aiselfi.es

Having launched aiselfi.es with a relatively small audience and relaying mostly on my network I didn't have huge traffic.

First day around 200 users visited my website.

From those, it was mostly people I had DM: friends, family, etc.

Received a couple of orders from friends but you always wonder if they are only doing you a favor. Don't get me wrong, I'm deeply grateful for their orders but I would do the same to support a friend.

The next morning, you can imagine my excitement when I see the first order from a random dude in Colombia.

I searched my LinkedIn network, followers, etc to see if we were connected somehow. Zero. The guy was totally random.

I reached out to him to thank him. He told me he was considering getting headshots and when he saw my post he was convinced by the quality of the product.

That feeling is what keeps me going. Knowing that my product solves someone's problem.

Jonathan Kraayenbrink

My audience is mostly in LinkedIn and this is the platform I know the most. I decided to focus my launch there.

It also feels natural that people in LinkedIn will consider to get a headshot photo. There is where everyone wants to looks successful and at their best. You have the corporate people, entrepreneurs building a personal brand, recent graduates and so on.

Even though I've had a successful business for over 10 years, this was my first real launch. I was extremely anxious to put my product out there in the open.

I don't have a big audience (~1.5k followers at time of launch) so I wasn't expecting wonders. I only knew that every connection mattered to help the post reach more people.

What I did was to DM every family member, friends, colleague, peer, etc from my network mentioning my launch. I sent them the link to the post and kindly ask them for support: likes, comments, feedback...anything.

I also had been warming some connections that had bigger followers than me so they helped me as well.

The result: the post got around ~8k impressions and reached ~4k people.

Not bad considering thats 3x my number of followers.

This is the link to my original post on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7254096860242452481/

For years, I was using a blurry, outdated family photo as my profile picture… 😅

It wasn’t until last year that I realized just how bad it was. The picture was a crop from a family photo when my sons were 3 and 6 years old (they’re 7 and 9 now!). It was grainy, poorly lit, and didn’t represent who I am today.

For a while, I just ignored it.

But then I started my master’s degree, and I needed a more professional image to present myself. I tried snapping some selfies, but neither my wife nor I are skilled photographers.

The results? Slightly better quality, but not quite right.

I ended up using one of those photos at my graduation, standing in front of over 1,000 people… and felt so awkward.

Everyone else had professional, polished pictures, and there I was, with an image that just didn’t feel like me.

After that moment, I set out to solve this problem.

I dived into learning about generative AI models and how I could train them using my own photos. The results were mind-blowing!

I saw the potential in creating not just better photos, but professional images that actually represented who I am today.

Around the same time, I noticed a growing trend: personal branding. Whether you’re marketing a business, trying to get a new job, or just standing out online, your profile picture is a huge part of how people perceive you.

In a world where you’re competing with millions of posts for attention — and where you’ve got under a second to make an impression — your profile picture is one thing you can control.

But I realized a lot of people, just like me, were using outdated images that didn’t reflect their current selves.

That’s when I knew I could turn my solution into a product.

I built aiselfi.es to help people create professional, authentic photos that showcase the best version of themselves.

If you want to test it out, check it out at aiselfi.es 📸. Let’s make sure you look as good as you are!