Image source: generated by Unbounded AI

In the November AI product list, the global AI App MAU growth rate list, an "AI picture dance" product SelfyzAI, MAU 1.61 million, increased by 50%+, ranking seventh in the growth list. Making photos move, this method is not new, but it can still quickly obtain traffic nowadays, and what’s even more rare is that it can continue to convert revenue.

AI Product List November App Growth List｜Image Source: AI Product List (AIcpb.com)

A wave Liu, how do you create a sustainable business?

According to previous observations, ToC image/video generation apps generally rely on a single function to become popular on social media and gain a large number of hits in a short period of time. users and revenue. But in the future, due to the lack of just-in-demand attributes and the fading of popularity, the data will generally decline after a period of time. Better ones such as Remini can convert some users and use the existing just-in-demand functions of the product itself to increase the number of users and revenue data. A step, inferior ones such as Lensa, EPIK, etc., showing a "wave" trend of straight up and down.

SelfyzAI’s global double-ended DAU (top), daily flow (bottom) | Data source: Diandian Data

SelfyzAI started generating volume in early September by generating hugging/kissing videos, but it followed an “alternative” trend. SelfyzAI’s DAU data has grown from less than 2.50,000 in mid-August to 8.50,000 today, an increase of 2.4 times in less than four months, and the growth trend continues. What’s even more commendable is that SelfyzAI not only attracts volume, but can also make money. In sync with the increase in DAU, SelfyzAI’s turnover has also begun to grow steadily. By the beginning of November, the daily turnover can reach the level of 10,000+ US dollars. To this day, SelfyzAI’s turnover in the past 30 days is 310,000 US dollars. , which is already a good level among similar products.

SelfyzAI function arrangement, Beluga goes overseas to produce

The reason why it can break out of this trend is probably because SelfyzAI also belongs to the logic of "hot function drainage + rigid need to undertake", the main functions are divided into 4 blocks, image generation, image editing, image to video (specific functions are shown in the figure). On the whole, the functions covered by SelfyzAI are quite complete, and many of them have already been verified in other products, such as Facedance, baby image prediction, etc.

SelfyzAI product landing page

In terms of product design, once you enter the landing page, the poster at the top promotes two major functions: Christmas-themed photo stylization and kiss video generation. The buttons below are for image conversion to video and facial editing (face-changing). The menu to the right of these two buttons integrates all the functions of the App for users to quickly access. The other parts of the page are various templates presented in the form of cards, and you can "make the same style" by clicking on them.

Overall, SelfyzAI is a quite satisfactory product. To explore why its users can stay in the App and pay, we went back and traced why users downloaded SelfyzAI in the first place, and why there should have been only one wave. traffic, why does SelfyzAI’s download curve continue to rise?

Hugging and dancing are "continuous hot spots"

From In terms of growth strategy, SelfyzAI mainly adopts two methods: advertising and social media promotion, and works hard on both advertising and social media.

SelfyzAI download data in the past half year (top), estimated number of ad impressions in the past 180 days (bottom) | Image source: Diandian Data, Judging from the data of Guandada

Comprehensive download volume and estimated number of ad impressions, SelfyzAI's starting volume and the time point when the amount of material delivery increases are basically consistent. Judging from the high-display advertising materials in the past 90 days (after the start of volume), SelfyzAI mainly promotes two major functions: dance video generation and AI kiss/hug video generation.

In terms of social media, SelfyzAI’s main positions are TikTok and Instagram. From an operational perspective, SelfyzAI’s official account operates very intensively. There are about 130 videos in the TikTok account, 80 of which were posted after August this year, and many videos have more than 20,000 views. There are more than 2,000 pieces of content on Instagram.

There are roughly two types of officially released social media content. One is to directly use video materials for advertising, and the other is to send some KOL/KOC content after secondary editing. The main function of social media promotion is much more concentrated, mainly focusing on hugging/kissing video generation.

In fact, SelfyzAI chose the hugging/kissing video generation function as the main promotion function in order to "chasing hot spots." At the end of August this year, a TikTok blogger posted a photo made with runway of himself and his mother hugging each other in the air. Judging from the picture, although the two characters are on top of the two photos, they are basically hugging each other naturally. , this short video has already received 420,000 likes, 190,000 collections.

