How we got our first 100 paid users (with no marketing budget)

Quick answer

Magic Hour reached its first 100 paid users by publishing more than 1,000 product-made videos, learning from small audience signals, launching to a 600-person waitlist, and continuing until one sports transformation broke through. This is a firsthand founder account of the 2022–2023 journey; the numbers below describe our internal history, not a promise that the same tactic will produce the same result for another company.

Let me set the scene.

It was December 2022, and Magic Hour was a prototype living in a Google Colab notebook.

It had one purpose: take in a Youtube URL and generate a music video using AI.

The idea had a lot of risks: Does anyone even want AI music videos?

To derisk it, we started posting the outputs on social media from Day 1.

The First Test

Our first post was an Elliot Smith track paired with AI visuals. It didn’t go viral. But it got 49 likes and 14 saves.

That was enough signal to keep going.

In January 2023, my cofounder David joined. He focused on building the product; I focused on getting it in front of people.

Posting Daily

From January onward, I posted 4 videos a day across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and later Douyin (I had to ask my grandfather for his phone number for this one).

The goal was simple:

Figure out what people liked
Build demand for something that didn’t exist yet

We hacked together a landing page with just an email input hooked up to a Google Sheet. It felt scrappy, even a little embarrassing, but it worked. By June 2023, when we finally launched, 600 people had signed up for the waitlist.

1. Our landing page with a waitlist:

2. Our Youtube bio:

3. A pinned Youtube comment:

Launch Night

We emailed 100 people on launch day. Three subscribed immediately:

Me (testing Stripe)
My cofounder’s girlfriend (thanks Soojee)
And one stranger named Ashton, who paid $120 for a full year

That single payment from a stranger felt surreal. But it also revealed the challenge: out of 600 sign-ups, only 20 converted.

In hindsight, we waited too long. By the time people got access, many had already forgotten who we were.

Searching for Viral

Pre-launch, most of our videos did a few hundred views. Occasionally one hit 100K, but nothing stuck.

I tried everything:

Different art styles
Audio-reactive visuals
Camera effects
Using album covers as prompts

Nothing consistently worked.

Until August 10, 2023.

The Breakthrough

That day I posted an NBA clip: Jordan Clarkson dunking, transformed into the style of a Chinese illustration.

At first it looked like any other post. But while I was brushing my teeth, the views started doubling every hour. By the time I woke up, it had gone viral.

That single video changed everything:

200M+ views across platforms
Reposts by House of Highlights, Bleacher Report, SportsCenter
Likes from Jaylen Brown, Jordan Poole, Baron Davis
Mark Cuban subscribed and got the Mavericks using our product

All with $0 spent on marketing.

Reaching 100 Paid Users

It wasn’t quick. It took:

Posting over 1,000 videos
Daily iteration based on feedback
Launching new products like video-to-video
Growing to 100K+ followers
Slowly converting creators, teams, and agencies

After eight months, we crossed 100 paid users. Creators, sports teams, and marketing agencies subscribed because they wanted to replicate our viral content.

What We Learned

Volume matters. Out of 1,000 videos, only a handful drove almost all the growth. If we’d stopped early, we never would’ve had a hit.
You can test demand without code. Posting videos gave us immediate signal about what people liked long before we had a real product.
Don’t let waitlists go stale. Launch sooner, even if it means manually faking some features.
Go where your people are. Each platform gave us different audiences—and different lessons.

Final Thoughts

Getting to 100 paid users wasn’t easy. It took months of posting into the void, learning from tiny signals, and pushing through doubt. But those early users gave us the foundation for everything that followed.

If you’re just starting:

Post early and often
Iterate relentlessly
Don’t be afraid to be promotional
Celebrate every small win

That first $120 from Ashton is still one of my favorite moments.

If you want to try the same kind of videos that helped us break through, check out our Video-to-Video tool.

Restyle the clip as handmade clay animation. Preserve the subject’s identity, action, framing, timing, and camera movement. Use soft studio lighting and visible clay texture. Do not add text, logos, or extra characters.

Try in Video-to-Video

Run one demand test with video

Make one short transformation from footage you have permission to use, publish it where your audience already watches, and record saves, replies, qualified visits and signups before producing a large campaign.

Try Video to Video

And if you’ve been through a similar grind, I’d love to hear your story: