I’m done with the subscription playbook, and this video is me talking through exactly why. I spent months watching people post their monthly recurring revenue, and I almost turned on the AI copy machine like everyone else, and then I realized I don’t want to put more slop on the internet. So this is the new era of the channel. I’m going back to the craftsmanship of software, sitting down to build live, solving real problems for niche audiences, and handing you the finished thing for about the price of a coffee. One flat price, no subscription, yours forever.
A little about me, I spent 12 years as an engineer at Apple, and now I build apps live on stream with AI tools and share the whole process as I go.
Join the free community where we’re all building together:
(The AI Builder Club, my small live cohort, opens a few times a year, and you’ll hear about it first inside the community.)
Chapters
00:00 Everyone’s Flexing Recurring Income
00:52 One Price, A Million People
01:41 The Craftsmanship of Software
02:36 The Solo Entrepreneur Mission
04:07 Seeds, Fruit, and AI (Not Slop)
05:48 The $5 Software Plan
07:22 My Promise to You
08:31 The Price of a Coffee
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Great video. I appreciate your perspective.
it was about time, local AI ftw!
I'd just like say the subscription playbook does not* automatically equate to AI slop or low value apps. You can deliver high quality apps that are subscription based. I think users, these days, also expect an app to be maintained—new features, bug fixes, UI updates you might need to do whenever the OS itself changes e.t.c.
Even if you were to offer one-time payment only and not bother to push updates again until the next release, well, users still have to pay for the next release and that's practically a subscription right there. At least, a form of it.
Been following you for a long time. Always liked your personality and approach. Go with your gut. That's my plan too starting my channel shortly.
As a quite young person coming into this whirlwind, I cannot say how deeply I appreciate this advice
Nice perspective. I want to touch on the subscription part. The thing about subscription is, it is not always about a recurring revenue because when you’re offering a product for a one time fee some people will not have the amount to purchase outright as it requires more money so subscription give them the lower barrier of entry so that they can also use the solution without having to gather a wholesome money to purchase it outright. That’s why I think having the option for the two is always the best.
… and then i get slapped in the face 😂 — I'm right there with you. Loving this format
Bootstraping is best way than VC s pressure
Rare. Yes absolute joy in pure craftsmanship
SaaS: Slop as a Service
Awesome mission statement. Can’t wait to see what you cook up!
For me is simple make something that makes you happy working on, but with one caveat it is better to work on something that is really hard to copy something that is using all your capacity!
You've truly changed my workflow by introducing me to Cursor and /poteto-mode. The quality of the code it produces is incredible. It feels almost too good to be true. Don't get me started on pairing that with 4.6 inside Cursor. I damn near have unlimited tokens.
Building “software” with ai is so 2025. There’s so much more to done with it besides easy button apps. Like building spreadsheets in 1997. Think outside the box/crowd.
I want the old school app days back. I plan on releasing an app that has a one time fee of like 4.99. Then maybe major updates are 1.99. No OPEX crap.
Great words!! Hope this can help lots of people.
Absolutely agree. Great shift
love it, spoke to my heart
Appreciate the honesty bro, great video
Interesting. Yesterday was thinking about the same. Also. Prices are going up. Will be great to create and start "one time purchase" promoting products. Esp about small soft to fix personal comp issues, boosting, setting up things properly (wifi, computers, hardware and etc)
What are you doing with Clippy now?
i've been building something as well so i have a question. what i'm building uses openrouter in the backend for model calls and i was going to take on that cost and charge a sub. do you think its a better plan to charge a one time fee and let the user put there own key in? i'm really considering it now because i'm in the same era, also older, and just want to build things i love.
those SaaS products are scam. Low price, high social media engagement, bloated numbers >>> Selling courses on AI to create SaaS products. Sincerely, Tech Lead Engineer that has multimillion dollar projects under his belt throughout European corporate giants in various industries (currently in one as well – 100% AI Native with a human in the loop)
the way is to build something with passion. it will come.
at least it better. because that's what i'm doing lol.
You being very nice about a small group of hyper egoistic individuals, you don’t need to be, I hate those attention seeking entrepreneur types.
Keep being you 🙌❤
LETS GO RAYYYY. Mindset is right.
Love this!!
I fully agree with you Ray. High quality crafted software with a flat fee might be the next thing people are looking to use.