0:00

22:41

Watch me build a $10,000+ App with AI in 1 Hour

Brett Malinowski·22:41·Technology·B2

Chương · 6

Chương 1·The Agency Model and Opportunity

Hiển thị

Auto-scroll

0:00

Cloud Code is one of the most powerful tools that I've ever used. Within my first week using it, I figured out how to automate my $1 million per year software agency. Each client project of ours used to take a project manager, a designer, and a developer about 6 weeks.

0:16

But now, one person with AI can do it in under an hour, even if they have no technical expertise. So, in this video, I'm going to show you the exact agency model that I used to make multiple seven figures. And then I'm going to show you how to use Claude Code to automate the service delivery and build a $10,000 software MVP. From 2022 to 2025, I ran a software development agency that built

0:39

software apps for creators with an audience. When we ran our agency, we basically had two ways to structure deals. First, we would charge our clients a monthly subscription, usually around $6,000 per month, to build their app. Or second, if we really believed in the idea, we would take equity in the app instead. The monthly clients gave us cash flow so we could pay the bills. And

0:57

then the equity clients gave us long-term upside in case one really worked out. And that thesis has worked out really well. One of the apps we had equity in was Atlas AI, and it's now making over $500,000 per month. Now, I'm no longer part of the day-to-day team, so I really can't take any credit for its success, but I can show you why the model works so well. That's because the

1:16

founder is Sebastian Georgu. He is an e-commerce YouTuber with over a million subscribers. Now, besides the obvious baked in distribution he had from his channel, he had a few other unfair advantages that really mattered. First, he was his own customer. He had been doing e-commerce for years, so he deeply understood the problem that he was solving. And that made his product

1:34

intuition really strong. Second, his network was massive. And interestingly, the main growth channel wasn't even his own YouTube channel. It was actually the other YouTube channels that he could sponsor. When you're a peer in a niche, people reply. People want to work with you. They give you favorable rates, and you get distribution way faster, and that's how we scaled. Partnering with

1:54

creators to build software for them is advantageous because they understand the problem. They have distribution, and they have a network that can help you scale. And I really don't see too many people talking about this. Everyone is really trying to sell creators like short form editing, growth operating, or helping them sell paid courses. But almost nobody is offering to help them

2:14

build software that their audience could use. And to me, that is your opportunity. If I was in college or starting a new business from scratch, this is what I'd do. I would pick a specific niche and look for educational creators in that space. Sebastian was in e-commerce, but you could find a finance YouTuber and build them a budgeting app.

2:31

You could find someone in video editing and build them a VFX marketplace. You could find someone in fitness and help them build a coaching tracker. Just pick a niche that interests you and send creators a simple message like, "Hey, I'd be down to build you a custom VFX marketplace. I'm a software developer and would be happy to build it in exchange for equity. It'll just be worth

2:48

a quick chat." And by the way, creators do actually see your DMs. People think that if someone has a huge audience, they'll never actually read your message. That's just not true. As a creator myself with over 500,000 subscribers on YouTube, I maybe get five DMs a day. Maybe today I got three and I read every single one of them. I have hired a lot of people from cold DMs. And

3:09

if I don't, it's simply because I probably just don't need what that person is offering, not because I didn't see it. So, there are really two takeaways here. One, large creators see your DMs. And two, there's really no one offering to build them their own apps.

3:23

Now, if you're new, I wouldn't over complicate the deal structure. There's really three ways that you could go. Option one is a monthly build fee. Maybe anywhere from $2 to $6,000 per month depending on your skill level, the scope of the project, and how much proof you have. Option two is equity. If you really believe in the creator or the idea, then you can just build it in

3:41

exchange for ownership. And then option three, which is probably my favorite, and that's a hybrid. A smaller monthly fee plus upside in the app. That way, you're not broke while you're building, but you still have exposure if the app really works. So, that is the whole model. Creators bring the problem, the audience, and the distribution. You bring the software, the AI workflow, and

4:00

the execution. Now, let me show you how this actually works. Because what makes this so exciting is that you don't need to be a senior engineer to run this business model. When we built software MVPs for clients, it usually took us around 6 weeks. And it usually happened in three phases. First, we needed to build a product requirement doc. So, we actually knew what we needed to build.

