Just set up my AI programme, but wondering if time is best invested elsewhere?

Hi everyone! 👋 We’re currently exploring ideas on how we can apply AI for social impact in the tourism sector, and I’d love to tap into the group’s experience and ideas.
We’re from the Philippines, where tourism has huge potential given our many islands, diverse communities, and cultural and natural assets. From a Consulting perspective, we’re interested in exploring how AI could be used not just to boost tourism, but to create meaningful community and social impact as well.
Have any of you worked on or come across initiatives where AI has been applied to tourism for areas such as:
• supporting local/indigenous communities and small tourism businesses
• improving access to tourism opportunities and information
• promoting lesser-known destinations
• preserving local culture, heritage, or languages
• making tourism more sustainable
• helping local communities build digital/AI capabilities
Would really appreciate any examples, ideas, or initiatives from your markets that we could learn from or potentially adapt to the Philippine context. 😊

Hey guys, let me start with my story

I worked for five years as an import-export coordinator at a small-to-medium trading company in Gangnam Seoul, last February our entire overseas team got merged into the Vietnam branch and a few of us old-timers were handed termination notices on the same day

I spent three months sending out résumés—either no replies or interviews that ended with “we’ll call you back” while my rent kept piling up

One sleepless night I scrolled YouTube and saw a guy with a luxury watch saying “Use ChatGPT to take overseas gigs make $50 a day lying down I just bought a new car”

In his bio there was a KakaoTalk open chat link I joined out of desperation

The group had over 600 members and the pinned message read “Follow instructions and you’ll hit $50 a day—it’s not a dream”

I even paid 20,000 KRW (about $15) for their so-called practical playbook

At the first day I was pumped I signed up on Fiverr Upwork and two Korean freelance platforms Kmong and Soma

I pumped out 20 product descriptions 5 short video scripts and 10 simple Instagram-style banners using AI

Lying in bed I did the math if all of them got accepted I’d make over $100 a day enough to cover half my monthly rent and maintenance fees

Reality hit hard everything was rejected

Fiverr flagged “content appears machine-generated and lacks authenticity” An Upwork client wrote back “This looks like a template” The domestic platforms were even harsher—Kmong’s reviewer commented “작성자가 직접 쓴 것 같지 않아요” (doesn’t seem like the writer wrote it themselves) and returned my work

I didn't gave up I spent nights digging through Reddit for prompt tricks learning to add “casual tone” and “local nuances” so the AI could mimic the way young Koreans actually write

By the second week I finally landed my first order—three product descriptions for pet collars from a small U.S. seller The fee? $1 After platform fees I got $0.80

I calculated my hourly rate—roughly $0.15 not even enough to buy a triangle kimbap at the convenience store

But people in the group kept posting screenshots of $60 days

I DM’d one “guru” and he replied “Your account is too new low trust Open three more accounts with family phone numbers—one account does two orders a day four accounts make eight orders that’s $40 easy”

So I used my mom’s and brother’s numbers to register three more accounts mass-produced content with AI and went after the lowest-barrier gigs like crazy

Within a week all five accounts were banned The reason “bulk registration highly duplicated content violation of terms”

The “guru” shrugged on KakaoTalk “Normal I've been banned dozens of times just start fresh”

When I asked if he wasn’t afraid of a permanent ban he shot back “Why worry? AI writes ten pieces a minute—if ten get banned I still have a hundred”

That moment staring at my phone I felt a chill down my spine

I took two days off and read that “playbook” from cover to cover Eighty percent of it was about buying aged accounts using fingerprint browsers to spoof devices and exploiting newbie traffic subsidies—not a single page on how to actually write decent copy

The so-called “secrets” were all about gaming the system churning out digital garbage that nobody even reads

What woke me up even more was checking that “$60-a-day” guy’s Upwork profile—zero positive reviews two negative ones a copy-pasted bio and a default avatar

His real income didn’t come from gigs it came from recruiting people into the group and selling his “anti-ban handbook”

I finally admitted AI does boost efficiency but only if you already have the basic skills

People who can write get faster with AI people who can design get more efficient people who can translate get more accurate

But me? I knew nothing about copywriting couldn’t even tell the politeness levels in Korean marketing lingo and had zero design sense

Why did I think a language model could magically give me a living?