CloneAI’s revenue data within 1 year

After the “AI Embrace” video went viral, due to the certain threshold for a relatively professional tool like runway, not all users have the ability to use it. Therefore, there are naturally some products with lower thresholds that have caught up with this overwhelming traffic. Just a day or two after the video went viral, the downloads and revenue of CloneAI, an App from a Turkish developer, increased linearly. During the month from August 23 to September 23, CloneAI received 128 10,000 downloads and $340,000 in revenue. But now, CloneAI's daily downloads have dropped to around 5,000, and its daily income can still reach 7,000+ US dollars.

The "AI Embrace" material released by CloneAI (top), advertising display valuation (bottom) | Image source: Guanda p>

Judging from CloneAI’s advertising situation, there was a peak in the App’s advertising at the end of August and early September. From the perspective of advertising materials, the most popular ones are basically “AI "Embrace" should be the developer's action after seeing the trend and accepting the traffic.

CloneAI landing page (left), SelfyzAI landing page (right)

From the data of CloneAI, after accepting the traffic, the download volume and revenue have increased significantly. , but fell back in the later period, and also relied on "air hug" to measure, SelfyzAI It can achieve continuous growth, one is because of the basic functions mentioned above, and the other is because developers’ acceptance of traffic is also a continuous action.

Kitten dancing videos with #SelfyzAI, screening criteria: video views from hundreds to thousands, and with #Selfyzai Tag | Image source: TikTok

In addition to official releases In addition to content and advertising materials, the author also found a lot of UGC video content produced and shared by ordinary users on TikTok, and most of this content is kitten/baby dance videos.

TikTok Cat dancing video with high data (top), baby (bottom), note: not sure what tool it was made with)｜Image source: TikTok

Whether it is domestic or overseas, In the era of short videos, dance is one of the most popular themes. In just ten seconds, it combines relatively simple and easy-to-learn movements with magical music, making it suitable for imitation. The rapid start of Douyin and TikTok is different from this. It doesn't matter.

And this kind of material is also evolving with various hot spots. For example, in the just-concluded US election, TruThe short video of mp Dance became popular on the Internet, and Trump himself followed the trend and performed many times in campaign events, attracting many votes.

After the addition of AI, real-person dancing can no longer satisfy users, and short video dances have begun to be integrated with other popular elements, forming a trend of short videos such as "Baby Dancing" and "Kitten Dancing".

The fusion of dance and cats (including babies) and other elements. Compared with hugging relatives, the relaxed atmosphere and magical images make many users more motivated to continue creating and continue to publish on platforms such as TikTok. There are still many TikTok accounts publishing this kind of content. After these contents became popular, SelfyzAI quickly launched the "Cute AI Dance" section in the app to handle this traffic.

Wanxing Technology’s description of subsidiaries in its 2023 semi-annual report｜Image source: Wanxing Financial Report

In general, from the perspective of product design and growth, developers should We have done research on the products on the market and have operational experience. According to the developer account "AIGX Technology" of this product, the author found that the developer of SelfyzAI is Ruixiang Technology located in Hong Kong, China, and the company behind it is Wanxing Technology located in Shenzhen.

Videos toB and pictures toC, but they are very difficult

Founded in 2003, Wanxing Technology started with VCD burning software and gradually grew into a software company in audio, picture, video and other fields. In 2018, Wanxing Technology was listed on the GEM and became the first A-share consumer software stock. Since its establishment, Wondershare Technology has attached great importance to going overseas. Currently, overseas revenue accounts for more than 90% of Wondershare Technology's total revenue.

Wanxing Technology Product Matrix

After the advent of the AIGC era, Wondering Technology has integrated AI functions into each product line. According to the definition in the financial report, "Wanxing Technology Focus on digital creative vertical scenarios and create full-link digital creative overseas product solutions.”

From the product matrix, the image/video track is actually the three sections on the left. Among them, the products in "Video Creativity" are tools that are biased towards productivity scenarios, while the products in "Picture Creativity" ” section is more toC. For example, Wondershare Meow Shadow points to the video editing scene, Wondershare Broadcast points to the Talking Video scene, Mok Knife points to the design scene, etc., which is probably what is often said to individual professional users (AI is currently mainly used in productivity tools, and is more oriented to individual professionals. Users and toB, if not subdivided, can also be counted as toB).

