u/Middle-Read-2258

Last year in May 2025, tired of being free all the time and wasting time with friends, I thought I should do something. Something that has a scope in the next coming years.

Before that, I was a graphic designer but clearly it seemed that that field had no future.

So I shifted to AI automation & AI voice agents. It is not that easy for a person who knows nth about code, but I was locked in. Every single day, I was learning about it & practicing again & again.

Each time I came across a bug or error, I tried solving through claude or gpt but it didn't help so I continued trying to figure it out myself.

Now, it's been a whole year and the competition is too much. A job post posted less than a day ago, has alr 100 applicants. Everyone is an Automation Specialist or so called engineer now. Ig it's the trend maybe.

Maybe entrepreneurs out there are selling courses and made this a trend but I don't think an automation engineer is even a real role, so I thought maybe, pursuing my career in a different but real field like cloud engineering.

So I started learning python which is just the starting point, there's a lot more to learn. Wish be luck!

If anyone of you is in automation or AI related field, did you guys made some real money or are you guys from those who put fake experience and case studies in their portfolio just to look professional?

Last year in May 2025, tired of being free all the time and wasting time with friends, I thought I should do something. Something that has a scope in the next coming years.

Before that, I was a graphic designer but clearly it seemed that that field had no future.

So I shifted to AI automation & AI voice agents. It is not that easy for a person who knows nth about code, but I was locked in. Every single day, I was learning about it & practicing again & again.

Each time I came across a bug or error, I tried solving through claude or gpt but it didn't help so I continued trying to figure it out myself.

Now, it's been a whole year and the competition is too much. A job post posted less than a day ago, has alr 100 applicants. Everyone is an Automation Specialist or so called engineer now. Ig it's the trend maybe.

Maybe entrepreneurs out there are selling courses and made this a trend but I don't think an automation engineer is even a real role, so I thought maybe, pursuing my career in a different but real field like cloud engineering.

So I started learning python which is just the starting point, there's a lot more to learn. Wish be luck!

If anyone of you is in automation or AI related field, did you guys made some real money or are you guys from those who put fake experience and case studies in their portfolio just to look professional?

Genuinely curious how founders here landed their first few clients, or are still getting them now.

Cold outreach feels dead. Everyone's inbox is flooded. Ads are expensive. Word of mouth is slow when you're just starting out.

What actually worked for you? Was it a specific channel, a specific approach, or just pure luck?

Not looking for the usual "provide value" advice. I want to know what you actually did, step by step.

Thanks

For a person with $0 in their pocket, what would you guys recommend about how do they get leads?

Clearly, a technical person can't do Sales at all and if he does, I don't think he has good data to do so. Most probably, they will scrape numbers on google maps & the staff won't let pass through.

So I was wondering if anyone has been in this phase, just starting out with empty pockets, how did you guys got your first $?

CONTEXT: I am mainly in the automation industry, automating processes for businesses to get rid of manual work & recently I have developed an AI Receptionist that basically answers calls and automate all of that, I think u have heard of this before. What I was saying is that I tried calling some local businesses on numbers listed on google maps, but the problem I faced was that staff won't let me talk to the owner.

After that, I realized that for cold calling, good data is really essential & perhaps I would need to buy a subscription of Apollo to get the owner numbers.

Now what I wanna know is what did u guys do to get your first client when u started?

So for the past few days, I am trying to sell my product to local businesses through cold calling & what I faced was rejection. It was mostly due to the front desk staff that didn't want to transfer the call to the owner.

If the owner picks up, he instantly hangs up the phone. So I thought I might ask you guys, what's your rejection rate?

Like how many calls do u guys do and how many get a Sale.

I started a startup & am really confused what can I do to sell my product without investment