How to fail your way to 2000 users in 2 weeks

Hello my dear friends, 

Last week, this happened. 👇

How did that happen?

I will tell you.

We will cover:

• 🎉 how I build my first AI app and website as a marketer

• 📰 how I got to talk about capybaras for a respected media like Digital Trends (4 million followers)

• 💶 how and how much I monetized capybaras

___________________________

A while ago - I was having a really hard time.

How come? 

-> The Multiverse AI has been doing well, we happily reached $30k USD revenue for June 2024 🥳

In July 2024, thanks in part to some amazing affiliate partners like Artturi Jalli, Andrew Best and others, we’re on track to beat that (not by much but fingers crossed). 

But still. I’ve always been fascinated with some of the online communities on the internet.

That sounds silly but hear me out. 

Part 1: build in public

On Twitter (or X 🙄), there’s this awesome community of people who operate under #buildinpublic. 

It’s so cool. 

They tweet about their startups, how it’s doing, website metrics, conversion rates, what they’re doing to improve all of those things. 

And I kinda love it.

It’s so fun to get a little peek behind what people work on, how they are actually growing their business. 

Some of these people include Pieter Levels or Marc Lou or Danny Postma

2/3 of these btw are Dutch and 1/3 is French, which for me (Belgian) I find very cool. 

On the internet, by rule of numbers, people tend to be American. So to find a group of successful solopreneurs who are European is like 🫶😍🥳👯

Here we have a conundrum... A conflict if you will. What is causing this?

Part 2: suffering and salvation

There is a dissonance between my desired and my current situation: 

I am a marketer. I can tell you everything about keyword difficulty, search volume, PPC, emails that convert, landing page best practices or winning assets. 

But

I don’t know how to build things, or websites, or apps, or anything like that. 

I see a block of code and I feel like..

Is this the matrix?

Am I Neo?

I shut my computer in fear and run away. 

I thought I had to overcome that fear and I felt I had to enter the matrix and it was paralyzing.

Then again, I’d like to resolve the conflict between situation a and situation b. 

-> Enter the glorious marvel that is the internet. Where we can truly learn anything.

And so I set to learning tools like Webflow or LaunchLemonade🍋  , Pickaxe, Framer , CARRD, Inc. Figma FlutterFlow Glide Adalo and so many more.

Standing on the shoulders of awesome founders like Ian Eck Cien SolonKatt Risen

And consuming hours (so many hours) of content where awesome creators like Adrian Ching , Mizko , Ryan Hayward 👋 and Mohamed Ghaith explain (often meticulously) how to make things whilst NOT being a developer. 

So I stand (precariously) on the shoulders of giants, which allows me to do this:

It was SO fun. And SO hard.  

My mental monologue at this point: 

• 🥳 I will be a marketer who also knows how to build things 

• 😭 I suck at everything wtf are divs

• 🥳 This is going so well, I made a button! 

• 😭 Wtf are HTTP status  

• 😭 This tutorial is gaslighting me, there is no code override section

• 😭 The mobile website navbar keeps disappearing i will never learn

A bit of a rollercoaster 🎢 until I realized 

everything is gonna be alright. I don’t have to know everything. I can take things step by step. I am uncomfortable because I am learning new things. I am fumbling but I will give myself grace. That’s okay. 

A bit of time passes, I continue learning and fumbling and learning and fumbling some more.

I decide to build something to help give me that grace. 

part 3: capybaras and science

What do I know that I can build? Turns out I have a very particular set of skills...

Which brings me to the capybara.

🛠️ Skill: capybara content

I love capybaras content.

And I'm not the only one.

Capybaras are very popular. Known for being "very chill", for being the friend of everyone (including alligators) and they love relaxation.

Specifically, as aquatic animals, they love sitting in Japanese onsen baths filled with oranges 🍊

What's more - IG is flooded with capybara content. Accounts on Instagram like capybara_worlds have +750k followers.

Kpop star Jennie who's huge (85 million followers huge) has a sunglass collaboration themed around, you guessed it, capybaras.

