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From Idea to Income in 24 Hours with AI
14 Plays5 days ago
In this episode, Dan Sanchez and Ken Freire sit down with entrepreneur and “chief AI officer” Jon Cheney to unpack how he used AI to go from idea → MVP → first $15K customer in days—and how that momentum turned into an eight‑figure business in under six months. Jon breaks down the mindset shift (create vs. consume), the power of “unreasonable deadlines,” and the practical AI stack he uses to validate ideas, build software, market consistently, and help companies become AI-ready.
Resources Mentioned
• ChatGPT – https://chat.openai.com/
• Grok (xAI) – https://x.ai/
• Gamma (AI pitch decks) – https://gamma.app/
• Replit (vibe coding / app building) – https://replit.com/
• Manus (AI agent for “doing the work”) – https://manus.im/
• Apollo (prospecting + outreach) – https://www.apollo.io/
• Stripe (payments) – https://stripe.com/
• Midjourney (images) – https://www.midjourney.com/
• Canva (design) – https://www.canva.com/
• Adobe Express (AI expand/resize) – https://www.adobe.com/express/
• Runway (video AI) – https://runwayml.com/
• Zeni (AI-powered finance/CFO services) – https://www.zeni.ai/
Timestamps
• 00:02–01:45 — Intro: building a solo million+ business with AI (Jon’s 8-figure sprint)
• 01:45–06:08 — Entrepreneurship as a “game”: create vs. consume
• 06:33–15:14 — The 3 momentum moves: validate fast, build fast, set unreasonable deadlines • 15:14–26:12 — The product journey
• 26:12–33:31 — Scaling framework: awareness → lead gen → sales → fulfillment + “massive action” content
• 33:31–41:11 — Outreach vs. inbound: Apollo-assisted connections + content-driven inbound engine
• 41:11–49:24 — Jon’s AI “team”: ChatGPT Projects, Grok research, Manus agents, Replit builds, design stack
Connect w/ Jon:
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cheneypiano/
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joncheney/
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Transcript
Intro to Million-Dollar Business without Hiring
00:00:00
Dan Sanchez
What if you could build a million dollar business without hiring anyone? In this episode, we're joined by John Chenney, the entrepreneur who used AI to build an eight figure company in just six months.
Scaling to Seven Figures with Tech
00:00:14
Dan Sanchez
He's here to share with us how solopreneurs can scale to seven figures fast by replacing teams with tech. So today we're talk about how to scale a solo business to one million using AI.
Meet John Chenney: Chief AI Officer
00:00:27
Dan Sanchez
John, welcome to the man. Thanks for being here today.
00:00:29
Jon Cheney
Thanks for having me, Ken. Excited to be here today.
00:00:31
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, man, John, you are the currently the chief AI officer. You've been a digital strategist. You're a multi-time entrepreneur who's built businesses at speed using automation, lean systems, and smart integration.
00:00:43
Dan Sanchez
You're known for this. You're known to building an eight-figure AI venture in under six months. And I just want talk to you today, man. You're living proof of what people are thinking about and what this podcast is all about, man.
00:00:55
Dan Sanchez
So I'm really excited to jump in today and navigate these kind of questions that a lot of people are having about how do you actually build a business using AI?
00:01:04
Jon Cheney
Yeah, I'm excited to be here. And yeah, you know, I'm known about it now. You know, a year ago, I wasn't known for this, right? This is something that's kind of new. You know, I've loved AI for a while now and been very curious, right? think that's why I've gotten good at it.
00:01:19
Jon Cheney
But I have been an entrepreneur for a long time. And I do enjoy that a lot. I love being an entrepreneur. I love investing in entrepreneurs at the right time. AI has changed investing quite a bit.
00:01:29
Jon Cheney
We can talk about that for sure. But I also love working with entrepreneurs and training entrepreneurs and just encouraging them to go make stuff happen. Right. So anyway, excited to talk through all of this today with you.
00:01:40
Dan Sanchez
I love man. Before we jump in, one things that most people wouldn't know before you had this venture is that you weren't a business owner and you've exited that successfully.
00:01:49
Dan Sanchez
And some people might think, man, I'm just going to sit back, relax. I've made it. But you decided, no, man, I'm going to jump into this and I want to try this.
Business as a Video Game: Challenges & Levels
00:01:58
Dan Sanchez
What made you decide, hey, I'm going to go do this?
00:02:02
Jon Cheney
You know what? Business is just fun. It's kind of like, I know this might sound a little bit weird, but it's kind of like a video game to me. You know, I don't have tons of time for video games these days, but occasionally I'll sit down and play something, especially if my kids are saying, hey, dad, come play Fortnite with us or come, you know, I don't know, whatever, whatever game it is. They always want me to play Roblox. And I'm like, I don't really like that.
00:02:23
Jon Cheney
But anyway, but anyway, when I do get into a game, you know, I personally, think a lot of people are driven by levels and then the achievements and like accomplishing something. And anyway, and so, you know, when I'm, when I get into an idea, I say, okay, this is cool. All right. First step, I need to make this idea somehow real enough that I can show it to somebody. Right.
00:02:43
Jon Cheney
And okay. Now I've done that now. Okay. Is this actually real? Does this actually provide value? The next level is, can I get someone to pay me money, get my first dollar and then, okay, that's cool. Can I do it again? Right. Great. Can I do it 10 times? Can I do it a hundred times?
00:02:56
Jon Cheney
Right. Can I get to 10,000? Can I get to a hundred thousand? Can I get to whatever? Right. And so, and I'm constantly, I'm constantly focusing on how do I adjust and how do I adjust? And by the way, I, I never get it right the first time.
00:03:09
Jon Cheney
Right. you know, I try something in my, oh, that didn't work.
00:03:09
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:03:10
Jon Cheney
So let's change. Let's pivot. Let's just, and so I'm just weaving through this maze. just like a game or something, right? You're failing, you're dying when you hit the hard boss and whatever, and you got to go back and try it again and you learn the moves, whatever it is. Right.
00:03:22
Jon Cheney
And, uh, and so kind of view like that. It's just fun to me. Right. And so why am I going to stop doing something that's fun? So yeah, it doesn't matter that I've done it before and you know, I'm going to, I'm doing it now.
00:03:30
Jon Cheney
And, and if I were to sell this thing in a couple of years, you know, because it just takes off in a big way, I'm going to be like, okay, what's the next game?
00:03:38
Dan Sanchez
I love that mindset because think for a lot of guys and men in particular right now, there's some that are just stuck in life,
Joy of Creation vs. Consumption
00:03:46
Dan Sanchez
right? Where they have no purpose. They're not driving anywhere.
00:03:49
Dan Sanchez
And sorry, didn't make this super existential so fast. But like what I love is that you took your God-given abilities and gifts and said, hey, I'm going to pursue something and make impact to our society.
00:03:53
Jon Cheney
You bet it is.
00:04:02
Dan Sanchez
And that's through business. Right. And all those skill sets you've said, Hey, going to do in this business. I'm gonna do here. I'm just going keep moving. Whereas other guys are just stuck playing video games and they're just addicted to it.
00:04:12
Dan Sanchez
You've actually taken that same kind of drive and said, I'm going to build something. And even you mentioned Roblox, right?
00:04:19
Jon Cheney
Here's the thing. I think that humans find their greatest joy when they're creating, right?
00:04:29
Dan Sanchez
Yes. Yeah.
00:04:30
Jon Cheney
Do you find your greatest joy, Ken, when you're scrolling on Instagram?
00:04:34
Dan Sanchez
No, not at all. It feels superficial, right?
00:04:35
Jon Cheney
No. Totally.
00:04:36
Dan Sanchez
You're like, oh, I should be doing something else.
00:04:38
Jon Cheney
Right. Or when you're playing a video game. Is it fun? Sure. Is scrolling Instagram enjoyable? Yeah. It has its place. I'm not saying those things are bad by any means, right? I do it. I do all that stuff.
