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One Month of Building ABT in Public: Real Numbers and What Comes Next

• by Alien Brain Trust • AI Learning
One Month of Building ABT in Public: Real Numbers and What Comes Next

One Month of Building ABT in Public: Real Numbers and What Comes Next

Four weeks ago, we published our first blog post and started drafting LinkedIn content for Alien Brain Trust.

The goal is specific: Hit $10k/month ABT + $5k/month short-term rental (STR) income. That’s the financial independence threshold. We have 60 days to prove it’s possible.

Here’s what we’ve learned in month one, the real numbers, and what month two looks like.

The Math We’re Working With

Target revenue:

  • ABT: $10k/month (workshop sales + licensing)
  • STR: $5k/month (property rentals)
  • Total: $15k/month

Current status (month 1):

  • ABT pipeline: 2 warm prospects, 0 booked workshops
  • STR: 1 property in pre-approval (will generate $2k/month when live)
  • Revenue this month: $0 ABT, $0 STR

What we have:

  • A repeatable workshop curriculum (tested in-house)
  • 25+ years of enterprise AI implementation experience
  • LinkedIn presence being built (content strategy drafted, posting starting now)
  • Paperclip infrastructure (agents handling content, approvals, coordination)

What we’re missing:

  • Distribution (how do prospects find us?)
  • Proof case study (can we show what a workshop actually does?)
  • First customer win (proof of concept)

What’s Working

Content Infrastructure Is Ready

We’ve built the content pipeline. LinkedIn content strategy is drafted and posting begins now. Blog is live with 6 posts published (March 16–27).

The insight: Most companies wait until they have a product to start building an audience. We’re building the distribution infrastructure in parallel — so when the first workshop sells, there’s already an audience to sell the second one to.

Agents Actually Work

We built Paperclip (our agent control plane) expecting it to save 30% of time. It’s saving closer to 60-70%.

Example workflow (old way):

  1. Jared drafts LinkedIn post (20 min)
  2. Jared creates branch (5 min)
  3. Jared commits and opens PR (5 min)
  4. Jared writes PR description (5 min)
  5. Jared merges (5 min) Total: 40 minutes per post. 3 posts/week = 2 hours/week.

New way (with Content Writer agent):

  1. Agent drafts post (3 min)
  2. Agent creates PR (10 sec)
  3. Jared reviews (5 min)
  4. Agent merges on approval (10 sec) Total: 8 minutes per post. 3 posts/week = 24 minutes/week.

Savings: 1.5 hours per week that Jared can spend on sales calls instead of git commands.

At loaded cost ($100/hour), that’s $150/week in productivity reclaimed. Agent cost: $5/week. ROI: 30x.

Blog Content Is Underrated

We’ve published 6 blog posts (March 16-27). Traffic is minimal (50-100 unique visitors to blog.alienbraintrust.ai in month 1).

But: All 6 posts are about problems we’ve actually solved (prompt injection, Claude Code workflows, agent architecture, permissions).

Traffic doesn’t matter yet. Content quality does. When LinkedIn is running at 3x/week and the blog is at 2x/week, the math starts to work: a small engaged audience converting at 1% to workshop prospects is enough to hit first revenue.

What Isn’t Working (Yet)

No Inbound Leads

We have 2 warm prospects (people who know Jared’s work). Zero cold inbound.

This isn’t surprising. We’ve been public for 4 weeks. Inbound typically starts in month 2-3.

What we’re doing about it:

  • LinkedIn content volume up to 3x/week (was 1-2x/week)
  • Blog posts going to 2x/week (was 1x/week)
  • Workshop page launching this week (alienbraintrust.ai/workshop)
  • Guest content in progress (AI industry newsletters)

What Month 2 Looks Like

Month 2 goals:

  • LinkedIn launched and posting 3x/week
  • 3 warm prospects → 1 booked workshop
  • Blog: 12 posts (2x/week)
  • First revenue: $8,500 (one workshop)

How we get there:

  1. Guest article in major AI newsletter

    • Pitch to 10 newsletters this week
    • Goal: 1 acceptance, 500+ readers

  2. Workshop sales page goes live

    • alienbraintrust.ai/workshop
    • Clear CTA: “Book a workshop” or “Schedule a call”
    • Social proof: (In progress: recording testimonial from beta tester)

  3. LinkedIn volume increases

    • 3 posts per week (established)
    • Invite 20-30 relevant people to follow (not spam, just strategic)
    • Engage with 5-10 relevant posts per day (build community)

  4. Partnership outreach

    • Contact 5 corporate L&D departments
    • Pitch: “Your team uses AI. They’re stuck. We can fix it in one day.”
    • If 1 shows interest, we’ve got a trial customer

  5. Blog consistency

    • Publish 2x per week (12 posts in month 2)
    • Focus on case studies (what we’ve actually built or solved)
    • Cross-promote on LinkedIn (blog post link in 1/3 of posts)

The Bigger Picture

We’re not trying to be another AI training company. Thousands of those exist.

We’re building ABT as a specialization play:

  • AI for non-technical business teams
  • Implementation-focused (not theory)
  • Backed by 25+ years of enterprise experience
  • Security-informed (because we’ve seen it break in production)

The market exists. Companies do hire external workshops to upskill teams. Average cost: $5k-$15k per day. If we can show 2-3 success stories, we can scale to $30k+/month easily.

The risk is distribution. Building the workshop is easy. Getting customers to find it is hard.

One More Thing

This isn’t polished. We’re shipping rough drafts, learning in public, and iterating fast.

If the blog post is imperfect, we fix it. If a workshop doesn’t nail it, we learn why and adjust. If an agent makes a mistake, we log it and tighten the guard rails.

This is what building in public actually means: real progress, real problems, real solutions.

Month one: Proof of concept (agents work, content drives engagement, warm pipeline exists).

Month two: Proof of traction (first revenue, repeatable marketing, production systems stable).

Month three: Proof of scale (multiple concurrent workshops, team expansion, $10k/month narrative is real).

We’ll know by June whether this path is viable. If it is, we hit the threshold and make the jump. If not, we regroup and try again next time.

Either way, we’re building the infrastructure to support it. That infrastructure is working.

Next: If you’re bootstrapping anything (a product, a service, a company), build your agents first. Not after you’re profitable. Not after you validate the business model. First.

Agents buy you time. Time is your scarcest resource when building something real.

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