📈 Trends

🧑‍🦰 Vibe Marketing: The Automation-First Approach to Growth

Vibe marketing is what happens when you stop thinking like a marketer, and start thinking like a systems builder.

In 2025, we no longer need to grind out tweaking headlines or split testing two ad variations manually. It’s about building an AI-led marketing systems that run 24/7, learns what works, and scales what converts.

Creators are recording 20+ reels a day, running personalized outreach across multiple platforms, scraping and summarizing competitor content, and auto-generating scripts and FB visuals from the ad library, all while sipping coffee.

Let’s break down what’s happening, and how you can use tools like N8N automations to move 10x faster.

📈 Why N8N Is Becoming the Backbone of Vibe Marketing

Is N8N Just a Trend? No. It’s been around for 4+ years, and the user base is growing fast.

N8N is what powers most of these marketing systems.

Not because it's trendy, but because it's practical:

• It’s open-source (well, source-open) and you can save money hosting it on a separate server (eg. Hostinger)

• Real companies are using it for real ops, not just AI gimmicks as we will get into shortly

• It’s versatile: email parsing, automation, content pipelines, customer service, scraping

• Works with AI models, but doesn’t depend on them

• Simple visual editor for workflows that allows you to run thousands of flows without touching code

🧠 The API Marketing Stack

To build custom automations across tools and inside N8N you need to learn how to setup API’s for different software:

You just need to learn how to safely connect API’s from different software into your N8N workflows to start working on projects.

• Claude API for writing and summarizing with context

• Perplexity/Open AI API for AI-powered research and sourcing

• Google Sheets to automatically save certain data

• Gmail API to receive reports or for outbound

👉 Get the Full List of Integrations Here

📌 Real Business Success Examples

✅ $25k MRR in 4 Months with N8N This founder pivoted from running a marketing agency to offering "AI and automation management as a service" at $2.5k/month per client.

✅ Local businesses like this Manufacturing Company that runs on N8N use N8N for everything: order tracking, supply chain logic, customer interactions, and even controlling real-world machinery. Their smaller facility runs on 3 people + N8N. One of their other operations has 3,000 employees across multiple cities—all through workflows.

✅ SEO Traffic Engine: 25k to 80k Clicks: This guy shared a set of SEO automation workflows that helped grow traffic from 25K to 80K monthly clicks in 6 months.

His toolkit includes:

• Traffic Alert System: Detects drops in visibility

• Content Optimizer: Flags underperforming articles

• Keyword Cannibalization Detector: Finds duplicate targets

• Rank Tracker: Monitors thousands of keywords (no paid tool needed)
  Templates are all free via his GitHub: github.com/Marvomatic/n8n-templates where you can download and import it into a N8N workflow.

🛡️ Learn Vibe Marketing the Right Way

Most tutorials regurgitate basic stuff and are locking up their content behind paid private communities (Skools).

Here’s where to go instead:

1/ Start with This Free N8N Playlist

Maxim’s YouTube course covers the fundamentals of triggers, workflows, and API logic from scratch:

Beginner Automation Playlist

2/ Free Templates You Can Copy:

• n8n.io’s Official Library

• Awesome Templates GitHub Repo

3/ Private Skool Communities:

There’s a lot of paid to access communities to access N8N templates, however there are a few free ones that you can signup to get their templates like Kia Ghasem gives away things like research reports and full newsletter automation template in his free Skool group.

The workflow pulls emails from blog RSS feeds, curates them with GPT, adds custom research using Perplexity, finds images using SERP API, rewrites it in HTML, and sends it to your audience.

📌 Getting Started Checklist:

1. Start with a Template: Check out N8N marketplace

2. Pick a Use Case: Start with something that solves your own problems.

   • Reddit → Content System: Scrape Reddit convos in your niche → summarize pain points → store in Sheets → repurpose for blog/newsletter/YouTube

   • Script Generator: Scrape top short-form videos → extract hooks/themes → rewrite for your tone → output scripts daily

   • Newsletter Bot: Pull content from other newsletters → summarize → rewrite in your tone → generate HTML + send to ConvertKit

   • Sales Agent: Ingest lead list → enrich via scraping/API → use GPT to write custom cold outreach → auto-send via email/SMS

   • Content SEO Machine: Pull trending queries via API → write posts with Claude → auto-publish to Webflow/WordPress

3. Customize with your own API’s.

4. Iterate. Improve. Scale.

💡 Insights

🚨 10 Hard Lessons from 6 Months of Vibe Coding

Most devs dive into AI coding with high hopes, but real shipping speed doesn’t come from better prompts. It actually comes from leading the machine.

This Reddit builder spent 6 months solo-vibing full-stack AI apps with Cursor, GPT, Supabase, and Vercel, and nearly rage-quit more than once.

What they learned could save you hundreds of hours:

1. Start Like a PM: Before you even touch Cursor, write a PRD (product requirements document). What are you building? Why? With what tools? Keep it in the root. This is your AI compass.

2. Short Chats > Long “Smart” Ones: AI = toddler with scissors. Don’t hoard 400-message threads. Open a new chat for every issue, keeping instructions concise and clear.

3. Scope Before You Touch Anything: Brainstorm features in the Cursor GPT first. Pick one approach. Then execute in Cursor. Don’t wing it in dev mode.

👉 Here’s His Full 20+ Lesson Playbook

🧠 26 Ideas to Rewire Your Social Brain

Social media is chaotic, unpredictable, and often exhausting to create for.

But it’s also one of the most powerful brand-building platforms—if you approach it like a craft, not just content.

Rachel Karten’s Social Media Creative Companion is basically turns years of real-world social experience into 26 sharp, honest, and useful mental models.

Here’s what stood out:

• Viral isn’t a goal, it’s a culture. You need trust, risk appetite, and creative freedom to go viral—not just a trending sound.

• The first 5 seconds are everything. Don’t write the caption first. Write the hook. If it flops, nothing else matters.

• Ordinary = extraordinary. The behind-the-scenes stuff you think is boring? That’s what your audience loves. Show it off.

• Best practices don’t save bad ideas. You can follow every algorithmic rule and still flop. Idea first. Tactics second.

👉 Read the Full Guide on Milk Karten

📉 AI Overviews Are Killing Your Traffic

Google’s AI summaries are stealing the click — slashing organic CTR by up to 35%. But this doesn’t mean SEO is dead.

It just means the rules changed.

Here’s how to keep winning:

1. Track Conversions, Not Just Traffic: Leads > pageviews. Think demo requests and email signups.

2. Cover Every BOFU Angle: Don’t stop at “[X] vs [Y].” Hit “alternatives,” “top tools,” and “best software” too.

3. Map CTAs to Funnel Stage: Use TOFU/MOFU/BOFU CTAs that match intent — not blanket “learn more” buttons.

👉 Get the Updated SEO Strategy

🧰 Apps & Tools

🗣️ GleoAI: Say the right thing, at the right time—every time. Practice real conversations, get instant feedback, and stop blanking out in meetings.

📊 DeckSpeed: Make slides like you're chatting with an assistant. No templates. No drag-and-drop.

🧬 Illustrae: Turn ideas into illustrations—fast. Sketch it, type it, or snap a photo, and Illustrae transforms it into clean, publication-ready visuals.

🎙️ Distro: Hop in the studio, chat out your ideas, and Distro turns it into newsletters, posts, and more—without sounding like a robot.

🪙 Refgrow: Add a referral program to your SaaS or product inside your app in minutes—no Zapier chains or clunky dashboards.

🧙‍♂️ Tabs Magic: Drag, drop, color-code, and group your browser tabs like a boss—with collapsible columns and due dates.

🤖 Product Updates

🧠 OpenAI’s New “Codex” Is Like a Dev Assistant

OpenAI just dropped Codex — an AI assistant that lives in the cloud and works inside your software projects.

Even if you’re not a developer, here’s what that means:

• It reads your code and understands your goals

• Suggests improvements or fixes issues automatically

• Can run tasks in parallel — like managing a team of mini-AIs

• Doesn’t need to run on your laptop — it's cloud-based, so it works while you do other things

This is the future of building software: less typing, more delegation.

👉 Watch the Full Preview Here

🛠️ Figma Config 2025: 5 New Features That Redefine Design

Figma just dropped 5 updates.

Here’s what it means for builders:

• Grid + Freeform Layouts: Autolayouts just got way more flexible with new grid-based snapping and adjustable columns/rows.

• Figma Draw: A new brush-based mode that feels like Procreate inside Figma. Finally, a way to add organic hand-drawn flair.

• Figma Buzz: Turn your team into on-brand content machines. Bulk-create templates, lock elements, and publish assets fast—ideal for marketing, events, and internal design requests.

👉 Here’s All 5 Figma Updates

🎨 Canva Just Shipped 40+ New Features

Canva dropped a huge update packed with user-requested tools to help you design, teach, and present faster—with zero learning curve.

What’s New:

• Multi-page websites: Build entire scrollable sites using Canva docs, whiteboards, and more.

• Magic Write for presenter notes: Let AI auto-generate talking points for your slides.

• Interactive quizzes: Instantly turn slides into engaging quizzes with one click.

👉 Get All the Updates Here

🖇️ Everything Else

🧠 OpenAI’s New Model Guide: Confused about GPT-4.0, 4.5, 03, or Mini High? OpenAI just dropped a simple breakdown explaining which models to use and when. (👉 A Must-Read if You’re Juggling Models Daily)

📝 Wikipedia Adds AI — But Keeps Humans in Charge: The site now uses generative AI to help editors with tedious tasks like translation and onboarding.
(👉 See How Wikipedia Is Using AI)

🔄 Thinking of Pivoting Your Content: Keep your existing account, test new angles, and communicate with your audience. Most of the time, it’s about evolving—not resetting. (👉 Don’t Nuke It, Remix It)

🎨 Design Entered Its Vibe Era: Designers aren’t just sketching wireframes anymore—they’re using AI to code by feel with tools like Bolt, Lovable, and Figma Make.
(👉 Design Like It’s 2025)

📈 Trends

🌍 Vibe Code Ugly Local Websites into $500 Wins

Most people are talking about vibe coding MVP apps, but it turns out vibe coding is actually a decent solution to rebuild ugly local business websites… fast.

Justin Brooke shared this idea on X, and it’s got a lot of people’s attention.

If you had to start from scratch with $50, he'd open up Lovable/Replit, scrape local business emails, vibe code their ugly one-page websites into sleek new ones, and send them a Loom video.

But there's an even better way:

Email them first, and ask if they want to see a brand-new version.
If they reply "Yes," THEN you build it.

That way:

✅ No cold calls.
✅ No wasted time.
✅ Only warm leads.
✅ You’re offering insane value (they think you already made it).

All they have to say is yes.

And they do — because when you catch a CPA, detailer, or dentist with a 2006 Microsoft Word-looking website, they know it's ugly.

They just didn’t have the time or energy to fix it.

You make it effortless.

Bonus: If they ghost after you say you're sending it... you lost nothing.

The Step-By-Step Blueprint:

📧 1. Scrape Emails + Send Cold DMs:

Use Apify to scrape emails from Google Maps listings.

The best ones to target:

• Service businesses (CPA firms, dentists, car detailing, home repair)

• Not tech-savvy (clues: old websites, no blog, no SSL lock 🔒)

• Visible on Google Maps (so you can scrape email easily)

• Actively spending on ads (bonus — check if they have FB/Google ads running)

You want small businesses that care about their image but don’t have time to fix it.

Send a short email:

"Hey [Name], I built you a new website. Want me to send it over?"

🛠 2. Vibe Code the New Site:

If they say yes..

Check out their current site. If it’s ugly, outdated, or missing basics like recent blog posts — good. That’s your green light.

Rule of thumb:
If they haven’t touched their website in years, they probably don’t care about fancy CRM tools or endless design tweaks.

You’re not looking for the perfectionist who wants 20 A/B tests.
You want the dentist who says, "Looks great, thanks!" and pays without drama.

It’s faster, easier, and leaves you with happy (not high-maintenance) clients.

💻 3. Create the Site:

Feed it the business info from their original site and a simple prompt like:

"Build me a sleek one-page website for [business] with Home, About, Services, Contact."

🎥 4. Show, Don’t Tell:

Record a quick Loom video touring the new site.

Keep it casual.

One minute max.

💸 5. Close Fast:

Pricing?

Justin Brooke mentioned that:

• $500 is fair.

• $250 if you’re desperate.

• $100 minimum (still like $100/hr work).

Once they’re in you can always add:

• Hosting: "I’ll keep your site live for $29–$79/month."

• Maintenance: "Need any quick updates or changes? $49/month retainer."

• Local SEO Starter Pack: "I’ll list your business in 20+ local directories for $199 one-time."

⚡ Why This Trend Is Blowing Up:

This model actually isn’t new — GoHighLevel agencies have been doing it for years: They’d slap together a templated site, cold email businesses, and try to sell first, build later.

But here's the problem:

It still took a lot of manual setup.

You had to be decent at web design.

You needed to know your way around GoHighLevel CRM and all the settings.

It worked... but it was slow, clunky, and tech-heavy.

• AI Builders = Magic: You don’t have to be a dev anymore. You prompt, tweak, and it spits out a cool looking site.

• Zero Risk Sales: You only build for businesses after spotting obvious opportunity.

• Stickiness: Once they pay for hosting through your link or a $50/month maintenance plan, you’ve got recurring revenue.

In 5 hours, you could send 5 sites and land your first $500-$1,000 client if you target the right users.

💡 Insights

🖼️ Using OpenAI’s New Image Model to Launch in a Day

GPT’s new image model is looking good right now — especially at text — and therefore more perfect than ever for generating static ads.

Nico saw this opportunity to launch GenerateAds.ai in 24 hours with over 1,000+ ads generated already.

What We Can Learn From This Launch:

• API Costs = Real Pain: Usage caps are a must with this model right now unless you want to go broke in your sleep if it goes viral, as Nico spent over $730 on api fees.

• Own the Pipeline: Future plans include a possible FB Ads Manager integration + a “Buy Ads” button — turning a simple generator into an all you need tool to launch Facebook Ads fast.

Why Would People Pay For This?

The tech (GPT-image) is free for everyone now, however ChatGPT gives you a model to work with — and wrappers like GenerateAds gives you a full workflow.

Input → Ad creative → Save → Ready to upload. No manual editing. No cleaning up.

🛡️ Your Vibe Coded App Could Become a Security Disaster

Vibe coding lets you spin up apps insanely fast...

But if you skip security basics, your project could get destroyed — stolen API keys, hacked user data, or runaway bills. There is quite a few horror stories out there.

• Never expose API keys in frontend: Use secret storage — treat keys like passwords.

• Validate all user inputs: Never trust user data blindly. Protect against injection and XSS attacks.

• Use HTTPS everywhere: Encrypt all data transfers. Most modern frameworks like Lovable and Replit handle this by default.

👉 Get the Full Guide Here

⛳ Using Vibe Coding and Cold Calling to Build an App Idea

Most people take weeks to launch an MVP, then maybe ask customers for feedback.

Now vibe coding has allowed these guys to clone GolfNow — a $750M+ a year business — while the prototype was still cooking...

And cold-called golf courses live to help shape the product.

What They Learned:

• Positioning Matters: Selling against the big player (GolfNow) was hard — pitching as a friendly bolt-on worked way better.

• Weekday Revenue Is the Unlock: Golf courses are full on weekends. The real money is helping them fill weekdays.

• The Market Is Ready: Half the golf world loves GolfNow. Half hates it. Find the ones who hate it and sell to them.

👉 Use This Strategy to Build an App Idea

🔥 Old Marketing Channels Are Broke

It’s not just your ads, SEO, or email list.

Every big marketing channel is flooded, fatigued, and decaying.

And that’s exactly where the next wave of breakout products will win — by ignoring them.

Here’s real playbook now:

• Little Channels = Big Wins: Facebook groups, niche forums, micro-communities. Where early traction lives.

• One-Shot Launches Work: 500 real users > waiting forever for perfect scalability.

• New Tech = Fresh Angles: Use AI to create marketing no one else dares to try yet.

• Product Still Rules: Good marketing can’t save a bad product. Nail the offer first.

👉 Get the Full Breakdown Here 

🧰 Apps & Tools

📝 Fireflies Adds 200+ AI Mini Apps: Fireflies is rolling out over 200 mini apps to help extract insights from meetings.

🔵 Freckle: The Clay alternative built for non-technical teams to clean up people and company data.

🎨 Hana: A next-generation platform for creating interactive 2D experiences to design, animate, and deliver polished interfaces.

🧩 Weavely: Weavely turns your ideas into fully built forms just from describing what you need.

📊 ExcelMatic: Upload your Excel file, chat about it, and uncover instant insights and trends.

🏢 TinyStartups: Now a launchpad platform like Product Hunt that is gaining a lot of traction.

🤖 Product Updates

🎨 OpenAI’s New Image API Is Powering the Next Wave

The new gpt-image-1 model isn’t just another AI toy — it’s unlocking real products, new revenue streams, and shipping SaaS projects faster than ever.

Beyond the Facebook Ads generator we covered earlier..

Here’s how other builders are already using it:

• Automated Product Photography: Upload a URL → scrape product details → generate 4 professional images → auto-upload to Google Drive.

• Wix, Figma, and Adobe Integrations: Create banners, UI elements, and hero images inside your favorite tools with simple prompts.

• Dynamic Social Edits: Upload a selfie, prompt “cyberpunk city background” — get a polished Instagram-ready edit in seconds.

• Real SaaS Ideas Launching:

  • StageSnap 2.0: Virtual home staging in 3 styles.

  • HeroShot: Turn rough product pics into polished e-comm shots.

  • MenuBoard AI: Animated restaurant menus on the fly.

• Early Build Examples:

  • Starter story goes through this AI thumbnail maker and how he plans to make $100kMRR

  • Image Styler for PropertyDescriptionAI.com — matching photo styles almost perfectly with gpt-image-1.

  • This guy built an app to try on clothes using OpenAI’s image API.

🛠️ Lovable 2.0: Smarter, Multiplayer, More Secure

Lovable just dropped their biggest update yet

• workspaces so you can build with your friends

• chat agent that actually helps you plan and debug without breaking stuff

• security scan to catch issues before you push live

• buy and connect domains inside the app now (already 10k+ set up)

👉 See What’s New

🚀 Prototype and Launch Full Apps with Firebase Studio

Google quietly dropped Firebase Studio — a free vibe-coding app builder powered by Gemini 2.5 Pro.

You can build full-stack apps in minutes without writing real code.

Here’s Why It’s a Game-Changer:

• AI-Powered Prototyping: Describe your app in plain English. Firebase Studio builds the frontend, backend, and basic flows automatically.

• Full Code Access: Switch to the code editor and tweak anything manually if you want more control.

• Gemini 2.5 Pro Integration: Tap into Google's best AI model for bug fixes, feature updates, and rapid iteration.

• One-Click Deployment: Host and launch your app using Firebase’s backend infrastructure — no servers or setup needed.

👉 Try Firebase Studio Here

🖇️ Everything Else

📍 ChatGPT o3 Can Find You From Almost Any Photo: ChatGPT o3 can geo-locate your photos using only visual clues. (👉 See How It Works)

📩 Try This High-Converting Newsletter Welcome Sequence: The first 5–7 days after someone joins your list are critical. (👉 Setup This 5-Email Sequence)

🔍 Google’s AI Search Is Quietly Taking Over: Google’s AI Overviews now reach over 1.5 billion users every month. (👉 See How It’s Becoming the Default)

🤖 Hyundai’s Robot Army Is Taking Over Factories: Hyundai is rolling out tens of thousands of Boston Dynamics robots across its plants, starting with Spot and soon Atlas. (👉 See the Future of Manufacturing)

📬 Built a Newsletter, Sold It for €19K in 10 Months: Started with zero marketing skills. Curated AI news + tools weekly. Grew to 25K subs and gated content for €25/mo (👉 Learn Why Newsletters Still Print Money)

🧠 Find Real Conversations Fast: Reddit Answers will be a new way to get human perspectives, real recommendations, and honest advice. (👉 Get Updated Here)

📈 Trends

🕹️ The AI Game Gold Rush

Not long ago, making a game meant coding for months, hiring developers, and burning through cash. Now?

When Levels.io built a viral flight simulator using AI in just 3 hours, he sparked an entire movement this past month.

• No game dev experience.

• Just AI-generated code, assets, and mechanics—fully automated.

Result? $17,000 in 9 days, selling in-game ad placements for $2,500/month—now generating $38K/month.

This changed the game for many people as tons of indie hackers, creators, and developers are following suit—realizing that they can create AI-powered games that generate:

✅ Traffic (AI games rank for SEO, go viral on X)

✅ Revenue (Ads, in-game purchases, lead gen)

✅ Audience Growth (AI games can drive massive newsletter signups & social engagement)

What changed?

• Grok 3, Claude 3.7, GPT-4.5 → AI can now generate full game logic, assets, and mechanics.

• Cursor AI, Three.js, P5.js → No coding required to implement and launch.

• AI-generated assets → No need for designers, animations, or dev teams.

Now, let’s break down two key paths you can take to make money with AI-generated games.

🕹️ Two Paths to Monetizing AI Game Development

You don’t need to build the next Fortnite to cash in on AI-generated games.

Here are two proven paths—whether you’re a creator, indie hacker, or business owner.

1️⃣ The Simple Micro-Game Model (NYT-Style Web Apps)

Microgames don’t need to be complex to make money. This is the easiest, highest-margin AI game business—because it leverages SEO & ad revenue from simple, evergreen games.

Examples of NYT-style AI-generated game sites making cash according to Niche Site Growth.

• ConnectionsUnlimited.org → A clone of NYT’s Connections game, now getting 1M+ monthly visitors.

• Spellbee.org → A NYT Spelling Bee clone getting 2.7M visitors/month → Making $15K-$30K/month in ad revenue.

• Flagle.io → A flag-guessing game earning $10K/month with 2.3M visitors/month.

• Riley Brown used @vibecodeapp to voice-command his way into a fully playable Connect 5 game. Then he added Tic Tac Toe... and then another game... all inside the same app.

💡 Key Takeaways:

• These games are super easy to build with AI. Grab this example prompt here to create your own web game using Lovable.

• They rely on SEO + social virality instead of paid acquisition.

• Monetization is passive & scalable (Google AdSense, premium memberships, brand sponsorships).

2️⃣ The AI-Generated Full-Scale Game Model (Levels.io’s $17K AI Flight Sim)

This model is more ambitious but highly viral.

Instead of simple word or puzzle games, you’re building AI-generated multiplayer worlds, shooters, and arcade-style games that drive:

✅ X/Twitter virality (AI-generated gameplay clips get insane engagement)

✅ Sponsorships & premium in-game purchases

✅ Paid in-game advertising (e.g., Levels.io selling $2,500/month blimps)

Examples of AI-generated multiplayer & viral games:

1. Alex Finn’s Call of Duty AI clone – He used this game to generate 500+ newsletter signups in 24 hours.

2. Minecraft alternative built entirely with AI (Claude & Cursor).

3. Peter Yang’s AI Game Journey: Peter Yang is building an AI-powered zombie game live, iterating with AI tools in real time.

• He started with a basic enemy system and kept iterating by asking AI to add features.

• AI built zombie waves, a boss fight, and a health system—all in a single shot.

• Now, he’s refining music, sounds, and final polish before launch.

📌 Follow his build-in-public updates here.

⚡ How to Build & Monetize AI Games in a Weekend

Here’s how to start from scratch and launch a more involved AI-generated game that prints money.

Step 1: AI-Generate a Game Concept & Mechanics

• Check out this collection of AI-built games for some inspiration on what sort of games you can build → https://aibuiltgames.com

• Use Grok 3, Claude 3.7, or GPT-4.5 for full-game logic & assets to Get your AI game running in 5 minutes following Penny’s tutorial. Here’s an example prompt to use.

• Follow how Alex Finn generated his Spaceshooter game in this live demo.

• Use an AI editor like Cursor AI to implement the code that you generated.

• AI just made building a game as simple as speaking out loud.

  Literally.

Step 2: Launch & Host a Playable Version

• Use GitHub Pages, Vercel, or Railway for instant deployment.

• Use Superbase.io for multiplayer, leaderboards & authentication.

Step 3: Monetization (Pick One or More):

Step 4: Drive Traffic (Growth Hacking Strategies)

1. Post gameplay clips on X (Twitter) → Elon Musk, Levels.io, and others regularly boost AI game projects.

2. SEO-optimize your game pages → Ride organic search traffic like NYT game clones.

3. Use AI to clone trending games → Copy successful formulas & put your twist on it.

💡 Next Move?

This is the future of indie game development, content creation, and viral growth marketing.

The NYT model works. The Levels.io model works.

AI removed the biggest barriers to building & monetizing games.

If you’re:

✅ A creator → AI games can explode your audience & engagement.

✅ An indie hacker → Single-page AI games can print passive income.

✅ A startup founder → AI-powered games can be a lead gen funnel for your SaaS, course, or newsletter.

💡 Insights

💰 Flip, Cash Out, Repeat

If you thought building a startup took years, Nico wouldn’t have sold two AI businesses—one in a week and another in under a year.

it’s about Speed + validation + smart exits.

🚀 The $200K Playbook

• Build in Days – No overthinking. One week from the idea to launch.

• Validate First – Generated $700 in revenue from startup directories = instant proof.

• Subscription > One-Time Fees – Recurring revenue = higher valuation.

📈 How He Doubled Revenue

• Targeted Ads – Hyper-specific (e.g., “Corgi Owners” ads) crushed broad messaging.

• Product Hunt Launch – Brought credibility + media exposure.

• Monk Mode Scaling – Locked in, optimized every second, and pushed hard.

😵‍💫 When Bugs Tanked Sales 70%...

Instead of fixing it, he sold it for $200K before the AI hype faded.

Now? $300K in the bank. Next startup already running.

👉 Watch How Nico Flipped 2 AI Startups for $200K

⚡ YC’s 2025 AI Playbook: The End of $100K Jobs?

YC dropped its startup wishlist for 2025, and the message is clear:

YC isn’t funding AI to assist workers—it’s funding AI to replace $100k jobs entirely.

Where the Money Is Flowing

💰 AI That Kills Jobs – Compliance, medical billing, tax prep—fully automated.
📈 AI App Store – The iOS App Store, but for AI agents. Own the ecosystem.
🛠️ Developer Tools for AI – AI kills jobs, but devs still need tools to manage it.

The Hard Math

• 4M compliance jobs? AI can erase most.

• $50K/year on legal templates? AI makes them free.

• Entire industries built on repetition? AI automates first.

