@DeRonin_: Greg Isenberg broke down a 35-step playbook for building AI startups from zero to $1M+/year. 4 businesses, all profitab…

Greg Isenberg broke down a 35-step playbook for building AI startups from zero to $1M+/year. 4 businesses, all profitable, no VC money

I compressed it into 12 rules that actually matter:

1. ride a trend, don’t create one: find a niche where demand already exists but tools are 5 years behind. if people are complaining in reddit threads and facebook groups.. that’s your market

2. audience before product: master ONE platform. set notifications for 10 niche leaders, reply with real insight (not “great post!”), gain 5-10 followers daily. this compounds into an unfair advantage when you launch

3. validate with wallets, not surveys: if nobody will pre-pay at 50-70% off for something that doesn’t exist yet.. they won’t pay full price either. your audience becomes your investors

4. vibe code the MVP: use Cursor/Bolt/V0 to ship v1 in days not months. the goal isn’t perfect code, it’s proving people will use it. polish comes after revenue

5. keep the team at zero: AI is your co-founder now. Manus for research, ChatGPT for PRDs, Claude Design for design, Cursor for code. most $1M/yr businesses in 2026 run with 1-3 people max

6. automate before you hire: find the 3-step process you do 10x a day that takes 5 minutes each time. automate that first. Lindy, Gumloop, Zapier. work toward 90%+ automation

7. retention before growth: fixing churn is 10x more valuable than doubling acquisition. run retention sprints before growth sprints. most founders do this backwards and wonder why revenue flatlines

8. modular pricing kills one-size-fits-all: free tier for top of funnel, $29 for individuals, $299 for teams, $3K for enterprise. let the product sell itself at every level

9. partner with creators instead of buying ads: offer 1-20% equity or 20-50% rev share to creators with your audience. one partnership can outperform 6 months of paid marketing

10. build free tools for distribution: a public-facing calculator, checker, or generator drives organic traffic AND trains AI search to recommend you. this is the new SEO

11. think portfolio, not single product: once business #1 is profitable, repeat the process. share infrastructure, cross-promote, create a flywheel. Walt Disney didn’t build one ride

12. ship something new every 30 days: a culture of shipping beats a culture of planning. new MVP monthly, acquire underperforming products with distribution upside, recruit operators to run them

what actually compounds in 2026:

• audience before product, not the other way
• pre-selling before building
• 1-person teams running $1M businesses with AI
• retention over acquisition, always
• portfolios over single bets
• shipping over strategizing

the cost of building has never been lower.. billions of people with credit cards are reachable through social media

the only bottleneck left is you actually starting

full 30-min breakdown from @gregisenberg attached below ↓

study this

P.S. left 20 not taken startup ideas below which you can take and start growing

Ronin (@DeRonin_): The 20 BIGGEST startup ideas I’d build if I had 20 lives

1. biggest subscriptions: kill agent. average person bleeds $219/month on charges they forgot about. connect bank, show usage, cancel in one click. you keep 20% of what you save them

2. biggest insurance: AI that fights