What is Value, anyway?
The other night, I tested out a bold new business venture: Converting people's family photos into Studio Ghibli pictures via ChatGPT.
OK. Not bold, not original, and the anti-AI people hate it.
I made a few photos like the below with various styles and a sleek talking AI character with Hedra.
But it got me thinking a lot about "value" and what somebody will pay for a thing. Photos cost like 4-6 cents at the grocery store. I can print them at home for 30 cents.
Could you reasonably sell 5 photos + digital copies for $20 to $30? I think so, yeah. But you'd need to test it out. You could probably make the offer more enticing too by adding other stuff.
Wall of Hate
Someone told me once that if someone is mean to you on the internet you should screenshot their comment and send it to your friends and make fun of them.
Maybe that works, idk.
Anyway, here's some people mad about trying to profit from AI on the internet:
High Barrier to Entry - More Value
I think these people are mad about my post for a few reasons:
- They think AI generated art is unethical
I can see that angle, considering it's sucked up the entire internet and is now selling us back the contents. But this is a different discussion, and I think the benefits outweigh the downsides. Creativity in anyone's hands, cool!
- They think "Hey, I could do that for $20/mo! This is a scam!"
They fail to mention the value of informing someone of something, prompting the AI but also looking for errors and re-prompting, then actually printing photos out and physically shipping them to someone.
Consider other instances where you'd pay way too much for a photo:
Theme parks, cruises, swim with dolphins excursions.
And as mentioned above, you can make a sandwich at home for a fraction of the cost that Jimmy John's would charge you...so why aren't people protesting outside the sandwich shop?
- There is no skill in generating AI art.
True. And I think that's awesome. Maybe there is some taste involved in throwing out crap photos and trying again.
The barrier to entry is extremely low. Low barrier to entry doesn't always have to mean low value.
There's a great author I like named MJ DeMarco who says that low barrier to entry businesses are bad ones because anyone can do it. Low barrier to entry businesses will probably not scale well and will not build a moat against competition.
So our AI photo service probably needs some work – are there things that can be added that are not as low barrier-to-entry that can increase value? Probably.
People just pay for stuff
In general, you can just slap a buy button on stuff and see if it sells. Hat tip to Jordan Mix and Jason Levin.
Earlier this year I made $1200 selling 3d printed signs on Facebook marketplace at high 60-70% margins. Scam? After all, all you need is a $800 3d-printer, 6 hours to monitor the sign printing, some post-processing, customer service and time spent to ship the thing.
I know I probably won't get rich doing any of this stuff, but it's fun to actually do stuff and learn and share it here or on X. Then take those skills and apply them elsewhere. They all stack.
All of the successful sales I've made have started with "I wonder if someone would buy this? Wouldn't that be cool? Let's try."
Anyway, my Facebook marketplace listing got taken down, so maybe I'll try advertising some other way and see if I can make a sale. I'll share the results when I do.