Short ride along. I make explainer and product spotlight reels, and I was paying for AI video tools to do it. The clips looked like everyone else's AI clips and I was still doing most of the work by hand around them. So I cancelled all of them and built the thing I actually needed.

What it does: you type one line about what the reel should say. It writes a six or seven line script, reads it in a free voice, and draws every scene in code: paper cutout props, a small mascot in a different hat each scene, a headline sign, captions that pop on each word, all timed to the voice. One command renders the video. About a minute on a laptop, no credits, no watermark.

Why paper cutouts: it's a style, not a failed attempt at realism. People can tell it's drawn, and that reads as made on purpose. It fits explainers, how it works reels and product spotlights. It does not fit anything that needs real footage or a face.

The honest catch: the first render is never right. You look at it, say what to move, and render again. Two or three rounds is normal. It also runs inside the AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Codex or Gemini) on a Mac, so if you don't already use one of those it's not for you yet.

I open sourced it, free, no account needed. Links aren't allowed here so: it's called paper-reel, it's on GitHub under my name, and the link is on my profile.

Happy to answer questions about the workflow or what it's bad at.

We built a product that does intent scraping + manages conversations, and these are the phases we've gone through, in full transparency, so that you can measure your own product against us to see where you stand.

Phase 1:

we built a product that does intent scraping and manages conversations. here are the 5 phases we went through, in full transparency, so you can measure your own product against ours and see where you stand.

phase 1: productizing our old service ($0)

we were already running an agency where we had a couple of VAs doing manual cold outreach on linkedin, reddit, and X.

they were finding people leaving signals of intent through comments, likes, shares, and other interactions in places where most people wouldn’t expect genuine leads to be hiding.

as we scaled the agency, we decided to productize the process and turn it into a tool. at this point, we had absolutely no interest in managing conversations. we just wanted to scrape leads and give them to our customers.

phase 2: building the product ($0)

we started with a different name, and the entire purpose of the product was to gather leads. that was pretty much it.

we used APIs from different platforms to access comments, likes, shares, and other interactions.

one thing that caught our attention was how people were closing deals through X DMs. we started wondering if we could automate that process too.

this led us to build an entirely new feature around automated DMs and conversations.

we were still testing the idea at this point. we hadn’t really launched the product properly, and we weren’t making any money from it yet.

phase 3: pitching to founders ($1k/month)

we started pitching the product to other founders, and some of them decided to try it out.

the results weren’t particularly promising at first, but we were finally bringing in a small amount of money every month.

more importantly, we were getting an insane amount of feedback from the people actually using the product.

a lot of the optimizations we made later came directly from these early customers. we were finally starting to understand what people wanted from the product, what was missing, and what we needed to fix.

phase 4: productizing and marketing ($6k/month)

once we had gathered enough feedback and were making around $1k a month, we decided to take things more seriously.

i started marketing the product properly through my public account on X, which had around 3,000 followers at the time.

some people decided to try the product, a few posts went viral, and more people started discovering what we were building.

in our fourth month, we also got accepted into

Y Combinator and received funding. Roughly three before of getting accepted, we were already doing over $6k a month.

we were finally seeing tangible results after around six months of building with almost no income coming in.

phase 5: scaling beyond $10k/month ($10k+/month)

this is the phase we’re currently in.

we continue to prioritize marketing heavily, sell our enterprise plans, maintain a consistent posting schedule on X, and market the product across multiple platforms.

it’s consistently bringing in over $10k a month now, but we still have a ridiculous number of things we want to improve.

when i first started working on this project, i genuinely thought that once we hit $10k a month, i’d be satisfied with where we were and wouldn’t feel the need to keep developing the product as much.

now that we’re here, we see so many opportunities to improve the product and compete with some of the other companies building in the same space, especially the ones we’ve met through Y Combinator.

there’s still a long way to go.

a quick recap of our timeline:

• phase 1: $0

• phase 2: $0

• phase 3: ~$1k/month

• phase 4: ~$6k/month

• phase 5: $10k+/month

this is a realistic breakdown of how things progressed for us. we spent months building, testing, and gathering feedback before we started seeing meaningful results.

if you’re building a SaaS right now, what phase are you in? let me know in the comments. i’d love to talk to some of you and share whatever advice i can.

