He Built an AI Empire in 12 Months?!

Nate Hurk, welcome to the show, good to see you here. Julian, great to be here, yeah, thanks for having me. Anyone who's not familiar with you, how would you- you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Yn ystod yr eiliadau'r rhai sy'n cydnabod y rhifau, mae'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau yn gysylltu â'r parhau i'w weld. Yn ystod yr eiliadau'r rhai sy'n cydnabod y rhifau, mae'r parhau a'r ffynediadau yn cysylltu â'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau.

Yn ystod yr eiliadau'r rhai sy'n cydnabod y rhesymau a'r ffynediadau, mae'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau yn cysylltu â'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau. Yn ystod yr eiliadau'r rhai sy'n cydnabod y rhesymau a'r ffynediadau, mae'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau yn cysylltu â'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau. Yn ystod yr eiliadau'r rhai sy'n cydnabod y rhesymau a'r ffynediadau, mae'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau yn cysylltu â'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau. Yn ystod yr eiliadau'r rhai sy'n cydnabod y rhesymau a'r ffynediadau, mae'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau yn cysylltu â'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau.

Yn ystod yr eiliadau'r rhai sy'n cydnabod y rhesymau a'r ffynediadau, mae'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau yn cysylltu â'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau. Yn ystod yr eiliadau'r rhai sy'n cydnabod y rhesymau a'r ffynediadau, mae'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau yn cysylltu â'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau. Yn ystod yr eiliadau'r rhai sy'n cydnabod y rhesymau a'r ffynediadau, mae'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau yn cysylltu â'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau. Yn ystod yr eiliadau'r rhai sy'n cydnabod y rhesymau a'r ffynediadau, mae'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau yn cysylltu â'r rhesymau a'r ffynediadau.

Rwy'n dweud bod rhaid i mi ddod yn ddiddorol gyda fy nghyfnod, mae'n ddiddorol ar gyfer pobl sydd ddim o ddiogelwyr coed, dwi ddim ddim yn dod o ddiogelwyr technigol, ond yn y bryd, yn y bryd, yn y bryd. Felly os ydych chi'n mynd i fy nghanol, byddwn yn dweud 99% o fy nghyfnodau yw yn y bryd i ddiddorol am ddiddorol cyffredin. Mae'n ddiddorol. A pha amser rydych chi wedi'i wneud o'r cyffredin?

Mae'n cwestiwn dda, oherwydd rwy'n credu bod llawer o bobl yn teimlo bod cyffredin yn rhywbeth newydd oherwydd yr holl ffynediad AI, ond mewn gwirionedd, mae wedi bod ymlaen iawn am ddau blynedd. Fe wnes i ddechrau gyda'r cyffredin yn fy mhrydfyr o'r coleg, felly byddai hynny wedi bod yn 2023, tua dwy flynedd yn ôl. Roeddwn i'n gweithio, neu roeddwn i'n mynd allan i wneud cyfrifiadur ar gyfer Goldman Sachs mewn dealltwriaeth busnes, ac roeddwn i'n gweld y cyfrifiadur ar gyfer eich grŵp ysgol, er enghraifft. Felly, cwestiwn dda, sut ydych chi'n cymryd hynny'n fawr?

