Should I accept any automation project that comes my way or focus on solving one specific problem like backend automation to reach $10k per month?

#74 · How I Went From 0 to 100,000 on Instagram in 83 Days

Should I accept any automation project that comes my way or focus on solving one specific problem like backend automation to reach $10k per month?

I recommend picking a couple of niches and services at the start line, doing them all to gain broad experience with lead generation, delivery, and sales. This helps you understand business problems and builds experience. Scale to $5‑10k a month, and when you can’t meaningfully add another custom project, start productizing. In Maker School this usually happens after 30‑40 days.

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Related answers

youtube ↗Mindset

How do I know if I'm hitting the hammer right when starting an agency? Should I spend time looking for projects or learning the skill first, or a combo?

He says you first need to anchor what a lot of money means. AI automation agencies have the lowest barrier to entry and lowest capital cost—comparable to website design agencies in the late 1990s or social-media marketing agencies in the early 2010s. In this space, a lot of money is probably just a few hundred dollars. Any business outside this vertical will cost significantly more than a few hundred to get up and running over a three-month period, so you should expect to spend money to make money. Regarding your specific situation—bidding for email-setup projects on Upwork—lack of experience isn't a time issue; it takes only a couple of weeks to become proficient with any tool well enough that someone will pay you to save them time. So you should combine learning and prospecting. He recommends doing Maker School's introductory automation agency tutorials to gain foundational knowledge and learn to read the language of the tools. Once you understand the language, you can communicate with AI, use Google to find answers to specific questions, and you don't need to know how to do everything right away. The key question is whether a future version of you could solve this problem in the next couple of weeks—and the answer is almost always yes.

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youtube ↗Lead Generation

Is my plan to learn workflow automation for three months, then join Maker School and reinvest profits into lead generation realistic?

No, I don't think so at all. You're making a plan that's too far out; who's to say any of this will matter in four months? You shouldn't budget three months of learning automations. Instead, learn automations in the next week and start talking to customers on August 9th. That's the only thing that matters. Don't plan things out in a rapidly changing world—your plan likely won't be feasible in three or four months. You don't know what you don't know, and most of what you need to learn is still unknown. Scrap the lengthy plan and spend a week learning my automation content, go through a tutorial, then sign up on Upwork, send cold emails, record cold DMs via Loom, and start interacting with the market—real feedback beats tons of planning.

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youtube ↗Pricing

How should I price my automation services? Should I target small local businesses for a few hundred dollars a month or firms with capital for a couple thousand? Should I use monthly recurring or another payment model?

You should look for clients who have money and suffer from a costly problem that you can find via automated methods. Price using value‑based pricing, not monthly recurring right away. Start with a small, tightly scoped intro offer you can deliver quickly, then move to a recurring deal after proving value.

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youtube ↗AI & Automation

If I want to catch up with what you're doing, where should I start? Is there a solid foundational video?

Start with the "80% Automation Basics" video – it's about 29 minutes and covers the high‑level concepts. Then watch the "How I Made $100,000 a Month as an AI Solopreneur" video for a concrete example. After that, check out the "Build a Profitable AI Business in 2025 for Beginners" video. Once you have the basics, you can dive into the NAND course or the Make.com tutorials to learn how to actually build software and automation solutions, and also watch the "How to Build and Scale an Automation Agency" video for agency‑specific guidance.

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