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David Mabey | Building With AI

@davidkmabey · Instagram & Facebook

Dad building a real business with AI, around the 9 to 5.
Sharing what I learn as I go. No hype.
Everything here is free. No email, no signup, nothing gated.

Start with the guides Try a free tool

Why I’m doing this

I still have
the 9 to 5.

I'm a dad, twenty years into a corporate job, building a second thing with AI in the gaps of the day — after bedtime, before work, thirty minutes at a time. You don't have a motivation problem. You have ninety minutes on a good night and three people who need you in them. AI is the first thing that actually fits a day like that, because it collapses the work that used to need a whole evening into the time you genuinely have.

Straight up, before you read anything else: I haven't replaced my income and I'm not close. I still have the job. There's no course to sell you. I'm writing down what works as I find it, and it's all free.

Start with the free guides

Where I'm actually at

Most pages like this open with a number.

Here's mine: I don't have one yet. That's the honest version, and it's the reason anything else on this page is worth reading.

What's true

Twenty years in a corporate job. I still have it, and I'm not quitting it.
I'm a data guy — two decades turning somebody's messy spreadsheet into a decision they can actually make.
I build in the cracks: thirty to sixty minutes, most days, after the kids are down.
I started doing this in public in August 2026, and I've posted every day since.

What isn't

I haven't replaced my income. I'm not close, and I'll say so when I am.
There's no course to sell you. The community is free.
I'm not going to tell you to quit your job. I like having a salary — it pays for my family's life and it has never once bounced.
I'm not ahead of you by years. On a good week, maybe a few steps.

David in his living room in the evening, laptop on his lap, family photos on the wall — Most of this gets built here, after everyone’s asleep.

For most of my career I thought of the job as the thing standing between me and a business. The cage. The reason I couldn't. I don't think that anymore, and it took AI to change my mind.

When I finally started building something on the side, I kept reaching for skills I didn't know I had. How to explain a messy problem in one clear sentence. How to keep a project moving when nobody's excited about it any more. How to tell the difference between "sounds good" and "actually works." None of that came from a course. It came from twenty years of showing up.

AI does the part I was missing — the writing, the design, the technical work I'd have had to hire out. The twenty years turned out to be the raw material, not the cage.

The guides

Start with what already works.

Real systems from what I'm actually building. Everything is on the page — no email wall, no opt-in, nothing to sign up for.

Setup

Turn AI from a search box into a coworker

Four changes that move it from answering questions to doing the work with you — plus the two questions that catch it being confidently wrong.

Guide · 4 steps System

The thirty-minutes-a-day operating system

The morning prompt, the ten-minute Sunday plan, and the one note on your phone that means you never sit down to an empty head again.

Guide · 4 parts Starting

You don't have an idea problem

The twenty-minute audit that finds the thing you're already good at, and the exact prompt that turns it into ten ideas that fit your actual life.

Guide · 3 steps Free tool

Instagram Bio Optimizer

Four fields in, a clear four-line bio out — who you help, what changes, what to do next. Runs in your browser, nothing sent anywhere.

Tool · takes about 2 minutes

Why there's no email wall. Everybody's been burned by handing over an address and getting a month of daily sales emails. So there's no form. Read it, use it, and if it helps, come find me in the community.

The next step

When you want the whole thing

Everything on this site is free and it stays free. When you want the full step-by-step and a room of dads doing exactly this, that’s the community. Here’s what you’re walking into.

Three steps, built around a full-time job.

How The Business Builders works: join free, follow the training, build step by step

And what’s actually inside.

Inside The Business Builders: step-by-step training and a community of dads

Join The Business Builders — free

No card, no trial, nothing to cancel. I’m in there most days.