My AI App Makes $100K/Month
Starter Story
Jul 30, 2025
This is how Nicolai Klemke dropped his PhD in physics to build in AI, and now makes $100K per month.
Serious about B2B? Download the free Compliance for Startups Bundle→ https://go.starterstory.com/nicolai
🛠️ Want to start building with AI? Check out Starter Story Build → https://build.starterstory.com/build/ai-build-accelerator?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=nicolai
Follow Nico's Journey: https://x.com/nicolaiklemke
🔔 Follow the Second Channel: @StarterStoryBuild
🏁 We're hiring: starterstory.com/jobs
Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:48 - Who is Nico
1:15 - What does Neural Frames do?
1:48 - From PhD in physics to building in AI
2:30 - Why Nico changed his career
3:02 - Start landing enterprise customers
4:12 - Advice on changing careers
4:57 - Nico's ideation process
5:53 - AI ideas to build NOW
6:28 - Growth hack: niching down
7:18 - From 0 to $100K MRR
8:40 - Numbers behind Neural Frames
9:02 - Tech stack
9:50 - Costs to run
10:29 - Bootstrap over VC
11:11 - Take the leap today
11:45 - Start building with AI
This video is an educational case study of one founder’s experience. It is not financial advice and does not guarantee any income or results. Every business is different and your results may vary.
Chapters
Stack
Transcript
Chapters
Stack
No tools listed for this business.
I
walked
away
from
my
career
to
build
my
own
thing
This
is
Nico
and
he
did
something
that
let's
be
honest
is
really
hard
He
gave
up
his
entire
career
I
didn't
really
know
what
I
was
doing
He
was
on
the
traditional
path
until
two
letters
made
him
rethink
everything
A
I
A
I
A
I
A
I
Building
an
A
I
is
the
best
decision
I
ever
made
I
know
I
know
A
I
is
all
the
rage
right
now
But
this
episode
is
about
a
normal
guy
who
saw
an
opportunity
and
decided
to
make
the
leap
leap
And
you'll
learn
why
he
left
his
entire
career
behind
to
build
an
A
I
and
why
you
should
too
how
to
build
niche
viral
apps
and
the
opportunities
to
build
an
A
I
right
now
This
one's
going
to
be
fun
I'm
Pat
Walls
and
this
is
Starter
Story
All
right
welcome
Nico
to
the
channel
Tell
me
about
who
you
are
what
you
built
and
what's
your
story
Hi
everyone
I'm
Nico
I'm
the
founder
of
NeuroFrames
which
is
a
platform
to
create
A
I
music
videos
I've
been
a
physicist
in
my
previous
life
and
was
also
always
an
active
musician
And
in
the
end
of
2022
I
started
building
NeuroFrames
It
was
kind
of
my
first
full
stack
software
project
ever
And
the
first
year
I
built
it
as
a
solopreneur
And
now
we
are
a
team
of
five
and
last
month
we
made
100
000
All
right
well
tell
me
a
little
bit
more
about
NeuroFrames
What
exactly
does
this
tool
do
So
NeuroFrames
is
a
tool
to
create
A
I
music
videos
It's
an
A
I
music
video
generator
If
you're
a
musician
you
need
lots
of
visual
content
for
every
song
that
you
put
out
You
need
visual
content
to
go
along
with
it
And
traditionally
visual
content
is
actually
kind
of
hard
to
produce
So
we
try
to
make
this
easier
and
use
several
A
I
tools
for
it
Most
of
our
users
are
hobby
or
indie
musicians
some
professional
musicians
too
And
then
there's
a
lot
of
people
actually
that
create
music
now
with
A
I
music
tools
and
come
to
NeuroFrames
to
make
music
videos
for
these
songs
What
I
think
is
super
cool
about
your
story
is
that
you
went
through
a
full
career
change
You
were
doing
something
else
and
then
you
stumbled
into
A
I
I
Can
you
tell
me
a
little
bit
more
about
your
background
before
you
got
started
with
NeuroFrames
I
studied
physics
in
2016
I
finished
my
master's
I
was
kind
of
fed
up
with
physics
already
But
as
I
was
looking
for
jobs
to
do
I
found
that
those
were
not
really
interesting
to
me
And
so
I
didn't
really
know
what
to
do
with
my
life
and
did
a
PhD
regardless
And
in
2018
I
ran
the
first
scientific
simulations
and
discovered
that
I
really
like
