Making $190,000 per month with an AI dating assistant

[jesrdking]

I found a completely bootstrapped business making $190,000 per month with an app that helps you flirt using AI. While I found it to be slightly dystopian, I couldn’t help read more about how they do it.

The problem the business solves is quite simple, but niche. You screenshot a message that you get on a dating platform, Snapchat, etc and upload it to the app. The app then gives you a flirty/ clever response to send back. The idea is that this will make you better at flirting, get you more dates, etc.

The app has 1.5 million downloads in just 4.5 months, proving that there is a market for this niche, somewhat gimmicky product.

There is a free trial and then users pay a whopping $7/week to use it.

The listing mentions that they haven’t done any Facebook or Google ads, which could be worth exploring. However I think something like this would really pop on Instagram and TikTok. You can see some TikTok examples from a competitor, Rizz (https://www.tiktok.com/@rizz.app). Influencer marketing would be the main marketing vehicle for a business like this, imo.

The idea of paying $7/week for a ChatGPT wrapper that helps you flirt was crazy to me. But it illustrates the fact that just because something is a wrapper, doesn’t mean it’s a bad business. This company (and others) was able to find a unique angle in the AI space, and effectively capitalized on it. They didn’t just build a generic PDF chat app (no hate on PDF chatting apps, some of them are doing really well). But I think this business perfectly illustrates that there are endless possibilities and angles out there with AI.

The business is currently selling for $3.5 million.

P.S. I write a weekly 5-minute digest about online businesses (like this one) selling for life changing amounts of money in my free newsletter, Startup Sphere.

 

[tenthyoung]

@jesrdking If I owned this I would sell.

OpenAI could decide tomorrow this is against ToS or it isn't kosher.

 

[jesrdking]

@tenthyoung I suspect this may be a reason. As well as the introduction of GPTs like Flirt Master: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-qIiMDkvGz-flirt-master

 

[prettychillatheist]

@jesrdking Created today only 8 chats? sus

 

[jesrdking]

@prettychillatheist Someone mentioned it to me. Now I wonder if they made it right after they saw my post

 

[mattjames]

@jesrdking Or…more likely….this is you? And the post above was for you to drop your link.

 

[dmaxie61]

@mattjames Isn't that the majority of the posts here in this sub?

 

[raneubb]

@tenthyoung OpenAi not the only LLM provider on the market, banned on openai? Switch to mistral

 

[mattjames]

@tenthyoung Tell you what, I’ll sell it to you and throw in a bridge.

 

[1ofthechosen]

@tenthyoung Great point. Also, I hope it eventually is against ToS. I find this an invasion of privacy.

If you put it into the context of business operations, you always need to protect PII with customer information. In this case it's publicly sourcing real names, photos, and conversations of people without their consent or any type of opt-in.

 

[edson]

@tenthyoung why do you think this has risk being against ToS? The risk of being NSFW? Doesn't chatGPT censor under the hood?

 

[heedthecall]

@tenthyoung Why do you think OpenAI would be against this? It's literally what they are building their business model around - they want everyone building AI-empowered apps using their API. That's why they have an app store.

 

[liva8801]

@jesrdking You can now just use one of the many image 2 text gpts no?

I’d be selling this quickly if this was my biz

 

[jesrdking]

@liva8801 Yeah I assume it just uses some GPTs like that, the angle is just unique

 

[aks2762]

@jesrdking it's not unique, it's in a south park episode

 

[garriston]

@liva8801 Why sell? Milk it as long as it works then move on. After fees and taxes there won’t be much left of the sell price anyway.

 

[liva8801]

@garriston Because you can do this for free now

 

[garriston]

@liva8801 Maybe. But people are lazy and and most of the time can not be bothered.

 

[thomasik]

@jesrdking That's not a bad idea but it has literally zero moat (screen OCR and some prompt engineering or maybe a light RAG) especially if sitting on top of OpenAI that will decide one day those flirty messages are violating it's safety standards (hint: this is happening literally right now)

 

[jesrdking]

@thomasik Yeah not much of a moat. I think the competitive advantage in this situation is being the first to do it and ride the trend. Or if you build on some sort of custom tech.