Diolch, diolch, rwy'n gobeithio'r cyfrifiadur. Mae wedi bod yn ymdrech iawn. Rwyf wedi dysgu llawer o fathau, oherwydd rwy'n gwybod, pan fyddwch chi'n mynd allan i'r ysgol, dydw i ddim yn gwybod pan fyddwch chi'n mynd allan i'r ysgol, beth yw'r gynllun cyflawn, neu beth oedd yr ymdrech, ond rwy'n siŵr ein bod ni'n mynd i newid a mynd ymlaen gyda'r gynllunau a'r fflowau o'r busnes. Ond roedd fy ymdrech yn, roedd gen i gymdeithas ysgol gyfrifol, ac roeddwn i'n gwneud cysylltiadau yn y cymdeithas, roedd pobl yn dod i'r DM, roeddwn i'n siarad â phobl, ac roeddwn i eisiau gallu cysylltu â phobl mewn gwirionedd ychydig o lefel, ac roeddwn i'n meddwl bod hynny'n ffordd da i gael cymdeithas o bobl sydd yn ychydig mwy, dwi ddim yn gwybod, yn ei gyflawni'n syth, rwy'n meddwl, felly roedd yn ffordd o'r ffwrdd i mi gael cymdeithas, a chyflwyno gymuned, ond dywedodd yn dod i mewn i ffwrdd lleol, lle roeddwn i'n meddwl ei bod yn rhaid i mi gynnal tîm ar y ffordd, a phethau fel hynny.

Yn enwedig, roedd y pwynt lle roeddwn i'n gallu gweithio i ddod i'r ddangos beth a oedd angen i fynd i fwyno cymuned o'r ffordd hyn pan dod i fy ngwymorth yn ei ddangos yn ystod Febrill. Roeddwn i'n ei ddod i'w ddangos, fel y dweudais, ar hyn o bryd byddaf yn dod i'r gymuned mewn pwyntau tau a byddwn ni'n gwneud yn llawn, ond roeddwn i'n dechrau sylwi fod ddim yn ddebyg iawn gyda phob asbect o hyn, a'r ffordd arall i mi ddod i'w ddangos oedd pwysig os gallaf rhoi mwy o amser i'r ddangos yno, felly y cynulleidfa YouTube. Felly, roedd fy ngweithredu'n helpu i ddod i'r pwyntau mewn ystod, fel y dweudais, mae'n rhaid i ni gysylltu mwy o ddata. Iawn, drwy ddod i'r ddangos o awtomatiaeth a gwybodaeth, byddwch chi'n meddwl, byddwch chi'n meddwl y byddwn i'n cymryd cymorth i gysylltu ddata, ond roeddwn i'n dweud, roeddwn i'n mynd.

Felly, dechreuon ni'n gysylltu ddata, dechreuon ni'n deall ddau pethau sy'n cael eu gwneud yn llawn, a'r peth yna oedd, sut allwn ni gael pobl i gynyddu at y cynghreiriaeth bywydol? Oherwydd mae hynny'n dod yn ddiweddar yn rhoi cyrn, ac mae hynny hefyd yn darparu bod hynny'n y bobl sydd gennym ni eisiau yma. Rydyn ni'n gwybod bod rhywun yma ar gyfer y cyfnod bywydol, nid dim ond am y mlynedd i adnabod y materion a yna'n mynd, ac yn wir, rydyn ni'n ceisio adeiladu'r asbect cymunedol lle, er mwyn i rywun teimlo bod, fel rydw i'n ei ddweud, wedi adnabod yr holl materion addysg yma. Maen nhw'n edrych arall ar gyfer cysylltiadau, gwneud ymweld â'r amgylchedd AI hwn sy'n ymdrechu'n gyfanol, ac, ie, mae hynny'n definitiv, pan ydyn ni'n mynd i wneud penderfyniadau, rydyn ni eisiau clywed beth y mae'n eisiau ein cynghreiriaid, a'r hyn y maen nhw'n edrych ar gyfer, ac mae hynny'n helpu ni i ddod yn llai'n glir, oherwydd rydyn ni hefyd yn agos i'r amgylchedd ar hyn o bryd, ac mae llawer, mae llawer o bethau ddiddorol y gallwch ei wneud, ac felly, gwneud ymweld â'r un ardal a mynd i'r ffwrdd, rwy'n meddwl, yw'r ffordd da i ddechrau, ac yna gallwch chi, rydyn ni'n gwybod, gwneud ymweld â'r amgylchedd yma.