00:04:48
Jon Cheney
I'll sit down. I'll watch The Office. I'll watch Friends. I'll watch the new, what is it called? The Paper, right? That's the sequel to The Office.
00:04:54
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:04:54
Jon Cheney
actually really enjoyed that. Yeah, I do things that aren't, I'm not always creating, right? But I just can't imagine a life where I'm not creating, right?
00:04:59
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:05:02
Jon Cheney
I mean, you can see behind me, I've got pianos and studios and I've got, you know, I'm a musician. I'm a creator. love to, you know, post every single day on social media, on Facebook, on Instagram, sometimes on TikTok.
00:05:14
Jon Cheney
and always on LinkedIn, right? Because I really do focus on the business world. And I try to come out with one new album every single year that I publish to, you know, it's on the Spotify and Apple Music all that stuff. And I'm writing a couple books right now. And obviously I'm working on my, on my businesses and I'm creating there, I'm creating jobs, I'm creating memories.
00:05:32
Jon Cheney
Heck, I've even created four humans, right? have four kids and All of those processes of creation and then enjoying the fruits of those creations, that is where I find joy. And I think that's where everyone finds joy. And so if people are stuck, it's because they're not creating, right? They're just consuming.
00:05:53
Jon Cheney
Flip that around, your life will change real fast.
00:05:56
Dan Sanchez
Oh yeah. Once you start creating stuff, you're like, ooh, you can't stop thinking about because it's fun. Like you have four kids. I have a fifth on the way, right? I'm always thinking about my kids and like, how do I help grow them?
00:06:06
Dan Sanchez
How do I help build them? How do I help train them for the next thing? It's a lot of fun.
00:06:11
Dan Sanchez
It's hard, right? Like so is entrepreneurship and we'll get into it.
00:06:13
Jon Cheney
Totally. That's why it's fun, I think.
00:06:14
Dan Sanchez
It's hard. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like there's this built-in like leveling up like you were talking about earlier.
00:06:20
Jon Cheney
Exactly. It's a game.
00:06:21
Dan Sanchez
So let's jump into it, right? Because right now you are in your new game.
AI Tools Simplifying Business Startups
00:06:25
Dan Sanchez
You've built an eight-figure AI business in just six months. What were the first three moves that set that momentum in motion so people could kind of glean wisdom from that?
00:06:36
Jon Cheney
Yeah. You know, starting is always the hardest, right? One of the things I think that AI has changed is how easy it is to start something. For example, I've raised a lot of money, right?
00:06:50
Jon Cheney
In my couple of companies ago, I raised almost $13 million, something like 12.7 or something like that. And of things I had to do every time was I had to put together a pitch deck, right? And I did that over eight years. And so I had a hundred different pitch decks, right? And I always hated like, oh, I need to update this. There's some new things. I got to do this, whatever.
00:07:07
Jon Cheney
With AI now, I can open up something like Gamma. And I just say, hey, build me a deck on this with these features and this thing. And I need it to be eight slides. want you focus on this. Boom, go. And all I do is write three or four sentences.
00:07:18
Jon Cheney
Boom. I've got my first draft.
00:07:19
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:07:20
Jon Cheney
Now, it's not done, right? But it started. The hard thing is starting, right? And so I can now whip out that PowerPoint super fast and I've got what I need. The same applies now to software, which is crazy, right?
00:07:34
Jon Cheney
A year ago, I couldn't have said that, right? Two years ago, I certainly couldn't have said that. Five years ago, when I was in the middle of my, you know, a couple startups ago, and I've spent, you know, $12 million of OPM, other people's money.
00:07:45
Jon Cheney
It's crazy. We're in a whole new world. I had to spend other people's money and raise money because I didn't have a software background and I wanted to do something that required software. And even if you're a hair salon, you still need, you know, a website.
00:08:01
Jon Cheney
You need a way to, you know, use software to take care of your clients. You need to keep track of things, whatever. Right. And so obviously you can go and you can buy things. You could pay other people to do that. But now with AI, you just, Hey, I need a website for a hair salon with scheduling capabilities.
00:08:16
Jon Cheney
10 minutes later, you've got your first draft. Now you've got to go in work on and stuff. But couple hours later, you could be done with that. You could be ready to open your hair salon with all of your own custom branding, this nice, wonderful thing, set up your LLC, get a bank account, you're in business. Now, I had an idea.
00:08:32
Jon Cheney
And I think the idea stage is actually maybe more important than some people think. Ideas are a dime dozen. I really do believe that. But validating that idea is extra important. It's the most important, right? Most people don't do it even before they go and raise money, right?
00:08:49
Jon Cheney
They'll just say, I've got this really good idea. going to do this and I need a million dollars because I got to go hire this person and this person and this person. I got to get this prototype in China and I got to do this and I need this tooling, whatever it is. They don't validate enough and validating means you talk to people about and you get their opinion. Some people are afraid because they'll think, you know, that they're embarrassed by their idea. They'll think people won't like it.
00:09:09
Jon Cheney
Hey, if people don't like it, don't do it, right? You want to know that people don't like it so you can adjust it and go figure that out.
00:09:12
Dan Sanchez
Yep.
00:09:15
Jon Cheney
But I talked to a lot of people in my neighborhood. You know, I live in a, in a kind of a ranching community here. After I sold my startup, I came out I said, Hey, we're going to get a little bit of land and, you know, I'm pretend to be a farmer. So I bought a tractor, you know,
00:09:28
Jon Cheney
Anyway, so it's fun and it's mostly just weeding, honestly. We've got some chickens and horses and stuff, but it's anyway. So my wife is very happy with those things. But I started talking to people out here and most of my neighbors are pretty, pretty well off, right?
00:09:42
Jon Cheney
They own construction companies. They own farming companies. There's lot of blue collar companies out here, but they're doing 10, 20, 30 million a year in their companies. mean, they're, they're killing it, right? Employing lots of people and
00:09:50
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:09:53
Jon Cheney
And I would talk to them and say, hey, do you guys use AI much? How are you using it? And they were like, no, I don't even know where to start. I was like, what do you mean? Do you have ChatGPT on your phone? And they're like, nope.
00:10:04
Jon Cheney
was like, okay, open the app store, type this in, click download. We're going to do something. And I asked this one construction company owner, super sharp guy, good friend now. And he, I said, hey, what is something that, you know, that you do often at a construction site that's really complex and, you know, lots of math maybe or something. like, oh, I got it, right?
00:10:24
Jon Cheney
I'm always trying to figure out how big do our pipes need to be that we're coming in, right? How much water is going in and outflows and, you know, sometimes with gas and other things, right? And he's like, know exactly what to ask. And so he types in this complex thing. He's like, there's no way I can do this. It's too complicated. This usually takes me a few hours to figure out.
00:10:39
Jon Cheney
I'm like, get ready. Right. And so he types the question in and boom, all of sudden he's like, it shows all the calculations, all these things. And he's like, this is correct. How this is.
00:10:50
Jon Cheney
And so I'm like, dude, you have no idea. Use it. Right. And so a couple weeks later, he comes back to me. This is literally in like January of this year. Right. We're October 2nd today. And I know this episode's coming out a little bit after that. But bottom line is this is January, just just nine months ago.
00:11:07
Jon Cheney
couple weeks later, asked him, was like, hey, so how's AI coming along? How are you using it? He's like, I use it five times a day. I use it for so many things now. I'm constantly asking it questions. I'm figuring things out. We're doing things. I'm starting to show people. I'm like, okay, this is cool. It's like, there's got to be more businesses out there like this guy. He's doing a lot of money. He's making plenty of money, right?
00:11:26
Jon Cheney
He's doing great, but he's working in the You know, like he's, he's way, way back, right? He's working, he's working in the nineties, the two thousands maybe, right?
