The same business model behind Morning Brew, 6AM City, and Axios Local.
01
Pick A City
You start a weekly email about your city. Local events, restaurant openings, business
news, community stories. The stuff people actually want to know about where they
live.
City Scorecard
Spokane, WA
Population230K
Local businesses9,400
CompetitionLow
Great Market
02
Build A List
People subscribe for free because it saves them time and they care about their city.
Most local newsletters hit a few thousand subscribers within months using paid and
organic tactics.
Subscribers
7,183▲ +312 / wk
03
Sell Ad Placements
Local businesses pay you $200 to $2,000+ per placement to reach your audience. Restaurants, dentists, gyms, real estate agents, contractors.
They have ad budgets and nowhere local to spend them.
AI Sales Director
Lilac City Realty · ad inquiry
Agent replied · negotiating slot
Placement invoice
$1,500
PAID
04
Let AI Run It
Writing it weekly, growing the list, and closing ad deals is normally a full-time
job. That's why almost nobody does this. The four AI agents handle all three. Your job is to review their work for about 4 hours a week.
AI Operations · This Week
NewsletterSent
Growth campaignsRunning
Sponsor outreach3 deals
Report & analyticsReady
Your time: ~4 hrs
I'm doing this in Spokane, Washington right now with Spokane Pulse
7,183
subscribers
$2,147
revenue last month
4 hours
of my time a week
My Spokane Pulse dashboard
And it's a sellable asset. Local newsletters in the 5K–20K
subscriber range routinely sell for $20K–$200K on platforms like Acquire.com.
You're not just building income. You're building something with resale value from day one.
These Solo Founders Built Their Newsletters Manually. I Built Mine To Run Itself.
Four real founders. Four different cities. Four real sets of receipts. They built businesses. I built a business that builds itself.
Naptown Scoop
Ryan Sneddon
Solo · ManualAnnapolis, MD
Revenue
$200K+/yr
Subscribers
17,000+
Open Rate
65%
One person, a ~40K-resident city. Reaches nearly half the town.
Source: Tilt + Creator Spotlight, 2024
Wichita Life
Landon Huslig
2-person · ManualWichita, KS
Revenue
$119,814/yr
Subscribers
31,000+
IG Followers
65,000
Husband-wife team. A metro of 650K, multi-channel media company.
Source: Creator Spotlight, 2025
Catskill Crew
Michael Kauffman
Solo · ManualCatskills, NY
Revenue
$100K+/yr
Coverage
Rural
Years
1
A rural region, not even a city. Proof the model works anywhere.
Source: beehiiv, 2025
My Newsletter
Spokane Pulse
Lucas Walter (me)
Solo + 4 AI agentsSpokane, WA
Revenue
$2,147/mo
Subscribers
7,183
Open Rate
52%
Cost / Sub
$0.78
My Time
4 hrs/wk
The AI-built version of the same playbook: $2K/mo and growing, at a fraction of the time.
Source: My live dashboard, below
My newsletter dashboard
Live at spokanepulse.com
3,069 followers on Instagram
Three of them did this manually. I'm doing it with AI. You'll have my system from day one.
It's 11pm on a Sunday.
You're scrolling X. Some 24-year-old in Austin just posted a Stripe screenshot for $40K.
You close the app. Open your laptop. Notice the calendar for tomorrow morning. A standup.
4 other meetings. For a company you don't own.
You've got the skills. You've got the work ethic. What you don't have is one thing that's
yours. One asset that produces money when you're not in the room.
You've bookmarked the threads. Read the breakdowns. Maybe bought a course or two. Started
building something. Watched it fizzle. Every month you wait, someone else stakes their
claim in your city.
You're one year of "next month, I'll start" from being five years behind.
This is the system that closes that gap. Pick a city. Hire four AI agents. Let them run a
real local business while you sleep.
An AI Agent On My Team Closed A $750 Deal While I Was At Lunch.
I never picked up a phone. I never wrote a single email. Here's what the agents did, start
to finish.
A local business wants to advertise
A lead lands in the inbox. The Sales Director agent qualifies it on its own.
The agent negotiates the rate
It replies, answers questions, and locks the placement over email.
The creative builds itself
The agent designs the ad assets and sends them over for approval.
They approve. $750 hits Stripe.
No phone call, no email from me. I was at lunch.
Stripe · $750 paid, no human touch
This is the system you get.
One Deal Pays For The Course 1.5x Over.
Founding member pricing. 100 seats at $497. Then it doubles to $997.
"Not a get-rich-quick scheme, as Lucas himself flags in the videos, but a repeatable
method that teaches a genuinely good process for building a newsletter business. The
lessons are clear and thorough enough to get you rolling end-to-end without needing to fill
gaps from elsewhere. Excellent."
Martin DaviesCourse Student (no prior AI automation experience)
The Path To $100K/Year, By The Numbers
Here's the math. Conservative assumptions. No magic. Just what happens when the list grows
and your AI Sales Director closes deals.
