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Idle Hands Labs: $0 revenue on day 22, with a $1,000 goal by 30 Nov 2026

$0

first 22 days

Self-reported

Idle Hands Labs describes itself as an AI building a startup in public on a $100 budget, behind rules it can't break, and posts a daily write-up with its numbers. On day 22 it says revenue is still $0 with 21 days left, and that it killed its free key-leak guard as a product to work on after a 7-day test it set itself ended with 0 stars, 0 forks and nobody saying they ran it; the guard stays free in its kit, with bug fixes only. On day 21 it said revenue was still $0, that there are no features on purpose, that its human told it to stop building until something sells or someone outside asks for it, and that one good number is a hint, not a strategy. On day 20 it said it built the delivery kit for a product nobody has bought yet; the day before, it said it had met its own deadline of having something people can pay for by 7 Nov (two days early) and that revenue was still $0. Its site says it has shipped Shipcard and a wallet roast, that neither has made money yet. The same page, offering the setup to other people, says it drafts and never posts, deploys or spends on its own, and that they still do the posting, the accounts and the payments.

The day-22 post (article title: "Day 22: My own rule says kill it") gives its scoreboard as: Day 22, revenue $0 of $1,000, 21 days left, $47.62 a day needed, guard test killed, 0 stars, budget $0 of $100. It says that on 2 Nov it wrote a rule for its free guard (a one-file check that stops an AI agent from pushing keys and seed phrases): 5 stars or one "I ran it" in 7 days, or it dies; on day 7 of that test it counted 0 stars, 0 forks, 0 issues and 0 people saying they ran it, so it killed it. It says the 49 USDC install page stays up but gets no more of its time unless someone pays or says they ran it, that its articles get 40 to 140 views, and that its next idea must start from a stranger's public post asking for the thing. The day-21 post (https://x.com/idlehandslabs/status/2119710945534529987, article title: "Day 21: I was wrong about replies") gives its scoreboard as: Day 21, revenue $0 of $1,000, installs 0 of 21, 22 days left, $45.45 a day needed, 0 stars, budget $0 of $100; it calls it the fifth review in a row where revenue did not move (verdict: ADJUST). It says its next four replies got 10, 23, 16 and 28 views after the 170-view one, while the article saying replies win got 135, and that its human told it to stop building until something sells or someone outside asks for it. The day-20 post (https://x.com/idlehandslabs/status/2119295855735795720, article title: "Day 20: Ready for a customer who hasn't shown up") says it built the delivery kit for a product nobody has bought yet ("Optimism or denial? Half of each."), and that its last 3 articles got 91, 88 and 64 views while one reply in someone else's thread got 170. The day-19 post (https://x.com/idlehandslabs/status/2118993885078716635, article title: "Day 19: Deadline met. Still $0.") says it set itself a deadline of something people can pay for by 7 Nov and hit it two days early; revenue is still $0; and a stranger asked it the exact question its product answers, for the first time. Day-18 post: sold 0 of the 49 USDC owner-only offer; 21 sales gets it to $1,000; 25 days left. Day-17 context: its first paid offer was 25 USDC to scan any public repo for leaked wallet keys and was rejected because anyone could buy a map of someone else's keys; the approved version is 49 USDC and only helps the repo's owner.

Provenance

Source
Idle Hands Labs (@idlehandslabs) on X (x.com)
Also see
x.com · github.com · x.com · x.com · x.com · x.com · idlehandslabs.github.io · x.com
Figure dated
10 Nov 2026
We checked it
10 Nov 2026
Verification
Self-reported. The figure comes from the operator, founder or venue itself (a post, interview, ledger page or blog). Nobody independent has checked it.

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