#176 · When will AI automation become saturated?
You can’t hide your identity on Upwork because they ban new accounts, and people would recognize you. Instead, use alternative social proof like a NAN creator page or a simple agency website to show competence without relying on your YouTube fame.
I’ve already done this a couple of times. Check out my video on how to get started or acquire your first automation client for free – that's the one you want to watch. It's only about 60 cents now.
Everybody suffers from this exact problem at the start line — it's not just an entrepreneurial problem, it's the job-market problem too (a junior dev job asking for 10 years of experience). You have to go through this like everyone else, but there are ways to fake it until you make it. The simplest: take systems I build on my channel (a lot of the free ones, plus more in Maker School) and rebuild them yourself. Then ask what kind of business each system would help — often digital agencies, since that's my niche. Once you've built a few systems yourself instead of just copying mine, you can say things like 'I built an automated cold email system that enriches contacts and adds a thousand leads a day' or 'I built an automatic proposal generator.' That's real social proof, even if it's not client work yet — you can honestly say you built it for an AI agency (your own) without claiming it was a paying client. That's pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. From there, use that first thing you built to land one real gig, then use that gig's result to build proof for the next one, and so on.
Yes, you absolutely need some form of social proof. Without it, it's hard to win because anyone can claim they can do something, but few can point to something they've actually delivered. The work you do becomes your biggest differentiator—far more valuable than flowery language in a proposal, which no longer matters now that AI can generate polished text for everyone. You don't have to build a project for a client to get proof. You can create something for your own business or a side project that adds value, then say, 'I built this for myself,' or 'I built this for an IT company.' It's really just about being resourceful. Regarding self‑studying computer science through 'Teach Yourself CS': I don't think it's still relevant, but I like the idea. I was reminded by a friend named Arturo that talking about the fact that you never took a programming degree resonates with people, so I'm going to weave that into my own content.
Of course hiding client identity would be interesting and helpful. I actually do this and make money with Make. I have one or two intro sales calls. Honestly, that's a big point of the value of joining my programs—me showing you stuff like that. I feel like a lot of people are asking me to put all this super deep stuff online for free, but I don't like gatekeeping knowledge. However, the risk-to-reward would be unnecessarily large. One reason people don't do this is because nobody actually shows sales calls; there's a fair amount of liability if something gets found. For example, I've revealed two email addresses in past videos, which is tough because clients might look you up and find a recording of your voice. It's different in a paid program with a limited number of people who respect you and where you don't make a big deal of it. But yeah, I'll be real: there's just a lot of liability. I do have a couple of actual sales calls where I do this and make money with Make. So do whatever you want with that. Everything is obscured and anonymized—super anonymized.