DimeADozen
DimeADozen is a website that writes a research report about a business idea. The customer fills in a form. The site puts the answers into hundreds of pre-written prompts, the instruction texts that a program sends to a language model, and sends them to OpenAI's ChatGPT models. It then joins the answers into a report of 40 to 50 pages on the market, the customers, the competitors, the risks and the launch steps. The founders said that strict prompts reduced hallucinations, answers from a model that sound right but are false. In October 2023 one report cost US$39.
Sal Aiello, a long-time chief technology officer for startups, and Monica Powers, a product designer, met in 2022 at an online founder event run by the startup accelerator Y Combinator. In March 2023 they built the first version in four days for about US$185, as a side business. It first sold AI reports for many jobs; only the business idea report sold, so they kept that one. An Instagram creator's video in mid-June 2023 brought more than US$10,000 of sales in one week. In roughly seven months the site brought in more than US$66,000. In September 2023 the founders agreed to sell it for US$150,000 to Felipe Arosemena and Danielle de Corneille, a married couple, after listing it on Acquire.com, a marketplace where small online businesses are bought and sold.
The revenue figure is grade B: CNBC Make It wrote that it came from documents that CNBC Make It reviewed. The sale price is grade C: the article gives it as Aiello's statement, and the buyers have not published it. The site still sells reports in October 2026 under a later owner, rebuilt around live web search, while ChatGPT and Gemini now write research reports of this kind for free a few times a month.
The numbers, graded
Each row shows the evidence grade and the source numbers from the list at the end of this page. The grades are explained in How Aiolum verifies.
| Fact | Value | Grade | How we know | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sale price, September 2023 | US$150,000 | C | Sal Aiello to CNBC Make It. The article attributes the price to him and does not say that CNBC saw the sale contract. The buyers have not published it. The marketing helper's account says only "6-figure exit". | [1, 2] |
| Revenue in roughly seven months, March to October 2023 | more than US$66,000 | B | "according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It". The article does not say which documents. Aiello says nearly all of it was profit. | [1, 3] |
| Average revenue per month | about US$9,400 | calc | Calculated: US$66,000 divided by 7 months. The real months were uneven: four-figure revenue by early June, then more than US$10,000 in one week in June. | [1, 2] |
| Sale price compared with revenue | about 2.3 times revenue to date, or about 1.3 times a year of revenue | calc | Calculated: US$150,000 divided by US$66,000, and divided by US$66,000 / 7 x 12 = about US$113,000 a year. | [1] |
| Lifetime revenue when listed on Acquire.com | US$50,000 | C | The marketing helper's account. The date of the listing is not given; it was before an August 2023 sale campaign. | [2] |
| Sales in the week of a viral Instagram video, mid-June 2023 | more than US$10,000 | C | A creator answered a viewer who asked whether a business idea was good. The account says the video had more than 1.3 million views. | [2] |
| Traffic and conversion, by October 2023 | more than 20,000 visits a month; 1% to 5% of unique visitors paid | C | The marketing helper's account. The rate depended on the traffic source and the period. | [2] |
| Money spent to start | about US$185 | C | Aiello: US$150 for the web domain and US$35 for hosting and a database. | [1] |
| Price of a report | US$0.50 to US$4.00 a section (March 2023), US$36 (April 2023), US$39 (October 2023) | C | Archived copies of the site and CNBC Make It. | [4, 5, 1] |
| People who used the site, as claimed on it | over 30,000 (July 2023), over 75,000 (October 2023) | C | The site does not say how many of them paid. The October 2023 copy is from a month after the deal. | [6, 7] |
| Buyer interest after an August 2023 sale campaign | more than 30 signed NDAs and 8 to 10 buyer meetings in one week | C | An NDA is a non-disclosure agreement that a buyer signs before seeing the numbers. The campaign was a feature in Acquire.com's newsletter, a post by Aiello on X and a post on the company's LinkedIn page. | [2] |
| Team | 2 co-founders with equal shares, plus 1 marketing and growth helper from June 2023 | C | CNBC says the business was split evenly between Aiello and Powers. The helper, Mike Blumenthal, wrote the Indie Hackers account. | [1, 2] |
| Outside funding | none | C | CNBC: they spent less than US$200 to start. The later owner's facts page in 2026 says "bootstrapped, no outside funding". | [1, 10] |
| Paying customers since 2023, September 2026 | 3,100+ across 3,200+ purchases | C | The later owner's facts page, which also counts 134,000+ ideas submitted. The home page counts 50,000+ sign-ups. | [10, 11] |
| Share of sign-ups that paid, by 2026 | about 6% | calc | Calculated: 3,100 paying customers divided by 50,000 sign-ups, both from the later owner's pages. | [10, 11] |
| Time from launch to the sale agreement | 6 months | calc | Calculated: March 2023 to September 2023. | [1] |
How to read this table: grade B is a figure that a journalist checked in documents. Grade C is a statement by a founder, by the team's marketing helper, or by the company's own pages. A "calc" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A.
| Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Idea score | free | a score on 4 dimensions in about 2 minutes | |
| Starter | 9 one-time | 7 sections, typically 20+ pages, 60+ cited links | |
| Entrepreneur | 129 one-time | full report, typically 100+ pages, 500+ cited links | |
| 3-Pack | 179 one-time | three Entrepreneur reports | |
| Launch Kit | 149 one-time | material for a small live market test, from a full report | |
| Investor-Ready add-on | 299 one-time | investor objection preparation and a one-page brief |
Every current price is one-time; there is no subscription. In March 2023 the founders sold report sections one by one for US$0.50 to US$4.00 each. On 1 April 2023 the business validation report cost US$36. In June 2023 they tested a monthly plan with several reports at a discount. In October 2023 a report cost US$39. Agencies can buy reports under their own logo on monthly or yearly plans through a separate site, CustomReport, whose prices are not on this page.
The timeline
From a four-day build in March 2023 to a sale through Acquire.com six months later, and then to a product type that free chatbots now offer. Each entry carries its grade.
- 2022CAiello, a long-time chief technology officer for startups, and Powers, a product designer who runs a design and branding company, meet at an online founder event run by Y Combinator. [1]
- March 2023CThey build the first version in four days for about US$185: AI reports for any profession, from lesson plans to business plans. [1, 2]
- 13 March 2023CEarliest archived copy: "Validate your business idea in seconds", with report sections sold one by one for US$0.50 to US$4.00. [4, 8]
- 15 March 2023CThe archive captures the site's address tagged ref=futuretools.io, from Future Tools, a directory of AI tools. The team lists the site in AI directories and newsletters, tells friends and emails anyone who will listen. [8, 2]
- 1 April 2023CTen report types for sale, from US$5 to US$36; the business validation report is the most expensive. An affiliate script is in the page. [5]
- April to July 2023COnly the business validation report sells, so the founders remove the other report types. [2, 6]
- Early June 2023CFour-figure revenue from single reports. A monthly plan with several reports at a discount takes monthly recurring revenue from zero to several thousand dollars in a few weeks. [2]
- Mid-June 2023CAn Instagram creator's video that answers a viewer's question about a business idea goes viral: more than 1.3 million views and more than US$10,000 of sales in one week. A marketing and growth helper joins. [2]
- 23 July 2023CThe site says over 30,000 entrepreneurs have used it, shows a "Featured On" row of six logos: There's An AI For That, Future Tools, TopAI.tools, AI Tool Mate, Openfuture and Ben's Bites. It links a sister product, Launchmates.ai. [6]
- Summer 2023CListed for sale on Acquire.com after reaching US$50,000 in lifetime revenue. Few buyers ask at first. [2]
- August 2023CA sale campaign: a feature in Acquire.com's newsletter, a post by Aiello on X and a post on the company's LinkedIn page. More than 30 NDAs and 8 to 10 buyer meetings in a week, then a deadline for offers. [2]
- September 2023CDeal to sell for US$150,000 to Felipe Arosemena and Danielle de Corneille, a software engineer and a product designer who want to run it full-time. The founders stay as advisors for about five hours a week. [1]
- 16 October 2023BCNBC Make It reports more than US$66,000 of revenue in roughly seven months, from documents it reviewed. A report costs US$39. [1, 3]
- 26 October 2023CThe site claims over 75,000 users and says it uses GPT-4. [7]
- 2 February 2025COpenAI launches deep research in ChatGPT, which writes a report from hundreds of web sources. Free users get 5 such reports a month from 24 April 2025. [13]
- 13 March 2025CGoogle makes Gemini Deep Research free to try for everyone, a few times a month. [14]
- May 2026CThe company's X account describes three options for founders: a free chatbot, US$5 to US$29 tools that only rephrase a model's answer, and its own US$129 report. [12]
- September 2026CThe later owner reports 3,100+ paying customers since 2023 and sells reports from US$9 to US$179, one-time. The page footer names Pattern50 LLC. [10, 9]
Why it worked
Four causes, in the order they mattered. Each one is a reusable lesson.
