Read This First
The one frame that makes all four work
It's the thing that separates the people who actually make money from the people who post "I let an AI agent run my business" and quietly lose money.
Hermes is not a money printer. It's a junior operator.
It doesn't remove the need for a real offer, for distribution, or for talking to customers. What it removes is the repetitive operator work that happens around a real opportunity: research, follow-ups, drafting, monitoring, reminders.
So every play below follows two rules:
- Attach it to a function people already pay for: sales, content, research, monitoring, ops.
- Sell the outcome, never the method. Nobody buys "AI outreach." They buy "a weekly pipeline of qualified leads." The customer doesn't care how it gets done. They care that it gets done.
Start Here
Pick your play
Four plays is three too many to start. The fastest way to make nothing is to dabble in all of them. Tap the one that sounds most like you and I'll point you at the play to start with.
Which one sounds most like you right now?
Your play
Jump to your playCircle this one. Ignore the other three until your first play is making money.
How To Read Each Play
Every play has the same three parts
The money model
What you actually charge for, and who buys it.
The Prompt Vault
The bad version most people run (and why it fails) next to the good version you should paste in. Hit copy, swap the [brackets] for your specifics.
Go deeper
Where to watch me build the related piece on YouTube.
Play 1 · Sales
Lead generation and outreach
The most boring one, which usually means the most real one. Every business needs more customers, and lead gen is brutally repetitive: find accounts, qualify them, find the angle, write the message, follow up, track replies. Hermes is a research-and-follow-up operator here. Not a spam cannon.
The money model
A done-for-you prospecting system for agencies and founders. Don't sell "AI outreach." Sell "I'll build you a weekly pipeline of qualified leads with custom opening angles." Recurring, easy yes.
The Prompt Vault
✗ Bad version
Send 1,000 cold emails to companies in my industry.
Why it fails: It's a spam machine, the messages are generic, and you torch your domain. This is what gives "AI outreach" a bad name.
✓ Good version — paste this
Find 25 B2B companies in [your target industry / niche] that look like they could benefit from [your offer]. For each one, capture: company name, website, what they sell, why they might need it, and one personalized outreach angle. Do not send anything. Put the research into a table and draft three message variants for me to review.
Play 2 · High-ticket service
Custom AI employees for business executives
The highest-ticket play on the list, and a full business in its own right. A guy named Nick (runs Orgo) charges businesses $5,000 a month to build and manage a single AI agent. No team. The reframe: the customer never touches tokens, models, or infrastructure. They get a digital employee that knows their business and gets smarter every week. You're not selling "an AI agent" (sounds like software). You're selling an "AI employee" (sounds like a hire worth five grand a month). One agent, lives on a cloud computer, plugs into all their apps, running in under 48 hours.
The money model
A monthly retainer to executives in legacy industries (marketing agencies, law firms, insurance, real estate, manufacturing). Talk in revenue generated, not hours saved.
The Prompt Vault
✗ Bad version
Build an AI agent that does everything for this business.
Why it fails: No scope, no context, no industry. You get a generic bot that impresses nobody and breaks in week one.
✓ Good version — paste this
Act as an operator for a [industry] business run by [role / executive]. First, list the 5 repetitive workflows that role drowns in (emails, follow-ups, scheduling, reporting, open loops). Then design one agent that handles those, plus [1-2 vertical-specific tasks, e.g. 'drafting demand letters' for a law firm]. Output the build plan, the tools it needs, and what to set up in the first 48 hours.
Play 3 · Content
Content research
Creators and founders don't need more content. They need better angles: what's working, what competitors are doing, what's breaking out, what to make before everyone copies it. Research isn't one task, it's a loop that repeats daily. Perfect for an operator.
The money model
A weekly content-intelligence service. Sell it to founders who post on X, creators who need ideas, or agencies who need trend research for clients. Recurring, because Hermes runs the job on a schedule.
The Prompt Vault
✗ Bad version
Give me content ideas for my niche.
Why it fails: You get generic listicle slop with no proof any of it works.
✓ Good version — paste this
Act as my content research operator. Find 10 recent videos in the [your niche] niche that are outperforming their channel's average. For each: title, channel, views, upload date, the hook pattern, why it likely worked, and how I could adapt that pattern without copying the video. Return the top 3 ideas I should make this week.
Play 4 · Markets
Trading and prediction-market alerts
The most dangerous one if you position it wrong. So position it right. Do not let an AI agent trade real money on autopilot. That's how people get wrecked. The useful version is a research-and-alert agent. Markets have real signal: prices move, volume spikes, narratives shift. The hard part isn't clicking buy. It's noticing when something's worth a look.
The money model
A paid alert system, a private research feed, or a consulting workflow for people who already trade. The money is NOT in pretending the agent predicts the future. It's in making research faster and more consistent than everyone else's.
The Prompt Vault
✗ Bad version
Watch the markets and trade for me when something looks good.
Why it fails: You just handed your bank account to a bot with no judgment. This is the #1 way people lose money with agents.
✓ Good version — paste this
Monitor these market categories for unusual movement: [your categories]. Do not place trades. When a market moves more than [8%] in 24 hours or volume spikes unusually, send me a brief with: the market link, current price, the possible reason for the move, related news, and what I should verify before taking any action.
Your First Result
Your first result in 48 hours
Don't build a money machine this week. Build one workflow that produces one real result. Here's the universal loop. It works for whichever play you circled. Check each step off as you go.
0 of 3 done
That's your first result. 🎉
You just did more than 95% of the people who watched a "make money with AI" video and closed the app. Now stack the next play, only after this one's paying for itself.
What "first result" looks like, by play:
- Play 1: A table of 25 qualified leads with three drafted opening messages, ready to send.
- Play 2: A build plan for one executive's AI employee, scoped and ready to quote.
- Play 3: Your top 3 content ideas for the week, each with a proven hook pattern.
- Play 4: Your first market-movement alert with the reason and what to verify. No money risked.
The Bottom Line
The pattern behind all four
Lead gen. AI employees. Content research. Market alerts. None of them rely on a fantasy. Every one attaches Hermes to a real business function and lets it do the repetitive work faster.
Not a magic CEO. A junior operator that makes real workflows happen at 10x speed.
Pick one. Get your first result this week. Stack the next one only after the first is paying for itself.
Work with Me
Need AI to actually work for your business?
I help businesses cut through the AI hype and build the workflows, automations, and systems that actually move the needle. Direct, hands-on, no fluff.
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