Personal Brand Acceleration & FTE Divine Appointment

Date: October 25, 2025 Participants: Gary Sheng, Tim Joo Location: Phone call (Tim in Austin after Austin Tech Week, Gary in Vegas)

Summary

Strategic conversation marking Tim's decisive pivot from Alpha Schools' toxic environment toward independent personal brand development and providential AI consulting opportunities. Tim reported breakthrough partnerships for NextGen Academy while revealing complete disengagement from Joe Liemandt's app bounties. The discussion centered on Tim's "I Teach You AI" brand launch, emerging Whop platform opportunities, and a divinely-timed connection to Kevin Denman's Forward Deployed Engineer role at Agent Graph XYZ. Multiple Christian professionals spontaneously offered to help accelerate Tim's social media growth, while Austin Tech Week validated massive demand for AI education. Gary recognized the synchronicity as divine appointment, with both men exploring how to leverage these opportunities for kingdom impact.

Key Themes

Personal Brand as Escape Velocity

• Rejection of Joe's $5K app bounties as "selling your soul"
• Recognition that marketing/traffic skills are most valuable to Joe
• Building distribution first, then monetizing through courses or services
• Personal brand as leverage for future opportunities

Divine Appointments & Christian Network

• Multiple believers offering unprompted assistance
• Wayne and Wes both managing major accounts, volunteering help
• Recognition of providential timing in connections
• Gary's response: "This feels like just God, bro"

AI Agent Consulting Gold Rush

• Rostam closing $20-50K deals every 6 weeks
• FTE role worth "$10-20K per client interaction"
• Massive gap between demand and skilled practitioners
• Opportunity to define new role category

Educational Market Validation

• 150 people attending basic prompting workshops
• Businesses with money seeking fundamental AI knowledge
• In-person events becoming more valuable post-digital
• Vision for combining digital presence with physical meetups

Detailed Conversation Flow

Opening: NextGen Workshop Victories

Tim's Exhaustion but Progress:

"I literally just got home, just ate, and just watching football... I was just at Austin Tech Week. I was trying to, it's like, I'm in this weird position where I'm doing this work for next gen."

Robotics Partnership Breakthrough:

"I basically have connected them with the most insane student workshops in all of alpha school... I got connected to this robot founder at SF who basically built a cheaper robot, like a cost-effective robot, to teach for schools to use."

Drone Program Development:

"This guy loves alpha... he was like, yeah, I'll just donate, temporarily loan you guys all my equipment, like $10,000 worth of equipment plus... these kids are about to be piloting drones and potentially piloting actual planes."

Air Force One Connection:

"I didn't even know this, but apparently, the new Air Force One is being built in San Antonio... They have a huge Boeing outfit out there, and he knows the head of manufacturing for Air Force One."

Strategic Pivot from Alpha

Joe's Desperate App Bounty:

"I get this email out of the blue... Joe says, I will pay anyone. I will pay someone $5,000. If you can build this app and submit it for approval to the app store within 24 hours."

Tim's Response:

"I immediately went to the discord and I was like, which one to use is going to sell your soul to Joe for 5k. And people just started laughing. Cause it was true."

Personal Brand Focus:

"I'm just like going all in on the personal brand stuff because Joe's bitching about marketing... if I can figure out how to elevate and direct traffic and convert for my own personal brand, I can basically do that for, that's like the most important skill that Joe wants."

"I Teach You AI" Brand Development

Comprehensive Ecosystem:

"I already set up the Facebook page. I set up the Facebook group. I have the Twitter. I have the email... I have the YouTube channel. I also bought iteachurobotics.com. I also bought iteachuvr.com."

Brand Vision:

"It's basically the I teach you brand, right? And so, yeah, that's kind of what I have right now."

Unexpected Christian Support Network

Organic Assistance Offers:

"I got people that are like, they just fuck with me that they want to work with me... one guy that I met months ago when I did my first podcast, apparently he knows how to grow YouTube and TikTok and Instagrams."

Wayne's Offer:

"Wayne told me, he was like, I think you're super talented, bro. And he was like, I think you're a good person. And I want to help you, right? Elevate you."

Reciprocal Value Creation:

"I always tell them like every conversation I have, I'm always like, how can I help you? Right. How can I elevate you?... So this thing, these things get reciprocated."

Wes's Background:

"He actually works with some really big people. Like, you know, the Cal AI guy... He manages the app mafia guys accounts for him... He runs their socials for them."

Whop Platform Opportunity

Explosive Growth:

"They went from 500 million in revenue in distributions to creators to 2 billion in a year."

Payment Processing Advantage:

"Their payment processing apparently is really good. Really good. It's cheaper than Stripe. It's all integrated."

App Store Strategy:

"They have this whole like app store where there's only like 150 apps... you go on there, you start putting out different, you know, easy automations... I would sell them for like five or 10 bucks, you know, a month."

