Niche sites
Run a use-case directory for one new AI tool
Pick one AI tool or trend that launched in the last 90 days, and run a website that collects real examples of how people use it: what they did, what they got, and the prompt they used. Sponsors, newsletter readers and affiliate partners pay.
The hard part: getting visitors in the first place, because the example's traffic came from the owner's large X following, and then keeping the directory updated every day.
Who pays
Businesses pay for sponsor slots at the top of the page. You also earn from sponsors in a daily newsletter and from affiliate links to the tools you list. riabcevv reports that one AI tools directory sold two sponsor slots in one week, for $600 and $500, with costs not shown. Nobody reports newsletter or affiliate income for this model, so treat those as suggestions.
How to build it
Pick one recently launched AI tool
Choose an AI tool, trend, or audience that appeared in the last 90 days and that people are excited about but unsure how to use. Narrow beats broad, for example one tool's uses by job or by industry.
Collect new examples every day
Set up Grok to scan X, Reddit, YouTube, and GitHub each day for posts showing real uses of the tool. Save each find to a Supabase table with its link and author.
Sort each entry the same way
For each find, record the use case, the result the person got, and the prompt to copy, then tag it with a category. Drop entries that only hype the tool without showing a result.
Publish the directory site
Use Claude Code or Cursor to build a simple searchable site that reads from Supabase, and host it on Vercel. Add a clear spot at the top of the page for sponsor slots.
Start a daily newsletter
Set up a beehiiv newsletter that sends the day's best new entries, and add a signup box to every page of the site.
Sell sponsor slots and add affiliate links
Create Stripe Payment Links for weekly sponsor slots on the site and in the newsletter. Add affiliate links where the tools you list offer them.
Bring in the first visitors yourself
Post your best finds on X and in relevant Reddit communities every day, linking back to the directory. Plan this before you build, because the site will not find its own audience.
Sources on X
- coreyganim · Oct 16, 2026
The poster lays out the play: pick a tool or trend that launched in the last 90 days, have an agent scan X, Reddit, YouTube, and GitHub every day, organize entries by use case, result, and prompt to copy, and earn from a daily newsletter, sponsored listings, and affiliate links. The poster adds that many people will abandon these within a month because they fail to keep them up to date or don't get the initial traffic they expect.
- riabcevv · Oct 14, 2026
riabcevv reports that Alex Finn's AI tools directory earns by selling sponsor slots at the top of the page, and that the $1,100 was two sponsors in one week, $600 and $500, with costs not shown. The poster notes that the 56k visitors that week came from Alex posting to ~500k followers, not from the agent, and advises starting with distribution.
- Magnosud · Oct 15, 2026
Magnosud describes a free Grok Bot template called "Side Hustle CEO" that builds small sites such as a directory or tracker with a newsletter and sponsors. The poster says Alex Finn's example, agentusecases.ai, scrapes the web daily for real AI agent use cases and lists more than 1,300 of them. The $1,800 weekly figure is Alex's own claim.
Ideas are curated from public posts and untested by us. Read the full note.