Conch · B2C · AI detection bypass tool
Build a tool to get around AI detectors the night one launches
$1M ARR within about 30 days
What they did
What happened
In their words
Daniel Kwon - He made $2.2M from building simple apps. Here's how (no-code)
Daniel Kwon… to get into something new. And these guys told me about ChatGPT. It was like the end of 2022, beginning of '23, and the first time I interfaced with ChatGPT, I was like mindblown. I was like, "I'm going to cheat on all my tests, all my essays." Like, that's the first thing. I was like, "I don't need to care about any schoolwork ever again." And they were building a tool called Pandora, or ChatGPT for Google Docs. So it was a Chrome extension.
Daniel KwonAnd I started marketing it. 1-2 weeks of videos for them, and we did like around 100k views, but not many conversions. And I just continued to hack away at that point. But what ended up happening was Edward Tian came out with an AI detection tool called GPTZero. And the moment I saw that, I looked over to my co-founders and said, "We need to make a bypass tool." And one of my co-founders, Dante, he prototyped it in Figma
Daniel Kwonthat same night, and the rest is pretty much history. I continued to make videos for them. I was like the solo UGC creator, kind of faceless, founder-led style content, but in about 30 days, we hit a million ARR, did 500k in a month, and we almost all got kicked out of school and sued. That was like March or April '23.
Joseph ChoiThat is crazy. How did you get that 500k? Cuz it was a big spike, right?
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New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from this episode
- Stitch an already-viral classroom clip with better audio, then demo the app15-16M TikTok views in a day, 100M+ across platforms; drove a $500K month
- Make videos siding with students against pointless school busyworkOne such video got ~4M views (host's reading); guest says the style still works
- Have a co-founder make all the videos himself, faceless and low-budget~220M lifetime views and ~$2.2M revenue, mostly organic
- Test paid ads next to organic videosMargins were worse than organic; dropped
- Have UGC creators film inside Snapchat so videos look like real stories
- Put schools' logos on your website without askingGot cease-and-desist letters from several schools and a legal fight
- Talk to three or four buyers when selling the appSold, but some competitors posed as buyers just to pull information
- Post a scrappy 'we made way too much, so it's on sale' videoHit every time creators remade it; brand had views but no sales before
- Put a flash sale on a TikTok Shop item to reach more For You pagesGuest says it automatically boosts the product and brand; no numbers
- Film shop videos in the founder's kitchen or bedroom, even as a funded brandBrand became #1 in food and beverage on TikTok Shop; not isolated
- Pack visible value into product photos and release limited flavor dropsGuest says it made organic storytelling much easier; no numbers
- Post carousels about Solo Leveling fans wanting 'the system' in real lifeGuest's fastest cold start besides Shepherd; ~$7K/month early
- Pay influencers and meme pages $1-2 per 1,000 views$6-7 revenue per 1,000 views; grew to ~$50K/month at 70-80% margins
- Build the app fans already ask for when rivals just run adsReached ~$50K/month alongside influencer deals
- Stitch popular faith podcast clips and farmed hooks onto a quick app demo~7 videos: 20M views, 100K+ downloads and $75K MRR in 2 weeks
- Pitch a God-first lamb against Duolingo's AI-first owl during its backlash~10K Discord members from the launch push; later fans rejected an AI feature
- Replace the AI chat with a custom devotional and drop 'AI' from the copy
- Pause creator videos and build invites for prayer and accountability buddies
- Build the app in two weeks while running a two-week content pushReached #10 on the charts and $75K MRR despite a buggy app
- Post about your app yourself; skip paid ads until five formats winGuest's rule from five or six cold starts; no numbers
Tags: momentum-wave, pivot, fast-prototype