From Non-Technical to $300,000 Per Month with AI Automation

One of the biggest questions I get is,

"Do I need to know how to code or do I

need to have any kind of AI experience

to be able to build an AI business and

make money in the space?" And today, I'm

so excited to be sharing Nate Herk's

journey where he's gone from zero and

having no AI or coding experience to

making $300,000 a month with AI

automation. And he's going to be

revealing his entire blueprint. Today

we're going to be breaking down his

journey from a complete outsider to an

AI automation expert. How he learned the

key foundations and AI skills that most

people skip, how he's built massive

authority through content and one of the

biggest AI automation channels in the

space and generates hundreds of leads,

and how he's gone from running it all

himself to doing it with a team. So,

you're going to see the exact transition

from the learning phase to the earning

phase, the systems he built to avoid the

common pitfalls that kill most AI

agencies, and also his framework for

moving from a freelancer to an agency

owner to an educator. So, this is going

to be a real-time breakdown of someone

who figured out what actually works and

has built a quarter million dollar

monthly business in just under two

years.

>> Hey guys, my name's Nate. I started my

YouTube channel in September and now

it's just reached over $300,000

subscribers. I run a pretty big school

community making over $200,000 a month.

And with my agency, True Horizon, we're

also reaching around $100,000 a month.

So, excited to show you guys how I got

from graduating college to where I am

now.

>> Exactly. Okay, let's jump into it. All

right. So, this first part I'm going to

start talking about is, like I said,

kind of my journey from when I graduated

to how I was able to quit my full-time

job. So, in the summer of 2023, I was

working an internship. And this was

before heading into my senior year of

college. And I was in a business

intelligence role, which the reason I'm

bringing this up is because I didn't

have technical experience as far as, you

know, like coding or DevOps, but I did

have a full internship of automation. So

I got really familiar with a noode tool

called Altrix and that's where I learned

a lot of the core fundamentals of

automation which is stuff like logic

data processing ETL just analytics in

general which is a really really strong

foundation to start from when you want

to get into automation.

So my key takeaway here was just being

able to go from massive data to a clear

result and breaking things down step by

step is really how you make things more

clear. So then phase two, which I would

call um when I really started to dive

into a automation was the next summer

when I graduated college, went to the

University of Iowa, double majored in

marketing and business analytics. So

once again, no coding background. Um but

I had some transferable skills in BI,

like I said, workflow logic, variables,

stuff like that. And this is when I

remember very clearly I was doing some

stuff at work and I thought to myself, I

just wish that I could plug this

automation into Chat GBT and have it

just send me back an answer. And that's

actually when I realized that that does

exist and that is essentially a

automation. And that's when I, you know,

really started to dive into Liam's

channel and see all that cool stuff he

was doing. So I dove into make, dove

into noden, ultimately figured that I

thought, you know, I thought End was a

bit cooler at the time to be honest. So

I pretty much just dove into it um all

in. So this is when I kind of started to

hit my first roadblock though because

coming from an environment of doing

internal automations, you never really

use APIs because you don't have to hit

anything else. And especially my job was

in the finance industry. We really

couldn't. So I remember looking at API

documentation, seeing the word header

authentication and I was like, what am I

looking at? And it really sucked and I

was very overwhelmed. But just kind of

had to push through it. And I had my

first light bulb moment when I set up my

first API call and built my first agent.

And it was a really cool, you know, sort

of moment for me to get over that curve

of being overwhelmed. And it was like uh

you know the smoke had cleared up and

now I was ready to sort of start

building more meaningful automations.

>> Yeah, I think given just how much noode

uh automation platform there is out

there today, the most important keystone

to understanding that and getting access

to it is understanding APIs. And I

remember I I had the exact same moment

for you when I first started uh like

teaching myself Python ba basics and

starting to move some data around uh

over the over the internet and between

applications and it was the same thing

this like I couldn't figure out like

what the hell this header and like these

these different like authentication like

content types and if you guys can just

get through that understanding there's

so many great resources out there that

and I I honestly recommend to people

that they should jump into something

like Postman and trying to do like a a

little workshop there's plenty of stuff

on YouTube as well of like doing actual

API calls within Postman and having to

say, "Hey, take this API and make this

API call to it." Um, there's some great

YouTube videos on doing that, but if you

can get familiar with Postman and making

a bunch of different API calls through

that, it's a great foundation for

anything moving into the AI automation

space.

