Day 5 Recap · 9 min read · Officially "Day 5 — Software Day"
AI Secrets Challenge Day 5 Recap: AI Side Hustles
Day 5 turns the week into money. The premise is simple: take everything from Days 1 through 4 and sell it. Russell lays out five fast paths to a first $3K, and a guest makes it uncomfortably concrete.
Five AI service paths, most billable at $3K and up — and the real product is who you become building the first one.
Custom app builds, AI audits, lead-generation tools, AI agents and chatbots, and done-for-you marketing assets. The move is not to chase a million dollars today. It is to get one quick win.
The five AI side hustles
Russell maps five ways to turn the week's skills into income:
- Custom app and software builds — build apps for businesses, typically $3K to $10K and up per project.
- AI audits — assess a business's AI readiness and opportunities; often the doorway to a much larger project.
- Lead-generation tools — build a small tool or game that captures emails, then sell it to a business that needs the leads.
- AI agents and chatbots — customer-service agents, data-processing agents, and similar.
- Marketing asset creation — VSLs, email sequences, and landing pages for coaches and info-product owners.
Chris Thomas's playbook
The guest, Chris Thomas, made the whole thing concrete. He used to run a 30-person agency and has replaced most of it with AI agents. He said he built custom software for a healthcare company that saved them roughly $500K a month and charged six figures for it. He opens doors with free AI audits run by a tool he named Teddy the Yeti. His sales move is almost too simple: show someone an app you already built, ask if they want one, and nine times out of ten they say yes.
Skill stacking and the identity shift
The mindset Chris and Russell hammered is the part I keep coming back to. Do not chase a million dollars today. Make one dollar. Get one quick win. The moment you ship your first build, your brain flips from "I am learning AI" to "I am someone who builds with AI." That identity shift is the real product of Day 5 — the first project is the training wheels, not the payday.
How to price and sell it
The proof of concept is your sales tool. You do not pitch "$3K software" cold. You show the app you already built, and you let it do the selling. Free or low-cost audits become the on-ramp to six-figure projects. Chris framed the whole game as leveled by AI — what matters now is who understands and directs it best.
My honest take on Day 5
The $3K weekend is real, but only if you did the work on Days 1 through 4. This is not a passive-income pitch. It is a services playbook, and the bottleneck is execution, not opportunity. Day 5 is where the free challenge quietly pays for itself.
Want to see it for yourself?
The next live cohort runs June 15–19, 2026. The 5-day challenge is free, no credit card required.
Reserve My Free Seat → 5 days · 90 min/day · No credit card requiredDay 5 FAQ
What are the AI side hustles taught on Day 5?
Five paths: custom app and software builds, AI audits, lead-generation tools, AI agents and chatbots, and done-for-you marketing assets like VSLs and email sequences — most billable at $3K and up per project.
How much can you charge for AI services?
On Day 5 the figures discussed range from a $3K entry point for weekend projects up to six figures for larger custom builds. The guest, Chris Thomas, described a healthcare build he said earned a six-figure contract.
Who is Chris Thomas?
Chris Thomas is the Day 5 guest who runs an AI consulting business. He said he replaced a 30-person agency with AI agents and uses free AI audits (run by a tool he calls Teddy the Yeti) to win larger custom-software projects.
Can a beginner make money with this?
The framing is that anyone who completes Days 1 through 4 can land a first small project. The advice is to aim for one quick win rather than a big payday, because the first build is mostly about the identity shift and proof of concept.