A 15-year-old, a trampoline gym, and a 90-day plan to start a real business.
This week at Ninja Kids in Las Vegas, I played trampoline basketball with Sebastian — 15 years old, a football player, and an aspiring entrepreneur. Between dunks, we sat down with Claude and built him a plan. Here’s the whole thing.
Watch our session together: Zoom recording of Dennis + Sebastian building the plan.
The Venn diagram has almost nobody in it.
Most football creators are 35-year-old dads who can barely make a thumbnail. Most AI-native teens don’t know a Cover 2 from a Tampa 2. Sebastian is in the overlap. That’s the entire business.
He actually plays
He spots what’s fake. He knows which drills work. Authenticity is the #1 thing the algorithm rewards.
He moves 10x faster
A 35-year-old “football guy” takes 3 hours to script a video. Sebastian takes 20 minutes with ChatGPT. That math compounds.
3–5 hours is a feature
Short-form rewards consistency over polish. Limited time forces him to ship instead of overthink.
Laptop is enough
Every tool he needs is free. He’s not waiting on money, gear, or permission. Start tonight.
Four phases. Each builds on the last.
Don’t try to monetize on day one. Build the audience first, then stack income streams on top of it. Here’s the realistic money curve.
Months 1–3 — Build the channel
No money yet. The product is him learning to ship. Get to 50 videos posted. Find his voice.
Months 4–6 — Turn on small monetization
Amazon Associates for football gear (parent signs up, Sebastian runs it). Start the newsletter. First brand DMs.
Months 7–12 — Stack income streams
Newsletter → digital products (drill PDFs, recruiting guides) → first paid brand deals.
Year 2+ — Real upside
Sponsorships, his own training app or community, long-form YouTube. This is where it gets serious.
One niche. Pick tonight.
Pick the one that makes him most excited to make 5 videos this weekend. Don’t overthink — he can pivot in 60 days. Indecision is the killer.
Football IQ
30-sec videos explaining one play, concept, or moment per day. “Why Mahomes throws sidearm.” “What a Cover 3 actually does.” Easy to script with AI.
Train Like a Recruit
Drills + recruiting tips for middle/HS players. Smaller audience but way more monetizable (gear, training apps, programs).
AI Predicts Football
Use AI to predict matchups, breakout players, the next 5-star recruit. The hook is the AI itself. Football + tech crossover.
What he does, month by month.
Each month is ~12–16 hours total. Batch the work on Sunday. Post throughout the week.
Foundation
- Week 1 (3 hrs): Pick niche, name the channel (ChatGPT can brainstorm 20 names), make accounts on TikTok/YouTube/IG.
- Week 2 (3 hrs): Use ChatGPT/Claude to generate 20 video ideas → script 7 of them in 30-sec voiceover format.
- Week 3 (4 hrs): Download CapCut. Watch one tutorial. Record voiceover (his voice or ElevenLabs). Pull b-roll from Pexels. Auto-caption. Post video #1 + #2.
- Week 4 (3–5 hrs): Post daily. End of week, check the top video’s 3-sec hold rate. Make more like it.
Consistency
- Daily or 5x/week posting. Don’t break the streak.
- Save 2 hrs every Sunday to script + shoot the week’s 5 videos.
- Apply for Amazon Associates (parent signs up). Drop one affiliate link in bio.
- Start free ConvertKit account. Add “Get my weekly breakdown” to bio. Just collect emails — don’t send yet.
Compound
- 50+ videos total by month-end.
- Send the first newsletter. Then commit to weekly.
- Make a free PDF (“10 Drills Every HS Football Player Should Do”) with ChatGPT + Canva. Use as a lead magnet.
- DM 2 small football brands: “I have X followers, can I post your product for free product?”
Every tool is free. Every one runs on his laptop.
| Tool | What it does | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT / Claude | Ideas, scripts, captions, hooks | Free |
| CapCut | Editing, auto-captions, templates | Free |
| Canva | Logos, thumbnails, PDFs | Free |
| ElevenLabs | AI voiceover (optional) | Free tier |
| Pexels / Pixabay | Free stock b-roll | Free |
| ConvertKit | Email newsletter (under 1K subs) | Free |
| Buffer | Schedule across TikTok/YT/IG | Free |
| Google Sheets | Track every view, $, and hour | Free |
Total monthly cost to start: $0.
The stuff nobody tells 15-year-olds.
Read this carefully. It’ll save him a year of frustration.
💳 Money + the law
He can’t legally open Stripe/PayPal under 18. Parent signs up, he runs it. Be 100% transparent with them — this is his advantage, not a workaround.
📊 Track everything
Every dollar. Every view. Every hour. Google Sheet from day one. When tax stuff matters in 2 years, he’ll be glad.
⏰ Consistency beats intensity
3 hrs every week > 10 hrs one week and 0 the next. Batch on Sunday, post throughout the week.
🎓 Don’t quit school
He’s not escaping — he’s building options. The kid with 50K followers by senior year has more college and job options, not fewer.
🚪 The quit zone
90% of creators quit between day 30 and 60. The algorithm rewards almost nobody early. Around video 40–80, something clicks for those who stayed.