Screenshot of Pixpic web page homepage

Looking from the products in the "Picture Creativity" section, SelfyzAI is aIt is an App that focuses on ToC entertainment scenarios. The main function of another product, Pixpic, is AI avatars. However, except for a small number of professional photo generation functions, most of the templates of this product are still biased towards entertainment scenarios (no significant data growth has yet occurred).

Wanxing Technology’s 2024 Q3 financial report’s description of SelfyzAI” Picture source: Wanxing Financial Report

Judging from the statement in Wondering Technology’s 2024 Q3 financial report, it is focusing on the C-end The entertainment-oriented scenario is defined as "product innovation", and the Q3 quarter is also the time when SelfyzAI starts volume. So, why does Wondershare Technology, which has been making productivity tools in the fields of video and design, try more ToC entertainment products in the picture field? This starts with Wondershare Technology’s performance.

Since 2024, Wondershare Technology's revenue and profits have experienced a significant decline. As of this quarter, they have dropped by more than 10% compared with the highest point in Q4 in 2023. During the same period, net profit fell even more sharply. In Q3 2024, Wanxing Technology's net profit fell 304.62% year-on-year, recording net losses for two consecutive quarters. The reason for the sharp decline in net profit is "low growth in revenue and rising marketing and research and development costs."

Wanxing Technology Product Matrix

From the perspective of product ecological niche, although almost every product line of Wondershare has stepped onto the most popular track, it has basically failed to achieve the top For our products, the video track is very complicated, and it is difficult to take the lead technically. For example, as a video editing software, Wondershare Miaoying's domestic competitors include Byte's Jianying, Kuaishou's Kuaiying, and Tencent's Miaijian. These products all rely on their own content platforms to achieve a closed loop of editing and uploading. , and also serves creators on other platforms. Overseas, compared to Capcut and Adobe Premiere Pro/Rush, which have accumulated a large number of users, Wondershare's products are also more difficult to gain traction.

Since there is no quarterly cost data in Wanxing Technology’s financial report, the combined costs of Q1-Q3 over the years are used here for comparison. Since the proportion of marketing and R&D costs is much higher than other costs, here Only these two costs are reflected

The fierce competition is the main reason for the increase in marketing and R&D costs. In this very busy track, Wondershare must rely on spending money to buy volume to achieve product growth. Add to this the increase in purchase costs, the increase in R&D costs brought about by AI, etc., and Wondershare's financial performance is in trouble.

In contrast, when choosing to enter the picture market, toC is an attempt by Wondershare Technology. On the premise that the technical capabilities are certainly sufficient, it strives for scene insight.

But on the toC picture track, it is actually very difficult to break through. C-end users’ money is not easy to make.

The author searched in the advanced search in Diandian Data and found that the number one AI generation app was ranked by income.Fotorama from Turkish manufacturer AppNation has earned US$420,000 in the past 30 days, which is only US$110,000 higher than SelfyzAI. SelfyzAI can be said to have won the first battle. But it is very difficult to move forward.

Screening criteria: Apps with the keyword "Photo" in the title and classified into "Photography and Video" and "Graphics and Design", and divided according to the cumulative income in the past 30 days

From the perspective of the income stratification of image editing products, there are 11 image products with more than 1 million US dollars. They are basically relatively well-known products, and the pattern is relatively stable. In recent years, only the new ones that have squeezed into these two levels are Photoroom and Pixelcut AI, all with A new track for AI e-commerce pictures to achieve a jump in sales.

SelfyzAI adheres to the overall logic of "draining traffic from hot functions + taking over rigid needs". For products that purely follow the "image/video generation" route like CloneAI mentioned above, SelfyzAI has certain advantages. , but if you want to break through the threshold of 500,000 US dollars, or even reach one million US dollars, you need continuous operations and product iteration. For Wondershare, whose main research and development capabilities were previously in the video direction, this is the first step, but the road ahead is still long.

SelfyzAI’s DAU data in the past year (as of January 3)｜Image source: Diandian Data

Before publishing, we found that SelfyzAI’s DAU data had plummeted, but during the same period There is nothing unusual about SelfyzAI’s revenue and download numbers.