About Alignify and Me
Personal sharing from an AI/SaaS growth expert
Personal Introduction
I'm Kostja. Previously, I worked on growth at a global AI application team focused on image/video generation and editing, with two products:Cutout.proandPromeAI
Cutout.pro's monthly visits stillremain stable in the top 50
I joined my previous company on August 1, 2022. Before that, I spent five years studying and working in Germany; and five years before that, studying for my bachelor's in Russia. All were linguistics-related, and I once thought teaching would be my career path.
My previous company worked on CV and image processing. Although quite different from today's generative AI, I was still an "AI practitioner." In August of that year, Midjourney and Novel AI were emerging, followed by the open-source SD algorithm, until ChatGPT's release in late November focused global attention on generative AI. During this period, the already high-traffic website grew even more with market expansion, once approaching Leonardo AI. For many practitioners, it was just seeing AI-related websites surge in traffic; for me, it was personally participating in the entire process.
When I joined, I was in operations, first doing content marketing work. My mentor was an SEOer, so I was exposed to this field early (though she left after 3 months, and I had to learn on my own). Due to the startup's work nature and the company's high freedom for positions, I later worked on influencer marketing, social media (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn), communities (Discord, Reddit), EDM/Newsletter, backlinks, Affiliate/Referral, Customer Support, and even offline events and PR. You could say I've hands-on experience with everything except SEM.
By the end of 2023, in addition to professional work, I began consciously socializing and connecting with more AI and growth practitioners. I also started building my own IP, like on Jike (because Xiaohongshu didn't work out after a month, I recently restarted it). Through content and friend recommendations, I met more practitioners.
In 2024, I was invited by friends to participate in several online and offlinegrowth sharing events(introvert tears); I also started systematically recording methodologies, practical experiences, and know-how inFeishu notes. By the second half of the year, some friends started paying for consultations, with good results, making me think this was promising. So I officially left before October and registered my own company (another reason was not liking office work), mainly providing growth consulting and training services.
Jike sharing insights
Thanks to my good reputation and the blue ocean market of AI/SaaS Globalization, business volume and revenue are growing rapidly (have served 80+ AI/SaaS websites, some written incustomer cases). The recruitment post I posted earlier was based on this. I've also set two small goals for next year:
- Growth business: Scale + standardize, transform from delivering services to delivering results
- Product business: Bootstrap and create an (AI) product myself
Some Thoughts on Globalization/(Going Global) and Growth:
- •AI applications have high homogeneity, especially modal products (text/image/video/3D generation and editing) and certain industry vertical applications (companion/recruitment/marketing/productivity tools). At one point, four or five teams with very similar products approached me simultaneously, all targeting the same traffic market. And whenever there's a hot topic, everyone rushes in, like AI Hardware, Agents, AI Coding, etc.
- •Conversely, products not focusing on these hot scenarios are quietly making money. Generative AI has the power to reshape all tools and services. Product selection is crucial.
- •Of course, the above happiness/troubles don't matter to 90% of companies - they're out before that, without even a chance to compete at the table. In terms of going global, many companies' growth capabilities are even worse than independent developers.
- •This is a result, not a cause, driven by many factors. For example, domestic growth often relies on founders' technical background, PR, and advertising. In other growth channels, domestic markets quickly entered the mobile internet era, with traffic entrances occupied by apps like Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Bilibili, while globally, web and search engines are mainstream.
- •More importantly, the neglect of growth positions. Check Boss for salary comparisons across positions: Algorithm > Engineering > Product > Sales > Operations. Without matching attention, don't expect impressive growth. If you believe technology and product power can ignore "good wine needs no bush," users and markets will give the most honest answer.
- •Growth is the simplest thing – put your product in front of users, iterate or pivot when hitting bottlenecks to match larger markets and user groups; align supply and demand, do what users need, not find possible users for what you have.