$500k ARR in our first year, with AI summarizer app

Hey guys. We started our ai service on october 2023 in Korea. In just one year, we got $500K ARR. We were married couple who worked for Korean AI startup for 3years together. After that career journey we've though we could make our own service, without VC money.

How we found the opportunity
- We read all the articles wrote in Korean AI community, and tried to find what people mostly trying to do with GPT. By the research, we've found "summary the content" is quite a great portion.

How we check there are enough demand
- First of all, we just landing page with email waitlist. We said if you leave your email, we will send you all the YC startup school summary note. This landing page collected 200 emails. After that we started develop our service

How to acquire first 1,000 users
- We made a lot of summary note in advance, distributed relevant community. Like YC content summary to startup community. FOMC summary note to investor community.

How we launched paid product
- It was real challenging. I think we tested almost 100 tests to optimize it. The most important thing was to overcome the fear that most users would stop using the service if they started receiving money. At first, paid members were given summaries at a faster speed, then the model was upgraded, and then the number of summaries for the free tier was limited.

Summary : What we’ve learned 2024
- Stay focused on one big problem and push through.
- Think like your users—not just about them.
- Watch what users do more than what they ask for.
- LLM costs can be high, but real user value always finds a way to pay off.
- Call out problems early. Solutions start with quick acknowledgment.