founders; 8 employees on LinkedIn", "grade": "C", "note": "The about page names the chief executive and the chief operating officer as co-founders. LinkedIn gives a company size of 2 to 10 employees and lists 8. The story page sets a limit of about 20 people.", "src": [ 4, 7, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per LinkedIn employee", "value": "about US$14,778 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the US$118,224 run rate divided by 8.", "src": [ 1, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "an accelerator grant, amount not verified; no venture round found", "grade": "C", "note": "Buzzly joined Parallel18, a program of the Puerto Rico Science, Technology and Research Trust whose startups sign a grant contract. Y Combinator's directory has no page for Adle.", "src": [ 8, 12, 21 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "Clapp Technologies, LLC", "grade": "C", "note": "Named on the about page and in the terms, which are governed by the law of Delaware, USA.", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Time from founding to the September 2026 figure", "value": "48 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: September 2022 to September 2026. The founded date, 27 September 2022, is entered by the founder on TrustMRR; LinkedIn gives 2022.", "src": [ 1, 7 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "27 September 2022", "what": "Founded date on the TrustMRR profile. The company starts as Buzzly, owned by Clapp Technologies, LLC.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "when": "19 May 2024", "what": "The archived Buzzly site is a marketplace for user-generated content: brands give products or experiences, and creators with at least 5,000 followers post about them.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "19 June 2024", "what": "The chief executive announces that Buzzly is joining Parallel18, an accelerator in Puerto Rico. The chief operating officer posts the next day that they were accepted.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 9 ] }, { "when": "16 September 2024", "what": "Parallel18's spotlight describes Buzzly as a tool that creates, launches and manages TikTok and Meta campaigns from a few phrases, with large language models, already used by hundreds of businesses.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "Undated, from 2024", "what": "The founders close the marketplace and rebuild its ad-buying part as an AI agent. Their story page reports 19 paying customers and US$7,000 MRR one month after that launch.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "October 2025", "what": "Stripe revenue of US$4,347 for the month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "March 2026", "what": "Best month: US$16,855.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "US$9,587 for the month, and MRR of US$9,852 from 14 active subscriptions.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "30 September 2026", "what": "TrustMRR's last revenue sync, at 08:06 UTC. The Stripe API key expires at 14:06 UTC, and no revenue is recorded after that.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "Renamed from Buzzly to Adle, the site sells agency plans from US$499 a month and a done-for-you plan for brands. LinkedIn lists 8 employees. The chief executive posts advertising advice on X almost every day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 7, 13 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Keep the part that made money", "text": "The marketplace connected brands with creators, but the founders write that their clients' results were decided by the media buying: campaign setup, targeting, budgets, optimization and reports. They closed the marketplace and kept that part, rebuilt as an AI agent that works from a single prompt." }, { "title": "Fees, not ad budgets", "text": "In the sources, Adle does not buy the ads itself. The customer's ad accounts stay connected through OAuth, and Adle charges a subscription, credits for each AI action and, for brands, 15% of the ad spend. Its revenue grows when a brand's budget grows, without Adle paying the platforms first." }, { "title": "Software and a service team", "text": "Agencies use the software themselves, for up to 25 advertisers on the US$999 plan. Brands get Adle Scale, where a customer success manager and a media buyer run the campaigns with the software. That service needs people, and LinkedIn lists 8 employees." }, { "title": "Sold by the founders", "text": "The story page says the founders did the early sales themselves, with close personal contact, and every page of the site asks the visitor to book a demo. The chief executive's X account has about 250 followers, so his posts there are not the main channel." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from Adle's own pages, its accelerator and Google's developer documentation. They are grade C.", "items": [ "A web app in English and Spanish at adle.ai, owned by Clapp Technologies, LLC, with terms under Delaware law.", "Customers connect their Meta, TikTok and Google business accounts with OAuth. The security page says the permissions are limited to those required, tokens are kept in an encrypted vault, and each advertiser runs in its own micro-service agent.", "The ad platforms grant API access only after an application. For example, a new Google Ads API developer token starts with test access; Basic Access allows 15,000 operations a day and Standard Access has no limit. No source says which level Adle holds.", "The AI writes campaigns from a prompt and makes images, videos and captions. Parallel18 wrote in 2024 that it uses large language models; no source names the models.", "Usage is metered in credits: 5 for a campaign, 3 for an AI image, 2 for an AI optimization.", "Payments run through Stripe. The security page lists a SOC 2 Type II audit, an outside check of security controls over a period of time, as in progress with the auditor Strike Graph, with a target of the first quarter of 2026.", "The terms also cover lifetime deals bought through AppSumo, and the site's script holds an AppSumo customer rating from 34 verified reviews, but no AppSumo page was found under the names Adle or Buzzly. AppSumo sales would not appear in the Stripe data." ], "src": [ 6, 19, 10, 2, 1, 5 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold automated or outsourced ad buying, or the creator marketplace that Buzzly started as. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Trada", "years": "2008 to 2015", "funding": "US$19M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Outsource your Google Ads to a marketplace of paid-search experts.", "died": "Google's own automation did the experts' work, and the human experts were too expensive to scale.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/655-trada" }, { "name": "Automate Ads", "years": "2015 to 2018", "funding": "US$1.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Software that keeps Facebook and Instagram campaigns running and adjusted without manual work.", "died": "The platforms' own tools and faster rivals did the same work.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1100-automate-ads" }, { "name": "Admazely", "years": "2012 to 2014", "funding": "US$2.3M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Retargeting ads made simple for small webshops.", "died": "Small customers with small budgets cost more to win than they paid, and Facebook competed directly.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1830-admazely" }, { "name": "FameBit", "years": "2013 to 2019", "funding": "US$1.75M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Self-service matching of brands and YouTube creators.", "died": "Google bought it and let it fade as YouTube moved to large brands and TikTok took the creators.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/132-famebit" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the four sold a layer on top of ad platforms or creators that it did not control. Trada and Automate Ads are the closest: one sold human experts for Google Ads, the other automation for Facebook ads, and both lost to the platforms' own tools. Adle makes the same bet with both parts at once: an AI agent for agencies, and a done-for-you service for brands.", "Two things differ. Large language models can now write the ad text and make images and videos from a prompt, so one tool can do the creative work as well as the campaign setup. And Adle works across Meta, Google, TikTok and LinkedIn at once, while each platform's own automation works only inside that platform. Neither difference has protected the revenue so far: Stripe shows a fall of 43.1% from March to September 2026." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The structure, yes. The position, with care.", "text": "A subscription plus a share of ad spend, while the customer keeps the ad accounts, is a simple structure, and the official ad APIs are open to approved apps. Two things are hard: agencies must trust software to spend their clients' money, and Google and Meta are building the same automation into their own platforms.", "steps": [ "Start from a service you already sell, here media buying, and turn its repeated steps into software.", "Connect to the customer's own ad accounts through the official APIs, so you never pay for the ads.", "Charge a fixed fee plus a share of ad spend, and meter the AI work in credits.", "Require the customer's approval before any campaign goes live." ], "open": "Work that each platform's own AI does not cover: running several ad platforms from one place, reports across them, and white-label tools that agencies show to their clients under their own name." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The data stopped on 30 September 2026", "text": "TrustMRR's key to Adle's Stripe account expired that day, so the profile shows no revenue for October and a 30-day figure of only US$3,793. September revenue, US$9,587, was close to the MRR, so the business was still earning then. Whether it still earns in October 2026 is unknown." }, { "title": "Revenue fell from its March peak", "text": "From US$16,855 in March 2026 to US$9,587 in September, a fall of 43.1%. July to September was 28.4% below April to June. The story page set a goal of 100 recurring customers in 13 weeks; TrustMRR shows 14 active subscriptions at the last sync." }, { "title": "Google and Meta build the same automation", "text": "Google opened Performance Max, which buys ads across YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and Maps from a single campaign, to all advertisers on 2 November 2021, and introduced AI Max for Search campaigns, a one-click suite of AI targeting and creative features, on 6 May 2025. Meta launched Advantage+ shopping campaigns in August 2022, which create up to 150 creative combinations at once. On 2 June 2025 MediaPost, citing The Wall Street Journal, reported that Meta plans to let brands create and target their ads with its AI by 2026. Google's tools are open to all advertisers, so Adle's customers already have them in their own accounts." }, { "title": "An AI agent can spend a budget badly", "text": "Adle's terms say it does not guarantee any return on ad spend and is not liable for lost ad spend. The company's answer is approval: its LinkedIn posts say the customer approves every campaign. The chief executive himself writes that a bidding algorithm with fewer than 30 conversions a month is guessing with the budget, and that moving a target more than 15 to 20% at once sends a campaign back into learning." }, { "title": "Access depends on the platforms", "text": "Every campaign runs through the APIs of Meta, Google and TikTok, which those companies open only to approved apps; Google, for example, gives full Google Ads API access only after an application. Adle's own terms list repeated platform policy violations that put its accounts or integrations at risk as a reason to end a customer's account." }, { "title": "Eight people, not one", "text": "LinkedIn lists 8 employees in October 2026, with two co-founders, and the brand plan includes a human media buyer. At the run rate of US$118,224 a year, that is about US$14,778 per person, and part of the revenue pays for service work." }, { "title": "Competing tools", "text": "Adspirer, another story on this site, sells a similar agent that works inside ChatGPT, Claude and other AI assistants and creates every campaign paused, and it had US$54,700 MRR at its last Stripe sync in June 2026 with one founder. Adle's own comparison page names Madgicx, which it says charges by ad spend." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR: Adle, Stripe-verified revenue profile (data as of October 2026)", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/adle", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/adle.md) in full, once, on 15 October 2026. Grade A for the metrics in its Verification Sources section; the description and founded date are founder-written, grade C." }, { "title": "Adle pricing page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://adle.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the page and, because the plans load by script, the plan data in the page's JavaScript file." }, { "title": "Adle: Our Story, From Marketplace to AI Media Operator", "url": "https://adle.ai/story", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder-written and undated. Source for the pivot, the early customer figures, the sales method and the pricing model." }, { "title": "Adle: About, Meet the Founders", "url": "https://adle.ai/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the operating company and the two co-founders." }, { "title": "Adle AI Terms and Conditions", "url": "https://adle.ai/terms-and-conditions", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the operator, Delaware law, billing, AppSumo lifetime deals and the disclaimers on ad spend." }, { "title": "Adle Security page", "url": "https://adle.ai/security", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the OAuth connections and the SOC 2 plan." }, { "title": "LinkedIn company page: Adle (formerly Buzzly)", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/adle-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the public page on 15 October 2026. Source for the company size, the 8 employees, the founding year and the post on campaign approval." }, { "title": "LinkedIn post by Alejandro Reyes Bradford, 19 June 2024: Buzzly is joining Parallel18", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/posts/alejandrorbrad_proud-to-announce-that-buzzly-is-joining-activity-7209164226534240256-c4nJ", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Date from the page's published time." }, { "title": "LinkedIn post by Daniel Ruiz Ortega, 20 June 2024: Buzzly se une a Parallel18", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielruizortega1_buzzly-parallel18-startups-activity-7209569944533909504--ULi", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. It tags four other people, who are not named on this page." }, { "title": "LinkedIn post, 16 September 2024: Parallel18 Gen.12 Startup Spotlight: Buzzly", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/posts/hjirau_parallel18-p18-gen12-startup-spotlight-activity-7241438199309303811-pdB0", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The accelerator's description of the product and its users in 2024." }, { "title": "Internet Archive copy of heybuzzly.com, 19 May 2024", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240519182301/https://www.heybuzzly.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the archived home page in full. Shows the marketplace before the pivot." }, { "title": "Parallel18 home page and program questions", "url": "https://www.parallel18.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the program description and the questions section. Source for the grant; the amount is not on the page." }, { "title": "Alejandro Reyes Bradford on X (@alejandrobradf), posts of 1 to 15 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/alejandrobradf", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and the 40 most recent posts through api.fxtwitter.com, which returned no older pages. None of them gives a revenue figure." }, { "title": "Adle vs Madgicx comparison page", "url": "https://adle.ai/vs/madgicx", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Adle's own comparison, including its pricing model." }, { "title": "Google Ads and Commerce blog, 2 November 2021: Performance Max campaigns launch to all advertisers", "url": "https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/performance-max/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the dated header and the introduction." }, { "title": "Google Ads and Commerce blog, 6 May 2025: Introducing AI Max for Search campaigns", "url": "https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/google-ai-max-for-search-campaigns/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the dated header and the introduction." }, { "title": "Social Media Today, 9 January 2023: How to Take Advantage of Meta's Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns", "url": "https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/how-to-take-advantage-of-metas-advantage-shopping-campaigns/640002/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the August 2022 launch and the 150 creative combinations." }, { "title": "MediaPost, 2 June 2025: Meta Plans To Automate All Ad Creation By 2026: Report", "url": "https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/406315/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. It reports a Wall Street Journal story." }, { "title": "Google Ads API: Access levels and permissible use", "url": "https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/api-policy/access-levels", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on access levels." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." }, { "title": "Y Combinator company directory, address for Adle", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/adle", "grade": "C", "how": "Opened on 15 October 2026. The page returns File Not Found." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/dimeadozen/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/dimeadozen.md", "slug": "dimeadozen", "name": "DimeADozen", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI research reports on business ideas", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "exit", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "March 2023", "outcomeLabel": "Sold for US$150K, September 2023", "sticker": "Sold for $150K", "outcomeUsd": 150000, "months": 6, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders as a side business, plus 1 marketing and growth helper from June 2023", "fundingLabel": "None (about US$185 of own money)", "primaryFactor": "Focus", "group": "documents-data", "channel": "creators", "trend": "sold", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Exit", "B2C", "Market research" ], "product": "A web form that takes a description of a business idea and returns a long report on its market, customers, competitors, risks and launch steps. In 2023 the text came from hundreds of pre-written prompts sent to OpenAI's ChatGPT models. A later owner still sells it in 2026, rebuilt around live web search and cited sources.", "why": "The founders first sold AI reports for many jobs, from lesson plans to travel plans, and kept the one that people paid for: the business idea check. It cost about US$185 to start, so nearly all revenue was profit. An Instagram creator's video in June 2023 brought more than US$10,000 of sales in one week. Six months after launch they sold it through Acquire.com.", "summary": [ "DimeADozen is a website that writes a research report about a business idea. The customer fills in a form. The site puts the answers into hundreds of pre-written prompts, the instruction texts that a program sends to a language model, and sends them to OpenAI's ChatGPT models. It then joins the answers into a report of 40 to 50 pages on the market, the customers, the competitors, the risks and the launch steps. The founders said that strict prompts reduced hallucinations, answers from a model that sound right but are false. In October 2023 one report cost US$39.", "Sal Aiello, a long-time chief technology officer for startups, and Monica Powers, a product designer, met in 2022 at an online founder event run by the startup accelerator Y Combinator. In March 2023 they built the first version in four days for about US$185, as a side business. It first sold AI reports for many jobs; only the business idea report sold, so they kept that one. An Instagram creator's video in mid-June 2023 brought more than US$10,000 of sales in one week. In roughly seven months the site brought in more than US$66,000. In September 2023 the founders agreed to sell it for US$150,000 to Felipe Arosemena and Danielle de Corneille, a married couple, after listing it on Acquire.com, a marketplace where small online businesses are bought and sold.", "The revenue figure is grade B: CNBC Make It wrote that it came from documents that CNBC Make It reviewed. The sale price is grade C: the article gives it as Aiello's statement, and the buyers have not published it. The site still sells reports in October 2026 under a later owner, rebuilt around live web search, while ChatGPT and Gemini now write research reports of this kind for free a few times a month." ], "factsCaption": "More than US$66,000 of revenue in about seven months, seen in documents by CNBC Make It, and a sale for US$150,000 that rests on the seller's statement", "factsRead": "How to read this table: grade B is a figure that a journalist checked in documents. Grade C is a statement by a founder, by the team's marketing helper, or by the company's own pages. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A.", "timelineLead": "From a four-day build in March 2023 to a sale through Acquire.com six months later, and then to a product type that free chatbots now offer. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "DimeADozen prices in October 2026, read from the later owner's pricing page (grade C); the 2023 prices are in the note", "note": "Every current price is one-time; there is no subscription. In March 2023 the founders sold report sections one by one for US$0.50 to US$4.00 each. On 1 April 2023 the business validation report cost US$36. In June 2023 they tested a monthly plan with several reports at a discount. In October 2023 a report cost US$39. Agencies can buy reports under their own logo on monthly or yearly plans through a separate site, CustomReport, whose prices are not on this page.", "rows": [ [ "Idea score", "free", "", "a score on 4 dimensions in about 2 minutes" ], [ "Starter", "9 one-time", "", "7 sections, typically 20+ pages, 60+ cited links" ], [ "Entrepreneur", "129 one-time", "", "full report, typically 100+ pages, 500+ cited links" ], [ "3-Pack", "179 one-time", "", "three Entrepreneur reports" ], [ "Launch Kit", "149 one-time", "", "material for a small live market test, from a full report" ], [ "Investor-Ready add-on", "299 one-time", "", "investor objection preparation and a one-page brief" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Sale price, September 2023", "value": "US$150,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Sal Aiello to CNBC Make It. The article attributes the price to him and does not say that CNBC saw the sale contract. The buyers have not published it. The marketing helper's account says only \"6-figure exit\".", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in roughly seven months, March to October 2023", "value": "more than US$66,000", "grade": "B", "note": "\"according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It\". The article does not say which documents. Aiello says nearly all of it was profit.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Average revenue per month", "value": "about US$9,400", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$66,000 divided by 7 months. The real months were uneven: four-figure revenue by early June, then more than US$10,000 in one week in June.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Sale price compared with revenue", "value": "about 2.3 times revenue to date, or about 1.3 times a year of revenue", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$150,000 divided by US$66,000, and divided by US$66,000 / 7 x 12 = about US$113,000 a year.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Lifetime revenue when listed on Acquire.com", "value": "US$50,000", "grade": "C", "note": "The marketing helper's account. The date of the listing is not given; it was before an August 2023 sale campaign.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Sales in the week of a viral Instagram video, mid-June 2023", "value": "more than US$10,000", "grade": "C", "note": "A creator answered a viewer who asked whether a business idea was good. The account says the video had more than 1.3 million views.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Traffic and conversion, by October 2023", "value": "more than 20,000 visits a month; 1% to 5% of unique visitors paid", "grade": "C", "note": "The marketing helper's account. The rate depended on the traffic source and the period.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Money spent to start", "value": "about US$185", "grade": "C", "note": "Aiello: US$150 for the web domain and US$35 for hosting and a database.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Price of a report", "value": "US$0.50 to US$4.00 a section (March 2023), US$36 (April 2023), US$39 (October 2023)", "grade": "C", "note": "Archived copies of the site and CNBC Make It.", "src": [ 4, 5, 1 ] }, { "fact": "People who used the site, as claimed on it", "value": "over 30,000 (July 2023), over 75,000 (October 2023)", "grade": "C", "note": "The site does not say how many of them paid. The October 2023 copy is from a month after the deal.", "src": [ 6, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Buyer interest after an August 2023 sale campaign", "value": "more than 30 signed NDAs and 8 to 10 buyer meetings in one week", "grade": "C", "note": "An NDA is a non-disclosure agreement that a buyer signs before seeing the numbers. The campaign was a feature in Acquire.com's newsletter, a post by Aiello on X and a post on the company's LinkedIn page.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "2 co-founders with equal shares, plus 1 marketing and growth helper from June 2023", "grade": "C", "note": "CNBC says the business was split evenly between Aiello and Powers. The helper, Mike Blumenthal, wrote the Indie Hackers account.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "CNBC: they spent less than US$200 to start. The later owner's facts page in 2026 says \"bootstrapped, no outside funding\".", "src": [ 1, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Paying customers since 2023, September 2026", "value": "3,100+ across 3,200+ purchases", "grade": "C", "note": "The later owner's facts page, which also counts 134,000+ ideas submitted. The home page counts 50,000+ sign-ups.", "src": [ 10, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Share of sign-ups that paid, by 2026", "value": "about 6%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 3,100 paying customers divided by 50,000 sign-ups, both from the later owner's pages.", "src": [ 10, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the sale agreement", "value": "6 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: March 2023 to September 2023.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2022", "what": "Aiello, a long-time chief technology officer for startups, and Powers, a product designer who runs a design and branding company, meet at an online founder event run by Y Combinator.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "March 2023", "what": "They build the first version in four days for about US$185: AI reports for any profession, from lesson plans to business plans.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "13 March 2023", "what": "Earliest archived copy: \"Validate your business idea in seconds\", with report sections sold one by one for US$0.50 to US$4.00.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 8 ] }, { "when": "15 March 2023", "what": "The archive captures the site's address tagged ref=futuretools.io, from Future Tools, a directory of AI tools. The team lists the site in AI directories and newsletters, tells friends and emails anyone who will listen.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 2 ] }, { "when": "1 April 2023", "what": "Ten report types for sale, from US$5 to US$36; the business validation report is the most expensive. An affiliate script is in the page.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "April to July 2023", "what": "Only the business validation report sells, so the founders remove the other report types.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 6 ] }, { "when": "Early June 2023", "what": "Four-figure revenue from single reports. A monthly plan with several reports at a discount takes monthly recurring revenue from zero to several thousand dollars in a few weeks.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "Mid-June 2023", "what": "An Instagram creator's video that answers a viewer's question about a business idea goes viral: more than 1.3 million views and more than US$10,000 of sales in one week. A marketing and growth helper joins.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "23 July 2023", "what": "The site says over 30,000 entrepreneurs have used it, shows a \"Featured On\" row of six logos: There's An AI For That, Future Tools, TopAI.tools, AI Tool Mate, Openfuture and Ben's Bites. It links a sister product, Launchmates.ai.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "Summer 2023", "what": "Listed for sale on Acquire.com after reaching US$50,000 in lifetime revenue. Few buyers ask at first.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "August 2023", "what": "A sale campaign: a feature in Acquire.com's newsletter, a post by Aiello on X and a post on the company's LinkedIn page. More than 30 NDAs and 8 to 10 buyer meetings in a week, then a deadline for offers.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "September 2023", "what": "Deal to sell for US$150,000 to Felipe Arosemena and Danielle de Corneille, a software engineer and a product designer who want to run it full-time. The founders stay as advisors for about five hours a week.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "16 October 2023", "what": "CNBC Make It reports more than US$66,000 of revenue in roughly seven months, from documents it reviewed. A report costs US$39.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "when": "26 October 2023", "what": "The site claims over 75,000 users and says it uses GPT-4.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "2 February 2025", "what": "OpenAI launches deep research in ChatGPT, which writes a report from hundreds of web sources. Free users get 5 such reports a month from 24 April 2025.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "13 March 2025", "what": "Google makes Gemini Deep Research free to try for everyone, a few times a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "May 2026", "what": "The company's X account describes three options for founders: a free chatbot, US$5 to US$29 tools that only rephrase a model's answer, and its own US$129 report.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "The later owner reports 3,100+ paying customers since 2023 and sells reports from US$9 to US$179, one-time. The page footer names Pattern50 LLC.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 9 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Focus", "text": "The first site sold AI reports for many jobs: lesson plans, event and travel plans, garden projects, ad copy and pitch decks, from US$5 to US$36 each. After a few weeks the only real purchases were the business validation report, so the founders removed the rest. In the marketing helper's words, they let the market tell them what to make." }, { "title": "The prompts were the product", "text": "The value was in the questions, not in the model. The form's answers go into hundreds of pre-written ChatGPT prompts, and the answers are joined into one report. Aiello said it took weeks of back and forth, with strict prompts and tuned prompt settings, to get the answers they expected." }, { "title": "Costs close to zero", "text": "About US$185 to start: a domain, hosting and a database. The founders said nearly all revenue was profit. That is why a few dollars a section, and later US$39 a report, was enough. The 2023 site refused refunds because every report cost money to generate." }, { "title": "A creator video, then a planned sale", "text": "AI directories and newsletters listed the site from March 2023, and a referral feature and an affiliate program brought more users. Sales jumped in mid-June 2023 after an Instagram creator's video. The founders then sold early: an Acquire.com listing, a newsletter feature, a data room for buyers and a deadline for offers turned more than 30 interested buyers into a deal within weeks." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from CNBC Make It, the marketing helper's account and archived copies of the 2023 site. They are grade C, except the page-source details, which anyone can check in the archived pages.", "items": [ "Built in four days in March 2023: Powers designed the tool and Aiello wrote the code.", "A form asks for the business name and a description. The answers go into hundreds of pre-written ChatGPT prompts, and the answers become a report of 40 to 50 pages, delivered as a PDF.", "On the report page, users could add instructions to single items to change the answer, which the 2023 site called fine tuning.", "Costs: US$150 for the domain and US$35 for hosting and a database. The October 2023 site, a month after the deal, says it used GPT-4.", "The archived page source shows a Google Analytics tag from March 2023, the Rewardful affiliate script from April 2023 and a Google Ads tag by July 2023.", "For the sale, a data room held conversion rates, the technology used and notes on how to reach the audience. The founders agreed to stay as advisors for about five hours a week." ], "src": [ 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold research or expert insight on demand to people about to make a decision. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Mattermark", "years": "2012 to 2019", "funding": "US$17.7M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Data on private companies, gathered into insights for venture investors.", "died": "It could not beat CB Insights, its costs grew with scale, and newer AI companies sold cheaper insights.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/322-mattermark" }, { "name": "ROSS Intelligence", "years": "2015 to 2018", "funding": "US$13M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "AI legal research that answers questions faster than the old legal databases.", "died": "Lawyers kept the databases they already used.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1511-ross-intelligence" }, { "name": "Metigy", "years": "2014 to 2022", "funding": "US$14M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "AI marketing advice for small businesses that could not pay a marketing team.", "died": "Small businesses wanted someone to do the work, not recommendations. The general advice was not used.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2338-metigy" }, { "name": "Thumb", "years": "2011 to 2015", "funding": "US$12.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Instant opinions from a crowd of strangers for anyone facing a decision.", "died": "The large social networks kept the users, and it found no way to earn money.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/631-thumb" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the four sold insight that the customer could also get another way: from a database it already had, from a social network, or from general advice. DimeADozen sold the same kind of thing, a report on a market, and in 2023 it was cheap and fast where human analysts were slow and expensive. In 2025 OpenAI and Google added research reports to their own chatbots, free a few times a month. That is the position that ended the predecessors: a general tool does the job of the narrow one.", "Two things differed. First, the costs were almost zero, so the business was profitable in its first months and needed no investors; none of the four could say that. Second, the founders sold after six months, while sales were still rising, so the later owner, not the founders, carried the risk of free competition. The owner's answer in 2026 is a different product: longer reports built with live web search and checked citations, at US$129." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The product, no. The method, yes.", "text": "A report built from fixed prompts to one model was a good product in March 2023 and is close to free in 2026. The method still works: offer several paid outputs cheaply, keep the one that sells, run it at almost no cost, and sell the business while its numbers are rising.", "steps": [ "Put several paid report types on one site and watch which one people buy.", "Remove the rest and improve the one that sells.", "Keep fixed costs near zero, so a few sales a day are profit.", "Give creators something they can show in a short video: an answer to a question their viewers ask.", "To sell, list on a marketplace such as Acquire.com, prepare a data room and set a deadline for offers." ], "open": "Reports that a free chatbot cannot write: ones built on data that is not on the open web, such as the customer's own files, paid databases or local records, or documents that a lender or regulator needs in a fixed format." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The price is the seller's statement", "text": "CNBC Make It saw documents for the revenue, not for the price. The article gives US$150,000 as Aiello's statement. The buyers have not published it, the marketing helper's account says only \"6-figure exit\", and no copy of the Acquire.com listing was found." }, { "title": "Free chatbots now write the same report", "text": "OpenAI added deep research to ChatGPT on 2 February 2025: it searches hundreds of web sources and writes a report \"at the level of a research analyst\". From 24 April 2025 free ChatGPT users get 5 such reports a month. Google made Gemini Deep Research free to try for everyone on 13 March 2025. In May 2026 DimeADozen's own X account named the \"free chatbot (zero cost)\" as the first option a founder has." }, { "title": "Thin products on one model API have a short life", "text": "The 2023 product was a form plus fixed prompts sent to ChatGPT. By 2026 the later owner had rebuilt it: most sections are written with live web search, the citations are checked, and the facts page says it is \"not a single AI model writing from training data\". Its own post calls US$5 to US$29 tools of the 2023 kind an \"LLM wrapper (paraphrase)\". The owner kept the name, not the 2023 design." }, { "title": "Dependence on OpenAI", "text": "Every 2023 report came from OpenAI's models, and OpenAI decides which models stay available: it announced that older completion models would stop working on 4 January 2024. OpenAI also now sells deep research to the same customers. A product built on one provider's API can lose both its supplier and its market to that provider." }, { "title": "Users are not customers", "text": "The site claimed over 75,000 users in October 2023. The later owner counts 3,100+ paying customers in total by September 2026, about 6% of its 50,000+ sign-ups. Most people who tried the site never paid." }, { "title": "A success story that also sells services", "text": "The Indie Hackers account was written by the team's marketing helper and ends with an offer to help readers take their own tool \"from concept to cash\". No downloaded source shows the founders selling a course based on the sale." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "CNBC Make It, Megan Sauer, 16 October 2023: Two friends used AI and $185 to start a side hustle, they just sold it for $150,000", "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/16/how-inexpensive-ai-side-hustle-dimeadozen-sold-for-thousands.html", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the revenue seen in documents (grade B), and for the sale price, buyers, costs and report price, which the article gives as Aiello's statements (grade C)." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, Mike Blumenthal, 14 October 2023: Concept to Cash: 6-Figure Exit in 6 months for DimeADozen AI", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/concept-to-cash-6-figure-exit-in-6-months-for-dimeadozen-ai-2b557c6205", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Written by the person brought on for marketing and growth in June 2023. Source for the early report types, the Instagram video, the Acquire.com listing and the sale campaign." }, { "title": "NBC4 Washington, 16 October 2023: reprint of the CNBC Make It article", "url": "https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/business/money-report/two-friends-used-ai-and-185-to-start-a-side-hustle-they-just-sold-it-for-150000-it-prints-money/3445280/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. The same text as the original; used to confirm the wording." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of dimeadozen.ai, 13 March 2023", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20230313203022/https://www.dimeadozen.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with its page source. The earliest copy. Source for the first prices, the fine-tuning feature and the analytics tag." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of dimeadozen.ai, 1 April 2023", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20230401173334/https://www.dimeadozen.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with its page source. Source for the ten report types and their prices, and the affiliate script." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of dimeadozen.ai, 23 July 2023", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20230723003221/https://www.dimeadozen.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with its page source. Source for the user claim, the directory logos, the sister product and the Google Ads tag." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of dimeadozen.ai, 26 October 2023", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20231026091743/https://www.dimeadozen.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A month after the deal. Source for the 75,000 users claim and the mention of GPT-4." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine index of captured dimeadozen.ai addresses", "url": "http://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=dimeadozen.ai*&output=txt&fl=timestamp,original,statuscode&filter=statuscode:200&collapse=urlkey&limit=80", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the first 80 rows. Shows the first capture on 13 March 2023 and a link from the Future Tools directory captured on 15 March 2023." }, { "title": "DimeADozen pricing page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.dimeadozen.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the current prices and the owner named in the footer." }, { "title": "DimeADozen facts page, last verified 24 September 2026", "url": "https://www.dimeadozen.ai/facts", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The later owner's figures for customers, purchases and funding, and its description of how reports are made now." }, { "title": "DimeADozen home page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.dimeadozen.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the sign-up count." }, { "title": "DimeADozen on X (@dimeadozenai), posts of 21 and 22 May 2026", "url": "https://x.com/dimeadozenai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the latest 20 posts through the fxtwitter API. Posts by the later owner about free chatbots and wrapper tools." }, { "title": "OpenAI, 2 February 2025: Introducing deep research", "url": "https://openai.com/index/introducing-deep-research/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with the updates up to February 2026. Source for the launch and the free-user limit from 24 April 2025." }, { "title": "Google, 13 March 2025: Gemini app updates: Deep Research, connected apps, personalization", "url": "https://blog.google/products/gemini/new-gemini-app-features-march-2025/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for Deep Research being free to try for everyone." }, { "title": "OpenAI, updated 24 April 2024: GPT-4 API general availability and deprecation of older models in the Completions API", "url": "https://openai.com/index/gpt-4-api-general-availability/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the retirement of older completion models on 4 January 2024." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/launch-fast/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/launch-fast.md", "slug": "launch-fast", "name": "Launch Fast", "country": "United States", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Product research software and AI agent tools for Amazon sellers", "aiType": "AI-leveraged", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "July 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$30K a month, June 2026", "sticker": "$360K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 360000, "months": 11, "teamLabel": "1 founder who builds the product, in partnership with the Legacy X coaching company, which holds equity", "fundingLabel": "None found; equity traded for distribution", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "documents-data", "channel": "partners", "trend": "growing", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-leveraged", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "E-commerce" ], "product": "A web app, a Chrome extension and an MCP server for Amazon sellers. It estimates the revenue, prices, reviews and keyword demand of a product market, matches Amazon products to suppliers on Alibaba, analyzes ads, tracks rankings and drafts listings. Paid plans connect the seller's own Amazon account, so Claude or Codex can answer questions about the seller's sales and ads.", "why": "An Amazon seller who could not code built the research tool he needed in 48 hours with Cursor, then offered it to Legacy X, a coaching program for Amazon sellers that he had bought two years earlier. Legacy X took a share of the business, and its students were the customers from the first day. He says it reached US$10,000 a month in 30 days and US$30,000 a month by June 2026.", "summary": [ "Launch Fast is product research software for Amazon sellers. Product research here means checking a market before buying stock: how much the top products sell, at what price, with how many reviews, which keywords buyers type, and what a factory would charge. It is made for private label sellers, who sell a factory-made product under their own brand, and it matches Amazon products to suppliers on Alibaba. It comes as a web app, as a Chrome extension that shows the data on Amazon's own pages, and, since February 2026, as an MCP server. MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is a standard way for an AI app such as Claude or Codex to call outside tools, so a seller can ask about markets and about his own sales and ads in a chat.", "Hasaam Bhatti had a corporate job and ran two Amazon brands on the side. He has no computer science degree and says he had never written a line of code when he found Cursor, a code editor in which an AI model writes and changes the code from plain-English instructions. Ten to twelve earlier projects never reached production. This time he built for his own problem: 20 to 30 hours of spreadsheet work for every product idea. He had no audience, so he offered Legacy X, a coaching program for Amazon sellers that he had bought two years earlier, a working tool in 48 hours. Legacy X took equity, a share of ownership, and its students became the first customers, at US$50 a month; the public price was US$199. He says it reached US$10,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the subscription revenue that repeats every month, after 30 days, about US$21,800 after 90 days, and US$30,000 by June 2026.", "Every revenue number is the founder's own statement in two interviews, Starter Story in January 2026 and Indie Hackers in June 2026, grade C. The two agree with each other. No payment processor confirms them, and the size of Legacy X's share is not public, so the founder's own part of the revenue is not known. The page also shows earlier companies that sold tools to sellers on top of a platform that they did not control, and what is different this time." ], "factsCaption": "A subscription tool sold first to one coaching program's students: US$10,000 a month after 30 days and US$30,000 a month by June 2026, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founder in an interview or on X, a page of the company's own site, or a page of an outside site such as a store listing or a web archive. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a 48-hour demo for a coaching company to US$30,000 a month in about 11 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Launch Fast prices in October 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "The pricing page shows each price per month billed yearly (\"Then $74/month, billed annually\"); the prices for monthly billing load by script and could not be read. Every plan starts with a free trial of 3 Product Research reports, and a card is required. In late 2025 the founder gave two prices: US$50 a month for Legacy X students and US$199 a month for everyone else. The terms still reserve a discount for Legacy X FBA Mentorship students.", "rows": [ [ "Free trial", "0", "0", "3 Product Research reports; card required" ], [ "Starter", "41", "", "100 research credits, 20 AI report credits, 100 supplier quotes, 1 keyword rank tracker" ], [ "Growth", "74", "", "250 research credits, 60 AI report credits, 500 supplier quotes, 3 rank trackers, MCP access, Amazon Ads and SP-API reports" ], [ "Scale", "166", "", "500 research credits, 100 AI report credits, 1,500 supplier quotes, 5 rank trackers, advanced MCP workflows" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, June 2026", "value": "US$30,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview with Indie Hackers by James Fleischmann, published 2 June 2026: \"We're at $30K MRR now.\" This is Launch Fast's figure; the founder's contract work and workshops are separate.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the June 2026 figure", "value": "US$360,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$30,000 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page. Part of it belongs to Legacy X, whose share is not public.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue about 90 days after launch", "value": "about US$21,800", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, in the Starter Story video published 5 January 2026, and again in the Indie Hackers interview. The Starter Story title says US$25K, but in the video he says about US$21,800.", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue about 30 and 60 days after launch", "value": "US$10,000, then US$17,000 to US$18,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder. The same figures in both interviews.", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from day 90 to June 2026", "value": "about 38%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$30,000 divided by US$21,800 is 1.376.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Prices in late 2025", "value": "US$50 a month for Legacy X students, US$199 a month for everyone else", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in the Starter Story interview. The terms in October 2026 still reserve a discount for Legacy X FBA Mentorship students.", "src": [ 2, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Subscribers implied by about US$21,800 a month", "value": "between about 110 and 436", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$21,800 divided by US$199 is 109.5, and divided by US$50 it is 436. The founder gives no subscriber count; he says all users pay.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Chrome extension users", "value": "330 active users about 90 days after launch; 848 users in October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "The first figure is the founder's. The second is the count in Google's Chrome Web Store, read 15 October 2026, with a 5.0 rating from 7 ratings, version 2.4.7, updated 16 August 2026.", "src": [ 2, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Time to build the first version", "value": "48 hours", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's hour-by-hour account. He started from Legacy X's own systems, standard procedures and data.", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Main tool cost at the start", "value": "US$200 a month for Cursor's Max plan", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: after launch the costs are minimal, and Cursor is the only large one.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Share of the business given to Legacy X", "value": "not public", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder says he traded equity for the distribution, and that even at 50%, half of US$20,000 a month is better than half of nothing. One of the Starter Story hosts guessed about 50%. Neither is a stated figure.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "No investor is named in any source. The only partner is Legacy X.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Launch date", "value": "not given; the site was live by 22 July 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "First Internet Archive capture of the site, with sign-up and log-in pages and the label \"Built by LegacyX FBA\". The founder counts the days from the launch with Legacy X.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the June 2026 figure", "value": "about 11 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: July 2025, the month of the first archived capture, to June 2026.", "src": [ 10, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "not named", "grade": "C", "note": "The terms are governed by the laws of Texas, with courts in Harris County, Texas, and the contact address is a Gmail account. The founder's X profile gives Toronto as his location.", "src": [ 4, 12 ] }, { "fact": "The founder's other work", "value": "contract builds, enterprise workshops on Claude Code, and Notara, a tool for teams", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers interview and his X post of 3 September 2026. The US$30,000 a month is Launch Fast's figure; this work is separate.", "src": [ 1, 16 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "About 2023", "what": "Bhatti, who has a corporate job and runs two Amazon brands, buys Legacy X, a coaching program for Amazon sellers. Ten to twelve earlier software projects of his, such as AI video tools and job-application automation, never reach production.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "Mid-2025", "what": "He offers Legacy X a better product research tool in 48 hours, with no obligation. He builds it in Cursor and sends a demo video. The next morning Legacy X tells him to quit his job. He gives equity in exchange for access to its students.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "22 July 2025", "what": "First Internet Archive capture of launchfastlegacyx.com: \"LaunchFast, Built by LegacyX FBA\", with sign-up and log-in pages.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "15 August 2025", "what": "The archived site shows Dashboard v1.3 and a Chrome extension with market summaries on Amazon's own pages.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "About 30, 60 and 90 days after launch", "what": "US$10,000, then US$17,000 to US$18,000, then about US$21,800 in monthly recurring revenue. All users pay. The Chrome extension has 330 active users. Legacy X students pay US$50 a month, everyone else US$199.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "when": "5 January 2026", "what": "Starter Story publishes the founder interview \"I built a $25K MRR app with Cursor\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "24 February 2026", "what": "The MCP server: Launch Fast data inside Claude and other MCP clients. From 20 March it can be added through Claude's connector settings, without configuration files or API keys.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "4 April 2026", "what": "Sellers can connect their Seller Central and Amazon Ads accounts and ask Claude about their own sales, inventory and ads.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "1 May 2026", "what": "New Starter, Growth and Scale plans, and a free FBA profit calculator and a link generator that work without an account.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "2 June 2026", "what": "Indie Hackers interview: US$30,000 in monthly recurring revenue. He also builds products for other founders on contract and runs enterprise workshops on Claude Code.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "12 August 2026", "what": "He writes that Amazon's SP-API compliance rules now include WAF protection (a web application firewall), encrypted credentials, login lockouts, vulnerability scans, penetration testing and strict data deletion.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "11 September 2026", "what": "Launch Fast becomes an official Amazon Solutions Provider with a Seller App Store listing, and opens an iPhone beta on TestFlight with Launchie, an agent that analyzes the seller's data and runs scheduled ads audits.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13, 8 ] }, { "when": "9 October 2026", "what": "Launchie moves to \"code mode\" on Cloudflare Dynamic Workers: it writes code that analyzes every row of a seller's account in a sandbox. The founder reports that its evaluation score rose from 93% to 98.5%.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Borrowed distribution, paid in equity", "text": "He had no audience, and he says zero audience means zero customers. Legacy X had thousands of active Amazon sellers who were looking for tools. He offered a working tool in 48 hours with no obligation and paid for the access with a share of the business. He argued that half of US$20,000 a month is better than half of nothing. Its students were customers from the first day, at a discount." }, { "title": "A tool for a problem he had himself", "text": "He was an Amazon seller who spent 20 to 30 hours on each product idea, copying data into Google Sheets. He says his 10 to 12 earlier projects failed because he built for users whom he did not know. Here he knew the data that new sellers need, and he started the build from Legacy X's own procedures and workflows." }, { "title": "AI coding tools instead of a developer", "text": "A founder who cannot code built the whole product in Cursor; he says he still cannot read a stack trace without AI help. He says the running costs after launch were minimal and that the only large one was Cursor's Max plan at US$200 a month." }, { "title": "From market estimates to the seller's own data", "text": "In 2026 the product added agent tools: an MCP server for Claude and other AI apps in February, connections to the seller's own Seller Central and Amazon Ads accounts in April, and official Amazon Solutions Provider status in September. The newer features work on data that each seller owns, not only on market estimates." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's two interviews, the company's site and changelog, and his posts on X. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The first version took 48 hours: hours 1 to 4 to map Legacy X's systems, standard procedures and data; 5 to 12 to build the core features in Cursor; 13 to 20 to test; 21 to 30 for branding and the interface; 31 to 40 for edge cases; then a demo video.", "The stack that he described on Starter Story: Cursor to write the code, Vercel for hosting, Supabase for the database, login and file storage (written \"Superbase\" in the transcript), Resend for onboarding emails, Apify for data collection, and TypeScript with Next.js.", "Data: market estimates of revenue, sales rank, reviews and price, supplier matches from Alibaba, and, on the Growth and Scale plans, the seller's own data through Amazon's Selling Partner API (SP-API), Amazon Ads reports and Brand Analytics, Amazon's own reports on search terms and categories. The terms say that outputs may include modeled or estimated values and information from third-party sources; no source names those third parties.", "AI: the plans include AI report credits, but no source names the model that writes the reports. The MCP server lets Claude, OpenAI's apps, Gemini and Cursor call Launch Fast's tools, and the customer's own AI app does the reasoning.", "Launchie, the company's own agent in the iPhone beta, runs its analysis code in a sandbox on Cloudflare Dynamic Workers, with read-only tools and no internet access.", "Payments go through Stripe, according to the terms. The site loads the DataFast analytics script." ], "src": [ 2, 3, 4, 7, 15 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold tools or data to online sellers and advertisers on top of a platform that they did not control. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "TradeGecko", "years": "2012 to 2021", "funding": "US$10.4M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Inventory and order management for small online sellers, connected to their store platforms.", "died": "After Intuit bought it, the focus moved to QuickBooks, and Shopify's own tools took its place.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/656-tradegecko" }, { "name": "Trada", "years": "2008 to 2015", "funding": "US$19M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Better Google Ads results by letting businesses hand their campaigns to outside experts.", "died": "Google automated ad management itself, and the paid human experts could not scale fast enough.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/655-trada" }, { "name": "Intent Media", "years": "2008 to 2018", "funding": "US$51M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Predict which online shoppers will buy, so that e-commerce ad spending pays.", "died": "Google and Facebook targeted better, and the GDPR privacy rules cut the data that its models needed.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/248-intent-media" }, { "name": "Kinnek", "years": "2012 to 2020", "funding": "US$25M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A marketplace that made it easy for small businesses to find and compare suppliers.", "died": "Amazon Business and Alibaba took over its supplier network.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/277-kinnek" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the four sold a tool or a data layer to online sellers or advertisers on top of a larger platform: Shopify stores, Google and Facebook ads, Amazon and Alibaba suppliers. Each lost when the platform owner or a giant built the same thing, or when privacy rules cut the data. Launch Fast sits in the same place: its data, its customers and its newest sales channel, Amazon's Seller App Store, all depend on Amazon, and Helium 10 and Jungle Scout already sell the same research.", "Two things differ. First, the cost: one founder who cannot code built it with an AI code editor for about US$200 a month, while the four predecessors raised US$10.4 million to US$51 million. A few hundred subscribers are enough for the revenue on this page. Second, it did not have to buy its first customers: a coaching program with thousands of students gave it a market on the first day in exchange for equity. In September 2026 it announced that it had become an official Amazon Solutions Provider with a Seller App Store listing, so it reads account data through a route that Amazon approves." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The distribution deal, yes. The 48-hour build is the easy part.", "text": "Many people can now build a working tool in a weekend with AI coding tools. The part worth copying is the order of work: pick a market that you know as a customer, find the company that already has those customers, show it a working product, and pay for the access with a share of the business instead of with years of audience building.", "steps": [ "Write down three to five fields where you have solved real problems yourself, as the founder suggests.", "List who already has your future customers: coaching companies, paid communities, influencer groups.", "Build a working first version in days from their workflows and data, and send them a demo video.", "Offer a partnership or equity for access, with a member price and a public price.", "Ship an improvement every day for the first 30 days, from the users' requests and bug reports." ], "open": "Coaching programs and paid communities in other trades, such as Etsy or Shopify sellers, real estate agents or freelancers, that teach a workflow but have no software of their own." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported, and the founder's share is unknown", "text": "Every revenue figure is the founder's own statement in two interviews. No payment processor confirms them, and no TrustMRR profile was found under the names launchfast or launch-fast. The Starter Story title says US$25K a month while the founder says about US$21,800 in the video. Legacy X holds equity of an undisclosed size, so his own part of the US$30,000 is not known." }, { "title": "One coaching partner brings the customers", "text": "The first customers were students of Legacy X, an \"FBA Mentorship\" that teaches people to sell on Amazon (FBA, Fulfillment by Amazon, is the Amazon service that stores and ships a seller's goods), and they paid a discounted US$50 a month. The early site said \"Built by LegacyX FBA\", and the terms still give its students a discount. If that program loses students, Launch Fast loses its main channel. The founder's own posts also use income promises, for example \"Making money on Amazon is too easy when you use Claude + Launch Fast\" (30 June 2026)." }, { "title": "Large, established competitors", "text": "Helium 10 shows its Platinum plan, for sellers with up to US$100,000 in yearly sales, at US$129 and US$99 a month, depending on monthly or yearly billing, and it now offers free skills for analysis in Claude. Jungle Scout says that more than 1 million sellers and brands use it. Both sell the same market research and can add the same AI features." }, { "title": "Amazon owns the data and the rules", "text": "The product exists only for Amazon sellers, and its paid features read each seller's account through Amazon's Selling Partner API, the Amazon Ads data and Amazon's own Brand Analytics. The founder wrote in August 2026 that SP-API compliance now requires WAF protection, encrypted credentials, login lockouts, penetration testing and strict data deletion. Amazon can change these terms or show the same research in Seller Central. Amazon's policy pages blocked automated download, so this page relies on the founder's account of them." }, { "title": "AI apps between the product and the customer", "text": "The newest features run inside Claude or Codex, which Launch Fast does not control: its own guide says the customer needs the Claude or Codex desktop app and that \"Your AI app may have its own access requirements.\" The plans sell AI report credits without naming the model that writes the reports. The founder says he still cannot read a stack trace without AI help, so the building also depends on AI coding tools." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Indie Hackers, 2 June 2026: Building a product in 48 hours and hitting $30k MRR as a non-technical founder", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/tech/building-a-product-in-48-hours-and-hitting-30k-mrr-as-a-non-technical-founder-wWtWIH5tmwASUbxKaLT9", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part in full; the rest is for subscribers and could not be read. Founder interview by James Fleischmann. Source for the revenue at 30, 60 and 90 days, the US$30,000 MRR, the Legacy X pitch and the founder's other work." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 5 January 2026: I built a $25K MRR app with Cursor", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/hassam", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the page and the full transcript. Founder interview. Source for the prices, the equity trade, the 48-hour build plan and the stack. The title says US$25K; in the video the founder says about US$21,800 at 90 days." }, { "title": "Launch Fast pricing page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://launchfastlegacyx.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the plans, credits and features. The prices are per month billed yearly; the monthly-billing prices load by script and could not be read." }, { "title": "Launch Fast terms", "url": "https://launchfastlegacyx.com/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the Legacy X student discount, Stripe, the Texas governing law and the note on estimated and third-party data." }, { "title": "Launch Fast home page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://launchfastlegacyx.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the product description, the MCP connections and the analytics script." }, { "title": "Launch Fast changelog", "url": "https://docs.launchfastlegacyx.com/changelog", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the dated releases from December 2025 to September 2026." }, { "title": "Launch Fast: The MCP server for serious Amazon sellers", "url": "https://launchfastlegacyx.com/solutions/amazon-fba-mcp-server", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the MCP clients and the data types that the agent can call." }, { "title": "Launch Fast blog, September 2026: How to Connect Amazon to Claude or Codex with Launch Fast MCP", "url": "https://launchfastlegacyx.com/blog/review-amazon-sales-ads-claude-codex", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the Solutions Provider status, the Seller App Store listing and the AI app requirement." }, { "title": "Chrome Web Store: Launch Fast, Amazon product research extension, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/launch-fast-amazon-fba-re/aaanahdkbajinekpffbddfimfcnagbkm", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 848 users, the rating, the version and the Alibaba supplier matching." }, { "title": "Internet Archive capture of launchfastlegacyx.com, 22 July 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250722011915/https://launchfastlegacyx.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The first capture of the site. Source for the earliest date and the \"Built by LegacyX FBA\" label." }, { "title": "Internet Archive capture of launchfastlegacyx.com, 15 August 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250815052949/https://launchfastlegacyx.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for Dashboard v1.3 and the Chrome extension in August 2025." }, { "title": "Hasaam Bhatti's X profile (@hasaamb)", "url": "https://x.com/hasaamb", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile through api.fxtwitter.com. Ties the founder to Launch Fast and gives his location." }, { "title": "Hasaam Bhatti on X, 11 September 2026: Launch Fast is now an official Amazon Solutions Provider", "url": "https://x.com/hasaamb/status/2098455378639966520", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in the founder's timeline through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the Solutions Provider status, the iPhone app and the TestFlight beta." }, { "title": "Hasaam Bhatti on X, 12 August 2026: Amazon SP-API compliance", "url": "https://x.com/hasaamb/status/2087655017691885739", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in the founder's timeline through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the compliance rules." }, { "title": "Hasaam Bhatti on X, 9 October 2026: Launchie on Cloudflare Dynamic Workers", "url": "https://x.com/hasaamb/status/2108573699083235646", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in the founder's timeline through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the agent sandbox and the evaluation scores." }, { "title": "Hasaam Bhatti on X, 3 September 2026: Notara", "url": "https://x.com/hasaamb/status/2095520013377536251", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in the founder's timeline through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for his other product and his work with companies." }, { "title": "Hasaam Bhatti on X, 30 June 2026: Making money on Amazon is too easy", "url": "https://x.com/hasaamb/status/2071797622205972788", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in the founder's timeline through api.fxtwitter.com. An example of the income promise in his posts." }, { "title": "Helium 10 pricing page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.helium10.com/pricing/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A competitor's prices and its Claude skills." }, { "title": "Jungle Scout pricing page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://www.junglescout.com/pricing/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A competitor's claim of more than 1 million sellers and brands." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/sleek/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/sleek.md", "slug": "sleek", "name": "Sleek", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI designer for mobile app screens", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "17 November 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$20.5K a month in recurring revenue, October 2026", "sticker": "$247K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 246516, "months": 11, "teamLabel": "3 co-founders who are friends; no employees named in any source", "fundingLabel": "None found", "primaryFactor": "Niche", "group": "build-software", "channel": "audience", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Design tools" ], "product": "A web app that designs the screens of an iPhone or Android app from one sentence or a reference image, with AI. You chat to change the design, then paste it into Figma as editable layers, export HTML or React code, or send it to an app builder. AI coding agents can also use it through an API.", "why": "It took a narrower job than the general AI design tools, mobile apps only, for people who build apps without design skills. The three founders reused what they had learned from four earlier design tools, built it in three weeks, and showed finished designs on X before the launch. Each new Gemini model gave them a better result and a new demo to post.", "summary": [ "Sleek is an AI app designer, a web tool that draws the screens of a mobile app from a written description. The user types an idea, for example a finance app, or attaches a reference image, and Sleek returns every screen in one style for iOS or Android. The work is done by a large language model, a program trained on very large amounts of text and images that can produce a design from a request; Sleek has announced Google's Gemini 3.0 and Gemini 3.1 Pro as live in the product. The designs paste into Figma, a design program, as editable layers, or export as HTML or React code. Prices go from free to US$99 per seat a month and are counted in credits, units of AI work: about 30 credits for each new screen.", "Three friends built it: Mattia Pomelli, who had been coding for about eight years, Stefano and Niccolò Diana. In one year they built four design tools together, and Sleek is the last of them. They built it in three weeks, posted its designs on X, and launched it on Product Hunt on 17 November 2025. In January 2026 Pomelli told Indie Hackers that it reached US$10,000 in MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the amount that subscriptions bring in each month, within a month of launch and without spending money on marketing. The service is operated by 140g Labs LLC, a company registered in Wyoming in the United States. Two of the founders show an Italian flag on their X profiles, and two describe themselves as nomads.", "The later numbers are verified. Sleek's Stripe account is connected to TrustMRR, a site that reads revenue directly from the payment processor, the company that charges the customers' cards, so those figures are grade A. Revenue was highest in April 2026, at US$32,436, and was US$20,456 in September. On 15 October 2026 MRR was US$20,543 from 589 subscriptions, a run rate, the current monthly figure times twelve, of about US$246,516 a year. The business has been listed for sale since May 2026, and the asking price in October 2026 is US$500,000. The page also shows earlier companies that promised to design software for people and lost to larger platforms." ], "factsCaption": "US$10,000 a month within a month of launch by the founder's account, then Stripe-verified revenue that peaked at US$32,436 in April 2026 and was about US$20,500 a month in October", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from Sleek's Stripe account through TrustMRR. A grade C value is a statement by the founders, by the company's own pages or by a third party. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From the first post about AI designs for mobile apps in October 2025 to US$20,543 a month in October 2026. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Sleek prices in October 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "Yearly plans are paid at once: US$240, US$360 and US$490 per seat a year; the per-month numbers here are those amounts divided by 12. A new screen uses about 30 credits and an edit 5 to 30, so Starter's 3,000 credits make about 100 new screens a month. Every plan includes export to Figma and to code, limited on the free plan. Pro and Team include the API for AI coding agents. Payments go through Stripe, and there are no refunds.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "60 one-time credits, 1 project, 3 screens" ], [ "Starter", "20", "29", "3,000 credits a month" ], [ "Pro", "30", "69", "20,000 credits a month; API and agent skill" ], [ "Team", "40.83 per seat", "99 per seat", "30,000 credits per seat a month" ], [ "Extra credits, Pro and Team", "", "15 one-time", "5,000 credits that do not expire" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Recurring revenue per month (MRR), 15 October 2026", "value": "US$20,543", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, from Stripe through an API key. 589 active subscriptions. MRR fell 11.6% in the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the October 2026 MRR", "value": "about US$246,516 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$20,543 times 12. This is the headline number on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Best verified month", "value": "US$32,436, April 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly revenue from Stripe. May: US$27,865. June: US$24,425. July: US$25,159. August: US$24,908.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in September 2026", "value": "US$20,456", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly revenue from Stripe.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Fall from the best month", "value": "36.9% below April, 17.6% below the June to August average", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the monthly Stripe figures in the rows above.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the 30 days to 15 October 2026", "value": "US$17,640", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR. 15.4% less than in the 30 days before.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the connected Stripe account, March to 15 October 2026", "value": "US$177,396", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR's all-time figure. The account shows no revenue before March 2026, so the first four months after the launch are not in it.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR per active subscription, October 2026", "value": "about US$34.88", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$20,543 divided by 589. It lies between the monthly prices of Starter (US$29) and Pro (US$69).", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "MRR within a month of launch", "value": "US$10,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in the Indie Hackers interview of 13 January 2026, reached without spending money on marketing. The article's title says six weeks and its introduction says two months.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "MRR after six months, May 2026", "value": "US$25,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Post by the podcast host Florian Darroman on 28 May 2026 about his interview with the founders. It agrees with the Stripe months of April and May.", "src": [ 4, 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR in a co-founder's X profile, October 2026", "value": "US$21,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Stefano's profile, read on 15 October 2026, next to a target of US$100,000. It agrees with the Stripe figure.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Users", "value": "more than 60,000 app makers", "grade": "C", "note": "Company's pricing page, October 2026. The 589 active subscriptions are about 1% of that number (calculated).", "src": [ 5, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Product Hunt launch", "value": "17 November 2025, 210 points", "grade": "C", "note": "Product Hunt page. 245 followers in October 2026.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's followers on X", "value": "about 8,000 at launch, 16,446 in October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's reply on Indie Hackers, 14 January 2026, and his X profile.", "src": [ 2, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "3 co-founders, no employees named", "grade": "C", "note": "Mattia Pomelli, Stefano (X handle stefanofa) and Niccolò Diana. The founder says he built four design tools with two friends in one year.", "src": [ 1, 2, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "140g Labs LLC, Wyoming", "grade": "C", "note": "Terms of service and privacy policy. The company does business as Sleek, with an address in Sheridan, Wyoming.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "No downloaded source mentions an investor, a funding round or an accelerator.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "For sale", "value": "listed since 20 May 2026, asking US$500,000 in October 2026, 7 offers", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR listing, written by the founders. TrustMRR shows it as 2.4 times revenue; it is 2.0 times the run rate above (calculated).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "90.0%", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR profile. It is outside the Stripe-verified section of the profile, so the costs behind it are not verified.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Time to build", "value": "three weeks", "grade": "C", "note": "Indie Hackers interview, 13 January 2026. The article has a section called Reusing code.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2026 figure", "value": "11 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: November 2025 to October 2026.", "src": [ 9, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "27 February 2025", "what": "sleek.design is a waitlist page, \"Made by Reweb\", for a tool that builds landing pages and exports React and Tailwind code. The Sleek account on X is created the same day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10, 3 ] }, { "when": "31 October 2025", "what": "Mattia Pomelli posts that he has been working on design generation for mobile apps and asks people to reply to try it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "3 to 10 November 2025", "what": "Five posts of app designs made with one prompt each: a sleep tracker, a language-learning app, an expense tracker, a meditation app and a book-summaries app.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "12 November 2025", "what": "Early-access post on X: people comment the word \"sleek\" to get access.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "17 November 2025", "what": "Public launch on Product Hunt, 210 points. The founder has about 8,000 followers on X.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 2 ] }, { "when": "20 November 2025", "what": "Gemini 3.0 is live on Sleek.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "24 November 2025", "what": "The founder offers to design, with Sleek, the app idea of anyone who comments on his post.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "16 December 2025 and 8 January 2026", "what": "One-click export to two app builders: Anything, then a0.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "13 January 2026", "what": "Indie Hackers interview: US$10,000 a month in recurring revenue within a month of launch, with no money spent on marketing.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "23 and 25 February 2026", "what": "Gemini 3.1 Pro goes live on Sleek. An API lets AI agents such as Cursor and Claude make designs in Sleek.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "14 March 2026", "what": "The privacy policy is updated and names 140g Labs LLC, a Wyoming company, as the operator.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "March 2026", "what": "Revenue starts in the Stripe account that TrustMRR verifies: US$14,316 in the first month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "25 March 2026", "what": "A Sleek Design Skill for Claude Code, Codex and other AI agents.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "April 2026", "what": "Best verified month: US$32,436.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "20 May 2026", "what": "Listed for sale on TrustMRR. The asking price in October 2026 is US$500,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "28 May 2026", "what": "Podcast with the co-founders, announced as zero to US$25,000 in MRR in six months.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "US$20,456 in the month, 36.9% below April.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "15 October 2026", "what": "MRR of US$20,543 from 589 active subscriptions. Still for sale, with 7 offers received.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Niche", "text": "The founder saw fewer design and coding tools for mobile apps than for the web, and built only for that: app founders and developers who cannot design and do not have the time or money to hire a designer. Every screen of an app comes out in one style, for iOS or Android." }, { "title": "Reuse", "text": "The three founders had built four design tools in the year before. In February 2025 the same domain held a waitlist for a landing-page builder that exported React and Tailwind code. Sleek took three weeks to build." }, { "title": "Show the output before the launch", "text": "In the two weeks before launch the founder posted app designs made with one prompt each on X, then asked people to comment the word \"sleek\" to get early access. After the launch he designed commenters' app ideas for free. He says no money was spent on marketing to reach US$10,000 a month." }, { "title": "A new demo with each new model", "text": "Sleek announced Gemini 3.0 three days after its launch and Gemini 3.1 Pro in February 2026, each with a demo design made with one prompt. The founders also post the same prompt run on several models, which gives them regular content to post." }, { "title": "Connect to the tools builders already use", "text": "Designs paste into Figma as editable layers, export as HTML or React with Tailwind CSS, and go to the app builders Anything and a0 in one click. Since February 2026 AI coding agents can make designs in Sleek through an API." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founders' own pages and posts: the TrustMRR profile text, the privacy policy, the pricing page and their X posts. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Models: Google's Gemini. Sleek announced Gemini 3.0 on 20 November 2025 and Gemini 3.1 Pro on 23 February 2026. The founders also post tests of GPT 5.4 and Grok 4.1, without saying that Sleek uses them.", "The TrustMRR profile lists Next.js, React, TypeScript and Tailwind CSS for the frontend, and Supabase, PostgreSQL, Vercel, Cloudflare, GitHub Actions, Resend, Stripe, Anthropic and OpenAI for the backend.", "The privacy policy names four service providers: PostHog for analytics and session recording, Supabase for login and the database, Stripe for payments and Resend for email. Users sign in with Google or GitHub.", "Use is counted in credits: about 30 for a new screen and 5 to 30 for an edit, more when images are generated. Customers who make more designs need a larger plan or extra credits.", "Exports: one click copies a design into Figma as native, editable layers, with no plugin. Code export gives HTML or React with Tailwind CSS.", "Since February 2026 a REST API, and since March 2026 an agent skill, let Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and other agents make designs in Sleek, on the Pro and Team plans.", "A blog with comparison posts, guides and use cases, started for search traffic by January 2026, and an affiliate program run on Tolt, linked from the home page." ], "src": [ 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 2 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised to design apps or websites for people, or to carry designs into code, and failed: one because its AI was not ready, three because Figma or another larger design platform added the same features. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "The Grid", "years": "2014 to 2020", "funding": "US$4.7M", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "A website that AI designs by itself from your content, with no designer.", "died": "It bet on AI before the AI was ready: the designs were clumsy and inconsistent, and Wix and Squarespace offered polished templates.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/618-the-grid" }, { "name": "Pixate", "years": "2012 to 2016", "funding": "US$3.6M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Native mobile app prototypes, with animations, without writing code.", "died": "Google bought it and did not develop it further. Figma and Sketch took the market with web-based tools for teams.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/434-pixate" }, { "name": "Invision", "years": "2011 to 2023", "funding": "US$350M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Interactive prototypes and a smooth handoff from designers to developers.", "died": "Figma offered real-time collaboration in the browser, and InVision could not change fast enough.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/251-invision" }, { "name": "Haiku", "years": "2018 to 2021", "funding": "US$1.2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "High-fidelity animations and prototypes that go straight into the code.", "died": "Figma and Adobe XD added more prototyping features, which reduced the need for a separate tool. The 2020 downturn ended it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1013-haiku" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The Grid promised in 2014 that AI would design a website from your content, and its designs were not good enough. By 2025 the models were good enough for a narrow job: Sleek's founder posted app screens made with one prompt before the launch, and customers paid within weeks. Pixate, InVision and Haiku show the other danger. Each made one step of app design easier, and each lost when Figma, a larger platform, added that step.", "Sleek faces both sides at once. It does not make its own models: it runs on Google's Gemini, and Google offers Stitch, which also pastes designs into Figma and exports code. Figma has First Draft and Figma Make inside the program that designers already use, and Anthropic, which is in Sleek's tech stack list, launched Claude Design in April 2026. Sleek's answer so far is the narrow focus on mobile apps, fast releases, and connections to app builders and AI coding agents. Its verified revenue fell 36.9% from April to September 2026. AppAlchemy, another AI app designer on this site, fell 66.4% from November 2025 to September 2026, and Sleek still makes about 3.5 times as much a month." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The launch method, yes. The niche is getting crowded.", "text": "The method costs no money: a clear buyer, finished designs posted in public before the launch, an early-access list made from comments, and a Product Hunt launch. But designing mobile screens from a prompt is now also a feature of products from Figma, Google and Anthropic, so a new tool in the same niche starts against them.", "steps": [ "Choose a narrow design job that the general tools do less well, and name the buyer: here, app founders who cannot design.", "Before the launch, post real output made with your tool, and ask people to comment to get early access.", "Export into the tools the buyer already uses: Figma layers, React code, app builders and coding agents.", "Post a demo on the day each new model arrives." ], "open": "Narrow design jobs around a mobile app that the large tools do not target yet, such as App Store screenshots and app icons, which Sleek itself has added, and design work done for AI coding agents through an API." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Revenue has fallen since April 2026", "text": "Verified monthly revenue went from US$32,436 in April 2026 to US$20,456 in September, and MRR fell 11.6% in the last 30 days. No source gives the reason. The founders listed the business for sale in May 2026, a month after the best month." }, { "title": "Figma builds the same feature into its own program", "text": "Figma announced Make Designs, an app-design generator, at its Config 2024 conference, disabled it when its mockups looked too much like existing apps, and brought it back as First Draft in limited beta on 24 September 2024, using OpenAI's GPT-4 and Amazon Titan. On 7 May 2025 it launched Figma Make, a prompt-to-app tool. Figma is also the main place that Sleek's designs go." }, { "title": "Google offers a competitor on the model Sleek uses", "text": "Sleek runs on Gemini. On 20 May 2025 Google introduced Stitch, which designs user interfaces from a plain-English description with Gemini 2.5 Pro, pastes the result into Figma and exports front-end code: the same two exports that Sleek offers." }, { "title": "Anthropic has a design product too", "text": "On 17 April 2026 Anthropic launched Claude Design, powered by Claude Opus 4.7, for designs, prototypes and other visual work, in research preview for paying Claude subscribers. Anthropic is in the tech stack list of Sleek's own profile." }, { "title": "A crowded field", "text": "Sleek's own site keeps comparison pages against seven other tools: Claude Design, Google Stitch, Uizard, Visily, Figma Make, ScreensDesign and App Alchemy. Against more than 60,000 users claimed on the site, 589 active subscriptions are about 1%." }, { "title": "Dependence on model providers", "text": "Sleek does not make its own models, so the quality of its designs, and the cost of each credit, depend on Google and the other providers. When a provider improves its own design product, Sleek's lead becomes smaller. The founders' public tests of Gemini, GPT and Grok show that they can change models, and so can every competitor." }, { "title": "The early figures are founder statements", "text": "The connected Stripe account starts in March 2026. The US$10,000 a month after the first month and the US$25,000 after six months are founder statements, and the Indie Hackers article gives three different times for the first: one month, six weeks and two months." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR: Sleek, Stripe-verified revenue and sale listing", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/sleek", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/sleek.md) on 15 October 2026, data as of October 2026. Revenue, MRR and subscriptions come from Stripe through an API key and are grade A. The description, founded date, country, tech stack, marketing channels, profit margin and sale listing are written by the founders, grade C." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 13 January 2026: Hitting $10k MRR in six weeks with an AI design tool, by James Fleischmann", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/tech/hitting-10k-mrr-in-six-weeks-with-an-ai-design-tool-pEvmU5qkWS6ny0AR9SUv", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part: the title, the introduction, the table of contents and the founder's first section. The rest is for signed-in members and was not read. Read the comments, including the founder's replies of 14 and 16 January 2026." }, { "title": "Sleek on X (@sleekdotdesign): account and posts, 31 October 2025 to 7 July 2026, with the founders' posts that it reposts", "url": "https://x.com/sleekdotdesign", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the account data and all 34 posts that the fxtwitter API returns (api.fxtwitter.com/2/profile/sleekdotdesign/statuses, two pages). Source for the launch posts, the model updates, the API and the integrations." }, { "title": "Florian Darroman on X, 28 May 2026: new podcast with the Sleek founders, 0 to $25K MRR in 6 months", "url": "https://x.com/floriandarroman/status/2059892800230244838", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the post through api.fxtwitter.com. The podcast itself was not found and not heard." }, { "title": "Sleek pricing page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://sleek.design/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the plans, the credits, the exports, the API and the user count." }, { "title": "Sleek terms of service (last updated 8 September 2026) and privacy policy (last updated 14 March 2026)", "url": "https://sleek.design/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the operating company and the affiliate program, and the service providers in the privacy policy at https://sleek.design/privacy." }, { "title": "Sleek home page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://sleek.design/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the comparison pages, the affiliate link and the exports." }, { "title": "X profiles of the three co-founders, read 15 October 2026: mattiapomelli, stefanofa and NiccoloDiana", "url": "https://x.com/mattiapomelli", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the three profiles through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for their roles, follower counts and the MRR in Stefano's profile." }, { "title": "Product Hunt: sleek.design, Idea to mobile app designs in minutes", "url": "https://www.producthunt.com/products/sleek-design/launches/sleek-design", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the launch date, the points and the follower count." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine, 27 February 2025: sleek.design", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250227171424/https://sleek.design/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the archived page in full, and the list of captures for the date of the first one in 2025." }, { "title": "Figma blog, 24 September 2024: Building a better First Draft for designers", "url": "https://www.figma.com/blog/figma-ai-first-draft/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for Make Designs, its removal and its return as First Draft." }, { "title": "Figma blog, 7 May 2025: Introducing Figma Make: A new way to test, edit, and prompt designs", "url": "https://www.figma.com/blog/introducing-figma-make/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "Google Developers Blog, 20 May 2025: From idea to app: Introducing Stitch, a new way to design UIs", "url": "https://developers.googleblog.com/en/stitch-a-new-way-to-design-uis/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "Anthropic news, 17 April 2026: Claude Design, a new Anthropic Labs product", "url": "https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-design-anthropic-labs", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "TrustMRR: AppAlchemy, Stripe-verified monthly revenue", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/appalchemy", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile, local copy synced 12 October 2026. Used only for the comparison with AppAlchemy." