How I Launched My AI Startup with a Warm Email List and Zero Marketing Budget?

Hey there! I'm Teamgrowthhacker, just your average marketer by day and a relentless maker by night. And like any other indie hacker I'm itching to build something extraordinary. Despite my limited coding skills, my fascination with AI has me dreaming big, dreaming that one AI app that could change the game.

I dabbled a lot with no-code apps and refined my skills on a day to day basis. Truth be told, these no-code apps are fantastic, allowing for even more complicated software to be built by non-technical folk like myself. Surely, It was going great, I created a chatbot, videos and even a few GPT’s, I was getting hooked to the AI world, but nothing that took my breath away! that’s when this idea dawned on me that I could use my SAME marketing skills (remember my day job for the last 18 years!) to market the brilliant AI product(s) already out there in the market.

This is when I decided to take action and see if I could get a basic AI app/tool listing directory into the market while balancing my other side hustles and a full-time job in a month.

And before we get started: don’t expect something “commercial”, there is nothing to sell. Also, don’t expect to see a success story blueprint as there isn't one yet. It's a story of a side hustler who is trying to use the skills to benefit others in the big wide web of AI.

If you’re still here… let’s go!

Who am I?

First of all, let me present myself. People know me under the pseudonym: @Teamgrowthhacker. I’m a Growth Marketer turn product person-ex founder and forever tinkerer and an active member of the accelerator landscape — enough?!

My last startup gig made me learn an incredible amount of things, but most important of all, it helped me understand the world of growth hacking better.

Figuring out how to build it

I actually love Airtable, so my first thought process was putting my idea together on Airtable and then gating it with an email access form.

I started to put everything on Airtable and began to include tags, sources and, where possible, pricing information.

I soon realized, however, this wasn't the point of my exercise. I needed to build some functionality into this, and using an Airtable wasn't the answer.

I decided to look around, and I found a few no-code tools that could help build my idea. I thought of using Bubble, but the learning curve would be too steep to quickly get something out into the market. I wanted to find something that focused on 'directories' as a foundation, and that's when I found a basic WordPress template on Envato along with a few plugins.

I built the directory on WordPress with Google Sheets as a foundation. Now the next step was to find a few AI apps to add to the directory. So I created a database on 10/15 AI apps on Sheets and used that as a baseline.

Even though I eventually settled on my no-code tech stack (which, ironically, wasn't very AI-fied for an AI business), I should have planned it all out much earlier. It was a classic chicken-and-egg situation, and I could have saved myself some time if I had just planned ahead.

The lesson here is if you're looking to get the validation of your idea, take the time to figure out your stack so you don't rush ahead. And start marketing as you build to validate the idea. Building a no-code application is great, but without a launch plan, you won't get any eyeballs on your project.

Since my runway was very short, I needed to use something to funnel visitors to my landing page quickly.

My low-effort high-return marketing plan

Looking at my end goal — probable validation — Building a no-code application is all well and good, but if you, like me, have no launch plan, you're not getting any eyeballs on your project.

Since my runway was very short, I needed to use something to funnel visitors to my landing page quickly.

I decided to use a Freebie e-book as my primary source of marketing.

Having a full-time job, I didn't have a whole heap of time at hand and again places like Product Hunt is not really a great option for directories — without having sufficient listings. Since I had to launch and validate the product myself, I chose a lead magnet. After extensive research on places like Buzzsumo.com and https://answerthepublic.com/, I landed on a topic , and built an information-packed e-book on the topic, and then let it rest and hoped for luck with some SEO to draw the visitors.

The big revelation

I logged back in after almost 60 days ( hard to believe but I was caught up in daily office dramas and the like) AND… I had 1,500 AI apps registered and counting!

This was an efficient process staring me in the face — and I had missed it up until this point.

This is what my website looked like back then (top)

It's a straightforward process to list your AI app, and the beauty of this was that I didn't need a complete product ready to create the page. This meant I could start collecting subscribers as I worked on my product, and you can do it too! My marketing budget to get around 1500 APP to be able to launch because completely FREE and now it was the time to monetise, while I ensured that those early adopters got the best value of their time for trusting me with their apps on the directory.

For those reading, if you need to validate the idea with a minimal budget, this might be a good option albeit a bit more time-consuming than a one-page no-code landing page. Since this was a learning exercise, I decided to give it a go.

With this, I managed to capture 1000 organic subscribers to my newsletter and around 1500 APP listings, which was quite helpful.

My biggest learning here (as stupid as this is going to sound) is to use the entire month and make sure you use all the plugins and tools WordPress provides you, make use of AI to assist with content and design, and create a damn easy process for anyone to find you. I even registered for Beehive and their initial 1 month free period which is awesome! My problem was I didn't even utilize the full month subscription as I wanted to get the product out by the month (and I started my beehive subscription in the middle).

I think, had I planned day one to start with the Beehive subscription, I would have probably nabbed more than 3000 subscribers to the product initially.

Additionally, I would recommend not going 'all in' on one platform and trying out a few others. Some that come to mind include Betalist and BetaPage. I also recommend connecting with others on forums like IndieHacker so you can build the product together and direct feedback from others.

Final thoughts

It was still super fun to launch a AI Directory, and if you're not a technical person, I recommend doing it just to experience the process.
My goal wasn’t to make a viral app or even get 100s and 1000s of subscribers. It was more to learn the end-to-end process of creating and launching a tech idea with no technical knowledge, validating an idea and finally assisting AI developers increase their reach to a business audience beyond Indie hackers, product hunt or Reddit.

There are some things I would have done differently if I launched another business in the future. This includes just being more careful with the more simple things and planning ahead more as well.

If you like to check it out — here’s the link https://alternativeai.io/!