Tom Ulman

I Failed the Challenge of $1000 by June end rather spectacularly I made a total of $22 in June net after all fees etc. But if theres one thing I learn from @levelsio @marclou is you bash on regardless New goal $10k by end of year.

Some more goss: next-forge is now part of @vercel If you're not familiar, next-forge is my production-grade Turborepo template for Next.js apps that I created to help developers launch scalable applications without weeks of initial setup. More info 👇🧵

Quick life update — I’ve moved to San Francisco and joined the @Vercel DX team! I'm incredibly excited about this new chapter. I'll be focused on building our community, sharing knowledge, and helping you build better products! Let's cook ▲

The complete playbook for building profitable companies in the AI age 1. Go heads down 2. Find an underserved niche + trend backed by data (start small) 3. Learn their painpoints/what content drives them 4. Come up with an idea (or steal one from @ideabrowser) 5. Build an audience/community (pick 1 platform) 6. Use Manus/v0/Bolt/Lovable/Cursor to build v1 7. DM your audience, offer a discounted version 8. Reinvest that cash to fund product/content flywheel 9. Keep team small (AI is your co-founder) 10. Automate ~90%+ with agents/zaps etc 11. Reinvest profits into content + core features 12. Partner with creators in exchange for equity (1–20%) or rev share (20–50%) 13. Keep surfacing new ideas from users + trends (use agent feature on pro @ideabrowser) 14. Build public-facing tools to drive top-of-funnel 15. Add modular pricing: free → $29 → $299 → $3K 16. Turn manual services into productized features 17. Build in public to attract users, partners, and acquirers 18. Bundle into an ecosystem, not just a single feature 19. Own the loop: audience → product → content → more audience 20. Run sprints on retention (fix that leaky bucket) 21. Backfill with AI agents before hiring ops roles 22. Test new channels with throwaway brands 23. Monetize the backend, sell data, leads, APIs if applicable 24. Have fun 25. Repeat. Build a portfolio 26. Share hires, tools, and infrastructure across products 27. Acquire underperforming products with distribution upside 28. Relaunch or bundle existing apps using your playbook 29. Create a holding company brand people want to follow (this is exactly what im doing, practicing what im preaching) 30. Build long-term wealth with no outside investors and infinite spins 31. Cross-promote wins across your product ecosystem to drive flywheel growth 32. Create an internal idea-to-launch pipeline (every 30 days, something ships) 33. License or clone successful products into new verticals or geos 34. Recruit niche operators to run individual products for cash + upside/profitshare 35. Build once, compound forever... audience, code, and trust all stack This is the greatest time to be an idea person. Happy building.