Just over an hour on video, recorded, with his store admin open on screen. I went in with a list of numbers I wasn't allowed to leave without. I also went in with a favourite answer, and that turned out to be the problem. After discovery I was sure the bottleneck was content. He'd told me he had loads of footage that never got published, so I'd basically written the report in my head: a system to get the backlog out. So I asked him to walk me through the last clip he'd filmed that never got posted. He thought about it and said there isn't one. Everything he films goes up. Idea to published takes him about 20–30 minutes, and he edits it without friction. The real issue sits earlier. Nothing tells him what to film or when, and all his raw material lives unsorted in his camera roll. He isn't stuck on publishing. He's stuck on starting. The second surprise was bigger. In discovery he'd said he wanted to spend less time chasing retailers, so I'd put retail outreach under "not recommending." Then we talked about what would actually let him go full-time, and almost all of that math ran through winning new stores. The thing I'd written off moved to the top of my list. He's already half-built his outreach with AI, but he still sends every email by hand, and he dropped his daily target the day after he set it. Third: the business can't see its own split between online and wholesale. Wholesale invoices live in a different system from the shop, so the split is his best guess. He works with business processes in his day job. His own words about his own company: "we run on paper." I don't see that as a criticism. I think it's the most common pattern there is, because expertise doesn't carry over into your own business when you have no time left for it. The finding I was proudest of, a technical email problem I'd verified before the call, he parked. Not a priority right now. That's fair. Pushing it would have been about me, not him. I also told him I'm still in school. Nothing changed.

I have been in enormous debt for a long time and it obliterated the relationship with the love of my life and broke her heart. It put me under the gun to finally figure out how to get my AI business working. Now I see how easy it is - it's just giving value to people that need it, derisking it appropriately for them, and then it all snowballs. Now I've got conversations this week for deals over $100k. if you need help just getting started please shoot me a message, I don't want anyone to have to go through what I did.

Hi everyone, been a while since I posted last, I have a huge update, I made an offer to someone in my warm network for whom I've done a mix of free and paid builds, and it's DONE $1300/month for a 3 month lock in with guarantees, if they're met then we continue longer than 3 months, I'm doing a mix of Ai/Automation work + Content Repurposing i.e. clipping, managing their social media (They have a podcast) Note: I have not done any content work before but he trusts me with this and i offered to do content + tech work for him that im already good at I am at a very weird place, this is my first big win but it was a complete pivot from what I've been used to do, I was doing mostly technical work and landed my FIRST upwork gig just 3 weeks ago, and it pays me like 150 dollars a month max (theyve hired me outside upwork after a fixed priced job so that i could get a review) for variable hours of work.(Its like 2 USD / hour and i only get paid for hours i work - they have a software to track this) I am making MORE from an offer that does not land in my skillset and this Upwork gig takes up the rest of my time, should I quit the gig (Ive already done work for them and got a review) and free up time to look for more jobs on Upwork so that i can stack reviews and get more valuable work? Thanks for reading this far, appreciate your thoughts on this.

Conducting my first discovery call from my warm outreach!! Wish me luck!!!

Hey everyone, today I just had my first discovery meeting with my first client. They are a small local web app development company that not only designs websites but also maintains actively running applications for other companies. I walked in less than a week ago to pitch my service, and today, after the discovery meeting, I have the audit meeting booked, with implementation being the next step after that. I will get a testimonial for the audit once it is delivered. For implementations and retainers however, how would you recommend I approach them? The audit is free, I'm debating whether the implementation (building the solution) should be priced and if so at how much, and the retainers will definitely be priced. This is my first official audit/project after all. At this point, what do I definitely need to do to get my agency up and running (I'm based in US)? Should I file for an LLC? Should I have a website set up? LinkedIn page? What is the most important thing(s) that I need to have? Thanks, I appreciate the feedback.