He Makes $3M/Year From Tiny AI Tools (Here’s How You Can Too)

What is the combined revenue of all of

your projects?

>> It's, around, 3, million.

>> That's, incredible.

>> It, runs, on, autopilot., SEO, bot, is, doing, 1

million AR. It has been doubling month

over month, 110k a month. Little tools

are easy to build in the age of vibe

coding. You can build them in one

evening. Pretty cool hack. I will show

you. It's not a billion dollar idea, but

if you're a regular person and you want

to build a million-doll business, we

have so many lowhanging fruits. A

>> this, is, so, good., It's, just, right, in

front of our nose. So, if people say, "I

don't have an audience." Doesn't matter.

That's not an excuse. What is your go-to

tech stack for building all of these

tools?

If you're like me and find yourself

bouncing around from idea to idea and

testing all kinds of different concepts

this episode is for you. I found this

guy on Twitter named John. He has 24

different projects, mostly websites, and

they make him $3 million a year of

annual recurring revenue. And you know

what? Almost all of the things that he's

built or talks about can be vibecoded

with common AI tools that I talk about

on this podcast all the time. So, we get

super nitty-gritty. He gets very

specific on how to find good business

ideas, how to validate good business

ideas, how to launch them, and how to

grow them. What are his favorite AI

tools to use? How does he build agents?

How does he build agents for himself and

then sell those agents to other people?

You don't need employees. You don't need

to be a software engineer. You just need

to listen to this episode. Please enjoy.

You have 24 different products slash

projects running right now and you're

trying to automate as much of it as

possible.

>> Yeah., Yeah., when, I, saw, AI, happening, in

2021 actually pretty early before most

of the people I started automating some

of the things already with GPT2 and GPT3

and then in 2022 when they launched 3.5

I think I kind of felt that you know the

the traction they have on model

improvements is so great that I should

bet everything on AI becoming really

really strong. So, and then I thought

like if that's the case, if that becomes

the future, then I should bootstrap and

I should run smaller companies and I

should create suffering for myself by

not having people to delegate to so that

I have to do everything by myself from

accounting to paperwork to design

development growth marketing

everything I had to do by myself because

in the past I would just hire people for

that and now I did by myself and I

learned all those crafts and I saw the

paints and I had this ideas for 2080

rule like what can I do like 20% of the

work that gives 80% of the result and I

automated that with AI starting with

operations then with growth then with

development and with with everything. So

that was kind of my my story and now I'm

I'm here with a lot of agents and I use

agents to grow my other agents. So it's

kind of the loop happening. So these 24

things, are they some of them agents

that work for you and then it's also

agents that you're reselling to others

as well?

>> Well,, they, all, start, as, my, internal

agent and I run them for a long while so

that I'm happy with them myself and also

it's easier to run a project if you're

the only customer because you can risk

you can you know move fast and you don't

have all the users who complain. That's

why I run for a year or two or sometimes

three years internally and then once I

kind of like the the whole thing and

it's stable and I don't iterate that

much then I bring all my friends because

I have a lot of friends who are building

startups and then I launch uh publicly

for everybody to use. So eventually

everything I use internally will become

public. That's the end goal here.

>> Oh,, I, love, it., You, become,, you, find, a

problem, you solve it for yourself, you

solve it for your friends. If it's still

surviving, then because surely some

don't make it, then you launch it to the

general public.

>> Yeah., Yeah., Exactly., It, sounds, easy,, but

you know, it's uh the way I create

suffering for myself. It's really hard

to replicate because nobody really wants

to suffer that much. Like I have so many

transactions for example like a lot of

product and transactions and I still do

accounting myself. I hate those days

when I have to do that, but I have to do

that because then I understand whether

the product I'm building, the agent I'm

building is good enough and and I can

evaluate it and I I think whenever

somebody else comes into the game trying

to build the same thing, like they have

too much time like I don't have time at

all. So I'm I'm kind of a typical user

of the tool while the other people who

would build that thing, they would

understand accounting really well and

they would kind of uh you know have a

lot of time to click the buttons and to

use the interface and I don't have that

time. So that's why all my agents are so

simple on the surface and so complicated

under the hood because you know my

vision is that the end goal for every

agent is that I turn it on and I live it

and it just works as great employee that

self-managed agentic and it asks me

whenever it has questions and then goes

back to do the work.

>> What's, an, example, of, one, of, your, agents

that just works perfectly but it's very

complicated under the hood? Yeah, it's

like SEO bot for example. I think that's

one of the best agents I have. So, it

runs on autopilot. Like I I even forget

sometimes that it runs for some of my

products, but then I get emails from it

where it says, you know, this week I've

done this. So, I built this articles, I

built this how-to guides, I built these

tools like mini tool. It can even build

little products that will drive SEO

traffic. Then it can also collect all

the news and then build some news

letters and things like that. So it does

a lot of the work that SEO department

would do. It can also ask me whenever

it's not confident about things. It

would ask me like I have you know list

of these things and can you help me to

pick what's the best from this list like

I have 10 items pick five and then I

pick five and then it does the rest of

the work. So it it's able to involve me

whenever it's necessary. But then when

it it learns me and it understands what

I want it eventually over time I'm not

involved at all. Like first you're

involved every day and then week and

then month and and now like know once

every quarter.

