Share content related to independent development and product monetization, and publish it every Friday.
Table of contents
1、FaceChain：三张照片即可生成自己的数字人替身2、Blogseo AI: 一个博客文章生成器3、标小智：中文AI Logo设计生成器4、little-rat: 监听其他浏览器扩展请求的插件5、如何将视频编辑软件发展到10万用户和2万美元月收入？
1. FaceChain: Three photos can generate your own digital human stand-in
This is an open source project that can be used to create a deep learning model tool for personal digital images. You only need to provide a minimum of three photos to obtain your own personal image digital avatar. FaceChain supports the use of model training and reasoning capabilities in the interface of gradio, and also supports senior developers to use python scripts for training and reasoning.
There are also online websites to experience, just upload your own photos.
FaceChain open source code address [1]
2. Blogseo AI: A blog post generator
BlogSEO AI is an seo-friendly article generator and AI writer that helps you create high-quality blog posts in minutes. The implementation is also relatively simple. Set the article theme, keywords, article tone, set the chapter title, click OK, and a blog article can be generated. It is suitable for writing blogs for overseas products and increasing SEO traffic.
blogseo.ai official website [2]
3. Biao Xiaozhi: Chinese AI Logo Design Generator
An online AI logo design tool. Enter the logo name, generate a design plan, minimalist AI generation tools, optional templates, personalized editing, support for local upload icons, professional logo download center, provide various logo format files to supporting brand resources, business cards, posters Wait for a one-stop intelligent generation download. Suitable for personal products and business users.
Biao Xiaozhi official website [3]
4. little-rat: A plug-in that listens to other browser extension requests
Open source code, a small chrome extension to monitor requests from other browser extensions. For the processing of network monitoring, you can refer to learning this plug-in, the permissions used declarativeNetRequest, declarativeNetRequestFeedback.
little-rat open source code address [4]
5. How to develop video editing software to 100,000 users and $20,000 monthly income?
Hi, everyone, my name is Michael Moss and I am the co-founder of NOVA AI. When I started my entrepreneurial journey at 21 and started my first company, I knew that was the path I wanted to take.
While I have other interests as well, building a technology company is my greatest passion and something I devote most of my time to every day.
NOVA AI is an online video editing platform that provides more and more video editing related functions, accessible to everyone. Our most popular features right now are automatic subtitle generator and subtitle translation.
For the needs of enterprises and individual users, we also launched AI video analysis on the platform to help video editors and content creators quickly search and record specific video clips or scenes.
Our goal is to make video editing easy and automated through AI, our users are everyone who needs to create and edit videos; from individuals to influencers, professional digital marketers and businesses.
The current user base is now over 100,000 and is growing 50% every month.
How did you come up with this idea?
I've been programming since I was a teenager, and I loved coding, which continued throughout my financial career, using my computer skills to model and predict investment strategies for the hedge fund I was working at at the time.
I entered the media field purely by accident and found a lot of problems to be solved. This got me started looking for where innovation is most needed. As an early team, by experimenting until the need for a rapid content creation tool found the greatest need.
After enough discussion, realized that this is what we should be after. In an iterative process, about 500-700 times of communication with users was carried out before the real problem was discovered. You keep iterating until it works. It's an iterative process that eventually leads you to a solution.
I guess the biggest "aha" moment was when we realized how big a problem using video editing is, and how many people struggle with it. On the one hand, professional video editors spend hours and hours searching for the right scene in hours of video clips, and on the other hand, non-profit video editors and personal content creators spend hours learning how to edit on complex software. video and must be downloaded and licensed.
So, we ended up looking for a solution to meet these two needs, although they are different target audiences, they are still consistent in their need for automatic video editing tools.
Here are some simple tips on how to quickly validate your ideas. I learned a lot from participating in the 2019 Startupbootcamp program. On a hot summer day, with lots of cold Coca-Cola and bottled water, we took two of my team members who were with me at the startup bootcamp in Amsterdam to the Grand Place of the museum.
We then stopped everyone and asked them to answer our short questionnaire about video editing in exchange for a cold drink. Talking to hundreds of people in a very short period of time was a great way to validate the problems we were trying to solve and get a better understanding of what people might need.
Financially and professionally, I went from a very lucrative finance position to a full-time entrepreneur with next to no income! If it wasn't for my passion and willingness to solve problems, then I don't know why I would.
