List the app on AI tool directories like Futurepedia

HostYeah. Seems like you've done every stage of growth, from mass DMing, things that don't scale, to everyone who liked the tweet, all the way to like mass-scale UGC programs. AI tool directories, do you feel like that's still a a big thing today?

Julian AlvarezProbably not. I think I would still try to post the tool there, but my guess would be that they're probably oversaturated by now. Actually, like the more important sort of advice that I got when I first launched, my co-founder David and I were very product-oriented. He's kind of more designer, product thinker. I'm more of the technical person. And so marketing and growth wasn't really like a natural thing for us. It wasn't the thing we gravitated towards. One of our mentors told us that, when we first launched,

Julian Alvarezhe was like, "Okay, great, you launched. Now, for the next 2 weeks, don't touch the product. Just spend the next 2 weeks focusing purely on distribution, and nothing happens, then no one probably cares about your product and you should probably pivot." And for us, it was like there's a truth to that, but there was also a mindset shift that came with it. As a product person or as a technical person, you're always kind of like trying to think of …

Julian Alvarez… not the most effective way to grow, but it was a really effective way to get feedback because you're already opening a one-on-one like channel of communication, so it's basically a lot easier for someone to share feedback through that versus if someone found your thing through TikTok, like there's not a direct channel of communication open. That was a really great way to get a lot of feedback early on, that one-on-one sort of marketing tactic,

Julian Alvarezand then posting on the AI tool directories and having it get picked up by some influencers, there were some videos that started to go a little bit viral and that got a lot of people into the door, just kind of gave us more validation on what we were building early on.

HostSo was that almost like an early signal? Like you randomly posted on these directories hoping to get some users, but then, by chance, people just influencers started mentioning you, those posts did really well, and then is that when you kind of realized like, "Oh, actually, these posts by these influencers are doing well, maybe we should do influencer marketing"?