>> Well, it's, like, training, an, employee

right like

>> Yeah., Exactly., Like, a, good, employee.

>> Yeah., Are, you, willing, to, share, revenue

numbers or anything like that?

>> Yeah., SEO, bot, is, doing, 1, million, AR., I

think I shared that before.

And

>> crazy

>> it, has, been, growing., It, has, been

doubling month over month before summer

and in summer uh the growth stopped. I

think it's kind of been 110k

a month during the summer and now I

think it will start growing again as

September.

>> Good, for, I, think, it, was, one, of, the, first

agent that kind of went into being a

real agent because all the other agents

they say they're agents, but if you go

in there, it's kind of a tool that has a

lot of AI in it and you have to sit

inside of that tool and use it. So, it's

just more convenient UX where with my

agent from the start, I went the other

way around. So, it had no buttons at

all. It was just turn on. It was a

checkbox. You put it on and it starts.

And that was the only button I had in

the first month. And then I was just

adding more because some people ask for

certain control and I don't want to lose

out on agencies and pro users and they

want more control. But I'm kind of not

really into it. I think I in long term I

believe that people don't want that much

control. And the reason they want that

much control now is that they have too

much time. Like if you're an employee in

a company and you have eight hours a day

to do SEO only, you have a lot of time

and you don't want to have a tool that

just has one button you turn it on and

what do you do then? Right.

>> It, doesn't, appear, like, you're, adding

enough value.

>> Exactly., Exactly., But, in, fact,, you're

adding value because you have an

experience and you can help the tool

once in a while and know those little

moderations will be crucial because it's

uh like the quality of the ideas wins

over the quantity in this case but but

people are not ready for that yet and uh

I I took a risk and I went into that

early and a lot of people didn't believe

that such interface will work but it

worked really well and I think it's one

of the well-known agents. That's

amazing. What What is the combined

revenue of all of your projects?

>> It's, around, three, million.

>> That's, incredible., I, mean,, the, 8020, rule

is alive and well even. And you can't

get rid of the 8020 rule, right? It's

everywhere.

>> Yeah., Like, three, products, do, most, of, the

revenue and then everything else brings

the rest. But I I think it's it's

possible to grow the rest too. But, you

know, I'm I'm not doing these things in

a typical way where I want to just

maximize the revenue or I want to find

the winner and put all my effort into

the winner because that's what a lot of

people do who run a lot of startups

>> right?, That's, not, my, game.

>> Fun, fact,, 80%, of, the, people, that, watch

my YouTube videos are not subscribed to

me. And most of them think they are.

They see them in the feed, but they're

not subscribed to me. So, please, it'll

take half a second, just click

subscribe, and it would mean a ton to

me. My game is to build all these agents

that play together and then since I have

them all I can connect them and that's

also cool right because now suddenly

agents one agent like I have SEO bot and

I have another agent that's called

Rapify and Rapify builds little tools

it's like vibe coding tool and SEO bot

can call Rapify and ask it to build a

tool and send it back. So now I have one

agent you know asking the other like

imagine in your office you have SEO

marketer and then you have developer and

it come one comes to the other and asks

for the for help and I have that across

all my agents and that's why I'm not

hurrying up in growing them. I rather

want to have them all running like at

100 maybe a thousand customers so that I

have enough people to test to ask

questions and to AB test things but not

more because when it's more it's a

hustle it's a lot of support a lot of

legacy to support so that's my game now

>> and, you're, able, to, cross-ell, across, all

of your projects right like do you do a

lot of that

>> yeah, yeah, I, think, that's, sometimes

that's half of my sales every month

>> wow

>> for, new, users, For, the, new, users,, half, of

them come from one tool to the other.

That's why when I land one user in any

of my tool, like I have some tools that

are making like 1K a month, like very

small tools, but at the same time they

are so cheap and they have trial and

people enter those tools and they might

even cancel that tool but you know move

over to the other tools and it's very

rare when people leave my universe. So

if they enter they once you use one tool

the other tool the third tool it's

really hard to leave because it's uh

it's not locking you but it's

convenient.

>> Yeah.

>> And, if, you're, busy, it's, really

convenient.

>> The, 1K, a, month, Mr., you, get, from, one, of

your small projects that could be

contributing another 3K a month MR in

another project because or across seven

other projects. Right.

>> Yeah., Yeah., That, that's, why, I, have, so

many directories and a lot of people

think like why do I build directories?

It's not that much money there. Like

most of my directories are making 1K a

month. Some make 10K, but most of make

just 1K. I think like directories are so

good at driving traffic from people who

would otherwise not land on your

website.