>> Yeah, 100%. That's that's where the true

power comes in is is APIs. And I

remember, Liam, very specifically

watching one of your videos where you

did an analogy with like ordering a

pizza online and like putting in your

credit card information and all that.

And I remember that was a big light bulb

moment for me as well.

>> Yeah, there's a bunch bunch of great

ones. I like also like the uh the

restaurant analogy um is a great one as

well. Yeah, just put that in a video

recently. But yeah, I mean if you guys

are struggling with that understanding

the

how applications send data between each

other APIs. I did a really probably my

best breakdown to date in my AI web apps

course. So I'll link that down below or

something. You guys can check that out.

But if you're a complete beginner and

you're wanting to try and understand

this stuff, then that's a really great

place to start.

>> 100%. That's I think that's the biggest

hurdle and then you get there and then

now we're into phase four which is

another big light bulb moment for me

here which was when I started to

understand the value of personal

branding and I 100% owe that to Liam's

accelerator. I remember I I took the

leap at the end of August. I started you

know really getting into the idea of

building systems to achieve your goals.

not just having goals, but building

systems. And from there, you know, Liam

talked a lot about personal branding and

all this kind of stuff. And I basically

just made myself um a promise that I

would start posting videos on YouTube.

And I I remember like looking back at my

intro post in the accelerator where I

said, "Hey, in six months, I want to

have like a YouTube channel where I have

videos on there I'm proud of." And yeah,

I remember I started journaling stuff,

too, because at this point, I was

working full-time. I was knowing that I

wanted to get out of this sort of

corporate lifestyle. And while I was at

work, I remember playing your videos in

the in the background on my headset and

listening to other other entrepreneurs

speak and I just decided I was going to

start journaling because I remember you

did one where it was kind of like your

video video diary of your successes and

your failures and that was really

inspiring to me. So just kind of took

the leap there.

>> So and you've got a posting on YouTube

and LinkedIn. You did both at once. I

usually recommend just to do one and

start off with it. Did you find like you

ended up once I guess one once one

started taking off you skewed all your

efforts towards that and you sort of

left the other one which I assume is

what happened with YouTube.

>> Yeah. And I I pretty much figured that

you know if I could make a YouTube video

which is long form probably the most

effort goes into it. If it's super low

effort to just purpose it on other

platforms then why not really?

>> Yeah exactly. Got a daily system work

home build record post. Yeah. So locking

in that entrepreneurial skills here.

There's so much that you gradually build

up as an entrepreneur. is the knowing

the thing in your case knowing the AI

automation skill set right knowing how

to do the the value creation but there's

so many sort of soft skills around it

such as like your mindset your

discipline your routine and I find that

is more of like picked up as you go and

so that's why people will sometimes take

6 12 months or more I mean it took me 14

months to make my first dollar in profit

from my first online business and it's

just that gradual accumulation of those

the soft skills and the little things

that add up to making entrepreneurial

success

>> it really helped that I just got so

obsessed with it and I think that's

something that entrepreor reneurs need

is they need just that genuine obsession

and passion the whole journey.

>> That's the secret source, bro. That is

the secret source that it's it's like

honest I was the same when I was first

starting my channel. It was just

obsession. Like I was so excited to wake

up. This did not feel like work.

>> And I feel like that's the secret source

that you can't like I can't give that to

someone. And I always tell people if

you're not obsessed with if this is not

something that you're really really

interesting interested in, try building

a voice agent. Try building some some

more basic automation things. try

building uh to doing the vibe coding

thing like test out different things

until you find something that fires you

up and you you're thinking about it when

you go to sleep and if I'm still

thinking about maybe a video that I want

to make or something that I want to

build or a project I was working on then

I know I'm in the right mode. Um but so

many people are trying to force

themselves into AI or any kind of

business vehicle without having that

cheat code which is basically the

infinite energy source that allows you

to work when other people think it's

think it's work and you feel like it's

play. So yeah, it's interesting that you

brought that up.

