The What If: Russell Brunson Opens Funnel Hacking Live 2026
Brunson retraces every 'what if' of his career, from a teenage classified-ad hustle to turning down a half-billion-dollar buyout, then uses that same reframe to justify ClickFunnels' pivot into two new AI products.
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2 days ago
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Big Idea
The argument in one line.
Brunson frames every major turn in his career, including walking away from a nine-figure acquisition offer, as the result of asking a specific 'what if' question instead of following a plan, and he uses that same framing to introduce ClickFunnels' pivot into two new AI-building products.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
You run a ClickFunnels account and want to know what ClickFunnels AI and Overskill actually do before they roll out.
You're a solo operator or small team curious whether an AI app-builder could replace hiring a developer for internal tools.
You want Brunson's own account of ClickFunnels' founding story and the acquisition offer the company turned down.
You're evaluating whether to adopt a new platform pivot from a vendor you already depend on.
SKIP IF…
You're looking for a hands-on tutorial. This is a keynote announcement and live demo, not a step-by-step walkthrough.
You already know the ClickFunnels origin story from Brunson's books and talks. It's retold here largely unchanged.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
Brunson opens Funnel Hacking Live 2026 by walking through a decades-long chain of 'what if' moments, from a teenage classified-ad hustle and a $20 outsourced software product, through founding ClickFunnels with Todd Dickerson, turning down a buyout offer valued at over half a billion dollars, and absorbing public backlash from the ClickFunnels 2.0 beta launch. He uses that arc to introduce two new products: ClickFunnels AI, a prompt-based funnel builder demoed live with Dickerson that is meant to generate a full funnel, copy, and checkout from a text description, and Overskill, a general AI app-builder Brunson says he has used to build around 34 of his own tools and that a 994-person hackathon used to finish that many complete apps in 24 hours. The through-line is that neither product needed a market study first, just a specific enough 'what if.'
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Brunson explains why Funnel Hacking Live almost ended for good, why he felt called to bring it back after a year of AI-driven chaos inside the company, and sets up the 'what if' framing for the rest of the talk.
03:40 – 08:34
02 · What if I could start a business
The teenage classified-ad hustle: a Don LaPree info kit, Small Business Opportunity Magazine, and the first unanswered 'what if I could start my own business,' followed by the online-business what-if sparked by proposing to his now-wife with no money.
08:34 – 10:42
03 · What if I could start a software company
Brunson switches his college major to learn to code, fails at it, then pays a Romanian developer $20 to build his first software product, Zip Brander, and copies a competitor's sales-page format to sell it for $67.
10:42 – 17:26
04 · What if I could coach, speak, and write
Micro Continuity becomes his first hit product and the reason Todd Dickerson later joins his email list; a cold call leads to a Tony Robbins interview and a Fiji stage appearance; a rough first speaking clip; and the decision to become an author with DotCom Secrets.
17:26 – 20:59
05 · What if I could actually build funnels
The ClickFunnels origin story: a whiteboard conversation with Todd Dickerson about letting a non-technical person build a funnel, and the moment Brunson changed a headline in the early editor and felt he had full control for the first time.
20:59 – 26:19
06 · What if we sold ClickFunnels, or rebuilt it
A buyer values ClickFunnels at over half a billion dollars; Brunson and Dickerson turn the offer down on a gut feeling and choose to rebuild as ClickFunnels 2.0 instead, which launches to 18,000 new users in one week and draws painful public backlash.
26:19 – 28:20
07 · The wishlist: what the perfect AI funnel builder would do
A rapid-fire list of exact behaviors Brunson wanted from a rebuilt ClickFunnels: five-minute builds, self-writing copy, self-healing pages, funnel-hacking any URL, no template library, no onboarding calls, no learning curve.
28:20 – 36:22
08 · Reveal: ClickFunnels AI, live with Todd Dickerson
Brunson introduces Todd Dickerson to demo ClickFunnels AI on stage: typing a prompt to generate a full funnel with pages, copy, and checkout, plus a partnership with payment provider WOP to remove manual checkout setup.