>> Now,, with, your, SEO, business,, you, know,

one of the hard parts about SEO, either

doing it for yourself or selling an SEO

SAS product, is how long it can often

take to work. How do you manage churn in

that business when people have, you

know, they they want immediate results

and that's just not common in SEO? Have

you been able to overcome that? And if

so how?

>> Well,, it's, hard,, of, course,, because, a

lot of people have expectations and then

they see somebody on the internet with a

story that they started yesterday and

now they have traffic and they expect

the same. But I think in my case I'm

trying to build my products in a way

that they also educate people on what to

expect and what is this because most

people who use my products are not

professionals like professionals usually

go for more complicated products because

they want to spend their time by using

them and my products are for busy

founders. Most of my customers are

founders who are good at everything a

little bit, right? And and I have this

system of emails where I take some

little KPIs, little like for example for

SEO articles, I send the data every week

on what has been done and maybe there's

some views because you don't get clicks

right away, but you get views right

away, right? Or not right away, but

within a week usually you get views and

I send the views and then I send the

clicks. there's stuff to send to the

user to show that things are happening

and that usually works because also it's

about the price. If you go for the

agency, you pay like 5K or something

like that and and it's two months after

and you don't see the traffic and you

you feel like you've been scammed and in

this case it costs like $20 a month and

it's not like you you're expecting an

instant result for that money.

>> Oh, man,, that's, so, good., How, long, are

your customers taking to see SEO results

with your product? It's from weeks to

month like I think Google has been

changing a lot in their algorithm. So

like three years ago you would never see

any traffic on your article until like

two months maybe sometimes three months

and now I think the same goes for weeks.

So now in weeks you can see views and

some clicks like two three weeks.

>> What, is, your, go-to, tech, stack, for

building all of these tools?

>> I, use, a, lot, of, the, tools., So, my, main

tool that I use for prototyping is

lovable or other like bolt or cursor or

pinser but lovable is my favorite I

think for vibe coding and I use lovable

for prototyping and often I use it to

experiment with different ways of

building the UI for this product for

example once I move past the prototype I

use my own AI coding tool called Morse X

because that's where I go for serious

stuff where the product becomes more

complicated. So it's like two tools. So

first one for MVPs, the other one is for

full products.

>> What, about, for, automations, and, other

stuff? You like make

>> I, use, make,, I, use, Zapier, and, I, use, Lindy

AI. So I use all three.

>> All right., We're, like, getting, I'm, like

so intrigued by what you're doing. We

had talked John about you showing us how

you find ideas, how you build ideas, and

how you grow ideas, right?

>> Yeah., Why, don't, we, get, into, that?, All

right, I will just share my screen for

that. Yeah. So, for the ideas, I have

this framework that I kind of made for

myself and it was pretty popular in the

internet because I think it's very

simple. I think the best ideas are the

ideas that scratch your own itch. So

basically, you're doing a job and then

you have a problem at the job and you

want to solve that and you come up with

ideas for that for solution for that

problem. That's what I usually do. 99%

of my ideas are born that way. And then

you have some other options for finding

ideas. And usually my second option is

to see that people are asking for

something and then see whether a lot of

people ask for it and then build that.

So I will just show how I do both. And

for example

>> oh, this, is, so, good.

>> Like, if, I, want, to, figure, out, what, what

people are asking, I do pretty cool

hack. I will show you. So I go to Google

and I do this. So website builder that

so you do this and you see like you code

that doesn't use AI that accept payments

that export HTML like that's interesting

like some people want that and I

actually know a guy who built a website

builder that can do that it became big.

So, and you can do further like website

builder for and now we see the audience.

It can be small business, photographers

artists. That's interesting.

>> And, we're, assuming, this, is, ranked, by

like search volume, right?

>> Oh,, yeah., Exactly., And, and, if, you, see, it

here, it means a lot of people search

for it. But, you know, you have the next

step here where you can take this into

the uh keyword research and validate.

For example,, website, builder, for

artists. And now we can go into the

keyword research and and we can see how

much traffic is going there. Yeah. So

here we see it's around 10k visitors a

month which is not a lot. But if you

look further you have this one, you have

this one. So you have a lot of requests

which are also kind of for the same

thing and they're also at each 10k 10k

10k. So in total it's probably 100k now.

So it's pretty good traffic. Yeah.

>> And, also, you, can, see, where, exactly

people search for and you can sort them

based on the monthly searches and now

you see how people frame it because

that's also important and you can see

that they that they frame it in basic

way. So website builder for artists. So

now you can probably come with a domain

idea which could be in this case it's

probably too long like website builders

for artist. But in in often cases

>> you, could, just, find, a, keyword, that, turns

into the idea like I have this

I've been playing with the other keyword

now and it's tux heaven. So I just

tested it now before this call and it's

a it's like 100k searches. It's a lot of

searches. It's low competition. It means

that people don't really place ads for

these keywords

>> and, that's, a, that's, a, very, high, value

keyword, right? Yeah. Wealthy people are

are searching that keyword.

