What Four of Us Learned Building Careers in the AI Builder Program
I sat down with Sam, Jack, and Luke to talk honestly about what the AI Builder program has done for us. Different ages, different lives, same purpose.
I sat down with Sam, Jack, and Luke to talk honestly about what the AI Builder program has done for us. Different ages, different lives, same purpose.
Jack Wendt, Dylan Haugen and Sam McLeod share how young adults can launch careers and use AI tools to help local service businesses.
I recently sat down with Jack Wendt and Dylan Haugen to talk with parents about something we are all excited about. Jack founded High Rise Influence, and together we are offering a young adult package where your son or daughter gets mentorship working on real businesses, including yours.
Jack told a story I love. When he was 12 and 13, he built his own business buying and reselling watches, then took that money and invested it. That was his outlet for the entrepreneurial drive he had.
Nothing like this existed for him at 13, 14, or 15. He had to search it out and build it himself, and that is hard. So he wanted to create a clear outlet for young people who have that same drive.
Now we can team these young adults up so their drive actually benefits your business. That means more calls and more revenue for you.

I am a former search engine engineer, and I am very excited about our AI Builder program. Folks like Jack and Dylan have ignited their entrepreneurial capabilities, grown their brands, generated income from working on clients, and grown their parents’ businesses.
If you believe your son or daughter has potential, and who doesn’t, take a close look at this. There is no age that is too early to start building a brand, learning how to use AI tools, connecting with other people, and learning things you didn’t even know you didn’t know.
I bet your son or daughter knows so much about social media and how to fix the iPad, things old people like us don’t understand. Why not give them this opportunity?
Dylan is 17. We also have people in our program who are 60. They are all young adults too, because it is about being young at heart.
AI is not just the next thing. AI is like electricity. It is in everything we do, and we have to use it.
I am biased, but I think this is the best opportunity for your son or daughter to learn AI, because they learn from other practitioners. Everything we have is organized into checklists and SOPs, plus live weekly coaching. It is a proven framework we have run many times, which is why there are a lot of Jacks and Dylans. They can talk to any of us, and we have a Facebook group with 40,000 people in it.

If this had been available when I was just getting out of college, I would have signed up.
Dylan is a professional dunker who does dunk contests and shows, and he has documented his journey on social media his whole life. We met in late December, early January, and even after five or six years of making videos, he said he immediately learned so much.

What makes Dylan different is that Jack and I grew up without this opportunity. Dylan is growing up with it. He is helping real people who are really good at what they do see results in their businesses, he gets paid, and he is learning skills he applies to his own personal brand.
If you have a son or daughter with that spark, I encourage you to come check out the AI Builder program. Jack, Dylan, and I would love to help them build something real.
Ready to build like this?
The AI Builder Program trains young adults to run AI-powered marketing for local businesses, starting with one real client. It is $7,500, one time, and you apply with a one-minute video.
Young adults: start here →Parents: what $7,500 buys →Founders: the honest version →Take the two-minute fit check →
Parents, if you own a local service business, you can equip your child to be an AI Builder in the AI builder program and take over the digital marketing. I made this so you can see what works and what does not, and so your child can become a Jack Wendt or a Dylan Haugen.
A lot of local service businesses have been burned by the last few agencies. You need someone you can trust, like your own kin, to watch over things and learn the AI tools. Young adults naturally learn those tools faster, and they keep up with social media.
Dylan and I co-taught a six week module at Johns Hopkins on applied digital marketing. Students teamed up with local businesses and worked on real marketing in the classroom. They drove phone calls and revenue. It was not theory from a textbook.
The person you can trust is your own family. That child watches over the business, learns the tools, and stays on social media in a way the last agency did not.
I learn a lot from Jack and Dylan. They show me things I think are absolutely crazy. That is the point of putting a young adult on the work.
Dylan said the signs go back to being able to reason with the AI and being able to make videos. Communication is another one. If your child gets back to things quickly, that is a very good sign. If you have to chase them, and they say they will do it in a week, anybody can do that.
You can tell ChatGPT to do something and it will make timelines up. What you want is someone who takes action.
Metrics, analysis, action. The action is the important part.

Analyze what you are doing, then actually do it.
Dylan said that since starting earlier this year he has done a ton of things he did not even know about before. He got his knowledge panel. He got his personal brand website set up.