>> Yeah. No, very well said there. It is

like just infinite energy. So,

>> you got to find it. You got to find the

thing.

>> And then, um, yeah, phase five is when I

finally had the courage to quit my job.

And the only reason I had the courage to

do this is because through my YouTube

channel, which at the time was less than

500 subscribers.

It's just it's amazing. The algorithms

nowadays will connect you with exactly

who you're trying to speak to. So, you

can get 10, 20, 100 views on a video,

but people will reach out to you. people

will be interested in in what you're

you're saying because it's speaking

right to them. So, I was able to get a

few inbound leads a week with a very

very small channel and I knew that if I

doubled down or honestly like tripled

down, I I I just had this gut feeling

there's no way I can fail based on what

I'm seeing right now.

>> And would you give any tips to people

who are in that early early stage with

content, particularly on YouTube, um and

are struggling to find the sort of the

spark that kicks things off?

>> Yeah, it's a great question. I think I

could talk about this a long time, but

it's it boils down to two words in my

mind.

>> So many layers to it. It's just like

endless endless layers of strategy on

it.

>> Absolutely. And like I said, the two

words that come to my mind the most is

authenticity and consistency because the

truth is like your first 10 may not pick

up. And all that's doing is you're just

giving YouTube more data or you're

giving the platform more data. And like

I said, I think that nowadays the

algorithms are so much more advanced

that you can't you can't really be

thinking, I'm gonna optimize here for

virality. What you're optimizing for is

to get put in front of the right people.

And I think if you're consistent and

you're authentic about it, there's just

no way that that doesn't happen

eventually. I think that platforms are

also kind of favoring small creators

right now. It seems like they're they're

I'm always seeing videos on my feed

views

>> and my my own feed is these like 200

view videos. I'm like

>> sometimes it is a it is a bang and I

click on it. I'm like, "Oh, this is

really cool." So, yeah, it's a

completely different time.

>> 100%. And I think a lot of people's

roadblock or barrier to entry is um they

feel like they're not qualified enough

to talk about what they want to talk

about. And I I I don't think that's a

blocker at all.

>> I I always say it's it's a knowledge

gap. As long as you have some sort of in

some overlap of knowledge greater than

the people that you're trying to help.

And if you can build an automation, if

you've watched some of your videos, some

of my videos and the courses that I've

put out, then you have you absolutely

have some sort of knowledge gap over

other people. It's just can you I mean

hop on the back of some some news and

then I I was saying to someone this

morning that I was I was coaching last

night. Um if you can take some of

something newsworthy and that's kind of

seemingly consumer and then just add a

little maybe pull that into an

automation. I did this with GPTs

heavily. How can I take GTS and put it

onto a website? That was like I had a

legendary run there of videos because I

started taking this thing and I just

added a bit of like my skill set which

which most people can very easily

acquire and you start to make this kind

of one ofone content that only exists on

your channel. So um the the

qualification kind of imposter syndrome

is real and you're only really going to

get to being knowledgeable and it's such

a great flywheel when you have to learn

something and share about it on YouTube,

learn something and share about it. That

actually is what builds the expertise.

That's what builds the the confidence in

your skills as well. So you kind of just

got to just got to start.

>> Yep. 100%. That'll beat any any person

who gets luck. Any person who gets lucky

with a video, you know, just being

consistent will beat that nine times out

of 10. So,

>> yeah. And the guy who

>> takeway

>> gets lucky is the guy who was also

consistent a lot of the time, you know,

like you put out 20 videos and it's like

the 21st one that is is the lucky one.

But it's really you've been like

refining your craft the whole time,

refining your idea selection

>> and refining how well you edit your

videos and stuff like that. So, it's

it's iterative process for sure. And

that leads really really well into this

final wrap-up here. Um, just repetition.

Repetition is so important. And you

know, I guess the question, you know,

really was, how did I go from

non-technical to technical? And the only

answer is that I just did a ton. I built

a ton of stuff. And the core takeaways

for me were not being afraid of JSON. It

looks intimidating at first, but it is

so simple when you really break it down.

