How We Got Our First 100 Paid Users (With No Marketing Budget)

Before sharing how we got our first 100 paid users with no marketing budget, I want to give some background.

It was December 2022, and Magic Hour was a simple AI music video generator prototype.

The idea had a lot of risks: Would anyone even want to create AI music videos?

To derisk it, we started posting the outputs of our prototype on social media before our product was even available.

Testing AI Music Videos on Social Media

Our first post, an Elliot Smith music video, didn’t go viral, but did get 49 likes and 14 saves. That told us that at least some people found value in consuming AI music videos.

Encouraged, we kept going. In January, David joined, and we started working on turning the prototype into a usable product.

The Strategy

As the "less technical" cofounder, I focused on distribution—getting our content in front of as many eyes as possible. 

Starting January 2024, I posted 1-4 videos daily on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and later Douyin.

My goals were two-fold:

1. Identify what content resonates with viewers
2. Create demand for our product

We created a landing page with a simple email input (powered by a Google Sheet) and added the link to our social media bios, captions, and comments. While I worried about coming off as "too promotional," the landing page played a key role in our early user acquisition.

Our landing page:

Our Youtube bio and an example comment:

The Results

By the time we launched publicly in June 2023, we had a waitlist of 600 emails.

On launch night, we emailed 100 users. Three paid immediately:

• One was me (testing Stripe).
• One was my cofounder’s girlfriend (thanks Soojee).
• The last was a stranger named Ashton, who paid $120 for a year’s subscription.

That first payment from a stranger felt incredible. Making your first dollar online is amazing.

Out of 600 waitlisted users, roughly 20 converted to paid users. It was a slow start, but it highlighted how challenging user acquisition can be—especially on social media. 

In hindsight, I think we had too much time between users signing up and getting access to the product, as they might have forgotten about our product by then or lost interest. 

Iterating Toward Viral Content

Pre-launch, our videos were mostly AI music visualizations—stop-motion-like clips where images morphed into each other. While one video hit 100K views on YouTube, most videos got 200-300 views.

It was clear: We needed something with more "wow."

I tested everything:

• Camera effects.
• Art styles.
• Audio-reactivity.
• Using album covers as the initial image.

Nothing quite hit the viral mark until I tried something new: video-to-video content.

How a Viral Video Transformed Our Strategy

Inspired by TikToks where dancers transformed into marble statues, I started experimenting with similar ideas.

On August 10, 2023, I posted a video of Jordan Clarkson dunking in the style of a Chinese illustration. At first, it seemed like any other post. But as I went to bed, I noticed it was gaining tens of thousands of views—every hour.

By morning, it had gone viral. Over the following weeks, the video hit 1M views.

A New Strategy

This viral moment changed everything. From then on, we leaned into NBA edits using our video-to-video product.

Here’s what happened next:

• 200M+ views across platforms.
• Reposts from House of Highlights, Bleacher Report, SportsCenter, and more.
• Athletes like Jaylen Brown, Jordan Poole, and Baron Davis liked and shared our content.
• Mark Cuban became a paid user and got the Dallas Mavericks to use our product—at $0 acquisition cost.

More importantly, this attention brought us paying users. Creators, sports teams, and marketing agencies subscribed because they wanted to replicate our viral content.

First 100 Paid Users

After months of posting over 1,000 videos, experimenting with formats, and iterating based on viewer feedback, we hit 100 paid users.

It wasn’t easy. But along the way, we:

• Learned what types of content consumers loved.
• Built a repeatable strategy for social growth.
• Launched new products like video-to-video.
• Grew our social media profiles to over 100K followers.
• Acquired B2B customers with no outbound sales.

What We Learned

• Social media is a power law. A few viral hits drove 90% of our impact, but most content didn’t perform. We only had hits because we posted such a high volume.
• You can get user feedback without a product. Posting daily helped us understand what viewers liked and didn’t quickly without any coding, and shaped our product roadmap.
• Go where your users are. Posting on multiple platforms helped us discover what resonated with different audiences, which platforms our product is tailored toward, and what each platform’s users value.

Final Thoughts

Getting to 100 paid users took us eight months, countless hours, and more videos than I can count. But it taught us invaluable lessons about our product and users.

If I could do it over, I would have tried to launch earlier or manually create the videos ourselves like a Wizard of Oz setup. This is because the feedback from users using your product is more valuable than viewers’, and because this would have allowed us to convert waitlisted users faster. 

If you’re starting out, my advice is:

• Start posting early.
• Iterate relentlessly.
• Don’t be afraid to try new things.

And most importantly, enjoy the process. For me, creating and sharing videos remains one of the most rewarding parts of running Magic Hour.

Want to create the same types of videos that got us viral? Try our Video-to-Video product and transform your own content.

Have questions or want to share your own story? Reach out anytime:

• Instagram: @magichourai
• Twitter: @runboli
• Email: runbo@magichour.ai