Solo builders are now launching real products that make real money without writing code or hiring developers. AI tools help you build production-ready apps in days, which means you can test an idea this week and get your first paying customer the week after.
Here are five specific ideas you can build and monetize this month, with step-by-step plans for how to do it.
1. Build an AI-powered content repurposing tool
Content creators are drowning in the pressure to publish everywhere at once. They produce one great video, then spend six hours turning it into Instagram posts, LinkedIn articles, and Twitter threads.
An AI-powered content repurposing tool can take their video link and output platform-optimized content in seconds. The AI handles transcription, reformatting, and caption generation while maintaining the creator’s voice.
Because creators publish consistently (usually at least once a day), they’ll pay monthly subscriptions instead of one-time purchases, which gives you predictable recurring revenue.
Why it works:
- The content creation market is exploding and is expected to reach $67.5 billion, yet the tools haven’t caught up with creators’ needs
- Every serious content creator faces the same challenge: creating once and distributing everywhere without sacrificing quality
- Market validation already exists, with comparable tools reaching millions of users and generating substantial recurring revenue
How to monetize:
- Subscription access ($12–$50 per month), which matches what creators already pay for tools like Descript
- Pay-as-you-go credits ($2–5 per video) give flexibility to occasional users who don’t want monthly commitments
- White-label licensing for marketing agencies at $200–$500 monthly for high-margin recurring revenue
Tools you’ll need:
- Whisper API for transcribing speech to text
- ChatGPT for generating summaries and reformatting content
- Stripe connects for billing and subscription management
- Optional: Anything handles the app interface, payments, and uploads
7-day build plan:
- Day 1: Define your input (YouTube links, audio files, video uploads) and output formats (Instagram, LinkedIn, X, blog summaries)
- Day 2: Connect Whisper and ChatGPT APIs and test with one sample video to confirm the workflow works end-to-end
- Day 3–4: Build your upload interface and user dashboard with a professional UI, focusing on making the output easy to copy or download
- Day 5: Test AI outputs with different content types—10-minute videos, 60-minute podcasts, various topics—to see where quality drops
- Day 6: Add Stripe billing with clear tier distinctions so users can upgrade or downgrade instantly
- Day 7: Launch with three beta creators who can provide feedback on what’s actually broken
Build it in Anything:
- Tell Anything what you need: “Build an app that turns long videos into social posts with automatic captions”
- The platform handles data structure generation automatically and upload functionality works immediately
- AI API calls process in the background while Stripe checkout connects for instant monetization
- Launch a working SaaS tool with recurring revenue on day one
2. Create an AI resume and portfolio enhancer
Job seekers spend three hours rewriting their resume for each application, then hear nothing back. That’s because even the strongest candidates get filtered out of applicant tracking systems (ATS) if their resumes don’t match specific keywords.
An AI resume enhancer solves this painful process by analyzing the job description and automatically rewriting the resume to highlight relevant skills and use industry-specific keywords.
For candidates, this means more interviews from less work. For you, it means users pay for immediate, tangible value during high-stakes job searches.
Why it works:
- The job application process is fundamentally broken, with most resumes never making it past automated screening systems to human recruiters
- AI can dramatically improve application odds by identifying and incorporating the exact keywords that matter
- Job seekers are willing to pay for tools that demonstrably improve their chances for better career outcomes
How to monetize:
- Per-resume pricing ($10–$25) for occasional job seekers
- Unlimited access ($29 monthly) for active searchers applying to 20+ positions
- Upsells like interview prep tips ($35) or LinkedIn profile reviews ($25) increase revenue per customer
- $149 lifetime deals reduce churn from users who only need resumes temporarily but don’t want recurring charges
Tools you’ll need:
- ChatGPT API from OpenAI for resume analysis rewriting
- Design tools like Canva if offering visual portfolio enhancements
- Stripe or similar services for payment processing
- Optional: Anything for backend hosting and authentication
7-day build plan:
- Day 1: Write AI prompts for each resume section (experience, skills, summary statements)
- Day 2: Build your input form with text boxes for resume and job description and dropdowns for industry if you want to tailor the rewrite further
- Day 3: Connect ChatGPT API so rewriting happens automatically when users click submit
- Day 4: Create PDF and Word export features, and make sure formatting stays clean when users download
- Day 5: Test five different resumes from different industries (tech, healthcare, finance, retail, creative) to see where AI quality varies
- Day 6: Create before-and-after examples showing the transformations as social proof
- Day 7: Post on Reddit job communities like r/resumes and r/jobs with a 50% launch discount code
3. Launch an AI-enabled research assistant
Professionals and students waste hours skimming through research papers, articles, and video transcripts trying to extract key points buried in dense content. Content volume is only increasing while human reading speed stays the same.