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/setter-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/setter-ai.md", "slug": "setter-ai", "name": "Setter AI", "country": "Germany, US company", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI appointment setter on WhatsApp and website chat", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "February 2024", "outcomeLabel": "US$104K revenue in the last 12 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$104K in 12 months", "outcomeUsd": 104336, "months": 32, "teamLabel": "2 founders, no staff count published", "fundingLabel": "None found", "primaryFactor": "Speed", "group": "support-agents", "channel": "search", "trend": "falling", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Sales" ], "product": "A business connects its lead forms, for example Facebook lead ads, LinkedIn forms or a website form, through Zapier or Make. About 10 seconds after each form arrives, Setter AI sends the person a WhatsApp message, answers questions, asks qualifying questions, follows up when there is no reply, and books the meeting in Calendly or Google Calendar. A chat window does the same on the business's website, and WhatsApp reminders reduce missed meetings.", "why": "It sold one promise that a customer can measure: a first reply to every new lead within 10 seconds, to businesses that already pay for many leads through Meta ads. A demo on the website brought sales calls through organic search before the product was built. Revenue then fell from US$9,000 to US$12,000 a month in late 2025 to under US$2,000 in September 2026, in the same months in which the founder launched other products.", "summary": [ "Setter AI is an AI appointment setter, a program that does the job of a human appointment setter: it contacts each new sales lead, asks a few questions and books a sales call for the business. A lead here is a person who filled in a form to ask for information, for example a Facebook lead ad, an ad with a form built into it. About 10 seconds after the form arrives, Setter AI writes to the person on WhatsApp, answers questions about the business and books a time in the business's Calendly or Google Calendar. A chat window on the business's website does the same for visitors. The company's FAQ says that WhatsApp and text messages are for following up \"with leads that have submitted a form\", so the AI writes to people who asked to be contacted.", "Josef Büttgen, a German software developer who had spent two years in Southeast Asia, started it with a co-founder in February 2024, three months into a \"12 startups in 12 months\" challenge that he began when his savings were running out. Product Hunt names Timo Nikolai as the second maker. The first version phoned each lead with an AI voice. By November 2024 it worked on WhatsApp, and in mid-2025 it added the website chat, launched on Product Hunt on 30 July 2025. On 29 July 2025 Büttgen told Indie Hackers that it made US$10,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the subscription revenue that repeats every month. TrustMRR, a site that reads a startup's revenue directly from its payment processor, shows US$211,323 in total revenue from Stripe and US$104,336 in the 12 months to 15 October 2026. It also shows a fall: US$12,447 in November 2025, US$1,796 in September 2026, and an MRR of US$1,528 from 14 subscriptions in October 2026.", "The headline number is grade A, because TrustMRR reads it from the company's Stripe account through an API key. The July 2025 figure and most details of how the product was built are the founders' own statements, grade C. The page also explains the rules that apply when software sends automated messages to leads on WhatsApp, by text message in the US and to people in the EU, and it shows five failed startups that sold automated sales conversations before large language models existed." ], "factsCaption": "Stripe-verified revenue of US$211,323 in total and US$104,336 in the last 12 months, followed by a fall to US$1,528 in monthly recurring revenue by October 2026", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from TrustMRR, which reads it from the company's Stripe account or its Google Analytics through an API. A grade C value is a statement by the founders, the company's own pages or a third party. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From an AI that phoned new leads in 2024 to a WhatsApp and website booking agent, then a fall in revenue, in 32 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Setter AI plans on 15 October 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "The page lists three plans by number of credits, without plan names, and shows each credit amount doubled, marked \"For Limited Period\" on the monthly plans. It does not define a credit; the FAQ says that pricing is per lead and gets cheaper as the number of leads grows. All plans include unlimited messages and unlimited agents. Yearly billing is 13% to 20% cheaper than monthly billing. In May 2025 the company's blog listed much lower prices: free for 10 leads, then US$49, US$199 and US$499 a month for 50, 250 and 750 leads.", "rows": [ [ "500 credits a month", "397", "497", "1,000 credits during the offer; onboarding support, email support" ], [ "2,500 credits a month", "1,997", "2,297", "5,000 credits during the offer; onboarding done for you, email and Zoom support" ], [ "5,000 credits a month", "2,997", "3,497", "10,000 credits during the offer; custom integrations, 24/7 email and Zoom support" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Verified revenue in the 12 months to 15 October 2026", "value": "US$104,336", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from Stripe through an API key, last synced 15 October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue since the start", "value": "US$211,323", "grade": "A", "note": "Same source, all Stripe payments up to 15 October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue before the last 12 months", "value": "US$106,987", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$211,323 minus US$104,336. This covers February 2024 to mid-October 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue per month, November 2025 to January 2026", "value": "US$12,447, US$9,371 and US$8,914", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly timeline from Stripe. These months are of the same size as the US$10,000 MRR reported in July 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Best month in the verified timeline", "value": "US$19,761 in May 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly timeline. The sources do not say what made this month higher.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue per month, August and September 2026", "value": "US$2,894 and US$1,796", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly timeline.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 15 October 2026", "value": "US$1,528 from 14 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR metric snapshot from Stripe. MRR fell 1.2% in the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average MRR per active subscription", "value": "about US$109 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$1,528 divided by 14. The cheapest plan on today's pricing page costs US$397 a month, so at most 3 of the 14 subscriptions can be on a listed plan; the rest pay less than any plan the page shows.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Fall from November 2025 to September 2026", "value": "86% less revenue in the month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$1,796 against US$12,447. September 2026 is also 91% below the best month, May 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, July 2025", "value": "US$10,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder interview on Indie Hackers, 29 July 2025: \"Revenue $10K a month\", reached \"a little over a year\" after he found the idea.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "MRR in October 2026 compared with July 2025", "value": "85% lower", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$1,528 against US$10,000.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin in the last 30 days", "value": "90%", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot. The profile does not say where the cost figures come from.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Website visitors in the last 30 days", "value": "2,594, or US$0.69 of revenue per visitor", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR reads traffic from Google Analytics through its API. Google Search Console is also connected.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Leads turned into meetings in the June 2024 case study", "value": "215 meetings from 4,197 leads, 5.12%", "grade": "C", "note": "Company blog post by Büttgen: two weeks of Facebook lead ads for a real estate project in Indonesia, with 7,989 AI phone calls including follow-ups. Calculated check: 215 divided by 4,197 is 5.12%.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Booking rate claimed today", "value": "15% to 52% of leads", "grade": "C", "note": "Homepage claim. No customer data is shown with it.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Price of the smallest plan today", "value": "US$497 a month, or US$397 a month billed yearly", "grade": "C", "note": "Pricing page, 15 October 2026. The page does not define a credit; the FAQ says that pricing is per lead.", "src": [ 4, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Price list in May 2025", "value": "free for 10 leads, then US$49, US$199 and US$499 a month for 50, 250 and 750 leads", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's blog post that compares it with CloseBot.", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "2 founders", "grade": "C", "note": "Büttgen writes of \"my Co-Founder\". Product Hunt names Josef Büttgen and Timo Nikolai as the makers, and Nikolai wrote of the company as \"us\" six weeks after the start. No staff count is published.", "src": [ 2, 7, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "Büttgen wrote in May 2024 that he was waiting for a reply from Y Combinator; YC's company directory has no page for Setter AI. In May 2026 he wrote that Stripe had mentioned him in a session on \"the rise of bootstrapped businesses and solopreneurs\".", "src": [ 11, 21, 20 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "Setter AI LLC, United States", "grade": "C", "note": "Named in the site footer and the terms; TrustMRR lists the country as US. The sitemap and footer show no German Impressum page, and a North Data search finds no German company named Setter AI.", "src": [ 3, 5, 1, 23, 22 ] }, { "fact": "Product Hunt launches", "value": "5th product of the day on 9 January 2025, 8th on 30 July 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Product Hunt page data.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the start to the headline figure", "value": "32 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: February 2024 to October 2026. Nikolai's post of 15 March 2024, \"6 weeks in\", points to 2 February 2024, the founded date on TrustMRR.", "src": [ 1, 8 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Before 2024", "what": "Büttgen, who taught himself to code at 13, studies computer science, works as a freelancer to save money, and travels Southeast Asia for two years. A product that he built for almost a year, CourseStart, gets little traction.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "2 February 2024", "what": "Three months into a \"12 startups in 12 months\" challenge, begun when his savings ran low, Büttgen and a co-founder start Setter AI. This is the founded date on TrustMRR. Six weeks later Nikolai posts that people are \"already recommending us\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 1, 8 ] }, { "when": "29 March to 5 April 2024", "what": "The first version calls each new lead within 10 seconds with an AI voice and books the meeting into the calendar. A demo post blames its delay on \"slow Bali internet\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 10 ] }, { "when": "9 May 2024", "what": "Büttgen writes that he is waiting for a reply from Y Combinator and has moved country twice to extend his money: \"This is our last shot.\" YC's directory has no Setter AI page.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 21 ] }, { "when": "12 May 2024", "what": "Booked demo calls \"got a bit out of hand\" after Nikolai's posts spread widely on X, so visitors now answer qualifying questions before they can book.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "24 June 2024", "what": "Case study: a real estate project in Indonesia books 215 meetings from 4,197 Facebook form leads in two weeks with AI phone calls.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "20 November 2024", "what": "Büttgen offers access to an AI appointment setter for WhatsApp that books meetings into Calendly and needs no coding.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "9 January 2025", "what": "First Product Hunt launch, as \"Calendly for WhatsApp\": 5th product of the day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "22 January 2025", "what": "Help article: messages that the business sends first on WhatsApp go out through Zapier with a template from the customer's Meta Business Account.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "9 May 2025", "what": "Price list on the company blog: free for 10 leads, US$49 a month for 50 leads, up to US$499 a month for 750 leads.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "29 July 2025", "what": "Indie Hackers interview: US$10,000 in monthly recurring revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "30 July 2025", "what": "Second Product Hunt launch, \"after half a year of shipping\": a chat agent that turns website visitors into booked calls. 8th product of the day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 17 ] }, { "when": "November 2025", "what": "Stripe-verified revenue of US$12,447 in the month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "23 to 25 November 2025", "what": "Büttgen launches a separate product, ProspectEcho, which finds contact details of companies that run Facebook ads. By his count the launch brings \"$0 USD new MRR\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 18 ] }, { "when": "15 January 2026", "what": "WhatsApp's new business terms against general-purpose AI assistants take effect. Meta says that businesses using AI to serve their own customers are not affected.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 24 ] }, { "when": "January to April 2026", "what": "Büttgen posts other new products: yourformsite, OnlyCats, TalkToYourComputer and CartGhost.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 20 ] }, { "when": "12 March 2026", "what": "Büttgen writes that OpenAI has permanently restricted his account and that the appeal decision is final.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 19 ] }, { "when": "May 2026", "what": "Best month in the Stripe timeline: US$19,761.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "US$1,796 in the month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "15 October 2026", "what": "MRR of US$1,528 from 14 subscriptions; US$104,336 in the last 12 months and US$211,323 in total. Plans on the pricing page start at US$397 a month billed yearly.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 4 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A reply within 10 seconds", "text": "The product sells response time. A lead who filled in a form gets the first message about 10 seconds later, and follow-ups continue until the lead replies or books. In the June 2024 case study, a real estate project on the island of Sumba, Indonesia, booked 215 meetings from 4,197 Facebook form leads in two weeks with AI phone calls, a rate of 5.12%. The homepage now claims 15% to 52%, without data." }, { "title": "Sell the demo before the product", "text": "Büttgen wrote on Indie Hackers that his co-founder's simple \"mocked\" demo on the website already brought sales calls through organic search before they started building, and that this was their first test of demand. One section title of the interview is \"Shipping and selling within two weeks\"." }, { "title": "Connect to leads that customers already buy", "text": "Customers already pay for leads: the real estate project in the case study runs Facebook lead ads, and a customer quote on the homepage speaks of 30,000 leads a month. Setter AI connects to such forms through Zapier or Make and books into Calendly, so the customer's sales process does not change. Accounts with more than 500 leads a month get the setup done for them." }, { "title": "Change the channel, keep the promise", "text": "The first version made phone calls with an AI voice in spring 2024. By November 2024 it worked on WhatsApp, and in January 2025 it was launched on Product Hunt as \"Calendly for WhatsApp\". A website chat followed in mid-2025 and was launched on Product Hunt on 30 July 2025, and a text-message version was shown as \"Launching soon\" in October 2026." }, { "title": "Search pages as the sales channel", "text": "The sitemap lists 129 pages: 41 blog posts, most of them comparisons with rival tools, 57 pages about WhatsApp business numbers by country, and 5 free tools such as a WhatsApp link generator. TrustMRR shows a domain rating of 43 and 2,594 visitors in the last 30 days. Büttgen wrote that they choose content by \"gut feeling\" and by checking what people search for in the tool Ahrefs." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder-written part of the TrustMRR profile, the company's own pages and the source code of its website. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Web app: Svelte, Tailwind CSS and TypeScript. Backend: Supabase, Redis, hosting on Render and DigitalOcean, Cloudflare, Clerk for login, Sentry for error tracking, and Stripe for payments.", "The language model comes from OpenAI: the tech stack lists OpenAI, and Product Hunt describes it as a \"ChatGPT powered appointment setter\". No source says which model version.", "WhatsApp messages go out through the customer's own WhatsApp Business number. A message that the business sends first needs a template created in the customer's Meta Business Account.", "Lead forms connect through Zapier or Make. Calendars connect through Calendly and Google Calendar, under Google's rules for API data. GoHighLevel and HubSpot are connected on request, and the footer links a WordPress plugin.", "The marketing website runs on Webflow, with Plausible, Microsoft Clarity and Google Tag Manager for analytics, Meta and LinkedIn advertising pixels, and an affiliate program that loads a script from Tolt, an affiliate-tracking service.", "The terms still describe \"automated lead calling\" and \"AI voice agents\" from the first, phone-based version. The FAQ says the AI speaks more than 113 languages." ], "src": [ 1, 7, 15, 6, 3, 5 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold automated conversations that would turn an interested person into a buyer or a booked meeting, or sold the same scheduling work done by people. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Zirtual", "years": "2011 to 2015", "funding": "US$5.5M", "cause": "Ran Out of Cash", "promise": "Human virtual assistants who handled email and scheduling for busy executives.", "died": "It employed its assistants and grew the payroll faster than its cash allowed. The money ran out in the middle of an expansion.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1850-zirtual" }, { "name": "Answerly", "years": "2013 to 2016", "funding": "US$550K", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "Chatbots that answered customers' common questions, so that people handled only the hard cases.", "died": "Language software was too weak at the time to hold a real conversation, and Zendesk and Intercom already had the customers.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2168-answerly" }, { "name": "RightHello", "years": "2014 to 2022", "funding": "US$600K", "cause": "Ran Out of Cash", "promise": "Live chat for online shops that turned website visitors into buyers with well-timed conversations.", "died": "Intercom raised US$240 million for the same kind of tool. With US$600,000, RightHello could not compete.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2260-righthello" }, { "name": "Vanti", "years": "2019 to 2024", "funding": "US$18M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "AI chatbots that gave shoppers personal advice and recommendations on behalf of brands.", "died": "It found no lasting demand in a crowded market for conversational AI. Customers were expensive to win and hard to connect.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2508-vanti" }, { "name": "Ve Interactive", "years": "2009 to 2017", "funding": "US$60M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Automatic messages that brought back shoppers who had left items in their cart.", "died": "It was paid only when a sale happened, and it spent US$60 million on growth before that model could pay for itself.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2160-ve-interactive" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The five predecessors sold the same result as Setter AI: an interested person turned into a sale or a booked meeting without a salesperson's time. Zirtual did the scheduling with paid human assistants and could not afford them. Answerly's bots came before language software could hold a conversation. RightHello and Vanti sold chat tools against much better funded competitors, and Ve Interactive was paid only for each sale.", "Two things are different for Setter AI. A large language model from OpenAI holds the conversation in many languages, so no person is needed between the form and the calendar. WhatsApp's business platform, Zapier and Calendly supply the channel, the connections and the booking, so two people could build and sell it without funding. What has not changed is the competition: the company's own blog has comparison pages about rivals such as CloseBot, Lindy, Artisan, Structurely, Air AI, Bland AI, Synthflow, Respond.io, Wati and Manychat, and its Stripe revenue fell by 86% between November 2025 and September 2026." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The niche, crowded.", "text": "Two people without funding built a product that customers paid US$211,323 for, as Stripe records show, and they sold a demo before they built the product. The same niche now has many funded AI sales agents, and Setter AI's own revenue fell in 2026. The parts that still work are the demo-first test and one narrow promise that a customer can measure.", "steps": [ "Put a working demo or a mock-up on a page that can rank in search, and take sales calls before you build.", "Make one promise that a customer can measure, such as a first reply within 10 seconds, and publish a case study with real counts.", "Connect to the lead sources that customers already pay for, such as Meta lead ads and website forms, through Zapier or Make instead of building each integration.", "Message only people who filled in a form, and make each customer's form collect consent for every channel that the AI will use." ], "open": "Industries that buy many form leads and answer them slowly, such as real estate, solar and coaching, and countries where WhatsApp is the normal way to reach a business." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Revenue is falling", "text": "Stripe shows US$12,447 in November 2025, a best month of US$19,761 in May 2026, and US$1,796 in September 2026. In October 2026 the MRR is US$1,528 from 14 subscriptions, 85% below the US$10,000 MRR of July 2025. The last three months brought US$11,348, 67% less than the three months before. No source explains the fall." }, { "title": "WhatsApp's rules decide who may use it", "text": "A message that a business sends first on WhatsApp must use a template from the business's Meta account, as Setter AI's own help page explains. Since 15 January 2026, WhatsApp's business terms forbid \"AI Providers\" whose AI is \"the primary (rather than incidental or ancillary) functionality\", \"as determined by Meta in its sole discretion\". Meta told TechCrunch that businesses that use AI to serve their own customers are not affected. Setter AI runs on each customer's own WhatsApp number to book that customer's meetings, the kind of use that Meta described as allowed, but the decision stays with Meta." }, { "title": "US rules for automated calls and texts", "text": "The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) forbids calls to a mobile number \"using any automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice\" without \"the prior express consent of the called party\" (47 U.S.C. 227(b)(1)(A)). Setter AI's first product made such calls with an AI voice. For text messages, US carriers use A2P 10DLC, a registration standard for application-to-person messages from ordinary 10-digit numbers: \"Anyone sending SMS/MMS messages over a 10DLC number from an application to the US must register for A2P 10DLC\", according to Twilio. Setter AI's text-message page showed \"Launching soon\" on 15 October 2026. Its terms do not mention the consent of the people whom the AI contacts, so that consent depends on each customer's own forms." }, { "title": "EU and German rules", "text": "For leads in the EU, the GDPR allows the processing of personal data only on a legal basis, such as consent \"for one or more specific purposes\" (Article 6). German law adds § 7 of the Act against Unfair Competition (UWG): \"Eine unzumutbare Belästigung ist stets anzunehmen ... bei Werbung unter Verwendung einer automatischen Anrufmaschine, eines Faxgerätes oder elektronischer Post, ohne dass eine vorherige ausdrückliche Einwilligung des Adressaten vorliegt\". In English: an unreasonable nuisance is always assumed for advertising by an automatic calling machine, a fax machine or electronic mail without the addressee's prior express consent. Setter AI's privacy policy lists the GDPR rights, but no source shows how customers record each lead's consent." }, { "title": "Many competitors", "text": "AI sales agents are a crowded category. The company's own blog has comparison pages about rivals such as CloseBot, Lindy, Artisan, Structurely, Air AI, Bland AI, Synthflow, Respond.io, Wati and Manychat, and about general chat platforms such as Intercom, Drift and Chatbase. The entry price also rose: the cheapest paid plan was US$49 a month for 50 leads in May 2025, and in October 2026 it is US$497 a month for 500 credits." }, { "title": "One model provider", "text": "The language model comes from OpenAI. On 12 March 2026 Büttgen wrote that OpenAI had permanently restricted his account because it \"identified activity that is not permitted under the OpenAI policies\", that he had a paid ChatGPT plan and a funded API balance, and that the appeal decision was final. He did not say whether Setter AI's own access was affected. A change in OpenAI's rules or prices would reach the product directly." }, { "title": "The founder builds other products", "text": "Since November 2025 Büttgen has launched ProspectEcho, then yourformsite, OnlyCats, TalkToYourComputer and CartGhost, according to his posts on X. ProspectEcho's launch brought \"$0 USD new MRR\" by his own count. The sources do not say how much time either founder still gives to Setter AI." }, { "title": "Little is public about the company", "text": "The operator is Setter AI LLC, a US company named in the site footer and the terms. The site has no Impressum page, and a North Data search finds no German company named Setter AI. No source gives a staff count or any funding; Büttgen applied to Y Combinator in May 2024, and YC's directory has no page for Setter AI." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR: Setter AI LLC, verified revenue profile", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/setter-ai-llc", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile (https://trustmrr.com/startup/setter-ai-llc.md) on 15 October 2026. Revenue, MRR, subscriptions and the monthly timeline come from Stripe through an API key; traffic comes from Google Analytics. The description, founded date and tech stack are written by the founder (grade C)." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers, 29 July 2025, by James Fleischmann: From desperation and dwindling runway to $10k MRR", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/tech/from-desperation-and-dwindling-runway-to-10k-mrr-VRQprGga5zF3UFDqiCqw", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part: header, introduction, table of contents and the comments, in which the founder answers questions. The rest is for subscribers and was not read. The introduction links Setter AI to trysetter.com." }, { "title": "Setter AI homepage", "url": "https://www.trysetter.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 15 October 2026, including the FAQ and the page source. Source for how the product works, the inbound and outbound answer, the channels, the integrations and the operator name Setter AI LLC." }, { "title": "Setter AI pricing page", "url": "https://www.trysetter.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 15 October 2026. Monthly and yearly prices by credits." }, { "title": "Setter AI terms and conditions", "url": "https://www.trysetter.com/terms-and-conditions", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Describes automated lead calling and AI voice agents; searched for consent clauses and found none about the people contacted." }, { "title": "Setter AI privacy policy", "url": "https://www.trysetter.com/privacy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the Google Calendar integration and the GDPR rights." }, { "title": "Product Hunt: Setter AI, Calendly for WhatsApp", "url": "https://www.producthunt.com/products/setter-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the page data: the two makers, the launch dates of 9 January 2025 and 30 July 2025 with their daily ranks, and the product description." }, { "title": "Timo Nikolai on X, 15 March 2024: 6 weeks in @TrySetter", "url": "https://x.com/timonikolai/status/1768503699427705188", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com, in the TrySetter timeline." }, { "title": "Timo Nikolai on X, 29 March 2024: Setter AI calls up new leads in < 10 seconds", "url": "https://x.com/timonikolai/status/1773619760078397498", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com, in the TrySetter timeline." }, { "title": "Setter AI on X, 5 April 2024: AI Appointment Setter demo", "url": "https://x.com/TrySetter/status/1776181735778394155", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for the phone-call version and the remark about Bali internet." }, { "title": "Josef Büttgen on X, 9 May 2024: waiting for a reply from Y Combinator", "url": "https://x.com/josefbuettgen/status/1788585786251866527", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com, in the TrySetter timeline." }, { "title": "Josef Büttgen on X, 12 May 2024: booked demos after a viral post", "url": "https://x.com/josefbuettgen/status/1789597865553403950", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com, in the TrySetter timeline." }, { "title": "Setter AI blog, 24 June 2024, by Josef Büttgen: Case Study: Booking 100+ real estate appointments per week", "url": "https://www.trysetter.com/blog/case-study-booking-100-real-estate-appointments-per-week", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the lead, call and meeting counts of the phone-call version." }, { "title": "Josef Büttgen on X, 20 November 2024: AI appointment setter for WhatsApp", "url": "https://x.com/josefbuettgen/status/1859150655568703706", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com, in the TrySetter timeline." }, { "title": "Setter AI help article, 22 January 2025, by Josef Büttgen: How to send business-initiated WhatsApp messages from Zapier", "url": "https://www.trysetter.com/help/how-to-send-business-initiated-whatsapp-messages-from-zapier", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the Meta message template requirement." }, { "title": "Setter AI blog, 9 May 2025: The 5 Most Popular CloseBot Alternatives (2025)", "url": "https://www.trysetter.com/blog/closebot-alternative", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on Setter AI: channels and the price list at that time." }, { "title": "Josef Büttgen on X, 30 July 2025: live on Product Hunt again", "url": "https://x.com/josefbuettgen/status/1950451292058587282", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com, in the TrySetter timeline." }, { "title": "Josef Büttgen on X, 25 November 2025: launch statistics of ProspectEcho", "url": "https://x.com/josefbuettgen/status/1993212624369307818", "grade": "C", "how": "Read through api.fxtwitter.com, with his launch post of 23 November 2025." }, { "title": "Josef Büttgen on X, 12 March 2026: OpenAI account permanently restricted", "url": "https://x.com/josefbuettgen/status/2032023579244601438", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Josef Büttgen on X, posts from November 2025 to August 2026", "url": "https://x.com/josefbuettgen", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the timeline page by page through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for his other products and the Stripe Sessions post of 1 May 2026." }, { "title": "Y Combinator company directory: setter-ai", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/setter-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Opened on 15 October 2026: \"File Not Found\"." }, { "title": "North Data: search for Setter AI", "url": "https://www.northdata.com/Setter%20AI", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the result list on 15 October 2026. No German company of that name appears." }, { "title": "Setter AI sitemap", "url": "https://www.trysetter.com/sitemap.xml", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full and counted with a script: 129 pages, 41 blog posts, 57 country pages and 5 free tools." }, { "title": "TechCrunch, 18 October 2025, updated 15 January 2026, by Ivan Mehta: WhatsApp changes its terms to bar general-purpose chatbots from its platform", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/18/whatssapp-changes-its-terms-to-bar-general-purpose-chatbots-from-its-platform/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Quotes the new AI Providers clause of the WhatsApp Business Solution terms and Meta's statement that business customer-service bots are not affected." }, { "title": "Twilio documentation: What is A2P 10DLC?", "url": "https://www.twilio.com/docs/messaging/compliance/a2p-10dlc", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on what A2P 10DLC is and who must register." }, { "title": "47 U.S. Code § 227, Restrictions on use of telephone equipment (TCPA), Cornell Legal Information Institute", "url": "https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/227", "grade": "A", "how": "Text of the law. Read subsection (b)(1)(A)." }, { "title": "§ 7 UWG, Unzumutbare Belästigungen, Gesetze im Internet (German Federal Ministry of Justice)", "url": "https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/uwg_2004/__7.html", "grade": "A", "how": "Text of the law, read in full. The German original is quoted and translated on this page." }, { "title": "Art. 6 GDPR, Lawfulness of processing, gdpr-info.eu", "url": "https://gdpr-info.eu/art-6-gdpr/", "grade": "A", "how": "Text of the regulation. Read paragraph 1." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." }, { "title": "Setter AI text-message appointment setter page", "url": "https://www.trysetter.com/text-ai-appointment-setter", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 15 October 2026: \"Launching soon\" and a waiting list." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/kleo/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/kleo.md", "slug": "kleo", "name": "Kleo", "country": "United Kingdom and Cyprus", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI writing tool for LinkedIn posts", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "October 2025", "outcomeLabel": "More than US$1M in revenue, September 2026", "sticker": "Over $1M in revenue", "outcomeUsd": 1000000, "months": 11, "teamLabel": "4 co-founders: 3 with LinkedIn audiences and 1 engineer", "fundingLabel": "None reported", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "audience", "trend": "growing", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Marketing" ], "product": "A web app for LinkedIn posts. It stores what a member knows and how the member writes, suggests topics from posts that do well, writes drafts with the member in a chat, makes 20 images a month, and schedules and publishes posts to a connected LinkedIn account, with statistics and weekly group calls. A Chrome extension saves ideas from other websites.", "why": "Three of the four co-founders had LinkedIn audiences, together more than 480,000 followers, made of the people Kleo sells to, and the free extension had already reached tens of thousands of users. When LinkedIn stopped the extension, they sold a rebuilt paid version to that audience first, in limited groups of seats, before any public launch.", "summary": [ "Kleo is a web app that helps people write and plan posts for LinkedIn. A member stores what they know and how they write; Kleo suggests topics from posts that do well, writes drafts with the member in a chat, makes images, and schedules and publishes posts through LinkedIn's API, the official interface that LinkedIn offers to outside programs, on an account that the member connects. The engineer's account of the build names Claude, Anthropic's model, as the AI that writes. Kleo costs US$99 a month or US$999 a year.", "Jake Ward, who has more than 180,000 LinkedIn followers, released the first Kleo on 8 November 2023 as a free Chrome extension, a small program that adds features to the Chrome browser. It showed popular posts inside LinkedIn's own pages and reached 60,000 to more than 70,000 users. In 2025 LinkedIn sent a cease-and-desist letter, a formal legal demand to stop an activity, because the extension read and overlaid LinkedIn's pages. Ward rebuilt Kleo as a paid web app with Lara Acosta, a LinkedIn creator with more than 300,000 followers, Rob Hoffman, and Cameron Trew, a software engineer who left his job in September 2025. The paid beta opened in October 2025. About three months later the founders told Indie Hackers that Kleo made US$62,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the subscription revenue that repeats every month. In September 2026 Trew wrote in his X profile that it had made more than US$1 million in revenue.", "Every number on this page is a founder statement, grade C. This page did not read the Indie Hackers interview, because that site asks AI programs not to read it; the MRR figure comes from two publications that quote it. The page also shows earlier companies that built on a social network that they did not control, and what LinkedIn has done since 2023 about AI-written posts." ], "factsCaption": "A free LinkedIn extension that LinkedIn stopped, rebuilt as a paid app that reported US$62,000 a month after three months and more than US$1 million in revenue by September 2026, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement, or a statement by a reviewer or a newsletter that quotes the founders. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a free extension that LinkedIn shut down to a paid app with more than US$1 million in revenue. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Kleo prices in October 2026, from the company's home page (grade C)", "note": "There is one plan with all features: strategy, unlimited chats and posts, 20 images a month, scheduling and publishing, analytics, weekly live calls, a template library and a private community. The yearly plan costs US$999, which is US$189 less than twelve monthly payments, and adds a private onboarding call and a price that stays the same while the plan is active. Each extra profile, for a team member or a client, costs US$49 a month more. Reviewers found no free trial; the yearly plan has a 30-day money-back guarantee. The first 1,000 beta buyers kept US$59 or US$79 a month for life.", "rows": [ [ "Standard, monthly", "", "99", "1 profile" ], [ "Standard, yearly", "83.25", "", "US$999 a year; adds a private onboarding call and a price lock" ], [ "Extra profile", "", "49", "per added profile, for a team member or a client" ], [ "Founding beta seats (closed)", "", "59 or 79", "first 1,000 seats, price kept for life" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue by September 2026", "value": "more than US$1 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Co-founder Cam Trew's X profile, read 15 October 2026: he quit his job in September 2025 to co-found the business, and by September 2026 it had made over US$1 million in revenue. It does not say whether this is gross or net, or whether sales before the relaunch are included.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue about three months after the relaunch", "value": "US$62,000", "grade": "C", "note": "The founders' interview with Indie Hackers, quoted by a Japanese newsletter on 19 July 2026 and by a review updated 16 May 2026. The interview itself was not read for this page. The founders had not yet made a public launch.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the US$62,000 a month", "value": "US$744,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$62,000 times 12.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Average monthly revenue implied for January to September 2026", "value": "at least about US$90,000", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: if October to December 2025 brought at most 3 times US$62,000, or US$186,000, then at least US$814,000 of the US$1 million came in the next nine months, about US$90,444 a month, 46% above US$62,000. Yearly plans are paid in advance, so this is cash received, not recurring revenue.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Mentions, the founders' sister product, at the time of the interview", "value": "US$20,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Same interview, as quoted. Mentions is a separate product and is not counted on this page. Together the two made US$82,000 a month.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Founding prices in the paid beta", "value": "500 seats at US$59 a month, then 500 at US$79, then US$99", "grade": "C", "note": "The first 500 seats sold out in 4 days, the next 500 in 9 days. The early prices were for life.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Most recurring revenue that the first 1,000 seats could bring", "value": "US$69,000 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 500 times US$59 plus 500 times US$79, if every seat paid monthly and stayed. Close to the US$62,000 reported.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Sales from pre-launch webinars", "value": "more than US$5,000 each, from three webinars", "grade": "C", "note": "Lara Acosta hosted them, as quoted from the interview.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Users of the free extension before LinkedIn stopped it", "value": "60,000 to more than 70,000", "grade": "C", "note": "The interview, as quoted, says 60,000; the company's home page and a review say more than 70,000.", "src": [ 2, 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Founders' audience on LinkedIn", "value": "more than 480,000 followers", "grade": "C", "note": "Jake Ward more than 180,000 and Lara Acosta more than 300,000, as quoted from the interview. Their followers are people who post on LinkedIn, the same people Kleo sells to.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "4 co-founders", "grade": "C", "note": "Jake Ward, Lara Acosta and Rob Hoffman, plus the engineer Cameron Trew, who calls himself a co-founder. No source gives a number of employees.", "src": [ 1, 2, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Where the founders work", "value": "London and Cyprus", "grade": "C", "note": "Acosta's X profile says London, and the company blog calls her a top UK creator; Ward wrote in October 2026 that he had recently moved to Cyprus. The other two co-founders' locations are not given.", "src": [ 13, 15, 17 ] }, { "fact": "Time to rebuild the product", "value": "4 weeks", "grade": "C", "note": "Trew rebuilt version 2.0 from Vercel's AI chatbot template, as quoted from the interview.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Advertising and Product Hunt", "value": "none before US$62,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "As quoted from the interview. The public launch came after that figure.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Price, October 2026", "value": "US$99 a month, or US$999 a year", "grade": "C", "note": "Company home page. Each extra profile costs US$49 a month more.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "The home page says Kleo is built by creators to serve creators, not investors. No source mentions a funding round.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "not found", "grade": "C", "note": "The terms name no company and follow the laws of Texas. None of the 20 companies named Kleo or Kleos on the first page of a UK company register search lists a co-founder as an officer.", "src": [ 7, 21 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the paid beta to the US$1 million", "value": "11 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: October 2025 to September 2026.", "src": [ 1, 11 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "8 November 2023", "what": "Jake Ward releases Kleo on the Chrome Web Store as a free extension that shows popular posts inside LinkedIn. About 2,500 people from his community had used an early version.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "23 January 2024", "what": "7,000 weekly users. Ward quotes Lara Acosta, then a user, who gained more than 60,000 followers in 5 months.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "29 November 2024", "what": "Ward sells founding memberships of Kleo Pro, a separate web platform. He writes that more than 40,000 creators use the free extension and that an extension limits what he can build.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "2025", "what": "LinkedIn sends a cease-and-desist letter because the extension overlaid LinkedIn's pages and read data from them. The extension is shut down. One review dates the letter to early 2026, which does not fit the October 2025 relaunch.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 3, 4 ] }, { "when": "September 2025", "what": "Cameron Trew leaves his software engineering job to co-found the new Kleo and rebuilds it in four weeks.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "29 September 2025", "what": "Ward announces that Kleo 2.0 opens to 500 more beta users in two days, from a waitlist. Seats are sold in groups: 500 at US$59 a month sell out in 4 days, the next 500 at US$79 in 9 days.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 2 ] }, { "when": "9 October 2025", "what": "Ward describes Kleo 2.0 as \"Cursor, but for LinkedIn posts\", after the AI code editor: it learns the member's writing style, finds trending topics and writes with the member in a chat.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "End of 2025", "what": "About three months after the relaunch, US$62,000 a month in recurring revenue, with no ads and no Product Hunt launch. Mentions, a sister product, makes US$20,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "21 May 2026", "what": "A review describes Kleo as a paid web app at US$99 a month, where members write and then switch to LinkedIn to publish. The extension now only saves ideas from other websites.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "10 June 2026", "what": "Trew writes that his working days went from 8 to 14 hours after he quit his job.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "24 July 2026", "what": "Acosta writes that Kleo has been growing very fast and that she is proud of the team.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "Mid-2026", "what": "Kleo 3.0 adds stored knowledge, a trained writing style, a member identity and automatic memories.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "Trew's X profile: more than US$1 million in revenue in the year since he quit his job.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "7 October 2026", "what": "Ward posts the Kleo team's analysis of more than 13 million LinkedIn posts: median views for the largest 5% of profiles fell by 50%.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Co-founders who are the audience", "text": "Ward and Acosta had more than 480,000 LinkedIn followers between them, and those followers are people who post on LinkedIn, which is exactly who Kleo sells to. The founders built a waitlist from that audience, Acosta ran three webinars that each sold more than US$5,000, and Ward and Hoffman showed how they wrote their own popular posts with the tool. There were no ads." }, { "title": "Seats that run out", "text": "The beta was sold in groups of 500 seats, each with a price for life: US$59 a month, then US$79, then the full US$99. The first group sold out in four days and the second in nine. A buyer had a reason to buy now, and later buyers paid the full price." }, { "title": "Four weeks on standard parts", "text": "Trew started from Vercel's open AI chatbot template, so the chat interface already worked, and added hosted services for the database, background jobs, login, voice input and monitoring. Beta users had a private Slack; a reported bug was fixed within hours, with a personal reply." }, { "title": "Beside LinkedIn, not inside it", "text": "The first Kleo ran inside LinkedIn's pages, and LinkedIn stopped it. The paid version is a separate web app that connects to LinkedIn through LinkedIn's own API to publish and to read post statistics, and its Chrome extension only saves ideas from other websites." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the engineer's account in the Indie Hackers interview, as quoted by a newsletter and a review, and from the company's own pages. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Started from Vercel's AI Chatbot template, an open project that already has a chat interface, so the first version took four weeks.", "TypeScript and Next.js, deployed on Vercel. Neon, a hosted PostgreSQL database. Inngest for background jobs, retries and queues. Clerk for login. shadcn/ui for interface parts.", "Claude, Anthropic's model, writes the posts. Deepgram turns voice input into text. PostHog measures how members use the app, and Langfuse records the prompts and the model costs.", "Instead of more setup forms, the product lets Claude's memory feature learn each member's writing from use.", "Members connect their LinkedIn account; Kleo then uses LinkedIn's APIs to publish or schedule posts and to show their statistics.", "Payments run through Polar. The Chrome extension saves ideas from articles on other websites into a swipe file, a saved collection of examples." ], "src": [ 2, 3, 5, 6, 4 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold a tool for people who post or write online, three of them on top of a social network that they did not control. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "BranchOut", "years": "2010 to 2017", "funding": "US$49M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Professional networking built on Facebook, as an alternative to LinkedIn.", "died": "Facebook changed its API rules, and the growth path that depended on them was gone.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/30-branchout" }, { "name": "Klout", "years": "2008 to 2017", "funding": "US$40M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A score from 1 to 100 for a person's influence, built from their posts on social networks.", "died": "Facebook and Twitter built better statistics into their own products.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/280-klout" }, { "name": "Socialbrowse", "years": "2008 to 2011", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A browser extension that added social features to ordinary web browsing.", "died": "It could not gather enough users while people spent their social time on Facebook.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1229-socialbrowse" }, { "name": "Draft", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A simple online writing tool with version control and editing help for writers.", "died": "Google Docs covered the same needs, and the narrow product could not compete.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1605-draft" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Three of the four lived on a social network that another company controlled, and lost when that company changed its rules or built the feature itself; the fourth, a writing tool, lost when Google Docs covered the same needs. Kleo has already lived through one such event: LinkedIn's letter in 2025 ended the free extension, which had tens of thousands of users.", "Two things differ. First, the paid product does not depend on reading LinkedIn's pages; it uses the API that LinkedIn offers to outside programs, and the writing happens in Kleo's own app. Second, the founders sold to their own followers, so they did not need LinkedIn to send them customers, and they charged from the first day of the beta." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The structure, yes. The audience, rarely.", "text": "Kleo's build was ordinary: a public template and hosted services, ready in four weeks. What is rare is co-founders whose 480,000 followers were the people Kleo sells to. A builder without such an audience can still copy the arrangement: an engineer who builds, and creators who sell to their own followers, all as co-founders.", "steps": [ "Find creators whose followers are the buyers, and make them co-founders, not paid promoters.", "Build the first version on a public template and hosted services, in weeks.", "Sell the beta in limited groups of seats, with a lower price for life for each early group.", "Use the platform's official API; do not read or change its pages." ], "open": "Other platforms where people publish for work, such as Substack, YouTube or X, where the followers of a few creators are the buyers of a writing or planning tool." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Founder figures only, partly second-hand", "text": "Every money figure is a founder statement. The US$62,000 a month comes from an interview that this page could not read and that two publications quote. The US$1 million comes from one line in a co-founder's X profile, which does not say whether it is gross or net or which months it covers. No payment processor, buyer or journalist has confirmed either." }, { "title": "LinkedIn has stopped Kleo once", "text": "In 2025 LinkedIn sent a cease-and-desist letter because the extension overlaid LinkedIn's pages and read data from them. A review summarizes LinkedIn's User Agreement as forbidding scraping or automated access without consent. The current product publishes through LinkedIn's API, and its home page says it avoids risky automation, but that access depends on LinkedIn's permission." }, { "title": "LinkedIn's own writing tools", "text": "By 26 September 2023 LinkedIn had its own tool that drafts a post from a member's ideas. In September 2026 it removed its AI rewriting option and gave Premium members a proofreader that only edits words that the member typed. LinkedIn can add writing help at any time, and for now it has chosen not to write posts for members." }, { "title": "LinkedIn shows AI-written posts less", "text": "On 31 July 2026 LinkedIn added an option to report posts that \"seem like AI slop\", and said it already shows such posts less outside the writer's own network and uses better classifiers, programs that sort posts automatically, to find them. Kleo's own analysis of 13 million posts, posted on 7 October 2026, found that median views for the largest 5% of profiles fell by 50%. Both affect what customers get, and the founders' own reach is the sales channel." }, { "title": "The same field on this site", "text": "Supergrow, from India, sells AI-written LinkedIn posts with payment-processor evidence of US$32,200 in 30 days in February 2026 and a falling trend, and aiCarousels, a one-person Swedish tool for carousel posts, reported US$5,000 a month in November 2023; Kleo reports larger numbers than both, with weaker evidence." }, { "title": "One model provider", "text": "The engineer's stack names one model, Anthropic's Claude, for writing and for memory. A change in Anthropic's prices, rules or model behaviour changes Kleo's costs and its output. The home page itself has to explain why a member should pay for Kleo instead of using ChatGPT or Claude directly." }, { "title": "A sister product", "text": "The founders also run Mentions, which made US$20,000 a month at the time of the interview. The combined figure of US$82,000 a month is not Kleo's; this page counts only Kleo." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cam Trew's X profile, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://x.com/camtrew", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile text through api.fxtwitter.com. Co-founder's own statement. Source for the US$1 million in revenue by September 2026 and for his September 2025 start." }, { "title": "Lagless Portal (note.com), 19 July 2026: Issue 86: $62k MRR in 3 months with zero ads and zero Product Hunt", "url": "https://note.com/lagless/n/ne385b76682df", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, English version. A newsletter summary of the founders' Indie Hackers interview, which was not read because indiehackers.com does not allow AI agents. Source for the US$62,000 and US$20,000 figures, the team, the build stack, the seat prices, the webinars and the payment provider." }, { "title": "ConnectSafely, updated 16 May 2026: Kleo Review: LinkedIn AI Tool Pricing & Features", "url": "https://connectsafely.ai/articles/kleo-review-linkedin-content-tool-2026", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A review by a company that sells a competing LinkedIn tool. Quotes the US$62,000 figure from the Indie Hackers interview and says the product uses Claude. Its date for the cease-and-desist letter does not fit the other sources." }, { "title": "AuthoredUp, 21 May 2026, updated 11 August 2026: Kleo Review 2026: Is the $99 LinkedIn Tool Worth It?", "url": "https://authoredup.com/blog/kleo-review", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A review by a company that sells a competing LinkedIn tool. Source for the 2025 cease-and-desist letter and its reason, Kleo 3.0, the separate web app and the 30-day money-back guarantee." }, { "title": "Kleo home page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://kleo.so/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the prices, the features, the statement on LinkedIn's official API, the 70,000-user extension and the statement about investors." }, { "title": "Kleo privacy policy, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://app.kleo.so/privacy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on LinkedIn features and connected account data." }, { "title": "Kleo terms of service, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://app.kleo.so/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names no company; governed by the laws of Texas." }, { "title": "Jake Ward on X, 8 November 2023: Kleo is officially live", "url": "https://x.com/jakezward/status/1722245502430072900", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Jake Ward on X, 23 January 2024: My free LinkedIn tool crossed 7,000 weekly users", "url": "https://x.com/jakezward/status/1749772879917371518", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Jake Ward on X, 29 November 2024: Kleo Pro for founding members", "url": "https://x.com/jakezward/status/1862496143881511310", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Jake Ward on X, 29 September 2025: Kleo 2.0 opens to 500 more beta users", "url": "https://x.com/jakezward/status/1972646886705074362", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Jake Ward on X, 9 October 2025: Imagine Cursor, but for LinkedIn posts", "url": "https://x.com/jakezward/status/1976270813306204324", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Lara Acosta on X, profile and post of 24 July 2026", "url": "https://x.com/Laraacostar/status/2080606714370363801", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the profile and the post through api.fxtwitter.com. The profile says co-founder of Kleo, London." }, { "title": "Jake Ward on X, 7 October 2026: the Kleo team's analysis of 13M+ LinkedIn posts", "url": "https://x.com/jakezward/status/2107845110708814273", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the first post of the thread through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Jake Ward on X, 8 October 2026: recently moved to Cyprus", "url": "https://x.com/jakezward/status/2108166761967235207", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com." }, { "title": "Cam Trew on X, 10 June 2026", "url": "https://x.com/camtrew/status/2064674227467514286", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full through api.fxtwitter.com. Source for his working hours after he quit his job." }, { "title": "Kleo blog: Lara Acosta: The UK's #1 Female LinkedIn Creator", "url": "https://kleo.so/blog/lara-acosta", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's own profile of the co-founder." }, { "title": "Digital Works, 26 September 2023: LinkedIn's AI-powered writing tool for posts", "url": "https://digitalworks.dk/en/artikler/linkedins-ai-powered-writing-tool-for-posts", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A Danish agency's description of LinkedIn's tool that drafts posts." }, { "title": "ProPakistani, 31 July 2026: LinkedIn Finally Adds a Button To Kill All That AI Slop", "url": "https://propakistani.pk/2026/07/31/linkedin-finally-adds-a-button-to-kill-all-that-ai-slop/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Reports LinkedIn's statements; LinkedIn's own pages were not read because linkedin.com does not allow AI agents." }, { "title": "Metricool, 2 October 2026: LinkedIn Swaps Its AI Post Writer for a Proofreading Tool", "url": "https://metricool.com/linkedin-post-proofreader/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "UK Companies House search for \"kleo\", read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/search/companies?q=kleo", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the first page of results and the officer lists of the 20 companies on it. None lists a Kleo co-founder." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/skillry/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/skillry.md", "slug": "skillry", "name": "Skillry", "country": "China", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Paid library of Agent Skills for AI coding agents", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "8 August 2026", "outcomeLabel": "US$7.7K revenue in the last 30 days, October 2026", "sticker": "$7.7K in 30 days", "outcomeUsd": 92964, "months": 2, "teamLabel": "1 person, as the founder lists it on TrustMRR", "fundingLabel": "None reported", "primaryFactor": "Previews", "group": "ai-model-tools", "channel": "unknown", "trend": "flat", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Developer tools" ], "product": "A paid library of more than 400 Agent Skills: packages of instructions, templates and scripts that an AI coding agent such as Claude Code, Codex or Cursor installs and follows to make a web page section, a slide deck, a set of images or a short video in one designed style. Every Skill page shows real output first. Some Skills are free; the others cost US$4.99 each or come with Premium at US$9.99 a month, US$79 a year or US$169 once.", "why": "AI coding agents can build a working page or deck, but in the founder's words their visual output often looks generic. Skillry sells finished visual styles, one task per Skill, shows real output before the sale, and adds new Skills almost every day under one subscription. When sales began on 28 September 2026, they held at about US$430 a day for 17 days.", "summary": [ "Skillry sells Agent Skills: folders of instructions, templates and scripts that an AI agent loads when a task needs them. Anthropic introduced the format for Claude on 16 October 2025 and published it as an open standard on 18 December 2025. Skillry's Skills are for coding agents, AI programs such as Claude Code, Codex and Cursor that read and write files on the user's own computer. Each Skill makes one kind of visual work in one designed style: a landing page, a testimonial section, a slide deck, a set of article illustrations or a short launch video. Each Skill page shows that output before the buyer installs it. On 15 October 2026 the site's sitemap listed 404 Skills.", "The founder is shown on TrustMRR as Yihui, from China, with a team of one and a linked X account of 62,545 followers. The founding date there is 8 August 2026, and the site's first blog post is dated 30 August. Almost nothing sold until 28 September 2026. TrustMRR, a site that reads a startup's revenue directly from its payment provider, shows US$7,715 from 28 September to 15 October. On 15 October it showed US$7,747 in the last 30 days, US$7,855 in total, 264 active subscriptions and MRR (monthly recurring revenue: what the active subscriptions bring in each month) of US$2,600.", "The revenue numbers are grade A, read by TrustMRR from Skillry's own Stripe account. They cover only 18 days of real sales. Daily revenue stayed near US$430 a day, with no single large spike, but it did not grow. Only about one third of the 30-day revenue is MRR; the rest came from payments that do not repeat each month or from subscriptions that ended. The page also shows what the AI companies give away for free, and what happened to earlier companies that sold a curated layer on top of someone else's platform." ], "factsCaption": "A library of Agent Skills, 68 days old, with US$7,747 of Stripe-verified revenue in the last 30 days, almost all of it from 18 days of sales", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value is read by TrustMRR directly from Skillry's Stripe account. A grade C value is the founder's own text on TrustMRR or the company's own pages. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it or from the downloaded pages.", "timelineLead": "From Anthropic's new Skill format in October 2025 to a paid Skill library with US$7,747 in 30 days, 68 days after its founding date. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Skillry prices on 15 October 2026, from the company's pricing page and Skill pages (grade C)", "note": "Premium gives every paid Skill, updates and new Skills while access lasts. The Founding Lifetime price \"increases as the library grows\". A paid Skill can also be bought alone for US$4.99, and free Skills need only an account. All payments are non-refundable. Image and video Skills may need the buyer's own API key for an outside model provider such as FAL, which bills per use. The yearly price per month was calculated: US$79 / 12.", "rows": [ [ "Free Skills", "0", "0", "account sign-in" ], [ "Single paid Skill", "4.99 one-time", "", "one Skill" ], [ "Premium, monthly", "", "9.99", "all Premium Skills" ], [ "Premium, yearly", "6.58", "", "US$79 a year; all Premium Skills" ], [ "Founding Lifetime", "169 one-time", "", "all Premium Skills, no renewal" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days, to 15 October 2026", "value": "US$7,747", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from Skillry's Stripe account through an API key, last synced 15 October 2026. Up 7,073.3% on the 30 days before, when sales had barely started.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Total revenue since founding", "value": "US$7,855", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR. The 3-month, 6-month and 12-month figures are the same, because the business is younger than three months.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue by month", "value": "August 2026 US$27, September US$1,608, 1 to 15 October US$6,220", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly timeline. October is half a month.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue (MRR), 15 October 2026", "value": "US$2,600, from 264 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR metric snapshot.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR as a share of the 30-day revenue", "value": "33.6%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$2,600 / US$7,747. The other US$5,147 does not come back each month by itself: it is yearly plans paid in advance, US$169 lifetime licenses, US$4.99 single Skills, or subscriptions that ended. TrustMRR does not show the split.", "src": [ 1, 2, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Daily revenue from 28 September to 14 October 2026", "value": "US$7,352 in 17 days, a mean of US$432 a day", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from TrustMRR's daily table. Lowest day US$125 (6 October), highest US$806 (30 September). The highest day is 10.4% of the 30-day total, so the figure is not one day's spike.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "First and second week of sales", "value": "US$3,280, then US$2,878", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from TrustMRR's daily table: 28 September to 4 October, then 5 to 11 October, a fall of 12.3%. The three full days 12 to 14 October averaged US$398 a day, 3.2% below the second week. The level held but did not grow.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue before 28 September 2026", "value": "about US$140 in total", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: all-time US$7,855 minus the US$7,715 that the daily table shows from 28 September to 15 October. 15 October was a partial day at the sync.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "30-day revenue at a yearly rate", "value": "US$92,964", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$7,747 x 12. The recurring part alone, MRR x 12, is US$31,200. The 30 days include only 18 days of sales.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Prices, 15 October 2026", "value": "Premium US$9.99 a month or US$79 a year, Founding Lifetime US$169 one-time, single Skills US$4.99, some Skills free", "grade": "C", "note": "Company pricing page and Skill pages. All payments are non-refundable.", "src": [ 2, 8, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Prices on 30 September 2026", "value": "the same three plans at the same prices", "grade": "C", "note": "The earliest Wayback Machine capture of the pricing page, two days after sales began. It already said \"1,000+ people supporting us\".", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Skills in the catalog, 15 October 2026", "value": "404 Skill pages", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: counted with python3 in the sitemap downloaded on 15 October 2026. The home page says \"400+ Skills so far\". 404 Skills in the 68 days since the founding date is about 5.9 a day.", "src": [ 7, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Skills by kind of output", "value": "about 214 image and other, 102 web, 62 slide and 26 video Skills", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: sorted by words in each Skill's address (deck, landing, hero, hyperframes and others), so the split is approximate. 48 Skills make link-preview images in the style of a known brand such as Stripe, Notion or Airbnb.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Agents with install guides", "value": "32", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: counted in the sitemap. They include Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Windsurf and Kiro.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 person", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder-written TrustMRR profile. The site speaks of \"our own team\" and \"the Skillry team\" but names nobody.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "No source mentions an investor. TrustMRR shows a 100% profit margin for the last 30 days, which only means that no costs were connected to it.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "not named", "grade": "C", "note": "The terms of service and the privacy policy name no company. The terms speak of \"Skillry and its operators\" and give the address support@skillry.dev.", "src": [ 4, 17 ] }, { "fact": "Payment processor", "value": "Stripe, Skillry's own account", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR: verified source Stripe (API key), merchant of record: No. The terms also name Stripe as the processor.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Affiliate commission", "value": "40% of referred payments for the first 12 months", "grade": "C", "note": "Company affiliate page.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's X audience", "value": "62,545 followers", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR profile, for the X account linked to the founder shown as Yihui. No permitted source shows how many buyers came from it.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the founding date to the headline figure", "value": "68 days", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 8 August to 15 October 2026, about 2.2 months.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "9 October 2025", "what": "Anthropic releases plugins for Claude Code and lets anyone host a plugin marketplace, a curated collection that other developers install from.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "16 October 2025", "what": "Anthropic introduces Agent Skills: folders of instructions, scripts and resources that Claude loads when a task needs them, with its own Skills for Excel, PowerPoint, Word and PDF files.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "18 December 2025", "what": "Anthropic adds a directory of partner-built Skills and publishes Agent Skills as an open standard for use across platforms.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "8 August 2026", "what": "Founding date on the TrustMRR profile. The founder, shown as Yihui, gives China as the country and a team of one.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "12 August 2026", "what": "Date of the terms of service: Skills are sold as downloadable packages with a SKILL.md file, scripts and previews, paid through Stripe, with no refunds.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "30 August 2026", "what": "First blog post, \"Introducing Skillry\": a \"curated marketplace of Agent Skills\" for Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and Cursor, with free Skills and one Premium plan.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "31 August 2026", "what": "Third-Party Notices published: portions of the catalog include or are derived from MIT-licensed open-source work by 21 named copyright holders.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "August 2026", "what": "US$27 of revenue in the first month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "20 to 27 September 2026", "what": "Sales stay small: US$4.99 to US$9.99 on four days.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "28 September 2026", "what": "Sales start in earnest: US$139 that day, US$548 the next and US$806 on 30 September, the best day so far.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "30 September 2026", "what": "The first Wayback Machine capture of the pricing page shows US$9.99 a month, US$79 a year and a US$169 Founding Lifetime license, and \"1,000+ people supporting us\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "5 to 11 October 2026", "what": "Second week of sales: US$2,878, against US$3,280 in the first week.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "15 October 2026", "what": "TrustMRR, synced from Stripe: US$7,747 in the last 30 days, US$7,855 in total, MRR of US$2,600 and 264 active subscriptions. The sitemap lists 404 Skills, with pages in nine languages.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 7 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Previews of real output", "text": "Each Skill page opens with a gallery of what the Skill makes, so a buyer chooses a style the way one chooses a template. The founder's TrustMRR text names this as the value: preview the real output before installing. The company describes the method: each Skill \"starts as a finished piece of work we design ourselves\", and then it writes \"the instructions, templates and scripts that let your agent make it again\"." }, { "title": "One plan for a catalog that grows every day", "text": "Premium covers every paid Skill and every new one, and on average about six Skills a day were added since the founding date (calculated). The US$169 Founding Lifetime price \"increases as the library grows\", which gives a reason to buy early." }, { "title": "A page for each Skill, task, role and agent", "text": "The sitemap has 1,312 English pages, among them the 404 Skill pages and install guides for 32 agents, and the same pages in eight more languages, 11,808 addresses in total. Free Skills need only an account. The founder lists X, Threads, YouTube, search and content marketing as channels; no source shows which of them brought the buyers." }, { "title": "No model costs for the seller", "text": "Most Skills run on the buyer's own agent and its model (\"Generates with Host Agent LLM\"). Image and video Skills call outside models such as FAL \"with your own API key, and that provider bills you per use\". Skillry sells files, so a sale adds no model cost for it." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's TrustMRR profile and the company's own pages. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Frontend in React, TypeScript and Tailwind CSS; backend on Cloudflare with SQLite and Node.js; payments through Stripe. This is the founder's tech-stack list on TrustMRR.", "A Skill is a folder: a SKILL.md file with the instructions, plus scripts, references, installation instructions, previews and other supporting files. The terms say the downloaded package is the product.", "Installation by a copied install prompt, a ZIP download, or the Skillry command-line tool, which authorizes through the browser and \"keeps a revocable credential in your system keychain\".", "The Article Illustration Set, a paid image Skill, needs a FAL account and Node.js 20 or newer, and generates with GPT Image from OpenAI.", "Web Skills ship as source code: a component file and a runnable usage example, with colors, type and corner radius as tokens to edit in one place, and images stored locally.", "Parts of the catalog include or derive from MIT-licensed open-source work: libraries such as React, Tailwind CSS, Ant Design, Shadcnblocks and ReUI, and work by individual developers and small studios, all named on the Third-Party Notices page.", "Pages in nine languages: English, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, German and French." ], "src": [ 1, 4, 3, 8, 9, 5, 7 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold a curated or better-designed layer on top of a platform, and lost when the platform or free tools did the same job. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Iddiction", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$3M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A curated app store to help people find good apps among millions.", "died": "Apple and Google improved discovery inside their own stores, and a separate curated store lost its reason to exist.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/234-iddiction" }, { "name": "Readability", "years": "2009 to 2015", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Clutter-free reading of any web article.", "died": "Browsers added free reader modes and free extensions did the same. Few readers paid.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/485-readability" }, { "name": "Xmarks", "years": "2006 to 2014", "funding": "US$9M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Sync your bookmarks and tabs across browsers.", "died": "Chrome, Firefox and Safari built the same sync into the browser, for free.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/762-xmarks" }, { "name": "Jobspice", "years": "2009 to 2012", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Good-looking resumes for job seekers who cannot design.", "died": "One narrow product. LinkedIn and free tools gave job seekers the same result without paying.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1635-jobspice" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the four sold something that a larger platform, or a free tool, later gave away: a better way to find apps, to read articles, to sync bookmarks or to make a document look designed. Skillry has the same exposure. Anthropic, which created the Skill format, ships its own Skills for documents and slides, runs a directory of partner-built Skills, and lets anyone host a plugin marketplace. Free Skills such as Anthropic's frontend-design are easy to install, and Skillry's own guide lists them.", "Two things differ. First, Skillry does not sell access to a platform but finished visual styles, hundreds of them, each shown with real output, and the platform makers do not make styles in that number. Second, the format is an open standard, and Skillry has install guides for 32 agents, so a change at one AI company does not close the store. What 18 days of sales cannot show is whether buyers keep paying after the first month." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The speed and the audience, not easily.", "text": "A Skill costs little to make: a SKILL.md file, templates and scripts. What is hard to copy is a catalog of 404 styled Skills built in 68 days, real previews for each, and a founder with 62,545 followers on X, although no source shows that the followers brought the buyers.", "steps": [ "Pick one kind of output that agents make badly, for example slides or landing pages, and design finished examples first.", "Turn each example into a Skill: instructions, templates and scripts that let the agent make it again.", "Show the real output on each Skill page, and give some Skills away to anyone with an account.", "Sell one plan for the whole catalog, and add Skills often so that the plan keeps growing." ], "open": "Skills for work where design taste matters and the model makers do not compete: brand-specific styles, industry document formats, video templates, and Skills for the newer agents that appear after Claude Code and Codex." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Only 18 days of sales", "text": "Almost all revenue came between 28 September and 15 October 2026. Daily revenue held at about US$430 but did not rise: the second week was 12.3% below the first. The first monthly subscriptions renew from late October, and only then will churn, the share of buyers who stop paying, be visible." }, { "title": "Most of the money is not monthly recurring", "text": "MRR is US$2,600, about a third of the 30-day revenue. The rest came from yearly plans paid in advance, US$169 lifetime licenses, US$4.99 single Skills, or subscriptions that ended; none of it comes back next month, and TrustMRR does not show the split. A lifetime buyer pays once and keeps access to every future Skill." }, { "title": "The AI makers run their own directories", "text": "Anthropic introduced Agent Skills on 16 October 2025, with its own Skills for Excel, PowerPoint, Word and PDF files. On 18 December 2025 it added \"a directory featuring partner-built skills\" and published the format as an open standard. Since 9 October 2025 anyone can host a Claude Code plugin marketplace, \"curated collections where other developers can discover and install plugins\". A paid catalog competes with free directories, one of them run by the platform owner." }, { "title": "Free Skills exist for the same jobs", "text": "Skillry's own guide describes Anthropic's frontend-design Skill as \"Official\" and \"Free\", \"a single SKILL.md published in Anthropic's public skills repository\", and reviews UI UX Pro Max, Impeccable and Taste skill next to it. Skillry's answer is finished templates instead of design rules, but a buyer can compare them at no cost." }, { "title": "Parts of the catalog derive from open-source work", "text": "The Third-Party Notices say that \"portions of the catalog include or are derived from\" MIT-licensed software by 21 named copyright holders, from large libraries to individual developers. The MIT license allows this with credit. The home page says \"Every Skill is designed, written and tested in-house\", and the three Skill pages read for this story credit no outside author, so a buyer cannot see how much of a Skill is derived." }, { "title": "Dependence on the agents' formats", "text": "The terms say it directly: \"AI agents, models, and third-party tools can change independently of us.\" Skills depend on how Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and the others load SKILL.md files, and image and video Skills depend on outside models billed to the buyer. Install guides for 32 agents spread this risk, and they also multiply the testing work for a team of one." }, { "title": "A very young business with no named company", "text": "The founder appears on TrustMRR only as Yihui, and the terms and privacy policy name no company, only \"Skillry and its operators\" and a support address. Payments are non-refundable, and the terms say a lifetime license \"is not a promise that the Services will operate forever\". The business was 68 days old at the headline figure." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR markdown profile: Skillry, synced 15 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/skillry.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile. Revenue, the daily and monthly tables, MRR and subscriptions are in its Verification Sources section (Stripe, API key) and are grade A. Founder name, country, team size, founding date, pricing summary, tech stack and channels are founder-written profile text, grade C." }, { "title": "Skillry pricing page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://skillry.dev/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the three plan prices, the founding-price rule and the refund rule." }, { "title": "Skillry home page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://skillry.dev/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the in-house claim, the 400+ Skills count, the CLI credential and the note on FAL costs." }, { "title": "Skillry Terms of Service, dated 12 August 2026", "url": "https://skillry.dev/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for what a Skill package contains, Stripe as processor, the refund, lifetime and compatibility clauses. No company is named." }, { "title": "Skillry Third-Party Notices, dated 31 August 2026", "url": "https://skillry.dev/third-party-notices", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Lists the open-source work that parts of the catalog include or derive from, with its licenses." }, { "title": "Skillry blog, 30 August 2026: Introducing Skillry", "url": "https://skillry.dev/blog/introducing-skillry", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's first public description of the product." }, { "title": "Skillry sitemap, downloaded 15 October 2026", "url": "https://skillry.dev/sitemap.xml", "grade": "C", "how": "Downloaded in full and counted with python3: 11,808 addresses, 1,312 in English, 404 Skill pages and 32 agent install guides." }, { "title": "Skillry Skill page: Article Illustration Set", "url": "https://skillry.dev/skills/bs-article-illustration-set", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A paid image Skill at US$4.99 that needs a FAL key and generates with GPT Image." }, { "title": "Skillry Skill page: Masonry Testimonial Wall", "url": "https://skillry.dev/skills/bs-testimonial-masonry-wall", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A free web Skill delivered as component source with a usage example." }, { "title": "Skillry Skill page: Research Paper Deck", "url": "https://skillry.dev/skills/bs-research-paper-deck", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A paid slide Skill at US$4.99 with export to editable PowerPoint." }, { "title": "Skillry affiliate program page", "url": "https://skillry.dev/affiliate", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 40% commission for 12 months." }, { "title": "Skillry guide: Frontend design Skills", "url": "https://skillry.dev/learn/frontend-design-skills", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the comparison and review sections. The company's own description of Anthropic's free frontend-design Skill and of other design Skills." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine capture of the Skillry pricing page, 30 September 2026", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260930111031/https://skillry.dev/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The earliest capture of the page. Same three prices as on 15 October 2026." }, { "title": "Anthropic, 16 October 2025, updated 18 December 2025: Introducing Agent Skills", "url": "https://claude.com/resources/articles/skills", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The old address www.anthropic.com/news/skills redirects here. Source for the format, Anthropic's own Skills, the partner directory and the open standard." }, { "title": "Anthropic, 9 October 2025: Claude Code plugins", "url": "https://claude.com/resources/articles/claude-code-plugins", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The old address www.anthropic.com/news/claude-code-plugins redirects here. Source for plugin marketplaces." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." }, { "title": "Skillry Privacy Policy, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://skillry.dev/privacy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names no company and no data controller." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/chat-thing/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/chat-thing.md", "slug": "chat-thing", "name": "Chat Thing", "country": "United Kingdom", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "No-code builder for AI support chatbots", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "March 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$12K a month, 2024", "sticker": "$12K a month, a couple", "outcomeUsd": 144000, "months": 20, "teamLabel": "2 founders, a married couple who also run the Pixelhop studio; the company reports no employees", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Speed", "group": "support-agents", "channel": "audience", "trend": "unknown", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Customer support" ], "product": "A no-code builder for AI support agents that answer from a company's own content: websites, files, Notion pages, YouTube videos and RSS feeds. The agents work in a website widget, Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram, email, phone calls and an API, on a model that the customer picks from more than 20.", "why": "It shipped in March 2023, when connecting ChatGPT to a company's own documents was new, 23 days after the first prototype. The founders posted their progress on Twitter, opened with a waitlist, and well-known early users such as Seth Godin brought attention. Low prices and frequent releases kept it selling after growth slowed in the third month.", "summary": [ "Chat Thing is a no-code chatbot builder, a tool that people use without writing program code. A customer connects its own content, such as a website, files, Notion pages, YouTube videos or an RSS feed, and gets an AI agent that answers questions from that content on a website, in Slack, Discord, WhatsApp or Telegram, by email or on the phone. The answers are written by a large language model, a program trained on very large amounts of text to produce replies. In October 2026 the customer can pick from more than 20 models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others, and the plans cost US$14 to US$299 a month, with a free plan.", "Jozef Maxted and Gemma Vincent, a married couple who run Pixelhop, their small digital studio, started a prototype on 27 February 2023 and had their first paying subscriber 23 days later, on 22 March. They posted demo videos on Twitter, collected a waitlist of 1,319 people, and a week after the first sale Seth Godin linked to a bot built on his blog. In June 2023 the founders reported £5,000 of monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the total of the subscription fees that customers pay each month: about US$6,314 at that month's exchange rate. By November 2024 eBiz Facts quoted their Indie Hackers interview: US$12,000 a month, a run rate (the monthly figure times 12) of US$144,000 a year.", "Every revenue figure on this page is a founder statement, grade C. The UK company register confirms the company, its two directors, its £2 share capital and that it reports no employees, but the filed accounts leave out the profit and loss account, as small companies may, so they cannot confirm the revenue. No figure later than 2024 was found. The page also shows earlier support-bot companies that failed when larger products added the same feature." ], "factsCaption": "A two-founder side business that reported £5,000 a month three months after launch and US$12,000 a month by November 2024, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement in their posts or interview, a page of the company, or an entry that the company itself filed with the UK register. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a weekend prototype on Notion to US$12,000 a month in 20 months, with growth that slowed in the third month. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Chat Thing prices in October 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "Prices are in US dollars per month; yearly billing gives two months free. Each plan has monthly allowances of message tokens (the pieces of text that model providers charge for) and storage tokens, and add-ons raise single limits, for example US$250 a year for 5 million more message tokens. Voice minutes cost US$10 a month per pack of 60 minutes, and phone numbers US$5 a month each, billed monthly on every plan. In November 2024 eBiz Facts gave US$14 a month for 3 chatbots, the same as the Basic plan today.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "1 agent, 1 data source, 80,000 message tokens" ], [ "Basic", "11.67", "14", "3 agents, 3.5M message tokens a month, 2 team members" ], [ "Standard", "40.83", "49", "6 agents, 19M message tokens, 4 team members; model choice, all channels" ], [ "Pro", "82.50", "99", "20 agents, 38M message tokens, 6 team members; chat analytics" ], [ "Enterprise", "249.17", "299", "50 agents, 120M message tokens, 8 team members; bot testing" ], [ "Voice pack, add-on", "", "10", "60 minutes; phone numbers US$5 a month each" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month, by November 2024", "value": "US$12,000", "grade": "C", "note": "The founders' figure in the title of their Indie Hackers interview, \"We built a $12k/mo AI chatbot generator\", as quoted by eBiz Facts on 14 November 2024. The interview itself was not opened (Indie Hackers blocks AI agents), so its date and its text are not verified here.", "src": [ 2, 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the November 2024 figure", "value": "US$144,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$12,000 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, June 2023", "value": "£5,000, about US$6,314", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post of 12 June 2023, under three months after the first paying customer; the case study repeats the same figure. Converted at US$1.2627 per pound, the June 2023 average of the Federal Reserve's daily rates.", "src": [ 1, 5, 21 ] }, { "fact": "Growth between the two figures", "value": "about 1.9 times in 17 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$12,000 divided by US$6,314, from June 2023 to November 2024.", "src": [ 1, 2, 21 ] }, { "fact": "Users, 5 June 2023", "value": "5,316 users with 3,902 bots, 35,698 chats and 227,095 messages", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post. The bots had used nearly 1 billion OpenAI tokens.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Waitlist before launch", "value": "1,319 subscribers by 27 March 2023", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post. Filled by demo videos and progress posts on Twitter, collected in ConvertKit.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "From first prototype to first paying customer", "value": "23 days", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 27 February to 22 March 2023, dates from the founder's post.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Growth in the third month", "value": "slowed down a lot", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's words in June 2023: the AI hype was cooling and more competitors were arriving.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Goal set in June 2023", "value": "£10,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post: at that level the project would pay for itself and the profits could be reinvested. At the June 2023 rate that is about US$12,627, slightly above the US$12,000 figure of November 2024.", "src": [ 1, 21 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "Chat Thing Ltd, company number 14789358, incorporated 10 April 2023", "grade": "C", "note": "UK company register and the footer of the company's site. Its directors are the two founders, appointed on that day. Business: software development.", "src": [ 6, 22 ] }, { "fact": "Share capital", "value": "£2", "grade": "C", "note": "Filed accounts for the years to 30 April 2024 and 2025. No outside shareholder money appears; the case study says the product was built without external funding.", "src": [ 7, 8, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Employees of Chat Thing Ltd", "value": "none in either year to April 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Filed accounts give the average number of employees as nil.", "src": [ 7, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Cash at bank", "value": "£6,242 on 30 April 2024 and £6,166 on 30 April 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Filed accounts. The company used the small-company right to leave out the profit and loss account, so the register shows no revenue.", "src": [ 7, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Net assets", "value": "£293 on 30 April 2024, minus £4,068 on 30 April 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Filed accounts. Creditors grew from £14,149 to £22,338. The accounts do not say why.", "src": [ 7, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Prices, October 2026", "value": "a free plan, then US$14 to US$299 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Company pricing page. Yearly billing gives two months free. Voice minutes and phone numbers cost extra.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "Models offered, October 2026", "value": "more than 20, including GPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok models", "grade": "C", "note": "Company pages. Requests go through OpenRouter, a service that sends each request to the provider that the customer selected; OpenAI handles speech for voice.", "src": [ 10, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Default model, March 2024", "value": "OpenAI's gpt-3.5-turbo-0125", "grade": "C", "note": "Company changelog. When OpenAI cut its price, the message tokens almost doubled on most plans.", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "fact": "Users claimed, October 2026", "value": "10,000+", "grade": "C", "note": "Company models page. It gives no date and no definition of a user.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the November 2024 figure", "value": "20 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: March 2023 to November 2024.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Case study: developed and launched without external funding. Share capital of £2.", "src": [ 5, 7 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "27 February 2023", "what": "The founders start a prototype at their studio, Pixelhop: ChatGPT answering from Notion pages, after reading Supabase's article on its \"Clippy\" bot for its documentation.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "when": "Early March 2023", "what": "A working prototype by 5 March. The first demo video on Twitter gets four likes; a second post the same day does much better.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "17 March 2023", "what": "The first 50 users are invited from the waitlist, then more in small batches.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "22 March 2023", "what": "First paying subscriber.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "when": "27 March 2023", "what": "1,319 people on the waitlist, in under a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "29 March 2023", "what": "Sign-ups open to everyone. Seth Godin, one of the first paying customers, links to a bot trained on the 5,000,000 words of his blog, and traffic spikes. He introduces Dave Winer, who wants a bot for 27 years of Scripting News.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 15 ] }, { "when": "10 April 2023", "what": "Chat Thing Ltd is registered, with the two founders as directors.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "5 June 2023", "what": "5,316 users and 3,902 bots. The product has six data sources and five channels, up from one of each at launch.