Dylan

Ex e-commerce founder turned AI builder 🤖 Running 5 live products with AI agents. Sharing workflows, honest numbers & mistakes. Building from 🇨🇳

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

2020: my e-commerce business made 8 figures (RMB) in annual profit.
2023: I lost a big chunk of it in crypto.
Today: I run 5 live products, built mostly by me + AI agents.
I couldn’t write a single line of code until 2024 🧵

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

Fake ARR is just fake GMV with a SaaS haircut.

Ecommerce went through this years ago. Big gross numbers, then refunds, returns and discounts ate half of it.

The only revenue I trust now is what's left after the refund window closes.

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

@finnbuilt Almost a third of the way. Heads up, I read replies don't count toward the 500K, only your own posts.

Which posts pulled most of your 144K?

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

@OliverBugar Same lesson from ecommerce. Opening the store was never the hard part, the first orders from strangers were.

What got you your first 10?

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

@gregisenberg Ecommerce had the same thing with GMV. Big gross numbers that never survived refunds, returns and discounts.Same trick, nicer font.

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

@arvidkahl It knows my whole codebase but not its own fuel gauge 😅

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

@keelenai Exactly where I landed.

Project files: go wild.
Anything that can cut the connection: wait for me.

Lesson cost me one client deadline.

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

Client delivery due at 8pm. One small step left.

Left at 6, so I had Codex on my Mac finish it from my phone.

It asked to update my VPN. "Only a few seconds offline." I said yes.

Config broke. Mac offline till morning.

Never let your agent touch the network it runs on.

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

@tomykite Adding features is fun. Watching yourself get lost in your own app is humbling 😅

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

@GergelyOrosz The new networking question: "how many agents do you have running right now?"

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

@markessien Worktrees are just a fancy way of saying "I refuse to watch a progress bar" 😅

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

@Rajatwtall Vinay, happy to help, and no need to pay.

I can't do weeks of calls, but DM me what you've built so far and what you're good at. I'll send you one concrete next step.

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

@Kedeodev Spent it on ads, a new laptop and a team offsite. All in my head, all before lunch 😭

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

@patrick_kuhnke_ Fair. A working app and paying customers are two separate bets, and most people only plan for the first one.

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

@iniyanai Wait until you tell them your coworkers are AI agents 😅

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

@codexresets_ My $200 Codex plan is about to become a $200 half plan 😅

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

@bilawalsidhu A PM whose team never sleeps and never says "that's out of scope." Dangerous combo.

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

Non-technical person here. Started building with AI in 2024 with zero code.

I don't wish I could write code.

I wish I could read it faster.

The gap moved. It didn't close.

[Thariq @trq212]

very weird thing happening rn

technical people are sad, they think their skills are now useless

non-technical people are desperately wishing they were more technical so they could use agents better

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

@emeeliojohann I have about 2 years of experience. Most of it is explaining to AI what I actually meant 😅

[Dylan @CyyDylan]

@rauchg 4 agents opening PRs, 1 human waiting on CI. Glad someone's working on the second half.