How Nikita Sherbina Scaled AIScreen to $1M+ by Reinventing Campus Communication

Hello, my name is Nikita Sherbina, and I am a CEO and co-founder of AIScreen a digital signage platform that aims to make communication in the physical world easier and centralized. Consider campuses, working places, health-related areas, and so on. Our platform provides organizations with the method of distributing updates, alerts, event information and customized content on the screens, which does not require the assistance of the developer or the design team.

I have a ten-year experience in the digital signage industry, during which I had to directly experience the grotesqueness, overpricing, and age of most of the solutions. AIScreen did not begin with a whiteboard, brainstorming session. It was the result of frustration, years of seeing the end user grapple with fat apps, ineffective media players and there was absolutely no flex whatsoever.

We knew there was a better way. So we built it.

From Industry Veteran to Disruptor: The Real Origin

I didn’t “pivot into” this industry. I lived it. I spent 10+ years on the ground, understanding digital signage tech from both the integration and operations side. I watched large organizations burn money trying to roll out signage systems that required 15 steps to publish a simple update. I saw marketing teams abandon screens because the CMS was impossible to use.

That’s when the lightbulb hit. Why not build a signage platform that’s as easy to use as a social media scheduler, but powerful enough to handle enterprise-level needs?

We started prototyping what would become AIScreen, a system that’s cloud-based, user-friendly, scalable, and doesn’t lock people into proprietary hardware. No BS. Just clean UX and reliable performance.

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Getting Traction Without Hype: Our First Moves

We didn’t go viral. We didn’t throw money at paid ads in month one. We focused on solving very specific communication problems for a few initial organizations, mostly in higher education and corporate environments.

Our first customers came through my network in the signage space, partners, vendors, and ops leads who were tired of the same pain points. Once they saw what we’d built, it was an easy sell. One IT director literally said, “Wait, I can do all that from a browser, and it actually works?” That moment told me we were on the right track.

Referrals kicked in quickly. Our early tactic was simple: deliver insanely well for the first 5–10 clients, then ask for introductions. We also created real demo environments that didn’t just “pitch” features, they showed exactly how our platform fixed their broken workflows.

Our Business Model: Clarity > Complexity

From the start, we structured AIScreen as a SaaS platform with a clear pricing model based on screens and features. We refused to do the old-school approach, no “call for pricing,” no bloated setup fees, no mystery charges. Transparency became part of our brand DNA.

Over time, we introduced tiers to serve different segments, from small schools to multi-location enterprises. What didn’t change: our obsession with delivering a product that doesn’t need a manual. We priced to be accessible, scaled based on real usage, and always focused on long-term retention rather than quick sales.

Reaching $1 Million

The Timeline: When We Hit $1M in Revenue

We bootstrapped AIScreen from day one, so every dollar we made had to come from real customers, no vanity metrics, no fluff. Here’s roughly how the timeline looked:

Month 1–3: We were still validating the MVP. Had about 4–5 paying clients. Just enough to know people would pay for this.
Month 4–6: Started onboarding larger education and workplace clients. Introduced tiered pricing, streamlined onboarding. Hit our first $100K in cumulative revenu.
Month 7–10: Momentum kicked in. Referrals grew, churn dropped to almost zero. We focused on documentation, integrations, and customer success.
Month 11–12: Landed a series of mid-sized clients, followed by a major enterprise deal. Crossed $1M in total revenue, all recurring, all earned.

This wasn’t hypergrowth from a Tweet thread. It was steady, compounding growth from solving a painful, under-addressed problem really well.

The Breakthrough Moment

There was a clear inflection point: we onboarded a large university system that had been using three different tools to manage digital screens across campuses. Their team was burned out, disorganized, and constantly troubleshooting.

We consolidated everything for them, content scheduling, emergency alerts, event promotion, even student-generated content, into one intuitive dashboard. Within a month, they called us “a game-changer.” That endorsement turned into case studies, referrals, and credibility that unlocked a new tier of enterprise leads.

Sometimes your growth doesn’t come from a fancy marketing campaign. It comes from delivering so much value that your customers do the selling for you.

What Actually Worked: Marketing Channels That Moved the Needle

We kept it focused:

Referrals & Relationships: Ten years in the industry meant we knew people. But we didn’t just rely on past contacts, we earned every referral by making sure our product didn’t embarrass anyone who recommended us.
Direct Outreach (But Intelligent): We sent targeted, short emails to ops and IT leaders in education and enterprise. We didn’t pitch, we offered a demo, proof, and asked about their current pain points. The response rate was strong because we weren’t guessing.
Partnerships: Integrators and AV firms became natural partners. We trained them on AIScreen, and they started including us in their proposals.
Product-Led Growth: We obsessed over our UX. People who got in, stayed in. We didn’t need to convince them with long decks, we just needed them to experience the dashboard.

Challenges & Lessons

Top 3 Scaling Challenges

Wearing Too Many Hats

During our early days, I used to work on sales calls, customer support, product planning and testing bugs, all of them at times before lunch. It is exciting and unsustainable. I later found that I had to leave the position of a do-it all person and begin forming a team that I could rely on.

Building for Enterprise Without Becoming Enterprise Software

Our product had to meet enterprise standards, security, scalability, customization, without becoming a bloated Frankenstein of features. That was hard. But we stayed disciplined. If a feature didn’t serve 80% of our users, it didn’t make the cut.

