[Journey] From $0 to… Hopefully Something – My OFM + AI Experiment

Day 254 Update
Another fairly steady day. Revenue dipped a little, but nothing that changes the bigger picture. At this point I’m much more interested in the trend over several days than one daily number.
Revenue
• Total: $4,732
• Subscriptions: $1,186
• PPV: $2,801
• Tips: $745
Subscribers
• New subs: 321
• Rebill rate: ~92%
Traffic Sources
• Instagram: ~34%
• Reddit: ~34%
• TikTok: ~26%
• Other: ~6%
Content Posted
• IG Reels: 4
• TikToks: 2
• Reddit posts: 31
• IG Stories: 44
Operations
Chatter handled most conversations. I focused mainly on reviewing the quality of the existing audience and where we can get more value without simply increasing message volume.
Observations
Biggest takeaway today:
A smaller but healthier audience is better than a large audience that constantly needs attention.
During the faster growth period, it was easy to look at total user numbers and assume more was always better.
Now I'm looking at it differently.
If an audience requires a huge amount of manual work but produces very little revenue, adding even more users like that doesn't really solve anything.
The goal is to improve the average quality of the audience, not just the size of it.
Another thing I noticed:
Retention becomes much more valuable when acquisition slows down.
When new users were coming in constantly, losing a few after their first purchase didn't feel like a major problem.
Now every lost repeat buyer is much more noticeable.
That has pushed us to spend more time understanding why people disappear after the first purchase and what brings them back naturally.
On the monetization side:
The best repeat buyers don't need constant offers.
Some of the strongest users actually purchase after relatively quiet periods.
Trying to keep them constantly engaged can have the opposite effect.
Sometimes leaving enough space is better than always having another message ready.
Timing is becoming more important than frequency.
Traffic is still the biggest area I want to improve.
Reddit remains the strongest source for buyer quality, while TikTok and IG are helping diversify the top of the funnel.
But I'm trying not to chase volume just because the revenue is lower.
Bad traffic can make a healthy operation look busy while actually making it weaker.
Another interesting thing:
We're getting better at identifying what is actually worth testing.
Earlier, I would sometimes run several small experiments at once.
Now I'm trying to keep the variables cleaner.
One change.
Watch the result.
Keep it or remove it.
Then move to the next thing.
It feels slower, but the information is much better.
I'm also noticing a difference in how the team works compared with a few months ago.
There is less panic when a conversation doesn't convert.
There is less pressure to keep every user active.
And there is a better understanding that not every conversation deserves the same amount of time.
That alone has probably saved more time than a lot of the smaller optimizations we've tested.
The current revenue level is obviously below the peak.
I'm not trying to hide that.
But I also don't want to keep comparing every day to the best days we've ever had.
The peak showed what the business could do. This phase is showing what it can actually sustain.
New Focus / Tests
• Improve repeat buyer retention
• Identify where first-time buyers drop off
• Keep testing higher-quality traffic
• Reduce unnecessary touchpoints
• Continue simplifying chatter workflows
• Track experiments more carefully
• Keep costs aligned with the current revenue level
The last few updates have been less exciting financially, but I actually think they're becoming more useful.
Growth taught me how to scale. The slowdown is teaching me how to operate.
And honestly, I probably needed both.