>> Yeah., Like, people, are, willing, to, save

money. It means that you can earn money

where others are trying to save money

right? And then you can uh go and test

this all the ideas here. So you first

find them on Google and then you see

you make a list. So I usually play with

it for an hour. I make a list in the

Excel for like 50 or 60 ideas and then I

bring them back into the keyword

research tool and then I see their

traffic and at the end you have a

picture what you should work on because

if you don't do that

>> then, you're, kind, of, in, the, dark, and, you

have no idea.

>> Yeah,, you're, guessing., And, the, problem

with guessing is that it's like in in

stock market world whenever you guess

usually you're doing something wrong

because that's how our mind works. like

the intuition never helps. In this case

I would take this a step further, John.

I would like So, what if you're only

listening to this, what we're looking at

is just the autocomplete on google.com

website builder for and from the top to

bottom, it goes small business, free

photographers portfolio artist

nonprofits. So, you can go to the

keyword tool. In the artist example

there were 92 keywords that had over

100,000 searches per month. Cool. I

would do that for like the top 10, small

business, artist, whatever. And then I

would go to Perplexity and I would have

a prompt that says all I want to know I

want a grid. I want to know how many

website builders are there that

specialize in being for artists. Like

not a Squarespace, not a Wix. It needs

to be a niche website builder that is

for artists. I need to know how many

there are. And then on the second

column, I need to see like what's their

estimated monthly traffic using similar

web or something else. Right? run a deep

research prompt on all 10 of those

website builder four X Y or Z. You get a

table, you put it in Google Sheets and

then you take the search volume and how

competitive it is and put it in columns

C and D and then you can clearly see not

only where is the search volume but how

much demand is there for each and then

you can easily sort and say oh

>> yeah, this, one, has, the, most, demand, and

the least supply. I'm going to build

here.

>> Yeah., And, the, thing, here, is, that, it's

very often

such ideas are not really heavily

targeted by anyone because it's a small

niche and if you're a VC back company

it's it's too little for you like it's

not a billion dollar idea right but if

you're regular person and you want to

build a million dollar business that's

on of the market right and that's why

like we are now living in a world where

where we have so many lowhanging fruits

like that because the VC back world

surprisingly is all going after the same

ideas because they have to measure the

market and and that's super important

and all all these other ideas are just

unserved and there are a lot of them and

and I see now a huge movement where you

know solarreneurs and indie makers and

and a lot of the people are just you

know targeting this

>> this, is, so, good, it's, like, it's, just

right in front of our nose it's just

google.com but it's

>> it's, like, a, prompt., It's, like, a, Google

prompt, right? And looking at it the

right way.

>> Yeah., And, so, I, do, that, and, uh, my, next

step is usually to validate again. So

basically when I build something I'm

trying to convince myself that I

shouldn't build it like you should, you

know, behave that way because if you try

to

>> like, a, negative, bias, just, to, be

>> Exactly., Yeah., If, you're, in, love, with

your idea, then you will do the

opposite. Whenever you see the data, you

will, you know, interpret the data in a

in a wrong way. You will think that

well, it's not that bad. It's not that

bad.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah., So,, but, you, should, try, to, kill

your idea because there are so many

ideas. You rather kill, you know, 20 of

them and 21 works out and then you don't

waste time building it, right? Because

building an idea takes a lot of time. So

then my next step is usually I go to my

unicorn platform and you can go into any

other vibe coding tool but I recommend

to use like website builders for

websites rather than vibe coding tools

because the website builders are made

for landing pages and they have good SEO

optimization and things like that. So go

for framer, unicorn

web flow. Don't go for lovable or bald

or others for this because they are made

for apps, right? For where you have the

user login and things like that because

people have mixed those things and I

think this is really important like you

have landing pages and you have your web

app and for landing pages use landing

page builder

>> right?

>> So, I, usually, go, here, and, then, I, kind, of

pick a weight list. So because I haven't

built a product yet, so I just pick a

weight, simple, weight, list., For example,

this one and then I go for create and

then I say website builder for

this. Yeah. And it will just build a

little landing page with a weight list

now. Yeah. It has to be super simple.

Like your goal here is to just see

whether anyone is willing to put their

name or like here put phone number. I

don't need that. So I just remove it.

Yeah, name and email is an off for me.

So that's it. So now I have my landing

page. Show it to potential customers and

see normally don't want to join weight

lists because it's silly, right? But

still if you show it to 20 people at

least one person would join because some

people are curious and they want to get

to know about this once you launch. So

it's it still works like you're going to

lose a lot of the people who otherwise

would sign up if you had the product.

But right now your goal is to understand

whether people are willing to put any

effort into consuming your product and

this is good enough. Okay. So, you're

starting a business, but your logo looks

like it was made in Microsoft Paint.

You're not a designer, and hiring one

costs, a, fortune., Well,, at least, for, a

good one. This is exactly why Design.com

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Head to design.com/krisker

because your business deserves a real

logo, not some clip art. So I share this

on social media, on Reddit, on replies.

So I search on social media for people

asking about this question.

