The Startup Ideas Podcast
I Built a $10M AI Startup as a College Dropout (Exact Strategy That Worked)
Wed, 26 Feb 2025
David Park, founder of Jenny AI, details his step-by-step approach to building a profitable AI startup that reached $10 million in annual recurring revenue. He emphasizes starting with organic short-form content and influencer marketing before moving to SEO and paid advertising. Park attributes much of Jenny AI's success to finding viral content formats that could be repeated with variations, working with the right influencers regardless of follower count, and focusing on retention metrics as the company scaled.Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro03:00 - Organic Short Form Content08:25 - The Power of Fresh Accounts in Influencer Marketing11:17 - Case Study: MengMengDuck and Influencer Partnerships18:01 - New Creator Guidelines25:57 - Order of Virality: Steps to Achieve Success30:55 - Finding Influencers36:21 - Outreach Strategies40:34 - Negotiating with Influencers44:50 - Content posting strategy49:15 - Final UGC Tips 51:52 - SEO Strategy57:00 - Paid Ads Playbook59:53 - David's final advice:01:02:08 - From $5M to $10M1) ORGANIC SHORT-FORM CONTENT David's shocking truth: Fresh accounts with 1 follower can OUTPERFORM accounts with millions!The algorithm rewards quality, not history.2) The "Fresh Account" Strategy:• Create new accounts specifically for your product• Find creators to be the face of these accounts• Pay them to create consistent content• Focus on hooks that resonate with your audience3) The Viral Series Formula Find ONE format that works, then repeat it with slight variations.Example: "POV: You have an essay due" videos for Jenny AI generated 300M+ views and $500K+ in revenue!4) INFLUENCER MARKETING Don't waste time with mega-influencers charging $20K per post.Instead:• Find creators whose audience matches your users• Create a new account with them as the face• Pay for consistent content (not one-offs)• Let them maintain their authentic style5) How to find the RIGHT influencers:• Ask your users which creators they follow• Create a "scout" account that only follows relevant creators• Let the algorithm suggest similar accounts• Look for creators with high engagement (not just followers)6) Outreach hack that WORKS:Send money via Venmo to influencers you want to work with!They'll get a push notification and respond out of curiosity.7) Negotiation strategy:• Start by asking for their HIGHEST price point (all features)• Remove elements you don't need to lower the price• Negotiate bulk deals (20% off for multiple videos)• Split payment between upfront and performance-basedNEVER pay based on follower count - that's outdated!8) Content posting strategy:• Post 1+ videos DAILY to test different hooks• Trust creators to maintain their authentic style• Create systems that let influencers work autonomously• Don't be afraid of videos looking like ads - they convert BETTERScale to a video every few hours!9) David's final advice:"I'm a non-technical founder, a college dropout, not from Silicon Valley. If I can build this, YOU CAN TOO." - David Park"The truth? Only 1% of people reading this will implement these strategies for a full year." - David ParkNotable Quotes"We had one video that got 20 million views that had almost a negligible effect on conversions that day for Jenny. It was as if we got zero views, like nothing really happened that day. And yeah, it's just important to create content for people that actually want to convert and want to actually use your product." - David Park"I'm a non-technical person. I'm a non-technical founder doing an AI startup. I am a college dropout. I would not say I'm like one of those cracked people. I'm not from Silicon Valley... and I was able to kind of build this company." - David ParkWant more free ideas? I collect the best ideas from the pod and give them to you for free in a database. Most of them cost $0 to start (my fav)Get access: https://www.gregisenberg.com/30startupideasLCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/BoringAds — ads agency that will build you profitable ad campaigns http://boringads.com/BoringMarketing — SEO agency and tools to get your organic customers http://boringmarketing.com/Startup Empire - a membership for builders who want to build cash-flowing businesses https://www.startupempire.coFIND ME ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/FIND DAVID ON SOCIALJenni AI: https://jenni.aiX/Twitter: https://x.com/Davidjpark96Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paviddark/
Chapter 1: How did David Park build a $10M AI startup?
