I spend a lot of time around AI builders.
Everyone's building. Literally everyone. My feed is full of "just launched" and "building in public" posts. It’s wonderful.
But here's the fascinating bit: I keep an eye on these projects (occupational hazard of being waaaay too online). And I'm noticing a clear pattern in who succeeds and who doesn't.
Take two creators I know - let's call them Alex and Sam. Not their real names.
Alex announced they were building an "AI-powered complete marketing suite". Content generation, campaign analysis, social scheduling, performance prediction, the whole shebang. Proper ambitious stuff. Set to revolutionise how global agencies work.
Sam? They built a tool that does one thing: takes YouTube transcripts and turns them into Twitter threads. Huh.
Guess who's actually making money right now?
Sam's pulling in $3k/month with their tiny, focused tool. Alex is still "building" six months later.
Let’s get started:
David and Goliath
I watch a lot of AI projects fail. The pattern's always the same. Grand ambitions, feature creep, endless development. By the time they launch (if they launch), the market's moved on. Or wasn’t even there in the first place!
Meanwhile, the creators making actual money? They're the ones who picked one problem and solved it properly. Got to market quickly, proved their value and start generating revenue or move to a quick sale.
Not as exciting to watch, but actually gets the job done.
Here’s a great example:
Built a super simple AI app in 3 days. For a buyer he already knew. And cashed it in for an easy $3k.
Clean, fast, simple.
Obviously he could have also built it up and gone for MRR (monthly recurring revenue) but a clean sale for $3k is still solid work for 10-15 hours work.
For our first AI app we want this level of focus and precision.
"But Kyle," I hear you say, "my idea has so many potential features! My users will need them all!"
Will they though? Nah.
Let me share another pattern I've noticed: the most successful AI tools in my network aren't the ones with the most features. They're the ones that do one thing so well that people are willing to pay for it even though it's "just" one thing.
Let's strip your idea down to its core. Here's your first prompt:
You are a product strategist specializing in MVP development. Help me identify the smallest valuable version of these AI solutions.
My ideas: [Your filtered ideas here]
For each idea, define:
1. The core problem being solved
2. The simplest possible solution
3. What can be eliminated while still solving the core problem
4. What is must-have vs nice-to-have
5. How we could validate this with a single feature
Run this first. Look at your stripped-down solutions. Now, let's rate them and create clear taglines:
You are a product strategist and pitch expert. Rate these AI solution ideas from simplest to most complex to build, and create a clear "high concept" tagline for each.
My ideas: [Your stripped-down solutions]
For each idea:
1. Rate complexity (1-10, where 1 is simplest)
2. Write a single-sentence tagline that combines [what it does] + [for who]
3. Highlight any dependencies or technical requirements
Order them from simplest to most complex to build.
Now, about those taglines - ever heard of "high concept" films? Movies like "Twins" (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito as twins separated at birth) or "Sharknado" (tornado... but with sharks).
High concept in action.
The beauty of high concept is that you instantly get it. No explanation needed. One line tells you everything.
That's what we're looking for in our AI tool taglines. Not: "An advanced machine learning system leveraging natural language processing to optimise content strategy through multi-platform analysis". With a tagline like that you are already dead.
Instead we want something like: "YouTube transcripts to Twitter threads, automatically"
If you can't explain your MVP in a "Snakes on a Plane" level of clarity, you're probably trying to do too much.
Here's what good high-concept AI tool pitches look like:
Look at your list of ideas, now ranked from simple to complex. Look at their high-concept taglines.
The ones that are:
These are your potential MVPs.
Pick the simplest one that still solves a real problem. The one you could explain to your nan.
The one that makes you think "is this too simple?" That's your winner.
Next up, we're taking this stripped-down, crystal-clear idea and turning it into a proper project brief. We'll define exactly what we're building, who it's for, and how we'll get it into their hands.
But for now, focus on finding that perfect mix of simple and valuable. Remember: Complexity is the enemy of execution.
PS. If you’ve got this far we’re exploring launching a 30 Day AI Entrepreneurship Accelerator where we:
1. Hone a business idea
2. Build a focused AI tool
3. Test and refine the tool
4. Market and launch
Course, community and live sessions.
Waitlist here: https://promptentrepreneur.beehiiv.com/c/waitlist