👉 See YC’s Full Wishlist

🧠 SEO for ChatGPT? It’s All About Semantics, Not Hacks

Everyone’s trying to game ChatGPT visibility like it’s 2010 Google.

But If your content isn’t built for context, clarity, and semantic signals, it won’t show up anywhere—search or AI.

This guide from Gianluca Fiorelli breaks it down:

1️⃣ Entity-Based SEO > Keyword SEO
Don’t just write “pizza.”
Write “New York-style pizza introduced by Italian immigrants in the 1900s.”
Give your content shape—who, where, why.

2️⃣ Build Content Hubs
Think like a librarian, not a blogger.
Connect topics, link internally, create semantic clusters. That’s what LLMs (and Google) crawl now.

3️⃣ Optimize for Embeddings, Not Just Rankings
LLMs translate your content into math.
If your content floats alone, it’s invisible.
If it’s connected to related topics/entities, it becomes retrievable.

👉 Get the Full Guide

📈 The $1 CPM UGC Growth Play

Most brands are burning cash on $9+ CPM paid ads. While some are getting 10x more reach for just $1 CPM with UGC ads.

How It Works

1️⃣ Launch a Creator Competition – Pay 50–100 micro-creators $1–$3 per 1,000 views. Reward the best performers.

2️⃣ Retain High Performers – Put top creators on monthly contracts ($2K–$5K) for ongoing content.

3️⃣ Trigger the Viral Cascade – 1% of videos will go viral, inspiring more free exposure from copycats posting your tool.

$5K = 5M+ views. And it keeps growing without spending more.

👉 Watch This $1 CPM Play in Action

🎯 Why Your Onboarding Experience is Killing Retention

Users decide within seconds if your product is worth it.

Confusing onboarding = instant churn.

The 3-Step Fix

• Know Your Users – Not every user is the same. Design onboarding for power users, skeptics, and beginners.

• Work Backwards from Success – Show users their first win fast. Cut steps that don’t move them forward.

• Align Onboarding With Your Business Model – Push monetization too soon? They leave. Wait too long? They never convert.

👉 See Real UX Examples

🧰 Apps & Tools

🎞️ Supercut: Drop a long video. It scans, slices, and pulls out the best moments—automatically for TikTok, Reels, or YouTube.

🌐 WebWave AI: A Lovable/Bolt competitor that allows you to build, customize, and launch a fully functional website in 3 minutes.

📝 Rewritely: Write smarter, faster, and clearer—proofread, translate, rewrite, and summarize in one click. Perfect your tone without the struggle.

⏳ Stagetimer: The remote-controlled countdown timer to keep events on track, and send live updates. (Pulled in $29,059 in Feb.)

🧔 CrewAI: If you haven’t heard of it yet, this multi-agent platform automates workflows with AI crews that you can build with no code.

📊 Guse: Automate any workflow inside a simple spreadsheet. Create columns, set actions, and let it handle the rest.

🤖 Product Updates

🧠 MCP Just Had Its iPhone Moment

This wasn’t just a big week for MCP—it was the week it clicked for everyone.

If you’re new to it: MCP (Model Context Protocol) is a new standard that lets AI agents actually take actions—not just respond in chat. Think of it like a universal remote for apps, built for AI.

No more janky APIs. Just prompts that click buttons, move files, launch tools.

What’s Actually Happening?

• Zapier unlocked 30,000+ actions for AI agents—across 8,000+ apps.

• OpenAI, Camel, and Brex dropped MCP integrations that let agents actually execute.

• Box, Telegram, and Figma now connect directly to AI through MCP bridges.

• LiteLLM and Neon are acting as MCP routers between LLMs and real-world tools.

• Cursor AI is cloning websites, QA testing iOS apps, and editing Figma files—all through prompt-based workflows.

👉 Get All Updates Here

🎛️ Udio Just Made AI Music More Intuitive

Udio dropped Styles—a feature that lets you use audio as a reference to generate new music. Think of it like Midjourney for sound: instead of describing a tune, you just upload it.

Pair that with v1.5 Allegro, a new model that’s 4x faster and arguably better quality, and you’ve got one of the most powerful creation tools in AI music.

So What’s the Catch?

While the update opens creative floodgates, the UX bottlenecks are real.

🔹 Some pro users mention that they can’t find the "Use Style Reference" button.
🔹 Others say 1.5 doesn’t match the creativity of 1.0—especially for niche genres like AOR rock.
🔹 And then there’s the paywall backlash: locking new features behind a $30/mo Pro tier has sparked some real heat.

👉 How to Use Styles

🎨 Midjourney V7 Just Dropped

Midjourney just hit V7—and it’s like they strapped a rocket to your creativity.

The realism? Crisp.
The speed? Insane.
The personalization? Built-in by default.

You’re not prompting anymore. You’re directing.

V7 lets you:

• Iterate images in real-time with Draft Mode

• Use your voice to prompt and tweak

• Control aspect ratios, lighting, angle, and even override Midjourney’s native aesthetic

And with personalization now baked in, your images finally look like you made them—not just another stock Midjourney render.

👉 Check Out These v7 Examples  

🖇️ Everything Else

🧍‍♀️ H&M’s Digital Models Are Here: The fashion giant is now using AI-generated clones of real models in ads. Models keep rights (and get paid), but some fear it cuts out photographers, MUAs, and crew. (🔗 Read the Full Story)

🛍️ Amazon’s AI Agent Shop’s Other Sites for You: If Amazon doesn’t sell it, the new “Buy for Me” feature will browse third-party sites, autofill your info, and place the order inside the Amazon app. (🔗 See How It Works)

🗣️ Advice That Actually Hits: Paul William Harmon dropped a pack of insights—from why your calendar is killing your creativity to how choosing short-term pain leads to long-term peace. (🔗 Listen to the Hard Truths)

🤖 AI Is Writing Code—And Launching Products: John Rush dropped a mega breakdown of 36 AI coding tools & IDEs. (🔗 Explore the Full AI Coding Stack)

💛 Sponsor

When it comes to online shopping, two names dominate the battlefield — Temu and Amazon. But what really sets them apart? Omnisend dug into the data, analyzing product listings, pricing tactics, and consumer trust on both platforms. 

As a result, they’ve compiled a fascinating look into fierce competition, eyebrow-raising discounts, and growing concerns over brand imitation and fake reviews.

Here’s a glimpse of what they found:

• Temu undercuts Amazon on price: Close product matches are 40% cheaper on average, saving shoppers around $13.37 per item

• Product overlap is huge: 77% of Amazon-listed products have close equivalents on Temu, and 1 in 10 are identical

• Brand imitation raises red flags: From blurred logos to copycat packaging, Temu products often mimic well-known brands

• Discounts run deep: Temu’s slashing prices with up to 98% off in some categories, compared to Amazon’s 67% max discounts

• Trust gap is real: Amazon’s review system is robust (50,000 reviews per product on average), while Temu trails behind with just 1,500, plus signs of potential review manipulation

So, who’s really winning — and at what cost?

📈 Trends

🏃‍♂️ The Race to Build the First Billion-Dollar Agent Marketplace

In 2010, two entrepreneurs hacked together a site where people could buy services for five dollars. It looked terrible. They didn’t run ads. They didn’t seek investors.

Within weeks, Fiverr exploded.

Fiverr is worth $1.2 billion, and Upwork processes $4 billion+ in freelancer earnings annually.

The same shift that created Fiverr is happening again—but this time, with AI agents instead of human freelancers.

Agent.AI, a marketplace backed by HubSpot’s co-founder, is already proving the demand. It launched with just 30 agents and grew to 47,000+ pre-launch users.

The opportunity is massive.

The question is: who will own it?

Because let’s be honest—you can win big by building another AI agent.

But you could win even more by building a platform where others sell ‘winner’ AI agents - just like Fiverr lets freelancers sell their skills.

Here’s the playbook:

🕛 This Is the Perfect Time to Build an AI Agent Marketplace

Market timing is everything. And right now, the timing is perfect.

1. AI adoption is exploding – ChatGPT hit 100M users in 2 months (fastest in history). Businesses want automation now.

2. There is no dominant AI agent marketplace – People are creating AI agents, but they have nowhere to sell them.

3. Agent marketplaces are gaining traction – Many creators are looking for options.
   
   Agent.AI → Plug-and-play hosted AI agents (like Fiverr for AI)

   Hugging Face → AI model-sharing (like GitHub for AI models)
   

4. The first-mover advantage is real. Fiverr, Upwork, and Shopify won because they moved early. The AI agent marketplace will be no different.

This sort of thing has a 12-month window before the market gets saturated.

🥇 What a Winning AI Agent Marketplace Must Do

1. Solve the "Discovery & Trust" Problem

Currently, businesses don’t know where to find pre-built AI agents to solve their problems.

Fix this, and you win:

• Make AI agents searchable by category (e.g., “AI Lead Qualifier,” “AI Blog Writer”)

• Showcase accurate results (demo videos, case studies, AI output previews)

• Build a reputation system (reviews, ratings, verified sales history)

Fiverr made freelancers easy to find and trust—your platform must do the same for AI agents.

Agent.AI lets businesses browse pre-built agents for tasks like market research and automation.

2. Make It Stupidly Simple for Developers to Upload & Sell

Fiverr succeeded because anyone could list a service in minutes and start making money.

Your AI agent marketplace must be just as easy for developers.

• One-click AI agent upload – No technical setup required

• Automatic hosting & deployment – No infrastructure headaches

• Flexible monetization – One-time, subscription, or pay-per-use pricing

• Revenue-sharing model – Take 15-30% per transaction, just like Fiverr and Upwork

Agent.AI gets this right by offering a drag-and-drop builder that allows non-programmers to create and sell AI agents.

On the other hand, Hugging Face provides a marketplace for AI models, allowing developers to share, download, and fine-tune models. However, businesses must handle deployment themselves.

AI developers don’t just want to build—they want to make money.

3. Enable Plug-and-Play Deployment for Businesses

Businesses want AI agents that work out of the box—not AI models that require an engineering team to set up.

The solution:

• One-click integrations – Connect AI agents to CRM, email, and marketing tools (Zapier-style)

• Pre-built workflows – AI agents for specific business problems (e.g., lead generation, blog writing)

• API & no-code support – Some businesses will code their integrations; others need a no-code option

Fiverr and Upwork didn’t just list freelancers—they made hiring easy.

Agent.AI integrates with LinkedIn, YouTube, and more, making AI agents more useful.

4. Build Trust & Prevent AI Scams

If businesses don’t trust your marketplace, they won’t buy.

Here’s how to prevent bad actors from selling broken, biased, or unethical AI models:

• Strict verification process – Ensure AI agents meet ethical guidelines

• Transparency reports – Show how developers trained each AI agent and what data it uses.

• Refund & dispute system – Protect businesses from scams (like Upwork’s dispute resolution system)

Trust is everything in marketplaces. Nail this, and you win long-term.

🖼️ How to Build This in 90 Days (MVP Blueprint)

You don’t need millions to launch.

You need the right plan and the right tools.

Step 1: Pick a High-Demand Niche

Start narrow. Expand later.

High-value AI agent categories:

• Marketing & SEO – “AI Blog Writer,” “AI Ad Copy Generator”

• E-commerce – “AI Product Description Generator,” “AI Customer Support Bot”

• Sales & Lead Gen – “AI Email Outreach,” “AI Lead Scoring”

• Legal & Finance – “AI Contract Reviewer,” “AI Financial Analyst”

Agent.AI started with business automation agents before expanding.

Follow the same strategy.

Step 2: Use No-Code & AI APIs to Launch Fast

Don’t build everything from scratch. Use existing tools to speed up development.

Tech Stack for a No-Code MVP:

• Marketplace Backend – Sharetribe, Softr, Bubble, OR try Lovable and Replit

• AI Hosting & API – OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity (or Hugging Face for model-sharing approach)

• Payments & Subscriptions – Stripe or Gumroad

• Automation & Workflows – Zapier or Make.com

• User Authentication – Auth0 or Firebase

This tech stack lets you launch in 90 days, test demand, and refine before scaling.

Step 3: Monetization Strategy

The best AI agent marketplace model is a mix of Fiverr & SaaS. Agent.AI is experimenting with freemium models to drive early adoption.

1. Commission Model – Take 15-30% per AI agent transaction.

2. Subscription Model – Businesses pay $99/month for unlimited AI agent access.

3. Freemium + Upsells – Offer essential AI agents for free, then charge for premium features.

💡 Insights

🤵 Authenticity in the Creator Economy: Why Writing Still Wins

The creator economy turned every writer into a marketer, videographer, and entrepreneur—but what if you want to write?

That’s Alicia Kennedy’s approach. Despite 40,000+ newsletter subscribers, she rejects the “creator” label. Writing is her craft—not content.

The Creator Economy’s Hidden Cost:

🔹 The Algorithm Owns You – Platforms dictate visibility.
🔹 More Hats, Less Focus – Writers edit, optimize, and sell to stay relevant.
🔹 The “Attention Trap” – Step away, and you lose reach, engagement, and income.

Breaking Free from the Content Machine:

Own your audience. Kennedy prioritized depth overreach, cultivating paying subscribers who support her work.

You don’t have to play by algorithm rules—build an audience around your craft.

👉 Start With Your Craft

💰 The Hidden Money in Newsletters

Most people slap ads on their newsletters and call it a day.

The real money? Owning demand.

1. The Newsletter Arbitrage Play

• Acquire subs for $1.20 → Sell opt-ins for $1.80-$3.00.

• Profit per subscriber = infinite scaling.

• Beehiiv’s Boosts Marketplace is fueling this already.

2. Sponsorships Done Right

🔹 Forget CPM. Charge sponsors for CPC or qualified leads.
🔹 Stack placements – Hero sponsor + native inline + footer ads.
🔹Secure long-term deals rather than constantly chasing one-off sponsorships.

3. Own the Pipeline, Not Just the Audience

• Job Boards: Charge companies for job listings.

• Paid Communities: Turn premium Slack, Discord, or Skool groups into revenue streams by offering exclusive content, networking, and perks.

• Affiliate & Digital Products: Sell high-ticket products or your guides.

👉 Learn How to Monetize Demand

🤳 The Lean Creator Stack: Build Smarter, Scale Faster

Most creators do everything manually—Tom from Strategy Breakdowns doesn’t.

His one-person creator business runs like a scaled operation using this system:

🔹 Hire Offshore – A single remote hire 10x’s output.
🔹 Automate Everything – Zapier + Lindy = growth on autopilot.
🔹 Notion as a Second Brain – All content, research, and systems in one place.
🔹 AI as Your Workhorse – ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity streamline research & writing.
🔹 Own Your Audience – Beehiiv isn’t just a newsletter tool; it’s his growth engine.

👉 Build Your Own Lean Creator Stack

📲 Founder-Led LinkedIn: Your SaaS Growth Cheat Code

Most B2B founders treat LinkedIn like a company brochure—wrong move.

The best SaaS founders use it to build ecosystems around their expertise.

✅ Founder-Led Content – Be the face of your brand.
✅ Strategic Engagement – Own the conversation.
✅ Proven Frameworks – Templates & content pillars keep you consistent.

Why it works:

• Build trust before outreach to shorten sales cycles.

• Drives inbound leads (your audience comes to you).

• Establishes thought leadership (stand out in your niche).

👉 Steal the LinkedIn Playbook

🧰 Apps & Tools

 📝 The Good AI: AI that writes like a human. Drop a topic, pick a style, and get well-researched, original essays—no fluff, no plagiarism.

📹 Virbo: Turn any URL into a video ad. There is no filming, no editing—just instant product videos ready to post.

🛠️ Kraftful: AI that digs through user feedback. Connect G2, Slack, Reddit, and more—get instant insights on what users care about.

🎬 RenderCut: Auto-generated subtitles that don’t suck. Sync captions perfectly, customize fonts, and boost engagement in seconds.

💬 Todvob: Train an AI chatbot using your data. Upload files, URLs, or notes—then let it handle support, answer questions, and convert leads.

📢 Growfol: Instantly turn articles, videos, or raw ideas into scroll-stopping LinkedIn posts and carousels.

🧠 Brainfish: AI tool that watches and learns. Tracks how users interact with your product and offer real-time help before they even ask.

🤖 Product Updates

🫏 PikaSwaps: AI-Powered Video Magic

Pika just dropped PikaSwaps, and it lets you swap objects and people in any video without touching a timeline.

• Rewrite Reality – Turn a coffee cup into a kitten. Swap a statue for Snoop Dogg.

• Seamless AI Integration – No weird edges, no janky overlays—just clean, natural swaps.

• Control in Your Hands – Use a brush or type a simple text prompt. AI does the rest.

From turning eggs into baby chicks to replacing cars in motion, PikaSwaps made VFX accessible to anyone.

👉 Watch These Insane AI Swaps

🅰️ Google Ads Just Made Your Creative Team Useless

Google is erasing your excuses for bad ads—its new Imagen 3 AI model generates hyper-realistic human images for ads on demand.

🚀 What’s New?

✅ Text-to-Image AI – Need a “smiling barista holding an oat milk latte”? AI’s got it.
✅ Custom Demographics – Adjust age, gender, and ethnicity for laser-targeted campaigns.
✅ Ad Optimization on Steroids – AI suggests & tests ad creatives instantly.
✅ No BS Content Allowed – Google bans AI-generated brand-name products, minors, politicians, and explicit content.

Creative teams better start learning prompt engineering.

👉 See How This Reshapes Ad Strategy

🎙️ Spotify Just Killed Expensive Audiobook Recording

Narrating your book used to mean renting a studio, hiring a voice actor, and burning cash.

Not anymore. Spotify now uses AI-generated voices (powered by ElevenLabs) to make audiobooks in 29 languages—fast, cheap, and scalable.

📢 What’s the Play?

• AI Narration for Everyone – Indie authors can skip the studio costs and still get pro-level narration.

• Massive Accessibility Boost – More languages = more reach = more significant audiobook sales.

• Clear AI Labeling – All AI-narrated books come tagged: "A digital voice narrates this audiobook."

👉 See How AI Is Transforming Publishing

🖇️ Everything Else

 🐝 Beehiiv’s Website Builder Just Leveled Up – New pre-built designs + custom HTML blocks. No devs are needed. Just build. (🔗 Try It)

♟️ AI Just Cheated at Chess – OpenAI’s o1-preview lost to Stockfish… so it hacked the game files to force a resignation. No prompt. It's just straight-up rule-bending. (🔗 See the Madness)

🛠️ Free vs. Paid AI Tools – Not every AI tool is worth paying for. Here’s a 40+ tool breakdown on what’s free, what’s worth it, and what’s a waste. (🔗 Save Your Money)

📈 SEO Isn’t Luck. It’s a System – Steal Ahrefs' battle-tested SOPs to fix content gaps, build links, and recover lost traffic—fast. (🔗 Rank Smarter)

💛 Sponsor

Omnisend analyzed 23+ billion emails to uncover the following:

• Top 10 most-used emojis (Time for a refresh?)

• Most-mentioned artists (Taylor, Drake, or Beyoncé?)

• Cats vs. dogs vs. chickens: inbox animal showdown

• Pop culture: TV, movies, and sports in emails

• Overused phrases and “oops” moments

Discover 2024’s trends and what’s next for 2025!

📈 Trends

🥷 How AI Research Is Now a Solopreneur’s Secret Weapon

Deep research used to take weeks and thousands of dollars—now it takes minutes and pocket change.

No team. No enterprise budget. Just AI is doing the heavy lifting.

Let’s break down strategies you can use to turn AI-powered research into a profitable business asset.

📉 AI Research is Booming—And Prices Are Crashing

Corbin Brown put Gemini Deep Research against ChatGPT and found:

• Gemini scanned 506+ websites (including Reddit & Stack Overflow).

• Google Docs-ready reports with structured citations.

• Stronger creative insights—even suggesting new AI business ideas.

Meanwhile, Perplexity Deep Research offers 42+ sources per query, 93.9% accuracy, and instant results—for 90% less than OpenAI. Insane numbers.

👉 See How Perplexity Shattered AI Pricing

🏷️ How to Turn AI Research Into a Business Asset

Deep research isn’t just information—it’s a product, a consulting tool, and a lead magnet.

Here’s how to monetize AI research👇

1️⃣ Sell AI-Generated Trend Reports

Businesses and solopreneurs pay big money for insights—but hate doing the research.

You can use AI tools to compile in-depth market reports and sell them as digital products.

✔️ What to Sell:

• Industry breakdowns (e.g., “The Future of AI in B2B Marketing”)

• AI-researched market trends & competitor analysis

• Consumer psychology insights

• High-value strategy guides

Use Perplexity Deep Research to generate 10-page trend reports in minutes—then package and sell them.

✔️ How to Monetize:

• Sell reports on Gumroad, Skool, or Patreon

• Offer AI-powered research services

• Launch a paid newsletter with exclusive data

2️⃣ Go From Generic to Data-Driven

The highest-paid consultants don’t just give advice—they give insights.

With AI research, you can back up your recommendations with real-time market data and competitor analysis, making your services more valuable.

✔️ High-Value Consulting Offers:

• Competitive Analysis – "Here’s what your competitors are doing—and how to win."

• Consumer Insights – "Your audience wants X, but you’re giving them Y. Here’s the fix."

• SEO & Keyword Research – "Here’s exactly what your customers are searching for."

3️⃣ Use AI Research to Build Authority

Most people repeat the same recycled business insights.

To stand out, publish data-backed insights instead.

✔️ How to Use AI Research to Grow Your Audience:

• AI-powered expert takes – Drop research-backed hot takes on LinkedIn.

• Data-driven LinkedIn posts – Share exclusive AI-researched stats.

• YouTube/TikTok deep dives – Summarize AI-generated reports into engaging content.

These tools will research complex topics 10x faster than most people in your industry.

4️⃣ Build Digital Products With AI Research

Instead of selling time, sell AI-generated research as a product.

✔️ Product Ideas:

• Notion workbooks & strategy templates.

• Micro-courses & exclusive AI trend memberships.

• Custom AI tools or niche research reports.

🪙 AI Just Made Research a Goldmine Opportunity

With AI-powered research now costing 90% less, anyone can create expert-level insights.

That means solopreneurs can now think about offering:

✅ Research-backed digital products

✅ Premium consulting services

✅ Thought leadership through AI-generated insights

✅ AI research into a scalable business model

💡 Insights

🧑‍🦰 How Simon Høiberg Replaced His Entire Team With AI

Most startups spend their first few years hiring and scaling a team. But what if you could already replace half your workforce with AI agents and still grow?

Simon did that.

In this deep dive, he explains how he reduced his nine-person startup to four, automating everything from content creation to AI agent decision-making.

🛠️ How to Build an AI-First Startup Team

1. Fine-Tune AI for Your Brand – Instead of using generic AI outputs, he trained a custom GPT-4 model with 50+ examples of his best content, creating an AI that writes for him.

2. Create an AI Team – He built multiple AI agents to collaborate:

• Agent 1: Generates content ideas.

• Agent 2: Writes the post.

• Agent 3: Reviews and edits.

• Agent 4: Pushes the final version to FeedHive.

3. Automate Everything with n8n – The entire system runs on autopilot using n8n, a Zapier-like tool that links OpenAI, Notion, Google Docs, and other business apps.

👉 See Simon’s Full AI System

💰 How Nat Eliason Made $200K in a Week Teaching AI

Nat Eliason didn't plan to launch another course. He swore off them. But after casually tweeting about using AI to build apps, the Internet practically begged him to teach it.

One tweet, a quick landing page, and a week later? $200,000 in pre-sales.

The Formula: AI + Teaching + Perfect Timing

1. Spot the Wave Before It Breaks - Nat has a track record for catching trends early (SEO, Roam Research, Crypto). This time? AI coding agents.

2. Make Learning the Shortcut - He realized that many people want to build AI-powered apps but don’t want to learn to code. The course showed them how.

3. Pre-sell, Then Build - no guessing, no wasted effort. Nat created a landing page, collected sales before making a single video, and instantly validated the demand.

Now? He mentions that his students are shipping apps—some even turning them into real businesses.

👉 Steal Nat’s Step-by-Step Playbook

🏆 Work Less, Earn More

If hard work was the key, the guy cold-emailing leads all day would make more than the founder who automated everything.

The real secret?

Turn What You Love Into $$$.

Shaan Puri’s formula: Take what you naturally do and push it out as a product.

• Loved talking business → Started a podcast → Now gets paid for it.

• Built on Shopify store → Now charges $10K+ to set up others.

• Curated insights for fun → Started a newsletter → Now monetizes it.

The Flywheel That Wins

1️⃣ Do what feels easy → 2️⃣ Get good → 3️⃣ The Internet finds you → 4️⃣ Get paid absurdly well.

👉 Find Your Shortcut to $10K+ Income

📩 Revive Your Newsletter Growth

Your newsletter was growing—until it wasn’t. Ben Collins hit this wall. His Google Sheets newsletter hit 55K subscribers, then flatlined.

Here’s how he’s fixing it—and how you can too.

1. AI Lead Magnets Beat PDFs

   Ditch the boring freebies—build an AI wrapper instead.

• Caitlin Burgoyne used an AI pain-finder tool to grow her list fast.

• Ben could launch a Google Sheets AI assistant that requires email access.

2. YouTube + SEO = Perpetual Growth

• Find your highest-traffic blog posts and embed a YouTube video.

• Every searcher finds your blog + your video—double exposure, double authority.

3. LinkedIn Carousels Drive Subs

   People scroll LinkedIn at work—stop them with:

• Carousels from your best blog posts.

• Newsletter snippets with a CTA to subscribe.

👉 Get More Strategies Here

🧰 Apps & Tools

❤️‍🔥 Firefly: Adobe just dropped its Sora rival—a text-to-video AI that turns prompts into high-quality footage.

💭 Subtitles King: Ever needed subtitles on the go (toilet, subway, office meeting)? This AI auto-generates captions for any video in any language. (See how this AI app was made here.)

🎥 Argil AI: Recording, editing, and trying to look presentable for every video sucks. Argil fixes that. Upload 2 minutes of footage, and boom—you have an AI clone that can deliver your scripts like a pro.

🧑 Astral: Savannah is building the first AI that markets like a human—it. It browses the Internet for potential customers and converts them while you sleep.

🛠️ Unbaited: Sick of engagement bait and off-topic posts on X? This AI-powered extension blurs toxic tweets in real-time.

🛡️ Notion Backups: Never lose your Notion work again. This tool automates cloud backups and restores past versions with point-in-time recovery.

🤖 Product Updates

🗣️ Grok 3: Elon Musk’s AI Power Play Against OpenAI

Elon Musk dropped Grok 3, calling it the “smartest AI on Earth.” But is this just marketing—or a real challenge to OpenAI and Google?

