David Park

A 27 year old that lived in his mom’s basement became the founder of a successful AI company, that serves students to enhance their writing capabilities. He began his journey at the tender age of 16 selling clothes, to now a AI business owner.

During the infant stages of his company David built his company to cater to business, AKA b2b model, where they will do content writing for businesses. However he came across powerful competitions. 40 year olds with more connections, financial backing and experience in business, smothered him out of the niche and it forced him to pivot, and rebuild the company.

Allies

David didn’t do this alone, as he has no experience with coding, so he relied on his partner Henry Mao. This is the one of the core principle of starting a business, as a leader he find people to help him make a vision possible. David didn’t bother to learn coding, because that’s not his specialty, he excel at managing a business, so he sourced that to his trusted partner.

His parents also supported him, he was a 27 year old drop out, and they still help him with his living situation. They may not like the idea of him leaving college, but they still kept him in the house and financially support him. He felt that he embarrassed his mother, because of the generic Asian household, moms would gather together and show off their kids like they’re having a dick measuring contest. However his mother supports him and was honest about what her son did, and told everyone that David was working in a start up.

Process vs Event

People glorified the event of a business, like the first million made, or how many millions of customer a business has, but in reality running a business is boring. David had some motivation from watching the Social Network and thought starting a business would be exciting, but that is far form the truth. The mundane task of calling Venture capitalist 8 hours a day for multiple weeks without any result is the reality of starting or running a business.

After getting customers he would contact his customers, to get feedback on service. Here’s the thing with feedback from customers, sometimes the customers don’t even know what they want, they think they want a cheaper service when they actually want a quality service. It was another boring thing that David had to worry about.

The Buildup

When Jenni.ai was reestablished for graduates, the product ramped up in customers. Customers were pouring in due to a combination of SEO, social media marketing, and Zain Kahn a AI newsletter owner posted about Jenni.ai.

Cancer and Curse

David Park went to the hospital for a check and his doctor discovered that he has cancer. He had to go into surgery, scared that anything can happen and the life he built would be gone. However surgery was a success and he became free of cancer.

During his absence from his, his business made no progress, and this is usually a killer of businesses during the infant stages. If a company only rides on the hype and becomes stagnant, it will die. David had to go back into his business as soon as he left the hospital. He then realize that the business, despite it’s success, has gotten harder. Everyday he has to make decision on short notice that can drastically affect the pathing of the company. However, he don’t regret it, he was offered 3 million to sell his company, but he refused and hedged his bets on himself, now his company is estimated to be worth 30 million dollars.

Key Takeaways

David increased the price of his service, to increase the perceive value, with is something that the customer didn’t know they want inherently. David was smart enough to increase the value and it helped pay for the right people to join the team.

Pivot from competition during the infant stages of the company David created the business to help businesses write content, but after getting bullied by bigger and more experience AI developers, he switched to the education niche.

Sourcing Skills David has little to no experience in coding, he couldn’t have built an AI product without his team mate Henry.

Process > Event People are blind sighted by the charm of having an eventful business, but the boring task that is the process is more important, the event is just a by product of process.