🛠️ Skill: affirmations

Plus I love affirmations. Affirmations help me get through things. They "arm" me with positivity and help me attack or defend against whatever comes my way.

That's scientifically backed too, by a bunch of studies like the ones here: https://capybaraaffirmations.ai/blog/science-behind-affirmations

• Cascio, C. N., O'Donnell, M. B., Tinney, F. J., Lieberman, M. D., Taylor, S. E., Strecher, V. J., & Falk, E. B. (2016). Self-affirmation activates brain systems associated with self-related processing and reward and is reinforced by future orientation. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 11(4), 621-629. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsv136.

• Falk, E. B., O'Donnell, M. B., Cascio, C. N., Tinney, F., Kang, Y., Lieberman, M. D., Taylor, S. E., An, L., Resnicow, K., & Strecher, V. J. (2015). Self-affirmation alters the brain’s response to health messages and subsequent behavior change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112(7), 1977-1982. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1500247112.

• Albalooshi, S., Moeini-Jazani, M., & Warlop, L. (2019). Reinstating the resourceful self: When and how self-affirmations improve executive performance of the powerless. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 46(2), 284-297. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167219853840.a capybara affirmation

and what's more - personalized affirmations work better.

• Cohen, G. L., & Sherman, D. K. (2014). The psychology of change: Self-affirmation and social psychological intervention. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 333-371. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115137.

i think intuitively i kind of knew that because when i was fumbling and suffering and dodging code-bullets, these were my personalized affirmations:

🛠️ Skill: AI

and of course i co-built and marketed The Multiverse AI.

That brings me again to my very particular set of skills ...

So Capybara Affirmations AI is born. Capybara Affirmations are images with capybaras and an affirmation, made with AI.

You can check it out here: https://capybaraaffirmations.ai/

And here is a capybara affirmation: (here are a lot more)

It took me a couple of weeks to build the whole thing.

In this time, I'm of course still working on marketing for multiverse, and all the other time i spend thinking, dreaming and looking at capybara affirmations.

part 4: launch

hello are you still with me? we're like 1000 words into this story and prob 90% of you have churned (stopped) by now.

if you're still reading this - you are doing great 👇

It's time. it's july 15.

i have a website, i have an app. it's all plugged into stripe, we're ready.

i launch by tweeting about it

at 815 followers, i don't have a particularly high audience number on twitter (815. you can follow me here)

but the right people find me, like Rita Liao and Prakhar Khanna

and also ... a journalist from digital trends (the awesome Nadeem Sarwar )

ok break.

intermezzo on digital trends.

digital trends is a HUGE deal (to me)

why?

-> from 2020-2022 i worked in tech PR & marketing. in that industry, you're constantly trying to get latest releases or features in top tier tech media. think cnet, the verge, tom's guide, wired, forbes, pcmag. and DIGITAL TRENDS (!)

a huge part of our job was to get into placement (coverage) in top tier media like that. so i know how much effort that can cost.

here's a fun screenshot of 2021 tanya telling a coworker (at oneplus) about which are "top tier media" 👇

so this ... is cool.

part 5: metrics of mugs

my marketing brain has had to learn some tech cost things too:

• ai server costs are significant. for every capybara affirmation created, it costs $$$.

• hosting a website costs $ too

so everything costs money. so i need to make money. so it is monetized.

-> for a breakdown of the whole profit & loss, you can go here and read more about exactly how much i spent & made on capy affirmations so far**

here was the business model until then 👇

how capy affirmations works: you can make up to 3 free capy affirmations. then after, you pay $5/m to create more.

ok so p&l notwithstanding and metrics aside...

i love capybara affirmations.

i love that people make capybara affirmations using the https://app.capybaraaffirmations.ai/

i love building something that shows how ai can be positive and bring joy.

i love that i actually built something (no matter how silly it is)

i love that capybara affirmations backend is full of

• ppl encouraging their friends 'you are so awesome and work so hard' 'im keebo and today will be a great day', and about 1000 other phrases (we're at a little over 2000 capybara affirmations generated iirc)