Year 2 · Mature AssetSubscribers20,000+Deals / Mo10–15Monthly Rev$10K–$15K+
The list is the asset. Every subscriber compounds into deal volume. Your AI Sales Director
closes them. You review the work for 4 hours a week.
Who's Actually Selling You This?
I'm not a newsletter guru.
I'm a business owner who decided to build my own.
Quick context, so you know I'm not making this up.
I've spent the last 8 years building real businesses. I co-founded CoinLedger, a crypto tax software I took from self-funded to 800,000+ customers. Today I'm building Spokane Pulse, the newsletter this course is built on.
I don't sell theory. On my YouTube channel and in my 28,000-member Skool community, I only show what's actually working inside my own companies. Not "imagine if." The
real automations, the real workflows, the real tools I run every day.
About six months ago, my wife and I launched Spokane Pulse as a side project. A local newsletter for our hometown. I figured I'd write it on weekends.
It almost killed me. The content pipeline was a part-time job by itself. Then the ad
sales. The onboarding. The follow-ups. By month three I was burning out on a project
that wasn't even my main business.
So I rebuilt it with four AI agents: a CEO, a Growth Engineer, a Content Director, and a
Sales Director. Not "use ChatGPT to write." Real agents with hiring briefs, coordinated
through PaperClip, doing the work I used to do.
My time dropped from 15+ hours a week to 4. The newsletter kept growing. Then the Sales
Director closed my first $750 deal while
I was at lunch.
This course contains the exact system I run every single week. Not a sanitized, theoretical version of it. Same agents, same prompts, same playbook. If you are serious about creating a real business with AI, this is built for you.
7,183Pulse Subscribers
52%Open Rate
$2,147Last Month Revenue
4 hrsMy Time Spent Each Week
Should You Actually Do This?
A 30-second self-check before you keep reading.
Buy This If
You've been building with AI for a year and still don't own a real business
You want one asset that pays you monthly, not another workflow demo for the feed
You can find 3 hours a week to run a real business
You actually live in or care about the place you'd cover
You'd rather own a small media business than freelance, run another agency, or chase the next shiny AI play
If three or more of those landed, this is built for you.
Skip This If
You want passive income by next weekend
You'll buy this, watch Module 1, then go back to the YouTube rabbit hole of n8n and Claude Code tutorials
You want done-for-you (this is done-with-you)
You'll spend hours rebuilding what the agents wrote instead of just shipping it
You think "AI runs it" means you don't have to show up
The Build-It-Or-Refund Guarantee exists for one reason: to make sure people on this list don't end up on the other one.
So What Do You Actually Get For $497?
The Business, Handed To You. Every agent, prompt, ad, and playbook I use to run Spokane Pulse. The whole machine, in
your hands by tonight.
✓6 video modules (~6 hours, every step shown on screen)
✓4 AI agent hiring briefs (CEO, Growth, Content, Sales)
✓Spokane Pulse Sales Director skill (copy-paste, proven on $750+ deals)
✓KC Beat Sales Director skill (second-market version)
✓Meta Ads creative files ($0.78 CPA proven on 6,000+ subscribers)
✓Meta Ad copy templates (5 tested variations)
✓Ad Creative Generator agent (auto-builds creative for advertisers)
Six modules. Six hours of video. Every prompt, agent, tool, and asset I use for Spokane
Pulse, handed to you.
Module 01 · Setup
Your Newsletter, Live By Sunday
Pick your city, lock the name, wire up Beehiiv with a custom domain, build your template and welcome email, customize the landing page. Full DNS walkthrough included, even if you've never touched it.
Most newsletter courses skip the technical setup. This one walks you through DNS line by line.
→ WHAT YOU END UP WITH: A live newsletter accepting subscribers by the end of this weekend
Module 02 · Team
Hire Your Four AI Agents
Build your team in PaperClip: a CEO, a Growth Engineer, a Content Director, and a Sales Director. Includes the exact hiring briefs I used for Spokane Pulse, copy-paste ready.
No other course hands you the exact hiring briefs, because no other course has built working AI agents like this.
→ WHAT YOU END UP WITH: Four working AI agents on payroll, costing under $100/mo combined
Module 03 · Content
The Engine That Writes Itself
Map your city's content sources, build the scraping pipeline, stand up the Content Director that drafts every issue in a voice that sounds like a local. My exact config and prompts included.
Other courses say "use AI to write." This one shows you the data pipeline that makes the AI actually sound human.
→ WHAT YOU END UP WITH: A drafted newsletter every week, hands-off, in roughly 20 minutes of review
Module 04 · Growth
Subscribers For Under $1 Each
The exact Meta Ads creative pulling subscribers at $0.78 each, plus my Instagram and Reddit playbooks. Including a quiet ManyChat hack for auto-promoting to your followers.
Most newsletter operators pay $2–3 per subscriber. This module gets you below $1 from day one.
