My app failed, then I changed one thing, and made $80K | Starter Story

Prince left a $250,000-a-year software engineering job in India to build apps full-time. His first attempt, a web app called Rabbit Holes AI, got almost no traction. Then he changed one thing: the pricing model. He switched from a subscription with a free trial to a one-time purchase with a bring-your-own-API-key model, rebuilt the app as a desktop application, and generated $80,000 in gross revenue over the next six months, with roughly $75,000 in profit.

The Problem with the First Version

The app itself is a "canvas-first" interface for interacting with AI models. Prince’s insight was that linear chat interfaces like ChatGPT lose context during long conversations. His app lets users branch conversations into new nodes, creating a visual map of forks and tangents. He built the first version as a web app with a freemium subscription model: a few free questions, then a paywall.

That version failed for several reasons. Prince had no personal brand and wasn't "building in public," so he couldn't drive traffic through social presence. More critically, his ideal customer profile (ICP) was a "power AI user"—someone who already paid for multiple AI subscriptions like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. Asking these users to add yet another monthly subscription was a non-starter. The free trial attracted curiosity but never converted into paying customers.