Lensa Paved the Way for a Graveyard of AI Art Apps — and They’re Already Too Late

If Lensa prompted you to start your own AI art app, I’d argue you took the wrong lesson from their “overnight success” story.

If you knew there was a surefire, clear-cut way to release a product or service that would instantly skyrocket to viral success and rake in tens of millions of dollars within weeks, you’d at least shoot your shot, right?

I get it; I would, too. Unfortunately, sometimes even the most talented entrepreneurial copycats get it wrong, and the explosion of artificial intelligence tools and applications is only amplifying that. While getting it wrong — or spending your time on a cool, new, AI-enabled venture that doesn’t quite make the splash you’d hoped — is nothing to be ashamed of, there’s a surge in early-stage startups who are setting themselves up for failure from the jump.

In fact, they’re pretty much digging their grave from their first moment of inception, and it has nothing to do with their business plan, pricing, marketing strategy, or competence.

Instead, it has to do with the fact that these entrepreneurs are following a nearly-sure-to-fail path, and they’re wasting a lot of money doing so.

How do I know? Because I’m just one of many recipients bombarded by their ads, flooding social media users with themed Lensa-like clones.

If you don’t know what Lensa is, let me refresh your memory: Lensa is a photo editing app that soared to virality in December 2022, raking in tens of millions in weeks once they released AI-generated “Magic Avatars”. It was the quintessential overnight success story…except it wasn’t, since Lensa was actually launched back in 2018 and has been building their audience and credibility for close to five years.

Nonetheless, with a little sprinkle of AI magic dust on a user’s uploaded selfies, it seemed Lensa cracked the code to 8-figure status, and thus paved the way to ambitious copycats seeking to crack that same code. Here’s where the copycats went wrong and why Lensa was actually planning their funerals, not their successes.

Viral, novel, narcissistic success

Without a doubt, there was more than just luck that led to Lensa’s December 2022 blow-up. They made more than a few strategic and replicable decisions that aspiring founders can definitely add to their playbook to augment their likelihood of success. However, one of the biggest reasons Lensa reached such viral heights with its Magic Avatars is due to the well-timed novelty of these AI-enhanced portraits.

By “well-timed”, I’m referring to the fact that with the recent release of ChatGPT just months prior (among many other AI software), the social media and traditional media buzz around AI was teeming.

Secondly, Lensa’s Magic Avatars introduced a fun, personalized, novel way to bring AI to the non-tech-focused, non-entrepreneurial mainstream audience: through self portraits. The narcissist in every social media user can’t help but be curious about what their magical avatar would look like, and the FOMO (fear of missing out) skyrocketed once all their friends and favorite influencers started posting theirs.

In other words, the success of Lensa’s Magic Avatars largely comes down to factors that can’t be recreated once let out of the bag:

• Virality — at least for a specific product, event, or service — doesn’t often strike twice
• The appeal of a novel — or never-before-seen — invention or product goes away once the viral success has permeated the audience
• The opportunity to jump on a trend (like the release of ChatGPT and surrounding buzz around AI) doesn’t last long, and it definitely can’t be harnessed twice for the same use and achieve a similarly viral outcome

However, there are some helpful takeaways aspiring entrepreneurs can implement from Lensa’s “overnight” success story:

• Twist on a timely trend: You can make a viral marketing splash around using AI — or any new technology — in a novel way.
• Viral sharing incentives: Building viral sharing incentives into your product’s marketing is arguably the best free way to multiply your exposure. (they did so by encouraging people to tag them and offering to feature them, as well as offering a product people would inherently want to share)
• Get personal: Both in marketing and in your product or service offerings, personalization tends to generate an emotional response, trigger brand loyalty, and maximize referrals and shareability.
• Emotions trigger impulses: When it comes to rapid impulse purchases, emotions are a great driver. Lensa tapped into this by offering a product that would stroke the customers’ egos and release dopamine by reflecting a narcissist’s favorite thing: themselves. If you can offer a product or service that triggers a positive emotional response, you just may have a best-seller on your hands.
• Flattery goes far, particularly with influencers: One bright strategy Lensa used was to share high-quality versions of their Magic Avatars using influencers and celebrities, which increased the likelihood of a viral share from the talent themselves. In Lensa’s case, this actually worked, and selfie-obsessed influencers shared photos that helped the app spread like wildfire.

If you implement a combination of the above tactics, but geared towards a new, novel product or a different industry or trend, there’s no reason you couldn’t be successful. That said, that’s not what the Lensa clones who are throwing thousands at social media advertising did. Instead, they focused on the wrong takeaways, and thus, architected their own demise.

The wrong takeaways

Here’s what not to take from the Lensa success story, unless you want to waste thousands of dollars and countless hours building and promoting a sure-to-flop venture:

• Buzzwords and trends equal viral sales: If you thought throwing ads up with “AI” in the headline guarantees sales, you’d be very wrong. While this may have worked for a brief time, as the cat’s gotten out of the bag and the competition attempting to hijack this trending topic multiplied, standing out without a novel twist has only gotten more difficult.
• A small tweak or improvement is all it takes: When it comes to timely, viral, discretionary purchases (like a magic avatar), unfortunately sometimes the first to market trumps the best. In other words, the strategy of tweaking or improving Lensa’s offering is unlikely to result in similar viral success. The wave already happened, and chasing it now probably isn’t the best use of time or resources. Conversely, if the viral product were more of a need than a want, and the improvement were material to the user experience and outcome, this could still work — but magic avatars don’t quite make that cut.
• Track records and existing audiences don’t matter: Contrary to popular assumption, Lensa wasn’t at a loss for their early adopters, and it wasn’t cold leads or influencers who first tried out their Magic Avatars. Instead, it was their 4+ year cultivated and honed following and paying userbase of video editing customers (for their other services) who helped kick off and supercharge the new offering’s success. In other words, they already had built-in early adopters at their fingertips, and without that, you can’t expect similar results.

Simply put, you can’t capture lightning in the same bottle twice by standing in the same place ten minutes after the storm ended. Nonetheless, it looks like that’s exactly what the Lensa competitor clones have been doing.

The next ripe fruit

The key takeaway here, which extends to both Lensa and most any other success story you aim to emulate, is that the next Lensa won’t be anything like Lensa, so copying their concept is a recipe for failure. A better approach — that might actually generate some success — is to adapt their strategy, including both the intentional and unintentional tactics that made them blow up.

The bright side is that while your success may not be found in a magical avatar AI-generated portrait creating app, it may still be a venture that harnesses the power of artificial intelligence for a cool, new, unexpected use. The world of AI — and its potential applications — is vast and far-reaching across industries, products, services, and customer audiences. Though Lensa’s idea may have been low-hanging fruit, there are countless ripe fruits just awaiting the next hungry entrepreneur. In fact, you just may want to ask an AI itself for some suggestions; it may not disappoint…