I Built a $10K/Month AI Agent
Starter Story
Mar 9, 2026
This is the story of how Ivan built an AI agent and the specific steps he took to grow it to $10K MRR.
Get the free guide to make money with AI Agents: https://clickhubspot.com/mgh
Follow Ivan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-nedlekovski/
Check out Lancer: https://www.lancer.app/
🔔 Follow the Second Channel: @StarterStoryBuild
🏁 We're hiring: starterstory.com/jobs
This video is an educational case study of this founder’s experience. It is not financial advice and does not guarantee any income or results. Every business is different and your results may vary.
Chapters:
0:00 - Zero to $10K MRR
1:18 - Founder and App overview
2:32 - Ideas and opportunities
5:31 - Build your own AI agent
6:41 - Growth strategy and tactics
9:30 - His distribution playbook
12:20 - Tech stack and costs
13:36 - Final advice
15:24 - Pat's reflections on the episode
Chapters
Stack
Transcript
Chapters
Stack
No tools listed for this business.
My
name
is
Ivan
and
I
build
Lancer
We
managed
to
get
to
10
000
a
month
the
third
or
fourth
month
after
launching
This
is
Ivan
a
builder
from
Macedonia
who
ran
into
a
problem
we've
all
experienced
boring
repetitive
tasks
This
seemed
like
a
perfect
case
where
an
agent
would
outperform
a
human
human
by
like
10
times
or
even
more
So
he
built
an
AI
agent
to
automate
the
boring
repetitive
tasks
In
just
a
few
months
he
went
from
zero
to
10
000
MRR
and
he
did
it
without
running
ads
or
building
an
audience
I
think
the
most
interesting
part
of
how
we
grew
Lancer
is
that
we
used
and
we
did
zero
paid
ads
So
I
asked
Ivan
to
come
onto
the
channel
and
break
down
his
entire
strategy
And
in
this
video
we'll
dive
into
how
to
find
ideas
in
plain
sight
in
your
daily
life
how
to
shortcut
the
entire
process
of
building
an
audience
audience
and
get
customers
on
day
one
and
the
huge
opportunity
in
building
AI
agents
that
automate
tedious
work
on
platforms
This
one
you
can
not
miss
I'm
Pat
Walls
and
this
is
Starter
Story
All
right
real
quick
If
you're
watching
this
and
want
some
ideas
ideas
on
how
to
build
your
own
AI
agent
well
I
put
a
link
in
the
description
right
there
that
breaks
it
all
down
We'll
talk
a
little
bit
more
about
that
later
but
for
now
let's
jump
into
the
episode
Ivan
welcome
to
the
channel
Tell
me
about
who
you
are
what
you
built
and
what's
your
story
Hi
Pat
My
name
is
Ivan
and
I
built
Lancer
an
AI
agent
that
automates
the
job
discovery
and
bidding
process
on
Upwork
I
think
the
most
interesting
part
of
how
we
grew
Lancer
is
that
we
used
something
I
call
connectors
and
we
did
zero
paid
ads
And
I'm
very
excited
to
share
this
strategy
with
you
and
your
audience
today
We're
gonna
get
all
into
this
connector
idea
affiliates
whatever
you
wanna
call
it
I
really
really
like
how
you
approach
that
but
before
we're
gonna
talk
about
the
idea
and
what
you've
built
Can
you
explain
what
Lancer
is
how
it
makes
money
and
potentially
show
off
some
of
your
revenue
dashboards
and
show
that
this
thing
is
legit
Yeah
Lancer
it
essentially
helps
freelancers
and
agencies
turn
Upwork
into
an
automated
acquisition
channel
that
generates
between
five
and
six
figures
for
them
each
month
and
also
saves
them
over
10
hours
a
week
of
very
boring
and
repetitive
work
Essentially
we
managed
to
get
to
10
000
a
month
third
or
fourth
month
after
launching
It's
a
classic
subscription
model
So
I
would
say
it's
a
premium
pricing
tier
for
a
SaaS
We're
offering
now
three
plans
which
is
the
pay
as
you
go
which
for
79
you
get
30
proposals
and
then
you
pay
2
for
each
extra
proposal
sent
Then
you
have
a
light
plan
which
is
300
for
250
proposals
1
50
for
each
extra
proposal
and
then
an
unlimited
plan
which
was
initially
the
launch
offer
for
500
a
month
Okay
I
mean
this
app
is
super
cool
I
love
the
idea
of
Lancer
especially
because
I
have
spent
time
and
pain
going
through
and