4:19

Second, we actually needed to design the app. Then third, we started coding the back-end functionality and started connecting everything together. That typically took a three-person team around 6 weeks. But now I'm going to show you how to build a premium software MVP as a non-technical person with cloud code in under an hour. The key is to automate each phase separately. So phase

4:40

one is the PRD. When you start working with a new client, the first thing you need to do is make a list of everything they want to build. That is basically what a PRD or a product requirement document is. A PRD is a clear document that breaks down what the app is, who it's for, what features are needed, and what the first version should look like.

4:56

Usually, this requires a project manager to talk to the client, ask questions, take detailed notes, and then write out a long document listing every feature we need to build. But now, we can automate pretty much all that process with AI.

5:09

There are four steps. Get on a call with the creator, record the call with an AI noteaker, transcribe the meeting, then have AI turn that transcript into a PRD.

5:18

I'm using Zapier for this because it's the easiest way for non-technical people to automate this workflow. They also partnered with me on this video, but this is genuinely the tool I would use here because it's simple and fast. So, let's build this in 60 seconds. So, I'm going to go to Zapier and I'm going to hit create a new workflow and then we're actually going to search for fellow AI,

5:36

which is the AI noteaker I use. We're going to connect our accounts and then we're going to choose new AI note as the trigger event. So, now Zapier can access each meeting transcript from Fellow. So next we need to send that transcript to Claude. So I'm going to add a new step.

5:51

I'm going to select Enthropic. I will connect my account and then I'm going to choose the send message event. Okay. Next, we just need to hit configure and then in the user message section I'm going to hit slash and I'm going to select the transcript data point from fellow. Okay. So this is how we send the call transcript to clot. Next, we need to add a system prompt so the AI

6:15

actually knows how to turn the transcript into a PRD specifically. So, I'm going to paste in this prompt that I'll link in the description for free.

6:22

Basically, it just says that you're a senior product manager and technical lead. You will be given a raw transcript of the client discovery meeting for a software MVP. I need you to convert it into a clear build ready PRD. Okay. Now, there's a lot more underneath this. One thing I want to point out is that there's a pro tip here that you can actually add your preferred text stack

6:40

into this prompt. So then when we give this to Claude to code it later, it automatically knows what backend, database, authentication, payments, and hosting stack we want to use. But more on that later. Now, let's just select the Claude model I want to use. And the PRD step is ready. The last thing we need to do is send the output to a Google Drive folder so we stay

6:59

organized. It's going to output this into an MD skill file so it's easy for AI to read. So I'm going to add another step. I'm going to click Google Drive and then I'm going to choose the create folder event. Okay, I already made a folder in my drive called client PRDS.

7:14

So, I'm going to choose that. And then to stay organized, I'm going to click folder name. I'll hit slash. And I'm actually going to choose the attendee or the meeting title data from fellow. That way, it names the folder after each client or project. So, now I just need one quick final step to actually save the PRD inside of the folder we just created. So, again, I'm going to add a

7:35

step. I'm going to choose Google Drive and choose create file from text. For the folder, we're going to choose the folder ID we just created. For the file name, let's do something like prd plus.

7:48

Then I'll do slash the title from the fellow meeting. And now the most important part, we need to actually pull the file content from Claude. So the output aka the PRD. So to do this, we'll just hit slash. We're going to select Claude and we're going to choose response content. So it's the response that Claude gave us. Now we just need to hit publish and just like that we can

8:08

turn client meetings into beautifully written PRDs on autopilot. So I built this earlier and to give it a test I spun up a Google meet on my calendar. I started the meeting. I hit record with fellow and then I just kind of talk through the features of a VFX marketplace and then I ended the meeting. And now when I look at Zap, I can see each step is firing. And if I go

8:27

to my Google Drive, we can see the folder was created and the PRD is sitting right there. So phase one is done. We have a beautifully written PRD.

8:34

And now anytime I hop on a call with any future clients, I can just record that and immediately after the call, it's going to filter through everything we said and build a PRD that we can then just add to Cloud Code and have AI build for us. It's time for phase two. We're actually going to start designing our app with AI. I'm going to do this in Cloud Code by actually turning that PRD

8:53

into a visual wireframe and get it a working app preview. So for this example, I'm going to build a visual effects marketplace for a cinematography creator. Let's just assume the creator has a large audience of filmmakers and they want to help their audience find and buy VFX assets, overlays, and basically different editing packs. So, I downloaded that PRD from my Google

9:14

Drive. Now, I'm going to open the Claude app on my computer. I'm going to click the code tab. I'm going to upload the file and then I'm going to tell Claude to build this app for me based on the attached PRD. Create a local host link so I can preview the app and then hit enter. After a few minutes, Claude gives me a local host link so I can see what it looks like on my browser. So, I'll

9:33

click it. And now I can see that it built a pretty solid marketplace with the core features that I asked for. But if I click around, I see a big problem.

