I sold my AI tool for $35,000
Marc Lou
17 replies
Hey Hunters, Marc here 👋
Last month I wrote here about how sold a habit tracker for $10,000 in October.
Earlier this month, I got $35,000 in my bank account after selling a landing page maker with AI. Here's the story:
- April 2023:
Just like everyone, I get massive FOMO with AI.
I played with GPT and decided to build a landing page generator with AI:
Input text and the AI prefills a template with copy and AI-generated images.
I'm working on it with a good friend of mine named Martin.
- May:
The product is called LandingAI. It's an MVP but we launched and made ~$8,000.
Unfortunately, Martin and I had different visions for the project so we forked.
- June
LandingAI is the name of a big corp (bummer) so I rebranded it to MakeLanding.
I ditch 90% of the code because users want a very different product:
So here I am, building an entire website builder powered with AI...
- July:
I launched again, but made a BIG mistake:
I swapped the one-time payment for a monthly subscription and got $20 MRR for 15k visitors...
If you can avoid subscriptions, do it
New pricing means new positioning—users compared the app to Framer & Webflow
- August:
I removed the subscription and sales came back: ~$7,000 in 3 months.
But I realized this was going nowhere...
- September:
+ I don't use the product
+ The market is gigantic and crowded
As a solopreneur, nothing is more important for me than building cool stuff for people I care about.
And I didn't really care about this big market so...
- October:
I called my friend Dan and he said: SELL. He was right.
I bought my shares of LandingAI from Martin and listed MakeLanding on Acquire: Asking $38,000 for $14,000 TTM (3x profit)
Within hours, I received dozens of NDAs and a buyer started the process 🤯
After a few weeks of NDA, LOI, Escrow, etc. the buyer sent the money but...
Only a fraction of the transaction. Then he ghosted me. So I canceled the transition. Back to Acquire...
Luckily, in 24 hours I got another buyer!
- November:
Within weeks, the money was in my bank account.
The buyer and I never called, just a few messages. It's mind-blowing.
My takeaways:
- Don't build AI products just because
- Don't go on a massive market you don't care
- Sell if you don't know how to grow the product
It's my 3rd acquisition this year. I love the freedom to build, sell, and repeat. I wrote about the process of making & selling micro-startups, if it's helpful let me know: https://marclou.beehiiv.com/p/how-to-sell-your-micro-startup
Replies
Mertcan Esmergül@sitenley
Prime Indies
this was a great read! I've been following you since your habits tracker app, it makes me happy to see you getting better and better at this!
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Token Around
Congratulations on the exit. What was the motivation behind this exit?
Congrats, this seems like a great result as you didn't care about the market. I am wondering though - why do you recommend avoiding subscriptions? If you build something to flip it? As in the long run and if you're in for the long game subscriptions are pretty great.
@pixelpirat it depends on who the subscription benefits. As the biz owner, I love them, as a customer I hate them.
Unless the biz model is relevant (i.e. a Twitter analytics tool I use daily), I'd avoid subscriptions.
Thanks for your kind words Sofia!
Wow congrats! it is super cool to make it, especially you made it yourself.
Conratulations
Great story, Marc. And congrats! This is a good exit.
Your product is a great "lead magnet" for continued engagement with the audience that sets up a website using your platform.
So, even though it's not a SaaS, the LTV of your customer can be much higher in the "MarcLouVerse" - the universe of your micro-startups 😁
Curious to see what the new owner will do with it now 🙂
great read! just found out about acquire, going to keep an eye on it. looking forward to read more on your beehiiv!
Good and nice
Hey how did u make $8k in may? I'm curious!
Wow, this is amazing read. Thank you for sharing these extremely valuable lessons with us! What a story, right?!