Prompt Playbook: How to actually make money with AI PART 2

A couple of weeks after turning down Tai Lopez, another offer landed in my inbox.

This time from a multibillion-dollar Chinese product sourcing company.

I won’t blow them up here but you can probably guess who. Your first guess is the right guess. 😅 

They wanted me to mention their "AI sourcing tool" on my TikTok.

Cool, I said, I’ll have a look. I poked around and it was sorta cool. But I don’t personally source physical product from China. It’s just not my business.

I told them so.

Just follow the script, they said. Don't worry that.

£5,000 for a 60-second video.

Five grand. More than I used to make in a month at my old job. Lordy.

Again, I walked away. Even when it hurt. Especially when it hurt.

Because your business - AI or not - needs to be value based first. Always.

Let’s get started

When Easy Money Isn't Worth It

That £5,000 would've been the easiest money I'd ever made. Literally reading a script for 60 seconds.

But your reputation is your business. Once you start promoting stuff you don't understand or use, you're not building a business anymore. You're just renting out your credibility until it's worthless.

The AI space is full of this. People with audiences getting paid to promote tools they've never touched, courses they've never taken, systems they've never implemented.

Short-term cash, long-term disaster.

My value to my audience is clear: I help entrepreneurs and businesses understand AI practically. I test tools myself. I implement systems in real businesses. I communicate what actually works versus what's just hype.

When I haven’t tried something myself I say “haven’t used it”.

When I don’t know how something works I say “I don’t know”.

That's my business - translating AI capabilities into business language that people can actually use…Promoting some random dropshipping tool destroys that value instantly.

The same applies to whatever business you are building (with or without the assistance of AI). Value comes first.

The Fundamentals That Never Change

Josh Kaufman nailed it in The Personal MBA. Every business - whether it's selling widgets or AI consulting - is built on five fundamental parts:

1. Value Creation - You solve a real problem for real people

2. Marketing - You get attention from people who have that problem

3. Sales - You convert interested people into paying customers

4. Value Delivery - You actually solve their problem as promised

5. Finance - You make enough money from doing so to keep going

That's sorta it. That's business. Has been for centuries.

I’ve got an MBA from a top ten US business school and Josh Kaufman’s breakdown captures it better than my 2 years and $100,000 ever did!

And here’s the thing: AI doesn't change this formula. It just gives us new tools to execute it better.

How AI Enhances (Not Replaces) Business

The excitement around AI has led people to think it changes everything about business. It doesn't.

What AI changes is HOW we do business, not WHAT business is.

Value Creation gets faster. AI helps you build solutions quicker, test ideas faster, and iterate based on feedback more efficiently. You can use Cursor to spin up an MVP in hours not months and Lovable to make a webpage in minutes not weeks.

Marketing becomes more targeted. AI can help personalise content, analyse what resonates, and reach the right people more effectively. Same marketing but each individual can suddenly do a lot more - great news if you are a one person band.

Sales gets more sophisticated. AI can handle initial qualifying, provide instant responses, and help you understand customer needs better.

Value Delivery scales easier. AI can automate routine tasks, provide 24/7 support, and maintain quality at higher volumes. All the boring day to day stuff that just has to get done to keep the doors open? AI can take a bunch of that off your plate.

Finance becomes clearer. AI makes everything cheaper. Much cheaper. Which allows you to operate at high margins, which keeps the business sustainable.

But notice what hasn't changed: you still need to create genuine value. You still need to solve real problems. You still need paying customers. All of that hard work boring stuff stays! The core business stuff remains the same.

The businesses winning with AI aren't the ones chasing automated passive income. They're the ones using AI to do these five fundamentals better than their competition. They are augmenting their currently successful business models and ratcheting them up a level.

The AI Opportunity Evaluation Framework

So if you are sitting analysing a potential business to start you first need to ask “would this work without AI?”.

If yes then it’ll work with AI. Just…even better.

If no then you may be able to patch over the cracks with AI. But it’s smoke and mirrors. Far better to work out something genuinely valuable (in the eyes of your customers, not you!) first. Also much cheaper!

