5 years ago, I started a business in an industry I knew nothing about.
Real estate.
My plan was to show up to real estate meetups and figure it out.
Worst case, I learn about real estate. Best case, I build the next Zillow.
My original idea was to build these VR tours for luxury home listings.
Turns out realtors don't care about VR. They had more important problems. Getting customers.
But I started to notice something. A couple of realtors were getting tons of customers from Instagram.
That got me thinking. Instead of VR tours...what if it was a branded AR Instagram filter.
It actually worked.
Built a free AR filter for Ricky, a successful real estate developer who was running the meetup. And it blew up.
Time to pivot. Instagram filters for realtors!
...turns out there's lots of trouble with AR.
The lighting needs to be right. You need to be on camera.
So I made another pivot. Branded GIFs for Instagram stories.
Little animations they could slap on any photo or video.
But here's where it gets interesting.
I gave influencers 40% commissions. FORTY PERCENT.
Sounds insane right? But I was running this solo. No employees. No real costs. And I needed them way more than they needed me.
One influencer started posting about it. Then another one. Then another. That's how I got my first $10k month.
But after the high, I realized something.
I built a vitamin, not a painkiller. Realtors thought the GIFs were cute. Used them once. Never came back.
I solved the simple and easy problems. Not the painful one.
Getting customers is one thing. But having a scalable business with repeat customers is another thing.
That lesson will always stick with me. If your product goes down and customers just shrug? That's a vitamin. Nobody's day got ruined when they couldn't post a GIF.
Though I gotta say failing at selling GIFs to realtors was the best education I ever paid for :)