He Started a $15K/Month AI Side Hustle for $20 - Ep. #325

Chris Koerner (0:00)

How much did it cost you to start an AI implementation business in total?

Ryan Schuetter (0:04)

$20.

Chris Koerner (0:05)

So, you're 26 years old. What will you make this month from implementing AI into small businesses?

Ryan Schuetter (0:11)

$15,000 this month.

Chris Koerner (0:12)

Profit?

Ryan Schuetter (0:13)

Profit.

Chris Koerner (0:14)

Amazing. And you're telling me that a shy introvert can make six figures a year implementing AI in a small business?

Ryan Schuetter (0:21)

Yeah, you could make more, for sure.

Chris Koerner (0:23)

Everyone is saying that AI will kill small businesses. You say the opposite.

Ryan Schuetter (0:27)

Why? This is the best time you could compete with the enterprises because you have access to the technology that allows you to do so.

Chris Koerner (0:33)

You have the same access that they've always had now.

Ryan Schuetter (0:36)

Yeah, and theoretically, you have even better tools than them because they're limited to what they could use based on their slow policies and governance that they have in those organizations. You move much faster than them.

Chris Koerner (0:45)

What on average do you charge for an implementation build?

Ryan Schuetter (0:48)

It could be anywhere between $1,000 or $20,000. It just depends on the project.

Chris Koerner (0:54)

No sales experience?

Never gone door to door? Never been in a boiler room doing $1,000?

Ryan Schuetter (0:59)

This is the most terrifying stuff I've ever heard.

Chris Koerner (1:01)

That's encouraging. Is there any hope for shy introverts like me that don't want to talk to people? Yes. In fact, there's a guy in Ryan, Cincinnati, 24 years old, very shy introvert. You're about to meet him, who makes $15,000 a month solving problems using simple tools that he taught himself on. He doesn't know how to code. He's never learned how to sell. And he was working a dead end job making $52,000 a year. A year and a half ago. Today, he's making $15,000 a month working for himself. So I had to ask him today, Ryan, who are you? How do you do what you do? How do you sell? How do you price this? And what is the DASA framework, which he claims is the key to his success? Let's meet Ryan. So if you were to explain to a five-year-old how you make money, what would you say?

Ryan Schuetter (1:44)

I made a lot of friends. Made a lot of friends in the States and helped them solve their biggest problems.

Chris Koerner (1:49)

Business owners?

Ryan Schuetter (1:50)

Yes.

Chris Koerner (1:51)

Okay. So you make money solving problems for business owners using technology.

Ryan Schuetter (1:55)

Yep.

Chris Koerner (1:56)

Accurate?

Ryan Schuetter (1:57)

That's pretty accurate.

Chris Koerner (1:58)

What does an average customer look like? What type of person, what type of business owner, what are you charging them for what?

Ryan Schuetter (2:05)

Yeah. The clients I work with right now are all over the place, but it's currently founders that are very much in the business and understand the power of AI, yet their teams are not really implementing it the way they could be. So that's my ideal avatar that I typically go after.

Chris Koerner (2:20)

A startup founder?

Ryan Schuetter (2:21)

Startup founder. Younger?

Could be young. I've worked with every age group, especially in Cincinnati. That's not the most tech forward place in the world. There's a lot of people that are kind of getting, you know, dabbling in AI. There's a lot of people that absolutely don't understand it. So I think my reach is quite large.

Chris Koerner (2:40)

What is the average revenue of one of your customers?

Ryan Schuetter (2:43)

Yeah, it could be anywhere between pre-revenue all the way up to $20 million is probably the range I've worked with so far. But it's usually sub $10 million for how I've been getting started so far.

Chris Koerner (2:55)

So you're 24 going on 25, AI happens, you start playing around with it, you like nerding out over software and technology, you feel like that's a skill of yours and something that you enjoy. And so for whatever reason, you say, I'm going to make a list of 100 people that I know. And most 24 year olds don't know a ton of people, right? Which bodes well for anyone watching this if they're young or don't have a big network. We're talking about friends and family at church, neighborhood, teachers, people you went to school with, is that what we're saying?

Previous coworker.

Ryan Schuetter (3:26)

All the above. Yeah, certainly a lot through just the contacts list on my phone. I was literally going through and saying, who might find interest in getting help with AI? I was hitting up friends, like friends, parents of mine all over the place. And a lot of the start I had was also through some business mastermind groups that I joined along the way, paid groups that I entered because...