Day 255 Update
Another pretty normal day. Revenue recovered a little from yesterday, but I'm still treating this whole period as a stabilization phase rather than trying to force the numbers back up.
Revenue
• Total: $4,806
• Subscriptions: $1,201
• PPV: $2,845
• Tips: $760
Subscribers
• New subs: 328
• Rebill rate: ~92%
Traffic Sources
• Instagram: ~34%
• Reddit: ~34%
• TikTok: ~26%
• Other: ~6%
Content Posted
• IG Reels: 3
• TikToks: 3
• Reddit posts: 32
• IG Stories: 45
Operations
Chatter handled most conversations. I spent most of today reviewing the difference between users who purchase once and the ones who continue spending over several weeks.
Observations
Biggest takeaway today:
The quality of a customer becomes much clearer after the first purchase.
Before someone buys, there is a lot of guessing.
After they buy, we have actual behavior to look at.
Do they come back?
Do they open new offers?
Do they interact without being pushed?
Do they purchase again?
Those signals are much more useful than trying to predict everything from the first conversation.
Another thing I noticed:
We were sometimes optimizing for the wrong metric.
A high number of conversations looks good on paper, but it doesn't necessarily mean the operation is performing well.
If the chatter spends hours keeping low-intent users active, the inbox looks busy while revenue barely moves.
Meanwhile, a smaller number of good conversations can produce much more.
Busy and productive are definitely not the same thing.
On the traffic side, Reddit is still producing the best buyer quality, while TikTok continues to give us useful reach.
IG is somewhere in the middle right now.
I'm not expecting every platform to suddenly return to its previous performance.
The goal is simply to keep several sources working well enough that one bad week on a platform doesn't hurt the whole business.
Diversification is more about reducing volatility than maximizing every channel.
On the monetization side:
I'm becoming much more careful with timing after a purchase.
There is a window where the user is still engaged and familiar with the experience.
That's usually when the next offer makes the most sense.
But pushing too quickly can ruin that.
Waiting too long can also lose momentum.
It's a small difference, but at this volume small differences add up.
Another interesting thing today:
Some of the best improvements are boring.
Cleaning up old workflows.
Removing unnecessary steps.
Fixing small tracking issues.
Making sure the team knows which conversations actually need attention.
None of this makes for an exciting screenshot, but it makes the business easier to run.
I'm starting to appreciate boring improvements a lot more than flashy ones.
The current revenue range is also forcing me to think more about margins.
When revenue was climbing every week, it was easy to tolerate inefficient processes because growth covered them.
Now every unnecessary expense is much easier to notice.
That doesn't mean cutting everything.
It means knowing what actually earns its place in the operation.
New Focus / Tests
• Track first-to-second purchase behavior
• Improve post-purchase timing
• Keep reducing low-value manual conversations
• Maintain multiple traffic sources
• Improve tracking for chatter performance
• Review recurring tools and operating costs
• Keep the current system stable before adding more complexity
One thing I definitely don't want to do right now is panic and start rebuilding everything.
The business has already proven it can grow. Now I need to prove it can handle a slower period without falling apart.
That's probably the more important test at this stage.

Day 256 Update

The day was pretty calm. Although revenue had not reached the previous peak, the way the operation was running seemed much less disordered than before.
Revenue
• Total: $4,754
• Subscriptions: $1,185
• PPV: $2,811
• Tips: $758
Subscribers
• New subs: 323
• Rebill rate: ~92%

Traffic Sources
• Instagram: ~35%
• Reddit: ~32%
• TikTok: ~27%
• Other: ~6%

Content Posted
• IG Reels: 3
• TikToks: 3
• Reddit posts: 31
• IG Stories: 44

Operations

Chatter took care of most of the conversations and I mainly spent the day examining the workflow, making small adjustments that are responsible for slowing everybody down.

Biggest thing today:

An adequate system ought not to require me to intervene every five minutes.

That might well have been one of the major errors I made earlier on; each time things went wrong I would immediately go in and sort them out myself.

Did someone have a question? I would answer it.

If the revenue has gone down, I'd begin making changes.

Would the conversation turn wrong? Then I'd get involved.

It worked in the case of a small operation, but it's obviously impossible to carry on in that way.

I'm reaching a stage at which the team is able to look after most of these small matters by themselves.

To be honest, that's a pretty big achievement.

Another thing I noticed:

The team aren't in need of additional rules; they just need rules that are clearer.

I always believed that the more instructions you added, the better everything would become; in fact, having an excess of rules only serves to delay people.

We'll keep the significant aspects the same and make the other parts flexible.

With the background consisting of structured content and ordinary human conversation taking place in the foreground.

It appears to work a lot better.

With regard to monetization, I'm placing greater emphasis on ensuring consistency between shifts.

Users can tell when one person speaks in a certain way and another person changes the atmosphere completely.

It may not be enough to complain, but it is enough to make the entire situation seem a bit wrong.

That is why we're sorting it out without changing everything into a huge script.

The traffic remains rather mixed.

Reddit is still attracting a good number of buyers, TikTok is helpful for gaining reach, and Instagram is still carrying out its discovery function.

I'm really all right with that now.

I never need a single platform to take on the entire business.

I prefer having three good sources to relying on a single one and then being ruined if any change occurs.

The slowdown has meanwhile made it simpler to identify useless work.

