Introducing FrenchFryAi: AI Tools for Small Businesses 🍟🤖🚀
Over the Thanksgiving break, I wanted to work on something separate from my everyday tasks. Throughout my career, I've found it a great way to be creative, learn and test new skills, and get the mind thinking outside the normal day-to-day. This time, I decided to bring to life a spur-of-the-moment idea: creating an app for people who don't really know how to leverage the power of AI, specifically targeting small business owners. While pondering if they could already achieve what they needed using Chat-GPT, it occurred to me that part of the skill in using Chat-GPT is knowing how to prompt it correctly. This requires experience and time, which not everyone has.So, I thought, what if I could take what I've learned over the past year about interacting with AI and wrap it up in a useful app for small business owners, helping them more easily do things like write blog posts, brainstorm product ideas, write emails, take notes, evaluate their web pages, research their market, etc.? I bet an app like this, done the right way, would be very beneficial. So, I got to work and the result was FrenchFryAi!
The Creation of FrenchFryAI
It wasn't long after I started coding that I decided to make a logo, and after seeing that cute little thing on the page, I was hooked. The result was 12 tools specifically designed for small business owners:
AI Notepad (beta): Assists in note-taking with AI support.
Blog Topic Generator: Suggests topics for blog posts.
Blog Writer: Generates engaging blog content.
Business Development Chat: Provides AI-driven business development advice.
Legal Document Writer: Creates accurate legal documents.
Market Research Report: Offers insights on market trends and competitors.
Marketing Email Writer: Crafts persuasive marketing emails.
News Report: Identifies relevant industry news.
Persona Builder: Helps define customer personas for better targeting.
Sales Email Writer: Composes effective sales emails.
Social Post Writer: Creates compelling social media posts.
Web Page Evaluator: Assesses web page design, SEO, and copywriting.
Getting Started with FrenchFryAI
When a user signs up, they are prompted to create a company and fill out its profile, which includes details like location, mission statement, brand voice, key terms, competition, etc. If you don't want to take the time to do that, you can enter your URL, and AI will do it for you. Once your company profile is added, FrenchFryAI knows what it needs to start crafting great responses for you. Additionally, when you create personas with the Persona Builder, you can save them, providing the AI with even more information.
You can chat with AI in real-time for business ideas, get legal documents (please still consult a real lawyer), receive relevant news for your business, understand your market, write compelling sales emails, and take notes—all with the help of an AI that is constantly learning how to assist you better.
Moreover, FrenchFryAI flattens the learning curve. To get Chat-GPT (which is amazing and I use every day) to truly add unique value, you need to get good at working with AI. This is a new skill for people, and it was for me too. But over the course of my career, I've spent thousands of hours learning how to do this, and that experience is baked into FrenchFryAI.
Trial and Pricing
Integrating with all this AI isn't cheap, but I'm willing to foot the bill for a three-day trial for each user so they can experience the power of FrenchFryAI. After the trial, it's only $15 a month, which is less expensive than a Chat-GPT premium account. My hope is to offer this service at a reasonable price that makes it a no-brainer for small business owners to invest in. Over time, I'll be releasing more tools beyond this initial suite of 12, but I need to stop and see if this is actually valuable to anyone first. I'd love for people to try it out and give me their feedback so I know what to iterate on or build next.
My Journey
I have an odd background—part design, part development, part sales, and part marketing. But what I'm proud of most with FrenchFryAI is that:
I built it myself.
It's pretty damn sexy.
It's easy to use and works in light and dark mode and on all screen sizes. Even the most intricate app like the AI Notepad just makes sense. I designed FrenchFryAI to be a tool I would use, and I have at every step of building it. From generating the content on the blog to the marketing emails being sent out weekly, to the terms and conditions, and now the AI Notepad as I write this post. I'm currently referencing generated insights to ensure I write the best post possible.
Giving Back Through FrenchFryAI
I have an awesome job as VP of AI Operations at data.world. I get to spend every day creating solutions for our 120-person company and our enterprise clients. But FrenchFryAI has been a great way for me to give back, experiment, and bring new learning to data.world. It's also a great way to take what I know and help those who are wondering how AI can help their business but aren't really getting the results they want from current tools.
I'm anxious to have people use it (currently, I've only had one signup, lol) and hear how I can make it better. For you devs out there, I'm using "long polling," so if I get more than 100 users, I've gotta figure out web sockets.
The Tech Behind FrenchFryAI
FrenchFryAI is built as a Next.js app using MongoDB, OpenAI, Tailwind CSS, and a number of libraries that made this really easy and fun to build.
If you are a small business owner or know someone who is, then check it out. I'm really proud of it.