How we made $100k ARR in 14 days with GEN AI workflows and Low-Code Strategies

On June 1, 2024, during a company-wide revenue meeting, our Chief Customer Officer dropped a bombshell. California Senate Bill 553, a new workplace violence prevention law set to take effect on July 1, 2024. This aligned perfectly with Bambee's mission to help small businesses navigate complex HR and compliance issues. The catch? We had just 14 days to create, test, and launch a comprehensive solution.

I knew we were facing a multifaceted challenge:

1. Interpret complex legal requirements in record time without full access to experts

2. Design a market-ready solution for a product type Bambee had never offered before

3. Develop and test the product within an extremely tight timeframe

Phase 1: Rapid Research and Understanding

1. AI-Powered Regulation Analysis: With our internal HR compliance experts unavailable to review the new regulations and come up with a program in such a short period of time, I turned to ChatGPT to parse SB 553, generating a high-level summary and scaffold for a program in hours instead of days.

2. Iterative Refinement: I took this AI-generated summary and program to our HR compliance team for a review, completely avoiding the blank-page syndrome for them, then fed their additive clarifications back into ChatGPT to create a more accurate summary.

3. Competitive Landscape Mapping: Given the timeline, I opted for a time-boxed competitive analysis, focusing on companies offering compliance products for new laws, as well as those selling training programs and courses. This revealed patterns in how these product types are offered in the marketplace and a framework for how we could bring this to market.

Phase 2: Concept Development and Stakeholder Alignment

1. AI-Simulated User Reactions: Using our understanding of the law and our target market, I used AI to generate hypothetical target audience reactions to our initial program offering.

2. Rapid Stakeholder Alignment: These AI-generated reactions helped create rapid and concrete alignment amongst stakeholders. It became clear that our program needed to offer more value to the end customer.

3. Leveraging Psychological Principles: Based on the competitive analysis, I decided to apply Jakob's Law and the Mere Exposure effect to craft a familiar story narrative. This strategy aimed to increase the chances of creating a compelling story structure to sell our new program, given that Bambee had never offered anything like this before.

Phase 3: Design and Content Creation

1. Program Structure Definition: Once I had defined the story structure, I converted the aligned program offering and synthesized SB 553 summary regulations into a corpus for content generation purposes.

2. AI-Powered Content Generation: We created a custom GPT agent specifically for this project. By combining our new Workplace Violence Prevention Program corpus with the brand tone and voice GPT that I had led the development of earlier in the year, we were able to generate all of the final content for the product, presentation, landing pages, and marketing collateral. This dramatically reduced the number of copy revision cycles with stakeholders.

3. Low-Code Implementation: Using the generated content and insights from the competitive analysis, I leveraged a low-code strategy built the in-app landing page (Embedded Framer + Custom Event Triggers). This approach was based on a pilot strategy I had implemented in partnership with a lead front-end engineer earlier that year. It allowed us to get content into the app while maintaining flexibility with layout and content through rapid revision cycles, bypassing the traditional design + stakeholder + engineer workflow.

The Launch and Beyond

On June 10, twenty days before the law went into effect, we launched our Workplace Violence Prevention Program. The results exceeded our expectations:

• Within 14 days of launch, we generated over $100,000 in annual recurring revenue.

• The project became a case study within Bambee for rapid, AI-assisted product development.

Key Learnings and Future Implications

This project wasn't just about meeting a deadline; it opened our eyes to an AI-streamlined approach to product launches:

1. AI as a Force Multiplier: By leveraging AI throughout the process, from legal interpretation to content generation, we achieved in 10 days what would typically take weeks.

2. The Power of Simulated User Feedback: While not ideal, using AI to generate hypothetical user reactions proved invaluable in rapidly aligning stakeholders and refining our offering.

3. Low-Code Strategies for Agility: Our use of Embedded Framer and custom event triggers allowed us to iterate faster than ever before, redefining what's possible in agile development.

4. Psychological Principles in New Product Design: Applying Jakob's Law and the Mere Exposure effect helped us create a familiar and compelling narrative for a completely new product type.

5. Cross-Functional Leadership: As the lead designer, I found myself stepping into roles beyond traditional design – from legal interpretation to marketing strategy. This holistic approach was crucial to our success.