9:44

Most AI built apps look AI built. You know, they have that generic lowquality vibecoded feel and like the layout exists, the buttons are working and the pages are here, but it does not feel premium. Okay. And if we're building software for a creator with a real audience and we're charging $6,000 per month, it cannot feel like a toy. Okay.

10:04

So, to make the app feel premium, I need to do two things. I need a brand kit and a component library. Okay. These will give the app an elevated feel and I can reuse these on every project in the future. Getting a brand kit. Super simple. I'm just going to go to Canva.

10:19

I'm going to hit templates and I'm going to search brand guidelines. Now, I'm just going to look for one that I like. This one looks cool. Then I'll just go ahead and hit customize. And then I'll save the brand guideline as a PDF on my computer. So this is going to help me with the aesthetic like the color palette and the typography. But now I want to make sure that all the

10:36

components in my app feel premium. So I'm going to use a component library. Component libraries are collections of pre-esigned interface elements like buttons, drop- down menus, cards, navigation bars, forms, dashboards, and modals that developers can reuse across software projects. So, this can really become your style as a development agency. There are a ton of free

10:57

component libraries to choose from on Figma. So, I'm just going to find one that fits the look that I want. And then I'm going to open it up in Figma. And I'll just copy this Figma link. Okay.

11:05

Now, I'm going to go back to Claude and I'm going to say redesign the app using this brand kit and this component library. And then I'm going to upload the PDF from my brand kit. And I will paste that Figma link here. And I'll hit enter. And after a few iterations, the app already feels a lot less like a prototype. and more like a real product.

11:24

You can tell there's like a cohesive brand here that really feels familiar to videographers and cinematographers. Okay, this like black look, these sharp edges. If I even click on the checkout modal, you can see how much more clean that looks, how the description looks better laid out, where the profiles are being displayed. I just think this is a much better feeling marketplace. And

11:43

when you're building software, at the end of the day, it's all about your taste and how good your product makes people feel. Okay, so I really want you guys to understand that AI can give you the first version quickly, but the brand kit and the component library are what's going to make it feel polished enough to really show to a client. So now that we have the UI designed, it's time to

12:01

actually build the core functionality of the platform. And so yeah, this all looks good, but like I can click around, but none of this stuff really actually works. So we need to make it actually work. So since I'm building a marketplace, there are really two core things that I need. First, we need to set up payments so customers can transact on the marketplace. And then

12:18

second, I want a chat system so buyers can actually talk to sellers about their orders. Okay, so and this is where most people get confused about AI coding.

12:25

Like AI can make it easier to build the first version of an app, but it does not magically solve the hardest parts of building real software. Try vibe coding a real chat system from scratch and see how fast it gets complicated. Like at first it's going to feel simple. You send a message, the other person receives it, done. But then real users show up and you need real- time

12:44

delivery, notifications, file uploads, emojis, permissions, moderation, performance. It gets so confusing and then the app needs to stay fast when like hundreds of thousands of people are using it at the same time. Okay, so these are not just features, these are infrastructure problems and that is where AI coding tools still have limits.

13:03

So cloud code and cursor can help you build the app way faster. But if you ask them to build your own payments or your own messaging system from scratch, you're going to run into problems. So the smarter move is not to ask AI to build every piece of infrastructure from zero. The smarter move is to just tell AI to plug in pre-built components. So for this marketplace, I'm going to embed

13:22

WOP's pre-built components for the hard infrastructure, specifically payments and chat. So first, let's set up payments. Since this is a marketplace, sellers are going to need to be able to list products, collect payments, and then actually withdraw that money into their bank account. Okay? Aka payins and payouts. To set this up, I'm just going to paste this prompt into Claude.

13:43

Basically saying, I want to use WOP's API to set up payins and payouts for my marketplace. Please use their SDK to embed checkout for every listing on my site so sellers can list their products, collect payment, and withdraw to their bank. And as I said before, all my prompts are in the description for free.