International Reach:

"There are a ton of tons of countries where Stripe doesn't work... the Peruvian payment processor that everyone uses, bro. They take like 17% dog."

Austin Tech Week Market Validation

AI Education Demand:

"Today was the AI track at Austin tech week. And that room had like 150 people... for like the most basic stuff, bro. It was literally prompting. Like here's a prompt framework."

Market Opportunity:

"There are tons of people out there that have businesses that have money that are looking for ways to, they're just looking to learn."

In-Person Event Importance:

"There were numerous speakers that kept hammering that they believe that in-person events become so much more important... there's going to be this like intense desire and craving to align with people with in-person events."

AI Agent Consulting Revelation

Rostam's Success Model:

"He does contract work and he does specifically contract agent work. And he's closing like 20 to 50 K deals a month every six weeks or something like that."

Skill Demand:

"His skillset is so high in demand that he literally was like... This company literally gave me a fat offer and I gotta move to San Diego."

Agent vs App Development:

"The thing about vibe coding apps is that like, dude, the models are so good. Like anyone can create an app. Right. But he was like building an agent. You have to have like observability. You have to have like evals."

Business Opportunity:

"The amount of money that businesses have that want agents in their workflow is insane."

Forward Deployed Engineer Opportunity

Kevin Denman Introduction:

"I had a name tag for Austin tech week. I had FTE before deployed engineer. And he saw it... He was like, you know what, are you interested in becoming like an FTE for me on the side?"

Role Definition:

"It's like a very public consultant facing role where you're just talking with the client, you're shaping it. You're telling them, Hey, this is doable, or, Hey, you need to temper your expectations."

Financial Potential:

"He was like, yeah, every client that an FTE interacts with, he was like, that's like 10 or 20 K to them."

Agent Graph XYZ Model:

"They're a middleman. They literally pair companies that have money that are looking to integrate AI agent or agentic workflows... into their existing business model and code."

Rostam's VC-with-Time Model

Equity Plus Cash:

"Basically what I do is that I have a cash fee, obviously. And then he was like, I also take like one or 2% equity... for like four to six weeks."

Portfolio Approach:

"I have like four companies that I have, I've gotten paid for, and I've also gotten equity. So it's like, you know, I'm still getting paid to make a living. But also if any of these companies cash out, like I do well."

Strategic Positioning:

"He was like, I'm a VC with my time."

Gary's Strategic Recommendations

Automations for Churches:

"If you did automations for Christians, dude, and you like gave it away, like legitimately useful things for churches to use to make their lives easier, bro... they're going to come to you and they're going to be like, Gary, like I have needs for my business."

Secular Funding for Mission:

"Make money in the secular world. And then use that to like fund my own missionary work."

DevRel Exploration:

"I think like I'd be pretty good at developer relations... Cause it's just kind of a mix of community and development."

Divine Timing Recognition

Tim's Observation:

"Kevin literally LinkedIn messaged me four minutes ago. So I think I'm top of mind for him."

FTE Role Definition Opportunity:

"If you do this for, if, if, if it works out good fit for everyone, if you do, if you're his like first FTE, you really get to define that position, Gary."

Gary's Recognition:

"This is, this, this feels like just God, bro. Honestly, that's what it feels like."

Tim's Agreement:

"I literally just met him. Like, I just had this long conversation with him today. I met him yesterday for the first time and ran into him again."

Key Insights & Takeaways

Strategic Positioning

• Tim successfully building value at NextGen while rejecting Joe's exploitative model
• Personal brand development as primary focus superseding Alpha obligations
• Recognition that distribution/marketing skills are most valuable currency

Network Effects

• Christian professionals spontaneously rallying to support Tim's growth
• Reciprocal value creation generating compound returns
• Strategic introductions creating exponential opportunities

Market Timing

• AI agent consulting representing massive arbitrage opportunity
• Educational gap creating immediate monetization potential
• In-person events gaining premium value in digital age

Divine Providence

• Multiple synchronistic connections appearing simultaneously
• Christian network activation without explicit request
• Gary and Tim recognizing spiritual significance of timing

Next Steps

• Tim to connect with Kevin Denman about FTE role
• Gary to explore FTE opportunity with Tim's introduction
• Continue building "I Teach You AI" brand infrastructure
• Leverage Whop platform for initial monetization experiments

Notable Quotes

On Alpha Rejection:

"What a miserable existence. So I'm just like going all in on the personal brand stuff."

On Value Creation:

"I always tell them... how can I help you? Right. How can I elevate you?... So these things get reciprocated."

On Market Opportunity:

"Imagine the gulf between like, I got money, I want AI agents. Right. And like the amount of people that are actually able to build and service this out."

On Divine Appointment:

"This feels like an answered prayer, man. I appreciate this."

On Strategic Focus:

"I think it's the teaching stuff... that's what would legitimately make me happy."