Descriptions:
Banu, an indie developer from India, joins Pat Walls on Starter Story to explain how he grew SiteGPT — an AI chatbot platform that lets businesses embed a GPT-powered assistant on their website — to $13,000 MRR without spending a dollar on paid marketing. Since launching in March 2023, SiteGPT has generated over $500,000 in total revenue, with roughly 90% of its 50,000 monthly Google visitors arriving through free AI-powered tools Banu built specifically to rank for high-intent search queries.
The core strategy Banu calls “engineering as marketing”: use Ahrefs Keywords Explorer to surface keywords with low competition and clear utility, then build lightweight, standalone tools that solve a narrow version of the problem your main product addresses. Banu now creates each new free tool in under five minutes by prompting Cursor AI to replicate an existing tool for a new keyword. His conversion funnel turns those 50,000 monthly visitors into roughly 200 leads, 60 trials, and 25-40 paying customers at an average of $100/month — producing a lifetime value of $1,700-$1,800 per customer.
Banu also previously built and sold Feather, another SaaS, for $250,000. His seven-step playbook — from keyword research through tool deployment — is detailed enough to apply immediately, making this episode a practical resource for developer-founders who want repeatable organic growth without content marketing or cold outreach.
📺 Source: Starter Story · Published January 07, 2026
🏷️ Format: Workflow Case Study