With 10x more compute power and benchmarks that allegedly outperform GPT-4o, Musk is positioning xAI as a serious contender in the AI arms race.

🔹 New features:

• Big Brain Mode for complex queries

• DeepSearch to scan X + the web

• Voice mode is coming soon

• Eventually, open-source (but not yet)

Musk’s play? Lock Grok inside X’s ecosystem, push for an “uncensored AI,” and scale xAI fast.

With OpenAI rejecting his $100B takeover bid, Musk is going all-in on AI competition.

👉 Would You Ditch ChatGPT For Grok?

🎨 Lovable: No More Burning Cash on Tiny Tweaks

Have you ever spent an embarrassing amount of money tweaking one tiny thing, like paying $10 for an extra espresso, thinking it would make a life-changing difference?

That’s been the reality for Lovable users—burning through AI credits to adjust basics like fonts or tweak button colors.

Not anymore.

Lovable just dropped Visual Edits. Instead of writing a new prompt every time you want to make a tiny change, you can now click, tweak, and move on—without wasting tokens.

💡 Why This Feature Is a Game-Changer

🔹 No More Credit Burn – Stop paying AI to change a word or color. Now, click and edit manually.

🔹 Faster UI Tweaks – Instantly change button text, font sizes, colors, and layouts—no back-and-forth with the AI.

🔹 More Control, Less Frustration – Instead of trying to explain your vision in a prompt, you can see the changes in real time.

👉 Try Visual Edits & Stop Wasting Credits

🛠️ Create.xyz Apps Now Ship with a Built-in Database

Before, if you built an app, you had to figure out where to store data—things like user info, saved content, or preferences. That meant dealing with databases, servers, and many tech headaches.

Now, Create.xyz handles all of that for you like Lovable. Every app you build with AI automatically comes with a Postgres database—so your data is stored, organized, and ready to use without setup.

Examples of Apps Made So Far..

🚀 Picksy Quest: Turns better food choices into a kids' game with AI guidance & family onboarding.

📚 Everything I Read This Year: Auto-fills book covers & details using Google Image Search + Open Library API.

💼 Hustlable: Generate a business from your passion, launch a site, and start a print-on-demand shop in <10 min.

🖇️ Everything Else

🏗️ Softr Goes Full-Stack: No longer just a front-end builder. With Workflows & Tables launching in 2025, you can build, automate, and manage everything inside Softr. (🔗 What’s Next)

📝 AI Business Plan Generators: This guide ranks the best AI tools to generate, design, and forecast your business plan in minutes. (🔗 See the Full List Here)

👎 AI Misinformation: A recent audit of 10 major AI chatbots revealed a disturbing trend in fact-checking. (🔗 Get the Full Report Here)

🎨 Freepik Just Became the Ultimate AI Design Suite: Freepik is making some serious moves in the AI space, adding Google Imagine 3, Pika 2.0, and PixVerse 3. (🔗 AI Features in Action)

💛 Sponsor

Omnisend analyzed 23+ billion emails to uncover the following:

• Top 10 most-used emojis (Time for a refresh?)

• Most-mentioned artists (Taylor, Drake, or Beyoncé?)

• Cats vs. dogs vs. chickens: inbox animal showdown

• Pop culture: TV, movies, and sports in emails

• Overused phrases and “oops” moments

Discover 2024’s trends and what’s next for 2025!

📈 Trends

🎭 Why Solopreneurs Must Master Soft Skills in the AI Era

As I mentioned in our workforce trend report, AI is eating the world—but it can’t replicate human connection, influence, or creativity.

If you’re a solopreneur, you know that technical skills alone won’t cut it anymore. While AI automates tasks, your advantage lies in mastering skills that AI can't replicate—often called 'durable skills.’

Let’s explain why soft skills are your ultimate “hard” currency in the AI economy and how to sharpen them to thrive in this new landscape.

🤖 AI Can Work, But It Can’t Lead (for now)

For years, we have dismissed soft skills as fluffy, secondary, or "nice to have" additions you find on job requirements, but now they are more crucial than the advanced technical skills you need to succeed as an independent entrepreneur.

Here’s Why:

• AI can generate ideas but can’t validate them: Creativity isn’t just coming up with ideas—it’s knowing which ones will work.

• AI can automate customer service but can’t build trust: People buy from those they trust, and human connection has always built trust.

• AI can analyze data but can’t make judgment calls: Business decisions require intuition, experience, and adaptability.

🎯 The Essential Soft Skills Every Solopreneur Needs

1/ Adaptability: The AI Economy Moves Fast—You Have to Move Faster. AI tools are overnight shifting SEO strategies, content marketing, and sales funnels.

Are you finding experimenting and evolving easy, or are you still clinging to outdated tactics?

How to Build It:

• Train for uncertainty. Run small, low-risk experiments in your business.

• Pivot when needed. Don’t get attached to methods—stay attached to results.

• Follow AI news & trends—not to compete with AI, but to understand where you’re most valuable.

AI + Adaptability → AI predicts trends, but as a solopreneur, you must pivot your strategy accordingly.

Recommended Book: Atomic Habits – James Clear. AI can automate tasks, but discipline and consistency are still human-driven—this book helps build sustainable success habits. (If you haven’t read it already).

2/ Persuasion: AI Writes, But You Have to Sell. ChatGPT can write a sales page but will not close the deal. Buyers trust humans who demonstrate authority, authenticity, and emotion.

How to Build It:

• Use storytelling. Instead of listing features, craft a compelling narrative.

• Sell with empathy. Talk less about what your product does and more about how it makes life easier.

• Study copywriting & negotiation. These skills increase revenue without increasing effort.

AI + Persuasion → AI suggests data-driven messaging, but humans create emotional resonance.

Recommended Book: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – Robert Cialdini. This book helps you master human persuasion to stand out and close deals.

3/ Emotional Intelligence: People Buy Connections, Not Just Products. AI can analyze sentiment but doesn’t understand how to connect genuinely.

Customers stick around because of how you make them feel. A study found that 91% of top performers had high emotional intelligence (EQ), while only 26% of low performers did.

How to Build It:

• Read your audience. Be hyper-aware of their pain points and desires.

• Respond, don’t react. Pause before sending that email or social post.

• Master non-verbal cues. Your energy and tone matter more than words on calls or in video content.

Recommended Book: Emotional Intelligence 2.0 – Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves. This book teaches relationship-building and self-awareness to differentiate you from automation.

4/ Resilience: AI is reshaping entire industries, and solopreneurs who can handle setbacks and reinvent themselves will thrive.

How to Build It:

• Develop a "fail fast" mindset. Treat every setback as feedback.

• Control what you can. You can’t stop AI but you can control your skills, mindset, and marketing.

• Surround yourself with adaptable people. Join a mastermind, community, or mentor group.

AI + Emotional Intelligence → AI detects sentiment, but entrepreneurs nurture authentic relationships.

Recommended Book: The 5 Essential People Skills – Dale Carnegie: Helps entrepreneurs navigate challenges, negotiate better, and build strong relationships.

💰Turning Soft Skills Into Hard Revenue

Here’s your 3-step action plan to getting started:

📌 Step 1: Identify Your Weakest Link

• Ask past clients for feedback on your soft skills. Do they say you’re a great strategist but lack clear communication? Fix that.

• Take a soft skills assessment around that particular skill (LinkedIn, Coursera, or gamified tests).

📌 Step 2: Train Like It’s a Hard Skill

• Use AI for practice. Role-play sales call with ChatGPT.

• Learn from the best. Read books on persuasion, leadership, and influence.

• Implement daily. Every client interaction is a chance to sharpen your emotional intelligence.

📌 Step 3: Make Soft Skills Your Brand

• Show your expertise. Post insights on LinkedIn, Twitter, or a newsletter.

• Over-communicate value. AI can automate follow-ups, but you bring the human touch.

• Position yourself as irreplaceable. AI can’t replace trust, relationships, or intuition.

💡 Insights

💰 How a Non-Developer Sold His First AI-Built App for $750

You don’t need to be a developer to build and sell AI-generated apps. This step-by-step guide shows how one marketing guy used Replit’s AI coding assistant to create and sell his first app—with no coding background.

The 3-Step Playbook:

1️⃣ Find a Buyer Before You Build: Instead of guessing what people need, he finds businesses looking for solutions through Upwork, which guarantees the demand.

2️⃣ Use AI to Build Fast: Replit handled the entire app development process, from UI to database setup, at only $11 in computing costs.

3️⃣ Sell & Upsell Maintenance: The first deal was $750, but the actual play is how he charges for ongoing updates and feature enhancements.

This strategy isn’t just a quick win—it’s a repeatable AI-first business model. He’s building 52 apps in a year—one per week, repeating the same strategy and betting that at least one will be a breakout hit.

👉 Here’s How He Sold His Replit App From Scratch

🎥 The 6-Step Formula Behind a Billion Views

Viral videos aren’t just about luck—creators strategically engineer them to manufacture the ‘luck’ needed for success. Adley Kinsman’s Viralish follows this six-step playbook:

1. Hook Fast – 90% retention in 6 seconds or less by combining curiosity and emotion.

2. Build Suspense – Start with action, not the final result, keeping viewers guessing.

3. Deliver a Payoff – The last 3-10 seconds lock in engagement and shares.

4. Engineer Comments – Use hidden Easter eggs or bold claims to spark discussion.

5. Raise the Stakes – Higher risks, unusual locations, and more significant reactions to intensify content.

6. Test Before You Post – Use $5 ad tests to optimize thumbnails and hooks for better results.

👉 Get Adley Kinsman’s Full Strategy

🅰️ What Still Works For Google Ads in 2025

The rules of Google Ads optimization are changing. What worked last year might be hurting your results today. The key is shifting from keyword obsession to an audience-first strategy.

✅ What to Start:

• Using broad match on high-performing keywords instead of endlessly bidding on variations.

• Communicating more on Performance Max—spam leads are fixable.

• Prioritizing audience signals over keywords for better targeting.

❌ What to Stop:

• Bidding on every converting keyword variation—it’s expensive and ineffective.

• Dismissing Performance Max at the first sign of spam.

• Treating keywords as the core of your strategy instead of leveraging first-party data.

🔄 What to Continue:

• Constantly testing, questioning, and adapting—no single best strategy exists.

• Optimizing Performance Max through asset group review and audience insights.

• Leveraging first-party data for smarter exclusions and customer segmentation.

  👉 See What Works This Year

🏃‍♂️ How Hampton Built a Brand People Chase

Most brands chase customers—Hampton made customers chase them. In just 3 years, they turned a zero-following startup into one of the most exclusive entrepreneur communities.

Their secret? A dead-simple, highly repeatable 6-step playbook:

1️⃣ Leverage a Founder-Led Attention Machine: Sam Parr & Joe Speiser built massive personal brands before launching. Instead of relying on ads, they redirected their audience’s trust straight into Hampton.

2️⃣ Build a Media Engine: A brand can’t rely on founders forever. Hampton launched The MoneyWise Podcast, a 24/7 content machine that attracts their exact ICP—high-net-worth entrepreneurs.

3️⃣ Find the Core Pain Points: They didn’t guess their customers’ struggles. They surveyed them, gathered data-backed insights, and used that information to shape their marketing strategy.

👉 Get All 6 Steps to Hamptons Growth

🧰 Apps & Tools

🎥 Pickle.AI: Create an AI version of yourself to attend meetings. This guy tested it, comparing AI to reality in a side-by-side Zoom call.

🧵 Tapestry: Merge social, RSS, podcasts & YouTube into one chronological, ad-free feed—no tracking, no algorithms, just your content.

🔎 Bextora: Skip biased blog posts & paid rankings—this community votes on the best tools, methods, and products. (Built with Lovable.dev)

💰 Expenses Day: AI-powered OCR scans receipts, invoices & bank statements—process multiple expense types in seconds.

⭐ TrustLoop: Capture 3X more 5-star reviews and gather real-time feedback—set it, forget it, and let AI do the work.

💳 Fina: Ditch spreadsheets—track personal & business finances your way with bank sync, auto-categorization, and flexible budgeting.

🤖 Product Updates

🎬 Pika’s New AI Tool Lets You Add Objects to Videos

Want to drop a knight on a horse into your clip? How about a tsunami flooding a city? With Pikadditions, you can now add objects, people, or elements into any video—real or AI-generated.

Why It’s a Game-Changer:

🔹 Upload any video—AI-generated or actual footage—and edit freely.

🔹 Insert anyone or anything—want to be in your favorite movie scene? Done.

🔹 Keep original audio—your edits blend naturally, with no weird robotic sound swaps.

People are already turning AI characters into Simpsons intros, remixing viral clips, and making mind-blowing edits. Check out Jon Finger’s wild experiments, including a tactical Amazonian security guard who reads on lunch break and more mind-bending AI-generated scenes.

👉 See More Pikadditions Examples in Action

🧠 Sam Altman Teases GPT-5: What’s Coming Next?

Sam Altman just hinted at OpenAI’s next big move—GPT-5. He acknowledged ongoing work on the model at an event in Berlin but kept the details under wraps.

Key Takeaways:

• OpenAI is actively developing GPT-5, but there is no launch date yet.

• It’s expected to be more intelligent, capable, and potentially multimodal.

• The focus seems to be on better reasoning, memory, and real-world applications.

Altman’s approach? Underpromise, overdeliver. But the AI arms race is heating up—Google just dropped Gemini 2 Pro, and OpenAI won’t sit still for long.

👉 Expect More Announcements Soon

💬 Why Use Gemini 2.0 After the Flash Update?

Google’s Gemini 2.0 Flash update makes its chatbot smarter, faster, and more useful than ever, especially for non-developers who want to streamline research, content creation, and automation.

Here’s Why You Should Start Using It:

1️⃣ Smarter, Faster Answers: With enhanced reasoning and a 1M token context window, Gemini 2.0 summarizes reports, fact-checks, and organizes complex data instantly.

2️⃣ Real-Time Search & Video Insights: Search the web, analyze YouTube videos, and get key takeaways in seconds with just the link—no need to sit through hours of content.

3️⃣ Multimodal AI (Text & Images): Gemini processes images, documents, and text, making it great for document analysis, visual descriptions, and AI-powered edits.

4️⃣ AI-Powered Content & Automation: Generate blog posts, reports, or full HTML pages with structured formatting—perfect for business owners and content creators.

Gemini 2.0 rivals ChatGPT and DeepSeek, offering free access to Google's best AI tools—without the $200+ monthly fee

👉 Learn More About Flash2.0 Here

🖇️ Everything Else

🔮 2025 Predictions vs Reality: VR was supposed to replace phones, print to die, and offices to vanish. Reality? VR adoption is 5%, print thrives, and remote work needs a pandemic. (🔗 What 2025 Predictions Got Wrong)

🤖 Building a Marketing AI Agent: Andrea Bosoni used Lovable to auto-reply to Reddit marketing questions. Andrea built it in minutes. (🔗 See How He Created It)

🧑‍💻 Your Website Copy Is Too Long: Most SaaS founders write novels instead of clear messaging. Ditch the fluff and vague buzzwords. (🔗 Why Clarity Wins)

👶 Growing Up AI-First: Kids prefer ChatGPT over Google, making AI the default way to learn instead of search engines. (🔗 How AI Is Changing Learning)

💻 Google’s AI Search Mode: AI Mode organizes search results into structured answers, letting users ask follow-up questions like a chat. (🔗 See Google’s AI Mode)

📩 The Dark Side of Newsletter Growth: Agencies sell fake "active subscribers" by scraping emails, tanking ESP reputations, and ruining trust. (🔗 Full Breakdown)

💛 Sponsor

Omnisend analyzed 23+ billion emails to uncover the following:

• Top 10 most-used emojis (Time for a refresh?)

• Most-mentioned artists (Taylor, Drake, or Beyoncé?)

• Cats vs. dogs vs. chickens: inbox animal showdown

• Pop culture: TV, movies, and sports in emails

• Overused phrases and “oops” moments

Discover 2024’s trends and what’s next for 2025!

📈 Trends

😀 Why Your Website Needs More Than Just a Pretty Face

From the late 2000s to the early 2010s, there was a heavy emphasis on visually stunning websites with sleek animations, parallax scrolling, elaborate color schemes, and bold typography.

Companies prioritized aesthetic appeal as a way to stand out, often influenced by brands like Apple and Airbnb, where minimalist design met high-end visuals.

The belief was that a beautiful, modern design would automatically build trust, credibility, and brand authority. Design agencies thrived on this trend, charging premium prices for websites focused more on "wow" factors than performance.

Imagine walking into a café that looks stunning—chic lighting, Instagram-worthy decor, artisanal cups. But the coffee tastes like dishwater.

That’s how most websites feel today: beautiful but empty. In 2025, users don’t care how ‘cool’ your site is. They care about what it does for them.

Here’s how web design is flipping the script:

1/ The Rise of Dynamic, Personalized Experiences

Static websites are like billboards—nice to look at, but don’t talk back.

In 2025, your website will be a conversation. AI-driven algorithms will analyze user behavior in real-time to deliver customized content, product recommendations, and tailored calls to action.

According to Webflow’s 2025 website trend report:

• 79% of businesses actively use AI tools for website personalization, with 69% planning to increase investment in 2025.

• Dynamic content boosts conversion rates by up to 45%.

Users crave relevance. So, AI personalized experiences improve engagement, reduce bounce rates, and create brand loyalty.

If your website talks to people, not at them, it can help you win in your niche.

2/ Data-Driven Design: Guesswork Is Dead

Designing based on "what feels right" is like throwing spaghetti at the wall.

Data is your secret weapon. Advancements in real-time analytics, heatmaps, and A/B tests are helping us turn websites into conversion machines.

• 91% of marketers say their website drives more revenue than any other channel.

• Companies using data-driven CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) strategies see a 32% increase in conversion rates.

• Going.com: A simple tweak from “Sign Up for Free” to “Trial for Free” boosted conversions by 104%.

• Truckers Report: Simplifying their landing page boosted conversions by 79.3%.

Data doesn’t kill creativity. It fuels it.

3/ AI-Optimized User Experiences

AI personalizes experiences by suggesting products and shaping entire journeys for users on your site.

Think predictive search bars that know what you want before you do, chatbots that feel human, and innovative layouts that adapt to your behavior.

• 94% of marketers believe AI enhances understanding of customer behavior, according to Webflows report.

• AI-powered A/B testing helps brands iterate faster, reducing time-to-market for new designs.

• The rise of performance marketing has forced businesses to prioritize conversion rates over aesthetics, making AI-driven personalization essential.

AI reduces cognitive load, making websites feel effortless. The less your users have to think, the more they’ll do.

4/ Sustainable & Minimalist Design

Sustainability isn’t just about the planet—it’s about performance.

Minimalist, lightweight websites load faster, rank higher on Google, and create smoother user experiences.

• Websites optimized for simplicity report higher engagement rates and faster load times.

• Eco-friendly hosting and streamlined code reduce digital carbon footprints.

• Sustainable and Minimalist Design: Simpler websites consume less energy and convert better, making sustainability a key performance factor.

People prefer experiences that are easy to think about. Simple layouts help users process information faster, leading to quicker decisions.

Humans can only hold 5-9 pieces of information in short-term memory. Overloading them with too many design elements distracts them from your CTA.

5/ Micro-Interactions & Motion Design

Micro-interactions are like the seasoning on a great dish: tiny animations that make a website feel alive, such as button hovers, loading spinners, and scroll-triggered effects.

• Sites with micro-interactions see higher engagement and lower bounce rates.

• Purposeful motion design adds depth without overwhelming users.

• Direct Response Ads: Hyper-focused, stripped-down landing pages optimized for conversion benefit from motion design that guides rather than distracts.

The motion should guide, not distract. If your animation isn’t helping the user, it’s hurting them.

✅ How You Can Apply These Insights

• Run A/B Tests: Test different headlines, CTAs, and layouts to find what converts best.

• Simplify Navigation: Limit menu items and remove unnecessary pages.

• Focus on One Goal Per Page: Don’t overwhelm visitors with multiple offers.

• Use Clear CTAs: Replace “Learn More” with action-driven text like “Get Your Free Trial” or “Start Saving Today.”

• Leverage AI Tools: Use AI-powered personalization and predictive analytics to optimize content delivery and increase conversions.

The future of web design isn’t about being beautiful. It’s about being helpful.

The most successful websites will look good and work better.

💡 Insights

🤖 3 Wild Things People Are Doing with ChatGPT Operator

As you know, Operator dropped recently, and early testers say that the Operator is doing real work (with a few hiccups, sure—it’s still new).

Here are 3 crazy examples of what people have already done with Operator:

1. Complete Competitor Analysis, No Hands Needed: Operator researched the top five subscription-based pet supply brands, compared their pricing, marketing strategies, and customer reviews, and created a 5-slide Google Slides presentation. That’s already ‘intern-level’ output.

2. Data Transfer Between Apps Like Magic: Imagine copying data from one Google Sheet to another, creating graphs, and even attempting a 10-year forecast—it takes a lot of time. The operator handled it well, only stumbling when the prompt lacked clear instructions (it’s picky like that).

3. Content Aggregation on Autopilot: Need to gather insights from multiple blogs? Operator scraped data from 10 websites, summarized the key points, and neatly organized everything into a Google Doc. Perfect for reports, newsletters, or lazy content research days.

👉 Check Out All 10 Real-World Use Cases

🎯 13 MVPs in 90 Days: Prajwal’s AI Coding Blueprint

Prajwal built 13 MVPs in just 90 days using AI tools.

Here’s How:

• Plan-First Approach: Instead of jumping into code, Prajwal created detailed docs—PRDs, tech stack plans, and user flows—to reduce AI errors and streamline development.

• Smart MVP Structuring: Built 70-80% of each MVP in Lovable for quick UI design and seamless Supabase integration before moving to code.

• Efficient Coding with Cursor: Imported projects into Cursor to handle backend logic, API connections, and final UI tweaks with precision.

👉 Explore Prajwal’s Full Workflow Here

📖 AI Can’t Replace This One Skill: Storytelling

Steve Jobs once called computers the "bicycle for the mind." If that’s true, then AI is the rocketship, but we’re still pilots because a rocket can take you anywhere, but only humans know where it wants to go.

AI Collects Facts. You Create Meaning:

• AI = Information Archive

• You = Meaning Maker. AI can recall every detail, but it can’t connect them through the lens of your personal experiences. That’s where adding some of your real-world human experiences with other humans helps you stand out.

No tricks. No hacks. Just honest, relatable narratives that build real connections. Storytelling is the most ethical—and timeless—form of influence.

Yeo’s Framework for Timeless Story Practices:

1️⃣ Identify the problem behind a quote or idea you love.

2️⃣ Pinpoint the takeaway it offers.

3️⃣ Weave them into a story only you can tell.

Boom—there’s your story.

👉 Master the Skill AI Can’t Replace

⏳ Why Scarcity Sells: The Power of “Time Windows” in Viral Products

Wordle skyrocketed to 2M daily players with one simple rule: You can only play once per day.

In an era where everything is available 24/7, the most viral products are the ones that aren’t.

• BeReal gives you 2 minutes to post—and then it’s gone.

• Thursday only works on Thursdays.

• Duolingo drops surprise “Happy Hours” for double XP.

Why it works:

• Scarcity = Value. What’s limited feels more precious.

• Shared Moments = Word of Mouth. When everyone experiences it together, it sparks conversations: “Did you solve today’s Wordle?”

Want to make your product more irresistible?

👉 Steal These 10 Time-Window Tactics

🧰 Apps & Tools

 📄 Formly: Create forms as easily as writing a document. Just type your questions, and Formly instantly turns them into beautiful, functional forms.

📩 Stella AI: Automate emails, meetings, to-dos, and notes—all from WhatsApp.

🎙️ Retellio: The AI briefing tool that turns hours of customer calls into a 30-minute weekly podcast.

🧠 Recap AI: Turn articles, PDFs, and YouTube videos into mind maps, timelines, and tables for faster learning.

📱 Make My Brand: Turn your blogs, ideas, and content into polished infographics.

🤖 Product Updates

🗣️OpenAI’’s Latest Product Updates

OpenAI has launched two major updates that push the boundaries of AI’s capabilities for researchers, developers, and knowledge workers: Deep Research and o3-Mini.

1/ Deep Research: OpenAI’s AI-Powered Research Analyst

Deep Research plans, executes, and adapts complex research tasks, delivering analyst-level reports with full citations.

Why It’s a Game-Changer:

• Autonomous Research Workflow: Handles multi-step research, refining its real-time process.

• Transparency Built-In: Shows its step-by-step reasoning with citations, so you see how conclusions are made.

• High Accuracy: Achieved 26.6% accuracy on “Humanity’s Last Exam,” outperforming GPT-4o by a landslide.

👉 Watch Deep Research in Action

2/ o3-Mini: OpenAI’s Smarter, Faster Model for STEM

Meet o3-Mini, OpenAI’s newest cost-efficient reasoning model, optimized for STEM, coding, and logical problem-solving.

What Makes It Stand Out:

• Brighter Reasoning: Matches o1’s math, science, and coding performance with 39% fewer significant errors.

• Flexible Thinking: Choose between low, medium, or high reasoning effort to fit your needs.

• Higher Productivity: Plus and Team users get up to 3x more daily messages with faster response times.

👉 Learn More About O3-Mini

3/ AMA Recap: OpenAI’s Vision for the Future

In a recent AMA, OpenAI leaders shared key updates on the future of AI.

Key Takeaways:

• o3-Mini Expansion: Rolling out to more users with continuous performance boosts.

• Advanced Voice Mode: Improved conversation flow with fewer interruptions is coming soon.

• Bigger Context Windows: Work in progress to expand context limits for richer, long-form interactions.

👉 Read the Full AMA Highlights

🔥 Alibaba Fires Back to Outperform DeepSeek-V3

Alibaba dropped a bombshell with the release of Qwen 2.5-Max, claiming it surpasses DeepSeek-V3, GPT-4o, and Llama-3.1-405B.

What’s New: Released on the first day of the Lunar New Year, Qwen 2.5-Max seems to directly respond to DeepSeek’s meteoric rise, signaling severe pressure in the Chinese AI landscape.

Why It Matters: DeepSeek’s recent models have rattled Silicon Valley and even domestic competitors. Its low-cost, high-performance AI triggered price wars, forcing giants like Alibaba to slash model prices by up to 97%.

The Race Heats Up: ByteDance jumped in with an AI update claiming to outperform OpenAI’s o1, while Tencent and Baidu are scrambling to keep pace. However, DeepSeek’s lean, innovation-driven approach may give it an edge over corporate giants with bloated structures.