Focus
The first site sold AI reports for many jobs: lesson plans, event and travel plans, garden projects, ad copy and pitch decks, from US$5 to US$36 each. After a few weeks the only real purchases were the business validation report, so the founders removed the rest. In the marketing helper's words, they let the market tell them what to make.
The prompts were the product
The value was in the questions, not in the model. The form's answers go into hundreds of pre-written ChatGPT prompts, and the answers are joined into one report. Aiello said it took weeks of back and forth, with strict prompts and tuned prompt settings, to get the answers they expected.
Costs close to zero
About US$185 to start: a domain, hosting and a database. The founders said nearly all revenue was profit. That is why a few dollars a section, and later US$39 a report, was enough. The 2023 site refused refunds because every report cost money to generate.
A creator video, then a planned sale
AI directories and newsletters listed the site from March 2023, and a referral feature and an affiliate program brought more users. Sales jumped in mid-June 2023 after an Instagram creator's video. The founders then sold early: an Acquire.com listing, a newsletter feature, a data room for buyers and a deadline for offers turned more than 30 interested buyers into a deal within weeks.
How it was built
These details come from CNBC Make It, the marketing helper's account and archived copies of the 2023 site. They are grade C, except the page-source details, which anyone can check in the archived pages. [1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7]
- Built in four days in March 2023: Powers designed the tool and Aiello wrote the code.
- A form asks for the business name and a description. The answers go into hundreds of pre-written ChatGPT prompts, and the answers become a report of 40 to 50 pages, delivered as a PDF.
- On the report page, users could add instructions to single items to change the answer, which the 2023 site called fine tuning.
- Costs: US$150 for the domain and US$35 for hosting and a database. The October 2023 site, a month after the deal, says it used GPT-4.
- The archived page source shows a Google Analytics tag from March 2023, the Rewardful affiliate script from April 2023 and a Google Ads tag by July 2023.
- For the sale, a data room held conversion rates, the technology used and notes on how to reach the audience. The founders agreed to stay as advisors for about five hours a week.
Tools named in the sources
Each one opens its page in the Tools tab, with every story that uses it.
The dead that came before
Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold research or expert insight on demand to people about to make a decision. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.
Mattermark
The promiseData on private companies, gathered into insights for venture investors.
Why it diedIt could not beat CB Insights, its costs grew with scale, and newer AI companies sold cheaper insights.
ROSS Intelligence
The promiseAI legal research that answers questions faster than the old legal databases.
Why it diedLawyers kept the databases they already used.
Metigy
The promiseAI marketing advice for small businesses that could not pay a marketing team.
Why it diedSmall businesses wanted someone to do the work, not recommendations. The general advice was not used.
Thumb
The promiseInstant opinions from a crowd of strangers for anyone facing a decision.
Why it diedThe large social networks kept the users, and it found no way to earn money.
What changed
Each of the four sold insight that the customer could also get another way: from a database it already had, from a social network, or from general advice. DimeADozen sold the same kind of thing, a report on a market, and in 2023 it was cheap and fast where human analysts were slow and expensive. In 2025 OpenAI and Google added research reports to their own chatbots, free a few times a month. That is the position that ended the predecessors: a general tool does the job of the narrow one.
Two things differed. First, the costs were almost zero, so the business was profitable in its first months and needed no investors; none of the four could say that. Second, the founders sold after six months, while sales were still rising, so the later owner, not the founders, carried the risk of free competition. The owner's answer in 2026 is a different product: longer reports built with live web search and checked citations, at US$129.
Can one person copy it now?
The product, no. The method, yes.
A report built from fixed prompts to one model was a good product in March 2023 and is close to free in 2026. The method still works: offer several paid outputs cheaply, keep the one that sells, run it at almost no cost, and sell the business while its numbers are rising.
Where it is still open: Reports that a free chatbot cannot write: ones built on data that is not on the open web, such as the customer's own files, paid databases or local records, or documents that a lender or regulator needs in a fixed format.
- 1Put several paid report types on one site and watch which one people buy.
- 2Remove the rest and improve the one that sells.
- 3Keep fixed costs near zero, so a few sales a day are profit.
- 4Give creators something they can show in a short video: an answer to a question their viewers ask.
- 5To sell, list on a marketplace such as Acquire.com, prepare a data room and set a deadline for offers.
What to watch
The risks are the mirror image of the causes above.
