One of my goals for 2023 was to build or buy a small side project that could produce $500/mo in recurring revenue.
I have written about my desire to create cash-flowing assets; this was my first attempt at buying one.
I have kept a close eye on acquire.com for the past two years. Most of the exciting companies sell for more than I can pay. But every once in a while, a smaller project will catch my eye. With the release of ChatGPT – I knew this as a technology I wanted to learn more about.
To start 2023, I sold out of tech stocks in a personal M1 account. This stock account was purely for educational purposes and was suffering monthly losses. With $10k ready to go, I started looking on acquire.com every morning.
You can read more about what I learned from buying copypress.ai on acquire from my blog.
What’s Next?
It’s exciting and frustrating how fast and crowded the AI space has become. I plan to niche the product down to something I know well – real estate investor marketing.
This will make the product positioning, features, and messaging more straightforward on the benefits AI written copy can deliver for the end customer.
I will work on creating case studies of content that rank for competitive keywords to show proof that the tool can save time and yield positive results.
Improving The Product
The tech stack used for this product is something I have minimal experience with. It is currently using the Next.js framework with React and tailwind CSS.
To keep up with how fast the market is moving. I’ve hired my first part-time outsource software engineer to help me.
We are working out of a simple Notion board on weekly sprints.
Marketing copypress.ai
So far – marketing has been slow. I’ve been hesitant to promote copypress.ai until we improve the product. It’s a delicate balance because you don’t want to over-develop the product before you find the right fit.
The four marketing strategies I am executing are
- Submit copypress.ai to directories for startups
- Create blog posts and case studies on how to use the product effectively
- Create an affiliate program and reach out to influencers in the space
- Cold email outreach
I started with cold emails as they are the quickest path to learning more. So far, the results have been disappointing. The open rates are excellent – but the click rates have been a little more challenging.
Follow Along
If you’d like regular updates on how I am growing copypress.ai – subscribe to my blog or follow me on Twitter where I plan to tweet regular updates and build in public.