programming
When
I
was
done
with
my
PhD
in
2020
I
joined
a
deep
tech
startup
working
kind
of
at
the
intersection
of
computer
vision
and
physics
It
was
cool
I
learned
a
lot
about
A
I
and
programming
And
then
eventually
in
2022
I
started
building
NeuroFrames
Okay
let's
dive
into
that
a
little
bit
You
were
deep
in
this
PhD
academia
world
for
years
How
did
you
decide
that
you
wanted
to
drop
everything
and
just
completely
change
careers
Yeah
deep
down
I
must
say
I
was
never
ultra
passionate
about
physics
I
was
good
in
it
and
so
I
kept
on
doing
it
But
I
always
had
the
feeling
that
there
would
be
more
for
me
somehow
And
I
wanted
to
build
something
that
affects
people
in
the
real
world
maybe
that
improves
somebody's
life
I
think
deep
down
in
me
there
is
a
wish
to
be
seen
in
the
world
And
actually
the
startup
environment
is
perfect
for
it
because
every
decision
I
make
has
direct
impact
on
the
startup
which
is
really
great
All
right
before
we
finish
Nico's
story
I
want
to
talk
to
the
solo
founders
watching
this
Going
solo
doesn't
mean
staying
small
And
if
you
hit
one
million
ARR
you
probably
have
enterprise
customers
But
those
customers
don't
just
ask
what
does
your
product
do
They
want
to
know
if
you're
compliant
Words
like
SOC
2
HIPAA
and
ISO
27001
can
be
hard
to
understand
And
if
you're
not
up
to
date
with
your
compliance
the
deal
is
probably
dead
before
it
even
starts
That's
why
we
partnered
with
Vanta
on
this
video
Vanta
is
the
platform
that
automates
the
hard
stuff
around
security
and
compliance
so
you
can
focus
on
your
product
Vanta
hooks
into
your
stack
runs
continuous
checks
and
keeps
the
evidence
all
clean
for
the
auditors
so
you
can
stay
in
build
mode
while
Vanta
handles
the
paperwork
Thousands
of
fast
growing
companies
like
Ramp
Atlassian
LangChain
and
Cursor
already
use
Vanta
to
prove
security
in
real
time
So
if
you're
just
getting
started
Vanta
put
together
this
free
compliance
for
startups
bundle
It
has
checklists
case
studies
and
step
by
step
breakdowns
to
help
you
get
compliant
before
you
lose
the
deal
Just
click
the
first
link
in
the
description
description
to
download
it
for
free
Huge
thanks
to
Vanta
for
supporting
the
channel
Now
let's
get
back
to
Nico
What
would
be
your
advice
for
someone
who
might
be
watching
this
who
is
considering
changing
their
career
building
with
AI
I
think
the
most
common
thing
holding
people
back
is
two
things
One
is
they
are
scared
that
things
won't
work
out
And
the
second
might
be
that
they
are
scared
scared
they
can't
do
it
maybe
due
to
technical
challenges
I
think
for
the
former
there's
really
no
reason
to
be
scared
to
be
honest
because
there's
nothing
to
lose
You
will
learn
so
much
by
switching
careers
by
building
something
your
own
that
you
will
easily
make
up
for
it
later
on
even
if
it
doesn't
work
out
right
And
people
should
also
not
be
scared
of
the
technical
challenges
It's
never
been
easier
to
build
something
It's
incredible
With
these
AI
tools
you
feel
like
a
superhuman
You
can
just
build
anything
you
want
in
a
crazy
speed
The
worst
case
that
can
happen
is
that
yeah
I
tried
to
do
something
new
And
you
can
always
go
back
to
get
your
old
job
All
right
let's
jump
back
to
the
idea
How
did
you
find
the
idea
for
neural
frames
How
specifically
did
you
find
this
amazing
idea
I
believe
very
strongly
in
the
f
around
find
out
principle
So
meaning
just
do
many
random
things
all
across
the
board
Imagine
this
as
regions
in
the
whole
universe
of
ideas
that
you
populate
Then
something
magical
happens
actually
when
multiple
of
these
things
that
you've
done
in
the
past
combine
For
instance
in
my
case
I
was
doing
computer
vision
and
then
music
a
lot
And
it
turns
out
that
these
two
can
meet
in
the
field
of
AI
animation
for
music
videos
right
Maybe
one
practical
tip
also
is
what
I
do
now
what
I
find
useful
to
spot
ideas
is
I
use
SEO
tools
such
as
Ahrefs
for
instance