David Park went from $0 to $10 million with his AI startup in the last few years. And he's got this incredible growth tactic playbook. And we actually went through his playbook, paid ads, SEO, influencer marketing, you name it. And this is incredible. the most comprehensive, best playbook that I have seen of growth marketing for an AI startup to date. It is incredible. And he just gives it to us.
The people who listen to this episode to the end, this will actually change lives. People will actually be able to take some of this this playbook and implementing their startups. I hope you enjoy this episode. People charge for this stuff, but it's free here on the Startup Ideas podcast. Enjoy the episode. We got David Park on the Startup Ideas podcast.
I learned about him through this post, how to go from zero to $5 million AR profitably step by step. It went absolutely bonkers viral, 4.5 thousand likes. He talks about organic short form content, influencer marketing, SEO, paid ads. Now this isn't just a click baity hook. He actually goes through exactly the playbook for how to grow. And he's done it himself.
He's actually, since then, gone to $10 million ARR with his startup, Jenny AI. So I had to have him here on the pod. And we're going to just... By the end of this pod, what I hope to get out of David is some growth tactics for you to do the same. So growth tactics to go from zero to $10 million AR profitably. David Park, welcome to the pod.
Thank you so much for having me. I wrote this a while ago now, so I'll kind of be reading along with you guys and I'll kind of be adding more context as I explain things that we did to go from zero to 5 million. And then I actually haven't written the 5 to 10 million revenue posts. So we'll be, I guess, writing that real time on this podcast and figuring out how I did that.
But yeah, I mean, if we want to just not waste people's time, we can literally just like jump right into it. If you want to just... If you want to just start getting to the post, I'm happy to do so.
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Chapter 2: What is the 'Fresh Account' strategy in social media marketing?
Cool. Yeah. So yeah, let's start with number one. So organic short form content. You basically say, you talk about the fresh account versus not fresh account and how you should think about the format, finding a face, craft a viral video series, multiply your accounts. What do you mean by this?
Yeah, so I mean that traditionally on social media, there was a lot of clout associated with like a million followers or like check marks or just like, I think there was this idea that the history of someone's channel meant a lot, but nowadays that's not really the case at all.
There are many cases where founders will just make one video on their TikTok and that video will just immediately go viral, which, you know, no matter how many times I say it, people don't really seem to believe it until it happens to one of their friends. But I mean, I'm sure you've had many guests that, you know, say the same thing. Like you can literally just make
a straight up ad about your product. If the hook is good and the content is, you know, high quality, you have a good shot of getting, you know, 10, 100,000, a million views. And that's obviously, you know, costs you very little or nothing to do. So this idea of like fresh accounts with one follower, 10 followers versus an account with a million followers, it's not hyperbole.
We've done a lot of A-B tests at Jenny where we've posted the same content, literally the same content on our main account that has 70,000 followers and an account that had, I believe at the time, like 50 followers. And it's not really that strange for the account with 56 followers to beat the amount of engagement or the amount of views with the account with more followers.
I mean, it's really just... You have a chance to really... We live in this very strange time where you can kind of... If your content resonates, it will just immediately be blasted to a million people. And I think that... the startups, especially AI startups, where you're inherently, your product is kind of a spectacle, you know, like magic is an API call away.
You can make something that's just pleasant to watch. You could just use that, make some content on it. And yeah, it's not like prior where there were gatekeepers where you needed, you know, lots of followers or anything like that.
So you say here, I would unironically sponsor a fresh account made this week versus a YouTuber with a million subs if they had similar views. And I don't even think it's a controversial opinion.
I don't think it's a controversial opinion.
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Chapter 3: How can influencer marketing be optimized for startups?
There you go. And this is the strategy that worked for you and might work for other people. Thank you for talking about it. Now, paid ads. Paid ads. Let's get into it. How to paid ads.
How to paid ads. Yeah. So this is another. The reason that I put SEO and paid ads at the end is I kind of feel like in many ways they're both a trap. When you're an early stage entrepreneur, you want really fast iterative cycles, right? So you want like... You want to be able to test something, see if it resonates, and then change up how you're doing it.
