Founder Making 100K ARR Building Custom AI Assistants For Communication Tools
In this Interview, Snow shares his founder journey, building a product that integrates custom AI solutions into platforms such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, HubSpot and more.
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In this interview, you'll meet Snow. Snow Co-Founded Runbear, a product that offers custom GPTs for communication tools. I discovered him on one of my Reddit threads and thought to feature his journey.
In this interview, Snow shares:
His backstory and how he started.
How he got his first free and paid customers for his product.
What was effective in attracting customers to his product?
His competitive advantages, what gives him an edge, and insights that have proven beneficial to his operations.
Which books, podcasts, or other resources have had the greatest impact on him.
What advice would he offer to entrepreneurs who are just starting out.
Q. Hello! Who are you and what product are you working on currently, and who is your target audience(Age range)?
Hello! I'm Snow, CEO of Runbear. Runbear helps customers integrate custom AI into communication platforms like Slack, Microsoft Teams or Discord. You can think of it as us offering custom GPTs tailored for Slack. Our target audience includes C-suite executives and leaders looking to utilize AI in their workplace environments. The age range could be between 30-45.
Q. What is your backstory and how did you come up with your idea? What year did you start?
Our first product was an AI copilot designed for DevOps engineers. However, after watching OpenAI's DevDay 2023, we realized we were competing with our customers. So, we pivoted to focus on helping them build and utilize their own custom AI solutions.
Q. Take us through the process of building the first version of your product MVP.
We built the first version of our product in just one week. It supported one OpenAI Assistant for a single Slack workspace, without additional features like streaming. After launching on ProductHunt, we ranked 5th in the productivity tools category for the week. The positive traction motivated us to continue developing the product.
Q. How many employees do you have working on your product? Do you have any co-founders?
I have one cofounder, Liam, CTO of Runbear. We have 4 full-time employees, including myself.
Q. How much monthly traffic do you receive?
We receive around 50K messages every month!
Q. How did you get your first customers for your product and how many free/paid customers do you have currently? (Feel free to list them out).
We launched the beta version for free and started testing a paid model in January. We were thrilled when users began paying for the product. Today, we have around 100 paying customers, including well-known companies like BCG and Peek.
Q. Since you launched your product, What has worked to attract customers?
We experimented with outbound sales and paid marketing, but content marketing turned out to be the most effective for us.
Q. How is your product performing currently, and what are your plans for the future? Can you share your current metrics and revenue figures?
We've reached $100k in ARR and plan to introduce more features to help customers build even better AI assistants for their communication platforms. We're also expanding support to include more platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram.
Q. Since the inception of your business, have you gained any insights that have provided you with a competitive advantage and proven beneficial to your operations?
Many non-technical professionals have AI-related ideas to improve their work performance, but building optimized solutions for their specific use cases can be challenging. Our solution is designed for non-technical users, enabling them to bring their ideas to life in less than an hour.
Q. What tools have helped you grow your product?
OpenAI, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Screen Studio, and Arcade.
Q. Which books, podcasts, or other resources have had the greatest impact on you?
Levers: The Framework for Building Repeatability into Your Business
Q. What advice would you offer to entrepreneurs who are looking to start or have just begun their journey?
Resilience is the key. It's okay to fall down as long as you get back up.
Q. Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
Yes, we're looking to fill the role of Marketing Specialist.
Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions! What is your contact info if people would like to inquire about your services? You can add all your links.
Great! Feel free to reach out to me via Email, LinkedIn and X.
Let me know what you learned from this interview and have a productive week!🙏
Indie Tip Of The Week
This week's indie tip comes from Greg Isenberg. He writes about how startups are changing fast, with founders acting more like creative directors than coders. Founders now share their progress publicly, building communities around their work. This shift means that anyone with a good idea and the right tools can create something big, even as a solo founder. You can read more about it here.
Indie Product Of The Week
This week's Indie Product is MailMoo by Veeti Roponen. MailMoo tailors videos to thousands of leads using AI, boosting sales conversions by personalizing each cold outreach message.
Check out the product, and share your thoughts in the comments!
Indie Trivia Of The Week
Brianne Howey and Antonia Gentry star as a mother and daughter in what popular Netflix series?
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