A detailed interview sharing how my customer reached $20K MRR eight months after launching an AIGC platform, transitioning from B2C to B2B.

Product: Llamagen AI, an AIGC platform.
Fund: No fund.
Team Size: 4–5.
From idea to first launch: 5 months of development.
First paid customer: 3 months after launch.
Pivot times after its first launch: More than 10 times (not the technique or product, but the target audience and use cases).
Main methods they tried: Business Friends, SEO, Reddit, Influencers, Twitter, Business Friends, AI Directories, Newsletters.
The most successful methods they will continue to maintain: Business Friends, SEO, Reddit.
Methods that got customers but are not maintainable: Influencers, AI Directories, Newsletters.
Methods that did not get any conversions after 3 months of trying: Twitter.
Methods they will try: LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Ads (Reddit, FB, Twitter, Google, TikTok, and so on).

The most important things they did:

1. Improved their SEO and wrote high-quality blogs on their website and Medium:

• Published blogs on their own site at least twice a week.
• Wrote many “competitor vs,” “best tools” articles on Medium to backlink to their own website.
• Tried to backlink their website on AI directories, friends’ websites, and so on.
• They now have more than 20K UV per month.
• Organic traffic win!!!

2. Addressed initial issues with customer retention: In the beginning, most users did not continue paying for the subscription. They made significant efforts to contact these users for feedback and then worked hard to improve the product. The main pain point for their customers was character consistency.

• Getting feedback was the hardest part because most users didn’t reply to their emails, even after sending multiple follow-up emails.
• Prioritized delivery over self-development. They bought many services to quickly deliver value to customers based on their needs and then developed modules in-house after delivery.

3. Pivoted to yearly subscription payments and business customers:

• Initially thought their customers would be people interested in generating Manga, especially cosmic fans, but they didn’t get any paying customers from this group.
• Frequently changed their homepage introduction.
• Regularly exchanged opinions with customers.
• Now, they have identified their two largest target audiences willing to pay for yearly subscriptions and even thousands of dollars per month. (This is the business secret part that can’t be shared).

4. Continuously engaged with Reddit through posts and comments:

• Their CTO spent two months full-time (means no technical tasks) writing posts on Reddit, getting banned, creating new accounts, and getting banned again. They have now stopped this approach.
• Their current strategy is to find potential business customers on Reddit. Now, they engage with subreddits to get more feedback and potential business customers.
• Due to time constraints, they use gummysearch and idea-hunt to engage with Reddit more efficiently (not spamming).

5. Persisted with more effort on marketing and sales:

• Focused on finding solutions for customers instead of merely improving technical skills.

Hope this is helpful.