AI Guides › Step-by-step guides
By Nigel Guy · 6 min read
"Seven things to build this week" lists are easy to read and almost impossible to act on. You nod at all seven, bookmark the page, and build none, because nothing in the list tells you which one you can actually sell to a named person by Sunday. The usual mistake is treating the list as the plan, when the plan is the narrowing.
A note on sources. This guide was meant to start from a specific published list of seven ideas, each with a buyer, a price and a platform. We could not verify that list's data, so we have not repeated any of its ideas, prices or buyers. What follows is the durable part: how to turn any shortlist, including your own, into one live offer with a way to take payment within seven days.
The rule: build the smallest thing one named buyer would pay for, take payment before you polish, and treat every idea on a list as unproven until someone pays.
You need:
Budget: £0 is realistic for the first week.
Open a note with seven rows. In each row write the same four things: who pays, what they pay for, the one task it does, and what they do today instead. If you cannot fill all four, that row is a topic, not an idea. Cut it.
Give each surviving row one point per "yes":
| Question | Yes means |
|---|---|
| Can I name a real person who has this problem? | You can message them today |
| Do they already spend money or time on it? | A workaround exists |
| Can I deliver the core result in under five working days? | Small enough to build |
| Can I deliver it without giving advice I am not qualified to give? | Safe scope |
Rows in health and money need extra care on the last question. A tool that organises receipts is one thing; one that tells someone what to do about a symptom or an investment is another. Choose the organising version or skip the row.
Pick the highest score. If there is a tie, pick the one whose buyer you can reach fastest.
Use this shape: "I will [result] for [named buyer] by [date] for £[price]." Choose the price yourself, based on what the buyer's current workaround costs them. Do not copy a price from a list; it was set for someone else's buyer.
Use this prompt in your assistant of choice. Fill in the square brackets.
You are a careful copywriter for a UK micro-business. Write a one-page
offer for a product that does not exist yet, so nothing may claim results
I cannot show.
Inputs:
- Buyer: [NAMED_BUYER_OR_GROUP]
- Problem in their words: [PROBLEM]
- What they do today: [CURRENT_WORKAROUND]
- The one result I will deliver: [RESULT]
- Delivery date and format: [DATE_AND_FORMAT]
- Price in GBP: [PRICE]
Steps:
1. Ask me for any input above that is blank or vague. Do not guess.
2. Write: a headline naming the result, three short paragraphs
(problem, what you get, how delivery works), and a plain refund or
next-step line.
3. Use British English. No invented statistics, testimonials or numbers.
4. If the topic touches health, money or legal matters, add a short
"what this is not" line saying it is not professional advice.
Format: headings and short paragraphs, under 250 words.
Before answering, check that every claim in the draft is something I
told you, and remove any that is not.
Read the result aloud. Delete every sentence you would not say to the buyer's face.
According to Stripe's documentation: in the Dashboard, open the Payment Links page and click +New. Select an existing product or click +Add a new product, fill in the details and click Add product, then click Create link. For a recurring price, choose a recurring product; for pay-what-you-want, choose Customers choose what to pay instead, which Stripe says does not currently support recurring payments. Stripe's pages say payment methods shown depend on what is enabled in Settings > Payment methods, and that some bank-based methods can take days to confirm, so do not deliver until the payment shows as paid.
Stripe's fees and any account checks apply to you; read Stripe's own pricing page before you share the link. We have not quoted a fee here.
Message five people who match the buyer, with the one-line offer and the link. Do not post it everywhere. Five direct messages teach you more than a hundred impressions.
If you need a form to collect details after payment, a Tally form can do that on its free plan. Only reach for a builder like Glide when a buyer has paid and needs an app, not before. Remember that a free Glide plan lists no published apps.
Do the work manually, or with your assistant, for the first one to three buyers. Note which steps repeat. Only those steps deserve automating.