Ie, mae hynny'n syniad. Efallai eich bod wedi ei weld cyn i mi profi hyn, yw fel, gyda'r ysgol, gallwch chi ddod fel plato, ac mae'n amser i'w ddod allan, ac yna gallwch chi fynd yn ôl i'r ffwrdd eto. A wnes i chi weld yr un? 100%, 100%, ac rydym ni wedi sylwadu, nid wyf yn siŵr pa mor ofn rydych chi'n ei gyrraedd fel ddifrif y gwaith.

Ond mae'r amgylchedd yn you know, promotions or new courses or whatever it is. But that's typically what's keeping us growing. You know, we're kind of at a point where roughly, you know, we're having about the same people come in organically. And luckily we get a lot of organic traffic from the YouTube, which is good.

But as people come in, people are also kind of churning out. And so, you know, that's when you kind of hit that plateau. And if you're able to have, you know, some sort of promotion where you can just get more eyes on the about page, hopefully your conversion rate's good enough to, you know, have that naturally mean more customers. But no, it's really interesting.

I mean, that's kind of what I was alluding to earlier when I realized how many things you just don't know about a community. There's so many little metrics to look for. There's so many different levers that you can pull. And I'd really be curious to hear too from you, what you've noticed with plateaus and how you sort of break through those.

Like for a real quick example, right now, I would say we kind of have noticed a bit of a plateau. And I think there's seasonal aspects, right? Like in January we exploded, because everyone's like, oh man, this is my year. But then when you've got summer, sometimes you see a bit of a slowdown.

I think Thanksgiving and Christmas, we might see another bit of a slowdown as well. But we're actually wrapping up a challenge right now that we're kind of experimenting with. Kind of took it right out of Hermosi's Money Models book, but it's like a win your money back offer. So it was a two week challenge.

People paid 99 bucks to get in, and that was just a deposit. And if they complete all of the assignments throughout the two weeks, then they win that money back. But then we're basically gonna be able to say, hey, you could take this $100 deposit back, or we'll give you like 300, 400 off our annual membership. And so we're hoping we'll be able to convert a lot of these people, because they're already bought into the idea of community.

They're already kind of like, they've got the momentum going of building these three agents, and then they're ready to kind of keep it going. So that's just an example of like one of the quarterly or sort of like timely promotions that we're doing to try to break through those plateaus. But we'd definitely be interested to hear from you as well, kind of your perspective on plateaus, promotions, and things like that. Yeah, so usually what we do is we, so we have like a tracker where we track day to day.

Like, okay, what's the conversion rate? What's the retention rate? How much traffic can we get into the About Me page? I love the way school simplifies it as well.

So it's super easy to see, okay, where are these metrics? Because most platforms don't do that. And then from there, I'll try and look at, okay, which of those numbers can we improve drastically? So for example, when we first started our school, our conversion rate, sorry, our churn rate was 20%.

And so instantly we just attacked that pretty viciously in terms of like how to improve it. And now the churn rate is like 9.5% or something like that. So because of that, then we could grow again. We had seasonal situations like you mentioned as well.

So it would like go up and down during the seasons. I think we'll, like you say, see a bit of a slowdown recently. And then also the conversion rates. So for example, like we started running like new offers every week to keep people interested.

So we'll do like, for example, again, from a Hormoses book, we took like, for example, 10 to one deals or like, for example, a seven to one deal or buy one, get one free, et cetera, and run those. And we saw like our conversion rate was 0.9% at one point. And then it went up to like 2.5% just from doing that. So running a lot of new offers helped as well.

That was a big thing. And then I think at the minute we're kind of at a plateau again. So I'm trying to figure it out and try and work it out. One of the things that we're experimenting with is Facebook ads and then also training up affiliates inside the community too.

So we're gonna run a challenge for affiliates. Yeah, I love that. I love that. That's something that we're planning out for Q1 of next year is we need to start utilizing that affiliate feature more.