Now I’ve deleted all those “playbooks” I signed up for a free writing class run by the Seoul city government—every Tuesday night in Jongno offline

I still keep AI around but only for looking up words organising notes and fixing basic typos

I still take orders but now it’s maybe $20-30 a month—and every piece starts with me handwriting a draft in a notebook then using AI to polish it then editing it three more times before I submit

Yesterday I saw another ad “AI ghostwrites study-abroad essays $200 a day”

Below it the same old comments—“already made $500” “thanks master”

I didn’t like or reply

I just remembered that group notice “Follow instructions and you’ll hit $50 a day”

I followed for 37 days Total earnings $6.40 Five accounts banned

If I’d spent that time delivering food on Baemin even just late-night shifts I’d have made at least $500

AI isn’t the problem? The problem was me—thinking I could skip all the hard work and just pick the fruit

I’m not writing this to scare anyone off

I just want to tell those who are as anxious broke and endlessly scrolling through “AI side hustle” posts as I was if you have zero basic knowledge about a field AI won’t save you

It can amplify what you already have but it can’t create ability out of thin air

That’s a hard truth? but I really wish someone had grabbed my shoulders looked me in the eyes and told me that 37 days earlier

— A fool who paid $15 for a lesson sitting in Seoul and it’s raining again today

Hey everyone,

I’m a full-stack engineer with a few years of experience building and shipping digital products (both B2B SaaS and B2C mobile apps).

Right now, I’m starting to build a consumer-facing (B2C) app engineered specifically for the US market. The UI/UX is clean, the tech stack is fast, and the product is built to convert.

The Reason for this Post

I’m based outside the US. Because of TikTok’s strict SIM/IP geofencing, pushing organic short-form content directly into US feeds from here creates unnecessary algorithmic friction.

More importantly, the AI UGC / TikTok Photo Slideshow / Carousel meta moves fast, and it works best when operated by someone physically in the US who understands native hooks, viral formats, and trending pacing.

What I Bring (Tech & Speed)

• 100% of the engineering, backend, frontend, deployment, and App Store / landing page pipelines.
• Fast shipping: If a specific hook or trend blows up on TikTok and requires an in-app tweak or a custom landing page, I can push updates fast.
• Zero tech headaches for you.

What I’m Looking For (Content & Growth)

• Someone based in the US who knows how to pump TikTok slideshows, photo carousels, AI UGC content.
• Experience in the Higgsfield, Dreamnina(Seadance) etc. most importantly.
• Experience with faceless growth, testing viral hooks, and consistent posting.
• You don't need to show your face if you don't want to—just know how to structure short-form content that gets eyes and drives to the app that we will build.

The Deal

• Strict 50/50 Revenue Split.
• You handle the content engine and distribution; I handle the product and infrastructure.

If you already know how to make REALISTIC AI UGC CONTENT and short-form edits run numbers, but you're tired of mediocre affiliate offers and want a real, scalable product behind your traffic:

Drop a comment or DM me with:

1. A brief note on your experience with Higgsfield or AI content creation.
2. What tools you usually use (CapCut, Midjourney, ElevenLabs, etc.).

Let’s connect and make money.

I'm building a hiring platform called Simonara and I'm trying to solve something I personally find frustrating about job searching.

Apply → upload resume → create account → manually enter everything that's already ON the resume → repeat 30 more times. 😭

The idea I'm testing is a Talent Passport.

You create your professional profile once with your resume, experience, skills, what you're looking for, availability, salary expectations, etc.

Then the platform can use that information to match you with relevant opportunities and let employers discover your profile.

I'm currently building the first talent community, so I'd genuinely love feedback from people actually job searching.

