5 Awesome Marketing Lessons From a 19-Year-Old Founder That Reached 100k Users in 19-Days
Let’s get started with how Arib Khan launched Musicfy to 100k users in 19 days.
Arib Khan is one of the youngest founders on the planet. Unlike blasting out emails and spamming his website link on forums, Arib provided value first.
And because he provided value first, people were much more receptive to his product idea.
There are 5 AWESOME marketing formulas he used to reach 100k users in 19 days (and now, 1M+ users). And the first is called People’s Familiarity. So, let’s dive right in.
Formula 1: People’s Familiarity
The fact is; to get many users on your product, you need to build it into something the users are familiar with.
But here’s the bottom;
You can build your product into something that people are familiar with.
Let’s start with an example of people’s familiarity.
So now, it’s time to break down how people’s familiarity formula works.
The idea spawned in Arib’s mind after a couple of minutes of conversation he had with a friend on how ChatGPT became an overnight success.
But to his surprise, his friend has been using the ChatGPT API for a couple of months before it went viral.
The people’s familiarity formula that ChatGPT used was instead of the API (that many don’t know how it works), they build it into something that everyone is familiar with;
Conversational — like a chatbot.
And who doesn’t know how to use a chat?
This pattern of people’s familiarity made Arib realize many AI tools also became viral using the same pattern.
But success isn’t a linear see-saw.
Imagine AI
Soon, an AI that can create people’s avatars emerged on the web with Colab. Arib wanted to build on this.
So he hastily made up a tool called Imagine AI. But, without any people’s familiarity feature built-in.
At first, it went well because there weren’t any similar tools with people’s familiarity built in.
After a few days, another similar AI (Lensa AI) emerged with people’s familiarity feature in it;
It’s automated.
Imagine AI isn’t automated because Arib wanted a quick launch before anyone else instead of a quality launch.
Lensa AI became the biggest player in the space leaving Imagine AI behind.
The young founder said, “After that experience, I realized that the next time I see a cool tech, I should be the first to automate it and get it on a link for people to use.”
But here’s the craziest part;
Formula 2: You don’t need original ideas
After some days, there was another viral Drake and Weekend song created by AI that’s going viral on Twitter.
When Arib saw this, he looked into the process of creating the song himself and it wasn’t the perfect collab.
It could be better.
And this time, it could be made into something people are familiar with.
“So, I got to work”
Formula 3: Viral Sampling
Here’s the thing;
When showcasing your products, don’t spend time on the best-edited video or creating Apple-grade style video.
Feature someone that has a big following with your product.
In the case of Musicfy, featuring Drake was a huge boost of virality when creating the teaser for his product.
He was even nicknamed “the guy behind Drake AI song”
This made it a catchy offer to anyone interested in music. Not only can you create AI songs that sound like you but you can also create one that sounds like Drake, Taylor Swift, or just any of your favorite artists.
This looks exciting to people, even me!
The LESSON here is when creating a video about your product, make it feature something that people are familiar with.
If you’re building an AI that can translate languages from speech, instead of creating a product video that showcases your product capabilities, do viral sampling.
And you do it like this;
Go on Twitter (now X) and find a popular account. In my case, Elon Musk. Find one of his speeches that went viral, then use your translator AI to interpret his speech into German, Hindi, Chinese, or any other language.
That way, you’re not only showcasing your product in real-time but also engaging with those who had engaged with the original video.
Many news profiles on social media are specifically looking to share news like this and what you’ve done with your product is exactly what they’re looking for.
There’ll be many reposts, many comments, and perhaps, a comment from the man (Elon) himself.
If you’re to talk about your product yourself, your power is limited. But with viral sampling, your popularity will be automated because you’re sampling a viral speech.
Similarly, Arib sampled a viral artist, Drake. Not just a local R&B artist.
This increased the talk and the tension grew in the music world, “Will AI take over music?”
Formula 4: Teasing and Timing
When working on an idea, first, make some noise about it.
How? Instead of working on it in silence, let people know something is coming.
One of the main mistakes founders make is BUILDING in silence. Probably, because they don’t want their idea to be stolen or taken away.
Well, that’s a valid excuse as many people’s ideas have been stolen but there’s a way around that.
You can make noise about it and still have a solid idea that can’t be stolen. Even if it’s stolen, it’d be after the success of your product.
How? Teasing and Timing!
Musicfy teaser came off when Arib told people about his AI music too. He didn’t make some noise, instead, he made a working website and launched a waitlist on April 10th for people to join.
10 days later, he finished the tool and got about 100k users in the first 19 days.
Yes, these 100k audiences didn’t come only from his waitlist, but he gave people something to look forward to.
Like Arib, tease your audience with a waitlist.
One way to get around this is to get to work and be halfway up with your product development before sharing a waitlist.
That way, if anyone is stealing your product, you’re halfway ahead.
Formula 5: Hungry Audience
This is where it gets different for everyone. Some products are not meant for many audiences while some can be used by literary anyone.
Arib didn’t just get about 100 users every hour when Musicfy first launched. Through his teaser, he’s been building a community of interested audiences on Discord.
10 days after creating a waitlist, he launched his AI tool and shared the link to the Discord communities.
And the people fell in love.
But we need to draw some lines here;
He didn’t just share his tool with some Discord communities that are not relevant to his target audiences.
He shared with communities that’s been fascinated about music already and here comes a tool that could make that happen.
And just like that, people get over the tool, saw how easy and automated it is, and ran a few prompts.
This way, the growth becomes automated. People began sharing it with friends and associates and today, Musicfy has more than a million users.
Not because it’s the first AI music tool but because a people’s familiarity feature is built into it.
It’s automated and anyone can use it.
Now, over to you
Whatever products you’re building or services you have got, make it easier for people.
Is it something everyone can use?
Is it automated?
For example, ChatGPT is meant for literally everyone.
This is farfetched. You don’t have to build a product that everyone uses but can all your target audience use it? And more efficiently?
Now, it’s time to build your next viral product.
How?
Arib built Imagine AI without automation, people are using it. But some people built a similar tool (Lensa AI) with automation and it became huge.
You can also build like that.
You don’t need the best idea in the world or a divine revelation to create a grand breaking product.
If there’s a defect with one that you’re using, give it a try.
If you’re a service provider and you have someone in your niche that doing great, don’t look at their service from afar, buy from them, and peek into their sales funnel.
How are they running their ads? How are they handling the customers? How are they getting their clients?
If it’s a product, buy a one-month subscription and toggle around it for a couple of days.
If you can’t buy a subscription, signup for the free version.
Some may say this is bad but it’s not, you’re just finding a way to make people’s lives better by building a better product or service.
If there’s an AI music creation tool and the process for creating the music isn’t easy for an ordinary keyboardist, re-create it and solve that problem just like Arib did.
And soon, your own Musicfy can have more than a million users and over 500,000 songs created.
I hope you’ve learned something. What among these 5 formulas stands out to you and you’d probably give a try?
