Dan Martell - How to Start a 1-Person AI Business (With Zero Code)

00:00:00.000 I've been in business for 28 years.

00:00:02.080 I've built a portfolio of AI companies

00:00:03.840 that generates millions every freaking year,

00:00:05.940 launching a new one every month.

00:00:07.700 But if I had to start over from scratch today,

00:00:11.100 these are the exact seven steps I'd follow

00:00:13.100 to start an AI business this year,

00:00:15.260 even if I didn't have any money or coding skills.

00:00:18.160 So let's start with the first.

00:00:19.600 Step number one, find a painful problem.

00:00:22.640 We have to start with the pain, not the idea.

00:00:25.440 People fall in love with their product,

00:00:27.440 their solution, their ideas.

00:00:28.780 when the market is the decider.

00:00:31.320 If you don't find somebody that goes out

00:00:33.660 when you push on that bruise,

00:00:35.120 then they're not gonna wanna spend money

00:00:37.160 to solve the problem.

00:00:38.320 See, most people get stuck in selling things

00:00:40.320 that are nice to have, not must haves.

00:00:42.340 Things that are considered vitamins, not painkillers.

00:00:45.240 If you can find real pain, you can make a lot of money.

00:00:48.320 When I think about it,

00:00:49.180 people only pay for a handful of things.

00:00:51.680 First, they pay to make more money.

00:00:53.640 They pay to save time.

00:00:55.120 They pay to save money, because it makes more money.

00:00:57.100 Or they pay to look good.

00:00:58.360 That's status. Find a pain that delivers on one of those promises. And now you get the beginnings

00:01:04.260 of what could become a good business. So here's how to find a pain to solve with your AI business.

00:01:10.000 First, we have to learn to build the muscle of finding opportunities. I call this your

00:01:14.540 frustration list. Most people don't realize that there's problems all around the world that need

00:01:19.120 solving, but you might see something and just dismiss it. You just have to build that muscle.

00:01:23.640 I can't walk around this world and not see a thousand businesses every day because I've built

00:01:28.680 that muscle. You probably have that. You've just diminished it. You think it's not a big deal,

00:01:33.080 but that's where the real genius comes in. When you can find those slight tweaks and just go,

00:01:37.780 why is that done that way? That's where innovation comes from. So look at the world as a series of

00:01:42.640 problems to solve and your expertise in the thing you know best is the first place you should look.

00:01:47.760 We have to start calling people in that niche that might have that pain and ask them about

00:01:52.520 their frustration around it. Now, let's say you've had that conversation and repeatedly found

00:01:57.600 10 people in a row that have expressed that pain. That's when you start shaping the potential

00:02:02.660 solution for it. Here's how that conversation sounds. You call it the phone. You say, well,

00:02:06.380 I've been talking to a lot of people just like you. What they've told me is this, this, and this.

00:02:10.620 Does that resonate with you? When they go, uh, yeah, get excited. Cause all of a sudden you're

00:02:15.960 like, okay, this isn't a vitamin anymore. This is a real painkiller opportunity. And now your whole

00:02:20.580 thing is to help them shape your ideas on how you would solve the problem. It comes down to helping

00:02:24.440 them find opportunities to save time, make more money, reduce errors, something in their life that

00:02:30.200 is creating friction or pain or challenges. That's what you want to validate. The last step,

00:02:35.680 the most important is you want to pair the problem with a growing market that could be picking an

00:02:41.280 industry that's growing 20% per year and pair the solution with AI. When you start with the idea of

00:02:47.260 how do I solve that specific problem using AI?

00:02:50.420 That's what makes this video way different

00:02:52.620 than anybody else teaching you how to just start a business

00:02:55.260 because the innovation is validate the pain,

00:02:58.460 then come up with the idea around AI first,

00:03:01.420 solving of the pain.

00:03:02.820 Most products out there, they work for a customer today

00:03:05.980 and they added AI as a secondary thing.

00:03:08.540 You wanna start with the first principle

00:03:10.360 of using AI to solve the problem

00:03:12.140 and that's what's gonna make your product way different.

00:03:14.700 Remember this, if you solve rich people problems,

00:03:17.320 they will pay you easier and faster.

00:03:19.400 So find customers that actually have money

00:03:21.680 to pay to solve the problem.

00:03:23.360 With that, now you have their pain.

00:03:25.500 But if you wanna start a really successful AI business,

00:03:28.120 it's time to actually address it.

00:03:29.880 Step number two, solve the problem manually.

00:03:33.040 I know, this sounds boring.