👉 See How Alibaba Stacks Up

🖇️ Everything Else

🛠️ 20 GPT Wrapper Ideas: Greg Isenberg shares AI wrapper ideas with high search traffic—like Resume Generators (12.1K/mo) & IG Caption Creators (14.2K/mo).
(🔗 See the Full List)

💬 Create AMAs For Your Newsletter: Create personal connections with an "Ask Me Anything" section on Beehiiv. (🔗 Get the Full AMA Guide)

📊 Automate SEO Analysis: Speed up site audits with this tool that pulls data from GSC, analyzes it with ChatGPT, and delivers SEO insights—all within Google Sheets. (🔗 Learn How to Automate SEO )

💛 Sponsor

Omnisend analyzed 23+ billion emails to uncover the following:

• Top 10 most-used emojis (Time for a refresh?)

• Most-mentioned artists (Taylor, Drake, or Beyoncé?)

• Cats vs. dogs vs. chickens: inbox animal showdown

• Pop culture: TV, movies, and sports in emails

• Overused phrases and “oops” moments

Discover 2024’s trends and what’s next for 2025!

📈 Trends

🚩 Lean, Mean, and Disrupting the AI Scene

China has been responsible for significant AI disruption plays over the past week.

While OpenAI spends hundreds of millions building its models, DeepSeek is creating GPT-4-level models for just $5.6 million. 

And they aren’t stopping there. ByteDance(TikTok’s parent company) just dropped Trae IDE, an AI-powered IDE (AI Coder) offering GPT-4 for free.

China’s approach shows that efficiency beats extravagance—proving you don’t need deep pockets to outpace industry giants. Sometimes, lean and clever wins the race.

Let’s dive into how these tools are changing the game—and why they’re essential for you as an entrepreneur.

DeepSeek: AI That Redefines Affordability

This tool has been making waves the past week for all the right reasons.

While OpenAI and Google are burning through billions to stay on top, DeepSeek quietly dropped a model that’s just as good as GPT-4—but with one key difference:

It’s 96.4% cheaper.

They streamlined Everything. Instead of running trillions of parameters, DeepSeek’s system “wakes up” only the ones it needs.

• Affordable Usage: DeepSeek processes data for just $2.19 per million tokens, compared to $60 with OpenAI.

• Open-Source Accessibility: DeepSeek’s models are open to anyone, allowing startups and small businesses to customize and deploy AI without restrictions.

Entrepreneurs are already leveraging DeepSeek to help with coding tasks, too:

• Build Search Engines in Hours: One user created a Perplexity-style search engine using DeepSeek’s Reasoner in just two hours. (Watch the demo: YouTube)

• Create Dynamic 3D Games: Built full 3D games that generate assets on the fly, pushing the boundaries of real-time AI applications. (See it here: Reddit)

Imagine using DeepSeek to create AI-driven features like personalized customer support or automated sales analysis for your business—at a fraction of the cost.

With open-source and affordable tools like these, you no longer need a big budget to access world-class AI.

The Rise of Trae: TikTok’s Gift to Developers

Trae is not just another coding tool. It’s a free coding assistant that builds, fixes and improves your projects on a Mac in real time.

Imagine Cursor or VS Code, but free, powered by AI, and weirdly… good.

Here’s What Makes It a Standout:

• Free Access to Claude 3.5 Sonet and GPT-4: Competitors charge $0.30+ per request. These guys integrate these models at no cost, without a catch (yet), to help you build more intelligently and faster. 

• Agent-Based Collaboration: Forget fumbling around with which AI model to use. Trae automatically selects the best one for your project, letting you focus on building rather than micromanaging.

• Simplify Complex Tasks: Create interfaces or generate backend logic in minutes (some technical skills needed).

Coders are already raving about its capabilities:

• Creative Understanding: When tested on a project to extract the most common edge pixel color from an image and auto-generate a background, Trae nailed it on the first try—a task where other AI editors consistently struggled

• Screenshot to App: It whipped up a functional Twitter-style clone with mock data and accurate design elements.

Yes, it’s free—for now. But just like TikTok, ByteDance knows how to capture the market before turning on monetization.

Their strategy isn’t just about launching tools—it’s about building entire ecosystems.

Final Thought:

The age of billion-dollar models is coming to an end.

DeepSeek symbolizes a future where intelligence and reasoning become almost free, making high-level AI accessible to everyone.

DeepSeek’s open-source approach challenges the closed ecosystems of US tech giants.

And the rise of affordable AI tools means one thing: excuses are running out.

• Want to build an app? You can now train a model for $5M with global usage, not $500M.

• Think AI tools are too expensive? These tools just gave you free access to AI.

• Tired of the Silicon Valley gatekeepers? Open-source models are leveling the playing field.

But where will our world be when everyone can access these powerful tools for free?

💡 Insights

📉 HubSpot's SEO Crash: Lessons for Entrepreneurs

HubSpot’s blog (long served as the B2B content marketing gold standard) saw its organic traffic nosedive by 36% in December 2024, dropping from 13.5M to 8.6M visitors.

Here’s what went wrong—and what it teaches us about adapting.

What Happened?

1. Overreliance on "SEO-First" Content: HubSpot filled its blog with high-traffic but low-relevance content, like “Shrug Emoji” and “Famous Quotes.” These drew readers but lacked depth or alignment with HubSpot’s business focus, making them targets for Google’s updated "helpful content" algorithm.

2. Algorithm Updates: Google’s December 2024 core and spam updates cracked down on content aimed at gaming rankings rather than serving real user needs. HubSpot’s high-level informational content without strong topical authority took the most brutal hit.

3. Shift in Competitors: Relevant, authoritative sources like Microsoft, Adobe, and Zapier then captured the queries HubSpot lost, proving the value of staying in your lane and showcasing true subject matter expertise.

👉 Get the Full Case Study Here

📬 How Naptown Scoop Grew to 21k Subscribers

Building a local newsletter? Take notes from Naptown Scoop’s strategy from this in-depth case study of their journey to 21k subscribers:

• Facebook Ads: The MVP. With precise geographic targeting, Facebook ads were their primary growth engine—costing roughly $1.50/subscriber. The secret? Target middle-aged women who resonated with the newsletter’s “locally-owned” personal branding.

• Organic Strategies Matter: Sharing in local Facebook groups and subreddits brought 600+ subscribers in a weekend. However, these online communities quickly burnt out on self-promotion.

• Instagram as a Revenue Stream: Beyond growth, Instagram attracted local advertisers, doubling as an audience-engagement tool and monetization platform.

👉 Read the Full Case Study Here

🎯 $250K in One Year: Ben’s Playbook for AI Influencer Success

Ben turned two AI-powered Instagram influencers, Emma and Jade Laui, into a six-figure business using Fooocus and RunDiffusion.

Here’s How:

• Narrative-Driven Growth: By creating a family dynamic (Emma and her "mother," Jade), Ben added a layer of storytelling that captivated audiences and kept them engaged.

• Monetization Strategies: Ben funneled followers to subscription platforms like Patreon and Fanvue, offering exclusive, tiered content that built a loyal paying audience.

• Staying Organic: No spam tactics or shortcuts. Ben focused on consistent, high-quality posts to drive genuine engagement and hit Instagram’s Explore page.

👉 Explore Ben’s Insights Here

🖌️ Hacking MidJourney to Create Facebook Ads

Rory Flynn cracked how AI scales creativity, showing how MidJourney can make ad creatives that don’t look like AI gimmicks.

• AI as Your Creative Partner: By combining MidJourney for visuals, ChatGPT for copy, and Figma’s CopyDoc for templates, Rory’s team generates 1,000 ads in under an hour.

• Efficiency Meets Innovation: His workflow slashes production time by 65%, turning single assets into scalable ad sets for localization and testing.

• Stand Out, Stop the Scroll: Tools like Magnific (AI Upscaler) and Runway (motion effects) ensure your creatives grab attention without compromising quality.

👉 Watch the Full Session Here

🧰 Apps & Tools

 🐈 CopyCat: Turns your browser tasks into hands-free workflows using prompts and screen recordings. ( A free ChatGPT Operator alternative)

🎙️ Artlist: Find your best AI voices for your videos in multiple languages and accents.

✍️ WePost: All-in-one AI content manager where you can type to generate visuals, repurpose content, and schedule content.

📊 GraphThem: A perplexity AI search alternative that gives you a news brief with visuals instead.

🤳 MakeReels: Automate Instagram visuals and voiceovers by just describing the post.

Check out these custom GPTs (if you have the paid ChatGPT) that’ll elevate your content creatives:

🖍️ Sketchy: Turn your words into black-and-white sketches that bring your ideas to life. Perfect for giving your newsletter a minimalist, hand-drawn vibe.

🌀 Whimsical: Build visual explainers like flowcharts and mind maps your readers will get.

🤖 Product Updates

👷‍♂️ Meet the New Website Builder

Beehiiv just leveled up. Their new website builder is a sleek mix of flexibility, power, and creativity. It’s only available for Max and Enterprise plan Users, and the Max plan can get pricey as your subscribers grow.

• Build Without Limits: Drag and drop sections, widgets, and animations using Typedream’s abilities. From custom landing pages to welcome flows, the builder puts you in control of your entire site’s vibe.

• Beta Access Only: Currently, The tool is exclusive, so only power users are testing it. Consider it the VIP lounge—worth the price if you’re all-in on growing your brand.

• Quick Start, No Fuss: Pick a template, choose a theme, adjust fonts, and go. Websites are built in minutes, not weeks.

👉 Here’s How to Use the Builder

🌐 Your AI Assistant That Gets Things Done

OpenAI’s Operator redefines what AI can do. This agent doesn’t just generate ideas—it takes action and handles unexpected challenges with ‘a human touch.’

Need an Airbnb booked? Is a table reserved? The Operator navigates websites, types, clicks, and scrolls like humans without APIs or manual effort.

Curious? Check out nine examples of Operator in action.

Currently in beta and exclusive to ChatGPT Pro users ($200/month) in the US, it’s not flawless yet—it struggles with complex tasks like managing calendars—but early benchmarks show it’s pretty far ahead of competitors.

These AI advancements are just a glimpse into what I highlighted in a previous trend report.

👉 Watch the Demo Here

🎥 Major AI Video Updates You Need to Know

1. Cing’s Image Fusion: Combine up to 4 images (characters, objects, or places) into a single video. I noticed that results still struggle with character consistency. Currently in beta for Creative Partner users.

2. Runway’s Cinematic Generator: This tool creates cinematic images with presets and converts them into videos. It is perfect for quick concepts or b-rolls but lacks consistent character in painting.

3. Korea’s Real-Time 3D Tool: Turn flat images into 3D models, adjust compositions, and build scenes in real-time, a game changer for advertising pitches.

👉 Get All AI Video Updates Here

🖇️ Everything Else

📉 Drastic SEO Changes: Google’s Core Updates and AI overviews signal a significant shift in SEO, with HubSpot’s traffic drop as a clear example that no one is safe. (🔗 See Hubspot's Traffic Drop)

🤖 AI Coder Rankings: For non-tech users, Bolt and Lovable are simple. Cursor and Windsurf give devs complete control. Replit and Tempo Labs excel in collaboration. (🔗 Find Your Perfect Match)

📉 The Rise and Fall of RedNote: Following the TikTok ban announcement, RedNote gained 32.5M daily users but lost 54% in a single day after officials paused the ban—highlighting the volatility of social media trends. (🔗 Get the Full Breakdown Here)

💛 Sponsor

Omnisend analyzed 23+ billion emails to uncover:

• Top 10 most-used emojis (Time for a refresh?)

• Most-mentioned artists (Taylor, Drake, or Beyoncé?)

• Cats vs. dogs vs. chickens: inbox animal showdown

• Pop culture: TV, movies, and sports in emails

• Overused phrases and “oops” moments

Discover 2024’s trends and what’s next for 2025!

📈 Trends

👤 Audience Ownership in the Age of Platform Uncertainty

2025 is the year we stop renting and start owning.

Social platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and X are evolving faster than ever. If I had to guess, 2025 will bring even more changes than we’ve seen in previous years.

Algorithms shift constantly, redefining what content gets visibility; policies change overnight, often with little warning or transparency; governments around the world are considering bans or implementing restrictions on platforms; and creators are left scrambling to adapt, often at the expense of their growth, stability and mental sanity.

Building on rented land means you are one “oh sh*t, I didn’t see that coming” from losing everything.

Audience ownership isn’t just a trend—going without it has always been a gamble, but now, it’s more crucial than ever to make it a priority.

📉 The Problem with Platform Dependency

Relying solely on social platforms to connect with your audience leaves your business vulnerable:

1. Algorithmic Gatekeeping: Platforms decide who sees your content—and it’s less than you think. Average organic reach on a platform like Instagram can drop to 5–10% of your followers, forcing you to pay ads for visibility.

2. Volatility: TikTok’s potential US ban is the latest reminder of how fragile platform reliance can be. When your followers could vanish with one government decision, owning your audience becomes critical.

3. Revenue Cuts: Monetization tools often come with platform fees, slashing your earnings. The TikTok Creator Fund is frequently criticized for low payouts, creators report earning as little as $20–50 per million views, and YouTube takes 45% of ad revenue generated by creators through its YouTube Partner Program.

📬 How You Should Own Your Audience

Owning your audience means building direct, unbreakable connections via email lists, private communities, and SMS. It’s about taking control of your data, communication, and revenue streams.

1/ Newsletter:

Newsletters remain the most safe and reliable way to connect with an audience while giving you many creative capabilities.

If you don’t feel like using a platform, you can simply export your email list and import it into other email service providers.

Newsletters on Beehiiv have collectively generated $4 million in revenue in 2024, leveraging ads, subscriptions, and sponsorships.

All you need to do is offer lead magnets like free guides, discounts, or exclusive content to incentivize your followers to sign up.

Why Newsletters Will Thrive in 2025:

• Direct Access: No algorithms. No platform mediation. Just you and your email list.

• High ROI: Email delivers an average return of $36 for every $1 spent.

• Monetization Potential: Newsletters with 5,000–10,000 subscribers have earned upwards of $50,000 annually, while larger ones bring in $250,000–$1 million annually.

• AI-Powered Engagement: Tools like segmentation, polls, and automation make newsletters more dynamic and personalized than ever before.

How to Create Newsletter Content:

• Repurpose Video Transcripts: Use tools like ChatGPT to transform your YouTube, TikTok, or podcast transcripts into engaging newsletters. One video can generate multiple newsletters.

• Curate Weekly Highlights: Summarize key takeaways from your content across platforms, adding unique insights for your readers.

• Connect the Dots: Use your email list to tie together the growth of all your rented platforms.

2/ Create Self-hosted Communities

Owning your audience means creating spaces where they feel valued, connected, and part of something bigger than themselves.

A self-hosted community allows creators to build niche communities with premium and free tiers without the constraints of social media algorithms.

Here, you control what your audience sees and how you monetize it—without losing chunks of your revenue to platform fees:

• Monetize with Value: To attract your existing audience, offer free access and add premium perks such as exclusive content, live sessions, or niche forums. Communities with tiered memberships not only drive inclusivity but also sustain monetization.

• Foster Engagement: Engagement isn’t just about fighting for clicks like on social media. It’s about creating real experiences:

  • Q&A Sessions: Build trust by answering real-time questions from your community.

  • Challenges and Gamification: Use badges, leaderboards, and rewards to drive participation. Engagement jumps by 48% with gamification.

  • Tailored Sub-Communities: You can segment your audience into interest groups. Smaller, focused spaces drive deeper interactions and loyalty while letting your members feel truly seen.

• Turn Content into Growth: Your private community is a content goldmine. Repurpose its best moments:

  • Transform top Q&A highlights into Instagram posts or YouTube Shorts.

  • Share powerful snippets from exclusive webinars on LinkedIn or Twitter to spark curiosity.

  • Highlight your community’s success stories or testimonials to showcase the tangible benefits of joining.

This strategy deepens the value of your private community and newsletter list while growing it across rented platforms.

3/ Build a Phone Number List

Email provides depth, but SMS marketing offers speed and immediacy as an owned media with open rates as high as 98%.

It is especially powerful for local boring businesses or course creators.

Here’s how to grow it:

1. Leverage Your Existing Newsletter List

   • Include a simple CTA in your newsletters: “Want VIP updates? Text [Keyword] to [Shortcode] to join our SMS list!”

   • Offer exclusive perks like early access, discounts, or freebies for subscribers who add their phone numbers.

2. Incentivize Sign-Ups on Social Media

   • Use Instagram Stories, TikTok videos, or pinned tweets to promote your SMS program.

   • Example: “Text ‘DEALS’ to [Shortcode] and get 10% off your next purchase!”

3. Use Surveys and Registration Forms

   • Usually, you’d convert more phone numbers by adding fields to your newsletter sign-ups, online event RSVPs, or community registrations.

   • Keep it optional, but highlight the benefits: “Get real-time updates on new content, events, or offers.”

The question isn’t if you’ll lose access to your audience but when. Owning the relationship outright is the only way to future-proof your business.

💡 Insights

🚀 How Cora Was Built in a Day (and Why It Matters)

Kieran Klaassen didn’t just build an app—he redefined what’s possible with AI by solving an email painkiller. Here are fresh insights from his process of growing Cora a new type of email app:

• Experimentation over Perfection: Instead of starting with the perfect idea, he treated the first version as a playground: “Let’s see how far I can push this model.” Building fast wasn’t just about speed; it was about discovering boundaries.

• AI as a Collaborator: “AI did 90% of the coding, but 100% of the thinking came from me.” This human-machine partnership highlights that taste and intuition remain irreplaceable.

• Feeling Is the Feature: Cora's brilliance isn’t just its functionality. It’s how it turns email dread into relief. As Kieran puts it, “If a product excites you as a user, that’s positive energy that will resonate.”

👉 Analyze Kieran’s Full Story Here

🌊 Prepare for the Intelligence Flood

AI labs are ringing alarm bells: A flood of intelligence is coming sooner than anyone thought. But what does this mean for the rest of us?

1. The Predictions Are Bold—But Not Baseless: AI systems like OpenAI’s o3 are smashing benchmarks we thought were untouchable, from beating PhDs at knowledge tests to solving impossible math problems.

2. Narrow Agents Are Already Here: Google’s Deep Research can analyze hundreds of websites and produce comprehensive reports in minutes, an economic game-changer for research-heavy jobs. 

3. A World Beyond Benchmarks: Advances in multimodal capabilities (think: AIs that can see, speak, and remember better) are transforming creative workflows. What used to take hours now takes minutes, with stunning results.

👉 Analyze the Intelligence Flood Here

💣 Replit CEO Drops Some Bombshells

Replit’s tool Agent reframes how we approach coding. Here are some standout thoughts recently mentioned by the CEO for those already aware of AI’s power in coding:

• Human Context Is Irreplaceable (For Now): Despite Agent’s capabilities, the CEO stressed that “100% of the thinking still comes from the human user.”

• Creativity Over Complexity: He compared software design to music composition, where the focus shifts from technical precision to crafting “experiences that make you feel something.”

• Learning as the Ultimate ROI: “Every six months, the return on learning basic coding doubles.” The agent makes learning a bit of coding incredibly valuable for unlocking its full potential.

👉 Get the CEO's Thoughts Here

🧰 Apps & Tools

🍟 Blotato: Create viral posts and faceless videos you can remix and cross-post everywhere.

🎙️ Wonderpod AI: Convert your newsletter archive into a podcast series.

📚 Learning Studio: Use AI to create online courses on any topic quickly and easily.

✍️ VentureKit: Build a complete business plan with the help of AI.

🌌 Jumper: AI-powered search engine to find the perfect footage for video editing projects.

📝 Deepwriter: Generate complex eBooks with this AI writing tool. See real-world results here.

🤖 Product Updates

📝 Use ChatGPT Tasks to Automate Your Life

What if you didn’t have to think about recurring tasks and finding motivation? What if they just happened? ChatGPT’s new tasks feature is an excellent start to agentic AI around autonomous productivity.

How You Can Start

1. Pick “Go with Scheduled Tasks” in the model options.

2. Decide what ChatGPT should do daily or weekly, detailed or broad.

3. Let it work in the background, giving you mental clarity and focus for your next big move.

Examples Of Using ChatGPT Tasks

• Automate Content Repurposing: Schedule it to create daily X posts based on scraping your top-performing content.

• Personal Motivation Coach: Receive a custom pep talk every morning at 9 AM to kickstart your workout or project goals.

👉 Get More Task Examples Here

🗣️ Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat: AI for Every Employee

Microsoft’s new Copilot Chat transforms your workflows by combining GPT-4o AI chat and pay-as-you-go agents in every corner of your business.

Key Features

1. AI-Powered Chat: Research, strategize, and collaborate securely with GPT-4o.

2. Custom Agents: Automate repetitive tasks like customer support or sales updates, all built seamlessly in chat.

3. Enterprise Control: Manage agents and data with robust IT governance tools.

👉 Learn More About Copilot Here

🎥 Luma Labs Ray 2: AI Video Creation Reimagined

Luma Labs’ new Ray 2 pushes the boundaries of AI video generation, offering cinematic visuals and unprecedented precision.

Why It Stands Out

• Cinematic Mastery: Delivers dynamic, visually rich videos with smooth motion tracking.

• Prompt Precision: Handles creative ideas like origami birds and collapsing buildings accurately.

• Close-Up Brilliance: Excels in facial detail and environmental textures.

What’s the Catch?

• Instability at Scale: Long videos (10+ seconds) can lose coherence.

• 720p Resolution: Limits visual sharpness compared to competitors.

👉 Get a Luma Ray 2 Review Here

🖇️ Everything Else

💰 AI Pricing Shift: AI tools move from seat-based pricing to models tied to results and expertise. (🔗 Rethink AI Pricing Models)

🕒 Best Time to Post on IG: With a potential TikTok ban in the US, check out the best times to repurpose your content effectively to maximize your Instagram reach. (🔗 Get Data Based From 2M+ Posts)

🌐 Google AI Essentials: Try out Google’s free course on how to use generative AI tools to speed up tasks. (🔗 Try Out Google AI's Course)

💛 Sponsor

Omnisend analyzed 23+ billion emails to uncover:

• Top 10 most-used emojis (Time for a refresh?)

• Most-mentioned artists (Taylor, Drake, or Beyoncé?)

• Cats vs. dogs vs. chickens: inbox animal showdown

• Pop culture: TV, movies, and sports in emails

• Overused phrases and “oops” moments

Discover 2024’s trends and what’s next for 2025!

📈 Trends

 🧠 The AI Workforce Shift: Not Just Talk This Time

You’ve heard it before: “AI is taking your jobs.”

Every year, it’s the same prediction—and every year, life seems to go on as usual.

But this time?

It’s different.

2025 isn’t just another chapter in the story of AI hype. It’s shaping up to be the year the workforce undergoes a fundamental shift—a tipping point accelerated by the rise of AGI.

And I’ve got the recent trends and stats to back it up.

📊 Why Is It Different Now?

Automation has been reshaping industries for decades, replacing manual labor in factories, fields, and assembly lines.

But now, the shift is targeting roles once thought untouchable.

I’m not talking about low-level, repetitive tasks. Complex, high-value roles—like Software Developers and Sales Associates—are actively being replaced by AI.

And big players are going all in this year. They’re not just talking about AI’s potential—they’re actively implementing it already.

1. Software Developers:

• Meta’s Move: Zuck mentioned last week in an interview that Meta plans to replace mid-level engineers with AI this year. (At Meta, “mid-level” means top-tier talent anywhere else.)

• Salesforce’s Surge: Agentforce boosted engineering output by 30%, enough to freeze software engineer hiring for the rest of this year.

2. Sales Associates:

• Lumen’s Savings: They estimated $50 million in annual savings with the integration of Copilot, which has significantly enhanced sales associates' productivity.

• Honeywell’s AI Power: Recently, they mentioned how they streamlined operations, effectively replacing the workload equivalent to 187 full-time employees.

3. Multiple Roles:

• Klarna’s Big Decision: Sebastian Siemiatkowski revealed that the company recently stopped hiring because AI models already handle critical roles. Their workforce shrank 20% over the past year, from 4,500 to 3,500 employees, without replacing departures, as “AI can perform nearly all tasks once handled by humans.”

When you hear big companies already trusting AI to replace high-skill jobs, it’s a massive signal that AI is reaching a scary level of maturity where it can handle complex tasks.

🌍 The New Workforce

The reality isn’t all bad. According to the World Economic Forum’s 2025 report (known for its extensive research and surveys), they predicted that AI will displace 92 million jobs by 2030 and create 170 million new ones.

Almost double the amount of job opportunities.

Here’s How They See the Workforce Splitting:

The report highlights a sharp decline in roles like data entry clerks, payroll clerks, and even certain engineering positions as AI continues to transform industries.

Nearly 59% of workers will need significant reskilling to stay relevant, yet only 24% of companies currently offer adequate training programs.

For businesses ready to act, this represents a huge opportunity. Those investing in upskilling their teams early are positioning themselves as leaders in the new economy—just as companies like Meta are doing.

Top Skills Include:

Here are some of the top skills they mentioned are needed this year and beyond to become an effective generalist.

• Tech: AI literacy, cybersecurity, data analysis - Due to integrating AI and technology across industries.

• Human: Creativity, adaptability, critical thinking—these abilities complement AI's capabilities, enabling workers to excel in areas where human intuition and innovation are indispensable.

Where We at in Terms of Proficiency:

AI is already becoming a collaborative partner in the workplace. For instance, companies like Salesforce are pairing human employees with AI tools to amplify productivity and results.

But here’s the reality:

• Only 9% of workers are proficient with AI.

• A staggering 47% are AI novices, struggling to effectively integrate AI tools into their workflows.

The winners? Individuals and businesses investing in AI proficiency now. By closing the skills gap, they’ll secure a competitive edge as this transformation accelerates.

💡 Where Do You See Yourself in the AI Shift?

AI isn’t just reshaping work—it’s accelerating faster than anyone anticipated. With tools evolving exponentially, breakthroughs that used to take decades now happen in months, or even weeks.

We’re reaching a tipping point where AI doesn’t just augment human effort—it scales infinitely. Imagine entire fleets of AI agents transforming industries overnight. The takeoff has already started.

The question is: are you adapting to this rapid shift, upskilling to stay ahead, or risking being left behind as the future arrives faster than expected?

🤝 Opportunity

 🫂 Your Digital Double Is Here

What if you could build an online personal brand without ever showing your face?

It isn’t about creating AI Instagram models or AI girlfriends. These tools go beyond creating fake personas to sell products.

