I hit 30 million views last month across my AI content. I run a profitable AI business with thousands of paying users. And I’ve spent the last year watching what actually works for people who start with zero — no audience, no technical background, no nothing. These five methods are the ones that keep delivering. I’ll show you each one, including a live breakdown of how I’d find clients right now for the last method. If you’re thinking you’re too late or you don’t have a following, trust me — this gets you moving.

• Building a brand with no special knowledge
• Profitable faceless video models
• Why Claude training is exploding in 2026
• The two mistakes that kill vibe-coded apps
• Simple marketing automations that sell themselves

Step 1 Build a Personal Brand in AI and Earn Through Sponsorships

Why You Don’t Need Special Knowledge to Start

When I say build a personal brand, I mean film yourself talking to a camera, post it on social media, and share useful AI tips. You might think you need some kind of special knowledge. I guarantee you — 99% of AI education on social media is just reading the manual. There’s a term in college: RTFM. Read the effing manual. Open up Anthropic’s Claude help docs and go through it. That’s 100 videos worth of content. Or ask Claude, “What’s the coolest new feature from the past week? Write a TikTok script.” Then hold up the camera and read it. That’s the vast majority of videos you’re watching on TikTok, Instagram, and even YouTube. No special knowledge needed.

How to Create Content Using AI Documentation

Develop the habit of finding something interesting in the help docs or asking an AI tool what’s new. Then film a 45-second video talking about it. That’s it. You don’t need to be an expert. You need to be consistent.

Choosing a Platform and Copying What Works

Start with a short-form platform — TikTok is my top pick. You can get explosive growth with a brand new account. TikTok doesn’t care how many followers you have; it cares that you’re not a bot and you’re posting high-quality content. Post two TikTok videos per day, then cross-post to Instagram, YouTube Shorts, Facebook, and Threads. Over time, Instagram and long-form YouTube pay the most, but long-form is a lot of work to start with.

What kind of videos do you make? You have my full permission to steal my content. Go to my TikTok, find the most viral videos, and copy them. It will feel awkward at first. That’s normal. You learn faster by copying what experienced creators are already doing.

As you grow your following, AI startups will start flooding your inbox. They’re flush with cash and desperate for attention. They’ll pay you to make videos promoting their tool. That’s a sponsorship. You price each video or package — one video, three videos over a month, whatever works. You don’t need a huge audience. Even a few thousand engaged followers can land you deals.

Step 2 Create Faceless Videos for Profit

Idea 1 AI Videos for TikTok Shop

You can use AI to create videos for TikTok Shop. The ones that work usually involve an AI avatar interacting with a physical product. The key mistake people make is trying to automate everything from the start. Don’t do that. Automation comes after you’ve figured out what works. You need to sit in your AI video generation tool and experiment. Find a format that converts, then add bits of automation later.

Idea 2 Avatar Meme Pages for Motivation and Sales

You’ve probably seen the avatar monk — an AI avatar of a monk talking about motivation, health, and mindset. It racked up over 2 million followers on Instagram in a few months. Its business model? Sell simple products like a calendar through its link in bio. At that scale, the views and profile interactions convert into sales. You don’t have to clone the monk exactly, but the concept is proven: pick a niche, create a consistent AI avatar, and drive people to a product.

Idea 3 Offer AI Avatar Services to Business Owners

Business owners are already experts in their problem and solution. They lack time to film content. Your offer: create a high-quality AI clone of them. Use a custom ElevenLabs voice. Make it look and sound like them. Then take the expertise in their head and turn it into social media posts, educational content, and videos. The value prop is simple: they can scale their marketing without sitting in front of a camera. My own AI avatar has gotten millions of views. It doesn’t add value to the viewer — it’s for the creator. It lets you outsource parts of video creation. That’s what you’re selling.

Step 3 Offer Claude Training to Businesses

What to Train Teams On

Claude is blowing up in 2026. People are migrating from ChatGPT, and businesses are realizing they can get a lot done with Claude Co-work and Claude Code. I’ve been using Claude Code for over a year on the Max plan. It’s way faster than learning automation platforms like n8n or make.com. You can build a custom system for any use case. What you can train on: prompting skills, collaborating in a team, setting up projects, scheduling tasks, streamlining workflows. There’s a ton of material — in fact I broke out twelve distinct income paths with Claude that go beyond training if you want the full menu.

How to Pitch the Value of Time Savings

The pitch is direct: “I’ll train your team how to use Claude in one day, and I’ll save you 5 hours per week per person. That should be worth $5,000 to $10,000.” Business owners respond to two levers: saving time and making money. Show them a small but powerful use case — like creating a weekly report that scans the CEO’s email inbox and sends a Slack notification with everything they dropped the ball on. That kind of demo sells itself.

Getting Your First Clients with Cold Outreach

Combine content with cold outreach. Focus on Instagram and LinkedIn — that’s where business owners live. Cold DM them: “Hey, are you guys using Claude? Want to learn?” If they commented on a Claude video, say, “Did that tactic work for you? I figured out a better way. Let me know if you’re interested.” Always lead with value. You can also create a lead magnet — “I compiled 100 useful marketing skills for Claude. Want a copy?” Give it away for free, then include a call to action for customized team training. The demand for Claude training is massive right now.

