18 Months, $600k, and a Lot of Mistakes

Hey there, solopreneur!

Hey there, solopreneur — Ole here. 👋 

When I first started The AI Solopreneur, I had never grown a content online business. Hell, I'd never even made a dollar with content.

I'd been on X for 5 months. Made a whopping $0 in revenue.

My background? A complete mess that went something like this:

1. Music producer (poor, 40% happy/ 60% unhappy)

2. Crypto trader (less poor but somehow even more unhappy)

3. Early TikTok marketer back when nobody knew what that meant (I actually had multiple accounts hit 100k followers before I rage-deleted them all in 2020 lol).

I still remember it like yesterday:

Waking up on a rainy day in Berlin, asking myself “what the fuck do I do with my life?”

I often numbed myself with never-ending techno raves and social media doomscrolling.

But one thing stayed consistent:

I've always been quick to jump on opportunities when I see them.

And in early 2023, AI wasn't just knocking – it was breaking down the damn door.

13 months later, that opportunity turned into over $600k in revenue, speaking invitations around the world, and the freedom to work from anywhere.

But the journey taught me some pretty wild lessons that nobody seems to talk about. So today I want to share with you the non-obvious stuff I learned along the way:

The Offline Reality Hit

Nothing hits quite like meeting your customers in real life.

I was speaking at a conference in Vegas when someone who took my course came up to me. The way they described how my content helped them... it completely shifted my perspective on what I was building.

It made my nerd neck straighten up immediately because I felt so proud.

If you work online, try to get as much offline exposure to customers as possible. It hits different – like HD versus SD, you see everything so much clearer.

Product Market Fit Is Almost Physical

Product market fit is something you can literally feel in your bones. I've experienced this 3 times in my life now.

When you hit PMF, things seem so easy that you can't almost believe it. People just keep on buying. Numbers blow past your projections. Like, way past them. If you have PMF, YOU WILL KNOW IT.

You only need sales if your marketing sucks, and you only need marketing if your product sucks. There's more truth to that than most want to admit.

The Hidden Costs Nobody Warns You About

SaaS costs add up fast. Like, scary fast.

At one point I was burning through $1,300 every month on tools before I finally pulled the handbrake. It's like death by a thousand cuts – each tool seems reasonable until you look at the total.

Quick tip: Use tools like Truebill to identify them faster. Every 3 months, go through your list and check what tools you really use. If in doubt, cancel that shit.

Content Is Like Orange Juice - Squeeze Every Drop

Remember when people said "content is king"? They were wrong. Content recycling is king.

Use every single repurposing method on earth - there's so much juice in your content that's worth squeezing.

That fire thread on X? It belongs on LinkedIn. That newsletter deep-dive? Turn it into threads. Your thread that went viral 6 months ago? Post it again.

I recommend reposting your most viral content every 3 months — your audience has grown, most people didn’t see it anyway, and the ones who did have such short attention spans.

Once the flywheel starts spinning you'd be surprised about the results.

The Small Stuff Actually Matters

When growing AIS, I couldn’t ignore how heavily small interactions compounded.

Take 10-15 minutes per day to work through comments will 10x your engagement on social media. Why?

People learn that dopamine response of getting a reply when they comment. It's not just metrics – it's relationship building at scale.

Set aside 10-15 mins every day and make this a daily habit.

The "Too Basic" Trap

The problem that seems too mundane for you to tackle? That's usually the goldmine you should be mining at scale.

When you're deep in the sauce, you often forget how it felt to get started. When I created my first online course I was shocked how many people just needed the most basic "how to prompt" education. The simple stuff was what people actually wanted.

Email Really Is King

Here's the most underrated piece of advice I can give: build a newsletter at all costs.

I know, I used to cringe at this too. But having followers doesn't guarantee you any reach anymore. Even X changed its algorithm.

Want to know something mind-blowing? 95% of my sales came through my newsletter. Not social media, not ads – the newsletter.

It's like having your own personal ATM that prints money when platforms decide to change their algorithms (which they always do).