While he helps clients, he is also learning things he can apply to his own work.
It is crazy how many valuable skills Dylan learned along the way. He is being paid for it because he was able to qualify.
Ready to build like this?
The AI Builder Program trains young adults to run AI-powered marketing for local businesses, starting with one real client. It is $7,500, one time, and you apply with a one-minute video.
Young adults: start here →Parents: what $7,500 buys →Founders: the honest version →Take the two-minute fit check →
Dylan Haugen and I sat down to talk through who High Rise Academy is not for. The filter is simple. Can they show up and do the work.
Henry Holm was one of the first AI Builders in the AI Builder program. Jack Wendt asked him what he loves about it. Henry said the biggest thing is versatility and freedom while he works.
He has done the work from his house and from his cabin. He can work from wherever he wants, as long as he has internet and Wi-Fi.

Jack said that has been huge for him too. Over the last month he and Dennis Yu went to eight countries and spoke at conferences in five or six different states. They still got the same amount of output done they would have at home, while balancing the work with those trips.
Before this, Henry had little to no work experience. What he picked up first was how to communicate with people, get work done on time, and finish what he said he would finish. Following through.
He used to treat AI like a search box and use fewer words. He learned to reason with it and work with it, instead of only using it as a search tool.
One of the bigger projects has been a dentist in Atlanta, Hugh Flax, which Henry worked on with Dylan Haugen. Henry said they talk with the actual client. They are not just assigned a task. They work with the person to figure out what they need and then do it. That is firsthand experience with a real client.

A lot of the work so far has been repurposing videos the client produces. The dentist sends the original footage. Then they turn it into blog posts, long form or short form videos, and post those to the website, YouTube, or Facebook.
Dylan said those are the skills everyone is going to want, and already wants. The AI Builder program puts you next to people who need exactly what you are learning.
Henry said a lot of what he learned is transferable. The model they use to repurpose a video for the dentist can work for a plumber or a landscaper too. You change the specific details and keep the same repeatable process.

Dylan said that only gets amplified by AI tools like Descript and Underlord. You can prompt them to help edit a video. You still have to understand the goals, content, and targeting for that piece if you want it to be good. It is not quite there yet in some areas, and it keeps getting easier.

The first week was mostly setup. Henry signed into the new accounts he got access to. He does not aim at a fixed number of hours. He aims to get the projects done. If one week is tight, he can say he cannot take a project right now, or pass it to someone else.
For an AI Builder working on one business, a parent’s business or someone they already know, Henry said probably no more than an hour a day would suffice. You could do more. It would not be a huge amount of time.
Every week they do MAA end of week reports for Flax. Metrics, analysis, action. At the start it was a little content. Over the months the reports got bigger because they added new pieces, including an SEO report they have to change every week.

A lot of clients do not have much set up. At the beginning the team has to stand up websites and update a site that probably has not been touched in a while. Once that base is off the ground, they can automate more, and the work gets quicker.
Henry’s advice for someone in the same spot, not much experience, not entirely confident, is the same thing that got him through week one. He did not know much either. There are resources, and team members who have done this thousands of times. You can fall back on them, learn, and then start doing it yourself.
Dylan said everything is documented. Everything Dennis and BlitzMetrics have done is out there. When Dylan needs knowledge panel material, he said he searches knowledge panel BlitzMetrics and it comes up.

