The Most Profitable Solo Business You've Never Heard Of

0:00 do about a million dollars a year just myself.

0:03 These are loweffort, lowcost, lowrisk startups.

0:05 You can just spin up a website tomorrow and then you're set, right?

0:08 Which is a huge opportunity right now because AI is so dang good

0:12 that you could take something like that and scale it to the moon and back.

0:17 Everyone needs it.

0:18 Usually, you get instant customers with it.

0:20 And it's totally free.

0:21 On a Friday, I had the idea.

0:23 On a Saturday, I built the thing.

0:24 On a Sunday, I launched it on Product Hunt.

0:27 And on Monday, my life was not that ever the same.

0:29 Did you have an audience then?

0:31 No.

0:31 No audience?

0:32 No.

0:32 Nothing.

0:32 I was completely anonymous.

0:34 Nope.

0:34 Nope.

0:34 I think it was about $10,000 the first day it was side income for me.

0:39 I held my full-time job until I was making 80,000 a month and then I quit.

0:44 80,000?

0:44 Holy crap.

0:45 Yeah.

0:45 And I was making 75,000 a year at the other job.

0:48 I kept a full-time job for 4 years while running Design Joy.

0:52 So, you were making more per month in profit than you

0:55 were per year from your full-time job that you held back.

0:58 Yes, I was.

0:59 Yeah.

0:59 Oh my gosh.

1:00 What is your net profit per month?

1:02 I think the peak was 200,000 a month,

1:04 but it usually averages somewhere in the 60 to 80,000 a month.

1:07 It's probably about a,000 a month in expenses.

1:10 Oh my gosh, that's wild.

1:13 What productiz agencies right now you see out there

1:16 in the world that are very successful that other people could copy?

1:19 Yeah.

1:19 Is it okay if I give two?

1:21 I want as many as you got.

1:24 Okay.

1:24 I think there's two primary ones right now.

1:28 Meet Brett.

1:28 He's making about 80 grand a month in net profit all by himself.

1:32 No team, no contractors.

1:33 This guy launched an agency on a Sunday

1:36 and had 10 grand in recurring revenue by Monday.

1:39 No audience, no followers, nothing.

1:40 He was a nobody in a town of 500 in the Midwest.

1:44 Not just that, but he kept his day

1:46 job for four years while running the business,

1:48 making more per month in his business than

1:51 he was making per year in his day job.

1:53 And today, he works 30 hours a week,

1:55 and his clients pay him six grand a month before they ever talk to him.

1:59 So, we're going to talk about this thing called productized services.

2:02 And not just his, but other productized services that you

2:05 guys can launch in all kinds of different industries.

2:08 Enjoy.

2:08 One of the important things like noting like who might be watching

2:11 this is like I don't want this to conversation to totally be focused

2:15 around just design these these principles and like the what I've done here

2:19 can really be applied to any sort of like mainly digital skill whether

2:22 it's marketing copywriting you know maybe

2:24 you're running social media for a brand

2:26 or something like that and it's small like any of this stuff can

2:30 be technically what I call productized which just basically means selling it off

2:34 the shelf right so instead of filling out a form on a website,

2:38 getting a quote, jumping on a call, having, you know,

2:40 three or four meetings to discuss pricing and proposals

2:42 and estimates and all that sort of stuff.

2:44 It's just you go to the website, you buy the service,

2:47 you pay for it, then and then you can consume it.

2:50 So, it's really, I like to call it like lowering the the TTV,

2:53 which is time to value.

2:55 So, when you purchase, getting that thing back as quickly as you possibly can.

2:59 In my case, it's design work.

3:01 In somebody else's case,

3:02 it's maybe it's it's a blog post copy or something like that.

3:05 I think it's the model that serves that best in terms of lowering that TTV,

3:09 which I think is is key more now than ever.

3:11 You know, a lot of companies value speed over quality,

3:14 as weird as that is to say.

3:16 So, that's where Design Joy comes in.

3:18 And this whole model really, I think, flourishes.

3:20 So, I run what is now, you know, called a productized design agency.

3:25 So, basically selling design services via subscription.

3:28 I guess one of the more notable things is I do it all by myself.

3:32 So, been running it since 2017.

3:34 do about a million dollars a year via that just myself.

3:38 So there's very little cost involved and other than the you

3:41 know the time that I invest in in the startup.

3:44 Yeah.

3:44 So it's what I do.

3:45 I do design work for software product branding

3:47 like you know you name it I do it.

3:50 I keep a certain number of clients at a time

3:54 on basically a retainer and and that's that.

3:57 So Okay.

3:58 So 2017 what prompted you to launch this?

4:01 Yeah.

4:01 So the company that I worked for, they were

4:05 hugely disrupted by Uber and that that whole boom.

4:08 It was a transportation company and I saw the writing on the wall.

4:13 So while I knew I had time,

4:15 I started building something on the side just as a safety net.

4:19 And I actually story goes, you know, on a Friday I had the idea.

4:23 On a Saturday I built the thing in Webflow.

4:26 On a Sunday, I launched it on Product Hunt and on Monday,

4:29 my life was not that ever the same.

4:32 That's the way it went.

4:32 It was that It was that quick.

