Concept to Cash: 6-Figure Exit in 6 months for DimeADozen AI

6 months to a 6-figure Exit for DimeADozen.ai

In 6 minutes, learn how two founders went from idea to 6-figure exit in 6 months.

In March 2023, Sal Aiello of Glendale, AZ, and Monica Powers of Boise, ID worked late into the night on a new project.

The two serial entrepreneurs wanted to be first to market with a new AI tool that allowed anyone in any profession to quickly create:

• Courses
• Proposals
• Lesson Plans
• Business Plans

The tool would quickly create a PDF that would guide the user to get their job done quicker and provide actionable steps for taking action.

As we all know, the execution of an idea is the hardest part.

After all, Ideas are Dime A Dozen…

📖 Here’s the story of how a sprint turned into a profitable business and a 6-figure exit.

During the first sprint which took place in the middle of the night, the two founders started ideating on an AI tool that used prompts to build useful projects.

The initial target market for DimeADozen.ai was “Anyone in any profession” ??

C’mon - Business Building 101 says to pick a specific customer in a specific market and focus there.

Well, Sal and Monica decided they would let the market tell THEM what to make.

The task?

Create a series of personalized reports using GPT prompts to improve people’s lives with AI.

Then allow the customers to choose the most valuable reports for their own needs.

Once they had validation on the best report → double down from there.

Go-To-Market 📊

In the beginning, the two entrepreneurs focused on getting the tool to market.

It was listed in AI directories and niche newsletters. They told friends and emailed whoever would listen about their new tool that could help anyone with anything.

Sal even had his personal email and phone number on early reports.

Sal would often sign off his emails with

“Just do me a favor, if you like it - please tell your friends :)”
To generate more word-of-mouth traffic. He even built a referral engine in the tool which generated hundreds of reports in the first weeks.

After weeks of running many reports, the only real purchases were coming from the business validation report.

Over and over again, the “wantrepreneurs” and business owners found the business report to be most useful.

And they were paying money for it too.

Soon, Sal and Monica ditched all of the lesson plans and course outlines to focus solely on the business validation report.

Monica designed an elegant tool that quickly and effectively generated a custom report to help people launch businesses. Then Sal went to work coding it into existence.

The business plan report prompts users to answer a series of questions about their new or existing business in order to understand your business, its business model, and its competitive advantage.

From there, the tool generates a 40-page PDF with actionable steps to launch and grow it including:

• Market Overview
• Competitor analysis
• Hiring and budget planning
• Tech stack recommendations
• Marketing channels and activities

By early June, DimeADozen.ai was selling enough reports to generate consistent 4-figure revenue, but one-off purchases are a tough business to get rich with.

As serial entrepreneurs, they knew they had a real business, but wanted some help growing it.

They attempted to pivot to a recurring model, allowing users to purchase multiple reports each month at a discount on a subscription basis.

📈 The MRR went from 0 to several thousand in only a few weeks.

And then in mid-June something crazy happened…

A lightning strike ⚡

📸 DimeADozen.ai went viral

An Instagram creator by the name of OnlyZita, posted a video responding to a viewer’s question

"I have an idea for a business but I'm not sure if it's good. Can you tell me if it is?

The video went viral and then the tool blew up.

More than 1.3M people have viewed the video to date and over 35,000 people liked and shared the video with friends.

The video turned DimeADozen into an overnight sensation and generated over $10,000 in sales in one week.

From there, steady traffic poured into the site every week consisting of:

• Wantrepreneurs
• Consultants
• Biz owners
• Agencies

The “prosumer” market is flooded with business ideas and people loved the idea of a tool that helped them take action on their ideas.

Right around the time of the viral lightning strike, Mike Blumenthal was brought on to help with marketing and growth.

📸 Mike developed a comprehensive marketing plan to help diversify traffic sources

• Newsletters sponsorships
• Influencer campaigns
• SEO through blogs
• Social media
• Emails

Over the course of three months, they met with existing customers, gathered feedback, tried new marketing tactics, and went viral again on LinkedIn.

With the result of a wide net and diversification of traffic, sessions have been steadily climbing to more than 20,000 per month.

Additionally, The conversion rate on the landing page from unique to paid hovered between 1%-5% depending on the source of traffic and for a given time period.

To-date, DimeADozen.ai has helped more than 60,000 validate their business idea.

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6 months after the inception of DimeADozen.ai, the founders decided it was time to sell the business in order to allow someone to take it to the next level.

As soon as the company hit $50,000 in lifetime revenue, they put it on Acquire.com.

Selling an AI SaaS Business 💲

The Acquire.com team was super attentive and provided best practices to make the listing more attractive.

Unsurprisingly, just throwing a company up for sale did not generate results.

NDAs trickled in and as most things go - people were not proactively reaching out to inquire further.

🏈 The team decided to throw a Hail Mary and launch a for-sale campaign

One morning on a hot August day -

📩 Acquire.com featured DimeADozen in their newsletter.

🐦 Sal posted a viral tweet

🔗 The DimeADozen LinkedIn page announced it was looking for new ownership.

Suddenly, the DimeADozen for-sale listing was booming!

30+ NDAs signed and 8-10 meetings with potential buyers were booked within a week.

VCs, serial buyers, business owners, and best-selling authors all inquired and brought their best set of questions.

The DimeADozen team put together a comprehensive data room with conversion rates, tech stack, and best practices for reaching its audience.

The Acquire.com team recommended setting a deadline to accept LOIs.

This created urgency from the buyers and expedited the first step of the purchase process from months down to only a few weeks.

The Finale

Leading up to the sale, Sal negotiated with a handful of buyers and provided proof points that validated the value of DimeADozen.ai.

In the end, one buyer shined above the rest. The team picked his offer because of his ability to execute on taking DimeADozen to the next level and his vision for the future of the company.

🤝 6 months, 6-figure exit

Thanks to the founder’s focus on user experience and value creation, DimeADozen.ai has seen incredible success. With the new owner taking over, the tool will only continue to be of value to entrepreneurs across the world.

In summary, the company has grown rapidly, with a customer base that spans the globe.

Its platform boasts an impressive array of business-building features, and it has helped more than 60,000 customers create a custom business plan all while giving Sal, Monica, and Mike a real success story of how you can turn an idea into a profitable business with a sizeable exit.

If you're interested in taking your tool from concept to cash - you can find me on Twitter, YouTube, or Linkedin. Happy to connect.