It's just an amazing feature that that school's got. And yeah, just trying to figure out the right way to promote it a little bit more and to make people realize how good of a deal it truly is to get lifetime recurring revenue from just inviting some friends in. So yeah, I love that. I think that that's gonna be a huge unlock for you guys, I'm sure, and hopefully for us as well.

I mean, it's just, if you can make every customer worth essentially two or three, that's the self-growth right there, yeah. Besides not relying on a YouTube video to explode because obviously that will naturally send tons more to the about page, so. Yeah, yeah, that's it. Most of your sales come from YouTube directly?

Yeah, yeah, I guess. So I noticed that you have a free school as well. And I would say, if you kind of look at the numbers, like right now I've got about 430 on YouTube and about 180 in the free group. So that conversion is under 50%.

And then from there, from free to the paid, we've got about 180 to about 2.9K. So thinking about it as like kind of that funnel where it's like, it continuously goes down and then we're obviously looking to have a Ascension offer for the people in our current low-ticket paid community. But yeah, we also are experimenting a little bit with the ads. I mean, I think that when you say you're experiencing or you're thinking about the Facebook ads, I'm assuming you're thinking to go towards sort of like that warm audience of people that have maybe viewed your about page or maybe some YouTube retargeting or something there.

Because I don't think we've experimented with any cold ads, but I'm not like, I don't really come from the ad space. This is just what I've been talking to my growth guy about. But yeah, I mean, I think when you think about these communities, the moat truly is just kind of like trust. And I think like when people watch a ton of your videos and then they realize that they like your style and they trust that what is behind your paywall is gonna be also valuable and more valuable than what you've got out there for free.

Because what my gut's telling me is most of us creators out there that have these communities, what's inside is pretty similar. But what you can't fake is the culture of the people in there. And of course, just the authenticity of your personal style and things like that. Yeah, that's something I've been thinking about recently is like, for example, if you look at, we do a lot of avatar videos or we've done a lot of avatar videos this year, where it's like the AI version of me.

And they can get a lot of views quite easily, but I'm wondering, okay, maybe that reduces trust, which reduces conversion rates. And then at a certain level, maybe that stops you from growing as well. That's interesting. So I did actually, I didn't know that that was on your channel for a while until I was talking to someone, one of the AI guys, and we were looking at that.

And we realized that, I mean, it was like your SEO, like strategy of just like getting things out that are trendy or like a new thing drops and like just kind of being there for when people search for it. And I was like, that's actually like really, really smart. So I'd be curious, like, when did you start kind of doing that? And I guess now is it like you're split between when you do a video like that or when you get on there yourself and do it?

Yeah, so I started doing that around March or April. And I published a few, but I was like, you know, the views were not that good on it. And then I took another crack at it in, I think it was around July and basically said, right, no matter what, I'm gonna crack the code on AI avatar videos and just publish them consistently, even if they get lower views, because I will eventually figure out like how to get a lot of views on them. So I just kept focusing on creating more and more, publishing like two to three a day.

And then eventually figured out, okay, right, if we create videos around certain topics, they're gonna pop off even if they're avatar videos. So yeah, just started experimenting from then really and publishing more and more. And it's good. I mean, like we have more views than ever on YouTube, which was awesome.

But I think my plan now is to have my main channel, my main YouTube channel is like human content only, because I think a lot of people want that and crave that trust and that connection. And then on my other channels, I'll create AI avatar videos and people have the option of using them if they want, if they want to watch them. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a really good idea.

I think it's a really good strategy because you've got like, obviously you still have your own brand reputation and the people that trust you as a human. And then you have people like me who are, they love the AI space and they're like, this is actually like genius. This is really smart. And they're able to like, maybe they see one of your videos that's an avatar and maybe they don't subscribe to that channel or love that concept, but ultimately that will probably get them to you, to your human channel.

