Danny Postma is an indie hacker and is understood for being a serial entrepreneur, he’s additionally the Founding father of HeadshotPro. HeadshotPro generates AI headshots which are 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 venture. I began in 2015 after I was 21. On the time I used to be working as a contract Conversion Optimization Specialist and I used to be scuffling with creating efficient touchdown web page designs for my purchasers. I created Landingfolio, a design gallery showcasing the good touchdown web page designs on the web, as a facet venture to handle this.

I didn’t know methods to program on the time, so I constructed it utilizing WordPress. This was a lot simpler than I anticipated. The web site nonetheless exists to this present day and will get 1000’s of tourists, however it’s arduous to monetize, so I made a decision to maneuver on to different initiatives.

When did you first change into immersed on this planet of AI?

I first turned immersed on this planet of AI considerably by probability. Whereas engaged on my product Headlime, which was initially a non-AI device, a good friend 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. Luckily, 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 personalized to suit your personal use case. I realised this might truly be a very good software program device, so I turned it into a very easy copy spinner that did the changing for you and referred to as it Headlime. 

Across the identical 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 capability to generate copy. This led to a pivotal second the place I spotted the potential of turning Headlime into an AI-powered copywriting device. 

It was a bit fortunate that I used to be already engaged on a copywriting device 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 surroundings, alongside Copy.AI and some different instruments.

May you share the genesis story behind HeadshotPro?

When steady diffusion AI was launched in September 2022, it opened up new prospects for me. Initially, I considered making a inventory photograph web site and developed one thing referred to as Inventory AI. Nonetheless, the standard wasn’t assembly expectations, and there was a priority about potential authorized points from massive corporations like Getty Photos, identified for his or her intensive authorized sources to guard their picture rights.

This concern led me to pivot. I noticed Dreambooth was launching an AI service that would rework faces, and realized I used to be engaged on one thing fairly related. I shortly developed and launched my product inside 30 hours, beating a competitor to market. ProfilePicture.AI, exploded on Twitter, producing important 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 photos.

Nonetheless, because the preliminary pleasure dwindled and gross sales started to lower, I knew I needed to pivot once more. That is after I began collaborating with David, a developer good friend. We each had been engaged on AI-related initiatives, and I developed a Python mannequin that would manipulate pictures into completely different poses. This growth led me to concentrate on creating headshots utilizing AI.

I launched Deep Company and HeadshotPro concurrently. Whereas Deep Company garnered quite a lot of press consideration, it did not translate into gross sales. However, HeadshotPro was an immediate hit. Seeing the demand for AI-generated headshots, I made a decision to focus extra on HeadshotPro. It was an surprising pivot, nevertheless it demonstrates the significance of staying versatile and reacting to what the market is telling you.

What are a few of the completely different machine studying and Generative AI algorithms which are used within the backend?

HeadshotPro may look easy at first look, however we now have a large pipeline working within the backend to output nice headshots. Most of our opponents solely use Steady Diffusion, an open-source picture technology mannequin, together with DreamBooth, which trains by yourself pictures. 

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 12 months now on our personal customized fashions. We’re getting actually near persistently producing AI pictures which are indistinguishable from actual pictures.

One other open-source mannequin we use is LLaVa, a Giant Language and Imaginative and prescient Assistant you could immediate to ask questions on photographs. We use this, for instance, to filter unhealthy person uploads or take away headshot generations which are NSFW. One other mannequin we use is Codeformer, which helps take away AI-artifacts from faces and switch them into extra practical ones.

You began HeadshotPro as a solopreneur, what are a few of the challenges with transitioning to constructing a crew?

Transitioning from being a solopreneur to constructing a crew for HeadshotPro has been a big problem and a journey of non-public {and professional} development. One of many major challenges I confronted was the concern of hiring. Initially, I used to be hesitant to scale the crew due to the uncertainties concerned in managing folks. This concern led me to automate as a lot as I might by myself, particularly in the course of the pre-AI instances.

Nonetheless, as HeadshotPro grew, I spotted that I might now not handle the whole lot alone. The choices had been both to promote the enterprise, proceed as a solopreneur, or construct a crew. I finally determined that constructing a crew was the appropriate factor to do if I wished to scale the enterprise, irrespective of how scary it was.

This resolution marked a big 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 crew would require a special mindset and would change the objectives I had for my enterprise. It was not nearly working a enterprise anymore; it was about main a crew 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 crew members from the very first interview, setting the expectation that this was new territory for me and there is likely to be bumps alongside the highway. I began with contractors and part-time individuals who already had different purchasers, creating a security internet whereas I discovered the ropes of crew administration.

Wanting again, I ought to have began a crew manner earlier. I now have a small crew of unimaginable sensible and devoted folks they usually do issues I might have by no means ever achieved myself. It’s additionally manner much less lonely and rather more enjoyable to share your wins collectively. 

AI headshot mills are rising in popularity, how do you differentiate HeadshotPro in a crowded area?

Photograph high quality is our major differentiator from different AI headshot mills. Our opponents depend on open-source fashions—which, to be frank, merely aren’t ok for practical photograph generations. By making day by day iterations in the direction of increased high quality headshots, we imagine that inside a 12 months our headshots shall be indistinguishable from actual pictures, additional growing the hole between us and different much less severe AI headshot mills.

Lastly, we focus solely on skilled headshots. The majority of our opponents are shifting horizontally, providing issues like courting pictures and cute avatars, working their manner in the direction of turning into a full-fledged photostudio. Whereas there’s clearly a marketplace for this, our crew personally sees these detours away from skilled headshots as a distraction. Our sole focus is creating the very best high quality, skilled AI headshots. I don’t really feel our opponents share this single focus.

What are some ways in which your crew is enhancing or optimizing the HeadshotPro expertise?

It’d sound cliche, however we actually are obsessive about the standard of our outcomes. Producing AI headshots which are indistinguishable from actual pictures is our finish purpose. If the mannequin improves by 1% every day, there’s no motive why we will’t attain that purpose, or get actually near it, by the top of this 12 months.

Except for iterative high quality enhancements, we’re engaged on bettering clothes technology. We really feel “digital attempt on” providers are going to start out 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, after all, our person expertise is all the time getting higher. Proper now we require 15-17 person enter pictures, as a result of that’s been the magic quantity for us in maximizing high quality. We’re engaged on different strategies to make issues slightly simpler for our clients, with out compromising the photograph high quality we work arduous to keep up.

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 fully 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 quite a lot of enjoyable ones there, however I’m truly within the strategy of promoting most of those merchandise to totally concentrate on 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 be taught extra ought to go to HeadshotPro.