4:34 Just like a few days and then Did you have an audience then?

4:37 No.

4:37 No audience.

4:38 Nothing.

4:38 I was completely anonymous.

4:40 Nope.

4:40 Nope.

4:41 No audience.

4:42 I literally shared my story on forums.

4:44 That's it.

4:45 Yeah.

4:45 Explain to people what Product Hunt is if they're not familiar.

4:49 Yeah.

4:49 So, Product Hunt is um it's primarily for tech products.

4:52 There are some physical products on there,

4:54 but essentially what you do is it's called an upvoting system.

4:57 So every day the list refreshes and you could submit your startup to it,

5:01 your product, whatever it is.

5:03 And in my case, I had to get friends and family to upvote me.

5:06 And the more upvotes you get, the closer to the top you get.

5:09 And the closer to the top you get, you might go on the homepage, right?

5:12 And there's people like me who are product obsessed.

5:14 We like to discover new products.

5:16 We like to figure out what's what's next and what's new.

5:19 So, we go to Product Hunt as consumers to check out what the new products are.

5:23 Well, if your product happens to be there, you get quite a bit of hits.

5:26 Usually, you get instant customers with it.

5:28 And it's totally free.

5:29 You just have to have the network of people to upvote it.

5:32 In my case, literally, it was it was my personal network was my friends

5:36 and family I went to school with on Facebook.

5:38 That was all I had at the time.

5:39 And I got Design Joy to a million dollars

5:42 a year that way before I even started tweeting.

5:44 I started tweeting four or five years after I built Design Joy.

5:48 So, how high up on Product Hunt's list that day did you reach?

5:52 Number four.

5:52 Yeah.

5:53 Number four.

5:53 How many were you competing with that day?

5:56 Total numbers from that day, the the unique website visits were about 36,000,

6:00 which for me from starting just the day before was insane.

6:04 To your page, you had my page 36,000 unique.

6:07 All spurred from your your just friends and family from a hometown Newberg,

6:12 Missouri, 500 people.

6:13 Yep.

6:13 Yeah.

6:13 36,000 uniques.

6:14 I can't remember quite the exact figures on revenue.

6:17 I think it was about $10,000 the first day

6:20 was I gotten what you would call reoccurring revenue.

6:22 It's a little early when on the first day to call

6:24 it reoccurring because you don't quite know how it's going to go,

6:26 but it's technically reoccurring.

6:27 So about 10k and then I rode that wave for about a year

6:31 at that at that level because it was side income for me.

6:34 As the story goes, I held my full-time job until

6:38 I was making 80,000 a month and then I quit.

6:41 So I was making Yeah.

6:42 And I was making 75,000 a year at the other job.

6:45 So, oh my gosh, they kept giving me raises

6:48 and raises and raises to get me to stay.

6:50 So, I was like, "Okay,

6:51 at this point I'm only working like I did most of my Design

6:55 Joy work like during my meetings that I had at that job." So,

6:58 I I was managing both very simple.

7:00 I mean, I I took on as fit much as 50 clients at a time at Design Joy.

7:04 So, like one one client at my full-time

7:06 job is literally peanuts to me, you know?

7:08 So, it's super super easy.

7:09 I can get it all done.

7:10 So yeah, I um I kept a full-time job for four years while running Design Joy.

7:17 So you were making more per month in profit than you were

7:20 per year from your full-time job that you held at the same time.

7:23 Yes, I was by about 5 years.

7:25 Oh my gosh.

7:25 Yeah.

7:26 Hey, YouTube's fine, but what about when you're driving around?

7:28 What about when you're mowing the lawn?

7:30 You need my audio podcast, The Kerner Office.

7:32 Just look up TKO Pod in Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast.

7:36 Anyways, I quit my job and then two year two two months later revenue doubles

7:41 from 80 to 160k and that's when my f had my first like oh crap moment.

7:47 What do I do here?

7:48 How like how do I manage this?

7:50 And then I had breakdowns.

7:51 I had price increases every time I would double my price.

7:55 I thought this will finally like curb the the demand

7:58 but it just exponentially increased it because it just put

8:01 me into another category which is a lot of things

8:03 people don't understand about pricing that I had to learn.

8:06 And then yeah, so I I I stayed at that for a while.

8:09 Worked myself literally into a hospital like almost to death.

8:12 Like I I was dying.

8:13 I was working so much.

8:15 And then yeah, right now though, I've I've gotten my systems faster.

8:19 I've gotten better at what I do, more selective with my clients.

8:22 And so now I have a very easy life.

8:24 I work less than a full-time designer.

8:26 So what were you charging per month per client those first few years?

8:30 Oo, good question.

8:31 So, I started out at a measly $449 a month day one.

8:36 Wow.

8:36 For unlimited design.

8:37 Unlimited design.

8:38 One at a time.

8:40 I hit my first big wave.

8:42 That increased to $849 a month.

8:44 And then I went from that to $1299 to 2500 to 3,200

8:48 to 4,000 to 5,000 to 6,000 all the way up to 8,000.

8:51 Then I kind of dialed it back a little bit.

8:54 So every time I felt like I was hitting a wall and wanted to shut things down,

8:57 I just my my gut reaction was just like

8:59 just going to increase prices and see what happens.

