• Jackson Greathouse Fall asked ChatGPT to turn $100 into "as much money as possible."
• In less than a week, Greathouse Fall started a website about eco-friendly products. It shut down a month later.
• Here's how he used ChatGPT and other AI tools to start his business.

Since OpenAI's ChatGPT rolled out last November, workers — including developers and realtors — have been using the AI tool to help with their jobs.

One user tried to turn prompts into riches, though it wasn't quite the success he had hoped: In March, Jackson Greathouse Fall, a brand designer and writer, took to Twitter to share a prompt that he gave the chatbot.

"You have $100, and your goal is to turn that into as much money as possible in the shortest time possible, without doing anything illegal," Greathouse Fall wrote, adding that he would be the "human counterpart" and "do everything" that the chatbot instructed him to do.

After a number of subsequent queries, the bot instructed Greathouse Fall to launch a business called Green Gadget Guru, which offered products and tips to help people live more sustainably. 

—Jackson Greathouse Fall (@jacksonfall) March 15, 2023

Thanks to ChatGPT — along with other AI tools like image-generator DALL-E  — Greathouse Fall said that he managed to raise $1,378.84 for his company in just one day, though Insider could not verify that amount. As of mid-March, the company was valued at $25,000, according to a tweet by Greathouse Fall. The Monday after, he said that his business had generated $130 in revenue, though Insider was not able to verify that amount or how it was generated.

He also used AI to build a professional-looking website for his business, which at the time included mock products like green gadgets and sustainable kitchenware.

He said that he was open to manufacturing products or selling existing products for commissions, if the chatbot told him to.

"We're actively exploring partnerships to sell some of those things," he told Insider in a March email.

As of March 15, he said he was happy with the results.

"TLDR I'm about to be rich," he tweeted.

Since Greathouse Fall's initial tweet in mid-March, the post has racked up more than 100,000 likes and more than 20 million impressions. He's talked about his venture on podcasts and has even started a community on Discord.

Despite the attention he brought to his business, his efforts didn't go as planned. On April 12, almost a month after his initial post, Greathouse Fall tweeted that he is sunsetting Green Gadget Guru to focus on building out his Discord community. The site — which appeared to have no actual products listed for sale and was full of mostly dummy text in March — is now inactive. 

Still, Greathouse Fall's experiment is just one example of how people are turning to generative AI to make money. 

Here is how Greathouse Fall used AI to launch his business in one day: 

ChatGPT provided a four-step plan to get Green Gadget Guru off the ground and asked Greathouse Fall to keep it updated on how things were going; he was able to execute all four steps in one day.

Step one: "Buy a domain and hosting"

First, ChatGPT suggested that he should buy a website domain name for roughly $10, as well as a site-hosting plan for around $5 per month — amounting to a total cost of $15.

Step two: "Set up a niche affiliate website"

ChatGPT suggested that he should use the remaining $85 in his budget for website and content design. It said that he should focus on a "profitable niche with low competition," listing options like specialty kitchen gadgets and unique pet supplies. He went with eco-friendly products.

The chatbot wanted him to create an affiliate website — a site that promotes products in exchange for sales commissions — so it told him to research affiliate programs with high commission rates.

From there, ChatGPT suggested the domain name EcoFriendlyFinds.com. But when Greathouse Fall learned the domain name cost $848 to acquire, it suggested one that was more affordable: GreenGadgetsGuru.com. He bought it for $8.16, he said, then spent $29 on site hosting — which gave him a remaining budget of $62.84.

Step three: "Leverage social media"

Once the website was made, ChatGPT suggested that he should share articles and product reviews on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, and on online community platforms such as Reddit to engage potential customers and drive website traffic.

He also asked the chatbot for help creating a website logo by asking it for prompts he could feed into the AI image-generator DALL-E 2. He took the generated logo and made it his own using Illustrator.

Once that was finished, he had ChatGPT write the site's first article, which he said cited real sustainable products like Yihong's reusable metal straws. A template of that article — "Ten Eco Friendly Kitchen Gadgets" — was uploaded to the now-defunct website.

Next, he followed the chatbot's recommendation to spend $40 of the remaining budget on Facebook and Instagram advertisements to target users interested in sustainability and eco-friendly products.

Step four: "Optimize for search engines"

Step four was to "optimize for search engines" by using SEO techniques to drive site traffic. On top of making SEO-friendly blog posts, he decided to launch the site to bring in publicity — even though he still had a lot of work to do on it.

The result?

By the end of the first day, he said he secured $500 in investments. While Greathouse Fall didn't disclose his investors, he tweeted that his "DMs are flooded" and that he is "not taking any more investors unless the terms are highly favorable."

Five days later, on Monday, he tweeted that he's planning to update his followers on his "HustleGPT journey" every day for 30 days.

"I think we're going to see a huge boom in AI-assisted or even AI-led (!!!) businesses over the next few months," he told Insider.

Are you using ChatGPT to save time or make money? Share your story with these reporters at [email protected] and [email protected].