An AI research assistant takes their reading list and outputs organized summaries by topic in minutes. Users scan the highlights without the mental fatigue of processing everything manually, which turns a three-hour research session into a 15-minute review. This makes it the perfect subscription tool for knowledge workers (people who “think for a living”), researchers, and students alike.
Why it works:
- Information overload is a growing crisis affecting nearly every knowledge professional and student
- The volume of content people need to process increases exponentially while human reading capacity remains unchanged
- Time savings are immediately obvious and valuable to users, with strong ROI for professionals who save even just one hour a week
How to monetize:
- Monthly subscriptions ($12–$20) for unlimited summaries align with established research tool pricing
- Per-seat pricing ($15–$25) for team access to shared folders and collaboration, e.g., a team of five pays $75–$125 monthly
- Citation export ($5 add-on) or reference manager integration ($10 add-on) creates upsell opportunities for academic users
- These tiers serve individual researchers while scaling to team and institutional customers
Tools you’ll need:
- ChatGPT or Claude for summarization and note organization
- PDF processing libraries to handle academic paper formats (which are usually formatted differently from web articles)
- Database to store summaries
- Authentication system for user accounts
- Team management features if you’re offering collaboration
- Optional: Anything for UI, hosting, authentication, and database management
7-day build plan:
- Day 1: Pick your niche (students, marketers, finance professionals)
- Day 2: Build an input form that accepts links, PDFs, text, maybe videos if your niche watches lectures or webinars
- Day 3: Connect ChatGPT or Claude API for summary generation and test one article to confirm quality before automating everything
- Day 4: Add note storage with simple tags so users can organize summaries by project or topic
- Day 5: Test 10 different content types (short blogs, long papers, video transcripts, tweets threads) to find where summaries break
- Day 6: Build a pricing page with clear tier distinctions, e.g., Basic gets 10 summaries monthly, Pro gets unlimited, Team adds collaboration
- Day 7: Recruit five beta testers from your target niche, then ask them to use your tool for one week and note every time they get confused or frustrated
4. Build an AI logo and brand kit generator
Professional branding typically costs thousands of dollars, which puts them out of reach for most solo founders and small businesses. The alternative is DIY tools like Canva, which often produces amateurish results that undermine credibility. You’re stuck between expensive and unprofessional.
An AI brand kit generator solves this by allowing users to describe their company in plain English, then automatically generating complete brand packages, including logos, color palettes, font recommendations, and templates.
In minutes, users get professional-quality assets they can use immediately across their marketing materials, websites, and social media, providing instant value that customers gladly pay for.