Introduce the process of building the first version
For a first version, it can be just a simple white background website page with a few buttons that address the user's initial pain or problem. For example, look at Gmail, which today is still just a white page with some text and buttons. Simple, but it solves the problem.
The first MVP can be a video or mockup that users can click on. There are many websites that can help you generate this information. If users feel pain, they will sign up.
We created different mockups that users could click on, we saw on a heatmap where they clicked and what they needed, and we conducted customer interviews with potential users who clicked on the mockups. This took us 6 months.
We started by looking at what was already on the market and interviewing customers to understand what worked and what didn't.
In the early stages of any company, you have to put in your own money or 3F money (friends, family and fools) to cover all startup costs.
Describe the process of starting a business
We launched our platform about a year ago. Advertised at first, but our acquisitions were not doing well, so we knew we had to change our marketing strategy.
We found out that Dropbox was in the same situation, and took their approach: started using a referral program where users get extra subtitle time when they invite friends. We also created an affiliate program and started sending out newsletters. This strategy helped us become more visible and users started pouring in.
Since December 2022, our traffic has grown over 100% monthly while our acquisition costs are next to zero. Our Google searches are now at 1.5 million.
I want to say, take it easy. Validate your idea, preferably with a like-minded partner to help you, one of you must be an expert in this field.
What attracts and retains customers?
Communication is key. It's important to let your customers know about you, so remember to add the following options to your product pages: Email, Chat, Request, Leave Feedback, and Book a Demo. Send them a newsletter with product updates. People will tell you what they want.
In order to increase traffic and sales, we pay great attention to our SEO and referral program.
We also recently released NOVA AI on ProductHunt. All that's left is to provide great support and features, and focus on improving your product.
To be honest, we rarely use social media and don't use ads any more, but utilize youtube to showcase our products. SEO is the main focus right now, spending a lot of time writing articles and improving our positioning. In this way, we have grown from zero visits to now 100,000 monthly unique visitors in just one year.
When you have thousands of new users/customers every month, you can start focusing on retention and monetization.
We use newsletter and chat as the main means of communicating with our customers. Additionally, we have a public roadmap that captures user priorities. As soon as we release a feature that many customers have been waiting for, they will come back.
Did you learn anything particularly useful?
1. Don't rush everything. To question and challenge what you think is an opportunity. Consider if it only matters to one user, or if there are more people having the same problem. In this particular space, we found that 82% of Internet traffic was driven by video last year (Cisco report), which gives us a good idea of how much demand there is for this type of software.
2. Listening to users is the key to creating valuable products. The solution is not determined at the beginning, but adjusted during the listening process.
3. I think it's also important to stay healthy with a balance of diet, exercise, sleep, work hard and be optimistic because being an entrepreneur can be stressful at times. I think this is something that everyone can benefit from, no matter what the profession.
4. Think it's important to stay updated with new ideas, new technologies and trends, and incorporate something meaningful into your business.
Any advice for other entrepreneurs?
Typically, there are three phases in a product's life cycle, and within each phase, a corresponding growth perspective is required.
Phase 1: Before launch, the growth here is lead generation. Talk to users, identify the biggest customer problems, and find solutions to those problems.
Phase 2: Find Product Market and Channel Fit (PMF) This is an underrated step! Because it is so important to find a niche market and have many potential customers who will be willing to pay for your product. You need to have a real channel to distribute your product. A million in annual revenue is a good milestone for most SAAS companies.
Phase 3: Growth phase, when you have thousands of new users every month
At this point, you can start putting your energy into retention and monetization.
So, don’t fall into the trap of wrong prioritization, be patient and start with only the least valuable parts.
Another: This weekly magazine is already the 100th issue of "Independent Development and Monetization Weekly", a new milestone, and it is inseparable from everyone's attention and support, which makes me find time and motivation to organize the content no matter how busy I am every week . The 100-period is not the end. The mountains are high and the road is far away, and the water is long and flowing. Only with everyone's company can we go for a long time. Let's work hard and see each other at the top!
FaceChain open source code address: https://github.com/modelscope/facechain
blogseo.ai official website: https://www.blogseo.ai/
Biao Xiaozhi official website: https://www.logosc.cn/
little-rat open source code address: https://github.com/dnakov/little-rat
(Issue 99): Building a $300,000-a-month product through QR codes
(No. 98): An email subscription SaaS tool with a profit of 15,000 US dollars/month
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