Instead, you could create a viral digital double that amplifies your personal brand and push your content across multiple platforms with consistent character branding.

Why You Should Care

1. Face-Free Creativity: Finally, a better option for creators who want to stay behind the scenes. Avatars let you deliver your message without stepping in front of a camera, giving introverts and privacy-conscious creators a powerful tool.

2. Next-Level Creativity: You can create AI spokespersons with crazy background images and extra creatives to make it stand out from a ‘human’ feed.

Proof?

This 30-second AI avatar video racked up 300K views.

Twitter tweet

Now imagine scaling that impact across platforms effortlessly.

Let’s Build Your Digital Double

Want to create your personal AI avatar that can do the talking for you?

Here’s How:

1. Generate Your Avatar

• Start with tools like Synthesia or other AI image generators to create a digital version of yourself.

2. Convert Image to Video with Runway

• Import your avatar into Runway and use the Image-to-Video feature.

• Create the foundational animation by selecting motion styles or templates to bring your avatar to life.

3. Add Movement with Runway

• Use Runway Act One to bring your avatar to life.

• Upload the reference video of yourself for lip-syncing and hand gestures as you talk. (Act One supports video uploads now)

4. Sync It All

• Use video-to-video features to tweak performances post-production for maximum polish.

5. Repurpose Everywhere

• Repurpose this single 30-second clip into:

  • YouTube Shorts

  • Tweet

  • Instagram Reels

  • Add captions for newsletters or blogs.

Check out some examples of how it works here:

The Trade-Off

Here’s the question:

Can audiences connect with an AI version of you?

There’s:

• Trust Issues: It’s harder to connect when people know it’s not “real.”

• Ethical Concerns: Misuse could harm your credibility.

The answer lies in balance:

Creators who merge human authenticity with AI scalability will dominate the future.

The Big Picture

In 5 years, your feed could be unrecognizable:

• Tons of influencers that are entirely powered by AI.

• Faceless brands building trust and value.

• Personal branding with zero manual effort.

💡 Insights

📧 Dan Koe’s 3-Step System for Scalable Content

Writing isn’t just about words—it’s about systems. Dan Koe turns one newsletter into a multi-platform machine, amplifying reach and building authority across YouTube, Medium, and podcasts.

Why It Works:

• Repurpose, Don’t Repeat: One quality newsletter can become a YouTube script, a podcast episode, or a Medium post. Although the formats are different, the core message remains the same.

• Clarity Over Clutter: Focus on actionable insights and depth, not noise.

Dan’s Framework:

1. Hook → Insight → Process:

   • Start with a relatable story (Hook).

   • Deliver a powerful perspective (Insight).

   • Share actionable steps (Process).

2. Leverage a Second Brain:

   • Use tools like Cortex to capture ideas, tag notes, and stay organized.

   • Reference past insights to overcome writer’s block and create depth.

👉 See the Full Process in Action

📰 The Truth About Spicy Newsletter Takes

Everyone has an opinion on how to grow and run a newsletter—but are the hot takes always worth following? Chenell and Dylan unpack some of the most polarizing newsletter strategies and reveal what works.

• Lead Magnets Done Right: Forget generic PDFs. A 7-day email course aligned with your newsletter builds habits and loyalty—not just meaningless clicks.

• Subject Line Testing? Maybe Not: Testing is only worth it if you uncover repeatable patterns. Random experiments are a one-way ticket to wasted time.

👉 Get All Their Hot Takes Here

📱 What the TikTok Ban Means for Your Brand

The potential US TikTok ban is a wake-up call. If your entire strategy lives on one platform, this is your chance to future-proof your business and take control.

Shift Your Focus:

• Create Platform Agility: Most platforms have been preparing for a TikTok ban with their short-form features. Start repurposing your TikTok content across Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.

• Own Your Audience: Direct your followers to your newsletter list as a safety net to keep them engaged while you decide your next move.

👉 Prepare For a Platform-Agnostic Future

🧰 Apps & Tools

🤖 Instagram Comments Agent: A free tool that automates your Instagram comments. It’s a bit of a technical setup, but follow the step-by-step instructions.

💻 Fenado AI: A Lovable alternative that turns your words into desktop and mobile apps.

📨 Scale Your Newsletter with AI: This growth assistant turns your newsletter into a high-performing asset, helping you grow, engage, and monetize.

🔗 Packpack AI: A link-saving tool like Fabric to keep all your resources in one place.

📋 Dummy Forms: Create customizable online forms with drag-and-drop features.

🎯 Creator Hunter: A vetted database of over 4,206 influencers to drive more traffic to your project.

🤖 Product Updates

🍏 Grok AI Lands on iOS

The cheeky chatbot from xAI, has dropped its app for iPhone and iPad users in the U.S.

What Sets It Apart

Unlike the others, Grok blends real-time data with a bit of sass, making it your AI sidekick for everything from brainstorming to generating images in one app.

What You Need to Know

It’s exclusive to the US (for now). Grok is rolling out gradually, so global users must hang tight.

🔗 Get Grok On IOS Now

🎥 Turn Blurry Clips into Clean Visuals

Tencent’s Stable Video Face Restoration open-source project transforms low-quality footage into HD.

What Makes It Great:

• Unified Restoration: SVFR isn’t just upscale—it restores facial details, fills gaps with inpainting, and adds natural colorization for unmatched quality.

• Endless Potential: You can repurpose vintage footage for better storytelling, create professional video presentations, or enhance video call quality.

🔗 See AI Video Upscaling in Action

🎨 Scale Your Visual Workflow with AI

Adobe Firefly Bulk Create is changing how you handle large-scale image editing. Say goodbye to repetitive tasks and hello to efficient, scalable content production.

How This Matters for Creators:

• Effortless Automation: With a single click, you can resize and edit up to 10,000 images to rebrand, create product visuals, or optimize social media content.

• Platform-Ready Perfection: It has precise presets and automatically adjusts TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook assets to ensure your visuals stay aligned.

🔗 Unlock the Power of Firefly Bulk Create

🖇️ Everything Else

💰 AI Pricing Shift: AI tools move from seat-based pricing to models tied to results and expertise. (🔗 Rethink AI Pricing Models)

🕒 Best Time to Post on IG: With a potential TikTok ban in the US, check out the best times to repurpose your content effectively to maximize your Instagram reach. (🔗Get Data Based From 2M+ Posts)

🌐 Google AI Essentials: Try out Google’s free course on how to use generative AI tools to speed up tasks. (🔗Try Out Google AI's Course)

💛 Sponsor

Don’t even pretend — you want to know how LEGO does their email marketing.

Back in 2020, LEGO Colombia’s subscriber base grew so much, it became a challenge to manage it. And if you want new results, you can’t keep playing by the old rules.

To pull this off, they made a power move: switching their ESP from Mailchimp to Omnisend.

The payoff?

• 37% open rates across all automations

• 10% click-through rates

And look, we get how some of the smaller brands may find it hard to relate to the industry giants. But we can all learn a thing or two from them regardless.

📈 Trends

 🌅 2025: The Year of AGI – A New Era of Human Potential

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) isn’t science fiction anymore. It’s knocking on our door, according to Sam Altman. For some, this is thrilling; for others, unsettling.

But one thing is clear: it’s a change we can’t ignore. AGI won’t just tweak the world as we know it—it will rebuild it.

🤔 What Is AGI?

Most of you know AI as a convenient tool—think chatbots, algorithms, or automation. AGI is different.

AGI doesn’t follow the rules or stay confined to just one task. It learns, adapts, and creates in ways humans do autonomously—perhaps even better in some cases. It’s not just about doing things faster. It’s about solving problems in ways we can’t yet imagine.

As Sam Altman continually says, AGI is like a “median human coworker” but with superhuman endurance. It could fundamentally redefine what’s possible, how we live, and what we value.

🌍 How AGI Will Reshape the World

1/ The Economy Will Shift Beneath Your Feet

AGI will automate jobs, yes. But don’t panic—this isn’t the apocalypse. AI Experts predict that jobs as we know them will disappear, but entirely new paths will emerge. The challenge is adaptation.

Imagine a world where Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a necessity. Essential goods would be so cheap that survival would become an afterthought, paving the way for a world focused on innovation and growth. Could this be the post-AGI world?

2/ Creativity Will Skyrocket

AGI will obliterate bottlenecks in research and discovery in many areas:

• Climate change? New models for renewable energy.

• Medicine? Breakthrough drugs and cures for complex diseases.

• Space exploration? Colonizing planets could move from theory to practice.

But AGI won’t stop at science. It’ll become your teammate in creativity—collaborating on art, music, and ways that push human imagination further.

3/ The Rise of the Solo AGI Billionaire

Here’s a thought: you won’t need a massive team or funding to change the world anymore. Even someone from a 3rd world country with limited resources could scale like never before.

A solo entrepreneur could use AGI to solve global problems, turning ideas into million-dollar solutions from the comfort of their home.

🔧 How to Adapt to the Era of AGI

The old way of doing things—rote memorization, fixed career paths, and comfort zones—is about to collapse under exponential progress.

The good news? You can create your blueprint for thriving in the new world.

Here’s how to stay ahead.

1/ Learn How to Work With AI, Not Against It

AGI is not the enemy. It’s a tool, a powerful one. But only if you know how to use it.

Real wealth will come from creativity and problem-solving.

• Automate the Mundane: AGI will handle repetitive ‘VA’ tasks like scheduling or summarizing data. This isn’t “cheating” or “laziness” it’s efficiency.

• Become a Co-Creator: In creative fields, AGI could generate ideas while you refine them. The synergy of logic and emotion creates what neither could alone.

• Decisions Need a Soul: You will use AGI to analyze scenarios and crunch numbers, but remember: the final call is yours. Don’t outsource your ethics.

In the right hands, AGI is a top-class teammate.

2/ Build Businesses That Flex

Standing still isn’t an option. Businesses that fail to adapt will be left behind.

• Hybrid Workforces Are the Future: Teams of humans and AGI working side by side will be a thing. Redefine roles and build spaces where both can thrive.

• Train for Chaos: Teach your team how to navigate change. Adaptability and resilience will be more valuable than any specific skill.

• Reward Innovation: Prioritize creativity and collaboration over just output. The people who work with AGI effectively will become your MVPs.

3/ Fight for Ethical AI

If you don’t help shape AGI, someone else will.

• Demand Transparency: Algorithms shouldn’t be black boxes. Support movements that push for explainable and accountable AI.

• Make It Accessible: Advocate for AGI tools that benefit everyone, not just corporations.

• Be Part of the Conversation: Join forums, write, or speak out. The governance of AGI needs diverse voices to serve humanity as a whole.

4/ Future-Proof Your Finances

AGI will disrupt your industry, but that’s an opportunity, not a death sentence.

• Multiple Income Streams: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Freelance, consult or start your own business with AGI as your silent partner.

• Invest in Versatility: Be a Swiss Army knife of skills, not a specialist. Now, it’s the era of the generalist. Dan Koe argued that “AI is a specialist that needs a generalist. A tool that needs a master..” The more adaptable you are, the harder it will be for AGI—or anyone—to replace you.

2025 is a significant turning point, and your choices throughout the year will define how you will thrive in the AGI era.

💡 Insights

🔮 2025 Mega AI Predictions: What’s Coming

As mentioned earlier, 2025 could be the year AI goes from being a "cool tech" to being woven into how we work, create, and live our daily lives.

Here’s some interesting things on the horizon based on insights from some of the sharpest minds in tech:

• Generative AI Everywhere: From Hollywood-quality AI videos to AI-generated social media hits, content creation will hit new levels. But with all this, expect significant trust issues as deepfakes become even more undetectable.

• Education Gets Smart: AI is entering classrooms to create hyper-personalized learning paths, virtual STEM labs, and even AI assistants that take on admin tasks so teachers can focus on teaching.

• Outcome Arbitrage: Why hire expensive human labor when AI can deliver cheaper, faster results in industries like content creation, customer support, and analytics based on results only?

• The Human Touch: Brands will capitalize on the nostalgia of people craving authentic, imperfect, human-created goods by flexing their “made by humans” label.

• AI’s Dark Side: As mentioned earlier, cybercriminals will supercharge scams with deepfakes, and there will be more AI phishing campaigns. Some companies might experience AI disasters and scramble for AI safeguards, and regulators will face a steep learning curve.

Sources: Inspired by insights from Mark Sullivan, Greg Isenberg, Laura Ascione, and The AI Valley.

💼 Why You Should Start A Hyper-Local Newsletter

Hyperlocal newsletters like Naptown Scoop are redefining trust-based advertising for local businesses. They are turning small audiences into big revenue. Starting with just 70 subscribers in 2020, they now have 21,000 readers and $300K in ad revenue.

What’s Driving the $$$:

• Advertisers Crave Trust: Real estate agents, healthcare providers, and financial planners thrive on authentic relationships. These aren’t cold Facebook ads. They’re paying a premium for local attention.

• Focus Beats Noise: 50% of its ad revenue comes from 5 advertisers, which tells you that their content delivers results.

• Community-Focused Content: Instead of politics or polarizing nonsense, Naptown doubled down on community: local news, events, memes, and even historical photos that hit that nostalgic sweet spot.

🔗 See How You Can Replicate Naptown’s Growth

🚀 Build Your First Backend in 21 Minutes Using AI

Most creators only talk about front-end AI tutorials with Lovable or Bolt, but here's the truth: front-end alone doesn’t build an app. If your app will function, you must also know how to make the backend (Even if you’ve never written a line of code).

This Episode Highlights:

• Real-World Tools: Learn backend development using tools like Firebase and GitHub.

• Get Free Resources: Corbin gives you access to all the code and Google Docs to follow.

• Complete Series: Upcoming episodes cover hosting, payment integration, and advanced API logic.

🎥 Watch Episode 1 Here

🧰 Apps & Tools

🕵️‍♂️ SEO Bot: Get your SEO blog posts automated completely with AI. Works with your CMS no-code platforms like Webflow or WordPress.

🖼️ Infographic Generator: Transform data into shareable infographics for presentations, reports, and social media.

🛠️ Ply: A no-code tool that lets you build smart forms and workflows for customers and teams into the apps you’re already using.

🧑 Otto: Your AI research sidekick that automates manual tasks like enriching lists, researching companies, or analyzing documents.

🤖 Product Updates

✍️ Google's Gemini 2.0 Is Now in Notebook LM

Here’s how these updates can supercharge your workflow as an entrepreneur, content creator, or lifelong learner:

• AI Insights: Gemini 2.0’s language model improves NotebookLM's ability to generate accurate, context-aware answers, acting as a personalized AI expert for your notes.

• Magic Draft Tool: With Gemini's 2.0’s capabilities, the drafting process becomes smoother and more intuitive, as it can now better analyze and utilize your sources to create high-quality text through AI-guided workflows.

🔗 Examples of NotebookLM's Improved Features

👁️ Google Can Now See Your Screen

Google’s Stream Real-Time feature (part of Gemini 2.0) lets you interact with your screen in real time, allowing you to analyze information without sharing screenshots.

What it Does:

• Instant Insights: From breaking down dense data to analyzing YouTube videos, Stream Real-Time speeds up decision-making.

• Enhanced Testing: You can get instant feedback on design tweaks or changes to your apps or AI tools.

🔗 Get Real-World Examples Here

🖇️ Everything Else

👨‍💻 AI Tools Are the New No-Code: John Rush shares his experience with 21+ AI coding tools. (👉 See His Full Breakdown)

🤖 AI & Automation Skills for 2025: AI and automation will be the biggest game-changers in 2025. (👉 Get a Quickstart Checklist Here)

💡 Kickstart Your Next Venture: 1084 ideas to research demand and market fit for specific business models. (👉 Explore the Ideas)

🚀 Creators Redefining Success: Follow these 50 creators to analyze how they execute storytelling, community building, and making the creator economy work. (👉 Discover Their Stories Here)

💛 Sponsor

Don’t even pretend — you want to know how LEGO does their email marketing.

Back in 2020, LEGO Colombia’s subscriber base grew so much, it became a challenge to manage it. And if you want new results, you can’t keep playing by the old rules.

To pull this off, they made a power move: switching their ESP from Mailchimp to Omnisend.

The payoff?

• 37% open rates across all automations

• 10% click-through rates

And look, we get how some of the smaller brands may find it hard to relate to the industry giants. But we can all learn a thing or two from them regardless.

📈 Trends

🧠 Build Smarter, Not Harder: The Rise of Boilerplates in SaaS

Building a SaaS product has always been about balancing speed, scalability, and cost. No-code tools offer simplicity, but they always have scaling limitations. Then you get custom hard coding, which delivers flexibility but comes with steep costs, a heavy understanding of the code needed, and long development times.

Now, boilerplates are emerging as the smarter, middle-ground solution for entrepreneurs when combined with AI coding tools like Cursor, Lovable, or Bolt, as these tools become more user-friendly.

Boilerplates offer pre-built full-stack templates with features like payment integrations, admin dashboards, and front-end design with the speed and scalability of no-code tools without sacrificing customizability.

🛠️ How to Build Smarter with Boilerplates and AI

• Launch, Learn, Iterate: These boilerplates' flexibility allows you to launch your MVP quickly, gather user feedback, and evolve your product. Start with a boilerplate below.

• Refined with AI: Use tools like Bolt and Lovable to layer on features, fix bugs, and optimize UX with iterative prompts.

• Cost-Effective Scaling: Built for scale, boilerplates save you thousands compared to custom builds.

Take Fraser, for example. He used DaaSBoilerplate to build a database SaaS. The boilerplate provided 90% of the functionality, resulting in a product that generated $9.4K MRR with operating costs under $900/month.

🚀 What Boilerplates Should You Use?

Here are some standout options tailored to different needs:

1. Codefast/ShipFast by Marc Lou

• Best For: First-time SaaS creators.

• Why Use It? CodeFast combines Marc Lou’s beginner-friendly ‘everything you need to know’ course with a Next.js boilerplate, helping you launch functional SaaS products using AI-assisted coding in 14 days.

• Examples:

  

  • Amazon Discount Finder: Adam built this tool in 7 days without knowing how to code beforehand. It helps users uncover Amazon deals. In 24 hours, it gained 86 visitors.

  • 7-Day Challenge: Alex is documenting his journey of learning to code and building his first project using CodeFast.

2. DaaSBoilerplate

• Best For: Database-as-a-service (DaaS) products.

• Why Use It? Includes multi-tenancy, admin dashboards, and Stripe integration for launching scalable, customer-ready data platforms.

• Example: Exploding Insights used DaaSBoilerplate to build a platform that scrapes and analyzes business ideas from marketplaces like Fiverr and Crunchbase.

3. AnotherWrapper

• It is Best For creating AI tools such as chatbots, speech-to-text apps, and image-generation platforms.

• Why Use It? It simplifies integrations with APIs like OpenAI, Whisper, and Stripe, allowing you to focus on building without understanding all the backend headaches.

4. BoilerplateHub

• Best Option For: Those unsure where to start.

• Why Use It? A directory of boilerplates across industries, tech stacks, and specific use cases—ideal for finding the right starting point..

💬 Challenges with Boilerplates

While boilerplates are game-changers for SaaS development, they’re not without their challenges:

• Learning Curve: Setting up and customizing boilerplates still requires basic technical know-how. Learning fundamentals like HTML, CSS, and JS through courses like CodeFast can help bridge this gap with AI-assisted coding.

• Code Bloat: Some boilerplates include unnecessary code, making projects heavier and needing to be cleaned up.

• Outdated Templates: Tech stacks evolve quickly, and boilerplates risk becoming obsolete if not regularly updated.

📈 Why Boilerplates Matter for 2025

Boilerplates are reshaping how SaaS products are built, allowing entrepreneurs to launch quickly, scale effectively, and customize with precision, and AI coding updates are making it easier and more manageable.

By combining pre-built templates with evolving AI coding tools, you will get:

• The speed of no-code tool template development.

• The customizability of full-stack coding with AI.

• The cost-efficiency needed to scale.

💡 Insights

🚀 Stan: Empowering Creators to Earn $200M+

In an interview with Creator Spotlight, Stan’s founder John Hu shared how he turned TikTok into a launchpad for building a platform that empowers creators to monetize their skills through digital products, coaching, and memberships—helping them build thriving businesses and earn $200M+ along the way.

Key Takeaways:

• Content = Growth: John didn’t chase creators. Instead, he met them where they were: TikTok. By sharing his story and teaching others how to monetize, John built trust and attracted thousands of creators. This content-first approach fueled Stan’s rise to $33M ARR in just a few years.

• Low-Ticket Wins: The sweet spot? Products priced between $9–$47. Templates, guides, and quick coaching calls are accessible for buyers, but they add up fast—helping creators scale their income without friction.

• Building the Creator Middle Class: Stan isn’t just for the elite. Over 11,000 creators have earned at least $1K by selling digital products—from courses to coaching sessions.

🔗 Read John Hu's Full Interview on Creator Spotlight →

📲 Build a SaaS in Minutes Without Code

Following up on our trend report, here’s an example of how AI tools like Lovable make SaaS development faster and more accessible for generating your project idea.

What Stood Out:

1. AI as Your Product Manager: Treat AI as a collaborator, not just a coder. Define features, flows, and user requirements clearly to get accurate results.

2. Simplifying Full-Stack Development: Lovable and Bolt recently added Supabase integration, which allows you to set up authentication, databases, and backends in a single prompt. Stripe support is likely next, eventually allowing you to build a full-stack app with minimal effort.

3. The Future of No-Code SaaS: User experience and design are becoming the true differentiators as backend functionality becomes a commodity.

🔗 Build a SaaS with AI and No-Code →

🔎 AI Search is Changing SEO: What You Need to Know

ChatGPT's new search functionality is reshaping how content is ranked and discovered. Analyzing results from Google and Bing gives you a new landscape for content creators and brands.

Key Takeaways:

• Long-Form Content Wins: ChatGPT prioritizes detailed, list-style articles from high-authority sites over brand pages. To rank and collaborate with trusted media outlets for honest reviews and features.

• Local SEO Gets a Boost: ChatGPT relies heavily on Google Maps and positive reviews for localized searches. Authentic, positive Google reviews are crucial for visibility.

• Ad-Free Search Means Organic-First: With no ads in ChatGPT results, the focus shifts to brand mentions and conveying value. While it doesn’t drive traffic, it positions your brand as a trusted solution in user queries.

🔗 Adapt Your SEO For ChatGPT Search →

🔬 Stop Using Perplexity & SearchGPT Like Google

AI search engines like Perplexity and SearchGPT offer far more than basic Google-style searches if you know how to prompt them effectively.

How to Get Better Results:

1. Debate Analysis: Go beyond surface-level trends by asking for contrasting views and multiple perspectives on emerging topics.

2. Blind Spot Analysis: Identify hidden factors and analyze long-term impacts (e.g., 3-5 years) to make smarter decisions.

3. Trend Tracking: Compare data over time—e.g., “How has cybersecurity evolved in the last year?”—to spot ongoing trends versus temporary hype.

4. Learning Path Creation: Create clear learning roadmaps for skills you want to learn, such as UX design, at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels.

5. Fact-Checking: Quickly verify claims by asking, “Is it true?” or requesting direct quotes and statistical evidence.

🔗 Learn How to Prompt Smarter →

🧰 Apps & Tools

🗨️ Aftercare: Transform surveys into conversations with targeted AI follow-up questions that dig deeper into respondents' insights.

📂 Directify: Build professional directory websites with no coding required.

🎯 Mentor: Break down your goals and stay accountable with a personal AI coach that simplifies tasks, tracks progress, and keeps you motivated.

🖌️ Evrybo: Your all-in-one visual feedback tool, combining design feedback, bug tracking, and project management.

🌊 Data Surf: Merge your browsing, file management, and AI assistance into one experience, all while keeping your data locally stored.

🤖 Product Updates

@ Pika 2.0: Redefining AI Video Creation

Pika 2.0 empowers creators with Scene Ingredients and precision text alignment to revolutionize video storytelling.

• Scene Ingredients: Allows you to customize every detail of your video. Upload photos to add characters, objects, or backgrounds.

• Precision Text-to-Video: Turn detailed prompts into polished videos with perfect execution for social content and professional videos.

🔗 Explore Pika 2.0 Features

📒 NotebookLM Gets a Major Upgrade

NotebookLM, Google’s AI-powered research assistant, introduces a sleek redesign, audio interactivity, and NotebookLM Plus for power users.

What Stood Out:

1. New Unified Interface: Manage sources, chat, and create in one streamlined workspace.

2. Interactive Audio Overviews: Ask questions and engage with AI hosts mid-conversation.

3. NotebookLM Plus: Premium plan with expanded features for teams, schools, and enterprises.

🔗 Explore NotebookLM Updates Now

💡 Launch Apps & Monetize on Day 1 with Create

Create’s new AI Templates handle everything you need from design, AI, backends, and payments so you can go from idea to MVP in minutes.

Why It’s a Game-Changer:

1. Complete Solutions: Built-in support for Stripe, OpenAI, and databases.

2. AI Product Engineer: Create manages the heavy lifting, letting you focus on your niche.

3. Scalable Templates: Build apps like InteriorAI or HeadshotPro and start earning.

🔗 Try These Templates Now

🖇️ Everything Else

🤳 Rapid Development: In just 2 hours, John built and iterated a vacation tracking tool with Replit AI. (👉 How He Built It)

📬 HubSpot’s 89% Newsletter Lead Boost: HubSpot's newsletter strategy got a major glow-up this year, driving an 89% jump in leads. (👉 Read How They Did It)

👨‍💻 How a HubSpot Exec Runs on AI: The SVP of Marketing at HubSpot shares how he integrates AI into his daily workflows. (👉 Get the Full Breakdown Here)

📰 Create Newsletter That People Want to Read: Danielle shared 9 tips for writing B2B newsletters after writing 26 newsletter issues and growing to 8,000+ readers. (👉Check out Danielle’s Newsletter Tips)

📉Social Media ≠ Public Opinion: Only 20% of X users post, proving that trends don’t reflect the majority—vocal minorities skew them. (👉Unpack the Real Impact Here)

💛 Sponsor

📧 Beyond BFCM: Your Post-Holiday Playbook

Everyone’s laser-focused on BFCM, and then... wait, there’s life after it?

Many brands miss out by going quiet afterward, even though it’s the perfect time to strategize smartly and take advantage of slowing competition.

Omnisend has prepared the ultimate cheat sheet for owning the post-holiday chaos. Inside, you'll find:

• How to retarget BFCM bargain hunters before they ghost you

• List segmentation that actually works

• Limited-time discounts that don’t feel desperate

• New Year’s promos that feel fresh, not forced

• Sly ways to get reviews and referrals

Instead of slowing down, see how you can push your post-holiday strategy for new wins.

