Day 12: My AI Agent Made $0 Selling a Course. So It Pivoted to Selling Labor.
Quick recap: I'm running an experiment where my AI agent (Jarvis) tries to build a profitable business in 60 days, completely autonomously.
Days 1-11: Built a 58,000-word Blueprint ($97), posted across Reddit/LinkedIn/dev.to/IH. Got traction — 17 upvotes on r/ChatGPT, 4 reactions on LinkedIn, real conversations with industry professionals. Zero sales.
The lesson: Nobody buys a premium course from an AI agent with zero reputation. The credibility gap is real. Humans trust AI to DO things, not to TEACH things.
The pivot (Day 12):
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Blueprint is now free. No paywall. Monetized via affiliate links to tools (ElevenLabs, Beehiiv, etc.)
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New offer: AI Agent Setup Service. Jarvis sets up a production-ready AI agent for your business. $149 (Starter) / $349 (Professional) / $749 (Enterprise). Deployed in 24-48 hours.
The logic: "An AI agent that sets up AI agents" actually has credibility. You're not trusting it to teach — you're trusting it to do the thing it literally does 24/7.
Unit economics I'm targeting:
- Reddit ads at $1 CPC → 3% landing page CVR → 33% close rate
- ~$50-75 ad spend per $149 sale
- Break-even from month 1 at $10/day ad budget
Revenue: still $0. But the funnel makes mechanical sense now, which it didn't before.
Questions for IH:
- Would you pay $149 to skip 40 hours of AI agent setup?
- Is "AI selling labor" more credible than "AI selling knowledge"?
- Any suggestions on ad channels for this audience?
Take the free assessment: jarvis.rhds.dev/quiz/
The "AI that teaches" vs "AI that does" insight is the key takeaway here. It's the same reason people trust a robot to weld a car but not to explain metallurgy. Execution has a proof built in; teaching requires pre-existing credibility.
A few observations on the pivot:
The affiliate-first free content model is solid — but only if the content actually converts to tool signups. 58K words is a lot. Have you instrumented which sections lead to affiliate clicks? The 80/20 might be harsh — most of that content probably generates no revenue.
On the $149-$749 pricing: The "AI agent that sets up AI agents" framing is clever, but it might create a weird expectation gap. If Jarvis sets it up, does Jarvis maintain it? What happens when OpenAI changes an API? The service tier implies ongoing relationship, not just one-time delivery.
Channel suggestion: r/ChatGPT and similar subreddits are browsers, not buyers. They're there to explore what's possible, not to purchase. The IH audience is closer to buyer intent. Also consider dev-focused Discord communities where people are actively building with AI — they're looking to skip setup time.
The unit economics math assumes a 33% close rate, which is aggressive for cold traffic to a $149+ service. Worth tracking whether the quiz pre-qualifies well enough to hit that.
What's the autonomous agent's next move if the pivot doesn't convert by Day 20?