🎯 How I Landed My First $2K Client with Ai Automation (Without Doing Free Work)
I’ve been so deep in client work lately, I almost forgot to share this. But this one matters — because it was my first real win.The one that changed everything. A few months ago, I didn’t have any fancy setup, no niche, no clients, no network. Just YouTube, ChatGPT, and curiosity. I kept seeing people talk about AI automations, so I dove in. Started playing with n8n, testing OpenAI prompts, setting up email flows. I didn’t have a plan I was just building and experimenting. Then I started posting what I built. Tiny demos. Screenshots. Ideas I was testing. That’s when something clicked: You don’t need to wait until you're “ready.” You just need to show up and show what you’re building. One day, someone from a background screening agency saw one of my posts.They had a manual workflow where they emailed institutes to verify candidate information. Dozens of emails every day. All done by hand. They asked: “Can you automate this?” I said yes even though I hadn’t done something like that before Because I knew I could figure it out. So I got to work. What I built: ✔️ Pulled candidate data from a spreadsheet ✔️ Auto-generated verification emails for each institute ✔️ Sent them out with smart logic and delays ✔️ Tracked the replies ✔️ Updated the status automatically in their system Everything was done using n8n + OpenAI + Gmail API, Zero-code. 100% customized.And it worked. They didn’t ask me to prove myself.They didn’t ask for free work.They just paid. 💰 $2,000 for the automation, My first ever paid automation project. Since then, things have only grown.Right now, I’m talking to a digital agency in construction potential $10K project in the pipeline.Different industry, different needs. Same skills. Same systems. That’s why I tell people: ❌ You don’t have to niche down on Day 1 ❌ You don’t need some polished agency site ❌ You don’t need to “work for free to build your portfolio” ✅ You just need to learn the skills ✅ Build real automations ✅ Share what you’re doing ✅ And when the time comes — deliver