In a previous post, I shared the lessons I learned about building an AI business in 2025.

Many of you wrote back with encouraging words and asked how you can start a small business of your own. (I’m grateful to you for writing.) So I thought, why not answer all those questions through a single blog post?

Well, here it is. A stepwise guide on how we grew Consistent Character AI to 26,000+ users and counting.

Before we begin, I want to share one thing.

It might appear like we did all of this in six months (and frankly, it sounds glorious too). But the reality is this journey took us over three years of 15-hour days, 6 days a week. And it doesn’t seem like we will slow down any time soon.

Along the way, we have done a few things right and made plenty of mistakes. I hope that if you want to build a business, this post will help you bypass most of our mistakes and do what works so that you can grow faster (with less stress).

In a nutshell, the 7 stages we moved through to grow from 0 to 26,714 users are:

Stage 1: Building A Prototype

Stage 2: Creating A Waitlist

Stage 3: Keeping The Buzz Alive

Stage 4: Launching A Polished V1

Stage 5: Always Speaking to Customers

Stage 6: Articulating What We Stand For

Stage 7: Constantly Educating Our Audience

Let's dive into them.

Stage 1: Build a Working Prototype

To start with, you need to have a good idea of your product’s design, not just in terms of how it will look but also how it will work.

This is the sine qua non of a sustainable venture. Without it, you will end up chasing every shiny trend, and eventually, your own tail. This is why many aspiring entrepreneurs burn out. They run in 10 directions hoping to make quick money.

Before I launched Consistent Character AI, I knew a deep-seated problem people had: not being able to generate consistent cartoon images. I had heard this complaint in the design workshops I conducted, and from gaming studios and marketing teams I consulted.

Midjourney, Stable Diffusion and other tools would generate characters, but as soon as prompted to edit an expression or action, the characters themselves changed. And you can’t tell a story without consistent characters.

So, when OpenAI launched its app store, I spent a few hours programming a GPT to do just that and launched it. And the GPT took off. That’s when I knew I was on to something.

Takeaway: Identify a service people pay you for, create an AI prototype of it, and launch it to the public. If you get a good response, you know you can move to Stage 2.

Stage 2: Create a Waitlist

People loving a free product is one thing; whether they pay for it is another. (Read this to know why.)

Without data, you cannot guess which side of the fence they are on. You could assume that since people like your free product, they will buy from you. But if your assumption is wrong, you will waste time, energy, and money building a product no one wants.

I didn’t want to be stuck in such a situation. So I built a simple landing page in 10 minutes informing the Consistent Character GPT users about a simpler, better performing tool I would launch soon. Interested people could drop their email address and join a waitlist.

I did all this even before I wrote the first line of code for Consistent Character AI.

The result? Each day, hundreds of people joined the waitlist. This told me I was solving a genuine problem, which, in turn, meant the solution was worth monetizing.

Takeaway: Skip the guesswork. Validate every hunch. The simplest way to do this and know whether people are interested in your product is to launch a waitlist.

Stage 3: Keep the Buzz Alive

So, you’ve got people’s interest. But building the product will take time. What should you do in the meantime?

Work in silence and people will forget about you. The interest and attention you’ve gained will go down the drain, and you’ll have to start from scratch. That’s why I recommend building in public.

While my waitlist grew, I kept building the product. Alongside, I posted content on LinkedIn and YouTube educating people on how to generate better AI images. I also posted teasers about our future tool and my personal lessons while building it.

The more people achieved their goals using my workflows, the more they engaged with my content. This helped because it meant meant we would launch to an audience, not to crickets.

Takeaway: Your waitlist’s attention is one of your most valuable assets. While building your product, keep sharing content they find useful along with sneak-peeks in your work.

Stage 4: Launch A Polished V1

You cannot launch a perfect product. But you shouldn’t try to do the opposite either: launch a subpar product and call it an MVP.

Instead, launch a polished V1 as soon as it matches your standards of taste. This is the basic version that does 1-2 critical jobs for your user really well. Nothing fancy, no bells and whistles.