9:02 Yeah.

9:02 How many hours a week are you working now?

9:05 It's about probably 30.

9:06 Okay.

9:06 And what is your net profit per month nowadays?

9:10 So it varies.

9:11 So one thing about my business is MMR

9:13 monthly recurring revenue like it swings a lot.

9:16 Like I could have 50 $60,000 a month swings

9:19 and one of the reasons is because you have churn, you have people pausing.

9:23 So, on average, it's about 70 to 80,000 a month.

9:27 My total expenses outside of taxes,

9:29 which I won't include in this conversation because they're pretty

9:33 astronomical in my sense because I don't really have many expenses.

9:36 Outside of taxes, it's probably about a,000 a month in in expenses.

9:40 Oh my gosh, that's wild.

9:42 So, you have $40,000 months, you have $120,000 months,

9:46 but you're netting out averaging out 70 to $80,000 a month, which net profit.

9:54 Yep.

9:54 It's been as low as 40 40,000 per month.

9:57 It's been as high.

9:58 I think the peak was 200,000 a month,

10:00 but it usually averages somewhere in the 60 to 80,000 a month,

10:03 but you'll get those peaks and valleys.

10:05 As a design agency owner, like what does that actually mean?

10:08 What are you designing on a regular basis?

10:10 Yeah, in my case, I do a lot of branding, so logos,

10:14 you know, just the overall aesthetic of what these brands look like.

10:17 I do a lot of websites, you know, design and development of these websites.

10:21 I do a lot of, you know, social media stuff.

10:24 I do a lot of, you know, presentation decks.

10:26 You name it, I pretty much do it as long as it's it's digitally focused.

10:30 So, how would a productized service like yours, specifically a design agency,

10:35 how does it differ from traditional uh design agencies?

10:38 Yeah.

10:38 So, in in a lot of ways, right?

10:41 So, um if you just want to talk pricing for example,

10:44 traditional design agencies are are relatively very

10:47 expensive because there's a big headcount involved, right?

10:50 So when you have a website project,

10:52 you're not only paying the salary of the person

10:55 actually working on that, you're also paying the PM,

10:57 you know, the project manager, the CEO, the CFO,

11:00 you know, these companies are they have to pay these people.

11:03 So their prices are significantly higher.

11:06 In my case, it's just myself and in other

11:09 cases like design like companies like design joy, it's like a few people, right?

11:13 Very small kind of intimate agencies.

11:14 So pricing is usually much more affordable.

11:17 Speed is the big thing.

11:18 So with traditional agencies,

11:20 if anyone has ever hired one to embark on, whether it's a brand project,

11:24 a website project, these things take weeks to months, in some cases to years.

11:28 In my case, if you if you were to subscribe to DesignJoy,

11:32 you would have a, you know, let's say a homepage back tomorrow.

11:36 So it's very fast, no contracts, no calls required.

11:40 You could decide to sign up today and get designs back tomorrow.

11:45 So it's like Fiverr, but like on steroids.

11:48 and actually like good good work, right?

11:50 So, yeah, that's the main thing and it's a subscription.

11:53 So, one of the big things right now is the economy, right?

11:56 So, it's like people are very hesitant to hire full-time people.

12:00 Um, especially in the tech world,

12:02 so they like to use contractors, but even then,

12:04 if as long, you know, if you don't have work for them, you're still paying them.

12:08 With a model like DesignJoy, you can subscribe and pause anytime you want to.

12:12 Meaning, if if work dries up and you don't really have a need for it,

12:15 you can just pause your subscription.

12:16 You're no longer paying for it.

12:17 you come back whenever you do need more support.

12:20 So, it's very flexible in that regard as well.

12:22 Now, I'll ask you a question that you're

12:24 completely you'd be completely biased on answering

12:26 on these vibecoded apps and websites that kind

12:29 of all look about the same generic.

12:31 Could that be not fully but largely fixed with better prompting,

12:34 screenshots from other websites that have good design?

12:37 I know like the answer to that could put you out of a client, you know,

12:41 but like sure is it not bad prompting or is it just like AI is just

12:44 not there yet and it maybe won't be for a while on the design side of things.

12:47 Yeah, I may not be as biased as you'd think here cuz I'm not

12:51 so naive to think that everyone requires

12:53 top tier design to be successful, right?

12:56 The majority of people out there could get

12:59 by with launching with something made from claude, right?

13:02 Like it's good enough.

13:03 Where I like to exist is the tier above that where

13:07 it's like we're not fine with just being like good enough.

13:10 We want to separate ourselves apart from everyone else doing

13:14 this and everyone that will come behind us and copy us.

13:17 The only way to really do that is to layer

13:20 on a design layer onto that that separates us from a branding perspective.

13:24 You know, branding is still just as important

13:26 if not more important than ever has been.

13:28 More important, I think.

13:29 Yeah.

13:29 Yeah.

13:30 And so, you know, the second you build a successful product,

13:32 you have to assume that there are 300 people behind

13:35 you that could spin up something like that within a week.

13:38 If if they have a team, probably days, right?

13:40 Yeah.

13:40 So, what is it that you're going to what's

13:42 the moat that you're going to build around that product?

13:45 One of those moes is distribution.

