A Developer's Framework to Launch a Profitable One-Person Business

What if your coding skills could make you more money through a one-person business than your full-time job as a software engineer? It's possible to start a one-person business and, in the first month, make over $10,000, all while working only a few hours a day. There is a specific framework that can transform a regular programmer into someone running a profitable tech business. Almost every programmer can start a successful business by following these three steps. In this article, I will show you the fastest way to start a one-person business as a developer. While other devs are fighting for jobs, you're going to learn how to build your own money-printing machine.

Two Paths for Developers

There are two types of devs in the market today. First, there are the Grinders, who work super hard at their job or, if they don't have a job, work very hard on getting one. They apply to hundreds of positions in the hope of getting those big tech salaries.

Then there is the other type: those who grind on using their coding skills to build assets that make them money online. Ideally, they can even make money while they sleep. Both of these paths are legitimate. The traditional path of getting a job and the more entrepreneurial path are both valid, as long as you can provide for a family and do something good that is useful to society.

The only problem is that in today's market, relying on only one source of income is very risky. It's better if you have more than one source of income. For us as programmers, we actually have a unique advantage because we can build entire products from scratch. We can automate anything, use AI in a much more advanced way, build products that scale, and on top of this, we can do all of that from our bedroom. But the problem is that most programmers have no idea how to turn those skills into a profitable business.

From Side Hustles to a Profitable Path

Before learning how to code, many have tried a bunch of different side hustles, from selling digital art to launching online stores for custom-made t-shirts, and even ethical drop shipping and tutoring businesses. When you acquire coding skills, it allows you to find a more efficient path toward making money.

There are two main ways to make money with coding that give you the highest returns: 1. Build a SaaS: This is the dream path. 2. Provide a Service: You can start an agency, ideally an AI agency. This is the smart path. An AI development agency helps companies implement AI solutions by building automations and AI agents.

The framework I'm about to share with you has three stages, but there is a hidden fourth stage that can completely change the game. In my opinion, this is how you can get to a million dollars per year or more.

The Framework for a Fast Business Launch

Here's the framework to get you to start your business as fast as possible.

Stage 1: Define Your Niche

The best niche has a combination of these elements: - They are Rich: The people inside of the niche have money to spend. You don't want to target a niche that is broke because no one can pay for your services. - Easy ROI: It should be easy for you to show a return on investment for them. You want a niche where potential clients have money to spend, and once they spend, say, $5,000 on you, you can easily show them that you can make $20,000 for them. Automations and AI agents are great for this. - Easy to Find: You want to target a niche that you can easily identify and find online so that you can get clients. If they're an amazing niche but there's no way to get your first client, there's no point in going after them. - Example: A good niche that is easy to find is doctors. You can literally go on Google Maps, type "doctor," and find all the doctors nearby in your city. You'll get their emails, phone numbers, and everything you need to reach out to them. - They Are in Pain: There's something missing in their life or business where you can bring some value. - It Fits Your Interest: Ideally, you're interested in what the businesses in the niche are doing. This will help you do a better job. - Bonus: Prior Experience: If you have some prior experience in a certain field, based on your past experience or network, you should try to leverage that. For example, if you have a lot of doctors in your family, you should try to leverage this. Your first clients could literally be members of your family, or they can introduce you to other doctors.

Some examples of good niches include lawyers, realtors, and funded tech startups that have raised millions of dollars.

Stage 2: Market Yourself

This is where most developers fail. They build in silence, so no one knows about them or their services. They might be super skilled, but if no one knows it, they're not going to get hired.

• Use Your Personal Network: Go through the list of all the contacts that you have on LinkedIn. There are two categories: your target audience (people who can hire you) and people who can introduce you to others. If you have doctors in your network, ask them directly if they'd be interested in your service, for example, an AI voice agent for a phone receptionist.
• Make Your Skills Public: You want to show your skill set, and the best way to do this is to build projects. But we're not going to just build any projects. The whole goal of our strategy is to leverage an existing, trending AI technology.
  • Example: OpenAI recently released its real-time API, which allows for voice interaction. You can talk to it, and the API will reply with voice. This is something completely new that came out and generated a lot of noise. Imagine if you're one of the first people to build a project on it and then post it on LinkedIn or make a quick article with a walkthrough of the project. This will give you a lot of attention because there are no experts on this new technology, but many people are interested in it.

These are the two strategies that can help you get to over $10,000 a month: leveraging your network and, if you don't have one, finding a trending technology and creating content about it.

Stage 3: The Growth Stage

Once you have made your work public online or reached out to people and have connections, you need to schedule calls with qualified leads. These calls can be 15 to 30 minutes maximum. Your goal is to figure out their needs, what they're trying to achieve, and what their business looks like.

At the end of that call, you have to schedule another call for a few days later. That call will be about the proposal you're going to make for them. In between those two calls, you need to prepare a proposal. If they want you to build a chatbot, you need to prepare how the chatbot is going to look, how much time will be involved, the feature set, and how you're going to build it. Then you can propose a price and a concrete proposal and contract that they can sign in the next call.

You also want to think long-term. If today they ask you to build a chatbot, try to think about their business and see if this is just a short, one-time project or if there are more opportunities. Maybe the chatbot is step number one, and later they're going to need another automation, an AI voice agent, or a bunch of different things.

The Hidden Fourth Step: Scaling to a Million and Beyond

Remember I told you there is a hidden fourth step? The one that changes everything and will allow you to scale to a million dollars per year and way past that.

Once you start getting clients, you will notice that the work you do is pretty much repetitive. If you follow the framework correctly and only take clients within that niche, it's going to be pretty much the same requests every single time. For example, if you work with lawyers and they ask you for some AI automation to speed up how they process documents, every law firm will pretty much need the same thing.

Over time, as you work on those projects, you're going to start building some internal automations and tools to help you deliver those projects faster. When you land a new client, it will just be a matter of clicking a button, configuring something small, and then you're going to spin up a full new automation for them. Clients don't need to know this, but this is what will be happening internally in your business.

Once you have that, you have essentially built a SaaS internally, and then you can make it public. You will switch from agency mode to SaaS mode. This is way more scalable, you can get a lot more clients, and the exits for SaaS are a lot more interesting. If you sell your SaaS business, you can make millions of dollars.

The advantage of going this route—first building an AI agency and then building a SaaS—is that you take zero risks. Clients will essentially pay you to build those projects and then for you to build those automations internally. You're going to get validation from the market because clients will give you instant feedback on the work that you're doing. You will know that it's valuable, you're going to get very good testimonials for when you launch the SaaS, and you're going to get referrals from those clients that you have built good relationships with. This is a much better spot to be in when you start your SaaS compared to starting from zero and just spending months of time building something when you have no clients and no traction.

This is the framework for the fastest way to build a one-person business as a developer. When you do the work others won't, you will get the results they can't.