00:11:32
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:11:34
Jon Cheney
But he's not, he's not, you know, harnessing AI. And so, and so I had a lot of conversations like that. And I knew I identified that there was definitely a gap in the market for AI awareness or AI readiness.
00:11:48
Jon Cheney
And so I had this idea and I said, okay, chat GPT, let's talk, right? And let's, let's get on here. Let's see what figure out. Right. And I talked to this, I talked to few other, know, really smart people that I, that I've worked with over the years. And like, yeah, I think there is an opportunity here, right? I mean, just go out there and start teaching businesses
Rapid Product Creation with AI
00:12:04
Jon Cheney
AI, right?
00:12:05
Jon Cheney
So anyway, in February 27th, it was a Thursday morning. And just said, okay, what am I gonna talk about on LinkedIn today? And I said, you know what, if I, I've gotten pretty dang good with AI. I'm good at vibe coding now.
00:12:18
Jon Cheney
I'm, you know, I've got this idea around this AI thing. I'm gonna try something. So I posted, I said, I'm gonna see if I can start coding a piece of software today. and get my first paying customer by tomorrow.
00:12:31
Jon Cheney
Like entrepreneurship at warp speed. And so I just got started. And I started, I was live blogging about kind of every hour or two, I'd post an update. Here's what I'm doing, here's where I'm at. So all day Thursday went to like 10 p.m. and I was just drained. I was so tired by 10 p.m. I was like, okay, I'm done for the day.
00:12:47
Jon Cheney
Friday, get up, get right to business and go all the way until 3 a.m. I worked tons that Friday. It wasn't quite done. needed to get Stripe set up. I didn't have a way. The product was done at that point, but I needed to get Stripe set up so people could actually pay me.
00:13:02
Jon Cheney
And so I was like, I've never set up Stripe before. And I'm doing this like custom code, all this, and obviously using Vibe Coding to do it. Saturday, get up, did a few other things, and by 3 a.m. I was finished, right? So three kind of long days, really long days, but I was done and I was ready. I launched a Facebook ad to get these customers, right?
00:13:22
Jon Cheney
And then by Tuesday, I had my first customer, right? I had a $15,000 customer, right? And I had done that because I'm sales guy, I'm an entrepreneur, I know how to make things happen. And you can sit around wait for the Facebook ad to do your job for you, but really you just got to pick up the phone and find someone, right? And so I found a business that I said, hey, I've got this new product, we're gonna assess your employees and see how good they are at AI. And then we're gonna train them and teach them and then we're gonna certify them and you're gonna have this awesome, well, an AI ready workforce.
00:13:53
Jon Cheney
And so the sale was easier than I expected. Right. And, you know, within a couple of months, I had hundreds of thousands of dollars and many clients working with me. And and that worked really well. But the first steps were obviously you got the idea. Then I validated the idea by just talking about And when you talk to people about it, it shifts, it changes, it molded, it changed for sure from my original idea.
00:14:15
Jon Cheney
And then even what I launched that Saturday night at 3 a.m., Sunday morning 3 a.m., What I have today is quite different from what I had then. You got pivot, you got listen. But that starts from the very beginning and then you have to keep doing it.
00:14:30
Jon Cheney
And then third, I used these tools that allowed me to just whip it up super fast.
00:14:30
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:14:35
Jon Cheney
And I used for Vyve coding for this one, I used Replit. which I really love Replit as a platform. I think it's very, very awesome. It's like there's other ones out there, Lovable and Bolt and things like that. And I think they're good. I think those are fine.
00:14:47
Jon Cheney
But I know how to use Replit really well. And I think personally, it's one of the best ones out there. And so I just dove in. I just did it. The other thing I did that I'll say, and then I know I've been talking for a long time, so I'll let you chime back in here.
00:14:59
Jon Cheney
But I gave myself an unreasonable deadline. Right? I'm like, I'm going to get my first customer by tomorrow. Most people are like, okay, I'm going to start working on this and I'll finish building it maybe in a couple months here. And then, you know, I'll just play with it. And then, you know, it's six months later and they still haven't finished building it.
00:15:19
Jon Cheney
Right.
00:15:19
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, they haven't, they've never executed it.
00:15:21
Dan Sanchez
They haven't gotten a deal. You had a hard constraint.
00:15:24
Jon Cheney
I just like, going do this. And not only that, I made it public. I gave myself some accountability and people were like, Hey, did you get your deal?
00:15:28
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:15:31
Jon Cheney
Did you get your deal? I'm getting DMS, all kinds of stuff. Like, Hey, this is fascinating. I'm following along. You got to show me how, you know, tell me, tell me when you get your first deal. I even had people say, Hey, I'll be your first customer. Right.
00:15:42
Jon Cheney
And by the way, I wasn't revealing what I was building yet.
00:15:43
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:15:45
Jon Cheney
I was like, I'm just working on this project. I'll tell you what it is when it's done, when it's finished, whatever. And so maybe I was even a little bit, you know, sheepish about letting people know what I was doing. But but I literally had people say, look, I don't even care what it is. I'll be your first customer. And I was like, OK, I get it.
00:15:59
Jon Cheney
Thank you for your support. But I actually that doesn't actually validate my model. Right. Because if you're just doing it to support me, that's not sustainable. Right. I need to actually see if my product adds value to the market.
00:16:11
Jon Cheney
And the only way to do that is to sell it to a stranger. Right. And so that's what I, that's what I really focused on. So anyway, unreasonable.
00:16:18
Dan Sanchez
So what does your business look like now? We'll talk about the tools and all that stuff you use. Replite, you mentioned one of them, but what does your business look like today?
00:16:26
Jon Cheney
Yeah.
00:16:27
Dan Sanchez
Because it's been iterating, it's been changing.
00:16:30
Jon Cheney
Yeah.
00:16:30
Dan Sanchez
I'm curious, what are you selling
AIQ Test Development & Certification
00:16:31
Dan Sanchez
now?
00:16:32
Jon Cheney
So my initial idea, and I worked this out, I strategized with ChatGPT for about three hours before I even got into the first line of code in VibeCoding, right? And the idea that I had worked out was basically, I called it an AIQ test, like an IQ test, but for AI, right?
00:16:48
Jon Cheney
And the idea was, OK, I'm going get people to take the test. They'll land on the website. Hey, how smart are you? How good are you with AI? Right. Everybody wants to know that. I want to answer that question. So they click on the test. They take the little quiz.
00:16:59
Jon Cheney
It's only 12 question quiz, just kind of an introductory one that's free. And then if they scored poorly, I would then say, hey, looks like you need some work. Here's some training, right?
00:17:11
Jon Cheney
And then if they scored well, you get a 90% or something. Hey, you're actually pretty good with AI. Why don't you just pay for this certification and you can be certified by the General AI Proficiency Institute, right?
00:17:22
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:17:23
Jon Cheney
And so my whole idea was this this standard bearer. Like I was going to be the ACT of AI, right? And the ACT had its first test at some point, and now they've done millions, tens of millions of tests, and they're the standard.
00:17:36
Jon Cheney
That's how you get into college, right? Or the SAT, right? But you're going to be one of those standards. And I'm like, hey, you know what? I'm my first one, and my second one, then my hundredth one, then my thousandth one, and I'm going to become the standard. Right. And so I did that. I had people start buying these things. That was cool. Right.
00:17:50
Jon Cheney
And they're posting on their LinkedIn like, hey, I got my certification from the General AI Proficiency Institute. You know, I have I've had governments call me like government organizations from different countries call me and say, hey, it looks like you're the standard for AI.
00:18:03
Jon Cheney
We want we want to test our people. Can you do that? Absolutely. We can. Let's go. You know, and so it doesn't matter that I started it four months ago or three months ago or last week. Who cares? I am being what I set out to be.
00:18:15
Jon Cheney
So that's what I started with. But I would say that that product has represented less than 10% of my total revenue so far.
