How often do you hear this story? A school dropout, battling cancer and building a $30 Million Startup?
Nobody knew that as a school dropout battling thyroid cancer, he would rise and build a $30 Million startup. David Park had failed multiple times trying his hands in business, from a clothing brand to a dating app. Over 7 companies had failed in his youthful hands over close to a decade. Anyone in his right mind would have thrown in the towel. But not David Park.
David started selling clothes when he was 16 because he was always interested in making products and providing value to people.
Covered by the amazing love and support of his parents, who were themselves entrepreneurs, David found the inspiration to soldier on. In retrospect, he notes that his parents gave him something more valuable than money, love, and support. It is from their modest bedroom that ideas were generated, and initial work done that would lead to the birth of a behemoth.
And that’s how he moved from several years of failure to laying the foundation stone for jenni.ai, the successful AI company.
Starting a content marketing agency.
Before he ventured into Software as a Service (SaaS), David ventured into content marketing. Leveraging the small power of AI available at the time, he wrote millions of words to businesses. The objective was to help them increase their online presence and thus drive business growth.
He hired content writers and had them write 10 to 20% faster with AI. But David still felt something better than this could be done.
The Advent of GPT2 and GPT-3
The advent of GPT-2 however, with its many imperfections, gave him hope that machines could be used to help output words and assist humanity to write. But there was a problem, David had no coding experience while aspiring to be an AI entrepreneur, an invention that required heavy coding work.
Then GPT-3 came as a precursor to ChatGPT. It was then that it struck him that instead of having several writers write content for companies, why not just make an AI service and give it to companies to help them write faster?
As a consequence, he found what he missed in a fellow college mate, Henry Mao. Henry was fascinated with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and was a coding pro while, a literature major, loved writing.
The convergence of writing and AI was a perfect combination for the dream he had to build an AI platform that would augment human capabilities.
$10k from the Plane.
But two rights brains alone could not move dreams forward. Money was an important factor in the furtherance of their dreams. While their parents provided love and support and they had AI and writing skills, where were they going to get the money to start?
As they say, sometimes luck meets opportunity. One day while on a flight between Seattle and San Diego, David sat with a man he joyfully shared his dreams with. This man go interested in his ideas and engaged him throughout the flight.
Bubbling with entrepreneurial energy, David used the opportunity offered in the plane to pitch to the man next to him. Interestingly, he says, once the plane leaves the ground, you have a captive audience for the duration of the flight. You can do anything you want with him because he has nowhere else to go.
Less than two days after the pitch thousands of feet above sea level, David met the man again who was thrilled with his idea. The man only the plane gave him a check for $10,000. This was the first lumpsum his young hands had touched. He invested the money in the startup and even though the startup never worked as intended, it generated enough, and he returned the $10,000 later.
The birth of Jenni-AI and the inspiration of a school drop out, battling cancer and building a $30 Million Startup.
This investment was a godsend and David decided to drop out of college and Jenni.AI was created. Jenni.AI is an AI writing assistant tailored to the student and Academic market. It helps augment the work of humans and does not solely generate all the pieces of work for you. One advantage that sets it apart from other AI word output competitors is that it has an inbuilt plagiarism checker and offers citations of sources.
It is an AI system that helps you write and research faster. It is a service that uses AI to help researchers and graduate students. It does this by assisting them in conducting academic research quickly and easily finding information and even generating citations.
The life-changing podcast.
One day, David was to a low a small podcast with very low ratings and listeners. but He decided to go anyway and place his dreams before the world. Unbeknownst to him. Among the few listeners that day was a venture capitalist.
At the close of the podcast, he gave his contacts through which days later the VC wrote him a letter. Not a man to regularly check his emails, David didn’t see the email and the opportunity almost slipped.
A second email would come a few days later which, thankfully, David saw. This man offered him an opportunity to an accelerator program that came with a $100k investment.
It was a big break.
This huge amount enabled the two founders to make considerable progress in building Jenni. AI.