It's just a key value pair. JSON is is

so important to understand. And another

thing though, essential

AI models are also very good at JSON

now. So they can help you break it down,

help you explain it, help you fix your

JSON body request to an API, whatever it

is. Um, the second thing for me was, you

know, specifically with Nitn, but once I

built, you know, 10 20 automations, I

realized that all of these automations

are built on the same like 10 core

nodes. And so I just got really good at

those core nodes. And I realized I can

build almost anything because I know

these so well. And that exact same logic

applies to errors in my mind. You know,

I think a lot of people see an error

message, they get a little overwhelmed,

they don't know what to do. But if you

just sit there and read it, it almost

tells you like exactly what's wrong. And

if you're able to fix that yourself,

it's just pattern recognition. Now, you

know, when I'm building a workflow, I

think people have this misconception

that I never see errors, but I see

errors, you know, every time. Every time

I build a workflow, multiple errors, but

because I've seen those errors so many

times, I know exactly where to go or

exactly what to look for. And it's just

muscle memory at this point. the bare

minimum of of technical skills that you

need is being able to read and

understand JSON. Um, and then also the

APIs. I think I've seen other examples

of this, like people just brute forcing

their way from non-technical to

technical. And it's not like you have to

take this big roundabout way to learn

learn how to code. You kind of pick up a

lot of developer skills along the way.

And the point for all of you is that

he's just put in probably a ton

more work than than anyone else who's

been trying to make the same transition.

um coupled with being very good on the

content side which is is often I find it

there is quite innate aspects to content

like if you are if you like writing or

if you like structuring ideas and things

like this but either way you can brute

force your way through either of those

um people just often aren't willing to

do the reps so this next section is

going to be talking about how I was able

to build my education product which is

my school community it's a low ticket

monthly subscription type of offer and

have grown that from you know zero in

November mber all the way to now 2.3

2.4,000 members making almost $200,000 a

month.

So, one of my first takeaways was

structure. And structure is better than

volume. Because when I first kind of

made it, my mindset was I'm just going

to chuck as much material in here

thinking that it would just be more

valuable if there was just a ton. And

everything was really scattered and

overwhelming. I I assume from a new

member standpoint. And what I ended up

doing was taking all of my material as

you can see right here. And I just kind

of lumped it into two main courses. So

the classroom just had two things. And I

saw a ton of success. People were

actually completing the modules. People

were actually staying longer. And people

weren't turnurning out because they were

overwhelmed anymore. And that was a huge

um it may seem obvious, but for me, I

was like, "Wow, I just I didn't realize

that less is more, you know?"

>> Yeah. No, the customer journey is

freaking essential. We've had to like

fully remap that and accelerate after

all the successes we've had. We've had

to rethink like how can we make this

even clearer and easier for people to

move through. And yeah, more content

doesn't equal more value. It often I

mean less value if you're not careful

with how you do it.

>> Yeah. The whole message honestly is kind

of this message of less is more. But

this next thing I wanted to talk about

is is overwhelm. It's the number one

churn driver. And like you said, the

customer journey. I think about this

even with YouTube too. Trying to find

that balance of how many videos to make,

trying to find that balance of how much

content to have in a in an offer. And

when you think about like people have

full-time jobs, they they have

activities, they have hobbies, they may

only be spending an hour a day in your

community, if that. And so if you can

make your new content be consumable

within an hour a day, that helps people

feel like they're actually part of

something and that they don't have to

commit a ton of time to stay, you know,

part of that community, part of that

family.

>> Um, and so that was huge for me, too.

And then another big takeaway on this

same sort of like theme is less is more.

I was doing five phone calls a week.

>> That's cracked me up. I could not

believe you were running that many

calls, man. That's that's crazy.

>> Yeah. I remember when the first time we

we we chatted and I told you I was doing

five live calls a week and editing all

my videos and you were like, "What are

you doing, man?"

>> Um Yeah. But cut that down to one and I

saw so many benefits. Like more people

were attending, the community was

engaging more in the threads. I was able

to put more time in the threads and just

overall a much better experience for the

entire community and myself.