>> Yeah., Yeah., Or, sometimes, not, even, asking

about the question. Like sometimes you

you can be a bit more spummy if you

can't find the the actual questions. You

can find the right people. So like in

this case, these are musicians and you

you can just search for anything around

musicians and software. Doesn't have to

be the website builder. Can be something

else, right? You can search for that and

then you can replay the year and it's

not exactly on point, but it's not that

far. It works pretty well if you do like

20 or 30 replies like that and then you

do DMs to the same people and then you

maybe find their emails and send cold

emails. So eventually if you do 100

actions towards a cold outreach and cold

replies, you will see either zero

signups for your weight list and if it's

zero it's a good sign. It means that you

know it's it's not that important of a

problem for people. So they they don't

care that much.

>> That's, good., Yeah., If, you, get, zero, or, if

you get 100, it's good because you're

learning and you don't want to waste

time on a project that nobody wants.

>> Yeah., Yeah., Exactly., But, if, there's, one

or 10 or five, then you have an answer.

Like if it's 10, then it means people

really want it. And sometimes you

actually uh hit the right spot and a lot

of people sign up because that doesn't

exist and people all wanted it

>> and, then, they, sign, up., I, had, that.

>> I, was, going, to, ask, you,, do, you, have, any

examples of that happening to you?

>> Yeah., Uh, so, I, had, a, case, with, when, I

built dev hunt so dev hunt isn't similar

to product hunt but for dev tools and I

just shared a tweet where I said that I

want to build this new launchpad only

for developers because product hunt

doesn't serve developers as it serves

the marketers and if 100 people signed

up for this I will build it.

>> Mhm., And, I, had, 100, people, signing, up, and

people were actually sharing the link to

their friends telling them, "Hey, come

help me for this.

>> They, wanted, to, help, you, because, they

wanted to use it."

>> They, want, to, reach, the, 100, mark, so, that

I build it. Right. So they wanted to

help themselves actually, not me. Yeah.

>> And

>> right

>> the, best, thing, here,, right?, So, and, I, do

that every time. So basically all my

products even before I build them for

myself, I still kind of test them on

public using know this meth methods

because I know I'm not building

something that I will never be able to

launch to the public

>> and, it, works, really, well., So, I, do, it

through social media and I'm I kind of

found a way to do it through social

media even before I had followers. Now I

have a, lot, of, followers, but, in, the, past

I had almost none and I still found a

way because the the interesting stuff

about social media is that right now

they don't really respect the follower

count count as it did in the past.

>> So, if, your, content, is, interesting, they

will show it to a few people and if they

find it interesting they will show it to

more people and eventually it can blow

up even without followers. So you should

try that. You should always try that and

and you should test you should test it

for messages on your kind of launch

tweet. But if if that doesn't work, you

can also do ads. You can you know send

paid traffic to your tool and paid

traffic works too sometimes. So I in the

past I was using Google and Meta for

that but you know as with everything

else I end up building my own tool for

that that kind of does it for me. Has

there ever been a time when all of your

indicators were shouting, "Yes, yes

launch this and then you did this

research stage or you actually launched

it and it just did not hit and if so

why do you think that happened?"

>> No,, that, never, happened, really.

>> I, had, the, opposite., I, had, the, opposite

where everything said that the idea is

bad. Like there were no signups and all

my friends were saying that this is a

bad idea. But when I launched it worked

out. So I had the opposite. But if I get

the validation through this methods I

just shown, I go for the last step.

Actually there's one one more step

that's just to make sure 100% is going

to work. I ask for pre bookings. So I

give people 70% or 90% discount if they

buy now. And surprisingly I had cases

where a lot of people signed up for a

tool. A lot of people but nobody wanted

to pay because you know why it happens?

It happens because sometimes you hit

certain audience

for example students. They would be

signing up for a thing and you would

think, "Wow, a lot of people, thousands

of them." But then you ask them for a

dollar and they don't want want to pay

because they're used to finding things

for free, right? And you never know

because you have no idea. You have some

emails in your list and you have no idea

who are those people, right? That's why

if you ask for a payment and you don't

get at least 10% of your weight list to

you know, execute it, it means that it

won't be easier after, right? And I had

cases like that.

>> If, I, put, up, a, a, landing, page, for, a, $20, a

month tool that people are signing up

for and they show demand for and then

you launch it and less than 10% of

people actually pay for the thing, it's

not a good sign.

>> It's, not, a, good, sign., It, It's, a, very, bad

sign because it it means that you're

missing the whole thing. Like you're not

selling to the right audience. And

that's a big problem because it's not

something you can just change because if

you go and after another audience

>> it's, a, new, game., You, you, have, to, like

maybe all these traffic you saw on

keyword research was from the wrong

audience right?

>> Yeah.