00:18:24
Jon Cheney
What really happened was kind of an interesting pathway and I don't need to tell maybe the whole story, but I was talking about this how to build a business in a weekend with kind of concept and people were like, hey, could you teach a course? I want to do this. I had people call me be like, how did you do this? Tell me. And I'd had like an hour long call with them and like,
00:18:44
Jon Cheney
this is so crazy i'm gonna go try it i'm gonna figure it out and then more more people kept asking that i'm like i don't have time to talk to everybody and they said don't you just start a course and i said it's not really that wasn't really my point that wasn't what i tried to do here i don't want to be some you know course guru guy you know because some of those people kind of rubbed wrong i don't think they're bad don't think they're bad but it just wasn't my style wasn't what was trying to do but was like fine and i put up a course for about a thousand bucks and filled up, right? 12 spots or something like that. I was like, I just made $12,000 in like an hour.
00:19:15
Jon Cheney
That was cool. You know, I wonder if I could do that again, right? And so I put out more dates and I said, and all of a sudden just started filling up, right? And so now, you know, I do that fairly regularly. I was doing it once a week, even at sometimes I was doing it twice a week.
00:19:28
Jon Cheney
Now I'm doing it once a month.
00:19:29
Dan Sanchez
Love it.
00:19:29
Jon Cheney
because they just don't have time. The next product I'm about to tell you about is starting to really take over the business and it's really fun.
Weekend Business Courses & Expansion
00:19:36
Jon Cheney
But anyway, that course, that how to build a business in a weekend with AI is definitely my most popular thing, right?
00:19:42
Jon Cheney
I've had hundreds of people now go through it and it's really, really powerful.
00:19:45
Jon Cheney
People come out. I just finished a cohort yesterday and I had people texting me today saying, That was so incredible. I'm bringing 10 more people. I'm like, my team's going to come. going to bring my brother. I'm going to bring this person, whatever. Anyway, so it's really, really fun. And you come out of that course and you're ready to make a business in a weekend and get your next customer next week. So that's really fun.
00:20:06
Jon Cheney
But the course, sorry, that actually led to me being mentioned by the CEO of Replit on Joe Rogan, on the Joe Rogan show.
00:20:17
Jon Cheney
And so, you know, I had someone text me like, hey, did I just hear your name on the Joe Rogan show? was like, what are talking about? And they're like, yeah, they're interviewing the CEO of Replit. I was like, oh yeah, yeah, it's probably me. Because I had built this whole thing with Replit and talked about it and the Replit team heard about it.
00:20:37
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, you're their personal brand all of sudden. Yeah.
00:20:39
Jon Cheney
Exactly. Exactly. So, so yeah, you've maybe have seen my ad out there, just me talking about it on a Replit ad. So anyway, and they've, they've treated me very well, right? You know, I haven't, I actually haven't got paid by them other than the fact that they'll give me some free credits to use their system, which is great, but, but I've just been a good partner, right? I'm really not looking to, to do that, right? I just, I love their product. I think it's awesome.
00:21:00
Jon Cheney
So, so anyway, I then got hired by couple of really awesome people that are putting together something right now. And today it hasn't quite been announced yet when we're recording this, but by the time this goes live in a few weeks here, it will be announced. But Tony Robbins and Dean Graciosi are launching their own AI training kind of initiatives. they're doing a book and they're doing seminars and courses and just awesome stuff.
00:21:25
Jon Cheney
And these guys, you know, Dean and Tony aren't AI experts, right? But... They're really good reporters. They're really, really good at bringing people together that do know what they're talking about and then putting it in front of millions of people. They're just really, really good at that. And so they said, hey, John, we love what you've done.
00:22:02
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:22:02
Jon Cheney
It's totally free. Right. If you want to upgrade a VIP, it's a dollar. Right. And then, of course, you know, there might be some other things to try to sell you in there. But the point is, all of the learning is going so much free value in there. So definitely come to that.
00:22:13
Jon Cheney
And I've been able to basically just say, hey, look, is this the right kind of thing we want to say to these people? Right. And that's been really fun. But that then turned into other companies coming and saying, hey, could you help kind of guide?
00:22:27
Jon Cheney
I've got 60 employees. We've 100 employees. We've got 80 employees. And we don't know anything. And we need kind of this ongoing support. And so I decided to launch this fractional chief AI officer product.
00:22:40
Jon Cheney
Right. Where where I or someone my team or our team collectively helps train ongoing and be kind of this leadership element inside of a company to help make sure that. That that.
00:22:55
Jon Cheney
the company really as a whole doesn't just use JGBT, but really like learns how to push AI into every single thing they do. Let's get rid of mundane and repetitive tasks.
00:23:06
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:23:07
Jon Cheney
Let's get rid of things where just banging your head against the wall because you have to do that again. you're like, man, is there a way we can automate this? Can AI take this? Can AI help me? you know, write that pitch deck faster, right?
00:23:18
Jon Cheney
Can it help me put out that next report? Can it help me analyze this massive amount of data, you know, and really just kind of making sure that it, you know, that it gets ingrained into companies.
00:23:28
Jon Cheney
And so, and so this ongoing thing, right, that product is really, really
AI Leadership Service Launch & Growth
00:23:32
Jon Cheney
taking off. And I've had to now in the last month, start hiring people because that's taking off in a big way and I have to hire more people to be able to deliver, right?
00:23:41
Jon Cheney
So,
00:23:42
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. To deliver the frack. Cause now, now it sounds like you went from like, here's this, I'm gonna call it low ticket, right? The quiz, right.
00:23:48
Jon Cheney
Yeah.
00:23:49
Dan Sanchez
It was there. Then you were like, Hey, I'm gonna train people on it. And then it's like, I'm a partner with people to make sure everything is doing it right. And kind of your name's out there. And now you have like a more done for you product.
00:24:01
Dan Sanchez
And that's taking a lot more of your time.
00:24:02
Jon Cheney
Yeah.
00:24:04
Dan Sanchez
And that's when you're hiring people.
00:24:04
Jon Cheney
And it's done for you and done with you. I really try to focus on the done with you.
00:24:07
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:24:09
Jon Cheney
Like, I don't want to just come in and be the AI guru that's typing really fast for your company.
00:24:14
Dan Sanchez
Oh, for sure.
00:24:15
Jon Cheney
I want sit there with you and I might say, hey, let's both open up Replit or some system, right? And we're going to build together. And then you're going to know how to move that button and how to add a new functionality here and how to connect that system and whatever, right?
00:24:28
Jon Cheney
So I'm really trying to enable, right?
00:24:28
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, because you don't want to wake. You don't want to get that text at 10 o'clock at night like, hey, this button's not working. What's going on?
00:24:36
Dan Sanchez
We just tried to do this new push.
00:24:38
Jon Cheney
Most definitely.
00:24:39
Dan Sanchez
Not like that's a complete hypothetical, right? That's never happened to agencies.
00:24:43
Jon Cheney
Oh, that has absolutely happened a billion times.
00:24:46
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:24:46
Jon Cheney
Yeah, I don't want to be a dev shop, right?
00:24:49
Jon Cheney
I mean, that's really the straight up answer, right?
00:24:50
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:24:51
Jon Cheney
I'm not, first of all, not a developer, right?
00:24:53
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:24:53
Jon Cheney
And so I don't want to do that piece, right? I want to enable people. I want to help them expand their capabilities. want to teach a man how to fish, right?
00:25:02
Jon Cheney
don't want to just give him the fish.
00:25:03
Dan Sanchez
Well, let's switch gears then here and let's talk about how to teach other people to fish. You know, a lot of people that I've worked with, I've been in like the high ticket coaching space, the consultant space for a number of years now.
00:25:13
Jon Cheney
Mm-hmm.
00:25:15
Dan Sanchez
And there's some people who hit the six figures and they're like, man, I'm doing great. I'm killing it. But then there's massive group of people who have kind of gone into the space and they're still struggling.