If
you
have
an
idea
try
to
find
the
keyword
that
people
might
be
looking
for
this
idea
If
it
has
a
certain
volume
let's
say
more
than
1000
monthly
searches
or
something
and
the
low
difficulty
it
means
you're
onto
something
because
people
are
searching
for
something
and
there's
not
already
1000
solutions
for
it
That's
great
What
kind
of
opportunities
do
you
see
in
AI
right
now
What
are
some
good
business
ideas
to
be
building
in
AI
Too
many
It's
hard
to
restrain
myself
from
building
side
projects
I
find
customizable
media
at
the
moment
very
interesting
I
would
love
to
have
an
AI
podcast
generator
In
general
I
think
voice
mode
and
audio
interface
is
very
interesting
I
would
love
to
have
an
executive
coach
who
I
can
talk
to
on
my
way
to
the
office
and
just
it
has
access
to
my
calendar
and
knows
what's
up
maybe
has
access
to
Slack
and
I
can
just
bounce
off
ideas
and
do
weekly
planning
with
that
Yeah
I
think
there's
many
things
that
you
can
rethink
nowadays
with
AI
All
right
So
one
thing
I
noticed
about
Neural
Frames
is
that
it's
an
AI
video
generative
tool
just
for
musicians
Was
it
always
like
this
Nicheing
Dawn
was
a
huge
unlock
for
us
actually
So
I
had
no
clear
use
case
The
tagline
on
the
landing
page
was
text
to
video
for
everyone
which
is
really
not
great
to
be
honest
And
the
smart
friend
actually
told
me
I
would
have
a
much
easier
time
selling
this
product
if
I
decide
on
one
particular
use
case
And
this
was
very
smart
because
imagine
the
following
scenario
Yeah
you're
a
musician
You
come
to
a
site
It
says
text
to
video
for
everyone
or
AI
video
generator
And
then
you
already
need
to
do
a
mental
step
Maybe
I
can
do
music
videos
here
Right
Some
people
will
not
do
this
So
you
lose
already
some
people
Versus
you
come
to
a
site
it
says
bam
this
is
the
platform
to
create
music
videos
This
is
what
you've
been
waiting
for
dear
musician
So
you
will
feel
much
more
home
and
you
are
much
more
likely
to
tell
your
friends
about
it
So
it's
become
a
better
product
for
your
use
case
OK
that's
awesome
Let's
take
a
detour
a
little
bit
to
the
growth
of
this
business
How'd
you
go
from
just
an
idea
and
an
MVP
to
100
000
a
month
It
was
a
long
journey
for
sure
So
maybe
the
first
internet
money
I
made
with
a
post
on
Hacker
News
I
posted
on
Hacker
News
kind
of
a
week
after
I
set
this
live
The
whole
product
looked
terrible
I
think
this
actually
resonated
with
the
crowd
on
Hacker
News
who
are
kind
of
you
know
a
bit
nerdy
and
it
didn't
look
like
a
commercial
product
at
all
And
then
it
reached
I
think
top
six
on
a
Sunday
which
just
blew
up
my
phone
I
was
having
dinner
with
friends
and
saw
350
people
in
the
last
30
minutes
on
the
site
and
ran
home
to
try
to
keep
the
GPUs
alive
This
was
really
great
Got
me
a
lot
of
interesting
coins
lots
of
backlinks
first
internet
money
And
then
I
just
kept
building
things
tried
to
make
the
product
better
I
kept
reaching
out
to
AI
people
I
made
use
of
SEO
kind
of
early
on
Dedicated
landing
pages
free
tools
definitely
still
work
really
well
on
Google
One
other
thing
that
I
did
which
resonated
with
people
and
that
helped
me
was
that
I
played
the
Indie
Hacker
Solopreneur
card
aggressively
In
the
footer
of
the
site
it
says
no
VC
money
just
a
tiny
company
in
love
with
text
to
videos
Like
I
tried
to
keep
it
very
personal
My
photo
was
everywhere
I
recorded
the
YouTube
tutorials
And
I
think
there
is
some
value
in
that
I
think
people
buy
from
people
and
not
from
companies
And
so
they
felt
connected
to
me
This
was
kind
of
a
flywheel
of
making
the
product
a
bit
better
known
OK
great
Let's
dive
into
some
of
the
numbers
of
this
business
Can
you
share
some
of
the
numbers
behind
this
business
How
many
users
how
much
revenue
this
is
doing
We
have
around
1
500
customers
bringing
in
100
000
a
month
We
have
around
100
000
monthly
active
users
So
visitors
coming
to
the
site
And
then
I
think
in
total
now
we
