I was poking around a newsletter called every.to the other day… And I noticed something I'm seeing more and more. They charge $30 a month for their paid tier. But here's the thing about their paid plan… It's not JUST articles. They bundle in 4 AI tools. Writing tool. Email tool. File organizer. Voice dictation thing. Now… Are these tools some kind of revolutionary breakthrough? Not really. I've seen plenty of similar tools out there on the interwebs. But... They're just genuinely USEFUL to the people who read that newsletter. (Crazy concept, right?) If even 5% of their 100K+ subscribers are on their paid plan like me... That's $150K/month in revenue for them! And I got curious… How many newsletter creators out there would LOVE to have a reason for people to upgrade to paid? So I went looking. Substack alone has over 75,000 newsletters. Only about 27,000 of them even HAVE a paid option. Which means roughly 50,000 newsletter creators are building audiences... And making exactly ZERO from their subscribers! Sure, the smart ones MIGHT slip an ad or two in on occasion. But... 👉 Do you think ONE of those 50k newsletters might be interested if you showed up with tools that served their audience and offered to work out a deal? I'm gonna take a wild guess and say YES. AND… You don't need to land some huge partnership here. What if each deal only paid you $500 a month? Or $1,000? Then you turned around and rented that same tool out to another newsletter owner. Stack three of those up and suddenly you've got consistent royalty checks coming in from tools you built ONCE. The newsletter creator gets something valuable to offer their audience. You get paid every month whether you're working or not. I've seen this work myself. And newsletters are just ONE place you could run this play. Now… Here's where most people screw this up. They learn how to BUILD the tools… Then sit there with their thumb up their hindparts wondering why nobody's paying them.

So let's say you've got a tool idea — or you've already built something rough. Maybe it took a weekend, maybe you're still figuring out the technical stuff. Either way, you've got SOMETHING. Now what? This is the part I got wrong for a LOOOOOONG time. I used to pitch people on ideas. "Hey, I think we could build something cool together. What if we made a tool that does X for your audience?" And I'd get the polite nod — the "sounds interesting, let me think about it" — and then nothing would happen. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out what was going on. When you pitch an idea, you're asking someone to imagine something that doesn't exist, believe it'll work, and trust that you'll actually build it. That's a lot of mental effort to ask from someone who doesn't know you. But when you show up with something already built — even a rough prototype — it's a completely different conversation. It's like the difference between asking someone if they wanna start a band together versus inviting them to jam with your band that's already got a gig next Friday. One is you asking them to take a leap of faith, and the other is just an invitation to join something that's already moving. Here's why this matters for royalty deals… When you build the tool first, you're not asking for permission or trying to convince them — you're offering something that already exists. "This does the thing. It works. You want to put your name on it and split the revenue, or should I take it to someone else?" And if they pass? You tweak it for the next creator's audience and offer it again, or you clone it and approach someone in a different niche. The tool stays yours either way. Now — I get that building something without knowing if anyone will want it feels risky. But... With today's AI and $20/month, you can spin up a working prototype in a few hours. I just got a check for $300 this weekend for something I built 6 months ago. And it continues to pay me every month.

I've been thinking about what it means now that ANYONE can whip up a working AI tool in a weekend. Even people like me... People who wouldn't know computer code if it bit them in the face. The world is our oyster! It took me about 3 hours to rebuild every.to's writing tool. (see pic of my working version 👇). Maybe 45 minutes of that was actual AI work... And the rest was me fiddling with fonts and colors like a weirdo. The end result wasn't anything super fancy. BUT... With tools just like this, we could monetize it eleventy-seven ways to Sunday. A year ago, building something like this would've required either a developer on payroll... ... or months of learning to code yourself. Now we can get it done in a lazy Sunday afternoon with some YouTube tutorials and a cup of coffee. The barrier to creating useful AI tools has basically collapsed. Which means the sticking point isn't really about building anymore. It's about what you DO with the thing once it exists. I've been noodling on this a lot… There are newsletter creators, course creators, coaches, consultants — all these people sitting on frameworks and methodologies that could become tools. Most of them have no idea how to build anything, and most of them don't have the time or interest to learn. But we can build something in a weekend that solves a real problem for their audience. Whether it's THEIR frameworks... Or our OWN (which we can put in as many different distribution streams as we can dream up). So the question I keep coming back to is this… If you could clone any tool — or build one from scratch — in a weekend, what would you make? And more importantly, who would you take it to? I'm not looking for polished business plans here. I'm just curious what's rattling around in your head, even if it's half-baked. Drop it below. In Your Corner, Jason PS - I'll share the clone I built if there's interest. It's nothing fancy, but it gets the job done.

Earlier this year, I made a few little AI tools... And in less than 90 days, they pulled in about $45k (see pic 👇). But since then... I've been a lil' bit of a doofus. Because while I'm still renting SOME of these tools out every month... Paying off a few little bills each month WITHOUT me lifting a finger... I've got a DOZEN or more AI tools I could be selling or renting out. Not saying these would do another $45K for me and my partners. BUT... I'd bet these could EASILY bring in another $5k+ every month. So it got me thinking... - Because AI's making it EASIER THAN EVER to make 'em... - In as little as a few hours... - And there's ZERO fulfillment because AI does the heavy lifting... 👉 Any interest in bringing in EZ A.I. INCOME for yourself... by turning your own expertise (or someone else's) into tools you can rent/sell? Or should I keep this to myself? In Your Corner, Jason P.S. You don't have to be a tech whiz these days. I'm no Zuckerberg, but with the help of tools like Replit or Gemini these days... It's EZ as pie to whip these together in an afternoon.

Hope ya got to enjoy some tasty side dishes last week... ... Before we get back to raking in more sweet income on the side. What was your favorite side dish over Thanksgiving weekend? My 9 and 6 year old made some tasty pumpkin bread (with mom's help) and my father-in-law's stuffing was chef's kiss.