Before jumping into any AI venture, run it through these questions

Does this create genuine value? Not "does this use cool technology," but "does this solve a problem people actually have and will pay to fix?"

Can I explain the problem clearly? If you can't articulate exactly what problem you're solving, you don't have a business - you have a solution looking for a problem. And you actually need to make sure these are problems that customers have articulated. Not fantasies!

Do I understand this space? Your industry knowledge is your unfair advantage. AI tools are commoditised. Your understanding of specific business problems isn't. This will be a running theme in this Playbook and all my writing.

Is AI actually necessary here? Sometimes the best solution is the simplest one. Don't use AI just because you can. Lots of current batch AI tools would work perfectly fine (better even!) with standard automations. No AI needed.

Can I deliver this reliably? Building a business requires consistency. If your AI solution works 80% of the time, that's not good enough for paying customers. AI’s stochastic nature (fancy word for random, non deterministic) means that this is not always the case. How important is this for your particular use case.

Will this still be valuable in two years? Don't build on shifting sand. Focus on solving problems that will persist, not chasing temporary AI trends. We can’t predict where AI will be - apart from saying “it’ll be better than it is now!” - so the better route is to build something valuable without AI, with today’s AI and with tomorrow’s AI. Something that as AI gets better so does your solution. That begins in the fundamentals discussed above.

Value First, Technology Second

The dropshipping company probably thought they were being smart. Get someone with an audience to promote their tool. Doesn't matter if they understand it - just get the word out.

That's technology-first thinking. Start with the cool AI tool, then find someone to market it.

Value-first thinking is different. Start with the problem. Understand who has it and how much it costs them. Then figure out the best way to solve it - which might involve AI, or might not.

Don’t sell AI, sell solutions.

The three legitimate AI business opportunities I'm covering next in this Playbook all follow this pattern:

Building Authority - Solves the problem of individuals/ businesses not understanding how AI applies to their industry. You become the “go-to” person in their industry by building a audience.

Building Solutions - Solves specific operational problems using AI as one tool among many. You identify problems in your industry that AI can help with and build solutions.

Teaching Implementation - Solves the problem of teams not knowing how to use AI effectively. You go into organisations and run workshops, consultations etc. to help them overcome these barriers.

Each starts with a real business problem. AI is just one tool in the solution.

The money hers is in helping others navigate AI using knowledge you already have. Your biggest advantage isn't learning new AI techniques - it's applying AI to problems you already understand.

Are these the only ways to make money with AI? Absolutely not. It’s a general purpose technology - we haven’t scratched the surface of possibilities yet.

But! These are three ways I know work. And have helped other people (hundreds now) get to work for themselves.

Test Your AI Idea

Before you get carried away with your next AI venture, use this prompt to stress-test it

You are a business consultant specialising in evaluating new ventures using proven business fundamentals. Interview me about my AI business idea and help me determine if it's built on solid foundations.

Ask me questions one at a time about:
1. The specific problem I'm solving (who has it, how much it costs them)
2. How I currently know this problem exists (my experience/background)
3. How people solve this problem today (non-AI solutions)
4. Why those current solutions aren't good enough
5. How my AI approach would be better
6. Whether I can deliver this reliably and consistently

After gathering this information, provide:
- An honest assessment of whether the underlying problem is valuable enough to build a business around
- Whether the non-AI version of this solution would be valuable (if yes, the AI version likely is too)
- Red flags or gaps in my thinking
- A clear recommendation: green light, yellow light (needs work), or red light (pivot away)

Focus on business fundamentals, not technical feasibility. Be brutally honest about whether this solves a real problem people will pay for.

Run your business idea through this. If the non-AI version of your solution sounds valuable, you're onto something. If it doesn't, adding AI won't save it.

After reading this Part you can complete this analysis yourself. You know what to look out for. But this prompt can assist in highlighting potential blind spots. Always helpful!

Next we'll dive into the first legitimate AI opportunity: building authority in your field. This isn't about becoming an AI influencer (gross!) - it's about becoming the go-to expert on how AI applies to your specific industry.

Keep Prompting,

Kyle