I got an F in Computer Science 101 in college.
Because of this, for most of my life GitHub was a website I never opened. Open-source repos were for developers. I sell things to business owners.
Then I looked at what actually runs underneath the AI services people pay for. A shared inbox. A speed to lead system. A review request flow. Every one of them has a free open-source version sitting on GitHub.
Because the software is free, the pitch becomes all about outcomes. And there are certain outcomes that are worth $150 a month (or much more), every month.
When you decided to turn one of the many open source GitHub repos into a paid offer, Claude Code handles the setup. You host it, keep it updated, and the client never sees a GitHub page in their life.
The pricing model is the same every time: a setup fee plus a monthly fee, priced against whatever the paid alternative costs. Activepieces does what Zapier does with no per-task fees, so a $150 a month speed to lead build beats a $30 to $100 Zapier bill that balloons the second they hit their task limit.
The objection I hear most: "Won't the client just install it themselves?"
No. If they were going to, they already would have. Most of these businesses don't even have a CRM. They're paying you for the outcome, the hosting, and a phone number to call when it breaks.
And the pitch writes itself, because every one of these starts with proof you gather before you ask for a call.
Step 1: Pick one repo and one outcome.
Chatwoot is an easy starting point. It puts WhatsApp, Instagram, email, Facebook and SMS into one shared inbox with up to five seats and canned replies. The outcome you sell: no more missed DMs, and a record of who said what and when. Target clinics, dealers, and home services companies with 10 to 50 staff.
Step 2: Price it.
$1,000 setup, then $150 a month for hosting, upgrades, and five seats. Chatwoot charges $19 per AI agent if they want a bot answering first, and you bill that through. Ten clients is $10,000 in setup fees and $1,500 a month recurring.
Step 3: Pull 100 leads with Treg.
Go to treg.to and use People Search. It plugs straight into Claude, pulls verified contact info across 60 databases, and charges about 8 cents per record. No Apollo, no Hunter, no monthly subscription. Prompt: "Find dental clinics and med spas with 10 to 50 staff in my metro area. Pull owner emails."
Step 4: Run the proof test before you pitch.
DM each business on Instagram and time the reply. For speed to lead, fill out their web form like a customer and time that too. Now your opener is a fact, not a pitch: "It took you 27 hours to reply to me on Instagram. Chances are you're losing leads because of that. Worth a conversation?"
Step 5: Lead with the assessment.
When they bite, don't jump straight to the $150 a month offer. Pitch a $999 assessment first. It uncovers the other three or four things in their business a repo like this can fix, and each one is another upsell.
Step 6: Fulfill with Claude Code and specialize.
Pick one or two of these offers and get great at them. Two clients on each of the seven offers I covered this week is $10,500 in setup fees and $2,300 a month, but specialists close faster.
That's the whole thing.
Free software, a real pain point, a proof test, a setup fee and a monthly. No code required.
Pick one repo tonight and pull 100 leads. That's the best way to start and you don't need to know how to code to pull this off.
- Corey
PS: My YouTube video explaining this model is my first video to crack 100K views. Check it out.
A few notes/tweets/cool things sourced from the AI community.
1)
Jev is very cool.
2)
ChatGPT is getting good at editing video.
3)
How to sell AI to boring businesses.
Thanks for reading the Corey's Notes newsletter. I'd appreciate it if you sent it to a friend that might find it interesting.
Be sure to check out t he Build With AI podcast on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. If you're a non-technical entrepreneur who wants to learn how to integrate AI into your business, you'll love it.
Be back next week.
-Corey