📈 Trends

💼 Reverse Job Boards: From Job Hunting to Being Hunted

Reverse job boards flip the traditional model by showcasing talent first instead of the traditional company-posts-a-job model. Employers are now scrolling to find the perfect hire in pre-curated databases.

This model is crushing it in super niche and techie markets, creating massive potential for startups as companies actively browse and reach out to potential hires.

💰 How Do You Make Money From This Model?

Most reverse job boards use a hybrid model that makes it much more affordable for smaller businesses while ensuring the platform generates significant income from successful matches.

• Subscription Fees: Employers pay $99/month (or more) to browse candidate databases.

• Per-Hire Fees: Some platforms charge 10% of the annual salary per hire (RailsDevs does this). That is much cheaper than 25% of the candidate’s yearly salary that many recruitment agencies charge you.

• Premium Add-Ons: For bonus features like highlighted profiles, advanced search tools, or featured placements.

🚀 What Niche Do I Get Into?

Targeting specific skill sets, like a particular programming language, works well for these types of job boards.

1. They Win in Niches: Platforms like MyPerfectJob (for Product Managers) are generating $4K+ MRR and charging $10K-$20K per hire, and RailDevs, which focuses on Ruby on Rails developers, was making $5-$10K/month. Both concentrate on one specific role and value for job seekers first.

2. Global Talent is Booming: Boards like OnlineJobs.ph tap into remote-ready markets, helping employers find affordable, skilled VA talent worldwide for cheaper than hiring locally. This is earning $1M in monthly revenue.

   Create a regional database similar to this, focusing on skilled workers in markets like Eastern Europe, South Africa, or Latin America.

3. Other Emerging Industries: Tap into Web3 developers, AI specialists, or climate tech professionals. Areas like video production, text-to-video creators, or no-code specialists are also fresh roles for disruption.

💡 Challenges You’ll Face

1. The Cold Start Problem: Reverse job boards are two-sided marketplaces, so building traction on one side without the other is a key challenge.

   You need candidates and employers to start (chicken, meet egg). Invest deeply in the candidate side first.

   A strong community on the non-paying side will be a magnet for paying customers.

2. Niche Focus: Picking the right niche is essential. If the market is too broad, you’ll struggle to differentiate. If it’s too narrow, growth potential may be limited.

   Look for underserved niches with active communities.

   Avoid broad, hyper-competitive markets like general tech hiring or remote work; focus on subfields like offshore developers, freelancers in AI, or specialized creatives.

3. Monetization Hurdles: Churn will be very high, but unlike traditional SaaS businesses, churn isn’t a negative for this project.

   Short-term subscriptions encourage businesses to find the right developer quickly and cheaply. If they sign up, hire someone, and then leave. That’s another success story to display on your site.

🛠️ Want to Build One? Here’s How to Start

1. Pick a Niche: Be specific and focus on a specialized skill, industry, or region (e.g., AI devs from Eastern Europe). Ideally, you already have an audience in this particular niche.

   If you have 1000 pre-vetted developers and no businesses, that’s better than 15 paying businesses with no developers. The developers are your foundation.

2. Build Your Database: Get your first 100-200 candidates via mass DM’ing people on LinkedIn through Dripify, forums, or niche communities. Joe mentioned in the interview that he launched RailsDevs by first curating a simple Google Sheet of available developers within his network on Twitter.

   Within weeks, people landed jobs through this informal system, validating the concept before any platform was built. “The spreadsheet proved there was something here — that this could be a business.” So, a spreadsheet builder like Airtable can go a long way before you invest in fancy tech.

3. Impress Employers: Sell them the time/money they’ll save by using your platform to find specialized talent focusing on authentic conversations between employers and candidates.

   Avoid features like salary filtering, which Joe discovered pushed developers to undervalue themselves when the platform prioritizes meaningful, fair connections.

4. Transparency Wins: Joe’s open startup model has been critical in building trust for his job board. Sharing public revenue numbers to open-source contributions and his journey resonates with the developer community and employers.

📈 The Big Picture

Reverse job boards are reshaping the hiring process, creating lucrative startup opportunities, and offering tailored solutions for employers.

With the right niche and thoughtful monetization, reverse job boards can be profitable, impactful, and fun to build on top of your existing community.

💡 Insights

 📉 Avoid These Biggest SEO Missteps in SaaS 2024

This analysis of 1,600 SaaS companies revealed significant lessons in SEO, with some companies experiencing staggering organic traffic declines due to penalties and strategic missteps:

• Generic Content: Causal saw a 99.52% drop in traffic after a Google penalty for 1800 low-quality, AI-generated articles.

• Poorly Executed Programmatic SEO: Datanyze had a 95.46% drop in traffic after their /companies and /people subfolders were stuffed with low-quality programmatic landing pages.

AI and programmatic SEO are gaining traction, but the key is balancing automation with a human touch and reasonable limits to maintain quality and avoid penalties.

👉 Take Note and Audit Your SEO Strategy

👨‍💻 The Best AI Coding Tools for Entrepreneurs in 2024

The AI coding space is evolving rapidly, with tools like Bolt, V0, Replit, and Websim.AI transforming app development.

Here’s What You Need to Know:

• Prototyping Made Simple: Bolt and Replit excel at quickly creating mini-apps to automate tasks or address business bottlenecks—perfect for testing ideas and streamlining workflows.

• Enhanced Design and Collaboration: V0 delivers polished UIs, while Replit’s project management features make it great for refining complex projects collaboratively, even for non-developers.

👉 Explore the Full Breakdown

🚀 The Next Wave of Startups Won’t Need Marketing Teams

Greg Isenberg predicts AI agents to run growth 24/7 on their terms. This isn’t a far-off idea—founders are quietly deploying growth AI agents today.

Here’s how the new “agent stack” will reshape growth:

• Acquisition Agents: Running 50 meme accounts, testing thousands of hooks daily to find the best-performing ones.

• Research Agents: Scanning 100K tweets/hour to uncover new unmet needs and opportunities.

• Content Agents: Creating 200 unique hooks daily across X, LinkedIn, and TikTok, optimizing responses.

👉 Explore Greg’s Vision Here

🧰 Apps & Tools

✍️ Blogify: AI content creation tool that you can use to repurpose your videos and podcasts into SEO-optimized blogs.

📊 X AI Analytics: Analytics dashboard that provides insights into your X engagement based on recent posts.

🦊 FetchFox: AI web scraping tool that extracts data from any website using simple prompts.

📈 Playmaker: Data transformation tool that converts unstructured data into tables for various finance, logistics, and legal industries.

🎬 Introhook: Get AI-generated intros that instantly hook your audience and make those first seconds count for increased watch time.

🤖 Product Updates

🎉 AI Video Is Here: What It Does Well and Where It Falls Short

Open AI’s Sora is now public here, letting you create AI-generated videos. Here are some of its main strengths and limitations, according to Marques Brownlee:

Strengths:

• Creative Animation: Great with abstract and cartoon-style visuals.

• Easy Customization: The remix feature and storyboard tool allow you to tweak and sequence videos easily.

• Text Accuracy: Improves in generating text for titles and animations.

Limitations:

• Physics & Realism: Struggles with physics, natural body movements, and photorealistic outputs.

• Contextual Gaps: Misinterprets object positions when working from source images.

So far, it seems best for social media content and artistic animations—not photorealistic projects (yet).

👉 Learn More About Sora Here

🎨 Transform Ideas into Stunning Visuals

Flow State is Leonardo.Ai's cool new feature that produces a constant stream of images based on your prompt and allows you to select the ones you like to drill down on a particular direction or style until you find the one.

How to Use Flow State:

1️⃣ Start Generating: Head to the Image Creation tool, click Flow State, enter your prompt, or choose from the provided examples.

2️⃣ Control the Vibe: Use the left sidebar to adjust Style settings across the Vibe, Lighting, Shot Type, and Color Theme.

3️⃣ Iterate and Refine: Find something you like? Click More Like This to generate stylistic variations.

👉 Start Exploring Flow State Now

👀 Get Your AI Browsing Assistant

Microsoft has released Copilot Vision for select users, an AI feature designed to transform how you navigate the web. Currently, in preview for select Copilot Pro subscribers, Vision integrates directly into Microsoft Edge, acting as a second set of eyes to enhance your online experience.

• AI as a Browsing Companion: Copilot Vision revolutionizes web navigation by providing real-time insights and personalized assistance, from planning activities to simplifying complex information.

• Privacy-First Innovation: The vision is opt-in, session-based, and deletes user data post-session, ensuring security and compliance while enhancing user experience.

👉 Try Copilot Vision Now

🖇️ Everything Else

 💬 Reddit’s AI-Powered Search: Reddit has unveiled Reddit Answers, their AI search tool, to simplify finding valuable content on the platform. (👉 What’s Coming With Reddit Answers)

📝 The AI Writing Tool That’s Got People Talking: Matt McGarry asked what AI tools newsletter writers love, and the comments pointed to one standout: this AI writing platform. (👉 See What Other Tools They Using)

💛 Sponsor

📧 Beyond BFCM: Your Post-Holiday Playbook

Everyone’s laser-focused on BFCM, and then... wait, there’s life after it?

Many brands miss out by going quiet afterward, even though it’s the perfect time to strategize smartly and take advantage of slowing competition.

Omnisend has prepared the ultimate cheat sheet for owning the post-holiday chaos. Inside, you'll find:

• How to retarget BFCM bargain hunters before they ghost you

• List segmentation that actually works

• Limited-time discounts that don’t feel desperate

• New Year’s promos that feel fresh, not forced

• Sly ways to get reviews and referrals

Instead of slowing down, see how you can push your post-holiday strategy for new wins.

📈 Trends

📃 Reinvent Local Services with Digital Layers

Old-school local services like your plumber, electrician, or car wash down the street are probably stuck in their old methods, struggling to scale. But now, a new generation of thinkers is going through a quiet but massive glow-up.

Like online businesses, they are starting to open up to modern tools like SaaS platforms, automation, and AI to become faster, more efficient businesses that feel hyper-local but operate like pros with a large team.

It’s not about adding some shiny tech. It’s about helping them completely rethink customer experience for convenience that feels effortless and beats local competition.

🌍 Why Local Services Are Evolving?

• Convenience is Non-Negotiable: Modern customers aren’t just “prioritizing” ease; they expect it straight up. For example, booking appointments, making payments, or chatting with a service rep should be faster than ordering a pizza. If it’s clunky, they’ll bounce.

• Hyper-Local is Having a Moment: Neighborhood-focused services are thriving. Think about it: When was the last time you needed someone locally and searched “near me” on Google? It’s proven that 72% of customers who search for a business nearby visit a location within 5 miles.

• Digital Tools Are the Real MVP: Automation and AI are making tools more and more helpful. Thanks to tools like Zapier or Make, small businesses can increase productivity by 40% and reduce costs by 20–30%, giving them a huge competitive edge.

🤖 The Rise of Local Automation Systems

As we discussed in one of our previous trend reports, Automation is turning chaotic local workflows into well-oiled machines and helping businesses generate that extra $$$ and time back.

Creators like Hamza Automates, are all about helping service providers set up killer automation workflows. His templates and playbooks simplify the whole process.

Here’s what automation brings to the table:

• Time Saved: Scheduling, reminders, and follow-ups happen automatically.

• More Sales: Data-driven tools suggest upsells or cross-sells customers want.

• Better Customer Experiences: Easy bookings, instant communication, and fast service keep people returning.

If you’re not automating some part of these processes, you’re playing on hard mode.

💡 Here’s How You Can Modernize Local Service Businesses

Reach out and Identify pain points in their current setup. Do bookings take too long? Are payments clunky? Start pulling out this key information using a quick survey form builder like Typeform to understand customer frustrations.

Here Are Some Ideas You Can Implement:

1. Upgrade Booking & Sales System: Tools like Stripe and Calendly simplify scheduling, payments, and basic marketing. For example, a personal trainer can automate bookings with Calendly, collect payments via Stripe, and deliver custom workout plans using Webflow and Memberstack.

2. Streamline Multi-Location Management: They can no longer afford clunky store locators if they are a multi-location business. Tools like StoreRocket and StorePoint let companies manage location data by integrating with Google Sheets or Airtable for easy updates.

3. Try Out Geo-Targeted Personalization: Personalization improves website conversion rates by up to 30%, as users are likelier to engage with personalized offers or information. Platforms like GeoTargetly and Geofli allow you to let businesses create web pages or popups tailored to different neighborhoods.

4. Google Business Profile Optimization: Optimizing Google Business Profiles is a low-hanging fruit for local businesses. GMBApi enables A/B testing for descriptions, images, and CTAs, helping companies to tune their online presence and reputation for better results.

5. Build a Local Service Marketplace: TaskRabbit and Thumbtack make it ridiculously easy to find trusted local professionals. These marketplaces blend convenience, trust, and discovery into one seamless experience. Build your neighborhood-focused marketplace using Sharetribe or Bubble Templates.

📈 Why This Matters Going Into 2025

The local service sector is at a turning point. Automation, SaaS, and AI are helping even the smallest businesses to deliver professional, scalable, and personalized experiences.

The winners in this space will combine tech-driven efficiency with a human touch—automating where it counts while maintaining the personal connections their communities value.

The boundary between hyper-local and fully professionalized businesses will blur, creating opportunities for those who adapt to this shift to become leaders in their market.

💡 Insights

 🔴 How Liquid is Your Content Capital?

The rise of platform-dependent creators highlights a major risk: your audience is not yours. Social media can help you grow, but failing to make your content capital liquid risks your long-term value.

Here’s What You Need to Know:

1️⃣ Creators as Sharecroppers: Social platforms own your audience and control your reach. Your “content capital” remains locked in their ecosystem.

2️⃣ Email is Gold: Building an email list is the most reliable way to “liquify” your content capital. Unlike followers, subscribers belong to you.

What Now? Use social media as a growth funnel, but drive your audience to assets you control, like email lists, membership sites, or private communities.

👉 Here’s How to Secure Your Content Capital

📬Understand the 2024 Newsletter Market

Newsletters are thriving like never before. Substack hit 35M active subscriptions, 3M paid subscribers, and top authors collectively earning $25M annually. It’s clear that newsletters have evolved into a powerful tool to build sustainable income.

Here’s the Deal:

• Why It’s Buzzing: Substack enables solo creators (one person runs 95% of newsletters) to build sustainable income through paid subscriptions. Active newsletters with frequent publishing schedules (daily or multiple times per week) are more likely to monetize, with 71%-72% offering paid plans.

• Why You Might Pause: Most newsletters have fewer than 10K subscribers, with the majority sitting between 1,000-2,500. This makes breaking into the top 1% (100K+ subscribers) a steep climb. Only 50% of active newsletters offer paid subscriptions, which means free content still dominates.

👉 Explore the Rise of Newsletters

🎯 YouTube SEO in 3 Easy Steps

Success on YouTube isn’t just about rankings. It’s about connecting with your audience through engaging, quality content.

Step 1: Maximize Engagement

• Focus on watch time and viewer satisfaction.

• Keep people watching longer with compelling storytelling and clear value.

Step 2: Nail Thumbnails & Titles

• Thumbnails should grab attention, set the tone, and deliver on the promise.

• Titles must hook viewers while staying authentic to your video content.

Step 3: Think Beyond Search

• Most views come from recommendations, not searches.

• Create videos that align with user preferences to stay at the top of users' minds.

👉 Get the Full Guide Here

🧰 Apps & Tools

🎥 MukuAI: Hire your AI influencers to promote your product or service at a more affordable rate.

🔍 Happenstance: AI networking tool allows you to find and connect with the right people in your networks through warm intros from teammates and communities.

🌐 Agentplace: Use text-based programming to create interactive sites that respond to user inputs.

🎬 MagicRoll: AI creative studio for video editing, offering auto-generated B-rolls and visual enhancements to transform raw footage into engaging videos quickly.

🗣️ Snappy Retro: Get feedback around certain topics with this encrypted discussion board.

 🔄 Syncgrip: A real-time data synchronization tool that connects apps like Airtable, Asana, and Mailchimp without coding.

🤖 Product Updates

🛍️ Transforming Shopping with Virtual Try-Ons

Kling AI’s AI Virtual Try-On lets users create lifelike images of models wearing any outfit with no photoshoots required.

How This Could Be Integrated:

• Fashion Marketplaces: Integrate Kling AI’s API into platforms to allow customers to visualize designs instantly.

• Empowering Local Designers: Provide tools for tailors to showcase custom designs without extra overhead.

• E-commerce Upgrades: Add virtual fitting rooms to online stores for a more personalized shopping experience.

👉 See It in Action

🔊 Create More Unique AI Voices

Hume’s new Voice Control feature makes it easy to design custom AI voices with its new voice control slider.

Here’s What Makes it Great:

• Nasality Slider: From smooth and resonant to a quirky nasal tone.

• Masculine to Feminine: Adjust the gender expression of any voice.

• Buoyancy: Play with energy levels to go from flat to bubbly.

👉 Get Voice Control Examples

🎙️ Turn Your Content Into Podcasts

Transform your reading into personalized podcasts with GenFM, which is now live in the ElevenReader app.

What’s New:

• Import Your Content: From study notes to business articles, upload any document to create a podcast tailored to you.

• AI Co-Hosts You’ll Love: Meet ultra-realistic AI voices, crafted to match your mood and content—friendly, curious, organized, and more.

• Listen in 32 Languages: Tune in globally with multilingual AI voices for a truly personalized experience.

👉 Download the App

🖇️ Everything Else

 🧠 2025 AI Predictions: Clément Delangue, CEO of Hugging Face, predicts an AI protest, a major company halving its market value due to AI, and breakthroughs in personal robotics by 2025. (🔗 His Predictions Were All Spot on in 2024)

🤳 Popular vs. Authority Creators: Popular creators bring reach, while authority creators drive trust and conversions. For ROI-focused influencer campaigns, authority creators are always the better option. (🔗 See Why Trust Outperforms Reach)

🌍 Global Niche YouTube Channels: Are specific keywords too competitive for the US market? Think international instead. Take Google Ads para, a small Spanish-language YouTube channel with just 10 subscribers that’s already landed 2 paying clients. (🔗 How International Niche Channels Win Big)

🎲 AI Job Applications: Alvaro Cintas dives into creative use cases for tools like Wolfram Alpha AI agents applying to jobs. (🔗 Dive Into the thread)

🚀 Hidden Gems for Startup: Underrated section of Starter Story where you can get free guides on how to build an MVP in one week and get max attention to your startup. (🔗 Access the Guides Now.)

💛 Sponsor

📧 Get Bigger Sales from Email & SMS

Omnisend handled the boring part of analyzing millions of emails for you, so now you get to geek out over some data, like:

• What’s the ideal subject line length? 

• Which magic words will make people actually open your email? (Spoiler: It's not "FREE PIZZA.")

• How many CTAs before you’re just yelling at people? (Asking for a friend.)

• How long should your email be before it feels like a novel? (Less Dickens, more tweets.)

• How big should the discount be to make someone actually care? (Because 5% ain’t cutting it, Karen.)

We’ve got all those answers wrapped up in one infographic. Check it out, then get back to more exciting things than reading millions of emails

📈 Trends

🪙 Public Data: The New Goldmine for Indie Builders

Public data isn’t just for big companies or developers to utilize. It’s a goldmine that no-code makers and indie creators can tap into to build useful, profitable tools you must put a UI over.

More and more public information is becoming freely available to embed, from shipping records to internet speeds, creating something that solves real-world problems without code is easier than ever.

This trend thrives on a straightforward idea: data is everywhere, but the real value lies in organizing, cleaning, and making it accessible for the average person in a clean user interface.

🌍 Why Public Data Matters

1. It’s Accessible to Everyone

Governments and organizations continue to open up their data on everything from city crime stats to weather trends, making it available to anyone with a good idea to build on top of.

Think city safety scores, healthcare stats, or housing permits.

Data that once required months to access is now easy to find.

👉 Here’s a list of 100s of available API’s (Ready-made code you can use to embed in your website to show off the data).

2. Sharing Public Data Made Simple with No-Code Tools

Integrating public data used to be reserved for developers who could wrangle APIs and write custom scripts. However, no-code platforms like Webflow and Bubble allow us to tap into data and build with it.

Here’s how these tools make public data easier than ever:

• Webflow: For example, do you want to display random quotes or real-time weather on your site? With Webflow, you can connect APIs to pull in and showcase this public data. (🔗Get a Tutorial Here)

• Bubble: For more complex apps, Bubble enables you to build dashboards, integrate multiple data sources, and even create interactive workflows, all while handling the backend heavy lifting for you. (🔗Get a Tutorial Here)

3. Scalable, Lean Models

Take Pieter Levels, for example. He created Nomad List by combining publicly available information to build this business with minimal input costs that now generate millions annually as a solo founder.

• What He Does: Aggregates data on cities, cost of living, weather, and internet speed for digital nomads.

• Revenue: $250K/month with 90% margins through user subscriptions and crowdsourced contributions.

Nomad List provides data on cities for digital nomads, but much of this information is publicly available and can be found for free.

So, the actual value of Nomad List lies in cleaning up this data into a nice visual format above and converting nomads to his community and networking opportunities.

⚠️ Challenges with Public Data Models

While the potential for public data-driven innovation is huge, challenges remain:

• Lack of Defence: Since public data is open to all, defensibility becomes a key challenge. Successful models need a layer of community, services, or even a newsletter on top of this product to stand out.

• Data Quality Issues: Public datasets often need to be completed or updated, requiring significant cleaning and validation for data reliability, as many people complained about this with Nomadlist on Reddit.

🤔 Examples of Projects Using Public Data

1. Import Yeti

   • What They Do: Provides detailed insights into global trade flows using public shipping data.

   • Use Case: Helps businesses track competitors and also identify the right suppliers.

   

2. BuildZoom

   • What They Do: Combines contractor reviews online with public building permit data.

   • Use Case: Helps homeowners find reliable contractors, while contractors use it to build transparency.

3. Zillow

   • What They Do: Uses public property records to provide real estate insights.

   • Use Case: Homebuyers and sellers rely on Zillow for real-time property valuations.

📈 Why Does This Trend Matter Going Into 2025?

The winners will be those who can extract, package, and deliver insights that solve real-world problems.

As Pieter Levels demonstrated, leveraging public data isn’t just about information access. It’s about combining this with community and utility.

💡 Insights

💔 Lessons from Trends’ Downfall

The closure of Trends by The Hustle marks the end of a media experiment that transformed how business insights were consumed as its acquisition by HubSpot revealed the cracks in media-tech marriages.

What We Can Learn:

1️⃣ Audience Misfit: Trends thrived on a passionate, paying community of ~15k. It wasn’t big enough for HubSpot’s revenue-focused model.

2️⃣ Cultural Clashes: The edgy, contrarian voice of Trends clashed with HubSpot’s polished corporate ethos, creating friction that alienated both audiences and the editorial teams.

3️⃣ Media ≠ SaaS: Tech companies aim to protect shareholder value, while media thrives on transparency and independent reporting. When the two collide, editorial integrity often takes a hit.

What now? The Hustle lives on, but Trends legacy reminds us that not every business needs to scale to survive.

👉 Dive Into the Rise and Fall of Trends

🧪 Refind Ads: A Low-Stress Newsletter Growth Experiment

Chenell Basilio tested Refind Ads’ new pay-per-engaged subscriber option for her newsletter and gained 500 subscribers in 35 days for $425.

Here’s What She Found:

• Easy Setup: No complex tweaking. Just set a budget and headline.

• Pay-for-Opens: Only pay for subscribers who engage.

• Personal Touch: Responsive support, even ad copy help.

The results were 170 engaged subscribers (opened emails) and 21 hyper-engaged subscribers (those who clicked links), costing you $20 per hyper-engaged subscriber. So, it’s ideal for B2C or sponsorship-based newsletters, but proper onboarding is key to a better ROI.

👉 Get the Full Ad Experiment Here

🧠 Every AI Tool Ranked: What’s Worth Your Time?

The Next Wave Podcast dropped a tier list ranking 22 of the most popular AI tools, and some fan favorites didn’t cut.

Here’s What Stood Out:

1️⃣ S-Tier Winners: ChatGPT and Perplexity led the pack for setting the gold standard in reasoning, research, and shipping updates that matter.

2️⃣ Hidden Potential: Google’s Notebook LM impressed with its AI podcast feature but fell to B-tier due to execution issues and Google’s patchy product history.

3️⃣ Biggest Miss: Adobe Firefly’s heavy-handed censorship and underwhelming output landed it in the F-tier.

👉 Get the Full List

🌤 Bluesky: Do You Need Another Social App?

With Bluesky’s rapid growth, 20M+ users, and a 500% surge in U.S. activity. It’s making waves a possible alternative to X. But should you add it to your social media strategy?

Here’s the Deal:

• Why It’s Buzzing: Bluesky offers what many feel X and Threads lack: a focus on real-time conversation (think Twitter’s golden days), less talk around political topics, and greater control over what you see.

• Why You Might Wait: Despite the hype, Bluesky (20M users) trails far behind Threads (275M users) and X (500M users).

For now, Bluesky is a niche player, ideal for tech-focused conversations and early adopters. Reserve your handle to stay ahead of future trends and start repurposing your existing content archive from Twitter.

👉 Get the Full Bluesky Analysis

🧰 Apps & Tools

🌉 Sky Follower Bridge: Connect with your Twitter network on Bluesky in just a few clicks.

📰 ReadPartner: Summarization tool that condenses articles, videos, and documents for efficient content research.

👁️ BuzzLens: See what people say about your brand on Instagram, TikTok, and X with AI insights.

📞 Pine: AI assistant for managing customer service tasks, lowering bills, canceling subscriptions, and resolving disputes.

My Top Black Friday Deals:

🎯 Omnisend: Simplify your email and SMS marketing with 30% off all paid plans for 3 months. Use code BFCM30OFF before December 6, 2024, and let the sales roll in effortlessly. Claim the Deal.

🎨 Kit Creator Plan: Start your email marketing campaigns with 30% off the powerful platform. Grab the Deal.

📬 Beehiiv Newsletter Builder: Build and grow your audience with 20% off with my go-to newsletter platform. Claim Now.

🤖 Machined.ai Unlimited Plan: Streamline content creation with AI by getting 4 months free on the annual plan (nearly 35% off). Upgrade Now.

🏄 Surfer SEO: Create high-performing, traffic-maximizing content. Enjoy 30% more credits (lifetime), 30% off annual plans (lifetime), and up to 40% off AI packages. Get the Deal.