13:57

So once I put that into Claude, it's going to give me the steps I need to follow to get this set up. That's the nice thing about AI. It will just tell you step by step what you need to do.

14:05

But really, I just need to go create a business on I'm going to name it VFX Marketplace. I'm going to hit the developer section, and I'm going to create an API key, set all permissions, and give it a name. I got that API key.

14:20

I'm just going to put this in cloud. And then it says I also need to get my business ID. So, I'm just going to go ahead and grab this from the URL on my dashboard. So, it's just biz long code. I will put that in cloud and I will hit enter. Okay. And then lastly, this thing I just need to create a web hook secret key. So, I'll go create a web hook. I'm going to add the payments,

14:43

memberships, and payouts permissions. And I'll hit create. And I'll copy that inside of Cloud as well. Okay, cool. So, I just hit enter. It's running. And if we look at the site, you'll see that it looks like I can buy my products now.

14:55

But if I actually hit purchase, it's just going to say, "Congrats. It never actually collected money." So, we're setting this up right now. So, Waps embedded checkout will actually work in a platform. All of the checkouts are now embedded. If I go to a listing, I'm going to refresh. We should see Waps embedded checkout modal. So, all the sellers can accept payment with credit

15:14

card, crypto, cash app, and more just natively on the marketplace. Okay. So just like that, we have real payment infrastructure set up and people can actually get paid for the products. So it's awesome. It's really easy to do.

15:25

And obviously this is not just for a VFX marketplace. You could use this to create a marketplace like eBay or Airbnb, maybe a job listing platform like Fiverr, an affiliate network, a coaching marketplace. Really, whatever you want to do. Just really anything that involves people coming onto a platform and earning money, you can use this. So next, I want to create a DM

15:44

system so buyers can contact sellers and really just message them about their product. And this can also just be used for customer support if people aren't happy. So to embed the chat, again, I'm just going to use another prompt that I have, and that is just going to basically say, I want to add a DM feature where buyers can message sellers about their listing. I'm going to put

16:00

that into Claude. And this one should be pretty quick. There we go. Yeah, that was just a few minutes. And we have a message seller button on the checkout page. So now we have a real chat experience so sellers and buyers can message each other. But we actually need one more thing for this to actually work and that is an account creation and signin flow. People need to make their

16:18

profiles so we know who can message who. So this is also called onboarding and that's where I'm going to start. And onboarding really matters because it's the user's first real experience with the product. If the flow is confusing, your conversion rate dies before people ever experience the core product. So like doesn't matter how good your product is. If your onboarding sucks,

16:34

they never get there. Okay? So, instead of guessing what the best onboarding flow in the world is, I'm just going to take inspiration from the best apps in the world. And to do this, I'm going to use a website called mobin.com. Mobin basically shows you the biggest software companies in the world onboarding flows page by page with screenshots of everything. So, really all we have to do

16:51

is find a company similar to ours and we're going to tell Cloud to create a similar flow. Now, I'm going to use my own design, and I do not want to steal their IP, but there really is no harm in using the same general steps for account creation that the biggest software companies in the world use cuz they've invested millions of dollars in optimization. So, I'm going to search

17:08

shop cuz it's a cool marketplace. I'm going to hit flows and I'm going to find the onboarding flow. Then, I'll just take a few screenshots of each step. I'm going to put this into Claude and I'm going to say create an onboarding flow for our marketplace inspired by the structure. All right. So now that step-by-step flow is created, now we actually need to add the functionality

17:28

of creating accounts. And to do that, we need to set up something called user authentication or OOTH. To set up authentication, I'm just going to tell Claude, "Hey, help me set up authentication using OOTH." Then again, I just follow the steps Claude gives me. I'm going to go to the developer section again. I'm going to hit create app this time. And then I'm going to hit this tab up here called O.

17:48

A O U T H. And then we need to create the redirect URL. I'm just going to paste in the local host link for now. It eventually it's going to have to be my real domain, but we'll do that later.

17:59

Now, I'm just going to copy and paste the keys back into Claude and it should be able to get everything set up. And just like that, we now have our account creation and signinflow functioning. So, now users and sellers can come onto the platform, make an account, and actually start using the marketplace. That is most of the functionality. People can create accounts, they can list products

18:17

and actually collect payments, and they can actually start talking to each other through the embedded chat. Now, the last two things we need to set up are actually our database and our hosting.