He said Henry can ask ChatGPT. He can ask any team member. Tons of resources.
Ready to build like this?
The AI Builder Program trains young adults to run AI-powered marketing for local businesses, starting with one real client. It is $7,500, one time, and you apply with a one-minute video.
Young adults: start here →Parents: what $7,500 buys →Founders: the honest version →Take the two-minute fit check →
Dennis Yu explains how franchise owners can train a son, daughter, or designated young adult to be their digital marketing and AI social media expert through Office Hours, training, and coaching.
I sat down with Jack Wendt on the Coach Yu Show to talk about something I see all the time. Young adults whose mom and dad run a business, and those kids have no idea they could be the ones who fix the marketing.
Most business owners are like me. We fix roofs or air conditioners or do knee replacements, and we don’t understand how all this social media and digital stuff works. Mom and dad are good at doing the thing. But they’re not showing up on Google, they’re not showing up on social, and they’re probably paying some agency 3,000 dollars a month.
Jack said it perfectly. It’s not easy for everyone, but it is very simple. Your parent is already doing great things. You don’t have to create anything new. You just leverage and amplify what they’re already doing.
And you guys as young adults know more about social media and apps on the iPhone than people like me. That’s an advantage.
Jack is working with his best friend right now. Both of his best friend’s parents are surgeons. His dad is an orthopedic surgeon and his mom is an ophthalmologist, and his friend is building out their digital presence to get more patients for knee, hip, and cataract surgeries. He’s already driving results.
But so many kids think, my dad has this fancy job, he’s been doing it 30 years, he taught me everything I know, how could I add any value? Jack just turned 20. He’s never been to college. He never even took a standardized test. All those metrics that schools rank kids on don’t apply here.
This isn’t rocket science. It’s derived straight from Google’s playbook. We just add our own philosophies, systems, and teams on top of it.
Jack has only been doing this for a year and a half and now he’s teaching on it. He went from not knowing anything about digital marketing to teaching founders doing 10 million a year. He just added a client with 190 locations.
Think about that. If Jack can do it for a guy with 190 locations, you only have to do it for one location. How much easier is that?
Within a few months of starting his own agency, Jack was making five figures a month. That’s more than the average four year college graduate will make.
We just started teaching a class on applied digital marketing for Johns Hopkins University. We’re teaching senior administrators at a school Jack says he never would have gotten into. And we don’t just lecture. We work on their personal brand and their web presence live, right in front of them.

One older couple in the class runs a 10 million dollar a year appliance repair business, and they said it was the best ROI they’ve ever gotten in business. Other owners brought their son or daughter to apply it.
It’s like having an X-ray. With a set of tools and ChatGPT, we can instantly see how a business ranks in Google, what’s wrong with the website, and what content is missing. Every time we audit one location, we find something like a crappy weak bio of the founder on the About page. So we built a tool that grabs their experience, awards, testimonials, even the Little League team they coach, and builds a full bio and pushes it across social. That satisfies search, social, reputation, and reviews all at once.
For the orthopedic surgeon and the guy with 190 locations, we wrote articles highlighting what they do. In two days both articles ranked top three on their names. They’ve been in business for decades, yet our stuff ranked. That’s because Google trusts the authority and influence we’ve built over many years.
You know what drives me nuts? I have a lot of friends Jack’s age who want to be entrepreneurs, and they pay 10,000 dollars for a coaching program that promises 10,000 a month in 30 days. Most of them fail.
We publish exactly how we do everything. You can download all of it. You don’t have to pay us a dime. Google it. There are thousands of articles and videos showing exactly what to do step by step.
So why put better stuff out for free? Because reputation is everything. Every time we do something good and people tell their friends, that comes back. And when we publish about your dad the electrician on our media properties, that passes link juice to his business and to your personal brand, so other electricians find you.
My goal is to create a million jobs before I hang up the cape. If Jack and I tried to put a million people on payroll, we’d never do it. Walmart has about 2.3 million employees and Amazon about 1.6.
There are over three million local service businesses in the United States doing over a million dollars. If we train 100,000 young adults to start their own little agency and each hires 10 people, from Pakistan or the Philippines or wherever, that’s a million jobs.
We start our VAs around 500 dollars a month. Jack asked one of our VAs about pay in Pakistan, and the average there is about 75 dollars a month. Many of our VAs now make thousands a month and build generational wealth for their families. Everybody wins.
The math works for you too. Ten clients at 2,500 a month is 25,000 gross. Your team might cost 6 or 7,000. That’s a very healthy business.
The biggest mistake I see is young adults trying 15 random things. I’ll be a copywriter, I’ll sell AI tools. If you get that first client and deliver repeatable results, you can get 10 more just like them. That first client has to trust you, and who’s going to trust you if you’ve never done it? Your mom or dad. Or partner with a young adult who already serves dentists or roofers.
Go through the training to learn a quick audit. Look at how the four stage Content Factory works to repurpose videos into articles, blog posts, YouTube, and Snapchat that help them rank. Get reviews, then local service ads and Google ads amplify on top of that. Then do it repeatably with virtual assistants and AI bots, and we’re giving you the code to load up your own custom GPT through our AI Builder program.

If you do good work, we may even refer you a client, because we have more businesses coming to us than we can handle.
Go look up Jack. Go look up High Rise Influence. Google the results and see for yourself whether this might work for you.
Ready to build like this?
The AI Builder Program trains young adults to run AI-powered marketing for local businesses, starting with one real client. It is $7,500, one time, and you apply with a one-minute video.
Young adults: start here →Parents: what $7,500 buys →Founders: the honest version →Take the two-minute fit check →