36:22 – 38:38
09 · Still handcuffed to developers
Brunson says ClickFunnels freed him to build pages but he still depended on developers for software, membership sites, and apps, which becomes the setup for the next what-if.
38:38 – 47:19
10 · Overskill: build your own software
The Overskill origin story from an April live beta test (building the Braindump app on stage in 15 minutes), a tour of roughly a dozen apps Brunson has built since, examples of team members replacing entire job functions with self-built tools, hackathon results (994 apps in 24 hours), and the handoff to Todd Dickerson's session.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
Brunson frames nearly every pivot in his career, from a teenage classified-ad hustle to selling ClickFunnels, as a deliberate 'what if' question rather than a plan.
ClickFunnels turned down an acquisition offer valuing the company at over half a billion dollars because the deal 'didn't feel right,' choosing to rebuild the product as ClickFunnels 2.0 instead.
The ClickFunnels 2.0 beta launch onboarded 18,000 new customers in a single week and produced public backlash that Brunson says put the team into 'a really hard era' for multiple years.
ClickFunnels AI is a prompt-based funnel builder: typing a description like 'a book funnel that follows Russell Brunson's best practices, charges $7' is meant to generate the funnel, copy, and checkout without a page editor.
Overskill is ClickFunnels' general-purpose AI app-building platform, and Brunson says he personally built roughly 34 full software apps in it, using about three million generation credits.
Brunson's assistant used Overskill to build a tool that replaced an eight-person product development team, cutting that department's workload to under an hour of her time a day.
A 24-hour virtual hackathon run on Overskill produced 994 completed, submitted apps from attendees.
The company's stated mission, freeing entrepreneurs to focus on their customers, is used to justify pivoting from a single drag-and-drop funnel builder into two separate AI products.
Co-founder Todd Dickerson says a big tech contact told him he doesn't think there are 50 people on the planet working on AI the way Dickerson currently is.
The ClickFunnels AI demo is paired with a payment partner, WOP, pitched as removing KYC checks and onboarding friction from checkout setup entirely.
Brunson's first paid product came from hiring a developer in Romania for $20 plus a $100 bonus to build a $67 software tool called Zip Brander, modeled on a competitor's sales page.
A single customer comment after the ClickFunnels 2.0 launch, reading 'I'm still a funnel hacker, I just started using different software,' stuck with Brunson enough that he quotes it on stage.
Takeaway
Every pivot started as a specific 'what if'
THE WHAT-IF REFLEX
Every major turn in Brunson's career, including walking away from a half-billion-dollar buyout, traces back to the same habit: turning fear into a specific 'what if' question before acting on it.
02What if I could start a business
Brunson's first business instinct wasn't a plan, it was curiosity: he responded to every classified ad in a hobbyist magazine just to see what the sales letters said.
A vague 'what if' doesn't need an answer right away. Brunson let the question about starting an online business sit unanswered for years before circumstances forced him to act on it.
03What if I could start a software company
You don't need to know how to build the thing to start the business: Brunson paid a developer $20 to build his first software product because he couldn't code it himself.
04What if I could coach, speak, and write
Public credibility can arrive faster than skill does: Brunson landed a Tony Robbins interview off one info product, well before he considered himself a coach.
Committing to an identity before you've earned it changes behavior: telling people 'I'm writing a book' turned a vague ambition into a project Brunson actually finished.
05What if I could actually build funnels
ClickFunnels itself started as a tool to remove Brunson's own dependency on a developer, not as a product idea aimed at a market.
The moment that made the tool feel real wasn't a feature list, it was Brunson personally changing a headline on his own funnel and watching the page update.
06What if we sold ClickFunnels, or rebuilt it
A half-billion-dollar acquisition offer was turned down on a gut feeling, not a financial argument. Brunson and Dickerson didn't have a better number, just a wrong feeling about the deal.
Public backlash from the ClickFunnels 2.0 beta launch didn't get memory-holed. Brunson names the specific customer comment that stuck with him and uses it to explain the years-long product reset that followed.