>> And, you, don't, know, that, because, it's

just numbers and that's kind of the

problem. like you get excited about

something because there's an interest

but it's wrong people and you can't like

now you have to kill the idea because

most likely the the right people don't

search for it. What if you're just

priced too high like it is the right

audience 7% of people buy it and it

would be higher if you were priced at $9

a month instead of 19. How do you know

when that's the case or do you

>> Yeah,, you, offer, them, a, discount., Let's

say even with the discount like it's

normally at 49 and you're offering it

for 19 or nine, right? Like let's say

that is the case. They will tell you. So

you offer them a discount and they tell

well you know that price would work if

that was one time but I won't pay every

month because this tool doesn't look

like a tool I should pay every month for

example. I had cases like that. For

example, I have a listing bot where it

lists you on directories and first I

want to launch it as monthly

subscription but people said that why

should I pay every month? You just kind

of do the work once for me and that's

it. You can talk to people and usually

if they walk through your process where

they they join your weight list and you

pitch them the discount and pre-booking

they would usually not all of them but

some of them will tell you back that

it's too expensive or it's wrong pricing

it should be once or the opposite. So it

should be once it should be every month

because I had the opposite too. I had

this tool called count visits. is for

analytics and I went for a lifetime deal

there and people said that I don't want

to pay $100 at once because maybe I

don't like the tool after all so I

rather start with $9 but they told me so

and I changed things like if you do this

like like imagine if I purchase my

payment link like everybody else does

then if people don't want it they just

leave you have no idea why they don't

want it but if you get them into your

weight

And then after a while you send them the

payment then you're sending it through

the email. So you have the the thread on

the email with them and they will

answer. There's okay so much I want to

ask. All right. So you you can validate

with paid ads. So if people say I don't

have an audience doesn't matter. That's

not an excuse. A the algorithm rewards

good content whether you have zero

followers or a million. B you can use

paid ads to skip the line. What other

tools do you use to validate demand? And

has there ever been a time where the

opposite's happened and you never

launched something because your tools

just told you it wasn't there and you

think that you you avoided a a failure

by doing so. I haven't had cases where I

completely gave up on an idea because

usually my first test for the idea is

whether I want it myself or not and I

never go on if I don't want it. And if I

want it, then I still want it even if

others don't want it, right? But now I

have to figure out why I want it and

others don't. And it takes time for me

sometimes. Like I could put the project

on hold for for a year just because I

want to slip on it and eventually I ask

people and ask people and ask people and

my intuition tells me. Also, I do one

thing that's not common like people

usually go for SEO traffic pretty late.

So, because it's a long playing game and

you shouldn't start with it because it

will play back on entry month, right?

And you should start with something else

at first. But in my case, since I have

so many products and they're all not

pressing me on on time like I have all

all the time in the world, I usually

start SEO work on a day one. In that

case, I can just post the product and

wait for a few months and then come back

and see whether there's traffic from

SEO. And that's interesting. So SEO

traffic is a new source of validation

because you know one thing that you have

to also validate with a product is not

just if people want it but also if

you're able to drive traffic there like

you may build something that everybody

wants but then it doesn't mean that you

will find you will win the attention of

the people that so that they know about

the product and and a lot of people

don't understand that that that's even

more important because I rarely seen

people who didn't manage to build the

product that people wanted.

>> It's, funny., I've, made, the, same, mistake

of spending months and years saying

"Yeah, just I don't do SEO because it

takes so long to pay off one year

later." Yeah, I just don't really do SEO

because it takes so long to pay off one

year later.

>> One, year, later,

>> dude,, if, you, would, have, just, done, it, any

of those times, it would be paying off

by now. When it comes to converting a

percentage of your weight list, how much

does time play a role? Because if you

collect a weight list on August 1 and

then you don't launch the thing until

April 1, you're going to convert a lot

lower percentage, right? Because it's

less relevant, less top of mind. How

quickly do you like to launch things

after you start getting emails from a

weight list?

>> It's, not, important, at, all., So, I, felt

that's important when I was running my

first products and I felt like the time

was pressing and people are waiting and

all the things. But basically in a start

world, if you can do something once, you

can repeat it, right? Like if you're

able to drive 100 people into your

weight list this week, you can repeat

that next year, too. Unless you're

building something that's about

Christmas and it only works on

Christmas, right? But if there is no

stuff like that, you can repeat that

again. And that's why like you shouldn't

really think about your first weight

listers as real users. Like I hope it

doesn't sound lame but you're kind of

using those people validate. Yeah

exactly. And they don't put that much

effort into helping you to validate too

right? And once you validate it, you

can, you know, come back in a year and

maybe all these 100 people are not

interested anymore because they were

founders and now they went back for

full-time jobs, for example. But it

doesn't matter. You just do the same

thing again and then you have hot Yeah.

Yeah.

>> And, then, you, go, on, with, them., That's, why

like I I would rather be worried about

me doing things on the right time. But

then like for example like you said

about SEO like if you don't do it early

then you know after a year you think you

should have done a year ago and so it's

compounding and you should do it as

early as possible but for some things

you can do it at any time and then redo

it and all fine. Yeah. So here how it

work. So basically I give it my URL. So

it does the analysis and then it learns

the audience the keywords and here it

found all the keywords that will drive

traffic and they have low competition

and it made a plan for the next

articles. So now if I click proceed and

I pay it will just you know start

working and every day will pass one

article and I come back in two months.