13:46 Of course, you know, you understand that more so than ever

13:50 with because now it's easy to build the thing.

13:52 It's harder than ever to sell the thing.

13:55 Exactly.

13:55 But moat is is obtainable.

13:56 You can hire distribution partners, things like that.

13:58 But it's still it's still a huge moat and a huge advantage.

14:01 The other advantages is branding and design.

14:03 So those two things I think will be increasingly more important.

14:06 I'm having like this realization as we're talking

14:09 that like design has never been more important.

14:11 You know, it has just like distribution has never been more

14:14 important because it's so easy to build the thing and like

14:16 you and I we go to websites every day that all

14:19 look about the same and you're like let me guess lovable.

14:22 Let me guess wind surf.

14:23 Let me guess replet code.

14:24 You name it.

14:25 Like we've all seen it.

14:26 And so now it's more important than ever to stand out.

14:29 If you look at the number of websites that are live on the internet,

14:33 it is like parabolic these last three years.

14:35 Yeah.

14:35 Because it's so easy to make a website.

14:37 And when you think of like you might agree, disagree with this.

14:41 Two of like the companies that have really they call it designled growth.

14:45 Is that a thing?

14:46 I've heard of that.

14:47 Yeah.

14:47 Yeah.

14:47 I can't speak on it, but I've heard of that term.

14:49 Yeah.

14:50 Yeah.

14:50 I mean, it's Airbnb and Apple and maybe even more

14:53 so Airbnb because the two founders are were designers at heart.

14:57 And I feel like the best products,

14:59 the best digital products are incredibly complex under the hood,

15:02 but incredibly simple on the surface, right?

15:05 That's in my opinion, that's what good design is and that's what Airbnb is.

15:08 It looks so simple, but there's so much going on there.

15:11 And I hate it when people bring up

15:13 Craigslist as an example of like design's overrated.

15:15 Look at Craigslist or Amazon.

15:17 Yeah, either one.

15:18 Yeah, dude.

15:19 Craigslist died.

15:19 Like Craigslist is dead.

15:21 Go look at Similar Web.

15:22 They went from hundreds of millions of views a month to like four.

15:25 Like Facebook marketplace ate their lunch.

15:28 And so it's like that's not a good example.

15:31 I think Yeah.

15:32 And then Apple like and Tesla, right?

15:34 Those are designled companies.

15:36 And um and it shows in their market cap.

15:38 They're trillion dollar companies.

15:39 Not that you know correlation is causation, but I'm terrible at design.

15:43 And it's something that I've always neglected because I'm

15:45 very much like a done is better than perfect.

15:48 move fast and break things like ship it,

15:50 you know, sell it before you have it, all that.

15:52 That's my whole thing.

15:53 And so by the time it comes around to design,

15:56 it's like, we're working, you know, it's Yeah, it works, right?

15:59 Yeah.

15:59 But it's like you just never know how

16:01 much better it could work with better design.

16:03 I'll ask you a question that's probably one of the most

16:05 frequently asked questions you've gotten these last three years.

16:08 On one hand, with AI, it's like we can vibe code,

16:11 we can prompt anything, we can design anything easier than ever before, right?

16:14 So that would be a notch against you, against your business model, right?

16:18 On the other hand, like we just talked about, these things need to be designed.

16:22 They need good design at least after a certain point.

16:24 Most websites will never get to that point

16:26 because most businesses fail, which is fine.

16:28 Sure.

16:29 So like it's a rising tide situation, right?

16:31 Your TAM, your total addressable market has gotten bigger than ever,

16:34 but at the same time, the tools have gotten more user friendly than ever.

16:38 So for your business net of net, has this been a net good for you

16:42 this AI these last three years or a net negative?

16:46 For me personally again just speaking anecdotally it's

16:48 been a a definitely a net a net positive.

16:51 It's a net positive for two different reasons.

16:53 It's a net positive in the sense that there's more businesses

16:56 and startups being built more than ever before in human history.

16:59 You know a day is equal to six month period you know a couple years ago.

17:04 So there's more need.

17:06 There's more entrepreneurs.

17:07 Uh there's there's more things being built

17:09 that require design more than ever before.

17:12 Guys, tkowners.com.

17:13 That's my community where people are building businesses.

17:16 I do AMAs Q&As's every week live.

17:18 You can ask me anything you want.

17:20 You can have accountability partners.

17:21 It's about a thousand people in there building, starting growing businesses.

17:25 Check out TKO as in the Kerner office.

17:28 tkowners.com.

17:29 The second way and obviously design comes into that.

17:32 So I I get to kind of ride that wave.

17:34 The second way is just my internal abilities have roastly expanded in terms

17:39 of what I'm able to produce internally and how quickly I can produce

17:43 and and the type of assets that I can produce now that I would

17:47 have had to turn away because I didn't have the talent on the team.

17:50 You know the team is me.

17:51 I didn't have the talent.

17:52 But now AI does enable me to do a lot of those things.

17:55 And then when it comes to like product work like man like the way that my system

18:00 works is there's not like I said there's

18:02 not that like highlevel synchronized communication that's available.

18:05 So when I embark on a huge product design request and I

18:10 mean like you know a piece of software maybe it's like

18:12 a medical medical software that's very intricate and it does oftentimes

18:15 require a lot of conversations and a lot of like requirements gatherings.