Why it works:
- Brand identity sits at an uncomfortable intersection of necessity and luxury for most small businesses
- Traditional design services at $2,000+ are out of reach for many, while DIY efforts often look amateurish
- Visual outputs generate immediate perceived value as users can literally see the transformation happening
How to monetize:
- One-time purchases ($10–$30 per brand kit) maintain accessible pricing while eliminating subscription churn
- Unlimited tier ($49–$99 per month) targets agencies needing multiple logo options for different clients
- Custom edit services as upsells let you personally refine AI output ($25–$175)
- This creates a value ladder from basic downloads to comprehensive brand packages
Tools you’ll need:
- Midjourney or DALL-E for high-quality logo and visual asset generation
- AI app builder platform like Anything for client interface, payment processing, and file delivery
- Stripe for handling billing and payment processing
- File storage solution for delivering downloadable assets in various formats
7-day build plan:
- Day 1: Define prompts for logo styles (minimalist, vintage, modern, industry-specific)
- Day 2: Test consistency by generating ten logos in the same style, looking for variations that feel too random or low-quality
- Day 3: Design your input form to get a user’s business name, industry dropdown, preferred style, and color preferences
- Day 4: Connect Midjourney or DALL-E so generation happens automatically when users submit their preferences
- Day 5: Add download buttons for PNG (web use), JPG (print), and SVG (editable) files with clear names
- Day 6: Add billing with clear tier distinctions, like $25 one-time or $79 monthly
- Day 7: Launch on Product Hunt with five example kits showcasing different industries and styles
5. Create a micro SaaS for niche analytics
Generic analytics platforms overwhelm users with too much data without answering the specific question they actually need to solve. That gap creates the perfect opportunity for focused micro SaaS products.
Pick one metric that matters deeply to a specific audience, like newsletter subscriber growth for writers, video completion rates for educators, or habit streak tracking for coaches. Your AI reads the numbers and outputs one clear recommendation: “Your Wednesday emails get 40% better opens than Monday emails. Switch your schedule.” That’s what users will pay for: not more data, but specific actions they should take.
Why it works:
- The analytics market is simultaneously oversaturated and underserved with big platforms offering everything but solving nothing specifically
- Focusing deeply on a single vertical with a specific metric that matters creates enormous value compared to general solutions
- These tools typically require minimal ongoing development once built, creating an ideal business model with decreasing time investment
How to monetize:
- Monthly subscriptions ($12–$30) work well for individual users seeking focused analytics that save time
- Tiered access by usage volume ($12 for one newsletter analyzed, $30 for five) lets you charge more as consumption increases
- White-label licensing ($200–$400 monthly per agency) or API access ($50–$100 monthly for developers who want to integrate your analytics into their own tools) for additional revenue streams beyond direct subscriptions
Tools you’ll need:
- OpenAI for generating text insights and summaries from raw data
- Database storage solution for maintaining user data and historical data (so users can see trends over time)
- Anything for UI, hosting, and visualization components
- API integration capabilities to pull external data from platforms like YouTube, Substack, or Stripe
7-day build plan:
- Day 1: Define your specific niche and metric (open and click rates for newsletter writers, watch time and retention for creators, habit completion for coaches)
- Day 2: Connect to your data source via API (YouTube, habit apps, RSS feeds) and get one working example with real data
- Day 3: Write AI prompts that turn numbers into recommendations, so “Open rates dropped 15% this month” becomes “Try sending at 8am instead of 5pm — mornings perform better for your audience”
- Day 4: Add simple charts that show trends over time, which work better than complex dashboards for most users
- Day 5: Test reports with five different accounts in your niche, and look for edge cases where AI recommendations don’t make sense
- Day 6: Add Stripe payments with clear pricing tiers: Basic tracks one property, Pro tracks five
- Day 7: Share on Product Hunt or in niche communities where your target audience searches, using your compelling before/after example in your announcement
Build it in Anything:
- Describe your analytics focus: “Build a newsletter analytics app that tracks engagement and predicts trends”
- The platform generates your data structure for users, metrics, insights, and reports
- API integrations, AI analysis, and visualization components work automatically
- Skip database setup, authentication configuration, and payment integration headaches
Start building what works
All these ideas share one trait: they solve specific problems for people who will pay monthly to avoid those problems.
You can test any of these ideas in a week. Describe what you want in plain English — “Build a tool that turns videos into social posts” or “Build a resume optimizer that matches job descriptions” — and Anything handles everything else. Database structure, user authentication, payment processing, and hosting all work automatically, which means you launch a production-ready app that accepts real payments within days, not months.
The difference between an idea and revenue is execution speed. Pick one app from this list, build it this week with Anything, and you’ll get your first paying customer sooner than you think.