🛡️ Stay safe
No last name. No school. No address. No school logo in any gear. Faceless = identity-less. Parents back you harder when you handle this proactively.
His first 7 days, exact actions.
If he does nothing else this week, do this. The hardest part is video #1. Once he ships it, everything after is reps.
✅ The Week 1 Checklist
Write it on a sticky note. Stick it on the laptop.
Use this prompt: “I’m a 15yo who plays football. I want to make 30-second faceless videos about [your niche]. Give me 30 video ideas with strong 3-second hooks.”
Pick the 5 favorite ideas. Have AI write 30-second scripts. Read each out loud. Cut anything that sounds robotic.
TikTok + YouTube + Instagram. Same handle on all three. Use Canva to make a simple logo.
Watch one 20-minute tutorial on YouTube. That’s enough. Start editing video #1.
Don’t wait until it’s “perfect.” Post it. Immediately start editing video #2.
Accountability is fuel. Pick someone who’ll ask you next week.
Make this plan work harder for him.
Open ChatGPT, Claude, or any AI he likes, paste this plan, and use prompts like these to make it his own.
“Help me pick the niche”
“Here’s my plan. I’m torn between Option A and B. Ask me 5 questions to help me decide, then recommend one.”
“Generate this week’s content”
“Using the niche I picked, give me 7 video ideas + 30-second scripts in my voice (15yo who plays football, casual but smart).”
“Score my progress”
“I posted 8 videos. Top one got X views, bottom got Y. What patterns do you see? What should I make more of?”
“Tune the plan”
“I’m 30 days in. Here’s what’s working: ___. Here’s what’s not: ___. Rewrite Month 2 of this plan for me.”
If Sebastian wants to skip the solo grind.
The plan above works. I’ve watched it work for hundreds of young adults. But doing it alone — staring at video #15 with 11 views — is the hardest version of this game. So Dylan Haugen and I built the AI Builder Program at Local Service Spotlight — a one-year apprenticeship for US-based young adults who want to run real marketing for real businesses.
What the program actually is
Weekly live coaching
Every Thursday at 2 PM Pacific with me, Dylan, Jack Wendt, and rotating coaches.
140+ courses
Google Ads, Facebook Ads, GBP, Maps Visibility, Content Factory, AI agents — updated as tools change.
400+ AI Builders
Active Facebook group running 24/7. Someone’s always awake to help.
A real client from day one
If you don’t have one, we give you one. Plumbing, roofing, HVAC, dental, landscaping.
The proof: A-players who came through
CoatingLaunch + HVAC Quote
Zero to 100+ clients and a seven-figure run rate in under 5 months. Then launched HVAC Quote — 300 paying customers in under a year. From $50K in debt to $45K/month profit.
NaiL — AI Call Center
Still a college student. Built an AI call center to $70K/month — a million dollars of ARR. Recovered $400K in booked jobs in a single month for one fencing company.
Roofing Launch
Added $30M in revenue to a single roofing company in one year. Grew Infinity Exteriors from $45M to $65M. The Mr. Beast of roofing. 26 years old.
HoopSwagg
Made his first million by age 16 making custom socks in his parents’ garage. Featured on CNN. Today runs a seven-figure sock company, a logistics company, and a software company.
None of these people are unusually smart. They’re committed. They show up. They submit the report on Friday. They run the playbook.
$7,500 for a one-year apprenticeship that builds an actual agency.
Transparent pricing. No sales calls disguised as discovery. Just a 15-minute qualification call to make sure you’re a fit. If you’re committed, coachable, and ready to ship — we’d love to have you.
Book Your 15-Minute Qualification Call →Or learn more at localservicespotlight.com/ai-builder-program
Pick Option A, B, or C.
Then ship video #1 this week.
Sebastian said he likes football, hard work, and money. This plan is built around all three. Football is the niche. Hard work is the engine. Money is the scoreboard — it shows up later than he wants.
The kids who win this game are the ones who post video #87 when video #1 through #86 each got 12 views.
That can be Sebastian. That can be your kid.
For parents reading this
If you have a teen who’s hungry like Sebastian: don’t fund the dream. Don’t buy the course. Don’t pay for the camera. Make them prove they’ll show up for 90 days with what they already have. The kid who’ll do that with a $0 stack is the same kid who’d do it with a $5K stack. The kid who needs the $5K stack to start is the kid who won’t finish.
Your job is the legal scaffolding (Amazon Associates account, PayPal, eventually an LLC) and the safety guardrails. The hustle, the reps, the showing up at video #87 — that’s their job, and they have to want it. If they do, you’ll know within 30 days. And when they prove it — that’s when the AI Builder Program becomes the right next step. We don’t take kids who haven’t already shown they’ll show up. But the ones who do? We make them dangerous.
Sebastian — your first video is due Sunday. I want a link in my inbox by Monday morning. We’ll review video #15 together in 30 days. Go ship.
About this post:
Built live with Sebastian using Claude. Full session recording here.
Recruiting A-players: If you’re a US-based young adult who watched this and thought “I want to do that for real” — apply to the AI Builder Program at Local Service Spotlight. We’re looking for the next Marko, George, and Ethan. — Dennis Yu, May 2026.