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AI paid Dmytro Negodiuk $11K a month for building AI agents for small businesses
AI PAID ME · RECEIPTCHECKED OCT 15, 2026
- Paid to
- Dmytro Negodiuk, founder of Negodiuk AI Consulting in Brooklyn, New York
- For
- A one-person AI automation consultancy for companies with $1M–$10M in revenue
- Tools used
- Cloudflare Pages, Calendly
- Type
- Revenue
Amount, exactly as the source states it
“$11K revenue/mo”
- Starter Story lists Negodiuk AI Consulting at “$11,000 revenue/mo,” with 1 founder and 0 employees.
- Started: “January 2025.”
This is a Starter Story founder interview. The figure comes from Negodiuk, and the page doesn't say Starter Story reviewed documents.
Who he is
Dmytro Negodiuk spent 13 years in distribution and e-commerce in Ukraine, where he and a partner built a company that distributed brands into retail chains across eight countries. After the war began in February 2022, his family moved to New York. He says he needed income fast, with no US network, so he started automating everything in his own businesses.
What he does
Negodiuk helps small and mid-size companies “find the parts of their business that waste human time and hand those parts to AI.” He doesn’t sell software. He builds systems inside businesses that already exist, such as:
- Voice agents that call leads
- Workflows that write, send, and track emails
- Bots that monitor competitors, generate reports, and respond to reviews
He describes it as “the boring stuff that eats 20-40 hours a week and nobody wants to do.”
How AI fits in
He tried everything on himself first. He says his Amazon business got an AI customer service agent, and his granite company got a voice bot that calls prospects. He also says he replaced a full-time employee with an AI agent that sends 800 personalized emails a month at a 14% reply rate. When people saw what he’d built, they asked him to build the same for them.
The source doesn’t name the AI vendors he uses.
How he got clients
- A simple website on Cloudflare Pages, built in a weekend: “Just HTML, a headshot, case studies, and a Calendly link.”
- 33 industry-specific blog posts, such as “AI for Property Management Companies” and “AI for Dental Practices.” His first inbound client, a 600-unit property management company in Brooklyn, found him through one of those posts about three weeks in.
- Lots of small bets: daily LinkedIn posts, expert networks, business directories, helpful Reddit answers, and pitching journalists.
Worth knowing
- He brought a lot of business experience. Thirteen years running distribution gave him a head start on understanding what business owners need.
- It’s revenue, not profit, and it’s self-reported.
- Not every channel worked. He says LinkedIn was good for credibility but weak for leads, and cold outreach to journalists converted at “maybe 3-5%.”
Try it yourself: step by step
Automate one boring task, prove it with numbers, then offer the same fix to one local business.
What you'll need
- One repetitive task you know well (yours, or a small business you're close to)
- An AI assistant (ChatGPT or Claude, free plans work)
- Zapier's Free plan (100 tasks a month, two-step Zaps)
- A spreadsheet to log time before and after
- A one-page site for later (Cloudflare Pages has a free plan)
-
Step 1: Time one task for a week
Pick something dull and repetitive, like answering the same email, copying form entries, or sending reminders. Log how many minutes it takes each day.
-
Step 2: Map the steps
Write each step on paper. Mark which ones need human judgment and which are copy-paste. Automate only the copy-paste parts at first.
-
Step 3: Build a two-step automation
On Zapier's Free plan you get 100 tasks a month and two-step Zaps (one trigger, one action). Multi-step Zaps need Pro, from $19.99/month billed annually ($29.99 monthly). New accounts get a 14-day Pro trial with no credit card required.
-
Step 4: Add AI drafting, with a human check
Use ChatGPT or Claude to draft replies or summaries, and review them before anything goes to a customer. The simplest start is pasting into the AI tool yourself. Check Zapier's pricing page before you rely on its built-in AI features.
-
Step 5: Run it for two weeks and measure
Log minutes saved and anything that went wrong. Negodiuk's advice: "Document the before and after with real numbers."
-
Step 6: Write a one-page case study
Describe the problem, what you built, and the before and after numbers. This is your sales pitch.
-
Step 7: Offer it to one business
Offer to set up the same fix for one local business at a modest price, in exchange for a testimonial. Put the scope in writing.
-
Step 8: Publish one helpful article
Answer a question an owner in that industry would really search for. Negodiuk's first client found him through an industry-specific blog post. Host it on a free plan, like Cloudflare Pages.
-
Step 9: Place several small bets
Try a business directory profile, helpful answers in communities you belong to, and a short post about your case study. He says, "your first client won't come from where you expect."
Beginner pitfalls
- Letting AI send messages to customers without a human review
- Asking clients for their passwords. Use their own accounts or shared access instead.
- Promising time savings you haven't measured
- Forgetting free-plan limits. On Zapier Free, automations stop when you hit the monthly task limit.
- Selling "AI" as the product instead of fixing a specific, boring problem
Realistic expectations
Your first client can take weeks or months to find. Negodiuk had 13 years of business experience. His first inbound client found him through one of his 33 industry-specific blog posts, about three weeks in.
Prices and plan details come from each tool's own pricing page or help docs, checked Oct 15, 2026. They change often, so re-check before you pay. Time estimates are our rough guesses for a beginner. Sources: Zapier pricing; Cloudflare Pages limits (Free plan); What is ChatGPT Plus? (OpenAI Help).
Tools mentioned
- Cloudflare Pages hosts his website
- Calendly booking link on his site
Plain links to each tool's homepage. We don't earn anything from these links. Affiliate disclosure.
Source and verification
I Make $11K/Month Building AI Agents For Companies, Starter Story, Apr 3, 2026.
Self-reported: The numbers come from the person themselves. No documents were checked by the outlet. How we verify.
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