Raise Your Damn Prices

Double your prices. Then double them again.

You're most likely your own biggest critic. I was shocked – I raised prices and MORE people bought products, not fewer.

Here's the thing about high-value customers: they tend to complain less, have lower refund rates, and generally cause fewer headaches. All while bringing in more revenue. Win-win.

The Speed vs. DIY Trap

Here's something I wish I knew earlier: pay for support as fast as possible.

I see money as a tool to get where I want faster. Don't wait to pay for consultants, courses, or freelancers (if you have the funds). Nothing is more important than fast action taking.

Someone could cost you 10k in fees, but if they save you months of learning? Then it’s absolutely worth every penny.

Manual Tracking Is My Fetish

Here's a weird one: manually track your key metrics in a spreadsheet.

Yes, you could automate conversion rates, landing page visitors, and weekly revenue tracking. But there's something different happening in your brain when you enter them into the sheet yourself.

It takes me 1 hour per week and it's completely changed how aware I am of our growth metrics and the impact of different strategies. You can always automate it later.

The Validation Myth

Drill this into your mind: nothing is validated before you present a buy button to people.

Waitlists are cool and all, but there's a massive difference between people showing interest and people spending their hard-earned money.

I've seen waitlists of thousands turn into crickets at launch. The only real validation is someone pumping fresh Benjamin’s into your stripe board.

The Growth Reality

Let me bust a myth: growth doesn't happen linearly. It comes in bursts, and if you make the mistake of chasing those highs, you'll drive yourself crazy.

Once you start hitting some viral bangers on socials you start craving that feeling and follower spike. It turns the whole game into a psychological nightmare.

What really matters? Ask yourself: "Is this what my dream customer wants to learn? Is it helping them take the next step toward their goal?"

Become a MASTER Listener

Copywriting is 99% psychology. Spend an absurd amount of time listening to your audience and potential customers.

Listen to their exact language. Use that language to create landing pages, list their objections word for word and answer them on the page. If you understand the human mind, you'll be a master copywriter.

My Excitement Rule

Always create around your highest excitement. This sounds cheesy as hell, but it's the core of a healthy long-term strategy.

I've made the mistake of building stuff I didn't end up enjoying in the process. Had to fight through it and paid the price with some gnarly health problems.

Trust me, no money in the world is worth feeling like shit.

Growing The AI Solopreneur in 2023-2024 has been like riding a rocket ship.

Exciting? Hell yes. Scary? 100%.

While the business and content landscape have changed, the fundamentals haven't: create value, solve real problems, and build real relationships with your audience.

There’s plenty of opportunities and trends out there — and I’m gonna start sharing more of what I’m seeing to help you spot trends earlier.

From now on, this newsletter will also have more of a personal touch.

Expect 10x more transparency from me. You’ll get a front-row view into my behind-the-scenes revenue numbers, struggles, wins, and lessons as I continue growing my portfolio of magic-internet-money-making-businesses in public.

Hopefully it’ll help you as you grow yours 🙂 

Ole’s Bookmarks

My favorite content I found on the internet this week:

• The Wright Brothers — How to Take Over the World podcast. This episode inspired the hell out of me. Two bike mechanics with no college degrees or funding achieved what no one thought was possible. They had no money, no expertise, but a big dream and made it happen. A reminder of why we are all here building our own online empires.

• The Comfort Crisis. I recently read this book and it reminded me that our world is there to be explored. It’s easy to become too comfortable in our everyday overly convenient life. Especially if you work online, regularly go out, have an adventure and physically challenge yourself.

A great reminder. Most people quit before they see results. Your actual competition is 90% smaller than you think. Stay at it.

This is a major trap I’ve fallen into many times. I now try to keep the weekends work-free and block all working apps from 6pm during the workweek. Resting time is also part of your job (sometimes still mess it up though).

A weekly update series I’m doing on Twitter.

This is the end of today’s newsletter edition.

We live in a magical time. See you next week 🫡 

Ole

P.S. How do you like the more personal style?