- Aya and Dan Bochman are childhood friends from Tel Aviv who married at 22 and 24, and now run FASHN AI from their living room in Belgrade.
- FASHN AI is 100% bootstrapped, generates $25,000 per month in revenue, and draws over 100,000 monthly visitors.
- Their proprietary AI model, pre-trained on 18 million try-on examples, lets shoppers see themselves wearing clothes in under 10 seconds.
- The global virtual try-on market is projected to reach $38.92 billion by 2030, with Zalando preparing its own solution for 2026.
- Dan’s father, Alexander Bochman, is a pioneering AI researcher who convinced Aya to skip university and teach herself to code.
From Tel Aviv to Belgrade, Via a Living Room
Aya and Dan Bochman grew up on the same street near Tel Aviv, both children of Soviet immigrants who arrived in Israel in the 1980s. After high school, both served as military medics. Dan studied chemistry and engineering. Aya was about to pursue a degree too — until Dan’s father, Alexander Bochman, a pioneering researcher in causal AI, told her to skip university and teach herself to code instead.
They married young — Aya at 22, Dan at 24. When the pandemic hit, they moved to Belgrade, where the cost of living was low and the timezone bridged U.S. and Asian markets. Both took tech jobs. They coded side by side in their living room. They still do.
Fashion Had a Billion-Dollar Blind Spot
It was Dan who said they should quit their jobs and build something. Aya prefers stability — but they agreed it was now or never. They scanned dozens of industries for sectors AI hadn’t touched yet. Fashion was the obvious answer: an industry worth trillions, yet online shopping still meant a photo of a model, a size chart, and guesswork.
FASHN AI lets shoppers upload a photo and see a photorealistic image of themselves wearing any garment in under 10 seconds. The Bochmans built their own vision model from scratch — pre-trained on 18 million try-on examples — specialized in fabric texture and fit across different body types. No fine-tuned Flux, no shortcuts. Dan runs the model as CTO. Aya runs everything else as CEO — marketing, UX, product.
$0 Raised, $25,000 a Month
The Bochmans pitched investors and accelerators. Every one said no. They wondered if being based in Belgrade instead of San Francisco was scaring off VCs. Friends in tech told them to stop trying. Stay bootstrapped. Keep the equity.
The bet paid off. Pieter Levels, the indie hacker behind Nomad List and PhotoAI, publicly called FASHN the best virtual try-on product he’d seen in 12 months — sending a wave of traffic and credibility their way. FASHN now pulls $25,000 per month in revenue and over 100,000 monthly visitors. On X, Aya has set a public target: $1 million ARR. They’ve open-sourced two models, hired their first employee, and are building beyond the living room.
A Rising Tide in a $39 Billion Market
The global virtual try-on market is projected to hit $38.92 billion by 2030, growing at 26.3% annually. Zalando is preparing its own solution for 2026. Google and Amazon have filed patents in the space. The giants are circling.
For FASHN, that’s validation, not a threat. Every retailer that launches virtual try-on proves the category is real — and that the technology two bootstrapped founders built in a Serbian apartment is exactly what the market wants. No funding, no office, no permission needed.