>> Yeah, 100%. You can show up on that

Monday and absolutely smash it. You can

like really maybe extend that out to

being a bit longer. Um, but that's where

the whole community can come together

because you wouldn't really have the

whole the whole community coming

together if it's all spaced out, right?

Um, so it must be a lot nicer to get

everyone together.

>> 100%. It is. It feels good. It feels

good to have made that switch. Yeah. Um,

and then another big realization is just

that you can't make everyone happy. No

matter what, you have an offer, you

should have a target avatar, and you

can't really apply to tons of different

big broad groups. It just won't work.

So, being able to,

you know, block out the noise, kind of

have tunnel vision on your target

avatar, your ICP, and make decisions

based on what they would want and make

decisions based on what would keep them

around longer.

>> Um,

>> yeah. on on school is it easy for you? I

haven't I've never run a paid school

before, so I don't really know what the

the like conversion data is on the back.

But if you wanted to export the list of

like subscribers and you could sort of

sort by who are the longest subscribers

and then decide, okay, these are

obviously our highest lifetime value

customers. Um maybe we need to identify

have a couple chats or interviews with

them, figure out what that their use

cases, why are they spending so long on

it. Is that sort of what you mean by

datadriven decisions or is how have you

approached that from a from a data

standpoint?

Yeah, just just getting feedback really

and pretty much exactly like you said,

taking the members, seeing who's on

annual, seeing who's on monthly, seeing

how long people have been in there and

and getting feedback and segmenting it

into different groups about, you know,

what is your least favorite feature,

what do you want to see, are you still

going to be in the community in six

months and making decisions based on the

people that have the highest customer

lifetime value. Yeah.

>> Yeah. I mean it's uh the the noise the

noise is tough and and some people are

unfortunately just kind of complainers

by nature and those are the squeaky

wheels that despite the maj like 99% of

people being very very happy. it's the

squeaky wheels who kind of come and you

need to be on I guess it's hard for you

with the with the school community but

um for for say for the accelerator we

can be very careful about who we let in

because there are these squeaky wheels

and it's just like they they if they

squeak they squeak often um and that

often can really skew the the inputs you

have as the community owner to doing

things that are maybe like fixing this

and this that to just this like one

person who's quite noisy wants fixed. So

um the uh I couldn't agree more on the

signal burst noise thing.

>> Yeah. And that's why I think the mindset

content is so important because it'll

be, you know, 99 positive reviews, but

one negative one is the one that will

stick with you, you know.

>> Yeah. Yeah. 100%.

>> Yeah. So then I've got looks like two

two final takeaways here. Um data is

king. And you know, we kind of alluded

it to alluded to it with that past

slide, but every decision that you

should be making really is just a math

problem. And it should be, you know,

sometimes you have to do an experiment,

but you want to collect that data. And

at the end of the day, everything's a

win if you get more data, better better

decisions. That's all I'll say there.

That's that's the same mindset I have

with all my automations, too.

>> And when it comes to content as well,

it's it's uh I mean, this is for your

your community content, but also broadly

uh YouTube content as well. We've just

done a recent survey of my audience. And

if you can figure out ways to sort of

systemize or standardize how you can run

these, okay, like what are our tools?

What are our levers? Okay, I could put

up an Instagram story. I could put up a

put out an email. I could put a poll up

in school like there's all these

different levers that you can pull. Um,

and having a clear way making it

reducing the friction I find is good to

to pushing out some of these polls of

surveys like okay I want to collect data

on this particular thing. Bang bang bang

it's all gone and I've got the data in.

Um, and if there's too much inertia you

are making it harder for yourself to get

that kind of information and that's

ultimately what's going to lead to

better business decisions. So that's a

little tip and tips and tricks from from

me there. If you can make it very easy

to collect for yourself to initiate a

data collection, you're going to do it a

lot more often.

>> Yeah, love that. Love that one. And then

the last one is just another another

mindset about blocking out the noise is

just to do more and do better of what's

already working. You don't have to

reinvent the wheel. You don't have to do

a new initiative every week because in

AI there is a new initiative you could

pursue every week.

