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when I started AI career which is at
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8,000 Mr currently I was still an
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employee at IBM how did this girl build
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a $100,000 Pere AI app while working a
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full-time job well it's because of how
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she's growing it to find customers
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online uh you have to think about where
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your clients are Pauline spent her first
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few years as a part-time Indie hacker
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building side projects but not seeing
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much success then after several failures
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she found a winning idea in one of the
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hottest yet most saturated Industries
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right now ai apps but it turns out
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there's still plenty more opportunity
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than you might think I think the biggest
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opportunity might be to I spent over an
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hour talking to Pauline about her AI
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business and what I really tried to
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figure out was how she was able to
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succeed in such a crowded Market good
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news is she shares everything how to
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find good ideas her framework for
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marketing and AI tools
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and some unique ways to reduce turn for
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your users all right let's get into it
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I'm Pat walls and this is starter
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story welcome Pauline thank you for
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coming on it's great to have you tell me
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about who you are and the business you
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built hi I'm paen and I built AI Crea
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it's a service to renovate home in s
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thanks to AI you just upload a picture
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to the service you selected a style and
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uh a few seconds later you see your
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kitchen in a very modern or Scandinavian
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way AA has more than 8,000 user right
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now it makes around 8,000 every month on
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the business model when someone sign up
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to the SAS they have free trials and uh
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then they are required to pay to
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continue to use the Service pricing
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models is a onetime payment with a
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certain number of photos and you also
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have a monthly payment with some extra
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features so you built this $100,000 per
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year app while you had a full-time job
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tell me more about that I learned to
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cult in uh engineering school after
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college I uh joined IBM and after this I
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kind of switch and I said okay thata
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science is not what I want to do all my
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life what I want to do on all my life is
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entrepreneurship but I wasn't ready to
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make a big jump of uh uh becoming an N
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Harker because I needed money as well
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when I work at IBM I had only the night
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and weekends I stopped IBM in June two
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months ago I think it's really different
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when you are working on a day job or you
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are Hindi hacking full time wow that's
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amazing so your side project allowed you
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to quit your 9 to5 and now you're a
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full-time founder what I want to know is
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how do you come up with ideas I think I
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usually find ideas when I encounter some
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problem either me or friends when it's
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friends like for a carea I ask question
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a lot of question really you have this
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problem but when how frequent you have
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this problem I really think am I able to
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do better am I able to build something
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around it am I able to monetize it and
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to find clients that's really important
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question and if the answer is yes to
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everything I start on working on it okay
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cool so we talked about ideas we talked
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about problems my question is once you
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find that idea how do you validate that
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is an idea worth building and that it
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can make money I start some marketing or
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I start to communicate on my product if
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I have some client kind of quickly then
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I said okay maybe there is something
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that I could do around it like for air I
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build an MVP and then I show it to a few
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real estate agent that I found online or
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in personal Network for people that say
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that's awesome I want to buy it now and
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they actually paid for this so that was
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the validation okay so get your MVP out
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there see if people are interested that
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is the way to build but can you tell me
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a little bit more about what it looks
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like to actually create that MVP in my
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opinion the sooner you chip the better
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because sometime you imagine your client
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want this but what they actually want is
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this so it's really hard to imagine what
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your clients want if you don't have
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clients when you start don't expect
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everything to be perfect AI ca for
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instance MVP was a simple features bad
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quality it was done maybe in month but
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uh then it's a year of work to improve
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it Pauline is the perfect example of how
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one person can turn a simple idea into
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thousands of dollars even while working
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a full-time job and her blueprint was
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simple she found an idea she built a
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really simple MVP and then she validated
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that it could actually make money by
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getting it in front of her actual
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customers that final step is where
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almost everyone goes wrong and this is
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why we built the starter story Academy
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it's a 5we program where you'll come up
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with an idea you'll build something
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simple and then you'll spend all your
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time focused on validation and if this
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thing can actually make money inside the
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academy is a clear and actionable track
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you can follow with Milestones deadlines
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and it's all gamified to get you to take
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action and work on the things that
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matter this is not just another course
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this is the turning point in your
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journey imagine what you could
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accomplish in 5 weeks if you simply
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worked on the right thing
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what's even cooler is that you'll do it
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inside our community of thousands of
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successful Founders working on similar
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problems and building online businesses
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that will change their lives so if
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you're serious about actually doing this
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thing and you're ready to take action
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I'm going to leave a link in the
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description where you can learn more
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okay so we build the MVP how do we go
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and actually find customers to find
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customers online uh you have to think
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about where your clients are you have
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many social media like for instance
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Faceook Facebook or LinkedIn or Reddit
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go through them and just type in the
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search bar like you are looking for real
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estate agent type it in LinkedIn let's
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see if you can find some communities on
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it for instance AI Crea my best
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marketing channel is uh probably
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Facebook and physical event maybe
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because real estate agent it's really an
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activity of human but for nexts
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directory my main marketing channel is
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Twitter because I have big audience
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there and my audience is mainly
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developers or people who want to do
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handy hacking so this product really is
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a fit with them okay so the best places
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to Market our products are where our
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customers hang out right but what if we
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want to accelerate that growth at the
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very beginning what are specifically
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some good places to launch apps as a
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solopreneur now I prefer to launch on
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product in order to get a backlink for
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SEO because it's a very good backlink
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but the visibility is less good than it