00:03:34.480 I don't want to do a manual work, Dan.

00:03:36.280 I want to automate it and use code and AI

00:03:38.620 and all that fun whiz-bang stuff.

00:03:40.100 I get it, but guess what?

00:03:41.360 You don't learn fast that way.

00:03:42.560 The best way to start any business

00:03:44.140 is to start with a hands-on approach.

00:03:47.260 Get paid to learn the whole process.

00:03:49.660 That's why every technology company out there

00:03:51.920 that you use like Shopify and FreshBooks and Basecamp

00:03:56.320 and all these companies started first

00:03:58.460 by doing the work manually

00:04:00.400 and then built the tool to automate the workflow.

00:04:03.880 If you just start with a manual approach,

00:04:06.340 that'll get you talking to customers,

00:04:08.360 that'll get you in the flow of the transaction

00:04:10.320 and it'll give you the financing,

00:04:12.060 more on that in a second,

00:04:12.980 to actually build the product.

00:04:15.260 Don't start by building a bunch of features.

00:04:17.540 Start with the workflow and get paid to build it.

00:04:20.200 Like when I look at one of my companies

00:04:21.560 in my portfolio, Precision,

00:04:23.180 talking to the founder, Matt,

00:04:24.500 and watching how he deployed the solution early,

00:04:27.280 he found a bunch of customers

00:04:28.620 that paid him to solve the problem,

00:04:31.020 helping them understand their data

00:04:32.540 and understanding the specific tactics

00:04:34.620 they needed to change in the business

00:04:36.060 to improve the numbers.

00:04:37.820 Using those conversations guided the product roadmap.

00:04:41.460 And then when he launched the product,

00:04:42.840 the product was dialed in because he had those conversations,

00:04:46.100 he had those early customers, and they were paying.

00:04:48.960 If you wanna find a beautiful way to waste your time,

00:04:51.060 find a bunch of people that aren't paying you

00:04:52.540 and have them tell you how to run your business.

00:04:54.400 But how do you do this?

00:04:56.240 It's super simple.

00:04:57.260 All you need to do first is draft a one-page

00:04:59.880 done-for-you type offer.

00:05:01.540 That's what I call it.

00:05:02.340 But in that one-page document,

00:05:04.120 it talks about the problem pre-validated

00:05:06.440 through the phone calls.

00:05:07.440 It talks about the outcome,

00:05:09.020 what's the impact to their business.

00:05:10.460 It talks about the timeline,

00:05:11.640 how you're going to deliver that, and it has the price, or I like to call it the investment.

00:05:15.960 If you keep it simple, the person should read that and go, wow, that would absolutely solve

00:05:21.080 my problem. That makes so much sense. I love the outline, the timeline, and the investment

00:05:25.080 is actually really reasonable. For example, one of our portfolio companies, youratlas.com,

00:05:29.900 essentially allows you to replace a person on your team answering calls using AI and then book

00:05:34.600 sales meetings. It's kind of awesome. So the done-for-you offer would sound something simple

00:05:38.680 like this. Replace a full-time receptionist, end missed opportunities, and turn every ad click into

00:05:43.800 a booked call with your atlas in 30 days for just $2,500 a month. Did you notice that it had those

00:05:49.420 four elements? All you have to do is take the pain and those conversations you pre-validated

00:05:55.200 and create a simple offer that uses those four key components. And look, if you want my exact

00:06:00.660 offer template that I've used to close millions of dollars every month in my companies, I'm giving

00:06:05.640 it away for free. It's yours to help you make money fast without any friction. It takes this

00:06:09.540 structure and expands on it. And you can just swap out what you just created in that document

00:06:14.560 and start using it after you do a sales call or on the sales calls to really get clear on how you

00:06:19.000 can help add value to a potential customer. So just click the link in the description below and

00:06:23.040 download your copy or the QR code on the screen. It's my gift to you. Absolutely free. I hope it

00:06:27.980 makes you a lot of money. Now you've figured out the solution to their problem. You even have an

00:06:32.200 offer. But for a really successful AI business, you need to actually build something. Just don't

00:06:37.780 get too fancy. Step number three, build a clickable prototype. The word is prototype. Prototype,

00:06:43.900 prototype, prototype. I had a friend not too long ago approach me for advice and I told him to do

00:06:48.920 it completely different. But he decided to go and invest what initially was six hundred thousand to

00:06:53.860 build the product turned into two million dollars. And three years later, the product never launched

00:06:58.700 the whole thing went to zero. Why? Because he overbuilt and they didn't understand that the

00:07:03.640 real validation comes from talking to customers, working with them to build the thing, not just

00:07:08.100 paying somebody to build something. So instead of spending 50k developing the full tool, use that

00:07:13.780 time to build a simple clickable prototype. Here's how you can do this exactly step by step. First,

00:07:20.520 we create the flow on paper. I pull out my iPad and I take my pen and I just draw the workflow

00:07:26.100 of what I've already talked with a customer

00:07:27.940 that they want to improve.

