I've researched the amazing indie hackers / entrepreneurs and summarized what they've done.
I would like to introduce the great developer Mr. "David Bressle"! He is an amazing guy!
(Source: https://x.com/bresslertweets)He was originally a data analyst, not a software developer.
However, he has developed a product that combine OpenAI's API with Excel and spreadsheets with no code, and as of February 2024, it has reached a revenue of $220k/month.
Let's look at his story!
👨💻 side business he worked on while on paternity leave from his full-time job.
He was an elite person who worked as a data analyst in the digital marketing field for more than 10 years working full-time for several companies.
He was eventually promoted to a senior director position.
However, despite his long experience as a company employee, he had not given up on his dream of starting his own business.
One day, he decided to take a six-week paternity leave when his child was born.
Normally, he was too busy with work and had no time for a side business.
This was a brief period of free time that he had. He decided to pursue his dream of starting a business, so he decided to create a product during this six-week period.
At the time, the GPT3 had just appeared and the evolution of AI was being talked about behind the scenes.
He originally had many opportunities to use Excel in his work. He wondered if he could combine Excel with AI to automatically create functions.
There must be many people who have had to look up Excel functions many times because they couldn't remember how to write them.
This is a product that allows you to create a function in Excel by simply giving it instructions in text.
It is simple and easy to understand the value.
🚀Developed and launched with no code
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, he was not a software developer.
However, learning to code from scratch would take too much time.
Therefore, he tried to develop using Bubble, a no-code tool. The result is "Formula bot".
Now, there are some coding parts, but it is still amazing to be able to create such a product with almost no code.
The UI is intuitive and easy to understand.
There are three main functions
- Data Analyzer: Import data and proceed with analysis while chatting.
- Generators: A function that generates appropriate functions and so on according to the text entered.
- AI in Spreedsheets: A function that allows you to use the Formula bot in Excel or spreadsheets as an add-on function for analysis. In addition to function generation, it can also perform sentiment analysis, text classification, etc.
The third one, "AI in Spreedsheets," is probably the most widely used, as I feel that Data Analyzer and Generators can be replaced by ChatGPT and other generative AIs.
David himself says that more and more people are cancelling Formula bot as ChatGPT is being launched and updated daily.
In the midst of this situation, he has survived the AI warring age by adding things that only Formula bot can do.
Formula bot itself was launched in September 2022, about two months before the launch of ChatGPT.
In the deployment of AI products, those who move early like this are taking the first-mover advantage.
He himself said that even if he had created Formula bot now, it would not have worked.
After all, ChatGPT had not yet appeared at that time, which made it a hot topic and attracted a lot of users.
So how did he get so many users?
User acquisition strategy
The first user was a colleague.
He was a data analyst leading many members of the team, and in fact, new analysts were having a hard time working with Excel and spreadsheets.
In this situation, he succeeded in greatly increasing the work efficiency of the newcomers by introducing this tool.
It is always a good idea to create solutions based on the actual problems you are facing in your work.
Colleagues who used the tool were amazed at how well the tool worked.
David had the product in just a few weeks, but his colleagues thought it was a product that took months to create.
It is a dream come true to be able to create a product with such a high degree of perfection even with no code.
After his colleague used the product and got a good response, he posted it on the Excel thread on Reddit.
The post received a great response and became the top post for a week.
He also posted on Reddit, where there is a thread that introduces various products based on the concept of "Internet is Beautiful," and the post went viral for several months.
The Reddit post generated a great deal of viral traffic.
After that, many influencers picked up on the product and the word spread organically, especially on TikTok.
Surprisingly, there are many business influencers who introduce how to use Excel, and the viral is spreading on Tiktok and other platforms.
Microsoft heard about the viral and officially adopted it as an add-on feature of Microsoft, and the number of users grew dramatically.
💰Monetization Strategy
In fact, he initially offered the product for free.
However, he could not keep on doing so because of the API usage fees.
He was happy to see the number of users increase as the product went viral, but to his surprise, the API usage fee increased to $5000 in a few days.
Reluctantly, he first put up a link to Stripe to raise money. After that, they put up advertisements, and finally succeeded in generating stable revenue by shifting to a subscription-based model.
Currently, plans are free, 9$, 15$, and 30$.
As a result, they have reached a monthly revenue of $220k.
They currently have 750,000 users including free users.
It is scary to launch this kind of product for free because of the API fee, but it is a good idea to start with a free product and switch to a paid product when users start to follow the product.
It is amazing that he have created such a profitable product in a few years with no code.
It is an idea that anyone could have come up with, but the biggest reason for its success is that it was created quickly and without code before ChatGPT was launched.
He is an amazing guy.
His story is very helpful.
So this time I have introduced Mr. David Bressle.
If you like, comment, and share, it will encourage me to continue!
See you next time!