Is this web based or is it an app?

>> Yeah., Yeah,, it's, web., It, just, looks, like

an app, but it's a it's web.

>> Yeah,, I, think, SEO, was, probably, my, chit

cut in the beginning. Like now a lot of

people use it. Uh but in the past only

rich startups use it and I was the only

poor founder who who was doing SEO

because I had the tool that I built

myself. But but I I think it's like for

people who want to test a lot of ideas

like three, four, five, six. This is one

of the, best, way, to, test, it., You, just

kind of invest a little time into SEO

for all those ideas and you'll

>> leave, them, hanging, for, few, months, and

you come back and you see and you will

clearly see the difference. Maybe you

won't have huge traffic but you will see

that some URLs get zero traffic. It

means that no way you can compete like

with some keywords, you know, they're

like rich people paying a lot of money

and you can never win that. And with

with other keywords

>> surprisingly, you, win, easily, and, you, get

a lot of traffic and you can grow on

that and it's

>> sometimes, easier, to, just, test, whether, by

building the articles than actually

doing this you know long keyword

research stuff and because the keyword

research as I told earlier you never

know who is clicking that which is also

dangerous like you might see some

numbers but maybe those are wrong people

but if you drive traffic into your blog

you can have little banners within your

articles with the weight list. So that's

kind of another way to test your weight

list. You just put a banner and it says

by the way if you want to try this

website builder for artists leave your

email and we will not notify you and

that's another way because uh you will

see some data out of it. Now with this

is does it integrate with like web flow

and other web builders so you can

publish these articles without having to

touch it?

>> Yeah., Yeah., It, just, syncs, with, frameware

web flow WordPress everything. So you

basically never have to come back if you

don't want it. It will try to nag you

and bring you back to to help. But if

you ignore it, it will just like like an

employee who will ask you questions and

if you don't answer it, they will just

go and and do as they think they should

do it, right?

>> Oh, man,, that, is, so, cool.

>> Quick, question., What, if, there, were, a

private community out there of people

that were building businesses based on

this podcast? Well, I just made it and

it's only for business starters and

business builders. It's called TK owners

and it's basically like having me and a

hundred other business geniuses as your

business partner. Also, there's going to

be exclusive new trends, growth hacks

business ideas, and a database of

everything I've ever talked about.

You'll find thousands of startup case

studies. You'll have weekly ask me

anythings with me while I'll answer your

questions directly. You can join now at

tkowners.com, link in the show notes.

Okay, so we've talked about validating.

Well, we've talked about ideating

validating. What about growing?

>> Yeah., So, the, growth, part, in, my, world

comes from a social media. Social media

is the best way to grow for small

products. Right now the best part about

social media is that it's not just the

people you bring directly from social

media but also the people who learn

about you through social media and start

talking about you start including you

into their blog posts, their

newsletters, their directories. So

basically if you become popular on

social media you get so much attention

from everywhere and all the other people

become your marketers for free like

influencers start talking about your

tool and and you don't have to pay them.

So I I think like whenever uh you start

working on growth you should try social

media and see whether you have talent

for it. If you have talent maybe that's

the only thing you should do because the

upside of social media is bigger than

everything else. I think you will get

SEO traffic by doing social media

because your product will will become

popular. People will put it on their

lists and directories and you'll get

back links and that's why you'll get the

traffic back. So kind of universal and

the other thing is SEO as I just talked.

So you should make sure that you have

enough backlinks. You should grow your

domain rating by having backlinks and

you should generate articles or write

them yourself or use any of the tools

available for that. And a lot of people

think that that's complicated. They

should outsource that to agencies and

stuff like that. I I think uh if you

have money you should uh because that

will they will do good job but it

doesn't take that much time. I think

spending one hour a day in one month you

can have decent output from your SEO

efforts.

>> Yeah.

>> And, then, number, three, is, uh, partners

affiliate partners. So you should sign

up for something like

or first promoter where you're able to

create this portal so that your partners

could sign up there get unique links and

a code and they could promote your

product and earn money. And you should

be really really generous on the

commission. Like a lot of people have

this like 10% or 15%. You should be

crazy generous.

>> Like, go, 50%., Like, if, you, don't, have

costs on your product

>> go, for, 50%., If, you, have, underlying

costs, maybe go for 25 30 and then

you'll see people actually, you know

promoting your your product. I have a

lot of people promoting it and it's one

of the best investments I made. So

that's the number three. the partners

who promote your product for for the

commission. Number four is you should

place your product in front of the

people wherever you want wherever you

can. There has to be everywhere on

directories launchpads forums Reddits

and social media. You should find all

possible conversations on Quora and

other places where people talk about it

and place it there. So that's really

important. Two reasons. So number one

reason people may just stumble upon your

product there and become your customer.