00:25:27
Dan Sanchez
to scale their business, get to the six figures, get to the seven figures. And the way I like to think about business, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, I think there's several different categories to grow a business, right? There's the awareness part, there's the lead generation, there's the sales, and then there's the fulfillment.
00:25:44
Jon Cheney
Yeah.
00:25:44
Dan Sanchez
In those categories, can you break down the tech stack or the tool set that you would use for someone who's like just struggling in the 50k mark to like actually start getting to that 100 200k mark month?
00:26:01
Jon Cheney
Great question. Right. And there's obviously, you know, some answers like, you know, are you using high level or you go high level? Are you using, know, Apollo?
00:26:10
Jon Cheney
Are you using, know, different systems like that? But those are the tactical pieces of software. And there's probably 19 different pathways, I could tell you, and they're all right.
00:26:19
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. Yeah.
00:26:20
Jon Cheney
You know, it's just what you comfortable with? Can you get results from it? Do you know how to use the tools? Where I think you can use to really kind of jump ahead and set yourself apart is on the strategy side.
00:26:32
Jon Cheney
And then to actually set yourself apart, you have to execute that strategy that you've worked out, right? But what I really recommend to people is doing things, like I said in the beginning, with unreasonable timelines, right?
00:26:46
Jon Cheney
Ask AI open anyone listening to this. Whenever you listen to it, as soon as you're done or pause this thing right now, open Chai GBT. And I want you to say, I want to get 10 new customers by tomorrow.
00:27:02
Jon Cheney
How can I do that? Right. I have 24 hours. I'm doing a sprint and I'm going to get 10 new customers by tomorrow. Right. High ticket, low ticket, medium ticket, whatever the heck you want to call it. Million dollar contracts, whatever.
00:27:14
Jon Cheney
Okay. How do I do it? And then got to then don't just listen to ChatGPT. I want you to argue with ChatGPT. And want you tell it why that's hard or why you don't think that'll work and how we can adjust it. And another thing I would ask you to do is say, hey, you know what? I want to do this. I want to get this 10 customers in the next 24 hours.
00:27:37
Jon Cheney
And then instead of just having to tell you a bunch of stuff, add one more line to that. Say, I want you to interview me one question at a time so that you can understand my business and where I am and what kind of capabilities I have.
00:27:51
Jon Cheney
And then we'll, we'll make a plan together. Right. And then it will say, okay, great. Let me ask you your question. Okay. What is, what's your business? Tell me everything you're doing here. Okay, great. Now, you know, what, what kind of, you know, how many followers do you have on Facebook? How many followers do have LinkedIn? How often you posting? Do you have any ad budget? You know, what do you have? Like, it's going to start asking you all kinds of different things.
00:28:09
Jon Cheney
Once it understands you, then say, okay, great. Now let's put this together into an actionable plan that I can get started on in five minutes. Okay. I'm going to get going right on this. And then Do what it says, right?
00:28:21
Jon Cheney
Actually do what it says. Chad GPT is more than capable enough to reason and plan and use the ideas that are out there that work for everybody, right? For the Gary V's to the Tony Robbins to the average John Cheney, you know, sitting in his office here at home.
00:28:38
Jon Cheney
right? They work. You have to just be willing to do it. And some of them might be kind of scary, right? That's where a lot of people really get nervous, right? Is they say, okay, it told me to post 20 times on LinkedIn over the next 24 hours.
00:28:53
Jon Cheney
And people are like, people are going to get annoyed at me. Who cares? Who cares? Right? Gary V wrote an amazing
00:29:01
Dan Sanchez
The people who are going to get annoyed are the people who are not going to buy.
00:29:05
Jon Cheney
Totally. So who cares? They can watch you make money and they can get annoyed you making money.
00:29:07
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:29:09
Jon Cheney
But But Gary Vee, he wrote this book, Day Trading Attention. read it all the time and I'll just open stuff up when I need ideas and things like that. But one of the things he says in this book, and he just wrote this like, don't know, last year.
00:29:19
Jon Cheney
It's pretty recent.
00:29:19
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:29:20
Jon Cheney
It's very, very good. But one of the things he says is like, look, if you're broke and you're trying to get stuff done, you have no excuse. You have absolutely no excuse to not be blowing up every single, especially free channel that you have.
00:29:33
Jon Cheney
Right. You know, ask people lot a lot of times in this how to build a business with AI, whatever course. One thing I'll ask when I'm talking about marketing is I'll say, how many of you raise your hand if you have posted about what you do for business on your personal Facebook or Instagram page?
00:29:50
Jon Cheney
And most of the time, zero or one person raises their hand.
00:29:54
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:29:55
Jon Cheney
Right. I'm like, why are you are you afraid that people in your social network know that you make money or how you make money or what you Are you embarrassed by what you do for work? If so, you know, you got you deal with that. You got bigger problems first. But seriously, why don't you talk about it?
00:30:12
Jon Cheney
Right. Why don't you talk about it every day? you talk about it twice a day? Right. On LinkedIn, you can talk about business more and then vice versa. On LinkedIn, are you talking about your personal, are you talking about your personal life? Are you talking about how you love to go whitewater kayaking and showing the cool waterfall you went off or this awesome rapid or whatever, right?
00:30:33
Jon Cheney
Is that applicable to LinkedIn to the business world? Absolutely it is, right? Like occasionally I'll post something like that and they're like, this isn't Facebook. I'm like, yeah, but guess what?
00:30:43
Jon Cheney
I just had 10 kayakers reach out to me. They want to do business with me now. They discovered that I am an AI guy consultant and teacher and run this business and entrepreneur and all these different things because they know how to kayak.
00:30:57
Jon Cheney
And they saw their favorite boat or they're oh, I've done that rapid. That's really cool or whatever it is, right? People want to do business with people they like. And so you got to get out there. You got to talk about it. So you want to get customers. You want to go from that 50,000 to the 200,000 to the million from a million to 5 million from 10 bucks to 100 bucks.
00:31:18
Jon Cheney
You gotta do massive action now. You have no excuse. There's no reason to wait until next week.
00:31:25
Jon Cheney
Why? Why are you waiting? Just go do it and then don't be afraid.
00:31:25
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:31:31
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. Well, this is why we push podcasting and specifically video podcasting to people. Because when you start to video podcast, you could take all that information, right? Take the transcript, make it into LinkedIn posts, make it into Facebook posts, take that video, cut it into a whole bunch of reels, then make it into a newsletter, then make it into a blog post.
00:31:51
Dan Sanchez
We just start making 10 pieces of items by just one recording. So you're going to see John and over the next week, once this thing gets recorded, it's going to be everywhere for a week.
00:32:01
Dan Sanchez
And then three months from now, it's going to come back, right?
00:32:02
Jon Cheney
yep
00:32:05
Dan Sanchez
Because it's just that that's the way it could work. And it's just repopulating content. So people don't feel like, oh, man, I get so exhausted. We hear this all the time. They're like, I get so exhausted from having to create content.
00:32:16
Dan Sanchez
It's like, make it easy, use AI, use automation. Like that's all the tools that we created is like, how do we help AI build out this video podcasting platform so it's just easier for people to do it.
00:32:28
Dan Sanchez
And it's fun for me. Like I get to hang out with you, John, and I get to hang all these other people and learn from and listen to and also be able to execute because
00:32:31
Jon Cheney
Mm-hmm.
00:32:38
Dan Sanchez
I'm going out there, I'm doing this stuff and I'm building and creating constantly, but I'm not burning out. I'm using one piece of content. So for you, John, I'm curious, what do you do for outreach? Because I think a lot of people, you're telling them, get out there. You're using the organic content methodology, which we use.
00:32:55
Dan Sanchez
You're posting out there a lot. But there's another methodology that you can use is kind of doing outreach. Right now, I'm in this new season of trying to figure out how to do a hyper-personalized AI while still being authentic when it comes to sales.
