Founder stories
$100K ARRin 1 year
3 milestones
Pieter Levels Builds Photo AI to $150K/Month in Under 2 Years
Founder
Pieter Levels
Solo Founder•Technical•Remote/Nomad
Commitment
Full-timeExperience
ExperiencedProduct
AI-powered photo studio generating professional photos from selfies.
Type
SaaSIndustry
AI / MLModel
SubscriptionMarketing Strategy
How Pieter acquired customers
Primary Channel
Twitter / X
Also Used
Communities
Tech Stack
Tools used to build Photo AI
PHPjQuerySQLiteStable DiffusionHetzner
The Full Story
TL;DR
After Nomad List, Pieter built Photo AI using PHP/jQuery to $150K/month - 87% profit margin, 100% bootstrapped.
Pieter Levels launched Photo AI in February 2023 after spending 2 months building "a photorealistic AI Photo studio."
The Fast Start
He reached $10,000 MRR after just 3 weeks with 318 customers at ~$31/month average. Then hit $18,000 MRR with 587 customers - notably adding $7,000 in MRR in a single day from one TikTok video.
The Scale
Photo AI reached a new record of $150,000/month with 2,573 active subscribers, 87% profit margin, 100% bootstrapped with $0 funding.
The Stack
"It's just me working on my laptop. Tech stack: PHP + jQuery + SQLite on a Hetzner VPS with Nginx and Ubuntu." Much of this success came from the Lex Fridman podcast appearance.
- Time to $150K/month: ~1 year
- Profit margin: 87%
- Active subscribers: 2,573
- Tech stack: PHP + jQuery + SQLite
Key Takeaways
1
Launch fast when you spot a technology wave
2
One viral TikTok can add $7K MRR in a day
3
Simple tech stack (PHP/jQuery) can scale to $150K/month
4
High-profile podcast appearances can transform a business
Originally published onTwitter/X
Inspired by Pieter's journey? Generate a business idea in the AI / ML space using AI and real founder data.
Milestone Journey
Pieter achieved 3 milestones on the path to $100K ARR
First Customer
1 days
February 2023
99% faster
vs avg 3 months+20 days to next milestone
$10K MRR
$18,000
21 days
February 2023
97% faster
vs avg 1 year+11 months to next milestone
$100K ARR
$150,000
1 year
February 2024
69% faster
vs avg 3 years1 year
Total journey time
3
Milestones achieved
Pieter's Path to $100K ARRPremium
The journey, decisions, and context behind this milestone
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