Realising the value of my product - or lack thereof, shifting mindset, and then finally earning the first dollar
About a month ago, FjordKit went live.
As your run-of-the-mill newbie, bringing their first product to market, I was expecting fireworks and a tsunami of users. Of course that didn't happen. You know how it goes.
My initial plan
The project is a Notion-based ‘Style Consistency Toolkit’, designed to get more predictable image generation output from LLM’s, mainly ChatGPT, through Style Recipes.
Style Recipes are simply instruction sets that utilise meta-prompting, and instructs the model to consistently output images in the style described in the recipe.
This allows the user to use natural language to describe exactly what they want. Especially powerful in combination with a reference image.
The initial user-acquisition plan
I decided to use the toolkit as the lead magnet, and once users had a taste of what they could do, I'd convert them into paying for Style Recipes (priced at €29 a piece including a launch discount).
Wrong. After 807 visitors and ~72 toolkit downloads, I had no sales.
This left me feeling somewhat deflated, and I started questioning my product-market fit.
Rethinking the value
Now I'd spent the first couple of weeks iterating my landing page, and got it in a state that kept users engaged, and with quite good conversion rates.
But something wasn't working.
Clearly people found the product enticing, and I had a lot of positive feedback. The funnel also seemed to be working.
Then a realisation started to dawn on me.
Maybe the Style Recipes are not worth what I think they are. Does this look like an AI gold-rush cash grab?
This shifted my mindset. Instead of monetising instantly, I could build a community first.
I have other ideas and plans for this project down the line, so why not open source the core value offer?
So I made the decision. I open sourced the Style Recipes and made them pay-what-you-want.
Community feedback
I announced the decision to go open source on July 1st, and got a great response.
Signups nearly doubled in a day, and I received positive feedback.
Then about 30 hours later, someone voluntarily paid €1 for a Style Recipe.
What I learned
The past month has taught me a lot of valuable lessons.
Here’s what I’d do differently, if I had launched to day.
Don’t force monetization before understanding usage
Paywalls can block feedback loops
Open source + soft monetization = frictionless market testing
A warm audience is more valuable than a product with a price tag
What’s next for FjordKit
I’m excited about where this journey takes me next, and building a community is a whole new world for me.
For the next month, this is what I’ll be doing.
Consider launching a Commercial License for businesses
Build a Discord community around the project
Commit to keeping core value free for personal use and community-led
Long tail content and new Style Recipe drops
If you’re in the same boat as me
Don’t mistake your IP for your value
Focus on usage > conversion in early days
Open up → learn → adapt → monetize later
Curious about the toolkit?
Check it out on FjordKit.com
I hope you’ll find it useful, and that I’ll see you in the Discord community.
