How to make $150,000 in a week - story of a viral AI website | Pieter Levels and Lex Fridman
Summary
TLDRThe speaker recounts their journey with generative image models, starting with Stable Fusion, which they used to create a website generating non-existing houses. They then pivoted to interior design with Interior AI, achieving significant financial success. Experimenting with image-to-image technology, they trained models on their own face, leading to the creation of Avatar AI. Despite competition from larger companies, they found their niche in photorealistic AI, culminating in Photo AI. The narrative highlights the challenges and triumphs of leveraging AI for creative and business purposes.
Takeaways
- 😀 The speaker experimented with generative image models, specifically Stable Diffusion, to create images from text prompts.
- 🏠 They discovered that the model excelled at generating images of houses and architecture, leading to the creation of 'thishousedoesnotexist.org'.
- 🔄 The speaker pivoted to interior design, launching 'InteriorAI.com', which utilized image-to-image technology to modify existing photos into different styles.
- 💸 The venture into interior design proved profitable, generating significant monthly revenue within a short period.
- 🤖 The speaker explored fine-tuning AI models to specialize in interior design, which improved the quality and realism of the generated images.
- 👤 They also experimented with generating avatars of themselves, which unexpectedly became popular and led to the creation of 'AvatarAI.me'.
- 📈 The avatar project went viral, earning a substantial amount of money in a short time, but the speaker felt it was too 'cheesy' and not sustainable.
- 📸 The speaker then shifted focus to creating a more realistic photo AI, aiming to produce photorealistic images without the need for a photographer or studio.
- 🛠️ The process of training the AI on a limited set of photos and manually curating the results was labor-intensive, prompting the need for automation.
- 🔗 The speaker collaborated with AI model platforms to automate the training process, which eventually led to the development of more specialized AI models for various applications.
Q & A
What is the first generative image model the speaker started playing with?
-The first generative image model the speaker started playing with is Stable Diffusion.
How did the speaker discover Stable Diffusion?
-The speaker discovered Stable Diffusion on Twitter.
What was the speaker's initial experience with generating images using Stable Diffusion?
-The speaker found it amazing and was able to generate images in any style by writing prompts.
What was the speaker's observation about the model's ability to generate images of people?
-The speaker noted that the model was really bad at generating images of people.
What type of images did the model excel at generating according to the speaker?
-The model was good at generating images of houses and architecture.
What website did the speaker create to showcase the model's ability to generate house images?
-The speaker created a website called 'thishousedoesnotexist.org' to showcase the model's ability to generate house images.
How did the speaker monetize the interior design AI model?
-The speaker monetized the interior design AI model by launching a website and charging users for generating interior designs.
What was the monthly revenue the speaker achieved with the interior design AI model?
-The speaker achieved a monthly revenue of 40K to 50K dollars with the interior design AI model.
What did the speaker do to improve the interior design AI model?
-The speaker fine-tuned the existing AI model on a specific goal by training it with a gallery of beautiful interior designs.
How did the speaker's experience with generating avatars lead to the creation of a new startup?
-The speaker's experience with generating avatars led to the creation of a new startup called 'Avatar AI' after realizing the potential of the technology to generate images of oneself in various styles.
What was the speaker's reaction to a big VC company entering the avatar market and outperforming their app?
-The speaker felt it was amazing and saw it as a validation of the market potential, despite the competition.
What was the speaker's approach to handling customer orders for AI-generated avatars before automating the process?
-Initially, the speaker manually took customer photos, trained the model, and emailed the generated avatars back to the customers.
What challenges did the speaker face when scaling the avatar generation service?
-The speaker faced challenges such as the need to automate the process due to the high volume of customer orders and dealing with increased costs for training the AI models on the platform they were using.
Outlines
🖼️ Generative Image Models and AI Startups
The speaker discusses their initial experience with generative image models, specifically Stable Fusion, which they used to generate images on their MacBook. They discovered the model's proficiency in creating architectural designs, particularly houses, leading to the creation of 'this house does not exist.org'. They later pivoted to interior design with Interior AI, which became a successful startup. The speaker also experimented with image-to-image technology and fine-tuning AI models for specific tasks, like interior design, and eventually created an AI that could generate images of themselves in various styles, leading to the creation of Avatar AI, which went viral and earned significant revenue.
💸 Monetizing AI-Generated Avatars
The speaker shares their journey of monetizing AI-generated avatars, starting with a simple HTML page and Stripe payment link. They manually processed customer orders by training AI models on uploaded photos and emailing the generated images back. The demand was high, with even famous individuals and billionaires using the service. The speaker reflects on the rapid growth and the need for automation, which led to the development of a more sophisticated website. They also discuss the challenges of scaling and the importance of finding the right AI platform for model training, highlighting their positive experience with Replicate.