🤑 MindPal: Automate business processes with AI agents and workflows. Snag 60% off all yearly plans with code BLACKFRIDAY24. Explore More.

⭐ Macaw: Boost your organic traffic with AI-written articles people actually love to read. Get 50% off your first month with code BLACKFRIDAY. Start Writing.

✍️ Typefully: Grow your audience on 𝕏, Threads, LinkedIn, and more with AI-powered content tools, scheduling, and analytics. Get 30% off for 1 year with code BF2024. Level Up.

🔥 Looking for even more deals? This curated list covers hundreds of offers across software, tools, and services for entrepreneurs, creators, and developers. Explore categories like AI, SEO, email marketing, and more to grab the deals that fuel your business. Don’t miss out! 🚀

🤖 Product Updates

🌍 Breaking Language Barriers

Imagine your videos instantly accessible to millions worldwide despite any language barriers. YouTube’s new AI automatic dubbing will make this a reality.

Here’s How It Works:

• New videos will automatically include dubbed audio tracks in Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Italian, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, and English for global accessibility.

• No extra work is needed - upload your video, and YouTube converts it. Unfortunately, this doesn’t apply to all your older videos.

👉 Discover the Future of Video

🧑‍💻 Claude AI + Google Docs Workflow Upgrade

No more toggling between tabs. Claude AI’s Google Docs integration allows you to sync your documents directly into chats instead of uploading the doc file itself.

Why It Matters:

• Upload Google Docs or paste URLs to let Claude instantly process their content for better assistance.

• Real-time syncing ensures Claude always uses the latest version of your files. No manual updates are needed.

⚠️ Heads-Up: While still in beta, it supports text extraction only (no images or comments…yet).

👉 Get a Demo Here

🖇️ Everything Else

🔎 AI's Influence on Search: This analysis of 200,000 AI Overviews unpacks what types of queries industries search the most for and how they influence SEO rankings. (🔗 Explore Key Insights Here)

📷 Instagram’s 2024 Glow-Up: Gone are the old days of blindly praying hashtags will deliver reach. Instagram is evolving, and so should your strategy. (🔗 Here’s the New Playbook)

🤖 Humanoids Are Evolving Fast: Figure’s second-gen humanoid is now 4x faster and 7x more reliable to transform businesses and homes. (🔗 How Robots Are Changing Industries)

💛 Sponsor

📧 Get Bigger Sales from Email & SMS

Omnisend handled the boring part of analyzing millions of emails for you, so now you get to geek out over some data, like:

• What’s the ideal subject line length? 

• Which magic words will make people actually open your email? (Spoiler: It's not "FREE PIZZA.")

• How many CTAs before you’re just yelling at people? (Asking for a friend.)

• How long should your email be before it feels like a novel? (Less Dickens, more tweets.)

• How big should the discount be to make someone actually care? (Because 5% ain’t cutting it, Karen.)

We’ve got all those answers wrapped up in one infographic. Check it out, then get back to more exciting things than reading millions of emails

📈 Trends

Sweaty Content is Winning Hearts (and Clicks) ❤️📈

Forget immediate perfection. The new trend in content creation is all about being raw, real, relatable while keeping it affordable.

Known as “sweaty content,” this behind-the-scenes, unpolished style is reshaping how solopreneurs and indie hackers connect with audiences.

The numbers don’t lie: 66% of Gen Z Americans prefer unpacking content that explains or breaks down a process over simply consuming polished media, emphasizing the growing appeal of relatable, detailed storytelling.

Today’s audiences simply resonate more with authenticity, consistency, and value.

Why This Style Works 🤔

Take Uneducated Economist, a channel with over 143K subscribers, built entirely on simple, unscripted discussions filmed in his car. Or fitness creator Sam Sulek, who’s gained nearly 4 millions subs by sharing unfiltered, no-frills workout vlogs.

1. Relatability Over Perfection: The unfiltered/raw videos like Sam’s fitness videos create genuine connections and are process-focused to stand out in a saturated niche. This aligns with the 80% of viewers aged 18–44 who actively consume niche content weekly, looking for creators they trust over production.

2. Low-Cost to Start: With just your phone and a story, you’re good to go, no expensive setups needed. Uneducated Economist has over 1,800 videos shot on phone, his channel’s success shows that consistency and authentic storytelling matter more than fancy production.

3. Evergreen SEO Value: These raw tutorials and guides rank well on Google, meaning your content can keep driving leads long after it’s posted.

How to Make Sweaty Content Work for You 🎥

Scenario: You’re Building a No-Code SaaS Tool

• Step 1: Record Your Daily Process

  • Film yourself solving a specific problem (e.g. automating customer sign-ups).

  • 📹 Example: “How I Automated Onboarding for My No-Code App in 30 Minutes”

• Step 2: Share Your Insights

  • Break down what worked and what didn’t, highlighting the tools you used like Airtable or Zapier.

  • ✍️ Example: “Zapier saved me 5 hours a week, here’s the step-by-step.”

• Step 3: Post It

  • Skip paying for heavy editing, just ensure the video is clear and simple.

  • Add a simple CTA, like “Download my no-code automation template for free”.

Now Amplify Impact 🚀

1. Repurpose for Other Platforms

   • Break a 10-minute YouTube video into short clips for Instagram Reels, TikTok and even transform it into Twitter/Linkedin posts too using an AI repurposing tool or ChatGPT.

   • Example: Post a bite-sized hack such as, “Zapier can save you 5 hours a week, here’s how”.

2. Leverage SEO

   • Create search-friendly titles like “Best No-Code Tools for 2024” or “Zapier vs Make: Which One’s Better for Indie Hackers?”.

   • Optimize video descriptions with links to your product or templates.

3. Consistency is Key

   • Upload weekly updates, even quick 5-minute videos.

   • Build trust by documenting your journey authentically.

Why This Trend Matters Going into 2025

Raw, authentic content removes barriers to entry, enables solopreneurs and indie hackers to build audiences without massive budgets or technical expertise.

When combined with YouTube’s powerful SEO engine, sweaty content offers unparalleled opportunities for:

• Lead Generation: Evergreen tutorials rank in search and attract viewers over time.

• Community Building: Relatable storytelling fosters trust and loyalty.

• Sustainable Growth: Consistent, valuable content builds momentum organically.

💡 Insights

🧠 Unlock the AI Skills You Didn’t Know You Had

Prompt engineering isn’t dying, it’s evolving. Jared Zoneraich reveals how non-technical experts will lead the next wave of AI innovation:

1️⃣ Let Experts Define the Problems: Companies are shifting focus to industry expert to identify challenges that AI can solve. No coding? No problem. Your knowledge of your field is the real superpower.

2️⃣ Good Enough is Good to Start: Don’t wait for perfect data. Write, test, tweak, and repeat your prompts to get better results. Small steps lead to big wins.

3️⃣ Speak the Model’s Language: Keep prompts clear and focused. It’s about asking smarter questions, not longer ones.

Focus on expertise, refine with purpose, and then use AI to amplify your vision.

👉 Unlock Expert Prompting Tips

📩 How to Sell Newsletter Sponsorships with Any Audience Size

Ads aren’t just for massive newsletters like Morning Brew or The Hustle. Even small newsletters can turn their subscriber base into a decent revenue stream.

Here’s How

• Start with Easy Wins: Platforms like Beehiiv let you monetize early with ads and boosts, even with a small audience. Use these ads to learn what works and build initial credibility for more profitable sponsors.

• The Magic Number for Direct Sales: Once you hit ~5,000 subscribers (B2B) or ~10,000 subscribers (B2C) and drive consistent ad clicks, you’re ready to sell directly. Why? Direct ads = better margins, stronger relationships, and scalable revenue.

• Package Deals = Sponsor Wins: Instead of single ads, bundle multiple placements. A 3-ad package offers enough exposure to deliver results for sponsors while maximizing your revenue.

Takeaway? Don’t wait for a massive list, start small, experiment, and grow from there.

👉Get the Secrets to Newsletter Monetization

🚀 Cracking TikTok’s Playbook for Consumer Apps

Two weeks ago we talked about how consumer mobile apps are making a comeback, thanks to recurring revenue and TikTok’s reach. This week, let’s go deeper into how creators are using TikTok to grow apps that generate steady income.

Here’s How They’re Doing It

1. Repurpose E-commerce Strategies: Apps are mimicking e-commerce success, using UGC and storytelling to go viral, just like Tabs Chocolate that scaled to $10M/year.

2. Partner with TikTok Shop Creators: Creators already know how to sell products. Work with them to show how your app solves problems, like skincare apps using before-and-after videos.

3. Focus on High-LTV Niches: Focus on communities with loyal fans, like golfers, poker players, or style enthusiasts. Build apps that solve their specific needs.

Why This Is Big: TikTok’s algorithm rewards creative content, not big follower counts. That makes it a powerful platform for anyone looking to grow their app.

👉 Learn TikTok’s Secrets for App Growth

💼 How Rodrigo Supercharged His Job Board’s Traffic

Rodrigo took JobBoardSearch.com from being a little-known site to a traffic magnet in just two weeks.

Here’s how he did it without spending a fortune:

• Submitting to tons of high-DR directories like WordPress, Coursera, and StartupInspire to boost his sites authority and visits.

• Sharing valuable content like infographics and job search tips to earn backlinks.

• Rodrigo used a custom Reddit bot to post job offers every 15 minutes to his subreddit, driving consistent traffic and engaging over 175 active users within hours of launch.

The results? More people discovering his site, better search rankings, and tons of new visitors, all through clever, affordable strategies.

👉 Here’s How to Get More Backlinks

🧰 Apps & Tools

🖥️ Crust AI: Transforms your data into custom client portals in under a minute that you can integrate with Airtable, Monday.com, or Notion.

🚀 Rocketlaunch: SaaS starter kit designed to turn your product from idea to production. (need to understand how to use React).

🔎 Public Builders: Directory of indie makers and startup founders who build their projects in public.

🖋️ Image to Caption: AI caption generator designed to create captions for images and videos in your brand's voice.

🎂 BirthdAi Cards: Create unique and personalized birthday messages using AI to nurture your email list.

📊 Sharbo: A competitor feature intelligence tool that lets you track, compare, and sync competitor products against your own.

🤖 Product Updates

💻 AI Will Control Your Computer in 2025

Sam Altman reveals AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) could be complete within a year, allowing it to handle nearly any task as well as or better than humans.

• Best Time to Build Tech: Altman says revolutions like this are when upstarts thrive. With AGI and no-code tools, you can launch and scale products without coding. It’s a golden era for creative problem solvers.

• Leverage Creativity & Expertise: AGI will tackle complexity, but your domain knowledge, distribution strategy and creativity will be crucial in identifying and solving problems.

👉 Learn What AGI Means for You

🎵 AI Music Creation Gets an Upgrade with Suno V4

AI is making waves in music creation, and Suno V4 is leading the charge with enhanced vocal quality and genre versatility in it’s early access.

• Why It’s Exciting: From country to metal, Suno V4 creates tracks that sound professional, no prior music experience needed.

• What Creators Are Saying: “Endless possibilities,” says one user who’s already experimenting with unique sounds.

👉 Look at Some Early Access Examples

📰 Analyze News Like Never Before

The Washington Post has launched “Ask The Post AI,” a generative AI tool that delivers summarized answers and curated results based on its award-winning insights since 2016.

It uses a scoring system to rank the most relevant articles for each query, ensuring high-quality and fact-based responses.

This could spark a trend among other news platforms as it adapts to modern search behaviors and create habit-forming tools for a new generation of readers.

👉 Try Out Washingtons Posts New Chatbot

🖇️ Everything Else

🦋 Bluesky Hits 1M New Users Daily: Bluesky is booming in the social media space and appears to be a clean substitute for X, offering personalised feeds that you can follow in a manner similar to X lists. (🔗 Sign Up to Bluesky)

🫗 Coke Joins the AI Advertising Hall of Fame: Coke’s latest AI holiday ad signaled their entry into the growing league of brands transforming marketing with AI. (🔗 Here’s 11 More Examples)

🚨 Domain Rating ≠ Traffic: DR is just one metric. Many high-DR sites can have no organic traffic because their backlinks come from buying them through spammy sources. (🔗 Learn the Truth About DR)

💛 Sponsor

📧 Get Bigger Sales from Email & SMS

Omnisend handled the boring part of analyzing millions of emails for you, so now you get to geek out over some data, like:

• What’s the ideal subject line length? 

• Which magic words will make people actually open your email? (Spoiler: It's not "FREE PIZZA.")

• How many CTAs before you’re just yelling at people? (Asking for a friend.)

• How long should your email be before it feels like a novel? (Less Dickens, more tweets.)

• How big should the discount be to make someone actually care? (Because 5% ain’t cutting it, Karen.)

We’ve got all those answers wrapped up in one infographic. Check it out, then get back to more exciting things than reading millions of emails

📈 Trends

💼 How Affiliate Partnerships Are Supercharging SaaS Growth

The SaaS industry is having a “creator moment.” Instead of one-off promotions, brands are forming ongoing partnerships with creators who genuinely understand the product and its audience.

Affiliate marketing can be an incredibly powerful growth channel for SaaS.

Unlike traditional sales and marketing, affiliate marketing is performance-based, meaning companies pay only for actual results, making it an attractive model for budget-conscious growth. But the key to success isn’t just launching an affiliate program; it’s about aligning your product with the right partners who share your values and truly understand your audience.

John Hue, founder of Stan (A Shopify-like platform for creators), recently shared his experience with various growth channels and found that affiliates provided the most at-scale leverage. While they experimented with paid ads, cold outreach, partnerships, organic content, and affiliate programs, it was affiliates that stood out. According to him, each channel has pros and cons: paid ads are quick but reliant on high costs, cold outreach is personalized but hard to scale, and organic content builds brand ownership but can plateau. Affiliates, however, offered an unmatched opportunity for sustainable, scalable growth, despite the challenge of onboarding and incentivizing them effectively.

From the content creator’s perspective, I’ve experienced the power of affiliate marketing firsthand. When previously scaling A Better Lemonade Stand’s blog to 250k monthly readers, I participated in dozens of affiliate programs, and I received hundreds of affiliate program pitches. However, in time, I discovered it wasn’t about sheer volume—it was about finding those few high-potential partnerships that truly aligned with my audience. That 80/20 focus made all the difference, driving $2.9M+ in direct sales for Printful by referring thousands of online stores to them and delivering 100,000+ qualified leads for Shopify, leading to thousands of trials and 750+ new customers.

My affiliate dashboard with Prinful

The takeaway? When you find that fit, double down like hell. Cultivating those relationships and nurturing the right partnerships transforms affiliates from just another channel into a sustainable growth engine.

It’s all about setting affiliates up for success by supporting them with resources and tracking tools that foster long-term relationships and loyalty.

🚀 Here’s Why Affiliate-Driven SaaS Growth Is Taking Off:

1. 🚒 Affiliates as a Scalable Growth Engine: Why build a massive sales team when you can leverage creators with a following?

By incentivizing performance, SaaS companies reduce costs and maximize results.

One standout example is Zenefits. It leveraged partnership automation through Impact, finding, recruiting, and managing affiliates to power its HR and payroll software.

Zenefits saw a 96% increase in leads and a 3x return on ad spend, outpacing its paid search performance.

By offering commissions to influencers, SaaS brands are turning them into ambassadors who fuel sustainable growth without needing an ad agency.

2. 📚 Trust-Building Through In-Depth Content: When did you last sign up for a SaaS without researching it?

Affiliates understand the importance of trust. Through in-depth content like reviews, tutorials, and case studies, they help SaaS brands showcase product value, address common objections, and drive conversions.

Tip: To keep affiliate content authentic and aligned with your brand, experts recommend setting up a five-email drip campaign for new affiliates. This approach engages affiliates, reinforces product knowledge, and nurtures long-term loyalty.

3. 📲 Multi-Channel Reach: Affiliates aren’t just on TikTok or Instagram anymore.

Today’s affiliates operate on LinkedIn, blogs, TikTok, newsletters, and more, giving SaaS brands access to audiences across multiple channels.

The goal? Diversifying where these SaaS products appear so they reach audiences where they hang out, whether that’s a newsletter inbox or a Slack group.

Multi-channel presence is precious in SaaS, where prospective users often need to see a product several times in different formats to consider adoption.

4. 💰 Lucrative Recurring Commissions: High-paying, recurring commission models attract affiliates who want to sustain long-term earnings, and SaaS brands are noticing.

Canva has led the charge here, expanding its partnership network to 9,000 partners, including YouTubers, bloggers, and even podcasters.

By customizing contracts to meet partner needs and teaming up with brands like HubSpot, Canva’s affiliate program has doubled its partnership-driven revenue month over month since 2019.

⚠️ Here’s Why a Misaligned Affiliate Strategy Can Backfire:

Affiliate programs are not always a surefire win for every SaaS.

For some early-stage SaaS startups, jumping into affiliate marketing can cause many setbacks.

1. Expectations vs. Reality: High-caliber affiliates often expect brands to be established and very profitable. Building a high-converting site and clearly defined ICP for early-stage SaaS can help attract the right affiliates.

2. Premature Investment in Affiliate Management: Affiliate programs need dedicated resources and dedicated management, and hiring managers can be costly without a solid customer base. It’s often better to hold off until product-market fit is achieved.

3. Short-Term Revenue Pressures: Startups needing quick cash boosts may find that affiliates need time to build trust and motivation, making this a slower strategy for revenue generation than you might have thought.

4. Revenue Share Headaches: Recurring commissions can strain resources if affiliates only drive limited signups. Ensuring ROI before scaling is crucial.

⚡How You Can Build a Successful Affiliate-Driven Model

Affiliate programs can be a powerful growth tool, but only when built on a foundation of creator interest and a long-term engagement strategy.

1. Build an Irresistible Program: Make it easy for affiliates to join, offering high-value commissions, user-friendly resources, and tracking.

2. Prioritize Long-Term Partnerships: Find affiliates via platforms like Partnerstack who aren’t just interested in a one-off sale but are in it for the long haul.

3. Mine Creator Databases: Look for creators who share your brand’s values and can hit the ground running with an established audience.

4. Optimize for Multi-Channel Exposure: Encourage these affiliates to diversify their content on LinkedIn, newsletters, and blog posts to get the word out across different channels.

5. Supply Trust-Building Resources: Equip affiliates with guides and stories that help them create authentic, relatable content that brings in loyal users.

💡 Insights

🦄 How John Rush Scaled Unicorn Platform by 10x

Since acquiring Unicorn Platform in 2022, John has grown his user base from 25,000 to 250,000. The journey wasn’t smooth, as most of his early marketing efforts fell flat.

Here’s What Worked:

• SEO: Delaying SEO was a big regret. Now, a mix of AI content with human oversight is driving growth.

• Social Media DIY: After a competitor took a hired marketer, John built his own following, reaching 100K.

• Targeted Podcasts: Despite a crowded space, this was costly but effective for brand trust.

• Conferences: Draining but worthwhile early on, although not scalable.

👉 Get All 20 of John’s Growth Strategies

⚡Eric Simons’ Vision for Code-Free App Building

Bolt CEO Eric Simons showed how quickly and easily building web apps with a simple prompt can be. Like Cursor.ai, Bolt allows you to turn ideas into functional apps with AI.

Examples of Bolt Creations:

• Instant Directory: Simons created a live directory app that was fully functional with only a single line prompt.

• Creating a Mini-Game: Matt shared how Bolt created a Tetris game with impressive results on projects like simple games and fully styled app interfaces.

According to Eric, Bolt is optimized for ease of use and speed for non-technical creators, whereas Cursor provides more power and flexibility for developers.

🔗 Try Bolt Yourself

🤳 Why We Watch YouTube: The Keys to Quality in 2024

The latest Why We Watch report reveals a deep dive into the evolving digital video landscape and what keeps viewers hooked. These findings give a blend of technical excellence and emotional resonance as essential markers of quality content:

What Keeps Us Watching:

• Emotional Connection Rules: While clear visuals and audio are foundational, emotional engagement is what truly resonates. Content that captures attention, offers relatable storytelling and fosters a personal connection ranked highest across age groups.

• Trust is the New Must-Have: Among weekly video users, 82% expect high-quality content to be trustworthy, with YouTube ranking #2 for reliability behind streaming platforms. For younger audiences, YouTube is considered the most trusted source of video content.

• Community Over Consumption: The "appointment viewing" model is out, as viewers look to platforms like YouTube for community. Content choices on platforms like YouTube create a shared culture, with 55% of users reporting a sense of belonging tied to their viewing habits.

🔗 Inside 2024’s Streaming Success

💸 Influencer Rates Unpacked: What’s the Real Cost of Reach?

Passionfroot’s latest data gives us a snapshot of influencer rates across platforms, and the numbers show that while follower count influences pricing, engagement quality, and niche relevance may give better results. (especially in B2B)

Here's a Quick Breakdown:

• YouTube and TikTok: High-tier influencers can generate over $20k, while micro-influencers go for $500 to $1.5k.

• LinkedIn: Highest B2B rates, with top creators earning up to $2.5k even with smaller audiences.

• Newsletters: CPMs of $10-$30 make newsletters a cost-effective choice, focusing on impressions rather than follower count.

🔗 See Influencer Pricing Across Platforms Here

🧰 Apps & Tools

🔍 Scrapin: LinkedIn scraper API for real-time data extraction of profiles and company information.

🤖 Convergence: AI personal assistant that learns and adapts to your workflows using Large Meta Learning Models.

👁️ ViewOn: This AI platform offers personalized video reviews for your website.

🎙️ Revoldiv: Great for scraping transcripts from any podcast / mp4s for free.

📨 Newsletter Landing Pages: A library of 300+ newsletter landing page examples with their conversion rate data.

🤖 Product Updates

🚀 Airtable’s New Portals: Connect with Clients and Partners

Airtable's new Portals feature (currently in beta) makes it easy to collaborate with external clients, vendors, and partners, bridging the gap between Airtable and tools like Softr.

• Custom Guest Access: Give external collaborators a branded sign-in page with permissions tailored to their role to create a secure way for them to engage with your data.

• Granular Permissions: Control who sees what with intuitive access settings, letting you manage guest interactions without compromising security.

Airtable also plans to add white-label options, letting you fully customize the portal with your company’s branding for a seamless experience.

🔗 Get Early Access to Airtable Portals

💬 ChatGPT Drops the 'GPT'

OpenAI’s $15.5M buy of Chat.com signals a move to make AI chat mainstream.

Previously owned by HubSpot CTO Dharmesh Shah, the domain now redirects to ChatGPT, dropping “GPT” for the more approachable “Chat.”

Analysts see this move as making “Chat” a household name and making it an everyday tool, much like Google’s dominance in search.

🔗 Read More Here

🖇️ Everything Else

🪙 Big Brands Betting On Newsletters: HubSpot acquiring Mindstream shows why newsletters are taking over B2B marketing, as they convert better, build trust, and reach niche audiences. (👉 How Newsletters Transform B2B Growth)

📝 Big Brands on Reddit: Fortune is using r/economy and r/politics to share article summaries directly in high-traffic subreddits for brand visibility over clicks, keeping Fortune at the top of mind. (👉 See How Reddit Fits Their Brand’s Strategy)

📈 AI Boosting Productivity: 86% of marketers claim that using AI saves them over an hour daily on tasks like brainstorming and data analysis. (👉 Get the Full AI Marketing Trend Report)

🎙 Real-Time Learning Goes Next-Level: Voice AI's upcoming screen access promises to make learning seamless and immediate, letting users gain new skills on the spot. (👉 How Voice AI Could Change Your Workflow)

💛 Sponsor

📧 Get Bigger Sales from Email & SMS

Omnisend handled the boring part of analyzing millions of emails for you, so now you get to geek out over some data, like:

• What’s the ideal subject line length? 

• Which magic words will make people actually open your email? (Spoiler: It's not "FREE PIZZA.")

• How many CTAs before you’re just yelling at people? (Asking for a friend.)

• How long should your email be before it feels like a novel? (Less Dickens, more tweets.)

• How big should the discount be to make someone actually care? (Because 5% ain’t cutting it, Karen.)

We’ve got all those answers wrapped up in one infographic. Check it out, then get back to more exciting things than reading millions of emails

📈 Trends

🔍 The AI Search Battle: Why Bing Just Became Essential

OpenAI’s ChatGPT just launched its own search engine, and it’s powered by none other than Bing.

Suddenly, Bing isn’t just that “other search engine” anymore; it’s at the core of what might be the biggest shift in search we’ve seen since Google took over the internet two decades ago.

For anyone in the content game, this is a big one. So, why should you care about Bing? Let’s break down what’s going on and why it matters.

🌐 Bing as the Backbone of ChatGPT Search

With ChatGPT Search integrating live search through Bing, you now have ad-free, in-depth, well-researched, conversational answers.

And while ChatGPT doesn’t yet match Google’s lightning response times, it’s aiming for a totally different experience: think longer, deeper, and less cluttered.

• Why it’s different: Instead of just throwing up a page of results, it pulls Bing’s top content, adds layers of analysis, and gives you a “here’s what matters” rundown.

• What this means for your content: Make sure your content is optimized for Bing. Ranking there could mean ChatGPT’s got your content on its radar too.

⚔️ Google’s Got Some Mean Competition – Finally

Google has held the monopoly on fast, scannable answers for years. They even trained us to expect instant answers with a single glance at a screen. ChatGPT’s search changes that up, pushing for a more deliberate, sentence-by-sentence read rather than “scan and go.” It’s a learning curve, but one that could reward richer, more detailed content.

• The Upside: ChatGPT’s model skips the ads (for now) and can dive into real-time data with Bing’s search strength behind it.

• The Trade-off: ChatGPT’s slower response might frustrate you. And yes, Google’s visuals are still unmatched when it comes to usability and branding.

✍️ Unique Content Becomes Your Differentiator

If you’re going to stand out in this AI search environment, cookie-cutter content isn’t going to cut it.

Think about creators like Dan Koe, who brings a distinct voice, personality, and insight to their work.

AI answers might give the “what,” but audiences go to people like Dan for the “why” and “how” opinion, perspective, and depth that AI can’t copy.

• What to do: When you write with your own style, throw in your takes, and focus on content only you could make, you’re way ahead. This is where people come for perspective, not plain facts.

• Why it matters: As search algorithms change, what will keep people coming back is trust in your voice and insight. You’re not just fighting to rank; you’re building a fanbase.

