Hitting 100k ARR from an AI tool that was first built to solve an internal problem (scoping out projects is annoying).
Prior to building https://pre.dev, my co-founder was running a freelance agency and started to get fed up with the amount of time he was spending building out the statement of work and project scope for each client.
So he built out an MVP that allowed his clients to chat with a "AI Product Expert" that would ask them appropriate questions about what it is they wanted to build. Once the clients answered at least 5 questions, the conversation was then translated into a knowledge graph representing the idea.
This allowed him to have full context of what the client wanted to build before they event had their first call.
Because of the internal success of the tool, we decided to build at a standalone service that could be used by:
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Software agencies: They embed our chat widget on their websites and view the generated SoWs on their pre.dev dashboard.
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Founders/Builders: They come to pre.dev to scope out projects and can request a meeting with pre.dev to get development help.
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Hackathon Organizers: They embed out full interface to enable their hackers to scope out their projects.
We have been relentless at reaching out to all sorts of potential clients and will continue to do so. Getting feedback early on has been the key to our growth so far, and having an open mind on how our platform can best serve our users.
So if you're looking to build your own AI application, definitely talk to potential clients before you even begin development - ideally you it to be such that they're willing to pay you just to build it!
And if you need help scoping out your project or getting it built, visit https://pre.dev.
It seems like you're asking for a summary or a concise version of the information you provided. Here it is:
Arjun, the co-founder of, developed an MVP to simplify the project scoping process for his freelance agency. The MVP used an AI Product Expert to chat with clients, generating a knowledge graph of project ideas. Due to its success, they turned it into a standalone service for software agencies, founders, and hackathon organizers. They actively seek feedback and emphasize the importance of talking to clients before development. For scoping assistance,
Wowww, Arjun, this is a really amazing project, just wowwwww!!!!!, can I get your linkedin connect
Incredible work Arjun! This is an amazing achievement – a testament to the impact of your knowledge, hard work and dedication. It's inspiring to see how achieving a mission to make something to solve an internal problem can also make a tremendous impact beyond that! Well-done.
Looks like a great product and more importantly great marketing!
I really would like to see a demo of it on Data pipelines. This is something I have a need.
This might be the best ai app on forum this year
Really appreciate it! And yeah you can scope out a data pipeline at https://pre.dev for free!
Impressive milestone! Reaching 100k ARR from an AI tool initially designed to streamline internal processes showcases the power of innovation. Solving a common pain point like project scoping is a win-win!
Hey,
Great achievement. Can you please share your marketing journey?
Like what are the sales funnel you tried?
Which social media helped a lot?
Did you try paid ads?
Have you tried cold emailing?
How did you hit 100k ARR, if you can write about this then that will be helpful for us.
Thanks.
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Thanks for clarifying.
Congrats :)
I built creativeblogtopic.com for the same reason. I love blogging but researching and finding the right keywords to target, the good title that people will open and style of writing is a bit burden. All these researching can actually be automated.
So I made a tool that will go trough thousands of keywords related to the niche and target customer that I specified, analyzed it and give be the best keywords to target based on the volume, competition, rating . It will also analyze existing blog for that keywords and give you what style of writing work the best. ( like how to article or fact article or funny article etc etc )
If you are a blogger I recommend you to try out the tool.
Are you guys using the new assistants api from openai?
We're using a mixture of LLMs, taking advantage of all of them.
Great
My team does have this need, which is to quickly produce this pre-development technical architecture and cost details. This product idea is very great, I wish you good luck.
Yeah! Feel free to ping me if you'd like to learn more!
Congrats and thanks for sharing, Arjun!
When you say "talk to potential clients before you even begin development", is that even before having an MVP to show them?
In my mind having something for them to play around with and get a picture of your idea is important, especially when it comes to AI. Not everyone has a solid grasp of what AI is capable and how it can best serve them (yet!).
Ideally yeah! Why waste time building something that people don't want? Of course this is on a case by case basis, but if you ever have the opportunity to just ask your ICP - hey is ABC a problem for you? Would a solution like XYZ solve it for you? This will be a huge time saver!
Incredible concept, Arjun! The AI Product Expert at your product seems like a significant time-saver in project planning. It's impressive how it turns client chats into a knowledge graph, giving clear insights before the first meeting.
I appreciate your approach to seeking feedback and continuously adapting your platform. This is an excellent lesson for startups in user-centric development, especially in AI.
I'm curious to see how your AI evolves with diverse projects—definitely considering your business for my future needs. Best of luck!
Yeah we're excited to see all kinds of projects being built and our model getting better and better over time!
Amazing idea. I may find this project helpful for my freelance work. Thanks for sharing!
Definitely! We want to definitely allow freelancers to leverage pre.dev for their own projects or for projects they build for others.
Fingers crossed for your project!
This is a great project. Thanks for sharing.
I can see this being useful for bigger companies too. Product Owners that need to try and capture requirements for internal projects and then figure out timelines with a dev team.
If you had specifics about the tech stack, and also outputted a Gantt chart and maybe user stories that can be imported into Jira etc.
Skys the limit.
Good luck with it. Excited to see where it goes.
I really appreciate that Sam. Yeah the fundamental goal of pre.dev is to instantly create project plans and then enable lightspeed development. So the features that you mentioned are definitely in our pipeline (we already recommend the tech stack that should be used).