From Blank Canvas to 10+ AI Videos a Day: The Story Behind Building Textideo

Last August, on an ordinary late night, I found myself endlessly scrolling through YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels.

“These short videos are so well-made,” I thought.
“If only I could make something like this in minutes.”

I’m not a video editor. I don’t shoot footage. But I knew AI was getting better and better at generating multimedia from text.

That night, I decided to build my own AI video editor — one that could turn text into a complete video in seconds.
Something as easy as writing an article, but with real visuals and narration.

That’s how Textideo was born.

🚀 First Launch: Crickets, But Two Key Lessons
My first launch on Product Hunt was quiet.

The tagline was something like:

“Turn your text into a video with AI — visuals, voiceover, and motion included.”

It sounded cool, right? But I got less than 100 visits and 3 signups.

That launch flopped — but I learned two important lessons:

People need specific use cases, not just “AI magic”;

They don’t just want generation — they want ready-to-use, good-looking videos with voiceovers.

🧠 Niching Down: Teachers, Creators, and Indie Hackers
I started talking to early users and saw some clear patterns:

Teachers wanted to create bite-sized explainer videos;

Content creators needed fast tools for Shorts, Reels, etc.;

Indie hackers (like me) wanted to make demo or update videos for their products.

So I rewrote the homepage, focusing on three things:

Speed – videos in seconds;

Simplicity – just type and go;

Voiceover – natural-sounding AI narration with subtitles.

This time, after posting on a few AI tool directories and niche communities, things started to move.

Almost 1,000 signups, and daily active users climbed over 200.

💰 Monetization: Users Pay to Save Time
I’ve always believed:

“If a tool saves time, it can charge money.”

So I added a super simple subscription plan:

Free users: 5 videos per month;

Paid users: unlimited videos, HD exports, multilingual voices.

The first month after going live with monetization, I had 21 paying users.
The next month: 47.

Some of the best feedback I got:

“This saves me so much time — the monthly fee is a no-brainer.”

📊 Where We Are Today
As of July 2025, Textideo has:

Over 14,000 videos generated;

250+ daily active users;

Roughly $6,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR).

I’m still solo — building, designing, answering support emails, and writing launch posts like this one.

But honestly, that’s the fun of indie hacking:
Creating value with limited resources and unlimited experiments.

🤝 If You're Building in the AI Space…
Just launch. Even if it’s not perfect.

Textideo was far from perfect when I shipped v1 — but feedback and iteration shaped it into something useful.

Check it out if you're curious: https://textideo.com

Whether you’re a content creator, teacher, or indie hacker, I think you’ll find it useful for generating fast, shareable video content.

And if you're building something in the AI space too, feel free to DM me. I'm always down to chat.

👋 To all fellow indie hackers — keep experimenting, keep shipping.