We were carrying out a number of things simply because that was the way we had always done them.
It caused no harm to revenue at all.
On the contrary, the team has more time to spend on the things that really matter.
That's probably the main lesson from this slower period:
It isn't necessary for you to do more in all cases.
Sometimes you just need to stop doing stupid things.
The figures aren't back to the levels they reached at the peak anymore, but I'm really beginning to care less about that.
I prefer having a business make $4.7k with nothing going wrong to making $7k having to stay at the dashboard the entire day.
That's a lot healthier to be in.

Any chance you could DM me? Got a few quick questions. I've been waiting 2 days for the mods to approve my comment, but shorter comments seem to go through no problem.

Nice revenue! How much hours per day are you working on this?
And how did you figured out the chatting strategy? Did you read some guides or courses or you just improvised, and experimented to see what works and what does not?

Do you think OFM is too saturated in 2026 for someone starting completely from zero ?
2. If you had to start again today with basically £0 and no models, what would you focus on for the first 30–90 days be
3. Would you start with just one model or try to get a few?
4. What's the biggest thing you wish you knew at the beginning regarding traffic?
5. What do you think about starting as a traffic/growth agency instead of full OF management?

Singularity1 said:

Nice revenue! How much hours per day are you working on this?
And how did you figured out the chatting strategy? Did you read some guides or courses or you just improvised, and experimented to see what works and what does not?

Click to expand...

These days around 4-6 hrs/day, depends tbh. Not all chatting, mostly checking numbers, traffic and fixing stuff
Chatting was mostly trial and error. Read a few guides at first, then just tested shit and kept what worked lol

Virandell said:

Do you think OFM is too saturated in 2026 for someone starting completely from zero ?
2. If you had to start again today with basically £0 and no models, what would you focus on for the first 30–90 days be
3. Would you start with just one model or try to get a few?
4. What's the biggest thing you wish you knew at the beginning regarding traffic?
5. What do you think about starting as a traffic/growth agency instead of full OF management?

Click to expand...

Not too saturated imo, just more competitive
With £0 I'd go 1 model, focus on traffic + retention and test like crazy. Views dont mean much if nobody buys lol.Traffic agency first could work too. Less headache, learn the funnel, then add full OFM later

Day 257 Update
Today, I made $4,638.
I would say that not much happened today. Day was slower than yesterday, with a lot of regular upswings and downswings.
Subscriptions amounted to $1,161, pay-per-views $2,741, while tips provided another $736
309 subscriptions were received, and percentage of rebilled subscriptions is around 92%.

Reddit stayed the number one source of traffic when it comes to buyers. TikTok again attracted more random traffic, Instagram ranked second.
I have spent most of the day checking chats and cleaning the clutter that was taking time. Nothing significant happened today.
One thing I have noticed is that we’ve become better at leaving some of the chats alone. Earlier, I tried to revitalize every chat, now I just let it go if I see that some of the people are not interested

Returning customers are still doing much of the hard work to make us get profit.

I have to say that earning money today, like $4-5 thousand dollars feels different after seeing $7-8 thousands, but I prefer slow day instead of worrying when seeing that revenue decreases.

I continue testing new methods, but now I’m not changing 10 things at once.

Day 258 Update
The earnings today is at $4,571
Once again, the business seems to be performing slowly. There isn’t anything broken, we just notice a decline overall in the buying activity
We earned:
Subs: $1,145
PPV: $2,701
Tips: $725

There were 304 new subs, with the rebill around 92%
When it comes to the sources of traffic, Reddit provided 31% of the traffic, IG: 35%, TikTok: 28%
I spent a good part of my day looking through old data and old chats to find a couple of things we were doing too frequently without reason

I immediately got rid of these things

Also, a couple of repeat customers we haven’t seen in a while have come back, which is nice. It makes the retention process more exciting than just getting new subs every day
Traffic is still the main issue we are facing. We get reasonable volume but the buyer quality is not as good as in the good days of the peak time.

Now we are trying other types of content for IG and TikTok as well. Nothing adventurous, just checking what will invite people for a longer stay
To be honest, that is everything for today. I just keep working, keep looking, and the results are normal now.

Good Bro, KEEP GOING, I'm watching your journey, and not anyone can keep going

you're one of the goat

How do you usually handle real-time requests for pictures, videos, or proof when the model isn’t available?
For Instagram accounts, do you find it necessary to use real phones, or can i run them with proxies + anti-detect browser on PC? I dont have really money to be buying few iphones
How much do you charge for subscriptions ? Or better make them free at the start ?
And how do you funnel ? Through website or LinkedIn ?