00:33:11
Jon Cheney
Yeah.
00:33:11
Dan Sanchez
And I'm trying to navigate that stuff.
00:33:12
Dan Sanchez
I'm doing a lot of research. I'm doing a lot of stuff in the background. I'm curious if you're doing anything in that realm with teaching business and building a business with AI. Yeah.
00:33:23
Jon Cheney
Yeah, definitely. And certainly using, you know, eating my own dog food for sure. Now, when I post on LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook or whatever, I actually don't use AI or automation to do that other than the fact that I'll schedule things out.
00:33:37
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:33:38
Jon Cheney
Now I know exactly how to tell you how to put together an automated creation engine. I could be posting 60 times a day if I wanted to. And maybe I should. Maybe I should do that. But part of the thing is I don't love AI created content.
00:33:54
Jon Cheney
It's good. And I actually know how to train it to be all right and actually to provide value. But But I personally want to learn from Ken.
00:34:03
Jon Cheney
I want to learn from John, right? I don't want to learn from some AI that Ken or John trained. I really want to make sure that it's real. I just, I like the real, the reality side of things, right?
00:34:14
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:34:15
Jon Cheney
My last startup that I raised $13 million for was actually an augmented reality startup, right? I was in the, you know, so anyway, and not artificial.
00:34:21
Dan Sanchez
The VR space.
00:34:22
Jon Cheney
I was the AR space and I switched to the AI space, right? So I like, I just like new tech. That's really what it is, right?
00:34:27
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:34:28
Jon Cheney
I just really enjoy it.
00:34:29
Dan Sanchez
Well, and just to clarify there, I think that's why we talk about video podcasting so much because it's like when we create all that content, it's from the actual my actual words.
00:34:35
Jon Cheney
Yeah.
00:34:39
Dan Sanchez
It's not like, hey, this is my style. It's like I always tell it just refine what I said on the podcast for a LinkedIn post and I edit it, you know, make sure it's like my voice.
00:34:49
Dan Sanchez
But you're right. I don't want it to commodity content. I just LinkedIn. It has to have me. And if it doesn't, I'm not using it.
00:34:57
Dan Sanchez
But go on. You were going to talk about outreach and AI.
00:34:59
Jon Cheney
Yeah. So here's what recommend. You know, I love Apollo. I just personally use Apollo. And again, I'm not saying that Apollo is the best one out there. It just happens to be what I know how to use well. Right.
00:35:09
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:35:09
Jon Cheney
And so, but what Apollo does, what Apollo can do is it can automatically identify people, you know, my ICP, can I identify people that I'm trying to target? And it can automatically, you know, like one of their posts, it can automatically add them.
00:35:26
Jon Cheney
Right. And so I'm popping up in their notifications a little bit, then I'm popping up as a new contact and maybe you can send that first message, but I'm not going to. drown them with five or six or 10 automated messages that clearly are automated.
00:35:41
Jon Cheney
I just don't like that. I just want to connect.
00:35:42
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:35:43
Jon Cheney
And then when they do connect, I will have the first message to, Hey, know, this is what I'm working on. And I try to be, I try to, I try to ask them a question. Actually, that's my automation, right? I asked them a question about their business that, or not even about their business. That's actually wrong about their expertise.
00:36:02
Jon Cheney
Hey, I'm trying to work on something related to this. what would you do here? You know, that kind of a question I'm asking for bit of help. And if they respond, then I'll actually get into that conversation with them because I do try to genuinely get out there and be interested in them.
00:36:16
Jon Cheney
And then it, you know, again, that requires maybe more manual work than lot of other people are trying to do, they're trying to automate everything and they automate going back and forth and this, and it's just, it doesn't work, right? You gotta have authentic relationships.
00:36:28
Jon Cheney
And if you, you know, max out your time, you gotta hire somebody, right? And you gotta hire somebody to do that and to manage that with you. And, And you can do that, right? You can hire a VA out of the Philippines or here in the US or whatever the heck you want to do, right? But that authentic communication back and forth really, really helps.
00:36:46
Jon Cheney
That's, I would say that I get 15% 15% of my deals using that kind of an automation strategy.
00:36:55
Jon Cheney
You wouldn't believe it, but 85%, the other 85% is inbound.
00:36:59
Jon Cheney
Right. And it's from content. I'm constantly putting value out there. And it's not that I'm saying, hey, I do AI, come work with me. Right. I'm saying, hey, do you see this new AI trick? Try this and you're going to save a lot of time.
00:37:12
Jon Cheney
Right. Hey, have you tried this new platform? Have you tried this? Have you tried this? Right. I do this thing. I think that people should be using this. Right. I'm just giving free value constantly. Right.
00:37:22
Jon Cheney
But I do it very consistently, so much so that I'm like a newsletter. People are expecting it from me. Right. It's out there always. And so I'll have people reach out to me and say, hey, I've been following you for a few months and I've tried lot of the things that you've put out there.
00:37:37
Jon Cheney
And after 90 days of them seeing this guy knows what he's talking about. I just am the expert. Right. I am. You know, I follow Gary V because I believe he knows what he's talking about. Why? Because he is constantly experimenting, trying, doing, talking about it. And I see him everywhere.
00:37:53
Jon Cheney
Right. Or you take, you maybe like Neil Patel, right. With his marketing and everything he's doing. Right. I just, I know the name because he's out there, right. Tony Robbins is talking about this and Dean Graciosi is talking about that. And so, and so is talking about this, Dan Martell is talking about buy back your time.
00:38:08
Jon Cheney
And his message just is out there so much that I, all sudden I know this right now, all of a sudden I'm like, you know what, Dan, I think I want to partner with you on something. Right. And I think, I think you might be the right guy. And so I'll reach out to Dan Martell and say, Hey, let's work on something together here.
00:38:23
Jon Cheney
And and or, you know, whatever. Right. But I have people reach out all the time that just say, I've been following you for a while and I really resonate with what you're saying. And the cool thing about that is it brings the right people to you.
00:38:37
Jon Cheney
They self-select. Instead of me trying to use all LinkedIn's and Facebook's and meta ads and all these targeting capabilities, trying to guess who's the right person, I just put so much content out there and I follow some strategies to make sure that it gets seen too. That's one thing that's important. I post at the right time. I say it in the right way. I format it in the right way.
00:38:58
Jon Cheney
that allows the LinkedIn algorithms to push it out there to the right people. And that then pulls people in. So yeah, there's a lot of tools out there. You can set up the automations, but I personally have found the most value in generating content that then turns into really solid inbound
Human-First AI Strategies in Outreach
00:39:14
Jon Cheney
leads.
00:39:15
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, I love that. I love that. And especially because, you of the things that we talk about a lot is human first, then AI driven. Right.
00:39:21
Dan Sanchez
Because we want to make sure we're still authentic. I mean, I get those same automations from AI, from people on LinkedIn, especially where I'm like, wow, you.
00:39:28
Jon Cheney
You just hate it. Yeah.
00:39:30
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, I'll get sometimes emails where there'll be like, you're in the health care industry. I'm like, I've never worked in the health care industry.
00:39:36
Jon Cheney
Right. Yeah.
00:39:37
Dan Sanchez
There's nothing in my resume that would even indicate that I'm in health care.
00:39:42
Dan Sanchez
And I told them, like, you know, I get it. appreciate the hustle. So I'll respond back to them and I'll say, hey, listen, whatever you're using, stop it because it's not working.
00:39:50
Dan Sanchez
And I've been in sales for 15 years. Like, let me give you some tips. Like, I have like a template now that I just share with people all the time because it's typically the same issue that they have, you know.
00:39:57
Jon Cheney
I love it.
00:40:01
Dan Sanchez
Man, John, you've mentioned so far you use Replit, Apollo, ChatGPT. Before we wrap up here, is there any other tips toolkit or AI tools that you're using right now that really are helping you strategize and execute the tactical stuff.