00:07:29.940 How is AI gonna improve their life?

00:07:31.540 Well, we gotta design the flow.

00:07:33.280 See, if you don't take the time

00:07:34.600 to figure out how it's gonna work,

00:07:35.940 then even if you found somebody to build it,

00:07:37.820 they're gonna not know how to build it

00:07:39.260 and you're just gonna waste a bunch of money.

00:07:40.500 What I mean by flow is exactly each step or screen

00:07:44.200 of how the experience is gonna look for a user.

00:07:47.320 Now, you don't have to go into the whole signup flow,

00:07:49.620 but once they've created an account and they're in the product,

00:07:52.160 how is that product gonna be shown to the user

00:07:55.000 in a way that solves their problem.

00:07:57.440 Here's a tip, AI going forward,

00:07:59.640 most of the interface is gonna be phone-driven

00:08:02.180 or voice-driven, no interface.

00:08:04.820 The days of having a front-end app

00:08:06.660 that people enter information are going away.

00:08:09.100 People want click, click, value.

00:08:12.100 Automate the process.

00:08:13.660 So your flow might be, they call a phone number,

00:08:16.220 they tell them what they wanna order,

00:08:17.800 magically the order shows up.

00:08:18.940 The second, we have to make a fast clickable prototype.

00:08:22.600 The cool part in today's world,

00:08:23.960 Back in my day, I had to sit there and build all this stuff.

00:08:26.580 I actually used to create these prototypes in PowerPoint and then Keynote.

00:08:30.400 Today, you've got these solutions like Figma.com or UXpilot.ai or Visily.ai

00:08:35.120 that will take a prompt and create this all for you automagically.

00:08:39.800 So if you skip this step, that's on you, but it's never been easier.

00:08:43.260 And you can get many of these products to photorealistic prototypes

00:08:47.540 that you can show to a user and many of them will be like,

00:08:50.540 oh, wow, this is really cool.

00:08:51.460 They'll think it's working software.

00:08:52.780 The third, once you've done that,

00:08:54.640 you need to get in front of actual customers

00:08:56.960 as soon as freaking possible.

00:08:58.640 So what I want you to do is go back to those early customers.

00:09:01.500 Now you have a product, you have a prototype,

00:09:03.300 show it to them, ask them if it's okay to record the call,

00:09:05.760 have that conversation, show them the product,

00:09:07.720 ask them, would they use this?

00:09:08.880 What do you think's most valuable?

00:09:10.420 What would you recommend I change?

00:09:12.140 My favorite thing is to just use my phone as the pitch deck.

00:09:14.960 I think mobile apps is like the future of selling

00:09:17.340 because I can be on a plane, meet somebody new,

00:09:19.800 they go, what do you do?

00:09:20.600 And I say, I'll just show you.

00:09:21.900 and you show them and then you give them the clickable prototype and they're like oh wow this

00:09:25.720 is really cool you built this and they're like yep but it doesn't work it's just simulated it can

00:09:31.220 look so real that even i will think it's a real product i remember i was down in la hanging out

00:09:37.640 my buddy rob and he showed me this time app he built he has this massive led screen and he's

00:09:43.160 showing me the product and he's clicking through and he's and these features and it's going to do

00:09:47.000 this and there's images and i'm like whoa all fake like there was nothing real it was all simulated

00:09:53.400 clickable prototype in that moment if he said hey do you want to invest i would have said yes

00:09:58.440 if he said hey do you want to be a user i would have said yes like he had everything i needed but

00:10:02.200 he didn't have to spend a million dollars to build the thing i was looking at so remember prototype

00:10:07.240 not product so now you have a prototype great but to build an ai business from scratch you need to

00:10:13.000 get cash before you go any further step number four validate the prototype with cash my rule is

00:10:19.400 you haven't really started a business until you get paid people ask me like dad i want to start

00:10:23.800 a business how do i start a business very simple go find a stranger and convince them to buy

00:10:28.920 something from you technology aside ai aside that can happen before you build anything the truth is

00:10:35.640 most people will be super nice to you they'll tell you hey man that's a great idea you should

