Hitting $12k MRR just 11 months after turning a free side project into an AI business

Pranay Agarwal left his job to focus on his AI side project, Mockey. At the time, it was only making money from ads, but he recently launched subscriptions. And 11 months later, it's bringing in $12k/mo.

Here's Pranay on how he did it. 👇

Build what you know

During my college years, I discovered my passion for UI/UX Design, which led me to forgo the traditional campus placement route in favor of establishing myself as a freelancer. This allowed me to work on various projects in design and UX.

Currently, my cofounder, Mofid Ansari, and I are working on Mockey.ai, an AI-powered online mockup generator that generates approximately $12k in monthly revenue. Additionally, I maintain a side project called Doodles, which is a free Figma community resource offering handcrafted illustrations for designers to incorporate into their work.

Getting started

In 2021, I was working for Blinkstore.in — a self-hosted print-on-demand platform for the Indian market founded by Mofid — when he and I identified a significant gap in the mockup generation space. Existing solutions were limited, slow, and typically required Photoshop knowledge, creating a barrier for many users.

Recognizing this opportunity, Mofid and I quickly developed an MVP that could generate mockups directly in the browser, which we integrated into Blinkstore. The immediate increase in usage validated our concept and encouraged further development.

Mofid and I continued building Mockey as a nights-and-weekends project. And by December 2023, recognizing Mockey's significant potential, I made the decision to leave my full-time position at a startup to focus exclusively on growing our product.

A basic MVP

We launched with a focused offering of t-shirt mockups only. The initial development phase took approximately two months to master the fundamental technical requirements — placing designs on shirts, modifying garment colors, and accurately wrapping designs to conform to natural fabric wrinkles and creases.

Initially, we utilized royalty-free images in our mockups, but our timing coincided perfectly with advancements in AI technology, allowing us to generate high-quality mockup images without traditional limitations. It was like ordering a pizza and having Gordon Ramsay show up at your door offering to cook a five-course meal instead. Was this pure dumb luck or our secret genius foresight? I'll just smile mysteriously and let you believe we had a crystal ball hidden in our startup garage.

We prioritized accessibility in our interface design, minimizing cognitive load for users. Our signature instant preview functionality was strategically implemented to allow users to visualize their designs across multiple mockups simultaneously.

Our technology stack consists of Vue.js for the frontend and Node.js powering our backend infrastructure.

We've remained completely bootstrapped since our inception in 2021, initially forgoing salaries to reinvest in Mockey's development.

Subscription + ads

We use a subscription + ads combo for our business model. Free users can grab up to three mockups per day, plus they'll see ads in various spots throughout the site.

Ads bring in about $700/mo ad we get about 100k visitors per month. We rolled out subscriptions in April 2024 and we're now pulling in about $12k monthly. 

Back in the day, we used to just let everyone download as many mockups as they wanted. But once we added those download limits our revenue shot up 3x.

Turns out people are pretty motivated when they hit those "you've reached your limit" messages.

Growth via SEO and communities

Our initial marketing approach was opportunistic yet strategic. After building our MVP, we integrated it directly into Blinkstore.in, which already enjoyed strong keyword rankings. This implementation provided Mockey with immediate visibility and helped establish our early SEO foundation.

Recognizing the significant potential of organic search traffic, we invested heavily in SEO through targeted content creation, strategic link building, and mockup-focused material. However, we made a tactical error by publishing tool reviews and AI news articles that, while generating substantial short-term traffic, ultimately proved detrimental when Google algorithm updates began to penalize this content.

This experience taught us the importance of authenticity and niche focus—we promptly realigned our strategy to concentrate exclusively on mockup-related keywords, deliberately avoiding the temptation of high-volume but less relevant search terms.

Beyond search optimization, we leveraged design communities as powerful distribution channels for our mockups and content. One particularly successful initiative was creating a free Figma community file that enabled users to generate mockups directly within Figma, while strategically including calls to action directing them to our full application for expanded capabilities.

This reinforced a valuable lesson: Never underestimate the impact of community engagement. Even seemingly basic niches can experience exponential growth through effective word-of-mouth marketing when you provide genuine value to specialized communities.

Parting advice

Focus on solving a real problem

Don't build something just because it sounds cool. Build something that solves a genuine problem that you or others face. With Mockey, we identified a clear gap in the mockup generation market — existing solutions were limited, slow, and often required specialized software knowledge.

Start small and validate quickly

Begin with a minimal viable product that solves the core problem. We started with just t-shirt mockups and a basic interface. This allowed us to validate our idea quickly and get real user feedback before expanding.

Use nights and weekends effectively

You don't need to quit your job immediately. We built Mockey while working full-time during the COVID period. It takes discipline, but this approach minimizes financial risk while you validate your idea.

Focus on user experience

Make your product as intuitive and accessible as possible. We deliberately designed Mockey with minimal cognitive load, which helped with user adoption.

Don't forget the larger vision

When faced with daily challenges and setbacks, keeping the big picture in mind provides clarity and purpose, helping to ensure that even seemingly disconnected decisions ultimately contribute to our broader objectives.

What's next?

We are hoping to hit $50k/month by the end of this year. 

You can follow along on X or Medium. And check out Mockey.