Akool · AI video and avatar maker
Spend the first years chasing large enterprise contracts
Didn't work; revenue flat at ~$100K for two years
Failedoutbound-salespositioning-niche
What they did
In 2021 (part time) and 2022 (first full-time year) the team spent most of its time pursuing large B2B contracts and had difficulty closing them. Revenue stayed around $100K both years.
What happened
Revenue ~$100K in both 2021 and 2022; it didn't grow much
- Stage
- 2021-2022
- Effort
- Most of the team's time for about two years
In their words
Top Founders with Nathan Latka · "I Built My Own AI Video Model, Now Make $3M a Month," Akool CEO Jeff Lu“We spend most of the time uh pursuing large contracts, but uh um was uh not [chuckles] having having having difficulties working uh and closing some of the large contracts, and uh it didn't grow much, so.”
Related topics
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More from this episode
- Akool: Post demos of what your tool makes in related Reddit, Facebook and Discord groupsMain source of early users, per founder; no numbers
- Akool: Add a payment page so walk-in users can pay without a sales callUsers began paying on their own; revenue went from ~$100K to $2-3M the next year
- Akool: Book one-on-one calls with people already using similar tools, and listenPart of how the first 100 customers came in; no numbers
- Akool: Pitch your tool to Fiverr freelancers who sell the same work by handFounder confirms they did it; no results given
- Akool: Train small AI models for one task each instead of one giant modelKeeps costs down; Coca-Cola picked it after 3 months of benchmarks
- Akool: Hire your first sales rep once enterprise deals start coming in on their ownRevenue $2-3M to $12-13M that year; enterprise now drives most growth
- Akool: Charge businesses by usage so their bill grows as they build you into their softwareLargest contract reached ~$4M a year
- Akool: Add a cheaper starter plan below your existing tiers