The quiet way to hit $1M ARR

Goodmorning 👋 and happy “Friday” to all of our U.S. readers, enjoy the long weekend! Today’s issue is packed with real-talk for builders chasing leverage. From no-code wins to viral SaaS launches, AI shortcuts, and the debate around who gets credit when tech moves fast—we’re diving into the tactics and tension shaping today’s creator economy. Let’s get into it.

TL;DR: Cloudflare is officially drawing a line in the sand. From now on, all new domains using its services will block known AI web scrapers by default. It's part of a broader push to give creators more control over how (and if) their content gets used by AI companies, and maybe even get paid for it.

💰 “Pay Per Crawl” enters the chat - Select publishers can now charge AI companies for crawling their content. The idea: If you're going to train on our work, at least pay a toll. AI companies will be able to view pricing and decide if it's worth the scrape.

🧭 AI Labyrinths & stronger walls - Last year, Cloudflare let sites block bots—even those ignoring robots.txt. Now, they’ve made it easier: known AI scrapers are blocked by default for new users, and rogue bots get dumped into an “AI Labyrinth” that basically wastes their time.

🧾 Transparency for crawlers - Cloudflare’s also pushing AI companies to identify themselves properly and state their purpose (training vs. search vs. inference). That means site owners can make informed decisions about who gets access—and who gets locked out.

📉 The shift away from the open web - This is part of a larger trend: the open web is slowly closing. With AI chatbots replacing search and traffic falling off a cliff for many publishers, the incentives are shifting. If people stop visiting your site, but bots still use your content—you want leverage.

TL;DR: In a world that romanticizes "burning the boats," Chris Koerner offers a more honest take: full commitment doesn’t have to mean quitting your job tomorrow. Instead, it might mean eliminating backup mindsets—not safety nets. Test the idea, build traction, and only then set the boats on fire.

🔥 Burn the boats... smartly - Quitting your job too early isn’t brave, it’s risky (and sometimes reckless). Instead, commit to your idea mentally and structurally: milestones, timelines, validation. Burn half-measures, not your entire livelihood.

🏀 Creators didn’t just “send it” - Chris points to the rise of Dude Perfect (the trick shot crew) as a case study. They didn’t all quit their jobs immediately. But once sponsors came in and the signal was clear, they did go all-in, and that’s when the growth skyrocketed.

🧪 Side hustle ≠ side effort - You can treat your nights and weekends like a launchpad. Chris shares stories of people running profitable pop-ups while still in corporate roles, proving the model before making the leap. Think like a founder, even if you’re not full-time yet.

🧠 Burnout-proof your mindset - Burning boats is often more psychological than financial. Removing temptation (like giving up carbs cold turkey) creates the clarity and commitment needed to follow through. Business is the same. Decide, then commit.

🌱 Setbacks set up the story - Sometimes life burns the boats for you—unexpected layoffs, failed deals, surprise bills. But that pressure can also force your best work. Chris reminds us that breakdowns often precede breakthroughs.

Don’t quit just because it sounds cool. Quit when the signal says it’s time. Until then, test like your life depends on it, and build like your exit’s around the corner.

TL;DR: MrBeast released (and quickly removed) an AI-powered thumbnail generator after backlash from the creative community. But here’s the thing: smaller builders launch tools like this all the time—and get applauded for it.

🧠 Time-saving ≠ theft – The tool’s goal was simple: help creators make better thumbnails faster. That’s not evil, it’s useful. It saved time, cut costs, and gave small channels access to the kind of optimization MrBeast uses daily. But because he made it, people saw it as a threat instead of a tool.

🎨 The “human artist” argument is valid—but not the whole story – Yes, human creators deserve credit and work. No, not every creator has the budget to spend $200+ per thumbnail. This wasn’t replacing artists, it was giving smaller creators a stopgap. We don’t call it “stealing” when GPT helps someone write a better video title.

🧵 If a builder on X launched this, they’d trend – Look at what happened when ChatGPT's new image model started generating optimized thumbnails—everyone loved it. No outrage. Just creators excited to save time and grow faster. This tool would’ve gone viral (and sort of did) if it came from a bootstrapped founder with a Gumroad link.

🎯 MrBeast’s scale changes the reaction – When you’re the most watched creator on the planet, what you do becomes precedent. And that means tools—no matter how well-intentioned—can spark fear around industry shifts. To his credit, Jimmy listened. But let’s not pretend the tool itself was some villain.

💬 Creators want help, not disruption – This wasn’t about AI thumbnails. It was about who released them, and how. When small creators build tools, it’s celebrated as “democratizing access.” When a giant like MrBeast does it, it’s seen as destabilizing the ecosystem. Same tool. Different context.

If you're a small builder working on tools that help creators grow—keep building. The community needs you. But is it fair that the same tool can be celebrated or condemned, just based on who builds it? I know I would’ve liked to use it…

TL;DR: Sam Thompson runs multiple seven-figure companies—zero code, all automation. His secret? Niche services, tight feedback loops, and no wasted moves. From Airtable to Zapier, his stack is lightweight, powerful, and built to scale.

🧰 Build with off-the-shelf tools – Sam uses Airtable, Webflow, Zapier, and Make to build real products fast. No devs, no custom builds, just simple setups that solved real problems.

💡 Start niche, not big – His first moves weren’t flashy. He started by offering a service, learned what people actually needed, then turned that into a product. Now one of them brings in over $1M/year.

🔁 Iterate from services → templates → SaaS – Don’t start with the “final” product. Sam layered revenue from freelance work to pre-made kits to full automation, scaling only once value was proven. First he did the work. Then sold templates. Then turned that into a subscription. Each step paid for the next.

🤖 Automate everything repeatable – Whenever something worked twice, he automated it. Lead follow-ups, onboarding, reporting—it all runs in the background so he can stay lean.

🧠 Results > features – His copy doesn’t list 10 features. It just says what it does: “Get a high-converting landing page in 72 hours.” That kind of clarity makes it easy to say yes.

You don’t need to be technical. You need to be useful, fast, and clear. Sam’s playbook shows how to build lean, validate fast, and scale like a founder with a dev team—without ever hiring one.

TL;DR: Brett Malinowski built a SaaS called Content Rewards that pays creators to clip and share content, and hit $100K/month in just two months. He capalitzed on the ‘clips’ trend and with a fast MVP, his launch exploded.

💡 Steal what’s already working – The idea came from Discord clip groups promoting casinos. Brett just made it legit, automated, and usable for creators everywhere.

🛠️ Validate ugly and early – He built a clunky MVP in 3 days that tracked everything manually. It was messy… but people used it, and that was enough.

🎬 Launch like it’s your last shot – Coordinated content drops, influencer pushes, paid ads, and real case studies made the launch feel big (and irresistible).

📱 Let creators sell the product – He paid users to promote the platform with the platform. That UGC loop drove 70M+ views and 700K+ signups fast.

⚠️ Growth breaks things – Bots, approval queues, and ops chaos forced him to build real systems and hand off tasks. Speed uncovered the cracks—but also revealed the opportunity.

🔁 Turn users into builders – The next move? Launching an API so devs can build tools on top of the platform. That’s how ecosystems (and moats) are born.