From Weekend Project to $15,000 a Month: The Incredible Growth Story of SiteGPT

Have you ever wished your website could have a chatbot that answers questions like ChatGPT does? Well, that's exactly what one developer built over a weekend - a project that took off immediately, generating over $10,000 in monthly recurring revenue within the first month.

This is the remarkable growth story of SiteGPT, an AI-powered chatbot that creates personalized customer service bots from your existing website content. We'll look at how it was built, launched, gained traction, and continues to improve and expand as shared by SiteGPT founder, Bhanu Teja P.

The Eureka Moment: Letting Websites "Talk" Like ChatGPT

The story begins seven months ago in early 2022. Developer Bhanu Teja P, based in India, started noticing his Twitter feed fill up with chatter about AI and specifically, the hot new chatbot ChatGPT.

Seeing all the buzz around AI sparked an idea in Bhanu's mind. As someone who was already working on a website builder called Feather, he wondered:

"What if I could use AI to let websites have conversations like ChatGPT does?"

It was a simple but brilliant concept - website owners could get an AI chatbot customized to their own content. Visitors could ask questions and get answers drawn directly from the site, creating an interactive, conversational experience.

And so, SiteGPT was born.

Building an MVP Over the Weekend

Bhanu didn't expect SiteGPT to necessarily become a big business. He saw it mainly as a way to learn more about AI.

So over a weekend, he built a simple first version of SiteGPT as a side project.

Here's what that MVP included:

• A user could enter a website URL.

• SiteGPT would analyze the content and generate a unique chatbot for that site.

• Users could then chat with the bot powered by the site's content.

To build this, Bhanu relied on a few key tools:

• OpenAI API - This provided the underlying AI capability to analyze content and generate human-like responses.

• Pinecone - A database for storing and accessing the website content efficiently for AI training.

• Cloudflare Workers - To host and run everything seamlessly.

He also had a freelancer design a very basic landing page for SiteGPT over the weekend.

With just those core components, Bhanu was ready to launch SiteGPT and see if anyone would care.

Explosive Launch: $10k MRR in Month 1

When Bhanu pushed SiteGPT live that Monday, the response was instant and overwhelming.

In the first 2-3 days, SiteGPT generated $750 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR). Within the first month, it rocketed to over $10,000 MRR - from a simple weekend project!

What drove this tidal wave of interest in SiteGPT? A few key factors:

• Perfect Timing

SiteGPT launched just as AI fever was hitting its peak. ChatGPT came out in November 2022 and completely captivated tech circles.

So when SiteGPT appeared in January 2023 promising website owners their own ChatGPT bot, the timing was perfect.

• New Appeal

In the early days, ChatGPT seemed almost magical. People were eager to try out new AI applications just out of sheer novelty and curiosity.

SiteGPT let them play with creating an AI chatbot for their own site - something that seemed amazing and futuristic.

• Built-in Audience

As an established developer with a following on Twitter, Bhanu had a ready audience to release SiteGPT to. Many were eager to try out his latest project.

So in the first few weeks, Twitter was the main driver of new users. But as we'll see, other growth channels soon outpaced it.

Overall, the combination of factors like timing, novelty, and a built-in audience created the initial explosion of growth for SiteGPT.

• Churn and Refinement

However, Bhanu noticed an issue with those initial customers. Since many signed up just to satisfy curiosity, about half churned after the first month. They didn't have a real business need for SiteGPT yet. They just wanted to try out this new AI tool.

But new signups continued flowing in. So while churn remained high, new customers replaced those who left.

Over time, Bhanu started seeing more real business owners adopting SiteGPT. As their numbers grew, he began improving SiteGPT based on their feedback.

Some key ways SiteGPT evolved:

• Fixing bugs reported by users.

• Adding a feedback form for canceling users to share reasons.

• Improving the accuracy of the AI bot responses.

• Adding more customization options.

Addressing pain points like these helped reduce churn and retain true business users longer term.

Diverse Growth Channels

While Twitter provided the initial blast of traffic, Bhanu knew he couldn't depend on it forever. He started noticing some other key channels driving SiteGPT's continued growth:

• Referral Traffic

Happy users started sharing SiteGPT with others. Bhanu found referrals became a top source of new business accounts.

SiteGPT's $1,000+/month enterprise customers mostly came through word-of-mouth referrals.

• Organic Google Traffic

As people linked and mentioned SiteGPT across the web, its domain authority rose. It started ranking for keywords like "website chatbot".

This free organic search traffic became SiteGPT's 2nd largest source, driving 9k-10k visits a month.

• Direct Visits

Thanks to word spreading on Twitter/referrals, more people came back or bookmarked SiteGPT. Direct visits accounted for a large share of traffic.

So over time, Bhanu managed to diversify SiteGPT's growth beyond just social media. More strategic channels took over and allowed steady growth.

Present Day: $15k MRR and Climbing  

Fast forward to today, about 7 months after launch. SiteGPT now generates $13,000 - $15,000 in monthly recurring revenue.

Expenses like hosting and content creation are around $4,000 - 5,000/month. So SiteGPT produces around $10,000 in profit each month.

That's just from a simple weekend project that Bhanu never expected to be more than a learning experiment!

SiteGPT has close to 1,000 paying subscribers. And it's now Bhanu's main focus rather than his original website builder Feather.

Some key stats:

• 985 paying subscribers currently

• $471,000 in revenue generated to date

• $328,000 in profit so far

SiteGPT succeeded by riding the AI wave at exactly the right time. But Bhanu hasn't stopped improving it since launch.

He's focused on creating more educational content around AI chatbots to boost conversions. He's also exploring partnerships with companies that can benefit from SiteGPT.

With AI only growing more mainstream, SiteGPT is positioned for even stronger growth. It transformed from a weekend project into a highly successful SaaS business.

Key Takeaways from SiteGPT's Growth

SiteGPT's incredible first 7 months provide some important lessons for other startups:

• Perfect timing is invaluable - Tapping into a hot trend at the right moment can rocket you to success.

• Build for yourself first - Create something you personally want to use. That passion will come through.

• Reach out to your audience - Share your work and process. Turn followers into first users.

• Expect churn - Many early adopters won't stay. Focus on high-value users.

• Diversify channels - Don't count on one traffic source. Build referral, SEO, direct, etc.

• Improve based on feedback - Listen to your users, especially those with real needs. Fix pain points.

• Share the journey - Documenting successes AND struggles helps build community.

SiteGPT capitalized on the AI explosion by solving a real problem for website owners. The result was lightning-fast growth and a highly profitable business.

It exemplifies how converting a solution you create for yourself into a product people will pay for can lead to amazing outcomes with the right conditions.

So if you have an idea that scratches your own itch, take a cue from SiteGPT - build it out over a weekend and see what happens when you put it out into the world!

So that’s it with today’s post. Thanks for reading till the end, I’ll see you soon with another AI Pursuits Story.