I built an AI tool to mimic my work. It’s helped create passive income from my solo business.

• Career coach Julia Starr used AI to vibrate code an app that mimics her signature framework.

• The app is a passive income stream and marketing funnel that introduces your work to new customers.

• Starr said he isn’t worried about AI replacing the human coaching experience.

This article as told is based on a conversation with founder Julia Starr. Julia Starr Coaching. Edited for length and clarity.

I’ve been a career coach for almost a decade, and for most of that time my work has been limited by one factor: me. As a solopreneur, I have a lot of space on my calendar and have never been interested in growing a team.

About a year and a half ago, I started experimenting with how to do this. Artificial intelligence can help me expand my influence. I created prompts that clients can use to go deeper between our sessions, and I created an AI “coach” to support participants during each week of my group coaching program.

Last year I took my most transformational step yet: Vibe coded an app This replicates my basic methodology. It generates passive income and expands access to my work.

AI-Powered Solopreneur the series explores how solo business owners use artificial intelligence to increase growth.

I tried vibration coding without any preparation

I signed up for a hackathon in December. PleasantAn artificial intelligence tool that provides People without technical knowledge develop applications Using natural language prompts. I decided to really dedicate myself to this, clearing my calendar and waking up at 5am to attend tee calls.

I was literally walking in with zero coding or product knowledge. What I had was my trademark coaching framework: the VSA Method, where clients drill down to their core values ​​and strengths before taking small action steps to prototype different paths forward. I wondered if I could put this into an app.

I started by telling ChatGPT I wanted to code a product with vibration and asked how to get started. I then workshopped my prompts at ChatGPT before taking them to Lovable.

After two days of such back and forth work, I had the starter version of the app. I tested this in the Lovable community and people came right back saying it gave them helpful ideas they would never have thought of on their own. I was amazed.

Initial output was impressive but needed improvement

The app was promising but not perfect yet. I spent the next month turning it into a consistently working product.

For example regularly hallucinatory job titles this was not there. I thought I could tell Lovable that the information must be legitimate and that it would be corrected, but that didn’t work. I needed to be creative and specific about setting the bar for quality, so I had Lovable find 100 examples of a particular job title on LinkedIn before coming up with the result.

I also did real user testing. I would have people share their screens and navigate my app while narrating their internal dialogue out loud; what is confusing, what surprises them, what they want next. I recorded it all, then left those transcripts with Claude to determine the most important changes to make and how to write the next prompt for Lovable. I did this after every conversation.

After approximately 50 to 60 hours of additional work hackathonI publicly launched my app Threshold in January.

My AI app generates passive income

Initially, I wanted to charge more than $150 for the product because my intellectual property was valuable. However, during user testing, people said they wouldn’t pay that much unless they already knew me and my work.

With this feedback, I decided that the app would be more valuable if offered as a service. marketing funnel This can direct new customers to my higher-priced offerings rather than paying a premium for each app sale.

And I never worried that the app would completely replace me; I’ve coached long enough to know that having knowledge doesn’t automatically lead to change. There is a real gap between knowing what you can do and actually doing it, and it often takes a trusting human relationship to bridge that gap.

However, I wanted to put a paywall in place to ensure customers were serious about paying. career milestonesso I was hit with a one-time fee of $29. At this price point, I’ve seen people share my app organically and 75% of those who hit the paywall convert, so I’m generating meaningful passive income. I make minor adjustments based on feedback from there, but it’s mostly intervention-free now.

What I’m most excited about is what my app enables in terms of access. There are many people who will never be able to work directly with me due to time or money constraints. This app can launch them, and for someone stuck, the first unlock changes everything.

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