🔧 Fine-Tuning AI Models for Personalized Avatars
In this section, the speaker delves into the technical aspects of fine-tuning AI models to create personalized avatars. They discuss the process of training the AI with a limited number of photos and the challenges of ensuring high-quality results. The speaker also shares their experience with different AI model training platforms, the impact of their business on these platforms' pricing, and the eventual shift to Replicate, which accommodated their needs and contributed to the platform's growth. The speaker emphasizes the importance of finding the right tools and strategies for fine-tuning AI models to achieve the desired outcomes.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Generative Image Model
💡Stable Fusion
💡Prompt
💡Interior AI
💡Image to Image
💡Fine-tuning
💡Avatar AI
💡Photorealism
💡Replicate
💡API
💡ML Model
Highlights
Stable Fusion is a generative image model that can be installed on a Mac.
The model generates images from text prompts in various styles, including artistic styles like Picasso.
Architecture, particularly houses, is an area where the model excels, unlike human figures.
A website called 'this house does not exist' was created to showcase non-existing houses generated by the model.
The website featured a voting system for users to upvote their favorite house designs.
Interior AI was launched to generate interior designs, capitalizing on the model's strengths.
Image-to-image technology was used to modify existing photos into different interior styles.
The speaker made a significant income from Interior AI, reaching 10K to 20K a month within a week.
Fine-tuning AI models was explored to specialize them in specific tasks, such as interior design.
Avatar AI was created after the model was trained on the speaker's face, leading to a viral response.
The speaker made a substantial amount of money quickly with Avatar AI, but felt it was too cheesy and not sustainable.
Photo AI was developed to focus on realistic photography without the need for a photographer or studio.
The speaker had to learn to automate the AI model training process due to the high demand for Avatar AI.
Replicate was used as a platform to fine-tune AI models, which helped scale the speaker's business.
The speaker trained over 36,000 models on Replicate, showcasing the platform's scalability.
The speaker's journey with AI models highlights the rapid evolution and commercial potential of generative AI.
Transcripts
so stable Fusion is like this the first
like generative image model a model and
um I started playing with it like you
could install it on your Mac like
somebody forked it and made it work for
MacBooks so I downloaded it and uh
cloned the repo and started using it to
generate images um and it was like
amazing like it would I found it on
Twitter because you see things happened
on Twitter and I I would post what I was
making on Twitter as well and you could
make any image you could write a prompt
to essentially write a prompt and then
it generates a photo of that or image of
that um in any style like they would use
like artist names to make like a Picasso
kind of style and stuff um and I was
trying to see like what is it good at is
it good at people not it's really bad at
people but it was good at houses so
architecture for example I would
generate like architecture houses um so
I made a website called this house does
not exist. org and it generated like
they called like house porn and that one
like house porn is like a subreddit so
and this was stable Fusion like the
first version so it looks really you can
click for another photo so it generates
like all these kind of non-existing
houses it is house porn but it looked
kind of good you know like especially
back then now things look much
better um that's really really well
done wow and it also generat like a
description and you can up vote is it
nice up vote it man there's so much to
talk to you about like the choic is here
it's really well this is very Scrappy in
the bottom there's like a ranking of the
most up voted houses so these are the
top voted if you go to all time you see
quite beautiful
ones yeah so this one is my favorite the
number one it's like kind of like a um
how is this not more popular it was
really popular for like a while but then
people got so bored of it I think cuz I
was getting bored of it too like just
continuous house porn like everything
starts looking the same but then I
thought it was really good at interior
so I pivoted to Interior ai.com
where um I tried to like upload first
generate interior designs and then I
tried to do like there was a new
technology called image to image where
you can input an image like a photo and
it would kind of modify the thing MH so
you see it looks almost the same as
photo it's the same code essentially um
nice so I would I would upload a photo
of my interior where I lived and I would
like change this into like a I don't
know like maximalist design you know and
it worked and it worked really well so I
was like okay this is a startup because
obviously interior design Ai and
nobody's doing that yet so I launched
this and I was successful and made like
within a week made 10K 20K a month and
now still makes like 40K 50k a month uh
and it's been like two years so then I
was like how can I improve this interior
design I need to start learning
fine-tuning and fine tuning is where you
have this existing AI model and you fine
tune it on a specific goal you wanted to
do so I would find really beautiful
interor design make a gallery and um
train a new model that was very good at
interior design and it worked and I used
that as well and then for fun I uploaded
photos of
myself and here's where it happened uh
and to train myself like and this would
never work obviously and it worked and
actually it started understanding me as
a concept so my face worked and and you
could do like different styles like me
as a like very cheesy medieval warrior
all this stuff so I was like this is
another startup so now I did Avatar ai.
