Danny Postma is an indie hacker and is thought for being a serial entrepreneur, he’s additionally the Founding father of HeadshotPro. HeadshotPro generates AI headshots which can be designed to seize a customers most photogenic qualities and reproduce them on a backdrop of the customers selecting, with good facial lighting that might take hours for an actual photographer to arrange underneath even essentially the most good circumstances.
You’re identified to be a serial entrepreneur, what was the primary enterprise that you simply began?
Landingfolio was my first main mission. I began in 2015 once I was 21. On the time I used to be working as a contract Conversion Optimization Specialist and I used to be combating creating efficient touchdown web page designs for my shoppers. I created Landingfolio, a design gallery showcasing the best touchdown web page designs on the web, as a facet mission to deal with this.
I didn’t know how you can program on the time, so I constructed it utilizing WordPress. This was a lot simpler than I anticipated. The web site nonetheless exists to at the present time and will get hundreds of holiday makers, however it’s laborious to monetize, so I made a decision to maneuver on to different initiatives.
When did you first turn out to be immersed on the planet of AI?
I first grew to become immersed on the planet of AI considerably by probability. Whereas engaged on my product Headlime, which was initially a non-AI instrument, a buddy launched me to GPT-3. I used to be intrigued by GPT-3’s capabilities, so I made a decision to succeed in out on to Greg Brockman, the CTO of OpenAI, to request entry. Fortuitously, I used to be capable of get entry as a part of the primary batch of customers.
What was your first AI enterprise?
This introduction to GPT-3 marked the start of my journey into AI. It was kind of a serendipitous transition from a non-AI product to an AI-based one.
Whereas engaged on Landingfolio, I wrote an interactive e book of 200 headlines, the place you could possibly simply enter sure variables to have the headlines custom-made to suit your personal use case. I realised this is able to truly be a extremely good software program instrument, so I turned it into a extremely easy copy spinner that did the changing for you and referred to as it Headlime.
Across the similar time, GPT-3 was launched and as talked about above, I received entry actually early. I experimented with letting GPT-3 write the templates for Headlime—I used to be astounded by its skill to generate copy. This led to a pivotal second the place I noticed the potential of turning Headlime into an AI-powered copywriting instrument.
It was a bit fortunate that I used to be already engaged on a copywriting instrument when a copywriting AI like GPT-3 got here into the image. I used to be one of many first folks to implement GPT-3 in a manufacturing atmosphere, alongside Copy.AI and some different instruments.
May you share the genesis story behind HeadshotPro?
When secure diffusion AI was launched in September 2022, it opened up new potentialities for me. Initially, I thought of making a inventory photograph web site and developed one thing referred to as Inventory AI. Nevertheless, the standard wasn’t assembly expectations, and there was a priority about potential authorized points from massive firms like Getty Photos, identified for his or her intensive authorized assets to guard their picture rights.
This concern led me to pivot. I noticed Dreambooth was launching an AI service that would remodel faces, and realized I used to be engaged on one thing fairly comparable. I rapidly developed and launched my product inside 30 hours, beating a competitor to market. ProfilePicture.AI, exploded on Twitter, producing vital gross sales in only a week. It was a extremely shareable product, and I used to be lucky to rank properly in Google searches for profile footage.
Nevertheless, because the preliminary pleasure dwindled and gross sales started to lower, I knew I needed to pivot once more. That is once I began collaborating with David, a developer buddy. We each had been engaged on AI-related initiatives, and I developed a Python mannequin that would manipulate images into completely different poses. This growth led me to deal with creating headshots utilizing AI.
I launched Deep Company and HeadshotPro concurrently. Whereas Deep Company garnered lots of press consideration, it did not translate into gross sales. Then again, HeadshotPro was an on the spot hit. Seeing the demand for AI-generated headshots, I made a decision to focus extra on HeadshotPro. It was an surprising pivot, but it surely demonstrates the significance of staying versatile and reacting to what the market is telling you.
What are among the completely different machine studying and Generative AI algorithms which can be used within the backend?
HeadshotPro may look easy at first look, however we have now a large pipeline operating within the backend to output nice headshots. Most of our rivals solely use Steady Diffusion, an open-source picture era mannequin, together with DreamBooth, which trains by yourself images.
That’s not how we do issues.
We deploy dozens of additional open-source and customized growth fashions to 10x the output high quality. We’ve been working for a full yr now on our personal customized fashions. We’re getting actually near persistently producing AI images which can be indistinguishable from actual images.