>> Just do what's working and um that's how

you'll you'll get really good at your

thing. Now, have you followed my advice

and got got the got the operators doing

their job or or are you still getting in

the mix?

>> Um, I have. I have. Yeah, we we we've

we've built some good systems now.

Things are a lot better off. But I

think, you know, as I'll kind of talk

about here is I think it's really

important to just go through those

growing pains. And the the quickest way

is just to learn by doing and throw

yourself in the fire. And you know,

there's a a fine line there of like not

destroying your personal brand or

anything, but experience is just worth

worth so much more. So

>> yeah,

>> the first point I have here is

at least in my opinion, I started off

kind of as just a freelancer. So I

would, you know, do all of the roles of

an agency myself. And I think that it's

essential to maybe at least do one

project like this because it gives you

firsthand understanding of each role and

the actual full system of beginning to

end. And I think that's really really

important to to see and to know before

you

>> I think that's that's definitely like

the best case scenario. I think

particularly for for younger people like

us who have lots of time. It's like if

you've got if you're a uni student or

you've just come out of high school or

something then then learn the skills.

like there's no reason why you shouldn't

like if you're starting your career in

the space learn the learn the skills

become technical in the same way that

you have and I have um and from there

you can actually start to do it makes

the starting the agency so much easier

because it's that freelancer to agency

path right you can wear wear the hats

you can deliver a few things yourself

and then you can start to pass those off

but um other people coming in who are

typically a little bit older they maybe

aren't as techsavvy or or or digitally

native they have a much more difficult

route in um a lot of the time it's like

just getting the the bare minimum of of

understanding the tools, but then

getting someone else to do it. Um, but

100% I think if you can go through and

do do the first deliveries yourself,

it's way better.

>> Yeah, that is a that's a really good

point and I think um that kind of just

shows like the difference potentially in

our kind of like our ICPs or or you know

the lanes that we've kind of chose to go

down. But yeah, that's a that's a really

good point because there is obviously a

huge opportunity for people to spin up

agencies in that way as well. So,

>> yep.

>> Um, yeah.

>> Is that your first some of your first

sales calls?

>> Yeah, some of my first discovery calls

just hopping on.

>> That's not even that long ago. Why do

you look so little? So, you're just

lacking the lacking the confidence,

>> I guess. So, I guess so. Lots can change

in um in 8 months.

>> Yeah, it sure can.

>> 8 months. Yeah.

>> Yeah. But anyways, yeah, just like

looking at the actual project life cycle

and me being able to understand. I think

the biggest thing for me that I really

really enjoyed was not coming from a

sales background at all and all of a

sudden I'm hopping on calls with people

I've never met and and trying to help

them figure out what to do with their

business as far as AI goes. And this was

really really eye opening for me because

it gave me a really good pulse on the

market. It helped me understand what

people were looking for. It helped me

understand, you know, how can I

communicate value and not turn them off.

There was a there was a lot of learnings

just by talking to people. And I think

that's um pretty common common thing.

>> Yeah, there's a there's a fine line

between getting too technical on the

call uh and and not not enough, right?

There's a there's a sweet spot where you

can explain roughly what's what's going

to what's going to happen. At the end of

the day, they just want the result, but

there is on on agency sales calls a

little bit of sprinkling in that it

should almost pull them into an area

where they feel a little bit out of

depth. like okay well like these guys

know more than we do. Um but if you just

talk surface level the whole time or too

technical you have to do a little mix of

mix of both I found with our morning

side calls. Um

>> and and with the agency what's the scope

like uh we at Morningside we're doing

very general custom dev for for big

brands and big companies. Are you

working more in the sort of lower ticket

automation builds? I assume because your

audience is so heavily Nadm focused. Are

you doing mainly Nadin builds for your

clients at the agency or have you got

like full stack engineers in there as

well?

