Issue 018: How David Park Grew His Company to $5m ARR Using a Viral Hack, the Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, and More
January 15, 2025 | #018 | Free Version
Welcome to Startup Blitz, a weekly newsletter full of timeless ideas and insights you can use in your online business.
🪙 The viral strategy that helped Jenni AI achieve $5m in annual recurring revenue
🏷️ How to use BNPL (buy now pay later) to increase sales
🧘 How to use distance to be a better founder
👑 The irrefutable laws of leadership
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How David Park Grew Jenni AI to $5M ARR with a Unique Strategy
Jenni AI is an essay-writing tool created by David Park. It has over 4 million users and generates $5M+ in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR).
Park recently shared how he achieved this milestone profitably. One key tactic he used was organic short-form content. But he used it in a way I haven’t seen anyone else discuss before.
Follower Counts Don’t Matter
“New accounts are highly volatile. If you put out a great engaging piece of content, it could easily go viral regardless of how many followers you have,” says Park.
He uses the world-famous Korean boy band BTS as an example. If they launch a new TikTok account, their videos will immediately go viral. Even with zero followers, the algorithm would push their videos to fans. It would treat the account as if it had hundreds of millions of followers.
Why? Because the algorithm recognizes content people want.
This strategy was highly effective for three reasons:
1. No risk for influencers: Their main accounts stayed untouched.
2. Lower cost: It was cheaper to pay for 20 videos on a new account than for 20 sponsored posts on a main account.
3. Strong results: Videos on new accounts still reached their audience.
Here’s a real example: Park found a creator named Mengmengduck. He had 500k followers and specialised in teaching students how to write to employers. He paid him $4,000 for 20 videos per month.
Focus on Viral Content and Scale It
When working with influencers, Park focused on finding viral “series.” Basically, content formats that could go viral repeatedly with slight tweaks.
Once he found a winning format, he worked with smaller, charismatic UGC creators rather than big influencers. They were even cheaper.
1. A guy tries to see how many sticks of spaghetti it takes to hold his weight. Then he tries coat hangers, paper sheets, and other objects – same concept, minimal effort, consistently viral.
2. A creator drinks one cup of milk for every 1,000 followers they gain. Viewers tune in daily to see the chaos. Goes viral every time.
3. Jenni AI’s “POV you have an essay due” series. The video starts with someone in the bathroom, right before they go to sleep or a similar situation. They realise they have an essay due and start to panic. It ends with Jenni AI helping them write their essay faster.
The videos were always the same. Just a slightly different 10-second intro each time. They were posted multiple times a week, yet they consistently went viral.
This series generated 300 million+ views. Just one video bought in almost $500K in revenue.
Eliminate Influencers and Scale Yourself
“Currently, we have about 5 different Jenni AI accounts all posting similar content. Many of our accounts have tens or sometimes just hundreds of followers and they just repost stuff from our main account,” Park explains.
🎓 Scientific Research: Add "Buy Now, Pay Later" (BNPL) Option to Increase Sales
When someone chooses BNPL at checkout, the BNPL company pays the retailer the full amount. In return, the retailer pays the BNPL comapny a small transaction fee.
But how does BNPL affect retailers? Does it impact sales number?
🔬 Researchers from Imperial College London analyzed the sales data of a large U.S. retailer before and after the introduction of BNPL payment options. They examined 52 weeks of data, 22 weeks before and 30 weeks after the rollout.
– Purchase frequency increased by 9%
– Basket size/average purchase amount increased by 10%
– These effects persisted over time
– Customers find “four payments of $15” less daunting than “one payment of $60,” even though the total is identical.
– The installment option helps people feel more in control of their budget.
✋ Careful: BNPL can boost sales. But profitability depends on whether the revenue increase outweighs the installation cost & service fees. You’ll need to do the math for your specific business.
How Distance Made This Founder A Better Decision-Maker
But Dennis Pilarinos, founder of Unblocked, learned a counterintuitive lesson as a second-time founder. Sometimes the best way to solve problems is to step away.
“Any number of people told me, ‘You’re running a marathon at a sprint pace, you won’t be able to sustain it,’” Pilarinos told First Round. “My internal dialogue was like, watch me.”
But now he knows better.
“Now I have evidence that distance from the problem helps you solve it better. When I take a day away from the things I’m mulling over or that I just can’t seem to wrap my brain around, I come back to the problem and it’s simpler to resolve.”
“As a first-time founder, it was foreign to me that other people wouldn’t be going into the office on a Saturday, as I had done so for so long. Now I’m particularly strict around my Saturdays. I have a no phone, no computer rule. I actively try to do anything else.”
“You’re never as bad or as good as you think you are. It’s easy to say, but really hard to internalize. And so on the days that you land that big deal, you’re like, ‘I’m invincible.’ And then when the system is down for an extended period of time or a demo goes poorly or a customer churns out, you think, ‘Well, this is the end of the world.’”
“With Buddybuild [his first startup], I lived so intensely moment to moment where it was very, very unhealthy. Now it still hurts, but I think I have a little bit more perspective to realize that it could be better, it could be worse — and it will be.”
You can check out the full article for more hard-earned lessons from repeat startup founders.
📖 Book of the Week: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
In this bestselling leadership book, John C. Maxwell offers clear guidance on becoming an effective leader in today’s fast-changing world.
One of the key principles he shares is The Law of Connection. Maxwell explains that those closest to you determine your level of success.
No leader – past, present, or future- has achieved greatness without a capable and trustworthy inner circle.
“When they reach that point, what do they do? Effective leaders rely on the Law of the Inner Circle. They understand that those closest to you determine your level of success.
“When we see incredibly gifted people, we can be tempted to believe that talent alone made them successful. To think that is to buy into a lie. Nobody does anything great alone. Leaders do not succeed alone. Those closest to them determine the level of their success. What makes the difference is the leader’s inner circle.”
“Most human beings have some kind of inner circle—people close to them who help to make or break them. However, many people are not strategic in choosing them. Few people give enough thought to how those closest to them impact their effectiveness or leadership potential. We naturally tend to surround ourselves with either people we like or people with whom we are comfortable. But people who bring nothing more than fun or easiness will not help you to be successful.
“You see it all the time with certain athletes who transition to the professional ranks and with entertainers who achieve professional success. Some plateau or self-destruct because their inner circle is composed of people who are not helpful or are even harmful to them.
“To practice the Law of the Inner Circle, you must be intentional in your relationship building. You need to invest in the best people around you.”
Thanks for reading. I hope you have found at least some of these tips helpful.
Until next week!
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