18:19 I don't need to do that anymore because I plug in what it is they give me.

18:23 I work with claude to come up with all the requirements,

18:26 all the features, all the flows just myself in isolation from even the client.

18:29 And then I have a I can just bring

18:32 that pull that into Figma and then just start designing.

18:34 It does a lot of the UX thinking for me.

18:37 So it just allows me to speed up things

18:39 and not have to really even think that much.

18:42 Yeah.

18:42 What AI tools are you using in your business right now?

18:46 Yeah, good question.

18:47 Midjourney a lot.

18:48 Uh again, I'm a designer, so image generation, video generation is huge for me.

18:52 So I use Midjourney a ton.

18:54 I use Crea.

18:54 Crea is like my one of my favorite ones

18:57 because it plugs into all of these other AI model,

18:59 you know, image generation, video generation models.

19:01 I use that mainly for that.

19:02 I do a mix of those for image generations.

19:05 For for coding and prototyping, I primarily will use Claude.

19:08 That's kind of my go-to right now.

19:10 But again, you ask me tomorrow, it's probably be something different.

19:13 So that's just the way the way it goes right now with those.

19:16 I use AI inside of nonAI products, you know, like Photoshop and Loom even,

19:20 like a bunch of stuff like there's all these like, you know, AI features,

19:24 but those are the primary AI products that I use currently.

19:27 Okay.

19:27 For the non-designer, like someone who's design illiterate such as myself,

19:31 what AI tools do you suggest they use if they can't afford you?

19:34 You can get away with using Chad GBT for almost everything, right?

19:38 So, or Claude.

19:39 I think Claude is better if you're looking to like not hire a designer.

19:44 claw.

19:44 There's magic path.

19:45 There's magic patterns.

19:46 Those three are probably the best at getting you

19:50 the closest to what a like a true designer would output.

19:54 They're not quite there yet, but again,

19:56 they're good enough for probably most people

19:59 watching that don't have high design standards.

20:01 What about nano banana?

20:03 Oh, so for image generation, so there's two things here, right?

20:07 So image generation is like there's either

20:10 you're looking to generate artwork like viby super

20:13 aesthetic like artwork that you really want like

20:16 a really unique style like I do I

20:19 like to play a lot with like Renaissance like themed artwork like I do a lot

20:22 of that sort of stuff kind of like Shopify's latest like page that they did.

20:26 Midjourney is great at that.

20:28 Nana Banana Pro is like better at like specific things.

20:31 So like if you're looking to generate, you know,

20:34 a model holding something, go Nana Banana Pro all day long.

20:37 It's so freaking good.

20:38 So yeah, I would say Nana Banana Pro for 90% of people listening.

20:43 Okay.

20:43 What if someone's vibe coding a website or an app in Replet or Cloud Code,

20:47 any of those vibe coding apps and they really wanted to have amazing design?

20:51 What should their tech stack be?

20:53 Should they go find, you know,

20:55 apps and websites that they they find personally beautiful,

20:57 screenshot it, send it over there?

20:59 What kind of prompt should they put alongside it?

21:02 Should they ignore replet for design altogether and use something like kria?

21:05 What what would you do?

21:06 Claude is the best.

21:07 Like what I what I often do is I do the simple approach where I will screenshot.

21:11 Let's say I want to add a section below, you know,

21:14 the top section of my landing page and it's just like testimonials, right?

21:18 Or something like that.

21:19 I'll oftentimes just screenshot a testimonial section

21:21 that I like and reference that inside of Claude.

21:24 Say, hey, referencing the screenshot that I've attached,

21:27 you know, generate a testimonial section.

21:29 And that that gets you like it's gonna be okay, right?

21:32 That's that's what I would do.

21:33 That's the simplest approach versus like explaining how to use these how

21:36 to connect claw to Figma and do all of that, right?

21:39 It's going to be over people's head.

21:41 Can you give me the names of some

21:43 websites that you designed that you're particularly

21:44 proud of just so we could show people what you consider to be good design?

21:48 Yeah, so Origin Finance is one that I've recently done that's really big.

21:52 Um, there's others that I wouldn't

21:55 necessarily classify them as the best designs,

21:58 but they they work for what they were built for.

22:01 So, yeah.

22:02 Is it this one here?

22:03 Use origin.com.

22:04 Yeah.

22:04 Yeah.

22:04 And so, again, like design is completely subjective, right?

22:07 And and this isn't necessarily what I

22:10 would consider like the pinnacle of design, right?

22:12 But it's clean and it works and it converts really well.

22:15 Looks pretty.

22:15 I've done other things like the tea app, the dating tea app.

22:19 Have you heard of that?

22:21 Tea.

22:21 Yeah.

22:21 Did you ever hear about all that?

22:23 No.

22:23 I've never used a dating app in my life.

22:25 Well, I know.

22:26 I know.

22:27 But it was all over X because they they uh Yeah.

22:31 So, Oh, this is like a Gumroad vibe.

22:33 Yeah.

22:34 So, these guys I designed this literally like three years ago and crinkets.

22:39 I thought it was dead as dead as all get out

22:41 and then all of a sudden it's number one on App Store.