I used to be a Project Manager, CSM and Product Manager and am building my business in Small Business AI Coaching. I do use Claude Code everyday, building everything for my business with it and having straddled the business side and technical side for 15 years, I felt like I lacked a strong understanding of the technical foundations.

A few months ago in an AI community I had the opportunity on piggybacking on someone's CPN membership - I tried to get one but didn't crack the code to getting in yet - for the CCA-F cert. Claude Certified Architect Foundations which straddles business use cases of the Claude API and the technical aspects and tests for the implementation best practices. It is a technical exam but you don't need to code or know how to to pass it - it helps a LOT to know how to code. You're guaranteed to pass.

As someone offering AI education workshops to SMBs and automations, I felt like I had a gap in the why department of understanding how to implement Claude API practically for businesses and teams - not just for my own usage. Having been part of big tech project implementations, i always think of the go live and support issues down the line.

I did volunteer to also lead the 20ish people who also wanted to get certified, mostly non technical women. And most of us passed the cert within 3 months or so & most on 1st try.

We did review lots of materials in the process of studying - all free - and most of us 13 so far having passed the exam on the 1st try, we now know exactly what it takes to pass. Oddly enough the exam format and registration itself was an unexpected pain in the ass.

Overall I haven't wanted to pass a cert in 20 years since I passed the Financial CFA exams - pain in the ass and getting the CCA-F certification reminded me of the uni days of studying but now just having given 2 AI workshops this week to SMBs in big rooms - I can speak with confidence and clarity about AI practically. And that alone was worth it for me.

I am sharing the in's and outs and what we learned this Thursday 6pm ET
Comment CCAF and I will get you the link to register!

CPN access to take the exam is discussed if needed as well.

Also please Ask me Anything here if you are curious :)

I'm a business college professor and research scientist finding a way to test a science-based idea on how to find jobs in this time of AI. It's simple and practical. All I want to do is survey 5 individuals to find flaws in my way of thinking.

In the Reddit post, I included my LI and other proofs of identity, so that readers could trust me. I stressed the Zoom meeting would be free and around an hour, with the optional alternative of a 5-page 3-part interactive Google Doc.

Relevent subreddits (looking for jobs, freelancing etc.) have either removed that post or banned me. From the subreddits that accepted it, I eventually received 4 people expressing interest - but none followed up.

How do I test my idea?.

Day job: I run a drainage and hardscaping company in the Carolinas, started in 2022. Side project: a portfolio-analysis web app I built with AI tools, no coding background.

The contrast has been humbling.

In the trade business, demand comes to you. Someone's yard floods, they call, you quote, you do the work.

In software, nobody is flooding. My app launched, worked, and sat there. Revenue is still tiny.

What I've learned so far:

1. Building was the easy part. AI got me a working product fast. Distribution is the actual job.
2. Pricing mistakes are invisible from the inside. A $3.99 one-time tier was quietly killing my subscription. I only saw it when I wrote the numbers down. I've since moved to $24 one-time and $15/month.
3. Trust matters more in finance than in landscaping. A homeowner can see the work. An investor has to trust numbers on a screen, so every rough edge costs more.
4. Operator skills transfer. Quoting, follow-up and fixing what customers complain about work the same way in both.

Next up: fixing my SEO, which turned out to be broken site-wide, and learning to market without being annoying.

Anyone else running a service business alongside a software project? How do you split your time?

Earlier this year I shut down one of my projects.

People used it, some liked it, a few paid for it, and every week I told myself it I will turn around someday.

But all the time I gave it was time I stole from the thing that was actually growing.

If I’m being real, I kept it alive mostly because I didn’t want to admit I’d made a mistake.

The day I shut it down I felt sick.

A week later I felt lighter than I had in months, and the business I kept grew more in the next quarter than it had all year.

I think most founders hold on way too long.

The obvious failures are easy to quit.

It’s the okay ones that get you, the ones doing just well enough that walking away feels dumb.

Have you ever killed something that was kind of working?

How did you know it was time, and do you regret it now?

Not the version you tell now, the real one. Mine was kind of an accident and i cant even trace where it came from.

Every guide says post daily, cold email, build in public. But when i ask people who actually got there its usually a friend of a friend, or one random google search. So what was it for you, and how long after you started?

imo the boring answer (someone you already knew) is the most common one, but i could be wrong.