have
had
1
5
million
videos
finished
on
NeuralFrames
which
is
also
wild
1
5
million
AI
videos
generated
That's
insane
On
that
note
can
you
tell
me
about
the
tools
languages
and
stack
that
you
use
to
build
this
SaaS
and
run
this
business
Yeah
so
nowadays
I
use
Cursor
for
coding
The
back
end
is
written
in
Python
The
front
end
is
written
in
Next
js
We
use
RunPod
for
our
GPUs
We
use
File
for
text
to
video
APIs
We
use
PostHoc
for
analytics
which
is
awesome
Slack
for
communication
Linear
for
task
tracking
Notion
for
internal
documentation
if
we
document
something
Ahrefs
for
SEO
which
I
really
like
Intercom
for
customer
support
Email
octopus
for
newsletters
and
stuff
And
then
we
have
a
custom
Telegram
bot
that
alerts
us
if
the
servers
are
down
which
turned
out
to
be
really
useful
And
then
of
course
GGBT
as
my
therapist
and
all
kinds
of
random
tasks
that
come
up
in
the
startup
journey
Nice
And
you
mentioned
costs
earlier
You're
doing
about
100
000
per
month
in
revenue
What
are
the
costs
to
run
an
AI
generative
SaaS
business
At
the
moment
we're
spending
around
45
000
per
month
just
for
GPUs
and
text
to
video
APIs
so
almost
half
And
then
5K
maybe
for
servers
storage
hosting
and
stuff
like
that
Then
we're
spending
I
think
now
1
000
a
month
on
Cursor
at
the
moment
which
is
wild
thanks
to
Opus
And
then
we
have
some
other
expenses
I
mean
300
per
month
for
email
octopus
200
per
month
for
Versailles
120
I
think
for
PostHawk
110
maybe
for
Ahrefs
100
for
Intercom
There's
not
much
profit
in
the
end
Thank
you
for
sharing
all
that
What's
a
key
lesson
that
you've
learned
in
your
journey
going
from
a
PhD
in
physics
to
building
your
own
AI
apps
having
a
really
successful
business
What's
the
key
lesson
you've
learned
You
would
think
at
the
bootstrap
company
you
are
in
disadvantage
to
VC
backed
companies
But
I
think
this
is
oftentimes
actually
not
true
It's
of
course
easier
to
get
off
the
ground
as
a
VC
backed
business
But
once
you
have
some
traction
as
a
bootstrap
business
you're
actually
much
more
free
to
make
moves
I
mean
we
can
target
a
much
lower
market
size
as
a
bootstrap
business
Then
a
VC
backed
company
needs
to
reach
a
billion
dollars
in
valuation
And
otherwise
it's
not
worth
doing
it
right
I'm
much
more
relaxed
here
I
don't
need
to
do
this
So
this
is
nice
because
it
means
we
can
target
certain
problems
that
maybe
VC
backed
companies
won't
target
Yep
The
last
question
I
have
for
you
we
ask
all
founders
come
on
the
channel
If
you
could
stand
on
Nico's
shoulder
when
he
was
considering
leaving
the
PhD
leaving
the
old
career
what
would
be
your
advice
Do
it
Don't
be
scared
Something
that
I
learned
for
sure
is
the
most
important
part
is
try
to
solve
a
problem
and
just
focus
on
solving
a
problem
for
somebody
Somebody
pays
for
a
problem
solved
They
don't
pay
for
the
tech
around
it
They
don't
care
about
that
That's
great
advice
Thank
you
Nico
for
coming
on
The
business
you
built
is
awesome
Good
luck
in
the
future
and
hope
to
have
you
on
soon
Thank
you
very
much
Pat
It's
been
a
pleasure
I
love
Nico's
story
because
of
the
career
change
That
is
really
hard
to
do
He
had
his
entire
path
before
him
but
then
gave
it
all
up
to
do
something
else
build
with
AI
I
love
this
because
it's
proof
that
anyone
from
any
background
can
learn
how
to
use
AI
to
bring
an
idea
to
life
It's
cliche
but
I
really
do
think
learning
how
to
use
AI
will
unlock
things
you
never
thought
possible
And
that's
exactly
why
I
launched
Starter
Story
Build
It's
a
program
designed
to
help
anyone
learn
the
basics
of
building
with
AI
And
in
just
a
few
days
you'll
have
a
working
app
ready
to
ship
into
the
world
If
you're
curious
or
interested
in
this
head
to
the
first
link
in
the
description
description
to
check
out
more
about
Starter
Story
Build
Thank
you
guys
for
watching
I'll
see
you
in
the
next
one
Peace
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