07The wishlist: what the perfect AI funnel builder would do
Before building the new product, Brunson wrote out the full wishlist in specific terms: five-minute build time, self-writing copy, self-healing pages, no learning curve, no template library.
Specificity precedes the build. A vague desire for 'AI-powered funnels' doesn't produce a new product; a detailed list of exact behaviors does.
08Reveal: ClickFunnels AI, live with Todd Dickerson
The company is willing to make a product decision that competes with its own installed base of drag-and-drop users, betting that prompt-to-funnel is the bigger opportunity.
09Still handcuffed to developers
Solving the funnel-builder problem didn't solve the software problem. Brunson describes staying dependent on developers for years even after ClickFunnels freed him from page design.
10Overskill: build your own software
Non-technical team members used the same AI tool to replace entire job functions: an assistant rebuilt an eight-person department's workflow into an app she runs alone in under an hour a day.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
ClickFunnels AI
A newly announced prompt-based funnel builder from ClickFunnels: the user describes the funnel they want in plain text and the tool is meant to generate the pages, copy, upsells, and checkout automatically.
Overskill
ClickFunnels' general AI app-building platform, used to generate custom software (membership sites, CRMs, internal tools) from a text prompt rather than a funnel specifically.
Funnel Hacking Live (FHL)
ClickFunnels' annual flagship conference for its customer base, where major product announcements are typically made.
Braindump
The first app Brunson built live on stage during an April beta test of Overskill: a project-management tool built around endless bullet-list 'cards,' finished and fully functional in about 15 minutes.
WOP
A payment processing partner referenced in the ClickFunnels AI demo, pitched as enabling fully automated checkout setup with no manual KYC or onboarding steps.
DotCom Secrets
Brunson's first published book, shown on stage as the moment he became an author rather than just a software seller.
“I still felt handcuffed to developers for software, membership sites, everything else.”
sets up the entire Overskill premise in one sentence→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
39:20
“Braindump was done. Not just was it done, the sales page was done... I just built software, live in front of everybody.”
the live-build payoff moment that launched Overskill→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
The Script
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metaphorstory
What's going on, everybody?
I've missed you all. This is so amazing to be hanging out. I feel like we're sitting here in this front room right here.
I feel like all you guys, like, right here on top of me, this is the most amazing thing ever. And this stage is huge. I feel like an ant walking up here.
Hopefully, there's going to be some videos up here, so hopefully you can see me. I'm like a little tiny guy. I'm so excited to be back here, you guys.
This is something I was not expecting, but something I'm very grateful for. We've talked a lot over the last decade or so with so many of you guys about your callings and what you're called to do and trying to listen to the calling. And it's funny because two years ago, three years ago, we felt very much called like we need to stop doing Funnel Hacking Live the way it is, how it's going to be.
And despite the fact that we've been doing it for a decade and didn't want to end, it felt like it was time. And so we did that. And I don't know why, I don't know when, I don't know what it was, but about a year later...
we started filling that calling again. And it was basically January of this year. It was just like things are shifting and things are changing and they are moving so fast.
And we were initially caught in this thing where we're just going through the AI updates, how fast things are changing and like how do we run a company this way? How do we do things? How do we grow?
Like everything was different and shifting and changing. And we felt like we were in this whirlwind of just like chaos. How many of you guys felt some of that this year?
Okay. And we started going through this and we're like, how are we surviving through this? Like this is crazy.
And we were learning things and growing and adding things and figuring things out. And I felt like we had left Funnel Hacking Live, left all of you guys without any of the things that are needed today. We didn't talk about AI once at FHL 10.
You notice that? It didn't come up. It wasn't a thing.
And now we are here, what, 18 months later, 20, however many months we are from that later, and the whole world has completely shifted. And so in January of this year, as we were figuring it out and running and racing and trying to fill all sorts of stuff, we felt that calling. Like, you need to do this again.