handling
things
on
Upwork
Before
we
get
into
that
we're
gonna
talk
all
about
your
app
how
you
grew
it
how
you
built
it
but
before
we
do
I
gotta
understand
a
little
bit
more
about
your
background
How
do
you
even
find
an
idea
like
this
I
just
made
a
solution
for
a
problem
that
I
had
So
for
the
past
five
years
I
ran
Airbnb
Masters
which
is
a
software
development
agency
We
did
over
seven
figures
and
grew
to
almost
20
full
time
employees
Our
main
client
registering
channel
is
Upwork
which
turned
out
to
be
a
very
underrated
source
of
quality
leads
There
are
around
200
000
jobs
posted
on
platform
each
month
Since
these
jobs
are
posted
across
24
hours
in
a
day
and
it
takes
around
10
minutes
to
qualify
a
job
job
and
then
write
a
personalized
proposal
this
seemed
like
a
perfect
case
where
an
agent
would
outperform
a
human
in
this
task
by
like
10
times
or
even
more
So
we
initially
built
this
as
an
internal
tool
and
it
crushed
for
us
Then
we
did
a
beta
test
where
I
invited
several
friends
which
are
also
agency
owners
as
well
And
when
they
both
closed
like
between
them
three
five
figure
clients
within
two
weeks
of
using
the
tool
I
really
thought
we
really
had
something
here
and
decided
to
launch
it
as
a
standalone
product
called
Lancer
and
that's
that
There
seems
to
be
a
huge
opportunity
right
now
in
this
sort
of
almost
platform
automation
thing
I've
talked
to
a
few
founders
recently
We
have
a
few
videos
coming
out
where
we
help
you
automate
something
on
Poshmark
on
Pinterest
on
Upwork
AI
is
certainly
helping
with
that
What
do
you
think
the
opportunity
is
here
and
how
could
other
people
watching
this
find
ideas
in
their
daily
life
like
you
Yeah
I
think
there's
a
huge
opportunity
here
AI
agents
and
automating
like
parts
of
the
workflows
that
live
on
top
of
existing
software
platforms
is
very
powerful
I
would
say
maybe
it's
software
niche
if
I
can
say
it
And
I
would
say
this
allows
you
to
get
to
the
customer
much
easier
as
well
because
the
users
basically
live
on
the
platform
On
Upwork
you
can
find
your
ICP
very
perfectly
because
it's
all
public
It's
a
public
marketplace
for
talent
And
I
would
say
every
platform
which
has
a
huge
user
base
is
something
that
you
can
automate
and
build
something
on
top
of
Okay
I
agree
I
mean
there's
this
sort
of
buzzword
that's
going
around
a
lot
which
is
AI
agents
But
this
is
a
great
example
of
an
AI
agent
but
actually
one
that
makes
money
And
as
you
said
there
are
so
many
platforms
and
so
many
use
cases
to
build
cool
stuff
here
So
for
anyone
that
watches
the
Starter
Story
channel
you're
probably
noticing
that
there
are
a
lot
lot
of
similar
ideas
like
this
coming
over
and
over
So
take
note
of
that
Let's
move
over
to
the
build
How
you
actually
built
this
AI
agent
or
this
SaaS
tool
How'd
you
build
it
So
the
initial
tool
that
we
used
internally
in
the
agency
I
built
it
and
I
put
it
together
like
over
a
weekend
myself
And
it
was
far
from
a
commercial
ready
product
Then
we
built
an
MVP
over
the
next
three
months
using
the
tech
stack
that
we
already
used
in
the
agency
which
is
basically
TypeScript
on
both
the
front
and
the
backend
using
Next
js
and
Node
js
and
then
GCP
and
Firestore
for
the
hosting
And
then
we
use
LLMs
in
two
ways
on
Lancer
This
is
for
job
qualification
and
then
proposal
writing
I
think
what
he's
showing
us
right
now
is
awesome
There
is
a
huge
opportunity
in
AI
agents
right
now
But
my
guess
is
that
you
might
be
wondering
where
do
I
even
start
That's
why
I
want
to
tell
you
about
this
free
guide
from
Mindstream
It
breaks
down
five
proven
paths
to
make
money
with
AI
agents
From
landing
your
first
client
to
building
a
full
consulting
business
this
guide
will
teach
you
how
to
spot
high
value
ideas
hiding
in
plain
sight
They
even
give
you
a
30
day
roadmap
on
how
to
go
from
zero
to
your
first
high
paying
client
Yvonne
who
we're
talking
to
today
figured
all
this
out
on
his
own
but
you
don't