I spent years looking for a reliable way to build a solid second income alongside my full-time job. I tried freelancing, flipping local items, and a bunch of random online gigs, but almost everything either paid peanuts or demanded way too many hours to be sustainable long-term. Things finally clicked when I started combining a simple retail arbitrage store on eBay with basic AI workflows. The model itself is super straightforward: you find proven best-sellers at major retailers, list them on your eBay store at a slight markup, and ship directly to the buyer. There’s zero inventory sitting around, no warehouse, and no money spent upfront before a sale actually happens.

The real game-changer was learning how much the small operational details matter and using simple AI tools to handle the heavy lifting. Finding winning products just comes down to checking retail best-sellers, searching eBay for third-party sellers pricing them higher, and confirming a solid sold history. From there, I’d hit "sell similar" on a competitor's listing, import the images, and let eBay’s native AI generator or ChatGPT instantly write SEO-optimized titles and feature bullet points. Pricing the item just five cents cheaper than the lowest competitor, combined with the organic visibility boost eBay gives fresh listings, almost always landed an initial sale within 48 hours. That first conversion signals to the algorithm that your listing works, which snowball-effects into more organic search traffic without extra effort on your end.

I recently launched a brand new store using this exact pipeline, and in the first 31 days, it pulled in almost $4.8k in total sales across 242 orders. Managing a catalog as it scales toward thousands of listings sounds impossible to do manually, but automated tools make it completely manageable alongside a 9-to-5. I use AI auto-listers and automated repricing software to continuously track retail stock levels and sync prices directly so nothing goes out of stock unnoticed. To handle buyer inquiries across a growing inventory, I rely on simple AI prompts and text templates to respond almost instantly, keeping my seller performance clean since eBay heavily rewards quick response times.

If an item does run out of stock before an automated update catches it, I never cancel, cancellations create account defects that tank your store's search placement. Instead, I use AI to quickly scout a similar upgrade from an alternate retailer, message the buyer with a slight discount, and keep the order alive. I also run daily 24-hour markdown sales for conversion urgency and automated weekly private discount offers to anyone watching my items. Once every repetitive task was mapped out and automated, managing the store only took an hour or two of light oversight a day, leaving a solid margin after product sourcing costs.

Because the whole blueprint is fully systemized, scaling up or launching a second storefront is surprisingly smooth. It definitely wasn't an overnight magical passive income stream but sticking to a consistent system every day paid off big time.

Hopefully this breakdown gives anyone on the fence some practical ideas for their own setups. Good luck on everyone's journey!

Life is a lot of things but you only have one opportunity.
What's your biggest challenge right now: getting high ticket sales or building an extra income stream? I've put together a digital toolkit that's helping ppl to figure out their idea in less than 30 min and sell forever. Happy to share more details if it sounds useful.

I know a guy how makes 20K per month . Buys all stuff he like , Mac , Windows,laptop ….I mean everything.

Goes to other countries and he also took me along with him …

I keep searching Internet but I don’t understand. He always says Mindset is Everything thing … His advices are like modern day Buddha living s life to luxury..

And then it’s me . Struggling to make and every night thinking ,how can I make more … what the hell is this mindset thing.

They reached out by email, it’s all legitimate. I don’t really see a reason not to do it. I am wondering what kind of traffic I could expect, maybe someone here has experience. TIA

Ok so, I can’t retire just yet 😅 but getting a business off the ground and attracting customers is the hardest part in my opinion.

There’s still a long way to go but considering it’s only been 3 months since launching the LinkedIn automation tool, I’m pretty happy with the results so far.

I get asked a lot about how I get customers, so thought I’d give more info on how I do distribution, in case you might find it useful.

1. Make sure your website is set up for success

Before sending people to your site, make sure you’re confident it has good CRO potential. Your mission statement and objective needs to be very clear, along with clear incentives for people to try the product out.

2. Offer free trials, but only behind a payment info gate

Now this is just my personal opinion, and I know a lot of people disagree, but the proof is in the numbers. I get fewer free trial signups, but significantly higher conversion rates into paying users from people who provide payment info at the start.