00:10:39.880 go build it and you're like awesome i'm gonna go build it like yeah i believe in you and then you

00:10:43.960 come back in five months six months 100 grand later all this time wasted you go hey i built

00:10:48.680 this thing do you want to be a customer and they're like oh that's cool but i'm sorry i'm busy

00:10:52.920 you know like you told me this was a good idea no no it's a good idea you should do it but then why

00:10:57.320 aren't you using it oh you know it just doesn't really work the way i would use it so but hey

00:11:00.600 congratulations i'm telling you until people pay they ain't gonna pay attention and if they ain't

00:11:05.880 paying, their feedback is invalidated. This step I'm about to share with you has cost more pain

00:11:10.860 and cost more money for more entrepreneurs than any other problem that's ever existed in the AI

00:11:14.640 space. For example, I was just recently in Dubai. Did you know that in Dubai, if you look at the

00:11:21.140 real estate, this city has been built over the last 20 years and 70% of every sale happen what's

00:11:27.340 called off plan. Meaning before they ever started to build that development project, they sold the

00:11:33.640 units in that project to fund the development of those billion dollar buildings. So don't tell me

00:11:39.740 you can't do this. It happens every day in consulting and big companies where they pay

00:11:43.940 people to build internal tools. It happens in crowdfunding where people support these big

00:11:48.060 projects to buy a product that someday will get delivered. And it happens in Dubai selling off

00:11:52.880 plan sales with models and clickable prototypes on pages to get people to pay to fund the bill.

00:12:00.120 here's a fun fact every company i've ever launched i've always pre-sold before i ever built anything

00:12:06.040 every company every technology every software from flow town to spheric to clarity i built

00:12:13.060 the product after i sold it i needed to validate that there was real people willing to pay willing

00:12:18.820 to lean in willing to invest before i was going to spend my time and energy because that wasn't

00:12:23.760 the riskiest assumption the riskiest assumption was do they actually want it so here's how you

00:12:29.220 can do it in your AI business in just two steps. The first part is we want to launch an early

00:12:34.180 adopter program. I call it an EAP. Sometimes I call it the founding 50. I've seen people call

00:12:39.240 it like the advisory board. Essentially, the idea is you go to potential customers and you tell

00:12:43.700 them, hey, here's a problem that I see in the market. Here's how I'm going to solve it. Here's

00:12:48.400 the prototype. And I'm looking for 10, maybe 50 early customers to come in to help support the

00:12:55.180 investment, the build. These are the folks that are going to shape the product. They're going to

00:12:58.940 get early access to innovation. They're going to get things their competitor doesn't have.

00:13:03.400 And you frame it that way so they get excited to be part of co-creating a solution. In the world,

00:13:08.400 there's early adopters and there's laggards. There's people that like buy the latest and

00:13:12.260 greatest iPhone and then people that are still on their flip phone. But you want to find a small

00:13:16.580 group of people that prepay to finance the initial development and rollout of your AI software and

00:13:22.380 learn how to present it in a way where they get excited to be part of it. The second part is

00:13:26.800 create an offer and price it in a really intuitive way that makes the joining of that group so

00:13:31.840 simple. So the way I do it, really simple math, is offer an annual prepay deal that is usually 50%

00:13:38.080 off the retail price of the year for your software. So if you're going to charge $100 a

00:13:43.080 month for your software, the annualized version of that would be $1,200. You can charge $600 for

00:13:48.120 those people to be part of that early adopter program. And you might add extra stuff, like

00:13:52.620 oftentimes will add VIP onboarding, implementation calls, the ability to influence the roadmap of my

00:13:58.460 AI software. And that gets people connected to you, your mission, your vision. And I'm telling

00:14:04.100 you, if you want to win an AI, you have to learn to persuade people to make decisions, to invest

00:14:09.780 in you, to trust you. And by showing them that you've had the calls, you've learned about their

00:14:14.300 industry, the market, and you've built a clickable prototype, offering this, building your founding

00:14:19.380 50 early adopter program and having a clear offer will get them excited to make the commitment.

