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How Izzat got his first users for Fotokatalog

Meet Izzat Raihan.

Izzat was a product manager in Indonesia before moving to Germany in 2021 for his master’s degree.

His degree sparked his interest in diving deeper into the artificial intelligence space, which led him to build Fotokatalog, a platform designed to help small and medium sized enterprises elevate their product visuals.

Currently Fotokatalog is Izzat’s full-time occupation. He’s getting a little help from a friend with the technical stuff, but 95% of the work is done by himself.

Photo of a young man looking directly into the camera. He has dark hair and a moustache. He is wearing a dark blue shirt and the background is grey.

Izzat Raihan - Founder of Fotokatalog

The story told by Izzat Raihan

Who are my customers?

I initially aimed the product at the Indonesian market - my home country.

Despite the significant role of SMEs in the Indonesian economy - accounting for 61% of the national GDP, they often face considerable challenges, including limited resources to hire professional photographers to present their products to the customer. Not to mention access to available AI platforms usually requires high commitment (e.g. subscription), high fees (where the average income is only around $150/month), and credit cards (which only 6% of Indonesians own).

I want to help them by giving them easy access to AI tools and allowing them to compete with more prominent players.

This has since changed. Fotokatalog is now available worldwide and accepts payment in USD. As mentioned the Indonesian market has a very low purchasing power, so I want to try to see if other markets can perceive better value.

Building, testing, and launching

I started to code in the second quarter of 2024, with a month-long test for my closest friends and family.

The MVP version of this is simple: users can upload their product photos directly from their phone, and they just need to describe the background they want or use one of my prompt templates. The beta testers were astonished by what this could do.

I launched the MVP in early July 2024.

Screenshot of a webpage. It contains text, logo, links, buttons, and an image. The primary text says: "Instant Stunning Product Photos with AI photo Editor!"

The homepage of Fotokatalog

The business model

This product uses a credit-based model, where users can purchase certain amount of credits and then use the credit to generate image

The basic price of the credit is IDR 1,790/credit and USD 0.2.

Screenshot of a webpage. It has some text and buttons. The primary text says: "Simple Pricing, Powerful Features. No subscription, pay as you need."

Pricing page from Fotokatalog

Marketing Fotokatalog

I started to advertise Fotokatalog in August 2024.

Meta Ads

After some tests, I explored Meta Ads to market the solution to my target market. Unfortunately, however, the results did not look good. The conversion was very low, even only for signing up.

Instagram and TikTok

In addition to Meta Ads, I tried to build a presence on social media, such as Instagram and TikTok. The undertaking from this attempt also did not translate substantially to the growth of the user base, which did not compensate for the effort.

Google Ads

I stepped up my game by promoting the platform through Google Ads and improving the tracking, which led me to my first 100 users in 10 days!

Examples of my Google Ads creatives and stats below.

Image of a drink (with a straw) with three different backgrounds. Also text saying: "Foto dari HP. Pake fotokatalog.id"

Fotokatalog ad on Google Ads

Google Ads for 1 month (~USD 160):

  • 228K impressions

  • ~USD 0.02 CPC

  • 8.68K clicks

  • ~450 new users

I also made my first sale in August 2024. It was Rp24,900 or around $1.5 🥳

Screenshot of some text on a white background. The primarty text says: "Transaction Amount. IDR 24.900"

My first sale

SEO and cold email outreach

I continued my marketing through Google Ads, and until now, 2,500+ users have joined Fotokatalog. Around 70 of those are paying users.

Nevertheless, I realized that it would not be quite sustainable to rely heavily on Google Ads, which is why I am now focusing on driving traffic organically through SEO and email cold reach. This will take time, but I believe it will be more sustainable financially.

I wrote several articles to boost the SEO, but it’s still not enough. However, I’m now collaborating with an SEO agency to improve the SEO. At this stage, we are still in the research and planning phase.

I have been reaching out to several marketing agencies in Indonesia on Instagram, but so far, it hasn’t worked quite well. I’m planning to do more on this with email.

Joining a community

Sometimes, it feels lonely to work alone, and therefore I joined an Indonesian community called ‘Solopreneur Club’ to work with fellow indie hackers.

From this community, I met with a marketer running a marketing agency specialized for SMEs. He asked me if I could open an API access to my service, so he could integrate the service into his. I agreed with the terms and expedited the API developmentin a week.

From this collaboration, I received my first $200+ internet money!

What’s next?

Moving forward, I am looking to tap into new markets, both geographically and industry wise. With the recent new features, such as fotokatalog’s virtual try-on - aimed at the fashion industry - I hope this feature can streamline the operations of fashion companies.

In terms of SEO I want to experiment more. I will be listing the product to several product directories to get backlinks (and also traffic).

It has been a humbling experience to be a founder, building everything from scratch and promoting it to the world. I am grateful for all the support I received from family, friends, and the indie hackers community.

I look forward to continuing to grow and learn as I take my project to new heights.

Contact information for Izzat Raihan:

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