This week’s Founder Finds includes:
🛠️ An AI app builder
💰 A $1.12M/year AI app
🚧 A guide to feature gating
🦾 A deep dive into AI agents
🎬 A marketing tactic for AI startups
➡️ And more…
🪶 Remember This
Kill one problem at a time.
🤓 Fav Finds
Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members
🛠️ BASE44 shared by Elie Steinbock
An AI app builder that handles databases and integrations
🎬 AI Startup Hype Videos shared by Sam McKay
A new playbook for marketing AI startups
🦾 Agents shared by Eddie Forson
A deep dive into how AI agents work
🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins
⏱️ Michael Pearson-Adams launched Zahxo
💻 Sam McKay opened the waitlist for KnowCode
🎪 Simon launched Build in Public
🤖 Eddie Forson wrote about DeepSeek v3
👥 Alper Tunga unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups
🐦 Tweet of the Week
🛠️ Tools of the Week
👨💻 CodeFast — Learn to code in weeks, not months
🔎 Osum — Perform market research with AI
⏱️ Rize — Maximize your productivity with AI
🎧 Listen To
How Did This 17-Year Old Build a $1.12M/Year AI App?
Here’s how Zach Yadegari built a million-dollar AI app that tracks calories:
- Design for sharing and simplicity: Create a “wow moment” that makes users want to share (like instant calorie counting from photos). Keep everything else dead simple – one core feature, clear pricing, easy onboarding.
- Master influencer marketing: Find creators with real engagement (1-3% rate, 50,000+ views), negotiate bundled deals ($750/video) and engage in comments to boost algorithmic reach.
- Use smart pricing: Tie free trials to annual plans ($99/year), break down yearly cost to look cheaper monthly ($8.33 vs $9.99) and be transparent with trial reminders.
💬 Join the Conversation
Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…
- (📈 Pro) Best blogging platforms
- (📈 Pro) Building LLM chatbot apps
- (📈 Pro) Best prompt engineering courses
📘 Read This
How to Get Paid Users with Feature Gating?
Great products tactfully guide users from free to paid plans without frustrating them.
- Display progress toward usage limits, like Todoist showing 3/5 projects used, instead of surprising users when they hit the limit
- When users hit a limit, don’t just ask for money – show the full value of upgrading, like Beehiiv’s feature landing pages inside their app
- Signal what’s premium before users click – use consistent visual markers (like Buffer’s purple lightning) to show which features need upgrading
🍢 Trends Tribe
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- Help each other grow
Next meetup: April 21
The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
🎞️ AI Agent for Video Editing
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