William Coste

Helping overwhelmed business owners automate the work that shouldn't need them. AI systems, workflows & agents. Building, testing & sharing what I learn.

[William Coste @cst_william]

I sold $6,568 worth of digital products, and it took me almost 2 years to finally turn a profit.

Not exactly the results I was hoping for when I first started my entrepreneurial journey.

I think there comes a time, maybe many times, when as a solopreneur you need to assess honestly what works and what doesn't.

There is a fine line between persistence and stubbornness.

I believe I've reached one of those moments.

It's time to pivot and refocus on what I seem to do best: building systems.

Here's the plan:

- Use my 6-year engineering background and solopreneur experience to master AI systems, workflows and agents by actually building them.

- Turn Notionbase into my lab to see how much of a real business one person can automate without hiring a team.
→ My goal: keep it as a ~95% automated, profitable asset that requires very little of my time.

- Eventually build automation systems for other businesses that want more leverage without hiring more people.

- Share what I build, experiments, wins, failures and the career transition here.

[William Coste @cst_william]

@OGMayank That's how I feel as well

[William Coste @cst_william]

3 years ago, I quit my engineering job to build a business.

I thought the hard part would be making money online.

Turns out the harder part was figuring out what I actually wanted to build.

I sold Notion templates.
Built a YouTube channel.
Created a course.
Tried different products.

Now I'm learning AI automation while running my business.

I'm nowhere near the finish line.

But I have a much clearer idea of the kind of work and life I want to build.

[William Coste @cst_william]

@Kyrill_PRO Yeah definitely

[William Coste @cst_william]

I've always prioritized lifestyle design over making a lot of money first.

I wanna make sure my efforts go toward the life I wanna live, and that my work supports it.

Not the other way around.

[William Coste @cst_william]

@thejustinwelsh This is what money is for after all.

You use money to get your time back.

Not the other way around.

[William Coste @cst_william]

@stijnnoorman I think this is everyone's biggest fear.

The only difference is that most entrepreneurs as so driven by it that they actually take action to make sure it doesn't happen.

[William Coste @cst_william]

If you found this thread useful, follow @cst_william + like and repost this.

[William Coste @cst_william]

I've been building an automation system for my digital product business using n8n.

It connects sales platforms, Notion, email marketing, course access, and content publishing.

Here are 7 lessons I'm taking away. 🧵

[William Coste @cst_william]

My biggest takeaway:

Making an automation work is one thing.

Engineering a reliable system is another.

[William Coste @cst_william]

@writeforsales Completely agree. Actually I'm dedicating my twenties (what's left of it haha) to figuring things out by actually taking on new ideas and pojects

[William Coste @cst_william]

@neilnwabuadev Exactly!

[William Coste @cst_william]

I'm building a one-person business that runs almost entirely without me.

No employees. Just AI agents, automations, and systems.

Here's the 6-step process I came up with 👇

[William Coste @cst_william]

@asaridarr Historically 50/50

[William Coste @cst_william]

The first digital product offers I created failed horribly.

And I could tell the only person who cared was me.

Now I'm almost glad I failed, because that's the only way I could have learned what doesn't work.

[William Coste @cst_william]

I completely agree with this philosophy.

What I like about this take is that the prerequisite is still building a business that generates $1M+ a year. That's no small achievement, and we're definitely not talking about living on love and fresh air haha.

But once you reach a certain level of wealth (and $1M/year is an arbitrary but pretty reasonable benchmark), you have to ask yourself: when is enough actually enough?

Money is ultimately a practical problem to solve, not something to chase endlessly for its own sake.

The goal is to cover your basic needs, achieve financial freedom, and eventually turn that into freedom over your time and location. Not to scale indefinitely just because you can.

Because at the end of the day, the things that matter most (health, family, relationships, meaningful experiences) require time, and sometimes money too.

That being said, there's an important nuance: getting to that level in the first place usually requires a period of almost unhealthy obsession. Years of intense focus, sacrifices, and very little work-life balance.

Unless you're an exception, you don't build a business generating $1M+ a year without being deeply obsessed with what you're building, genuinely wanting to transform an industry, and having a strong drive to make it profitable.

The paradox is that reaching freedom often requires temporarily sacrificing it.

The real challenge is knowing when to stop playing that game and actually start enjoying the freedom you've earned.