I finally hit $1,200 MRR and it wasn't from the AI thing everyone said to build
I finally crossed $1,200 in monthly revenue on the AI writing tool I built as a side project. That number sounds modest but it took me 11 months of evenings and one abandoned pivot to get here. I used FastAPI for the backend because a stranger on a forum mentioned it wouldn't slow me down with boilerplate, which turned out to be true.
The hook: I didn't chase the flashy stuff. No GPT-4 fine-tuning, no RAG pipelines, just a narrow Chrome extension that rewrites LinkedIn posts in different tones. The real surprise was how much time I lost debugging Stripe's webhook handling, like an embarrassing amount of time.
Turns out the simplest AI use cases have the least competition. I tested three different pricing tiers before landing on $9/$19/$49 monthly plans and the $19 tier became the sweet spot where conversion hit 34%.
I'm not sure whether this can scale past my own network or if I'm just benefiting from a small niche right now. How are you all handling the decision between staying narrow and going broader when your numbers start moving?
The interesting signal here is that the boring use case won.
A narrow LinkedIn rewriting extension with clear pricing, fast value, and one obvious job-to-be-done is much easier to sell than a broad “AI writing platform.” The $1,200 MRR probably came from the fact that users did not need to understand a new category. They already had a painful workflow and you made it faster.
I’d be careful about broadening too early. The better move may be to expand around the same buying moment: LinkedIn post rewrites, hooks, tone variations, repurposing, maybe founder/consultant content workflows. That keeps the product close to the revenue signal instead of turning it into another generic AI writer.
The naming question matters more now that money is coming in. If the current brand is tied too closely to “LinkedIn post rewriting,” it may help early clarity but limit the next version. A name like Beryxa .com would give it a more serious SaaS/growth-tool frame while still letting the product stay narrow where it is working.
I’d treat the next step as: keep the wedge narrow, but make sure the brand can survive if the product grows into a broader content revenue tool.