>> Yeah, we are doing mainly end. We have

full stack guys that can kind of kind of

branch out to whatever, but because they

come through the channel, they usually

do they're pretty bought into wanting an

end build,

>> but yeah, we've definitely been moving

up market just naturally as the the

channel has grown.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I keep saying that's

that's the way. Get in. The AI

automation agency is was meant to be the

on-ramp for people. Like it's literally

like yourself to be able to ease into it

and sort of get the start making money

by selling the lower code no code

things. Then if you choose to go like

it's all it's essentially a very

flexible lifestyle business if you want

it to be you can keep it. You can try to

niche down to a specific set of systems

that you can kind of repeatedly sell or

you can push up market and go a bit more

general dev and add in full stack

developers and stuff like that. So

that's why I love the the flexibility of

it. Gives you so many routes. You can go

SAS, you can go education, you can go

anything from just that starting point.

>> Yeah, that's a good point. And I think

it's like it becomes very clear what

your next step should be. Um, as long as

you can block out the majority of the

noise, but you know, it's it becomes

very clear like here here's here where

you're at. Go here. Go here.

>> Yeah,

>> it's just going through that that gnarly

period of like the first six six months

or so with the agency of getting

actually learning to know how AI can

help businesses. And I can't stress that

enough from from mine and I'm sure you

agree. there's just that that that's

what most people aren't willing to go

through. And if you can just push

through that, you can get the technical

foundation for yourself through building

these things or or doing them through

your agency. Um, and once you have that

base, you can shoot from anywhere.

That's when SAS becomes possible because

you've got a technical base. You've got

a bit of cash flow. You can shoot to

education because you have some actual

information that might be valuable to

other people or businesses or consumers.

Or you can shoot to uh anything really

from there. You can go into consulting

as well. So there's so much, but it's

that first 6 to 12 months of of actually

doing the the hard stuff of development

for businesses. And I can't tell anyone

where to get the how does AI help

business knowledge apart from doing it.

Like you could I could give you a book,

I could give you some course material,

but you're still not going to really

know on a on a deep level.

>> Yeah, couldn't agree more with that. And

the amount of times in the first six

months that we had had massive failures,

it's embarrassing, but it's also like,

you know, that's what you got to go

through. So

>> yeah um

>> those those first like five 10 projects

there's going to be I think now the

technology is a lot better but when we

were starting it was very very difficult

to deliver anywhere near the uh the

expectations that JPT set thankfully now

the tools are so much better for

development agencies um but yeah it's

you do have some projects you 100% do

and you got to get the money back that

is just how it goes

>> yeah

um but luckily we got to a place where

we finally found a system that worked

And then we could basically just bring

on more people, teach them our exact

system, and just kind of scale from

there. And now we're at a really good

place where we do have like these

different business units and these

different pods of people that take on

different types of work. And it's really

cool to be moving into this space where

people are no longer coming to us with,

hey, we have this idea. Can you build

it? But now it's more like, hey, you

guys are the experts. Help us

>> basically like, yeah, in all our

departments, just help us out. And

that's a really cool place to to be.

Yeah, that's that consulting stuff that

that we've been seeing as well and

moving heavily into at Morningside like

>> that is where if you can do that first

six 12 months that's what opens up to

you have enough knowledge and context

where you can go okay I'm not just going

for these the five 10% of the market

who's ready for development I can start

going up market well not necessarily up

market but to the broader market of

companies who are still on square one

but need a guide to take them through so

I think that's really the big

opportunity people need to be gunning

for with their AI careers over the next

12 12 24 months

>> 100% I mean when you think about these

big firms like you know Boston

Consulting, um KPMG, Mckenzie, like

they're charging

>> 50 person business.

>> Not at all. They're going to charge a

million dollars for that.

>> So there's just a huge opportunity like

you said. Yeah.

>> Untap, man. It's seriously seriously

untap. I I don't know how to scream it

loud enough, but like I think people

want to jump to the consulting thing

before they've done the hard work like

like we've had to go through, but it is

it's a it's a fairly linear process

where you go through that hard six 12

months and that gives you the knowledge

that you can start to tap into that

market.

Yeah, it'll just teach you these these

little things like this may seem

obvious, but to me it wasn't. And having

to be super super upfront from day one

about expectations in in a couple ways.

The first one I think is um you know

don't oversell a solution. If anything,

under promise and overd deliver, but

>> yeah,

>> but I mean people will be unrealistic.

