Ethan Tian launched Textideo in 2024 as a single workspace where creators could make AI video, copy, illustrations, and social posts without bouncing between half a dozen tools. His read on the market was that AI features were everywhere, but nothing tied the best models together in a simple editor that actually saved a creator's time. He built it alone, bootstrapped, with no funding and no team.

He set a few rules early. No forced subscriptions, so people pay only for the credits they use. Wire in strong AI models but keep the interface plain. Make cinematic-quality output reachable for everyday creators rather than studios. Those constraints shaped a credit-based product with optional subscriptions on top.

Distribution came before any audience existed. Tian posted Textideo across Reddit creator and AI subreddits, Dev.to, Indie Hackers, Product Hunt, AI tool directories, and niche Telegram groups, then kept shipping small updates so there was always something fresh to announce. He treats silence as death: disappear for a month and it is as if you never existed. Over time he says he posted 60+ updates, collaborated with YouTube creators, and reached into TikTok AI communities, putting roughly as much effort into marketing as into code.

The roadmap was dictated by users. Requests for running several video models at once became multi-model timeline editing. Asks for pay-as-you-go turned into credit pricing. A wish for copy, art, and video in one place became the AI Playground. As creators leaned on tools like CapCut and n8n, he added APIs, automation templates, and platform-specific templates for TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, plus an affiliate program. Backlinks from all that listing eventually fed SEO, and search traffic for terms like "AI video editor" and "free Sora alternative" began compounding.

By late 2025 Tian reported Textideo at $18,000 a month from credits and subscriptions, with a stated target of $30,000. He is candid that the pace cost him: managing 10+ models and 500+ features solo brought real burnout, and what kept him going were user messages about first professional videos and hours saved. This figure is self-reported in his own post, so we treat it as a founder claim rather than verified revenue.