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "when": "12 June 2023", "what": "£5,000 a month in recurring revenue, but growth slowed in the last month. Next goal: £10,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "6 November 2023", "what": "OpenAI launches GPTs, custom versions of ChatGPT with extra knowledge that anyone can build without coding.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "30 November 2023", "what": "Customers ask whether OpenAI has \"just killed Chat Thing\". The founders answer that GPTs take only 10 files, show no conversations and stay inside ChatGPT.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "11 January 2024", "what": "Gemma Vincent writes that the couple now runs two businesses, Pixelhop and Chat Thing, with separate goals for each.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "20 March 2024", "what": "OpenAI cuts the price of the default model; the message tokens almost double on most plans.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "November 2024", "what": "eBiz Facts quotes the founders' Indie Hackers interview: US$12,000 a month. The cheapest paid plan is US$14 a month for 3 chatbots.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "December 2025", "what": "Accounts to 30 April 2025 are filed: cash of £6,166, net liabilities of £4,068, no employees and no profit and loss account.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 8 ] }, { "when": "2026", "what": "Pixelhop calls itself an AI product studio that runs Chat Thing alongside client work. Chat Thing adds phone calls and a published test of 20+ models, and free website tools bring leads.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17, 9, 10, 19 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Speed", "text": "Twenty-three days from the first prototype to the first paying customer. The founders, who normally polish client work, spent 15 minutes on the logo and built the landing page from a Tailwind UI template. A bug charged some customers for two subscriptions; the founders fixed it after the charges, and the customers forgave it." }, { "title": "A waitlist built from public progress", "text": "Demo videos and updates on Twitter filled a waitlist of 1,319 people in under a month. Invitations went out in small batches from 17 March, so the founders could tune the product before the list opened to everyone on 29 March." }, { "title": "Well-known early users", "text": "Seth Godin asked for a bot trained on his blog of more than 5,000,000 words, paid for it, and linked to it from his blog on 29 March 2023. He introduced Dave Winer, who wanted a bot for 27 years of Scripting News. The large bots tested the system, and the links brought traffic." }, { "title": "Many sources, many channels, many models", "text": "In three months the product went from one data source (Notion) and one web channel to six data sources and five channels, including Discord, Slack, WhatsApp and an API. By 2026 it offers more than 20 models and publishes its own test of them on 31 scripted support conversations, so a customer picks a model on scores and cost." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founders' posts and the company's own pages. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Built by Pixelhop, the founders' studio, as a side project between client projects. The first version connected ChatGPT to Notion, which the studio already used for its handbook and project management.", "The website is a Nuxt application (Nuxt is a framework for Vue.js); its robots file is generated by a Nuxt module.", "Services that the company lists in July 2026: Supabase for the database, file storage and login; Railway for hosting; Cloudflare for the network; Stripe for payments; Plausible and PostHog for analytics; ConvertKit for email; Nylas for the email channel.", "Models: OpenAI at first, with nearly 1 billion OpenAI tokens used by June 2023 and gpt-3.5-turbo-0125 as the default in March 2024. In 2026, more than 20 models reached through OpenRouter, and OpenAI for speech in the voice features.", "Launch marketing: demo videos on Twitter, a ConvertKit waitlist, and Plausible to watch the traffic. The founders wrote in June 2023 that they had been bad at marketing so far.", "By 2026, free website tools (an agent-readiness checker, FAQ and llms.txt generators) bring search traffic, and the studio's AI agent researches the businesses that use them." ], "src": [ 1, 11, 10, 14, 19, 20 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised a bot or chat tool that answers customers or staff, and failed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Niles", "years": "2017 to 2020", "funding": "US$2.8M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A Slack chatbot that answered staff questions from the company's own knowledge.", "died": "Slack and knowledge tools such as Guru and Confluence added similar features, and AI answers became a common feature faster than Niles expected.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1031-niles" }, { "name": "Answerly", "years": "2013 to 2016", "funding": "US$550K", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "FAQ chatbots on company websites that deflect support tickets and pass only hard questions to people.", "died": "The language technology of the time could not handle real customer questions, and each customer needed long manual setup of FAQs and decision trees.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2168-answerly" }, { "name": "Hipmob", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Live support chat inside mobile apps and websites.", "died": "Intercom and Zendesk added the same chat features to products that customers already used. With little money, Hipmob could not stand out.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1184-hipmob" }, { "name": "Vanti", "years": "2019 to 2024", "funding": "US$18M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Conversational AI shopping assistants for brands.", "died": "In a crowded conversational-AI market it could not show that chatbots sold more than ordinary shop pages. Customers were expensive to win and integrations were complex.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2508-vanti" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Answerly and Niles had the same idea before large language models existed. From 2013 to 2020 a support bot needed long manual setup, with hand-written FAQs and decision trees, and still failed on real questions, so each customer cost too much to serve. Large language models removed most of that setup. In 2023 a bot could read a Notion workspace or a 5,000,000-word blog and answer from it on the first day, which is why two people at a small studio could build one and sell it within about three weeks.", "The other cause of death is still present. Hipmob and Niles failed when larger products added the same feature, and Chat Thing faces the same risk: OpenAI's GPTs since November 2023, help desks such as Intercom and Zendesk, and many small builders. The company's own site has comparison pages against eleven named products. Its answer so far is breadth and price: many data sources, channels and models, a published test of the models, a free plan and a US$14 plan." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The timing, no. The method, yes.", "text": "A no-code chatbot trained on your own content was new in March 2023 and is a crowded product now, also sold by the model makers themselves. What can still be copied is the method: a prototype on a tool you already use within a week, a waitlist filled by public progress posts, early users whose own posts bring traffic, and frequent releases at low prices.", "steps": [ "Build the first version on top of a tool that your team already uses, here Notion, and ship it within a month.", "Post short demo videos while you build, and collect a waitlist before you open sign-ups.", "Invite users in small batches and charge from the first weeks.", "Serve well-known early users well: one link from Seth Godin's blog brought a traffic spike." ], "open": "Narrow versions for one trade or one language, voice and phone answering for small firms, and test results that show a business which model answers its own customers best." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Founder figures only", "text": "Both revenue figures come from the founders: £5,000 a month in their own post of June 2023, and US$12,000 a month in their Indie Hackers interview, which this page could read only as eBiz Facts quoted it. The company files its accounts without the profit and loss account, so the register cannot confirm the revenue. No figure after 2024 was found." }, { "title": "The model makers sell the same idea", "text": "On 6 November 2023 OpenAI launched GPTs: anyone can build a custom ChatGPT with extra knowledge and no coding. Customers asked the founders whether OpenAI had \"just killed Chat Thing\". Their answer was more data sources, conversation history and channels outside ChatGPT. Each new feature from a model maker can raise the same question again." }, { "title": "Many builders compete", "text": "Competitors appeared within weeks of the March 2023 launch, the founders wrote. In 2026 the company's own site has comparison pages against eleven named products, from small builders such as Chatbase and DocsBot to help desks such as Intercom and Zendesk." }, { "title": "Growth slowed early", "text": "Three months after launch the founders wrote that growth had slowed a lot in the last month, as the AI hype cooled and more competitors arrived. By November 2024 the figure was US$12,000 a month, close to but below the goal of £10,000 that they set in June 2023 (about US$12,627 at that month's rate)." }, { "title": "Dependence on model providers", "text": "Every answer uses tokens bought from a model provider. In 2023 the bots ran on OpenAI's models, with nearly 1 billion OpenAI tokens used by June, and in March 2024 a price cut by OpenAI let the company almost double its token allowances. The reverse can also happen: prices, model changes and terms set by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or the router OpenRouter change Chat Thing's costs." }, { "title": "Two founders, two businesses", "text": "The founders also run Pixelhop, a studio that builds for clients, and run Chat Thing alongside it. Chat Thing Ltd reports no employees, and its balance sheet showed net liabilities of £4,068 in April 2025." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Pixelhop blog, 12 June 2023, by Jozef Maxted: The story of Chat Thing, bootstrapping our first side project to £5000 MRR in under 3 months", "url": "https://pixelhop.io/writing/the-story-of-chat-thing-bootstrapping-our-first-side-project-to-pound5000-mrr-in-under-3-months/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The founder's own account. Source for the £5,000 monthly recurring revenue, the launch dates, the waitlist, the user counts of 5 June 2023, the slowing growth and the £10,000 goal." }, { "title": "eBiz Facts, by Niall Doherty: Start a Service Business With This $12K/Month AI Chatbot", "url": "https://ebizfacts.com/gemma-vincent-chat-think-12k-mrr-service-business-idea/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Gives US$12,000 monthly revenue for Chat Thing and quotes the title of the founders' Indie Hackers interview. The page says it was updated on 6 March 2025." }, { "title": "Niall Doherty's blog on Goodreads, 14 November 2024: the same eBiz Facts post", "url": "https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/25260097-start-a-service-business-with-this-12k-month-ai-chatbot", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A copy of source 2 with its first publication date, 14 November 2024, and the US$14 price for 3 chatbots." }, { "title": "Indie Hackers: We built a $12k/mo AI chatbot generator while exploring England with our baby", "url": "https://www.indiehackers.com/post/tech/we-built-a-12k-mo-ai-chatbot-generator-while-exploring-england-with-our-baby-n1LB1nqDNUOTObkwG0ir", "grade": "C", "how": "Could not open: the robots.txt of indiehackers.com blocks AI agents. Cited from eBiz Facts' quotation of its title (sources 2 and 3)." }, { "title": "Pixelhop case study: Chat Thing", "url": "https://pixelhop.io/our-work/chat-thing/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Repeats the £5,000 figure of June 2023 (the same figure, not a second one), and states that the product was built without external funding." }, { "title": "Companies House, the UK company register: CHAT THING LTD, company number 14789358", "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14789358", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the overview, officers and filing history pages. Source for the incorporation date, the directors, the nature of business and the filing dates. Names and roles only." }, { "title": "Companies House: accounts of Chat Thing Ltd made up to 30 April 2024", "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14789358/filing-history/MzQzMzQ0NjU1NWFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=xhtml&download=1", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in the machine-readable version. Unaudited small-company accounts without the profit and loss account. Source for cash, creditors, net assets, share capital and the number of employees." }, { "title": "Companies House: accounts of Chat Thing Ltd made up to 30 April 2025", "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14789358/filing-history/MzQ5MjE4MjgxNGFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=xhtml&download=1", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full in the machine-readable version. Same form as source 7, with the 2024 figures for comparison." }, { "title": "Chat Thing pricing page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://chatthing.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The prices are in the page text, not loaded by script." }, { "title": "Chat Thing models page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://chatthing.ai/models", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the model list and the SupportBench table of scores. Source for the 20+ models and the 10,000+ users claim." }, { "title": "Chat Thing list of sub-processors, updated 29 July 2026", "url": "https://chatthing.ai/legal/sub-processors", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the database, hosting, network, payment, analytics, email and model-routing services." }, { "title": "Chat Thing blog, 30 November 2023: OpenAI GPTs vs Chat Thing", "url": "https://chatthing.ai/blog/open-ai-gpts-vs-chat-thing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The founders' answer to customers who asked whether GPTs had ended Chat Thing." }, { "title": "OpenAI, 6 November 2023: Introducing GPTs", "url": "https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpts/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the announcement. Source for the launch date and for what GPTs do." }, { "title": "Chat Thing changelog, 20 March 2024: More tokens for everyone", "url": "https://chatthing.ai/blog/more-tokens-for-everyone", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the default model and the effect of OpenAI's price cut." }, { "title": "Seth's Blog, 29 March 2023: Opening the pod bay door", "url": "https://seths.blog/2023/03/opening-the-pod-bay-door/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Seth Godin announces an AI chat bot trained on all 5,000,000 words of his blog and links to it on chatthing.ai." }, { "title": "Pixelhop blog, 11 January 2024, by Gemma Vincent: Navigating the year, setting and achieving SMART goals in a small company", "url": "https://pixelhop.io/writing/navigating-the-year-setting-and-achieving-smart-goals-in-a-small-company/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Says that the two founders run two businesses, Pixelhop and Chat Thing, and set goals for both. No figures." }, { "title": "Pixelhop about page, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://pixelhop.io/about/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Describes Pixelhop as a small AI product studio that runs Chat Thing alongside its client work." }, { "title": "Pixelhop blog, 3 February 2026: AI in 2026, how we learned to build smarter", "url": "https://pixelhop.io/writing/ai-in-2026-how-we-learned-to-build-smarter/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Says that Chat Thing keeps growing, with no figures." }, { "title": "Pixelhop blog, 9 September 2026: We built free AI tools for SEO, then realised they could generate leads too", "url": "https://pixelhop.io/writing/free-ai-tools-for-seo-then-realised-they-could-generate-leads-too/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the free tools made for Chat Thing and the lead research done by the studio's AI agent." }, { "title": "Chat Thing sitemap, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://chatthing.ai/sitemap.xml", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Lists 62 blog pages, the free tools, and comparison pages against eleven named competitors." }, { "title": "Federal Reserve, H.10 release: historical rates for the British pound, in US dollars per pound", "url": "https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h10/hist/dat00_uk.htm", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the daily rates. The June 2023 average of the 21 daily values, US$1.2627 per pound, was computed with python3." }, { "title": "Chat Thing terms of service, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://chatthing.ai/legal/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The footer gives company number 14789358, which is Chat Thing Ltd in the register, and says the site is built by Pixelhop." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/rankai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/rankai.md", "slug": "rankai", "name": "RankAI", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI service that runs search optimization and AI-answer visibility", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-15", "launchLabel": "1 June 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$56.5K a month in recurring revenue, July 2026", "sticker": "$678K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 678396, "months": 37, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders and 1 more person; Y Combinator lists a team of 3", "fundingLabel": "Y Combinator (Summer 2023) and other investors; amounts not public", "primaryFactor": "Price", "group": "seo-ai-search", "channel": "unknown", "trend": "growing", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Funded", "Running", "B2B", "Search marketing" ], "product": "A business or a marketing agency enters a website. RankAI learns the business and its market, decides which pages the site should have, writes them, publishes them to the site's content management system, fixes technical search problems, measures the results and rewrites pages that do not perform, for Google and for AI assistants. Agencies can resell it under their own brand.", "why": "It sells what a search agency sells, the research, the pages, the publishing and the rewrites, as a monthly service run mostly by software, for a fraction of an agency fee. Agencies resell it under their own brand. In 2026 it added visibility in AI answers, and verified revenue more than doubled between March and July 2026.", "summary": [ "RankAI sells search engine optimization (SEO), the work of making a website appear high in Google results for the searches that its buyers type, as a service that runs mostly by itself. It reads the customer's site and market, chooses which pages should exist, writes them with language models, programs trained on large amounts of text that write text, publishes them to the customer's own website and rewrites the ones that do not perform. It now also sells answer engine optimization, the same work aimed at being named in the answers of AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity. Businesses buy it for their own sites. Marketing agencies buy a white-label version, which means that the agency resells the service under its own brand.", "Y Combinator's directory lists two co-founders: Dyllan Liu, the chief executive, and Hugo (Kanghong) Zhan, the technology chief. Both worked in engineering at Amazon and studied at UC Berkeley. The company was founded in 2023 and went through Y Combinator's Summer 2023 batch in San Francisco. In September 2024 its plans cost US$69 and US$129 a month. In July 2026 its monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the total of all active subscriptions for one month, was US$56,533 from 155 subscriptions. That is a run rate, one month multiplied by twelve, of about US$678,000 a year. Revenue had been about US$21,000 a month from November 2025 to March 2026 and reached US$54,841 in July 2026.", "The revenue figures are grade A: TrustMRR reads them from the company's account at Stripe, its payment processor, through an API key, a password that lets one program read data from another. That key expired on 30 July 2026, so no figure on this page is later than that day. RankAI took venture money from Y Combinator and, by its own account, from others. Y Combinator lists a team of three, and the same directory now lists Dyllan Liu under former founders. The page also shows four failed companies that sold traffic from platforms that they did not control." ], "factsCaption": "Monthly recurring revenue of US$56,533 in July 2026, read from Stripe by TrustMRR, three years after a Y Combinator batch", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from the company's Stripe account through TrustMRR, as of the last sync on 30 July 2026. A grade B value is published by Y Combinator about its own investment. A grade C value is a company statement or a third-party directory. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a Y Combinator batch in 2023 to US$56,533 in monthly recurring revenue in July 2026, in 37 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "RankAI prices in October 2026 from its agency page, and the 2024 prices from an archived copy of its homepage (grade C)", "note": "The current site publishes one price: the Autonomous Agent plan for agencies starts at US$49 a month for each client site, with bulk pricing, and the page does not say whether yearly billing is cheaper. The Expert-Led Full Service plan for agencies and the plan for businesses have no published price: the buyer books a call or a demo. The two 2024 rows come from the Wayback Machine, where each price was shown next to a higher crossed-out price. In July 2026 the average monthly recurring revenue per active subscription was about US$365 (calculated: 56,533 divided by 155).", "rows": [ [ "Autonomous Agent, for agencies", "", "from 49", "per client site; bulk pricing available" ], [ "Expert-Led Full Service, for agencies", "custom", "custom", "dedicated strategist" ], [ "For businesses", "not published", "not published", "book a demo; the TrustMRR profile says a self-serve plan exists" ], [ "Starter, September 2024", "", "69", "2 blog posts a week; shown next to US$109" ], [ "Advanced, September 2024", "", "129", "10 blog posts a week; shown next to US$199" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 30 July 2026", "value": "US$56,533", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot from the Stripe API at the last sync. The profile gives MRR growth of 26.9% in the last 30 days of synced data.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the 30 days to 30 July 2026", "value": "US$54,910", "grade": "A", "note": "Stored snapshot from the last sync. The profile gives growth of 38.0% against the 30 days before.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from that MRR", "value": "about US$678,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 56,533 times 12 equals 678,396. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions, 30 July 2026", "value": "155", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot from Stripe.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average MRR per active subscription", "value": "about US$365 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 56,533 divided by 155 equals 364.7. The profile does not show how the amounts are spread.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the profile's last 12 months", "value": "US$290,278", "grade": "A", "note": "The ten monthly rows, October 2025 to July 2026, add up to US$290,277 (calculated), the same figure within rounding. So the window holds no payments after 30 July 2026: at most ten months of data, October 2025 to July 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly average over those 12 months", "value": "about US$24,190", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 290,278 divided by 12. It is below the mid-2026 level, because the window ends with more than two months without data.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue since the start", "value": "US$376,985", "grade": "A", "note": "All-time figure from Stripe, as of 30 July 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Share of all revenue earned in the last 12 months", "value": "77%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 290,278 divided by 376,985 equals 0.770. The remaining US$86,707 came before October 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue, November 2025 to March 2026", "value": "US$18,016 to US$22,640", "grade": "A", "note": "Average US$20,833 a month (calculated).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue, April to July 2026", "value": "US$37,029, US$41,775, US$39,865 and US$54,841", "grade": "A", "note": "July 2026 is 31% above May 2026, the best earlier month, and 2.4 times March 2026 (calculated).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue synced after 30 July 2026", "value": "none", "grade": "A", "note": "The profile states that the Stripe API key expired at 21:04 UTC on 30 July 2026; the last sync was at 15:04 UTC that day. Its daily rows from 16 September to 15 October 2026 show US$0.00, and its 3-month total, US$15,967, is lower than July alone, so it covers days after the last sync. Without synced data these are not verified falls in revenue.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "3 people", "grade": "C", "note": "Team size in the Y Combinator directory, read 15 October 2026. The November 2024 launch post lists the same number: the two co-founders and a third team member who had grown FlowGPT to 4 million users through search traffic.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Accelerator", "value": "Y Combinator, Summer 2023 batch", "grade": "B", "note": "Y Combinator's own directory. Its standard deal is US$500,000 for 7% of the company plus an uncapped SAFE; no source says what RankAI received.", "src": [ 2, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Other investors", "value": "Treeo VC, and a seed stage dated December 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "Listed by the funding directory VCBacked, without an amount. No press report of a funding round was found.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "Microsoft, OpenAI and a16z", "value": "logos under 'Backed by world-class investors'", "grade": "C", "note": "Homepage. The TrustMRR description reads 'Investors from YCombinator, OpenAI, A16z, etc.', which can mean people who work there. No source says that Microsoft, OpenAI or a16z invested as companies.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "First published prices, September 2024", "value": "US$69 and US$129 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Archived homepage: Starter with 2 blog posts a week, Advanced with 10 a week.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Entry price for agencies, October 2026", "value": "from US$49 a month per client site", "grade": "C", "note": "Agency page. Plans for businesses are sold through a demo call.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Pages on rankai.ai, October 2026", "value": "497", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: counted in the sitemap on 15 October 2026. 368 articles, 53 blog posts, 22 comparison pages (17 with named SEO and AI-search competitors, 5 with website builders, Claude Code and content management systems), 16 free SEO tools and 15 education pages.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "How customers arrive", "value": "not stated by any source", "grade": "C", "note": "The November 2024 launch post asked readers for introductions to small businesses. In 2026 the company sells through agencies and publishes its own articles and free SEO tools. No source says which brought most customers.", "src": [ 3, 5, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "LineUpp, Corp.", "grade": "C", "note": "Terms of service, governed by California law.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Time from founding to the July 2026 figure", "value": "37 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: June 2023 to July 2026. The founding date is the one in the TrustMRR profile; no source gives a release date.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "1 June 2023", "what": "Founding date in the TrustMRR profile. Y Combinator's directory gives the founding year as 2023.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "Summer 2023", "what": "Y Combinator's Summer 2023 batch, San Francisco. Y Combinator's standard deal is US$500,000; no source says what RankAI received.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 2, 10 ] }, { "when": "12 September 2024", "what": "The earliest archived homepage calls RankAI an AI SEO agency that is 20 times cheaper, with plans at US$69 and US$129 a month for 2 or 10 blog posts a week. Parts of the page still carry placeholder text from a website template.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "13 November 2024", "what": "Launch post on Y Combinator's site: AI agents that replace marketing agencies. Five automated steps, from crawling the customer's site to publishing weekly blog posts. A team of three.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "December 2024", "what": "The funding directory VCBacked dates a seed stage to December 2024, with Y Combinator and Treeo VC as investors and no amount.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "October 2025", "what": "First month in the profile's verified monthly table: US$12,604.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "November 2025 to March 2026", "what": "Verified revenue stays between US$18,016 and US$22,640 a month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "April 2026", "what": "Revenue rises to US$37,029, 64% above March (calculated).", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "July 2026", "what": "Best month in the table: US$54,841. Monthly recurring revenue of US$56,533 from 155 active subscriptions.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "30 July 2026", "what": "Last revenue sync at 15:04 UTC. The Stripe API key that TrustMRR uses expires at 21:04 UTC the same day. No figures after this date.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "The site sells search optimization, answer engine optimization and conversion work, with a white-label agency plan from US$49 a month per client. Y Combinator's directory shows the company as active with a team of 3, Hugo (Kanghong) Zhan as active founder and Dyllan Liu under former founders.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 4, 5 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Price", "text": "The 2024 launch post says that small business owners still pay thousands for marketing agencies, and that RankAI's first agent makes the SEO process 20 times more affordable. The archived 2024 homepage offered plans at US$69 and US$129 a month, against the US$1,000 to more than US$10,000 that the same page says businesses spend on agencies." }, { "title": "The full cycle, done for the customer", "text": "The launch post lists five steps: crawl the site, suggest technical fixes based on Google's guide, research keywords, write the content, and publish the fixes and weekly blog posts to the live site. The 2026 homepage adds measuring and rewriting: RankAI researches, publishes, measures, and rewrites. The terms of service describe the content as AI-generated and human-reviewed." }, { "title": "Agencies resell it", "text": "The agency page offers a white-label plan from US$49 a month per client site. It says that agencies resell this work at US$2,000 to US$6,000 a month in the U.S., and that RankAI aims to leave them at least 40% margin. Agencies are the first target persona in the TrustMRR profile." }, { "title": "From Google to AI answers", "text": "By October 2026 the product menu lists search engine optimization, answer engine optimization, conversion rate optimization and analytics, and the homepage names Google, ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity as the places where pages should appear. Verified revenue went from US$22,640 in March 2026 to US$37,029 in April and US$54,841 in July. No source says which change caused the rise." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's own pages and from the founder-written part of the TrustMRR profile. They are grade C, except the payment provider, which TrustMRR verifies.", "items": [ "Next.js for the website, and OpenAI and Stripe in the backend, as the tech stack in the TrustMRR profile lists them. No source names a model.", "Stripe takes the subscription payments. TrustMRR reads them through a Stripe API key, which expired on 30 July 2026.", "It publishes to the customer's content management system: the homepage names Webflow, Framer and WordPress, and a question in the FAQ also names Next.js and Sanity.", "The terms of service list website audits, technical fixes, keyword research, AI-generated and human-reviewed content, reporting, and integrations such as Google Search Console.", "Agency customers get white-label reports, one dashboard for all client accounts and a shared Slack channel for support.", "The company's own site follows the same method: its sitemap lists 497 pages in October 2026, including 368 articles, 53 blog posts, 22 comparison pages and 16 free SEO tools.", "The operating company is LineUpp, Corp. Its terms are governed by California law." ], "src": [ 1, 4, 5, 6, 8 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold small businesses and brands more traffic from a platform that they did not control, or content made mainly to rank. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "PostRocket", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$610K", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "Data-driven timing and tuning of Facebook posts, so that brands reach more people.", "died": "The product depended on Facebook's API and News Feed algorithm. Facebook changed both and moved brands toward paid ads.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/457-postrocket" }, { "name": "Waterproof Digital Camera", "years": "2013 to 2017", "funding": "US$0", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "Camera reviews written to rank in Google and earn affiliate commissions from Amazon.", "died": "It ranked through aggressive search tactics. Google's algorithm updates took away the traffic, and the commissions with it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2023-waterproof-digital-camera" }, { "name": "LocalOn", "years": "2013 to 2016", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Websites, social media and local search visibility for small shops, without coding.", "died": "Small businesses chose Shopify and Wix, which offered more. It ran out of money before it stood out.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1548-localon" }, { "name": "Pressly", "years": "2011 to 2018", "funding": "US$2.9M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Content curation that keeps a brand's audience supplied with relevant posts with less effort.", "died": "Larger marketing suites added curation as one feature among many, and a single-purpose tool could not stand out.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/462-pressly" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the four sold traffic or content for a business, and each depended on a platform that decided how much attention the work received: Facebook's feed for PostRocket, Google's ranking for the affiliate blog, or a small-business market that larger platforms served better. The affiliate blog is the closest case: it made pages mainly to rank, and Google's updates removed the traffic.", "Two things differ. First, language models make the writing and publishing cheap enough to sell the result of an agency for tens or hundreds of dollars a month, and agencies resell it at their own price. Second, the pages go on the customer's own site, about the customer's own products, and the terms say a person reviews them. The old risk remains: Google and the AI assistants decide how many visitors those pages receive." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. Being early, no.", "text": "The method is public and several small teams sell it: an automated search service at a monthly price, sold to businesses directly and to agencies under their own brand. RankAI started in 2023 with Y Combinator's money and network, and its own site now carries 17 pages that compare it with named competitors.", "steps": [ "Sell the result that an agency sells, research, pages, publishing and rewrites, for a monthly fee that a small business can pay.", "Publish to the customer's own site and content management system, so that there is nothing to migrate.", "Give agencies a white-label version and a margin, so that they resell it to their clients.", "Add visibility in AI answers as assistants take a share of searches.", "Keep a human review step and add pages only where they help a reader, because of Google's scaled content abuse policy." ], "open": "Search and AI-answer visibility for one platform or one industry, for example online stores or local services, where a narrow service can show results quickly." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Google's scaled content abuse policy", "text": "On 5 March 2024 Google announced its March 2024 core update and three new spam policies. One is scaled content abuse: many pages generated for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings and not helping users, whether made by automation, by people or by both. One example in the policy is using generative AI tools to generate many pages without adding value for users. RankAI writes and publishes pages automatically, so its customers pass this test only where the pages add value for readers. Its terms say the content is human-reviewed, and in 2024 its larger plan offered 10 blog posts a week." }, { "title": "AI answers take clicks", "text": "Pew Research Center studied the browsing of 900 U.S. adults in March 2025 and published on 22 July 2025: users who saw a Google AI summary clicked a normal search result in 8% of visits, against 15% for users who did not see one, and clicked a link inside the summary in 1% of visits. RankAI now also sells visibility inside such answers, but a mention in an answer can bring fewer visits than a high ranking used to." }, { "title": "Same field, compared", "text": "This site's stories on SEObot (two co-founders, no outside money by the founder's statement, US$888,000 in the 12 months to October 2026) and ChatSEO (three co-founders, no outside money by the founders' statement, a run rate of US$385,000 a year in October 2026) describe the same automated search service; RankAI's run rate of about US$678,000 a year in July 2026 falls between them, and it is the only one of the three with venture money." }, { "title": "The verified figures stop on 30 July 2026", "text": "TrustMRR states that the Stripe API key expired on 30 July 2026, and nothing has been synced since. The profile does not say why. This does not show that revenue stopped or fell: the zeros after that date are missing data. It also means that nobody outside the company can see whether the growth of April to July 2026 continued." }, { "title": "Dependence on model providers", "text": "The only model provider that any source names is OpenAI, in the founder-written tech stack. A price rise, a policy change or an outage at that provider changes the cost and the output of every page RankAI writes. The homepage FAQ asks: why can't I just use Claude or ChatGPT? So the company itself treats the general AI assistants as a substitute for its service." }, { "title": "A change of founders", "text": "The Y Combinator directory describes Dyllan Liu as co-founder and chief executive, the 2024 launch post lists him in the team, and the TrustMRR profile still names its founder as Dyllan. The Y Combinator directory now lists him under former founders, with Hugo (Kanghong) Zhan as the active founder. No source says when or why this changed." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR markdown profile of RankAI, revenue verified from Stripe, last synced 30 July 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/rankai.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile on 15 October 2026. The revenue, MRR and subscription figures in its Verification Sources section are grade A; the description, funding, investors and tech stack are founder-written, grade C." }, { "title": "Y Combinator company directory: Rankai", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/rankai", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the batch, founding year, team size, location, status and the active and former founders." }, { "title": "Launch YC, 13 November 2024: Rankai, AI Agents that Replace Marketing Agencies", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/MFe-rankai-ai-agents-that-replace-marketing-agencies", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full (the page's data file). Founder-written launch post. Source for the thesis, the five steps and the team." }, { "title": "RankAI homepage, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://rankai.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the product, the plans, the investor logos and the customer stories." }, { "title": "RankAI for agencies, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://rankai.ai/agency", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the only published price and the reseller terms." }, { "title": "RankAI terms of service", "url": "https://rankai.ai/tos", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the operator, the services and governing law." }, { "title": "RankAI homepage archived by the Wayback Machine, 12 September 2024", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20240912184049/https://www.rankai.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The earliest snapshot; no snapshot of a pricing page exists. Source for the 2024 plans and prices." }, { "title": "RankAI sitemap, read 15 October 2026", "url": "https://rankai.ai/sitemap.xml", "grade": "C", "how": "Downloaded and counted the 497 page addresses by section." }, { "title": "VCBacked: Rankai funding and investors", "url": "https://www.vcbacked.co/company/rankai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party funding directory. Source for the seed stage and Treeo VC; it gives no amount." }, { "title": "Y Combinator: the YC deal", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/deal", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the deal terms. It describes the standard deal, not what RankAI received." }, { "title": "Google Search Central: spam policies for Google web search", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the section on scaled content abuse." }, { "title": "Google Search Central Blog, 5 March 2024: What web creators should know about our March 2024 core update and new spam policies", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the sections on the core update and the new spam policies." }, { "title": "Pew Research Center, 22 July 2025: Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results", "url": "https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Source for the click rates with and without an AI summary." }, { "title": "Aiolum stories on SEObot and ChatSEO", "url": "https://aiolum.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the two story files on this site for the one-sentence comparison." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/audionotes/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/audionotes.md", "slug": "audionotes", "name": "AudioNotes", "country": "India", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI voice notes and transcription app", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "May 2023", "outcomeLabel": "About US$7.2K a month, August 2024", "sticker": "$7.2K a month", "outcomeUsd": 85831, "months": 15, "teamLabel": "1 founder (Latka counts 1 person in November 2023), a studio of 5 people by 2026", "fundingLabel": "None found", "primaryFactor": "Timing", "group": "voice-audio", "channel": "unknown", "trend": "unknown", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Productivity" ], "product": "An AI note-taking app for speech: record a voice note or upload audio, video or text, and get a transcript, a summary, meeting minutes, an email or a social post. It runs on iPhone, Android, the web and a Mac beta, with links to Notion, Zapier, webhooks and WhatsApp.", "why": "It started two months after OpenAI's Whisper API made accurate transcription cheap, and it sold the step after the transcript: a summary, minutes, an email or a post, sent on to Notion, Zapier or WhatsApp. In 2023 it charged by the year, US$99 or US$199.", "summary": [ "AudioNotes turns speech into finished text. You record a voice note, upload an audio or video file, or type a note, and the app returns a transcript and a structured version of it: a summary, meeting minutes, an email or a social post. A speech-to-text model, a program that converts recorded speech into written words, makes the transcript; the company names OpenAI's Whisper, and its privacy policy also lists Deepgram and AssemblyAI. A large language model, a program trained on large amounts of text to write and rewrite text, makes the structured version; the privacy policy lists OpenAI and Google Gemini for voice-to-text processing and summarization. Results can go to Notion, Zapier, WhatsApp or a webhook, a web address of the customer's own system that receives each note automatically. The apps run on iPhone, Android, the web and a Mac beta, and the company behind them is 1811 Labs, a product studio in Bengaluru, India.", "Vatsal Sanghvi, a BITS Pilani graduate who had worked at Flipkart, founded 1811 Labs in February 2023 and started building AudioNotes in May 2023, two months after OpenAI opened the Whisper API at US$0.006 a minute. In December 2023 it had more than 5,700 registered users and 200 paying customers, at US$99 or US$199 a year. A gaps.com report first published in May 2024 says it made over US$7,000 a month in monthly recurring revenue, the subscription revenue that repeats every month. On 21 August 2024 an Inshorts brief for BuildSchool, a course seller where he was a mentor, said the app makes ₹6 lakh a month. At the August 2024 average of 83.8855 rupees per US dollar, that is about US$7,153 a month, a run rate (the monthly figure times 12) of about US$85,831 a year.", "Every money figure on this page is grade C. Both come from the founder's side, one through a course promotion and one through a report that names no source, and no payment processor confirms them. No figure after August 2024 was found. Between December 2023 and July 2025, Google, Apple and OpenAI put recording, transcription and summaries into their own products. The page also shows earlier companies that sold note-taking against a free, larger product, or built voice technology that the large platforms then built themselves." ], "factsCaption": "A voice-notes app that reached about US$7,000 a month in 2024, by figures from the founder's side", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement from the founder's side, the company's own pages, or a third party that does not name its source. Grade B values are shown by the app stores. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No revenue value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a new domain in May 2023 to about US$7,000 a month in August 2024, in 15 months, and what the large platforms shipped around it. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "AudioNotes prices in October 2026, from the company's pricing page and the App Store listing (grade C)", "note": "The yearly Pro plan is US$129.99, which the page shows as a 64% saving against US$29.99 a month (63.9%, calculated). The monthly price was read from the page's embedded data, because the monthly view loads by script. The App Store lists more in-app prices, including weekly plans from US$3.99 to US$12.99 and other yearly prices of US$89.99 and US$99.99. In December 2023 gaps.com reported US$99 a year for the personal plan and US$199 a year for the pro plan, with lifetime plans at double. The company gives no refunds for paid plans.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "voice notes of up to 1 minute each; unlimited text notes" ], [ "Pro", "10.83", "29.99", "US$129.99 billed yearly; recordings up to 6 hours, files up to 500 MB" ], [ "Enterprise", "custom", "custom", "teams of 5 or more" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month, August 2024", "value": "₹6 lakh (₹600,000)", "grade": "C", "note": "Inshorts brief, 21 August 2024: BuildSchool, a course seller where the founder was a mentor, is reported as \"stating that his Audionotes app makes ₹6 lakh/month\". The words do not say recurring revenue. A lakh is 100,000 rupees.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "The same figure in US dollars", "value": "about US$7,153 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: ₹600,000 divided by 83.8855 rupees per US dollar, the average of the Federal Reserve's 22 daily rates for August 2024.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the August 2024 figure", "value": "about US$85,831 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$7,152.61 times 12. This is the headline number on this page.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue reported by gaps.com", "value": "over US$7,000", "grade": "C", "note": "gaps.com report, first published 6 May 2024 and updated 2 May 2025. It says \"now\" without a date and names no source. No 2024 copy is in the Wayback Machine, so the month of this figure is not verified.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Users, December 2023", "value": "more than 5,700 registered users, 200 paying customers", "grade": "C", "note": "gaps.com, as of December 2023.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Recurring revenue that 200 yearly customers would give", "value": "about US$1,650 to US$3,317 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 200 times US$99 or US$199, divided by 12. It assumes every paying customer was on a yearly plan. So the recurring revenue of over US$7,000 a month was reached after December 2023.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Annual revenue recorded by Latka, November 2023", "value": "US$17,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Latka marks the source as \"not recorded\". That is about US$1,417 a month (calculated: divided by 12), in line with the December 2023 customer count.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Total from all the founder's AI products, August 2024", "value": "more than ₹80 lakh (₹8,000,000) in 18 months, about US$95,368", "grade": "C", "note": "Inshorts headline. This total is not AudioNotes alone: the same brief says that Podnotes, another of his products, made ₹40 lakh in 10 months. Conversion at the August 2024 rate (calculated).", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Users, October 2026", "value": "200,000+ users and over 1 million notes", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's about page. The number of paying users is not stated.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Team, November 2023", "value": "1 person", "grade": "C", "note": "Latka: \"1 person lists AudioNotes as their employer on LinkedIn (November 2023).\" The App Store seller is the founder as an individual.", "src": [ 7, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Team of the parent studio, October 2026", "value": "5 people, the founder among them", "grade": "C", "note": "1811 Labs calls itself \"A small team of problem solvers and tinkerers in Bengaluru, India\" and names Claude Code and Codex as its \"AI crew\". The five also build the studio's other products.", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "Latka records no funding, and no source read for this page mentions a round.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "App stores, October 2026", "value": "App Store (US): 4.8 from 96 ratings. Google Play: 4.1 from 404 reviews, 10K+ downloads", "grade": "B", "note": "Shown by Apple and Google. The Android app was updated on 6 October 2026.", "src": [ 9, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Price of the top yearly plan", "value": "US$199 in the December 2023 report, US$129.99 in October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "34.7% lower (calculated). The 2026 page also has a free plan with unlimited voice notes of up to 1 minute each.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "1811 Labs, Bengaluru, India", "grade": "C", "note": "The about page says \"Built by 1811 Labs\". The terms are governed by the laws of India, with the courts in Bengaluru, Karnataka. The founder's profile lists him as founder of 1811 Labs since February 2023.", "src": [ 4, 6, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the start of building to the August 2024 figure", "value": "15 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: May 2023 to August 2024.", "src": [ 2, 4 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "February 2023", "what": "Vatsal Sanghvi founds 1811 Labs, after roles at Entrepreneur First, Flipkart and Omidyar Network India, according to his profile.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "1 March 2023", "what": "OpenAI opens its Whisper speech-to-text model through the API at US$0.006 a minute.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "3 May 2023", "what": "First capture of audionotes.app in the Wayback Machine. The company says it started building AudioNotes that month.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 12, 4 ] }, { "when": "After August 2023", "what": "A redesign after customer feedback, with new features. gaps.com links it to a rise in income.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "November 2023", "what": "Latka records US$17,000 in annual revenue and 1 person on LinkedIn.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "6 December 2023", "what": "Google's Recorder app on the Pixel 8 Pro gets summaries from Gemini Nano, a model that runs on the phone.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 19 ] }, { "when": "December 2023", "what": "More than 5,700 registered users and 200 paying customers, at US$99 or US$199 a year.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "6 May 2024", "what": "gaps.com publishes a report that lists AudioNotes at over US$7,000 a month in recurring revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "10 June 2024", "what": "Apple announces that its Notes and Phone apps can record, transcribe and summarize audio.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 18 ] }, { "when": "21 August 2024", "what": "An Inshorts brief for BuildSchool says that the app makes ₹6 lakh a month, about US$7,153.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "20 March 2025", "what": "OpenAI releases gpt-4o-transcribe and gpt-4o-mini-transcribe, with lower word error rates than Whisper.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 15 ] }, { "when": "16 July 2025", "what": "ChatGPT's record mode reaches Plus users in the macOS app, for team meetings or voice notes.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 16 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "200,000+ users and Pro at US$29.99 a month or US$129.99 a year. The parent studio lists five people.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 5, 11 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Built on a model that had just become cheap", "text": "The company's own account starts with Whisper: \"When OpenAI released Whisper, transcription suddenly became dramatically better, and almost overnight, commoditized.\" The Whisper API cost US$0.006 a minute from 1 March 2023, which is US$0.36 for an hour of audio (calculated). AudioNotes started two months later, so the hardest part, speech recognition, was rented by the minute instead of built." }, { "title": "Sell the step after the transcript", "text": "The app does not stop at the words. It turns a recording or a note into a summary, meeting minutes, an email or a social post, in a style and length that the user chooses. The Pro plan adds custom prompts and chat with your notes." }, { "title": "Send the result where people work", "text": "Links to Zapier, Notion and WhatsApp were part of the product by the 2024 report. In 2026 the Pro plan includes Notion, Zapier and webhooks, and the site offers a WhatsApp bot." }, { "title": "Yearly plans", "text": "In 2023 the plans were US$99 and US$199 a year, with lifetime plans at double. In 2026 the yearly Pro plan is US$129.99 against US$29.99 a month, and the page shows the yearly plan as a 64% saving." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's own pages and files (grade C) and from the app stores (grade B).", "items": [ "Speech-to-text: the pricing page names \"OpenAI's Whisper and other audio models\". The privacy policy lists Deepgram and AssemblyAI \"for speech-to-text transcription\", and OpenAI and Google Gemini \"for AI-based voice-to-text processing and summarization\".", "Text generation: \"we use OpenAI's models to power our AI features\", with OpenAI's data training turned off for its content, according to the same page.", "Payments: Stripe on the web and the app stores of Apple and Google, according to the privacy and refund policies.", "The affiliate program runs on Lemon Squeezy, which gives each affiliate a tracked link; commissions are paid by PayPal.", "The website is built with Next.js: its robots.txt file refers to the /_next/static/ folder and to next.config.mjs.", "Apps for iPhone, Android, the web and a Mac beta. The iPhone app is sold under the founder's own name, with in-app plans from US$3.99 a week to US$129.99 a year.", "The home page loads Google's analytics tag, gtag.js.", "The company scores summary quality on its comparison pages with GPT-4o as the judge: a language model that rates each summary against a fixed rubric.", "In 2026 the parent studio says that Claude Code \"Writes all the code\" and that Codex \"Plans everything. Tests everything.\"" ], "src": [ 5, 25, 26, 22, 21, 9, 23, 11 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold note-taking against a free, larger product, or built voice technology that the large platforms then built themselves. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Transpose", "years": "2012 to 2018", "funding": "None", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "First launched as KustomNote: a more flexible Evernote, later for business teams.", "died": "It could not give Evernote users a reason to switch, and it charged for plans without outside money to compete with a larger, established product.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1849-transpose" }, { "name": "Springpad", "years": "2008 to 2014", "funding": "US$7.5M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Save and organize articles, recipes and notes in one place, as an Evernote competitor.", "died": "Users valued the free product, but premium features and business plans did not sell, and development fell behind Evernote.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1893-springpad" }, { "name": "VocalIQ", "years": "2011 to 2017", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Voice interfaces that learn from context, for assistants and cars.", "died": "Apple, Google and Amazon, with more money, moved faster with their own voice technology. Apple bought it in 2015, which ended it as an independent company.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/719-vocaliq" }, { "name": "Tellme", "years": "1999 to 2011", "funding": "US$238M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Information and transactions by voice over the phone, with speech recognition.", "died": "Smartphones moved people to apps with screens, and Google and Amazon built their own AI voice products.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/612-tellme" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Transpose and Springpad sold note-taking against Evernote, a larger product that people already used for free, and could not give users a reason to pay or to switch. VocalIQ and Tellme built voice technology and lost to Apple, Google and Amazon, which built their own. AudioNotes carries both risks at once: it is a paid notes app, and Apple, Google and OpenAI now record, transcribe and summarize inside their own products.", "Two things differ. The costly part, speech recognition, is now rented from a model provider by the minute, so one person could start in 2023 without outside money, while VocalIQ raised US$2 million and Tellme US$238 million to build their own voice systems. And the product sells the steps after the transcript: a finished summary, minutes, an email or a post, sent on to Notion, Zapier, webhooks or WhatsApp. The open question for AudioNotes is whether those steps stay worth paying for while the built-in tools improve." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The same product, no.", "text": "In May 2023 a clean transcript with a summary was new for most people, and Whisper had just made it cheap. In 2026 Apple, Google and OpenAI include recording, transcription and summaries in their own products, and Otter gives 300 minutes a month for free. The method still works for a narrower user, where a fixed output format matters more than the transcript.", "steps": [ "When a model becomes cheap through an API, build a product around it within weeks and charge from the start.", "Turn the model's raw output into a finished document that a person needs: minutes, an email, a post.", "Send the result to the tools where the user already works, such as Notion, Zapier or WhatsApp.", "Sell yearly plans and show the saving against the monthly price." ], "open": "Voice-to-document tools for one kind of user with a fixed output, such as medical, sales or lecture notes, where a general summary is not enough." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Second-hand figures from the founder's side", "text": "No payment processor confirms either revenue figure. The ₹6 lakh figure is a course seller's claim, relayed in a short news brief. The gaps.com figure has no named source and no exact month. The two agree, about US$7,000 a month, but neither is independent." }, { "title": "A course promotion as a source", "text": "The Inshorts brief promotes BuildSchool, where the founder was a mentor, and its link leads to a GrowthSchool course application form, not to an article. A course seller has a reason to show high incomes for its mentors. The brief's ₹80 lakh headline is the total of several products over 18 months, not AudioNotes alone." }, { "title": "No figure after August 2024", "text": "No revenue figure from 2025 or 2026 was found, so the trend is unknown. Users grew to 200,000+ by 2026, but the number of paying users is not given, and the top yearly price fell from US$199 to US$129.99." }, { "title": "The platforms ship the same feature", "text": "Google added summaries to the Recorder app on the Pixel 8 Pro on 6 December 2023. Apple announced on 10 June 2024 that Notes and Phone can \"record, transcribe, and summarize audio\". OpenAI gave ChatGPT Plus users a record mode on macOS on 16 July 2025 for \"team meetings or voice notes\". These come with a phone or a subscription that many users already have, and Otter's free Basic plan includes 300 transcription minutes a month." }, { "title": "Cheaper and better speech-to-text for everyone", "text": "The transcript is no longer scarce. Whisper cost US$0.006 a minute in 2023, and in March 2025 OpenAI released two newer transcription models with a lower word error rate, the share of words that a model gets wrong. Every competitor gets the same models on the same day, so users compare the price of the app. AudioNotes added a free plan and cut its top yearly price by 34.7% between the 2023 report and 2026." }, { "title": "Dependence on model providers", "text": "The pricing page says that OpenAI's models power the AI features, and the privacy policy lists four providers: OpenAI and Google Gemini for processing and summaries, Deepgram and AssemblyAI for transcription. Several providers make a switch possible when one raises its price or fails, but the company owns none of the models, and a change at any of them reaches every user." }, { "title": "One founder's time, several products", "text": "Latka counted one person in November 2023. By 2026 the founder runs a studio of five people that also builds HomeDesignAI, UGC Pulse and marketing agents, and that sells advice including \"TikTok UGC at scale\". How much of the team's time goes to AudioNotes is not known." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "gaps.com: AI Content Report, 17 Startups Generating $1.5M in MRR, first published 6 May 2024, updated 2 May 2025", "url": "https://gaps.com/ai-content/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on AudioNotes (number 4). The page names no source for its figures, and no 2024 copy is in the Wayback Machine, so the month of the US$7,000 figure is not verified." }, { "title": "Inshorts, 21 August 2024: Vatsal has built AI products to make ₹80L+ in 18 months: BuildSchool", "url": "https://inshorts.com/en/news/vatsal-has-built-ai-products-to-make--80l--in-18-months--buildschool-1724211003096", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full (a 60-word brief). It reports a claim by BuildSchool, a course seller; it is a promotion, not reporting. Source for the ₹6 lakh a month and the ₹80 lakh total." }, { "title": "Federal Reserve Board, H.10 historical rates: India, rupees per US dollar", "url": "https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h10/hist/dat00_in.htm", "grade": "A", "how": "Downloaded the daily table and averaged the 22 business days of August 2024 with python3: 83.8855. Used only for the conversion; it says nothing about AudioNotes." }, { "title": "AudioNotes: About, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.audionotes.app/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the May 2023 start, the Whisper account, the 200,000+ users and the 1811 Labs name." }, { "title": "AudioNotes: Plans and Pricing, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.audionotes.app/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The monthly price (US$29.99) was read from the page's embedded data because the monthly view loads by script. Source for the FAQ on Whisper and OpenAI." }, { "title": "AudioNotes: Terms of Service", "url": "https://www.audionotes.app/tos", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on governing law and jurisdiction." }, { "title": "Latka company page: AudioNotes revenue", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/audionotes.app", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party record: it marks the revenue source as not recorded and counts profiles on LinkedIn." }, { "title": "Peerlist: Resume of Vatsal Sanghvi", "url": "https://peerlist.io/vatsalsanghvi/resume", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The founder's own profile: founder of 1811 Labs since February 2023, and his earlier roles." }, { "title": "Apple App Store listing (US): Audionotes: Audio Notes AI, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/audionotes-audio-notes-ai/id6736822144", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. The seller, the ratings and the in-app price list are shown by Apple; the description is the developer's." }, { "title": "Google Play listing: Audionotes: AI Notes & Minutes, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.labs.audionotes&hl=en-US", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. The developer name, download range, reviews and update date are shown by Google." }, { "title": "1811 Labs, the parent studio, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://1811labs.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The studio's own description of its team, products and services." }, { "title": "Internet Archive Wayback Machine: first captures of audionotes.app", "url": "http://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=audionotes.app&limit=4", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the capture list: the first capture is from 3 May 2023. The captured page shows only the name, so it does not prove a working product on that day." }, { "title": "Internet Archive copy of link.buildschool.net/inshorts, captured 24 October 2025", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20251024093350/https://link.buildschool.net/inshorts", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The link in the Inshorts brief redirects to a GrowthSchool course application form; no BuildSchool article with the figure was found, and buildschool.net no longer resolves." }, { "title": "OpenAI, 1 March 2023: Introducing ChatGPT and Whisper APIs", "url": "https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-and-whisper-apis/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on the Whisper API and its price." }, { "title": "OpenAI, 20 March 2025: Introducing next-generation audio models in the API", "url": "https://openai.com/index/introducing-our-next-generation-audio-models/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on the new speech-to-text models." }, { "title": "OpenAI Help Center: ChatGPT release notes", "url": "https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6825453-chatgpt-release-notes", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the entry of 16 July 2025 on record mode." }, { "title": "OpenAI Help Center: ChatGPT Record, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://help.openai.com/en/articles/11487532-chatgpt-record", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the overview, which lists the plans that have record mode." }, { "title": "Apple Newsroom, 10 June 2024: Introducing Apple Intelligence for iPhone, iPad, and Mac", "url": "https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/06/introducing-apple-intelligence-for-iphone-ipad-and-mac/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on recording, transcription and summaries in Notes and Phone." }, { "title": "Google, 6 December 2023: Pixel December feature drop", "url": "https://blog.google/products/pixel/pixel-feature-drop-december-2023/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on Summarize in Recorder." }, { "title": "Otter.ai pricing, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://otter.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free Basic plan." }, { "title": "AudioNotes robots.txt, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.audionotes.app/robots.txt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Its comments, dated 5 May 2026 and 12 September 2026, describe search-engine work, and its paths show a Next.js site." }, { "title": "AudioNotes: Affiliate program", "url": "https://www.audionotes.app/affiliates", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the offer: 30% commission when a referred user upgrades." }, { "title": "AudioNotes: Testing Methodology", "url": "https://www.audionotes.app/testing-methodology", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on how summary quality is scored." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." }, { "title": "AudioNotes: Privacy Policy, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.audionotes.app/privacypolicy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the list of model providers (OpenAI, Google Gemini, Deepgram, AssemblyAI) and the payment processors." }, { "title": "AudioNotes: Refund Policy, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.audionotes.app/refundpolicy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the sales channels: Apple App Store, Google Play and Stripe." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/easygen/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/easygen.md", "slug": "easygen", "name": "EasyGen", "country": "France", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI writer for LinkedIn posts", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "exit", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "March 2024", "outcomeLabel": "Sold at an undisclosed price after US$41.5K a month in 2024, October 2026", "sticker": "Sold after $41.5K MRR", "outcomeUsd": 498000, "months": 31, "teamLabel": "1 founder who does not code and 2 employees in late 2024; 8 employees on LinkedIn by July 2025", "fundingLabel": "None (US$0 outside investment, November 2024)", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "audience", "trend": "sold", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Exit", "B2C", "Marketing" ], "product": "A web app and a Chrome extension that write LinkedIn posts. The member picks an industry, a niche and a type of topic, or gives an idea or a voice note, and the AI writes a draft in the member's style; the member edits it and posts it. By 2026 it also showed the best posts of top creators, found trending topics on Reddit, X, Google, Bing and Perplexity, and planned posts in a calendar. It never posted on its own.", "why": "The founder had already built one of the largest audiences on LinkedIn by posting about AI every day, so the product had buyers on the day it launched. It sold one plan at about US$60 a month, as a US$2-a-day ghostwriter against US$2,000 to US$3,000 for a human one, and his employees grew their own accounts with it and sold it for a commission.", "summary": [ "EasyGen is a web app and a Chrome extension, a small program that adds features to the Google Chrome browser, that writes LinkedIn posts with a large language model, an AI system trained on large amounts of text that writes new text from an instruction. The member chooses an industry, a niche and a type of topic, or pastes an idea, and the AI writes a draft that the member edits and then posts. It does not post by itself: the home page says the team decided against automatic posting because it reduces how many people see a post.", "Ruben Hassid, a French creator who says he reached 100 million views on LinkedIn, released it in March 2024. He says he knows no code and took no outside investment. His posts on X, quoted by the newsletter Tiny Startups, give MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the subscription revenue that repeats every month, of US$9,128.66 on 30 June 2024, 92 days after launch, and US$41,532.86 on 29 November 2024, with more than 27,000 users. That is a run rate, the monthly figure times 12, of about US$498,000 a year. Gaps.com later reported US$540,000 in ARR, annual recurring revenue, by May 2025 at the latest. In October 2026 the home page says that EasyGen has been acquired and takes no new signups. The buyer and the price are not public.", "Every money figure is the founder's own statement, grade C. Starter Story and Latka publish estimates that they mark as estimates, and Latka counts 8 employees on LinkedIn in July 2025. The page also shows earlier companies that built tools for people who publish on social networks, on top of platforms that they did not control." ], "factsCaption": "From US$9,128 a month at 92 days to US$41,532 a month about eight months after launch, then US$540,000 a year reported by May 2025, and a sale at an undisclosed price in October 2026, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement in his posts, quoted by newsletters and reports, or an estimate by a third party that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a creator's own writing system to a sale, in 31 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "EasyGen prices before the sale, from a November 2024 copy of the home page and the founder's newsletter in 2025 (grade C). In October 2026 the site takes no new signups, so there is no current price", "note": "The home page of November 2024 gave three free posts without a credit card, then one paid plan. An annual plan existed, 50% off for Black Friday 2024, but no source gives its price. The privacy policy says that all sales are final, with no refunds.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "", "0", "3 posts, no credit card (November 2024)" ], [ "Paid plan", "", "59.99", "home page, November 2024" ], [ "Pro", "", "59", "founder's newsletter, August and December 2025" ], [ "Pro, first-month offer", "", "0.99", "first month only, December 2025" ], [ "Any plan, October 2026", "", "", "closed to new signups after the sale" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month (MRR), 29 November 2024", "value": "US$41,532.86", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, quoted by Tiny Startups on 3 December 2024, with more than 27,000 users and 195 days after the launch date that he counted from. Gaps.com gives the same figure as US$41,500 by November 2024.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the November 2024 figure", "value": "about US$498,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$41,532.86 times 12 is US$498,394. This is the headline figure on this page, from the period when the founder wrote of 2 employees.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue reported later", "value": "US$540,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Gaps.com writes that EasyGen is now generating US$540,000 ARR, among figures that it says Ruben shared. Its AI content report, last updated on 2 May 2025, already shows it, so the figure is from May 2025 or earlier. This page did not find the founder's own post with it.", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Change from November 2024 to the US$540,000 figure", "value": "about 8% more", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$540,000 divided by 12 is US$45,000 a month, 8.3% above US$41,532.86.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month (MRR), 30 June 2024", "value": "US$9,128.66", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's post on X, 92 days after launch, quoted by Tiny Startups on 1 July 2024. He wrote it as $9,128,66. Gaps.com: over US$9,100 at 92 days.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from June to November 2024", "value": "4.55 times in 152 days", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$41,532.86 divided by US$9,128.66.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month when he wrote about his 2 employees", "value": "US$33,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Title of the founder's Reddit post, quoted by Starter Story on 22 November 2024: How my 2 employees helped me reach $33,000 MRR as my biggest affiliates. This page could not open the post itself.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Price", "value": "US$59.99 a month after 3 free posts", "grade": "C", "note": "Home page, November 2024. The founder's newsletter gives US$59 a month in August 2025 and offered the first month for US$0.99 in December 2025.", "src": [ 6, 12, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Code written by the founder", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "His posts of June and November 2024 both say: Line of code I know: 0. NetInfluencer reports that he developed the post-writing system together with a US serial entrepreneur.", "src": [ 1, 2, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Outside investment", "value": "US$0", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's posts of June and November 2024. No source reports a funding round.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "the founder and 2 employees in late 2024; 8 employees on LinkedIn in July 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "The 2 employees are from the founder's Reddit title. Starter Story estimates 2 founders and 6 employees in November 2024 and marks the number as an estimate. Latka counts 8 employees from LinkedIn in July 2025.", "src": [ 10, 17 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's LinkedIn audience", "value": "650,000 followers in August 2025; 710,000+ in October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter and the EasyGen sign-up page, which also gives 155,000+ newsletter readers. The home page says he reached 100 million views on LinkedIn before he built EasyGen.", "src": [ 11, 15, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Chrome extension users", "value": "9,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Chrome Web Store, read 16 October 2026: 4.7 stars from 91 ratings, version 2.0.10 of 14 August 2025.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Sale", "value": "buyer, price and date not public", "grade": "C", "note": "Home page, 16 October 2026: EasyGen has been acquired and isn't taking new signups. Copies of the home page from 10 June and 29 September 2026 do not show this notice.", "src": [ 5, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Latka's revenue estimate", "value": "US$880,000 a year, July 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "A third-party estimate, marked as such. It is higher than any founder figure.", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "fact": "Launch date", "value": "about 30 March 2024", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 92 days before his post of 30 June 2024. His November post (195 days on 29 November) points to 18 May 2024 instead, and the Reddit text quoted by Starter Story says that he launched the SaaS on 19 May 2024. The Wayback Machine first captured easygen.io on 21 March 2024.", "src": [ 2, 1, 10, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the November 2024 figure, and to the sale", "value": "8 months; 31 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: March 2024 to November 2024, and March 2024 to October 2026.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Country and company", "value": "France; no legal entity named", "grade": "C", "note": "Latka lists Paris, France, and NetInfluencer calls him a French entrepreneur. The privacy policy says only that the site is operated by EasyGen. The site shows no terms page or company register number.", "src": [ 17, 9, 16 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Late 2022", "what": "The release of ChatGPT is his first real contact with generative AI, according to an interview. He then posts on LinkedIn every day for three years.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 18, 13 ] }, { "when": "March 2024", "what": "EasyGen goes live. The Wayback Machine first captures easygen.io on 21 March, and his own count of days puts the launch at about 30 March.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 2 ] }, { "when": "19 May 2024", "what": "The date that he later gives for the launch of the SaaS, in a Reddit post quoted by Starter Story.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "30 June 2024", "what": "MRR of US$9,128.66 after 92 days, with no code written by him and no outside money.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "11 July 2024", "what": "NetInfluencer interview: he calls EasyGen a '$2-a-day ghostwriter'. Two employees who used it on new accounts reached 1.4 million people in 35 days, he says.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "November 2024", "what": "The home page offers 3 free posts, then US$59.99 a month, and an extension for Chrome. A Reddit post says that his 2 employees, as his biggest affiliates, helped him reach US$33,000 MRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 10 ] }, { "when": "29 November 2024", "what": "MRR of US$41,532.86 and more than 27,000 users. Black Friday offer: 50% off the annual plan.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "By 2 May 2025", "what": "Gaps.com reports US$540,000 in annual recurring revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "July 2025", "what": "Latka counts 8 employees on LinkedIn and estimates revenue at US$880,000 a year.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "August 2025", "what": "650,000 LinkedIn followers. His newsletter lists EasyGen at US$59 a month among the AI tools that he pays for. The Chrome extension reaches version 2.0.10.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11, 12, 8 ] }, { "when": "3 December 2025", "what": "700,000+ followers after three years of daily posts. EasyGen Pro is offered at US$0.99 for the first month instead of US$59.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "23 September 2026", "what": "He launches GPC, an AI consulting company that he formed by buying a consulting firm.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "The home page says that EasyGen has been acquired and takes no new signups. Existing customers can still log in, and the page sends companies to GPC and readers to his newsletter.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 7 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "An audience before a product", "text": "He posted about AI on LinkedIn every day for years before EasyGen and, by his count, reached 100 million views. When the tool launched, the buyers already followed him. His newsletter, with 155,000+ readers by October 2026, kept selling it." }, { "title": "Employees as proof and as affiliates", "text": "Two employees used EasyGen on new LinkedIn accounts of their own; he says they reached 1.4 million people in 35 days. They then sold it as affiliates, people who earn a share of each sale made through their personal link, and by his account they were his biggest affiliates on the way to US$33,000 a month." }, { "title": "One plan, priced against a ghostwriter", "text": "One paid plan at US$59.99 a month after three free posts. He compares it with a human ghostwriter at US$2,000 to US$3,000: in his words, you pay $2 a day for a ghostwriter who works 24 hours a day." }, { "title": "Drafts, not automation", "text": "EasyGen writes drafts and the member posts them. The home page says the team chose not to post automatically, and the store page of the extension says it never connects to LinkedIn's API, the official interface through which programs use LinkedIn. That kept it away from the kind of tool that LinkedIn has acted against." }, { "title": "Revenue posted in public", "text": "He posted his MRR, his user count, the lines of code that he knows (zero) and his outside money (zero) on X, and newsletters such as Tiny Startups repeated the posts to their readers." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's posts and interviews, the company's own pages and the page source of its web site. The founder's statements are grade C; the page source shows which tools the site loads.", "items": [ "The founder says he knows no code. NetInfluencer reports that he developed the post-writing system with a US serial entrepreneur, as what he calls an agent workflow, in which language models pass work to each other.", "No source names the AI model provider.", "A web app at app.easygen.io and a free Chrome extension that shows how a post will look on a phone and connects to the member's EasyGen account. Its store page says it never connects to LinkedIn's API.", "The 2024 site was built with Webflow and the 2026 site with Next.js. Both load Rewardful, an affiliate tracking service, and Google's analytics tag; the 2024 site also loaded Intercom for support chat.", "The privacy policy names Microsoft Clarity and Microsoft Advertising for tracking how visitors use the site, and gives an opt-out at Retention.com for a service that matches visitors to email or home addresses for marketing. All sales are final.", "By 2026 the product had creator search, a trending-topics tool that, according to the home page, scrapes Reddit, X, Google, Bing and Perplexity, style settings, voice-note input and a content calendar." ], "src": [ 9, 1, 8, 6, 5, 16 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database built tools for people who publish, or writing tools, on top of platforms or free products that they did not control. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "BranchOut", "years": "2010 to 2017", "funding": "US$49M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A professional network, like LinkedIn, built inside Facebook.", "died": "Facebook changed its API rules and cut off the growth that the product depended on.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/30-branchout" }, { "name": "Klout", "years": "2008 to 2017", "funding": "US$40M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A score from 1 to 100 that measured a person's influence from their social media posts.", "died": "Facebook and Twitter built better analytics themselves, and the score lost its value.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/280-klout" }, { "name": "Pixelpipe", "years": "2008 to 2013", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Post photos, videos and text to many social networks at once.", "died": "The networks closed their APIs and built cross-posting in.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/435-pixelpipe" }, { "name": "Trapit", "years": "2011 to 2019", "funding": "US$21.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "AI that finds and curates content for people and companies to share.", "died": "Large technology companies offered the same, and it stayed a niche tool for marketers.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/658-trapit" }, { "name": "Draft", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A simple web editor that helps writers write and revise.", "died": "Google Docs gave the same for free, and a narrow paid writing tool could not compete.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1605-draft" } ], "whatChanged": [ "All five sold help to people who publish, and each depended on a platform or a free product that it did not own. The platform closed its API, built the feature itself, or gave it away. EasyGen had the same exposure: LinkedIn has had its own AI drafting tool since 2023, Premium members now get its proofreader, and ChatGPT writes posts for anyone.", "Two things differ. First, a large language model did the writing, so a few people could sell what once needed a staff of ghostwriters, and EasyGen never needed LinkedIn's API, because the member posts the draft. Second, the customers came from the founder's own audience, not from a platform's growth features, so no API change could cut them off, although a change in how LinkedIn shows his posts could. The business ended in a sale, not a shutdown, but the price is not public." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The product, yes. The sales, only with an audience.", "text": "A LinkedIn post writer on top of a commercial model is easy to build, and several competitors on this site built one. What made EasyGen sell was an audience of hundreds of thousands of followers, built over years of daily posts, which the founder turned into buyers on launch day and kept selling to through a newsletter.", "steps": [ "Build the audience first, on the platform where your customers spend their working day.", "Turn the system that you use for your own posts into a product, and show its results on new accounts.", "Pay employees and customers as affiliates, so that each success story is also a sales channel.", "Write drafts that a person posts, instead of automating actions that the platform can ban.", "Post your revenue in public; newsletters repeat it to their readers." ], "open": "A writing tool for the creators of one platform, sold by a creator on that platform: newsletters on Substack, threads on X, videos on YouTube, with the product built around what the creator already does every day." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Founder figures only", "text": "Every money figure is the founder's own, from posts on X that newsletters quote and from a report by Gaps.com. No payment processor or buyer has confirmed them. His two counts of days since launch point to different launch dates, 30 March and 18 May 2024." }, { "title": "Team size at the figures", "text": "At the headline figure of November 2024, the founder wrote of 2 employees, and he writes no code himself, so at least one more person built the software. Starter Story estimated 2 founders and 6 employees in November 2024, and Latka counted 8 employees on LinkedIn in July 2025, when the US$540,000 figure had already been reported." }, { "title": "Sold, with no details", "text": "The home page says that EasyGen has been acquired and takes no new signups. It names no buyer, price or date, and no source found by this page does. Copies from 10 June and 29 September 2026 do not show the notice, so it appeared between 29 September and 16 October 2026. What happens to existing customers is not stated." }, { "title": "LinkedIn writes and judges posts itself", "text": "By 26 September 2023 LinkedIn had a tool that writes a first draft of a post from a member's ideas. In September 2026 it removed its AI rewriting option, and by 2 October it had given Premium members a proofreader that only edits the member's own draft. On 31 July 2026 it added a report option for posts that seem like AI slop, and according to ProPakistani it already shows low-effort AI posts less outside a member's own network. A tool that writes posts with AI depends on how LinkedIn treats them." }, { "title": "LinkedIn's rules on extensions and data", "text": "A review site that sells its own LinkedIn tool reports that LinkedIn sent Kleo a cease-and-desist letter in early 2026 for scraping LinkedIn's pages through a Chrome extension, and restricted Taplio's company page in April 2025. EasyGen's store page says that its extension never connects to LinkedIn's API and does not go against LinkedIn's terms; that is the company's own claim. The home page says EasyGen learns from the posts of top creators but does not say how it collects them." }, { "title": "The same field on this site", "text": "Kleo, with four co-founders, reports more than US$1 million in revenue by September 2026, Supergrow has payment-processor evidence of US$32,200 in 30 days in February 2026, and aiCarousels, with one founder, reported US$5,000 a month in November 2023; EasyGen's monthly figures fall between Kleo's and Supergrow's, and it is the only one of the four that was sold." }, { "title": "One creator's audience", "text": "The buyers came from Ruben Hassid's posts and newsletter, and no source shows another channel that worked. By September 2026 his attention had moved to GPC, his new consulting company, and the sale notice appeared within weeks." }, { "title": "Dependence on model providers", "text": "The writing comes from large language models that no source names. The model provider sets the price, the rules and the quality, and the same models are open to every competitor, to LinkedIn and to the members themselves; the home page has to explain why a member should pay for EasyGen instead of using ChatGPT." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Tiny Startups newsletter, 3 December 2024: issue 39, quoting Ruben Hassid's post on X of 29 November 2024", "url": "https://tinystartupsnewsletter.beehiiv.com/p/tiny-startups-39-ad25", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Could not open the post on X (it needs a login); cited from the newsletter's quotation. Source for the MRR of US$41,532.86, the 27,000+ users, the 195 days and the Black Friday offer." }, { "title": "Tiny Startups newsletter, 1 July 2024: issue 18, quoting Ruben Hassid's post on X of 30 June 2024", "url": "https://tinystartupsnewsletter.beehiiv.com/p/tiny-startups-18", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Cited from the newsletter's quotation of the post. Source for the MRR of US$9,128.66 after 92 days, the zero lines of code and the zero outside investment." }, { "title": "Gaps.com: Social media startups report, published 22 January 2024, modified 23 March 2026", "url": "https://gaps.com/social-media/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on EasyGen (entry 7). Figures that it says the founder shared." }, { "title": "Gaps.com: AI content startups report, published 6 May 2024, last updated 2 May 2025", "url": "https://gaps.com/ai-content/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on EasyGen (entry 10) and the changelog, which lists a revenue update for EasyGen. Dates the US$540,000 figure to May 2025 or earlier." }, { "title": "EasyGen home page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.easygen.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the acquisition notice, the features, the decision not to post automatically, the 100 million views and the links to GPC and the newsletter." }, { "title": "EasyGen home page, Wayback Machine copy of 2 November 2024", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20241102085141/https://www.easygen.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with its page source. Source for the 3 free posts, the price of US$59.99 a month and the tools that the 2024 site loaded." }, { "title": "EasyGen home page, Wayback Machine copies of 10 June and 29 September 2026, and the capture index of easygen.io", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260929154420/https://easygen.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both copies in full and the capture index. Neither copy shows the acquisition notice. The first capture of the domain is from 21 March 2024." }, { "title": "Chrome Web Store: EasyGen, Intelligent LinkedIn content, made easy, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/easygen/gbefjkkjhjcloofcbandphbododcebko", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The description is written by the company; the user count, the rating and the version date are shown by the store." }, { "title": "NetInfluencer, 11 July 2024, by Cecilia Carloni: AI Meets LinkedIn: Why EasyGen Founder Ruben Hassid Is Betting On Business Networking", "url": "https://www.netinfluencer.com/ruben-hassid-easygen-ai-meets-linkedin/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. An interview: the founder's statements as reported by a journalist. Source for the ghostwriter price comparison, the two employees and how the system was developed." }, { "title": "Starter Story, 22 November 2024: How AI SaaS EasyGen Hit $33K MRR in 5 Months", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/easy-gen-breakdown", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The page is marked Estimated from public sources, so its revenue and headcount are used only as estimates. It quotes the title and first line of the founder's Reddit post on his 2 employees and US$33,000 MRR, which this page could not open." }, { "title": "Ruben Hassid's newsletter How to AI, 10 August 2025: 10,000 followers", "url": "https://ruben.substack.com/p/linkedin", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part. Source for the 650,000 followers and his advice to use EasyGen's Trending tab." }, { "title": "Ruben Hassid's newsletter How to AI, 3 August 2025: How much should you spend on AI?", "url": "https://ruben.substack.com/p/spend", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part. Lists EasyGen at US$59 a month." }, { "title": "Ruben Hassid's newsletter How to AI, 3 December 2025: Flow", "url": "https://ruben.substack.com/p/flow", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 700,000+ followers after three years of daily posts and the US$0.99 first-month offer." }, { "title": "Ruben Hassid's newsletter How to AI, 23 September 2026: General Purpose Consulting", "url": "https://ruben.substack.com/p/gpc", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the launch of GPC by the purchase of a consulting company. It does not mention EasyGen." }, { "title": "EasyGen newsletter sign-up page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://easygen.io/subscribe", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 710,000+ followers and the 155,000+ readers." }, { "title": "EasyGen privacy policy, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.easygen.io/privacy-policy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names no legal entity. Source for the tracking services, the marketing opt-out and the no-refund rule." }, { "title": "Latka: EasyGen revenue and team, updated 2 September 2026", "url": "https://getlatka.com/companies/easygen.io/team", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party revenue estimate, marked as such, and a headcount from LinkedIn." }, { "title": "Productivity Stacks newsletter, 15 October 2024: Cracking the Code to Growing on LinkedIn: EasyGen Founder Ruben Hassid on Mastering AI", "url": "https://productivityexpress.beehiiv.com/p/issue-no-123-cracking-the-code-to-growing-on-linkedin-easygen-founder-ruben-hassid-on-mastering-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the introduction; the full interview is on another site and was not read. Source for his first contact with generative AI in late 2022." }, { "title": "Digital Works, 26 September 2023: LinkedIn's AI-powered writing tool for posts", "url": "https://digitalworks.dk/en/artikler/linkedins-ai-powered-writing-tool-for-posts", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for LinkedIn's own tool that writes a first draft." }, { "title": "ProPakistani, 31 July 2026: LinkedIn Finally Adds a Button To Kill All That AI Slop", "url": "https://propakistani.pk/2026/07/31/linkedin-finally-adds-a-button-to-kill-all-that-ai-slop/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the report option and LinkedIn's reduced reach for low-effort AI posts." }, { "title": "Metricool, 2 October 2026: LinkedIn Swaps Its AI Post Writer for a Proofreading Tool", "url": "https://metricool.com/linkedin-post-proofreader/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the removal of LinkedIn's AI rewriting option and the new proofreader for Premium members." }, { "title": "ConnectSafely: Kleo Review: LinkedIn AI Tool Pricing and Features, 2026", "url": "https://connectsafely.ai/articles/kleo-review-linkedin-content-tool-2026", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on Kleo 1.0 and on compliance. The reviewer sells a competing LinkedIn tool. Source for LinkedIn's cease-and-desist letter to Kleo and the restriction of Taplio's page." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/copygenius/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/copygenius.md", "slug": "copygenius", "name": "CopyGenius", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI copywriting tool with templates and a writing editor", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "March 2022", "outcomeLabel": "US$9.5K a month in recurring revenue, May 2025", "sticker": "$9.5K MRR, now $4K", "outcomeUsd": 114000, "months": 38, "teamLabel": "1 founder, who calls himself a solo indie hacker; no employee in any source", "fundingLabel": "None reported", "primaryFactor": "Timing", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "unknown", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 1, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Marketing content" ], "product": "A web app that writes marketing text with OpenAI's GPT-3. The customer picks one of more than 40 templates, such as an ad, an article, a blog outline, an email or a product description, types a few details, and gets a draft in seconds, in more than 100 languages. A second tool, the Genius Editor, continues a text in the author's writing style. Plans sell a monthly number of words, from 40,000 words for US$19 a month.", "why": "It launched in March 2022, eight months before OpenAI released ChatGPT, and sold GPT-3 text through fixed templates for a monthly fee. A third-party report gives US$14,000 of monthly recurring revenue at its best and US$9,500 by May 2025. In 2026 the founder's own profile listed it at US$4,000, beside his much larger AutoShorts.ai.", "summary": [ "CopyGenius is an AI copywriting tool: a web app that writes marketing text, such as ads, product descriptions, blog outlines and emails, from a few details that the customer types in. Its terms page says that the text comes from GPT-3, a large language model from OpenAI, which is a program trained on a very large amount of text to predict the words that come next. The customer chooses one of more than 40 templates, fixed forms that turn the customer's details into an instruction for the model, and gets a draft in seconds. A second tool, the Genius Editor, analyzes the author's writing style and tone of voice and writes the next sentence or paragraph. Plans sell a number of words per month: 40,000 words for US$19, 120,000 words for US$39, and an Unlimited plan for US$79.", "Eric Smith, a former Instagram software engineer in Florida who calls himself a solo indie hacker, started CopyGenius in March 2022; the oldest plan record in the site's data was created on 27 March 2022. A report by Gaps, last changed on 2 May 2025, gives US$9,500 of MRR, monthly recurring revenue: the value of all active subscriptions for one month. The same report says that MRR had earlier reached US$14,000, and gives no date for it. In September 2026 his profile on X, as the directory Arrfounder shows it, listed CopyGenius at US$4,000 of MRR, 71.4% below that best figure. The same founder later built AutoShorts.ai, which has its own story on this site.", "Every number on this page is the founder's own profile text or a figure from a third-party site that does not name its source: grade C. No payment processor, buyer or journalist has confirmed them. The Gaps page is excluded from the Wayback Machine, so its older versions cannot be read to date the figures more exactly. The page also shows what happened to earlier writing tools when a larger company offered the same help inside a product that people already used." ], "factsCaption": "A GPT-3 copywriting tool that reported US$14,000 of monthly recurring revenue at its best, US$9,500 by May 2025 and US$4,000 in September 2026, all self-reported or repeated by third parties", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is the founder's own profile text, a figure from a third-party site that does not name its source, or a reading of the company's own pages. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a template tool on GPT-3, eight months before ChatGPT, to a product that its founder listed at US$4,000 a month in 2026. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "CopyGenius prices on 16 October 2026, read from the plan data inside the company's home page (grade C)", "note": "The address copygenius.io/pricing returns an error page; the plans are in the data of the home page. A yearly plan costs 10 times the monthly price: US$190, US$390 or US$790 a year, which is 16.7% less than 12 monthly payments. Words that are not used do not carry over to the next month, and a customer can buy one-time refill credits. A Wayback Machine copy of the home page from 25 February 2023 holds the same nine plan records with the same prices, so the prices did not change between February 2023 and October 2026. The data also holds an older Starter plan at US$5 a month or US$50 a year for 5,000 words, created in April and August 2022; its monthly record allows use through Shopify and not on the web.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "500 words once, to try" ], [ "Starter", "15.83", "19", "40,000 words a month" ], [ "Premium", "32.50", "39", "120,000 words a month" ], [ "Unlimited", "65.83", "79", "sold as unlimited; the plan record sets 8,000,000 words a month" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, by May 2025", "value": "US$9,500", "grade": "C", "note": "Gaps, in a page first published on 6 May 2024 and last changed on 2 May 2025, writes that the business \"is now achieving $9,500 in monthly recurring revenue\". Other entries in the same version describe events up to about October 2024, so the figure dates from between about October 2024 and May 2025. Gaps does not name its source. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Annual run rate from that MRR", "value": "US$114,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$9,500 times 12 = US$114,000.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Highest monthly recurring revenue reported", "value": "US$14,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Same Gaps page: the figure \"has previously reached $14,000 MRR\". No date is given.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Fall from the highest figure to May 2025", "value": "32.1%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: (US$14,000 minus US$9,500) divided by US$14,000.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, September 2026", "value": "US$4,000", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder's profile text on X, as Arrfounder shows it in a record updated on 20 September 2026: \"CopyGenius.io: $4K MRR\". Arrfounder's product page gives the same US$4,000 a month and US$48,000 a year, collected with AI on 20 September 2026; Arrfounder does not mark the founder as verified.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Fall from the highest figure to September 2026", "value": "71.4%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: (US$14,000 minus US$4,000) divided by US$14,000. Against the May 2025 figure of US$9,500 the fall is 57.9%.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Launch", "value": "March 2022", "grade": "C", "note": "Gaps: \"founded in March 2022 by Eric Smith\". The oldest plan record in the site's data, the Free plan, was created on 27 March 2022. The terms page gives 18 January 2022 as its last update.", "src": [ 1, 4, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the headline figure", "value": "38 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: March 2022 to May 2025, the last change of the page that reports the figure.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Prices", "value": "US$19, US$39 and US$79 a month, or 10 times that a year", "grade": "C", "note": "Plan data in the home page, read 16 October 2026, and the same records in a Wayback Machine copy of 25 February 2023. Gaps describes the same three paid tiers, from 40,000 words to unlimited.", "src": [ 4, 5, 1 ] }, { "fact": "AI model", "value": "GPT-3, from OpenAI", "grade": "C", "note": "Terms page: \"the A.I. model powering CopyGenius (GPT-3) is designed to write creatively, not necessarily factually\". No source says whether it later moved to a newer model.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Usage limits", "value": "a hard monthly word cap and 3 requests every 10 seconds", "grade": "C", "note": "FAQ: the word limit resets each month and unused words do not roll over; refill credits can be bought; \"All plans have a rate limit of 3 queries every 10 seconds\".", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Payment providers in the site code", "value": "Stripe, PayPal and Shopify", "grade": "C", "note": "The site's script lists these three as subscription providers. The plan records carry PayPal plan identifiers.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Affiliate commission", "value": "30% of every payment, recurring, with no cap", "grade": "C", "note": "Partners page, read 16 October 2026. It invites affiliates with the words \"Ready to start making passive income?\"", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Shopify app, October 2026", "value": "not available in the Shopify App Store", "grade": "C", "note": "The App Store page for CopyGenius says: \"This app is not currently available on the Shopify App Store.\" The site still has a Shopify login page.", "src": [ 7, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 founder", "grade": "C", "note": "Gaps names one founder. His profile text on X, as Arrfounder shows it, begins \"Solo indiehacker (Ex-Instagram Eng)\". No source mentions an employee.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "No source mentions an investor. The terms page names no company, only the product.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "The founder's products, September 2026", "value": "AutoShorts.ai US$117,000, NicheScraper US$11,000 and CopyGenius US$4,000 of MRR", "grade": "C", "note": "His profile text as Arrfounder shows it. It also lists a project named ProjectX at US$20,000 a month, which this page could not identify.", "src": [ 3 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "18 January 2022", "what": "The CopyGenius terms page gives this date as its last update, two months before the first plan record.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "27 March 2022", "what": "The Free plan record, 500 words to try, is created. Gaps gives March 2022 as the founding month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 1 ] }, { "when": "21 April to 24 August 2022", "what": "Paid plans are added: a Starter plan at US$5 a month in April, Unlimited at US$79 in May, and the present Starter at US$19 and Premium at US$39 on 24 August.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "30 November 2022", "what": "OpenAI releases ChatGPT. It gains one million users in five days and 100 million in two months.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "1 February 2023", "what": "OpenAI announces ChatGPT Plus at US$20 a month and says it will keep free access to ChatGPT.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "25 February 2023", "what": "A Wayback Machine copy of the CopyGenius home page shows the same nine plan records and prices as in 2026.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "Not dated, before May 2025", "what": "Monthly recurring revenue reaches its highest reported level, US$14,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "6 May 2024 to 2 May 2025", "what": "Gaps publishes a report on AI content startups. The version last changed on 2 May 2025 lists CopyGenius sixth, at US$9,500 of MRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "20 September 2026", "what": "Arrfounder's latest update shows the founder's profile listing CopyGenius at US$4,000 of MRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "16 October 2026", "what": "The site still sells the same plans. Its Shopify app is no longer available in the Shopify App Store.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 7 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Templates instead of instructions", "text": "The customer does not write an instruction for the model. For an ad or a product description, a template asks for a few details and builds the request itself, and the draft arrives in seconds in more than 100 languages. Until 30 November 2022 there was no ChatGPT, so this was the easy way to get text from GPT-3." }, { "title": "Words sold as a monthly allowance", "text": "Each plan is a hard cap of words per month that resets at renewal, with refill credits for more. The FAQ promises that the customer is never billed above the plan price, and the cap also puts an upper limit on the model cost of each customer." }, { "title": "An editor that continues the author's text", "text": "The Genius Editor is a text editor with the model built in. The site says it analyzes the author's writing style and tone of voice to write the next sentence or paragraph. It is the part of the product that is closest to what a general chatbot does." }, { "title": "Several small sales channels", "text": "The checkout code reports each purchase to a Google Ads account as a conversion, so the business measured paid search ads. Affiliates earn 30% of every payment for as long as the customer stays. A Shopify app sold the tool to shop owners until it left the App Store. No source says which channel brought most customers." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's own pages and the code that they send to the browser. They are grade C.", "items": [ "A Next.js web app: the pages load from /_next/ paths and carry their plan data as JSON inside the page.", "Text from OpenAI's GPT-3, per the terms page. The FAQ says that the model was trained on roughly 10% of the published internet and that names, citations and emails in its output are generally filler made up by the model.", "Payments through Stripe and PayPal, and through Shopify for the Shopify app; the code lists all three as subscription providers.", "The route list of the site includes an affiliate dashboard and admin pages for affiliates, events and user costs.", "The route list also includes a Chrome sign-in page and a Shopify login page; this page found no Chrome Web Store listing.", "A Google Ads conversion tag in the checkout code." ], "src": [ 4, 6 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Three companies in the Loot Drop database sold a better tool for writers and lost to a larger company that offered the same help inside a bigger product. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Draft", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A simple cloud editor for writers, with version control and collaborative editing.", "died": "Google Docs made it redundant. Its narrow focus and free tier could not compete with Google's full set of office tools.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1605-draft" }, { "name": "WriteWith", "years": "2007 to 2010", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Group writing in the browser, with several authors on one document.", "died": "Google Docs offered the same core function with better integration, and WriteWith had too little money to keep going.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1237-writewith" }, { "name": "Taleship", "years": "2018 to 2020", "funding": "US$0", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "A shared writing space for novelists, with real-time co-authoring.", "died": "It spread its work over too many features and could not stand out among the free tools that writers already had.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1918-taleship" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The three predecessors sold a better place to write, and each lost to a large company that offered the same help inside a product that people already used, at no extra price. CopyGenius sold the next step, a tool that writes the text itself, and the same thing happened to it faster: ChatGPT appeared eight months after CopyGenius launched and gained 100 million users in two months.", "What differs is the cost. The predecessors needed years and, in two cases, outside money. CopyGenius needed one engineer, a web app and an account with a model provider, and its founder still listed it at US$4,000 a month in 2026. A template product on top of a model costs little to build and run, so it can stay profitable at a small size, but nothing in it stops the model maker from offering the same function to everyone." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The product, no. Being early on a new model, yes, for a short time.", "text": "A general template tool for marketing text is now a free feature of the large chatbots, and the figures on this page show the fall. What can still be copied is the timing and the pricing: a paid tool for one job on a new model, sold in the months before the model maker offers the same thing to everyone, with usage sold as a capped monthly allowance.", "steps": [ "When a new model becomes available through an API, ship a narrow tool for one job in its first months, and charge from the first day.", "Sell usage as a capped allowance, so the model cost of each customer has an upper limit.", "Add a channel inside a platform where the buyers already are, such as an app store for shop owners.", "Expect the model maker to release the same function, and build the next product before revenue falls." ], "open": "Jobs that a general chatbot does badly because they need the customer's own data or a direct connection to a platform, for example text that is published straight into a shop, an ad account or a store listing." }, "watch": [ { "title": "General chatbots write the same texts", "text": "OpenAI released ChatGPT on 30 November 2022 and runs it on a freemium model, which means basic use is free and a paid plan adds more. It gained 100 million users in two months and had 900 million weekly active users in February 2026, per Wikipedia. OpenAI announced ChatGPT Plus on 1 February 2023 at a flat US$20 a month, about the price of the CopyGenius Starter plan, which is capped at 40,000 words." }, { "title": "Many tools at the same price", "text": "In the same Gaps report, Magai sells access to ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI services in one subscription from US$19 a month for up to 50,000 words, against 40,000 words for US$19 at CopyGenius. OpenAI priced gpt-3.5-turbo, the model of ChatGPT, at US$0.002 per 1,000 tokens, the pieces of words that models count, 10 times cheaper than its earlier GPT-3.5 models; that lowered the cost of text for every rival at once. CopyGenius kept the prices it had in February 2023." }, { "title": "Two earlier copywriting stories on this site", "text": "Headlime was sold for seven figures in March 2021 and Rytr was sold in October 2022 after a run rate of US$1 million a year, both before ChatGPT was released, while CopyGenius launched in March 2022 and stayed with its founder as its revenue fell." }, { "title": "One model provider that is also a competitor", "text": "The terms page names GPT-3 as the model behind the product, and no source says whether it moved to a newer model or to another provider. OpenAI sets the price and the rules of the model, and it also sells ChatGPT to the same customers." }, { "title": "Self-reported and partly undated", "text": "Gaps gives no date for the US$14,000 figure and no source for either of its figures, and its page is excluded from the Wayback Machine. The 2026 figure is the founder's profile text as Arrfounder collects it with AI, and Arrfounder does not mark him as verified." }, { "title": "A Shopify channel that ended", "text": "The Shopify App Store no longer lists the CopyGenius app, and an old plan in the site's data was for Shopify use only. No source says when or why the app left the store." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Gaps, 6 May 2024, changed 2 May 2025: 17 AI Content Startups (With 2025 Revenue Numbers)", "url": "https://gaps.com/ai-content/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Entry #6 is CopyGenius. Source for the founder, the founding month, the templates, the three paid tiers and the US$9,500 and US$14,000 figures, and for Magai's price. The page is excluded from the Wayback Machine, so earlier versions could not be read." }, { "title": "Arrfounder product page: CopyGenius, record updated 20 September 2026", "url": "https://arrfounder.com/product/copygenius", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with the record data inside the page: MRR 4,000, ARR 48,000, source \"ai\", collected 20 September 2026, founder not verified." }, { "title": "Arrfounder founder page: Eric Smith (@ericsmith1302), record updated 20 September 2026", "url": "https://arrfounder.com/@ericsmith1302", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. It shows the founder's X profile text, his location in Florida and four products. Source for the 2026 figure, the solo founder, and the link between CopyGenius and AutoShorts.ai." }, { "title": "CopyGenius home page with its FAQ, partners and editor sections, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://copygenius.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "The pages build their text with scripts. Read the plan data inside the home page and the text in the site's script files for the home, FAQ and partners pages and its route list. The /pricing address returned an error page." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of the CopyGenius home page, 25 February 2023", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20230225161028/https://copygenius.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the plan data inside the page: the same nine plan records and prices as in October 2026." }, { "title": "CopyGenius Terms & Conditions, last updated 18 January 2022", "url": "https://copygenius.io/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "The page builds its text with a script; read the text in that script file. Source for GPT-3 as the model. It names no company." }, { "title": "Shopify App Store page for CopyGenius, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.shopify.com/copygenius", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. It says that the app is not currently available on the Shopify App Store." }, { "title": "Wikipedia: ChatGPT, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChatGPT", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on release and users: released 30 November 2022, run on a freemium model, one million users in five days, 100 million in two months, 900 million weekly active users in February 2026." }, { "title": "OpenAI, 1 February 2023: Introducing ChatGPT Plus", "url": "https://openai.com/index/chatgpt-plus/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the US$20 monthly price and the promise to keep free access." }, { "title": "OpenAI: Introducing ChatGPT and Whisper APIs", "url": "https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-and-whisper-apis/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The downloaded copy shows no date. Source for the price of gpt-3.5-turbo." }, { "title": "Starter Story: How Eric Smith Grew AutoShorts.ai To $92K MRR", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/autoshorts-ai-breakdown", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the free part. It does not mention CopyGenius. Source that Eric Smith founded AutoShorts.ai and worked as a software engineer at Instagram, which matches the profile text in source 3." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/wave-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/wave-ai.md", "slug": "wave-ai", "name": "Wave AI", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI meeting and call note-taker app", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "26 July 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$4M annual recurring revenue, November 2024", "sticker": "$4M ARR in 16 months", "outcomeUsd": 4000000, "months": 16, "teamLabel": "1 founder; outside help for design, ads and some engineering", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Paid ads", "group": "voice-audio", "channel": "paid-ads", "trend": "flat", "collections": [ "phone-app" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Productivity" ], "product": "An app for iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows and the web that records meetings, phone calls and lectures, writes a transcript with the speakers identified, and then a summary with action items. A user can also ask questions about a recording. It is free for 30 minutes a month; Pro costs US$100 a year in the app stores.", "why": "It reached the App Store early, in July 2023, with the simplest form of the idea: press one button, get a transcript and a summary. The founder paid for Meta ads while they still worked for a new kind of app, tested paywalls constantly and moved buyers to annual plans. He works alone with AI coding tools, so in his own 2026 account about US$3 million of about US$7 million a year stays as profit.", "summary": [ "Wave is an AI note taker: an app that records a conversation and turns it into written notes with AI models. It works in two steps, as the founder describes them. First speech-to-text, a model that converts recorded audio into written words, makes a transcript. Then a large language model, a model trained on very large amounts of text that can read a transcript and write a shorter text from it, writes the summary and the action items. Wave records in-person meetings on the phone, phone calls on its own phone numbers, and Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams calls through a bot that joins the call. Its data processing terms name AssemblyAI for transcription, with Gladia as a backup, OpenAI for summaries and Anthropic for the chat assistant. It is sold as an in-app subscription, a recurring payment that Apple or Google collects through its app store: free for 30 minutes a month, then US$100 a year or US$15 a month in the app stores, or US$80 a year on the web.", "Josh Mohrer, formerly the general manager of Uber in New York, was out of work at the end of 2022 when ChatGPT appeared. He used it to write Swift, Apple's programming language for iPhone apps, and released Wave on the App Store on 26 July 2023. On 29 July 2024 Adapty, the company whose software runs the app's subscriptions, published a case study with US$2 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR, the yearly value of all active subscriptions), more than 50,000 downloads and one team member. By 10 November 2024 Adapty had changed the page to US$4 million ARR, and the founder had replied on X to a post about his US$2 million: \"It's $4M actually.\" In an interview published on 3 February 2026 he said that Wave was at about US$7 million ARR, flat for a few months, that he keeps about US$3 million a year, and that he is still the whole team, with outside help over the years for design, ads and some engineering work.", "This page grades the US$2 million and US$4 million figures A. Adapty is not the payment processor, the company that moves the money, because for app store purchases that is Apple or Google. But every purchase of the app passes through Adapty's software, which the founder calls his \"central system for all things subscription\", and Adapty states the figures under its own name. This site counts a payment company's customer story, such as Stripe's, as grade A for that reason. The case study does not say that the figures were read from Adapty's dashboard, so a stricter reader can treat them as grade B. The US$7 million, the profit and the costs are the founder's own words, grade C. The page also shows earlier companies that lost when a large platform gave the same feature away." ], "factsCaption": "A one-person iPhone app at US$2 million ARR in July 2024 and US$4 million by November 2024 in its subscription vendor's case study, then about US$7 million in February 2026 in the founder's own words", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value is stated by Adapty, the company whose software records the app's subscriptions, in its case study under its own name. A grade B value is a count published by Adapty or Apple that is not a payment figure. A grade C value is the founder's own words. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a prototype written with ChatGPT to about US$7 million a year in recurring revenue, run by one person, in 31 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Wave prices in October 2026, from the company's pricing page and its answers to pricing questions (grade C)", "note": "Pro bought on the web costs US$80 a year or US$15 a month, which the page calls 20% less than in the app stores. Pro bought through the App Store or Google Play costs US$100 a year or US$15 a month. Weekly billing also exists, and the page says that prices vary by platform and region. The App Store listing shows in-app purchases named Standard at US$6.00, US$15.00 and US$100.00 and older ones named Professional from US$6.99 to US$139.99, without saying which period each one covers. In February 2026 the annual plan came with a three-day free trial, which the founder said should be seven days.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "30 minutes of recording a month" ], [ "Pro, bought on the web", "6.67", "15", "unlimited recording; US$80 a year" ], [ "Pro, App Store or Google Play", "8.33", "15", "unlimited recording; US$100 a year" ], [ "Teams", "", "7.50 per user", "minimum 5 users; billing period not stated" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, November 2024", "value": "US$4 million", "grade": "A", "note": "Adapty's case study, in the version archived on 10 November 2024 and still on the page in October 2026: \"Current ARR: $4M\". Adapty runs the app's subscriptions. The founder gave the same figure on X: \"It's $4M actually.\"", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, July 2024", "value": "US$2 million", "grade": "A", "note": "The first version of the same case study, published on 29 July 2024 and archived on 8 August 2024: \"Current ARR: $2M\".", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, February 2026", "value": "about US$7 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in a podcast interview published on 3 February 2026. He said that he had been \"flat there for a few months\".", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Profit, early 2026", "value": "about US$3 million a year", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, asked about profit: \"Can I keep three? Or something like that.\" He also said that the business \"did seven last year\", in 2025, and that he would like ten in 2026.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Profit as a share of revenue", "value": "about 43%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$3 million divided by US$7 million. Both are the founder's round numbers.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "AI cost, late 2024", "value": "10% to 20% of revenue", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's replies on X, quoted by the Gaps income report for October 2024: about US$0.10 per hour of audio to OpenAI for transcription, and a similar amount for summaries.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "AI cost in dollars at US$4 million ARR", "value": "about US$400,000 to US$800,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 10% and 20% of US$4 million.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Team at US$2 million and US$4 million ARR", "value": "1 person", "grade": "B", "note": "Adapty: \"Team members: 1\". Other people did the design and the ad promotion; the founder wrote and maintained the app and answered every support email. A headcount is not a payment figure, so it is graded B.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Team, February 2026", "value": "the founder, with occasional helpers", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: \"You're talking to the whole team.\" People came in and out over three years for some engineering and marketing work, and he brings on a new ad agency a few times a year. The website in October 2026 says \"a small team in New York\".", "src": [ 4, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Downloads", "value": "more than 50,000 by July 2024, more than 55,000 by November 2024", "grade": "B", "note": "Adapty's case study, the two archived versions. Not a payment figure.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Recurring revenue per download", "value": "at most about US$73 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$4 million divided by 55,000 downloads. The case study says more than 55,000, so the true value is lower.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "App Store rating, October 2026", "value": "4.9 from 12,169 ratings", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's own App Store record. In February 2026 the founder named the 4.9 rating as a reason why App Store search sends him users.", "src": [ 9, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Plan mix, February 2026", "value": "about a third weekly, a third monthly and a third annual, by number of subscribers", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder. By dollars, most revenue comes from annual plans, and most money that comes in each day is renewals.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: \"I'm not gonna raise money.\" The app is published by Mohrer Associates LLC of New York, the seller name in the App Store and the operator named in the terms of service.", "src": [ 4, 9, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Time from App Store release to US$4 million ARR", "value": "16 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: July 2023 to November 2024. Adapty writes \"in 8 months\" without saying where it starts counting. It cannot be the release date, because 8 months after July 2023 is March 2024, before Adapty's own US$2 million figure of July 2024.", "src": [ 1, 9 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "End of 2022", "what": "Mohrer, formerly general manager of Uber in New York, is out of work when ChatGPT appears. He uses it to become an engineer and builds small demos: a summary tool for New York State bills, an AI on top of a group chat, and an app that records audio, transcribes it and summarizes it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "2023", "what": "The first concept of the app, in Swift for the iPhone, is ready in one day: he splits the code into small parts and asks ChatGPT to write each part.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "26 July 2023", "what": "Wave: AI Note Taker is released on the App Store by Mohrer Associates LLC.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "29 July 2024", "what": "Adapty publishes its case study: US$2 million ARR, more than 50,000 downloads, and one team member who also answers every support email.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "By 10 November 2024", "what": "Adapty changes the case study to US$4 million ARR and more than 55,000 downloads. The Gaps income report for October 2024 quotes the founder's reply on X to a post that put Wave at US$2 million: \"It's $4M actually.\"", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "when": "3 February 2026", "what": "In a Mixergy interview: about US$7 million ARR, flat for a few months, about US$3 million kept as profit, and no investors. New users come through Apple Search Ads, Google Ads and App Store search; Meta ads have not worked for more than a year.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "10 October 2026", "what": "Version 4.1.0 of the iPhone app is released. Apple's record shows 12,169 ratings with an average of 4.9.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "The website lists apps for iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows, the web and watches, and a phone line with real US and Canada numbers. It says Wave is built by \"a small team in New York\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Paid ads at the right time", "text": "The founder says that in Wave's early growth \"meta ads worked super well\" because the app was \"a first of its kind thing\"; once many similar apps existed, those ads stopped working. Adapty also names \"strategic ad promotion\" as a cause of the growth. Now Apple Search Ads on iPhone and Google Ads on Android bring users, together with App Store search, where more than 12,000 ratings at 4.9 make the app look trustworthy." }, { "title": "Paywall tests and annual plans", "text": "Every purchase runs through Adapty, which the founder uses to run A/B tests of the paywall, the screen that asks the user to pay. An A/B test shows two versions to different users and keeps the one that sells better. Adapty calls this testing the key to the app's growth. Subscribers split about evenly between weekly, monthly and annual plans, but most of the money comes from annual plans and from renewals." }, { "title": "Buy the best transcription", "text": "The founder says that he tried Whisper, AssemblyAI and Deepgram for transcription and was not afraid to pay for the best output. In late 2024 AI costs were 10% to 20% of revenue. In 2026 the company's data terms list AssemblyAI for transcription with Gladia as a backup, and OpenAI for summaries." }, { "title": "One person, with AI as the engineering team", "text": "ChatGPT wrote the first Swift code in parts in 2023. In 2026 he works with Claude Code and Anthropic's Opus model, which he says costs him US$200 a month as a subscription instead of US$50 to US$100 a day through the API. He answers the support messages himself, because that is where he learns about bugs and about what users want." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's interview, the Adapty case study and Wave's data processing terms, which list the outside services that handle customer data. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Swift for the iPhone app. The first concept was written in one day in 2023, with ChatGPT writing each piece of code. The founder says that he wrote the first version himself and used AI for examples such as background audio recording.", "Speech-to-text: he tried Whisper 2 and 3, AssemblyAI and Deepgram. The 2026 data terms list AssemblyAI, with Gladia as a backup. Summaries and language features: OpenAI. The chat assistant: Anthropic.", "Google Cloud with Firebase and Firestore for storage, databases and login; Vercel for the web app and the API; Trigger.dev for the background transcription and summary jobs; Turbopuffer for search; Recall.ai for the bots that join Zoom, Meet and Teams calls.", "Phone calls: Twilio for call recording, and Telnyx for phone numbers, calls and text messages.", "Payments: Apple and Google in-app purchases, managed through Adapty, which also runs the paywall tests; Stripe for web subscriptions.", "Support through Intercom's in-app chat, answered by the founder on a page that he built himself on Intercom's API. PostHog for usage analytics, Sentry for errors, Customer.io for email.", "Coding in 2026 with Claude Code and the Opus model, after the Windsurf editor. The website says the service is SOC 2 Type 1 compliant, a security audit standard." ], "src": [ 4, 2, 7, 6 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised to capture what people write or say and make it useful, or built a feature that a large platform then gave away. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Kiko", "years": "2005 to 2008", "funding": "US$70K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A web calendar that made booking meetings easy.", "died": "Google Calendar launched for free and made it irrelevant. The founders sold the company on eBay.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/276-kiko" }, { "name": "Tellme", "years": "1999 to 2011", "funding": "US$238M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Information by voice: speak to the phone instead of reading a screen.", "died": "Apps and later AI assistants replaced its voice commands.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/612-tellme" }, { "name": "Springpad", "years": "2008 to 2014", "funding": "US$7.5M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Collect and organize everything, from web articles to recipes, in one notes app.", "died": "Users liked the free product, but the company never found what they would pay for before the money ran out.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1893-springpad" }, { "name": "Transpose", "years": "2012 to 2018", "funding": "US$0", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A notes app like Evernote for businesses, with templates and collaboration.", "died": "It charged US$14.99 against Evernote, with no venture money and no strong reason for users to switch.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1849-transpose" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Kiko died when Google gave away a calendar, and Springpad and Transpose died because free or established notes apps left users little reason to pay. Wave faces the same pressure. Zoom gave away meeting summaries to paid accounts in September 2023, Google Meet added note-taking in August 2024 and notes for in-person meetings in August 2026, and Apple added call recording and summaries to the iPhone in October 2024.", "Three things differ. Speech-to-text and language models became good enough and cheap enough in 2023 to sell notes for US$100 a year with AI costs of 10% to 20% of revenue. One person with AI coding tools and occasional helpers could build and run apps for phones, computers, the web and watches, so the company needed no venture money. And Wave covers in one app what each platform covers only in part: in-person conversations, phone calls on a separate number, and calls in any meeting tool, with the same notes on every device." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The timing, no. The method, partly.", "text": "The months when a new kind of app could grow on Meta ads are over; the founder says such ads stopped working once many similar apps appeared. What can still be copied is the structure: a phone app that does one job well, paid model APIs instead of own models, constant paywall tests, annual plans, and one person who reads every support message.", "steps": [ "Pick a job that a new model makes possible and ship the simplest version on the App Store.", "Buy the best speech or language API you can, and check that AI costs stay a small share of the price.", "Use a subscription platform to test paywalls and prices often, and offer annual plans.", "Answer support yourself; it is where you find the bugs and the next features." ], "open": "Recording and summary apps for one profession at a time (the founder was advised to build a version for doctors or for construction and chose a general app instead), and languages or regions that the large meeting tools serve poorly." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Phones and meeting tools now include it", "text": "Zoom made meeting summaries part of paid accounts at no extra cost on 5 September 2023. Google Meet began rolling out \"Take notes for me\" to selected Workspace customers on 27 August 2024 and started extending it to in-person meetings in August 2026. Apple added recording, transcription and summaries to the Phone and Notes apps with iOS 18.1 on 28 October 2024. Otter, an older rival app, has a free plan with 300 minutes a month and Pro listed at US$8.49 to US$16.99 a month. Wave's answer is one app for every kind of conversation." }, { "title": "Recording laws and consent", "text": "Federal law and 38 states with the District of Columbia allow a recording when one party to the conversation consents, but the Digital Media Law Project lists eleven states that require the consent of every party, among them California, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Washington. Apple's Phone app tells all participants automatically when a recording starts. Wave's terms make the user \"solely responsible\" for getting consent, and its call-recording page says to \"inform the other party when required\". The Wave pages read for this story do not say that the app announces a recording itself." }, { "title": "Growth has stopped, and ads are harder", "text": "In February 2026 the founder said that revenue had been flat for a few months at about US$7 million a year, and that Meta ads had not worked for more than a year because there are now many similar apps. The business depends on Apple Search Ads, Google Ads, App Store search and renewals." }, { "title": "Dependent on model providers", "text": "Transcription comes from AssemblyAI with Gladia as a backup, summaries from OpenAI and the chat assistant from Anthropic. A price rise, a policy change or a provider's own note-taking feature would hit the margin directly; in late 2024 these costs were already 10% to 20% of revenue." }, { "title": "Same idea, smaller results", "text": "The site's AudioNotes story (about US$7,200 a month in August 2024, founder figures) and Talknotes story (sold for US$200,000 in July 2024) sell the same record, transcribe and summarize idea for voice notes; Wave aimed at meetings and calls, bought ads, and reached US$4 million ARR in its second year." }, { "title": "One person, and a vendor's marketing page", "text": "The founder does the engineering and the support alone and says that things get missed. The grade A figures come from Adapty's marketing page, which changed from US$2 million to US$4 million without dating the change; the later figures are his own words." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Adapty case study: Wave AI, growing an indie app from $0 to $4M ARR with Adapty (published 29 July 2024, later changed; archived 10 November 2024)", "url": "https://adapty.io/case-studies/wave/", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full, live on 16 October 2026 and in the Wayback Machine copy of 10 November 2024, which already shows US$4M. Adapty runs the app's subscriptions. Source for the US$4M ARR, the team of one and the downloads." }, { "title": "Adapty case study, first version: from $0 to $2M ARR in 6 months, Wayback Machine copy of 8 August 2024", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20240808165212/https://adapty.io/case-studies/wave/", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. Source for the US$2M ARR, more than 50,000 downloads, the one-day prototype written with ChatGPT and the support done by the founder." }, { "title": "Gaps Income Report, October 2024 (published 10 November 2024): Josh Mohrer shared his AI note-taking has reached $4M in ARR", "url": "https://gaps.com/oct-2024/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on Wave. It quotes the founder's replies on X: the US$4M figure and the AI costs." }, { "title": "Mixergy, 3 February 2026: The $7 Million Vibe Coded App, Andrew Warner's interview with Josh Mohrer", "url": "https://mixergy.com/interviews/the-7-million-vibe-coded-app/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full transcript. Source for the US$7M ARR, the profit, the team, the ads, the tools and the plan mix. The transcript is automatic and gets some words wrong." }, { "title": "Wave pricing page", "url": "https://wave.co/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 16 October 2026, including the answers to pricing questions in the page code." }, { "title": "Wave website: home, about, phone and terms of service pages", "url": "https://wave.co/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 16 October 2026. Source for the platforms, the phone line, the operating company Mohrer Associates LLC and the consent clause in the terms." }, { "title": "Wave Data Processing Addendum, Annex 3: subprocessors and vendors", "url": "https://wave.co/dpa", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the subprocessor tables. Source for the AI providers and the infrastructure." }, { "title": "Wave: record phone calls, use-case page", "url": "https://wave.co/use-cases/call-recording-app", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, including the answer to \"Is it legal to record phone calls?\" in the page code." }, { "title": "App Store listing of Wave AI Note Taker & Recorder, and Apple's lookup record for app 6451491556", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wave-ai-note-taker-recorder/id6451491556", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full on 16 October 2026. Apple's record gives the release date of 26 July 2023, the seller, the in-app purchases and the rating count." }, { "title": "Apple Newsroom, 28 October 2024: Apple Intelligence is available today on iPhone, iPad, and Mac", "url": "https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/10/apple-intelligence-is-available-today-on-iphone-ipad-and-mac/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on the Notes and Phone apps. Source for call recording with an automatic notice to participants." }, { "title": "Zoom press release, 5 September 2023: Zoom introduces Zoom AI Companion, available at no additional cost with paid Zoom user accounts (GlobeNewswire copy on aap.com.au)", "url": "https://www.aap.com.au/aapreleases/globenewswire8916139/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Zoom's investor site refused the download (HTTP 403), so the wire copy was used." }, { "title": "Google Workspace Updates, 27 August 2024: \"Take notes for me\" in Google Meet is now available", "url": "https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2024/08/take-notes-for-me-google-meet-gemini.html", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "Google Workspace Updates, August 2026: Take Notes for me for in-person meetings is now available", "url": "https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2026/08/take-notes-with-me-for-in-person-meetings-is-now-available.html", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The month comes from the address of the post; the exact day was not confirmed." }, { "title": "Otter.ai pricing page", "url": "https://otter.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the plan table on 16 October 2026." }, { "title": "Digital Media Law Project: Recording Phone Calls and Conversations", "url": "https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/recording-phone-calls-and-conversations", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A legal guide for journalists, not legal advice; it notes later changes, for example in Illinois." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/storyshort/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/storyshort.md", "slug": "storyshort", "name": "StoryShort", "country": "France", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Faceless short videos made and posted on a schedule", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "July 2024", "outcomeLabel": "US$18K monthly recurring revenue, October 2026", "sticker": "$18K MRR, one person", "outcomeUsd": 216036, "months": 27, "teamLabel": "1 founder who writes the code and answers support, with no growth team and no outsourced support (October 2026)", "fundingLabel": "None found; the site calls it an independent product", "primaryFactor": "Automation", "group": "video", "channel": "paid-ads", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Video" ], "product": "An AI tool that writes, makes and posts short \"faceless\" videos for TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels: script, AI images or clips, voiceover, music and captions. It also makes long videos of 8 to 10 minutes, AI UGC ads and talking avatars, and it can rebuild a video that did well for another creator.", "why": "It sells a channel instead of a single video: a series picks the topic, makes the video and posts it every day. Growth came from ads and from affiliates who keep 30% of each payment for life, and the founder swaps in new video models when better ones appear.", "summary": [ "StoryShort is a faceless video generator. A faceless video is a short clip in which no real person appears on camera: a computer voice tells a story over pictures or generated clips. You type an idea, and StoryShort writes the script, plans the scenes, makes the images and clips, adds the voice, music and captions, and can post the result to TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. A series, a schedule that you set once, lets it pick the next topic in your niche and post a new video every day without you opening the app. It also makes long videos, talking avatars and UGC ads, product advertisements made to look as if a customer filmed them on a phone (UGC means user-generated content).", "Samuel Rondot, the founder, writes on the site that StoryShort is built and run by one person, who writes the code, picks the AI models and answers the support email. The Internet Archive saved the working site on 27 July 2024, with the line \"Powered by GPT-4o\". In November 2024 he said it had passed US$10,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the amount that active subscriptions bring in each month, and that he promoted it with ads and affiliates, people who earn a commission on each customer they send. On 15 October 2026 TrustMRR, a site that reads revenue directly from a company's payment processor, showed US$18,003 of MRR from 327 active subscriptions in StoryShort's Stripe account, US$321,908 in the last 12 months and US$588,328 since the start.", "These Stripe figures are grade A. They also show a fall: the best month was January 2026 with US$44,459, and September 2026 brought US$21,767, 51% less. The business has been listed for sale on TrustMRR since 18 December 2025 at US$1.2 million. The page also covers the rules that decide whether the customers' videos can earn money and stay online: YouTube's July 2025 update on mass-produced content, TikTok's labels for AI content, the US rule against fake testimonials, and copyright when a tool rebuilds another creator's video." ], "factsCaption": "Stripe-verified revenue of US$18,003 a month in October 2026, about half of the January 2026 peak, from a product built and run by one person", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from TrustMRR's reading of the company's Stripe account. A grade C value is a statement by the founder, the company's own pages, or a field the founder entered on TrustMRR. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a site that already claimed 27,000 creators in July 2024 to a business listed for sale, in 27 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "StoryShort prices in October 2026, read from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "Yearly billing costs US$279, US$499, US$899 or US$1,399 a year, about 40% less than monthly. Each plan gives a number of credits per month, and the page lists typical costs: about 15 credits for a 30-second video with AI images, about 115 for a UGC video ad and more than 270 for a talking avatar video. The credit table marks long-form video as not in the Starter and Growth plans. Signing up is free; making a video needs credits from a paid plan.", "rows": [ [ "Starter", "23", "39", "400 credits, 1 series: about 26 videos of 30 seconds" ], [ "Growth", "42", "69", "1,200 credits, 2 series: about 80 videos of 30 seconds" ], [ "Influencer", "75", "129", "2,400 credits, 3 series: about 160 videos of 30 seconds" ], [ "Ultra", "117", "199", "5,000 credits, 4 series: about 330 videos of 30 seconds" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 15 October 2026", "value": "US$18,003", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR reads it from the company's Stripe account through an API key, last synced 15 October 2026. 327 active subscriptions.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from that MRR", "value": "about US$216,036 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$18,003 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days and the last 12 months", "value": "US$20,877 and US$321,908", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data on TrustMRR, to 15 October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue since the start", "value": "US$588,328", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data on TrustMRR. US$266,420 of it came before mid-October 2025 (calculated: all-time revenue minus the last 12 months).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Best month", "value": "US$44,459, January 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "64.3% more than December 2025, US$27,062 (calculated). The public monthly table starts in November 2025 with US$24,626.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in September 2026", "value": "US$21,767", "grade": "A", "note": "51.0% below January 2026. July to September 2026 averaged US$22,279 a month, 49.9% below January (both calculated). October 2026 up to the 15th: US$11,640.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Change in the last 30 days", "value": "MRR -16.3%, revenue -9.9%", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshots on 15 October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average revenue per active subscription", "value": "about US$55 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$18,003 divided by 327 subscriptions is US$55.06. The monthly plans cost US$39 to US$199.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "75.0%", "grade": "C", "note": "A TrustMRR snapshot. Costs are not part of the payment data that TrustMRR verifies, so this value is treated as unverified.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR, November and December 2024", "value": "passed US$10,000, then US$14,000 by 10 December 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder statement reported by the gaps.com newsletter, which spells his name \"Rondont\". MRR grew 28.6% from US$14,000 to the October 2026 figure (calculated).", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Earliest dated copy of the product", "value": "27 July 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "Internet Archive copy of the home page: \"Faceless Videos on Auto-Pilot\", \"Powered by GPT-4o\" and \"Trusted by 27,000+ creators\". TrustMRR gives a founded date of 6 August 2024, entered by the founder; the copy shows the product was live before that date.", "src": [ 6, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 person", "grade": "C", "note": "The About page: \"built and run by one person\", with \"no growth team and no outsourced support\". The terms name no operating company and are governed by the laws of France.", "src": [ 3, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none found", "grade": "C", "note": "The About page calls StoryShort \"an independent product\". No source mentions an investor.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Sale listing", "value": "asking US$1,200,000 since 18 December 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "Seller's asking price on TrustMRR; 21 offers received, still listed on 16 October 2026, no team size given. TrustMRR's 4.8x multiple equals the price divided by 12 times the last 30 days of revenue (4.79, calculated).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Creators claimed", "value": "90,000+", "grade": "C", "note": "Home and pricing pages, October 2026. The founder's TrustMRR entry estimates 27,000 users.", "src": [ 5, 4, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Affiliate commission", "value": "30% of each payment, for the life of the customer", "grade": "C", "note": "Affiliate page: 60-day attribution period, monthly payouts, US$100 minimum payout.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the first archived copy to the October 2026 figure", "value": "27 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: July 2024 to October 2026. From the TrustMRR founded date it is 26 months.", "src": [ 6, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "27 July 2024", "what": "First Internet Archive copy of storyshort.ai: \"Faceless Videos on Auto-Pilot\", \"Powered by GPT-4o\", series that publish daily on TikTok and YouTube, and \"Trusted by 27,000+ creators\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "6 August 2024", "what": "Founded date that the founder entered on TrustMRR.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "November 2024", "what": "The founder says StoryShort passed US$10,000 of monthly recurring revenue, promoted with ads and affiliates.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "10 December 2024", "what": "gaps.com reports US$14,000 of monthly recurring revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "November 2025", "what": "US$24,626 of Stripe revenue, the first month in TrustMRR's public monthly table.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "18 December 2025", "what": "Listed for sale on TrustMRR, asking US$1,200,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "January 2026", "what": "Best month in the table: US$44,459.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "February to September 2026", "what": "Revenue falls from US$33,251 in February to about US$22,000 to US$23,000 a month from June, and US$21,767 in September.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "15 October 2026", "what": "US$18,003 of MRR from 327 active subscriptions and US$588,328 since the start. Still for sale after 21 offers.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "The site offers long videos, UGC ads, talking avatars, a video cloning tool, an API and an MCP server, and names its models: Claude, ElevenLabs, OpenAI, Qwen, Seedance, Grok, Wan, Veo and p-video.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 8, 9 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A channel, not a video", "text": "Since at least July 2024 the core feature has been the series: the customer chooses a niche and a schedule once, and StoryShort picks the next topic, writes it, makes it and posts it to TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. The customer pays every month for a stream of videos, which fits a subscription better than a tool used once." }, { "title": "Ads and affiliates", "text": "In November 2024 the founder said that he promoted the app with ads and affiliates. The affiliate program pays 30% of every payment from a referred customer for as long as that customer pays, with a 60-day attribution period (the time after a click in which a sale still counts for the affiliate) and monthly payouts from US$100. The TrustMRR profile connects no traffic or ads data, so the split between the two channels is not known." }, { "title": "Copy what already works", "text": "The 2026 product follows creators that the customer picks, shows the videos that did much better than their usual (the page's example: 12 times the average), and rebuilds one with the customer's style and characters in one click. A separate Clone Video with AI tool extracts the full transcript of a TikTok, YouTube or Instagram video and makes a new video from it." }, { "title": "Credits per video type", "text": "Every plan is a monthly number of credits, and the pricing page lists what each video type costs: about 15 credits for a 30-second video with AI images, about 115 for a UGC ad and more than 270 for a talking avatar. Longer scripts and premium models use more credits, so the cost of an expensive model falls on the credits that the customer spends." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's own pages, an archived copy of its home page and the TrustMRR profile. They are grade C, except the payment provider, which TrustMRR reads through an API key.", "items": [ "One person writes the code, picks the AI models and answers support, with no growth team and no outsourced support (About page, October 2026).", "Scripts: written by Claude in October 2026. The archived home page of 27 July 2024 said \"Powered by GPT-4o\".", "Voices: ElevenLabs, OpenAI and Qwen. Qwen can also copy a customer's own voice from a short recording.", "Video: Seedance, Grok, Wan, Veo or p-video, depending on the quality level chosen. The FAQ says: \"We swap these when a better one comes out.\"", "Payments: Stripe, read by TrustMRR through an API key. StoryShort is not a merchant of record, a reseller that sells in its own name and handles sales tax.", "A REST API with webhooks and an MCP server (a standard way for AI assistants to call outside tools) let other programs generate and publish videos; the example script makes a 30-second UGC ad.", "Every page links about 55 tool pages under /tools/, from meme video generators (\"Italian Brainrot\" and others) to thumbnail makers. The page code loads the DataFast and PostHog analytics scripts." ], "src": [ 3, 5, 6, 1, 9, 4 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database promised easier video making, or a better deal for video creators, on platforms that they did not control. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Viddy", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$30M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Instagram for video: filters that make phone clips look professional.", "died": "Lost to better-funded rivals with more distribution. People tried it once and did not come back.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2190-viddy" }, { "name": "Vine", "years": "2012 to 2016", "funding": "US$30M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Six-second video loops for quick, shareable creativity.", "died": "Twitter, its owner, never made it a priority, and creators could not make money. When Instagram added video and YouTube paid creators, the top creators left.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/711-vine" }, { "name": "ReelSurfer", "years": "2012 to 2015", "funding": "US$1.25M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Cut and share segments of online videos with a simple tool.", "died": "YouTube and Facebook built similar editing and sharing features into their own products.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1577-reelsurfer" }, { "name": "Vidme", "years": "2014 to 2018", "funding": "US$9M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A simpler place for creators to upload videos and earn from them.", "died": "Could not match YouTube's scale. Content moderation and video hosting cost too much.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/708-vidme" }, { "name": "FameBit", "years": "2013 to 2019", "funding": "US$1.75M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Self-service matching of brands with YouTube creators for sponsored videos.", "died": "Google bought it in 2016 and phased it out as YouTube moved to large brand deals and TikTok grew.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/132-famebit" } ], "whatChanged": [ "All five depended on a platform that they did not control, and all five lost when that platform built the same feature, paid creators better or changed its priorities. StoryShort depends on platforms twice: TikTok, YouTube and Instagram decide whether its customers' videos are shown and paid, and outside model companies make every script, voice and clip.", "Two things differ. StoryShort hosts no videos and runs no social network, so it carries none of the hosting and moderation cost that the database names for Vidme; its TrustMRR snapshot shows a 75% margin. And it charges the creator, not the platform: the subscription is paid before any video earns anything, so StoryShort earns money even when its customers' channels do not, until those customers decide that the videos are not worth the price. No source says why revenue fell after January 2026." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The niche is crowded. The structure can be copied.", "text": "Faceless short-video tools were already many in 2024: this site has two other stories in the field, and TrustMRR lists more video businesses for sale next to StoryShort. What can be copied is the structure: a subscription for a stream of output instead of one file, prices in credits that follow model costs, and growth paid through ads and recurring affiliate commissions from the first months.", "steps": [ "Sell a schedule of finished output, such as a video every day, so the subscription matches what the customer gets.", "Price in credits per output type and publish the cost of each type, so that a new, more expensive model does not reduce your margin.", "Start ads and a recurring affiliate commission early, as StoryShort had by November 2024.", "Keep the model layer swappable: StoryShort moved from GPT-4o on its 2024 home page to Claude for scripts by 2026." ], "open": "Video formats that new models made possible only recently: the same character across scenes, characters that talk on screen, long videos, and API access for companies that make ads in volume. Each needs the platforms' rules on AI labels and original content built into the product." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Revenue has halved since January 2026", "text": "Stripe revenue peaked at US$44,459 in January 2026 and was US$21,767 in September 2026, 51.0% lower. MRR fell 16.3% in the last 30 days, to US$18,003. No source explains the fall. The business has been listed for sale since 18 December 2025 at US$1,200,000, 4.8 times its last 30 days of revenue counted for a year, and it was still listed on 16 October 2026 after 21 offers. The listing gives no team size." }, { "title": "YouTube does not pay for mass-produced videos", "text": "On 15 July 2025 YouTube renamed its \"repetitious content\" policy to \"inauthentic content\" and made clear that it includes content that is \"repetitive or mass-produced\"; YouTube says such content has always been ineligible for money from the YouTube Partner Program. Its reused content policy also covers channels that repost others' content without significant original commentary or changes. A series that posts a new AI video every day is the kind of channel these reviews look at. StoryShort's own guide repeats the rule and says that \"nobody can promise you a number\"." }, { "title": "TikTok labels for AI content", "text": "TikTok's synthetic media policy, introduced in 2023, \"requires people to label AI-generated content that contains realistic images, audio or video\". In September 2023 TikTok also began testing an \"AI-generated\" label that it plans to apply automatically to content that it detects was made or edited with AI. Videos that StoryShort posts for its customers fall under this rule when they look real." }, { "title": "AI testimonials and the US rule on fake reviews", "text": "The US Federal Trade Commission's rule on consumer reviews and testimonials, published on 22 August 2024 and in force from 21 October 2024, covers testimonials that misrepresent \"that the reviewer or testimonialist exists\", and the Commission wrote that \"AI-generated reviews are covered by the final rule\". StoryShort's API page uses the example prompt \"Make a UGC testimonial ad for our new skincare line\". An AI person shown as a real customer in such an ad is the case that the rule describes; the sources read here do not say how the rule applies to the tool that made the video." }, { "title": "Rebuilding another creator's video", "text": "The Clone Video with AI tool finds videos that did well on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, extracts \"the full word-for-word transcript\" and makes a new video that \"mirrors the original's winning formula\". A word-for-word transcript is the original creator's text, and the US Copyright Office explains that \"only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, an adaptation of that work\". YouTube's monetization page adds that copyright still applies to reused content. StoryShort's terms forbid content that infringes copyrights and make the user \"solely responsible\" for what the tool generates." }, { "title": "A crowded field", "text": "This site's AutoShorts.ai story (one founder, US$97,000 a month in May 2025) and Arcads story (AI UGC ads, US$6 million a year with 5 people in May 2025, then a US$16 million seed round) both rest on founder statements, grade C, while StoryShort's smaller US$18,003 a month is the only one of the three read from the payment processor." }, { "title": "Built on other companies' models", "text": "Claude writes the scripts; ElevenLabs, OpenAI and Qwen make the voices; Seedance, Grok, Wan, Veo and p-video make the clips. A price rise, a usage limit or a content rule at any of these companies changes what a credit costs StoryShort or what it can make. The models have already changed once: the 2024 home page said \"Powered by GPT-4o\". The 75% profit margin is a TrustMRR snapshot that does not come from the verified payment data." }, { "title": "Numbers that do not match", "text": "The site says \"Trusted by 90,000+ creators\"; the founder's TrustMRR entry estimates 27,000 users; Stripe shows 327 active subscriptions. The July 2024 home page already claimed 27,000 creators, although TrustMRR gives 6 August 2024 as the founded date. The affiliate page invites promoters to start \"earning passive income\"; it offers a commission to affiliates, not an income promise to customers." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR markdown profile: StoryShort, revenue last synced 15 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/storyshort.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile once, on 16 October 2026 (revenue last synced 2026-10-15T20:14Z). Grade A for the Stripe metrics in its Verification Sources section; the founded date, user estimate, description, margin and listing price are founder-entered or unverified, grade C. Source for every revenue figure and the sale listing." }, { "title": "gaps.com, 10 December 2024: Gaps Income Report, November 2024, insight #26", "url": "https://gaps.com/nov-2024/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on StoryShort (insight #26). A founder statement reported by the newsletter. Source for the 2024 MRR and the ads and affiliates." }, { "title": "StoryShort: About, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://storyshort.ai/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the one-person team and the founder's roles." }, { "title": "StoryShort: Pricing, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://storyshort.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the plans, yearly prices, credits and the cost of each video type." }, { "title": "StoryShort home page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://storyshort.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, including the questions and answers in the page code. Source for the product features and the AI models." }, { "title": "Internet Archive copy of storyshort.ai, 27 July 2024", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20240727214453/https://storyshort.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The first copy that the archive saved. Source for the early product and the GPT-4o line." }, { "title": "StoryShort: Affiliate Program, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://storyshort.ai/affiliate", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the commission terms." }, { "title": "StoryShort: Clone Video with AI, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://storyshort.ai/tools/clone-video-with-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on how cloning works. Source for the transcript extraction and the recreation." }, { "title": "StoryShort: Automate AI UGC videos, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://storyshort.ai/automate-ai-ugc", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section with the example API script. Source for the testimonial example and the API." }, { "title": "StoryShort: YouTube Automation Tool, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://storyshort.ai/tools/youtube-automation", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on YouTube's rules and on income. Source for the company's own warning." }, { "title": "StoryShort: Terms of Service, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://storyshort.ai/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the governing law, the prohibited content and the user's responsibility." }, { "title": "YouTube Help: YouTube channel monetization policies, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1311392?hl=en", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the update list (15 July 2025) and the sections on inauthentic and reused content." }, { "title": "TikTok Newsroom, 19 September 2023: New labels for disclosing AI-generated content", "url": "https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/new-labels-for-disclosing-ai-generated-content", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the label rule and the automatic label test." }, { "title": "Federal Register, 22 August 2024: Trade Regulation Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (FTC)", "url": "https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/08/22/2024-18519/trade-regulation-rule-on-the-use-of-consumer-reviews-and-testimonials", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the sections on fake testimonials and AI-generated reviews in the Federal Register's full-text file, and the dates from its API record. ftc.gov refused the download, so the Federal Register copy is cited." }, { "title": "U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 14: Copyright in Derivative Works and Compilations", "url": "https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. Source for the right to prepare adaptations." }, { "title": "Aiolum stories: AutoShorts.ai and Arcads", "url": "https://aiolum.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the published story data for both. Their figures are founder statements, grade C." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/jungle/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/jungle.md", "slug": "jungle", "name": "Jungle", "country": "United States", "sector": "Consumer software", "productType": "AI study app that makes questions from your own material", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "29 January 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$850K a year in recurring revenue, December 2024", "sticker": "$850K/yr recurring revenue", "outcomeUsd": 850000, "months": 23, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders and 2 engineers at the end-2024 figure, plus contractors; 7 people listed from March 2025", "fundingLabel": "Pre-seed of about US$600,000, then about US$300,000 in 2025 (founder figures)", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "learning", "channel": "creators", "trend": "flat", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Funded", "Running", "B2C", "Education" ], "product": "A study app that turns a student's own lecture slides, PDFs, notes, videos and lecture recordings into multiple-choice questions, flashcards and exam-style clinical-case questions, gives feedback on each answer, and schedules reviews so that weak topics come back. It runs on the web, iPhone and Android, with a free plan and paid plans.", "why": "It shipped within days in reply to a public request for exactly this tool, in January 2023, when AI tools were new and AI directories and their video reviewers sent traffic at almost no cost. It then aimed all marketing at medical students, the heaviest flashcard users, paid student creators to post about it on TikTok and Instagram, and bought Google Ads only while they paid back their cost.", "summary": [ "Jungle is a study app. A student uploads lecture slides, a PDF, notes, a video or a lecture recording, and the app turns it into multiple-choice questions, flashcards and clinical-case questions in the style of exams such as USMLE Step 1, the first United States medical licensing exam. The questions are written by a large language model (LLM), an AI program trained on large amounts of text that writes text from instructions. The app then schedules reviews by spaced repetition, a method that shows a question again just before you are likely to forget it. It runs on the web, iPhone and Android. The company behind it is Mindflow Inc. in California.", "Julian Alvarez, a developer who grew up in a Texas border town and had worked at LinkedIn Learning and Meta, built the first version with his co-founder David Glass in one 21-hour coding session in January 2023, in reply to a viral post on X that asked for exactly this tool. It launched on 29 January 2023 under the name Wisdolia. By the end of 2023 it had US$300,000 in ARR, annual recurring revenue: the subscription revenue of a recent month counted for a full year. By the end of 2024 it had US$850,000 in ARR, 650,000 users and a profit, with two co-founders and two engineers plus contractors. In early 2025 the founder told investors on the podcast The Pitch that ARR was approaching US$1 million. Before that the company had raised a pre-seed round, a first small round of venture money, of about US$600,000.", "Every revenue figure on this page is a statement by the founder, grade C. The only money confirmed by a second party is the US$150,000 that The Pitch Fund and Jesse Middleton of the venture firm Flybridge disclosed themselves in May 2025, invested as SAFEs, agreements that turn money into shares at a later funding round. In June 2025 the founder said growth had started to plateau and that the 2025 round raised about US$300,000 of the US$2 million he wanted. In July and August 2025 OpenAI and Google added study modes to ChatGPT and Gemini. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that tried to make studying and quizzing more engaging." ], "factsCaption": "A study app that reached US$850,000 a year in recurring revenue with four people at the end of 2024, then stopped growing in mid-2025, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founder or the company, or a third party that repeats it. Grade B is an investor's own disclosure of its investment. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No revenue figure is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a reply to a stranger's post on X to a million users, in about two years. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Jungle prices in October 2026: the free plan from the company's pricing page, the paid plans as iPhone in-app purchases in the US App Store (grade C)", "note": "The web pricing page names its paid plans Pro and Elite but loads their prices by script, so they could not be read; this table uses the App Store's in-app purchase prices instead, and how the store's plan names match the web plans is not stated. Yearly prices are shown per month (calculated: the yearly price divided by 12). Super Learner is also sold weekly at US$6.99. In early 2025 the founder gave the prices as US$8 a month for the middle plan and US$20 a month for the top plan, and the free plan then allowed 15 generations a month.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "2 generations a month, documents up to 30 pages" ], [ "Mega Mind", "5.00", "7.99", "App Store; US$59.99 a year" ], [ "Super Learner", "6.00", "15.00", "App Store; US$72.00 a year, or US$6.99 a week" ], [ "Elite", "15.00", "37.00", "App Store; US$179.99 a year; exam-style templates, AI voice tutor" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, end of 2024", "value": "US$850,000, up from US$300,000 a year earlier", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder's end-of-year roundup, as reported by Gaps on 9 January 2025. Gaps adds that the company was profitable. Repeated by a second Gaps page and by a July 2026 newsletter.", "src": [ 1, 6, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly equivalent of the end-2024 figure", "value": "about US$70,800 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$850,000 divided by 12.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Growth during 2024", "value": "2.8 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$850,000 divided by US$300,000 is 2.83.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Users, end of 2024", "value": "650,000, up from 200,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, via Gaps. Calculated: 3.25 times in the year.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, early 2025", "value": "approaching US$1 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on The Pitch, recorded when December 2024 was the latest month, aired 7 May 2025. He said the company had been net profitable for the last four months and had 180,000 monthly active users.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Money received per month, late 2024 to early 2025", "value": "over US$100,000 a month for three months", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on The Pitch, right after saying that 40% of subscribers buy a yearly plan, which brings revenue in up front. So this cash figure is higher than one twelfth of ARR. A July 2026 newsletter gives \"$100K a month\" without a date.", "src": [ 2, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Users and total revenue, April 2025", "value": "1 million users and US$1 million in lifetime revenue", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder to Gaps, 17 April 2025, who also said the company was \"on track to reach $1M in annual revenue\". Lifetime revenue is the total since launch, a different measure from ARR. The July 2026 newsletter calls it \"$1M ARR\".", "src": [ 5, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Growth in June 2025", "value": "\"started to plateau a little bit\"", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in The Pitch season finale, 26 June 2025. He said the next goal was to get back to profitability.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Eight weeks after launch, late March 2023", "value": "7,000 downloads, 2,500 weekly active users, US$800 spent on marketing", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's LinkedIn post, quoted in Yuma Ueno's newsletter. Users in more than 120 countries.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Total revenue by September 2023", "value": "US$15,000, with 60,000 downloads", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's LinkedIn post, quoted in the same newsletter.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Google Ads, three months to early 2025", "value": "US$105,000 spent, US$108,000 earned", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on The Pitch. Calculated: 1.03 dollars back for each dollar. Spend was about US$30,000 a month. Earlier, the ads contractor reported 5 times and then 3.5 times the spend in its first two months, and 20% of revenue from ads.", "src": [ 2, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Creator program, early 2025", "value": "about 30 paid student creators, 12 videos a week each, 76 million views in three months", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on The Pitch. The program had doubled from 15 creators. Students run their own TikTok and Instagram accounts.", "src": [ 2, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Sign-ups in December 2024", "value": "144,000, of which 40% came by word of mouth", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on The Pitch. Calculated: about 57,600 people came through referrals.", "src": [ 2, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Paid churn", "value": "12% a month during a semester, about 19% in summer", "grade": "C", "note": "Founders on The Pitch. Churn is the share of paying subscribers who cancel.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Plan mix, early 2025", "value": "30% to 40% buy the top plan; 40% pay yearly", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on The Pitch. The middle plan was US$8 a month and the top plan US$20 a month then.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Time to make a deck", "value": "30 seconds in Jungle, 1.5 to 3 hours in Anki", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's own comparison page. The founder says medical students spend about 10 hours making 700 flashcards for one exam.", "src": [ 17, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Pre-seed round", "value": "about US$600,000 at an US$8 million post-money valuation", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on The Pitch. An investor on the show recalled it as \"I believe, 800k\". The company met its ads contractor through a venture investor at an incubator.", "src": [ 2, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Investments disclosed by The Pitch, May 2025", "value": "US$150,000 in SAFEs at a US$12 million post-money cap", "grade": "B", "note": "The investors' own disclosure: The Pitch Fund US$100,000 and Jesse Middleton of Flybridge US$50,000. A cap is the highest valuation at which the money turns into shares.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "2025 seed round, total", "value": "about US$300,000 of the US$2 million sought", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in the season finale, 26 June 2025. The venture firm Baukunst passed after diligence.", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Outside money raised in total", "value": "about US$900,000", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: about US$600,000 pre-seed plus about US$300,000 in 2025, both founder figures.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Team at the end-2024 figure", "value": "2 co-founders and 2 engineers, plus contractors", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on The Pitch: \"We have two other engineers\", plus supporting roles such as a Google Ads person and an illustrator. The about page in December 2024 listed the two co-founders, one engineer and an advisor.", "src": [ 2, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Team from March 2025", "value": "7 people and an advisor", "grade": "C", "note": "The about page in March 2025, August 2025, May 2026 and October 2026: the two co-founders, three engineers, a creator program lead and a creative lead. In June 2025 the founder named two key hires: a founding AI engineer and an illustrator and game designer.", "src": [ 9, 3 ] }, { "fact": "App Store rating, October 2026", "value": "4.6 from about 1,000 ratings", "grade": "C", "note": "The listing says more than 1 million students use the app. Updated at least twice in October 2026.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the end-2024 figure", "value": "23 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: January 2023 to December 2024.", "src": [ 7, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "25 January 2023", "what": "A post on X asks for a GPT tool that makes Anki-style flashcards from books and articles. It gets 390,000 views. Alvarez and his co-founder David build the tool in one 21-hour session and reply to the post.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "29 January 2023", "what": "Launch under the name Wisdolia. The founder messages every person who engaged with the post and gets his first 100 users; X suspends his account for the volume of messages.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 6 ] }, { "when": "Early 2023", "what": "Listed on every AI directory he can find. A Futurepedia video about AI tools reaches 1.58 million views. Monthly revenue rises to about US$2,000, then stops growing.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "Late March 2023", "what": "Eight weeks in: 7,000 downloads, 2,500 weekly active users in more than 120 countries, US$800 spent on marketing.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "September 2023", "what": "60,000 downloads and US$15,000 in total revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "Undated, after the plateau", "what": "All marketing aimed at medical students. One medical student's TikTok video reaches 2.5 million views, and monthly revenue goes from US$2,000 to US$15,000 within one to two weeks.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "End of 2023", "what": "US$300,000 in annual recurring revenue.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "when": "By August 2024", "what": "Renamed Jungle: the about page archived on 19 August 2024 already uses the new name and lists two co-founders, one engineer and an advisor.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9, 6 ] }, { "when": "Before the 2025 round, undated", "what": "A Google Ads contractor sets up tracking. Returns of 5 times the spend in the first month and 3.5 times in the second; the company has its first profitable month and a revenue record.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "December 2024", "what": "US$850,000 in annual recurring revenue, 650,000 users, profitable. 144,000 sign-ups in the month, 40% by word of mouth.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "Early 2025", "what": "Pitch on the podcast The Pitch: ARR approaching US$1 million, 180,000 monthly active users, net profitable for four months, raising US$2 million.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "March 2025", "what": "The about page lists 7 people: the co-founders, three engineers, a creator program lead and a creative lead.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "17 April 2025", "what": "1 million users and US$1 million in lifetime revenue, on track for US$1 million a year.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "7 May 2025", "what": "The episode airs. Baukunst passes after diligence; The Pitch Fund and Jesse Middleton of Flybridge invest US$150,000 in SAFEs at a US$12 million cap.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "26 June 2025", "what": "In the season finale the founder says the round raised about US$300,000, growth started to plateau, and the team will stop raising and work to get back to profitability.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "29 July and 6 August 2025", "what": "OpenAI adds study mode to ChatGPT, including the free plan. Google launches Guided Learning in Gemini.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14, 15 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "The iPhone app is updated at least twice in the month and claims more than 1 million students. The privacy policy allows licensing user data to third parties for AI training.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13, 12 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Distribution", "text": "The product was simple to copy, so the founders put their effort into finding students: first AI directories and the video reviewers who read them, then one niche, then paid creators and ads that paid back. The founder says that in generative AI the main defense is to move fast and experiment more than others: 50 to 100 experiments a month, reviewed every Monday." }, { "title": "A fast reply to a public request", "text": "On 25 January 2023 a post on X asked for a GPT tool that makes Anki-style flashcards from what you read. The founders built it in one 21-hour session, replied to the post, and messaged every person who engaged with it, which brought the first 100 users. They talked to each of them and changed the product from their feedback." }, { "title": "One niche with the most need", "text": "Usage data showed that medical students used the app far more than anyone else. They are also the main users of Anki. For about a year all marketing aimed at them, and the product added clinical-case questions in the style of medical exams, which law and dental students then found useful too." }, { "title": "Paid student creators", "text": "One medical student's TikTok video reached 2.5 million views and lifted monthly revenue from about US$2,000 to US$15,000 within one to two weeks. The company turned this into a program: about 30 students paid to run their own accounts and post about 12 videos a week each, 76 million views in three months." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's statements, the company's own pages and its Google Ads contractor. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Prompts on top of large language models, plus \"some fine tuned models\", in the founder's words in early 2025. He said the prompt had been revised more than a hundred times. No source read for this page names the model provider.", "Question quality is tested with an LLM as the judge: each platform generated questions from the same 3 documents, and the questions were scored without showing which platform made them. The home page compares Jungle with Quizlet, Turbo, Gizmo and StudyFetch.", "Google Firebase for the backend database and login, Amplitude and Google Analytics for analytics, and Smashsend for email marketing, per the privacy policy.", "The website was built on Webflow, and the Google Ads campaigns were measured with Google Analytics 4, per the ads contractor's case study.", "A web app plus iPhone and Android apps from the developer Mindflow Inc. The iPhone app sells the paid plans as in-app purchases.", "Features beyond questions: image occlusion (labels hidden on a diagram for the student to name), lecture recordings, an AI voice tutor, spaced repetition, export to Anki, streaks, and a tree that grows as the student answers.", "An experiment hour every Monday, with 50 to 100 experiments a month on ads, pages, prices, onboarding and features." ], "src": [ 2, 11, 12, 8, 13, 10, 7 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised students or parents a better or more engaging way to study or quiz, and failed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Grockit", "years": "2007 to 2015", "funding": "US$44.4M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Social, game-like test preparation for the SAT and GMAT.", "died": "Kaplan, a large test-prep company, bought it in 2013 and folded it into its own business, where the product did not survive.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/196-grockit" }, { "name": "QuizUp", "years": "2013 to 2020", "funding": "US$27M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "Real-time quiz battles on thousands of topics.", "died": "It spread fast, but it never found a way to make money, lost players to live-hosted quiz games, and its buyer neglected it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/479-quizup" }, { "name": "Airy Labs", "years": "2010 to 2012", "funding": "US$1.7M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Learning games for children, based on cognitive science.", "died": "Costly content met free-to-download app store prices, and parents could not see the difference from free apps.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/3-airy-labs" }, { "name": "Xuebajun", "years": "2013 to 2021", "funding": "US$150M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Photograph a homework problem and get an AI solution.", "died": "It moved from homework help into an expensive live-tutoring marketplace, then a ban by the Chinese government ended its business.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2325-xuebajun" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the four sold a better way to study or quiz, and none found revenue that covered its costs. QuizUp spread fast but never made money from its players, Airy Labs could not charge more than free apps, Grockit disappeared inside a test-prep company, and Xuebajun spent its money on tutors before a ban. Jungle sells to the same buyer, a student near an exam, and has the same weak point: students cancel in summer and leave after graduation.", "Two things differ. First, the AI writes each new set of questions from the student's own slides, so the company does not pay people to write course content, as Grockit and Airy Labs had to. Second, it charged early, sold yearly plans to 40% of subscribers, and bought ads only while they paid back, so four people reached US$850,000 a year after a pre-seed round of about US$600,000. The new risk is one the predecessors did not face: the AI model makers now offer study features inside their own chat apps." