Should I sell my AI app for $50k ?

[Guest-5ty5s4]

Waiting for the "I have $50,000 - what do I do?" Thread

 

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[AndreiR]

Hey Alex Hormozi did exactly what you're thinking of doing - sold his businesses to set himself up for Aquisition.com.

 

[Panos Daras]

Hi!

I received offers for my app, but I'm still hesitating if I should sell it or not.

Here is some background:

I learned to code in May of last year (2022) (full details here). Since then, I released lots of apps, until one started to work well. Without going into too many details, it's related to AI. I launched the app in December 2022, so 3 months ago, and it generated $20,000 of sales so far.

It makes consistent sales ($100-$200/day) fully organic. The profit is around 70%

However, the issue is that the internal reviews are pretty mediocre. Since AI can't generate EXACTLY what people ask, and some don't respect the limitations (I wrote clearly the do/don't but people don't read), the results often end up being just ok. That could definitely be improved in the long run by re-working the app, but I think it's beyond my technical capacities. I'd also like to focus on other businesses.

I decided to list it for $50,000 on a platform acquisition marketplace, and I received a few offers already.

I just wanted to get some opinions from entrepreneurs who've been there before too.

Should I sell it, or keep it as a cashflow source to fund other projects? And is $50,000 too high, too low, or ok?

First of all congratulations on your journey! It is really amazing to see what you have achieved!
On a different note, I have tried tons of AI apps on appsumo, product hunt etc, and in the end, unfortunately, Chat GPT plus, from the moment I learned proper prompting, and Midjourney are just killing all the others. The only one I kept was one called Neuronwriter which writes AI content based on SEO but in the end, I am not quite sure if I am going to keep it. Is SEO still (that) relevant in 2023? It seems like your product falls into these with mediocre reviews. A tough spot to be in. If I were you I would take the money now and create a new app with AI for B2B. There the market is less saturated and can be more local. Think for example AI invoice processing that integrates with a specific ERP. Hope this helps.

 

[Deleted115974]

Hi!

I received offers for my app, but I'm still hesitating if I should sell it or not.

Here is some background:

I learned to code in May of last year (2022) (full details here). Since then, I released lots of apps, until one started to work well. Without going into too many details, it's related to AI. I launched the app in December 2022, so 3 months ago, and it generated $20,000 of sales so far.

It makes consistent sales ($100-$200/day) fully organic. The profit is around 70%

However, the issue is that the internal reviews are pretty mediocre. Since AI can't generate EXACTLY what people ask, and some don't respect the limitations (I wrote clearly the do/don't but people don't read), the results often end up being just ok. That could definitely be improved in the long run by re-working the app, but I think it's beyond my technical capacities. I'd also like to focus on other businesses.

I decided to list it for $50,000 on a platform acquisition marketplace, and I received a few offers already.

I just wanted to get some opinions from entrepreneurs who've been there before too.

Should I sell it, or keep it as a cashflow source to fund other projects? And is $50,000 too high, too low, or ok?

If it is related to stable-diffusion and Image Generation and you are going to keep working on it to make it to the top, don't sell. Otherwise yes, probably, the market is getting dense in this.

 

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[Jeannen]

Congrats on taking action. As a fellow developer, I would recommend you sell it. AI space will get really competitive this year and only the best of the best will survive. Unless you are confident in your ability and have the willingness to compete, it's much better to sell it so you can pursue something more sustainable.

And TBH, from how you describe the app, there are no real competitive advantages you have over others.

Yes, that's also my thinking. I don't have the skills to make it really competitive for now, so I'd rather have someone who knows what he's doing handle it

With the "extra time" I get from it, I could work on becoming more competitive for other projects tho

 

[Jeannen]

Lots of good advice here. I would flip the question: knowing what you know about the app, would you pay $50k to buy it from someone else? More? Less? That might give you some clarity.

No, because I don't have the necessary skills to make it better for now

 

[Jeannen]

Look at growth over time. Check if the user base is constantly increasing, stable or decreasing. That should tell you the trend of the market in the face of your product. Have you tried ad campaigns, email lists, etc.

If not, give those a shot, pretty inexpensive usually compared to what they return.

After doing that for like 10 days, see if new users are coming in from those efforts. Then you can predict if your product will be worth more in the future. Then you can sell it for more.

Also, keep in mind people may buy your app already having a vision of how they would fix it to change the behavior you described, where users expect something that you can't exactly deliver right now.

Sales are stable, if not growing those last few days

Tried to run some ads but the economics don't allow for ads for now. And yes, users expect something I can't delivery for now, but someone with proper skills can easily do it

 

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[Faskill]

Just throwing it out there but I’m a data scientist with 5 years of experience.

I’d be interested in looking at your model to see if I can improve it.

I’m currently working at expanding my skills so I’m seeing this as a learning experience and you wouldn’t need to pay me, I can also sign a NDA.

You can throw me a PM if interested, I can send you my linkedin to show that I’m legit.

 

[Redwolf]

It sounds like you want to sell, so you should sell. And as others have said, competition is going to heat up in the AI space. I'm excited to see what is on the horizon.

How does your app compare to this? (or is this yours?)

Ai Logo Maker - Generate your free logo online in minutes! - LogoAI.com

Generate your custom logo design with our free logo maker. Just type in your business name and let our Ai-powered logo generator do the work.

www.logoai.com

The results are bad to mediocre to decent and could work for a business that doesn't need a high quality logo
but they do:
1) work as a starting point for further refinement
2) get the juices flowing to figure out what the user likes
3) show the logo being used in many different situations
4) offer a designer upgrade

Just playing around on that site (the kerning for instance needs hand adjusting):

 

[Ayush6543]

Hi!

I received offers for my app, but I'm still hesitating if I should sell it or not.

Here is some background:

I learned to code in May of last year (2022) (full details here). Since then, I released lots of apps, until one started to work well. Without going into too many details, it's related to AI. I launched the app in December 2022, so 3 months ago, and it generated $20,000 of sales so far.

It makes consistent sales ($100-$200/day) fully organic. The profit is around 70%

However, the issue is that the internal reviews are pretty mediocre. Since AI can't generate EXACTLY what people ask, and some don't respect the limitations (I wrote clearly the do/don't but people don't read), the results often end up being just ok. That could definitely be improved in the long run by re-working the app, but I think it's beyond my technical capacities. I'd also like to focus on other businesses.

I decided to list it for $50,000 on a platform acquisition marketplace, and I received a few offers already.

I just wanted to get some opinions from entrepreneurs who've been there before too.

Should I sell it, or keep it as a cashflow source to fund other projects? And is $50,000 too high, too low, or ok?

Wow, I saw your other thread on how you became a developer, and can you release a new thread on how you built this business in more detail?

 

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[Jeannen]

Wow, I saw your other thread on how you became a developer, and can you release a new thread on how you built this business in more detail?

I actually wrote everything along the way: MakeLogo.ai: From idea to $65,000 exit in 3 months

(yes, I sold it since then, will make a new post)

 

[loop101]

This app was a web app, correct? As opposed to a mobile app.

 

[semiconductor]

As for the questions:
- I can't hire a ML dev because I'm not using custom models, I'm just using different APIs and post-processing

Just wondering, are there any (legal) issues with using APIs to surface generative models in an app that you charge for?

Did you use freely available APIs (as opposed to commercial license ones)?

Since they were APIs, I assume you could not modify/fine-tune the underlying generative model, correct?
Thank you!

 

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