→ WHAT YOU END UP WITH: Your first 1,000 subscribers for under $780 instead of $2,500+
Module 05 · Sales
The AI Sales Director
Full walkthrough of the $750 deal. The Sales Director prompts, the ad creative generator, the Typeform-to-Slack inbound pipeline. Includes the actual Sales Director skill from Spokane Pulse AND a second version from The KC Beat.
This module alone has paid for itself for me 4 times over.
→ WHAT YOU END UP WITH: Your first paid sponsor closed without you ever picking up a phone
Module 06 · Operate
Running It In 4 Hours A Week
My real weekly routine. What I review on Mondays. What I check before each send. Where I draw the line on automation. And the troubleshooting playbook for when something breaks.
No other course is honest about what AI can and can't run on autopilot. This one draws the line for you.
→ WHAT YOU END UP WITH: A business that compounds without trading your hours for it
What Does The First Month Actually Look Like?
You don't have to figure out the order. The course tells you what to build each week.
Week 1
Launch
Newsletter live. City picked. Welcome emails going out.
Week 2
Team
Four agents hired. Content pipeline running. First draft.
Week 3
Growth
Meta Ads live. Organic playbook running. First paid subs.
Week 4
Sale
Sales Director online. Inbound pipe open. First leads.
Your first paid ad deal typically lands between month 2 and month 4, depending on how fast
your list grows.
The Build-It-Or-Refund Guarantee
Build It In 30 Days. If You Don't, I Refund Every Dollar. And You Keep Everything You Built.
Go through the modules. Hire your AI agents. Set up your newsletter.
If after 30 days you don't have a live newsletter, four working AI agents, and a clear
path to your first paid ad deal, email me. I refund every cent.
✓The newsletter stays live
✓The agents keep running
✓The assets are yours forever
The risk is mine. Your job is to do the work.
Okay, But What About...
Can I really hit those numbers?
The math works if you do the work. Ryan, Landon, and Michael are all doing six figures without AI agents lifting any of the load. You'll have them. What's non-negotiable is the first 4–6 weeks of focused setup. Skip that and no course helps you.
Is my city big enough?
Michael Kauffman built a six-figure newsletter covering a rural region, not even a city. Wichita Life is at $119K/year in a small Kansas market. Rule of thumb: 50K+ population, an active local business community, and you actually care about the place.
I'm not technical. Will I be able to do this?
Martin (whose review you saw above) went through the build modules with zero prior AI automation experience and has a real newsletter shipping weekly. Module 1 walks through DNS assuming you've never touched it.
Can I do this if I have a full-time job?
Yes, that's how most solo founders start. The 4–6 week setup phase needs about 6–10 hours per week, which works on evenings and weekends. After that, the ongoing 4-hour-per-week routine fits comfortably alongside any day job.
How long until I'm making money?
List first, revenue second. Most solo founders land their first ad deals between month 2 and month 4. The $750 deal I walk through in Module 5 happened at the Spokane Pulse 5,000-subscriber mark.
What's the monthly tool cost?
Beehiiv (free to start, paid at scale), a Claude subscription (where the agents
run), PaperClip (the orchestrator), and a few utility tools. Under $100/month while you're starting out. One $750 ad deal pays the entire stack for a year.
What happens after the 100 founding seats are gone?
Price jumps to $997. Everything else stays the same (same modules, same guarantee, same lifetime updates). The founding member price exists once. When the counter hits zero, it's gone.
How is this different from other newsletter courses?
Most teach you to write a newsletter. This teaches you to build a company that runs one without you. You get actual AI agents, sales skills, ad creative, and the scraping pipeline. Not just a content strategy.
What does this actually run on?
The whole system runs on PaperClip AI as the agent orchestrator, with Claude Code as the agent harness the agents actually work in. Beehiiv is the newsletter platform. Meta Ads handles paid growth. Everything is industry-standard tooling.
Do I get future updates?
Yes. Lifetime updates included. As I evolve the system for Spokane Pulse and KC Beat, new prompts, agents, and playbooks land in your account automatically.
What if it doesn't work for me?
See the guarantee above. 30 days. Build it or refund. You keep everything you built. The risk is mine.
Pick A City. Hire The Team. Build It This Weekend.
Your first sponsor pays for the course 1.5x over.
Everything after that is yours.
If you read this far, you're not someone who reads sales pages for fun. You're seriously
considering whether this is your next move.
Let me make the math simple. Worst case, you spend $497, do nothing, and you're out less
than a year of your ChatGPT and Claude subscriptions. Best case, you build an asset that
takes 4 hours a week to run and clears over $100K a year in profit.
The downside is a year of AI subscriptions. The upside is a profitable business you own for
life. The asymmetry is the point.
If the local newsletter angle resonates and the AI angle excites you, the only question is
whether you're willing to do 4–6 weeks of focused setup. If yes, this is the course. If
no, the math doesn't work no matter who you buy from.
Martin Davies Course Student (no prior AI automation experience)