The price is the seller's statement
CNBC Make It saw documents for the revenue, not for the price. The article gives US$150,000 as Aiello's statement. The buyers have not published it, the marketing helper's account says only "6-figure exit", and no copy of the Acquire.com listing was found.
Free chatbots now write the same report
OpenAI added deep research to ChatGPT on 2 February 2025: it searches hundreds of web sources and writes a report "at the level of a research analyst". From 24 April 2025 free ChatGPT users get 5 such reports a month. Google made Gemini Deep Research free to try for everyone on 13 March 2025. In May 2026 DimeADozen's own X account named the "free chatbot (zero cost)" as the first option a founder has.
Thin products on one model API have a short life
The 2023 product was a form plus fixed prompts sent to ChatGPT. By 2026 the later owner had rebuilt it: most sections are written with live web search, the citations are checked, and the facts page says it is "not a single AI model writing from training data". Its own post calls US$5 to US$29 tools of the 2023 kind an "LLM wrapper (paraphrase)". The owner kept the name, not the 2023 design.
Dependence on OpenAI
Every 2023 report came from OpenAI's models, and OpenAI decides which models stay available: it announced that older completion models would stop working on 4 January 2024. OpenAI also now sells deep research to the same customers. A product built on one provider's API can lose both its supplier and its market to that provider.
Users are not customers
The site claimed over 75,000 users in October 2023. The later owner counts 3,100+ paying customers in total by September 2026, about 6% of its 50,000+ sign-ups. Most people who tried the site never paid.
A success story that also sells services
The Indie Hackers account was written by the team's marketing helper and ends with an offer to help readers take their own tool "from concept to cash". No downloaded source shows the founders selling a course based on the sale.
Sources
The grade next to each source is the best grade that the source can support. "Read in full" means that the text of the page was downloaded and the numbers were checked in it.
- B CNBC Make It, Megan Sauer, 16 October 2023: Two friends used AI and $185 to start a side hustle, they just sold it for $150,000Read in full. Source for the revenue seen in documents (grade B), and for the sale price, buyers, costs and report price, which the article gives as Aiello's statements (grade C).
- C Indie Hackers, Mike Blumenthal, 14 October 2023: Concept to Cash: 6-Figure Exit in 6 months for DimeADozen AIRead in full. Written by the person brought on for marketing and growth in June 2023. Source for the early report types, the Instagram video, the Acquire.com listing and the sale campaign.
- B NBC4 Washington, 16 October 2023: reprint of the CNBC Make It articleRead in full. The same text as the original; used to confirm the wording.
- C Wayback Machine copy of dimeadozen.ai, 13 March 2023Read in full, with its page source. The earliest copy. Source for the first prices, the fine-tuning feature and the analytics tag.
- C Wayback Machine copy of dimeadozen.ai, 1 April 2023Read in full, with its page source. Source for the ten report types and their prices, and the affiliate script.
- C Wayback Machine copy of dimeadozen.ai, 23 July 2023Read in full, with its page source. Source for the user claim, the directory logos, the sister product and the Google Ads tag.
- C Wayback Machine copy of dimeadozen.ai, 26 October 2023Read in full. A month after the deal. Source for the 75,000 users claim and the mention of GPT-4.
- C Wayback Machine index of captured dimeadozen.ai addressesRead the first 80 rows. Shows the first capture on 13 March 2023 and a link from the Future Tools directory captured on 15 March 2023.
- C DimeADozen pricing page, read 15 October 2026Read in full. Source for the current prices and the owner named in the footer.
- C DimeADozen facts page, last verified 24 September 2026Read in full. The later owner's figures for customers, purchases and funding, and its description of how reports are made now.
- C DimeADozen home page, read 15 October 2026Read in full. Source for the sign-up count.
- C DimeADozen on X (@dimeadozenai), posts of 21 and 22 May 2026Read the latest 20 posts through the fxtwitter API. Posts by the later owner about free chatbots and wrapper tools.
- C OpenAI, 2 February 2025: Introducing deep researchRead in full, with the updates up to February 2026. Source for the launch and the free-user limit from 24 April 2025.
- C Google, 13 March 2025: Gemini app updates: Deep Research, connected apps, personalizationRead in full. Source for Deep Research being free to try for everyone.
- C OpenAI, updated 24 April 2024: GPT-4 API general availability and deprecation of older models in the Completions APIRead in full. Source for the retirement of older completion models on 4 January 2024.
- C Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startupsLocal export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.