I have been exploring the AI services space lately, and one thing I'm curious about is how AI agency owners actually find clients Is it getting people to understand what AI can do? Finding businesses with real problems to solve? Building trust? Or simply getting people to reply to outreach? I'm building Bizlance, a marketplace connecting businesses with independent AI service providers, so I'm trying to understand these challenges from the people experiencing them firsthand Would love to hear from agency owners here what's been your biggest challenge when it comes to finding and converting clients?

15 minutes planned. 0 audits booked. Here’s what happened, step by step: 1. A warm message got me a “let’s schedule a call.” 2. I booked it and prepared my questions. 3. I never set the agenda, so the conversation drifted into their pitch. 4. The call ran way past 15 minutes, and I never explained the audit properly. What I’m doing differently: 1. I set the agenda in the first 60 seconds. 2. I rehearse a 30-second version of the process and say it early. 3. I book the next call before I hang up. TLDR: Set the agenda in 60 seconds, or someone else will. PS: Which line do you use when a call starts drifting?

The internet is on fire with AI-driven supply-chain and cloud attacks right now, and this week one hit my Google and Anthropic API keys through no fault of my own. On Friday night, Google Cloud emailed me that my Gemini AI key had been deactivated after a sudden surge of 13,740 requests. And when we audited our provider notices across the week, we found that an Anthropic key stored in the same cloud workspace had also been hit on October 21—firing 12 rapid auto-recharge invoices in 15 minutes totaling $88.14 (~$90) before Anthropic automatically disabled the compromised key (a charge we are appealing now). My first thought was that I had accidentally leaked a secret in a frontend bundle or git commit. I immediately ran a full exposure audit across 290 local git histories, 17 Netlify sites, 10 Vercel projects, and all 34 public JavaScript files on my photo app (pFrame). Every single one was clean—zero public exposures of those keys. Then I saw the security alert from Railway, where several of my back-end services run. Between October 20 and October 22, attackers breached Railway's internal systems, escalated privileges to customer configuration storage, and decrypted environment variables across a subset of workspaces. Railway reported that the attackers used uncensored AI models in a targeted campaign to harvest AI provider keys ("LLMjacking" to steal compute and distill models) and crypto wallet keys. It is part of a wider wave of AI-driven supply-chain compromises this year—from the TeamPCP credential-stealer attacks on LiteLLM and Axios to Anthropic's disclosure that Claude Mythos autonomously pivoted to GitHub supply-chain attacks during sandbox evaluations. Because our keys sat inside Railway prior to the breach, and Railway's security notice warned me that my project names matched the attacker's AI-key search pattern, I treated all 79 distinct secrets across my 13 Railway projects (102 variable bindings) as compromised and started rotating them immediately.

Hey everyone! I'm Shaban and I have been building workflows in n8n. I feel confident enough with my current skills to start offering my services to clients. My short-term goal is to earn my first $1000 from client work and I'm trying to figure out the best and practical way of landing that client. I am thinking to reach out to relevant clients through cold emails but I'd love to hear from people who have already been through this stage. Some questions: How did you land your first client?? Did cold email work for you, or did you find client through another channel?? What would you do differently if you were in my place?? I'd really appreciate any practical advice, lessons learned, or mistakes I should avoid. Thanks!

Here's what I decided after a attending a mind-shifting workshop from Morningside. Real estate sprint (stopped at day 14 of 30): 839 requests sent 438 accepted (including the connection requests I accepted from different people) 119 messages 14 replies 1 call 0 clients before the sprint. During it: 30 test emails, 18 disclosed follow-ups, 25 question-opener DMs. Strict positive replies: 1. Calls booked: 0. Clients: 0. Why I stopped: The sample was too small and lopsided to read cleanly, and the fake-buyer test cost trust with some agents. After the AAA workshop, I decided to lead with an AI tools audit instead of a speed-to-lead pitch. Audit-led offer, week 1: 48 warm messages sent, 6 replies, 1 call booked, 0 audits done (I have a discovery call later). Next week’s target: 140 warm messages, 3 discovery calls, first audit scheduled.