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What I Learned Building Two AI Products as a Solo Founder

2 min readJan 24, 2026

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What I Learned Building Two AI Products as a Solo Founder

I studied economics, worked in VC and consulting, then realized I’d rather ship things than analyze them.

So I quit and started building.

Two AI products later — MyPicNow (AI headshots, 2,500 users) and Convo (real-time meeting AI, 500 users) — here’s what actually worked

1. Ship embarrassingly fast

My first version of MyPicNow was ugly. Like, really ugly. But it worked, and that’s all that mattered.

I shipped in 4 weeks. If I’d waited for “perfect,” I’d still be tweaking buttons.

The feedback from real users taught me more in a week than months of planning ever could.

2. Talk to users constantly

Every feature in Convo exists because a user asked for it — or complained about something.

I don’t build what I think is cool. I build what users tell me they need. Then I watch how they actually use it.

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The gap between what people say and what they do is where the real insights live.

3. Organic beats paid every time

I’ve spent exactly $0 on ads for both products.

What worked instead:

  • SEO pages targeting high-search and low competition keywords
  • Build strong backlinks
  • Building in public (like this post)

Paid acquisition is a treadmill. Organic compounds.

What’s next

Still building. Still learning. Currently scaling Convo and writing about the journey.

If you’re building something too, I’d love to hear what’s working for you. Drop a comment or find me on Twitter/X or LinkedIn.

Based in Barcelona. Always happy to chat about product, growth, or building from zero.

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Markus Kellermann
Markus Kellermann

Written by Markus Kellermann

Building AI products from Barcelona. Founded https://itsconvo.com. Ship fast, talk to users, repeat.