1000 Ventures is the solo portfolio of AI products I build next to my day job as a Senior AI Engineer. I'm Michael, and I design, launch and grow each one. Some reached millions of users, some pay their own way through ads, apps and a B2B API, and all of them are still running today.
Four products that show the range: a consumer hit that became a B2B API, a privacy-first tool suite, a product that spans web and native apps, and a viral classic.
Upload one photo and the AI tells you your face shape, then what actually suits it: hairstyles, glasses, makeup. The flagship of the portfolio. It grew purely through search, without a cent of paid marketing, and its ads fund everything else here.
The same technology also runs as a paid developer API that ecommerce brands plug into their own products, from eyewear shops to salon booking tools, to recommend what fits each customer's face.
A suite of image tools: compress, convert, scan text out of photos, make passport photos, restore old pictures. The twist is that everything happens on the user's own device. Photos never get uploaded anywhere, which makes it genuinely private and means it costs almost nothing to run no matter how many people use it.
How fast are your reflexes? A set of reaction and memory games with benchmarks by age, gender and gamer level, so every result comes with bragging rights. It started on the web and now also ships as Reflex, a native app live on both the App Store and Google Play. One product, three platforms.
Upload a selfie and the AI guesses your age. It's the portfolio formula at its purest: find a question millions of people are already asking, and build the best possible answer to it. The result is exactly the kind of thing people send to their friends.
Every product currently live. Each one has its own brand, its own domain, and its own audience.
| Product | What it does | Category | Users | reach · log scale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Face Shape AI | Face shape detection with styling advice | Face AI | 13M+ | |
| How Old Do I Look | Age guessing from a selfie | Face AI | 2M+ | |
| Face Symmetry | Facial symmetry score from one photo | Face AI | 2M+ | |
| Golden Ratio Face | Facial proportions scored against the golden ratio | Face AI | 1M+ | |
| Eye Shape AI | Eye shape detection with styling tips | Face AI | 1M+ | |
| Dog Breed AI | Dog breed identification from a photo | Fun | 500k+ | |
| Nose Shape AI | Nose shape identification | Face AI | 500k+ | |
| Lip Shape AI | Lip shape analysis with technique advice | Face AI | 300k+ | |
| Gesichtsform AI | Face shape analyzer, fully localized for Germany | Face AI | 150k+ | |
| Shade Match AI | Foundation shade matching from a selfie | Beauty AI | 100k+ | |
| Reaction Time Test | Reflex and memory games with benchmarks | Fun | 5k+ | |
| Glam You | AI beauty assistant for makeup, skincare and style | Beauty AI | 1k+ | |
| Style Advice AI | Personalized AI styling reports | Beauty AI | 1k+ | |
| Pixmunk | 20 private image tools, nothing gets uploaded | Utility | new | |
| Color Vision Test | Color blindness screening in minutes | Vision | new | |
| UV Index Today | Real-time UV index and sun-safety forecasts | Utility | <1k | |
| Tip Calculator | Tip and bill-split calculator | Utility | <1k | |
| Body Shape AI | Body type analysis from a full-body photo | Body AI | <100 | |
| Mental Age Quiz | Personality quiz with a full breakdown | Fun | <100 |
User counts are lifetime uniques, rounded down. Plenty of other experiments were built, measured and retired.
Running this many products as one person only works with a clear way of deciding what to build, what to grow, and what to let go.
A product nobody can use is worth exactly zero. I'd rather launch something small and learn from real users than polish in private forever. Most products here went from idea to live in weeks.
Great products with no audience go nowhere. Every product is built around a question people are already searching for, so it gets found and grows on its own, without a marketing budget.
The portfolio doesn't depend on a single income stream. Ads carry the high-traffic tools, the API sells to businesses, and the apps open up the stores. Each product gets the model that fits it.
Every product is measured, and most ideas don't make it. The ones that find an audience get more investment, the ones that don't get retired. That discipline is why the portfolio keeps growing instead of collecting dust.
By day I work as a Senior AI Engineer at startups and scale-ups, where I've spent the past five years building AI products end to end and taking them into production.
1000 Ventures is what I build on my own time. The loop is simple: spot something people are curious about, build the best answer to it, put it live, and let the numbers decide whether it earns more investment. Here I own everything: the product, the design, the technology, the growth, and the business model.
The two feed each other. The portfolio keeps my product instincts sharp, and years of professional engineering are why nineteen products can run in parallel, operated by one person, without falling over.
I'm happy to walk through any product here in detail: how it works, how it grew, what it earns, and the mistakes that taught me the most.
