Jenny AI Declines Acquisition
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A story about how David, a young entrepreneur living at his mom's house, grew Jenny AI from $2,000 to $300,000 in monthly recurring revenue over 2 years.
David started Jenny AI as an AI writing tool similar to Jasper, doing only $2,000/month in revenue. He lived at his mom's house, having to ask to use her credit card for Chipotle. While his Asian parents' friends' kids were at Stanford getting promotions, he was in his bedroom pitching investors.
He made a crucial pivot by niching down to focus specifically on college students writing essays. Instead of just generating full essays, Jenny AI became a writing assistant that would help complete sentences, cite sources, and run plagiarism checks. Less than 30% of the final essay would be written by AI.
The growth came in three phases:
- He got his first 100 customers through Facebook groups by becoming a helpful regular member, getting admin buy-in, and having them organically promote the product
- A viral Twitter thread listing "10 websites so useful it feels almost illegal" brought in massive traffic
- A Jennifer Lopez commercial about "Jen AI" drove searches that landed people on Jenny AI
The company grew to $300,000 monthly recurring revenue ($3.6M/year). David received a $3M acquisition offer but turned it down. The company is now worth between $10-16M.
During this growth period, David was diagnosed with cancer, had surgery, and recovered. As he said, "My dreams and nightmares were both to be true at the same time."
Shaan Puri
Host of MFM
Shaan Puri is the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Milk Road. He previously worked at Twitch as a Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming, and Emerging Markets. He also attended Duke University.