Your content is mostly focused on AI and building AI businesses — what advice would you give to someone who's not in the AI space and just wants to start a successful online business? (For context: I've been freelance video editing for 3 years, making about $1,500/month, and my biggest challenge is consistently getting clients since it's custom project work.)
Everything I talk about is immediately applicable to almost any digital business — the common thread is low startup cost (no capital tied up in machinery, trucks, equipment; just a couple hundred bucks a month in software). My advice works especially well in low-barrier-to-entry, competitive businesses, which freelance video editing definitely is — you could copy-paste everything I say about AI/automation client acquisition directly onto video editing. If getting clients consistently is your challenge, that's not one of several challenges — it's your only challenge. Until you're at $10K/month, don't spend a single unit of time on anything besides client acquisition. Start your day with it, spend at least 50% of your day on it, and only fulfill client projects with whatever time is left over.
Honestly, I can't hold your hand through everything, but here's a roadmap. Start with the Make.com playlist I created—Make for People Who Want to Make Real Money. Watch the first 12‑13 videos to get the basics, then move on to live builds. Join Maker School, my day‑by‑day accountability program, for hands‑on guidance. After that, create an Upwork profile. Upwork lets you see what clients are actually paying for and gives you simple connector projects rather than academic builds. Apply to jobs you have at least a 50 % chance of completing; you may need to send 20‑30 proposals before you land a client. Your first gigs will likely pay $30‑$50 an hour, especially if you're in a lower‑cost‑of‑living country, but they'll give you real customer problems to solve. Consistent Upwork work will transition you from an academic mindset to a real business mindset. If you struggle with Make.com, check out their Academy for day‑by‑day lessons.
Sure, I’ll give you some tips for beginner freelancers using Make. First, consume the first 12 videos of my ‘Make Money with Make’ series to get familiar. Then create an Upwork account so you can see job postings. Read every automation job posting each day and look for the ones that clearly state what the client wants—those are the simplest and give you direct insight from customers who have money to spend. Try to build as many of those flows as you can each day; they’ll usually be simple two‑ or three‑module connections (e.g., linking Go High Level to Monday.com). Do this for a week, aiming for maybe twenty builds total. Next, record a video of yourself doing one of those builds (I use Loom) and send that video along with your application to the job. This shows you can deliver exactly what the client needs and gives you real‑world feedback from paying customers, which is far better than any influencer advice. If you don’t have anything to automate yet, just follow this roadmap from start to finish; it should take you about three days if you’re new, or a day if you’ve already done the basics, and then another week to feel comfortable applying to paid jobs. That’s the practical way to get up and running with Make as a freelancer.
If you're running an automation agency, you have three main options to find clients. First, Upwork: it's the simplest, straightest path for beginners to get your first dollar online, though the ROI is lower than other methods. Second, cold email: cost per acquisition is super low, you can scale it, and you can use AI to personalize outreach; check out my previous videos on my main channel @Nix for details on customizing and personalizing emails. Third, communities: post high-value content daily or every few days in groups where your target customers hang out; this frames you as an authority and quickly builds an inbound presence without the hard work of recording hundreds of videos. In Maker School I provide a daily regimen: send 10 Upwork applications, make a community post, and do cold email outreach each day. I recommend about 270 cold emails per day (nine mailboxes with 30 emails each). With a two-step sequence, that yields roughly 3,240 contacts per month, leading to about 90 engaged people, and assuming a third respond positively, you get around 30 leads per day—fantastic for your pipeline. This is what's working today given your photography background; you don't need to cold‑approach bigger businesses unless you want to, as it's often a pain.
AI will create ads, films, and music videos much faster and for far less money—no production or audio teams needed, as the AI handles scripting and auto‑fixes everything. The output comes from natural‑language prompting; those who know how to prompt the models will do best, though that skill will fade as models become better at prompting themselves. You can definitely earn $10k/month with this right now, maybe for a couple of years. I’m still a beginner in AI automation agencies, but I know some basics and have built a few automations. Your next step is to get in front of paying customers, articulate their needs and problems, and show how your solution helps. There’s no other path—it’s messy, like entering a gladiatorial arena with tigers; you have to win your first fight to earn praise. Start by signing up on Upwork or freelancer.com, treat yourself as a low‑paid API endpoint, gain experience and money, then move to cold email, ads, or other channels to build a sustainable method.