00:14:24.820 Now with cash in hand, you can actually create the product, but we need to make sure you keep

00:14:29.580 it simple. Step number five, build an MVP. Now we can talk about minimal viable product. But again,

00:14:36.800 can I please, please, please warn you, don't overbuild. Don't over engineer. Don't build for

00:14:42.220 the someday maybe. The whole point is minimum. The whole point is not building every possible

00:14:47.000 feature, but saying these are the three things that it's going to do for our customers and nail

00:14:51.160 those three. You need to reduce the features to just the things that are going to get them excited

00:14:56.340 and want them to pay. The cool thing about AI is that it doesn't take a lot to create a massive

00:15:01.420 amount of value for a business. When I look back at things like Facebook, Facebook started as a

00:15:07.620 simple app for me in university to figure out what other classes my friends are taking. Amazon

00:15:12.940 started with books. You don't need to be everything to everyone. If anything, it's a dangerous recipe

00:15:18.600 for starting. You want to keep it simple, keep it small and get it built. For example, I have a

00:15:23.760 product called Social Sweep. It's the coolest thing. It analyzes all my social networks and it

00:15:28.520 adds AI inference and data enrichment and allows me to find anybody with any specific knowledge or

00:15:34.320 works at a company or can help me across all my social platforms. And I remember when I launched

00:15:39.100 with jade my partner he started getting requests from people that wanted to have like enterprise

00:15:43.820 level features and i said jade i love that they want that they're excited about the product

00:15:48.220 the truth is let's nail this use case for now just write them down say i appreciate i appreciate the

00:15:53.740 feedback and right now you can use the product as is to get a tremendous amount of value but only

00:15:59.340 in the future when we decide to build it will we circle back and let you know the cool part is is

00:16:03.500 that you can then see if the customer is actually willing to use the product as is and get them to

00:16:07.980 pay or if they really have a need that needs to be built in the future so it validates it

00:16:12.940 and then when you launch it in the future you might have 12 15 20 people that have asked for

00:16:17.580 that feature and you can tell them individually that because of your feedback we launched that

00:16:22.540 feature and they're going to feel so invested in your product it is like a product management hack

00:16:27.420 here's the way i look at my lens if it impacts 80 of customers it's worth considering doing if it

00:16:33.020 it doesn't, put it on a list. Now, if you want the easiest way to create your MVP without knowing

00:16:39.120 anything about code, here's what you want to do. First, go to buildwithai.io. It's actually called

00:16:44.800 Braindumper. That's the product. And I want you to give it your idea in plain English. And trust

00:16:51.200 me, it can be messy. It could be disconnected. A great way is to think about all the conversations

00:16:56.000 you've had. You look at the product and you can just walk through the clickable prototype. You're

00:17:00.220 talking to BrainDumper as you're looking at the prototype you've already built. So use plain

00:17:05.840 English to explain the screens, explain the features into that product. Next, that product

00:17:11.360 will actually recommend both the tools and the system prompts, the AI prompts that you need to

00:17:17.580 create a mock-up for your tool. That mock-up is essentially the beginning pieces, the foundation

00:17:24.060 that you're going to need for this next step. The last step, once you have that, just copy and paste

00:17:28.660 the prompts it gives you into a tool like lovable.dev and click enter and watch it build your

00:17:34.560 AI app in real time. Once you see this, it will blow your mind for what's possible. Most people

00:17:41.060 have no idea that AI has gotten so good that you can talk to a tool that will help formalize the

00:17:48.440 whole mock-up, all the system prompts, tell you which tools to go use, that you then go to the

00:17:53.800 website, enter it in, hit enter, and it builds the AI business for you. A lot of people will tell

00:17:59.660 you just to go to Lovable right now and go build the app. The problem is, is they get stuck in the

00:18:04.020 technical implementation. Start with a clickable prototype. And what's cool is that when you sell

00:18:09.360 that, the customer is going to know that it's not real yet. And they're going to get excited for the

00:18:13.840 momentum because you get to come back maybe a few weeks later with a real product from a clickable

00:18:18.980 prototype, which in their mind is unheard of. The truth is it's so easy to do and build these apps

00:18:24.800 with AI that most people just overdo it and they really don't understand their customer's pain.

00:18:29.380 And with that, now you have your MVP. Isn't this freaking awesome? Not long ago, you came here and

00:18:34.580 you were like, how do I build a company? Now you got the pieces. You got a customer that's paying,

00:18:38.600 you got a product, but we're not done yet. Once that's live, you'll start getting feedback on

00:18:42.940 what's working, what's not. And this is where you need to make the adjustments if you really want

00:18:47.880 your AI business a sore. Step six, collect feedback from your customers. So my whole rule

00:18:53.560 is watch what they do. Do not listen to what they say. I know that sounds harsh, but I've been on

00:18:59.400 the receiving end of so many customers that are using my product that say, hey, I've got this idea

00:19:04.180 and I listen and then I go look at the logs. I look at the admin interface and I see that they've