have
to
If
you're
interested
just
head
to
the
first
link
in
the
description
to
grab
the
guide
for
free
I
can't
wait
to
see
what
you
build
All
right
let's
get
back
to
the
episode
I
mean
this
is
the
power
of
LLMs
and
AI
Five
years
ago
you
wouldn't
have
been
able
to
code
up
in
a
solution
that
helped
you
qualify
jobs
and
then
even
write
proposals
to
jobs
because
there's
so
many
nuances
and
someone
wants
you
to
write
a
secret
word
Your
AI
can
probably
do
that
and
write
a
really
nice
proposal
That
is
the
power
of
building
with
AI
and
a
huge
opportunity
right
now
We're
not
gonna
go
as
far
into
that
because
what
I
really
wanted
to
talk
to
you
about
and
one
of
the
reasons
why
I
wanted
to
bring
you
on
the
channel
is
again
because
we
always
talk
about
distribution
We
could
talk
about
building
stuff
all
day
but
how
do
you
get
in
front
of
users
users
and
you
have
a
very
unique
approach
with
this
app
which
isn't
post
on
TikTok
or
something
like
that
You
approached
growth
differently
Tell
me
how
you
approached
growth
in
the
beginning
beginning
and
then
what
really
worked
for
taking
Lancer
all
the
way
to
10K
per
month
To
me
and
this
is
the
most
intuitive
ways
for
me
to
sell
at
least
is
to
identify
first
obviously
what
the
ICP
is
and
instead
of
going
out
to
them
directly
using
paid
ads
or
cold
email
at
scale
I
identified
the
layer
above
them
basically
a
profile
of
user
who
has
access
to
them
So
basically
I
call
them
connectors
and
essentially
convince
them
to
be
affiliates
In
that
way
convincing
a
connector
to
sell
a
product
so
in
this
case
Lancer
becomes
a
high
ticket
sales
call
compared
to
jumping
on
hundreds
of
calls
to
convince
people
to
try
out
our
200
a
month
SaaS
product
The
right
connector
is
someone
that
first
of
all
all
has
a
network
with
a
ton
of
basically
people
that
you've
identified
as
your
ICP
Then
they
also
have
a
great
reputation
plus
command
a
ton
of
trust
between
your
ICP
in
their
network
And
if
they're
great
at
sales
that's
on
top
of
all
of
this
that's
a
great
bonus
So
in
Lancer's
case
I
identified
Upwork
coaches
as
those
connectors
Depending
on
the
coach
that
they
have
between
five
and
10
20
paying
customers
so
new
paying
customers
each
month
which
pay
them
between
600
and
sometimes
even
more
than
1
000
000
to
help
them
get
leads
on
Upwork
They
have
great
reviews
on
their
own
Upwork
profiles
so
they
basically
have
a
great
Upwork
profile
themselves
So
they
have
a
ton
of
inbound
from
Upwork
and
it's
very
easy
for
them
to
upsell
Lancer
to
their
customers
It's
the
best
way
to
build
on
Upwork
jobs
themselves
Okay
this
is
actually
genius
You
get
to
do
what
you
do
best
which
is
developing
a
great
product
It
could
take
years
to
build
an
audience
in
this
space
Why
not
go
straight
to
the
source
and
find
the
coaches
the
experts
the
influencers
We've
had
a
lot
of
people
on
the
channel
that
have
done
very
similar
stuff
There's
something
to
learn
here
and
I
wanna
learn
a
little
bit
more
about
how
you
go
about
finding
these
in
this
case
coaches
Upwork
coaches
How'd
you
go
about
finding
them
contenting
them
convincing
them
to
become
your
affiliates
Most
of
our
growth
came
from
actually
just
two
Upwork
coaches
For
the
first
one
one
of
our
beta
users
had
actually
worked
with
one
of
them
and
he
made
the
recommendation
an
intro
and
all
I
had
to
do
was
just
demo
the
product
He
was
blown
away
basically
at
what
we've
built
built
and
he
started
referring
every
client
since
then
The
second
coach
was
a
bit
more
difficult
I
did
call
out
to
him
over
LinkedIn
and
basically
I
straight
up
just
offered
him
1
000
to
jump
on
a
call
with
me
and
essentially
pay
him
to
be
our
user
As
far
as
we
set
up
the
commissions
this
is
how
we
do
it
If
they
completely
sign
a
client
they
onboard
them
and
they
set
them
up
on
Lancer
they
get
30
commission
for
a
lifetime
and
if
they
just
refer
them
then
that's
20
Okay
so
this
connector
strategy
I
really