18:25

So, your database is where you store all your user information and data for this app. That means sellers, product listings, purchases, categories, and whatever else the marketplace needs.

18:34

Your database is very important. And for this, I'm going to use Superbase really just cuz it's very simple to set up. So, I'm just going to tell Claude create my database using Superbase. Set up the schema for users, seller profiles, product listings, purchases, categories, and save products. this way that when someone actually uploads a listing on the platform, it gets saved. So, as

18:53

usual, after I put that prompt in, I'm just going to follow the steps Claude gives me. And if you're ever feeling stuck, you guys do remember that the Claude Chrome extension can just take control of your computer and do the steps for you. So, it's not going to tell you that, but if you just say, "Hey, just use the Chrome extension and do it for me," it will. So, I'm going to

19:12

go ahead and create a Superbase project. I will add my environment variables, run the database migration, and now my database is set up. So the final step is really hosting the site. Okay, up until now, I've been using localhost to build the app. And if you try to share that link with anyone else, they'll not be able to open it because it's running locally on your computer. Hence why it's

19:36

called localhost. So to host a site and get it on a custom domain, I like to use Versell because it's really easy. So, I'm just going to tell Claude, "Help me host the site on Verscell and connect it to a custom domain." So, I already have a Verscell account and I'm already connected to the CLI. It's very simple.

19:52

You just copy a code right when you make your account and put it into Claude. Now, Claude has already made me my project and then I'm just going to go to domains and then I'm actually going to look for the domain I want. Okay, let's purchase. Okay, so I purchased the domain. Now, I just need to connect the domain and verify it. Just like that, my client's VFX marketplace is live. So,

20:11

hosting is very important. It's how you get your app off of Cloud Code and onto the live internet. And it's where all of the images that your sellers upload to promote their product will live. So hosting is very important. That is literally the first MVP that used to take my software agency 6 weeks to get into one of our clients hands. And every one of those projects required a team of

20:34

three to four people. We had a project manager hop on the call to actually scope out the work and build the PRD. Then he would send that to our UI designer who would have to manually design every single page in Figma. Then that Figma file got sent to our developers who would code the site and manually set up the database, authorization, payments, chat, and hosting. This is the part that's hard to

20:56

overstate. AI did not just make coding faster. It compressed the entire workflow. My development agency's profit margins were roughly 55% and the main expense was headcount and this changes that drastically. And again, like I said, now that I've created the accounts for my tech stack in this first project, Clog can actually help me create new projects with the exact same design

21:22

Style, the same stack, and the same core infrastructure every time in the future. And to do that, all I have to do is embed my stack into every PRD inside of Zapier. Yeah, in theory I could get on a call with a client, record the conversation, turn that call into a PRD, send that PRD to Claude, and have Claude build the entire first version of the app with my design style and my stack

21:45

Already baked in. That is what automated AI services actually look like. That means one person can now deliver what used to require a full agency team. And if you pair that with creators who already have distribution, you're not just building random software anymore.

22:00

You're building something with built-in demand. So, I don't know about you, but to me, this is a really cool opportunity. AI helps you build faster, creators can get you distribution, and then just has all the infrastructure for you to use. Now, I didn't talk about getting customers in this video because I actually made a full course on how to automate your outreach with AI. That

22:18

Will be the first link in the description below. It's completely free to watch and it actually is a full course on how to start your own AI powered service business start to finish. It's one of the best pieces of content I think I've ever made. And again, it's 100% free with the most up-to-date way to run an AI first agency. So again, that's in the description. Other than that, I hope you

22:37

Got value from today's video. Have a wonderful day and I'll see you in the next

Transcript

Hiển thị

The Agency Model and Opportunity

The speaker introduces Cloud Code as a powerful tool that allowed him to automate his $1 million per year software agency. He explains that client projects used to take a team of three people six weeks, but now one person with AI can do it in under an hour. He describes his agency's two deal structures: monthly subscription (around $6,000 per month) or equity. He highlights the success of Atlas AI, which now makes over $500,000 per month, and attributes its success to the founder's distribution, customer understanding, and network. He emphasizes that partnering with creators to build software is an overlooked opportunity.

1 / 6