David Park, founder of Jenny AI, details his step-by-step approach to building a profitable AI startup that reached $10 million in annual recurring revenue. He emphasizes starting with organic short-form content and influencer marketing before moving to SEO and paid advertising. Park attributes much of Jenny AI's success to finding viral content formats that could be repeated with variations, working with the right influencers regardless of follower count, and focusing on retention metrics as the company scaled.

Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
03:00 - Organic Short Form Content
08:25 - The Power of Fresh Accounts in Influencer Marketing
11:17 - Case Study: MengMengDuck and Influencer Partnerships
18:01 - New Creator Guidelines
25:57 - Order of Virality: Steps to Achieve Success
30:55 - Finding Influencers
36:21 - Outreach Strategies
40:34 - Negotiating with Influencers
44:50 - Content posting strategy
49:15 - Final UGC Tips
51:52 - SEO Strategy
57:00 - Paid Ads Playbook
59:53 - David's final advice:
01:02:08 - From $5M to $10M

1) ORGANIC SHORT-FORM CONTENT

David's shocking truth: Fresh accounts with 1 follower can OUTPERFORM accounts with millions!

The algorithm rewards quality, not history.

2) The "Fresh Account" Strategy:

• Create new accounts specifically for your product
• Find creators to be the face of these accounts
• Pay them to create consistent content
• Focus on hooks that resonate with your audience

3) The Viral Series Formula

Find ONE format that works, then repeat it with slight variations.

Example: "POV: You have an essay due" videos for Jenny AI generated 300M+ views and $500K+ in revenue!

4) INFLUENCER MARKETING

Don't waste time with mega-influencers charging $20K per post.

Instead:
• Find creators whose audience matches your users
• Create a new account with them as the face
• Pay for consistent content (not one-offs)
• Let them maintain their authentic style

5) How to find the RIGHT influencers:

• Ask your users which creators they follow
• Create a "scout" account that only follows relevant creators
• Let the algorithm suggest similar accounts
• Look for creators with high engagement (not just followers)

6) Outreach hack that WORKS:

Send money via Venmo to influencers you want to work with!

They'll get a push notification and respond out of curiosity.

7) Negotiation strategy:

• Start by asking for their HIGHEST price point (all features)
• Remove elements you don't need to lower the price
• Negotiate bulk deals (20% off for multiple videos)
• Split payment between upfront and performance-based

NEVER pay based on follower count - that's outdated!

8) Content posting strategy:

• Post 1+ videos DAILY to test different hooks
• Trust creators to maintain their authentic style
• Create systems that let influencers work autonomously
• Don't be afraid of videos looking like ads - they convert BETTER

Scale to a video every few hours!

9) David's final advice:

"I'm a non-technical founder, a college dropout, not from Silicon Valley. If I can build this, YOU CAN TOO." - David Park

"The truth? Only 1% of people reading this will implement these strategies for a full year." - David Park

Notable Quotes

"We had one video that got 20 million views that had almost a negligible effect on conversions that day for Jenny. It was as if we got zero views, like nothing really happened that day. And yeah, it's just important to create content for people that actually want to convert and want to actually use your product." - David Park

"I'm a non-technical person. I'm a non-technical founder doing an AI startup. I am a college dropout. I would not say I'm like one of those cracked people. I'm not from Silicon Valley... and I was able to kind of build this company." - David Park

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Jenni AI: https://jenni.ai
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I Built a $10M AI Startup as a College Dropout (Exact Strategy That Worked)

The Startup Ideas Podcast