It just really expands the amount of eyes that you can get on your brand as a whole. And I think that that brings in people that could be more likely to want to learn from you because they're interested in that technique or whatever it is. I think I had a really interesting conversation with Nixerave, gosh, early in 2025. Like when I was kind of just getting started, I'd quit my job and I was just trying to like meet some people in the space.

And this was right kind of before he started doing his daily updates channel. I don't know if you've seen that at all. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty good. I think he's, I think he's slowed down a little bit on it, but I really liked like why he was doing it and what he was thinking about, because, you know, essentially he started thinking about, am I going, am I like optimizing my YouTube channel for views or am I optimizing for like, you know, dollar per view or dollar per subscriber?

And so with his daily updates channel, you know, none of those videos were ever going to go viral. He was just kind of talking about what he did today and like what he thinks about the space and answering comments. But whoever has subscribed to that channel and watches them every day is like a super fan and just so, so likely to buy whatever kind of offer that Nick wants to promote, because they're just so bought into him and they trust him. And so I think it's kind of a similar approach, but with a bit of a different method there, but I totally understand that.

And like I said, when I saw that, I was like, that's really smart. Just kind of, you know, take up more search engine space on trending topics. For sure. Have you ever been tempted, obviously YouTube is bringing a lot of traffic for you, and I think you create like one video maybe every day or every other day, something like that, from what I've seen.

When it comes to content creation, have you been tempted to like, you know, Alex or Moses style, increase the volume so that you get more inputs in and more traffic or are you kind of just trying to go slowly so that you keep the quality high? Yeah. My content strategy is pretty sporadic. Like there have been some weeks where I've done one every day.

There have been some weeks where I've really just kind of pumped the brakes and taken it slow. And I think, you know, it's a mix of, I have a Google doc where I just have tons of different builds I could do, tons of ideas. And honestly, that list grows faster than I can fulfill those videos. And then there's those times where, you know, a new chat model drops or end-to-end drops an update.

And I just, I'm like, okay, today I'm clearing my plate. I just got to make a video and I got to get it out. And I guess what I've kind of realized is I think that there's an element also of like viewer fatigue that you kind of want to consider. And, you know, I'm definitely not an expert, but what I did notice is that a lot of videos were slipping through and I found myself as my cadence was higher, sending people in my communities videos a lot.

Like they would ask me questions like, yeah, I covered that here, or I have a full video on this. And I think just because like realizing the average person, they've got their full-time job. They have maybe family, kids, wife, husband, college, whatever it is. And so they're not going to be able to spend much more than like an hour a day on YouTube, truthfully.

And it's not like they're only subscribed to me. They're subscribed to you, Nick, Hermosi, like, you know, tons of different people. And so I just kind of started to think about that cadence. And what I've actually been more tempted to do was to get on a schedule where I uploaded just once a week, like on Sundays, or maybe twice a week on Wednesdays and Sundays, and just try to think about maybe I could get in a more predictable release schedule.

So people knew, oh, it's Wednesday night. I can't wait for Nate's video tonight, you know? That's what I've been tempted to try, but so far I just haven't, because I think we're in a really interesting opportunity right now where tons and tons of people are making AI content, and tons of tons of people are seeing, you know, success and being rewarded for that. But, you know, I think that gap in supply and demand is going to start to sort of even out.

And maybe that's when I might try to pump the brakes a little bit once I feel like I've got, you know, I've got some things figured out and I've maybe like been able to carve out a little bit of my market in this space. But I don't know. It's an interesting game. You know, it's ultimately, I think the algorithm's a bit of a black box, just like an AI model.

Yeah, for sure. What's your plan for school? Like how big do you want to grow it? Oh man.

I don't know. I don't know. You know, it's, so I've been, I launched my school community less than a year ago. I launched it in the end of November last year.

And a lot of people have asked me that, you know, like, are you positioning, you know, for an exit one day, or what do you want to do with it? I know one thing for sure is that I want to get it to a place where it doesn't just rely on me as far as top of funnel and potentially even content wise. Like I think, you know, my free community is called AI Automation Society and my plus group is called AI Automation Society Plus. And I would love to be able to build a brand around AI Automation Society, where I have maybe members as content creators and they're putting like an AI Automation Society YouTube channel.

