Olly Bot

"An AI assistant that lives in your iMessage group chats, allowing groups to interact with AI directly within their existing messaging workflow."
0
olly.bot
Maker: mmoustafa
~$500/mo (down from $5K/mo at peak)

Marketing Channels

Primary

iMessage group chats (viral)

The product lives in iMessage group chats, meaning every new group member is exposed to the bot organically

Secondary

Hacker News

Creator shared the product in HN community threads

Growth Levers

  • Differentiate from general AI assistants (ChatGPT, Apple Intelligence) by focusing on group-specific features (polls, scheduling, shared memory)
  • Add unique group chat capabilities that general AI assistants cannot provide (context awareness across group conversations)
  • Explore other messaging platforms (WhatsApp, Discord, Slack) to expand beyond the iMessage ecosystem
  • Target specific use cases where group AI is most valuable (family chats, friend groups planning events, small teams)
  • Create viral sharing mechanics (shareable summaries, group stats, year-in-review for group chats)

First Customer Strategy

The product's distribution is built into its usage — by existing inside iMessage group chats, every group member sees and interacts with the AI bot. This inherent virality likely drove the peak revenue of $5K/mo, though revenue has since declined significantly to $500/mo.

Pricing Insight

Revenue has declined 90% from $5K peak to $500/mo, suggesting the product may be facing commoditization as AI assistants become ubiquitous or users may be churning to free alternatives like ChatGPT and Apple Intelligence.

New Market Opportunities

  • iMessage automation / notifications Commenter asked how to build an iMessage bot for sending notifications across multiple chats — indicating demand for iMessage automation beyond AI chat
  • Other messaging platforms The iMessage AI assistant model could be expanded to WhatsApp, Discord, and other platforms with larger addressable markets

Key Takeaways

  • • Products built on top of closed platforms (iMessage) face platform risk and limited extensibility
  • • A 90% revenue decline ($5K to $500) signals that AI-in-chat may be commoditized by platform-native AI (Apple Intelligence, etc.)
  • • Viral distribution through group chats is powerful for initial growth but may not sustain retention if the value proposition is not differentiated
  • • The iMessage bot technical approach (requiring a Mac to run) creates infrastructure constraints that limit scaling
  • • Group-specific AI features (not just general AI in a chat) may be the path to re-differentiation

Sentiment Analysis

2 Neu

Notable Quotes

"How did you make a bot that can send iMessages? — peterspath"

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