Steal the 8 best ideas from our AI summit

Read time: 5 minutes

Hey,

I’ve officially been at Circle for two years, and this past August’s summit is the biggest we’ve ever done. 

It was so big that I started Googling stadium sizes during the retro call. 

Then I was humbled (should have known better, but I’m a writer, not a mathematician), and realized I had to scale down a tad. 

That being said, we had 17,775 people sign up for Build Summit. Sheeeeeesh. If you signed up, shared, got excited, attended, or even watched the replays — thank you. 🫶🏼 These summits are a massive labour of love and grit, and our girl Alexis hits it out of the park every time. 

Of course, 8+ hours of live expertise contains way more good ideas than one newsletter can hold, but here's my cut of the cream of the crop (say that five times fast):

1. You can earn $50,000 for a program that doesn’t exist yet. Chris Donnelly sold 10 spots in The Creator Accelerator at $5,000 each before writing a single lesson, then built the curriculum live as that first cohort worked through it. Jessi Jean ran the same play with the YAP Challenge — waitlist first, cohort built and adjusted in real time — to the tune of $7.5M. Yet another data point about the power of consistent, compelling, and authoritative branding within your niche to carry your ideas through to millions.

2. "I'm not an expert" shouldn’t stop you from starting. "Expertise is knowing something useful that someone else wants to know," said JK Sparks, Head of Product Marketing at Circle. Not credentials or audience size. This means that the “who am I to teach this?” anxiety is the precipice. Your job is to throw yourself over. 

Side note: I watched a TikTok recently where Dr. R.J. Ledet asked “Is it hard because I’m meant to stop, or is it hard because I’m meant to grow?” and I think that’s the same moment that’s described here. 

3. A $3 checkout can help you predict your own financial success. Ben Meer's filter before posting: would someone pay $3 for this? Are they taking the next step? That’s why he tracks saves 🔖 and sends 📲, not likes ❤️. Then he backed it up: his company, Archimedes, has done seven figures a year at roughly 90% margin, almost entirely through organic growth.

4. Fame and money are different games. You can win the second without playing the first. Lara Acosta put it bluntly: "Do you want to be famous or do you want to make money?" Her highest-earning move all year was a $10 PDF built on Canva in two hours that made her $10,000 passively. Jake Ward's math proves the same point from the other direction: charging $5K a month means 20 customers gets you to $100K — no massive audience required. 

5. Forcing people to do the work helps deliver the transformations you promise. Chris Donnelly drips his curriculum on purpose, week by week, so members can't skip ahead. When people ask him to unlock future weeks early, he says no — skip ahead, and you skip the part that actually gets you there. That’s why cohorts are a goldmine. 

6. Underpromise and overdeliver — the bar is lower than you think. Jessi Jean said it (and I think she’s right, because I’ve seen the same thing in freelance/consulting): "The bar is on the floor when it comes to business," which sounds cynical until you realize it means the standard is genuinely easy to clear if you just do what you said you'd do.

7. Find the business that's hiding in your expertise with Circle’s BUILD framework. Alexis' five-letter framework for turning what you already know into something sellable: B.U.I.L.D.

B — Breadcrumbs: the patterns in what people already ask you for, unprompted.

U — Unfair advantage: what you know because you've lived it, not because you read it somewhere.

I — In-demand problem: the specific problem your expertise solves, and who actually wants it solved. 

L — Lived proof: evidence you've already gotten someone a result — even if that someone is just you.

D — Destination: the specific before-to-after you're taking someone through.

8. What’s true to you IS the business strategy. After burning out spectacularly from a $10 million digital business, Melyssa Griffin shut it down at its peak and opened a bookshop café in Portugal instead. Nine months ago, she came back online — this time following her curiosity instead of the "shoulds" of the online business playbook. She stopped looking for permission, started listening to her intuition — and started treating fear as a bodyguard, not a sign to stay small. 

Which of this week's takeaways hit you like a runaway train? Hit reply and tell me. I’ll let you know when they’re up on YouTube for your passive consumption as you make a fall-inspired cobbler. Pinky promise. 🫶🏼

Two live sessions worth clearing your calendar for

1 follow, 1 read, 1 listen

• 👉 Follow: If you don’t know about Kristen Bousquet, a creator monetization coach who turned $500K+ in brand deals into a coaching business, now you do. Is she the reason "creator coach" has its own category now? 🤏🏻🤏🏻🤏🏻, as the kids say. Check out her socials, and her membership Your Soulcialmate.
  
  
• 📖 Read: The eponymous Pat Flynn, one of the Fathers of the Passive Income promise, just sold SPI. Here’s his podcast with the new owner, Liz Wilcox, who was “eased in” to the founder role as the Head of Community for the past several months. Remember a few issues ago when we were talking about community businesses as acquirable assets? Add another to the list, babyyyy. 💰
  
  
• 🎧 Listen: On your next commute, take a listen to how Hoon Lee turned a $6,500 side project into a $1.1 million Korean-learning business, using one workshop funnel and a price he refused to raise. Listen via Spotify ↑ or Apple.

Next issue: I was curious whether AI could unlock newfound business opportunities for neurodivergent people — so I made it a point to find out. Case in point: in our “Build with AI” challenge in the community, someone created a focus-sprint tool with Circle AI. More on this soon.

— Arina Kharlamova
Lead Editor, Circle Newsletter

P.S. Jump over the precipice — these Circle AI prompts turn your idea into a business, starting today.