• ppl making cute birthday greetings

• ppl making cute affirmations for themselves

• or for their friends

• people sparking joy

it fills my heart with joy to think that someone in this world is getting their first capybara affirmation on whatsapp or email or anything. what a nice thing

-> capybara affirmations ai is a mental health app that scales positivity. with ai. and capybaras.

one of my paid users is a guy who created 12 capy affirmations. each one for a different name or friend (😭 my heart).

ok enough of the warm fuzzy stuff.

back to the numbers.

this is colder territory

traffic: pageviews 8.1k, nice. uniques 6.1k, also nice.

conversion to paid:

• 6.1k uniques (thanks mostly to shoutouts from marginal revolution, digital trends, a

• -> +2000 users

• -> +500 members (they sign up)

• -> 4 paid subscribers (one of which my mother bless her heart)

• conversion rate: 0.06% 😭

read: wasn't converting well.

ps conversion means a user goes from top of funnel (awareness: user is aware) to bottom funnel (usually purchase: user pays).

i am biased because The Multiverse AI is

• ✅ pay-to-play (no free tier)

• avg cross-source/medium conversion rate is 9% -> 🙏 blessed 🙏

comparatively Capybara Affirmations AI:

• ✅ cute and positive

• avg conversion -> ❌ not blessed ❌

so i had all this traffic. but very few converting

meanwhile, ai server costs are ramping up...

felt like people LIKED capybara affirmations, but maybe more to look at than to create themselves.

i pivoted.

i launched july 15.

-> on july 22, i implemented a shop that sells mugs: https://shop.capybaraaffirmations.ai/

this is relatively painless because of services like sellfy and red bubble that allow you to upload prints. they handle fullfillment, printing, shipping, everything.

honestly not bad - i sold 5 mugs so far (total)

who buys mugs? good question

• i bought one

• 3 friends & family, one of which, of course, my mother (bless her heart)

• a stranger (!) -> this is a win

here’s the tldr of monetization:

what can we do? what do you think?

i hope that capybara affirmations will be able to sustain itself (financially) over the next months so i can keep the website alive.

my take on options:

• 1. create an app for capybara affirmations that sends out push notifications w/ affirmations (how??? no clue but maybe i can learn? hire someone if its hard? feels $)

• 2. go hard on mug sales (do people want to look at capybaras and affirmations while having coffee? do they not? do i want to push selling mugs? we will find out)

• 3. try to sell capybara affirmations to someone who can and wants to take it further? (a wellbeing company? mental health?)

what do you think, dear reader?

do you have any ideas for Capybara Affirmations AI?

if yes please comment or DM me - maybe we can brain crowdsource our way to more capy affirmations in this world

#buildinpublic 😎

ps you see isnt it fun to see startup metrics? there's something here

so what's next?

the future of capybara affirmations... i'm not sure what will happen. can it sustain itself? will i learn mobile development? what's the demand for capy affirmations like?

i don't know.

what i do know

-> i will keep learning

-> i will keep failing and fumbling

-> i want to build more ☺

more apps that highlight the value of AI.

maybe more cute apps like Capybara Affirmations AI

or more serious apps like The Multiverse AI.

i dont know right now. but i will figure it out 🍊

-> also a big shoutout to all the early adopters & ppl i continuously and gratefully get to ask for advice and thoughts or who just sometimes like my things, i appreciate you so much 💞

who am i?

im tanya, i made and market cool ai apps like The Multiverse AI and Capybara Affirmations AI. im also a forbes cyprus 20 women in tech and an authority mag 'women leading the ai industry'. i do some public speaking and post on linkedin sometimes

-> read my last post where i talk about building the multiverse ai: How did The Multiverse AI get to 75,000 USD revenue on $0 advertising spend? 

-> follow me on LinkedIn for more stuff on ai and learning and fumbling :)

-> make a capybara affirmation here and affirm yourself with a mug if you want here.

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