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I spent 48 hours with 25 founders (what I learned)
Published about 16 hours ago • 4 min read
This past weekend I hung out at Offline Mode which is a 2-day workshop hosted by the team at Idea Browser.
For 48 hours straight, 25 founders locked in to learn how to do things like:
Build/improve funnels
Craft offers
Use AI to make money/save time
Create content
And so much more
I'm in the back right (tall people always have to stand in the back :/)
What I love about events like these is that you end up learning something from every single person in the room due to the breadth of experience.
One guy was an attorney, one was an architecture influencer, we had a guy in finance, a lady running a retail operation, and so much more.
I highly encourage you to find rooms like these because the knowledge and the connections you get are priceless.
I learned a ton from the event but here are my top 7 takeaways:
1. One guy went from $1,000 in revenue in June to $57K in August by optimizing his website for AI search.
My immediate action item was to point Claude Code at my website, ask it to run a detailed audit, then prescribe a 90-day plan that we can implement to 10x the number of keywords we rank for in Google and AI search results.
I was super impressed by the plan it put together and we're currently in the implementation phase. If (and when) it works I'll make a YouTube video breaking down the process.
2. Do permissionless projects.
Some people in the room landed deals/meetings/opportunities so far out of their league by adding massive value with zero expectation of return.
For you, that might mean taking your paid product and offering it for free to a dream customer to prove you're serious.
Or doing X days of work for free to prove you know what you're doing. Or making a high-value intro to someone in your network.
Don't be afraid to work for free with the understanding that a much bigger payoff awaits.
3. 99.9% of peoples’ lives would be changed if they answered the question “how do I get 1,000 people to pay me $500 per year?”
This is such an impactful concept because 1,000 people is not a large number.
Even if you're starting from 0, the thought of getting 1,000 customers/followers/beta testers is not an outlandish concept.
Even if it takes you 5 years, that's 200 customers per year. I think anyone can do that.
4. Turn your capabilities into products.
There are things that feel effortless to you that other people would pay a premium for. You just need to productize them by turning them into an offer and getting that offer in front of your ideal customer.
That's exactly what I did with my AI Concierge offer. I realized I had a capability (knowing how to automate workflows with AI) that other people found extremely valuable.
Once I turned it into an offer, I had 6 paying clients in 10 days making me $8,000 per month in profit.
Everyone reading this has one (or more) capabilities with similar potential.
5. It’s far too easy to get shiny object syndrome in the age of AI.
This was a hot topic at Offline Mode. The folks in the room are ahead of 99.9% of people in terms of AI knowledge and we still got lost in the sauce when discussing AI tools.
Everyone's asking "Grok Bot or Muse", "Dots or Duet", "Claude or ChatGPT".
What they SHOULD be asking is: does this new AI tool/bot/workflow make me money, save me time, or improve the quality of my product?
If the answer is no, then drop it. Period.
6. Context management is extremely important for avoiding agent lock in.
The folks using AI most effectively have a system in place for managing context across platforms.
This system doesn't need to be complicated. For us, it's just files and folders stored in Github. Other solutions like Gbrain offer a simple, off the shelf solution for agent knowledge bases.
But the bottom line is you need to have something. So when you do want to try a new AI tool you're not starting from zero. Your knowledge base gets your new agents up to speed instantly.
7. Everyone has 1 to 3 tasks that make them $10K per hour (or more).
For me, those 3 things are:
Sales calls
Creating content
Partnership marketing
For you it might be something completely different. The key is to identify what those tasks are then focus all your effort on delegating or eliminating everything else on your plate.
I hope you found my takeaways insightful. If you want me to elaborate on any of them in a YouTube video/future newsletter you can reply to this email and let me know which one you enjoyed most.
- Corey
A few notes/tweets/cool things sourced from the AI community.
Let me know if you're building any of these, would love to have you on the Build With AI podcast.
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