From Internal Tool to Paid Product: How Sergiu Chiriac Built AI Directories

Turning Repeated Work into an Internal Tool

In March 2023, Sergiu Chiriac launched PoweredbyAI, a site that collects and introduces AI tools. In that early listing, what he wanted to secure first was visitors and recognition. Moving a career of building banking and enterprise systems into his own business made telling people about his products an important task.

Releasing product after product, Sergiu kept repeating the same work. To publicize each new tool, he visited dozens of startup and AI directories and registered it himself. The internal tool he built to cut down that time grew into AI Directories, and founders who wanted the same help became its customers.

He covered the early costs with revenue from his existing side projects and took no outside investment. Building the website, dashboard, and submission tracking himself, he researched the activity and requirements of each directory. Every time he launched one of his own products, he used the service and improved the parts that felt awkward.

Organizing Directory Information as a Public Resource

The value of a directory list showed in how usefully the information about each site was organized. The public repository held not only each site's name and address but also its submission URL, traffic, domain rating, an assessment of the submission process, and whether it was free or paid. Founders could use this material to compare directories against their budget and purpose and go straight to the application page.

The material was also published on GitHub. The repository explained how to add a directory, and it was set up so that editing the source data automatically generated the listing document and the data for the database. With this structure the material is managed in one place and reused for several purposes. The published list helps people who want to promote themselves directly, and it gives those considering a submission service a look at the material the service works from.

Running AI Directories involves both software and manual work. The technical setup Sergiu published includes Next.js, TypeScript, MongoDB, Tailwind CSS, and payment and email services. The core product offered to customers is directory submission carried out by hand. The developer's technology is used for the website and for managing the work, and customers entrust the repetitive work to that system.

Turning Submission Work into a Product

The material a customer has to prepare is the information needed to introduce a product, such as its name, website address, description, category, and screenshots. In the work guide Sergiu published, the service explains that once this material is submitted, it files applications to multiple directories. From the customer's side, the work of visiting each site and entering the same content becomes a single request. Along with the convenience of not doing the data entry, the burden of researching where to submit is reduced.

At the end of the work a report of the submissions is provided. According to the official guide, it delivers confirmation links or submission success messages depending on the directory, and how long actual publication approval takes depends on each directory's review schedule. Application completion and publication completion therefore have to be checked separately. Putting this distinction into the report is part of the service needed to explain progress to customers.

As of September 24, 2026, the listed submission prices had three tiers. Starter, which submits to 30 or more directories, was $99, and Pro, which submits to 60 or more, was $149. Premium, covering 100 or more, sold for $199. Starter targets free directories, and the higher tiers included paid directories and part of their listing fees.

These main products are one-time payments. Customers hand over the work they need for a launch or a promotion, and the operator carries out a defined scope of submissions. Because the price is divided by the number of directories and the costs included, customers can easily choose according to their budget. It is a pricing structure that lets customers buy the work concentrated at launch time by the job.

Meeting Customers through Content and Search

The topics of the articles used to attract customers also connected to the service. In March 2024, Sergiu introduced launch platforms to use instead of Product Hunt and pointed readers looking for more directories toward AI Directories. That same month he compared major AI directories and presented submission benefits and discount information alongside. It was a way for people looking for places to promote a product to read what they needed and then discover a service that would do the work for them.

He shared his development process and results on X and Reddit and emailed potential customers directly. The channel he said became the biggest source of customers over time was search. While running a directory submission service, he also used content and search visibility to sell that service.

The service's scope widened into additional promotion work. AI Directories offers a listing in its own directory and an introduction through its newsletter, and it set up advertising and contributed or review posts as products too. Founders who came to publicize a product can choose further promotion channels according to their needs. He increased the kinds of services he could sell while meeting the related needs of the same customers.

In an August 2026 interview, Sergiu said his total project revenue for the previous month was $15,700. AI Directories accounted for $9,500 of that. The internal tool he built for himself had become the largest revenue source among his several businesses.

On the TrustMRR dashboard linked to Stripe, updated September 24, 2026, AI Directories' cumulative revenue was shown as $166,403. Monthly recurring revenue was recorded separately at $1,016. In a business centered on one-time sales, a month's total revenue and the recurring revenue from subscriptions have to be told apart. To understand this case's revenue structure, the orders that come in fresh each month have to be looked at too.

Looking at Revenue and Operating Burden Together

Because manual work is involved, the operating burden that comes with more orders also has to be considered. Checking where to submit, filing customer material, and organizing the results take time, and some products include outside directory fees. Judging the profitability of this kind of business means looking at the time per order, rework, and outside spending along with revenue. How consistently the work process is managed determines the number of orders that can be handled and the profit that remains.

A high number of submissions does not guarantee search rankings or customer acquisition. Google names low-quality directory links and links bought and sold to manipulate search rankings as targets of its spam policy. So when judging this service's results, the relevance of the sites, the actual traffic they bring, and how far that leads to signups and purchases have to be looked at along with the number of places submitted to. The convenience of the submission work and the marketing results that follow are separate things to check.

Sergiu reflected that he had kept starting new projects and so had not improved products that were already earning well enough. After AI Directories grew, what to build next and where to spend more time both became important tasks. The experience of launching many products created the business opportunity, and growing that opportunity required allocating time to the customers and the service he had already secured.

The work AI Directories bundled into one product is research, choosing where to submit, repeated submissions, and checking progress. Each of these a founder can do alone, but carrying them through across many sites takes considerable effort. Sergiu's business put a scope and a price on this common work, helping other developers secure the time to spend on their own products.