I Moved to San Francisco for ChatGPT

[PROGRESS THREAD, POST 1]:

I Moved to SF to pursue my AI Startup Idea

I love ChatGPT, maybe a little too much. 

I have a hunch that my friends & family think I'm crazy.

It's not just because of my obsession with Large Language Models, it's also due to moving from my spacious 573 sq. ft condo in Utah, into a 7ft x 3ft pod bed to work in downtown San Francisco.

Why?

1. I love ChatGPT. 

2. San Francisco is the epicenter of the ChatGPT AI Revolution. 

3. I spent the last 3 years working on a (failing) startup idea in my home state, Utah. 

I needed a big, radical change.

The Pivot:

Since moving here, I decided to give up my previous startup idea, and go all-in on a new idea: building an AI Chatbot. (Wow, so amazing, right?)

But this one's different. The idea behind this chatbot is to guide users through building websites, landing pages, & full digital marketing funnels. Actually, "guide" isn't the right word — it builds the website, landing pages, and funnels directly for you, as you chat with it.

Why am I excited about this idea? Because LLMs are beginning to disrupt everything we know about the digital world, especially marketing.

LLMs and Search:

Word on the street is that Google and OpenAI are gearing up for a massive battle to the death for the future of search. OpenAI just raised $6.6 billion in the largest VC round ever, and simultaneously launched their own search engine within ChatGPT, along with a chrome plugin to make ChatGPT the default search engine for its users. 

Talk about a declaration of war!

These two tech giants are now interlocked in an epic battle for the future, and I intend to insert myself into the middle of it, while helping others navigate this monumental shift as well.

So, armed with this new pivot idea, I applied to Y Combinator, and I'm proud to announce… I promptly got rejected! (Lol, I guess 3rd time wasn't the charm). But I've decided to pursue this new idea anyways.

MVP:

So me and my buddy, Brian, coded up a really basic MVP of this Chatbot, and we even landed our first user for $45/month! 🥳 (Thanks, Mom! — No, I'm not joking.) My Mom is literally the first user. I spend an hour each Sunday on a Google Meet watching her use our really bad chatbot to create her new business website. (What can I say? I come from a family of entrepreneurs!)

I'm not embarrassed to admit my Mom's the first user, because it's been invaluable early feedback for the product. (Ok, maybe I'm a little embarrassed, but I'll pretend otherwise.)

Fiverr:

Not knowing where else to get my first users, I launched a Fiverr freelancer profile so I can test the product by building websites for other people. Being desperate for real world use cases, I priced the service ridiculously low ($5 per site).

I thought I was a genius, and expected the Fiverr orders to come flooding in, but instead.. **cricket noises** 🦗🦗🦗

Aside from a single purchase (thanks to my friend, Darren), I haven't had any traffic or orders.

I'm realizing this Fiverr idea might be the worst idea I've had, (and I've had a lot of bad ideas). I really just want an excuse to use the product, so I can find the shortcomings and improve it. I'm not sure how much time to invest in this Fiverr idea. Even if it worked really well, I could find myself overwhelmed by building websites essentially for free. Still worth continuing the experiment, and I'd love the use cases to test the Chatbot. We'll see. 

Here's my noobish Fiverr Profile.

Traction:

But luckily this week I've gotten some real traction. I have a longtime friend, Rich, who runs a freelance marketing agency, so I reached out to him and we agreed to do a pilot marketing project for a client who runs a new home exterior contracting company that is struggling to get leads.

We're using the chatbot and page builder to create many different variations of landing pages for Google PPC campaigns so we can experiment. By iterating quickly, we've helped the client start landing some leads for stucco remodels!

We're about to launch some additional PPC campaigns for roof replacement/repairs, along with going after larger $20K-$30K exterior remodel jobs. Our MVP is helping iterate faster on these marketing campaigns, and helping our client get more leads for his business.

If this project continues to succeed, we'll have a compelling case study with proof we're building something valuable. (I already have some proof of success with some previous clients, but this will be our first organized and disciplined case study).

Since building my last startup was lonely, I've decided to say: "**** it", I'm going to post the entire journey online. This way, whether it flops or goes gangbuster, we'll at least have some fun doing it!

So, here's the start of my weekly progress thread 🥂.

Stats for the week:

• Daily Active Users: 1. (myself)
• Weekly Active Users: 3. (myself, my Mom, and Rich)
• New Sign Ups: 0
• Sales Prospects/Leads in Pipeline: 3
• Current Revenue: $45/month

I'll post updates here weekly.

Friends & Family:

What are you seeing with ChatGPT and AI, how do you interact with it? Do you interact with it at all? Why or why not?

PS: Here's a demo video for the curious.