And so you could do that with like UGC Influencer. You can't really do that with SEO. Paid ads is kind of a middle ground where you could do it a little more. But even then, like, you know, you have to spend time in the learning phase. You have to spend time creating creatives. You have to like... it's, it's its own kind of beastly have to go after.
And I know many people that have kind of got stuck in this paid ads trap of like they, they're, they're perennially stuck in this like one-to-one, uh, cacti LTV or like 1.5 to one. And, um, they are some people, a lot of people just stay on profitable and a lot of like the money that they ended up raising or maybe their own personal money, they ended up using paid ads.
The good news is if you do, you just see your influencer first. Um, uh, Uh, you, you can actually get content that, you know, people will resonate with organically and you could reuse that in terms of paid ads. You can use data from your social media partnerships have better target rather than day one. Um, oh yeah, this is big. Like what countries convert better? What's the LTV of each country?
What type of users are ideal to market to? And, um, Yeah. In the early stages, your budget won't be big enough and you won't be able to spend enough on meta to get enough data for targeting based on purchase conversions. So we really only got into paid ads after we got some semblance of PMF. Unclear if we have like PMF, PMF, but like there are people that like our products and Um, today.
And once we kind of had that feeling, then we started getting to paid ads. Um, and you know, the numbers kind of speak for themselves. Uh, we try to aim for like a three to one, um, tax to LTV or three, one LTV tax. Um, and, um, we try to get a short payback period. So, um, I think right now we make our money. like within the first two months of acquiring a user.
And so that's always, I mean, that's helpful because the reason that's helpful is because then you can take that money, just funnel it back into your best performing acquisition channel at a time. Whether that's getting more UGC influencers or doing more mini tools for SEO or putting more into paid ads. I personally think it's the most boring growth channel.
So don't deprive yourself of the joy of figuring out the other fun ones first. So that's the quick breeze of the last two kind of pillars. If you want to know more, we could link like my SEO guy is also on Twitter and stuff. you could look at his post as well.
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Chapter 4: What is the Viral Series Formula and how does it work?
That's a testament to like my team, you know, shout out to Mark, shout out to Shelesh, shout out to Heymont, Dandy, Justin, Luke, everybody on the team, Shane, everybody that's just killing it. And we were able to get these numbers down. So that's really five to 10.
It's just like getting back to the basics, tweaking the, making the funnel cleaner, scaling out what's already working, doing some acquisitions along the way and adding, you know, one or two more channels when you have the chance.
I loved how you just thanked a bunch of people. It felt like I was, I felt like we were in the Oscars for startups. Yeah.
Right.
And I was, I got goosebumps. I got goosebumps because I was like, I could tell that, you know, you all worked really hard on, you know, my team worked so hard. Yeah. It's crazy. That's awesome. Thank you, David. You have been extremely generous with your time, but also your brain, your lovely, lovely brain. This audience is going to eat this up and appreciate you for it.
We are going to include the links to Jenny AI in the show notes, as well as your social. But is there anything else you want to leave people with at all?
Anything I want to leave people with? I think like... I mean, my, I'm going to butcher this, but like basically there was some, I think it's like three hours, some marathon time of like, it was never beating and then one person beat it. And then like the next fucking marathon or the next year, like seven people, like a bunch of people were able to like run that marathon time.
So, you know, I'm a non-technical person. I'm a non-technical founder doing an AI startup. I am a college dropout. I would not say I'm like one of those cracked people. I'm not from Silicon Valley. I was, I stayed there once before my flight out of SF. I am not of that world. And like, I was able to kind of build this company, obviously not just because of me.
Thanks to like really brilliant and like, People I'm really grateful that took a bet on me. But this is the time that I ran. I think a lot of you watching could also run this time if you really locked in. You don't have to send me $50 on Venmo. You could also just DM me on Twitter. If I think that I can help you and you seem like a cool person, I'm pretty easily reachable.
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