22:44 It's number one on the Google Play Store.

22:46 But they had a data leak and it was not good.

22:49 No, I was not a part of it,

22:51 but they hugely successful app like just beat everything by a super wide margin.

22:57 I did I did basically kill them.

22:59 It did on the app store on on the iOS app store.

23:02 They're still on Google Play,

23:04 but I mean they got millions of users on like day one.

23:07 It was everywhere and I was the guy that that designed it.

23:11 That's cool.

23:12 Did you design the app too or just the website?

23:15 Yes, the brand, the app, the whole the whole shebang.

23:17 What was it?

23:18 Buy me a coffee.

23:19 I've done a ton of work for I'm sure you've probably seen

23:22 the buy me a coffee button around for creators and things like that.

23:25 I've done a lot of work for them.

23:28 That's great.

23:28 And they're all so different.

23:30 But that's the thing is like you know a lot of these projects

23:33 as a designer it's really hard because you you are oftentimes very constrained.

23:37 Any other like prompting ideas or prompting hacks

23:41 when it comes to design that you would recommend?

23:44 The biggest prompting hack that I can give to people

23:47 and this may sound very common sense to some people

23:49 listening to this because they're like obviously I already do

23:52 that is to use chat GBT to write your prompts.

23:56 So prompt whether you're prompting within JGBT or any other LLM.

24:00 Exactly.

24:01 Yeah.

24:01 Especially in in other LLM.

24:03 So if I if I go to make a video in runway,

24:07 which runway is a video generation AI tool,

24:10 or if I go to generate an image in Midjourney or an image in in Nanobanana Pro,

24:16 the first place I start is typically in Chat

24:19 GBT and I'll say something to the effect of, "Hey,

24:23 write me a prompt for Nanabanana Pro that does this XYZ." Right?

24:27 Very generic.

24:28 Very generic.

24:28 And what it spits out is very specific.

24:31 It's better than what I could write as far as a prompt goes.

24:33 It used to be like we had these prompt engineers like that was

24:36 going to be a job and now AI prompts better than people can.

24:40 So lean on like use AI to do the AI stuff that like you need help with.

24:43 Like you shouldn't have to sit there ever and like write

24:46 your own prompt unless it's just something really quick or whatever.

24:48 But yeah, use use chat to write your prompts.

24:51 Why why is Chat GPT better at writing prompts than say Claude,

24:55 which most people I think today would argue that Claude is a better LLM?

24:59 So it depends if you ask these people it depends on what they're doing.

25:04 So if you're prompting perhaps like a I don't know

25:07 let's say Bolt which Bolt is a it's a text

25:09 to app platform where you can just say like you know

25:12 write create this app or whatever kind of like claude is.

25:14 So if you're writing something more technical I will use cloud for that.

25:17 Or if I want to write a script for my web flow site like a piece

25:21 of code that like does this special hover

25:23 effect on this element I'll use cloud for that.

25:25 If it's something more of like uh

25:27 image generation or more creative or just personal

25:30 use even like I want AI to analyze a tax document or whatever it is.

25:35 I've just personally anecdotally found chat to be better

25:37 at writing more conversational stuff versus claw being very technical.

25:41 So those people that usually say like claude's better

25:44 for this, they're usually much more technical use cases for that.

25:47 But they're both I mean honestly they're both good, right?

25:49 Like you can't really go wrong.

25:51 It's just a personal preference.

25:52 Well, to me there's two big unlocks there in what you said.

25:55 Like I've been doing that for a while, right?

25:57 Ask it what to ask it.

25:58 Cool.

25:58 But like A, I wasn't using ChBD to do that.

26:01 I've been using Claude to ask Claude what to ask Claude, right?

26:04 So that's an upgrade.

26:05 And B, I haven't been telling, you know,

26:08 in the LLM in the prompt, I'm going to do this in Nano Banana.

26:12 I'm get this is a I need you to give me a prompt for replet,

26:14 for lovable, for claude, whatever.

26:16 Because the LLM knows how those LLMs want to be spoken to, right?

26:21 So theoretically it should give you a better prompt that's more

26:25 befitting for that LLM right that's it will like an example

26:28 is like midjourney a midjourney uses parameters so there's style parameters

26:31 there's ratio parameters so chatbt will know that um you can also

26:36 one unlock too is setting up a rule sheet in chat

26:39 GBT so that anything you prompt inside of this project will

26:43 reference a rule sheet so like when I'm generating runway videos

26:47 runway takes into account the type of camera you want to use,

26:51 the type of zoom lens you want to use, the type of cinema color grading.

26:55 So, I can feed that into the rule sheet.

26:57 So, anytime I prompt a runway thing,

26:59 it'll reference all that, include all of those parameters inside of that.

27:02 So, it just expedites the process and gets you

27:04 a much more precise fine-tuned prompt for whatever tool you're using.

27:07 Yeah, I love that.

27:08 Listen, I need more people like this to interview on my podcast.

27:11 So, if you know of someone with a side hustle

27:13 or a business that's unique and cool and super profitable,

27:16 email Molly M o ly@cof-founders.com.

27:19 That's one word.

27:21 co-founders.com.

27:21 Mollycoounders.com.