Overview of John's AI Toolset
00:40:20
Jon Cheney
right here's my ai here's my workflow here's my things right i call them my employees right even they're ai right and i do have obviously other employees but but especially when i you know i didn't have other employees until i'm not kidding you a few weeks ago right like this business was taken all the way to 10 million dollars and i know it's worth 10 million dollars because i've sold equity in it right at that valuation right and so
00:40:23
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:40:26
Dan Sanchez
I love
00:40:43
Jon Cheney
I now have an investor and I really didn't want investors for this, but it just kind of happened. And the guy awesome. And he kind of he kind of begged me. I was like, you know what? Yeah, let's do it. Right.
00:40:54
Jon Cheney
And so I took on a little bit of money and I don't plan on doing that too much because I don't need it. Right. I'm generating so much cash. I am cash flow positive.
00:41:00
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:41:01
Jon Cheney
I have not needed to raise money. I simply got it because someone is like, please take my money so that you can turn it into money.
00:41:06
Dan Sanchez
Okay.
00:41:07
Jon Cheney
Anyway, so so that's fun. But here's the toolkit. Right. My project manager is JGBT.
00:41:13
Jon Cheney
My project manager is great at strategizing. And I say project managers because on the chat GPT interface, there's one thing you can do is you can have projects and you start a project and then every conversation that I have related to that business idea or that topic or that project is in that folder, it's in that project.
00:41:29
Jon Cheney
And so it remembers everything that I've ever talked about. And so when I say, I need this, I need you me write a contract, or I need to do this, or I need to adjust something, or I need to check on, you know, a client, or I need to put together presentation for this thing that really focuses on these things. It knows everything. It remembers everything, right? So ChadGPT is an awesome project manager.
00:41:47
Jon Cheney
For market research, Grok. Grok is my friend. Why is Grok good at market research? And even before, even when you're trying to validate your idea, it has access to the billions of tweets that happen every day.
00:42:01
Jon Cheney
It knows what people are talking about. Chad Chupiti does not have access to that. Claude does not have access to that. Perplexity does not have access to that. It can't search live tweets.
00:42:01
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:42:12
Jon Cheney
Grok can. That is a big advantage for Elon and team, right? don't care if you like Elon or not. use, there's real people on X. And you might not know this, but if you actually do the research, X is the most balanced politically.
00:42:27
Jon Cheney
There are almost, it's almost 50-50 Republican, liberal, conservative, right? Republican, Democrat, right? It's almost exactly split down the middle. lot of people think it's more, you know, on the conservative side, just for whatever reason, even though it used to be heavily liberal.
00:42:43
Jon Cheney
Right. Just based on ownership and things like that. But it's actually at this point, really, really split down the middle.
00:42:45
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:42:47
Jon Cheney
And so you can get, you know, it's really split down the middle with women and men split down the middle with conservative and, and more liberal and those types of things. So you want, you want all of those opinions. They're all going to be your customers, right?
00:42:58
Jon Cheney
Doesn't matter who they voted for. You want to provide them a solution that works for them. And so do your market research on X. And so a lot of times I'll build a strategy on ChatGPT and then I'll take it to Grok and say, what do you think?
00:43:12
Jon Cheney
What does the market think about this? What are people saying about this? Right. And I'll get really good feedback and then I'll go back and I'll adjust my strategy in ChatGPT. Right. So I've now built this nice kind of workflow. Okay.
00:43:23
Jon Cheney
Then when I need someone, I need my agent to just do stuff for me. I've got a really complex thing. I need to, I need to, you know, pull or do a bunch of research and find a bunch of leads, or I need to go through a document and reformat things that are going to take, would normally take me hours to do or something like that.
00:43:37
Jon Cheney
I'm going to Manus, Manus is an all-purpose agent that can go out and do just incredible things. So I love that one. Then when I'm ready to build some sort of tool or some sort of automation or something like that, or a piece of software, or maybe I need a landing page or a funnel or whatever it is, right?
00:43:53
Jon Cheney
It used to be like, I'm going to go to Russell Brunson for the funnel and I'm going to go to Wix for the website and I'm going to go to this for that and whatever, right?
00:43:56
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:44:01
Jon Cheney
Now I'm doing it on replit, right? I got a replica say I need a page for this and two minutes later it's done. Five minutes later is done, right? Or at least the first version is and I can maybe tweak it for another hour or so and I've got this new thing. If I'm building a really complex piece of software with admins and users and all these different things, it might take me a few days, right?
00:44:19
Jon Cheney
But again, a few days. maybe a hundred bucks as compared to what it used to take, which is months or even a year and tens of thousands or 20,000 or 50,000 paid to a dev shop and, you know, out in Ukraine and you're trying to work on this and they don't understand it.
00:44:33
Jon Cheney
They don't quite see your vision. You know, that's the old way to do things, right?
00:44:36
Dan Sanchez
Oh yeah. I was working with a company that they were trying to do an app and it was going to cost like a hundred thousand just for the startup of it.
00:44:44
Jon Cheney
Totally.
00:44:44
Dan Sanchez
That's not the finished product. was just that like, Ooh.
00:44:45
Jon Cheney
No, it's just to see, you know, with my last company, Seek, Seek was the name of my company that I founded back in 2016. And, you know, I had to go raise $500,000 before I even knew if my idea was good.
00:44:58
Jon Cheney
Right. How risky is that for all of my investors? How risky is that for me as the CEO? What if it doesn't work? Now I've got a bunch people mad at me.
00:44:59
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:45:05
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:45:06
Jon Cheney
right now you can go prove your ID. can build the MVP. You can get it in front of customers, get your first dollars and say, Hey, this is actually worth it. Maybe now I can go raise $500,000. If I want to build it that way. And I want to actually go do that.
00:45:18
Jon Cheney
That's totally fine. I still think developers are, you play a very important role in, in our business world. Right. But man, you don't have to do that anymore. So,
00:45:28
Dan Sanchez
So you were at menace and then anything else?
00:45:30
Jon Cheney
Yep, man is then Replit. Yep, then Replit.
00:45:32
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:45:32
Jon Cheney
So Replit's for, you know, Replit's my developer, right?
00:45:36
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:45:36
Jon Cheney
And how hard is it to use Replit? It's not. Talk to it just the way you would talk to your developer, right? Hey, I need you to build this. I don't like that button. When I click this, it does this, but I would rather it do this. Those are the same things you would say to a human developer.
00:45:49
Jon Cheney
Say those things to Replit and you will build awesome stuff. Takes time. Takes time to figure it out a little bit, but you can do it, right?
00:45:54
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:45:55
Jon Cheney
Then my graphic designer, I'm usually between ChatGPT, Canva, and MidJourney. ChatGPT is great at kind of giving you some ideas, and it can even help you build good prompts for MidJourney.
00:46:02
Dan Sanchez
Canva.
00:46:06
Jon Cheney
MidJourney, I think, creates the best, most richest images. It's so powerful. Really love it. And then when I need to take that image and maybe add some text to it or something like that, ChatGPT is pretty good at that these days.
00:46:19
Jon Cheney
But if you want to have really good finite control, go to Canva.
00:46:25
Jon Cheney
Canva's still awesome. Canva has its own AI features as well, but I usually end up creating an idea in ChatGPT, making it better in mid-journey, and then finalizing it in Canva.
00:46:36
Jon Cheney
That's my graphic design team. Those are the things I'm using there. You know, there's a lot of other things. If I need accounting help with AI, I'm going to go to Zenni. And Zenni is actually a monthly service that can be your CFO, but it's an AI powered one. It's really, really awesome.
00:46:50
Jon Cheney
And I can keep going on all these different things. But if you just start with Chad GPT and Grok, right? Chad GPT your project manager. Grok is going to help you with market research and developing ideas even more. You're going to use Manus to get crazy stuff done.