Yupwork said:

Good Bro, KEEP GOING, I'm watching your journey, and not anyone can keep going

you're one of the goat

Click to expand...

Appreciate it bro still grinding
Had some rough days too but gotta keep going lol
Thanks for following the journey!

Virandell said:

How do you usually handle real-time requests for pictures, videos, or proof when the model isn’t available?
For Instagram accounts, do you find it necessary to use real phones, or can i run them with proxies + anti-detect browser on PC? I dont have really money to be buying few iphones
How much do you charge for subscriptions ? Or better make them free at the start ?
And how do you funnel ? Through website or LinkedIn ?

Click to expand...

For pics/videos I try to have fresh content ready beforehand
If the model isn't available, I don't fake it or use random stuff
For IG, I wouldn't stress about buying a bunch of iPhones at the start. PC can work, just stay within IG's rules and don't try to hide automation.
I prefer paid subs tbh
Free can bring a ton of low-quality traffic
For the funnel, I keep it pretty simple: IG/TikTok/Reddit → profile → link hub → OF. No LinkedIn stuff

Thanks alot dude you smashing honestly the more I am reading/studying the more I want to try it with hoping to succeed last 1 question I hope, I might actually buy 1 iPhone just for the starters I am from UK you think would be good idea to buy proxies for the phone or just use mobile data ?

Virandell said:

Thanks alot dude you smashing honestly the more I am reading/studying the more I want to try it with hoping to succeed last 1 question I hope, I might actually buy 1 iPhone just for the starters I am from UK you think would be good idea to buy proxies for the phone or just use mobile data ?

Click to expand...

Yeah bro, 1 iPhone is more than enough to start imo. I’d just use normal mobile data at first, no need to overcomplicate it with proxies straight away. Keep it simple and see how it goes first. Good luck man

Day 259 Update
$4,493 today

Bit down again, but nothing really dramatic. Feels like we're still sitting in this lower range for now

Subs: $1,126
PPV: $2,657
Tips: $710

298 new subs, rebill around 92%
Reddit was about 30% of traffic, IG 36%, TikTok 28%, rest other

Spent most of today going through old campaigns and content. Some stuff that used to work just doesn't hit the same anymore. Probably normal, but still annoying

One thing I keep noticing is how much easier it is to manage repeat buyers than fresh traffic. Less work, less explaining, and they already know the whole setup

We're also cutting down on pointless follow-ups. If someone isn't replying, I'm not gonna have the team poke them 5 times just to make the inbox look busy.
Traffic is still the weak spot. TikTok is giving us decent reach, but buyer quality is pretty mixed. Reddit is smaller now but still brings some of the better users.
No huge changes today
Just cleaning things up, watching the numbers and trying not to do anything stupid because revenue is lower
Still here, still working.

If one of your social media accounts gets banned on the phone, how do you usually handle it?
Does deleting the app, reinstalling, and using airplane mode actually help, or do you need stronger steps (new phone, new SIM, etc.)?
Also, do you only do this after multiple accounts get banned, or even if just one account gets banned?

Virandell said:

If one of your social media accounts gets banned on the phone, how do you usually handle it?
Does deleting the app, reinstalling, and using airplane mode actually help, or do you need stronger steps (new phone, new SIM, etc.)?
Also, do you only do this after multiple accounts get banned, or even if just one account gets banned?

Click to expand...

If one gets banned I don't instantly start buying new phones
First I check why it happened and whether the account was actually doing something wrong
Deleting/reinstalling the app or airplane mode isn't some magic fix. If the same behavior keeps happening, changing devices won't really solve the root problem
I usually don't change anything just because one account goes down. If I start seeing a pattern, then I look deeper at the setup and activity

inspiring journey , i will read it all from scratch and try my best to do like you , for now like you are doing
Day 259 Update
$4,493 today

like 4500 dollar per day ?? or its the lifetime profit since started this journey ?

if its daily , what is the costs ? or its mostly all profit ?

btw congrats this will be good journey to read page by page .

praxxx213 said:

inspiring journey , i will read it all from scratch and try my best to do like you , for now like you are doing
Day 259 Update
$4,493 today

like 4500 dollar per day ?? or its the lifetime profit since started this journey ?

if its daily , what is the costs ? or its mostly all profit ?

btw congrats this will be good journey to read page by page .

