Senior SWE @OctopusEnergy. Did $100k/mo, keyword banned overnight. Now building https://teapawt.net/t.co/iFOlo4poZn (AI automation), just accepted into an accelerator.
United Kingdom
Joined August 2011
- Tweets9.6K
- Following2.4K
- Followers3.3K
- Likes14.7K
Pinned Tweet
I was making $100k/month and then got keyword banned overnight. Back to zero.
Now I'm building CodePrepped.com from scratch, living off savings with a wife and two boys.
I landed interviews in 7 days using my own methods while senior engineers struggled for months/years.
Follow along for the journey 🎥
Not every business needs to go all in on AI.
If all you sell is AI automation done online, you're a commodity. Someone cheaper turns up every week, and you're always having to change what you do just to keep up.
Mix the old world with the new one and that risk mostly goes away.
Most decision makers worth winning don't reply to adverts, DMs or AI-written messages, at least not consistently. You ring them, you meet them in person, or you know someone who knows them. Past a certain level, business still runs on who you know.
My agency is the proof. What we build is cutting edge. How we win clients is old school. Because of that mix, our projected work for 2027 is higher than I ever expected, and we're aiming to be one of the top UK agencies in our space next year.
People don't talk about this enough. Is anyone else winning their best clients offline?
Your SaaS doesn't need more sales calls or product demos.
It needs a homepage that doesn't need a sales call.
38. Dad of two, from the UK 🇬🇧
Built a product to $100k/mo. Got banned overnight.
Now I build AI automations for big UK companies.
If you’re in AI or a founder, let’s #connect.
ALT Harry and Sophie Ashton selfie by the original bridge at Newstead Abbey
The AI agency in question (hashton.agency) and my platform to help people land coding interviews @CodePrepped
Officially cancelled ChatGPT today after paying for it since it came out.
Moving to Gemini instead for free as the family LLM (wife, extended family use).
Evil in AI is a spectrum, but why sit at the top with OpenAI? There are similair/better options out there
ALT Quote from Sam Altman "The world needs to accept that bad things will happen for AI to move forward"
Main thing I would miss from the subscription is not Codex or a specific model but just the asset generation for things images/logo's etc.
Open AI does some of the best for cost but here's what I did with Gemini, with a little bit of extra work and specificity.
Harry Ashton retweeted
sir... they just built glasses that let you type 200+ words per minute WITHOUT speaking or touching a keyboard
🤝 Paid partnership
We’ve raised $1.3M from YC & Afore Capital so you never have to type or speak again.
Typing is slow. Talking into your computer is awkward. Subvocal fixes both
Our glasses give you the speed of speech without you making a sound or touching a keyboard.
It tracks your internal speech muscles with non-contact sensing and decodes silent, almost invisible mouthing into text at more than 200 words/min.
Pre-orders are now live at:
subvocal.co/preorder?utm_sou…
Harry Ashton retweeted
Mines a bit more DBZ/Cowboy Bebop flavoured but I totally agree. I do a lot of work with agents now and it's a massive time saver. Help's me multi-task a job, 2x edtechs, a personal life and my AI agency!
Harry Ashton retweeted
How likely is it though that the 98% of AI users who don't pay for it are going to agent maxx?
I think for us 2% there will be a shadow shop that serves promo video's and an FAQ to sell/explain the service to a human via the agent.
Hey @X 👋 I'm Harry, a solo founder in the UK. I run an AI agency (hashton.agency).
Looking to connect with:
→ AI and automation builders
→ Devs
→ Agency owners
→ Solo founders
What are you building right now? Let's #connect
Btw if you are an AI and automation legend and know how to build full systems, please get in touch at hashton.agency/contact always on the lookout for good automation engineers :)
Treg say their new people search costs $0.0089 a lead, against the usual $600 subscriptions.
I haven't tried it yet, but at that price the bar to test it is pretty low.
Founders, would you use something like this, or at least try it, when the cost per lead is this cheap?
Introducing Jev @typesafeai powered people-search
Just $0.0089/lead, No more $600 subscriptions,
Try it at treg.to/people-search
- 85% cheaper than Clay
- #1 on people search bench accuracy
- Plugin to any agent to find anyone
Fully open source, 0% markup
Git Repo below 👇
This guy was ready to go to the Galactic Supreme Court over $19.
37 days after he signed up, he emailed me at 4am calling it a fraudulent charge. He was taking it to American Express. And the Better Business Bureau.
His complaint was that he couldn't get into the billing section. Turns out the billing page worked fine. The login screen was just Stripe asking him to sign in.
Honestly, I was ready to go to war with this guy.
Then I decided to leave it and refund him.
The maths is brutal for founders.
For him, a card dispute is a couple of clicks.
For me, it's paperwork, time, and the risk of losing the $19 plus a dispute fee. Even when I'm right.
For him, a one-star review is free.
For me, too many disputes put my payment account at risk.
So for $19, the rational move is to refund. Even when you did nothing wrong.
Founders, refund and move on, or fight it on principle?
3,000 followers 🎉
A month or two ago I was sitting on a few hundred. Didn't see this coming.
Massive thank you to everyone who's followed, replied and shared along the way. Next stop 5k.
Always looking for like-minded people in this space to #connect with 🤝
Small accounts grow faster together.
I went from 300 to 2,900 followers just by connecting in posts like this.
Building with AI? Let's connect.
→ Devs
→ Designers
→ Indie hackers
→ Vibe coders
→ Founders
Say hi and tell me what you're building 👋
Checkout codeprepped.com too if you're struggling to get a web-dev/AI eng interview right now!
To add to it I’m currently building my AI, Software house Hashton.agency which got accepted into an accelerator 2 weeks ago