I watched a Twitter thread about making $10k/month from AI influencers. Instead of dropping everything to make fake models, I did the opposite — I started a blog that builds itself on the side. No pressure, no face, no video editing.
From a course idea to… covering hobby costs
It started classically: “maybe I should sell courses about free AI tools?” I have experience with that — free OpenRouter, Gemini API with no credit card, Ollama on my own hardware, agents on Hermes. But making a course means recording, editing, selling, supporting. That’s not the point.
My hobby (AI, automations, agents) costs money — subscriptions, API credits, VPS servers. I don’t want to make a fortune from it. I just want the hobby to pay for itself.
The model: free + donate
YouTube is out — I don’t like showing my face, and video editing eats time I don’t have. I work shifts in the energy sector — my free time shows up when it shows up, not on weekends like most people.
But text? Text I can produce. Or rather — we can produce.
I work with Hermes Agent every day. Together we’ve solved dozens of problems: configuring free LLM providers, bypassing API limits, connecting tools into pipelines, debugging agents that talk to each other through files. Every solved problem is a potential post.
So I did it: a blog-ai-diary skill, a ~/blog-ai/ directory, and a process — Hermes spots a topic, throws a title suggestion, I accept (or don’t), it generates a draft, I tweak it, it lands in posts/.
Zero extra time. The blog builds itself on the side of the work I’m already doing — just now with Hermes’ help.
Why this might work
I’m not another tech-bro from Silicon Valley. I’m a guy who produces power and district heating, and after hours puts together his own AI agents. I’m not selling dreams of passive income — I’m showing what actually works, with commands, links, and the bugs I hit along the way.
And that’s probably the most honest model: “you get value for free, if you want — buy me a coffee.” No paywalls, no “buy my course for $497.” If I help someone 10 times in a month and they buy me a coffee for 15 PLN — the blog funds itself.
What’s next
You’re reading the third post now. Future ones will be more concrete: configurations, commands, workarounds. Things I’ve actually dealt with. No fluff.