like
how
you
did
it
how
you
went
to
these
Upwork
coaches
but
I
think
a
lot
of
people
watching
this
might
be
building
something
in
some
other
platform
and
what
I'd
love
to
understand
for
you
is
if
you
were
to
start
over
and
build
a
new
SaaS
a
new
AI
agent
what
would
be
your
playbook
for
starting
over
if
you
had
to
start
over
right
now
I
would
I
guess
the
first
step
is
always
defining
the
ICP
ICP
basically
meaning
ideal
customer
profile
or
prospect
So
basically
who
are
the
people
that
your
product
or
service
solves
a
problem
for
and
actually
are
willing
and
ready
to
pay
to
use
it
Before
you
actually
start
billing
customers
and
you
have
paying
users
you
can't
really
tell
who
your
ICP
is
I
would
I
guess
define
an
ICP
for
a
SaaS
product
is
essentially
one
that
onboards
very
easily
So
there's
very
low
friction
hopefully
self
onboards
and
then
like
they
stay
a
very
long
time
or
they
don't
really
churn
And
in
our
case
this
has
turned
out
to
be
an
agency
user
more
than
a
freelancer
that
are
doing
like
a
high
volume
of
proposals
So
the
next
step
is
going
a
level
above
that
finding
a
type
of
user
who
actually
has
a
network
a
wide
network
of
your
ICP
And
basically
this
is
you
need
to
ask
and
answer
the
question
is
who
are
the
people
that
have
a
network
network
of
a
lot
of
your
basically
ideal
customers
And
but
they
also
demand
a
ton
of
respect
toward
them
And
basically
your
ICP
has
a
high
level
of
trust
Again
for
Lancer
this
is
upper
coaches
So
step
three
would
be
then
to
write
and
send
a
pitch
or
an
offer
to
the
connector
So
very
personalized
do
a
lot
of
research
about
them
reference
things
about
them
and
essentially
do
even
like
a
long
loom
video
or
reference
again
like
some
of
their
work
closing
one
affiliate
you
get
a
lot
of
value
You
wouldn't
really
be
doing
this
for
a
random
subscriber
for
your
SaaS
platform
but
for
an
affiliate
you
can
afford
to
do
this
Then
the
fourth
step
would
be
actually
working
out
the
details
So
once
you
get
them
in
a
conversation
you
need
to
offer
them
what
do
they
get
in
return
And
I
would
say
here
the
standard
is
I
would
say
it's
20
to
30
lifetime
commission
And
then
depending
on
the
size
of
their
network
if
they're
very
active
on
social
media
the
number
of
followers
maybe
like
existing
agreements
they
have
with
competitors
you
can
play
around
with
So
this
might
be
paying
them
up
front
This
is
usually
again
like
case
by
case
basis
depending
on
what's
the
affiliate
and
what's
their
actual
value
and
how
big
is
their
network
And
you
need
to
determine
like
how
much
value
you'll
get
out
of
it
back
And
then
the
fifth
step
is
essentially
just
tracking
the
affiliate
and
doing
monthly
payouts
So
the
good
thing
here
is
once
you
close
one
of
these
affiliates
or
connectors
you
get
like
inbound
Stripe
sales
or
booked
calls
What
we
do
is
to
then
track
the
affiliates
if
you
have
multiple
affiliates
and
then
do
all
the
payment
payouts
is
we
use
this
software
tool
called
Tolt
So
this
affiliate
marketing
software
is
pretty
great
and
that
this
makes
our
life
very
easy
when
it
comes
to
this
This
is
exactly
what
I
would
do
if
I
were
to
replicate
this
strategy
starting
today
Well
thanks
for
showing
that
I
mean
just
to
see
this
project
here
it's
super
cool
And
it
just
gets
me
thinking
of
all
the
other
niche
AI
agents
you
could
create
I
mean
if
I
was
watching
this
video
if
I'm
this
far
into
this
video
right
now
I
would
go
to
chat
GPT
and
look
up
platforms
similar
to
Upwork
that
require
a
lot
of
tedious
manual
work
where
maybe
some
sort
of
AI
agent
could
assist
you
in
saving
time
on
this
platform
There's
so
much
opportunity
here
This
is
such
a
cool
idea
Let's
talk
about
TechStack
What
tools
and
what
stack
are
you
using
for
this
app
making
10
000
a
month
month
Well
first
of
all
for
the
programming
language
TypeScript
as
I
mentioned
for
the
agency
the
same
text
that
we
use
for
the
agency
which
is
TypeScript
on
both