We launched V1 of Consistent Character AI when our waitlist reached 4000 members. I was tempted to delay the launch and test more, but Diana was the voice of sanity. She explained that we cannot preempt how people will use our product. “It’s better to observe how people use our product and then tweak it to meet their needs,” she said. She was so right!

Every product-oriented founder wants to keep tweaking the product until it’s perfect. But as Brenė Brown writes:

Takeaway: Perfection is a trap that keeps you stuck in your own head. Launch a polished V1 quickly, observe how people engage with your product, and use that data to make it better.

Stage 5: Keep Speaking to Your Users

Building a product in isolation is like trying to hit a target with your eyes closed. You might get lucky, but you'll probably miss by miles.

Too many founders get so caught up in their vision that they forget to check if customers actually want what they're building. They add feature after feature, hoping something will stick, without understanding what users truly need.

Diana and I never want to fall in this trap. So each week, we make it a point to speak directly to our customers. Diana focuses on understanding their workflows and pain points, while I channel that feedback into making the product better.

This has even led us to removing features that didn’t fulfill our users’ needs (who specifically wanted cartoon characters for books, illustrations, and social content). There are hundreds of apps that try to do everything, but we prioritize the features our users actually love.

The result? Users keep signing up and, more importantly, they stay.

Takeaway: Your customers are your best product managers. Listen to them intently and let their needs guide your development decisions.

Stage 6: Articulate What You Stand For

Your brand name might not be catchy, but if it captures what you do, it becomes your secret SEO weapon.

Many founders obsess over having a clever, brandable name that sounds cool but tells you nothing about what they actually do. But "Consistent Character AI" goes against this trend. It might be harder to tag or share than something snappy, but this phrase is exactly what people search for when they need our solution.

Thousands of people search for the term "consistent character with AI" every month, and by owning this exact phrase helped us appear as one of the first search results. This simple decision brings us significant organic traffic from search engines without spending a penny on ads. We may change our name later. But right now, this clarity helps us capture the traffic that matters.

Takeaway: Look for what people are actually searching for in your space, study the blogs they're reading, and identify keywords that others aren't focusing on. Then systematically work to rank for those terms.

Stage 7: Educate. Educate. Educate.

As a founder, you know your product inside out. That is a good thing, but it also means you suffer from the Curse of Knowledge.

New users, meanwhile, have no clue where to start. This gap between your expertise and their confusion is where most users drop off. The more complexity you add, the more friction you create, and friction kills conversion.

Diana and I obsess over making every interaction as simple as possible. How can we reduce the number of clicks for users to get a satisfactory output? How can we label buttons to explain exactly what they do? if users need to describe their character, the button says "Describe your character," not something clever like "prompt creator."

Clear beats clever every single time.

This simplicity extends to our social media content too. We create tutorials, tips, and walkthroughs that make our tool simple to use for everyone. As a result, users naturally refer Consistent Character AI to others, because there's no learning curve to overcome.

Takeaway: The easier your product is to use, the faster it spreads. Eliminate every unnecessary click, confusing label, and moment of user hesitation.

Which lesson(s) resonated the most with you? Do let us know. We would love to hear from you.

SPOTLIGHT OF THE WEEK — PATRICIA WONSEY

Here are a few examples of characters that Consistent Character AI user Praticia Wonsey has generated for her stories.

Aren't they awesome?

So many stories that the characters tell through their expressions, actions, and outfits.

So many fantasies children can draw, questions they can ask, and lessons they can learn.

Work like this that you do with us makes us want to get out of bed each morning and build for you.

Kudos, Patricia! 👏🏼

You can check out her YouTube channel here.

(Also, if you would like to share your own designs and illustrations and get featured in our newsletter, just reply to this email.)

A TEACHER USES AI TO INSPIRE HER STUDENTS

Here is another example of how AI is being used to show children dreams of who they can be.

This teacher generated AI visuals of her students to show them what they could look like in their dream professions.

AI got used to "show" children what their dreams could look like.
This "vision" of what is possible could get etched in their minds.
And they could work harder to make it come true.
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Imagine how much more beautiful the world would be if children start working towards goals they set rather than those imposed on them!

How are you using AI to inspire your children?

Do share with us. We love to hear your stories.

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Talk soon 🙂

Sachin and Diana

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