If you run an e-commerce brand doing serious volume, you know the drill like your ad spend keeps climbing, your dashboards show green, but your net bank deposits are dead flat. When you demand answers, the blame game begins that your media buyer blames the landing page, the web developer blames traffic intent, and your email person has no clue what ads are even running. I built Stage 7 to kill that cycle. I don’t lock you into 6-to-12-month retainers, and I will never sell you on a pitch only to hand your business over to a junior coordinator. Instead, I operate on a direct, month-to-month partnership covering all core growth drivers including paid ads, creative, conversion rate optimization, website development, and Klaviyo retention as one single system.

I audit your actual backend data first. I analyze your unit economics and customer acquisition costs before you sign or pay a single dollar. Execution goes live in 14 days. Strategic fixes deployed inside your accounts within two weeks. Every single campaign tweak, test, and budget change comes with the data-backed reason behind it. Your store code, ad accounts, creative assets, and email lists remain 100% in your name.

Stop burning cash on siloed agencies and finger-pointing. Wanna know more, see you in DM

I do a lot of free work for folks. It’s just the nature of my business. I work mainly in the nonprofit space because my clients are more likely to understand that they can only do so much by themselves, which makes the time from the point of contact to the onboarding decrease dramatically.

However there are times where there are folks that come to me who are in the for-profit space.

I can literally give them everything they need for free to succeed, as in I just do the work and deliver it to them. But they aren’t ready.

They don’t know if it’s valuable, and they don’t know if what I’m saying will work. But they will definitely pay someone to make the same exact thing, at a higher or lower quality, it varies, and they will be like “mmm… maybe I should scale back because it’s not giving me what I’m expecting”.

As I’m writing this… I’m realizing that some people’s expectation of the output doesn’t match what is actually being sold.

I stay stuck right here in the middle where I don’t oversell the output. So there’s a big chance they are expecting to put their money into a machine and everything magically exists.

Sucks sometimes because they have wasted money. But I guess that’s the growing pains of every business right? Spending money and not getting what you wanted?

Anyone ever experience something similar? Both on my side and my prospects’ sides?

I could really use some honest career advice because I’m torn between being excited about an opportunity and worrying that I could be setting myself up to get screwed over. I’m looking for opinions from people who have been in similar situations, especially anyone who has worked for startups or as an independent contractor.

A little background: I have a degree in accounting and experience with bookkeeping, and general office/administrative work. I’m currently looking for work, and I recently met with a guy who owns multiple businesses about potentially working with him.

Here’s where things get interesting.

Originally, he was looking for an Executive Assistant and we discussed a salary of $52,000 a year. We met for about two hours, and he agreed to that number. After some additional meetings, though, he told me his budget had changed and proposed a different arrangement.

Instead of hiring me as an employee, he wants me to start my own company and have his business hire my company as a contractor.

The main focus would be helping him build and operate a marketing/AI business. He would handle the sales side, while another guy he’s working with is very knowledgeable about the technical and AI side. My role would be more behind-the-scenes, helping with operations and learning how to use AI systems and tools. There are also other businesses under his umbrella, and I’m still trying to understand exactly what responsibilities I’d have across all of them.

One thing that genuinely excites me is that he wants to invest in my learning. He offered to pay for approximately $5,000 worth of AI training/classes that we’d go through together. I think the opportunity to learn AI and potentially build something from the ground up could be valuable, especially since this is an area I want to learn more about.

Here’s how the compensation would supposedly work:

● I’d receive 15% of each marketing/AI client’s initial retainer. He says he doesn’t consider clients below a $20,000 starting retainer, which would mean $3,000 to me for a $20,000 retainer.
● After four months, I’d also receive 2–3% of the client’s monthly service fee.
● He expects to have around 18 clients by the end of the year and estimated I could potentially make $70,000–$80,000 after a full year instead of only $52,000.

However, those numbers are projections, not guarantees. I don’t know the monthly service fees yet, and obviously, the income depends on how many clients he actually signs and how quickly they come on board.

The biggest concern is the beginning.

He expects me to start working and training before any clients are signed, and the first couple of months would be unpaid. He says he has plenty of interested companies but hasn’t gotten everything going because he needs help. His plan is to start with three clients and then add another three every three months.

Financially, I can manage about two months without income, but I can’t afford to work indefinitely without getting paid.

There’s also some confusion about the workload. Initially, he said there might not be enough work for a full-time position, but later we discussed the possibility of working around 40 hours a week. He says that because I’d have my own company, I’d have flexibility over my hours and my earning potential would depend on how much I want to work and how quickly I want to grow.

