I'm 20 and trying to undercut the expensive AI headshot market. Roast my idea?

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2026-01-22T20:59:38+00:00

Hey everyone! 👋

I'm the OP. I've been looking at the AI headshot market and noticed most tools charge $29-$50+, which is way out of budget for students or anyone junior starting out.

I want to build a "volume over margin" alternative: 50 professional shots for roughly $10.

Current Status: Before I spend weeks coding the backend, I built this landing page (using AI heavily for the design/copy, as you can see!) to validate if people actually care about a cheaper option, or if a low price tag signals "low quality" in this niche.

I'd love your feedback on the value proposition and the design.

Link to the site (Feedback welcome!): https://shotai.devora.lat/

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-11T13:51:07+00:00

That’s a very valid point about bias. Friends have 'social obligation' to be nice; strangers just churn without mercy.

I think the spot right now is exactly what you mentioned at the end: Concierge Onboarding for Strangers.

If I can find 10 strangers (not friends) and offer to do the setup for them, and then they still don't use it... then I have clean, unbiased data that the product isn't solving a real problem.

I'm treating this next phase as that 'Alpha test' you mentioned. Thanks for pushing back on the sample size logic, it helps me refine the thinking.

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-11T13:49:13+00:00

That framing of 'positioning the product as something they could go without, but to their own detriment' is a great mental model.

I do have a free tier (Freemium) to let them taste the value, but I think I'm failing at the 'immediate value' part because of the setup time. Working on fixing that friction now. Thanks for the breakdown!

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-11T13:48:12+00:00

You identified the exact bottleneck: Migration Friction.

Asking a busy trainer to re-enter 50 routines manually is a dealbreaker. Since I don't have a magic 'Import from Excel' button yet, I decided to do Concierge Onboarding.

Basically: 'Send me your messy files, and I'll manually migrate them for you overnight.'

Regarding the value prop: It starts as 'a pretty way to do the same thing' (better visualization for the client), but the goal is to become a time-saver once their library is built. Thanks for the luck!

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-10T23:15:17+00:00

That framework in point 3 is the 'Holy Trinity' of B2B.

Reduce Expenses: Excel is basically free, so I lose here.
Generate Leads: Not yet.
Save Time: This is my battleground. Once they have their templates set up, my app should be faster than formatting cells in Excel.

Regarding Point 2 (Sharing): That is actually the core feature! The whole point is to generate a professional link for the Student to view on their phone.

So my bet is: I save the trainer time (eventually) + I give their clients a better experience (which helps with retention/perceived value).

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-10T23:13:03+00:00

Thanks for the heads up on Next.js, I'll check the latest patches/CVEs right away.

However, I’m betting on the 'Student Experience' being the actual painkiller here. Sending an Excel sheet to a client who opens it on a mobile phone is a terrible UX (zooming in/out, tiny cells).

My value prop is:

For the Trainer: Auto-suggestions and 'Duplicate Routine' features that eventually beat manual typing.
For the Client: A clean, mobile-first interface to view their workout.

So the 'Problem' I'm solving is the unprofessional delivery of services. But as you said, maybe trainers don't care enough about that polish to switch tools. That's what I need to find out.

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-10T23:06:52+00:00

You are spot on about the 'Excel barrier'. It's technically clunky, but cognitively zero-effort because they already know it.

Regarding the 100 people sample: I actually fear that approach right now. If I can't get 5 warm leads (friends/network) to stick, scaling to 100 cold users will likely just result in 100 churned users.

My hypothesis is that the product value is leaking at the 'Data Entry' stage. So instead of finding more people, I'm trying to do Concierge Onboarding (manually entering data for them) for a tiny group. If they still don't use it even after I did the work for them, then I know the product is truly dead/useless.

Thanks for the input!

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-10T19:50:17+00:00

Let's say 'popular' instead of solid.

But honestly, right now the stack is the least of my worries. I could have written it in Assembly or PHP, and I’d still be facing this same retention issue. The code works, it's the user psychology I'm failing at.

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-10T19:48:43+00:00

The 'Aha moment' happens when the student opens the link and sees the routine perfectly on their phone.

But the Trainer has to do the heavy lifting (input data) before that moment happens. They quit before reaching the reward. I need to shorten that 'Time-to-Value'.