Even after this huge investment, Jenni.AI still suffered stunted growth for the next two years. Between January 2019 to January 2021, gross volume was $ 44,865.42. They had to raise another $250k and $500k to stay afloat.
Viral Tweet and the Biggest Break
Jenni.AI struggled for two years with a constant monthly revenue of $2000k.They seemed stuck and stunted in growth. Then, a viral tweet by Zain Kahn on their new product and its effectiveness reverberated across the internet. They then decided to cash in on the opportunity because they knew it would be short-lived.
The tweet read ‘An AI auto-writing tool that automatically writes your essay and emails for you. All you have to do is give it a title and a couple of sentences.’
Immediately, their Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) rose from $2000k -$10k in one month. After this, they used TikTok and influencers to reinforce the buzz created with the tweet and the plane took off completely.
Now they have a fully functional B2B that students love. They have also partnered with CopyLeaks to help identify instances of plagiarism. And feedback from students has added the element of citations.
Jenni.AI is now mostly loved by master’s and PhD students and other people writing high-volume things for publication. A true inspiration for a school dropout, battling cancer and building a $30 Million Startup.
Graduates offer 4% – 7% conversion more than undergraduates according to their experience.
The strategy used to get Jenni.AI out to the Public and drive sales.
- Pulled a lot of features out of the initial product to make it user-friendly. He felt he had a product with a ton of features, bloated features people did not understand.
- Initially did organic TikTok but hit a brick wall. Came in handy only after the viral tweet.
- Influencer marketing.
- SEO
- Building on an affiliate program
- Pay channel.
- Spends an average of $70,000 on advertising per month.
- No offices. The nature of their work ensures people work from home. The biggest office, he says, is his bed.
Given that software profits are higher, they anticipate a profit margin of 80% – 91%. Their staff overheads currently stand at $60,000 – $70,000 per month.
Revenue Growth
The startup has witnessed phenomenal growth ever since. The following is the performance for at the close of 2023;
$260k MRR (+440.8%)
$1.95M Revenue (+623.2%)
17.27k active subscriptions (+379.5%).
1.86 M signups (+ 292.9%)
At the start of 2024, Jenni.AI has made over $3M, $400k for February and it keeps going up.
Lessons in Life and Business from David and Jenni.AI
- Find the soul of your startup and run with it.
- Work with your users. The behavior of your users guides you a great deal in building and perfecting your product.
- The riskiest thing a business can do is not to take risks.
- If your business idea is not working, then you should think of a hard rebrand.
- Look for a cofounder who complements you. Started a coding business with no coding background but worked with Henry who was fascinated with AI.
- When you fail, you learn a successful skill that you need for your next venture.
- When you are doing so many tasks, half of them are going to fail. We need to appreciate that.
- “When I focused on the core product of just helping people write faster, retention increased, we witnessed faster growth and people resonating with the product.”
- Humans are more social animals than truth-seeking animals.
- Entrepreneurs go through a lot. Any business that succeeds is kind of miraculous.
- You shouldn’t be using AI if you don’t know how to write. AI is supposed to augment your writing, not write for you.
- A lot of entrepreneurship is luck. This was partly luck, but a lot of work also went into it.
Conclusion on a school dropout, battling cancer, and building a $30 Million Startup.
In conclusion, David’s drop out from school and his dogged determination to his Jenni. Ai while battling cancer is a study of the resilience of the human spirit. David went through several attempts at starting a business over 10 years that would have broken even the strong-hearted.
His journey teaches budding entrepreneurs never to say die, because success may just be on the horizon when we want to give up.
David now works an average of 10 hours a day, still perfecting jenni.AI and ensuring it remains competitive in the fast-changing AI landscape. And he says, ‘What is the use of hard work if you can’t enjoy your money?’
Now cancer-free, David books flights and works from different world capitals. He stays and works in a given country until he gets tired of it. Then book a flight to another.
A well-deserved work culture and enjoyment for a man who has worked so hard and smart to create opportunities for himself and others.
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