One Year of AI Maker: What Happened and What's Next

What started as learning AI in public turned into something I didn't expect.

Exactly a year ago, I challenged myself to learn AI in public.

That was it. That was the whole plan. I didn’t set any subscriber goals, monetization strategy, or five-year roadmap. Just a guy who couldn’t stop being curious about AI and decided to write about it.

I wrote my first post because writing forced me to actually understand what I was learning. And something happened that I didn’t expect: the more I wrote, the more I wanted to learn. The more I learned, the more I wanted to share. It became this loop where curiosity fed the writing and the writing fed the curiosity.

I didn’t know where this was going. I was just following what excited me.

What Happened in One Year

One year later, 15,000+ of you have joined. The AI Maker reached the top 70 in the technology category on Substack. Over 650 of you became paid subscribers. I published 80+ deep dives, hosted 20+ guest writers, and somehow kept the weekly cadence going almost every single week.

I want to pause here and just say: thank you. Deeply. I don’t take any of this for granted.

But here’s what I want you to know. This is still the beginning, and we are moving fast. Every day I get more excited to write about what I’m learning. And I feel grateful because the things I become curious about, you find valuable. That’s the part that blows my mind. You read my stuff, you join, and that makes me want to follow my curiosity even harder. Hopefully what I share keeps resonating, and you keep coming along for the ride.

What I Discovered Recently

Some of you have noticed that for the last month or so, I’ve been all over the place. Joining live streams. Starting One Shot Show with Dheeraj Sharma. Showing up on video more than I ever have.

Here’s some context. When I was learning AI, I watched hundreds of YouTube videos. Literally hundreds. And they were helpful. You could see someone share their screen, walk through a tool, show you how something works in real time. Video taught me things that articles and tutorials never could, because you could see the actual thinking and decision-making happen live.

But there was always a gap. You’d watch someone demo a workflow and think, “that’s amazing, but what’s actually inside that?” What’s the prompt? What’s the blueprint? How is the whole system wired together? The screen share showed you the surface, but the stuff that makes it actually work stayed hidden.

That gap stuck with me.

Then over the last month, I started experimenting with video and live streaming, honestly just to try it. And I realized something I wasn’t expecting: conversations unlock things that writing alone can’t.

When I write a newsletter, I go through drafts and revisions. It becomes polished. And polish is good, but sometimes it files away the rough edges where the most interesting stuff lives. The nuances. The half-formed ideas. The “wait, let me think about that differently” moments that happen when you’re talking to someone in real time.

I’ve been having conversations with AI builders, creators, and practitioners, and every single time I walk away with something I couldn’t have produced sitting alone at my keyboard. Not better, not worse. Just different. The kind of insight that only comes from two people thinking out loud together.

And honestly? I’ve been enjoying it more than I expected.

So I want to combine both. The screen sharing and live demonstrations that made video so powerful for my own learning, plus the blueprints and prompts and actual systems underneath that most videos leave out. I want to show you the workflow AND give you everything inside it so you can take it and apply it yourself.

What’s Changing

So here’s what’s next for The AI Maker.

I’m doubling down on being more human.

I know that sounds strange coming from an AI newsletter. But think about it: in an age where everything is getting automated, where AI can generate content at scale, the thing that becomes most valuable is the thing that can’t be automated. Real conversations. Real reactions. The messy, unscripted process of 2-3 people figuring things out together.

I want to build something AI can’t replicate: me as a human.

Here’s what this looks like in practice:

1. More video content. I’ll be sharing my screen, walking through how I actually use AI in my daily workflow. Not polished tutorials, but real demonstrations where you see the thinking behind the decisions. Some of these will be exclusive for paid members.

2. Expert conversations. I’m inviting AI practitioners, builders, and experts to share how they use AI in their work. Their workflows, their lessons, their honest takes. And from those conversations, I’ll create AI blueprints based on what we discuss, available exclusively for AI Maker members.

3. Monthly Q&A sessions for members. Every month, you’ll be able to submit questions through a form, and we’ll have a live session where I deep dive on each one. These will be members-only. You can ask me anything, and we’ll work through it together. I’m still figuring out the right timing for this, so I’ll share more soon.

4. The weekly deep dive stays. The newsletter isn’t going anywhere. The written deep dives, the frameworks, the implementation blueprints for paid members, all of it continues every week. This is additive, not a replacement.

I want to build something where you don’t just read about AI systems. You see them being built, you hear the thinking behind them, and you can ask questions directly.

A Note on Pricing

With this expanded offering, I’m adjusting pricing for new members starting two weeks after this announcement.

New pricing (effective April 16th):

• Monthly: $15/month (currently $10/month)

• Annual: $120/year (currently $96/year)

Since more of you have been upgrading to Founding Member than I expected, and I want to make sure every one-on-one call stays high quality. To keep those sessions valuable and not rushed, I’ve increased the Founding Member annual price to $360/year.

If you’re already a paid member: Nothing changes. Your current pricing is locked in. You supported The AI Maker early, and I’m honoring that.

If you’ve been thinking about joining: You have two weeks from today (until April 16th) to lock in the current rate. Anyone who subscribes before the price change will keep the current pricing for as long as they remain a member.

I want to be transparent about why.

Over the past year, I’ve built a library inside AI Maker Labs that I’m proud of. 80+ deep dives. A vault of 90+ thinking prompts. Complete implementation guides for Claude, MCP, Claude Code, and Make.com. 10+ ready-to-use Claude Skills you can download and deploy instantly, from LinkedIn carousel builders to AI news digests to SEO optimizers. Automation blueprints you can copy and adapt. And now: video walkthroughs, expert conversations, and monthly Q&A sessions on top of all of it.

And this still doesn’t account for the additional skills, agentic frameworks, and capabilities that will be rolling out soon.

I’ve spent a year proving this is worth your investment. But proof of the past isn’t enough. What matters is what comes next, and I’m committed to making the next year significantly better than the first.

What You Can Do Right Now

If you’re a free subscriber and you’ve been on the fence about joining paid, the next two weeks are your window to lock in $10/month or $96/year before it goes up.

If you’re already a paid member, thank you. You’re grandfathered in, and the new content is coming your way at no extra cost.

And if you’ve built an AI workflow that saves you real time and you’re willing to share your screen and walk through it, I want to talk to you.

I’m looking for practitioners who have something tangible to show, not theory. The best conversations become content, and the best content from those conversations becomes blueprints for my paid members.

One year down. This is still the beginning.

See you in the next one.

Best,
Wyndo

P.S. I’m expanding my reach. Connect with me on X, LinkedIn, and YouTube, we’ve got a lot to cover, see you there :)