From quitting my job to 12,000+ trips being planned with my AI travel planner. Here's how I did it.
2.5 years ago, I quit my job with no backup plan. Today, I'm making a living from Tern, the AI travel planner I built in my bedroom. Here's the raw, unfiltered story of how it happened:
Numbers, Because Product Hunt Loves Data
✈️ 12,000+ trips planned
👥 Paying customers from 9 countries (started monetizing 2 months ago, still free for most users)
🌍 Users from 120 countries
⭐ 5/5 stars on Product Hunt (and 1 of the 20 products hunted by CEO @rajiv_ayyangar )
💰 $0 spent on marketing
🕒 14-hour days, 7 days/week in the beginning
📦 400+ updates shipped
The Journey
It started after I left my startup where I built audio tools for Grammy-winning artists. I was back at Microsoft, working on things I had zero passion for. I was also a nomad, constantly traveling — and the planner friend in every group.
One night I thought:
What if you could instantly discover, collect, and edit travel ideas — without getting lost in Google abyss or rebuilding Notion docs from scratch?
So I quit. No health insurance. Expired IDs. No permanent home. I built the first version of Tern while living out of Airbnbs — and used it to plan my own travels.
We started by building a custom travel editor (ridiculously hard). Then the AI wave hit — and we added personalized suggestions that auto-filled your trip. Suddenly, it clicked. It was magic for our users!
Reality Check Moments
🗓️ Month 1–5: Coded 14 hrs/day. Survived off savings. Worked with 150 closed beta users.
🚀 Month 6: Got into Antler. Visible Hands VC gave us our first grant.
📬 Month 8: Launched our AI planner waitlist — 2 days after the APIs became public.
💸 Month 9–19: Pivoted to work with travel agents (made a few $k), but realized the future wasn’t human agents — it was agentic AI.
📈 Month 15: Went viral on a competitor’s Instagram — gained 1,000 users overnight.
📣 Month 22: First big Product Hunt launch — 300+ upvotes, newsletters w/ 1M+ subs mentioned us, even the director of Deadpool became a user.
✈️ Month 23–26: Airports started reaching out — Rome Airport included. Opened the door to B2B.
📱 Month 27: Finally started monetizing + building a mobile app (our #1 request from users).
🤝 Month 29: Got added as a perk for Google employees
Hard Truths Nobody Talks About
🐞 Spent weeks debugging bugs in our editor
💸 Kept it free for 2 years — while burning savings (still burning as we monetize)
😰 Lived with daily anxiety about money
🧾 Most founders raising quickly have ~$200K from friends/family. I didn’t.
🤝 Talked to many VCs who love the product... but kept moving the goal post for what they wanted to see (heard similar stories from other underrepresented founders)
👩💻 Being a full-female team doesn’t match “the pattern” for investing (1.5% of VC $ goes to women).
What Worked, Surprisingly
Keeping it free longer than comfortable was the best way to get feedback quickly
Obsessing over UX and user feedback
Shipping constant updates (even when no one was asking)
Product Hunt + Reddit launches
Commenting on competitor social media posts = actual traffic
Pivoting a few times helped us learn the travel landscape in depth
If you're curious, check out Tern, but that's not why I'm posting. Just wanted to share that it's possible to survive (and eventually thrive) by building something useful, even if it seems small.
Replies
Wow so 24-months without monetization, is that right? Was that intentional? As in were you mainly doing that to maximize free user count before shifting to a paid business model or did you just not know where the money was until a few years in?
@steveb Thanks for the question Steve! It was partially intentional. We wanted to get as much feedback as possible before we started charging. We also pivoted into different niches, before realizing we were on to something with our AI travel planner!
Product Hunt
@rajiv_ayyangar thank you so much Rajiv! Appreciate the support (especially when I needed a gut check if we had made a wrong pivot). I hope more founders will tell their raw and honest truth in the forums!
Purposeful Poop
Thanks for posting up, this is a really great "roadmap". I think hearing stories like this makes it easier to keep grinding on projects that may still be at the nascent phase.
Did you ever consider packing it in with this project and trying something else, or did you have a strong conviction from the get-go that this would work?
Do you think you could have short-cut your growth with something you know now?
Again, thanks for sharing!
@catt_marroll Thanks Matt!
To be honest, I did. But what's kept me going is the fact that travelers are buying the subscription and reaching out to tell me how they have never used a product like ours and how they are in love with Tern! The love and want of the actual users keeps me pushing through. Also, selfishly, I really need Tern as a product in my life - I'm a very spontaneous and planning-forward traveler!
Purposeful Poop
@itstavishi very cool, thanks for the response! I appreciate your conviction and playing the long game. No marketing spend is really awesome and inspiring.
I think being your own power user is probably a super power.
Aside, but I live out of a van and travel for 10 months of the year as well! though I'm pretty "regular" with my circuit and where i go, my mom though would likely be a perfect user for tern!
@catt_marroll love that! would love for your mom to check us out. we've had case studies where people as old as 78 have found Tern super easy to use (even though they barely know how to use a keyboard).
omg tavishi, 24 months without monetization - you're badass! Really inspiring to read stories of resilient founders who finally hit traction!
As a fellow founder, I really wonder about "Went viral on a competitor’s Instagram" and "First big Product Hunt launch — 300+ upvotes...", since you said $0 spent on marketing were those two events organic? What did you do tactically as a founder? Any collabs/reached out to anyone?
Super interested in how you got your product in the hands of early users and what I could apply to the launch of UserWatch!
Thanks!
@dima_havryliuk thank you dima! yes, both those events were organic! we've done some collabs with influencers but they haven't converted as many travelers as commenting on our competitor's insta.
our early users were all friends and friends of friends! all the best for your launch, just keep learning and iterating!
minimalist phone: creating folders
When one talks only about results, it sounds soooo idyllic, but when you break it down into all the struggles, pitfalls and challenges you need to face (even now), not many people are willing to take this risk. Thanks that you also share that hard part – because 95% of the time it is like that – bumpy.
@busmark_w_nika so true!! genuinely bumpy for 95% of the time, but the 5% when it's not really reminds you of the impact you are making as a builder!
Great story, bookmarked Tern, will definitely try for my next trip!
@gamifykaran thank you! let me know when you try it :) dms are open on X!
Thank you for sharing! I’d never considered that engaging with competitors’ social media posts could also drive traffic. This gives me fresh inspiration!
@focusaur it's such an underrated strategy!
Wow, that was one awesome journey. I am almost living on this path. Nobody dares to talk about the hard(sh) truth. Bravo.
Never thought about commenting in competitor post. Interesting to know that.
The app looks cool. Will try it out soon.
@rameshkumar_astravue thank you! i wish more founders were honest about their true journey!
Headliner
Such a cool story! I think one of the biggest organic, and often forgotten about helpers is reddit. Everyday I am shocked by the power of reddit and communities like Product Hunt. Just goes to show what real connection can do for a business and brand!
@elissa_craig So true! Reddit and ProductHunt have honestly brought us users who have given the best feedback and have genuinely wanted to use Tern!
Milestone Content Studio
Thanks for sharing and I'm awe at your tenacity. Just out Tern for the 1st time based on this post and within 10 min I signed up to be paid user (value-add is immediately obvious).
@sakib_ahmed21 Thank you!! Great to hear you can see our vision and value so quickly!