u/Fantastic_Run2955

I run a small handmade jewelry business on my own, and the marketing part is actually my weakest link for real. I see what other brands do and I really like what they are doing, but I think it is near impossible when I am trying to balance a ring on the marble looking kitchen counter while fighting with a ring light (yes I know I am not using the right tool but this is what I am willing to spend on with my current skillset. I also have a cat that knocks things over approximately every 20 minutes so that is just a permanent variable I have learned to accept).

I tried to follow those iphone photo tutorials, bought the little motorized turn-tables, I tried the hand reveal shots, but the shot looks way off. The lab-grown diamonds also made it super hard to get the lighting right, especially the flickering. And then I discovered midjourney, and it really helped my photo shoot quality with it enhancing my shot.

I tried to get into videos, since that’s where it is supposed to be getting more attention. I uploaded my photos to Runway and Luma, since those are the bigger ones.

With Runway, since the jewelry is reflective, it really tricks the AI. Every time I tried to add motion, the gold would melt, or the gemstones would add some weird glow. No good.

Luma is great for realistic people, but for intricate objects, it kept trying to re-design them. My silver necklace would change shape, which is a big problem to me because I want the product to be featured as is. I was pretty much ready to call the whole video thing a failed experiment, I had even started drafting a post asking if anyone else just sticks to photos forever, and then I closed the tab because it felt like giving up too publicly I guess.

I was ready to give up and stick to photo + midjourney combo but I saw a youtube video about PixVerse V6 having a more realistic physics interpretation.

I also learned to use its Motion control on a high-res photo I already had done with mj. Uploaded a movement that I want to mimic (I know, it is low effort but it is what I need).

It actually worked mostly. I got a clip that looks like it was shot professionally. The lighting stayed grounded and the "shimmer" on the metal finally felt like real, with some minor flaws that I think it is not too noticeable? At least it got me 2 sales, so something is working.

I still get these weird "shimmer" artifacts in the corners sometimes, and perspective wraps sometimes. I think the level of effort for me to generate content is much lower now, though sometimes prompting, and going back to fixing videos take more time than just shooting a photo. So I am not sure if video form is something that I should stick with and get good at.

Full disclosure. I am definitely on the lazier side.

I work a full time day job that leaves me pretty drained, so when I fell down the "AI Side Hustle" rabbit hole on YouTube, I was just drawn to the fact that i can leave it and forget about it. Most of the "make $10k a month" advice is fluff, but I am not greedy, so if it is low effort, I am down. I had actualy seen PixVerse mentioned a few weeks before any of this, someone dropped it in a YouTube comment thread I was reading, and I just kept scrolling. Didnt register. I was already looking at the "big names" and figured that was enough.

So I decided to start my "aesthetic Travel ASMR" project with AI Video creation. I started with the big guns, Runway and Luma. They are both technical marvels, but for my project, they were a nightmare. Runway in the effort in trying to make things cinematic, has very aggressive camera pan that I seem to not able to control. Luma gave me beautiful still and movementless shots. But when I tried to do a coffee shop shot with a barrista brewing coffee, for some reason the hand morphs into the cup for a split second. I ended up spending way too much time to get it to work perfectly, which defeats the purpose.

I was about to give up because it was high effort (for me at least), and low return. Then I remembered that PixVerse comment I had scrolled past, and gave it one last shot as a "hail mary." And honestly my first few renders were terrible. My first prompt was something like: cinematic shot of a girl drinking tea by a rainy window, warm ambient lighting, steam rising from the cup, slow motion, shallow depth of field, cozy autumn mood, 4k and for some reason, the movement still gets janky. The steam would start fine and then just kind of... twitch. I ran it three more times and got the same thing. I almost closed the tab. This made me feel like it should be the end of my quest for side hustle (side note: I also tried to learn CapCut properly during this whole period and honestly that was its own nightmare. Completley unrelated but I mention it because it added like two extra weeks of confusion to an already confusing process.)

Before giving up, I tried one last time. I embraced my lazy nature, and just stripped of all the technical jargons that I learned about prompt. I realized I was trying too friggin hard to control it exactly how to move.

This is where things got weird: the physics started working. The lighting engine understood that light coming through a rainy window should hit the steam from the cup, not some random spot on the table. Mind you, none of this was prompted.

Ngl I sat there for like a full minute not sure if I got lucky or if something had actualy clicked. I ran another clip. Same result. Still wasnt totaly sure. Now, I started batch-generating 10 clips every morning. Ive been uploading them as scheduled YouTube Shorts for almost a month now. Total work time? Maybe 30 minutes each sitting.

I made $215.42 in affiliate commissions this month. Not sure if that number holds, it might be a fluke of the algorithm, or the niche, or just timing, idk. But considering it covers my subscription stack and a few nice dinners, I am pretty happy with it.

I learned that like myself, things cant be micro-managed (or maybe it is just my case). Find a tool that handles the "weight" and lighting and just let it do its thing.

Anyone else found a "low-effort" workflow that actualy works, or did I just get lucky because of the nature of the project?

Curious to get a sense from others in this space,, recently notice capital markets teams starting to outsource more support work (research, documentation, admin, etc.) thoughts on this??

I launched a small business site a couple months ago and thought everything was fine. Nothing fancy, just a pretty standard marketing site.

Recently someone reached out and pointed out a bunch of accessibility issues, things like poor keyboard navigation, missing labels on forms, and some contrast problems.

I checked it myself and yeah… they’re not wrong. It’s just stuff I didn’t really think about at the time beyond the basics.

Now I’m in this awkward spot where the project is technically done, but I also don’t feel great just leaving it as-is. At the same time, this wasn’t part of the original scope and I’m not sure how to bring it up with the client without making it a whole thing.

Curious how others handle this. Do you usually go back and fix things like this on your own, or treat it as a new scope?