me I couldn't get to do com and this was
uh this was yeah Avatar I me well now it
forwards to phot because I pivoted got
it but this was more like
cheesy thing so this is very interesting
because this went so viral it made like
I think like 150k in a week or something
it's the most money I ever made and um
and then big this is very the big VC
companies like lenza which are much
better at iOS and stuff than me I didn't
have IOS app they quickly build the IOS
app that does the same and they found
technology and it's all open technology
so it's good and I think they made like
$30 million with it yeah they they
became like the top grossing app after
that um and it was how do you feel about
that I think it's amazing honestly and
it's not like you didn't have like a
feeling like ah [ __ ] no I was a little
bit like sad cuz all my products would
work out and I never had like real
Fierce competition and now I have like
Fierce competition from like a a very
skilled High Talent like iOS Developer
Studio or something that and and they
already had an app they had an app in
the app store for like um I think
retouching your face or something so
they were very smart they add these
avatars to there it's a feature they had
the users they do a push notification to
everybody who have these avatars Yeah
man they made CRA I think they made they
made so much money and um I think they
did a really great job and uh I also
made a lot of money with it but that was
I I quickly realized it wasn't my thing
because it was so cheesy it was like
kits you know it it's kind of like um me
as a Barbie or me as a you know it was
too cheesy I wanted to go for like
what's a real problem we can solve
because this is going to be a hype this
is going to be and it was a hype these
avatars um it's like let's do real
photography like how can you make people
look really photo realistic and it was
difficult and that's why the offs wor
because they were all like in a Cheesy
you know Picasso style and art is easy
because you interpret the the the all
the that AI has with your face are like
artistic you know if you call it Picasso
but if you make a real photo all the
problems with your face like it just you
look wrong you know so I started making
photo AI which was like a pivot of it
where it was like a photo studio um
where you could take photos without
actually needing a photographer needing
a studio you don't just you know you
just type it and I've been working on it
for like the last yeah it's really
incredible that journey is really
incredible let's go to the beginning of
photo AI though cuz I remember seeing a
lot of re really hilarious photos I
think you were using yourself as a case
study right yeah yeah so what uh there's
a tweet here
sold
$100,000 in AI generated avatars and
it's a lot like it's a lot for anybody
it's a lot for me like uh making 10K a
day on this you know that's
amazing that's amazing and then the
nested tweet like this the launch tweet
and then the before there is like the me
hacking on it oh I see so
that okay so October 26 2022 I trained
an ml model on my
face sure because my eyes are quite far
apart I learned when I did YouTube I
would put like a photo of like my DJ
photo you know my mixure and people
would say I look like a hammerhead shark
was like the top comment so then I
realized my eyes are far apart uh yeah
the internet helps you realiz how you
look you know boy do I love the interet
first
trap what what is is this wait it's
water from the waterfall but the
waterfall is in the back you know so
what's going
on so this is how much of this is real
it's all AI it's all AI yeah that's
pretty good though for the early days
exactly so but this was hit or miss so
you had to do love curation cuz 99% of
it was really bad mhm so these are the
photos I uploaded how many photos did
you use only these I will try and more
up to date picks later these are the
these are the only photos you uploaded
yeah
wow wow okay so like you were learning
all this super quickly what uh what are
some like interesting details you
remember from that time for like what
you have to figure out to make it work
and for people just listening he
uploaded just uh just a handful of
photos that don't really have a good
capture of the face and he's able to F
is cropped it's like a cropped by the by
the the layout but they're they're
Square photo so they're 512 by 512 mhm
because that's sa fusion um but
nevertheless not great capture of the
face like it's not it's not like a uh
collection of several hundred photos
that it's like exactly like I I would
imagine that too when I started I was
like a this must be like some 3D scan
technology right yeah so I think the
cool thing with AI it trains the concept
of you so it's literally like learning
just like any AI model learn it learns
how you look so I I did this and then I
was getting so I was getting DMs like
telegram messages like how can I do the
same thing I want these photos my
girlfriend wants these photos so I was
like okay this is obviously a business
but I didn't have time to code it uh
make a whole like app about it so I made
a HTML page um register the domain name
and this was not even it was a stripe
payment link which means you have a
literally a link to stripe to pay but
there's no code in the back so all you
know is you have customers that paid
money then I added like a some uh a Ty
form link so Ty form is a site where you
can have make create like your own um
input form like Google forms so they
would get a email with a link to the
type form or actually just a link after
the checkout and they could upload their
photos so enter their email upload the
photos and then um and I launched it and
I was like here first SE so this October
