Meet Andrew Miracle, the brain behind Chat KJV, a cutting-edge bot that provides uplifting scripture responses based on your emotions. Andrew is a software engineer and CEO of Tecmie. Prior to Chat KJV, he co-founded KPI Lens, an Impact Analytics Startup.
Coming up with the idea for Chat KJV and validating it:
Chat KJV was born from his desire to build an AI avatar bot that builds a persona of people’s young and older versions they can talk with.
He recounts how he came up with the idea:
"I attended an investor mixer last week where my name badge had an error in the spelling of Tecmie LLC to Telme. Throughout my intros everyone would be like “Tell me” and I’ll try to explain to them that it’s “Tech me” and here’s what we do. However I joined an interesting group that nudged me in the direction of an app idea around Wellness and self motivation. So I started talking to people about Telme, A Journal app that builds a persona of younger / older versions of you that you can talk with. By essentially feeding it with certain data, the AI can learn and recreate a persona that’s a younger / aged version of you. Emotions came alive when I introduced Telme for Inner Circles, where your friends and family could have a chat with your Persona in case you are no longer there, especially among introverts who wanna keep to themselves. Here’s the catch, it was all vibes and I went with this new idea from table to table and already got two potential offers while having a lot of fun. When I got back home I decided to do a little research around the concept, and the laws of attraction came through. I stumbled on a new release from OpenAI and trained the model with something about me; past and present. The conversations between Younger me and current me were two different AI generated personas.AI is going to transform the world and I really think the wellness and healthcare industry has a lot to benefit from this innovation".
He validated the idea through a tweet that went viral. The tweet generated buzz and interest and he realized that there was a market for Chat KJV.
Building the MVP
Having come to the realization that there was a market for the product, he quickly built a web preview in 24 hours to bring the concept to life. He subsequently built the MVP and launched it via social media. “The chatbot was the hardest component to build. Lol, so I went online to an article and guess what: The UI library they used for the tutorial was the exact UI library I was using,” he recounts as an interesting moment when building the MVP.
Going-to-market
The app was launched through Andrew’s personal social media accounts. The reception was amazing and it went viral as the initial tweet about the idea did. He also leveraged a Christian community he belonged to on Twitter. “Earlier before the chatbot. The idea was to have an unconventional Christian community — where people can be real about their struggles with faith and real-life ordeals of actually being a Christian,” he explains. The community has grown since the release of the product.
Traction
Chat KJV has achieved some amazing feats since its release. The product recorded 10k users in 5 days after its launch and over 18k visitors who have sent at least one message to the bot. Currently, Chat KJV has 40k visitors, with 110k interactions with the bot, and 11k people as active users. A mobile version is expected to launch soon.
Takeaways
Andrew’s story offers many valuable lessons, but for me, the key takeaway is to build publicly, launch your MVP quickly, and utilize your personal network to bring your product to market. Share the lessons you’ve learned from this story in the comments section.