Yes, a few of them are people who simply forget to cancel, but mostly I get people who are more engaged in the free trial and actually using the product.

I actually did an AB experiment where I did offer completely free trials to people (no payment info needed), but the overwhelming result was that people barely even tried out the product and were mostly tire kickers that never came back. I did convert some but not a meaningful number.

3. Create a waitlist before launching

Try to generate interest in your product before it launches - build in public and try to ensure that you’re not scrambling to get customers through the door on day 1 when you launch.

I had 3 customers on day 1 from this, who took higher paid tiers as well.

4. Post and comment everywhere

Social media is free, so there’s no excuse not to leverage it. Post about your product and what you’re building on Reddit, LinkedIn, X, YouTube, Facebook etc.

I posted a simple screenshot on LinkedIn recently, of someone using a low quality LinkedIn automation tool message to contact me, and me offering my own much better tool in response, and that post generated 90,000 views and led to several signups and demo calls.

I’ve also had some posts on Reddit go into hundreds of thousands of views, mostly just posting about what/why/how I built ZenMode.

5. If you have competitors, make “alternative to” inner pages

If done in the right way, this type of inner page can be useful for SEO. It won’t be picked up automatically but usually if you work in a competitive industry, this will sometimes attract customers who had a bad experience elsewhere.

6. I actually use my own LinkedIn automation tool (dogfooding) to do LinkedIn outreach

So it’s always important to practice what you preach - I use my LinkedIn automation tool to actually promote the tool.

It’s a great way to get buy-in for booking demos, as when someone replies, I simply tell them I used my tool to get a response from them, so it works.

Obviously I’m biased but if you are looking for a way to automate lead generation on LinkedIn, you might find my automation tool useful.

Anyway hope you enjoyed reading the above, and good luck on your journey if you’re building anything, or growing your business 🙌

We have been messing around with ai for sales over the past 4 months. I gotta admit it is doing the boring things pretty well. New reps are building quotes in 20 mins instead of 35, emails content is better and pricing mistakes have dropped.

But our win rate has barely moved.

One deal really stood out. Ai helped a new rep put together a clean enterprise quote in less than 20 mins. We all thoght that it was sweet and we can now close more opportunities. Instead the deal sat in procurement for almost 4 weeks bc there er changes needed by the legal team. also another stakeholder jumped in late. Are you seeing this in your ai sales processes or we are missing something?

I am a university student, and I need to earn money at any cost. Please suggest some online income ideas that could help me earn at least $400–$500 per month. Earning an income is very important for me right now.

At the moment, I only have an Android smartphone, and I would like to work using it since I do not yet own a laptop or a PC. I would really appreciate your guidance and support.

I don't know what should I do?what should I learn??how to make money??

I am from a South Asian country.

are digital products really worth it?

i’m not talking about starting today and getting 10k sales tomorrow,

i mean if you invest your time and all and put the effort, is it really gonna pay you?

if u ask anyone online about it theyre gonna say ohh pick a niche solve someone’s problem create a design or an e book or a guide and sell it bla bla… THE PROBLEM IS MARKETING and when it comes to marketing they just shut up about it and that’s a sign they don’t know shi, and when u ask them what did they SELL theyre gonna tell u oh u can sell anything and not answer ur question.

and i want an honest reply right now because honestly i’m a student and i don’t have much time to waste i just wanna pay my college fees

(i don’t have the money to run ads so…)

I used to make AI explainer videos, and while doing so, I realized there must be a way to automate the whole workflow. I’m very confident that if done right, this system could easily blow up.

​I was previously using Nano Banana and ElevenLabs. Is there a developer interested in helping me build and automate this idea?

​Full disclosure: I’m a very broke student, so I can't afford upfront development costs right now. Offering a percentage/equity split of the business in exchange for helping set up the systems and build the tool seems like the most reasonable path for me.

​Also, for anyone currently using these AI APIs, do you know roughly how much I should expect to pay per month in API costs?