Dropped Out Of College To Build An AI Tool That Makes $1,700 Monthly

How this 22 years old college dropout build an AI tool by scratching his own itch

Hello! Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your business?

Hey, I’m Evan.

Two years ago, I was studying AI in college, but I dropped out to actually build with AI.

I had no clue about marketing or distribution, but just kept building random things and failing.

Now, I run Illustration.app, an AI-powered vector illustration generator.

It helps designers, marketers, and developers quickly create vector illustrations.

How did you start this business? Take us through the process.

Back when ChatGPT first launched, I saw people building insane AI tools. I thought, damn, I want to do that too. So I started learning, building, and launching.

First project? Flopped.

Second project? Also flopped.

I built an AI tool that I thought was cool, but nobody cared. I kept thinking, if I just add more features, people will start using it. They didn’t. I’d post about it online, get a few pity likes, and then silence.

Then I tried again. Another AI tool, another launch to crickets. At this point, I started wondering if I was just bad at this.

But then I noticed something. The AI products that were succeeding weren’t just cool tech demos—they solved real problems. They weren’t trying to impress developers; they were actually making people’s lives easier.

So I stopped trying to build "cool AI stuff" and started asking:

“What’s a problem that people struggle with every day?”

One day, I was trying to put together a landing page. I needed some custom illustrations, but my options sucked:

• Stock images were generic and overused.

• Hiring a designer was too expensive.

• Drawing them myself? Not happening.

I figured, if I’m running into this problem, a ton of other people must be too.

So I built a simple AI tool that generates unique, vector-style illustrations instantly. No design skills, no expensive software—just type what you need, and boom, done.

That was the inspiration for Illustration.app

How did you get your first initial customers?

Instead of chasing hype, I started focusing on distribution and making sure people actually found and used my tool.

I built the first version with Next.js, Tailwind, and Supabase. Spent mostly time, very little money. The first version was super rough, but I kept improving it based on feedback.

First users came from Reddit and Twitter. I just shared what I was building and why.

For Reddit, I posted in relevant subreddits like r/SideProject and r/SaaS, explaining how Illustration.app could generate vector illustrations. The response was great. People found it useful and gave feedback on what styles and features they wanted. Some even started using it immediately.

For Twitter or X, I tweeted about the process like building in public, showing improvements, and engaging with others in the indie hacker and AI space. A few tweets got traction, bringing in early users who were curious about AI-generated illustrations.

Since launch, what are your marketing strategies or channels to get new customers?

Right now, growth is mostly:

• SEO (long-term, steady traffic)

• Twitter & Reddit (engagement, showing work)

• Directories (got picked up on various AI tool lists)

For Programmatic SEO (pSEO) & directories; I set up several programmatic SEO pages targeting specific keywords and categories.

I built pages targeting what people search for, like “AI illustration generator” and different categories (e.g., **tech, business, medical, minimal, flat design**).

Over time, these pages started ranking on Google, bringing in steady organic traffic. AI tool directories also picked it up, leading to additional exposure.

How does your business make money?

It’s a freemium model.

Free users get limited generations, while paid users unlock higher quality, commercial use, and more customization.

Pricing is at around $9-29/month subscription (still tweaking based on feedback).

Current metrics for the business:

• 8,000+ users

• $1.7k+ revenue

• Mostly organic growth

• Costs are low: just hosting, some API costs.

• Profit margins are solid.

Right now, I spent around 30-40 hours per week on this business.

My time mainly goes into tasks like improving the product’s SEO, talking to users, collecting feedback and building new features.

Where can we go to lean more about you and your business?

Let's connect on X: https://x.com/theevanyang

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