00:19:08.860 never logged into the product. Everybody has an opinion. Everybody will tell you what you should

00:19:14.400 do. I want to know what my best customers are doing. I want to figure out the people that kind

00:19:19.840 of use the product, what I could tweak to make them fall in love with the product. When you can

00:19:24.540 take a customer that's like a little bit happy and make them a raving fan, that's when you build

00:19:29.780 an AI business that takes off. Trying to circumvent that and just being a cheap development shop for

00:19:35.500 anybody with an opinion, that is the fastest way for you to fail in your business. One time I was

00:19:40.560 building this product called Timely and we launched it. I think like 10,000 people signed up

00:19:44.660 and started using it. It was a simple scheduling tool for Twitter. It's like you connect your

00:19:48.860 Twitter account, you schedule your tweets. We knew when your audience was most engaged. So we would

00:19:53.500 schedule when the tweets went out so that you had the most impressions from the people following

00:19:57.140 you. Pretty simple app. 10,000 people sign up. Not a lot of people use it. And I'm like, why are

00:20:02.540 they not using it? And then I start calling people and they're like, I love the idea. I love this

00:20:06.140 idea. I love it. I know you love the idea. You signed up, but why aren't you using it? And then

00:20:09.920 I looked at the people that did use it and they just kept saying the same thing. I don't know

00:20:13.880 what to tweet. So it occurred to me that one of the best ways to fix the problem is to actually

00:20:18.880 put some recommended tweets based on who they are and what could work really well so that when they

00:20:23.460 came in, they could just click add to queue and then it would go out and then they would get a

00:20:28.080 response email. That little interface prompt, change activation, people that sign up for the

00:20:33.000 product and actually tweeted to 70% on their first visit. That's how we solve the customer feedback

00:20:38.640 problem. Most people will tell you it's great, but their actions say something different. You need to

00:20:44.140 talk to them. And that is a big idea when it comes to being an innovator in the AI space. But here's

00:20:49.180 the challenge. To collect customer feedback and actually make it useful, you need a process. So

00:20:54.260 here's how you can do it today. The first thing we have to do is we have to set up a weekly customer

00:20:58.960 interview process. I love this. To me, it's the customer advisory board. It's a handful of customers

00:21:03.240 that you consider your ideal customer and you want to talk to them. You might have 50 of them. You

00:21:07.880 might have 10 of them. But every week you want to be talking to get feedback to get familiar with

00:21:12.180 their frustrations around using your product. Now you have to tell them, hey, I know you don't want

00:21:17.520 to hurt my feelings, but I can't make the product better if you're not honest with me. So I would

00:21:21.520 really appreciate if you'd be really critical around how the product's working for you or not.

00:21:26.180 Then you take all of that feedback and then you categorize it into the different buckets of

00:21:30.680 essentially features within your product. Because you might know that like I've got a reporting

00:21:34.620 feature i have a messaging feature i have an integration feature but which one is the most

00:21:39.660 important to actually nail to make the product your ai solution even better so then we have to

00:21:44.940 put the feedback into those buckets from different customers and then sequence the priorities based

00:21:49.980 on what you know as the founder that's going to be the most valuable to the market for example if

00:21:55.020 you know that there's not enough integrations you might take all the feedback where people talked

00:21:59.020 about the integrations to their systems and say okay we're going to spend the next two weeks fixing

00:22:03.740 those, what are the first three we should focus on based on those buckets of feedback? So third,

00:22:09.240 with that, you want to sequence the biggest challenges that most of your keyword paying

00:22:14.300 customers are facing. When I think about it, it's an X, Y axis. The Y axis is how many people would

00:22:21.160 use that feature and impacts in your product. And the X axis is how many people are paying right now

00:22:26.900 or want to use that feature or the market would pay for, but they're not because you don't have

00:22:31.460 it. What are the areas of product that if I made better would impact the most people, meaning the

00:22:36.820 most people are using it, that would also make my product the most competitive and valuable to the

00:22:42.380 market, both my paying customers and from a marketing point of view, attractive to other

00:22:47.020 people that haven't bought yet because we're missing things. You want to spend your dev time

00:22:51.320 on the top right corner of things that have a lot of impact to your current customer and are going

00:22:55.720 to make you the most money. If you're just fixing the squeaky wheel because somebody that you really

00:23:00.000 like is giving you feedback and you're just spending time adding features your product will

00:23:04.200 start to turn into a frankenstein solution it's actually a plague and it's called featureitis

00:23:09.580 you don't want to build a product that's got a bunch of half-cooked features that confuses the

00:23:14.200 interface is buggy and people don't even use that is the fastest way to run your ai company into

00:23:19.580 the ground now here's a pro tip record all the calls using ai obviously get permission transcribe

00:23:24.680 them, then ask AI to analyze them based on the criteria I just gave you. You literally can say

00:23:30.040 and just prompt it based on Dan Martell's process for product management, analyze the feedback and

00:23:34.780 please prioritize it based on the best things that are going to have the impact and make me the most

00:23:39.820 money within my AI company. Watch what it does. You don't have to be the smartest person. You can

00:23:45.340 use AI to do this process for you. Now, by implementing that feedback, you're well on your

00:23:50.340 way to build a massively successful AI business, all from scratch, without any resources, without

00:23:56.020 knowing how to code. But there's one last step that will make everything grow 10 times as fast.

00:24:01.240 Number seven, hack your growth. The word growth hack has been hijacked by marketers to make their

00:24:07.900 work sound fancy. They're essentially doing marketing and they're like, we're growth hacking.

00:24:12.260 Here's rule number one of a growth hack. It's not a growth hack if everybody knows it. The whole

00:24:16.380 The point is to find a way to get distribution that other people don't know about, and that

00:24:20.700 is what makes it a hack.

00:24:21.960 If everybody knows about it and they're doing it, then that's called marketing.

00:24:25.940 When Facebook launched, as an example, they realized that if somebody got an email that

00:24:30.940 said they'd been tagged in a photo, almost 100% of the time they clicked through that

00:24:36.160 email to then go see the photo.

00:24:38.660 If they weren't on Facebook and they got that email and they clicked through, they would

00:24:42.320 then sign up to create a Facebook account to then show them the photo.

00:24:46.340 So what they realized is they could buy a bunch of address book importing tools that

00:24:51.900 essentially allows you to pull your contacts out of your emails or your address book tools

00:24:55.900 to go sign up and use in other tools.

00:24:58.460 If they bought those companies, they could use every one of those emails to send that

00:25:02.900 email.

00:25:03.900 And that's actually how they activated a lot of the countries around the world in the

00:25:07.280 first few years of Facebook's growth.

00:25:09.780 Airbnb did the same thing.

00:25:11.500 They built a custom tool that lived inside their product that allowed the people with listings on

00:25:16.740 Airbnb to publish the listing on Craigslist. Craigslist was a free listing site for people

00:25:23.560 looking to rent out their place. So Airbnb said, how do we take advantage of that audience? But

00:25:28.540 we got to make it easier for customers that have listings on our tool to publish there.

00:25:32.760 That gave them the foundation to growth hack their distribution.

00:25:36.840 I'll make it really easy for you

00:25:38.440 and I'll give you the three biggest growth hacks

00:25:40.960 you can use to grow your AI business today.

00:25:42.960 The first one, it's one of my favorites,

00:25:44.640 is distribution partners.

00:25:45.820 That's essentially what I do

00:25:47.320 for my portfolio at Martell Ventures.

00:25:49.300 I partner with them, I invest in these companies,

00:25:51.220 I build these companies because I have an audience.

00:25:53.940 All of you guys are here watching my videos,

00:25:55.540 follow me on social media,

00:25:56.600 and if I use a tool and I tell you about it

00:25:58.740 because you trust me, you'll go try it out.

00:26:01.140 That's really valuable for a new AI company.

00:26:03.520 So if you have a product and it's actually launched

00:26:05.360 and it's got real revenue

00:26:06.280 and you're looking for potentially partnering with me,

00:26:08.220 just click the second link in the description below

00:26:10.420 and apply at Martell Ventures.

00:26:12.320 Think about this.

00:26:13.240 You might have friends that already have access

00:26:14.940 to a large audience of people that are your ideal customers.

00:26:18.060 Think people that have events, people that run webinars,

00:26:20.680 people that are online influencers,

00:26:22.780 people that create content, people that write books.

00:26:25.360 All these people have an audience

00:26:27.120 and they sell what they sell as a service

00:26:29.140 and you might have an AI tool that compliments them.

00:26:32.100 And if you partner with them,

00:26:33.320 they'll put you in front of their audience

00:26:34.900 because you'll pay them.

00:26:35.820 You'll give them 10, 15, 20% referral fees,

00:26:38.100 but that makes your ability to grow so much faster.

00:26:42.420 Next, number two is non-traditional sponsorship

00:26:44.840 or placements.

00:26:45.860 This one is one of my favorites.

00:26:47.500 Finding niche YouTube channels that you can sponsor,

00:26:50.900 podcasts that you can sponsor.