Click to expand...

Yeah bro, the $4,493 is that day's revenue, not lifetime
Costs come out of that obviously, so it's definitely not $4.5k profit
Chatter, models, tools, traffic etc all eat into it. Profit margin also moves around depending on the month
And appreciate it man, good luck with your own journey

Day 260 Update

260 days already
Kinda wild looking back at the first few pages now. The business is in a completely different place, but honestly the last month has probably taught me more than some of the big growth periods
$4,382 today
Still below the old highs, obviously. I'm not gonna dress it up as some massive win. But we're also not seeing the crazy drops from earlier, so I'm taking that as a decent sign.

Revenue
• Total: $4,382
• Subscriptions: $1,098
• PPV: $2,592
• Tips: $692

Subscribers
• New subs: 291
• Rebill rate: ~92%

Traffic Sources
• Instagram: ~36%
• Reddit: ~30%
• TikTok: ~28%
• Other: ~6%

Content Posted
• IG Reels: 4
• TikToks: 3
• Reddit posts: 29
• IG Stories: 43

Operations
Chatter handled most of the conversations again
I spent a good chunk of today going through the last few weeks and comparing what we're doing now with what we were doing when revenue was much higher
There are actually a lot of small differences
Nothing like one giant secret that suddenly explains everything

It's more like 20 little things

Some content performs worse
Some traffic is colder
Some users need longer before buying
Some follow-ups don't hit anymore
Some old workflows are just unnecessary now

And when all of those stack up, you feel it in the numbers
Observations

Biggest thing I've learned from the slowdown:
You really don't know how good a system is until things stop going your way
When revenue was climbing every day, it was easy to think every decision was working
Looking back, some of it was probably just momentum
Traffic was strong, buyers were coming in, and the whole thing covered up a lot of inefficiencies
Now those little problems are way easier to see
One thing we've changed is how we look at users
Before, active chat = important user
That's not really true
Some people talk all day and never buy
Others barely say anything and then drop a purchase out of nowhere
So we're paying more attention to actual behavior instead of just activity
That sounds obvious now, but I definitely wasn't looking at it this way early on
Another thing:
We're doing less chasing
If someone doesn't reply, we don't immediately throw another message at them
Sometimes they come back later anyway
And if they don't, I'd rather spend that time on someone who actually has buying intent
The whole operation feels a lot calmer because of that.
Traffic is stil the biggest thing I'm watching.
Reddit is smaller than it used to be in the mix, but the buyer quality is still there.
IG is bringing decent discovery
TikTok gives us a lot of reach, but it's still pretty hit or miss when it comes to actual buyers.
I'm okay with that for now.
I'm not trying to make every platform behave exactly the same.
One thing that surprised me is how much more important retention feels now.

When you're doing $7-8k+ days, you naturally focus on getting more people in.

When you're doing $4k days, you start looking at the people already inside.
Who's comig back?
Who's buying again?
Who disappeared?
Why?
That stuff becomes way more important
And honestly, some of the best revenue today came from people who weren't new at all
That's probably the biggest difference between the current phase and the earlier one
We're not just building a funnel anymore
We're building an audience that has some memory of the experience
Another thing I'm trying to fix is the amount of information the team has to deal with
We've accumulated way too many notes, rules and little processes over time
Some are useful
Some are basically historical leftovers
So I'm slowly cleaning those up
If something hasn't been useful for months, it probably doesn't need to be there
The goal isn't to have the most complicated SOP
It's to have something people can actually follow without thinking about it for 10 minutes
New Focus / Tests

• Keep improving traffic quality
• Clean up old workflows
• Track repeat buyers more closely
• Reduce unnecessary follow-ups
• Improve first-to-second purchase behavior
• Keep testing IG and TikTok content
• Protect Reddit traffic quality
• Remove old processes that aren't doing anything
• Keep costs under control

The numbers are still lower than the peak
That's just reality
But I'm starting to feel like the business is becoming healthier in a different way
Less crazy growth
Less chaos
Less me jumping into every little problem
More boring systems that just work
And tbh, that's probably what I should've been building from day one
The $8k days were fun
But if I can build something that keeps working without everything depending on one traffic source or me being online all day, that's way more interesting to me

260 days in and I'm still figuring shit out

Probably always will be

That's kinda the point of the journey I guess