2022 and I think within like the first
24 hours was like I'm not sure it was
like a thousand customers or something
um but the problem was I didn't have
code to automate this so I had to do
manually so the first few hundred I just
literally took their photos uh trained
them and then I would generate the
photos with the prompts and I had this
text file with the prompts and I would
do everything manually and this quickly
became way too much so but that's
another constraint like I was forced to
code something up uh that would do that
and that was essentially making it into
a real website right so at first it was
the type form and they uploaded through
the typ form strip check out form yeah
and then you were like that image is
downloaded did you write a script to
export download the images myself was a
zip file unzip file you unzipped it
unzipped yes and then I no I'm because
you know do things don't skill Paul
graah says right so uh and then I would
train it and I would email them the
photos I think from my personal email
say here's your here's your avatars you
know and they liked it they were like
wow it's
amazing you emailed them with your
personal email I didn't have an email
address on this domain and this is like
a 100 people yeah and then you know who
signed up uh like like man I cannot say
it but really famous people like really
really like billionaires famous Tech
billionaires did it and I was like wow
this is crazy and I sent I was like so
scared to mess them so I said thanks so
much for using my sites you know he's
like yeah amazing app great work so it's
like this is different than normal
reaction you know it's Bill Gates isn't
it can say
anything just like shirtless PS gdpr you
know like privacy European regulation
cannot share anything but I was very I
was like Wow and uh but this shows like
so you make something and then if it
takes off very fast you're like it's
validated you know you're like here's
something that people really want but
then also I thought this is hype this is
going to die down very fast and I did
because it's too cheesy but you have to
automate the whole thing how you
automate it so like what's the AI
component like how hard was that to
figure out okay so that's actually in
many ways the easiest thing because
there is all these platforms already
back then there was platforms for uh
fine tune stable diffusion um like now I
use replicate back then I use different
platforms um which was funny because
that platform when this thing took off I
would tweet because I tweet always like
how much money these websites make and
then so the the you called vendor right
the the G the platform that did the gpus
they increased their price for training
from $3 to $20 after they saw that I was
making so much money so immediately my
profit is gone because I was selling
them for
$30 and I was in a slack with them like
saying what is this like can you just
put it back to$ they say yeah maybe in
the future we're looking at it right now
I'm like what are you talking about like
you just took all my money you know and
they're smart well they're not that
smart because like you also have a
large uh platform and a lot of people
respect you so you can literally come
out and say that I think it's like kind
of dirty to cancel a company or
something I I prefer just bringing my
business elsewhere but there was no
elsewhere back then right so I started
talking to other um AI model ml platform
so replicate was on of those platforms
and I started dming the CEO say can you
please creates like it's called dream
Boo this fine tuning of you yourself can
you add this to your site cuz I need
this cuz I'm being price gged and he
said no because it takes too long to run
it takes a half an hour to run and we
don't have the gpus for it I said please
please please and then after a week they
said we're doing it we're launching this
and then this company became it was like
not very famous company it became very
famous with this stuff because suddenly
everybody was like oh we can build
similar apps like Avatar apps and
everybody started building Avatar apps
and everybody started using replicate
for it um and it was from these early
dmss with like the CEO like Ben Fish
very nice guy and he was like they never
price Gage me they never treated me bad
they always been very nice it's it's a
very cool company so you can run any ml
model any AI model llms you can run on
here and you can scale yes they scale
yeah yeah and I mean you can do now you
can click on the model and just run it
already it's like super easy you log in
with GitHub um that's great and by
running it on the website then you can
automate with the API you can make a
website that runs the m
generate images generate text generate
video generate music generate spech find
two models they do anything yeah it's
very cool company nice and you're like
growing with them essentially they grew
because of you because it's like a big
use case yeah like the the website even
looks weird now it it started as like a
machine learning platform that was like
I didn't even understand what it did it
was just too too ml you know like you
would understand cuz you're in the ml
world I wouldn't understand now it's
newb friendly yeah exactly and I didn't
know how it works and um but I knew that
they could probably do this and they did
it they built the models and now I use
them for everything and we trained like
I think now like 36,000 models 36,000
people already but is there some tricks
to fine tuning to like the collection of
photos that are provided like how do you
like yes man it's so many Hecks the hack
it's like 100 hex to make it
work for
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