You know, sometimes you have people that

think AI is magic and you have people on

the other end of the spectrum, but you

got to find that middle ground. And

often the people coming to your agency

here are the ones who think it's magic

and think it's this magic wand that can

fix their business. Um Yep. So yeah,

totally agree on that.

>> Yeah. And it's tough. So pretty much you

don't want to really sign off until you

think the client's a good fit. And one

way that we do that is we ask them about

like kind of right away. We ask them

about, you know, where do you think AI

is going to go? And just kind of kind of

try to get a pulse check on how bullish

they are about it and how realistic they

are about it. And that really really

helps both of us

>> just set set off on the right foot.

>> 100%.

>> Um, and that kind of leads into this

next piece is about depending on where

you are in your journey. There's a lot

of times when you want to prioritize

experience over revenue. And that's

something that I did early on, of

course, too. And, you know, I'm sure

you've heard different ways of like, you

know, doing your first client for free

and getting a testimonial, getting a

case study. Um, but that also leads into

just because a client is willing to hand

you over like $20,000, that doesn't

always mean it's a deal you should take.

It might just end up being a huge

headache and it might end up screwing

you in the long run. So, really trying

to get good experience and as much

experience as you can.

>> The money will be there down the line.

We're all early enough that there the

money will be there, but

>> just just something to think about, I'd

say.

>> Yeah, I I I 100% agree. I always say the

your your value or the or the price you

should be charging is is your experience

and your skills sort of combined, right?

So how what are your skills? You might

have really good skills from watching

like our videos, but if you don't have

any experience and you're still kind of

like experience times like zero

experience time, 100 skills is still a

zero, right? So you should still be

going in and saying, "Look, I want to

work for for free and I want to be able

to get this experience and working with

real businesses." Um, but yeah, I I see

it time and time again where people get

maybe for their first client or first

few that they've worked with, this big

one comes and it's like a 20 or $50,000

project and they're like, "Holy man,

I've I've made it here and they work on

this this proposal and contract and go

back and forth and for like two three

months it just absorbs all of their

brain power and all of their bandwidth

and then it falls through and that

they're sitting there 3 months later

without any experience or skills built.

you're much better to try try get these

as like the highest velocity of

experience you can and often times

that's going to mean taking a lot less

than you think you're worth but that's

going to allow you ultimately to get to

positions like myself and you. So that's

it's a really great message for the

guys.

>> Yeah. Well said. I liked that zero times

100 thing. That was slick.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I've had to through course

material I had to like really refine how

I how I like structure these things. But

yeah, anyway that's uh we're we're

running along on time. So Nate mate

that's that's been absolutely awesome.

Um thank you so much for sharing. Thank

you so much for uh being a great example

of what you can do in the space, man.

Seriously. Um and for I mean coming

through. That's what my YouTube channel

has all all kind of been about is being

able to like shake people awake and say

like there is this thing right here. You

don't need it's for everyone. You don't

need a degree. You don't need nothing.

You can come in and if you're willing to

work hard, the opportunity is there and

you will make will make a lot of money.

So um pleasure to pleasure to have you

on, mate. Great to have you in the space

and doing the awesome things you are.

And if you guys want to get in touch

with Nate or see his businesses, they'll

be linked down below. Um, but yeah,

anything else I think?

>> I mean, I just want to say thanks for

having me and of course you you did

exactly that. You shook me. You woke me

up to this opportunity and then I hopped

into your accelerator and that was the

push I needed. That was the the jump off

the cliff for me. So, thank you for

everything that you do in the space.

>> No worries, brother. That's uh it's all

part of it. Wouldn't want to do anything

else. Right. I'll uh see you see you

guys uh on another one of these. Peace.

>> So, there it is. Nate's complete

blueprint from 0 to $300,000 per month

with AI automation. And the key takeaway

is that you don't need to be a coding

wizard. You don't need to have a ton of

AI or coding experience. You just need

to understand the fundamentals, put in

the work, and build the right system to

support you. So don't just sit here and

watch other people talk about their AI

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first thing in the description to start

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