00:47:03
Jon Cheney
And you can just, the sky's the limit with Manus. And you just have to kind of go there and play around with it. Replit for anything software, website related. And then graphic design, which you do a lot of when you're doing stuff.
00:47:13
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:14
Jon Cheney
you know, preparing posts or preparing things or preparing an ad or whatever it is, right? Then you're going into ChatGPT, Mid Journey and Canva. So that's probably a good place for you guys to start.
00:47:25
Jon Cheney
If you're already doing all those things and you want more, reach out to me on LinkedIn and we'll chat.
00:47:30
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. And just so everybody knows, John, you are very accessible on LinkedIn. I think we were in a comment thread and you posted something and I'm like, this sounds awesome. You should be on my podcast. And you're like, let's do it.
00:47:41
Dan Sanchez
And we just started engaging pretty quickly, man.
00:47:42
Jon Cheney
Yeah.
00:47:43
Dan Sanchez
So I love it. Have you tried using Nano Banana, Gemini's graphic design?
00:47:49
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:47:49
Jon Cheney
Yeah, Nano Bananas a lot of fun. And I actually have, you know, I have, you know, I pay something like $250. So I have access to VAO three as well. I've paid $250 a month. I don't use it as much as I probably should, just because I already have this kind of workflow that I'm good with.
00:48:03
Jon Cheney
But man, Nano Bananas capabilities are crazy.
00:48:05
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:48:06
Jon Cheney
They're awesome.
00:48:07
Dan Sanchez
You know, the other one that I think you might like to, outside of Canva is Adobe Express's AI tools. That's one of the things that we recommend because it adjusts. You know how like when you're trying to post on Facebook or social media, you need a certain resolution or a thumbnail.
00:48:24
Dan Sanchez
AI generates the rest of it, which is awesome. And then you can still put text and all that stuff. Something that Canva still can't do and other ones aren't doing as well.
00:48:32
Jon Cheney
Right. No, totally. Yeah, it can expand that thing. It's very cool. I've used Runway.
00:48:36
Dan Sanchez
So, okay.
00:48:37
Jon Cheney
Runway ML is another one that can do stuff like
00:48:39
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:48:39
Jon Cheney
Yeah. There's so many tools, right?
00:48:40
Dan Sanchez
So, all right.
00:48:41
Jon Cheney
You just have to like pick one and learn it, right? And they're all good.
00:48:45
Dan Sanchez
Exactly.
00:48:45
Jon Cheney
You don't have to be like, am I using the best tool? Doesn't matter. Are you using a tool that gets the job done that you understand? That's what matters. And then just do it.
00:48:52
Dan Sanchez
Yep.
00:48:53
Jon Cheney
Just don't get lost in that.
00:48:53
Dan Sanchez
And don't overanalyze
00:48:57
Jon Cheney
Exactly.
00:48:58
Dan Sanchez
And we tell this to a lot of solopreneurs, especially when they're about podcasting. They're like, should I do this? I'm like, look, if you like being on camera, if you like creating content, this is the best way, right?
00:49:07
Jon Cheney
Yeah.
00:49:08
Dan Sanchez
Because it's going to help solve so many other issues down the road. If that's not your style of marketing and all you like doing is writing, don't do it because you're not going to hit record. Right. So like in the same thing with all these AI tools, just pick something and go with it.
00:49:22
Dan Sanchez
It's probably going to save you time and money if you just execute on it versus thinking about it a ton of times.
00:49:30
Jon Cheney
Just get in there, play with it, right? Make it a game, make it fun, right? Make it fun, play with it, try things. Oh, this is cool. I wonder if I can do this, right? And you just start experimenting and playing. That's when the magic gets unlocked.
00:49:30
Dan Sanchez
Even just get in there.
00:49:40
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, absolutely. John, as we wrap up this conversation, I'm sure you and I can talk about this for hours and days. For those solopreneurs who hear all this, they're motivated, they're like, I know I need to take action.
00:49:54
Dan Sanchez
What's one quick encouragement you can give them to just make sure they actually take the step forward and do the things that we've talked about today?
00:50:02
Jon Cheney
Yeah, like I said earlier, I'm just going to say it again. Get on ChatGPT, give yourself an unreasonable goal. Like, hey, I want to build a new business idea in the next hour. And then do it, right? I want to find 10 more customers in the next 24 hours or in the next week.
00:50:17
Jon Cheney
don't know. Maybe you're afraid of 24 hours. Start with the next week and then do those things. Strategize with AI and then execute. Execute means stand up and go, right? Or pick up the phone and start calling.
00:50:30
Jon Cheney
The worst thing you can do is to just have these ideas and then not execute on them. Right. Michael Scott is, you know, known for a really great quote that he actually sold from Wayne Gretzky.
00:50:40
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:50:42
Jon Cheney
Right.
00:50:42
Jon Cheney
And it's you miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take. Right. Like I used to have a poster on that my office. I need to get a new one. It kind of got crumpled up, whatever. I need to just order a new one and like, you know, frame it so that it doesn't get broken. Right. But that is I think that all the time, the worst thing that can happen when you post 20 times on your LinkedIn you.
00:51:01
Jon Cheney
Nobody responds. That's the worst thing that can happen. I promise the sun will come up the next day, right?
00:51:05
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. Yeah.
00:51:08
Jon Cheney
You're going to be fine. Okay. But you got to get out there and just do it. Whatever it is, that extreme thing that you just, a lot of action in a short time can change your life.
00:51:19
Jon Cheney
I am living proof of that.
00:51:20
Jon Cheney
I know that that is true. And I continue to do it. You know, and I, and when I'm hiring these people now, I'm like, Hey, you're going to do this stuff too. You're going to try to get hundred customers the next 30 days. And maybe you only get seven.
00:51:32
Jon Cheney
But each of those seven is worth $200,000 a year. So you're going to bring a million dollars business on in the next 30 days. That is possible. That is 100% possible with the world that we're in right now. Maybe you're not doing what I'm doing. You're doing what you're doing.
00:51:46
Jon Cheney
But the other thing is most people still are not doing this. If you use AI to create unreasonable results, people are going to notice because you're way outperforming everyone around you.
00:52:00
Jon Cheney
Right? So use AI, come up with a strategy and do it, execute it. Get up, do it, make the phone call, send the text, post the thing, whatever it is, go make it happen.
00:52:12
Dan Sanchez
Go make it happen, man. I'll end it right there for those of you guys. Make sure you reach out to John. John, you're on LinkedIn. Anywhere else they could reach out to you.
00:52:20
Jon Cheney
Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm on at Cheney Piano is my handle on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok, on X, you know, whatever, right?
00:52:29
Jon Cheney
Connect with me on any of those. So Cheney is C-H-E-N-E-Y and then piano because I've got a piano behind me and I'm a pianist and I love that, right? So at Cheney Piano and then on LinkedIn, just John Cheney, right? Just find me, J-O-N, no H. Why is there a silent H in it, right?
00:52:42
Jon Cheney
Anyway. Jon, Jon Cheney, come and find me. I would love to chat, would love to connect and see if we can add value to each other's lives.
00:52:51
Dan Sanchez
Absolutely. And I'll put all those on the show notes as well. John, thank you so much for being on the podcast. And for those of you listening, man, hopefully this would be encouraging to you. I know I'm encouraged. John's been a great mentor. He's been already a great friend and acquaintance, right? Like you've done so much to just provide value on LinkedIn. So I tell people, go reach out to him, start connecting with him and start picking his brain because I'm sure he'd be more than willing to help.
00:53:18
Dan Sanchez
John, thank you so much for being on the show.
00:53:20
Jon Cheney
Thanks, Ken.
00:53:21
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. For those of you who have been watching, man, make sure to subscribe. Don't forget to subscribe and we'll see you next time on Solo Scaled.