Hey HN, Marc here.
In October, I sold my habit tracker for $10,000.
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 AI and decided to build a landing page generator:
Input text and the AI prefills a template with copy (GPT-3.5) and AI-generated images (Stable Diffusion).
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:
1. Don't build AI products just because
2. Don't go on a massive market you don't care
3. 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 and my learning here: https://marclou.beehiiv.com/p/how-to-sell-your-micro-startup