We're like, we don't even figure it out for ourselves yet. What are you talking about? And it's like, you will.
you will know by the time that like when you guys um do this you will be ready and it's crazy because i look at this from january till now how our company has shifted and changed and molded and evolved and it's been chaos and and i look at where things are today and it's um i wouldn't have believed it in january if you told me that and i'm so excited because now as we are preparing for this event we're like We have so much to share.
So many things to unlock for you guys that I think are going to change your businesses. I think for a lot of you guys, it's going to change your life. And so I'm excited.
That's the game plan for the next two and a half days. We have so many fun things in plan for you guys tonight. We have a really, really fun session.
We're going to be going late tonight, working on some really cool things. Our goal is by the time you guys all go to bed tonight, you will have something that you can sell done and ready to go launch and it'll be live, which is going to be really fun. Yes.
So. We got food for you guys tonight, so don't stress about, like, where am I going to eat? How am I going to eat?
We're going to take care of you. It's going to be fun. Just plug in.
Come on this ride with me. We're going to have so much fun, and the next two days is going to be chaos and exciting and all sorts of stuff. We're going to be tired.
We're going to have energy, and there's going to be all sorts of things, but I promise you guys we'll leave in the next two and a half days different, and that's what I'm excited for. So thanks for coming out here. Thanks for flying all the way from around the world to Las Vegas.
We have people from countries all around the world, and it's great for you guys taking that leap of faith and coming and visiting us for this one -time special. event that we felt called to do so with that said I want to jump into my presentation today and it's interesting because I always like to start funnel hacking live with like a presentation about something to get us like in the mood for like change and growth and everything right to prepare our minds and our bodies for that and about a month ago we were talking about the possibilities like what's happening today like what we're able to do and able to create and all sorts of stuff and a phrase that kept coming up with inside of our company was this is what if And as I started thinking about this, I started thinking about, I think for entrepreneurs, these are probably two of the most amazing words ever created.
And I started thinking more and more about this, and I started thinking about all of the what -ifs throughout my life, specifically as an entrepreneur. And my very first what -if, this is the first picture I'm pulling, I remember I was a kid, and if this picture looks weird, it's because it is. So some of you guys know my story.
As a kid, I was like 14, 15 years old, I started learning about business. I started seeing infomercials on TV, and I wanted to figure out how to make money. And I remember...
buying a kit on an infomercial from Don LaPree. I called his phone number and ordered a kit to learn how to make money with tiny classified ads. And I got this box shipped out to me and that became like the very first thing I started studying and learning.
And I was like, again, a 14, 15 year old kid learning about like how people are making money with classified ads. And then we're going to the grocery store with my mom and I saw this little magazine on the rack. It was called Small Business Opportunity Magazine.
Anyone here subscribe to that, by the way? If not, you should. Okay, it's the entire magazine using...
Each magazine averages four to five articles and 150 pages of ads. And they're some of the best ads ever. They're amazing.
And so I'd get this magazine and I would look at the first ad and it was like, how to make money painting little stars on the ceiling in people's bedrooms. And I was like, that's a great idea. Right?
Glow in the dark stars. And so it said, call this number for an info kit. So I called the number for an info kit.
Like, send me the info kit. And then I flipped the thing over. It's like, make money selling donuts at the county fair.
These little tiny donuts. I was like, that's a great idea. And so it had a number.
If you want more information, call this number. So I called the number. I'm like, send me the info kit.
And I flip it over. Next one was like, how to make money going to the mall and selling gold chains by the foot. And I was like, that would be amazing.
And so I called every single ad in that book and requested their info kits. And I started getting junk mail that was shipped to my house. And I started getting this.
I remember sitting there at night. I'd come home from school. and on the countertop of my parents' house, there'd be two stacks of mail.
There was like the stack of mail from mom and dad, it was like two or three letters, and then Russell's stack of junk mail. And I would grab the stack of junk mail, go in my room, I'd sit in the bed, and I would read every single one of these sales letters. I was kind of a nerd.
And I would read, and I remember sometimes I'd read this, and I was like, I have to do this. I have to beg my parents for my credit card. And sometimes I'd read it, and I'm like, ah, it's kind of boring.