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The early market, no.", "text": "A tool that writes study questions from a student's own files was new in January 2023, and Jungle shipped it within days of a public request. Since mid-2025 ChatGPT and Gemini have their own study modes. What can still be copied is the method: one group of users under exam pressure, paid creators from that group, ads that pay back, and many small experiments.", "steps": [ "Build the tool that people ask for in public, ship it within days, and reply to the request yourself.", "Find the user group with the most urgent need in your usage data, and aim all marketing at it.", "Pay members of that group to post short videos from their own accounts, several a week each.", "Buy search ads only while the revenue they bring covers the spend, and sell yearly plans." ], "open": "Exam-heavy groups that general chat apps serve less well: nursing, law, licensing and certification exams, and language tests, with questions in the exact style of each exam." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported, and three different measures", "text": "Every revenue figure is the founder's own statement. The sources use three measures that are easy to mix up: ARR (US$850,000 at the end of 2024), lifetime revenue (US$1 million in total by April 2025) and money received per month (over US$100,000, which includes yearly plans paid in advance). The July 2026 newsletter repeats \"$1M ARR\" and \"$100K a month\" without new dates." }, { "title": "Growth stopped in 2025", "text": "In June 2025 the founder said growth \"started to plateau a little bit\", that the seed round raised about US$300,000 of the US$2 million sought, and that the goal was to get back to profitability. A venture firm passed after diligence, saying the product's maturity fitted a pre-seed round. No source gives a revenue figure after April 2025." }, { "title": "Students leave", "text": "Paid churn was 12% a month during a semester and about 19% in summer, by the founders' figures. Medical students use the app around exams and stop after graduation, which limits how much each customer pays over time." }, { "title": "The model makers now offer study modes", "text": "OpenAI added study mode to ChatGPT on 29 July 2025 for logged-in users on the Free, Plus, Pro and Team plans. Google launched Guided Learning in Gemini on 6 August 2025. Investors on The Pitch said they already upload PDFs to ChatGPT and ask it to quiz them." }, { "title": "Large study apps compete for the same students", "text": "Jungle's home page names Quizlet, Turbo, Gizmo and StudyFetch as competitors. Its ads contractor wrote that Quizlet and Anki dominated the same search ads. The founder said many of Jungle's users came from Anki or Quizlet." }, { "title": "School and exam rules on AI", "text": "Guidance from England's Department for Education, updated 12 August 2025, says schools may review homework and unsupervised-study policies because of generative AI, and need to keep taking reasonable steps to prevent malpractice involving generative AI in formal assessments. Practice questions made from a student's own slides are revision, not assessed work; the risk is that a school's general rules on AI tools cover them too." }, { "title": "Dependence on model providers", "text": "The product is prompts and some fine-tuned models on top of large language models from providers that the sources do not name. The founder said generative AI gives no strong protection against copies, and the host of The Pitch said everybody uses the same models. A price rise or a rule change by the provider affects the margin directly." }, { "title": "A larger team after the headline figure", "text": "The headline figure is from the end of 2024, when the team was two co-founders and two engineers. From March 2025 the about page lists 7 people and an advisor, plus about 30 paid student creators, so the 2025 figures come from a team of 7." }, { "title": "User data may be licensed for AI training", "text": "The privacy policy read in October 2026 says the company may license or sell data collected through the service, including personal data, to third parties, including for training AI models. Students who upload course material may object." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Gaps, Glen Allsopp, 9 January 2025: December 2024 income report", "url": "https://gaps.com/dec-2024/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on Jungle (insight 3). Reports the founder's end-of-year roundup. Source for the US$850,000 and US$300,000 ARR, the users and the profit." }, { "title": "The Pitch, season 13 episode 9, 7 May 2025: Jungle: Your AI Study Coach", "url": "https://www.thepitch.show/162-jungle-your-ai-study-coach", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the episode page in full, with its transcript and deal summary. Founder statements to investors, recorded when December 2024 was the latest month. Source for ARR, money per month, users, channels, prices, churn, team, the pre-seed and the 2025 investments." }, { "title": "The Pitch, season 13 finale, 26 June 2025: Founders Flip the Script", "url": "https://www.thepitch.show/season-13-finale-founders-flip-the-script", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the Jungle segment of the transcript. Source for the result of the 2025 round, the plateau and the new hires." }, { "title": "The Pitch blog, 7 May 2025: From Video Game Addict to $1M Revenue: How 1,000+ Experiments Grew a Jungle", "url": "https://www.thepitch.show/blog/from-video-game-addict-to-1m-revenue-how-1000-experiments-grew-a-jungle-/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The show's summary of the pitch. Source for the creator program growth, the flashcard time claim and the founder's background." }, { "title": "Gaps, Glen Allsopp, 17 April 2025: March 2025 income report", "url": "https://gaps.com/mar-2025/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on Jungle (insight 14). Source for 1 million users, US$1 million in lifetime revenue and the US$1 million annual target." }, { "title": "Gaps: online learning businesses, updated 12 May 2025", "url": "https://gaps.com/online-learning/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on Jungle. Source for the two founders, the 2023 founding, the former name Wisdolia and the US$850,000 figure." }, { "title": "Yuma Ueno's newsletter, 7 July 2026: The Guy Who Built the MVP in a 21-hour and Grew an AI Flashcard App to $100K/Month", "url": "https://yumaueno.substack.com/p/the-guy-who-built-the-mvp-in-a-21", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A secondary account built on the founder's LinkedIn posts, which could not be fetched (LinkedIn may not be fetched). Source for the launch story, the early numbers and the creator strategy." }, { "title": "Profit Mill case study: Jungle AI, 5x ROI within 1 month of running Google Ads", "url": "https://www.profitmill.io/case-studies/Jungle-AI", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The Google Ads contractor's own account, undated in its text. Source for the ad returns, the tools and the pre-seed status." }, { "title": "Jungle about page, live and five Wayback copies", "url": "https://jungleai.com/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 16 October 2026, and the Wayback copies of 19 August 2024, 13 December 2024, 24 March 2025, 31 August 2025 and 15 May 2026. Source for the founders' roles and the team size at each date." }, { "title": "Jungle pricing page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://jungleai.com/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the free plan and the features of each plan. The paid prices load by script and could not be read." }, { "title": "Jungle home page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://jungleai.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the product, the named competitors and the LLM-scored question test." }, { "title": "Jungle privacy policy, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://jungleai.com/privacy-policy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the company name Mindflow Inc., its state, its service providers and the data licensing clause." }, { "title": "Apple App Store: Jungle: AI Flashcards & Quiz, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6657995165", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the in-app purchase prices, the rating, the developer name and the update dates." }, { "title": "OpenAI, 29 July 2025: Introducing study mode", "url": "https://openai.com/index/chatgpt-study-mode/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the launch date and the plans that get study mode." }, { "title": "Google blog, 6 August 2025: Guided Learning in Gemini: From answers to understanding", "url": "https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/guided-learning/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the announcement. Source for the launch date." }, { "title": "UK Department for Education: Generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education, updated 12 August 2025", "url": "https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/generative-artificial-intelligence-in-education/generative-artificial-intelligence-ai-in-education", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on homework and formal assessments." }, { "title": "Jungle: Anki vs Jungle comparison page", "url": "https://jungleai.com/anki-vs-jungle", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's own comparison of deck creation time." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/ai2sql/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/ai2sql.md", "slug": "ai2sql", "name": "AI2SQL", "country": "United States", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Text-to-SQL assistant (web app)", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "25 October 2021", "outcomeLabel": "US$10K a month, January 2025", "sticker": "$120K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 120318, "months": 39, "teamLabel": "1 founder; no employees reported", "fundingLabel": "None reported", "primaryFactor": "Niche", "group": "documents-data", "channel": "search", "trend": "unknown", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Developer tools" ], "product": "A web app that writes SQL queries from requests in plain English, and explains, fixes and speeds up existing queries, for MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Oracle, SQLite, Snowflake, BigQuery and other databases. Paid plans connect to the customer's own database and run read-only queries, also from Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor.", "why": "It launched in October 2021 with one narrow promise, write SQL without knowing SQL, on OpenAI's Codex and GPT-3 models and a no-code app builder. It kept its prices low, built a site of more than 700 pages, among them SQL lessons, templates and comparisons, and added what a general chatbot does not have: a live, read-only connection to the customer's database. Its recurring revenue, as the founder reported it, doubled in 2024 to about US$10,000 a month.", "summary": [ "AI2SQL writes SQL, Structured Query Language, the standard language for reading and changing data in relational databases, from requests in plain English. This is called text-to-SQL: a language model reads the request and the type of database and returns the query. The 2022 home page gave this example request: \"Show me dogs and cat names where breed is 'dachshund' and size is 'small'\". The tool also explains a query, fixes syntax errors and suggests a faster version. On the Pro and Team plans it connects to the customer's own database, reads its schema, the list of tables and columns with their types, and runs read-only queries. It can do this from inside Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor through an MCP server, a service that follows the Model Context Protocol, a standard way for AI assistants to call outside tools.", "Mustafa Ergisi launched AI2SQL on Product Hunt on 25 October 2021. In February 2022 the site said it was \"Powered by OpenAI Codex & GPT3\", and its sign-up pages ran on Bubble, a no-code builder, a service for making web apps by arranging parts on screen instead of writing code. A third-party write-up says it had US$1,151 of MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the amount that all active subscriptions bring in each month, in February 2023 (not verified). According to the gaps.com newsletter, the founder reported US$5,000 MRR about a year before January 2025, and a screenshot of his revenue dashboard shows US$10,026.53 MRR on 19 January 2025. That is a run rate, the current month's revenue times 12, of about US$120,000 a year, 39 months after launch.", "Every figure on this page comes from the founder, through a screenshot or a third party that repeats him, so it is grade C. No payment processor, buyer or journalist has confirmed it, and no figure newer than January 2025 was found. The same write-up also reports US$100,000 a year in December 2023, which does not fit the other figures, so this page does not use it. The page also shows earlier companies that promised an easier way to get answers from data, and what happened to them when larger platforms built the same feature." ], "factsCaption": "A text-to-SQL tool, launched in October 2021, at about US$10,000 a month in recurring revenue by January 2025, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement, shown in a screenshot or repeated by a newsletter or a write-up, or a record on Product Hunt or on the company's own pages. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a Bubble app \"Powered by OpenAI Codex & GPT3\" to an MCP server for Claude and ChatGPT, in five years. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "AI2SQL prices in October 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C)", "note": "Every paid plan starts with a 7-day free trial that needs a card. Billed yearly, the plans cost US$84, US$168 and US$348 a year, which the page calls a 25% saving. Connecting your own database needs Pro or Team. The Lifetime plan is one payment with a monthly query limit.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "3 queries a day on a demo database" ], [ "Start", "7", "9", "100 queries a month; MySQL and PostgreSQL" ], [ "Pro", "14", "19", "unlimited queries; advanced model; own database; MCP; desktop app" ], [ "Team", "29", "39", "5 users; shared query library; role-based access" ], [ "Lifetime", "29 one-time", "", "500 AI queries a month" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 19 January 2025", "value": "US$10,026.53", "grade": "C", "note": "A screenshot of a revenue dashboard (\"MRR $10,026.53\", \"Updated Jan 19\") in the gaps.com report for January 2025, published 6 February 2025. The newsletter wrote \"If correct\" and does not say that it checked the account.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from that figure", "value": "about US$120,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$10,026.53 times 12 is US$120,318.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, early 2024", "value": "US$5,000", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder's earlier statement as gaps.com reports it, \"almost a year\" before the January 2025 figure. The newsletter gives no exact date or link.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Growth during 2024", "value": "about 2 times", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$10,026.53 divided by US$5,000 is 2.0. Gaps.com: he \"effectively doubled his revenue in 2024\".", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, February 2023", "value": "US$1,151 from 128 paying users", "grade": "C", "note": "A third-party write-up of September 2025 that cites an Indie Hackers post by the founder, which this page could not open. Not verified. About US$9 per paying user a month (calculated).", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "\"US$100,000 ARR\", December 2023", "value": "not used", "grade": "C", "note": "Same write-up, which gives it as about US$8,500 a month. US$100,000 divided by 12 is US$8,333, two thirds more than the US$5,000 reported for early 2024, and the dashboard line shows no fall. The write-up does not say how it was counted.", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Users and queries, early 2025", "value": "50,000 users, 75,000 queries", "grade": "C", "note": "The site's own numbers as gaps.com quotes them: 1.5 queries per user (calculated). The newsletter guessed that most people test one query and do not return.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Early use, February 2022", "value": "500+ sign-ups, 1,600+ queries generated", "grade": "C", "note": "Counters on the home page in the Wayback Machine snapshot of 27 February 2022, four months after launch.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Product Hunt launches", "value": "25 October 2021 and 14 March 2023", "grade": "C", "note": "Product Hunt's record. The first, \"Write SQL queries with no knowledge of SQL\", was fifth of the day and 26th of the week. AI2sql 2.0 was 20th of the day. The write-up's launch date of April 2022 does not match.", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "fact": "AI models", "value": "OpenAI Codex and GPT-3 in 2022; not named today", "grade": "C", "note": "The 2022 footer: \"Powered by OpenAI Codex & GPT3\". In October 2026 the pricing page names only a \"Basic\" and an \"Advanced\" model. The company also published a fine-tuned Mistral 7B model on Hugging Face.", "src": [ 4, 5, 9 ] }, { "fact": "Prices, October 2026", "value": "US$9, US$19 and US$39 a month; US$29 one-time", "grade": "C", "note": "Start, Pro and Team, or US$7, US$14 and US$29 a month billed yearly. The one-time Lifetime plan allows 500 queries a month. A free plan allows 3 queries a day on a demo database.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Affiliate commission", "value": "30% of the first 3 subscription payments", "grade": "C", "note": "From the affiliate program page.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Pages in the sitemap, October 2026", "value": "752", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: counted on this page from the sitemap. They include SQL lessons, SQL templates, database comparisons and blog posts.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 founder; no employees reported", "grade": "C", "note": "Gaps.com and Product Hunt name only Mustafa Ergisi. The write-up calls him a solo founder and a former data analyst from Istanbul, Turkey: not verified.", "src": [ 1, 3, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "No source reports a funding round. The write-up says \"No external funding\".", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "Cross Regions Technology, Jacksonville, Florida", "grade": "C", "note": "Named on the contact page in October 2026. The terms of service say only \"operated by AI2sql\" and choose United States law.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the January 2025 figure", "value": "39 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: October 2021 to January 2025.", "src": [ 3, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "25 October 2021", "what": "First launch on Product Hunt: \"Write SQL queries with no knowledge of SQL\". Fifth product of the day, 26th of the week.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "27 February 2022", "what": "The site says \"Powered by OpenAI Codex & GPT3\". Its sign-up and pricing links go to ai2sql.bubbleapps.io, an app built with Bubble. Counters show 500+ sign-ups and 1,600+ generated queries.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "February 2023", "what": "US$1,151 MRR from 128 paying users, according to a third-party write-up that cites the founder. Not verified.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "14 March 2023", "what": "Second Product Hunt launch, AI2sql 2.0: \"Converse with your data in natural language\". 20th product of the day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "31 July 2023", "what": "Databricks opens a public preview of an assistant that generates, explains and fixes SQL from English inside its SQL editor.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "Early 2024", "what": "The founder reports US$5,000 MRR, as gaps.com later recounts.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "12 June 2024", "what": "Databricks announces AI/BI with Genie, which answers business questions in conversation with queries and charts.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "19 January 2025", "what": "A dashboard screenshot shows MRR of US$10,026.53, about double the figure of a year earlier. Gaps.com publishes it on 6 February 2025.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "Plans from US$9 to US$39 a month and a US$29 lifetime plan, an MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor, and a desktop app. The footer calls the product \"The data layer for AI agents\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 7 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "One narrow job", "text": "AI2SQL does one thing: SQL. It writes a query from a request in plain English, explains a query, fixes syntax errors and suggests faster versions, in the variant of SQL that each database uses: MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Oracle, SQLite, Snowflake, BigQuery and others. It went on Product Hunt in October 2021 with that single promise and still sells it five years later." }, { "title": "Bought parts for the first version", "text": "In February 2022 the site said that OpenAI's Codex and GPT-3 models produced the SQL, and the sign-up and pricing pages ran on Bubble, a no-code builder. The model came from OpenAI and the app pages from Bubble." }, { "title": "A page for every SQL question", "text": "The sitemap lists 752 pages: SQL lessons for functions in each database, SQL templates, database comparisons, pages such as \"AI2sql vs. ChatGPT\", and blog posts. Pages like these answer searches that people who write SQL type, and the pages read for this story carry a free sign-up offer. No source says what share of customers came from search." }, { "title": "Low prices, a trial and a lifetime plan", "text": "Plans cost US$9 to US$39 a month, or US$7 to US$29 a month billed yearly, and each starts with a 7-day trial that needs a card. A US$29 lifetime plan with 500 queries a month brings in cash once. Affiliates get 30% of the first 3 subscription payments of each customer they refer." }, { "title": "Inside the chatbots, not against them", "text": "The newest features put AI2SQL inside the general assistants. Its MCP server lets Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and VS Code write SQL through AI2SQL on every plan, and run read-only queries on a connected database on Pro and Team. The footer now calls the product \"The data layer for AI agents\"." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's pages, read in October 2026 and in a Wayback Machine snapshot of February 2022, including the code of those pages. They are grade C.", "items": [ "2022: a landing page whose sign-up and pricing links went to ai2sql.bubbleapps.io, an app made with Bubble. The footer said \"Powered by OpenAI Codex & GPT3\". The page loaded Google Analytics and Hotjar to record visits.", "2026: the marketing site is built with Astro, a framework that produces static pages, and the app runs at builder.ai2sql.io. The pages load Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Mixpanel and Microsoft Clarity to measure visits, a Google Ads tag, and Crisp for support chat.", "Models: the pricing page names only a \"Basic\" and an \"Advanced\" AI model and says that customer queries and schemas are \"never sold or used to train models\". A blog post describes AI2SQL Mistral-7B, the open Mistral 7B model fine-tuned for text-to-SQL on WikiSQL data with LoRA, a method that trains a small set of added weights instead of the whole model, and published on Hugging Face. The site does not say whether the paid plans use it.", "Today the product has a web app, a desktop app for Windows and Mac, an API, and an MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and VS Code.", "Company: the contact page names Cross Regions Technology in Jacksonville, Florida. The terms of service, made with the PolicyMaker.io template generator, say only \"operated by AI2sql\" and choose United States law.", "A third-party write-up lists Bubble, Google Cloud, HubSpot, Stripe, Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity as the tools, with monthly costs. Bubble, Google Analytics and Clarity are visible in the page code; the rest is not verified." ], "src": [ 4, 6, 5, 9, 7, 8, 2 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised an easier way to get answers from data or to run a database, and lost when larger platforms offered the same thing. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Ask Jeeves", "years": "1996 to 2007", "funding": "US$50M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Ask a search engine a question in plain words, without learning keyword and Boolean syntax.", "died": "Its answers depended on human editors and a fixed set of question-and-answer pairs, which could not grow with the web. Google's automatic ranking won.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/10-ask-jeeves" }, { "name": "SumAll", "years": "2011 to 2019", "funding": "US$15M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "One dashboard of marketing and sales data for small businesses, with no data specialist needed.", "died": "It could not stand apart from Tableau, Google Analytics and free tools. Small businesses did not see the value in its price, and many left.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/587-sumall" }, { "name": "Skysheet", "years": "2009 to 2012", "funding": "US$200K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A spreadsheet in the cloud with real-time collaboration and better charts.", "died": "Google and Microsoft moved their own spreadsheets to the cloud and added collaboration.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1218-skysheet" }, { "name": "FathomDB", "years": "2008 to 2011", "funding": "US$0", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Managed cloud databases with automatic scaling, backups and monitoring.", "died": "AWS introduced RDS, and the large cloud providers offered the same service with far more money.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1231-fathomdb" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the four sold an easier way to reach data or to run a database, and each lost when a larger company that owned the platform built the same feature into it. AI2SQL faces the same risk. The databases that it writes SQL for now write SQL themselves: in July 2023 Databricks wrote: \"Describe your task in English and let the Assistant generate SQL queries, explain complex code, and automatically fix errors.\" That is close to AI2SQL's own list of features. Snowflake, Google and Microsoft document similar features.", "Two things differ. First, AI2SQL is one person without outside funding, so it does not need a large share of the market: about US$10,000 a month can support one person. Second, it works across many databases and also inside Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor, so a customer with data in several systems, or a person who already works in a chatbot, has a reason to use it instead of one vendor's assistant. Whether that reason lasts as each platform improves its own assistant is the open question." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The early start, no. The narrow tool with search pages, partly.", "text": "AI2SQL started in 2021 on OpenAI's Codex and GPT-3; today the database makers and the general chatbots write SQL too. What a new founder can still copy is the shape: one narrow job that people repeat every week, a reference page for every variant of that job, a low price with a trial, and a connection into the tools that people already use.", "steps": [ "Choose one task that people repeat every week and must get exactly right, such as SQL for a particular database.", "Build the first version on a model API and a no-code builder, as AI2SQL did with OpenAI's models and Bubble.", "Publish a page for every variant of the task: each function, database, error code and comparison.", "Add what a general chatbot lacks, the customer's own schema, a read-only connection and team features, and offer them inside the chatbots through MCP." ], "open": "Other formal languages that people write rarely but must get exactly right: spreadsheet formulas, regular expressions, DAX for Power BI, log search queries and infrastructure configuration files." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Self-reported, from one screenshot", "text": "The headline figure is a screenshot of a revenue dashboard that the founder shared and a newsletter republished with the words \"If correct\". No payment processor, buyer or journalist has confirmed it. The latest figure is from January 2025, 21 months before this page was written, so whether revenue kept growing is not known." }, { "title": "The 2023 figures conflict", "text": "A third-party write-up gives US$100,000 ARR in December 2023, which is about US$8,333 a month. That is two thirds more than the US$5,000 a month reported for early 2024, and the dashboard line shows no fall in that period, so this page does not use it. The same write-up dates the launch to April 2022, but Product Hunt records the first launch on 25 October 2021." }, { "title": "The database makers built it in", "text": "Databricks put SQL generation, explanation and error fixing into its SQL editor in a public preview on 31 July 2023, and announced Genie, a conversational interface for business questions, on 12 June 2024. Snowflake documents Cortex Analyst, with which \"business users can ask questions in natural language\". Google's BigQuery documentation describes a SQL generation tool that \"lets you use natural language to generate a SQL query\", and Microsoft documents Copilot in Azure SQL Database on a page dated 8 April 2025. These come with platforms that the customers already pay for." }, { "title": "General chatbots write SQL", "text": "The company's own site has pages that compare AI2SQL with ChatGPT. The gaps.com writer guessed that \"standard ChatGPT could handle the majority of use cases\". The site's numbers in early 2025, 50,000 users and 75,000 queries, are 1.5 queries per user, and the writer read them as most people trying one query and not returning." }, { "title": "Dependence on model providers", "text": "The product started on OpenAI's Codex and GPT-3, and today the pricing page names only a \"Basic\" and an \"Advanced\" model. The newest features run inside Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor through MCP, so the companies that sell the language models also own the screens where these users work." }, { "title": "Company details are incomplete", "text": "The terms of service are a generic template that names no company. The contact page names Cross Regions Technology in Jacksonville, Florida. Where the founder lives and works is not verified." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Gaps.com report for January 2025, published 6 February 2025, insight #2: An AI-Powered SQL Query Builder Just Surpassed $10,000 in Monthly Recurring Revenue", "url": "https://gaps.com/jan-2025/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on AI2SQL and viewed its screenshot of the MRR chart. Source for the January 2025 MRR, the earlier US$5,000 figure, the growth in 2024 and the user and query counts." }, { "title": "Linh BaDien, 11 September 2025: AI2SQL, From Idea to $100K ARR in One Year with a Solo Founder", "url": "https://linhbadien.com/ai2sql-from-idea-to-100k-arr-in-one-year-with-a-solo-founder/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party write-up that names an Indie Hackers post by the founder as its source; that post was not opened, because Indie Hackers does not allow this crawler. Its launch date conflicts with Product Hunt's record, so it is used only for the 2023 figures, the team and the funding, each marked not verified." }, { "title": "Product Hunt: AI2sql product page and launch pages", "url": "https://www.producthunt.com/products/ai2sql", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the launch list and the page data. Source for the two launch dates, the daily and weekly ranks and the maker's name." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine: ai2sql.io on 27 February 2022", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20220227224750/https://www.ai2sql.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, including the page code. Source for the 2022 model statement, the Bubble sign-up address, the analytics scripts and the early counters." }, { "title": "AI2SQL pricing page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://ai2sql.io/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the plans, prices, limits, trial terms and model labels." }, { "title": "AI2SQL home page and sitemap, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://ai2sql.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, including the page code, and counted the 752 addresses in the sitemap at ai2sql.io/sitemap-0.xml. Source for the features and the analytics, ads and chat scripts." }, { "title": "AI2SQL: MCP server page", "url": "https://ai2sql.io/mcp", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the connection to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and VS Code." }, { "title": "AI2SQL contact page, terms of service and affiliate program page", "url": "https://ai2sql.io/contact", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with ai2sql.io/termsandconditions and ai2sql.io/affiliate-program. Source for the operating company, the governing law and the affiliate commission." }, { "title": "AI2SQL blog: Exploring the AI2SQL Mistral-7B Model on Hugging Face", "url": "https://ai2sql.io/ai2sql-mistral-7b-model/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Undated. Source for the fine-tuned open model." }, { "title": "AI2SQL: AI2sql vs. ChatGPT, Which AI Tool Is Best for Generating SQL Queries?", "url": "https://ai2sql.io/ai2sql-vs-chatgpt-generate-sql-queries/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's own comparison with ChatGPT. Not used for numbers." }, { "title": "Databricks Blog, 31 July 2023: Introducing Databricks Assistant", "url": "https://www.databricks.com/blog/introducing-databricks-assistant", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Not used for numbers. Source for the public preview of SQL generation, explanation and error fixing." }, { "title": "Databricks Blog, 12 June 2024: Introducing AI/BI: Intelligent Analytics for Real-World Data", "url": "https://www.databricks.com/blog/introducing-aibi-intelligent-analytics-real-world-data", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Not used for numbers. Source for Genie." }, { "title": "Snowflake Documentation: Cortex Analyst", "url": "https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/snowflake-cortex/cortex-analyst", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The page has no date; read 16 October 2026. Not used for numbers." }, { "title": "Google Cloud Documentation: Write queries with Gemini assistance, BigQuery, updated 13 October 2026", "url": "https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/docs/write-sql-gemini", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the SQL generation tool. Not used for numbers." }, { "title": "Microsoft Learn, 8 April 2025: Microsoft Copilot in Azure with Azure SQL Database Overview", "url": "https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql/copilot/copilot-azure-sql-overview", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The date is the page's own. Not used for numbers." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/alvas-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/alvas-ai.md", "slug": "alvas-ai", "name": "Alvas.ai", "country": "Denmark", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI writer for automated marketing emails", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "December 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$16.4K a month recurring revenue, February 2025", "sticker": "$196K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 196200, "months": 14, "teamLabel": "A team of two at the November 2024 figure; no later headcount found", "fundingLabel": "US$61,500 raised in May 2024; investors not named in the sources", "primaryFactor": "Agency partner", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "unknown", "trend": "unknown", "collections": [ "platform" ], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Funded", "Running", "B2B", "Email marketing" ], "product": "An AI writer for an online shop's automated marketing emails. Connected to Klaviyo or another email platform, it writes a different subject line, headline and text for every recipient from the products that person looked at or left in the cart, in the shop's tone, in more than 40 languages, and measures the result against the shop's old email.", "why": "Online shops send the same abandoned-cart and viewed-product email to every customer, because writing more versions takes people. A rented language model made one unique email per recipient cheap. Alvas sold this first through a Danish email marketing agency that set it up for its clients, and showed the gains with tests against the shops' old emails.", "summary": [ "Alvas.ai sells online shops an AI layer for their marketing email. A shop connects it to its email service provider, the platform that stores the subscriber list and sends the mail, such as Klaviyo. In the shop's flows, the emails that the platform sends automatically after an event such as an abandoned cart or a viewed product, Alvas writes the subject line, the headline and the text for each recipient from the products and the customer data, in the shop's tone of voice and in more than 40 languages. The model behind it is rented: the terms of service say the AI runs on Microsoft's Azure OpenAI Service, which is OpenAI's models hosted and sold by Microsoft.", "Villads Leth appears in the sources as founder, co-founder and CEO. The company behind the site is 404 Technologies Inc., and its case studies come from the Danish market: the email agency Ackermann and its clients, and the retailer Coolshop. In November 2024 he reported US$102,300 in annual recurring revenue (ARR), the subscription revenue of one year at the current monthly rate, with a team of two, after a raise of US$61,500 in May 2024. In early 2025 he reported that monthly recurring revenue (MRR) had grown 91% to US$16,350, with US$39,147 in the bank.", "Both figures are the founder's own statements as relayed by one site, gaps.com, so they are grade C. They agree with each other: US$102,300 a year is about US$8,525 a month, and a 91% rise to US$16,350 means about US$8,560 before. No figure after February 2025 was found, and the pricing page no longer shows prices. The page also shows earlier companies that promised online shops more sales from email, cart reminders and chat, and why they failed." ], "factsCaption": "Recurring revenue of US$102,300 a year in November 2024 and US$16,350 a month in February 2025, both self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement relayed by gaps.com, or a statement on the company's own pages. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From the first dated company page in December 2023 to US$16,350 a month in February 2025, in 14 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Alvas.ai prices: the current pricing page, read on 16 October 2026, shows plan limits but no prices; the last published prices come from archived copies of the page from 2024 (grade C)", "note": "The page offers a 14-day free trial, as it did in 2024. In April and November 2024 the page showed US$250 and US$800 a month, without saying whether that was billed monthly or yearly, and add-ons for Starter: an extra domain for US$50 a month and Self Learning, Assets and Campaigns for US$200 a month each. That is about US$5.00 per 1,000 emails on Starter and US$5.33 on Pro. In both years Enterprise is priced by contract. The 2026 plans count markets instead of domains, and their email limits are lower than in 2024. The shop pays its own email platform separately.", "rows": [ [ "Starter, 2026", "", "not shown", "25,000 emails a month, 1 market, Klaviyo only" ], [ "Pro, 2026", "", "not shown", "100,000 emails a month, 5 markets, all integrations" ], [ "Enterprise, 2026", "", "by contract", "custom limits, unlimited markets" ], [ "Starter, 2024 (archived)", "", "250", "50,000 emails a month, 1 domain" ], [ "Pro, 2024 (archived)", "", "800", "150,000 emails a month, 5 domains" ], [ "Starter add-ons, 2024 (archived)", "", "50 to 200 each", "extra domain US$50; Self Learning, Assets, Campaigns US$200 each" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, February 2025", "value": "US$16,350", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder statement, relayed by gaps.com on 13 March 2025, which says he revealed it the week before. Up 91%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the February 2025 figure", "value": "US$196,200 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$16,350 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, November 2024", "value": "US$102,300", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder statement, relayed by gaps.com on 10 December 2024: reached while being just a team of two.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly revenue behind the November 2024 figure", "value": "about US$8,525", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$102,300 divided by 12. The 91% rise to US$16,350 implies about US$8,560 before (US$16,350 divided by 1.91). The two bases differ by 0.4%, so the two statements agree.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Cash in the bank, early 2025", "value": "US$39,147", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder statement, relayed by gaps.com. About 2.4 months of revenue at the February 2025 rate (calculated).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Outside money", "value": "US$61,500, raised in May 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "gaps.com, which says it could not find good sources on total funding and that this round might be all of it. No source read for this page names the investors.", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team at the November 2024 figure", "value": "2 people", "grade": "C", "note": "gaps.com, from the founder. No later headcount was found.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Prices in April and November 2024", "value": "Starter US$250 a month for 50,000 emails; Pro US$800 a month for 150,000 emails", "grade": "C", "note": "Archived copies of the pricing page. About US$5.00 and US$5.33 per 1,000 emails (calculated). Add-ons cost US$50 to US$200 a month.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Prices in October 2026", "value": "not published", "grade": "C", "note": "The pricing page lists limits of 25,000 and 100,000 emails a month and a 14-day free trial, with no amounts.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "AI model", "value": "Azure OpenAI Service from Microsoft; GPT-4 named in an agency case study", "grade": "C", "note": "Terms of service, last updated 22 October 2024, and the Ackermann case study.", "src": [ 9, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Test results reported in case studies", "value": "revenue per email sent up 102%, 113% and 95%", "grade": "C", "note": "Shaping New Tomorrow and Fusion, both run by the agency Ackermann, and Coolshop. Tests against the shops' old emails, published on Alvas's own site. No outside party checked them.", "src": [ 6, 7, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "404 Technologies Inc., doing business as Alvas.ai", "grade": "C", "note": "Privacy notice and site footer. The terms refer to United States federal and state taxes. The state of incorporation is not stated.", "src": [ 10, 9, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Earliest dated company page", "value": "1 December 2023", "grade": "C", "note": "The date of the privacy notice. The launch date is not published. The first Wayback Machine copy of www.alvas.ai is from 27 February 2024.", "src": [ 10, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the earliest dated page to the February 2025 figure", "value": "14 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: December 2023 to February 2025.", "src": [ 10, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "1 December 2023", "what": "Date of the privacy notice of 404 Technologies Inc., doing business as Alvas.ai, the earliest date on the company's pages.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "27 February 2024", "what": "First copy of www.alvas.ai in the Wayback Machine.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "16 April 2024", "what": "The pricing page lists Starter at US$250 a month for 50,000 emails and Pro at US$800 a month for 150,000 emails, with a 14-day free trial.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "May 2024", "what": "Raises US$61,500. No source read for this page names the investors.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "when": "13 June 2024", "what": "A blog post by Villads Leth explains the method: few-shot learning to write each email, combined with machine learning.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "27 to 29 August 2024", "what": "Case studies go up on the site. Ackermann, a Danish email marketing agency, used Alvas for clients including Shaping New Tomorrow and Fusion, and Villads Leth calls it the first and only preferred partner. Coolshop reports revenue per email sent up 95% in its test and rolls Alvas out to all its markets.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 7, 8 ] }, { "when": "22 October 2024", "what": "The terms of service say the AI runs on Microsoft's Azure OpenAI Service.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "November 2024", "what": "The founder reports US$102,300 in annual recurring revenue with a team of two (gaps.com, 10 December 2024).", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "February 2025", "what": "The founder reports monthly recurring revenue up 91% to US$16,350 and US$39,147 in the bank (gaps.com, 13 March 2025).", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "6 May 2025", "what": "Villads Leth, introduced as CEO and founder, talks about AI-written email on the Hello $Firstname podcast. The episode page says he puts the fall in the cost of content creation with AI at a factor of 200.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 11 ] }, { "when": "16 October 2026", "what": "The site is online with sign-up and a 14-day free trial. The pricing page shows plan limits but no prices. No revenue figure after February 2025 was found.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 4 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Writing inside the platform the shop already pays for", "text": "Alvas does not replace the email platform. It connects to the shop's Klaviyo account, or Drip, Blueshift and others, and fills in the text of the automated emails that the platform sends, for example the one sent when a customer leaves a cart. The subscriber list and the sending stay with the shop's own platform." }, { "title": "An agency as the first partner", "text": "Ackermann, a Danish email marketing agency, came to Alvas to develop the product with it, tested new features first, and then set Alvas up for several of its clients. The founder called it the first and only preferred partner. One agency that runs Klaviyo for many shops gives a team of two access to many customers at once." }, { "title": "Proof in the customer's own numbers", "text": "Each case study is a test of the Alvas email against the shop's old email; Fusion's was an A/B test, where half of the recipients get each version, run inside its own Klaviyo account. The case pages report revenue per email sent up 102% for Shaping New Tomorrow, 113% for Fusion and 95% for Coolshop. These are the company's own pages, not audited results." }, { "title": "Languages and markets as the unit of price", "text": "An email can be translated into more than 40 languages with one click, and the plans are sized by markets: 1 on Starter, 5 on Pro. A shop that sells in many countries, like Coolshop, has the most to gain, because writing every flow by hand in every language is the most work." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's own pages and an agency case study. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The model: the terms of 22 October 2024 say the AI runs on the Azure OpenAI Service from Microsoft, and that Microsoft does not use the submitted data to train its models. An agency case study says the emails are written with GPT-4.", "The method, from a blog post by Villads Leth of 13 June 2024: few-shot learning, which means putting a few example emails into the prompt, combined with machine learning. The Self Learning feature on the Pro plan is described as an algorithm that adjusts the content toward what converts.", "Integrations: Klaviyo first, the only one on the Starter plan. The integrations page also lists Drip, Blueshift, Shopify, HubSpot, Salesforce, Customer.io, Bloomreach, Agillic, Voyado and Raptor.", "More than 180 prebuilt templates for flows such as abandoned cart, price drop and post-purchase, a tone-of-voice setting, and translation into more than 40 languages.", "Payments: the privacy notice says all payment data is stored by Stripe.", "The company: 404 Technologies Inc., doing business as Alvas.ai, with a team of two at the November 2024 revenue figure." ], "src": [ 9, 6, 12, 17, 3, 4, 10, 2 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised online shops more sales from automated email, cart reminders or chat. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Ve Interactive", "years": "2009 to 2017", "funding": "US$60M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Win back shoppers who leave their carts, with personalized pop-ups.", "died": "It spent US$60 million on growth while being paid only when a sale happened.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2160-ve-interactive" }, { "name": "Userfox", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$700K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Simple automated lifecycle emails and analytics for online shops.", "died": "Mailchimp's position and too little money to keep up with competitors.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1199-userfox" }, { "name": "Marketfox", "years": "2017 to 2020", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Marketing automation built for e-commerce businesses.", "died": "Larger and better-funded marketing-automation suites such as Mailchimp took the market.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1035-marketfox" }, { "name": "RightHello", "years": "2014 to 2022", "funding": "US$600K", "cause": "Ran Out of Cash", "promise": "Live chat that turns e-commerce visitors into buyers with well-timed conversations.", "died": "It had US$600,000 against Intercom's US$240 million and could not keep up.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2260-righthello" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the four sold online shops a way to turn more visitors or subscribers into buyers, and each lost money or market share to larger platforms. Userfox and Marketfox built their own email-automation products and competed with Mailchimp. RightHello competed with Intercom. Ve Interactive was paid only when a sale happened and spent US$60 million on growth.", "Alvas differs in two ways. It does not replace the email platform: it writes the text inside the shop's existing Klaviyo flows and sells through an agency that already runs Klaviyo for its clients, so it works next to the large platforms rather than against them. And the writing costs little, because a rented model writes each email. The same two facts are the risk: the platform can add the feature, and the model belongs to someone else." ], "copy": { "verdict": "Yes, if you find the agency first.", "text": "Nothing in the method needs a large team or a large raise: an AI writer that fills in text inside an email platform that shops already pay for, sold through one agency that runs that platform for many shops, and proven with a test against the shop's old email. The model is rented, so what the business owns is the integrations, the templates and the partner.", "steps": [ "Pick one email or CRM platform with an API and many paying shops, and build for it first, as Alvas did with Klaviyo.", "Find an agency that runs that platform for many clients, and develop the first version with it.", "Run every first customer as a test against the old email, and publish revenue per email sent.", "Price by volume and by market, and add translation, because shops that sell in many countries have the most writing to do." ], "open": "Other automated messages that still use one text for everyone: SMS and push notifications, product descriptions on marketplaces, and email in smaller languages." }, "watch": [ { "title": "One relay site, and nothing after February 2025", "text": "Both revenue figures are the founder's statements as reported by gaps.com. The original posts were not found, and no payment processor, buyer or journalist has checked the numbers. They agree with each other. No figure after February 2025, twenty months before this page was written, was found, and the pricing page no longer shows prices." }, { "title": "Gmail and Yahoo bulk-sender rules", "text": "Since February 2024, Google's sender guidelines require anyone who sends more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail accounts to authenticate the mail with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, records that prove the domain sent it, to offer one-click unsubscribe, and to keep the spam rate in Google's Postmaster Tools below 0.3%. Yahoo set the same 0.3% limit and requires unsubscribes to be honored within 2 days. The shop's own platform sends the mail, so the shop's domain carries the complaints if AI-written emails annoy readers." }, { "title": "Consent rules for marketing email in the EU", "text": "Article 13 of EU Directive 2002/58/EC sets an opt-in rule: unsolicited marketing email may be sent only with the recipient's prior agreement. It is a directive, so each member state, Denmark included, applies it through its own law; the Danish law text could not be read for this page. Alvas works on the shop's own subscriber lists and automated flows, not on bought lists, so the consent must come from the shop." }, { "title": "Many funded competitors", "text": "gaps.com's own table lists other AI email companies with far more money: Singulate, US$2.3 million pre-seed in January 2025; Bounti, US$16 million seed in September 2024; and 11x, described there as scaling outbound sales with AI personalization, US$50 million Series B in November 2024. Alvas had raised US$61,500. The email platforms that Alvas plugs into could also add the same feature." }, { "title": "A rented model", "text": "The terms say the AI runs on Microsoft's Azure OpenAI Service and that the service relies on third-party providers such as Microsoft. A price change, an outage or a policy change there changes Alvas's costs and product, and competitors can rent the same models." }, { "title": "Who runs it, and where", "text": "The sources name one founder. The word co-founder and the phrase their founders in a case study suggest at least one more, who is not named in any source read for this page. The team was two people at the November 2024 figure, and no later headcount was found. The operating company is 404 Technologies Inc., whose terms refer to United States taxes, while the customers in the case studies are Danish." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "gaps.com, 13 March 2025: February 2025 income report, insight 22: Alvas.ai, Which Uses AI for Personalised Email Outreach, Grows MRR 91% to $16,350", "url": "https://gaps.com/feb-2025/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on Alvas.ai and the comparison table after it. Relays a statement by the founder; the original post was not found. Source for the monthly revenue, the cash and the competitors." }, { "title": "gaps.com, 10 December 2024: November 2024 income report, insight 40: Last Month I Shared Three Startups Raising Money to Add AI to Email OutReach. Now I'm Introducing One That Just Hit $100,000 in ARR", "url": "https://gaps.com/nov-2024/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on Alvas.ai. Relays a statement by the founder. Source for the annual recurring revenue, the team of two and the May 2024 raise." }, { "title": "Alvas.ai home page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.alvas.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the product description, the templates, the languages and the operating company in the footer." }, { "title": "Alvas.ai pricing page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.alvas.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. It shows plan limits and a free trial but no prices." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copies of the Alvas.ai pricing page, 16 April 2024 and 7 November 2024", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20241107201636/https://www.alvas.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both copies in full. Source for the last published prices and add-ons." }, { "title": "Alvas.ai case study, published 27 August 2024: Ackermann x Shaping New Tomorrow, the first ever AI generated Abandoned Cart email", "url": "https://www.alvas.ai/cases/ackermann-shaping-new-tomorrow", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for GPT-4, the test results and the founder's quote about the partner." }, { "title": "Alvas.ai case study, published 27 August 2024: Ackermann doubled the Revenue Per Email for Fusion, by using Alvas", "url": "https://www.alvas.ai/cases/ackermann-x-fusion-x-alvas", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the agency, the A/B test in Klaviyo and the results." }, { "title": "Alvas.ai case study, published 29 August 2024: Coolshop x Alvas x Raptor", "url": "https://www.alvas.ai/cases/coolshop-x-raptor-x-alvas", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the Coolshop test results and the rollout to all markets." }, { "title": "Alvas.ai Terms of Service, last updated 22 October 2024", "url": "https://www.alvas.ai/policies/terms-of-service", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on AI services, taxes and subprocessors. Source for Azure OpenAI Service." }, { "title": "Alvas.ai privacy notice, last updated 1 December 2023", "url": "https://www.alvas.ai/policies/privacy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the company and on payment data. Source for 404 Technologies Inc. and Stripe." }, { "title": "Hello $Firstname podcast, 6 May 2025: From Prompts to Personalization: How AI is Rewriting Email Marketing, with Villads Leth, CEO and Founder of Alvas.ai", "url": "https://hellofirstname.podbean.com/e/from-prompts-to-personalization-how-ai-is-rewriting-email-marketing-with-villads-leth-ceo-and-founder-of-alvasai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the episode page in full; the audio was not heard. Confirms the founder's role in May 2025." }, { "title": "Alvas.ai blog, 13 June 2024, by Villads Leth: Few Shot Learning", "url": "https://www.alvas.ai/blog/few-shot-learning", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The founder's own post. Source for the method." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine capture list for alvas.ai", "url": "http://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=alvas.ai&matchType=domain&limit=6&fl=timestamp,statuscode,original&filter=statuscode:200", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the first copy of the site, 27 February 2024." }, { "title": "Google Workspace Admin Help: Email sender guidelines", "url": "https://support.google.com/a/answer/81126?hl=en", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on requirements for all senders and for senders of 5,000 or more messages a day. The rule-maker's own page." }, { "title": "Yahoo Sender Hub: Sender best practices and requirements", "url": "https://senders.yahooinc.com/best-practices/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on sender requirements. The rule-maker's own page." }, { "title": "Wikipedia: Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive 2002", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_and_Electronic_Communications_Directive_2002", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on unsolicited email. The official text on EUR-Lex could not be downloaded." }, { "title": "Alvas.ai integrations page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.alvas.ai/product/integrations", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the list of email and CRM platforms." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export of failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/sheets-resume/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/sheets-resume.md", "slug": "sheets-resume", "name": "Sheets Resume", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI resume builder and reviewer", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "August 2024", "outcomeLabel": "US$26K to US$30K a month, March 2025", "sticker": "$336K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 336000, "months": 7, "teamLabel": "3 partners: the founder, co-founder Nate and one more; no employees", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "documents-data", "channel": "communities", "trend": "unknown", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Careers" ], "product": "A website that writes a resume in one recruiter-tested format from an old resume, a LinkedIn profile or answers to questions, with a cover letter writer, mock interviews, a LinkedIn profile rewriter and a job search. Members pay US$99 once or US$39 a month, and only after they finish a resume.", "why": "The founder had answered resume questions on Reddit for six years, and his free template had millions of users, so the AI tool launched to people who already trusted his format. It replaced a US$400 one-to-one review with a US$99 product that costs little to run.", "summary": [ "Sheets Resume is an AI resume builder, a website where a large language model, a program trained on large amounts of text that writes new text on request, turns a job seeker's old resume, LinkedIn profile or answers into a new resume. The model follows one plain format and a set of rules from two former recruiters: Colin McIntosh, whose free resume template has more than 4 million downloads, and his old colleague Nate, now a software engineer. A member pays US$99 once, or US$39 a month, for unlimited resumes, cover letters, mock interviews and job search, and pays only after finishing a resume.", "McIntosh wrote a resume guide on Reddit in 2018 that in January 2025 was the first Google result for resume advice on Reddit, and he answered questions under it for years. In 2023 he and Nate sold one-to-one reviews for US$400. In 2024 they wrote their rules into an AI tool, gave it away for a week, then launched it in August: US$128 in sales on the first day, US$500 on the second. In a Starter Story video of 22 January 2025 he said it made more than US$20,000 a month at about 90% net margin, the share of revenue left after all costs. On 21 March 2025 a written Starter Story interview gave US$26,000 a month, and he wrote \"$30,000+ per month\". That is a run rate, monthly revenue times 12, of about US$312,000 to US$360,000 a year. Three partners own it, with no employees and no investors.", "Every revenue number on this page is a founder statement, grade C, and the last one is from March 2025. No payment processor or buyer has confirmed them. The page also shows four earlier companies that tried to serve job seekers or recruiters and failed, and the risks this one faces from general chatbots, from the large resume builders and from employers who now receive many more AI-written applications." ], "factsCaption": "A part-time product of three partners that reported more than US$20,000 a month in January 2025 and US$26,000 to more than US$30,000 a month in March 2025, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founder or the company, in interviews or on its own pages, or by a third party that says where its data comes from. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a Reddit post in 2018 to a resume app with a run rate of about US$336,000 a year, seven months after launch. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Sheets Resume prices in October 2026, from the company's membership page (grade C)", "note": "Lifetime access is a one-time payment; the monthly plan can be cancelled at any time. Both give all tools. The user pays only after finishing a resume, and refunds are same-day. In early 2025 the prices were US$99 for lifetime access and US$29 for one week, with no monthly plan. In July 2025 the founder described a one-day membership for US$3 shown to visitors from dozens of countries; it is not on the page. Connecting the builder to Claude or ChatGPT is free; exporting files needs a paid plan.", "rows": [ [ "Lifetime access", "99 one-time", "", "all tools, unlimited use" ], [ "Monthly", "", "39", "all tools, cancel anytime" ], [ "Free tools", "0", "0", "basic builder, resume template, cover letter generator" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month, March 2025", "value": "US$26,000 in the profile; more than US$30,000 in the founder's text", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story interview of 21 March 2025. The profile box gives US$26,000 a month; the founder writes that paid memberships \"are now generating $30,000+ per month\". The page title still says US$20,000.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the March 2025 figures", "value": "about US$312,000 to US$360,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$26,000 and US$30,000 times 12. The headline figure on this page is the midpoint, US$336,000.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, January 2025", "value": "more than US$20,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story video of 22 January 2025, its title and description. A separate interview from the written one of March 2025.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Yearly revenue, January 2025", "value": "US$250,000", "grade": "C", "note": "A newsletter of 31 January 2025, nine days after the video and with the same points. It also says the app reached US$20,000 a month within two months of launch.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from January to March 2025", "value": "30% to 50%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$26,000 and US$30,000 against US$20,000. The figures come from two different Starter Story interviews about two months apart.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "First sales, August 2024", "value": "US$128 on the first day, US$500 on the second", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, March 2025. The tool had been free for its first week. The newsletter gives US$1,000 a day within the first week.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Margin", "value": "about 90% net", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in the January 2025 video: \"close to 100% margin product\", \"around 90% net margins\". The newsletter repeats 90%.", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Prices in early 2025", "value": "US$99 lifetime or US$29 for one week", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in the video and the interview. He said he did not want monthly subscriptions because he finds them \"predatory\" for a job search.", "src": [ 3, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Prices in October 2026", "value": "US$99 one-time or US$39 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Membership page. The one-week pass is no longer listed.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Price by country, July 2025", "value": "a one-day membership for US$3", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: shown to visitors from dozens of countries after a cost-of-living study, and tested on 20% of visitors first. Revenue per visitor from those countries \"more than doubled\". No amounts are given.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Downloads of the free resume template", "value": "more than 4 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder, March 2025. The template carries a line that offers the AI builder.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Price of a one-to-one resume review before the AI tool", "value": "US$400 on the home page, US$500 on the about page", "grade": "C", "note": "The pages do not say which price came first. The founder says one review took him three hours.", "src": [ 6, 8, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "3 partners, no employees", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder in the video: \"I split this three ways with these two other guys\", and he spends at most 5 to 10 hours a week. The site names Colin and Nate; in March 2025 Nate was also a software engineer at Eventbrite. Starter Story's profile box lists 1 founder and 0 employees.", "src": [ 3, 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "\"The business is totally bootstrapped.\"", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "Colin McIntosh LLC, doing business as SheetsResume.com", "grade": "C", "note": "Terms and conditions; Colorado law applies. Starter Story places the business in Denver.", "src": [ 9, 1 ] }, { "fact": "AI models", "value": "OpenAI and Google Gemini", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's tech stack in March 2025; the energy page bases its estimate on data from OpenAI and Gemini. No source names the model versions.", "src": [ 1, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the March 2025 figure", "value": "7 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: August 2024 to March 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2018", "what": "Colin McIntosh, a former recruiter, writes a long resume guide on Reddit on a Saturday morning. It becomes the top Google result for resume advice on Reddit, and over the years he answers tens of thousands of questions.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 3, 8 ] }, { "when": "2023", "what": "He and Nate, his former recruiting colleague, sell one-to-one resume reviews on nights and weekends for US$400. They cannot serve everyone who asks.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "when": "2024", "what": "Nate suggests automating the reviews. They spend about four months of nights and weekends writing their rules into an AI tool.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "August 2024", "what": "After a free first week, launch. A line in the free template points to it. Sales: US$128 on the first day, US$500 on the second.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "22 January 2025", "what": "A Starter Story video says the app makes more than US$20,000 a month at about 90% net margin, with the founder working 5 to 10 hours a week.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "31 January 2025", "what": "A newsletter puts revenue at US$250,000 a year and says the app reached US$20,000 a month within two months of launch. An affiliate agency has started to promote it.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "21 March 2025", "what": "Starter Story interview: US$26,000 a month in the profile box, \"$30,000+ per month\" in the text. A job board for employers has just launched.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "26 July 2025", "what": "The founder writes that a one-day US$3 membership for visitors from dozens of countries raised revenue and profit, after an A/B test on 20% of visitors.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "2026", "what": "The company's press page lists Forbes Advisor's 2026 ranking of the best resume builders, with Sheets Resume fourth of ten.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "Running: US$99 once or US$39 a month, and a free connector that brings the builder into Claude and ChatGPT.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 10 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A Reddit post that ranks in Google", "text": "In 2018 the founder wrote a long resume guide on Reddit and kept answering questions under it. Google ranks Reddit high for advice searches, so the post still brings visitors, and his free template has more than 4 million downloads. When the AI tool launched, the template itself carried the offer. He describes this as using Reddit's search ranking instead of building his own." }, { "title": "Write the expert's rules into the AI", "text": "The two partners first did reviews by hand for US$400, about three hours each. The AI tool applies the same rules from their recruiting years, so in the founder's words he can now do \"1,000 resume reviews a day\". The model cost is small, and the founder puts net margin near 90%." }, { "title": "Charge once, after the result", "text": "The user builds a full resume first and pays only if satisfied: US$99 for lifetime access, and at first also US$29 for a week. A job search is a one-time event, so a one-time price matches it. Refunds are same-day, and anyone short of money can ask by email for a free temporary membership." }, { "title": "Price by country", "text": "A cost-of-living study showed that visitors outside the United States and Western Europe almost never paid. A one-day US$3 membership for visitors from dozens of countries was tested on 20% of traffic and then shown to all. The founder says revenue per visitor from those countries more than doubled." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's interviews and the company's own pages. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Models from OpenAI and Google Gemini, PHP with the Laravel framework, a REST API and Amazon Web Services. Stripe takes the payments.", "The founder is not a programmer. Nate and a third partner build it; he writes the feature notes and the product plan, in 5 to 10 hours a week.", "About four months of nights and weekends in 2024 from the first rules to a working interface.", "Free for the first week to test demand, then paid. The charge comes only after a finished resume.", "A connector built on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard for connecting AI assistants to outside services, lets Claude and ChatGPT users edit their Sheets Resume resumes inside the assistant. The AI writing then runs on the user's own assistant plan, and only exporting files needs a paid membership.", "0.5% of each membership fee goes to carbon removal through Stripe Climate." ], "src": [ 1, 3, 4, 10, 11 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised job seekers a better resume or a better job search, or sold AI that reads resumes. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Jobspice", "years": "2009 to 2012", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Good-looking resumes for job seekers who cannot design.", "died": "One narrow product. LinkedIn and free tools did the same job for nothing.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1635-jobspice" }, { "name": "Jobr", "years": "2014 to 2019", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Swipe through jobs on a phone, like a dating app.", "died": "LinkedIn and Indeed had more jobs and more job seekers. The swiping did not keep users.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/261-jobr" }, { "name": "Ansaro", "years": "2017 to 2022", "funding": "US$15M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "AI for recruiters, from reading resumes to scheduling interviews, without bias.", "died": "Employers saw it as optional and trusted human judgment more than an algorithm.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1853-ansaro" }, { "name": "Monster Worldwide", "years": "1994 to 2025", "funding": "US$500M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "The first large online job board.", "died": "LinkedIn's network and Indeed's search traffic took the job seekers.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2400-monster-worldwide" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the four sold to people looking for a job or for a candidate. Three lost to larger platforms that already had the job seekers: LinkedIn, Indeed and free tools. Ansaro sold AI on the employer side and found that recruiters did not want it enough to pay.", "Sheets Resume differs in cost, not in promise. It paid nothing to reach job seekers, because a 2018 Reddit post and a free template already reached millions. The AI applies two recruiters' rules at a model cost so low that the founder reports about 90% margin, so three part-time partners can run it without employees or investors. It sells to the job seeker once, at the moment of need. The old risk remains: LinkedIn, Indeed, the large builders and the general chatbots can write a resume too." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The structure, yes. The audience, not quickly.", "text": "The method can be copied: sell an expert service by hand, write its rules into an AI tool, and charge once after the customer sees the result. The audience cannot be copied quickly. It took six years of free answers on Reddit and a template with millions of downloads before the AI tool launched to a ready market.", "steps": [ "Do the expert work by hand for money first, to learn the rules and the demand. They charged US$400 a review.", "Write those rules into the prompts and checks of the AI tool, so its output follows one tested format.", "Give it away for a week, then charge once, after the user sees a finished result.", "Put the offer inside free material that already ranks in search.", "Test prices by country on part of the traffic before showing them to everyone." ], "open": "Other one-time events where a professional's checklist decides the result: rental applications, visa document packs, grant applications for small nonprofits, and insurance claim letters." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Founder figures, one publisher, nothing after March 2025", "text": "Every revenue figure is a founder statement: two Starter Story interviews, a video and a written one, and a newsletter that repeats the video's points nine days later. The podcast summary quotes the video. The March 2025 page shows US$20,000 in its title, US$26,000 in its profile box and \"$30,000+\" in its text. The newsletter dates the launch to August 2023, but the founder's own account says August 2024. No source gives a figure after March 2025." }, { "title": "General chatbots write resumes too", "text": "Greenhouse, a hiring software platform, reports that 65% of candidates use AI at some point in the application process, including for resumes and cover letters (reported by Black Enterprise on 4 September 2026). A user of ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini can get a resume without a resume site. Sheets Resume's answer is to work inside those assistants: its connector for Claude and ChatGPT is free, and only exporting files needs a paid plan." }, { "title": "The large builders have AI as well", "text": "Kickresume's page, read on 16 October 2026, says its AI Resume Writer uses a fine-tuned GPT-4.1 model, and it counts more than 12 million resumes created. Aiolum's aiCarousels story covers a solo founder whose other product, ResumeMaker.Online, sells in the same field. The company's press page reports fourth place in Forbes Advisor's 2026 list of ten resume builders; that list was not opened for this page." }, { "title": "Employers receive more AI-written applications", "text": "Greenhouse counts an average of 244 applications per job opening in 2025, against 116 in 2022, across more than 640 million applications at more than 6,000 companies. In a study of 25 recruiters in the United States, 92% said their applicant tracking system, the software that collects and ranks applications, did not reject resumes automatically for content, formatting or design. In a 2025 survey of 1,013 HR professionals by Jobseeker, itself a resume builder, 81.6% had seen AI-written cover letters and only 11.6% treat AI-assisted applications the same as others. A polished resume is now common, and unedited AI text is judged more strictly." }, { "title": "Model prices can rise", "text": "The founder said in January 2025 that OpenAI credits are \"dirt cheap\" now and \"I don't think it'll be like that forever\". The product runs on OpenAI and Gemini models, so the 90% margin depends on their prices and terms, which Sheets Resume does not control." }, { "title": "One post and two platforms bring the traffic", "text": "The main channel is a 2018 Reddit post that ranks in Google. A change in Reddit's rules or in Google's ranking would cut it. The about page says the site exists partly \"in case Reddit ever shuts down or my post goes kaput\"." }, { "title": "Pricing has changed", "text": "In January 2025 the founder said he did not want monthly subscriptions because he finds them \"predatory\" for a one-time job search. In October 2026 the pricing page offers US$39 a month, cancel anytime, beside the US$99 lifetime price, and the one-week pass is gone." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Starter Story, 21 March 2025: We Built A $20K/Month AI Resume App", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/stories/sheets-resume", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder-written interview, not a page marked \"Estimated from public sources\". Source for the March 2025 revenue, the launch account, the tech stack, the team and the funding." }, { "title": "Starter Story on YouTube, 22 January 2025: How I Built It: $20K/Month AI App as a Non-Technical Founder", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yue9in5oh64", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the video page: title, publication date, length of 15 minutes and description, which says \"over $20,000/month\". The video itself was not watched; its quotations on this page come from source 3." }, { "title": "Better Launch playbook of the same episode: How I Built It: $20K/Month AI App as a Non-Technical Founder", "url": "https://www.betterlaunch.co/playbooks/episodes/colin-sheetsresume", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Quotes the founder from the video on prices, margin, the three-way split, hours per week, Reddit and Google, and OpenAI costs." }, { "title": "Money Making Story newsletter, 31 January 2025: AI Side Hustle to $250K", "url": "https://www.moneymakingstory.com/p/ai-side-hustle-to-250k-colin-s-ai-powered-blueprint", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Published nine days after the video, with the same points. Source for US$250,000 a year, US$20,000 a month within two months, 90% margin and the affiliate agency. It dates the launch to August 2023 and writes the domain as SheetsRes.com; both look like errors." }, { "title": "TechBullion, 26 July 2025: Surprising Decisions That Fueled Revenue Growth: 21 Leaders Reveal All", "url": "https://techbullion.com/surprising-decisions-that-fueled-revenue-growth-21-leaders-reveal-all/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section by Colin McIntosh. A founder statement on the one-day US$3 membership and its A/B test." }, { "title": "Sheets Resume home page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://sheetsresume.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names Nate and Colin, the US$400 review and the rule that payment comes after a finished resume." }, { "title": "Sheets Resume membership page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://sheetsresume.com/membership", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the current prices." }, { "title": "Sheets Resume about page: The Sheets Resume Story", "url": "https://sheetsresume.com/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The founders' history, the US$500 review price and the reason for the site." }, { "title": "Sheets Resume terms and conditions", "url": "https://sheetsresume.com/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on the operator, data rights and governing law." }, { "title": "Sheets Resume: Use Sheets Resume in Claude and ChatGPT", "url": "https://sheetsresume.com/connect-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the MCP connector and what it costs." }, { "title": "Sheets Resume: Energy Consumption and Offset", "url": "https://sheetsresume.com/energy-consumption", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names OpenAI and Gemini as the basis of its estimate, and the 0.5% Stripe Climate pledge." }, { "title": "Sheets Resume tools page", "url": "https://sheetsresume.com/tools", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Lists the resume analyzer, anonymizer, LinkedIn updater and job search." }, { "title": "Sheets Resume press page", "url": "https://sheetsresume.com/press", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's own list of its coverage, including the Forbes Advisor ranking; the rankings themselves were not opened." }, { "title": "Black Enterprise, 4 September 2026: Your AI-Generated Resume Could Be Hurting Your Job Search", "url": "https://www.blackenterprise.com/ai-generated-resumes-hurt-job-search/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A summary of an Inc.com report; inc.com was not opened because its robots rules exclude ClaudeBot. Source for the Greenhouse application data and the study of 25 recruiters." }, { "title": "Jobseeker, last updated 20 October 2025: 2026 Hiring Trends: What 1000+ HR Professionals Really Want in a Candidate", "url": "https://www.jobseeker.com/en/resume/articles/2025-hr-trends-hiring-statistics", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on AI-written letters and the research background. A 2025 survey of 1,013 HR professionals in 59 countries by a company that sells a resume builder." }, { "title": "Kickresume: AI Resume Writer, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://kickresume.com/en/ai-resume-writer", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A competitor's own page, source for its GPT-4.1 claim and its resume count." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/makelanding/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/makelanding.md", "slug": "makelanding", "name": "MakeLanding", "country": "France", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI landing page generator", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "exit", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "May 2023", "outcomeLabel": "Sold for US$35K, November 2023", "sticker": "Sold for $35K", "outcomeUsd": 35000, "months": 6, "teamLabel": "1 founder; a friend co-built the first version in April and May 2023", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Timing", "group": "build-software", "channel": "unknown", "trend": "sold", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Exit", "B2B", "Website builders" ], "product": "A web app that writes and designs a one-page website from a short description. The user typed a few words about a business; the AI wrote the headline and the text, made a logo and illustrations, and filled a page template in about a minute. The page could be shared with a link or downloaded as HTML and CSS code.", "why": "It launched in May 2023, when interest in AI tools was at its highest and before Framer, Wix and Webflow had their own AI page generators. It charged from the first day and made about US$8,000 in its first month. Six months after the launch, when sales had stopped growing and the founder no longer cared about the market, he sold it on a marketplace for 2.5 times its trailing-twelve-month figure.", "summary": [ "MakeLanding, first called LandingAI, was an AI generator of landing pages. A landing page is a single web page that presents one product and asks the visitor to do one thing, such as buy, download or sign up. The user wrote a few words about a project; the AI wrote the headline and the text, made a logo and illustrations, and filled a page template in about a minute. The page could be shared with a link or downloaded as code. Before the sale it was sold per site, not by subscription: in September 2023, US$29 for one site, or US$39 with unlimited revisions and an editor.", "Marc Lou, a developer from France who builds many small products alone and publishes his numbers, started it in April 2023 with a friend, after testing GPT, OpenAI's family of large language models, programs that write text from an instruction. It launched in May as LandingAI and made about US$8,000. The two friends then went separate ways. In June he renamed it MakeLanding, because LandingAI is the name of a large company, and replaced 90% of the code. In July he tried a monthly subscription and got US$20 of MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the subscription income that repeats every month, from 15,000 visitors. He went back to one-time prices and made about US$7,000 in the next three months. In October he bought his friend's shares and listed the business on Acquire.com, a marketplace for buying and selling small online businesses, asking US$38,000 for US$14,000 TTM, trailing twelve months, the figure for the last twelve months. The first buyer paid only part of the price and stopped answering. A second buyer came within 24 hours, and the money arrived in November 2023: US$35,000, 2.5 times the TTM figure. In the same months he launched ShipFast, a Next.js boilerplate, a ready-made starter codebase for new web apps, which made US$40,000 in its first month and became his main business.", "The money figures are the founder's own statements, grade C: his newsletter, his website, and a post he wrote on Reddit, read here in a full copy on a business forum because Reddit's robots.txt does not allow the original to be fetched. No buyer is named and no payment record is public. Archived copies of the site from June to December 2023 confirm the product, its one-time prices and its counter of pages made. A third-party list, Gaps, reports US$3,000 a month of recurring revenue at the sale; that figure does not match the founder's account and is not used for the headline. The page also shows earlier companies that tried to automate the building of websites and failed." ], "factsCaption": "An AI landing page generator that made about US$8,000 in its launch month and sold for US$35,000 six months after launch, all self-reported", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founder in his newsletter, on his website or in his Reddit post, a value on the company's own pages, or a third-party report that names no source. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a test of GPT in April 2023 to a marketplace sale in November 2023, in about six months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "MakeLanding prices in October 2026 under the buyer, read from makelanding.ai, with the founder's prices before the sale from Wayback Machine copies of June and September 2023 (grade C)", "note": "Today the buyer sells three monthly plans that can be cancelled at any time, and the page shows no yearly billing, so the yearly column is empty for them. The Premium plan adds access to an API, a programming interface that lets other software create pages. Before the sale the founder sold one-time payments per site. In June 2023 the page showed US$99 crossed out and US$49 per landing page, with a free preview and a full refund offer. The archived copies from July to December 2023 show two one-time prices, and by September the page said that there were no free previews and no refunds, because 'Generative AI costs money to run'. The founder says that he tried a monthly subscription in July 2023; no archived copy shows its prices.", "rows": [ [ "Starter, buyer, 2026", "", "9", "10 pages per month" ], [ "Pro, buyer, 2026", "", "19", "50 pages per month, analytics, custom domain" ], [ "Premium, buyer, 2026", "", "29", "150 pages per month, API access" ], [ "1 website, founder, September 2023", "29 one-time", "", "1 logo, 1 to 3 illustrations, 1 text" ], [ "1 website + unlimited revisions, founder, September 2023", "39 one-time", "", "editor, analytics, code download, commercial rights" ], [ "Per landing page, founder, June 2023", "49 one-time", "", "next to US$99 crossed out; free preview, refund offered" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Sale price, November 2023", "value": "US$35,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter of 25 November 2023 and his Reddit post, copied on 29 November 2023, which says the money arrived earlier that month. His website lists it as 'Sold for $35K'. The buyer is not named.", "src": [ 1, 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price on Acquire.com, October 2023", "value": "US$38,000 for US$14,000 TTM", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's Reddit post. He called the price '3x profit' and does not say whether the US$14,000 is revenue or profit.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Sale price as a multiple of the TTM figure", "value": "2.5 times (the asking price was 2.7 times)", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$35,000 / US$14,000 = 2.5, and US$38,000 / US$14,000 = 2.71.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the launch month, May 2023", "value": "about US$8,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's Reddit post, for the first version, LandingAI, built with a friend.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue by early September 2023", "value": "US$12,000 'in a few months'", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter of 2 September 2023, with 'Low conversion, angry customers, high refund rate'.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Subscription test, July 2023", "value": "US$20 MRR from 15,000 visitors", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's Reddit post. With the new price, users began to compare the app with Framer and Webflow. Gaps writes instead that 6,000 users of an early free option brought US$20 a month.", "src": [ 2, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue after the return to one-time prices", "value": "about US$7,000 in three months", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's Reddit post, for August to October 2023.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Average revenue a month in those three months", "value": "about US$2,333", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$7,000 / 3.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Share of the founder's income, July 2023", "value": "60% of about US$3,000 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter of 23 December 2023, about all his products together.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "MakeLanding's part of that income", "value": "about US$1,800 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 60% of US$3,000.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Gaps' figure at the sale", "value": "US$3,000 in monthly recurring revenue", "grade": "C", "note": "A third-party list, first published on 22 January 2024 and updated on 17 October 2025, that names no source. It does not match the founder's account, in which the subscription failed and sales were one-time. Its tiers of 'US$9-29 per month' match the buyer's later page.", "src": [ 8, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Prices before the sale", "value": "US$49 per page in June 2023; US$29 or US$39 one-time from July to December 2023", "grade": "C", "note": "Wayback Machine copies of the home page of 1 June, 4 July, 12 August, 27 September and 10 December 2023. The December copy is after the sale.", "src": [ 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 ] }, { "fact": "Pages made, by the site's own counter", "value": "1,359 (1 June 2023), 3,576 (4 July), 3,948 (27 September), 4,268 (10 December 2023), 8,363 (October 2026)", "grade": "C", "note": "The company's counter on its home page, not checked by anyone else.", "src": [ 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Pages made a month, from the counter", "value": "about 2,045 in June 2023, then 104 to 168", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 2,217 pages in the 33 days to 4 July 2023, 215 in 39 days to 12 August, 157 in 46 days to 27 September, 320 in 74 days to 10 December, and about 120 a month from December 2023 to October 2026.", "src": [ 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "2 friends for the first version, then 1 founder from June 2023", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's Reddit post. After the May launch the friends 'had different visions'. He bought his friend's shares in October 2023, before the sale.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter: 'We won't raise money and hire a team of growth hackers.' His website says that he has built 38 startups solo. No source names an investor in this product.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's audience on X, November 2023", "value": "50,000 followers", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's newsletter of 25 November 2023, when the newsletter had 5,000 readers.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Listing fee on Acquire.com", "value": "4%", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder's guide to selling a small startup, 21 October 2023, given as an example of a platform fee.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to sale", "value": "6 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: May 2023 to November 2023.", "src": [ 2 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "March 2023", "what": "Lou sells GameWidget, a product that made US$80 a month, for US$4,300. It is his first sale of a product.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "April 2023", "what": "During what he calls 'AI FOMO', the fear of missing out on AI, he tests GPT and starts an AI landing page generator with a friend. He decides that every project must have a buy button.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 4 ] }, { "when": "May 2023", "what": "LandingAI launches as a first minimal version and makes about US$8,000. The two friends split over the direction. The first archived capture of makelanding.ai is from 29 May.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 15 ] }, { "when": "1 June 2023", "what": "The home page sells a landing page for US$49, next to US$99 crossed out, with a free preview and a refund offer. Counter: 1,359 sites.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "June 2023", "what": "Renamed MakeLanding, because LandingAI is the name of a large company. He removes 90% of the code and builds a full website builder with AI.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "July 2023", "what": "A monthly subscription replaces the one-time price and brings US$20 MRR from 15,000 visitors. MakeLanding is 60% of his income of about US$3,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 5 ] }, { "when": "August 2023", "what": "Back to one-time prices; sales return, about US$7,000 in three months. After two weeks in Korea he decides to build products that he would use himself.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 4, 5 ] }, { "when": "1 September 2023", "what": "He launches ShipFast, a Next.js boilerplate. It makes US$40,000 in its first month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "27 September 2023", "what": "The page has two one-time prices, US$29 and US$39, no free previews and no refunds. Counter: 3,948 sites.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "when": "October 2023", "what": "On a friend's advice he decides to sell, buys his co-founder's shares and lists MakeLanding on Acquire.com at US$38,000. Dozens of buyers sign NDAs, non-disclosure agreements, within hours. The first buyer pays only part of the price and stops answering, so he cancels the deal.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "November 2023", "what": "A second buyer, found within 24 hours, pays US$35,000 within weeks. They never speak on a call, only exchange a few messages. On 25 November Lou announces it as his third sale of the year.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "10 December 2023", "what": "After the sale the site still sells the same one-time prices. Counter: 4,268 sites.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "when": "October 2025", "what": "A list by Gaps, updated on 17 October 2025, gives MakeLanding US$3,000 in monthly recurring revenue and monthly tiers of US$9 to US$29.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "Under the buyer the site sells monthly plans at US$9, US$19 and US$29, with an API in the top plan, and counts 8,363 pages. Lou's website lists MakeLanding as sold for US$35,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14, 3 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Timing", "text": "He built it in April 2023, when interest in AI tools was at its highest, and launched in May. Framer AI launched in June and Wix announced its AI Site Generator in July. The first month brought about US$8,000, and the site's counter shows 2,217 pages made between 1 June and 4 July, then fewer than 200 a month." }, { "title": "A price on the first version", "text": "Every generated page cost money in model fees. The June page offered a free preview; by September the page said 'We don't do free previews'. A monthly subscription in July brought US$20 a month from 15,000 visitors; one-time prices of US$29 and US$39 brought about US$7,000 in three months. The founder's advice in his newsletter is to remove free plans." }, { "title": "Sell when growth stops", "text": "He did not use the product and did not care about its market, so he listed it when sales stopped growing. On Acquire.com, buyers signed non-disclosure agreements within hours. His guide to selling gives the steps: a letter of intent, an asset purchase agreement, payment through escrow, a third party that holds the buyer's money until the assets are handed over, and then the transfer of the domain, database and accounts." }, { "title": "Many small products", "text": "MakeLanding was one of 8 products that he built in 8 months in 2023. Six made money and two paid the bills. He says that the sale gave him 'time and clarity'; by then ShipFast, launched on 1 September 2023, was his main product." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's Reddit post and from archived copies of the product's own pages, including their page source. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The first version took the user's text and had an AI fill a template with copy and AI-generated images. The founder says that he started after testing GPT; no source names the exact text model or the image model.", "In June 2023 he removed 90% of the code and made a website builder with an editor, because users wanted a very different product.", "The app is built with Next.js: the archived pages load their scripts from Next.js paths.", "Generated pages are HTML, CSS with Tailwind classes and DaisyUI components, and JavaScript. They can be shared with a link or downloaded.", "AI illustrations in 6 art styles and 12 colour themes, a library of 5 million stock photos from Unsplash, and copy in more than 50 languages.", "Plausible counts visitors, and Reflio runs an affiliate program; both scripts are in the page source of September 2023.", "Archived links to the site carry referral tags from AI directories such as Futurepedia and FutureTools and from the founder's other products. No source says which channel brought most customers.", "The sale went through Acquire.com, with non-disclosure agreements, a letter of intent and escrow." ], "src": [ 2, 9, 12, 15, 6 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised to build websites or software for people who cannot code, and two of them said that AI would do the work. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "The Grid", "years": "2014 to 2020", "funding": "US$4.7M", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "Websites designed automatically by AI from the content that you give it.", "died": "The AI of the time made designs below the quality of manual work and of template builders, and users did not trust it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/618-the-grid" }, { "name": "Sosh", "years": "2012 to 2013", "funding": "US$2.3M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "A drag-and-drop builder for professional websites without code.", "died": "Too complex for beginners and too limited for professionals. The database calls Webflow its successor.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/565-sosh" }, { "name": "WebCake", "years": "2013 to 2016", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Simple design and publishing of websites for small businesses.", "died": "No clear difference from Wix, Squarespace and WordPress, and no further funding.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1541-webcake" }, { "name": "Builder.ai", "years": "2016 to 2025", "funding": "US$445M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Custom software from an 'AI-powered assembly line' for founders who cannot code.", "died": "Each project needed hundreds of hours of human developers behind the AI, so the costs were higher than the prices.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2170-builderai" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The Grid promised in 2014 what MakeLanding did in 2023: a website designed by AI from a short input. It raised US$4.7 million and closed because the AI of its time made pages that looked worse than manual design and than the template builders. Sosh and WebCake built easier website builders and lost to Wix, Squarespace and WordPress. Builder.ai raised US$445 million for AI-built software and closed because people, not the AI, did most of the work.", "Two things were different in 2023. First, large language models could write usable page text and image models could draw usable illustrations, so one developer could build the product in weeks with no investment. Second, the founder did not need to win the market: he charged from the first day, took about six months of sales, and sold the business on a marketplace. The competition that ended the predecessors came back quickly: Framer AI launched in June 2023, Wix announced its AI Site Generator in July 2023, and Webflow released an AI site builder in February 2025." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. This product, no.", "text": "A general AI landing page generator was a short opening in the first half of 2023; Framer, Wix and Webflow now include the same feature. The method is still open: build a narrow AI tool in weeks, put a price on it from the first day, and sell it on a marketplace when you stop using it.", "steps": [ "Charge from the first version, because each AI generation costs you money, and do not offer a free plan.", "Test one-time and monthly prices on real visitors and keep the one that sells.", "Keep clean records of the last twelve months of revenue and costs, because buyers of small businesses price on that figure.", "List on a marketplace such as Acquire.com when you stop caring about the market, and have the buyer pay through escrow." ], "open": "Narrow AI tools for one kind of user or one platform, where a general builder such as Wix or Framer is not the obvious choice." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Founder figures only", "text": "The price, the TTM figure and the revenue are the founder's statements. The buyer is not named, and no payment record or marketplace record is public. A third-party list, Gaps, reports US$3,000 a month of recurring revenue, which does not match the founder's account of a failed subscription and about US$2,300 a month of one-time sales." }, { "title": "Website builders added the same feature", "text": "Framer AI, which starts a site from a prompt, was the first product of the day on Product Hunt on 14 June 2023. Wix announced an AI Site Generator in July 2023, with ChatGPT writing the text. Webflow released an AI site builder in beta on 27 February 2025. When MakeLanding moved to a subscription in July 2023, its users began to compare it with Framer and Webflow." }, { "title": "Small AI tools sell for low multiples", "text": "MakeLanding sold for 2.5 times its US$14,000 TTM figure. A sale advisor's summary of Acquire.com's reports says that in February 2023 SaaS businesses under US$100,000 of revenue sold at 3.4 times revenue and 5.5 times EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization), and that the January 2024 report gave an average of 4.3 times TTM profit, with a range from 0.63 to 34 times. The founder's own rule is three times annual revenue, and he notes that one-time sales cannot be projected over a year as subscriptions can." }, { "title": "Every page costs model fees", "text": "The product paid an AI provider for each generated page, so the pre-sale page offered no free previews and no refunds, because 'Generative AI costs money to run'. The founder reported a high refund rate and angry customers. A product built on another company's models has no advantage that the website builders cannot also buy, and the founder's guide to selling says that a buyer often has to open new accounts and API keys, the passwords that let a program call a provider, because cloud accounts cannot always be transferred." }, { "title": "A short history behind the TTM figure", "text": "The business was five months old when it was listed, so its trailing twelve months covered only those months, and about US$8,000 of the revenue came in the launch month of May. The site's counter grew by 2,217 pages from 1 June to 4 July 2023, and by 104 to 168 a month after that." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Marc Lou's newsletter Just Ship It, 25 November 2023: Ditch your free plan", "url": "https://newsletter.marclou.com/p/ditch-your-free-plan", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder's own update. Source for the sale announcement, his audience and his position on funding." }, { "title": "The Fastlane Forum, 29 November 2023: I sold my AI tool for $35,000 (Reddit Post), a copy of the founder's post on Reddit r/Entrepreneur", "url": "https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/i-sold-my-ai-tool-for-35-000-reddit-post.111450/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A forum member's full copy of the founder's post, which starts 'Marc here'. Reddit's robots.txt disallows the original post, so it was not opened. Source for the month-by-month account, the Acquire.com listing and the sale." }, { "title": "Marc Lou's website, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://marclou.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Lists MakeLanding as acquired and 'Sold for $35K', and says that he has built 38 startups solo." }, { "title": "Marc Lou's newsletter, 2 September 2023: $6,000 of profit in 48 hours", "url": "https://newsletter.marclou.com/p/usd6000-of-profit-in-48-hours", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the April 2023 start, the US$12,000 and the refund problem." }, { "title": "Marc Lou's newsletter, 23 December 2023: My solopreneur story: $0 to $65,000/month in 2 years", "url": "https://newsletter.marclou.com/p/my-solopreneur-story-0-to-65k-month-in-2-years", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 60% share of his income in July 2023, the decision to sell and the ShipFast launch." }, { "title": "Marc Lou's newsletter, 21 October 2023: How to sell your micro startup", "url": "https://newsletter.marclou.com/p/how-to-sell-your-micro-startup", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for his first sale, his rule of three times annual revenue, the steps of a sale, the 4% fee and the accounts that cannot be transferred." }, { "title": "Marc Lou's newsletter, 8 September 2026: I've made $3M with my 36 startups", "url": "https://newsletter.marclou.com/p/i-ve-made-3m-with-my-36-startups", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Founder's life story and source for his background in France. It repeats the 2023 lines about MakeLanding." }, { "title": "Gaps: 39 Web Development Startup Success Stories (2025 Revenues), published 22 January 2024, updated 17 October 2025", "url": "https://gaps.com/web-development/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on MakeLanding, entry 4. A third-party summary that names no source." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of makelanding.ai, 1 June 2023", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20230601100647/https://makelanding.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with the page source. Source for the June price, the refund and preview offers, the counter and the Unsplash library." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of makelanding.ai, 4 July 2023", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20230704135219/https://makelanding.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the pricing section and the counter." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of makelanding.ai, 12 August 2023", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20230812091046/https://makelanding.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the pricing section and the counter." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of makelanding.ai, 27 September 2023", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20230927003447/https://makelanding.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with the page source. The last copy before the sale: features, prices, answers to common questions, and the analytics and affiliate scripts." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of makelanding.ai, 10 December 2023", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20231210021343/https://makelanding.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the pricing section and the counter. The first copy after the sale." }, { "title": "makelanding.ai home page under the buyer, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://makelanding.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for today's prices and counter only; nothing on this page is used for the founder's period." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine capture index for makelanding.ai, 2023 to 2024", "url": "http://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=makelanding.ai&from=2023&to=2024&fl=timestamp,original,statuscode&collapse=timestamp:6", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, with the index of all paths for 2023. Source for the first capture on 29 May 2023 and the referral tags in archived links." }, { "title": "Hunted.space: Framer AI, Product Hunt launch overview", "url": "https://www.hunted.space/product/framer/launches/framer-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party record of the Product Hunt launch of 14 June 2023." }, { "title": "Mezha, 18 July 2023: Wix announced an AI-powered tool that builds a website based on prompts", "url": "https://mezha.media/en/2023/07/18/wix-announced-an-ai-powered-tool-that-builds-a-website-based-on-prompts/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A news report based on TechCrunch. Wix's own filing on sec.gov refused the download." }, { "title": "Webflow Updates: Introducing Webflow's AI Site Builder, launched 27 February 2025", "url": "https://webflow.com/updates/ai-site-builder", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's own release note." }, { "title": "Livmo: Acquire.com Biannual Acquisition Multiples Report (Feb 2023), Livmo Summary, published 13 November 2023, updated 28 August 2026", "url": "https://livmo.com/blog/acquire-com-biannual-acquisition-multiples-report-feb-2023-livmo-summary/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A sale advisor's summary of Acquire.com's February 2023 and January 2024 reports; the reports themselves were not opened." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/laper/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/laper.md", "slug": "laper", "name": "Laper", "country": "China, company registered in Hong Kong", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI screenwriting and pre-production web app", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "18 December 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$43.4K a month in recurring revenue, October 2026", "sticker": "$521K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 520812, "months": 10, "teamLabel": "1 founder at first, 5 people within about half a year", "fundingLabel": "None reported (listed as bootstrapped)", "primaryFactor": "Niche", "group": "companions-publishing", "channel": "audience", "trend": "flat", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Screenwriting" ], "product": "A web editor for screenplays and novels. It keeps the industry page format automatically, turns the scene headings and character names in the script into lists of scenes, characters and locations, and adds AI help that the writer calls on: short continuations, script review, character images and storyboard frames. Several people can edit one script at the same time.", "why": "The founder had worked as a screenwriter and knew which part of the job is tool work: the page format, and keeping characters and scenes consistent across a long draft. He built the editor around that work and kept the AI in the role of a helper. He says Claude Code wrote all the code. The beta grew through invite codes that users earned by posting about it, and monthly revenue rose from US$5,136 in May 2026 to about US$46,000 in August and in September.", "summary": [ "Laper is screenwriting software, a text editor that keeps a script in the page format that film and television productions expect: scene headings, action lines, character names and dialogue each have a fixed place on the page. Laper adds AI help inside that editor. In the beta that Tencent News tested in December 2025, when the cursor rested on an empty line for 3 to 5 seconds, the AI proposed a short continuation, usually 50 to 100 Chinese characters, which the writer could accept or change. The editor also reads the script and builds lists of scenes, characters and locations, and from them a relationship map, character images and storyboard frames. A storyboard is a series of pictures, one per camera shot, that a film crew plans with. Several people can edit one script at once through a CRDT (conflict-free replicated data type), a data structure that lets copies of one document on different computers take edits separately and merge them later; Laper merges at the level of whole screenplay blocks, such as one dialogue paragraph.", "The founder, Zhao Chunxiang (赵纯想), worked for several years at Tingdong Pictures, a Chinese film studio, where he broke films down shot by shot, wrote scripts and was an actor for one year. The name Laper comes from 拉片 (la pian), the Chinese film term for that shot-by-shot study. He then built AI apps, among them an AI food diary that was popular in 2023. In a WeChat chat, a co-founder of the Chinese company Meituan asked him why he did not build an AI screenwriting product from his own experience, and he stopped his earlier project. Laper was founded on 28 September 2025, shipped a first alpha on 6 October 2025 and opened an invite-only beta on 18 December 2025. The founder says that all of the code, more than 100,000 lines, was written by Claude Code, an AI coding agent from Anthropic that writes and changes the code of a project when the developer describes the change in words.", "Laper connected its account at Stripe, the payment processor that charges its customers' cards, to TrustMRR, a site that reads revenue directly from the processor through an API key, a password that lets one program read another program's data. On 16 October 2026 TrustMRR showed US$43,401 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the subscription revenue of one month, from 1,348 active subscriptions: grade A. Revenue was small until April 2026, rose fast from May to August, and was level in August and September at about US$46,000 a month. The founder says the team grew from one person to five, and no source reports outside funding. Since 17 August 2026 the business has been listed for sale on TrustMRR at US$1,999,999; on 16 October 2026 it was still listed." ], "factsCaption": "US$43,401 a month in recurring revenue ten months after an invite-only beta, read from Stripe by TrustMRR, for a business that is now listed for sale", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read from the company's Stripe account by TrustMRR. A grade C value is a founder statement, a press report, or a value that the seller typed into the TrustMRR profile. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a first alpha release in October 2025 to about US$46,000 of revenue a month in August 2026. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Laper plans in October 2026, from the company's pricing page and its llms.txt file (grade C)", "note": "The pricing page shows the monthly prices; the yearly prices come from the company's llms.txt file and are 20% below twelve monthly payments. AI chats and writing cards are text requests to the assistant. Credits pay for image, video and other generation, and every plan also gets daily refresh credits. The December 2025 beta had other prices: a free tier, Senior at US$9 a month (beta only) and Master at US$50 a month, with 500 credits for US$4.99.", "rows": [ [ "Junior", "0", "0", "10 AI chats and 10 writing cards a month; 2 screenplay, 2 film and 2 novel projects" ], [ "Senior", "16", "20", "500 AI chats, 500 writing cards and 600 credits a month; assistant model Laper 16mm" ], [ "Elite", "48", "60", "2,000 AI chats, 2,000 writing cards and 2,800 credits a month; assistant model Laper IMAX" ], [ "Master", "80", "100", "unlimited AI chats and projects, 6,000 credits a month" ], [ "Legend", "320", "400", "unlimited AI chats and projects, 32,000 credits a month, dedicated support" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 16 October 2026", "value": "US$43,401", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from the Stripe account by API key; revenue last synced 16 October 2026 at 14:41 UTC. The profile shows MRR growth of -3.5% over the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from that MRR", "value": "about US$520,800 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 43,401 times 12 equals 520,812. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions, 16 October 2026", "value": "1,348", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, from Stripe.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average MRR per subscription", "value": "about US$32 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 43,401 divided by 1,348 equals 32.20. The paid plans cost US$20 to US$400 a month, or less per month when billed yearly.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the 30 days to 16 October 2026", "value": "US$45,917", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, from Stripe. The profile shows revenue growth of -3.3% over the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, June to September 2026", "value": "US$15,857, US$27,108, US$45,999 and US$46,079", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly timeline, from Stripe. October 2026 shows US$24,961 for the first 16 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Change from August to September 2026", "value": "+0.17%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: (46,079 - 45,999) divided by 45,999. Within 15% either way, so this page calls the trend flat. From June to August revenue grew 2.9 times.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue from December 2025 to April 2026", "value": "US$3,145 in five months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the sum of the TrustMRR monthly rows US$760, US$294, US$162, US$1,334 and US$595.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue, May 2026", "value": "US$5,136", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly timeline. The first month above US$2,000.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "All-time revenue to 16 October 2026", "value": "US$168,486", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, from Stripe.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Share of all-time revenue earned in June to September 2026", "value": "80.2%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 135,043 divided by 168,486.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR reported on 3 September 2026", "value": "US$40,708 from 1,165 paid subscriptions", "grade": "C", "note": "aidevcases.com, quoting TrustMRR at that date; this page did not read TrustMRR on that date. The same article mentions an earlier, undated snapshot of US$30,200 and 898 subscriptions on aggregator sites.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from 3 September to 16 October 2026", "value": "MRR +6.6%, subscriptions +15.7%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 43,401 against 40,708, and 1,348 against 1,165.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "68.0%", "grade": "C", "note": "Shown on the TrustMRR profile, outside the metrics that TrustMRR says it reads from the payment processor. The profile does not say how it is computed.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price", "value": "US$1,999,999", "grade": "C", "note": "The seller's listing on TrustMRR, first listed on 17 August 2026. The profile shows 4 acquisition offers received; their amounts are not public.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price as a multiple of revenue", "value": "about 3.6 times a year of revenue", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 1,999,999 divided by 12 times the last-30-day revenue of US$45,917 equals 3.63, which TrustMRR shows as 3.6x. On the current MRR it is 3.84.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 founder at first, 5 people within about half a year", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder's text on TrustMRR and aidevcases.com. TrustMRR lists the team size as 2 to 5 people. No source names the other members.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR lists the business as bootstrapped. No source reports an investment.", "src": [ 1, 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Beta participants by 24 December 2025", "value": "more than 1,800", "grade": "C", "note": "Tencent News, six days after the invite-only beta opened.", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Beta prices, December 2025", "value": "free, US$9 and US$50 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Senior at US$9 a month was a beta price. Credits were US$4.99 for 500, about US$0.01 each. In October 2026 the Senior plan costs US$20 a month.", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Code written by hand", "value": "none, by the founder's account", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder says Claude Code wrote all of the more than 100,000 lines. The site footer says 100% Built by Claude Code. No one outside the company has checked it.", "src": [ 2, 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Founder's followers on X", "value": "46,306", "grade": "C", "note": "Shown on the TrustMRR profile in October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the beta to the October 2026 figure", "value": "10 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: December 2025 to October 2026.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Earlier, not dated", "what": "Zhao Chunxiang works for several years at Tingdong Pictures, a Chinese film studio: shot-by-shot film breakdowns, screenwriting, and one year as an actor.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "when": "2023", "what": "His AI food-diary app becomes popular. It used invite codes: each code entered improved the app's food recognition for the inviter and for the invited user.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "2025, before the founding", "what": "In a WeChat chat, a co-founder of Meituan asks him why he does not build an AI screenwriting product from his own experience. He stops the project he had worked on and moves to Laper.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "when": "28 September 2025", "what": "Founding date on the TrustMRR profile. The company is registered in Hong Kong.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "6 October 2025", "what": "Version 0.0.1, the first alpha release.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2025", "what": "A post on the Laper site says that its assistant runs on Claude Sonnet 4, a model from Anthropic.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "November 2025", "what": "Versions 0.1.0 to 0.3.0: real-time sync through the Loro CRDT, file import, and an interface in 11 languages.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "18 December 2025", "what": "The invite-only beta opens. A user earns an invite code by forwarding a set post to WeChat Moments, keeping it visible for at least 5 minutes and uploading a screenshot. Posts about Laper on Xiaohongshu, X and TikTok that get 3 likes earn points, up to 60 days of free membership.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "when": "21 December 2025", "what": "The founder posts on X that Laper started with that WeChat chat. aidevcases.com quotes the post.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "24 December 2025", "what": "More than 1,800 people are in the beta. Plans: free, US$9 and US$50 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "December 2025 to April 2026", "what": "US$3,145 of revenue in five months.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "May to August 2026", "what": "Monthly revenue goes from US$5,136 to US$15,857, US$27,108 and US$45,999.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "17 August 2026", "what": "Listed for sale on TrustMRR with an asking price of US$1,999,999.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "3 September 2026", "what": "aidevcases.com reports US$40,708 in MRR from 1,165 paid subscriptions, and a team of five.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "US$46,079 of revenue, level with August.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "16 October 2026", "what": "US$43,401 in MRR from 1,348 subscriptions. Still listed for sale, with 4 offers received.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Niche", "text": "Laper is built for one profession. The founder broke films down shot by shot and wrote scripts at a film studio, and he designed the tool around the work that takes a writer's time without being writing: the page format, and keeping characters, locations and scenes consistent across a long draft. General writing tools and general AI chat do not handle that format, and Final Draft, the long-time standard in Hollywood, is a desktop program." }, { "title": "AI as a helper, not the author", "text": "The AI proposes a short continuation when the writer pauses, and it reads only the part of the script that the writer chooses: the cursor position, a scene, a range or the outline. Edits that the writer approves go through the normal editor. The company says it serves writers who dislike generative AI. Tencent News noted the difference from tools that generate a complete story from one prompt: in Laper the writer keeps the decisions." }, { "title": "Sharing built into sign-up", "text": "In the beta, an invite code cost a public post: forward a set post to WeChat Moments, keep it there for at least five minutes and upload a screenshot. Posts on Xiaohongshu, X and TikTok that got three likes earned points toward free months. Every new user was also a post that friends saw. More than 1,800 people joined in the first six days." }, { "title": "Claude Code wrote the code", "text": "The founder says he wrote none of the more than 100,000 lines himself. The documentation files that the site publishes carry a header line that says, in Chinese, to update the header after each change and then check CLAUDE.md, the instruction file that Claude Code reads. A former screenwriter who had built smaller apps before shipped a collaborative editor with real-time sync and AI features, then grew the team to five." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's own pages, the TrustMRR profile (the tech stack there is typed by the seller) and the founder's account in the press. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Code: written by Claude Code, by the founder's account, more than 100,000 lines with no hand-written code. The site footer says 100% Built by Claude Code.", "Editor: Plate, an open-source rich-text editor framework for React, with typed screenplay elements. Scene headings feed the list of locations, and character cues feed the list of characters.", "Collaboration: Loro, an open-source CRDT library, with a separate lorosync service. Conflicts are resolved per screenplay block. Supabase Realtime is not used for script data.", "AI: the footer says Powered by Mastra, an open-source TypeScript framework for AI agents. A post of 13 October 2025 says the assistant runs on Claude Sonnet 4. The plans name the assistant models Laper 16mm and Laper IMAX without saying which models are behind them, and no source names the image or video models.", "Backend: an API service owns authorization, credits, task status, retries and refunds; a separate generation worker calls the models and uploads the results. The TrustMRR stack lists React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, Supabase, PostgreSQL, Go, Docker and Stripe.", "Hosting and search: a comment in the robots.txt file names Cloudflare Pages as the host. The site publishes llms.txt files for AI assistants, comparison pages against Final Draft, WriterDuet, Celtx, Sudowrite, Highland and Fade In, and a script archive that the robots.txt file describes as thousands of pages built on request.", "Files: imports Final Draft .fdx scripts and exports PDF and Final Draft XML. The interface has been in 11 languages since November 2025." ], "src": [ 2, 3, 4, 6, 1, 11, 7 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold tools for writers or for visual storytelling before AI could help with the work. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Draft", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A simple cloud editor for writers, with version control and shared editing.", "died": "Google Docs gave the same basic features for free, and a narrow writing tool with a freemium model could not compete.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1605-draft" }, { "name": "Taleship", "years": "2018 to 2020", "funding": "US$0", "cause": "No market need", "promise": "Real-time co-writing of stories: Google Docs for novelists.", "died": "Few writers wanted to write together, and the company spread its work over too many features.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1918-taleship" }, { "name": "Real Artists", "years": "2016 to 2019", "funding": "US$3M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A cloud animation studio for independent artists and small studios.", "died": "Adobe and other large companies had more money and better tools, and it did not win the large clients it needed.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1073-real-artists" }, { "name": "Lightwell", "years": "2019 to 2022", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A no-code tool for designers and other creative people to build interactive stories.", "died": "Adobe and Canva covered most of the need, and the remaining niche was too small.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1369-lightwell" }, { "name": "Fuzzwich", "years": "2007 to 2010", "funding": "US$20K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Short animated videos by drag and drop, for people without animation skills.", "died": "It stayed on the desktop while users moved to phones, and Adobe had far more money.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1655-fuzzwich" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The five companies in this list sold tools for writers or for visual storytelling, and the database records the same end for four of them: a large company offered enough of the same thing. Draft and Taleship were general writing editors, and Google Docs gave basic shared editing for free. Real Artists, Lightwell and Fuzzwich made visual tools and lost to Adobe and Canva. Each of them also had to pay engineers to build the editor, the sync and the drawing tools before it could sell anything.", "Laper differs in three ways. It is not a general editor: it serves one profession whose format and planning work general tools do not handle, the same kind of position that Final Draft has held for about 20 years. The visual part, character images and storyboard frames, is now a request to a model provider instead of a studio's work. And the founder says that an AI agent wrote the code, so a team of five could build the editor, the real-time sync and the AI features. The same change lowers the cost for every competitor: WriterDuet had added generated images by June 2024, and the founder's own listing names a rival that raised a US$12 million seed round." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The founder's position, no. The method, yes.", "text": "Laper rests on two things that a new founder cannot copy quickly: years of work inside a film studio, and an audience of 46,306 followers on X plus an earlier app that was popular in China. The method is open to anyone with real experience in one profession: build the tool for the part of the work that follows fixed rules and takes time, keep the AI in the role of a helper, and let an AI coding agent write the code.", "steps": [ "Pick a profession that you worked in, and list the tasks that follow fixed rules and take time without being the real work.", "Build the editor around those rules first, then add AI that the user calls on for a defined part of the document.", "Make each invite code cost a public post, so that every sign-up also creates a post that friends see.", "Price the plans by AI usage, because every generation request costs money." ], "open": "The same kind of tool for other writing jobs with fixed formats: stage plays, comics, game scripts, subtitles, and legal or grant documents. Each has a format, a review process and a profession that general AI chat does not serve well." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Listed for sale", "text": "Since 17 August 2026 the business has been on TrustMRR's marketplace with an asking price of US$1,999,999, about 3.6 times a year of revenue at the last-30-day rate, and the profile shows 4 offers received by 16 October 2026. A new owner may change the product, the prices or the team." }, { "title": "A short revenue history", "text": "Most of the money came in four months: 80.2% of all-time revenue fell in June to September 2026. August and September were level at about US$46,000, and over the last 30 days revenue changed by -3.3% and MRR by -3.5%. Ten months of data do not show whether subscribers stay for a year." }, { "title": "Competitors, old and new", "text": "Final Draft, the desktop program that Hollywood writers have used for about 20 years, sells version 13 in October 2026. A Leonardo.Ai case study of June 2024 describes how WriterDuet added generated character headshots, environments and video trailers through Leonardo.Ai's API. Laper's own comparison pages list Celtx, Sudowrite, Highland and Fade In as alternatives, and the founder's listing names preiview.io, which he says raised a US$12 million seed round. Large companies can add AI features fast, so Laper's advantage has to come from the format and planning work." }, { "title": "Union rules on AI", "text": "The Writers Guild of America's summary of its 2023 Minimum Basic Agreement (MBA), the contract between the guild and the studios, says that AI cannot write or rewrite literary material, and that AI output is not source material that could reduce a writer's credit. A writer may use AI if the company consents and the writer follows its policies, but the company cannot require it, and it must tell the writer when material it hands over was made with AI. So a guild writer on a covered project can use Laper's AI only with the studio's consent. The guild also reserves the right to argue that training AI on writers' material is prohibited. This page did not check whether a newer agreement changed these rules." }, { "title": "Dependence on model providers", "text": "The assistant runs on a rented model, Claude Sonnet 4 according to the company's post of October 2025, and the code itself was written by Claude Code. Image and video generation runs through a generation worker that calls the models, and no source names those models. A price rise, a model change or an outage at a provider would change both the product and the 68.0% profit margin that the profile shows." }, { "title": "Numbers and people that do not agree", "text": "The founder's TrustMRR text says Laper grew from a solo founder, while Tencent News in December 2025 says he built it with his team and quotes a business partner. No source names the other team members. The company is registered in Hong Kong, and aidevcases.com notes that the founder's activity looks centered in mainland China. The profile's traffic figure, 19 visitors in 30 days, is far too low for 1,348 subscribers and is not used here." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile of Laper, revenue read from Stripe by API key", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/laper.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile on 16 October 2026 (revenue last synced 16 October 2026 at 14:41 UTC). MRR, subscriptions, revenue and the monthly timeline come from the Stripe account. The founding date, team size, funding status, tech stack, channels, description, follower count, profit margin and sale listing are written or entered by the seller, or not covered by the verification note, and are grade C." }, { "title": "AI Dev Cases, 3 September 2026: \"I Didn't Write a Single Line of Code\": A Former Screenwriter Built a 100,000-Line AI Screenwriting Tool With Claude Code Alone, Hitting $40K+ MRR in 8 Months", "url": "https://aidevcases.com/en/cases/laper", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. An editorial case study that quotes TrustMRR and the founder's X post of 21 December 2025. Source for the background, the beta mechanics, the team growth and the September 2026 snapshot." }, { "title": "Tencent News, 24 December 2025, Yangfan Chuhai account, author 子墨: a screenwriter turned app developer goes all in on an AI screenwriting tool after one remark by a Meituan co-founder (title translated from Chinese and shortened)", "url": "https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20251224A0410K00", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, in Chinese. Launch coverage six days after the beta opened. Source for the founder's background, the origin of the idea, the Claude Code claim, the invite mechanics, the beta prices and the 1,800 beta users." }, { "title": "Laper pricing page and llms.txt file, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://laper.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Monthly prices and plan limits from the pricing page; yearly prices from https://laper.ai/llms.txt, which also gives the architecture notes. The footer says 100% Built by Claude Code and Powered by Loro CRDT / Mastra." }, { "title": "Laper home page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://laper.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the product description and the purpose check." }, { "title": "Laper llms-full.txt, the company's generated reference for AI assistants", "url": "https://laper.ai/llms-full.txt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on architecture, Final Draft import, the comparison pages and the post of 13 October 2025 that names Claude Sonnet 4 as the assistant model." }, { "title": "Laper changelog", "url": "https://laper.ai/changelog/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Release dates from 0.0.1 on 6 October 2025 to 0.4.1 on 9 January 2026; no later entries." }, { "title": "Leonardo.Ai case study, 14 June 2024: WriterDuet Brings Screenplays to Life with Leonardo.Ai", "url": "https://www.leonardo.ai/news/writerduet-brings-screenplays-to-life-with-leonardo-ai", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. A supplier's account. Source for WriterDuet's generated images and trailers." }, { "title": "Final Draft home page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.finaldraft.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Shows Final Draft 13 as the version on sale. Its prices load by script and were not read." }, { "title": "Writers Guild of America: Summary of the 2023 WGA MBA", "url": "https://www.wgacontract2023.org/the-campaign/summary-of-the-2023-wga-mba", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the section on artificial intelligence. The guild's own summary of its 2023 agreement with the studios." }, { "title": "Laper robots.txt, updated 26 June 2026", "url": "https://laper.ai/robots.txt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Its comments name Cloudflare Pages as the host and describe the script archive." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export of failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/letterly/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/letterly.md", "slug": "letterly", "name": "Letterly", "country": "Spain", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "Voice notes and dictation app", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "November 2023", "outcomeLabel": "US$215K a month, April 2026", "sticker": "$2.6M/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 2580000, "months": 29, "teamLabel": "Founder and CEO with a team of 10 people at the April 2026 figure", "fundingLabel": "None reported; run by the founder as a self-employed person registered in Spain", "primaryFactor": "Simplicity", "group": "voice-audio", "channel": "paid-ads", "trend": "flat", "collections": [ "phone-app" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Productivity" ], "product": "An app for iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows and the web that records speech and returns finished text: a clean note, an email, a list, a social post or a meeting summary split by speaker. A phone keyboard and a desktop dictation tool let users speak into any other app. It handles more than 90 languages and recordings of up to 90 minutes.", "why": "The first apps that combined OpenAI's Whisper and ChatGPT for voice notes appeared in 2023, and the founder found them \"not implemented well enough\". His team built a simpler one, collected early users and feature requests through lifetime deals on AppSumo in 2024, and in 2025 grew with advertising and paywall tests measured in Adapty's subscription data.", "summary": [ "Letterly is a voice notes app for iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows and the web. The user speaks; a speech recognition model, software that turns recorded speech into written words, makes a transcript; and a large language model, an AI model trained on very large amounts of text that can rewrite text on request, turns the transcript into the text the user chose: a clean note, an email, a list, a post or a meeting summary split by speaker. A keyboard on the phone and a dictation tool on the computer let users speak into any other app. Its data processing agreement, the contract that lists the outside companies that handle user data, names Microsoft Azure and ElevenLabs for transcription and Google's Gemini for text processing (24 March 2026), and its privacy policy names OpenAI as an AI provider.", "Anton Lebedev, its founder and CEO, had launched five startups in 15 years, and none succeeded, Adapty writes. In 2023 he and his team saw apps that sent audio to OpenAI's Whisper and the transcript to ChatGPT, found them badly made, and dropped their own project to build a simpler one. AppSumo, a marketplace that sells software deals, gives 1 September 2023 as the founding date, and the iPhone app was in the App Store by 23 November 2023. Lifetime deals on AppSumo brought early users from August 2024. From April to August 2025 the app's monthly recurring revenue (MRR, the money that active subscriptions bring in each month) rose 345%, and revenue for June to August 2025 was US$600,000, ten times the US$60,000 of March to May. The version of Adapty's case study last changed on 1 April 2026 says that Letterly makes US$215,000 a month with a team of 10 people, about US$2.58 million a year.", "This page grades the US$215,000 a month A. Adapty's software runs the app's subscriptions: in the case study's words it handled \"payments, receipt validation, cross-platform subscription management\" and became the team's \"ground truth\" for decisions, and Adapty states the figure under its own name. Adapty is not the payment processor, the company that moves the money, because for app store purchases that is Apple or Google and for web sales it is Stripe. This site counts a payment company's customer story, such as Stripe's, as grade A for that reason, as it did for Wave AI. The case study does not say that the figure was read from Adapty's dashboard, does not date its word \"today\", and is a marketing page for Adapty's own product, so a stricter reader can treat it as grade B. Ten people is the upper limit of this site's small-team filter; the story is on the site only because the money evidence is grade A or B." ], "factsCaption": "US$215,000 a month with a team of 10, stated by Adapty, the company whose software runs the app's subscriptions, in the version of its case study of 1 April 2026", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value is stated by Adapty, the company whose software records the app's subscriptions, in its case study under its own name. A grade B value is a count published by Adapty, Apple or AppSumo that is not a payment figure. A grade C value comes from Letterly's own pages, the founder's posts or the AppSumo listing. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a dropped project in 2023 to US$215,000 a month about 29 months after the iPhone app appeared, with lifetime deals first and paid ads later. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Letterly prices in October 2026: the in-app purchases on Apple's US App Store page and the AppSumo deal. letterly.app has no pricing page", "note": "The app is free to download, and the website says \"Start for free\" without listing the limits of the free version. Apple's page lists four yearly prices and two lifetime prices for the same PRO subscription and does not say which users see which price; an app that tests paywalls, as Adapty says Letterly does, needs a separate store product for each price it tests. Web purchases go through Stripe, and their prices are not published on letterly.app. Paid plans have no limits on recordings or AI rewrites.", "rows": [ [ "PRO, 1 month", "", "19.99", "no limits on recordings or AI rewrites" ], [ "PRO, 3 months", "", "14.97", "billed 44.90 every 3 months" ], [ "PRO, 1 year", "5.83 to 8.33", "", "four App Store prices: 69.99, 79.99, 89.99 and 99.99 a year" ], [ "PRO, lifetime", "199.99 one-time", "", "also listed at 249.99 one-time" ], [ "AppSumo lifetime deal", "89 one-time", "", "1 code, list price shown as 200; 10 codes for 890" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Revenue per month, April 2026 version of the case study", "value": "US$215,000", "grade": "A", "note": "Adapty: \"Today Letterly makes $215,000 a month\". In the version last modified 1 April 2026, archived on 22 April 2026, and unchanged on the live page, modified 27 April 2026. The page was first published on 13 March 2026; no copy of that first version exists. The title, \"Scaled to $215K/Month in 5 Months\", ties the figure to the five months from April to August 2025, so it may describe the level reached in 2025. The page does not say whether app store fees are deducted.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from US$215,000 a month", "value": "about US$2.58 million a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$215,000 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Growth of monthly recurring revenue, April to August 2025", "value": "+345%", "grade": "A", "note": "Adapty: \"From April to August 2025: Letterly’s MRR jumped 345%\". August MRR was therefore 4.45 times April MRR (calculated). Adapty gives no MRR amounts.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue, March to May 2025 and June to August 2025", "value": "US$60,000, then US$600,000", "grade": "A", "note": "Adapty: \"total three-month revenue increased from $60K to $600K (Mar – May vs. Jun – Aug)\". Ten times as much; June to August averages US$200,000 a month (both calculated).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average revenue per user (ARPU), April to August 2025", "value": "+253%", "grade": "A", "note": "Adapty: \"ARPU climbed 253%\"; the highlights give 253.1%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue from the two best paywalls", "value": "US$127,000 and US$95,000", "grade": "A", "note": "Adapty: \"Two of their winning paywalls brought in $127K and $95K.\" The page does not give the period. Together US$222,000 (calculated).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Installs, April to August 2025", "value": "+188.8%", "grade": "B", "note": "Adapty's highlights: \"+188.8% increase in installs\". A download count, not a payment figure.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team at the US$215,000 figure", "value": "10 people", "grade": "B", "note": "Adapty: \"Letterly runs a lean team of 10 people\", on the same page as the revenue figure. A headcount is not a payment figure, so it is graded B. No source gives a smaller team at an earlier dated figure.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per team member", "value": "about US$258,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$2.58 million divided by 10 people.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "April 2026 compared with June to August 2025", "value": "about 7.5% higher", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$215,000 against the June to August 2025 average of US$200,000. That is within 15%, so this page counts the trend as flat.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Operator", "value": "the founder, as a self-employed person registered in Spain", "grade": "C", "note": "Data processing agreement: \"Letterly, operated by Anton Lebedev, Autónomo registered in Spain\". Autónomo is the Spanish status of a self-employed person. The contacts page gives a business address in Valencia, and Apple's page lists him as seller and developer.", "src": [ 5, 7, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "No source mentions an investor. A self-employed person has no company shares to sell, so the business in its present legal form has no equity investors (a deduction, not a statement by the company).", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Founding date", "value": "1 September 2023", "grade": "C", "note": "AppSumo's company details: \"Founded September 1, 2023\".", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "iPhone app available", "value": "by 23 November 2023", "grade": "C", "note": "The first archived copy of the real letterly.app, 23 November 2023, links to the App Store and marks Google Play as \"soon\" with a waiting list for Android.", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "fact": "App Store ratings, October 2026", "value": "about 1,100 ratings, 4.7 out of 5", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's US page shows \"1.1K Ratings\". Apple counts them; they are not a payment figure.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Users claimed", "value": "more than 300,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Home page: \"What 300,000 + users say\". Not verified.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "AppSumo reviews, October 2026", "value": "366", "grade": "B", "note": "AppSumo's deal page. Counted by the marketplace.", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "fact": "AI providers named by the company", "value": "Microsoft Azure, ElevenLabs, Google Gemini and OpenAI", "grade": "C", "note": "Data processing agreement effective 24 March 2026 and privacy policy last updated 1 January 2026. Neither says which model does which step.", "src": [ 5, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the iPhone app to the April 2026 figure", "value": "29 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: November 2023 to April 2026. From the founding date of 1 September 2023 it would be 31 months.", "src": [ 9, 2, 8 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Before 2023", "what": "Lebedev spends 15 years on startups. He launches five, and none succeeds.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "2023", "what": "He and his team see apps that transcribe audio with OpenAI's Whisper and reformat it with ChatGPT. They drop the project they were working on and build Letterly.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "1 September 2023", "what": "Founding date, as given on AppSumo.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "By 23 November 2023", "what": "The iPhone app is in the App Store: \"Convert any speech to clear & structured text\". Android is \"soon\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "August 2024", "what": "First launch on AppSumo, with a founder's post dated 14 August 2024. The app is then \"a simple list of voice notes with a strict 15-minute limit\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "2 October 2024", "what": "Second AppSumo launch. A web version is in beta, a Mac version is coming, and notes sync between phone and web.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "26 December 2024", "what": "Third AppSumo launch. The founder writes that launching there \"has been one of the best decisions of 2024\".", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "April to August 2025", "what": "MRR rises 345%, ARPU 253% and installs 188.8%. Revenue for June to August is US$600,000, ten times March to May. Advertising plays a major role.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "13 March 2026", "what": "Adapty publishes its case study on Letterly.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "1 April 2026", "what": "Version of the case study that says \"Today Letterly makes $215,000 a month\" and gives a team of 10 people, archived on 22 April 2026. The same day Letterly releases an Android app rebuilt from the ground up.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 2, 10 ] }, { "when": "April 2026", "what": "MCP support: Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor can search and manage Letterly notes.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "Letterly Keyboard on iPhone and a dictation bubble on Android: users can dictate inside any app.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "Still updated every few weeks: version 2.7.8 on the App Store, about 1,100 ratings at 4.7.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 3 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A proven idea, made simpler", "text": "Lebedev's earlier startups were new ideas that nobody used. This time, according to Adapty, he \"chose a market-validated idea and focused entirely on execution\": the Whisper and ChatGPT apps of 2023 had shown that people wanted the product, and Letterly made every screen and every interaction as simple as it could. Adapty names \"ruthless simplicity\" as the reason people pay while free tools exist." }, { "title": "Lifetime deals for early users", "text": "Letterly sold lifetime access on AppSumo in at least four launches between August 2024 and April 2025, and again in May 2026; today a code costs US$89. The founder's posts there thank the buyers for the requests that became the web and Mac versions, sync between devices and custom rewrite styles. The deal page shows 366 reviews." }, { "title": "Paid ads measured by subscription data", "text": "Adapty writes that advertising \"played a major role\" in the growth from April to August 2025, when installs rose 188.8%. The privacy policy lists Facebook Audience Network and AppsFlyer for advertising; AppsFlyer is an attribution tool, software that tells an app which ad brought each install. Adapty supplied the revenue side: MRR, ARPU and churn, the share of subscribers who cancel, by country and product." }, { "title": "Paywall tests", "text": "A paywall is the screen that asks the user to pay. With Adapty's Paywall Builder the team assembled and shipped its own paywall designs in twenty minutes instead of waiting for developers, and kept the ones that sold best. Two of the winning paywalls brought in US$127,000 and US$95,000. Apple's page today lists four yearly prices and two lifetime prices for the same PRO plan." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from Letterly's data processing agreement, privacy policy and updates page, Apple's App Store page and the Adapty case study. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Speech and text models: the data processing agreement of 24 March 2026 lists Microsoft Azure for \"Transcription; text processing\", ElevenLabs for \"Transcription and voice processing\" and Google's Gemini for \"AI text processing\". The privacy policy of 1 January 2026 names OpenAI as an AI provider. No source says which model does which step, or whether Letterly itself ever used Whisper.", "Infrastructure: Google Cloud Platform in the EU, Firebase Authentication for accounts, Vercel for the website, Sentry for error reports, OneSignal for messages to users, and Amplitude and Google Analytics for Firebase for product analytics.", "Payments: Apple and Google in-app purchases and Stripe for the web, with Adapty managing the subscriptions and the paywalls on all platforms.", "Apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Android, Windows and the web, kept in sync. A keyboard on iPhone and a dictation bubble on Android, both from June 2026, let users speak into other apps.", "Connections: Zapier and webhooks send notes to other tools, and an MCP server (Model Context Protocol, a standard way for AI assistants to call outside tools) lets Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor search the notes, from April 2026.", "More than 90 languages detected automatically, recordings of up to 90 minutes, and no limits on recordings or rewrites in paid plans. The site says that notes are never used to train AI." ], "src": [ 5, 6, 10, 3, 1 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database tried to change how people put words into a device, or how they keep notes, and lost to what the platform owners shipped or to the phone itself. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Whirlscape", "years": "2014 to 2017", "funding": "US$0.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Minuum, a one-line phone keyboard that saved screen space.", "died": "The default keyboards got better AI, and users stayed with them.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1129-whirlscape" }, { "name": "Tellme", "years": "1999 to 2011", "funding": "US$238M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Information and services by voice command over the phone.", "died": "Phone apps and AI assistants replaced its voice commands.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/612-tellme" }, { "name": "VocalIQ", "years": "2011 to 2017", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Talking to computers in natural conversation.", "died": "It could not compete with the voice assistants of the large technology companies and ended inside Apple.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/719-vocaliq" }, { "name": "Springpad", "years": "2008 to 2014", "funding": "US$7.5M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Save and organize everything, from web articles to recipes, in one free app.", "died": "Users liked the free product, but the company did not find what they would pay for before the money ran out.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1893-springpad" }, { "name": "Humane", "years": "2018 to 2025", "funding": "US$230M", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "A US$700 AI badge with a laser projector, to replace the smartphone.", "died": "Nobody asked for a phone replacement, and the phone already did the job.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2397-humane" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the five tried to change how people put words into a device or keep notes, and each lost to what the platform owners shipped for free or to the phone itself: default keyboards beat Minuum, phone apps and assistants replaced Tellme's voice service, VocalIQ ended inside Apple, and Humane's badge could not replace the phone. Letterly sells into the same place. Apple's Notes and Phone apps record, transcribe and summarize, Google's Recorder summarizes on Pixel phones, and ChatGPT records, dictates and summarizes audio files.", "Two things differ. First, the predecessors had to build their own technology and raised between US$500,000 and US$238 million to do it; Letterly rents speech recognition and language models from several providers and pays by use, and no source reports any investment. Second, Letterly sells a finished result, an email or a note in the user's style, in the apps where people already write, and it measures every price and every paywall with subscription data, so a team of 10 could see within five months which paywall and which ads brought paying users." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The product is copied often. The method can be copied.", "text": "A voice-to-text app is easy to build with rented models, and the App Store already shows many similar apps, AudioPen among them, while Apple, Google and OpenAI include the same features in their own products. What made Letterly earn money was execution: a simpler app than the first ones, early users from lifetime deals, then paid ads and paywall tests measured by subscription data. That needs money for ads and a team that can test quickly, so it is harder for one person than it looks.", "steps": [ "Choose an idea that rough early products have already proven, and make the simplest version of it.", "Sell lifetime deals on a marketplace early, for cash and for feature requests from real users.", "Run every purchase through one subscription platform, so that MRR, ARPU and churn are visible by country and product.", "Test paywalls and prices all the time, keep the winners, and buy ads only where the subscription data shows paying users." ], "open": "Dictation inside other apps, through a phone keyboard or a desktop app, and notes that AI assistants can read through MCP: the two directions that Letterly itself took in 2026." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Ten people, the top of this site's range", "text": "Adapty says that Letterly runs a team of 10 people, on the same page as the US$215,000 a month. That is the upper limit of this site's small-team filter, and the story is here only because the revenue evidence is grade A. It is not a one-person business, and no source gives an earlier revenue figure from a smaller team." }, { "title": "A vendor's marketing page, and an undated \"today\"", "text": "The revenue figures come from Adapty's case study, a marketing page for its own product. It was published on 13 March 2026 and changed on 1 April and 27 April 2026; no archived copy of the first version exists. Its title ties US$215,000 a month to five months of growth in 2025, while the text says \"today\". It does not say whether the figure is before or after the app stores' fees, or whether it includes web sales. A stricter reader can grade it B." }, { "title": "Apple and Google build it into the phone", "text": "Apple announced on 10 June 2024: \"In the Notes and Phone apps, users can now record, transcribe, and summarize audio.\" Google's feature drop of 6 December 2023 put \"Summarize in Recorder\", run by its Gemini Nano model on the phone, on the Pixel 8 Pro. Both come at no extra cost on the phones that support them." }, { "title": "ChatGPT does the same job", "text": "OpenAI's release notes list record mode in the ChatGPT Mac app (Team users from 4 June 2025, Plus users from 16 July 2025), a new speech-to-text model for dictation in all plans (26 June 2026), and audio uploads that \"turn a meeting, interview, or lecture into structured notes or a follow-up email draft\" for paid plans (6 October 2026). Adapty itself notes that Letterly earns money while \"ChatGPT and dozens of other transcription tools remain free\"." }, { "title": "The same field on this site", "text": "Among this site's voice-note stories, Letterly's US$215,000 a month (grade A, team of 10) is below Wave AI's US$4 million a year in November 2024 (grade A, one founder) and far above AudioPen's US$15,000 to US$20,000 a month in February 2026 and AudioNotes's about US$7,200 a month in August 2024 (both grade C, one founder each), while Talknotes was sold for US$200,000 in July 2024 (grade B)." }, { "title": "Rented models and unlimited use", "text": "Every recording goes to outside providers: Letterly's own documents name Microsoft Azure, ElevenLabs, Google's Gemini and OpenAI. Their prices and terms set Letterly's costs, and the company promises \"no limits on recordings or AI rewrites\", also to buyers of lifetime plans (US$89 on AppSumo, US$199.99 or US$249.99 on the App Store) who never pay again." }, { "title": "Growth paid for with ads", "text": "Adapty says that advertising played a major role in the 2025 growth. Ad-driven growth stops when ad prices rise or when many similar apps bid for the same users, and Apple's page for Letterly lists seven other voice and note apps under \"You Might Also Like\", AudioPen among them." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Adapty case study: How a team of 10 scaled Letterly to $215K/month without building infrastructure (published 13 March 2026, modified 27 April 2026)", "url": "https://adapty.io/case-studies/letterly/", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full, live on 16 October 2026. Adapty runs the app's subscriptions. Source for the US$215,000 a month, the 2025 growth figures, the paywall results, the team of 10 and the founder's account." }, { "title": "Adapty case study on Letterly, Wayback Machine copy of 22 April 2026 (version modified 1 April 2026)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260422055458/https://adapty.io/case-studies/letterly/", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. The earliest archived copy; its article text is the same as the live page, including US$215,000 a month and the team of 10. No copy of the first version of 13 March 2026 exists." }, { "title": "Apple App Store, US: Letterly: AI Note Taker", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/letterly-ai-voice-note-taking/id6464049772", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full on 16 October 2026. Source for the seller and developer name, the in-app purchase prices, the ratings, the version history and the similar apps." }, { "title": "Letterly home page", "url": "https://letterly.app/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 16 October 2026. Source for the features, the limits and the 300,000 users claim. The address letterly.app/pricing returns the same page; there is no pricing page." }, { "title": "Letterly Data Processing Agreement, effective 24 March 2026", "url": "https://letterly.app/dpa/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the operator's legal form and the list of sub-processors, the outside companies that handle user data." }, { "title": "Letterly privacy policy, last updated 1 January 2026", "url": "https://letterly.app/policy/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on third parties and AI providers. Source for OpenAI, the advertising tools and the infrastructure services." }, { "title": "Letterly contacts page", "url": "https://letterly.app/contacts/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Names the founder with a business address in Valencia, Spain." }, { "title": "AppSumo deal page: Letterly, AI speech-to-text app", "url": "https://appsumo.com/products/letterly/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 16 October 2026. Source for the deal prices, the founding date, the review count and the founder's posts of 14 August 2024, 2 October 2024, 26 December 2024, 17 April 2025 and 20 May 2026." }, { "title": "Letterly home page, Wayback Machine copy of 23 November 2023", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20231123155137/https://letterly.app/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The first archived copy of the real site: the iPhone app is available and Android is \"soon\"." }, { "title": "Letterly updates page", "url": "https://letterly.app/updates/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the entries from March 2025 to October 2026. Source for the Android rebuild, MCP, the keyboard and the dictation tools." }, { "title": "Letterly affiliate program", "url": "https://letterly.app/affiliate/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A 30% commission for web sales made through a referral link." }, { "title": "Apple Newsroom, 10 June 2024: Introducing Apple Intelligence for iPhone, iPad, and Mac", "url": "https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/06/introducing-apple-intelligence-for-iphone-ipad-and-mac/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on Notes and Phone. Source for the built-in recording, transcription and summaries." }, { "title": "Google blog, 6 December 2023: Pixel feature drop, December 2023", "url": "https://blog.google/products/pixel/pixel-feature-drop-december-2023/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the section on Recorder. Source for Summarize in Recorder with Gemini Nano on the Pixel 8 Pro." }, { "title": "OpenAI Help Center: ChatGPT release notes", "url": "https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6825453-chatgpt-release-notes", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the entries on record mode (June and July 2025), dictation (26 June 2026) and audio uploads (6 October 2026)." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/coconote/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/coconote.md", "slug": "coconote", "name": "Coconote", "country": "USA", "sector": "Consumer software", "productType": "AI note-taker and study app for students", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "exit", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "April 2024", "outcomeLabel": "Sold for an undisclosed price after US$6.7M ARR, February 2026", "sticker": "Sold after $6.7M ARR", "outcomeUsd": 6700000, "months": 22, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders, plus 5 to 12 contracted content creators before the sale and about 25 after it", "fundingLabel": "None (US$0 raised; about US$10,000 from each founder)", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "learning", "channel": "creators", "trend": "sold", "collections": [ "phone-app" ], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Exit", "B2C", "Education" ], "product": "A phone and web app that records a lecture, or imports audio, video, a PDF, a document or a link, and makes a transcript, organized notes, flashcards, quizzes, a chat with the note and a short AI-narrated podcast of it. A student gets one free note; after that the app needs a subscription, which starts with a free trial.", "why": "Two former Loom staff built a premium-priced app for something students do several times a week, going to class, and sold it through short videos by a small group of contracted creators instead of paid ads. It charged from the first day, and revenue paid for growth with about 50% EBITDA margins until Quizlet bought it.", "summary": [ "Coconote is a phone and web app for students that turns a recorded lecture into study material. The student records the class, or imports audio, video, a PDF, a document or a link. A speech-to-text model, a program that writes down spoken words, makes a transcript, the full text of what was said, and a large language model, an AI program that writes text from instructions, turns it into organized notes, flashcards, quizzes, a chat with the note and a short podcast read by an AI voice. The app gives one free note; after that the student needs a subscription. Its home page says it uses \"AI that doesn't break your University's honor code\" and that \"it doesn't cheat for you\".", "Zack Hargett, who worked in design and product at Loom, the video-messaging company, and Brett Bauman, an engineer on Loom's mobile team, launched it in April 2024 at US$99 a year or US$19.99 a month, with about US$10,000 of their own money each and no outside investors. They say it passed US$100,000 in annual recurring revenue (ARR, the yearly value of all active subscriptions) within 45 days, US$1 million in four months and US$2 million in five, while a small group of contracted creators posted short videos on TikTok and Instagram. They also say it made an EBITDA margin of about 50% in nearly every month; EBITDA is profit before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. On 5 February 2026 Quizlet, an online learning platform, announced that it had acquired Coconote; a founder says the deal closed in December 2025. On 18 March 2026 Zack Hargett posted that Coconote had US$6.7 million in ARR at the sale.", "The revenue figures are the founders' own statements, grade C. Quizlet's announcement confirms the purchase and the more than 1 billion video views, grade B, but gives no price and no revenue. RevenueCat, the subscription platform that the founders used and that publishes the Sub Club podcast, repeats the figures without saying that it checked them in its own data. The page also shows earlier companies that tried to help students study or take notes, and why they failed." ], "factsCaption": "US$6.7 million in annual recurring revenue 22 months after launch, then a sale to Quizlet at an undisclosed price; the revenue is self-reported, the sale is confirmed by the buyer", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade B value comes from Quizlet's own announcement of the purchase. A grade C value is a founder statement on the Sub Club podcast or in a post quoted by AI Dev Cases, or a store listing. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No revenue value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a Chrome extension that summarized videos to a sale to Quizlet, 22 months after launch. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Coconote prices: the company has no pricing page (coconote.app/pricing returns 404), so the launch prices come from the founders and the October 2026 list from Apple's App Store page, which does not show billing periods (grade C)", "note": "The founders say about 80% of subscribers chose the yearly plan. Apart from one free note, the app works only with a subscription, which starts with a free trial. The App Store page of October 2026 lists ten Coconote Pro purchases: US$9.99 (twice), US$19.99 (three times), US$71.99, US$99.99, US$129.99 (twice) and US$152.99, without saying which period each one covers. In June 2026 AI Dev Cases read a range of US$9.99 to US$129.99.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "one note, then a free trial" ], [ "Coconote Pro, yearly, at launch in April 2024", "8.25", "", "US$99 a year; founders" ], [ "Coconote Pro, monthly, at launch", "", "19.99", "founders" ], [ "Coconote Pro, yearly, after an early price test", "10.83", "", "US$129.99 a year on the App Store; the founders say US$129" ], [ "Other Coconote Pro prices, October 2026", "", "", "US$9.99, US$71.99, US$99.99 and US$152.99; periods not shown" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue at the sale", "value": "US$6.7 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Zack Hargett's post of 18 March 2026, quoted by AI Dev Cases, and the founders on the Sub Club podcast. Quizlet published no revenue figure.", "src": [ 3, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Sale to Quizlet", "value": "announced 5 February 2026, price not disclosed", "grade": "B", "note": "EdTech Innovation Hub reports Quizlet's announcement of \"the acquisition of note-taking app Coconote\", with no price or terms. AI Dev Cases gives the date. A founder says the deal closed in December 2025.", "src": [ 2, 3, 1 ] }, { "fact": "EBITDA margin", "value": "about 50% in nearly every month from the start to the sale", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on the podcast; the post says \"~50% ebitda\".", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "EBITDA at the sale run rate", "value": "about US$3.35 million a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 50% of US$6.7 million. The founders did not give this figure.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue 45 days after launch", "value": "US$100,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on the podcast.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue four months after launch", "value": "US$1 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on the podcast and the headline of RevenueCat's recap. That is about August 2024.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue five months after launch", "value": "US$2 million", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on the podcast. That is about September 2024.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue during the year of the sale process", "value": "roughly doubled", "grade": "C", "note": "Zack Hargett on the podcast, for the time in which an investment bank prepared and ran the sale.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "US$0; about US$10,000 from each founder", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder's post says \"$0 raised\"; the podcast gives the founders' own money.", "src": [ 3, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Founders' money at the start", "value": "about US$20,000", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: about US$10,000 from each of the two founders.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Views of the creators' videos", "value": "more than 1 billion in 18 months", "grade": "B", "note": "Quizlet's announcement, as reported by EdTech Innovation Hub. The founder's post says \"1 billion+ organic views on social\".", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Content creators, all contractors", "value": "5 to 10 before the sale, 12 at most; about 25 after it", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on the podcast. About 30 creators were tried in the first two months, and three of them made a large difference.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Prices at launch", "value": "US$99 a year or US$19.99 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder on the podcast. About 80% of subscribers chose the yearly plan.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Yearly price after an early test", "value": "US$129", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: the higher price brought more users and more revenue at the same time, and it stayed for most of the company's life. The App Store lists a US$129.99 Coconote Pro purchase.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Free use", "value": "one note, then a free trial", "grade": "C", "note": "Founder: \"You can make one note for free without starting a trial and that's it.\"", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Paid advertising", "value": "tried and stopped", "grade": "C", "note": "The founders could not make the first purchase pay back the cost of the ads.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "App Store rating, October 2026", "value": "4.8 from about 17,000 ratings", "grade": "C", "note": "Apple's listing, shown as 17K ratings. The seller is now Quizlet Inc.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the announced sale", "value": "22 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: April 2024 to February 2026. To the close in December 2025 it is 20 months.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2022", "what": "Zack Hargett, who had shut down a venture-backed product studio that built apps for high school and college students, makes a Chrome extension that summarizes blog posts and YouTube videos with GPT-3.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "2023", "what": "He and Brett Bauman, who met through Loom, try to replace Siri with GPT-4 before they arrive at Coconote.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "April 2024", "what": "Coconote launches with a free trial and charges from the first day: US$99 a year or US$19.99 a month. The Internet Archive holds a copy of coconote.app from 1 May 2024.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 8 ] }, { "when": "45 days after launch", "what": "US$100,000 in annual recurring revenue. About 30 creators are tried in the first two months.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "About August 2024", "what": "US$1 million in annual recurring revenue, four months after launch, without relying on paid ads.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "when": "About September 2024", "what": "US$2 million in annual recurring revenue, five months after launch.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "25 September 2024", "what": "The home page says Coconote uses \"AI that doesn't break your University's honor code\" and lists iPhone, Android and web.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "2025", "what": "An investment bank prepares and runs a sale process through the year. The founders tell no one, and revenue roughly doubles in that time.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "December 2025", "what": "The sale to Quizlet closes, according to a founder.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "5 February 2026", "what": "Quizlet announces that it has acquired Coconote, together with a new AI study experience of its own. No price is given.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "when": "18 March 2026", "what": "Zack Hargett posts US$6.7 million ARR, about 50% EBITDA, more than 1 billion organic views and US$0 raised. The Sub Club podcast episode and RevenueCat's recap appear the same day.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 1, 4 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "The App Store lists the app under Quizlet Inc, rated 4.8 from about 17,000 ratings, with Coconote Pro prices from US$9.99 to US$152.99.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Distribution: creators, not influencers", "text": "The founders paid content creators to make short videos, not famous people to mention the app. They looked for creators with 5,000 to 10,000 followers and a personal email address in their profile, and avoided creators who had an agency, because, in a founder's words, agencies \"are almost always going to take more than they give\". Before the sale they worked with 5 to 10 creators at a time, at most 12, and met each one. One creator ran the main Coconote account and brought hundreds of millions of views. Quizlet counts more than 1 billion views in 18 months." }, { "title": "Videos that sell, not only videos that spread", "text": "A video with 41 million views did not bring sales, because it showed the app as a toy. Videos that showed a student's problem and then the app solving it converted much better. The founders told creators to imagine offering the app to a new student and her mother at college orientation." }, { "title": "A premium price and almost no free use", "text": "The app launched at US$99 a year or US$19.99 a month, and an early test at US$129 a year brought more users and more revenue. Apart from one free note, it cannot be used without a subscription. The founders say a high price made students trust the app with notes they would be examined on." }, { "title": "Small tests on the sign-up and cancel screens", "text": "A longer onboarding, the first screens of the app, of about 15 screens raised free-trial starts by 16%. Moving the login screen to after the paywall, the screen that asks for payment, removed a 10% drop-off. On the web, a cancel flow kept 25% of people who tried to cancel, and the best offer was seven more days of free trial, not a discount." }, { "title": "A task that repeats", "text": "Students go to class several times a week, so a recording app is used often, and the notes from one course build up over a term. The founders compare this with apps such as Strava and Ladder that people open for every run or workout." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founders on the Sub Club podcast, from AI Dev Cases and from the app's store listing. They are grade C.", "items": [ "An app for iPhone first, then Android and the web. By October 2026 the App Store lists versions for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple Vision.", "Two AI steps: speech-to-text turns the recording into a transcript, then a large language model writes the notes, quizzes and flashcards. The founders say transcription costs more than the language model. No source names the model providers.", "Reliable recording on a phone was hard: early versions lost recordings, and a phone call can stop a recording. A founder says Apple does not make reliable recording easy.", "Payments through the App Store and Google Play, with RevenueCat for subscription data (a founder says he checked \"the RevenueCat chart\" far too often), and Stripe for subscriptions on the web. The cancel flow with the trial extension ran on the web.", "The account is created after the payment screen, which needed extra work to connect an Apple purchase to an account made later.", "A content team of contracted creators who post on TikTok and Instagram Reels, coached by the founders. A test of paid ads, with an outside agency cutting the creators' raw videos into ads, did not pay back.", "The sale was run by an investment bank, Accretive Partners, through which the founders got back in touch with Quizlet." ], "src": [ 1, 3, 5 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database tried to help students study or take notes, and failed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Flashnotes", "years": "2010 to 2016", "funding": "US$1.47M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A marketplace where college students sold their class notes and study guides to other students.", "died": "It could not control the quality of the notes, and Course Hero and Chegg won with a better product and more money.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/154-flashnotes" }, { "name": "StudyRoom", "years": "2010 to 2013", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "An online place where students in the same course study together and swap notes.", "died": "It did not reach the number of users that a network product needs, and it found no way to earn money.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1691-studyroom" }, { "name": "InstaGrok", "years": "2010 to 2013", "funding": "US$500K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A search tool for students that showed a topic as a map of concepts.", "died": "Schools did not change their methods, and the free tools of Quizlet and Khan Academy took the users.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1700-instagrok" }, { "name": "Xuebajun", "years": "2013 to 2021", "funding": "US$150M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Photograph a homework problem and get the solution from software, for school students in China.", "died": "It moved from the cheap homework app to costly live tutoring, then Chinese rules banned its business.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2325-xuebajun" }, { "name": "Transpose", "years": "2012 to 2018", "funding": "US$0", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A note-taking app with templates, first as an alternative to Evernote, then for business data.", "died": "It charged US$14.99 against Evernote without outside money, and users had no reason to switch.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1849-transpose" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The five earlier companies each needed something that was slow or expensive to get: good notes written by other students (Flashnotes), enough users in the same course (StudyRoom), schools that would change their habits (InstaGrok), paid human tutors (Xuebajun), or a reason to leave an established notes app (Transpose). InstaGrok lost to free tools that included Quizlet, the company that bought Coconote.", "Coconote needed none of these. A speech-to-text model and a language model turn each student's own lecture into notes, so there is no marketplace to fill and no network to build, and the founders kept a margin of about 50% while paying for the models. Short-video feeds that rank videos by interest, not by the number of followers, let a few contracted creators reach students without paid ads. What has not changed is the risk that a larger, free product does the same job: in 2025 OpenAI and Google added study features to their assistants." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The creator method, yes. The empty market of early 2024, no.", "text": "Coconote launched when the note-takers that existed were mostly web apps or tools for business meetings, and the founders thought that no one was taking the idea seriously. By 2026 the field is crowded, and the AI makers have their own study features. The method still transfers: pick a task people do several times a week, charge a premium price from the first day, and pay a few chosen creators for videos that show the product solving a real problem.", "steps": [ "Choose a task the customer repeats every week, such as going to class, so that the product gains value with each use.", "Charge from the first day with a yearly price and a free trial, and test a higher price early.", "Recruit creators with 5,000 to 10,000 followers and a personal email address, coach each one, and keep the video formats that show a problem and its solution.", "Test the sign-up and cancel screens: put the login after the payment screen, and offer more trial time instead of a discount." ], "open": "Other recordings that people make every week and must study afterwards: language classes, medical and nursing training, professional exam courses and training sessions at work." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The revenue figures are the founders' own", "text": "US$6.7 million ARR, the 50% EBITDA margin and every earlier step come from the founders: a post on X quoted by AI Dev Cases, and the Sub Club podcast. RevenueCat, which hosts the podcast and handled the app's subscription data, repeats the figures in its recap but does not say it checked them. Quizlet's announcement confirms the purchase and the views, not the revenue or the price." }, { "title": "Team size is not documented", "text": "The sources name two co-founders and count the creators, who were contractors: 5 to 10 at a time before the sale, at most 12, and about 25 after it. No source gives a number of employees; a founder mentions \"the folks on the team\" without a count." }, { "title": "The AI makers now offer study help inside their assistants", "text": "OpenAI added study mode to ChatGPT on 29 July 2025 for logged-in Free, Plus, Pro and Team users, to help students \"work through problems step by step instead of just getting an answer\". Google launched Guided Learning in Gemini on 6 August 2025 as \"a personal learning companion\". Students already use these assistants, and the study features come at no extra price, while Coconote charged about US$130 a year." }, { "title": "Recording a class can need permission", "text": "Coconote's own FAQ says the app is fine \"as long as your professor or teacher is cool with you audio recording the class\". Rules differ by place: Florida law lets a student at a public college record a lecture for personal educational use, but says a recorded lecture \"may not be published without the consent of the lecturer\". The app also serves shared notes at public web addresses with transcript pages, according to the Internet Archive's capture list." }, { "title": "Model costs it does not control", "text": "The founders say transcription costs more than the language model, and that \"the foundational LLM or AI model providers are doing amazing work and we have no right to compete with them\". The 50% margin depended on prices set by providers that no source names. Local models, which the founders say are getting much better, can cut that cost, and they also make copies cheaper to build." }, { "title": "Same field, smaller numbers on this site", "text": "Jungle, a funded study app that also grows through creator videos, reported US$850,000 a year in recurring revenue in December 2024, about one eighth of Coconote's US$6.7 million, and AudioNotes, a voice-notes app built by one founder, reported about US$7,200 a month in August 2024." }, { "title": "One channel and a few people", "text": "Paid ads did not pay back, so sales depended on short videos on TikTok and Instagram, and three of about 30 early creators made a large difference. A change in how these feeds rank videos, or the loss of those creators, would reach revenue directly. A founder says their own first TikTok attempts ended with a ban." }, { "title": "Now part of Quizlet", "text": "Quizlet Inc is the seller on the App Store, and the founders said that under the new owner the app may become cheaper (\"stay tuned on that\"). The October 2026 listing shows Coconote Pro prices from US$9.99 to US$152.99 without billing periods. Results after the sale belong to Quizlet and are not public." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Sub Club podcast, 18 March 2026: Bootstrapped to $6.7M ARR and an Exit to Quizlet in 2 Years, Brett Bauman and Zack Hargett, Coconote", "url": "https://subclub.com/episode/bootstrapped-to-67m-arr-and-an-exit-to-quizlet-in-2-years-brett-bauman-zack-hargett-coconote", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the full transcript on the episode page. The founders' own account of the launch, the revenue steps, prices, margins, creators, ad tests and the sale process." }, { "title": "EdTech Innovation Hub, 11 February 2026: Quizlet acquires note-taking app Coconote, launches new AI-powered learning experience", "url": "https://www.edtechinnovationhub.com/news/quizlet-acquires-note-taking-app-coconote-launches-new-ai-powered-learning-experience", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. A press report of Quizlet's announcement: the acquisition, the new AI study experience and the more than 1 billion views in 18 months, with no price or terms. Quizlet's own release on PR Newswire of 5 February 2026, also read in full, gives the same facts and no price." }, { "title": "AI Dev Cases, 22 June 2026: How Coconote Hit $6.7M ARR in 18 Months With Almost No Ad Spend", "url": "https://aidevcases.com/en/cases/coconote", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Quotes Zack Hargett's X post of 18 March 2026 ($6.7m ARR, ~50% ebitda, 1 billion+ organic views, $0 raised). The post itself was not opened, because x.com needs a login; its date was checked from the post ID. Source for the creator details and the TikTok and Reels channels." }, { "title": "RevenueCat blog, by David Barnard, 18 March 2026: How Coconote hit $1M ARR in 4 months with no paid ads", "url": "https://www.revenuecat.com/blog/growth/brett-zack-coconote-sub-club-podcast-2026/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The podcast host's recap. It repeats the founders' figures and does not say they come from RevenueCat's own data, so it is not an independent check." }, { "title": "Apple App Store listing: Coconote - AI Note Taker, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/coconote-ai-note-taker/id6479320349", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Seller, rating, platforms and the list of Coconote Pro in-app purchase prices, which does not show billing periods." }, { "title": "Coconote home page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://coconote.app/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Features and the FAQ on honor codes and recording permission. The footer now says Quizlet, Inc. The address coconote.app/pricing returns 404." }, { "title": "Internet Archive copy of the Coconote home page, 25 September 2024", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240925160039/https://coconote.app/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The home page before the sale: features, platforms and the honor-code statement." }, { "title": "Internet Archive capture list for coconote.app, 2024 to 2026", "url": "http://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=coconote.app*&from=2024&to=2026", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the list of captures from 2024 onward. It starts with a copy of the home page from 1 May 2024. Shared notes are served under coconote.app/notes/ with transcript, quiz and flashcard pages." }, { "title": "OpenAI, 29 July 2025: Introducing study mode", "url": "https://openai.com/index/chatgpt-study-mode/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The maker's own announcement, with the plans that get the feature." }, { "title": "Google, 6 August 2025: Guided Learning in Gemini: From answers to understanding", "url": "https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/guided-learning/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The maker's own announcement." }, { "title": "The Florida Senate: 2025 Florida Statutes, section 1004.097", "url": "https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/1004.097", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the section on recording class lectures at public colleges and universities." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/wrestle-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/wrestle-ai.md", "slug": "wrestle-ai", "name": "Wrestle AI", "country": "USA", "sector": "Consumer software", "productType": "AI wrestling coach app that scores practice and match video", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "18 September 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$131.9K in total revenue, February 2026", "sticker": "$131.9K total revenue", "outcomeUsd": 131863, "months": 5, "teamLabel": "2 partners, the founder and a wrestling creator, plus one freelancer paid about US$250", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "health-appearance", "channel": "creators", "trend": "growing", "collections": [ "phone-app" ], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Health and fitness" ], "product": "An iPhone app for wrestlers. Upload a clip of a practice or a match and the AI returns a score, strengths and weaknesses, drills and strategy notes. It also has drill plans, a technique library, a match tracker, a calorie tracker and a weight-cut mode, and in April 2026 it added Brazilian jiu-jitsu, freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling. Every feature needs a subscription.", "why": "The founder had wrestled in school and knew that wrestlers rarely have an expert to review their film, and in 2025 the App Store had no app like it. The video breakdown can be shown in under 10 seconds, so creators could sell the app in posts that look like training videos, not ads. A no-code builder kept the total spending at about US$1,100.", "summary": [ "Wrestle AI is an iPhone app that coaches wrestling technique. A wrestler uploads a clip of a practice or a match, and the app returns a score, strengths and weaknesses, drills that fix the mistakes, and strategy notes. It was built with Rork, a no-code AI app builder: a service that writes and publishes a phone app from instructions in plain language, so the maker writes no program code. The analysis runs on OpenAI models. Running a trained model on new input, here the frames of a video, is called inference, and it is the cost that grows with every video. Every feature sits behind a paywall, a screen that asks for payment before the app can be used: US$9.99 a month or US$59.99 a year.", "George Lampropoulos, an 18-year-old college student in the United States who says he does not know how to code, found Rork in June 2025. The first App Store version is dated 18 September 2025. Rork's case study of 25 February 2026 says the app earned US$131,863 in total revenue, counted from August 2025, with MRR (monthly recurring revenue, the subscription income of one month) of US$23,000, and US$39,400 of revenue in the month when yearly payments are counted in full. He spent about US$1,100 in total, including about US$250 for a freelancer. Users came through short videos by wrestling creators, whom he contacted with about 100 messages a day and paid per view. A large wrestling creator became his partner, whom Rork calls his co-founder; the podcast of Superwall, a company that makes paywall software for apps, lists a 50/50 partnership with the wrestling creator Cayden Henschel. Rork's press release put the app at over US$30,000 a month in April 2026.", "Every money figure on this page is grade C. It comes from Rork, which sells the builder and uses this story in its marketing and in its funding announcement, from the founder, or from sites that repeat them. No payment processor or app-revenue platform is quoted, and the figures use different definitions: US$17,000 a month in December 2025, US$23,000 MRR in February 2026, over US$30,000 a month in April 2026. The latest figure, almost US$41,000 MRR in October 2026, covers three of his apps together. The page also shows earlier companies that promised feedback on how athletes move, and the risks of an app for teenage athletes in one sport." ], "factsCaption": "US$131,863 in total revenue by February 2026 and over US$30,000 a month by April 2026, all reported by the tool maker or the founder", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by Rork, the company that sells the app builder, by the founder, or by a site that compiles their statements. A grade B value is a record that Apple shows on the App Store. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No money value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From a failed app built by agencies, started at age 15, to an app built alone with prompts and sold through creators. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Wrestle AI prices on the US App Store, read 16 October 2026 (grade C)", "note": "Every feature needs a subscription. Rork's case study of February 2026 says the yearly plan has a 3-day free trial and the monthly plan has none, which pushes buyers to the yearly plan. The App Store also lists a Discount Yearly plan at US$29.99, an offer price. The yearly plans are paid once a year; the per-month values in the table are the yearly price divided by 12.", "rows": [ [ "Basic Monthly", "", "9.99", "all features" ], [ "Basic Yearly", "5.00", "", "US$59.99 a year; 3-day free trial" ], [ "Discount Yearly", "2.50", "", "US$29.99 a year; offer price" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Total revenue to February 2026", "value": "US$131,863", "grade": "C", "note": "Rork's case study, 25 February 2026, captioned \"Aug 2025 to Feb 2026\". Rork sells the app builder and does not say which payment system the figure comes from. Rork's post on X, quoted by AI Dev Cases, gives US$131,000 in about six months.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue (MRR), February 2026", "value": "US$23,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Rork's case study. It does not say how yearly plans are counted in this figure.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the month, February 2026, with yearly payments counted in full", "value": "US$39,400", "grade": "C", "note": "Rork's case study: \"total monthly revenue hitting $39.4K when you include yearly subscriptions\". It is about 1.7 times the MRR because the free trial is offered only on the yearly plan.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the February 2026 MRR", "value": "about US$276,000 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$23,000 times 12.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average revenue per month to February 2026", "value": "about US$21,977 over six months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$131,863 divided by 6, Rork's window from August 2025. Counted from the first App Store version in September 2025, five months, the average is about US$26,373.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, December 2025", "value": "US$17,000, of which about US$8,000 from monthly subscribers", "grade": "C", "note": "A December 2025 article on thestartupstorys.com, as summarised by AI Dev Cases; the article is no longer online. The other US$9,000 was yearly-plan revenue spread over the months.", "src": [ 6, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per month, April 2026", "value": "over US$30,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Rork's press release on its US$15 million seed round, 9 April 2026: the founder \"scaled it to over $30,000 in monthly revenue\".", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue of his three apps together, October 2026", "value": "almost US$41,000 MRR, and US$84,000 in 28 days", "grade": "C", "note": "The Superwall Podcast episode of 15 October 2026: Wrestle AI, Brawler and a fitness app. No split per app is published, so this is not a figure for Wrestle AI alone.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Total spending to February 2026", "value": "about US$1,100", "grade": "C", "note": "Rork's case study. Rork's post on X, quoted by AI Dev Cases: he \"spent only ~$1,100 to reach $20K/mo\".", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Running cost", "value": "under US$150 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "Rork's case study: Rork for the app, Supabase for the backend, OpenAI for AI inference.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Outside help", "value": "about US$250 for a freelancer", "grade": "C", "note": "Hired on Fiverr to add payments and sign-in, which Rork did not handle well at the time, according to Rork.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Downloads", "value": "more than 17,000 by February 2026, more than 100,000 by October 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Rork's case study, then the podcast description: \"Wrestle AI passed 100K downloads on creators alone\".", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "App Store ratings, 16 October 2026", "value": "about 2,200 ratings, average 4.8 of 5", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's count on the App Store page. Rork's case study showed about 1,700 ratings in February 2026.", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "fact": "First App Store version", "value": "18 September 2025", "grade": "B", "note": "Version 1.0 in the App Store version history. Rork says the app reached place 18 in its App Store category on launch day from pre-orders. Rork's revenue window starts in August 2025; the sources do not explain the difference.", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Seller on the App Store, October 2026", "value": "WRESTLE AI LLC", "grade": "B", "note": "The App Store page. Fight AI, his app for MMA, is sold by IMPROVESCAPE LLC together with five other apps. AI Dev Cases named IMPROVESCAPE LLC as the developer of Wrestle AI in August 2026.", "src": [ 2, 8, 7, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "the founder and one creator partner, plus a freelancer", "grade": "C", "note": "Rork calls the partner \"his co-founder - one of the largest wrestling creators online\". The podcast description lists a 50/50 partnership with the wrestling creator Cayden Henschel. No source says whether 50/50 means a share of the company or of the revenue.", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "No source mentions investors in Wrestle AI. The US$15 million seed round of April 2026 was raised by Rork, the builder.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Time from the first App Store version to the February 2026 figure", "value": "5 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: September 2025 to February 2026. Rork counts six months from August 2025.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Age 15", "what": "With a friend he builds an audience of 10,000 followers for a social self-improvement app, then pays three development agencies to build it. It takes a year and a half; by launch the audience has gone and the savings are spent.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "June 2025", "what": "He finds Rork and builds Wrestle AI with prompts, from morning to night, pasting error logs into ChatGPT when something breaks. A freelancer from Fiverr adds payments and sign-in for about US$250.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "18 September 2025", "what": "Version 1.0 on the App Store. Rork says the app reached place 18 in its category on launch day from pre-orders.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2, 1 ] }, { "when": "29 September 2025", "what": "Answering a review about the price, the developer writes that the app processes hundreds to thousands of frames per video and pays very high AI inference costs.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "13 October 2025", "what": "Version 2.0 adds a practice mode, a match-day poster generator and a weight-cut mode.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "17 November 2025", "what": "Version 3.0 adds a new calorie tracker, an opponent analysis mode, a journal and a weight management dashboard.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "December 2025", "what": "A feature article reports US$17,000 a month, about US$8,000 of it from monthly subscribers.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 4 ] }, { "when": "25 February 2026", "what": "Rork's case study: US$131,863 in total revenue, US$23,000 MRR, about US$1,100 spent, more than 17,000 downloads. The founder runs weekly marketing sessions on Rork's Discord server and wrote the marketing guide in Rork's documentation.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "9 April 2026", "what": "Rork announces a US$15 million seed round and names Wrestle AI as an example at over US$30,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "13 April 2026", "what": "Version 5.4 adds Brazilian jiu-jitsu, freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "14 April 2026", "what": "On X, the founder writes that his published method led to hundreds of copycat apps for other sports and that almost none of them made money, as quoted by AI Dev Cases.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "28 July 2026", "what": "He publishes a Growth Playbook about the apps that took him \"from $0 to $50k a month\", as quoted by AI Dev Cases. The figure covers all his apps.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "4 September 2026", "what": "Version 5.5, called Wrestle AI 2.0, adds a social area, The Locker Room, and a new interface.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "15 October 2026", "what": "The Superwall Podcast: his three apps make almost US$41,000 MRR and Wrestle AI passed 100,000 downloads from creators alone. The episode description lists the 50/50 partnership with the wrestling creator Cayden Henschel.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 9 ] }, { "when": "16 October 2026", "what": "The App Store lists WRESTLE AI LLC as the seller, version 5.9 of 1 October 2026, and about 2,200 ratings with an average of 4.8.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 2, 8 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A sport he had practiced", "text": "He wrestled through middle and high school, and he knew that wrestlers rarely have an expert to review their film. The first version did one thing: upload a clip, get a scored breakdown. Rork's post on X gives the reason that so little money was needed: there were no other apps like it on the App Store." }, { "title": "The feature is the advertisement", "text": "The founder calls it the \"gotcha moment\": the raw match clip, then the AI breakdown with drills, which can be shown in under 10 seconds. Creator videos that look like a day of training, with the app in the middle, sold it better than polished ads. The podcast description says a raw screen recording reached a cost per acquisition (CPA), the advertising cost of one new user, of US$10, while polished ads failed." }, { "title": "Creators paid per view", "text": "He sent about 100 direct messages a day to creators, opened with \"Paid promo?\", and negotiated by phone, never by text. He paid US$2 to US$5 per thousand views, a price called CPM, with a guaranteed number of views and a cap on the total. One of these contacts, a large wrestling creator, became his partner. The podcast says one US$4,500 creator deal paid back 75% of its cost, about US$3,375." }, { "title": "Onboarding that ends at a paywall", "text": "New users answer questions on weight class, goals and position, upload a video and see a preview of the analysis; only then does the app ask for payment. The free trial exists only on the yearly plan, which pushes buyers to pay US$59.99 for a year at once. That is why revenue in February 2026 was US$39,400 in the month against US$23,000 of MRR." }, { "title": "Almost no fixed cost", "text": "Rork wrote the app, Supabase stores the data and accounts, and OpenAI models write the feedback. Spending to February 2026 was about US$1,100 in total and the running cost under US$150 a month. The cost that grows with use is the AI analysis of each video, which the developer called \"very high\" in a reply to a user in September 2025." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from Rork's case study, the App Store page, the podcast description and AI Dev Cases. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Built with Rork from prompts, with no code written by the founder. When something broke, he pasted the error log into ChatGPT and asked for the fix.", "Payments and sign-in were added by a freelancer hired on Fiverr for about US$250, because Rork handled them badly at the time.", "Supabase for the backend, which holds the database, the accounts and the stored files, and OpenAI models for the analysis and the written feedback. Running cost under US$150 a month.", "The analysis reads frames taken from the uploaded clip. A user review of January 2026 says that full matches must be trimmed first and that uploads repeatedly failed to analyze.", "19 App Store versions from September 2025 to October 2026 added drill plans, a calorie tracker, a weight-cut mode, opponent analysis, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and a social area.", "The same method produced Fight AI, an app for MMA, which is sold by IMPROVESCAPE LLC. Wrestle AI is sold by a separate company, WRESTLE AI LLC.", "The privacy policy, terms of service and license agreement linked from the App Store page are hosted on Termly. The privacy policy could not be read for this page." ], "src": [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 13 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised feedback on how a person moves, or an app for one sport. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Enflux", "years": "2016 to 2019", "funding": "US$1M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Clothing with sensors that tracked movement in 3D and gave athletes real-time feedback on their form.", "died": "Larger companies had more money and trusted brands. The niche product never sold in the volume needed to make it cheap, and production was expensive.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1089-enflux" }, { "name": "FitFu", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$300K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A phone app that detected exercises with the phone's motion sensors and turned workouts into a game.", "died": "Users left after the novelty, it had no strong way to charge, and Nike Training Club and Fitbit offered more complete products.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1194-fitfu" }, { "name": "Charge Running", "years": "2021 to 2024", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Live online running classes with real-time audio coaching.", "died": "It could not win and keep users against larger fitness apps. Classes at fixed times lost appeal, and on-demand AI coaching undercut it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/895-charge-running" }, { "name": "Rally Tennis", "years": "2017 to 2020", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "No Market Need", "promise": "An app that matched amateur tennis players with local opponents of the same level.", "died": "It needed many active players in each city, and users would not pay enough to keep it running.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1040-rally-tennis" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Enflux put sensors in clothing and FitFu used the phone's motion sensors to judge an exercise. The records say that the clothing was expensive to make and that the phones of the time were too limited for better features. Charge Running and Rally Tennis were apps for one activity that could not win or keep enough users: Charge Running against larger fitness apps, Rally Tennis because it needed many players in each city. All four spent investors' money, from US$120,000 to US$5 million.", "Wrestle AI needs only an ordinary phone video and a general AI model, so it has no hardware cost and is useful to one user alone. It was built for about US$1,100 in total, so it reached revenue without investors, and its users came from creators who already had the audience. Two things did not change: it is an app for one sport, like Rally Tennis, and it competes with large team-video companies such as Hudl for the same athletes." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The empty niche, only once per niche.", "text": "The tools are open to anyone: a no-code AI builder, a general AI model for video, a freelancer for payments, and creators paid per view. The founder writes that hundreds of copycat apps for other sports followed his published method and that almost none made money. Rork gives the reason as being first in a sport that had no such app, and the founder names his own persistence and his choice of niche.", "steps": [ "Pick a sport or skill that you have practiced yourself, where people film themselves but have no expert to review the film.", "Build one feature first: upload a clip, get a score and drills. Check that the result can be shown in a 10-second video.", "Send many short messages to creators in that niche and pay per view, with a guaranteed number of views and a cap.", "Put the paywall after the user has answered the onboarding questions and uploaded a video, and offer the free trial only on the yearly plan." ], "open": "Sports where athletes film themselves and few coaches are available, as long as no app serves them yet. The founder's own warning applies: copies of his app for other sports mostly made no money." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The figures come from the tool maker", "text": "Every revenue figure comes from Rork, which sells the builder and uses this story in its marketing and in its funding press release, or from the founder, who runs weekly sessions on Rork's Discord server and wrote the marketing guide in Rork's documentation. No payment processor or app-revenue platform figure is public. The monthly figures range from US$17,000 to over US$30,000 depending on the date and the definition." }, { "title": "Large sports-video companies", "text": "Hudl, founded in 2006 and based in Lincoln, Nebraska, sells video and data tools to teams, from youth teams to professional clubs. It bought Ubersense, a slow-motion video app for athletes, in September 2014, and its competitors Krossover in May 2019 and Wyscout in August 2019; Bain Capital invested in May 2020. Its site says that its AI algorithms tag and track what teams film. Wrestling apps such as MatBoss and WrestlingIQ appear next to Wrestle AI in the App Store, and similar AI wrestling coach apps from another developer exist." }, { "title": "Videos of school-age athletes", "text": "The App Store page names youth and high school athletes as users, and the app is rated 13+ and has a weight-cut mode. In the United States, the COPPA law applies to online services that are directed to children under 13 or know that they collect data from them; courts can fine up to US$53,088 per violation, and in August 2026 TikTok and ByteDance agreed to pay US$400 million to settle a COPPA lawsuit. The app's privacy label lists usage data used to track users across other companies' apps and websites, and advertising data; it does not list the uploaded videos. The privacy policy on Termly could not be read." }, { "title": "One sport and one creator", "text": "Wrestle AI serves one sport, its users arrived through creators, and one wrestling creator is a 50/50 partner. No public source says what the partnership covers, who owns WRESTLE AI LLC, or what happens if the partner leaves. The October 2026 figure covers three apps with no split, so the trend of Wrestle AI alone after April 2026 is not known." }, { "title": "Dependence on Rork and OpenAI", "text": "Rork wrote the app and OpenAI models run the analysis. A price change at OpenAI changes the cost of every video, and the developer already called the inference costs \"very high\" in September 2025. A review of January 2026 says uploads repeatedly failed to analyze. A founder who does not code needs Rork or freelancers for every repair." }, { "title": "Other stories built without code", "text": "Several businesses on this site were built with Bubble, a no-code builder where the maker arranges parts on a screen: AudioPen, Formula Bot, Magai and My AskAI. No other story here names Rork, a builder that works from prompts, as its builder; the AppAlchemy story describes that market, where Rork raised US$15 million in 2026. The founder writes that hundreds of copies of his app for other sports made almost no money." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Rork blog, 25 February 2026: 18yo Made $131K in 6 Months with Rork", "url": "https://rork.com/blog/george-wrestle-ai-case-study", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A case study by the company that sells the app builder. Source for the revenue, MRR, spending, costs, freelancer, tech stack, prices, marketing method and the earlier failed app. It does not name the system that the figures come from." }, { "title": "Wrestle AI on the US App Store, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wrestle-ai/id6751189075", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full: description, prices, version history, privacy label, age rating, seller, ratings and reviews. Seller, dates and ratings are Apple's records; the description and prices are written by the company." }, { "title": "The Superwall Podcast, 15 October 2026: George Lampropoulos - Meet the ex-wrestler making $41k/mo with AI apps", "url": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/george-lampropoulos-meet-the-ex-wrestler-making-%2441k/id1831299632?i=1000796558729", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the episode page and description on Apple Podcasts. The 47-minute audio was not transcribed. Source for the three-app figure, the downloads, the 50/50 partnership and the advertising results." }, { "title": "AI Dev Cases, 24 August 2026: A Non-Coder, 18 — How Wrestle AI Turned a No-Code Build Into $131,863 in Six Months", "url": "https://aidevcases.com/en/cases/wrestle-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A compilation that quotes the founder's and Rork's posts on X and summarises the December 2025 article. Source for those quotations and for the developer name in August 2026." }, { "title": "PR Newswire, 9 April 2026: Rork Raises $15M to Power the Next Generation of App Store Entrepreneurs", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rork-raises-15m-to-power-the-next-generation-of-app-store-entrepreneurs-302736638.html", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Rork's own press release. Source for the April 2026 monthly figure and for Rork's funding." }, { "title": "thestartupstorys.com, December 2025: feature on Wrestle AI at US$17,000 a month", "url": "https://www.thestartupstorys.com/2025/12/how-18-year-old-turned-wrestling-app-into-17k-month-startup.html", "grade": "C", "how": "Could not open: the page returns 404, the site search does not find it, and the Wayback Machine has no copy. Its figures are cited from AI Dev Cases' summary." }, { "title": "App Store developer page: IMPROVESCAPE LLC, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/improvescape-llc/id1669492574", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Lists Fight AI and five other apps." }, { "title": "App Store developer page: WRESTLE AI LLC, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/wrestle-ai-llc/id1877830303", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Lists only Wrestle AI." }, { "title": "The Superwall Podcast episode list, superwall.com", "url": "https://superwall.com/podcast", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the episode list. It lists the episode on 12 October 2026 with a link to the video." }, { "title": "Hudl: About page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.hudl.com/about", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for Hudl's description of its video and AI analysis for teams." }, { "title": "Wikipedia: Hudl", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudl", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the history and acquisitions sections. Source for the founding year, the acquisitions and the funding dates." }, { "title": "Wikipedia: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on scope, penalties and enforcement. Source for the age limit of 13, the fine per violation and the August 2026 TikTok settlement." }, { "title": "Wrestle AI privacy policy on Termly, linked from the App Store page", "url": "https://app.termly.io/policy-viewer/policy.html?policyUUID=019ea327-0891-49fc-98db-0aa0828bb96d", "grade": "C", "how": "Could not read: the page loads its text by script, and Termly's interface answered \"Policy Not Found\" on 16 October 2026." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/glowup/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/glowup.md", "slug": "glowup", "name": "GlowUp", "country": "Canada", "sector": "Consumer software", "productType": "AI makeup try-on app", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "exit", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "15 October 2024", "outcomeLabel": "US$1.2M ARR before a sale at an undisclosed price, March 2025", "sticker": "Sold after $1.2M ARR", "outcomeUsd": 1200000, "months": 5, "teamLabel": "1 founder; Adapty writes of a small team without a number", "fundingLabel": "None reported; creators reportedly paid with equity", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "health-appearance", "channel": "creators", "trend": "sold", "collections": [ "phone-app" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Exit", "B2C", "Beauty" ], "product": "An iPhone app for makeup. The user uploads a selfie without makeup and a photo of a makeup look, for example from TikTok or Instagram. The app's AI applies that look to the user's own face, then gives a step-by-step routine and a list of products to buy. It is free to download and paid for with subscriptions through the App Store.", "why": "Its result is a before-and-after picture of the user's own face, which a short video shows in seconds. The founder chose TikTok as the channel before he built the app, then tripled revenue from almost the same installs by moving and testing the paywall with Adapty.", "summary": [ "GlowUp, first released as Glam AI, is an iPhone app for virtual makeup try-on: software that shows how a makeup look would appear on a person's own face before the person buys or applies anything. The user uploads a selfie without makeup and a photo of a look, for example from TikTok or Instagram. The app's AI applies that look to the user's face, then gives a step-by-step routine and a list of products to buy. The app is free to download and is paid for with subscriptions sold through the App Store.", "Louis-David Paul-Hus, a Canadian founder based in Montreal, built it after about ten apps that failed, according to the case-study site aidevcases, which gives 15 October 2024 as the release date. He posted short videos on TikTok with no advertising budget, and aidevcases reports that he later paid TikTok and Instagram creators with equity instead of cash. In March 2025 Adapty, the company whose software runs the app's subscriptions, published that the app's monthly recurring revenue (MRR, the subscription revenue of one month) had grown from US$30,000 in December 2024 to nearly US$100,000, and its annual recurring revenue (ARR, MRR multiplied by twelve) from US$400,000 to US$1.2 million, with almost the same number of installs. The founder's own website now lists GlowUp as sold, and since May 2026 at the latest Apple names Zipo Apps Ltd., a company that buys apps, as the seller. No source gives the price or the date of the sale.", "This page grades the US$1.2 million A, as it graded the Wave AI and Letterly stories. Adapty is not the payment processor, the company that moves the money, because for App Store purchases that is Apple. But every purchase passes through Adapty's software, and Adapty states the figures under its own name. A stricter reader can grade them B: the case study is a marketing page for Adapty's product, its \"today\" has no exact date, it does not say whether Apple's fee is deducted, and some of its other numbers do not agree with each other. The founder's figure of US$800,000 in 365 days is grade C. The page also shows four failed startups that sold beauty products, try-before-you-buy shopping or camera effects for selfies." ], "factsCaption": "US$1.2 million in annual recurring revenue about five months after release, stated by Adapty, the company whose software runs the app's subscriptions, before a sale at an undisclosed price", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value is stated by Adapty, the company whose software records the app's subscriptions, in its case study under its own name. A grade B value is a record in Apple's App Store, or a count or statement by Adapty that is not a payment figure. A grade C value comes from the founder, his website, the app's own pages, the buyer's website or a case-study site. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From about ten failed apps to US$1.2 million in annual recurring revenue in five months, and then a sale. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "GlowUp in-app purchases listed in the App Store on 16 October 2026, under the new owner (grade B)", "note": "The app is free to download. Apple shows ten in-app purchases and does not say whether each one is weekly, monthly, yearly or one-time; most still carry the old names Glam AI Pro and Glamly AI Pro. The new owner's terms say that premium features are sold as weekly, monthly or yearly subscriptions or as a one-time payment, with a possible free trial that renews automatically. In March 2025 the founder told Adapty that a single weekly price sold better than several prices, a three-week price and a yearly plan with a free trial.", "rows": [ [ "Glam AI Pro", "", "", "listed 7 times at 3.99, 6.99, 7.99, 9.99 and 13.99; period not shown" ], [ "GlowUp Pro", "", "", "9.99; period not shown" ], [ "Glamly AI Pro", "", "", "13.99; also 6.99 in the list of July 2025" ], [ "Unlimited Access", "", "", "8.99; not in the list of July 2025" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Annual recurring revenue, March 2025", "value": "US$1.2 million", "grade": "A", "note": "Adapty: \"ARR grew from $400K in December to $1.2M today\". In the first version of the case study, published on 11 March 2025 and archived on 24 March 2025, and unchanged on the live page, last modified on 24 April 2026. The page does not date \"today\"; this page uses March 2025, the month of publication.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, December 2024 and March 2025", "value": "US$30,000, then nearly US$100,000", "grade": "A", "note": "Adapty: \"MRR jumped from $30K to nearly $100K.\" and \"It all happened with almost the same number of installs.\"", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Growth from December 2024 to March 2025", "value": "about 3.3 times in MRR, 3 times in ARR", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 100,000 divided by 30,000 equals 3.33; 1,200,000 divided by 400,000 equals 3. US$400,000 of ARR equals about US$33,333 a month, a little more than the US$30,000 of MRR that Adapty gives for the same month.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Users who saw the paywall before the tests", "value": "20%", "grade": "B", "note": "Adapty: \"only 20% of users even saw the paywall\". The founder: \"We tripled our daily revenue just by repositioning the paywall.\" A share of users is not a payment figure, so it is graded B.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Paywall and price tests, December 2024 to March 2025", "value": "more than 17 A/B tests", "grade": "B", "note": "Adapty: \"Over three months, GlowUp ran 17+ A/B tests\" of price points, free trials and paywall placement. An A/B test shows two versions to different users and keeps the one that sells better. A single weekly price won.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Lifetime value per user, over the three months", "value": "+36.4%", "grade": "A", "note": "Adapty's highlights. Lifetime value (LTV) is the revenue that one user brings over the whole time they pay. Adapty ties it to a small price increase that did not lower purchases.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue kept by declining refund requests", "value": "US$25,872", "grade": "A", "note": "Adapty: \"Saved nearly $26K ($25,872 to be exact)\" with its Refund Saver tool. The live page also says \"$1,165 in refunds won back\" and that 55 of 64 requests were declined, and the two versions give 70%, 75%, 77% and 86% as the share won. These numbers do not agree with each other.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the first 365 days", "value": "US$800,000", "grade": "C", "note": "The title of the founder's Starter Story video: \"My mobile app made $800K in 365 days\". The page does not date the video or say which 365 days.", "src": [ 7, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Average revenue per month in that year", "value": "about US$66,667", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 800,000 divided by 12.", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Countries", "value": "130", "grade": "B", "note": "Adapty: \"expanding to 130 countries\".", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Users", "value": "more than 500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "The developer's text on Apple's page in July 2025 and October 2026: \"Join over 500,000 users!\". The app's 2025 website claimed \"2M+ Users and 400M TikTok Views\". No one outside has checked either figure.", "src": [ 3, 4, 8 ] }, { "fact": "Ratings on the App Store", "value": "12,700 in July 2025; 13,000 at 4.4 out of 5 in October 2026", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's page. Some reviewers wrote that the AI changed their facial features.", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Release on the App Store", "value": "15 October 2024", "grade": "C", "note": "aidevcases, from Apple's record; Apple's page today does not show the date. The oldest version in Apple's history list is 1.0.19 of 12 December 2024.", "src": [ 6, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Time from release to US$1.2 million ARR", "value": "about 5 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: 15 October 2024 to March 2025; 147 days to the publication of the case study on 11 March 2025.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Team at the US$1.2 million figure", "value": "1 founder; a \"small team\" in Adapty's words", "grade": "B", "note": "Adapty's live page: \"For a small team striving to scale its subscription system\", with no number. aidevcases calls him a solo builder, from his X post of 12 September 2025 to \"the Canadian solopreneur community\". No source names an employee.", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "No source mentions investors. aidevcases reports that TikTok and Instagram creators were paid with equity instead of cash; no source says how many creators or how much equity.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Advertising budget at launch", "value": "US$0", "grade": "C", "note": "Starter Story: \"he did it all by posting on TikTok for $0.\" aidevcases: \"no paid ads\".", "src": [ 7, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Company that ran the app until 2025", "value": "Viral Tech Inc.", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's page in July 2025 names Viral Tech Inc. as the seller and the copyright holder. The app's 2025 terms: \"operated by Viral Tech Inc.\" The founder's website gives a contact address at viraltech.ca.", "src": [ 4, 9, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Sale", "value": "sold; price and date not published", "grade": "C", "note": "The founder's website: \"2024-2025 · sold\" and \"was successfully acquired\". It does not name the buyer. Apple's page names Zipo Apps Ltd. as the seller by 19 May 2026, and ZipoApps writes: \"we acquire the best apps and take them to the next level.\"", "src": [ 5, 4, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Change of seller on Apple's page", "value": "between 23 July 2025 and 19 May 2026", "grade": "B", "note": "Wayback Machine copies of Apple's page: Viral Tech Inc. on 23 July 2025, Zipo Apps Ltd. on 19 May 2026. The founder dates his work on GlowUp 2024 to 2025.", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "In-app purchase prices, October 2026", "value": "US$3.99 to US$13.99", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's page lists ten prices, mostly under the old name Glam AI Pro, without the billing period. The new owner's terms name weekly, monthly and yearly subscriptions.", "src": [ 3, 11 ] }, { "fact": "Age rating", "value": "4+", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's page in July 2025 and October 2026. The 2025 terms: \"Users must be at least 4 years old to use the App.\"", "src": [ 3, 4, 9 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "Before 2024", "what": "Paul-Hus ships about ten apps, and all fail. He decides to choose the channel, TikTok, before he builds the next product.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "15 October 2024", "what": "Glam AI appears on the App Store, published by Viral Tech Inc. He promotes it with his own TikTok posts and no advertising budget.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6, 7, 4 ] }, { "when": "Late 2024", "what": "In the founder's words to Adapty, the marketing worked before the app was ready: \"It kept crashing, and the payment system wasn't integrated.\" He fixes the app and adds payments.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "December 2024", "what": "MRR is US$30,000 and ARR US$400,000.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "December 2024 to March 2025", "what": "The subscriptions run on Adapty after RevenueCat could not run paywall tests in the FlutterFlow app. More than 17 A/B tests follow. Only 20% of users had seen the paywall; moving it tripled daily revenue. A single weekly price sells best.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "Early 2025", "what": "Three app updates carry the note \"hii girls, invite 3 friends to reveal your results! ;)\".", "grade": "B", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "11 March 2025", "what": "Adapty publishes its case study: ARR from US$400,000 in December to US$1.2 million, MRR from US$30,000 to nearly US$100,000, users in 130 countries.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "July 2025", "what": "Updates with the note \"New Design\", and the listing carries the name GlowUp. On 23 July Apple's page shows Viral Tech Inc. as the seller, more than 500,000 users and 12,700 ratings.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "when": "12 September 2025", "what": "On his 24th birthday he writes on X that he wants to give back to \"the Canadian solopreneur community\", as quoted by aidevcases.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "Between late July 2025 and May 2026", "what": "GlowUp is sold. The founder's website lists it as \"2024-2025 · sold\". By 19 May 2026 Apple's page names Zipo Apps Ltd., which describes itself as a buyer of apps, as the seller. The price is not published.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 4, 10 ] }, { "when": "April to May 2026", "what": "Adapty moves its case study to a new address under the name GlowUp. From 20 May 2026 its old address holds a case study about another app named Glam AI, which Adapty's menu lists separately, in the Photo & Video category.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "when": "16 October 2026", "what": "The app is live under ZipoApps: last update 2.2.3 on 7 May 2026, 13,000 ratings at 4.4, age rating 4+, and a description that still says \"previously GlamAI\".", "grade": "B", "src": [ 3 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "The channel before the product", "text": "After about ten failed apps, the founder changed the order of his work, aidevcases writes: first the channel, TikTok, and an angle that spreads there, then the app. GlowUp's result is a before-and-after picture of the user's own face, which a short video shows in seconds. Starter Story writes that he did it all by posting on TikTok for US$0." }, { "title": "More revenue from the same installs", "text": "Adapty's data showed that only 20% of users ever reached the paywall, the screen that asks the user to pay. Moving it tripled daily revenue, in the founder's words, and MRR went from US$30,000 to nearly US$100,000 with almost the same installs. Tests also showed that several prices on one screen sold worse than one, and that a single weekly price sold best." }, { "title": "Creators paid with equity", "text": "aidevcases reports that to grow beyond his own posts, he partnered with TikTok and Instagram creators and paid them with equity, a share of the business, instead of cash. That let him enlist creators without an advertising budget. No source says how many creators or how much equity, and no creator is named." }, { "title": "Existing AI, no model of its own", "text": "aidevcases writes that he did not train a model but turned existing AI into a makeup product. His own website lists OpenAI for GlowUp. The 2025 privacy policy says that face photos go to \"trusted third-party services\" that generate the makeup looks." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founder's words in Adapty's case study, his own website, the app's 2025 website and privacy policy, and aidevcases. They are grade C.", "items": [ "Built with FlutterFlow, a visual tool that produces apps in Flutter, Google's framework for iPhone and Android apps, mostly by placing components instead of writing code. In March 2025 the founder told Adapty: \"we're using Flutterflow\". His own website now lists Swift, Firebase and OpenAI for GlowUp; no source says whether the app was rewritten.", "Subscriptions: first RevenueCat, then Adapty, because the founder could not run paywall A/B tests with RevenueCat in a FlutterFlow app. Purchases go through Apple's in-app purchase system.", "AI: no model of its own. The app sends the face photo and the chosen look to outside AI services; the privacy policy does not name them, and the founder's website names OpenAI. No source names the model that draws the makeup.", "Data: the 2025 privacy policy treats face images as biometric data, processed with the user's consent.", "Products: the 2025 website said that the app recommends Sephora products matched to the user's skin tone and the uploaded look.", "Marketing: the founder's own TikTok posts with no advertising budget, then TikTok and Instagram creators paid with equity, according to aidevcases." ], "src": [ 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised help with beauty purchases, try-before-you-buy shopping or camera effects for selfies. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Seerslab", "years": "2016 to 2019", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Augmented-reality effects for selfies and stories.", "died": "It needed the big social networks to carry its effects, and Snapchat had its own filters.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1463-seerslab" }, { "name": "Try.com", "years": "2018 to 2022", "funding": "US$4M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Try clothes at home before you buy them online.", "died": "High costs, the pandemic's shift to essential purchases, and Amazon's return policies.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/668-trycom" }, { "name": "Hush", "years": "2016 to 2020", "funding": "US$3M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Affordable beauty products online for young buyers on a budget.", "died": "A general beauty reseller that lost to brands selling directly, and COVID cut the demand for makeup.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/230-hush" }, { "name": "Inporia", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$1.2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Fashion and cosmetics shopping with friends' style tips.", "died": "Too many competitors, and no revenue before the money ran out.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1198-inporia" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the four needed something large to deliver its promise. Seerslab needed the social networks to carry its selfie effects and lost to Snapchat's own filters. Try.com shipped physical clothes for home try-on and paid for the returns. Hush bought and resold beauty products on thin margins. Inporia needed a social network of its own for shopping. Each raised between US$1.2 million and US$5 million and lost to larger companies.", "GlowUp needed none of that. An AI model shows the look on the user's own photo, so there is nothing to ship and no stock to hold. FlutterFlow and Adapty supplied the app and the subscription system, Apple supplied the billing, and TikTok supplied the first customers at no cost. One founder could test the idea after ten failures. The risk is the one that ended Seerslab: the large companies of the field, such as L'Oréal and Perfect Corp, already offer virtual try-on themselves." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. This niche, now crowded.", "text": "A result that a short video can show in seconds, posted on TikTok before the app was finished, and then paywall tests to earn more from each install: this method works for other consumer apps with a visual result. Makeup try-on itself is now offered by large beauty companies and by many apps.", "steps": [ "Choose the channel first, and design the app's result so that it fits a short video.", "Post the before-and-after yourself, with no advertising budget, and keep the angle that spreads.", "Measure how many users reach the paywall; GlowUp found that only 20% did, and moving it tripled daily revenue.", "Test one price against several; GlowUp's best seller was a single weekly price.", "If you have no cash for creators, offer them a share of the business, as GlowUp reportedly did." ], "open": "Other visual results shown on the user's own photo: hair color, nails, glasses or clothes, where a short video shows the before and after." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Sold, on terms nobody published", "text": "The founder's website lists GlowUp as sold, and Apple names Zipo Apps Ltd. as the seller, but no source gives the price, the date or whether the founder kept any part. The revenue figures on this page describe his period, up to March 2025, not the app under its new owner." }, { "title": "A vendor's marketing page, with numbers that do not agree", "text": "The grade A figures come from Adapty's case study, a marketing page for its own product. Its \"today\" has no date, and it does not say whether Apple's commission is deducted. Its highlights call the US$1.2 million revenue earned in three months, while the text calls it ARR, and the 2025 page title said US$1M ARR. The refund numbers differ within the page: US$25,872 or US$1,165 saved, and 70%, 75%, 77% or 86% of requests won. A stricter reader can grade the figures B." }, { "title": "The beauty industry already sells try-on", "text": "L'Oréal bought ModiFace, whose 3D virtual makeup and skin diagnosis were \"used by nearly all the major beauty brands\", on 16 March 2018. Perfect Corp, a company listed in New York, reported US$69.2 million of revenue for 2025, 14.9% more than in 2024, mainly from subscriptions to its YouCam apps and web services; it had 908,000 active subscribers on 31 December 2025, 4.0% fewer than three months earlier." }, { "title": "Beauty filters and young users", "text": "A study by Dove, a beauty brand, reported on 8 February 2022, found that 75% of Australian girls had used filters on their photos before they turned 13, and that 62% of 10- to 17-year-olds wished the world cared more about who they are than what they look like. GlowUp is rated 4+ on the App Store, its 2025 terms required users to be \"at least 4 years old\", and three updates in early 2025 told \"girls\" to invite three friends to see their results. Some App Store reviewers wrote that the AI changed their facial features toward a narrow beauty standard. No source shows a face or attractiveness score; the 2025 website offered a \"Beauty Score\" for products." }, { "title": "Dependent on FlutterFlow, Adapty, Apple and the AI providers", "text": "The app was built in FlutterFlow, its subscriptions and tests ran on Adapty, its billing on Apple's in-app purchase system, and its images on outside AI services that receive the user's face photo. The founder had already left RevenueCat when it did not fit FlutterFlow. A price or policy change at any one of them changes the app's costs or its product, and the quality of the images depends on models that the business does not control." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Adapty case study: How GlowUp scaled to $1,2M ARR in 3 months with Adapty + FlutterFlow (published 11 March 2025, modified 24 April 2026)", "url": "https://adapty.io/case-studies/glowup/", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full, live on 16 October 2026. Adapty runs the app's subscriptions. Source for the MRR and ARR figures, the paywall tests, the refund figures, the small team and the founder's quotes." }, { "title": "Adapty case study, first version: How Glam AI scaled to $1.2M ARR in 3 months with Adapty + FlutterFlow, Wayback Machine copy of 24 March 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250324213247/https://adapty.io/case-studies/glam-ai/", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. The earliest archived copy, modified on 24 March 2025; it already gives the MRR from US$30,000 to nearly US$100,000 and the ARR from US$400,000 to US$1.2 million. Since 20 May 2026 this address holds a case study about a different app named Glam AI." }, { "title": "Apple App Store: GlowUp - Makeup & Beauty, id6736916284", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/glowup-makeup-beauty/id6736916284", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full on 16 October 2026. Source for the seller Zipo Apps Ltd., the description, the in-app purchase prices, the age rating, the ratings, the reviews and the version history." }, { "title": "Apple App Store page, Wayback Machine copies of 23 July 2025 (seller Viral Tech Inc.) and 19 May 2026 (seller Zipo Apps Ltd.)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250723084028/https://apps.apple.com/us/app/glowup-makeup-beauty/id6736916284", "grade": "B", "how": "Read both copies; the second is at https://web.archive.org/web/20260519172353/https://apps.apple.com/us/app/glowup-makeup-beauty/id6736916284. Source for the change of seller and the 2025 prices, users and ratings." }, { "title": "Louis-David Paul-Hus's website: home page and Digital Products page", "url": "https://www.louisdavidpaulhus.com/digital-products", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both pages in full. The founder's own site. Source for GlowUp listed as sold, its stack, his base in Montreal and his contact address at viraltech.ca." }, { "title": "AI Dev Cases: From ~10 Failed Apps to GlowUp (published 27 June 2026, figures checked 15 August 2026)", "url": "https://aidevcases.com/en/cases/glowup", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A case-study site that cites the founder's X posts, the App Store, Adapty and Starter Story. Source for the ten failed apps, the release date, the creators paid with equity, the X post of 12 September 2025 and the change of publisher." }, { "title": "Starter Story video page: My mobile app made $800K in 365 days", "url": "https://www.starterstory.com/Louisv2", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the page; the video itself was not watched. Source for the US$800,000 and the TikTok launch for US$0. The page gives no date." }, { "title": "Glam AI website, Wayback Machine copy of 23 July 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250723101325/https://www.useglowup.app/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The live site did not respond on 16 October 2026. Source for the Sephora recommendations, the claim of 2M+ users and 400M TikTok views, and the product score." }, { "title": "Glam AI terms of service and privacy policy, Wayback Machine copies of 23 July 2025", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250723101544/https://www.useglowup.app/terms-of-service", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both in full; the privacy policy is at https://web.archive.org/web/20250723101034/https://www.useglowup.app/privacy-policy. Source for the operator Viral Tech Inc., the minimum age of 4 and the face images sent to unnamed services." }, { "title": "ZipoApps home page", "url": "https://zipoapps.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The buyer's own description of its business: a company that acquires apps." }, { "title": "ZipoApps: GlowUp - Makeup & Beauty page and terms of use", "url": "https://zipoapps.com/glowupmakeupios/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read both in full; the terms are at https://zipoapps.com/glowupmakeupios/terms/. Source for the current description and the weekly, monthly or yearly subscriptions." }, { "title": "L'Oréal press release, 16 March 2018: L'Oréal acquires ModiFace further expanding its worldwide expertise in beauty tech", "url": "https://www.loreal-finance.com/eng/news-release/loreal-acquires-modiface-further-expanding-its-worldwide-expertise-beauty-tech", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. The acquirer's own release." }, { "title": "Perfect Corp. results for the full year 2025, Business Wire release of 24 February 2026", "url": "https://www.01net.it/perfect-corp-reports-unaudited-financial-results-for-the-three-months-and-the-full-year-ended-december-31-2025/", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the sections on revenue and subscribers in the copy published by 01net.it; the company's own investor page did not open. A listed company's results release." }, { "title": "Marketing Mag, 8 February 2022: Dove Australia releases study revealing three in four Australian girls are using filters by the age of 13", "url": "https://www.marketingmag.com.au/news/dove-australia-releases-study-revealing-three-in-four-australian-girls-are-using-filters-by-the-age-of-13/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A trade magazine's report of a study by Dove, a beauty brand of Unilever." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/aidesigner/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/aidesigner.md", "slug": "aidesigner", "name": "AIDesigner", "country": "USA", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "AI design generator for website and app interfaces", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "14 November 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$8.6K MRR verified by Stripe at the last sync, October 2026", "sticker": "$8.6K MRR in October 2026", "outcomeUsd": 102756, "months": 11, "teamLabel": "1 founder, no employees reported", "fundingLabel": "None reported", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "build-software", "channel": "audience", "trend": "falling", "collections": [], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2B", "Design tools" ], "product": "A web app that turns a short text prompt into a website or mobile app screen, a logo, a brand kit or a marketing graphic. You edit the result on a canvas, export it, or publish it as a website on your own domain. An MCP server lets coding agents such as Claude Code and Cursor ask it for designs from inside a developer's project.", "why": "It named a problem that many builders saw in 2025 and 2026: screens written by AI coding tools look alike. It sold the fix inside those tools, as an MCP server for Claude Code, Cursor and other coding agents, first published on 29 March 2026. Stripe revenue in April was 12.2 times March. Since April revenue has fallen, and September was 37.2% below it.", "summary": [ "AIDesigner is an AI design generator, a web app that draws a finished visual design from a sentence of text. You describe a landing page, a mobile app screen, a logo or a brand kit, and it returns a design that you can edit on a canvas, export, or publish as a website on your own domain. It is aimed at people who practise vibe coding, which means building software by describing it to an AI coding assistant instead of writing the code. The home page promises \"Designs that don't look AI-generated\": screens without the uniform look of interfaces that AI tools write. It also offers an MCP server. MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is an open standard that lets an AI assistant call outside tools, so Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, VS Code with Copilot or Windsurf can ask AIDesigner for a design from inside a developer's project.", "The founder appears as Wiz on his profile at TrustMRR, a site that reads revenue directly from a company's payment account, and in the site's own page data (X account @bowlcutWiz). The author box of the company blog names him as Tyler Yin, \"the founder of AIDesigner\". The business runs through Friend Technologies, LLC, a US company named in the terms of service. He gave 14 November 2025 as the founding date. Stripe, the payment processor, shows the first sales in December 2025, US$638, and between US$1,155 and US$3,019 a month until March 2026. On 29 March 2026 the npm package that installs the MCP server was first published; npm is the public registry for JavaScript code, and its record shows the date. April revenue reached US$14,082, 12.2 times March. On 16 October 2026 the MRR (monthly recurring revenue: what the active subscriptions bring in each month) was US$8,563 from 293 active subscriptions. That is a run rate, the monthly figure times 12, of about US$102,756 a year.", "The revenue figures are grade A. TrustMRR reads them from the company's Stripe account through an API key, a password that lets one program read another program's data, and the same account code appears in the Stripe identifiers of the prices on AIDesigner's pricing page. The trend is down: September 2026 revenue, US$8,841, was 37.2% below April, and MRR fell 5.3% in the 30 days to 16 October. The founding date, the team of one, the user counts and the account of how customers came are statements by the founder or the company, or come from a compiled page that is not an interview; they are grade C. The page also shows five earlier companies that promised to automate web design or to turn designs into code." ], "factsCaption": "Stripe-verified revenue that went from US$1,155 in March 2026 to US$14,082 in April, then declined to US$8,841 in September, with MRR of US$8,563 in October 2026", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from the company's Stripe account through TrustMRR. A grade C value is a statement by the founder or the company on its own pages, a registry record, or a compiled third-party page that says so. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a founding date in November 2025 to a twelvefold jump in April 2026 and a slow decline after it, in eleven months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "AIDesigner prices on 16 October 2026, from the company's pricing page and the plan table in that page's script (grade C)", "note": "There is one paid plan, Pro, sold in eleven sizes by the number of credits, which are spent on generations. The page text shows only the 100-credit tier; the other tiers and the yearly prices were read in the page's script. A yearly plan costs ten times the monthly price, so two months are free. The page lists these Pro features: credit rollovers, unlimited published websites, custom domains, WebGL effects and backgrounds without a watermark, advanced image tools, high-quality exports, unlimited projects and priority support. The free plan gives 5 lifetime credits without a credit card. The terms say there are no refunds unless the law requires one or the company decides otherwise.", "rows": [ [ "Free", "0", "0", "5 lifetime credits, no credit card" ], [ "Pro, 100 credits", "20.83", "25", "100 credits a month; US$250 a year" ], [ "Pro, 200 credits", "41.67", "50", "200 credits a month; US$500 a year" ], [ "Pro, 400 credits", "83.33", "100", "400 credits a month; US$1,000 a year" ], [ "Pro, 800 credits", "166.67", "200", "800 credits a month; US$2,000 a year" ], [ "Pro, 1,200 credits", "245", "294", "1,200 credits a month; US$2,940 a year" ], [ "Pro, 2,000 credits", "400", "480", "2,000 credits a month" ], [ "Pro, 3,000 credits", "587.50", "705", "3,000 credits a month" ], [ "Pro, 4,000 credits", "766.67", "920", "4,000 credits a month" ], [ "Pro, 5,000 credits", "937.50", "1,125", "5,000 credits a month" ], [ "Pro, 7,500 credits", "1,406.67", "1,688", "7,500 credits a month" ], [ "Pro, 10,000 credits", "1,875", "2,250", "10,000 credits a month" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue (MRR), 16 October 2026", "value": "US$8,563", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR reads the company's Stripe account through an API key; last synced 16 October 2026 at 20:46 UTC. TrustMRR gives it as a current snapshot.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from that MRR", "value": "about US$102,756 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$8,563 times 12. This is the headline figure of the page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions, 16 October 2026", "value": "293", "grade": "A", "note": "Stripe data through TrustMRR.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Average MRR per active subscription", "value": "about US$29.23 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$8,563 divided by 293. Close to the US$25 price of the smallest paid tier.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the 30 days to 16 October 2026", "value": "US$10,378", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR shows +17.0% against the 30 days before. One day, 7 October 2026, brought US$2,405, about 8.7 times the average of the other 29 days (US$275), and that day is larger than the whole gain.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue all time, December 2025 to 16 October 2026", "value": "US$79,038", "grade": "A", "note": "Equal to the last 12 months: the Stripe account shows no sales before December 2025.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Best month", "value": "April 2026, US$14,082", "grade": "A", "note": "12.2 times March 2026 (US$1,155). December 2025 to March 2026: US$638, US$3,019, US$1,715 and US$1,155.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in September 2026", "value": "US$8,841", "grade": "A", "note": "May to August 2026: US$10,639, US$11,417, US$10,762 and US$9,383. October to the 16th: US$7,390.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Fall from April to September 2026", "value": "37.2%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$14,082 minus US$8,841, divided by US$14,082. From the best month after April (June, US$11,417) the fall is 22.6%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "MRR change in the last 30 days", "value": "minus 5.3%", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot, 16 October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Stripe account compared with the product", "value": "the same account code", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the Stripe icon link on the TrustMRR profile decodes to the account acct_1STWoUIJSxbVg0Q6, and every Stripe price ID in AIDesigner's pricing script contains its last ten characters, IJSxbVg0Q6. The profile lists only aidesigner.ai as the website.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Users", "value": "18,000+", "grade": "C", "note": "Home page, 16 October 2026, which also claims 90,000+ designs created. The founder's TrustMRR profile estimates 15,000 users. Free users are counted: the 293 subscriptions are 1.6% of 18,000.", "src": [ 3, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Compiled MRR claim, 1 May 2026", "value": "US$9,500, up from under US$1,000 in 30 days", "grade": "C", "note": "Not verified. From a page that says it is compiled from public sources and written as an interview; it attributes the figure to an announcement by the founder. It agrees in size with the Stripe revenue of April 2026.", "src": [ 14, 1 ] }, { "fact": "First version of the MCP package on npm", "value": "29 March 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Registry record of @aidesigner/agent-skills: created 29 March 2026, five versions up to 11 April 2026, maintainer tyleryin.", "src": [ 12 ] }, { "fact": "Entry price", "value": "US$25 a month for 100 credits, or US$250 a year", "grade": "C", "note": "Pricing page. The largest tier is US$2,250 a month for 10,000 credits. The free plan gives 5 lifetime credits.", "src": [ 2, 7 ] }, { "fact": "Affiliate commission", "value": "20% of each referred subscription, every month", "grade": "C", "note": "Affiliate page: 20% recurring, a 30-day cookie and monthly payouts.", "src": [ 13 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 founder, 0 employees", "grade": "C", "note": "Not verified: only the compiled page gives the headcount. The company's own pages name one person, the founder, and no source mentions staff.", "src": [ 14, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "No source mentions investors. The compiled page calls him a solo indie hacker.", "src": [ 14, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Operating company", "value": "Friend Technologies, LLC", "grade": "C", "note": "Terms of service: the laws of the United States apply, and there are no refunds unless the law requires one or the company decides otherwise.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Time from founding to the October 2026 figure", "value": "11 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: November 2025 to October 2026. The founder entered the founding date, 14 November 2025; the Internet Archive's first copy of the site is from 7 January 2026.", "src": [ 1, 17 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "14 November 2025", "what": "The founding date that the founder entered on his TrustMRR profile.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "December 2025", "what": "First Stripe revenue: US$638.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "7 January 2026", "what": "Earliest copy of aidesigner.ai in the Internet Archive. The archive has no earlier version of the site.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 17 ] }, { "when": "January to March 2026", "what": "Revenue of US$3,019, US$1,715 and US$1,155 a month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "29 March 2026", "what": "First version of the npm package @aidesigner/agent-skills. One command installs the MCP server, so coding agents such as Claude Code and Cursor can request designs from AIDesigner.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 12, 9 ] }, { "when": "April 2026", "what": "Revenue reaches US$14,082, 12.2 times March, the best month so far.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "1 May 2026", "what": "A compiled page reports that the founder announced US$9,500 MRR, up from under US$1,000 in 30 days, after posting a demo of each new feature on X, Threads and Reddit, and that he named churn as his biggest problem. Not verified.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 14 ] }, { "when": "2 May 2026", "what": "The company blog publishes a guide to front-end design with Claude Code that pairs Anthropic's own Frontend Design plugin with AIDesigner's MCP server.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8 ] }, { "when": "June to October 2026", "what": "The founder writes comparison posts on the company blog against Figma, Figma Make, v0, Lovable, Canva, Bolt and other tools.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 7, 5, 6 ] }, { "when": "May to September 2026", "what": "Monthly revenue goes from US$10,639 to US$8,841.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "16 October 2026", "what": "MRR of US$8,563 from 293 active subscriptions, US$10,378 in the last 30 days and US$79,038 in all. The latest blog posts are from 7 October 2026.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 6 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A problem stated in one line", "text": "The home page promises \"Designs that don't look AI-generated\". That speaks to people who build with AI coding assistants and get screens that all look alike. The company blog quotes Anthropic's own front-end guidance, which says that models \"tend to converge toward generic\" outputs." }, { "title": "Sold inside the coding tools", "text": "The MCP server puts AIDesigner inside Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, VS Code with Copilot and Windsurf. One command writes the configuration files, and the agent can then ask AIDesigner for a design and put the result into the project. The npm package appeared on 29 March 2026, and Stripe revenue in April was 12.2 times March." }, { "title": "Credits that grow with use", "text": "One paid plan with eleven credit tiers, from US$25 to US$2,250 a month, and a yearly price of ten months. Heavy users pay more without a sales call. The average active subscription brings in about US$29 a month, close to the entry tier." }, { "title": "Search pages and affiliates", "text": "The blog index lists 52 posts, many of them comparisons with Figma, Canva, Lovable, v0, Bolt, Framer and Webflow, written by the founder. The site also has single-purpose tool pages, such as an ASCII art generator and a website cloner, and an affiliate program that pays 20% of each referred subscription every month." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's own pages and page code, the npm registry and a compiled third-party page. They are grade C.", "items": [ "A Next.js web app. The page code loads Clerk for sign-in, and the checkout uses Stripe prices.", "Generation uses what the site calls \"top design models\" and \"Fine-tuned models\"; no page names the model provider. The API can first generate a reference image from the prompt, and the design model then works from that image. Its error list includes \"upstream model failure\".", "A compiled page says the pipeline uses fine-tuned image models such as Stable Diffusion or Flux. Not verified.", "Designs come out as Tailwind CSS code, the MCP page says, and can be edited on a canvas, exported, or published as a website on the user's own domain.", "The MCP server installs with npx -y @aidesigner/agent-skills init. For Claude Code it writes .mcp.json plus an agent, a command and a skill file. Sign-in uses OAuth, so no API key is stored in the user's project.", "A public API streams results in the OpenAI server-sent-event format, for developers who call it from their own code.", "Marketing: the founder's posts on X, Threads and Reddit (from the compiled page), the comparison posts on the blog, single-purpose tool pages, and a 20% recurring affiliate program." ], "src": [ 2, 3, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database promised to automate web design or to turn designs into code. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "The Grid", "years": "2014 to 2020", "funding": "US$4.7M", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "Websites designed by AI, without a designer's fee.", "died": "It bet on AI before the AI was ready. Its designs looked clumsy next to polished and easy alternatives.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/618-the-grid" }, { "name": "Pagedraw", "years": "2018 to 2021", "funding": "US$1.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Turn Sketch designs into React code automatically.", "died": "It built on Sketch while designers moved to Figma, and developers preferred to write the code by hand.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1006-pagedraw" }, { "name": "Haiku", "years": "2018 to 2021", "funding": "US$1.2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Turn designers' detailed animations into code.", "died": "Figma and Adobe XD covered the same ground, and the 2020 downturn ended it.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1013-haiku" }, { "name": "Pixate", "years": "2012 to 2016", "funding": "US$3.6M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Mobile app prototypes for designers, without code.", "died": "Google bought it and then set it aside, while design work moved to the web and to Figma.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/434-pixate" }, { "name": "Invision", "years": "2011 to 2023", "funding": "US$350M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Close the gap between designers' files and developers' code.", "died": "Figma offered real-time collaboration in the browser, and the users moved there.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/251-invision" } ], "whatChanged": [ "The Grid promised websites designed by AI in 2014 and died because the AI was not good enough. Pagedraw, Haiku and Pixate tried to turn designs into code and lost to design tools that more people used. AIDesigner makes both promises again, and two things are different. AI models in 2025 and 2026 can produce a layout from a sentence that 293 subscribers pay for, and many buyers now build with AI coding agents whose screens, the company's blog argues, look generic by default.", "The second difference is distribution. Pagedraw and Haiku asked developers to add a new tool to their work. AIDesigner plugs into the coding agents that developers already run, through an open protocol, so a design request is one more command in the same session. The risk that ended the predecessors is still present: Figma, Vercel, Lovable and the model makers can add the same feature to products with far more users, and AIDesigner's revenue has fallen since April 2026." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The timing, not easily.", "text": "The April 2026 jump came while AI coding agents were new and their screens looked generic, and that space is now crowded with funded tools. What can be copied is the method: name a visible weakness of a popular AI tool, sell the fix inside that tool through MCP, and price by usage so that heavy users pay more.", "steps": [ "Find a weakness that users of a popular AI tool complain about in public, and state it in one line on your home page.", "Ship the fix as an MCP server, so that it runs inside the agents that people already use, with one install command.", "Record a short demo of each new feature and post it where those users read, such as X and Reddit.", "Price in credits with many tiers and a yearly option, and pay affiliates a recurring share." ], "open": "Other weak spots of AI coding agents that users complain about in public: accessibility, copywriting, charts, animation, and a consistent brand across many generated screens." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Revenue is falling", "text": "September 2026 revenue was 37.2% below April, and MRR fell 5.3% in the 30 days to 16 October 2026. The last 30 days show +17.0% in revenue only because of one US$2,405 day. The compiled page says the founder calls churn his biggest problem (not verified)." }, { "title": "Large funded competitors", "text": "Vercel's post of 11 October 2023 announced v0, introduced a few weeks before, which makes a website from a description of the idea. Lovable, an AI app builder, raised US$200 million at a US$1.8 billion valuation in July 2025, US$330 million in December 2025 and US$400 million at a US$13.3 billion valuation in August 2026. AIDesigner's own blog compares it with Figma, Figma Make, Canva, Uizard, Framer, Webflow and Bolt." }, { "title": "Dependence on model providers and coding agents", "text": "The site does not name the models it uses, and its API lists \"upstream model failure\" among its errors, so a provider's price change or outage reaches AIDesigner directly. Its MCP channel runs through Claude Code, Cursor and other agents that it does not control. Anthropic publishes its own Frontend Design plugin for the same problem, and AIDesigner's blog tells readers to install it first." }, { "title": "One person and a small paying base", "text": "No source mentions staff; only the compiled page gives a headcount, 0 employees. The 293 subscriptions at about US$29 a month are 1.6% of the 18,000 users that the home page claims." }, { "title": "Which revenue is counted", "text": "The Stripe account behind the TrustMRR figures is the one that AIDesigner's pricing page uses. The compiled page says the founder also built two other AI tools, and the TrustMRR profile does not say whether any other product sells through the same account." }, { "title": "A website cloner", "text": "One of the site's tools promises to \"Clone any website's design instantly\". Copying another company's design can raise copyright questions for the user and for AIDesigner." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR markdown profile: AI Designer, revenue verified through a Stripe API key, last synced 16 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/ai-designer.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile. The revenue, MRR, subscription and monthly rows come from Stripe (grade A). The founding date, country, founder name, description and user estimate are written by the founder (grade C)." }, { "title": "AIDesigner pricing page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.aidesigner.ai/pricing", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The page text shows the 100-credit tier; the eleven tiers with monthly and yearly prices and their Stripe price IDs were read as text in the page's script file." }, { "title": "AIDesigner home page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.aidesigner.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the user and design counts, the product list, the free credits and the quoted posts from X and Reddit users." }, { "title": "AIDesigner terms of service", "url": "https://www.aidesigner.ai/terms", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the operating company, the governing law and the refund policy." }, { "title": "AIDesigner blog, 22 August 2026: Figma Make Alternatives: 6 Better Tools, Tested (2026)", "url": "https://www.aidesigner.ai/blog/figma-make-alternatives", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Written by Tyler Yin; its author box says that he is the founder of AIDesigner. Source for the founder's name and for the rivals that the company names." }, { "title": "AIDesigner blog index, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.aidesigner.ai/blog", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Lists 52 posts, many of them comparisons with other tools; the latest are dated 7 October 2026." }, { "title": "AIDesigner blog, 8 June 2026: AIDesigner vs Figma: Which AI Design Tool Wins? (2026)", "url": "https://www.aidesigner.ai/blog/aidesigner-vs-figma", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Written by Tyler Yin. Source for the free plan's 5 lifetime credits." }, { "title": "AIDesigner blog, 2 May 2026: a guide to front-end design with Claude Code", "url": "https://www.aidesigner.ai/blog/claude-code-frontend-design", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on why Claude Code interfaces look generic and on Anthropic's Frontend Design plugin." }, { "title": "AIDesigner MCP server documentation", "url": "https://www.aidesigner.ai/docs/mcp", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the install command, the files it writes and the supported coding agents." }, { "title": "AIDesigner MCP product page", "url": "https://www.aidesigner.ai/ai-ui-design-mcp", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the definition of MCP, the fine-tuned models and the Tailwind CSS output." }, { "title": "AIDesigner API reference", "url": "https://www.aidesigner.ai/docs/api", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on streaming, reference images and errors." }, { "title": "npm registry record for @aidesigner/agent-skills", "url": "https://registry.npmjs.org/@aidesigner%2fagent-skills", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A registry record: created 29 March 2026, five versions up to 11 April 2026, maintainer tyleryin." }, { "title": "AIDesigner affiliate program page", "url": "https://www.aidesigner.ai/affiliate-program", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 20% recurring commission and the plan prices that it lists." }, { "title": "MRR Story, May 2026: From $1K to $9.5K MRR in 30 Days: The Solo AI Tool Fixing Ugly 'Vibe-Coded' Apps", "url": "https://www.mrrstory.com/stories/from-1k-to-95k-mrr-in-30-days-the-solo-ai-tool-fixing-ugly-vibe-coded-apps", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The page says that it is compiled from public sources and presented in an interview format; it is not an interview. Used only for leads; every claim taken only from it is marked not verified." }, { "title": "Vercel blog, 11 October 2023: Announcing v0: Generative UI", "url": "https://vercel.com/blog/announcing-v0-generative-ui", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the date and purpose of v0." }, { "title": "Lovable blog index, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://lovable.dev/blog", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the list of announcements: US$200 million at US$1.8 billion (17 July 2025), US$100 million ARR (23 July 2025), US$330 million (18 December 2025) and a US$400 million Series C at US$13.3 billion (12 August 2026)." }, { "title": "Internet Archive availability record for aidesigner.ai", "url": "http://archive.org/wayback/available?url=aidesigner.ai×tamp=20240101", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The closest copy to 1 January 2024 is from 7 January 2026, so the archive holds no earlier version of the site." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/pingo-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/pingo-ai.md", "slug": "pingo-ai", "name": "Pingo AI", "country": "United States", "sector": "Consumer software", "productType": "AI language tutor app", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "C", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "January 2025", "outcomeLabel": "Almost US$500K a month, April 2026", "sticker": "Almost $6M/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 6000000, "months": 15, "teamLabel": "2 founders in July 2025; 3 to 4 people at the April 2026 figure (YC page: 3 in December 2025, 4 in June 2026)", "fundingLabel": "Y Combinator's standard US$500,000 (Summer 2025 batch)", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "learning", "channel": "creators", "trend": "growing", "collections": [ "phone-app" ], "meters": { "evidence": 1, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Funded", "Running", "B2C", "Education" ], "product": "A phone app for practicing a foreign language by speaking. The learner talks out loud with an AI tutor in everyday scenes and role plays, gets corrections on pronunciation and grammar during the conversation, and the app keeps a learning plan and remembers past mistakes. More than 25 languages. A free trial, then a subscription through the app stores.", "why": "Speaking is the part of language learning that most apps practice least, and the founders built the practice partner that they had been for each other. A short video format, in which the AI points out a creator's pronunciation errors, spread on TikTok through about 100 creators that the company manages, with no paid ads by the co-founder's account, and a simple subscription turned a small part of the free users into payers.", "summary": [ "Pingo AI is a phone app for practicing a foreign language by speaking. The learner talks out loud with an AI tutor in everyday scenes, such as ordering food or booking a hotel, and the app corrects pronunciation and grammar during the conversation and remembers the mistakes for later sessions. It teaches more than 25 languages. The replies come from AI models run by other companies: its privacy policy names OpenAI and Groq, a company that runs AI models for other businesses, as the providers that receive the learners' messages and voice recordings. Learners get a 7-day free trial, by the co-founder's account, and then pay by in-app purchase, a subscription sold through Apple's App Store or Google Play: US$14.99 a month or US$99.99 a year.", "Michael Xing (CEO) and Morrie Schonfeld (COO) were roommates in their first year of college and practiced Chinese together every week, and they launched Pingo in January 2025 from Schonfeld's dorm room at Northwestern University. Two dated revenue figures from two different sources describe its growth. In their Y Combinator launch post, published on 3 August 2025, the founders wrote that as of July the app had more than 300,000 users and US$200,000 of monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the subscription revenue that repeats every month. On 20 April 2026 The Superwall Podcast, a show made by a company that sells payment screens for phone apps, published an episode with Schonfeld whose description says that Pingo \"is approaching $500K/month with 3 million users and zero paid ads\". That is a run rate, the monthly figure times 12, of almost US$6 million a year, 15 months after launch. Between the two figures revenue grew at most about 11% a month, down from the 100% a month that the founders reported for the first half of 2025.", "The team stayed small: the Y Combinator page listed 2 people in July 2025, 3 in December 2025 and 4 from June 2026, and the only outside money in the sources is Y Combinator's standard investment of US$500,000. Users came through short creator videos, mostly on TikTok, in which a creator says a phrase in a foreign language and the AI points out the pronunciation errors; the podcast description says the app got 400 million views in a single month and that the company runs about 100 creators. The episode's 3 million users fit the company site's own \"3,000,000+ Users\" of 15 March 2026, and Google named Pingo the Best Hidden Gem among Google Play's best apps of 2025. Every revenue number on this page is a founder statement, grade C. A case-study site's US$500,000 a month, which cites the founders' LinkedIn profiles, agrees with the podcast but stays marked as not verified." ], "factsCaption": "Almost US$500,000 a month in April 2026 and US$200,000 a month in July 2025: two founder figures from two different sources that agree with each other", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founders or the company, or a third party's report that says where it came from. The two grade B values come from Google, which is independent of the company: its award list and the download count on its store. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No revenue value is grade A or B.", "timelineLead": "From two roommates practicing Chinese to an app with more than 5 million Android downloads, in 21 months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Pingo Pro prices in October 2026, from the App Store listing (grade C); the company has no pricing page and shows its prices inside the app", "note": "Pingo Pro is an auto-renewing subscription bought inside the app. The company's llms.txt file says there is a free trial and that Pingo Pro gives unlimited conversations and lessons; the co-founder says on a podcast that the trial lasts 7 days and that outside the US a 7-day trial did 2% better than a 3-day trial. A case-study site gives the same two main prices in June 2026. The yearly plan costs about 44% less than twelve monthly payments. The App Store also lists Pingo Pro at US$83.99, US$89.99 and US$17.99 without saying the period; these may be offers, other durations or prices for other countries.", "rows": [ [ "Free trial", "0", "0", "7 days, by the co-founder's account; not stated on the store page" ], [ "Pingo Pro, yearly", "8.33", "", "US$99.99 a year; unlimited conversations and lessons" ], [ "Pingo Pro, monthly", "", "14.99", "unlimited conversations and lessons" ], [ "Other Pingo Pro prices listed", "", "", "US$83.99, US$89.99 and US$17.99, period not stated" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly revenue, April 2026", "value": "almost US$500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "The Superwall Podcast, episode with co-founder Morrie Schonfeld published 20 April 2026. Its description: \"Fourteen months after launching from his Northwestern dorm room, Pingo AI is approaching $500K/month with 3 million users and zero paid ads.\" No transcript is published.", "src": [ 19 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the April 2026 figure", "value": "almost US$6 million a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: just under US$500,000 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page; US$6 million is its upper bound.", "src": [ 19 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, July 2025", "value": "US$200,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founders' Y Combinator launch post, published 3 August 2025: \"As of July, we’ve grown to 300K+ users and $200K MRR since launching in January.\" A different source from the April 2026 figure.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the July 2025 figure", "value": "US$2.4 million a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$200,000 times 12.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Growth implied between the two founder figures", "value": "at most about 11% a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: from US$200,000 in July 2025 to just under US$500,000 in April 2026 is at most 2.5 times in nine months, at most 10.7% a month. Counted to March 2026, fourteen months after launch as the episode says, it is at most 12.1% a month, the same as for the aidevcases figure below. Either way growth had slowed from the 100% a month of the first half of 2025.", "src": [ 1, 19, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Growth before the launch post", "value": "100% a month on average, 200% in the past month", "grade": "C", "note": "Founders' launch post. At 100% a month for six months, revenue doubles six times, so the January 2025 figure would have been about US$3,100 a month (calculated: US$200,000 divided by 64).", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Users, July 2025", "value": "more than 300,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Founders' launch post. Calculated: US$200,000 divided by 300,000 users is about US$0.67 per user a month, far below the US$14.99 monthly price, so most users did not pay.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Users, March and April 2026", "value": "3,000,000+ on the company site; 3 million in the podcast", "grade": "C", "note": "Wayback Machine copy of the home page, 15 March 2026: \"Join 3,000,000+ Users Getting Fluent with Pingo AI\". The podcast figure of 20 April 2026 fits it. Calculated: almost US$500,000 divided by 3 million users is at most about US$0.17 per user a month, against US$0.67 in July 2025, so users grew faster than revenue.", "src": [ 9, 19 ] }, { "fact": "Users claimed in October 2026", "value": "6,000,000+ learners; 8,000,000+ users", "grade": "C", "note": "Live home page and App Store description. The two company figures differ from each other.", "src": [ 8, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, about March 2026, from a case-study site", "value": "US$500,000 (not verified)", "grade": "C", "note": "aidevcases.com, 24 June 2026: \"$500K MRR (~$6M ARR)\" 14 months after launch, labelled \"Monthly (est.)\". Its sources for it are the founders' LinkedIn profiles, which this page may not open, so it stays not verified, although it agrees with the podcast. The same site writes \"peak ~70% month-over-month\", against the founders' average of 100%, and \"750K+ users\", far below the company's 3,000,000.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Later mention by the podcast host", "value": "\"hit $500K/month\"", "grade": "C", "note": "The host's solo episode of 25 September 2026 lists \"how Pingo used one to hit $500K/month\". It may repeat the April episode and gives no new date for the figure.", "src": [ 20 ] }, { "fact": "Android downloads, October 2026", "value": "more than 5 million", "grade": "B", "note": "Google Play's own count on the store page, with 4.7 stars from about 205,000 reviews. Downloads are not paying users.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Google Play award", "value": "Best Hidden Gem, best apps of 2025", "grade": "B", "note": "Google's blog, 18 November 2025: \"Best Hidden Gem: Pingo AI Language Learning\".", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "fact": "Team size on the Y Combinator page", "value": "2 in July 2025, 3 in December 2025, 4 from June 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Wayback Machine copies of 28 July 2025, 17 December 2025 and 21 June 2026, and the live page on 16 October 2026. The launch post is signed by the two founders. At the April 2026 figure the team was 3 or 4. A profile site, yespress.io, says other data sources list about 24 employees; not verified.", "src": [ 3, 2, 1, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "Y Combinator's standard US$500,000", "grade": "C", "note": "Summer 2025 batch. YC invests US$500,000 in every company it accepts: US$125,000 for 7% of the company and US$375,000 on an uncapped SAFE, a contract that turns into shares at a later funding round. aidevcases.com writes \"Raised a $500K seed in Sept 2025\" and yespress.io lists seed funding in August 2025; the amount equals YC's standard deal, and no downloaded source names another investor.", "src": [ 2, 13, 4, 14 ] }, { "fact": "Prices", "value": "US$14.99 a month or US$99.99 a year, after a 7-day free trial", "grade": "C", "note": "App Store in-app purchases and the company's llms.txt file; the trial length is from the April 2026 podcast description. The yearly plan is about 44% cheaper than 12 monthly payments (calculated).", "src": [ 5, 12, 19 ] }, { "fact": "AI providers", "value": "OpenAI and Groq", "grade": "C", "note": "Privacy policy, last updated 11 August 2026: \"Our third-party AI service providers currently include OpenAI and Groq.\" Chat messages and voice recordings are shared with them. The policy does not name the models.", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "fact": "Creator videos", "value": "400 million views in one month; about 100 creators", "grade": "C", "note": "Podcast description, 20 April 2026: \"Running 100 creators like a VC portfolio, cutting the bottom 30%, coaching the middle\", and a roast format that \"creators invented inside a custom scenario feature hit 52 million views\". aidevcases.com counted more than 200 million TikTok views across 624 videos in June 2026, as Pingo's own public figures; not verified.", "src": [ 19, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Paid ads", "value": "\"zero paid ads\" in April 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "Podcast description. The privacy policy of 11 August 2026 describes AppsFlyer measuring \"our paid advertising campaigns\", so ads may have started later, or the policy text is general.", "src": [ 19, 10 ] }, { "fact": "Users who paid nothing", "value": "200,000 in Russia", "grade": "C", "note": "Podcast description: \"Why 200K Russian users generated zero dollars, and how geo-targeting became a core distribution strategy\".", "src": [ 19 ] }, { "fact": "Age rating", "value": "4+ on the App Store, Everyone on Google Play", "grade": "C", "note": "Store listings. The app is sold as a language tutor; the App Store text calls Pingo \"your AI speaking companion\".", "src": [ 5, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Languages", "value": "25+ to learn, 15+ languages of instruction", "grade": "C", "note": "Company home page and App Store description.", "src": [ 8, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the April 2026 figure", "value": "15 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: January 2025 to April 2026, by calendar month. The episode description says fourteen months.", "src": [ 1, 19 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "First year of college", "what": "Michael Xing and Morrie Schonfeld are roommates and practice Chinese together every week. Xing is fluent; by 2025 Schonfeld has been learning it for eight years.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "January 2025", "what": "Launch on the App Store and Google Play from Schonfeld's dorm room at Northwestern, with the website mypingoai.com.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 14, 19 ] }, { "when": "July 2025", "what": "More than 300,000 users and US$200,000 a month in subscriptions, after average growth of 100% a month. The Y Combinator page lists a team of 2.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 3 ] }, { "when": "3 August 2025", "what": "Launch post on Y Combinator's site, as part of the Summer 2025 batch. YC's standard investment is US$500,000.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 13 ] }, { "when": "18 November 2025", "what": "Google names Pingo AI Language Learning the Best Hidden Gem among Google Play's best apps of 2025.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 7 ] }, { "when": "17 December 2025", "what": "The Y Combinator page lists a team of 3.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "March 2026", "what": "The company's site, now at pingo.ai, says 3,000,000+ users.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 9 ] }, { "when": "20 April 2026", "what": "The Superwall Podcast publishes an episode with Schonfeld: Pingo is approaching US$500,000 a month with 3 million users and zero paid ads, after 400 million views in one month and with about 100 creators.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 19 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "A case-study site reports US$500,000 a month at 14 months, citing LinkedIn (not verified), and more than 200 million TikTok views across 624 videos. The Y Combinator page lists a team of 4.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 3 ] }, { "when": "11 August 2026", "what": "The privacy policy names OpenAI and Groq as the AI providers that process the conversations.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 10 ] }, { "when": "25 September 2026", "what": "The podcast's host says in a solo episode that Pingo used one creative strategy to hit US$500,000 a month.