00:26:52.240 See, everybody wants to do the big podcast,

00:26:54.300 but there's so many smaller creators

00:26:56.540 that you can just pay

00:26:57.820 to just get in front of their audience.

00:26:59.880 It's so much faster.

00:27:01.540 One of my favorite growth hacks around this

00:27:03.280 is finding a company that is non-competitive to yours

00:27:06.480 that sells to the same customer

00:27:07.800 and offer to do what's called a pixel swap

00:27:10.180 where you give them your Facebook pixel,

00:27:12.240 you put their pixel on your website

00:27:13.740 and essentially you now are a partner

00:27:15.960 where you can run ads very targeted

00:27:18.100 to that other person's website visitors

00:27:20.800 because you know specifically

00:27:22.120 that they would buy your product

00:27:23.480 and it is the most effective ad spend you could actually do.

00:27:27.260 So basically you can swap the ability

00:27:29.220 to tag each other's visitors

00:27:30.600 so that you can run ads to each other's visitors

00:27:33.020 in your Facebook ads.

00:27:34.380 Number three, insert into an existing toolkit.

00:27:37.160 This one is like the ultimate.

00:27:39.000 This is what I did at Flowtown

00:27:40.160 where I partnered with MailChimp.

00:27:41.720 So I got our product built into their tool.

00:27:44.520 I've helped a lot of friends do this

00:27:46.100 in their technologies where they build integrations

00:27:48.780 or add-ons to other bigger products.

00:27:51.500 I mean, when you think about it,

00:27:52.700 you have like Zapier and Make and Notion

00:27:54.880 and HubSpot and Slack and Grow High Level.

00:27:57.340 A lot of people have built tools,

00:27:59.100 these AI-powered solutions

00:28:00.420 that plug into their marketplaces

00:28:02.560 and they get featured on those sites

00:28:04.880 to get a ton of customers.

00:28:06.240 Those growth hacks are so straightforward and easy

00:28:08.660 and allows you to build that momentum.

00:28:11.020 So if you build an AI for Shopify,

00:28:13.520 be sure you get placed in their directory.

00:28:15.900 Figure out how you can add value to their marketplace

00:28:17.980 to Shopify so that they wanna feature you.

00:28:20.400 Maybe they're gonna invite you

00:28:21.300 to speak at their annual event,

00:28:23.020 but that idea to build integrations

00:28:24.640 is a big way to get audience for your new AI solution.

00:28:27.560 The whole philosophy is be creative

00:28:29.720 and follow the path of the buyer.

00:28:31.940 simple example my friend was selling hr apps in asia he was trying to find early adopters i said

00:28:38.560 look at the email people that are early adopters use technology that considers early adopters

00:28:44.440 back in the day this is in 2010 companies that were using google apps for domain which became

00:28:50.720 google apps for business essentially were saying through their email using the gmail protocol that

00:28:56.660 they were early adopters so all we did is we took their list of like a hundred thousand leads

00:29:00.960 looked at the domain data, okay, the DNS record

00:29:04.500 to see if they use Google for their email exchange.

00:29:07.260 And then that way we could just filter out

00:29:09.380 all the people that didn't

00:29:10.480 because the ones that did were telling us

00:29:12.460 that they were early adopters.

00:29:13.880 Those are the people that are gonna buy HR software,

00:29:16.980 essentially leading into their sales team

00:29:18.780 for X-ing their performance.

00:29:20.660 Those three things individually

00:29:22.960 will help you add 10X to your growth.

00:29:25.320 You just gotta pick one and go all in.

00:29:27.620 I know this is a lot, but let me tell you,

00:29:30.140 If you just follow this step by step, this is how today, not tomorrow, not next week, not in a year, you finally launch that AI business.

00:29:41.500 I'm telling you, there's probably an 18 month, maybe 24 month, maybe 36 month window where if you come out of the gate today to build something really magical around AI and help businesses solve real pains, you can create a massive amount of wealth.

00:29:55.660 Like I'm talking generational wealth right now that's available to any person without any code, without any background in technology, because the AI has gotten that good.

00:30:05.860 Don't sleep on it.

00:30:07.620 Don't wait, because if I was starting from scratch, this is exactly what I would do today.

00:30:13.240 And again, if you want my offer template to make it next level, just click the link in the description below.

00:30:18.480 Now, if you want to learn how to get rich in the new AI era, click here and I'll see another side.

Dan Martell - January 03, 2026

How to Start a 1-Person AI Business (With Zero Code)

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