Emil Moberg
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Services:
SaaS
Open Project
5/28/2025

Puppet Generator

A Viral Micro SaaS Experiment in AI Image Generation

Overview

Puppet Generator is a AI-powered SaaS tool I built that lets users generate puppet-style characters from photos. This was both a technical and marketing experiment: could I build and monetize a niche novelty product powered by AI APIs, while learning more about user acquisition and paid ads?

The Challenge

I wanted to explore the intersection of AI APIs, indie SaaS, and viral novelty products. The goal was to create a simple tool that could spread through social sharing, with a clear free-to-paid user funnel.

Core challenges included:

  • Building a performant image-generation pipeline using OpenAI's ChatGPT Image API.
  • Designing a user-friendly interface that guides users to sign up
  • Setting up secure and scalable infrastructure to handle image generation.
  • Testing paid ads for conversion in a novelty SaaS niche.

The Solution

I designed and built Puppet Generator as a modern web app with:

  • FastAPI backend for image generation
  • Next.js frontend and other backend
  • Stripe for handling subscriptions and payments
  • OpenAI API for generating the puppet images
  • Plausible Analytics and for tracking user behavior and ad performance

The product allowed users to upload a photo, generate AI-based puppet images, and download their results. A free trial model gave users one free puppet to try before requiring an upgrade.

Results

While Puppet Generator didn’t turn into a successful business, it was still a valuable project for me personally:

  • I shipped a full SaaS product solo, from idea to live users in just a couple of days.
  • I gathered real data on ad performance and conversion, testing different ad types. Google Search Ads proved the most effective.
  • I learned what’s required for a novelty app to be profitable, especially how difficult it is with low free-to-paid conversion rates.
  • I iterated on the product based on user behavior, reducing the free trial from 3 to 1 to 0 free generations in an effort to increase paid conversions.
  • Reached 100 free user sign-ups during the test period.

Key Takeaways

For this kind of product to succeed, viral marketing and organic sharing are essential. Paid ads alone don’t scale well for low-priced novelty tools. The cost per conversion was too high, and the perceived value too low. Most people won’t pay for pure entertainment unless it’s viral, cheap, and everywhere. It would require a very high volume of traffic to reach the few who are willing to pay.