Step 4 Vibe Code a Single Feature App

Mistake 1 Overcomplicating the First Version

Most people overcomplicate their first version. I’ve seen first versions that look like a team spent six months on them — polished, full of assumptions. Don’t do that. Start with one feature. Ideally, within the first 90 seconds of a new user signing up, they are using that one feature and getting value. Everything else should be removed. Keep it simple enough that you can describe your app in one sentence with no commas. Example: Cal AI’s first version was “user takes a photo of food and AI outputs calorie breakdown.” That’s it. Simplicity makes it easy for customers to share and influencers to create content about.

Mistake 2 Ignoring Marketing After Launch

When you’re vibe coding, you spend 90% of your time on the product. That’s fine in the beginning. Once you launch, you must switch to 90% of your time on marketing. Until you have a steady stream of users coming in, you cannot keep adding features. That’s the biggest reason vibe-coded apps die. I’ve seen so many people ask, “Why don’t I have any users?” and the answer is obvious: they didn’t do any marketing. You don’t find products by magic — you hear about them through marketing. Accept that.

Finding a Repeatable Viral Format for Your App

I love the blog socialgrowthengineers.com. It provides weekly case studies of the most viral consumer marketing — TikTok videos and reels that get 10 million+ views while promoting a product. Browse it every week to see what hooks are working. Then apply them to your app.

Two approaches to marketing: do it yourself or pay micro influencers. If you do it yourself, make your own TikTok, Reels, and YouTube Shorts. Use the viral formats you find. Post multiple times per day. The other path is to pay micro influencers — creators who don’t have huge followings but are really good at making videos that go viral. Pay them per video, ideally five videos per creator to distribute risk. The goal is to find a repeatable viral format — a hook and structure that consistently performs well. For example, my own repeatable format is “What happens when you ask Claude to make you as much money as possible?” Then I walk through three prompts. That format works over and over. Once you have it, tell your micro influencers to use it. Keep milking it until it stops working, then find the next one. This is the entire playbook for consumer marketing in 2026.

Step5 Set Up AI Marketing Automations for Busy Business Owners

Automation 1 Go High Level with AI Chatbots

Go High Level is a white-label CRM with snapshots for different industries — real estate, plumbing, etc. It can handle leads from Facebook, Google, TikTok ads. You can set up chat automations, email automations, and follow-ups. The problem is that the learning curve is steep. Most business owners buy it, spend 10 minutes in there, and get overwhelmed. Your service: set it up for them and incorporate AI automations. Hook up ChatGPT or Claude to the company’s knowledge base. The AI responds to inbound leads, qualifies them through conversation, books meetings — all automatically. That’s a high-value offer.

Automation 2 ManyChat for Instagram and Facebook

ManyChat works great for Facebook and Instagram. Look for fast-growing creators or businesses that post videos and say things like “comment this for more info.” Test their automation yourself. If they don’t follow up, that’s pain. DM them: “I asked for info and never heard back. Do you need help automating your pipeline?” Your value prop is fixing the funnel that converts social media attention into revenue.

Automation 3 LinkedIn Automation Tools

LinkedIn is trickier — I’ve had my account suspended multiple times. But there are tools like Expandi, PhantomBuster, and Lead Shark that help do it safely. Use them for lead magnet posts (“comment this to get the automation”). The concept is the same: help startup founders and creators convert LinkedIn traffic into revenue. This is a high-ROI service because it’s directly tied to money.

Stick to One Path and Let Compounding Work

Each of these five methods has pros and cons. None of them requires a ton of technical skill before you start. You’ll learn along the way. The number one reason people fail is that they don’t stick to any path long enough to see compounding returns. So pick the one that sounds the most fun to you. The one you’ll actually do for a whole year. That’s my honest advice. Pick one, commit, and let the compound effect do its thing. If none of these five clicked for you, I’ve also mapped out nine more business models that make money right now to widen the shortlist.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Do I need special technical knowledge to build an AI personal brand? A: Not at all. Almost all AI education content on social media is just reading the tool’s documentation. You can ask an AI to write you a script, then film yourself reading it. That’s how most successful creators start.

Q: How do I find my first client for Claude training? A: Cold DM business owners on Instagram or LinkedIn. Offer a free lead magnet like “100 Claude marketing prompts,” then include a call to action for custom team training. You can also reference something they commented on and offer a better solution.

Q: What’s the biggest mistake people make with vibe coding? A: Two actually: overcomplicating the first version with too many features, and spending all your time on the product while ignoring marketing after launch. You need 90% of your effort on marketing until you have a steady user stream.

Q: How much can I charge for training a team on Claude? A: I suggest pitching it as saving 5 hours per week per person. A price of $5,000 to $10,000 for a one-day training is reasonable if you can demonstrate that value with a small use case demo.

Q: Do I need a huge following to get sponsorships? A: No. AI startups are desperate for attention and will pay creators with even a few thousand engaged followers. Focus on consistent, high-quality content and the inbound requests will come.

Q: What’s the easiest platform to start on for faceless videos? A: TikTok. It gives explosive growth to new accounts and doesn’t care about your follower count. Post two videos per day and cross-post to Instagram, YouTube Shorts, Facebook, and Threads.