I’m also trying to figure out whether commissions from the marketing/AI clients would be my compensation for all the work I do across his different businesses, or whether responsibilities outside that side of the business would be compensated separately.

I haven’t signed anything yet, and I’m putting together questions to clarify the responsibilities, compensation structure, expected hours, business setup, and written contract before making a decision.

So, I’d love some honest opinions:

1. ⁠Has anyone ever been in a similar situation, where a salaried position turned into a contractor arrangement with commission-based compensation? How did it work out?
   
2. ⁠Does this sound like a legitimate business opportunity with potential, or are there red flags that would make you walk away?
   
3. ⁠Would you personally take the chance, knowing the first couple of months would be unpaid and the future income isn’t guaranteed?
   
4. ⁠Is the proposed commission structure reasonable for the work involved, or am I potentially taking on too much financial risk?
   
5. ⁠What questions should I absolutely ask before agreeing to anything?
   
6. ⁠Are there any legal, tax, or independent contractor issues I should be aware of if I set up my own company for this?
   
7. ⁠What protections or terms would you want in a written contract before committing?

I’m not automatically assuming this guy has bad intentions. I genuinely see potential in the opportunity, and I like the idea of learning AI and helping build something from the ground up. The people involved seem knowledgeable, and I don’t want to pass up a potentially great opportunity just because it’s unconventional.
At the same time, I need to be realistic about my finances and make sure I’m not putting myself in a position where I’m working 40 hours a week for months with nothing to show for it.

If you were in my shoes, would you take the chance? What am I not thinking about? I’d appreciate honest advice, including the things I might not want to hear!

Hey! I built Glassline, a Windows 11 app that turns the taskbar into a Mac-style menu bar and dock. It's on the Microsoft Store and the people who find it really love it (our subreddit is growing every week and it sells on its own without any ads), but getting in front of new people is the hard part.

So I'm thinking of getting a freelancer (or a few) to do outreach for me: reaching out to tech YouTubers, Windows customization creators, maybe some blogs and newsletters.

A few questions for people who've done this: * Where do you actually find good outreach freelancers? Upwork, Fiverr, somewhere else? * How do you pay them: flat fee, per contact, or a cut of the sales they bring? * What are the red flags that someone's just going to spam and burn your name?

Any tips welcome!

I created GlideRail, a Mac app for people on client and sales calls. What you prepped sits by your camera and stays out of the screen share, and the Live Rail offers the right card when someone brings up a topic you prepped for. Two things I learned this month that might save another founder some time.

The paywall was in the wrong place. Of the first 7 people who installed it, 4 tried the main feature in their first minute, got told it was a Pro feature, and left. The 3 who went through the tour all started a trial or bought. So now every download starts a 7-day trial right away, with no card, and the paywall waits until the trial is over.

Views aren't buyers. My best Reddit post got about 10k views, but most of the people who clicked were on a phone or a Windows PC and couldn't install a Mac app at all. So I've started answering people who are already asking for help with this problem, instead of only posting demos.

If you sell or consult on calls, what do you keep in front of you right now? A doc on a second screen, sticky notes, or nothing at all?

I want to send a few messages both before and after customers receive their physical product. What is the most effective and convenient way to handle this for a company that is just starting out? The plan is: 2 messages before the product arrives (one on the day of purchase, and one the following day). 1 message one week after the product has been received. What is the best approach to ensure this is as convenient as possible, both for the customer and for us? I’d love to hear your ideas! We only have a website, and it’s built on WordPress. Thanks!

I've been doing a lot of cold outreach over the last few months and have hundreds of emails sitting in Gmail.

I use MailSuite to track opens, but I want to understand more than just open and reply rates. Like which pitches are actually working, why some people might be ghosting, whether I'm reaching out to the wrong people, what pain points keep coming up in replies, etc.

Basically, I want to look at everything I've sent over the last 3–4 months, including follow-ups and responses, and figure out what I should be doing differently.

I tried using Gemini since all my emails are in Gmail anyway, but it just picks a few random conversations and gives me a summary. Doesn't seem to actually go through everything.

Is there a tool that does this properly? Not just email tracking, but actually analyzing the content of all your past outreach and finding patterns?

Or are people just doing this manually? Also, is it ok to trust an agent to do this?