And we're bringing people in from other channels and we're just kind of creating this, this brand ecosystem a little bit. I'd say that's kind of definitely a goal for me. But as far as like, you know, a number of members or a certain number of revenue, I don't really have like a North Star there. I think I just want to continue to make it a space where really regardless of your background, you can improve your performance at work, or you can start a new business.

And that's what's made me, you know, that's what's been the most rewarding is when people tell me that because of these videos, they were able to do something. I had actually the craziest experience I've had so far. I was Ubering to a restaurant to meet up with some of my friends. And, you know, just chatting to the Uber driver, they're watching the road, you're in the back seat.

And we were just talking about like, you know, what we do. And we eventually got into the AI path. And I told him, I was like, yeah, I actually, I run an AI business. And we started talking about tools and he mentioned end-to-end.

And I was like, no way. That's like the tool I use the most. And he ends up like kind of looking back and does a double take. And he was like, oh my God, are you Nate Hurk?

And that was one of the coolest experiences ever because, you know, first of all, just kind of getting recognized in a random Uber. But then from there, he told me that he was like planning to quit Uber driving in like a few weeks because of, you know, being able to start getting some clients and build automations for it. And he's like, yeah, I learned it all from your channel. So something like that was just a really cool experience to know that someone could, like I said, come from any background and kind of change their life with this whole AI paradigm shift that we're seeing.

It's amazing, man. Yeah, good to see you having an impact there as well. I saw like another one where, I think you won the NA10 competition and with the money you won, you donated to charity, right? I did, yeah.

Yeah, dude, that's awesome, man. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it was a really cool opportunity to do that, you know, right before it happened.

Cause it was me and Jack Roberts. And right before we went up there, you know, we were getting our hair and makeup done in this little studio. And I was like, man, this is bizarre. But right before that, Max from Enid Inn comes in and he was like, hey guys, I just talked to Luis.

And if whoever wins wants to donate the money to charity, Enid Inn will match it. And I was like, absolutely. This is just such a cool opportunity. Me and Jack, we're both like, yeah, I mean, whoever wins, this is just, this is for fun.

This is awesome. We'll give it to charity. And the fact that Enid Inn was going to match that, I thought was just awesome. So that was a really interesting experience.

It was really cool. It was like a 30 minute video on YouTube, but that was like a, it was like a seven hour shoot day. It was an all day thing. People were running around.

Max was really stressed. It was really fun though. Definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity. And then also, I know you're going to the school games.

I'm going to the school games mastermind. How do you typically find those? What do you usually take away from them? Yeah, they're super fun.

They're super fun. It's like an all day thing. Sam gets up there and talks about why he built school. He talks about what we have in the future.

He does a little bit of chatting with Hermosi up on stage about what they're seeing in the space and why they're so bullish on community. But the coolest part is being in a room with, what is it, 50 other people, 49, I guess, other people who are building communities, just the most random topics you could ever know. And hearing everyone be in this space of like, how can we all help each other win? What strategies am I using that your school could use or vice versa?

And everyone's just kind of like sharing different stories and collaborating on things. And it's just a really cool energy. Because everyone, like I said, you've got dog trainers, you've got witches, you've got magicians, you've got people that teach other people how to ride bikes or not like how to ride bikes, but like distance biking, just really cool hobbies and passions that have turned into essentially full-time income and jobs. So it's just an environment that I've never felt before.

So I'm really excited to go back and excited to meet you in person. You too, looking forward to it. Well, really appreciate you jumping on the podcast today. What's the best place for people to find you?

Yeah, a hundred percent. I would say probably my YouTube channel, Nate Hurk, if you're interested in learning about AI automation and specifically, end to end.