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Meet The Kid Who Made $1M with ChatGPT | Starter Story

September 26, 2025

AI Summary

5 min read

🎙️ The Voices & The Context

  • The Format: This is a classic interview-style podcast episode, specifically a "Starter Story" case study. It's a casual, conversational deep dive into a single entrepreneur's journey.
  • The Key Players:
    • Pat Walls (Host): The founder of Starter Story, he's the curious and encouraging interviewer, guiding the story with practical questions.
    • Joe Populus (Guest): A 20-year-old computer science student who turned a side hustle into a nearly million-dollar business selling AI-generated e-books to middle-aged moms.
  • The Vibe: Educational and aspirational with a dash of "wait, that's actually genius." It's a mix of "how-to" and "holy cow, look what this kid did."

🗝️ Key Themes & Topics

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:00) **🎙️ Introduction: Joe Populus**
  • 2 (01:18) **The Origin Story: From GPT-3 to a Book Brand**
  • 3 (03:33) **Self-Funding and Early Mistakes**
  • 4 (04:10) **How to Start with AI-Generated Books**
  • 5 (05:42) **Business Metrics and Profit Margins**
  • 6 (07:29) **Marketing Strategy: Pinterest Ads**
  • 7 (08:51) **Competition and Market Saturation**

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Meet The Kid Who Made $1M with ChatGPT

📚 The Case Study Collection - https://www.starterstory.com/?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=joe&yts=true

📩 Business Ideas Newsletter - https://www.starterstory.com/newsletter

In this video, I head out to Toronto to meet Joe Popelas - one of the only kids who ACTUALLY made $1M with ChatGPT. He shared everything about how he found the idea, how he started it, how he advertises it, and how anyone can take advantage of the goldmine that is AI automation and ChatGPT generated ebooks. This is one of the craziest business ideas I've seen in a minute, hope you guys enjoy this one!

Follow Joe 🎥 YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@joepopelas 📱 TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@joepopelas

Our Links 🔔 Subscribe - https://www.youtube.com/@starterstory 📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/starter_story/ 🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/thepatwalls

Sharing ideas that make money!

Disclaimer: This podcast is published by a viewer using content from Starter Story's YouTube channel with the goal of making his valuable insights more accessible to those who prefer audio formats, helping more people discover and learn from the insights shared in his videos. It is not an official production of Starter Story. For any requests from Starter Story, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

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------------- Keywords: startup tips, startup journey, app flipping

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