The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has led to many new AI tools and platforms that help businesses automate tasks, generate content, and gain insights. In this very competitive market, standing out and growing quickly is not easy. However, one AI startup has managed to achieve impressive growth, reaching $100,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) in just 223 days.
That startup is Copy.ai, an AI-powered tool that helps businesses generate all kinds of marketing content, like copywriting, blog posts, and social media posts. By using smart growth strategies and marketing tactics, Copy.ai was able to grow incredibly fast in its early days.
In this article, we'll take a close look at the specific methods and techniques Copy.ai used to fuel its rapid growth. Other AI startups can learn from Copy.ai's example as they try to navigate the fast-changing AI industry.
1. Affiliate marketing
One of the most impactful growth levers Copy.ai pulled was launching a generous affiliate marketing program. By offering a 45% commission on every referral for an entire year, Copy.ai incentivized its users to eagerly spread the word and drive signups.
Here's how the math works out: if an affiliate refers just 10 new users who sign up for Copy.ai's $49/month plan, that affiliate would earn $49 x 45% x 10 = $220.50 per month. It's easy to see how this could quickly add up for affiliates with sizable audiences.
This referral structure proved to be rocket fuel for Copy.ai's growth. Seemingly overnight, Twitter was set ablaze with users sharing their Copy.ai affiliate links in hopes of cashing in on the generous commissions.
If you make a quick search for "copy.ai?via=" on Twitter will show you countless tweets from affiliates looking to score some referral revenue.
Copy.ai likely reached out to specific influencers in the copywriting space as well, recruiting them to create video reviews and tutorials that prominently featured their affiliate links.
This led to an avalanche of YouTube videos promoting Copy.ai, to the point where some were questioning the tool's legitimacy on forums like BlackHatWorld.
The affiliate gold rush Copy.ai ignited played a huge role in getting the tool in front of the right audiences and driving initial traction and revenue. By making their affiliate program extremely lucrative, Copy.ai transformed its user base into a highly motivated extension of its sales team.
2. Optimizing for annual subscriptions
Another key aspect of Copy.ai's early growth strategy was to steer users towards annual subscriptions as much as possible. When new users visited the pricing page, the annual plan was presented as the default option, priced at $35 per month (billed annually at $420 per year). Users had to actively choose the $49 per month monthly plan instead.
This pricing page design took advantage of a common psychological principle called "default bias" - people tend to stick with the default option, seeing it as the recommended choice. By making the annual plan the default, Copy.ai made the yearly commitment the path of least resistance for users.
This had two big benefits for the company:
- Increased cash flow: Getting more users to pay for a full year upfront provided Copy.ai with a nice financial boost in those early months before they raised venture capital. That $420 in non-refundable annual revenue could be immediately reinvested into marketing and product development.
- Reduced churn: Annual subscriptions help reduce customer churn, since users are much less likely to cancel when they've already paid for a whole year. This gave Copy.ai a guaranteed revenue stream and user base to work with. Once a user is locked in for a year, it gave the company time to demonstrate its value and hopefully turn them into a loyal, long-term customer.
By subtly pushing users towards the yearly commitment and getting that money upfront, Copy.ai set itself up well to keep churn low and have more resources to pour into growing the business.
3. Goodwill gestures
Just like the way Mr.Beast grew his YouTube channel by offering free stuff, Copy AI’s founder did exactly the same. He offered the tool for free on some weekends and that helped to pull users in. This was another angle to get users to join through a freemium approach.
Another way Copy.ai built early buzz and goodwill was by giving away free access to the tool for select groups like students, non-profits, first-time entrepreneurs, and people who had lost their jobs due to the pandemic.
This philanthropic approach earned Copy.ai a ton of positive word-of-mouth. People love companies that support good causes, and recipients of free access became evangelists for the tool. While giving away free subscriptions may seem counterintuitive for a startup trying to grow revenue, it can pay dividends in other ways.
Some benefits of Copy.ai's charitable initiatives:
- Generating buzz and good PR
- Earning loyal users who may eventually convert to paying customers
- Expanding their user base to collect more feedback and data
- Building community and a mission-driven brand
Offering free or low-cost access can be an effective go-to-market strategy for the right kind of product. Copy.ai wisely identified groups who could greatly benefit from the tool but might not be able to afford it, and found a way to get the product into their hands. Once those users saw the value of Copy.ai, many became walking advertisements for it.
4. Offering free tools
To help get more people interested in the product and give potential users a taste of its capabilities, Copy.ai also used free tools as an important part of its growth strategy.
Over time, the company built up a set of free, ungated tools like an AI-powered domain name generator, an Instagram caption creator, and a blog post outline generator. These simple, lightweight tools provided an easy way for people to start experimenting with AI-generated content without having to sign up for a trial or paid plan.
By removing barriers and letting people experience quick success with the product, Copy.ai could build trust, collect leads, and get users hooked on its technology. It's a common freemium approach - letting people sample your product for free until they're ready to buy the full version.
SEO expert Brian Dean notes that companies can wait to restrict access to their tools until after they've earned some trust from the user. He cites the example of Ahrefs, an SEO tool that keeps its free tools and resources open, specifically to build credibility and thought leadership. Once a user is impressed by a free tool, they're much more likely to then purchase a full plan.
5. Webinars with influencers
To reach new audiences and make the brand seem more credible, Copy.ai ran webinars with popular marketing influencers like Pat Flynn the founder of Smart Passive Income. Flynn has a big online following, with 163,000 Twitter followers and 290,000 YouTube subscribers, and represents the type of tech-savvy entrepreneurs that Copy.ai wants as customers.
By partnering with Flynn on a webinar about using AI to grow your personal brand, Copy.ai was able to instantly reach a large pool of potential users who would be interested in their product. As an added incentive, Copy.ai offered Flynn's audience a special deal - they could get a 30-day free trial instead of the standard 7 days, and if they signed up for an annual plan, they'd get 40% off the first year, making it just $25 per month.
This was a smart strategy because it got more people to try the tool, and the big discount made it more likely they'd commit to an annual subscription. Copy.ai used this same approach with other influencers, running joint webinars and offering their audiences great deals to help rapidly grow Copy.ai's user base by leveraging the reach and credibility of these industry experts.
Conclusion
The path Copy.ai used to quickly reach $100k in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is not easily replicated. It was a unique combination of factors:
- A great product
- A successful affiliate program to get users to spread the word
- Smart pricing and packaging to improve cash flow and reduce churn
- Cultivating a positive, "feel-good" brand image
- A smart content strategy
- Partnering with key industry influencers
While the exact tactics may be hard to copy, there are some core principles that other startups can learn from:
- Find ways to incentivize users to promote your product at scale
- Use pricing and packaging strategically to improve your finances
- Offer free value upfront to build trust and interest in your product
- Leverage other people's audiences to rapidly grow your reach
- Be willing to get creative and test unconventional growth methods
- Start building your distribution channels before your product is perfect
In a crowded AI market, the startups that succeed will be the ones that combine a genuinely useful product with creative and aggressive growth strategies. What Copy.ai accomplished is just the beginning, as AI continues to evolve rapidly.
The key is to always be experimenting, iterating, and pushing the boundaries of what's possible. There will always be new tactics to test, new channels to explore, and new insights to uncover. The Copy.ai story shows that clever marketing and distribution can be just as important as cutting-edge technology for startup success.