27:22 Tell her your story and we'll give you

27:24 a hundred bucks if we end up interviewing them.

27:26 What is your productized service shiny object right now?

27:29 Like what what service out there you think

27:32 is ripe for the picking to be a productized

27:35 service that you're too focused on to chase

27:37 after that you think other people should chase after?

27:39 Yeah.

27:39 Is it okay if I give two?

27:41 I want as many as you got.

27:42 Okay.

27:43 I think there there's two primary ones right now.

27:46 The one is more general.

27:48 It's AI first design and development.

27:51 That is the big thing, right?

27:52 Because it's easy for us technical people to sit back and say just use cloud.

27:56 It's super easy.

27:57 But the second you have to connect that to a database or the second

28:00 you have to connect that to Stripe or the second you have to actually

28:03 host the thing most people who are

28:05 nontechnical that's where they stop because it's

28:07 easy to build it but actually distribute it out is a whole other thing right.

28:12 So a lot of these companies will like are right now um off menu is one of them

28:17 for example that they they've transitioned and pivoted

28:20 to something that's like AIdriven product design and development.

28:23 So let us run cloud for you and then let us distribute

28:26 it and let us build the thing and let us host it.

28:28 Let's take care of all the complexities.

28:30 I think that's a big big thing.

28:32 The other thing on a biased front would be branding.

28:36 So not product design, not website design, just branding.

28:39 um that is if I were to create another agency given my skill set today,

28:45 that would be I think where the next big big thing

28:48 will be inside of actually the design industry specifically is branding.

28:52 So those are the two biggest.

28:54 I love it.

28:55 If you were to go with a branding agency, let's say I'm not inherently creative.

28:58 I don't have good taste.

29:00 I don't have an eye for design.

29:01 Is AI to the point where we can lean on that where with some good

29:05 prompting Claude can like give us something

29:07 to at least start with Claude or anything?

29:10 So, first off, like I hate this.

29:11 I hate this word.

29:12 And if you're on X a lot, you hate it,

29:14 too, if you're in my world, but taste, right?

29:16 Taste is if you don't have taste,

29:18 you're you're only going to get so far with prompting, right?

29:20 So, if you take somebody with actually good taste,

29:22 and good taste is obviously subjective,

29:24 but there's generally this in the higher tier of these industries,

29:27 there's agreed upon what good taste is, it'll get you there for something.

29:31 Where AI is helpful is photography generation.

29:33 So, you don't need to go out and hire photographers anymore.

29:38 Or if you have a let's say a cosmetic

29:40 a cosmetic product like you can get super super high quality

29:42 photography done with AI just general background images and supporting

29:46 assets for blog post and illustrations and things like that iconography.

29:50 AI is fantastic for that as well.

29:52 So I like what I do is I will bring on a tech company.

29:56 I'll assign an aesthetic to them.

29:57 Let's say it's a Renaissance theme and that's just like it's Renaissance imagery

30:01 with their product on overlapped on top

30:02 and that's kind of like their aesthetic, right?

30:04 It's like this old age kind of whatever neo renaissance.

30:06 I can set up a system for them in AI to be able to replicate and build images

30:11 out in that style for them to use

30:13 on their blog posts and that's all very easy to do.

30:16 So AI for that sense is really good

30:18 with the branding side and creating these cohesion between assets.

30:21 Yeah.

30:21 But it's not so good at other things.

30:23 Now break down a little bit more the AI

30:25 agency like what what would that look like?

30:27 Let's say I you own that agency.

30:29 I come to you.

30:30 What need do I have and what solution do you want?

30:32 Yeah, absolutely.

30:33 So let's say like for example you want to build out in your case I'll give you

30:37 a specific case like you want to teach other

30:40 aspiring YouTubers how to do what you've done you know

30:42 get hundreds of thousands of subscribers you want

30:44 to build this very comprehensive system with resources and connecting

30:47 class members and things like that to each other

30:50 you could go to cloud and do that right like

30:54 you could maybe get something done but like you're

30:56 going to probably hit a point if you're not

30:58 super technical and you've never actually launched a full

31:00 product yourself with development you're probably going to hit

31:02 a point where you just get stopped or you

31:04 get in these like vicious endless loops of like

31:06 trying to have claw troubleshoot and you're just burning

31:09 through tokens and spending so much money on tokens, right?

31:11 All these things happen all the time.

31:13 You don't hear about it,

31:14 but like everyone runs into this issue that's non-technical.

31:16 Instead of you doing that, why don't you just hire

31:19 someone that they have they have actual developers on staff?

31:23 So when they actually need developers to plug in to the AI,

31:26 they can do that, but they can they know how to leverage

31:29 AI to get that thing up in like a month, right?

31:31 Or like a couple of weeks.

31:32 And so for you, it's like, okay, money is not really an issue.

31:35 So you're like, I might as well just have someone who knows what they're doing,

31:38 who knows how to leverage these tools at the right time, at the right place,

31:41 in the right way, but also has the resources in house to be able

31:44 to have people that oversee this to make sure it's all done up to par, right?

31:48 Like security is up to par,

31:50 payment payment management is up to par, all that sort of stuff.

31:53 And I have a resource to go to if something breaks.

