The Most Passive Business You Can Start With $20
Chris Koerner talks with Frey Chu about building niche directory websites, simple lists that rank on Google, which Chu says can earn passive income for about the cost of a Claude Code subscription.
The gist
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Chu says his thrift store directory made about $150,000 over four years, peaking near $3,000 monthly, for 30 minutes of work every four months.
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He finds ideas with Ahrefs connected to Claude Code, looking for existing directories with solid traffic but a domain rating under roughly 25 to 30.
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Chu cold emails sites linking to competitors with a five-sentence pitch offering $50 to $100 per link, and says about 7% reply.
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He says startup cost is basically a Claude Code subscription, using free tiers of Supabase, Astro and Resend, and dictating prompts with Wispr Flow.
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His porta potty site still had placeholder text yet landed a $20,000 lead, but he calls it a dud because he disliked the sales work.
"For finding ideas, it really helps to use the Ahrefs MCP or API connected to your Claude Code and start to feed it prompts that represent how I look for good directory ideas."
▶ Play at 22:326 creators recommend it, including Frey, Greg Isenberg, and Jonathan Fishner.
See all on the Ahrefs page"I would say a Claude Code subscription is all you really need, especially if you take the generous free offers from like Vercel... if you just utilize these free versions for your first project, you really just need your Claude Code subscription."
▶ Play at 36:29108 creators recommend it, including Riley Brown, Liam Ottley, and Peter Yang.
See all on the Claude Code page"Supabase, where your database lives, has a free project... Sometimes Supabase cuz I have a lot of projects there, so I'm paying $10 a month."
▶ Play at 36:549 creators recommend it, including Riley Brown, Liam Ottley, and Benjamin Chen.
See all on the Supabase page"I also use the Astro framework. It's basically a free open source way to create a website that's really great for like content-heavy websites."
▶ Play at 37:052 creators recommend it, including Billy Howell.
See all on the Astro page"I would say Resend. Resend is really solid for email marketing. Also very generous free plan."
▶ Play at 37:535 creators recommend it, including Chris Koerner, Cedric Roberge, and Jason Lemkin.
See all on the Resend page"Do you use like Wispr Flow or like just voice dictation? ... Yeah. Yeah. I'm using Wispr Flow."
▶ Play at 34:2132 creators recommend it, including Riley Brown, This Week in Startups, and Jason Calacanis.
See all on the Wispr Flow pageWhat they recommend · 6 picks
"For finding ideas, it really helps to use the Ahrefs MCP or API connected to your Claude Code and start to feed it prompts that represent how I look for good directory ideas."
"I would say a Claude Code subscription is all you really need, especially if you take the generous free offers from like Vercel... if you just utilize these free versions for yo..."
"I also use the Astro framework. It's basically a free open source way to create a website that's really great for like content-heavy websites."
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