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In this interview, Ajith shares how a side experiment turned into Distilbook, an AI tool that creates explainer videos from documents. He talks about validating on Reddit, pivoting from students to B2B customers, landing his first paying users on launch day, and why he believes animated explanations beat AI avatars for learning.
Ajith shares:
His backstory and how he started.
How he got his first free and paid customers for his product.
What was effective in attracting customers to his product?
His competitive advantages, what gives him an edge, and insights that have proven beneficial to his operations.
Which books, podcasts, or other resources have had the greatest impact on him.
Advice he'd offer to entrepreneurs who are just starting out.
Hey, I’m Ajith, founder of Distilbook and Framenet AI. I’m currently building Distilbook, an AI tool that turns documents into clear, animated explainer videos for training, documentation, and online courses.
When I first launched, I thought students would be my primary audience. But almost all of our paying customers came from businesses instead. Today, Distilbook is mainly built for companies that want to simplify training and internal documentation, as well as founders and indie hackers between the ages of 20 and 50.
I started working on Distilbook in January 2026. The original idea came from a personal frustration. I was tired of reading long documents and wished there was a better way to understand them. I looked around, but none of the existing AI tools could create explanation videos that actually felt useful. That pushed me to start experimenting on my own.
At first, I planned to sell the product to students. But once people started paying, I noticed something interesting. Almost every paying customer was using Distilbook for business use cases rather than education. That feedback led us to pivot toward B2B, and that’s the direction we’ve been focused on ever since.
The funny thing is, the first MVP wasn’t even meant to become a product.
I was working on another SaaS and experimenting with AI-generated explainer videos using a jet engine as the test topic. After adding Gemini Vision to generate explanations, the quality surprised me. That was the moment I realized there might be something worth pursuing.
Instead of rushing to launch, I spent almost two months improving the output. I wanted the videos to feel like real educational content rather than obvious AI-generated slides.
Once I felt confident in the quality, I started posting a few sample videos on Reddit. The response was much stronger than I expected.
That gave me enough confidence to launch a free version first. A week later, I added payments.
We’re a team of two. It’s just me and my co-founder. We don’t have any employees at the moment, and we’re still keeping things lean while we build the product.
We’ve only been live for about a month, so it’s still very early. So far, we’ve crossed around 7,000 website visitors, which has been encouraging for a brand new product.
Our first paying customer came on launch day, entirely through Reddit.
Before we officially launched, I shared a few demo videos on Reddit to show people what Distilbook could do. Those posts helped build an early waitlist.
When we finally launched, I posted again, and one of the posts went viral. That momentum converted several waitlist users, while the Reddit traffic brought in even more customers.
Today, we have around 20 paying users. About three of them came directly from our early waitlist, while the rest came through Reddit after launch.
Reddit has been our biggest growth channel by far. Before launch, I used it to validate the idea by sharing demo videos and collecting people for the waitlist. On launch day, another Reddit post took off, bringing in both traffic and sales.
Offering a launch discount on both the monthly and yearly plans also helped convert early users quickly.
Looking back, Reddit wasn’t just where we found customers. It was where we validated the product before it even existed.
It’s been about a month since we launched, and so far we’ve generated around $1,200 in revenue with 20 active subscriptions.
Right now, our biggest focus is expanding into the Learning and Development market. We believe there’s a real opportunity there.
Long term, we want Distilbook to compete with platforms like HeyGen and Synthesia, but from a different angle. Instead of focusing on AI avatars, we’re building better tools for creating explainer videos, internal communication content, and corporate training materials.
One thing I’ve noticed after spending time in L&D communities is that a lot of people are frustrated with talking head AI avatars.
They look impressive at first, but if an avatar is explaining something for more than a couple of minutes, people tend to lose interest.
That’s the gap we’re trying to fill.
Instead of putting an AI presenter in front of the camera, Distilbook focuses on animated visual explanations. We generate diagrams, infographics, and animations based on the user’s content, making the information easier to follow instead of just watching someone talk.
That difference has become one of our biggest advantages.
I’ve experimented with tools like Instantly, LinkedIn, and Goji Berry, but honestly, most of our growth has come from doing things manually.
Reddit has been our biggest acquisition channel, and Twitter (X) has also helped us reach the right audience.
At this stage, organic outreach has worked much better for us than relying on growth tools.
The Starter Story podcast has been one of my favorite resources, especially the episodes where founders break down exactly how they grew their businesses.
I also spend a lot of time following high-signal founders on Twitter who openly share how they’re scaling to $30M ARR and beyond.
I’ve learned a lot from the Gamma CEO and Roy Lee as well. Seeing how they think about product, distribution, and growth has influenced the way I approach building Distilbook.
Launch as early as you possibly can.
Don’t wait until everything feels perfect. Put the product in front of people and let real users tell you what needs to improve.
Reddit is another channel I’d strongly recommend. Share your work, promote your product, and don’t be afraid of getting things wrong. You might get banned a few times while figuring out what works, but you’ll learn a lot in the process.
Do manual outreach too. Talk to people one on one. Ask questions, collect feedback, and find out whether your product is actually solving a problem.
Most importantly, validate with money. Offer your product at a discount if you need to, but ask people to pay. A payment tells you far more than someone saying, “That’s a cool idea.”
I also think it’s important to combine inbound and outbound. Reddit can bring people to you organically, while direct outreach helps you understand who your ideal customer really is. The sooner you figure that out, the easier everything else becomes.
Not at the moment. As we grow, we’ll probably hire a social media manager or bring content creation in-house, but for now we’re still handling everything ourselves.
Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions! What is your contact info if people would like to inquire about your services? You can add all your links.
Thanks for having me! You can find me on X, and LinkedIn. Here’s my email!
Let me know what you learned from this interview and have a productive week! 🙏
Most founders only measure whether people signed up. Measure whether they came back. A user who returns three times is often more valuable than ten people who visit once and disappear. Before chasing more traffic, spend time figuring out why existing users aren’t coming back. Retention usually teaches you more than acquisition.
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