@laowangbabababa: You’ve definitely heard of this Dutch guy. No employees, no funding, a one-person company earning $3 million a year (21 million RMB). His product PhotoAI makes $140k a month. InteriorAI makes $35k a month. RemoteOK makes $44k a month. Combined…

This Dutch guy, you’ve definitely heard of him. No employees, no funding, a one-person company earning $3 million a year (21 million RMB). The product he built, PhotoAI, makes $140k a month. InteriorAI makes $35k a month. RemoteOK makes $44k a month. That’s 8 projects altogether, all run by him alone. What’s even crazier: he made a total of 70 projects, failed 66 of them, and only 4 made serious money. But that’s not the point. I just finished watching his nearly 4-hour long interview and I’m deeply moved. In that interview, he laid out his AI money-making methodology. Let me break down a few key points for you. The first formula is called the two-week validation method. Have an idea? It must go live within two weeks, and it must have a payment button. If someone pays, that idea is real demand — keep going. If no one pays, drop it immediately and move on to the next. When he built PhotoAI, it was as crude as it gets. The first version was just a single webpage that explained what the product does and had a payment button. After a user paid, he got a notification, manually downloaded the photo, processed it with AI himself, and emailed the result back one by one. With such a crude approach, he made $100k in the first 10 days. Only later did he gradually turn those manual steps into code. Why must it be a payment button, not a survey? Because 90% of the people who say they’ll buy in a survey won’t actually buy. Those who pay with real money are true users. The second formula is extreme automation. He said it himself: “I don’t have employees. I have scripts.” Anything done twice, on the third time it must be automated with code. His server now runs over 180 automated scripts. Data updates, content moderation, customer service replies, monitoring alerts — all done by scripts. When he sleeps, the scripts run. When he exercises, the scripts run. His entire business system costs less than $200 a month to run. Why not hire people? Hiring means management, salary, culture. Writing a script costs nothing to run ten thousand times. So he alone can command an army. So if you have an idea you’ve been sitting on, start with the ugliest version, put a payment button on it, and see if anyone will pay for it. For the parts you don’t know how to do, ask AI — keep asking until you figure it out. For creating a training course, don’t start by recording three hours of content. Start by making a course outline, put a payment link, and post it in your moments. Once a boss sends a private message and a deposit comes in, then officially record the course. Same for AI implementation consulting — don’t make a full plan first. Make a product image and see if any business owners come asking. If no one pays in the first step, none of the subsequent steps are worth doing. This isn’t just Pieter’s luck. Five years ago, one person trying to earn $3 million a year was a pipe dream. Three years ago, you’d still need luck. In 2026, the path of one person with AI is going from a wild idea to the mainstream. PS: This guy is here, Twitter @levelsio