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 20 ] }, { "when": "October 2026", "what": "6,000,000+ learners on the home page, 8,000,000+ users in the App Store text, more than 5 million Android downloads, and app version 5.4.4 released on 7 October. No open jobs.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 8, 5, 6, 11 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Distribution through creator videos", "text": "The growth came from one repeatable video: a creator says a phrase in a foreign language, the AI says how far off the pronunciation is, and the creator reacts. People who do not learn the language also find it funny, and native speakers comment to correct and translate, so one video reaches several language communities. By the co-founder's account in April 2026, the company runs about 100 creators like a portfolio of investments, drops the weakest 30% and coaches the middle, and the app got 400 million views in a single month with no paid ads." }, { "title": "Speaking only", "text": "Most language apps teach words and grammar with taps and drills. Pingo does one thing, spoken conversation with correction, which the founders call the part most apps overlook. The learner picks a scene, talks, gets corrected during the conversation, and the app remembers the mistakes for the next session." }, { "title": "Aim at countries that pay", "text": "The co-founder says 200,000 users in Russia produced no revenue, and that geo-targeting, choosing which countries the videos reach, became a core part of distribution. A view counts only if the viewer can and will pay through the app store." }, { "title": "A simple app-store subscription", "text": "A 7-day free trial, reminders before the trial ends and messages after an abandoned purchase lift conversion, by the co-founder's account; then Pingo Pro costs US$14.99 a month or US$99.99 a year, paid through Apple or Google. Revenue per user was about US$0.67 a month in July 2025 and at most about US$0.17 in April 2026, so a small share of a very large free audience pays for the whole business." }, { "title": "Bought AI, small team", "text": "The conversations run on models from outside providers, OpenAI and Groq according to the privacy policy, so a team of two to four people could offer more than 25 languages with models that other companies run." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the company's own pages, its launch post, the co-founder's podcast episode and the two app-store listings. They are grade C.", "items": [ "A phone app for iPhone, iPad and Android. The seller on both stores is Pingo AI, Inc. Category: Education. It needs iOS 15.1 or later.", "AI: the privacy policy of 11 August 2026 names OpenAI and Groq as the AI service providers and also mentions speech-processing providers without naming them. Chat messages and voice recordings go to these providers to generate the replies.", "Measurement: Firebase for analytics, and AppsFlyer to attribute installs to marketing sources and to measure paid advertising campaigns.", "Payments: auto-renewing subscriptions sold as in-app purchases on the App Store and Google Play. The payment screen uses a 7-day free trial, trial reminder messages and flows for abandoned purchases, by the co-founder's account.", "Features named in the store text and on the company's pages: a learning plan built from the learner's goals, role plays and debates, instant feedback on pronunciation and grammar, transcripts, and a feedback setting of strict, balanced or light.", "Website: mypingoai.com in the August 2025 launch post, pingo.ai by March 2026. In August 2025 the domain pingo.ai showed an unrelated Vietnamese app for finding places to eat." ], "src": [ 10, 5, 6, 1, 9, 12, 19 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold the same promise, practice with a fluent speaker over the internet, using paid human teachers. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "VIPKid", "years": "2013 to 2021", "funding": "US$1.1B", "cause": "Legal/Regulatory", "promise": "One-on-one English lessons by video between Chinese children and North American teachers.", "died": "China's 2021 education rules banned foreign tutors and foreign curriculum, which ended its business model at once.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2522-vipkid" }, { "name": "TutorGroup (iTutor)", "years": "2004 to 2021", "funding": "US$300M", "cause": "Legal/Regulatory", "promise": "Online English tutoring that connected 30,000 Western teachers with Chinese students, at about US$50 an hour.", "died": "China's 2021 ban on foreign tutors removed about 70% of its revenue, while the cost of winning each customer, over US$800, and tutor turnover were already too high.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2216-tutorgroup-itutor" }, { "name": "Qkids", "years": "2015 to 2021", "funding": "US$100M", "cause": "Legal/Regulatory", "promise": "Live small-group English classes by video, with North American teachers for Chinese children.", "died": "China's 2021 ban on for-profit tutoring for school-age children ended the business model at once.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2557-qkids" }, { "name": "Hujiang", "years": "2001 to 2021", "funding": "US$187M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Online language courses with a free tier, for 190 million users in China.", "died": "A failed stock-market listing showed that winning each customer cost too much and margins were negative, against better-funded rivals.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2556-hujiang" }, { "name": "Teacher Finder", "years": "2015 to 2019", "funding": "US$50K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Match language learners directly with tutors, without an expensive language school in between.", "died": "Better-funded tutor marketplaces won the market, and its simple product, built on Zapier automations, could not change fast enough.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1962-teacher-finder" } ], "whatChanged": [ "All five sold speaking practice with a fluent person over the internet, and the demand was real: VIPKid alone served 700,000 students at its peak, by the database's account. But each lesson needed a paid human teacher, so every hour of practice stayed expensive, and three of the five ended when China changed its tutoring rules in 2021.", "Pingo replaces the teacher with AI models bought from providers, so an extra hour of practice costs the model and voice processing, not a teacher's wage, and one app serves more than 25 languages in many countries through the app stores. The risk moved instead of going away: Pingo does not depend on teachers or on one government, but on the AI providers' prices, on the rules of the app stores and TikTok, and on whether Duolingo and ChatGPT give the same practice to their much larger audiences." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The empty market, no.", "text": "Pingo was early with a speaking-only AI tutor and found a video format that spread on TikTok. By 2026 Duolingo sells AI video calls and ChatGPT talks back, so a new copy would compete with both. What can still be copied is the method: a narrow product, a short video that shows the product's main moment, and a managed group of creators who post that format to the countries where users pay.", "steps": [ "Pick the one skill that the large apps teach worst, and build only that.", "Find the moment in the product that is funny or surprising to watch, and make it the whole video.", "Give the format to many creators, about 100 at Pingo; drop the weakest and coach the middle.", "Aim the videos at countries where users pay; Pingo's 200,000 Russian users paid nothing.", "Sell one subscription through the app stores, with a free trial, a cheaper yearly plan and reminders before the trial ends." ], "open": "Speaking practice for one exam, job or situation (medical English, job interviews, a language test for a visa), and target or native languages that the large apps serve badly." }, "watch": [ { "title": "The revenue figures are the founders' own", "text": "Both dated figures come from the founders: US$200,000 a month in their launch post (July 2025) and almost US$500,000 a month in the description of a podcast episode with Schonfeld (April 2026). No payment processor or buyer has confirmed either, and the podcast publishes no transcript. The two figures come from different sources and fit a growth rate of at most about 11% a month, and the episode's 3 million users match the company site's figure of March 2026. A case-study site's US$500,000, which cites LinkedIn profiles that this page may not open, stays not verified; that site differs from the founders on growth (\"peak ~70%\" against an average of 100%) and from the company on users (750,000 against 3,000,000)." }, { "title": "Duolingo sells the same practice", "text": "Duolingo introduced Duolingo Max, built with OpenAI's GPT-4, on 14 March 2023, and announced Video Call, spoken conversations with its character Lily, on 24 September 2024. Video Call is available to Max subscribers learning English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese." }, { "title": "ChatGPT talks back", "text": "OpenAI began rolling out voice conversations in ChatGPT on 25 September 2023, for Plus and Enterprise users on iOS and Android. One Pingo reviewer on the App Store wrote that ChatGPT's spoken role play suggests things and pushes back when instructed, in a way that Pingo's conversations did not." }, { "title": "Dependence on model and voice providers", "text": "Every conversation goes to outside AI providers, OpenAI and Groq according to the privacy policy. Their prices, quality and terms set Pingo's costs and quality, and the same providers sell to every competitor, including OpenAI's own ChatGPT." }, { "title": "Team size outside the YC page", "text": "Y Combinator's page shows 2, then 3, then 4 people. A profile site, yespress.io, says other data sources list about 24 employees, which may count contractors or the roughly 100 video creators; this page could not check it. At the April 2026 figure the YC page listed 3 people (December 2025) or 4 (June 2026)." }, { "title": "Managed creators and paid ads", "text": "The co-founder says the company runs about 100 creators and cuts the weakest 30%, so the videos are a managed program, not chance posts by fans. No source says how the creators are paid or whether the videos are marked as advertising. The episode says \"zero paid ads\" in April 2026, while the privacy policy of August 2026 describes AppsFlyer measuring \"our paid advertising campaigns\"." }, { "title": "Users are not payers", "text": "User counts grew much faster than revenue: about US$0.67 of revenue per user a month in July 2025, at most about US$0.17 in April 2026 (calculated). The co-founder says 200,000 users in Russia paid nothing. The 6 to 8 million users claimed in October 2026 say little about revenue." }, { "title": "Many similar tutors", "text": "The App Store page lists similar apps such as LingoTok and Bunpo, and this site's Verbi story is another AI speaking tutor sold through the app stores and grown with creator videos. Store reviews of Pingo complain about speech recognition in Arabic and about how to cancel the subscription; the developer replied that it had added cancellation inside the app." }, { "title": "A wider direction", "text": "The careers page says \"Pingo starts with language learning\" and that the team wants to \"Define what human–AI relationships look like\". Today the app is a language tutor rated 4+ on the App Store and Everyone on Google Play; a move toward a general AI companion would change both the market and the risks." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Launch YC, 3 August 2025: Pingo AI: AI companion that helps you learn languages", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/O6R-pingo-ai-ai-companion-that-helps-you-learn-languages", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full, from the page's JSON. The founders' launch post, created 3 August 2025. Source for the July 2025 revenue and users, the growth rate and the founders' story." }, { "title": "Y Combinator company page: Pingo, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/pingo-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the batch, the team size of 4, the location and the founders' roles. The address now redirects to /companies/pingo." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copies of the Y Combinator company page, 28 July 2025, 17 December 2025 and 21 June 2026", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250728224222/https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/pingo-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the team-size field in each of the three copies: 2, 3 and 4." }, { "title": "AI Dev Cases, 24 June 2026: \"Getting Roasted by an AI\" Went Viral, How Pingo AI Hit $500K MRR in 14 Months on 200M TikTok Views", "url": "https://aidevcases.com/en/cases/pingo-ai", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A third-party case write-up, figures checked 21 August 2026. For the US$500,000 it cites the founders' LinkedIn profiles, which this site may not open, so that figure is not verified. Source for the TikTok format and video counts." }, { "title": "App Store: Language Learning: Pingo AI, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/language-learning-pingo-ai/id6738882620", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the prices, the age rating, the user claim, the seller, the version notes and the reviews." }, { "title": "Google Play: Language Learning: Pingo AI, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.picoai.languageapp.android", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Google's own download count and rating, and the content rating." }, { "title": "Google blog, 18 November 2025: Google Play's best apps, books and games of 2025", "url": "https://blog.google/products/google-play/best-apps-games-2025/", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the list of app awards. Source for the Best Hidden Gem award." }, { "title": "Pingo AI home page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://pingo.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the learner count, the languages and the note on voice data." }, { "title": "Wayback Machine copy of the Pingo AI home page, 15 March 2026", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260315042639/https://pingo.ai/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 3,000,000 users. An earlier copy, of 6 August 2025, shows an unrelated Vietnamese app on the same domain." }, { "title": "Pingo AI privacy policy, last updated 11 August 2026", "url": "https://pingo.ai/privacy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the sections on service providers, analytics and advertising measurement." }, { "title": "Pingo AI careers page, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://pingo.ai/careers", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the company's stated direction and for the absence of open roles." }, { "title": "Pingo AI llms.txt file, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://pingo.ai/llms.txt", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The company's description for AI assistants. Source for the free trial and what Pingo Pro includes." }, { "title": "Y Combinator: The Y Combinator Standard Deal", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/deal", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the description of the deal. These are YC's general terms; the page does not name Pingo." }, { "title": "yespress.io profile: Pingo AI", "url": "https://yespress.io/pingo-ai.md", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A profile site that compiles other sources. Source for the launch month, the seed-funding entry and the note that other data sources list about 24 employees; the last two were not checked." }, { "title": "Duolingo blog, 14 March 2023: Introducing Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4", "url": "https://blog.duolingo.com/duolingo-max", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Duolingo's own announcement; the page has since been updated to list Video Call and Roleplay as the Max features." }, { "title": "Duolingo blog, 24 September 2024: Video Call lets you have real life conversations with Lily", "url": "https://blog.duolingo.com/video-call", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Duolingo's own announcement and the list of languages." }, { "title": "OpenAI, 25 September 2023: ChatGPT can now see, hear, and speak", "url": "https://openai.com/index/chatgpt-can-now-see-hear-and-speak/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. OpenAI's own announcement of voice conversations in ChatGPT." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." }, { "title": "The Superwall Podcast, 20 April 2026: Morrie Schonfeld - How I built a $500k/mo ai app (so you can just copy me)", "url": "https://www.buzzsprout.com/2522779/episodes/19048679-morrie-schonfeld-how-i-built-a-500k-mo-ai-app-so-you-can-just-copy-me", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the episode's title, date and description in the show's RSS feed (https://rss.buzzsprout.com/2522779.rss) and on the episode page. Did not listen to the 58-minute audio; no transcript is published. The co-founder's statements as the show summarizes them. Source for the April 2026 revenue, users, views, creators, paid ads, Russian users and trial." }, { "title": "The Superwall Podcast, 25 September 2026: Joseph Choi - 1,000 Hours of Studying The Most Profitable Apps in 17 Minutes", "url": "https://www.buzzsprout.com/2522779/episodes/19864962-joseph-choi-1-000-hours-of-studying-the-most-profitable-apps-in-17-minutes", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the episode's title, date and description in the same feed and on the episode page. The host's solo episode. Source for the later mention that Pingo hit US$500,000 a month." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/3ak-track-field/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/3ak-track-field.md", "slug": "3ak-track-field", "name": "3AK Track & Field", "country": "USA", "sector": "Consumer software", "productType": "AI sprint coach app that analyses running video", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "15 December 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$162.8K verified revenue in 10 months, October 2026", "sticker": "$162.8K in 10 months", "outcomeUsd": 162777, "months": 10, "teamLabel": "2 co-founders, both college track athletes, and a third partner for the football app; no employees reported", "fundingLabel": "None", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "health-appearance", "channel": "audience", "trend": "growing", "collections": [ "phone-app" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Health and fitness" ], "product": "An iPhone app for sprint training. You film a sprint, and the AI splits it into phases (reaction, drive, acceleration, top-end, speed and finish) and says what to fix. It also has an AI coach, adaptive sprint plans, a daily readiness check, strength workouts, a \"Sprint Age\" fitness score and calorie logging from meal photos. Every feature needs a subscription. It started as a track-and-field app and in August 2026 added a path for everyday people who want to get fit.", "why": "Two college track athletes already had about 150,000 Instagram followers who asked them every day for a training plan. They built that plan into an app without writing code, promoted it inside their own race videos, and priced it for teenagers.", "summary": [ "3AK is an iPhone app that coaches sprinting. The user films a sprint and uploads the clip, and the app's stride analysis, a step-by-step reading of body position and timing from video, splits the run into phases (reaction, drive, acceleration, top-end, speed and finish) and says what to work on. It also has an AI coach to chat with, adaptive sprint plans, strength workouts and photo calorie logging, in which the user photographs a meal and the app estimates its calories and macros, the grams of protein, fat and carbohydrate. Every feature needs an App Store subscription. The app was made in Rork, a no-code AI app builder: a service that writes and publishes an app from instructions in plain language, so the makers write no code.", "Braylin Byrd and Christian Rac, high-school teammates in Texas who now run track for Texas Tech and Texas Southern, had about 150,000 Instagram followers from their training videos, and daily messages asking for their training plan. The app reached the App Store on 15 December 2025, and they announced it to their followers in January 2026. By 12 October 2026 it had US$162,777 of verified sales, US$30,898 of them in the last 30 days, and monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the subscription income that repeats every month, of US$14,367 from 4,283 active subscriptions. Monthly revenue peaked at US$22,145 in March 2026, fell to US$11,330 in July and returned to US$21,652 in September.", "The revenue figures are grade A. TrustMRR, a site that shows startups' revenue read directly from their payment accounts, and a second site, whatsthe.app, both read them from RevenueCat, a service that records App Store subscription payments for app makers. The founders' own figures, such as US$10,000 in the first month and the effect of a price cut, are grade C. The founders listed the app for sale in June 2026 at US$350,000. By 16 October 2026 the TrustMRR profile no longer loaded, and no source says that the app was sold, so this page treats it as running. The page also shows earlier companies that sold coaching or form feedback to athletes and lost to larger rivals." ], "factsCaption": "US$162,777 of verified sales in the ten months from the App Store release to 12 October 2026, read from RevenueCat, next to the founders' own statements", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read from the app's RevenueCat account by TrustMRR or by whatsthe.app. A grade B value is a record that Apple shows on the App Store. A grade C value is a statement by the founders, by Rork, which sells the app builder, or by a site that compiles them. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From a training post in May 2025 to a for-sale listing in June 2026 and a recovery in the autumn. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "3AK prices in October 2026, from the in-app purchase list on the US App Store page (grade B)", "note": "The App Store lists ten in-app purchase entries, with three different yearly prices, and does not say which buyer sees which. AI Dev Cases reads this as A/B testing: showing different prices to different users to compare how many buy. Calculated: the weekly plans cost about US$30.29 and US$43.29 a month (the price times 52, divided by 12). The founders launched at US$59.99 a year and US$9.99 a month. A separate 3AK Shopify store sells training programs.", "rows": [ [ "Yearly, lowest listed", "2.50", "", "US$29.99 a year; all features" ], [ "Yearly", "3.33", "", "US$39.99 a year" ], [ "Yearly, highest listed", "4.17", "", "US$49.99 a year" ], [ "Monthly", "", "9.99", "all features" ], [ "Weekly", "", "", "US$6.99 a week" ], [ "Weekly Pro", "", "", "US$9.99 a week" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Verified revenue to 12 October 2026, all time", "value": "US$162,777", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, read from the app's RevenueCat account through an API key, synced 12 October 2026. The monthly table starts in December 2025, so the 12-month figure is the same. The profile does not say whether Apple's commission is already taken off.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Verified revenue, last 30 days to 12 October 2026", "value": "US$30,898", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR. Last 7 days: US$8,047. Last 3 months: US$55,992. Last 6 months: US$104,492. The profile gives growth of 109.8% over the 30 days before; calculated, those earlier 30 days brought about US$14,727.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue (MRR), 12 October 2026", "value": "US$14,367 from 4,283 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR snapshot, up 27.0% in 30 days. Calculated: US$3.35 per subscription per month, and US$172,404 a year at that rate.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue by month", "value": "US$2,555 in December 2025, US$22,145 in March 2026, US$11,330 in July 2026, US$21,652 in September 2026", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly table. Calculated: July was 49% below March; September was 1.91 times July and 1.71 times August (US$12,676). July to September brought US$45,658, 12% less than April to June (US$52,006). The first 12 days of October brought US$15,992.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Second tracker, 28 days to 30 September 2026", "value": "US$21,344 of revenue, MRR of US$13,324, 3,817 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "whatsthe.app, which says \"All data is verified through RevenueCat\". MRR growth over 28 days: 9.8%. Calculated: US$3.49 of MRR per subscription, close to TrustMRR's US$3.35.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "First month, and the figure reported in March 2026", "value": "US$10,000 in the first month, US$17,460 in the last 28 days", "grade": "C", "note": "Rork's case study, 9 March 2026. It says the 28-day figure is \"verified by RevenueCat\" but shows no RevenueCat data, and its headline says US$19K a month. Rork sells the app builder. TrustMRR records US$11,887 for January and US$22,145 for March 2026.", "src": [ 4, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Fall reported for August 2026", "value": "about US$9,500 to US$10,200 a month", "grade": "C", "note": "AI Dev Cases, update of 25 September 2026, quoting TrustMRR (US$9,534 in the 30 days to 17 August) and whatsthe.app (MRR of US$10,218 in mid-August). It called the cause unconfirmed. Calculated: 45% and 42% below the US$17,460 that Rork reported in March.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "fact": "Prices on the US App Store, 16 October 2026", "value": "US$29.99, US$39.99 or US$49.99 a year; US$9.99 a month; US$6.99 or US$9.99 a week", "grade": "B", "note": "In-app purchase list on the App Store page. The founders say they launched at US$59.99 a year and US$9.99 a month, cut the yearly price to US$29.99, and that conversions tripled.", "src": [ 3, 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "What the subscription includes", "value": "AI stride and form analysis, AI coaching, workout programs, nutrition tracking, daily challenges, performance analytics", "grade": "B", "note": "App Store description: \"3AK requires a subscription to access all features\". The meal photo returns calories and macros. AI Dev Cases writes that the AI form analysis and the AI coach carry the product value.", "src": [ 3, 6 ] }, { "fact": "App Store rating, 16 October 2026", "value": "4.8 from about 2,200 ratings in the US, number 118 in Sports", "grade": "B", "note": "Shown as \"2.2K Ratings\". whatsthe.app counts about 2,300 ratings across all countries. Age rating 9+, marked as containing health or wellness topics. The description, written by the developer, says 50,000+ people train with it.", "src": [ 3, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Release on the App Store", "value": "15 December 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "whatsthe.app gives this worldwide release date. TrustMRR's founded date is 16 December 2025, and its first month of sales is December 2025 (US$2,555). The founders, Rork and MRR Story say they launched in January 2026.", "src": [ 2, 1, 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Founders", "value": "Braylin Byrd and Christian Rac, Division I college track athletes at Texas Tech and Texas Southern", "grade": "C", "note": "Rork, MRR Story and AI Dev Cases. They were teammates in high school and say they are 19 and 20 years old. The website shows Byrd as founder of 3AK; TrustMRR lists Rac as the founder and the seller.", "src": [ 4, 5, 7, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team at the October 2026 figure", "value": "2 co-founders and a third partner for 3AK Football; no employees reported", "grade": "C", "note": "MRR Story, May 2026: a third co-founder, a football player at West Virginia, joined to lead 3AK Football. Its profile card shows 2 founders and 0 employees. No source mentions staff.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Company and App Store account", "value": "3AKings LLC, Houston, Texas", "grade": "B", "note": "The App Store names 3AKings LLC as the seller; the website footer gives Houston, TX. The developer account is in the name of an individual whose first name is Christian, and it also publishes 3AK Football and two other apps. The TrustMRR seller message is signed \"Christian J\". No source says whether the account name is Christian Rac's legal name.", "src": [ 3, 7, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "No source mentions investors. MRR Story lists the costs as Rork subscriptions, Apple's developer fee of US$99 a year and Shopify at US$39 a month.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Audience before launch", "value": "112,000 Instagram followers on Byrd's account and 42,500 on Rac's", "grade": "C", "note": "Rork, 9 March 2026, repeated by AI Dev Cases in July 2026. Rork also shows Instagram growth from 20,000 to 110,000 followers in one year, without naming the account. Byrd's relay reel of 14 February 2026, with \"3AK Method in App Store to get this fast\" on screen, had about 118,300 likes.", "src": [ 4, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Paid advertising", "value": "Meta ads at US$50 to US$100 a day", "grade": "C", "note": "Seller message on TrustMRR: \"Only paid channel is Meta at $50–100/day\". Calculated: US$1,500 to US$3,000 a month. MRR Story says no money went to ads at launch. The profile's profit margin of 80.0% is not among the metrics that it says are verified.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Sale listing", "value": "US$350,000 asked, listed 19 June 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "TrustMRR copy of 12 October 2026: 16 offers received. whatsthe.app shows the price cut from US$500,000. Calculated: 0.94 times the last 30 days of revenue times 12, or 2.15 times all revenue so far.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Shopify store of training programs", "value": "US$100 to US$200 a day", "grade": "C", "note": "Rork and MRR Story. Separate from the app revenue above; no tracker shows it. Calculated: US$3,000 to US$6,000 a month.", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Time from store release to the October 2026 figure", "value": "10 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: December 2025 to October 2026.", "src": [ 2, 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "14 May 2025", "what": "A training post called \"Literal Cheat Code\" on the 3AK Instagram account gets about 3,300 likes. Commenters ask to see the method.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "Before December 2025", "what": "The two founders find Rork and spend 8 to 10 hours a day learning it, with ChatGPT to help them debug. Neither can code.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "when": "15 December 2025", "what": "Worldwide release on the App Store.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "December 2025", "what": "First verified sales: US$2,555.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "January 2026", "what": "Launch to their followers, with no paid ads by their account. TrustMRR records US$11,887 for the month; Rork reports US$10,000 in the first month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 4, 5 ] }, { "when": "14 February 2026", "what": "Byrd's relay reel with the app's name on screen gets about 118,300 likes and 549 comments.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "March 2026", "what": "The best month so far: US$22,145. On 9 March Rork publishes its case study with US$17,460 in 28 days. By then the yearly price has been cut from US$59.99 to US$29.99.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "when": "14 May 2026", "what": "Version 4.1.0 adds live run tracking and an activity tab. In May, MRR Story reports a third co-founder and a second app, 3AK Football.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 3, 5 ] }, { "when": "19 June 2026", "what": "Listed for sale on TrustMRR at US$350,000. The seller writes that he is out of time and working on too many projects.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "July 2026", "what": "Revenue falls to US$11,330, the lowest month since January.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "1 August 2026", "what": "Version 5.8 adds a \"General Health and Fitness path with sprint plans built for everyday athletes\". By October the app is called 3AK Sprinting.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 3, 1 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "Revenue returns to US$21,652. On 25 September AI Dev Cases reports the August fall.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 6 ] }, { "when": "12 October 2026", "what": "Last TrustMRR sync: US$30,898 in 30 days, MRR of US$14,367, 4,283 active subscriptions.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "16 October 2026", "what": "The live TrustMRR profile no longer loads. The App Store still shows the same seller and developer account, with version 6.7 released the day before.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 3, 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Audience first", "text": "Byrd and Rac posted their own training and race results for years; Byrd cut his 100-metre time from 11.4 to 10.2 seconds in one year. By launch they had about 150,000 followers and daily messages asking for their training plan. The app answered those messages, so buyers were waiting on the first day, and the founders say the first paying customer came from a reply to a direct message." }, { "title": "Promotion inside normal posts", "text": "The launch reels were race footage with one line of text: \"3AK Method in App Store to get this fast\". One had about 118,300 likes. The seller writes that Meta ads at US$50 to US$100 a day are the only paid channel, and that influencers, videos by other creators, App Store search optimization and marketing outside the US were never tried." }, { "title": "Priced for teenagers", "text": "The founders say their buyers are high-school and college athletes aged about 15 to 22. They cut the yearly price from US$59.99 to US$29.99, about US$2.50 a month, and say conversions tripled. Calculated from TrustMRR, the average subscription now brings US$3.35 a month." }, { "title": "A niche the large apps leave open", "text": "The founders describe Strava and Nike Run Club as apps that track miles. 3AK reads a sprint start, the drive phase and top speed from a phone video, the questions that sprinters ask. In August 2026 it widened to everyday people who want to get fit by sprinting, and September revenue was 1.91 times July's." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the founders, Rork, the TrustMRR profile and the App Store page. Only the App Store records are checked by Apple; the rest is grade C.", "items": [ "Built entirely in Rork by two founders with no coding experience. The app's bundle ID, its internal name on the App Store, starts with app.rork.", "ChatGPT helped them debug when they were stuck.", "TrustMRR's tech stack, entered by the founder, lists SwiftUI, Apple's interface framework, for the app, Supabase for the backend database and RevenueCat for subscriptions.", "The AI features: stride analysis of an uploaded video in six phases, an AI coach in a chat, and meal photos turned into calories and macros. No source names the AI models behind them.", "The App Store page lists 25 versions between 4 April and 15 October 2026, most of them bug fixes. Reviews in February and March reported failed video uploads and unreadable coach messages.", "A Shopify store sells training programs as PDF files that promote the app, and the app promotes the store.", "Costs named by the founders: Rork subscriptions, Apple's US$99 a year and Shopify's US$39 a month, plus the Meta ads that the seller describes." ], "src": [ 4, 5, 1, 3 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold coaching, form feedback or fitness tracking to active people and failed, all of them against larger competitors. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Charge Running", "years": "2021 to 2024", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Live running classes with a coach speaking in your headphones, as in a group class.", "died": "The database summary says AI fitness apps gave the same personal attention without fixed class times.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/895-charge-running" }, { "name": "Enflux", "years": "2016 to 2019", "funding": "US$1M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Clothing with sensors that tracked movement in 3D and gave real-time feedback on exercise form.", "died": "Hardware with high manufacturing costs, in a wearables market led by Fitbit and Apple.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1089-enflux" }, { "name": "Jawbone", "years": "1999 to 2017", "funding": "US$930M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "UP fitness wristbands that turned daily activity data into health advice.", "died": "Lost to Fitbit and Apple after US$930 million of funding, product recalls and lawsuits.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/257-jawbone" }, { "name": "Fitmob", "years": "2013 to 2017", "funding": "US$9.8M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Low-cost group workouts in many venues, with a community around them.", "died": "ClassPass won the studio partnerships while Fitmob spent about US$10 million organizing pop-up classes.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/151-fitmob" } ], "whatChanged": [ "All four predecessors needed expensive things to deliver coaching or feedback: sensor clothing (Enflux), wristbands (Jawbone), live instructors on a schedule (Charge Running) or class venues (Fitmob). Each raised venture money, and each lost to a larger competitor. 3AK needs no hardware and no instructors: the analysis works on a video from the user's own phone, and the costs that the founders name are software subscriptions, Apple's fee and Meta ads of US$50 to US$100 a day.", "The second difference is how customers arrived. The predecessors had to find their users; 3AK started with two athletes' Instagram audiences, which the founders built over years from their own training posts. The cause that ended all four, a larger competitor, is still present: Strava, which says it has more than 150 million registered users, agreed in April 2025 to buy Runna and its AI-powered training plans." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes, if you already have the audience.", "text": "The founders built the app without code, so the software is not the hard part. The hard part took years: about 150,000 followers who trusted two athletes because of their own race results, and who asked for the product before it existed. Without such an audience, the same app would have to buy its users with ads.", "steps": [ "Choose a sport you compete in, and post your own training and race results until people ask for your plan.", "Treat the questions people send you as the feature list.", "Build the app with a no-code builder, put the analysis and the coach behind a subscription, and show the app inside your normal posts.", "Price for the buyers you have: these founders halved the yearly price for high-school athletes." ], "open": "Sports in which a phone camera can see the technique and young athletes follow athlete-creators: jumps, throws, swimming and pitching. 3AK Football and Wrestle AI already cover two other sports." }, "watch": [ { "title": "A summer fall, then a recovery", "text": "Revenue fell from US$22,145 in March to US$11,330 in July, and AI Dev Cases reported MRR near US$10,000 in August. September brought US$21,652, and the 30 days to 12 October brought US$30,898. The rise came after the 1 August update that opened the app to everyday fitness users; no source says that the update caused it." }, { "title": "For sale, and the TrustMRR profile is gone", "text": "The app has been listed since 19 June 2026 at US$350,000, cut from US$500,000 on whatsthe.app. By 16 October 2026 the live TrustMRR profile no longer loaded, and the Wayback Machine has no copy. No source says that the app was sold, and the App Store still shows the same seller and developer account. A buyer would not get the two Instagram accounts that bring most customers." }, { "title": "Strava and Runna", "text": "Strava announced on 17 April 2025 that it would buy Runna, a running-plan app that Tom's Guide calls an AI run coaching app. Strava's own AI feature, Athlete Intelligence, entered a beta test for subscribers in May 2024. Runna's plans target races such as 5K runs and marathons. Neither source mentions sprint video analysis, which either company could add." }, { "title": "Rork and unnamed AI models", "text": "The founders do not write code, so every update depends on Rork, its prices and its terms. The stride analysis and the coach use AI models that no source names, so this page cannot say what they cost or who could change them." }, { "title": "Another Rork coach on this site", "text": "Wrestle AI, a wrestling coach also built in Rork and promoted through a creator's audience, reported US$131,863 in total revenue by February 2026 in Rork's figures (grade C), while 3AK's figures come from RevenueCat through two trackers (grade A)." }, { "title": "Statements that do not agree", "text": "MRR Story says no money went to ads at launch and that the founders tested videos by other creators; the seller message says Meta ads are the only paid channel and that such videos were never run. The founders say January 2026, while sales started in December 2025. The website says sprinting gives \"More testosterone and growth hormone, naturally\"; this page did not check that claim. Apple rates the app 9+, and the founders say most buyers are 15 to 22 years old." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile of 3AK Track & Field, as read on 12 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/3ak-track-field.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile in full, from the copy that this site's pipeline saved; revenue synced 12 October 2026 from RevenueCat through an API key. The live profile no longer loaded on 16 October 2026, and the Wayback Machine has no copy. Revenue, MRR and subscription counts are grade A; the seller message, the asking price, the tech stack and the profit margin are written by the founder, grade C." }, { "title": "whatsthe.app listing of 3AK", "url": "https://www.whatsthe.app/braylin", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full on 16 October 2026. Metrics \"verified through RevenueCat\", last updated 30 September 2026. Source for the second revenue reading, the release date and the price cut of the listing." }, { "title": "Apple App Store: 3AK Sprinting", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6756290066", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full on 16 October 2026. Source for the features, the subscription list, the age rating, the ratings, the seller, the developer account and the version history." }, { "title": "Rork blog, 9 March 2026: Two college athletes are making $19K/mo with an app they built in Rork", "url": "https://rork.com/blog/3ak-case-study", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Written by Rork, which sells the app builder. Source for the founders, the first-month revenue, the 28-day figure, the Instagram audiences, the reels and the price cut." }, { "title": "MRR Story, May 2026: This No-Code Sports App Hit $45K in 2 Months", "url": "https://www.mrrstory.com/stories/this-no-code-sports-app-hit-45k-in-2-months", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Written in the founders' voice; the page does not say whether they were interviewed. Source for the tools, the costs, the ages, the third co-founder and 3AK Football." }, { "title": "AI Dev Cases, 13 July 2026, updated 25 September 2026: How 3AK was built in Rork", "url": "https://aidevcases.com/en/cases/3ak", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A compiled case study. Source for the August 2026 fall that it read from two trackers and for the reading of the price list as A/B testing." }, { "title": "3AK website", "url": "https://3akathletics.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full on 16 October 2026. Source for the company name and city, the general-fitness message and Byrd's role as founder." }, { "title": "Strava press release, 17 April 2025: Strava to Acquire Runna, A Leading Running Training App", "url": "https://press.strava.com/articles/strava-to-acquire-runna-a-leading-running-training-app", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. The acquirer's own announcement; the user count is Strava's own figure. Source for the date and the 150+ million registered users." }, { "title": "Tom's Guide: Strava just bought the AI run coaching app Runna", "url": "https://www.tomsguide.com/wellness/fitness/strava-just-bought-the-ai-run-coaching-app-runna-heres-what-it-means-for-you", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the article. A reviewer's description of Runna's AI-powered training plans." }, { "title": "Strava press release, 16 May 2024, on Fitt Insider: Strava unveils new chapter of accelerated product development", "url": "https://insider.fitt.co/press-release/strava-unveils-new-chapter-of-accelerated-product-development-at-brands-flagship-event/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the press release. Source for Athlete Intelligence, Strava's AI feature in beta for subscribers." }, { "title": "Aiolum story: Wrestle AI", "url": "https://aiolum.com/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the story file on this site for the one-sentence comparison. Its revenue figures come from Rork, grade C." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/draft-ai/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/draft-ai.md", "slug": "draft-ai", "name": "Draft AI", "country": "Georgia", "sector": "Information Technology", "productType": "iPhone app that turns voice memos into carousels and posts", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "solo", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "15 August 2025", "outcomeLabel": "US$21.6K MRR, October 2026", "sticker": "$259K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 259332, "months": 14, "teamLabel": "1 person, a private entrepreneur in Georgia; no other person is named in any source", "fundingLabel": "None reported", "primaryFactor": "Simplicity", "group": "marketing-content", "channel": "unknown", "trend": "falling", "collections": [ "phone-app" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 3, "capital": 1 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Solo founder", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Marketing content" ], "product": "An iPhone app that turns a voice memo of 30 seconds to 2 minutes into an Instagram or LinkedIn carousel, a reel or TikTok script, a thread for X, story scripts and hooks. It places the text on templates and exports PNG images or a PDF. It can also learn the user's writing style, suggest post ideas, and turn a pasted video link into the user's own carousel.", "why": "A carousel needs both writing and design. Draft AI asks for a minute of speech instead and returns finished slides, plus scripts, threads and hooks from the same recording. It charges before the first result, so everyone who uses it has subscribed or started the trial of a paid plan.", "summary": [ "Draft AI is an iPhone app that turns a short voice recording into social media posts. The user speaks an idea for 30 seconds to 2 minutes. The app makes a transcript, the written text of the recording, with OpenAI's Whisper service. Then a large language model, a program trained on large amounts of text that writes new text from an instruction, turns the transcript into the chosen format: a carousel, a post of several image slides that the reader swipes through on Instagram or LinkedIn, a script for a short video, a thread for X, or hooks, the first lines of a post that make a reader stop and read. The app places the carousel text on templates and exports PNG images or a PDF, and the user posts them. The models are reached through OpenRouter, a service that gives one programming interface to models from many companies.", "Valery Alexeev is the only person that any source connects to the app. Apple lists the seller as Valerii Alekseev, a person and not a company, and the app's legal pages name the operator as \"P/E Valerii Alekseev\": a private entrepreneur, which is a legal form for one person doing business, with an address in Tbilisi, Georgia. Version 1.0 appeared on the App Store on 15 August 2025. The download is free, but the app generates nothing until the user subscribes to Draft+ at US$14.99 a month or US$99.99 a year. This design is a hard paywall: a payment screen in front of the main feature, with no free version behind it. On 16 October 2026 the app had 1,672 active subscriptions and an MRR, monthly recurring revenue, the subscription revenue that repeats every month, of US$21,611, or about US$259,000 a year.", "The revenue figures are grade A. TrustMRR, a site that publishes startup revenue read directly from the payment system, takes them from RevenueCat, a service that app makers use to manage subscriptions sold through the app stores, through an API key, a password that lets one program read another program's data. A second site, whatsthe.app, connects to the app's RevenueCat account separately and showed an MRR of US$23,181 on the same day. The monthly figures form an uneven line: US$36,614 in January 2026, US$14,206 in June, US$34,650 in August and US$25,520 in September, so this page marks the trend as falling. No source says how customers find the app." ], "factsCaption": "Payment-system data shows US$21,611 in monthly recurring revenue and US$268,272 earned from December 2025 to 16 October 2026, below the best months of January and August 2026", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value comes from the app's subscription data in RevenueCat, read by TrustMRR or whatsthe.app through the owner's API key. A grade C value comes from the app's own pages, the App Store listing or the founder's entries on TrustMRR. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From the first App Store version to US$21,611 in monthly recurring revenue in 14 months, with two high points and a deep fall between them. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Draft AI prices in October 2026, from the in-app purchase list on the US App Store page and the app's terms (grade C)", "note": "All plans are Apple in-app subscriptions, and Apple handles refunds. The monthly plan has no free trial. The yearly plan starts with a 7-day trial limited to 10 generations, then gives unlimited generations. Without a subscription the app generates nothing. The App Store list also shows \"Draft+ / Skip Trial\" at US$79.99, and no source says what period it covers. Prices vary by country.", "rows": [ [ "Free download", "0", "0", "no generations: the app can be opened, not used" ], [ "Draft+ yearly", "8.33", "", "US$99.99 a year; 7-day trial with 10 generations, then unlimited" ], [ "Draft+ monthly", "", "14.99", "unlimited generations; no trial" ], [ "Draft+ Skip Trial", "", "", "US$79.99 listed; period not stated" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue, 16 October 2026", "value": "US$21,611", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, from RevenueCat through the founder's API key, synced on 16 October 2026 at 20:56 UTC. A second TrustMRR profile for the same app shows the same figure and is counted once.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Active subscriptions, 16 October 2026", "value": "1,672", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, from RevenueCat.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days, to 16 October 2026", "value": "US$21,361", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR. The profile gives the change against the 30 days before as -25.3%.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Total verified revenue, December 2025 to 16 October 2026", "value": "US$268,272", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR's all-time figure; its monthly table starts in December 2025. The second profile starts in February 2026 and shows US$207,379, which is the same total without December and January. No source gives revenue for August to November 2025.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Second verification, 16 October 2026", "value": "MRR US$23,181; revenue US$23,639", "grade": "A", "note": "whatsthe.app, a leaderboard that reads app revenue through the owner's read-only RevenueCat key, for the app with the bundle ID app.Draft. The page does not state the period of its revenue column. Its MRR is 7.26% above TrustMRR's.", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue by month", "value": "Dec 2025 US$24,279; Jan 2026 US$36,614; Feb US$31,303; Mar US$32,080; Apr US$18,997; May US$18,286; Jun US$14,206; Jul US$21,839; Aug US$34,650; Sep US$25,520", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, from RevenueCat. October 2026 stood at US$10,496 on the 16th.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Change from the best recent months", "value": "September 2026: 26.3% below August and 30.3% below January", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from the monthly rows. The last 30 days are 38.4% below August. June 2026 was 61.2% below January, and August was 143.9% above June.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate", "value": "about US$259,332 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: the MRR of US$21,611 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue per active subscription", "value": "about US$12.93 a month", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: MRR divided by 1,672 subscriptions. It lies between the yearly plan, US$8.33 a month, and the monthly plan, US$14.99.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "fact": "Profit margin, last 30 days", "value": "95.0%", "grade": "C", "note": "Shown on the second TrustMRR profile. The profile does not say which costs are counted, so this page does not treat it as verified.", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "fact": "First App Store version", "value": "1.0, 15 August 2025", "grade": "C", "note": "App Store version history. The privacy policy and terms are effective from 2 August 2025. The founder's TrustMRR entry gives 1 September 2025 as the founding date.", "src": [ 4, 5, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "1 person", "grade": "C", "note": "Apple lists the seller as an individual, Valerii Alekseev. The legal pages name the operator as P/E Valerii Alekseev, a private entrepreneur. No source names a co-founder or an employee.", "src": [ 4, 5, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Country", "value": "Georgia", "grade": "C", "note": "The privacy policy gives the operator's address in Tbilisi, Georgia.", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported", "grade": "C", "note": "No source mentions investors.", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "fact": "App Store ratings, 16 October 2026", "value": "35 ratings, average 4.0", "grade": "C", "note": "US App Store page.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Versions released", "value": "21, from 15 August 2025 to 16 September 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "App Store version history.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Time from launch to the October 2026 figure", "value": "14 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: August 2025 to October 2026.", "src": [ 1, 4 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "2 August 2025", "what": "The privacy policy and the terms of service take effect. They name the operator as P/E Valerii Alekseev.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 6 ] }, { "when": "15 August 2025", "what": "Version 1.0 appears on the App Store. Four small updates follow by 30 August.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "12 September 2025", "what": "Version 1.1: photos in the carousel editor, more languages, and an option to ask the AI to keep the user's original words.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "21 October 2025", "what": "Version 1.1.1: an updated carousel editor with new templates, fonts, photo upload and export to PDF.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "2 November 2025", "what": "The app is listed on whatsthe.app, a leaderboard that reads app revenue from RevenueCat.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3 ] }, { "when": "December 2025", "what": "The first month in TrustMRR's verified history: US$24,279.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "6 January 2026", "what": "Version 1.2.0 adds an idea generator: the user describes a niche and swipes through suggested posts with hooks, right to save, left to skip.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "January 2026", "what": "The best month so far: US$36,614. February and March stay above US$31,000.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "24 April 2026", "what": "Version 1.3: the user pastes a link to a TikTok, Instagram or YouTube video, and the app turns it into the user's own carousel, post or script.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "when": "April to June 2026", "what": "Revenue falls to US$18,997, then US$18,286, then US$14,206 a month, 61.2% below January.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "24 July 2026", "what": "The updated privacy policy names the services behind the app: OpenAI's Whisper API for speech, OpenRouter for text generation, and Apify for reading public Instagram posts.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "when": "August 2026", "what": "Revenue comes back to US$34,650, the second-best month, 143.9% above June.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "US$25,520. Version 1.4.1 is released on 16 September.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 4 ] }, { "when": "16 October 2026", "what": "MRR of US$21,611 from 1,672 active subscriptions, and US$21,361 in the last 30 days, 25.3% less than in the 30 days before. whatsthe.app shows an MRR of US$23,181.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1, 3 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "Speak instead of type", "text": "The user records 30 seconds to 2 minutes of speech. OpenAI's Whisper API turns the audio into text, and the privacy policy says the audio file is deleted right after processing. A language model reached through OpenRouter then writes the carousel, script or thread. The App Store page's own example is a morning walk that becomes a carousel." }, { "title": "Writing and design in one step", "text": "A carousel needs text and a layout. The app places the generated text on templates, with fonts, brand colors, photo upload and sizes for Instagram and LinkedIn, and exports PNG or PDF. The user does not need a separate design tool." }, { "title": "Payment before the first result", "text": "Free users can open the app but generate nothing. The yearly plan starts with a 7-day trial limited to 10 generations, and the monthly plan has no trial. The terms mention an older system of prepaid balances that is being phased out. So every person who gets a result is a subscriber, or a trial user whose subscription starts unless cancelled." }, { "title": "One recording, many formats", "text": "The same voice memo gives an Instagram carousel, LinkedIn slides, a reel or TikTok script, an X thread, story scripts and hooks, in English and 25 more languages. New versions added new inputs to the same app: an idea generator in January 2026 and video links in April 2026." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the app's privacy policy, the page source of getdraft.io, the App Store listing and the technology list on the second TrustMRR profile, which the founder fills in. They are grade C.", "items": [ "The iPhone app is built with SwiftUI, Apple's framework for app screens, according to the TrustMRR technology list.", "The server and the website use Laravel, a PHP framework, according to the same list. The page source of getdraft.io shows Inertia.js, a library that connects a server framework such as Laravel to JavaScript pages.", "Speech to text: the OpenAI Whisper API. Text: \"various AI models\" through the OpenRouter API, and the privacy policy says the app optimizes \"AI model selection\". No source names the models.", "When a user gives Instagram links as examples, Apify, a web-scraping service, extracts the public content so that the app can write similar posts.", "Payments: Apple In-App Purchase, with RevenueCat for subscription management and analytics. The TrustMRR list also names Stripe; no source says what Stripe is used for.", "Measurement: Firebase Analytics, Mixpanel and Sentry in the app, and the Meta Pixel and PostHog on the website. Sign-in is with Apple, or anonymous and tied to the device.", "The website has a blog with 84 articles in its sitemap, dated from November 2025 to October 2026, for example a comparison of AI and manual carousel design." ], "src": [ 5, 7, 4, 2, 8 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold tools that made posting or writing easier, and the platforms or larger software makers then built the same help into their own products or changed the rules. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Pixelpipe", "years": "2008 to 2013", "funding": "US$2M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Post photos, videos and audio to many social networks at once.", "died": "Facebook and Twitter added their own sharing features and closed their APIs to it, and it never found a way to charge.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/435-pixelpipe" }, { "name": "PostRocket", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$610K", "cause": "Product/Tech Failure", "promise": "More reach for brands' Facebook posts, by choosing the time and the content.", "died": "Facebook changed its feed and its rules and pushed brands toward its own ads, while Hootsuite and Buffer covered more networks.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/457-postrocket" }, { "name": "Draft", "years": "2011 to 2014", "funding": "US$120K", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A simple writing tool with version control and editing help for writers.", "died": "Google Docs added similar features, and a free plan without a clear way to paid use did not cover the costs.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1605-draft" }, { "name": "Argyle Social", "years": "2009 to 2013", "funding": "US$2.5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "A social media marketing tool for engagement and sales leads.", "died": "Larger competitors outspent it on marketing, and the platforms it depended on built their own tools for brands.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/1832-argyle-social" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Each of the four helped people publish on platforms that it did not own, and each closed after the platforms, or larger software makers, built the same help in or changed their rules. Draft AI depends on the same kind of owners: LinkedIn offered its members AI-written drafts of posts from 2023 until it removed its AI writer in September 2026, Instagram was testing captions written by Meta AI in March 2025, and Apple controls the store and the payments.", "Two things differ. First, Draft AI does not use any platform's API to publish: it exports images and the user posts them, so a change in LinkedIn's or Instagram's interfaces cannot switch it off. Second, it charges before the first result through Apple's subscription system, so its revenue does not wait for a business model. Its new weak point is the platforms' attitude to AI text: LinkedIn now lets members report posts as AI slop and shows such posts less outside the writer's own network." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The product, yes. The sales channel is not public.", "text": "Every part is a bought service: speech to text from OpenAI, text models through OpenRouter, payments through Apple and RevenueCat. The founder added one flow from speech to finished slides, and a price before the first result. No source explains how 1,672 subscribers found the app, so a copy has to solve that part alone.", "steps": [ "Choose a format that needs two tools today, such as writing plus design for carousels, and make one app do both.", "Take the input by voice, so that the user does not have to sit down and write.", "Charge before the first result: a monthly plan, and a yearly plan with a short trial that has a usage limit.", "Connect the subscription account to a revenue-verification site, so that buyers and partners can check the numbers." ], "open": "Other formats that need text plus layout: newsletters, slide decks, captions for short videos, and posts for platforms whose own AI writing tools are limited." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Revenue is below its best months", "text": "September 2026 was 26.3% below August and 30.3% below January, and the last 30 days were 25.3% below the 30 days before. Revenue fell 61.2% from January to June 2026 and then came back, so the history is short and uneven. The verified data starts in December 2025, four months after launch." }, { "title": "The platforms write posts too", "text": "By 26 September 2023 LinkedIn had a tool that writes a first draft of a post from a member's ideas. In March 2025 Instagram was testing \"Write with Meta AI\", which suggests captions and comments based on the photo. Either company can add more writing help to its own app at no charge to members." }, { "title": "LinkedIn is acting against AI-written posts", "text": "On 31 July 2026 LinkedIn added a \"Seems like AI slop\" report option, said that it already shows low-effort AI posts less outside the writer's own network, and removed its own AI rewriting feature. Metricool reported on 2 October 2026 that members had used the report option more than a million times in under three weeks, and that Premium members now get a proofreader that only edits their own words. Posts that read as machine-written may reach fewer people." }, { "title": "The same field on this site", "text": "Kleo and EasyGen, LinkedIn writing tools run by small teams, reported more than US$1 million in revenue by September 2026 and US$41,500 a month in 2024, and aiCarousels, a one-person Swedish carousel tool, reported US$5,000 a month in November 2023; all three are founder statements (grade C), while Draft AI is the only one of the four with payment-system data and the only phone app." }, { "title": "Apple sets the terms", "text": "Every subscription runs through Apple's in-app purchase system, and Apple decides refunds. Apple's commission is 15% for developers with up to US$1 million in yearly proceeds, and its standard rate applies above that. App review, store search and refunds are all Apple's decisions, and no source shows sales outside the App Store." }, { "title": "Bought models", "text": "Transcription comes from OpenAI's Whisper API and the writing from models reached through OpenRouter. Other companies set their prices, rules and quality, and the same models are open to every competitor and to Meta and LinkedIn." }, { "title": "Content made from other creators' posts", "text": "Since version 1.3 users can paste a link to another person's TikTok, Instagram or YouTube video and turn it into their own post, and the privacy policy says Apify extracts public Instagram content to \"Generate similar content based on examples\". The platforms or the original creators may object to posts made this way." }, { "title": "Unknown sales channel, one RevenueCat account", "text": "No source says how customers find the app. The founder's X account had 169 followers, and the website loads the Meta Pixel, code that measures visitors for Facebook and Instagram advertising; no source says whether ads were bought. He also sells two other apps. The revenue sources tie the data to the Draft app's bundle ID, app.Draft, but cannot show whether the other two apps report into the same RevenueCat account." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR, Draft AI markdown profile (slug draft-ai), revenue synced 16 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/draft-ai.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile. Revenue, MRR, subscriptions and the monthly table come from RevenueCat through an API key, as its Verification Sources section states; the description and founder fields are founder-written (grade C)." }, { "title": "TrustMRR, Draft AI markdown profile (slug draft-ai-1), revenue synced 16 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/draft-ai-1.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile. The same RevenueCat data with a shorter history, counted once. Source for the founding date, the technology list and the profit margin, which are founder entries or unexplained (grade C)." }, { "title": "whatsthe.app leaderboard, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.whatsthe.app/leaderboard", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the table row and the embedded listing data for Draft AI: MRR, revenue, bundle ID, credential type and listing date." }, { "title": "App Store: Draft AI: Carousel Post Maker, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6749152418", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. The description is the developer's; the seller, the in-app purchase prices, the ratings, the version history and the developer's other apps are shown by Apple." }, { "title": "Draft privacy policy, last updated 24 July 2026", "url": "https://app.getdraft.io/legal/privacy-policy", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the operator, the country, and the AI, analytics and payment services." }, { "title": "Draft terms of service, last updated 24 July 2026", "url": "https://app.getdraft.io/legal/terms-of-service", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the plans, the trial, the generation limits and the prepaid balances." }, { "title": "Draft AI home page, getdraft.io, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://getdraft.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "The page renders by script. Read the landing text embedded in its page data, and the page source, which names the Meta Pixel and PostHog and uses Inertia.js." }, { "title": "getdraft.io sitemap, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://getdraft.io/sitemap.xml", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Lists the home page, the blog and 84 blog articles with their dates." }, { "title": "Apple Developer: App Store Small Business Program", "url": "https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Source for the 15% commission and the US$1 million threshold." }, { "title": "Digital Works, 26 September 2023: LinkedIn's AI-powered writing tool for posts", "url": "https://digitalworks.dk/en/artikler/linkedins-ai-powered-writing-tool-for-posts", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. A Danish agency's description of LinkedIn's tool that drafts posts." }, { "title": "Passionfruit, 19 March 2025: You Can Now Write Instagram Captions and Comments With AI", "url": "https://passionfru.it/instagram-ai-comments-161432/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Reports Instagram's suggested captions written by Meta AI." }, { "title": "Ubergizmo, 21 March 2025, by Paulo Montenegro: Meta Tests AI-Generated Comments To Enhance User Interaction On Instagram", "url": "https://www.ubergizmo.com/2025/03/meta-ai-instagram/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Reports the Write with Meta AI test and quotes Meta's statement." }, { "title": "ProPakistani, 31 July 2026: LinkedIn Finally Adds a Button To Kill All That AI Slop", "url": "https://propakistani.pk/2026/07/31/linkedin-finally-adds-a-button-to-kill-all-that-ai-slop/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full. Reports LinkedIn's statements; LinkedIn's own pages were not read because linkedin.com may not be fetched." }, { "title": "Metricool, 2 October 2026: LinkedIn Swaps Its AI Post Writer for a Proofreading Tool", "url": "https://metricool.com/linkedin-post-proofreader/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read in full." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] }, { "url": "https://aiolum.com/story/brawler/", "markdown": "https://aiolum.com/story/brawler.md", "slug": "brawler", "name": "Brawler", "country": "USA", "sector": "Consumer software", "productType": "AI boxing coach app that scores training video", "aiType": "AI-native", "team": "small", "outcome": "running", "evidence": "A", "added": "2026-10-16", "launchLabel": "1 May 2026", "outcomeLabel": "US$22.6K MRR, October 2026", "sticker": "$271K/yr run rate", "outcomeUsd": 271200, "months": 5, "teamLabel": "2 people according to one sale listing; only the founder is named", "fundingLabel": "None reported; listed as bootstrapped", "primaryFactor": "Distribution", "group": "health-appearance", "channel": "creators", "trend": "growing", "collections": [ "phone-app" ], "meters": { "evidence": 3, "copyable": 2, "capital": 2 }, "tags": [ "AI-native", "Small team", "Bootstrapped", "Running", "B2C", "Health and fitness" ], "product": "An iPhone app that coaches boxing. The user uploads a video of shadowboxing, bag work or sparring, and the AI scores the technique in seven areas (stance and balance, guard, footwork, punch selection, combinations, head movement, range control) with corrections and drills. It also has an AI chat coach, training programs, a punch callout mode with audio cues, a round timer, AI food logging from a photo, a barcode or voice, and a weight-cut mode. Every feature needs a subscription.", "why": "It moved the structure of the founder's first app, Wrestle AI, to boxing, a sport that people can train alone: an AI breakdown of a training video, a calorie tracker and a weight-cut mode, all behind a subscription at the same prices. Users came from Meta ads and influencers, according to the founder's TrustMRR profile, with a self-reported marketing spend of US$10,000 a month.", "summary": [ "Brawler, sold on the App Store as BRAWLER- Future of Boxing, is an iPhone app that coaches boxing. The user uploads a video of shadowboxing, bag work or sparring, and the app's AI scores the technique in seven areas, from stance and guard to head movement and range control, with corrections and drills. It also has an AI chat coach, training programs, a round timer and AI food logging. Every feature sits behind a paywall, a screen that asks for payment before the app can be used: US$9.99 a month or US$59.99 a year. One sale listing marks it as made with Rork, a no-code AI app builder that writes a phone app from instructions in plain language, and names OpenAI as its AI provider.", "The app went live on 1 May 2026, sold by Brawler LLC. The Superwall Podcast of 15 October 2026 counts it among the three apps of George Lampropoulos, and his first app has its own story on this site: Wrestle AI. Brawler's App Store page links to wrestleai.app as its developer website. TrustMRR reads the app's sales through an API key, a password that lets one program read another program's data, for RevenueCat, a service that records in-app subscription purchases for app makers. It shows US$146,852 in total revenue to 16 October 2026 and MRR, monthly recurring revenue, in which a yearly plan counts as one twelfth of its price, of US$22,600 from 4,180 active subscriptions. September, at US$48,741, was more than double August.", "The revenue figures are grade A, because they come from the app's own subscription records, not from screenshots. The ownership is less clear. TrustMRR names no founder. One whatsthe.app listing names the founder as @Georgelampro20 and asks US$200,000; a second whatsthe.app listing for the same app, named Strikr, names no one, gives a team of 2 and asks US$127,940. Daily revenue in mid-October was about 45% below late September. The page also shows earlier coaching and fitness companies that failed, and the risks of a five-month-old app that is offered for sale." ], "factsCaption": "US$146,852 of RevenueCat-verified revenue in five and a half months and US$22,600 of MRR by 16 October 2026, with two sale listings at different prices", "factsRead": "How to read this table: a grade A value was read by TrustMRR or whatsthe.app from the app's RevenueCat account through an API key. A grade B value is a record that Apple shows on the App Store. A grade C value was written by the seller or the founder, on a listing, on the App Store or in a podcast description. A \"calc\" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.", "timelineLead": "From release to two sale listings and US$22,600 of MRR in five and a half months. Each entry carries its grade.", "pricing": { "caption": "Brawler prices on the US App Store, read 16 October 2026 (grade C)", "note": "Every feature needs a subscription. The App Store lists ten in-app purchases. The first three rows are the prices that TrustMRR and both whatsthe.app listings show for the app; Apple also lists seven BRAWLER Pro prices, and no source says which users see them. Yearly plans are paid once a year; the per-month values in the table are the yearly price divided by 12.", "rows": [ [ "Monthly", "", "9.99", "all features" ], [ "Yearly", "5.00", "", "US$59.99 a year" ], [ "Discounted Yearly BRAWLR Premium", "2.50", "", "US$29.99 a year; named as a discount" ], [ "BRAWLER Pro Monthly", "", "5.99 to 12.99", "three prices listed: US$5.99, US$7.99, US$12.99" ], [ "BRAWLER Pro Yearly", "1.50 to 3.33", "", "four prices listed: US$17.99, US$24.99, US$35.99, US$39.99 a year" ] ] }, "facts": [ { "fact": "Monthly recurring revenue (MRR), 16 October 2026", "value": "US$22,600", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, revenue synced on 16 October 2026 at 22:57 UTC through a RevenueCat API key. 4,180 active subscriptions. TrustMRR gives MRR growth of 76.7% in the last 30 days.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Run rate from the October 2026 MRR", "value": "about US$271,200 a year", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$22,600 times 12.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Total revenue, May to 16 October 2026", "value": "US$146,852", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, all time. The six monthly values in the profile add up to US$146,851; the difference of US$1 is rounding.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue in the last 30 days, to 16 October 2026", "value": "US$58,752", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR, which gives growth of 149.3% over the 30 days before. Revenue is the money received, so a yearly plan counts in full on the day it is paid; that is why this is 2.6 times the MRR.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Revenue by month, 2026", "value": "May US$4,152; June US$17,996; July US$26,161; August US$23,482; September US$48,741; October to the 16th US$26,319", "grade": "A", "note": "TrustMRR monthly timeline. May is the month of release.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Rise in September 2026", "value": "US$25,259 more than August, plus 107.6%", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$48,741 minus US$23,482. September was also 86.3% above July. No source explains the rise. The App Store shows version 2.3, with a boxing course, on 17 August and version 2.5.0 on 5 September.", "src": [ 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Daily revenue, late September and mid-October 2026", "value": "about US$2,495 a day on 18 to 30 September, about US$1,368 a day on 10 to 16 October", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated from TrustMRR's daily table: 45.2% lower. The October average to the 16th, US$1,645 a day, is still close to the September average of US$1,625 a day.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "whatsthe.app listing named Brawler, 1 October 2026", "value": "US$48,709 in 28 days, MRR of US$18,768, 3,407 active subscriptions, 22,026 new customers in 28 days", "grade": "A", "note": "Read by whatsthe.app through RevenueCat, last updated on 1 October 2026. The founder is named as @Georgelampro20, and the leaderboard data marks the listing \"revenuecat-verified\".", "src": [ 3, 5 ] }, { "fact": "whatsthe.app listing named Strikr, 2 October 2026", "value": "US$49,923 in 28 days, MRR of US$19,093, 3,464 active subscriptions", "grade": "A", "note": "It links the same App Store page and gives the same bundle ID, app.rork.boxing-pro-ai-trainer. No founder is named, the leaderboard data marks it \"revenuecat\", and the page says that the RevenueCat API key expired, with data last updated on 2 October 2026.", "src": [ 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Asking prices", "value": "US$200,000 on TrustMRR and on the whatsthe.app Brawler listing; US$127,940 on the whatsthe.app Strikr listing", "grade": "C", "note": "Set by the sellers. TrustMRR: first listed on 18 June 2026, 17 offers received. whatsthe.app: the Brawler listing was created on 19 June 2026 and the Strikr listing on 12 July 2026.", "src": [ 1, 3, 4, 5 ] }, { "fact": "Asking price compared with revenue", "value": "about 0.74 times a year of MRR, or 0.28 times the last 30 days of revenue times 12", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: US$200,000 divided by US$271,200, and by US$705,024. TrustMRR shows the second ratio rounded to 0.3x.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "fact": "Founder", "value": "George Lampropoulos", "grade": "C", "note": "The Superwall Podcast description of 15 October 2026 counts Brawler among his three apps. The whatsthe.app listing names the founder as @Georgelampro20. TrustMRR names no founder.", "src": [ 6, 3, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Team", "value": "2 people", "grade": "C", "note": "Self-reported on the Strikr listing, which names no one. The podcast description mentions a popup that lets users book a call with \"the founders\", without saying which app. No second person is named for Brawler in any source.", "src": [ 4, 6 ] }, { "fact": "Outside funding", "value": "none reported; listed as bootstrapped", "grade": "C", "note": "Strikr listing. No source mentions investors.", "src": [ 4 ] }, { "fact": "Seller on the App Store", "value": "Brawler LLC", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's record. The developer page of Brawler LLC lists only this app. The app's developer website link points to wrestleai.app, and its privacy policy link is the same Termly document that the Wrestle AI page links.", "src": [ 2, 7, 8 ] }, { "fact": "His three apps together, October 2026", "value": "almost US$41,000 MRR and US$84,000 in 28 days", "grade": "C", "note": "Podcast description: Wrestle AI, Brawler and a fitness app, with no split per app. On this page's calculation, Brawler's MRR was about 46% of the three-app MRR on 1 October (US$18,768) and about 55% on 16 October (US$22,600).", "src": [ 6, 3, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Self-reported costs", "value": "marketing spend of US$10,000 a month; profit margin of 55%", "grade": "C", "note": "Strikr listing, marked by whatsthe.app as unverified and self-reported. TrustMRR shows a profit margin of 50.0% for the last 30 days.", "src": [ 4, 1 ] }, { "fact": "Users", "value": "\"over 10k boxers\" in the seller's text; 1,200 in the founder's TrustMRR estimate", "grade": "C", "note": "Neither is verified, and they do not agree. The verified count is 4,180 active subscriptions on 16 October 2026; whatsthe.app counted 23,617 active customers on 1 October.", "src": [ 3, 1 ] }, { "fact": "App Store ratings, 16 October 2026", "value": "about 2,000 ratings, average 4.8 of 5", "grade": "B", "note": "Apple's page shows 2K ratings, and its page data gives 2,012. whatsthe.app shows about 1,600 of them from the United States.", "src": [ 2, 3 ] }, { "fact": "Release", "value": "1 May 2026", "grade": "C", "note": "The worldwide release date on both whatsthe.app listings and the founded date on TrustMRR. The oldest version in the App Store history is 1.0.2 of 6 May 2026.", "src": [ 3, 1, 2 ] }, { "fact": "Time from release to the October 2026 figure", "value": "5 months", "grade": "X", "note": "Calculated: May 2026 to October 2026.", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "when": "1 May 2026", "what": "Brawler is released worldwide on the App Store, sold by Brawler LLC. TrustMRR gives the same date as the founding date.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 3, 1 ] }, { "when": "6 May 2026", "what": "Version 1.0.2 updates the onboarding and adds a \"new abandon paywall\". Two days later version 1.0.4 adds the keyword \"brawler\".", "grade": "B", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "May 2026", "what": "US$4,152 of revenue in the first month.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "June 2026", "what": "US$17,996 of revenue, more than four times May.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "18 June 2026", "what": "Listed for sale on TrustMRR at US$200,000. A whatsthe.app listing naming @Georgelampro20 as founder, which now asks the same price, follows on 19 June.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 1, 5 ] }, { "when": "9 July 2026", "what": "Version 1.6 adds a cut weight mode with guided diet plans.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "12 July 2026", "what": "A second whatsthe.app listing for the same app, named Strikr, is created. It names no founder and now asks US$127,940.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 5, 4 ] }, { "when": "1 August 2026", "what": "Version 2.1: video analysis, coach chats and nutrition move to \"our most powerful AI models yet\". The release note names no model.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "17 August 2026", "what": "Version 2.3 adds Coach Marco, a course that teaches how to box.", "grade": "B", "src": [ 2 ] }, { "when": "September 2026", "what": "US$48,741 of revenue, 107.6% more than August.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "when": "1 to 2 October 2026", "what": "The two whatsthe.app listings show about US$49,000 in 28 days and about US$19,000 of MRR. The data of the Strikr listing stops on 2 October; the page says that its RevenueCat key expired.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "when": "15 October 2026", "what": "The Superwall Podcast: the three apps of George Lampropoulos, Wrestle AI, Brawler and a fitness app, make almost US$41,000 MRR together.", "grade": "C", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "when": "16 October 2026", "what": "TrustMRR: US$22,600 MRR, 4,180 active subscriptions, US$146,852 in total, and 17 offers for the US$200,000 listing.", "grade": "A", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "mechanism": [ { "title": "A second sport, the same structure", "text": "The App Store pages of Wrestle AI and Brawler show the same design: an AI breakdown of a training video as the main feature, a calorie tracker and a weight-cut mode, and every feature behind a subscription of US$9.99 a month or US$59.99 a year. Boxing can be trained alone, and the app is built for that: shadowboxing, bag work, pad work sessions, a punch callout mode with audio cues and a round timer." }, { "title": "Paid reach: ads and creators", "text": "The founder's TrustMRR profile and the Strikr listing name Meta Ads and influencers as the marketing channels, and the Strikr listing gives a self-reported marketing spend of US$10,000 a month. whatsthe.app counted 22,026 new customers in the 28 days to 1 October 2026. The podcast on his apps covers raw screen recordings run as ads, and creator videos in stitch and ranking formats that also work as paid ads; a stitch is a TikTok video that begins with a clip from another video. It does not split these results by app." }, { "title": "Paywall before use", "text": "The app is free to download, but every feature needs a subscription. Version 1.0.2, five days after release, changed the onboarding and added an \"abandon paywall\". The App Store lists ten in-app purchases, from US$5.99 a month to US$59.99 a year, while the listings show three of them." }, { "title": "Money from yearly plans", "text": "MRR counts a yearly plan at one twelfth of its price, while revenue counts the whole payment on the day it is made. Brawler's revenue in the last 30 days, US$58,752, was 2.6 times its MRR of US$22,600, so much of the money arrives as yearly plans paid in advance. whatsthe.app shows the same ratio for its 28 days, 2.6, as a \"cash flow index\"." }, { "title": "Built with a no-code builder and OpenAI", "text": "The app's bundle ID, its unique name in Apple's systems, is app.rork.boxing-pro-ai-trainer, and whatsthe.app shows a \"Made with Rork\" badge on the Strikr listing. That listing names Swift, SwiftUI, Supabase and OpenAI as the technology; the founder's TrustMRR profile names Swift, SwiftUI, Supabase and RevenueCat." } ], "howBuilt": { "intro": "These details come from the sale listings, the founder-entered fields of the TrustMRR profile and the App Store page. They are grade C unless the App Store is the source, which makes them grade B.", "items": [ "Made with Rork, a no-code AI app builder: the bundle ID starts with app.rork, and whatsthe.app shows a \"Made with Rork\" badge. The Brawler listing also links a Google Play address that starts with app.rork.", "Swift and SwiftUI for the iPhone app, Supabase for the backend and RevenueCat for subscriptions, according to the founder's TrustMRR profile. The Strikr listing adds OpenAI for the AI.", "The release note of 1 August 2026 says that video analysis, coach chats and nutrition moved to \"our most powerful AI models yet\". No source names the models.", "Food logging works from a photo, a barcode or voice. The video analysis covers seven areas of technique and returns corrections and recommended drills.", "25 versions in the App Store history from 6 May to 4 October 2026. Most release notes say only \"bug fixes\".", "The privacy policy, terms of service and license agreement are hosted on Termly. The privacy policy link is the same document that the Wrestle AI page links." ], "src": [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 ] }, "predecessorsIntro": "Four companies in the Loot Drop database promised coaching or fitness help through a service, an app or a device. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.", "predecessors": [ { "name": "Arivale", "years": "2015 to 2019", "funding": "US$50M", "cause": "Unit Economics", "promise": "Health coaching built on genetic, blood and activity data, for US$3,500 up front and US$99 a month.", "died": "The coaching was done by people, and each coach could handle only 50 to 100 clients. The record puts the cost at more than US$4,700 a customer a year against US$1,188 a year of revenue after the first year.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/8-arivale" }, { "name": "Charge Running", "years": "2021 to 2024", "funding": "US$5M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Live online running classes with real-time audio coaching, like a personal trainer at home.", "died": "Users preferred flexible times to scheduled classes, and AI fitness apps such as Future offered personal coaching on demand.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/895-charge-running" }, { "name": "Jawbone", "years": "1999 to 2017", "funding": "US$930M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "UP fitness trackers that turned daily activity data into health advice.", "died": "Fitbit and Apple had more money and moved faster. Product recalls, poor customer service and long legal battles used up its resources.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/257-jawbone" }, { "name": "Fitmob", "years": "2013 to 2017", "funding": "US$9.8M", "cause": "Competition", "promise": "Fitness classes at many studios and pop-up venues without a gym membership.", "died": "Running physical classes with many venues added cost without matching revenue. ClassPass, with a larger network, took the market, and users moved to on-demand digital fitness.", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/151-fitmob" } ], "whatChanged": [ "Arivale and Charge Running sold coaching that needed people: coaches with 50 to 100 clients each, or instructors at fixed times. Jawbone needed hardware and Fitmob needed venues. All four spent investors' money, from US$5 million to US$930 million, and lost to larger or more flexible competitors.", "Brawler's coach is software: it answers at any hour, reviews a video without a human coach and needs no venue or device beyond a phone, and the listings report a profit margin of 50% to 55%. What did not change is the competition. Charge Running's record says that AI fitness apps took its market, and the same can happen to a small AI app when Apple or a large fitness company adds AI features: Apple put Workout Buddy, which needs Apple Intelligence, on the Apple Watch in September 2025." ], "copy": { "verdict": "The method, yes. The head start, no.", "text": "Brawler is a second app built on a structure that had already worked once: an AI breakdown of training video for one combat sport, a paywall before use, ads and creators. The tools are open to anyone: a no-code AI builder, a general AI model, RevenueCat for subscriptions. A newcomer does not have the lessons of a first app that already sold, and both listings offer this one for less than a year of its MRR.", "steps": [ "Start from an app format that already sells in one niche and move it to a neighbouring niche where people train alone and can film themselves.", "Build it with a no-code AI builder, use a general AI model for the analysis and RevenueCat for the subscriptions.", "Put every feature behind a subscription, with a monthly plan, a yearly plan and a discounted yearly offer.", "Connect the revenue account to a verification site such as TrustMRR, so that buyers can see real figures if you sell later." ], "open": "Sports and exercises that people train alone and can film with a phone, as long as no app and no large fitness company serves them yet." }, "watch": [ { "title": "Two sale listings, two prices", "text": "TrustMRR and a whatsthe.app listing that names @Georgelampro20 ask US$200,000. A second whatsthe.app listing, created on 12 July 2026 under the name Strikr, links the same App Store page and bundle ID, names no founder, gives a team of 2 and asks US$127,940. Both listings read the revenue through RevenueCat API keys, which whatsthe.app describes as the seller's read-only keys, so both were made by someone with access to the app's revenue account. No source says whether the same people made both listings, or why the prices differ." }, { "title": "Five months of history", "text": "The app was released on 1 May 2026 and listed for sale on 18 June 2026, seven weeks later. Revenue more than doubled in September, but daily revenue on 10 to 16 October, about US$1,368 a day, was 45% below the level of late September. The founder's user estimate on TrustMRR (1,200) and the seller's text (\"over 10k boxers\") do not match the verified 4,180 active subscriptions." }, { "title": "Large fitness companies and other AI boxing apps", "text": "Apple added Workout Buddy, a feature that needs an iPhone with Apple Intelligence, to the Apple Watch with watchOS 26 on 15 September 2025, and watchOS 27 added Spanish to it on 14 September 2026. Direct competitors are other AI boxing coaches: Boxer AI from Impact Development LLC, first released on 8 March 2026, with about 2,000 ratings, and JAB AI from Limitnil, first released on 19 August 2025, with 489 ratings. The App Store shows both next to Brawler, and whatsthe.app lists Boxer AI for sale at US$7,748 of MRR." }, { "title": "A competitor's name in the description", "text": "The App Store description ends with a list of search words that starts with \"Boxer Ai\", the name of a competing app. Apple's App Review Guideline 2.3.7 tells developers not to pack metadata with \"trademarked terms, popular app names\" and says that Apple may modify inappropriate keywords at any time or take other appropriate steps to prevent abuse." }, { "title": "Dependence on Rork and OpenAI", "text": "The app was made with Rork, and the seller names OpenAI as the AI provider. A price change at OpenAI changes the cost of every video analysis and every chat. A review of July 2026 says that the AI analysis \"says a lot of the same things no matter how well you do them\". The Strikr listing says that the source code, written with Rork, is included in a sale." }, { "title": "A teen audience and body data", "text": "The app is rated 13+. Its privacy label lists photos or videos, audio, body data (hands and head) and environment scanning among the data it collects, though not linked to the user's identity, and purchase data as used to track users across other companies' apps and websites." } ], "sources": [ { "title": "TrustMRR profile of Brawler, revenue synced 16 October 2026", "url": "https://trustmrr.com/startup/brawler.md", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the markdown profile. The revenue, MRR, subscription and daily figures come from its Verification Sources section, read through a RevenueCat API key. The founded date, prices, tech stack, channels, user estimate and profit margin are entered by the founder; the sale data is TrustMRR's listing record." }, { "title": "BRAWLER- Future of Boxing on the US App Store, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brawler-future-of-boxing/id6760366949", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full: description, in-app purchases, version history, privacy label, age rating, seller, developer website link, ratings and reviews. Seller, dates and ratings are Apple's records; the description and prices are written by the company." }, { "title": "whatsthe.app listing: Brawler, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.whatsthe.app/brawler", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. The revenue metrics were read by whatsthe.app through RevenueCat, last updated on 1 October 2026; the asking price, description and founder handle are entered by the seller." }, { "title": "whatsthe.app listing: Strikr, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.whatsthe.app/app.rork.boxing-pro-ai-trainer", "grade": "A", "how": "Read in full. The revenue metrics were read through RevenueCat until the key expired, last updated on 2 October 2026; team size, financing, technology, marketing spend, profit margin and asking price are entered by the seller." }, { "title": "whatsthe.app leaderboard, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://www.whatsthe.app/leaderboard", "grade": "A", "how": "Read the listing data embedded in the page for the Brawler and Strikr entries: founder field, verification type, creation dates and bundle ID." }, { "title": "The Superwall Podcast feed, episode of 15 October 2026: George Lampropoulos - Meet the ex-wrestler making $41k/mo with AI apps", "url": "https://rss.buzzsprout.com/2522779.rss", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the episode title and description in the podcast's RSS feed. The 47-minute audio was not transcribed. Source for the founder's name, the three-app figures and the marketing topics." }, { "title": "App Store developer page: Brawler LLC, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/brawler-llc/id1869962518", "grade": "B", "how": "Read in full. Lists only this app." }, { "title": "Wrestle AI on the US App Store, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wrestle-ai/id6751189075", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the description, prices, seller and privacy policy link, to compare them with Brawler's page." }, { "title": "Apple: App Review Guidelines", "url": "https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/", "grade": "C", "how": "Read guideline 2.3.7 on app names, keywords and metadata." }, { "title": "Boxer AI on the US App Store, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/boxer-ai/id6759840821", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the seller, ratings and version history." }, { "title": "JAB AI - Boxing & MMA Training on the US App Store, read 16 October 2026", "url": "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/jab-ai-boxing-mma-training/id6751054115", "grade": "B", "how": "Read the seller, ratings and version history." }, { "title": "Wikipedia: watchOS", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WatchOS", "grade": "C", "how": "Read the watchOS 26 and watchOS 27 sections. Source for the Workout Buddy feature and the release dates." }, { "title": "Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups", "url": "https://www.loot-drop.io/", "grade": "C", "how": "Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors." } ] } ] }