But number two which is even more

important LLMs crawl those websites and

they crawl those comments and those

articles and those listicles and then

they may actually add that into their

training data data and then they will

reply with your product when people ask

and that's really big. Like I have some

of my products that suddenly just blew

up because they were in a training set

for the latest LLMs and now I have like

almost all traffic coming from Chad GPT

and and all the others because I think

they all use the same training set like

it was surprisingly you know

simultaneously when I got the traffic

from Chad GPT and Claude and Grock on

the same week. So I think they're buying

the training that data from somebody.

>> Interesting.

>> From, the, same, person,, same, company.

>> Yeah., So,, and, then, number, five,, you, can

build little tools that are free to

drive traffic to those tools and then

you channel the same people into your

paid tool. Like if you're running

website builder for artists, maybe you

should build a little tool which is like

a cover generator for your album. That's

kind of probably good keyword, right?

Because they like

>> just, a, lead, magnet.

>> Yeah,, exactly., And, they, would, go, there,

they would generate their album, they

would enter their email to receive the

PNG in a good quality. And in the email

in the bottom you would say like by the

way here's also my other product. Check

it out if you want. And the chance that

people will click is really high because

they were satisfied with your first

product because that's the difference

like when you're cold presenting when

people see your banner for first time

they they don't trust you because they

see things all the time but now they

trust you because they like your

product. So kind of these five are my my

favorite ways to grow at the start and

then you can add a lot more but I think

these five bring like 80% of the growth.

>> What, do, you, think, about, directories, in

the age of AI? Is it still a great

opportunity there?

>> Yeah., Yeah., I, think, so, because, like

directories that are made by people who

have influence will be really big. It's

just like if you go to Instagram and an

influencer has a list of anything, car

influencer has a list of, you know, car

shops or tires or things like that

you're going to trust that and you will

be willing to follow those links and buy

that and share to your friends, right?

And I think the same going to happen

with AI. Like AI is now in a place where

it has so much information, it doesn't

know how to pick the right one. Like

Google in the old world tried to use the

number of incoming links as a way to uh

rank the websites, right? But it's so

easy to gain that. And now AI systems

don't know how to rank the websites.

They're just using the same system

Google is using. And that's easy to

gain. And over time, I think AI will

like we already see that they start

using Reddit now. And when they use

Reddit, they also pick the articles with

certain amount of up votes, right? So

they want to filter out trash. And I

think the directories are going to help

humans to filter out trash. And yeah

like in every category, there will be so

many items that how do you choose the

right one? And directories can help with

that. and especially directories made by

people who have social media influence.

I think that's kind of the mix here.

>> And, so, there's, an, opportunity, to, partner

with people that have influence, right?

Because most people listening or

watching are not influencers, right?

>> That, we, can, all, slide, into, their, DMs, and

and plant that idea in them because

they're certainly not thinking along

these lines like, "Hey, you like plant

like they say uh invent the disease and

sell the cure, right? Hey, I see that

you have this list of all these things.

Like, do you realize that directories

are going to become more relevant than

ever in the age of AI? Just so happens I

can help you with that. Let's talk about

splitting up this business somehow.

>> Yeah., I, mean,, that's, exactly, my, model,

right? But I do it the other way around.

You know, partnering up with people who

own attention to build a product around

that attent attention is is great. And

you can do not only directories but you

can also do little products, little

tools. You know little tools are easy to

build in the age of vibe coding. You can

build them in one evening. So now how do

we compete? Like we can all build that

same little cover generator for an

artist. But if that cover generator is

built by 50 Cent or Eminem or there's

some connection there, then it's

different thing. it stands out from all

the others right and if we make a wild

guess that AI will make it easy to do

everything if that's the guess or most

of the things then there will be

difficult to compete because everything

is the same as good as the other things

right and now you can compete through

reputation and the reputation can be

either built by yourself which is also

not a bad idea because like we're not

influencers all right When you say

influencer, you think about somebody

huge with millions of followers. But if

you pick something really small like

like something where only, you know

10,000 people are interested in this in

the whole world, probably there's nobody

talking about that.

>> And, if, you, just, start, talking, about

that, that will be enough to go viral

within that little group, right? That's

one way, but the other way is of course

to find the influencer. I I think both

are possible. I wouldn't say that if

you're not influencer, you shouldn't

even try. I think you should just

redefine what's influencer and it can be

something very small.

>> Oh,, that's, so, good., John,, thank, you.

This was awesome. Where can people find

you and your products and whatever you

make?

>> I'm, on, Twitter, and, LinkedIn, and

Substack. I love to be helpful with my

products. I love to be helpful with my

content that I share on X is John Rush

X. I love to be helpful with advice. So

I think I'm probably the only person

with so many followers who answered

every single DM I ever received and

every single reply if there was a

question, of course, because there's a

lot of spam. And I think I will stop

doing that by the end of this year

because it's overwhelming. But I will

still do that for the next three months.

So, if you need help, I'm open. My DMs

are open.

>> Okay., Thank, you.

>> Thank, you.

>> All right., What, you, think?, Please, share

it with a friend and we'll see you next

time on the Kerner