Origins: Agency experiments with LLMs

Every wireframing tool claimed to use AI - but they were faking it. Adam Fard tested the competition, found they were swapping templates, and built an AI SaaS that actually generates wireframes from scratch. UX Pilot went from side project to $5.3M ARR in under two years.

You will learn how to validate an AI SaaS opportunity by testing competitor claims, why a code-first architecture creates a competitive moat for an AI-powered SaaS product, and the content strategy that built a 600,000-subscriber newsletter without generic educational content.

Adam Fard is the founder of UX Pilot, an AI startup that helps product design teams create wireframes and ship UX work faster. He bootstrapped the company using revenue from his UX agency, growing from $3M to $5.3M ARR in just 5 months with 15,000 paying subscribers and a 30-person team.

This episode is brought to you by:

🌎 ThreatLocker → Book a demo

💖 Gearheart → Book a free consult and get the first 20 hours free

🔑 Key Lessons

• 🎯 Test competitor claims to find AI SaaS opportunities: Adam discovered other wireframing tools were faking AI generation by swapping templates, revealing a genuine technical gap nobody else could solve.
• 💰 Fund your AI SaaS with existing revenue: Agency income removed VC pressure and let Adam iterate for 6-7 months on fine-tuning LLMs and component-based approaches without chasing growth.
• 🚀 Focus on one hard problem instead of building with AI for everything: While competitors built no-code tools that did everything, Adam focused exclusively on AI wireframe generation for the design phase.
• 📈 SEO still works for AI-powered SaaS: Despite claims that SEO is dead, Adam captured high-intent keywords around design, UX, and AI generation by being one of the first products to target them.
• 🛠️ Talk about product updates, not educational content: Adam got more newsletter engagement sharing UX Pilot features than sending generic UX education - 600,000 subscribers engaged more with product news.

Chapters

• Introduction
• What UX Pilot does and who it's for
• Revenue, team size, and growth metrics
• Running a UX agency when ChatGPT launched
• The user question that sparked the AI SaaS idea
• Testing competitors and discovering they were faking AI
• Why creating wireframes with AI was technically hard
• Building an MVP and exploring fine-tuning LLMs
• Building a 600K subscriber newsletter from product signups
• Getting to the first million in ARR with LinkedIn and SEO
• The inflection point from $3M to $5.3M ARR in 5 months
• Lightning round

Resources

• Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/469
• Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email