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used to be so I'm launching on product
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on and also on Twitter because I have a
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big audence there probably I will use my
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newsletter as well I didn't launch
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nextory on Facebook but I launched C on
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Facebook all right so now you got people
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interested in the product the next thing
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I go to is how to monetize it how do you
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determine plans and overall pricing
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strategy for an app like yours if you
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sell for a low price you you have an
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image of being a low cost you don't have
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the same client by selling low cost to
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high cost and also by selling higher
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price you might have less clients but
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it's less support as well so you have to
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also think about how do you want to be
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perceived and how much support are you
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able to deliver as well okay let's talk
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about business models do you prefer a
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recurring subscription or onetime
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payment I'd love to hear your thoughts
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on this I like to offer both
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subscription and one time payment
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because some people really don't like
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subscription I had a few subscription in
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many services and it was a nightmare to
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consel I don't like this kind of
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retention my button is very clear when
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you subscribe you have it consel and
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it's really easy I think it's really
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important to earn trust from your
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customer as well all right I love it
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besides building trust with customers
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are there any other hacks to reduce turn
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or just increase Revenue in general uh
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last year I had a high churn and I
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really reduced it like drastically by
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adding yearly plan it sounds stupid but
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now they are engaged for a year so they
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will use the service better the second
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one is uh I did a free trial so now
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people can try before subscribing they
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are able to see if the service uh fit
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their need and the third point is I
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really improve the service like the
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quality it's much better than uh last
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year it feels really like a photo okay
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and what's the tech stack you use how do
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you stay up to- date with AI and run
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your business profitably I use a Discord
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every day to talk with my cofounder and
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people are working with us I use crisp
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for the support clients that they can
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chat with us uh through the chat window
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I use Twitter a lot to share my journey
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to share what's new on AI Crea LinkedIn
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as well I'm starting to use it I use
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also buffer to schedule my tweets behive
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to send my newsletters but I'm still on
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the free trial on this one bra for the
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marketing automation of EMS the database
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authentification is super base but this
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is more like technical uh tool I guess I
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mainly use negs as a language but for AI
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models I use um python I think my
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business cost around three or
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4,000 uh EUR to run each month But it
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includes servers it includes some
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marketing like we run ads sometimes also
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it could be the cost of a freelancer and
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going to personal event I could cut some
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cost but uh for the moment I'm not
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trying to save the most money I'm trying
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to invest uh in order to grow the
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business okay tell me about the biggest
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opportunities in the AI space right now
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I think the biggest opportunities might
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be to insert AI in uh existing product
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you receive email every day what if you
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have an AI that can help you to answer
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to your email this is a Services plugged
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in another one and that's something that
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uh could do because biggest
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opportunities I think is service got it
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okay another question for you since the
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space is heavily dominated by dudes how
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does it feel for you to be a successful
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girl Indie hacker yeah I don't know why
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but girls are not uh visible they are
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not doing much in the hacking so please
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uh don't uh retain yourself if you are
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girl to think oh but there is only men
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it's not for me no it's for you as well
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if you enjoy calling if you enjoy SAS
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please do it I think it's really
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important also if you are a girl to be
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visible because you will inspire other
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to do the same don't hide yourself or
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return yourself from building if it's
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something that you you want to try all
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right last question that we always ask
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all founders when we interview them if
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you could stand on a younger Pauline's
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shoulder and give her some advice maybe
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when you were just starting out what
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would you tell her okay so if you want
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to start IND theia King please don't
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wait for the perfect product challenge
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just start to do something because it's
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high likely that your first product will
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fail I mean I don't know any
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entrepreneur who achieved the success at
00:11:56
the first time so you will learn a lot
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during during the journey so please chip
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very fast uh lunch when you have an MVP
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and ask for a lot of feedbacks and be
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consistent and also I think uh make
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connection with people who are doing
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mding we exchange best practices we
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exchange tips we exchange some things
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that didn't work in order to to improve
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us and my biggest lesson was uh I think
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it was to invest in yourself you are the
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common point of every project that you
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build and uh think about how you can
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reach your customers don't think like oh
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I okay could do some Reddit message or
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discard message or DM people I mean
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think about really how you could build
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genuine connection to your customers
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thank you for coming on the starter
00:12:46
story Channel sharing everything you
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know and inspiring millions of people to
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start their own business see you yo guys
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I really hope you enjoyed the video and
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got some good nuggets with Pauline I
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think the business that she built is
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really impressive and I really like the
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way that she went about building it
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talking to customers and actually
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building something that people needed
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but I want to say something real quick
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at the end of the day the purpose of
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this video is to show you that regular
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people like Pauline change their lives
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by building a business but watching this
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video is not going to magically give you
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a business that changes your life you
00:13:20
need to go find an idea you need to take
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action and you need to work relentlessly
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to validate it and see if it's something
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that can actually work while learning is
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important and action is the thing that's
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actually going to get you your dream
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outcome so if you feel like you're still
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struggling on this maybe some analysis
00:13:36
paralysis not exactly sure what to work
00:13:38
on then I highly recommend checking out
00:13:40
the starter story Academy again it's not
00:13:43
for everyone it's only if you're really
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serious about actually doing this thing
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actually building a business while you
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have a full-time job that could change
00:13:50
your life inside the academy you'll get
00:13:52
an actionable blueprint to follow every
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day it will give you the right habits
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but most importantly it will put you on
00:13:58
the path on how to find an idea how to
00:14:00
validate it's an idea that can actually
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make money and how to actually build
00:14:04
that idea and bring it to life just head
00:14:07
to the first link in the description if
00:14:08
you want to learn more much love and
00:14:10
I'll see you guys in the next one peace
00:14:17
[Music]
