🥷🏻 Funnel Breakdown #16: The AI Solopreneur

Here’s a crazy stat:

In 2023, more than 3,100 AI newsletters were created on beehiiv alone.

source

As ChatGPT’s popularity skyrocketed over the last year, more and more people jumped on the AI newsletter train.

Now, here’s the thing:

Most of these newsletters will die within the next 2 years.

Why?

Because they have no moat or unique differentiator—and 99% of this content has been commoditized.

So, a more interesting question is:

Who are the few AI newsletters that are going to survive?

This guy over here is certainly one of them:

As you can see in his bio, Ole’s the founder of The AI Solopreneur, one of the fastest growing X accounts of the past year.

In just 18 months, he has:

Built a 22,000+ email list
Grown a following of 148k+ between X and LI
And sold $250k+ worth of his first ever online course

And unlike most of the other generic AI newsletters out there, Ole isn’t monetizing his audience through sponsorships.

Instead, he’s building digital products—and he’s using email courses as a lead magnet to sell them on autopilot.

So in this week’s Funnel Breakdown, I’m going to share with you my best takeaways and highlights after breaking down his email course funnel.

Here’s a sneak peek of what you can expect to learn by the end of this week’s edition:

2 welcome email techniques to instantly hook new readers
A powerful landing page copywriting technique to boost your opt-in rates
How to use “borrowed credibility” to make your lead magnet offer more compelling
And tons more!

So go grab your favorite drink—and let’s dive in.

Funnel Piece #1 → The Landing Page

First, let’s break down Ole’s email course landing page.

This landing page is pretty, pretty solid.

It has:

One clear CTA
Tons of social proof
A comprehensive “sneak peek” section
Several opt-in boxes all over the page (to make it easy for people to sign up no matter where they’re on the page)

But here are the 3 things that stood out the most:

He’s using himself as his own case study: If you’re teaching people how to do something you’ve already done, you have an opportunity to use yourself as your own case study—especially if you don’t have any client or student success stories to share yet. This is kind of obvious but a lot of people forget this is an option, which is why I wanted to call it out. Plus, the way he “visualized” his before-and-after with these 2 images is genius:

On top of using himself as his main “case study,” he’s also using “borrowed credibility”: Despite him having tangible evidence that he knows a thing or two about AI, he’s also leveraging the name of other big industry players (like Alex Hormozi, Justin Welsh, and Russell Brunson) to inject more credibility into the stuff he’s teaching inside the course. Basically saying: “I’m not a genius, I just found a framework from this very successful guy (who you probably know already) and trained ChatGPT on ‘em!”
He included a nice “Is this for me?” section. But here’s what’s interesting: He lists out a bunch of different “feelings” (instead of “objective situations”) for people to decide whether or not they might be interested in signing up. This is great copywriting!

Now, there’s also 2 main copy upgrades he could make here:

Adding an “outcome-driven” headline. Right now, he’s using the email course name as his main headline. And even though it is nice to “name” your lead magnet something (so it feels like a product), you might not want to lead with that as your main headline—especially if the name alone doesn’t make it crystal clear how it’s going to help the reader. So instead, I’d do something similar to this:

Honing in on the “ideal reader” of this email course. If you read the copy of this landing page closely, you’ll notice Ole is clearly trying to cast a wide net here. For example, here’s a blurb from one of the sections below the fold: “I built the AI Business Operator so that you can use all methods, frameworks, and prompts in ANY industry. Regardless if you’re trying to make your first $1 online or run a 500-person company, this course is for any business operator.” And while this might make sense on paper, the reality is that the problems of someone who’s trying to make their first $1 online are COMPLETELY different from the problems of someone who’s running a 500-person company. And when you try to appeal to many different types of readers at the same time, your copy inevitably gets vague and broad. And broad, vague copy doesn’t sell a ton!

Funnel Piece #2 → Thank You Page

Alright, now let’s move onto Ole’s Thank You page:

Not gonna lie… I’m a bit disappointed.

After seeing his landing page, I had higher expectations for this part of the funnel.

Now if you’ve been reading Funnel Breakdowns for a while, hopefully you already understand why having a great Thank You page is such a big deal!

So if your funnel doesn’t have one yet, this is your weekly reminder to work on it.

And if you need help with it, I created a step-by-step guide and a plug-and-play template to help you create a killer Thank You page faster than I can smash my morning coffee.

You can download it for free here.

Funnel Piece #3 → Welcome email

So last but not least, let’s take a look at Ole’s email course welcome email:

Solid welcome email!

Just like his landing page, Ole’s email got all the essentials—plus some extra golden nuggets.

Here are the 3 things that stood out the most:

He kicks off the email with humor and personality. As soon as you open the email, he welcomes you with a quirky greeting line and a picture of Elon Musk next to a mariachi band 😂. This was definitely refreshing—especially because AI can be such a dry, dense topic.
He offers you a little bribe if you read the entire email course. This creates a nice open loop in your head and makes you want to read the whole thing just so you can find out what the “bonus gift” is (at least that’s how I felt!). The only thing you want to be careful with if you’re executing a tactic like this: not disappointing the reader at the end. You want to make sure the “gift” is actually worth your reader’s time and attention.

He uses his personal story to build credibility—but also to make himself more relatable. Instead of just talking about the problems the course helps you solve in the abstract, he makes them real by connecting them to his own personal story. This is a great way to make email more engaging while also building affinity with your readers.

Now, there’s just one small potential upgrade I’d make to this email:

I’d consider moving some of his personal story to the “transition pages” of the email course. If your emails are engaging, length isn’t a problem. That said, you also want to be strategic about your “reader’s journey.” And since his email course does have “fast forward” links, he could use the redirect pages of these links to share his personal story only with folks who click to get the next lesson without waiting until the next day (who, by definition, are his most engaged readers).

Let’s recap, shall we?

And that’s a wrap!

As usual, we covered a lot and there are a bunch of tactical golden nuggets in this Breakdown.

So I’m going to quickly recap them all below so you can get a quick refresher and decide which one of these nuggets you’re going implement in your own funnels this week.

Tactics Worth Stealing From The AI Solopreneur’s Funnel

If you’re adding extra sections to your lead magnet landing page, make sure to also add extra signup boxes all over it to reduce friction and boost opt-in rates.
Find a unique way to show your personality in your welcome email so you can immediately hook readers and make a lasting impression.
Use yourself as your own case study when you can—and borrow credibility from big players in your industry to make your lead magnet offer more compelling.

Potential Upgrades He Could Make (That You Can Learn From)

Set up a Thank You page (so you can segment your subscribers and ensure they open your welcome email).
Hone in on your lead magnet’s target audience and make your landing page copy specific (so you can naturally attract your ideal customers).
Avoid using your lead magnet name as the “headline” of your landing page—unless it makes it so extremely clear what (and whose) problem it is designed to help solve.

Boom—now the ball is on your court!

Which of these are you going to implement over the next week?

Hit reply and let me know!

Also, if you have any follow-up questions after reading this issue, be sure to let me know too!

I’m here to help :-)

Until next week,

~The Email Marketing Ninja