Nicolai Klemke: The Physicist Who Dropped Everything to Build Neural Frames

Who is Nicolai Klemke?

Nicolai Klemke, known as Nico, is the founder of Neural Frames, an AI-powered platform that creates music videos for musicians. Before becoming a tech entrepreneur, Nico was a physicist and an active musician. He never planned to start a SaaS business, yet in just a year, he turned a solo project into a company generating over $100,000 per month.

Net Worth

While Nicolai Klemke’s exact net worth isn’t public, his company Neural Frames brings in around $1.2M annually in revenue with about 1,500 paying customers and over 1.5 million AI-generated videos created so far.

From Where?

Nicolai studied physics and completed his Master’s degree in 2016. Though he was good at it, he admits he was never deeply passionate about physics. Unsure of what to do with his life, he pursued a PhD and spent years in academia.

During his research in 2018, he discovered his love for programming and simulations. By 2020, Nico joined a deep-tech startup working at the intersection of computer vision and physics, where he got hands-on experience with AI.

But deep down, he felt the urge to create something that impacted people directly—not just theoretical work. This desire eventually pushed him to leave behind his career and build his own product.

The Career Change

In 2022, Nico made the bold decision to drop everything and start building Neural Frames. He had never worked on a full-stack software project before, but he believed AI could transform creativity—especially for musicians like himself.

It wasn’t easy. In the beginning, he built the entire product as a solo founder without funding or a team. He worked countless hours, juggling both the coding challenges and the uncertainty of whether anyone would even care about his product.

What kept him going was his vision: to help musicians—especially indie creators—generate professional-looking music videos without the high costs of production.

Neural Frames – The Breakthrough

Neural Frames started as a text-to-video platform for everyone, but the messaging was too broad. A friend advised Nico to niche down. That’s when he repositioned the tool specifically for musicians—and everything clicked.

Now, musicians could instantly recognize the value: “This is the platform to create AI music videos.” This clarity helped Neural Frames grow rapidly.

The First Big Break

Nico’s first real traction came from a Hacker News post just a week after launch. The product looked rough, but it resonated with the tech crowd. The post hit the top 6 on Hacker News, bringing massive traffic. Within minutes, Nico’s phone blew up with notifications—hundreds of people on his site while he scrambled to keep the servers alive.

That exposure gave him his first paying customers, backlinks, and credibility. From there, he leaned heavily into SEO, free tools, and personal branding. Nico put his photo on the site, wrote tutorials, and embraced his identity as an indie hacker building without VC money. This authenticity built trust and connection with users.

Growth and Numbers

Today, Neural Frames has:

1,500+ paying customers
100,000+ monthly visitors
$100,000 per month in revenue
1.5M AI videos generated

But it’s not without costs. Running AI infrastructure is expensive—Neural Frames spends around $45,000/month on GPUs and another $5K on servers and tools. Despite tight margins, the company continues to grow steadily.

Lessons Learned

From physicist to SaaS founder, Nico learned that:

You don’t need to be scared of failure—you’ll always gain skills you can use later.
Bootstrapping isn’t a disadvantage. Without VC pressure, you can focus on solving real problems, even in smaller markets.
The best business ideas often come from combining your personal passions with your skills—in his case, music + computer vision.

Final Words

Nicolai Klemke’s story is a reminder that radical career changes are possible. He gave up a stable academic path to take a risk on AI—and turned it into a thriving business.

For anyone stuck in a career that doesn’t inspire them, Nico’s journey proves that with curiosity, persistence, and the courage to niche down, you can build something that not only sustains you—but impacts millions.