And I would like sort the mail, like which ones I wanted to beg my parents to allow me to do, which ones I thought were dumb. But in that window of time, as I'm sitting here as a 14, 15 -year -old kid reading all this, this junk mail this was the what if I what if I could start my own business what would that look like and I didn't know where this what if was gonna go and honestly didn't go anywhere for a long time other than just that what if like what if I could do this what would that look like right and I tried a whole bunch of little things I tried selling stuff different ways I tried I tried doing direct mail one time I tried running class I tried a whole bunch of things nothing ever worked but this started my very first like that planted that seed that first what if like what if I could create my own business Okay, now for me, that lasted for a couple years, and then I started getting older, and I got into wrestling, and that part of my life started.
I kind of forgot about this whole business thing. And then a little while later, I wrestled through high school, and I graduated, so we went to college. I went on a mission for my church for two years, and I came back, and I went to college.
And I went to college the very first year I met this beautiful woman right here. And this is actually a picture from the night we got engaged. Yeah.
And as I'm proposing to her, I'm realizing, I don't have any money. And if she finds that out, she might say no to me. And so I'm like, what if I could start?
And back then, this whole thing called the internet was starting to happen. What if I could start an online business? Something that I could help to support her.
And right now, she's going to have to support me because I'm wrestling. I don't have a job. She's going to be supporting me.
What if I could start an online business so I could support her? We could start a family. We could do this amazing thing, right?
This is my next big what if. It sent me down a new path, a new trajectory. Remember during this time when I proposed to her I was trying to figure out how I'm gonna like help pay any of the bills and and there was an ad for An event happening at the Holiday Inn next to the airport and of course like this would be amazing I'm gonna go to holiday and go figure out how to make money on the internet So I go to this I go to this little I call the phone number get a ticket I go to the Holiday Inn And I'm sitting there, and the speakers come up on stage, and he's talking about stuff.
And again, I didn't know anything about the business. I didn't know they were going to try to sell something. I was just there to learn.
And so I'm sitting there taking notes on everything, and then the presenter starts selling stuff. He starts selling a website package and a hosting package and then a merchant account. So I'm just like, I didn't have money to invest, but I was like, this is the coolest thing that started this idea of like, what if I could start an online business?
Then I could wrestle, I could get married, and I could do that. And so that was my next big what if that got me into this world and got me thinking and driving deeper and deeper into it, trying to figure out how in the world I could do this. What if I could start an online business?
What would that look like? So then as I started down this path, the next question was like, I don't know what to do. And for me, the next thing is like, what if I could start a software company?
I didn't know how to do software. I was going to Boise State, and so I actually called the school, and I changed my major to computer information systems so I could learn how to code because I thought that's what I had to do. So I switched to become a coder, and I was trying to figure out how to code, and I figured out really quickly that I don't know how to code.
I'm not very smart at those kind of things. But I was like, I want to start a software company. And this is before potato guns.
I was trying to build software prior to that. This is how long ago this was, right? And I remember...
I remember there was a guy, he spoke at FHL 10 actually, Armand Morin, and he had a software company. He had all these different software that he was selling. And I remember seeing all those.
I was like, what if I could start a software company like Armand? Like, how cool would that be? And I didn't know how to do it.
And eventually I found out about how you can outsource things. I remember I hired a guy in Romania. His name was Cyprian.
And I paid him $20 to build my very first product called Zip Brander. And that's the very first one. And he built this thing for $20.
And it got done. And I was so excited. I paid him a $100 bonus.
It cost me $120 to build this very first one. And I remember seeing Arm & More and the way he sold his software. And he always had one of these header images at the top.
And he had a software box. And he had a headline, testimonials. And the page, he always sold his for $67 for whatever reason.
So I did the exact same thing. I opened up Microsoft Front Page. For those who are OGs, pre -ClickFunnels, pre -Dreamweaver, like from the beginning, I opened up Front Page, I opened up Arm Insight, and I started funnel hacking.