front
and
back
end
which
is
Next
js
and
Node
js
Even
though
at
this
point
we're
all
using
a
cursor
with
Opus
4
5
and
we
barely
touch
any
actual
programming
language
And
then
we
use
Open
Router
for
the
APIs
for
the
LLMs
For
hosting
we
use
a
combination
of
Hetzner
and
GCP
We
use
various
proxy
providers
for
connecting
safely
to
the
Upwork
accounts
We
use
Elasticsearch
for
basically
querying
the
jobs
and
all
the
data
we
store
And
then
Tolt
is
an
affiliate
marketing
software
Okay
cool
Well
thanks
for
sharing
that
Last
question
that
we
ask
everyone
who
comes
on
the
channel
Ivan
If
you
could
stand
on
young
Ivan's
shoulders
before
you
got
started
in
business
maybe
even
before
you
got
started
with
your
dev
agency
what
would
be
your
advice
to
young
Ivan
or
to
anyone
who's
watching
this
who
wants
to
build
software
and
build
stuff
online
If
I
could
give
myself
from
a
young
Ivan
from
a
few
years
ago
any
advice
it
would
be
to
actually
start
building
software
products
right
there
and
then
So
I
delayed
jumping
into
the
what
I
call
arena
to
optimize
for
income
and
financial
security
I
think
a
lot
of
people
watching
Star
Story
can
resonate
with
this
For
most
it's
a
high
paying
job
In
my
case
it
was
running
a
dev
agency
which
was
very
highly
profitable
but
with
a
very
hard
ceiling
and
a
lack
of
opportunities
to
learn
basically
interesting
and
high
leverage
skills
We
actually
debated
with
my
co
founder
founder
to
go
all
in
on
AI
products
Even
back
when
OpenAI
released
their
initial
API
we
decided
to
focus
on
growing
the
agency
And
even
though
it
made
us
a
bunch
of
money
I
now
think
it
was
probably
the
wrong
approach
since
the
problems
you
get
to
solve
when
building
and
growing
a
software
product
these
days
are
so
highly
leveraged
and
applicable
to
almost
any
online
business
mastering
them
would
be
worth
more
than
any
income
you
can
generate
in
a
year
or
two
And
I'm
talking
about
even
six
figure
salaries
So
I
guess
anyone
watching
this
and
is
still
debating
where
they
should
start
I'd
say
go
for
it
We
are
still
very
early
in
this
tech
revolution
which
is
AI
and
we
have
decades
in
front
of
us
where
there'll
be
a
ton
of
opportunities
to
make
a
dent
with
this
technology
So
true
Thank
you
for
coming
on
Ivan
I
mean
it
just
shows
you
the
power
of
this
is
really
a
side
project
for
you
how
your
dev
agency
that
you're
running
but
you
got
it
to
10
000
a
month
month
And
it
just
shows
all
the
opportunities
to
build
cool
AI
agents
or
just
apps
that
help
you
automate
things
in
your
life
There's
so
much
opportunity
right
now
So
thanks
for
coming
on
and
sharing
and
being
open
and
sharing
the
whole
playbook
Thank
you
Pat
Thank
you
for
having
me
on
Bye
bye
Thank
you
to
Ivan
for
coming
onto
the
channel
This
is
a
really
powerful
episode
because
it
shows
the
opportunity
of
building
an
AI
And
I
know
that
everyone's
talking
about
AI
and
the
AI
bubble
and
all
this
stuff
but
this
is
just
such
a
great
example
of
a
product
that
couldn't
exist
before
that
is
extremely
valuable
and
grew
really
fast
Automating
repetitive
work
on
platforms
This
example
is
Upwork
but
imagine
there
could
be
apps
for
Fiverr
for
LinkedIn
all
these
platforms
that
have
tedious
work
We
just
interviewed
someone
who
does
it
on
Photoshop
There
is
huge
opportunity
right
now
to
automate
boring
repetitive
tasks
using
LLMs
This
wasn't
possible
even
a
couple
of
years
ago
It's
possible
now
And
that's
where
the
opportunity
is
If
you
want
to
do
something
similar
check
out
Starter
Story
Build
I
put
a
link
in
the
description
Click
that
You
can
get
started
right
now
and
you'll
build
an
app
in
a
couple
of
days
days
and
launch
it
to
the
real
world
and
get
it
into
the
hands
of
real
users
All
right
I'll
put
the
link
in
the
description
It's
your
choice
if
you
want
to
get
started
Otherwise
we'll
see
you
in
the
next
one
Thank
you
for
watching
Peace
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