One other open-source mannequin we use is LLaVa, a Giant Language and Imaginative and prescient Assistant that you could immediate to ask questions on photographs. We use this, for instance, to filter dangerous person uploads or take away headshot generations which can be NSFW. One other mannequin we use is Codeformer, which helps take away AI-artifacts from faces and switch them into extra lifelike ones.
You began HeadshotPro as a solopreneur, what are among the challenges with transitioning to constructing a workforce?
Transitioning from being a solopreneur to constructing a workforce for HeadshotPro has been a major problem and a journey of private {and professional} progress. One of many major challenges I confronted was the concern of hiring. Initially, I used to be hesitant to scale the workforce due to the uncertainties concerned in managing folks. This concern led me to automate as a lot as I may by myself, particularly in the course of the pre-AI instances.
Nevertheless, as HeadshotPro grew, I noticed that I may not handle every thing alone. The choices had been both to promote the enterprise, proceed as a solopreneur, or construct a workforce. I in the end determined that constructing a workforce was the precise factor to do if I wished to scale the enterprise, regardless of how scary it was.
This resolution marked a major shift from my id as a solopreneur and compelled me to acknowledge that I did not have all of the solutions. I understood that constructing a workforce would require a special mindset and would change the targets I had for my enterprise. It was not nearly operating a enterprise anymore; it was about main a workforce of individuals to construct one thing collectively.
This shift introduced a mixture of pleasure and concern. I used to be open about my inexperience with all of the potential workforce members from the very first interview, setting the expectation that this was new territory for me and there could be bumps alongside the street. I began with contractors and part-time individuals who already had different shoppers, creating a security internet whereas I realized the ropes of workforce administration.
Wanting again, I ought to have began a workforce approach earlier. I now have a small workforce of unbelievable sensible and devoted folks they usually do issues I may have by no means ever performed myself. It’s additionally approach much less lonely and far more enjoyable to share your wins collectively.
AI headshot mills are rising in popularity, how do you differentiate HeadshotPro in a crowded house?
Picture high quality is our major differentiator from different AI headshot mills. Our rivals depend on open-source fashions—which, to be frank, merely aren’t adequate for lifelike photograph generations. By making day by day iterations in the direction of increased high quality headshots, we consider that inside a yr our headshots will likely be indistinguishable from actual images, additional growing the hole between us and different much less critical AI headshot mills.
Lastly, we focus solely on skilled headshots. The majority of our rivals are shifting horizontally, providing issues like courting images and cute avatars, working their approach in the direction of turning into a full-fledged photostudio. Whereas there’s clearly a marketplace for this, our workforce personally sees these detours away from skilled headshots as a distraction. Our sole focus is creating the best high quality, skilled AI headshots. I don’t really feel our rivals share this single focus.
What are some ways in which your workforce is enhancing or optimizing the HeadshotPro expertise?
It would sound cliche, however we actually are obsessive about the standard of our outcomes. Producing AI headshots which can be indistinguishable from actual images is our finish purpose. If the mannequin improves by 1% every day, there’s no motive why we are able to’t attain that purpose, or get actually near it, by the tip of this yr.
Except for iterative high quality enhancements, we’re engaged on enhancing clothes era. We really feel “digital strive on” providers are going to begin drumming up extra curiosity in 2024, and we hope to parlay that tech into delivering higher outcomes for our company clients who usually request issues like matching fits for his or her worker’s headshots.
Then, in fact, our person expertise is at all times getting higher. Proper now we require 15-17 person enter images, as a result of that’s been the magic quantity for us in maximizing high quality. We’re engaged on various strategies to make issues a little bit simpler for our clients, with out compromising the photograph high quality we work laborious to take care of.
What are another AI merchandise that you’re engaged on or contemplating launching?
I’ve constructed a ton of small AI merchandise:
- Tattoos AI: An AI-powered tattoo generator.
- Alice: A enjoyable AI social media experiment, exhibiting how AI can generate solely new idea and concepts that haven’t been seen earlier than.(https://www.thismodeldoesnotexist.co/)
- Profile Image AI: A profile image generator, like a (a lot) much less skilled model of HeadshotPro.
- Deep Company: Rent digital AI-generated fashions.
- Meme Morph: Flip your self into your favourite memes.
There’s lots of enjoyable ones there, however I’m truly within the means of promoting most of those merchandise to totally deal with HeadshotPro. These initiatives haven’t received a lot consideration from me since HeadshotPro has taken off.
Thanks for the good interview, readers who want to study extra ought to go to HeadshotPro.