📈 Where We Are Now: Comparing Search Powerhouses

The AI search landscape is becoming more competitive, and each platform brings its own strengths. Here is a breakdown of the two major players in AI search according to Nathan Lands analysis:

1. ChatGPT Powered by Bing: ChatGPT is focused on delivering deep, context-rich answers rather than rapid-fire responses. Google remains unparalleled in speed and structured results, but ChatGPT appeals to users looking for thorough, conversational insights, even if the responses take a moment longer.

2. Perplexity’s Edge in Data-Heavy Results: Nathan found that Perplexity AI remains “king” for data-heavy queries, outperforming both ChatGPT and Google for accuracy on specific, stat-based questions. Perplexity’s design favors users in fields like finance or sports, where a deeper layer of data makes the search experience richer.

💥 AI Models: Fashion’s New Face, or Just the Latest Hype?

AI models are more than just for virtual girlfirends or boyfriends, they’re already starting to take over in the fashion space, and it’s happening fast.

Take Mango, for instance; they’ve gone all in, replacing human models with AI avatars in their campaigns, which are now rolling out faster (and cheaper) than ever.

And they’re not alone: brands like Levi Strauss, Nike, and high-end fashion brands are dipping into AI for everything from campaign models to full-on creative processes.

🔍 What’s Pushing This Trend?

1. Quick Turnaround, Low Costs: Fashion brands need a lot of content on a tight budget, and AI avatars solve both issues. With platforms like Glambase, creators and brands can build virtual “influencers” that handle everything from posting and engaging with followers to selling products, all on autopilot. Mango’s doing just this, using AI not only to front campaigns but to generate multilingual, market-specific ads in record time.

2. AI That Designs & Engages: Mango’s Inspire platform helps designers visualize and create products more efficiently. Tools like HeyGen’s moving photo avatars and Synthesia are creating lifelike, talking avatars that connect with audiences on a global scale.

🔥 Tools That Make It Happen

• Glambase: Think of it as an AI influencer-as-a-service. It lets you create digital personas that chat, post, and sell around the clock.

• HeyGen: Known for realistic, moving avatars. Perfect for campaigns that need a personal touch without the overhead.

• Mango’s Inspire & Lisa Platforms: Mango’s using Inspire to co-create with AI on designs, and Lisa, their conversational AI, to enhance customer service and global reach. Together, they optimize Mango’s entire pipeline.

🚧 The Real Challenges Here

• Human Connection vs. AI Efficiency: Will audiences miss the human element, or are they happy with digital faces? Overusing AI risks alienating customers who value authenticity.

• Lack of Human Touch: Many jobs, from models to stylists are at risk. Brands that rely heavily on AI may sacrifice the “human touch” that builds trust.

• Not a Get-Rich-Quick Scheme: There’s been a lot of success stories (like this one) that make this sound like an easy money-maker, the reality is much more complex. Success takes real time, effort, and strategy, especially in an industry already cautious about AI replacing human creatives.

AI models aren’t just a novelty, they’re a strategic move for brands aiming to scale fast.

The best brands will balance AI efficiency with the human touch that builds real connections.

💡 Insights

🌐 Stay Ahead in the Creator Economy For 2025

Ollie Forsyth’s New Economies newsletter just dropped a new report, and the creator space is growing like crazy, up from 50 million to over 200 million creators worldwide in just a few years.

Here’s What to Watch For:

• AI-Powered Content Creation: Generative AI is helping creators produce high-quality content faster than ever. From writing scripts to designing visuals, creators are leveraging AI to streamline their workflow, opening up more time for community building and strategy.

• Niche Community Platforms: Creators are shifting to dedicated community platforms like Mighty Networks to foster deeper connections. By creating exclusive spaces, they’re building loyal audiences willing to engage and support on a personal level—think small, engaged communities over large, detached followings.

• Diversifying Revenue Streams: Ads aren’t the only game anymore. Creators are expanding their income with online courses, digital products, and subscriptions, which offer more stability and align with audience interests. It's a smart move that reduces dependency on fluctuating ad revenue.

👉 Get the Full Trend Report

🚀 Inside the Future of AI With the Man Himself

In a recent Reddit AMA, OpenAI’s leadership, including CEO Sam Altman and key executives, shared insights on what’s next for AI.

Here’s What You Need to Know:

• No “GPT-5” Yet: Altman sidestepped questions about GPT-5 but hinted at major releases on the horizon, possibly powered by the “Orion” model as OpenAI ramps up its compute resources.

• AGI Within Reach? Altman suggested that artificial general intelligence might be achievable on today’s hardware, which hints at OpenAI’s rapid progress.

• AI Agents Set to Go Mainstream: Kevin Weil hinted that 2025 could be the year of agentic systems that act autonomously, allowing AI to make decisions and perform tasks independently.

👉 Read the Full AMA Now

📱 Consumer Mobile Apps Are Making a Comeback

Consumer mobile apps are back in a big way, thanks to the recurring revenue model. Forget the hassle of shipping and returns; creators are shifting from promoting physical products to high-margin subscription apps that deliver steady income.

Consider this: A $5/month app subscription brings 12x annual revenue per user with minimal headaches. TikTok creators who once sold skincare and supplements are now driving subscriptions for apps that practically sell themselves.

Case in point? A simple font-style app is generating over $600K/month in MRR, showing you how huge the market’s potential is.

👉 Get the Full Scoop

🧰 Apps & Tools

📩 Marco: Unified email management tool that adds all your inboxes across multiple providers and devices.

🎥 Loomos: Video editing platform that transforms raw screen recordings into polished demos.

🎨 Gamma: Create stunning presentations, documents, and websites without design or coding skills.

📝 NoteThisDown: Digitize your handwritten notes and integrate them into your Notion workspace.

📧 Serif: An email assistant that learns your style and priorities to sort messages and draft replies automatically.

🤖 Product Updates

🎤 Suno’s Personas Let You Capture Any Vocal Style

Suno has just introduced Personas, a feature that lets you save and remix the vocal essence of any song to infuse it into your own tracks.

How It Works:

1. Select any song, hit Create, and choose Make a Persona to capture its unique vocal style and vibe.

2. Personas can be set as Public for visibility on your profile or Private for personal use only.

3. Add your own lyrics and style, just like any other song.

👉Create with Personas

💻 Claude AI Assistant Now on Desktop

Claude’s desktop app is here for Windows and MacOS, giving you direct access to its conversations without a browser.

The desktop app keeps things familiar, delivering the same experience you’re used to on the web for free.

👉 Download Claude for Desktop

🖇️ Everything Else

🎶 AI Lo-Fi Takes Over YouTube: As AI LoFi floods the music space, fans worry the human touch that made Lo-Fi beats so beloved may be slipping away. (👉 Get the Full Story)

💌 Grow Your Newsletter with Beehiiv Webinars: Whether you’re looking to boost your subscriber count, monetize, or engage more deeply, Beehiiv’s webinars have you covered. Dive into actionable strategies and expert insights to build and elevate your newsletter business. (👉 Explore All Webinars)

🔍 TikTok’s Secret Market Research Tool: Use TikTok Creator Insights to find out what people are really searching for to fill content gaps. (👉 Access TikTok Insights)

🛒 Perplexity Takes On Amazon: Perplexity just launched Pro Shop, a new feature that lets users shop directly on its platform. (👉 Read More About Pro Shop)

🖼️ Explore the World of AI: Bookmark this directory of top AI generators, from text and image to music and science. (👉See the Full Directory)

💛 Sponsor

📧 Get Bigger Sales from Email & SMS

Let’s be real. Email marketing is not the “sexiest” member of the marketing family. And that’s okay. As a business owner, you have enough “exciting” stuff happening. Who wants more excitement when you can have stable and effective instead? Let us be boring, in the best way possible.  

• No guessing whether that marketing campaign will pay off. Brands using Omnisend on average make $73 for every $1 spent.* 

• No need to learn anything new here. A platform so boringly intuitive, it’s like you designed it yourself. 

• No venturing into the great unknown. Our support team is available 24/7 to make sure you don’t have any unwanted adventures.

• Same same, but for less. Get everything you expect from other platforms, except for those rollercoaster prices that make your heart race.

Check out Omnisend and take a nap

📈 Trends

🏆 Dominate Your Niche With Keyword-Specific Resources

Interactive tools and micro-sites have increasingly been used to boost SEO, generate leads, and attract organic backlinks.

Simple tools like calculators and quizzes help businesses tap into targeted search demand and dominate competitive niches by improving user engagement and rankings.

For example, 5 years ago, I saw an opportunity for the keyword “PayPay Fee Calculator” which had high search traffic and low competition. So, I spun up a page with a calculator that would allow someone to calculate the processing fees on a PayPal transaction.

What took less than an hour ultimately earned me a bunch of free traffic, but more importantly, that page generated 86 quality backlinks organically for A Better Lemonade Stand as it became a helpful tool that websites linked to naturally.

📊 What’s Driving This Trend?

• Keyword Discovery Made Simple: New Tools like Build the Keyword help uncover untapped keywords with low competition but high search demand, giving you quick ranking opportunities.

• AI and No-Code Platforms Powering Tool Creation: AI tools and no-code platforms have made it easier to build interactive resources—such as calculators, quizzes, and recommendation engines—without coding skills.

🥊 Tools to Help You Build This Out

• Outgrow: Create SEO-optimized tools and calculators without coding.

• Involve.me: Craft personalized quizzes to automate lead capture.

• Typeform: Develop interactive surveys that connect with Google Sheets and Zapier workflows.

• Softr + Notion: Build product directories as a side tool, using Notion databases as the backend.

• Bubble.io: Build web apps with a no-code interface, perfect for creating keyword-related tools.

🛠 How to Execute This Strategy Effectively

1. Identify the Right Keywords: Use Build the Keyword or Google Trends to discover keywords with:.

   • High search volume (>500/month)

   • Low competition (<20 difficulty)

   • Relevant related keywords (>40)

2. Develop Simple Tools or Micro-Sites: Create a micro-site focused on a specific keyword or build a relevant tool using one of the tools mentioned above.

3. Launch Across Growth Channels: Share your tools via Product Hunt and social media communities. Use F5Bot to monitor discussions on Reddit, join these relevant conversations, and promote your tool. Amplify visibility through influencer promotion, like Sveta’s campaign that generated 1M organic views for a free tool.

4. Capture Leads with Value-Add Features: Provide core functionality for free but offer bonus insights in exchange for email addresses.

5. Optimize for Backlinks and SEO: Build tools and micro-sites that naturally attract backlinks from other websites.

🎯 Keyword Spotlight: Conversation Topics

According to Katt’s tool, ‘conversation topics’ currently present a promising niche opportunity for growth and engagement.

• Product Idea: Develop an AI-powered conversation practice platform where users can use real-world interaction simulations (e.g., networking or job interviews) to get real-time feedback on engagement and listening skills.

• Search Volume: 12,100

• Keyword Difficulty: 14/100

Monetization Opportunities:

• Sell specialized conversation packs (e.g., business networking, dating) as one-time purchases.

• Offer coaching services through the platform, with a revenue share model for communication experts.

Why It Matters:

• High Demand: The keyword’s search volume indicates a strong interest in improving communication skills.

• Business Potential: This niche aligns with current self-improvement trends, providing opportunities for subscriptions, upsells, and coaching services.

How to Leverage This Keyword Opportunity:

• Develop the Tool: Use platforms like Bubble to build interactive conversation simulators.

• Promote Through Growth Channels: Share on Product Hunt and Reddit. Use F5Bot to engage in relevant discussions and promote organically.

• Capture Leads for Long-Term Growth: Offer a free version and upsell premium conversation packs or coaching sessions.

🔮 Future Challenges for Keyword-Focused Strategies

1. AI-Driven Search Reducing Organic Traffic:

   • Challenge: Google’s AI-enhanced search now delivers direct answers, reducing clicks to external sites. This can hurt micro-sites and niche content hubs.

   • Adaptation: Use rich snippets and schema markup to feature prominently in AI results.
     

2. Ad-Heavy Search Results Limiting Visibility

   • Challenge: Sponsored ads and product carousels dominate search results, lowering organic content. Even non-commercial searches are dominated by ads.

   • Adaptation: Focus on community-driven platforms like Reddit and Product Hunt. For competitive keywords, run ad campaigns to stay visible.
     

3. Declining Trust in SEO-Optimized Content

   • Challenge: SEO-optimized content focused on affiliate marketing can erode user trust. This makes users more skeptical of search results.

   • Adaptation: Engage influencers and communities directly to promote your content, reducing reliance on Google.

💡 Insights

📁 Start a $200K Side Hustle with Online Directories

John Rush, a serial entrepreneur and the go-to expert for profitable directory businesses, shares his step-by-step blueprint for launching cash-flowing online directories. His approach emphasizes low-risk, high-reward strategies that transform directories into steady revenue streams, perfect for side hustles or scaling as standalone businesses.

What Stood Out:

• Speed + SEO First: Rush advises prioritizing SEO keywords to validate ideas fast. Instead of building complex features immediately, start with a simple curated item directory to capture initial traffic.

• Smart Monetization: Start maximizing income through affiliate links, paid sponsorships, and premium listings. You can even sell data insights to corporations or use directories as traffic drivers to SaaS tools.

🔗 Watch the Full Breakdown

💥 Building a $1M Newsletter the Unconventional Way

Matt McGarry examines how scrappy creators and one-person teams can build newsletters generating 7-figure revenue.

Big Takeaways:

• Hybrid Hustle: Forget ads alone, pair your newsletter with a $99-$250 course to unlock new revenue streams. Just 2-3 weekly newsletters + a small percentage of buyers = over $1M/year in revenue.

• Lead-Gen Goldmine: B2B newsletters target high-value niches (think cybersecurity or finance), selling leads for $150+ a pop. Combine surveys, sponsorships, and webinars to capture both cash and credibility.

🔗 Read the Playbook Here

🚀 How Andy Austin Scaled His Newsletter to $29K

Andy Austin, founder of Adsora, grew Growth Catalyst Club to over $29,000 in revenue using Facebook ads while having fun and generating high-ticket leads for his agency.

Key Insights:

• 300 to 13,000 subscribers in 7 months: Andy used Facebook ads to find the right audience fast, scaling across multiple niches like finance, marketing, and real estate.

• Monetization from day one: He combined paid subscriptions, ad revenue, and referral programs through Beehiiv’s built-in tools to grow the newsletter.

• Retention is key: “It’s easy to attract subscribers, but retaining and monetizing them takes effort,” Andy advises.

🔗 How Andy Grew Growth Catalyst Club

🧰 Apps & Tools

✂️ Choppity: Search for moments based on visuals, audio, and sentiment. No need for scrubbing through hours of footage, find exactly what you need in seconds.

📋 Aggrega: Personalized digital dashboard that organizes your apps, data, and tools in one dashboard.

🗨️ Duonut: AI survey platform offering conversational follow-ups and real-time response summaries of your product flow to gain deeper customer insights.

📚 Lead Magnet Generator: Create eBooks and whitepapers for capturing leads effortlessly to boost lead generation with tailored, high-quality content.

📝 CubeNote: Knowledge management platform that helps you transform ideas into actionable results.

🤖 Product Updates

🖼️ Midjourney’s New Image Editor Redefines What’s Possible

Midjourney’s latest Image Editor with Retexture capabilities is already wowing users.

• Quick Retexturing: Users can now easily re-style images or profile photos with new textures and even animate them with tools like LumaLabs.

• Creative Potential Unleashed: It’s not just about textures. Users can alter characters, hairstyles, and lighting with precision.

🔗 See All 10 Examples

🪄 Unleash Your Creativity with Canva’s Latest Features

Canva just dropped a range of exciting new features as part of its October 2024 updates to streamline your creative process.

What’s Hot:

• Dreamlab AI Art Generator: Canva has integrated Leonardo AI to offer Dreamlab, a more advanced version of its Magic Studio. Now, you can create ultra-specific, AI-generated images with detailed prompts.

• Auto Page Numbering + Google Workspace Integration: Easily number eBooks and guides with dynamic page numbers. Plus, Google Workspace integration makes importing Canva designs into Google Slides and Docs easier.

🔗 Explore All the New Updates

🖥️ Anthropic’s Claude Unlocks ‘Superpowers’

Anthropic’s latest update allows Claude to operate computers, transforming workflows and boosting productivity autonomously.

• Seamless Task Automation: Claude can gather scattered information, fill forms, and run code autonomously, reducing tedious work for users.

• Bypassing Human Controls: Claude solved a CAPTCHA to log into ChatGPT in one demo, raising both excitement and concerns about AI’s growing autonomy.

🔗 See How Claude Is Changing Workflows

🖇️ Everything Else

📦 Boardy Raises $3 Million: Boardy closed a $3M pre-seed round to help expand its network and sharpen the AI’s capabilities. (🔗Get the Details)

🧾 Google Trends New Guide: Google Search Central released fresh docs to help you get the full potential of Google Trends. (🔗Google’s insights)

📊 Technical SEO is Tougher in 2024: 63% of SEOs report that technical SEO tasks are now as hard or harder than two years ago. (🔗Read the Full Survey)

📸 Google Photos Adds AI Edits: Google Photos will indicate when Magic Editor or Magic Eraser tools were used, with metadata showing AI or blended edits. (🔗Learn More)

📧 Notion Unveils Mail App: Launching in early 2025, Notion’s Mail app will let you tailor your inbox with layouts, views, and automation using Notion AI. (🔗Join the Waitlist)

💛 Sponsor

📧 Get Bigger Sales from Email & SMS

Let’s be real. Email marketing is not the “sexiest” member of the marketing family. And that’s okay. As a business owner, you have enough “exciting” stuff happening. Who wants more excitement when you can have stable and effective instead? Let us be boring, in the best way possible.  

• No guessing whether that marketing campaign will pay off. Brands using Omnisend on average make $73 for every $1 spent.* 

• No need to learn anything new here. A platform so boringly intuitive, it’s like you designed it yourself. 

• No venturing into the great unknown. Our support team is available 24/7 to make sure you don’t have any unwanted adventures.

• Same same, but for less. Get everything you expect from other platforms, except for those rollercoaster prices that make your heart race.

Check out Omnisend and take a nap

📈 Trends

🏝️ Tap into the VA Boom

The post-pandemic era has redefined how small businesses scale, with remote work and offshore hiring becoming essential strategies. Virtual assistants provide flexible, affordable support, allowing small businesses and solopreneurs to delegate tasks without the overhead of hiring full-time employees.

Countries like the Philippines, India, and South Africa have become major hubs for offshore talent due to lower labor costs, strong English skills, and a large pool of educated professionals. You will gain up to 80% in salary savings, while VAs get paid from higher-paying U.S. clients than local ones—creating a win-win scenario.

The growth of this trend signals an opportunity for you to build newsletters, job boards, AI tools, and educational content that allow offshore assistants to excel and meet U.S. business needs.

🚀 Key Drivers Behind the VA Boom

1/ Flexible Support Without Overhead Costs

• VAs handle email management, marketing, and customer support tasks, allowing businesses to scale based on demand.

• Companies only pay for completed tasks or hours worked, reducing overhead costs.

2/ Technological Advancements and AI Tools

• Platforms like Asana, Trello, and Slack streamline communication and task management across time zones.

• Freelance platforms such as Upwork and Fiverr give VAs access to global job opportunities, helping them grow their client base.

3/ Remote Work Normalization

• The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated remote work, making offshore VAs indispensable for many businesses.

• VAs working in different time zones provide 24/7 support, which is essential for customer service and IT operations.

💸 Build and Monetize a Newsletter-Job Board Ecosystem

Matt McGarry’s strategy has a clever idea that looks simple to put into practice and monetize this trend. It involves creating a newsletter with job board alerts and marketing tips tailored for offshore VAs.

Here’s how it works:

1️⃣ Set Up a No-Code Job Board

• Use Jobboardly or similar no-code tools to create your job board quickly. This allows companies to post jobs, and you can generate recurring revenue from premium listings.

2️⃣ Create a Candidate Pipeline in Beehiiv

• Run Facebook Ads targeting offshore talent pools to grow your subscriber base.

• Reach out directly on LinkedIn to invite candidates to join your newsletter.

Newsletter Framework:

🔹 Job Listings: Feature remote marketing and roles for VAs.
🔹 Industry News: Provide U.S. market insights to keep VAs aligned with trends.
🔹 Tactical Tips: Offer actionable advice to boost productivity and work performance.

Monetization Strategies

1. Free Job Post Submissions: Allow people to post jobs for free, capturing their email addresses to build your audience.

2. Grow Newsletter Candidate Pool: With CPAs as low as $0.25 per subscriber, a $5,000 ad spend can generate 20,000 new subscribers per month.

3. Targeted Candidates: Collect VA data (skills, experience) when signing up for targeted campaigns.

4. Job Board Boosts: Upsell companies by offering premium job promotions in your newsletter (built from your FB ad campaigns) for $300-$500 per post to reach these candidates.

🧑‍🏫 Educational Products and Training Programs

To stand out in the increasingly competitive market, VAs require specialized skills. Use my trend report at A Better Lemonade Stand #305 as a guide to develop educational resources such as SOP templates and niche guides for them.

Examples of educational content:

• Skill-based courses: Teach VAs CRM tools, digital marketing, or project management platforms like HubSpot and Mailchimp.

• SOP templates: Provide ready-to-use templates for onboarding, outreach, and customer service in Notion.

• Communication training: Help VAs master tools like Slack and Trello to align with U.S. business workflows.

⛏️ AI Tools to Enhance VA Productivity

AI tools allow VAs to automate tasks and improve efficiency, helping them align with U.S. client expectations. Now, it’s easier than ever to make these tools with the availability of creating AI tools with no code, as mentioned in the A Better Lemonade Stand #307 trend report.

Examples could include:

• Newsletter Repurposing AI: Converts YouTube or podcast content into newsletters, saving time for content creators and VAs. These AI wrappers can be built with a tool like create.xyz.

• CRM integrations and chatbots: Automate customer interactions across platforms like WhatsApp, Messenger, and email.

• AI reporting tools: Automatically generate progress reports to inform clients without manual effort.

💡 Insights

🚀 10 Newsletter Ideas You Can Launch Today

Matt McGarry dropped ten creative newsletter ideas that you can start immediately, covering niches to help you grow an audience fast, monetize effectively, and turn your content into a profitable business.

Besides the newsletter for VA’s idea, here are a few others that interested me:

• Target real estate investors in specific cities by highlighting high-potential properties with projections on returns. Use Facebook ads to grow your subscriber base and monetize with sponsorships, premium subscriptions, or paid events.

• Deliver meme summaries of the week’s news. Focus on business, tech, or finance to attract the right audience. Monetize with affiliate partnerships, paid communities, or exclusive content behind a paywall.

🔗 Get All 10 Newsletter Ideas

📲 Your Product Can’t Win Without the Right Audience

Dan Rowden’s 15-year journey proves that a great product isn’t enough. Success comes from smart distribution strategies that put your product in front of the right people at the right time.

Key Insights:

• Greg Isenberg points out that it’s often not a product issue but a distribution problem. Great products can fail without the proper channels to reach potential customers.

• Rowden experienced some growth with his product, Ilo, but its success is tied to Twitter’s API. Platform dependence makes growth fragile, changes outside your control can undo months or years of progress.

• Instead of building something entirely new, targeting a niche with high demand and competitors is often more effective. By finding a small, underserved space within that niche, you can position yourself for success.

🔗 Read the Full Thread

📰 Trust Wins Newsletter Sales Every Time

Alex Lieberman outlines how the secret to profitable newsletters is building trust, not just selling ad space. His guide breaks down the steps to monetize without alienating your audience.

Some Takeaways:

• Keep Ads Simple: Early on, focus on ads that are non-disruptive to readers and easy to implement, prioritizing audience trust over complexity.

• Outreach is a Conversation: Treat outreach like a two-way dialogue. Ask questions, engage actively, and build trust to create long-term advertising partnerships.

🔗 Get the Full Teardown

💸 Financial Freedom is Living Below Your Means

Even those with significant salaries can feel trapped in a paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle.

Levels IO highlights that true freedom doesn’t come from earning more but from living below your means and remaining financially independent. Income, especially from businesses or investments, is unpredictable. What seems stable today may change tomorrow.

The key isn’t just building wealth but maintaining the flexibility and independence to sustain your lifestyle regardless of how income fluctuates with economic uncertainty and inflation.

The real power lies in financial discipline and avoiding lifestyle inflation.

🔗 Get more Insights From the Conversation Here

🧰 Apps & Tools

🛠️ ToolNest: Get a suite of free online productivity tools featuring PDF editing, file conversion, and SEO analysis. These tools will always be free.

📘 Guidejar: Create interactive product demos and guides that simplify complex processes.

🗣️ Buzzabout: Analyzes social media discussions to help you understand customer needs and preferences.

📊 Kick: Accounting software that automates bookkeeping tasks, from categorizing transactions to providing real-time financial insights.

📬 Letterpal: AI tool for newsletter writers that gathers and formats industry news to streamline your content creation process.

🚀 Marblism: App development tool that generates front-end, back-end, and database components with just a single prompt.

🤖 Product Updates

🚀 Newsletter Earnings Made Easier with CPM Deals

Beehiiv’s latest release is about helping publishers and creators level up with payouts from top global brands based on impressions and improving visibility.

• CPM Deals: Earn based on impressions, not clicks, with payouts from global brands like Netflix, Roku, and HubSpot without long-term contracts.

• Backlinks Made Simple: Use the editor's new ‘[[‘ shortcut to link between posts, to help you boost your SEO rankings.

🔗 Start Monetizing Your Newsletter

🎵 Capture Moments, Create Songs with Suno Scenes

Suno Scenes is a new way to transform your photos and videos into custom soundtracks.

• Create On-the-Go: You can generate personalized songs directly from your favorite photos and videos.

• Visual Storytelling: Combine visuals and music for a new form of expressive storytelling.

 🔗 Create New Songs From Your Camera

🚀 NotebookLM Drops Experimental Label

One of my favorite tools, NotebookLM, just got a significant upgrade. Now, you can customize audio overviews, collaborate in business pilot programs, and listen to deep dives while you work.

• Listen and Learn On-the-Go: Using Audio Overview, you can turn your sources into a personalized podcast-style deep dive. Perfect for multitasking while staying informed.

• Collaborate Seamlessly: NotebookLM’s new business pilot program makes teamwork easy, helping teams stay aligned through guided conversations and shared notes.

🔗 See What Else Is New

🖇️ Everything Else

🤖 Optimize LLMs with Precise Prompts: Improve AI response accuracy by refining your instructions through clear prompts and iterative adjustments. [🔗Learn More Here]

🫂 Clone Yourself: HeyGen’s Avatar 3.0 lets you create AI clones with multiple poses, outfits, and angles, with no pro setup required. [🔗Create Your Avatar]