Avoiding Feature Creep from Loud Customers

Some of the initial customers also demanded very exclusive functionalities that were not in line with our basic vision. You want to say yes, particularly when you are going after MRR. We learned to say politely no or find workarounds unless it was in the interest of the overall users.

Yes, There Were “Quitting” Moments

There was one stretch where a deal we’d been working on for 4 months fell through at the last minute. Simultaneously, we hit a product bug that took down half our demo environments. I remember sitting at 2 a.m. thinking, “Why am I doing this again?”

What kept me going was two things:

First, we had customers who needed us, and told us that directly.
Second, I’ve seen the alternative. I’ve seen what’s out there. I know we’re building something better. That clarity was fuel.

A Costly Mistake (That Taught Me a Lot)

Early on, I hired a developer agency to speed up product work. They were technically sound, but completely disconnected from user empathy. We shipped features that looked good on paper but flopped in the wild.

It taught me: never separate product development from customer context. Today, our devs sit in on support calls. They watch real user sessions. That alignment changed everything.

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Insights for Founders

The Truth About Hitting $1M That No One Tells You

$1M is not a finish line, it’s a permission slip. It gives you breathing room, credibility, and options. But the pressure doesn’t go away. If anything, it increases. Now you have to defend the thing you built. Improve it. Scale it without breaking it.

And people will start asking, “What’s next?” before you’ve even had time to process where you are.

How My Role Changed

In the beginning, I was AIScreen. Every decision, every support email, every roadmap call. But to scale, I had to become a CEO, not a super-operator.

That meant:

Delegating fully and trusting others to own outcomes
Shifting the thinking to the proactive one
Making more time to hire, vision and partnerships

I do not lose touch of product. However, the most important thing that I currently do is put the right person in the right seats and provide them with all they need to win.

What I Would Do If I Had To Begin Again

I’d build a stronger internal documentation system from day one. When you’re small, it feels like overkill. But scaling without clear processes and SOPs is like flying with foggy instruments.

Also: I’d charge more, earlier. We undervalued ourselves in the beginning. People pay for value, not effort.

The Present & Future

Where AIScreen Is Today and Where We’re Headed

Today, AIScreen serves organizations in education, healthcare, corporate, and hospitality across multiple countries. We’ve grown from a small team of builders to a tight-knit, performance-driven company with real impact. We don’t measure success just in screens deployed, we measure it in communication gaps closed.

Our platform now powers thousands of screens, serving real-time updates, emergency alerts, community events, student engagement content, and more. We’ve continued to expand integrations, add AI-driven features, and make signage as easy as sending a tweet, but at enterprise scale.

What’s next? Two things:

More automation and intelligence, not just content management, but content strategy handled by the platform.
Becoming the communications infrastructure for any place with physical foot traffic. We’re already there in many sectors, now we’re doubling down.

We’re also continuing to build our team across product, sales, and support. Every hire we make is intentional. No fluff. Just sharp people who care about doing excellent work.

What I’m Currently Obsessed With

Two things:

Improving User Onboarding: We’re experimenting with guided onboarding that adapts to the user type, whether it’s IT, marketing, or admin. The faster they hit that “aha moment,” the higher the retention.
Making Internal Communication a Strategic Function: A lot of companies still treat screens as glorified bulletin boards. We’re working with clients to shift that mindset, to turn signage into a proactive tool that boosts culture, transparency, and action.

Staying True to the Mission

Absolutely. The mission that started AIScreen is the same mission that drives us today: simplify screen communication and empower people to engage, inform, and connect without needing a PhD in IT.

We did not get into this market to follow trends. We chose to get into it because we were the ones who had experienced the pain and we wanted to amend it. Whenever one of our customers tells us, well, this just works, we know that we have not lost our way.

Advice for Other Founders

My Best Advice to Hit That First $1M

Focus like a sniper. You don’t need 10 channels, 5 funnels, and 12 pricing options. You need one sharp offer, delivered to one clear audience, in a way that makes them feel like you built it just for them.

Also: Don’t hide behind the product. Be in the sales calls. Write the outreach emails. Take the support chats. Your first 10–20 customers are your roadmap, not your revenue.

Books, Habits, Tools That Helped Me

Book: The Mom Test, taught me how to actually listen to customers without bias
Tool: Notion + ClickUp, game changers for internal alignment and execution
Habit: Daily “What broke?” review. I spend 10 minutes at the end of each day identifying friction points, in product, process, or people. Then we fix one per day. It compounds.

Also: Walks. Some of my best thinking happens when I step away from the desk.

Bonus: A Truth Most Founders Don’t Want to Hear

Most of the time, growth is boring. It’s not a viral moment or a big launch. It’s process, refinement, feedback loops, and obsessing over why users churned or why a message didn’t land.

But here’s the good part: when you get that flywheel working, when customers start referring you without being asked, when your product sells itself in a demo, that’s when the game gets fun.

Also: Never forget that your team is your multiplier. Invest in people, not perks. Hire slow. Train hard. Align often. And celebrate real progress, not just funding announcements.

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Final Note

AIScreen isn’t just a digital signage platform. It’s a response to an industry that got lazy. And I’m proud we’re building something sharper, faster, and more human.

Thanks for reading, and if you’re a founder building something real, keep going. The quiet progress you’re making today is the compound growth someone else will call “overnight success” tomorrow.

Inspired by Nikita Sherbina’s journey growing AIScreen into a $1M+ SaaS by revolutionizing campus and workplace communication? Drop a comment below or share this story with a fellow founder—it might be the motivation they need to start or scale their own service-based business.

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