31:55 So that's where like that's where you would hire somebody like that.

31:58 And I think that that is the future of agencies inevitably.

32:00 It's not going to be like individuals building their own software.

32:03 I don't think it'll be companies building their own software.

32:05 I think it'll be hiring someone that uses AI

32:07 to get it done at a tenth of the time, but done well, right?

32:11 And so that's where these AI agencies, I think, are going to plug in.

32:14 They're already they're already popping up everywhere.

32:16 So, what would you be able to charge for either one of those?

32:19 Probably a lot.

32:20 And you need to charge a lot because tokens are not cheap currently,

32:23 and I don't think they're going to get much cheaper.

32:25 So, that's the that's kind of the unspoken

32:27 thing about this is like, yeah, it's free.

32:29 you're doing it yourself, but a lot of people are spending thousands of dollars

32:32 a month on tokens and running into the limits and stuff.

32:34 So, you'll need to charge a lot.

32:36 If I were to give a range, it would be somewhere like if I were to do it,

32:39 it'd be somewhere in the $10 to $20,000 a month range.

32:42 If I did like a retainer for for people.

32:44 Yeah.

32:44 Now, a lot of people do don't charge subscriptions,

32:46 so it's going to be oneoff pricing,

32:48 which could be anything depending on the scope of work.

32:49 what productiz agencies right now are like don't tickle your fancy but you see

32:55 out there in the world that are very successful that other people could copy.

32:59 So Offmanu is one of them that does

33:01 that does more of like development and design if

33:03 you want something built like that they're doing

33:05 they're doing pretty well they've done it pretty well.

33:08 Hunter Hammonds runs that we're buddies he's a cool guy they

33:10 they run a really cool operation have a really talented team.

33:13 What's his name?

33:14 You would know who exactly who I'm talking about.

33:17 Dang it.

33:17 M but they run one for copywriting actually,

33:20 which is a huge opportunity right now because AI

33:23 is so dang good at copywriting that you could take

33:27 something like that and scale it to the moon

33:30 and back and not have to hire too many people.

33:33 Everyone needs it.

33:34 Like it's sort of Oh, Alex Lieberman, you you know who that is, right?

33:38 Oh, yeah.

33:38 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

33:39 Yeah.

33:39 So, we we had a chat uh he like pinged me on D on DMs.

33:43 He was like, "Hey, can we hop on?

33:45 I'm thinking about building like a productized copywriting agency.

33:48 And then we had that chat and then I swear like two

33:51 months later he was like just crushing it with it, you know?

33:54 And I think they do more than that now.

33:57 But there's another one right now called Viral Cuts.

34:00 I think they're still around.

34:01 Yeah, I know them.

34:02 Yeah.

34:02 Yeah.

34:03 So they that's a Hunter Hammond's thing as well.

34:06 So they do it for short short videos for content creators like yourself,

34:10 which is obviously a huge industry right now.

34:12 Um, so they take your long form videos and clip them up and cut them

34:17 into into different short form clips that you

34:19 can leverage and uh that does really well.

34:22 YouTube thumbnails, I can't think of the name,

34:24 but there's somebody that does YouTube thumbnails as a as a subscription,

34:28 which is one of the best use cases for it because I agree.

34:31 Unlike branding, which is really a one-off thing,

34:34 you get to capture that revenue.

34:35 Great.

34:36 But that may not reoccur.

34:37 Things like short-term video, short form videos,

34:40 podcast editing or thumbnail design is is a reoccurring need.

34:45 Yeah.

34:45 So those those type of things do really well and you

34:48 can keep going on and on and on, but there's

34:51 a lot of justification for making 10 to 20 thumbnails

34:53 per video cuz finally AB testing is now native YouTube.

34:57 So we're making tons of thumbnails per video.

34:59 Oh, sure.

35:00 And it never stops.

35:01 like we might make new ones a month after it's been

35:03 published just to see if we can fire it back up again.

35:06 And it was a good business model before AI.

35:08 Like I I pushed that before even AI was really a thing.

35:11 But now with AI, it's even more so.

35:13 Like the the the ability for you to scale

35:15 now is wilder than it ever has been before.

35:18 Like if you were to talk about thumbnail design 5 years ago,

35:21 like a team of two or three people could crank

35:24 out hundreds of thumbnails a day if they needed to, right?

35:27 So these are loweffort, lowcost, lowrisk startups.

35:30 you can just spin up a website tomorrow,

35:32 figure out how to get distribution, and then you're set, right?

35:35 Like there's service based I love service based businesses because there's not

35:38 there's not that like risk of if it fails, okay, so what?

35:42 It's basically just a website and maybe

35:43 a couple of like processes that I set up,

35:46 you know, it's not yeah anything crazy.

35:47 So Brett, I think I'm out of questions, but this has been excellent.

35:51 Thank you for your time.

35:52 Where can people find you if they want to find you?

35:55 Yeah, I just saw X.

35:57 Um, I think it's Brett2T's from DJ from Newjo.

36:00 Yeah, Brett from DJ.

36:01 Okay.

36:01 Yeah, thanks Brett.

36:02 Thank you.

36:02 If you like this content, please share with a friend,

36:05 hit a like or a comment below, and we'll see you next time on the Ker