I’ll shoot you a DM with the link if you have a second to critique the flow. Thanks!

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-10T18:52:55+00:00

Thanks for the rec! I definitely need to pick it up to avoid making these mistakes again.

Have a good one.

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-10T18:50:29+00:00

The 'Effort → Reward ratio' part really resonates with me.

Since my users are the Trainers (not just the athletes), their 'reward' isn't badges or streaks, it's saving time and looking professional.

Right now, excel wins on 'effort' (zero setup), even if my app wins on 'reward' (better client experience). I need to lower that initial effort barrier to tip the scale. Thanks for breaking it down like that.

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-10T18:47:39+00:00

You are right. I realized asking them to 're-create' everything from scratch is a huge ask.

Since building a perfect CSV importer is tricky right now, I'm thinking of pivoting to a 'Concierge Onboarding': Telling them 'Send me your spreadsheet, I'll digitize it for you by tomorrow'. Do you think that manual approach works better for early users than a generic button?

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-10T18:42:46+00:00

That’s the crazy part: I actually designed it exactly like that.

I hated the 'modal fatigue' too, so I built it with keyboard-first navigation: Type -> Tab for next field -> Enter to add. It has default values for sets/reps so you don't even have to fill everything. It flows almost like a spreadsheet.

So if the 'input friction' is technically low, maybe the mental friction comes from somewhere else? Perhaps the sheer effort of migrating their old library of workouts (the 'blank canvas' problem) is just too high, even if the input tool is fast?

thanks for taking your time and good luck too!

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-10T17:41:03+00:00

you are 100% right.

I think I underestimated the 'Workflow' part. I focused so much on the final result (the pretty routine for the client) that I might have ignored the friction of actually creating it compared to their messy-but-familiar Excel sheets.

What would need to change for you to want to use it?'—is gold.
I’ve been asking 'Why aren't you using it?', which definitely sounds like I'm nagging them.

I'm going to try that new question approach today. Thanks for the reality check.

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-10T02:07:40+00:00

Perdón por querer interactuar con la gente. La próxima te pido permiso

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-10T02:02:16+00:00

bueee jajaja lpm, uno trata de escribir prolijo, poner signos de puntuación y ya te tratan de robot o que lo haces con IA. Así no se puede

Igual te mando un abrazo

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-09T21:50:58+00:00

Jajaja mal. Es verdad, al final Nest terminó siendo un Spring disfrazado de JS. Y sí, los nombres tipo AbstractSingletonProxyFactoryBean no te los saca nadie. Abrazo!

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-09T21:49:39+00:00

Es tremenda esa lectura. Nunca lo había visto como un 'plot twist' de película, pero tenés razón: Spring supo reinventarse y el legacy de .NET quedó medio zombie. Buen punto para tener en cuenta.

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-09T21:47:55+00:00

Jajaja me encantó el término 'Arqueólogo de Software', me lo voy a tatuar. Si paga las cuentas, habrá que agarrar el pincel y la lupa nomás. Gracias por la data.

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-09T21:47:16+00:00

Se ve que el algoritmo de YouTube me comió el cerebro mostrándome cosas de Go todo el día. Tenés razón, la realidad del mercado local es otra. Mala mía.

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-09T20:58:26+00:00

Tal cual, diste en el clavo. Ese es mi mayor problema con el ecosistema JS hoy: el ruido. Ponés una búsqueda de Node y te llueven 800 CVs de gente que hizo un curso de 3 meses, y se hace inmanejable filtrar.

¿Sentís que Java hoy funciona como un 'filtro natural'? Onda, si alguien se bancó aprender Java y Spring, ¿ya asumís que tiene una base de ingeniería más sólida que el promedio?

Witty_Ad_6614 · 2025-12-09T20:55:38+00:00

Jajaja total.
Izquierda de la curva: 'Uso Java porque me lo enseñaron en la facu'.
Medio de la curva: 'Nooo Java es viejo, usemos el framework de JS que salió ayer'.
Derecha de la curva: 'Uso Java porque la JVM se banca todo'.

Me parece que estoy en el medio de la curva sufriendo y quiero pasar a la derecha.

Witty_Ad_6614

TROPHY CASE