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Good morning 👋 What do AI films, niche creators, and TikTok funnels have in common? This week’s stories are all about leverage—how smart founders are using tight feedback loops, focused distribution, and AI tools to punch above their weight..
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In this issue:
OpenAI goes Hollywood with a $30M AI-made film 🎥
A tiny podcast lands pharma sponsors—here’s how 💊
Why 500K followers won’t scale your SaaS 🤷
The TikTok funnel that drove $100K on a $35 stack ↗️
The startup replacing spreadsheets in healthcare 📊
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News
OpenAI bets on Hollywood with Critterz
credit: The Verge
TL;DR: OpenAI is co-producing Critterz, an AI-powered animated film set for a 2026 release, with a debut planned at Cannes. Made largely with GPT-5 and other OpenAI tools, the movie aims to prove that high-quality animation can be produced in under a year and on a fraction of the typical budget.
Budget: <$30M vs. the $100M–$200M norm for studio animation.
Timeline: 9 months from start to finish, a third of the usual production cycle.
Partners: Vertigo Films (London) and Native Foreign (LA), both known for boundary-pushing projects.
Goal: Convince hesitant film execs—and wary talent—that AI-driven production can deliver theatrical-quality results.
If Critterz lands with audiences, it could pressure studios to rethink cost structures and production timelines, especially for mid-budget films that have been squeezed out of Hollywood. But adoption won’t be easy, creatives are skeptical, unions are hostile, and audiences may reject movies marketed as “AI-made.”
Make Money
Tiny audiences, big checks: how niche creators are monetizing
TL;DR: Justin Moore, author of Sponsor Magnet, breaks down how creators with tiny but targeted audiences can secure lucrative brand deals. His case study: a veterinary podcaster with just a few hundred listeners per episode landing medical and pharma sponsors.
Brands care less about follower count and more about reaching the exact buyers they want. HVAC techs, vertical farmers, or pathologists—micro-niches are often more valuable than generic large audiences.
Under 1,000 followers? Don’t sell impressions. Sell turnkey content creation, licensing rights, and marketing services.
Bundle offers around brand goals (awareness, repurposing, conversions) instead of just deliverables.
Relevant, organic, proof, easy—keep cold pitches specific, credible, and frictionless.
The $480B creator economy is maturing, and brands are reallocating spend toward short-form, reusable content with clear ROI. For founders, this is the same lesson: depth of audience and clarity of offer beats raw reach. You don’t need millions of eyeballs, just the right ones and a sharp pitch.
Scale
Why even 500K followers won’t scale your SaaS
TL;DR: Simon Hoiberg, a serial SaaS founder with 500K+ followers, shows why organic growth alone caps out, even for creators with massive reach. After initial bursts from social launches, sustainable scaling requires “buying users” through paid acquisition, with CAC discipline as the cornerstone.
$75K pre-sales on Link Drip, $5K MRR on 8base, $175K one-time on Founder Stack—all largely from organic reach.
Peter plateaued at ~$50K MRR from organic channels, a common ceiling for solo SaaS relying purely on virality.
Beyond that, growth = buying users: influencers, affiliates, ads, or direct sales. The key is knowing CAC relative to ARPU and LTV.
Paid ads are the simplest way in. Set a CAC target, test creatives, and scale predictably once you’re hitting numbers.
SaaS culture romanticizes “just build and they’ll come,” but the reality is a ceiling. The founders who scale beyond it aren’t just product-led; they’re financially disciplined marketers. Mastering CAC math and learning how to buy users is the difference between $5K MRR and $50K+.
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Founder Story
$100K in 9 days with TikTok and a $35 server bill
TL;DR: Nikita and Yini, founders of Natural Right, built an AI text humanizer that hit $100K revenue and 250K signups in 90 days, driven almost entirely by TikTok. Their videos racked up 9M views, converting at an unheard-of 80%, while their lean stack kept costs at just ~$55/month.
“Humanizing” AI text hit a clear pain point for students and marketers dealing with AI detectors.
Paid influencers flopped; running their own TikTok with daily, viral-style posts fueled explosive growth.
Their seven-step TikTok system—research, engagement, replication, posting, innovation, scaling—shows how to build distribution methodically.
9M views → 300K visits → 250K signups. That funnel efficiency is rare and highlights the power of targeting the right audience with the right message.
Most indie SaaS founders tinker endlessly with product and neglect distribution. Nikita and Yini prove the opposite, master one channel, execute relentlessly, and you can hit six figures in weeks. For builders, TikTok isn’t just for entertainment; it’s one of the cheapest, fastest user acquisition engines if you know how to systemize it.
Tutorial/Framework
Killing spreadsheets in healthcare with Knack
TL;DR: Small clinics often run their operations out of insecure spreadsheets, risking HIPAA violations and costly mistakes. Knack, a HIPAA-compliant no-code platform, lets clinics generate custom practice-management apps in minutes using AI prompts or healthcare-specific templates, covering everything from scheduling to payments to patient access.
Spreadsheets = liability: Easy to copy, email, or misplace—leaving clinics exposed to compliance issues and patient trust risks.
Clinics can spin up a secure, role-based system in under two minutes without technical expertise.
Patient tracking, appointment scheduling, dashboards, payment processing, and fine-grained access controls.
Cloud-based, multi-user access, with templates for faster deployment and full customization for clinic needs.
Healthcare is one of the last industries still duct-taping ops together with Excel. Tools like Knack show how AI + no-code can rip spreadsheets out of sensitive workflows, replacing them with secure, scalable systems that unlock growth and compliance simultaneously. For founders, it’s a reminder that the biggest opportunities often sit in unsexy, spreadsheet-heavy verticals.
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