I made an image like he had an image. I put my picture on it, and then my, you know, and I went through and I just made my very first page selling my first product, which was Zip Brander, and we launched that, and I started making some money. Then I made my second one called Forum Fortunes, and my third one called Article Spider.
I was like, I have a software company. Like, it was the craziest thing.
I'm in college. I'm in my computer information systems classes, failing, so I can't understand programming, but I got a software company, and I'm making money selling software. And I would show the teachers, because they're teaching software.
I don't know how to code, but look at this. And they're like, you're selling? Like, how did you do that?
I'm like, there's people in Romania. For 20 bucks, they'll build you this stuff, and you can sell it, and you keep all the money forever. And they were just like kind of confused, but they luckily passed me, so I didn't have to keep doing it.
So that was the next thing. It was like, what if I start a software company? Right?
And who knew, like, where that would eventually kind of go to? Okay? Now, I was never planning on being a speaker.
Like, this is something I wanted to do. I was selling software because I could do it behind the scenes. But I remember as, like, as I got more and more into this, I started feeling that calling.
I remember the next thing was, like, what if I could coach people and help people? Right? Like...
Like I had a skill set. I was having success. I remember I'm in college I was like making more money my professors and people asked like what are you doing?
How are you doing this and like it was so excited to share that and to tell other people like that was like the next thing and so I started creating these little info products and most of them Didn't do that good, right? I sold thing after thing and probably doesn't there was one. This is like my first My first info product that really hit okay, and there's a product called micro continuity anyone here from micro continuity days Yeah, are you are you the only one?
all right so victor's there nobody else okay this was my first hit and it launched it and started selling like crazy i was like oh my gosh this is amazing people were buying it uh all sorts of fun side stories this is actually how i met todd dickerson todd bought this offer and fast forward like a decade later i was trying to find a partner he was on my email list because he bought this offer it's kind of funny but another thing was crazy is somebody else saw this offer and i don't know how this person saw this offer but they did and somehow magically one saturday morning i get a phone call And I pick up the phone, and I think it's my friends pranking me.
They're like, hey, Tony Robbins wants to talk to you. I was like, okay. They're like, no, he really wants to talk to you.
I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, well, can you be in Salt Lake? He's like, he's in Salt Lake now.
He wants to see if he can meet you today. I was like, well, I don't live in Salt Lake. He's like, you don't?
He's like, where do you live? I'm like, I live in Boise. He's like, oh.
He's like, how about this? How about he meets you in Toronto next week or something? He's doing UPW.
You can go walk on fire and meet Tony. I was like. Okay, so I go and meet Tony because I put this info product out there, right?
And I meet Tony, we hang out for a little bit, and eventually he invites me to come and speak in Fiji. And so I go to Fiji to speak at one of the very first ever Business Mastery events. And when we were there, he messaged me.
He's like, hey, do you want to come on the back deck of my, what do they call them, Bula houses? And we're going to film an interview. And it's going to be part of a course called the New Money Master Series.
I'm like, what? Are you kidding me? And I said, yes, of course.
And it was so cool. So I had a chance to go there. And he interviews me.
I was like, this is the first time I'm putting myself out there as someone who can coach. I was just this little kid. in my house selling stuff, and all of a sudden Tony, for whatever reason, puts me on this big stage, interviews me, and I start selling this course to people all around the world, and people start finding me from Tony.
It's just kind of a crazy coincidence. And in fact, this is a clip. I found this.
This was at that event in Fiji when Tony actually, it was a little event that probably had as many people as like right here. It was like less than 100 people that were at this event, and Tony was the MC who introduced me. So I found this clip.
You guys want to see it? And that was kind of cool. So check this out.
This is crazy. Look how scared I am. I'm so tiny next to Tony.
I was like, I'm sitting here like, what is happening? I'm an introverted, awkward kid who wanted to sell software behind the computer. So I've talked to people and I'm in Fiji talking to Tony Robbins' audience.
He's announcing me like, it all came from like, what if I could coach people? What if I could help people? Right?
Like, I wasn't qualified for this. You guys see me, I can barely speak now. I get so excited, like, I tremble in my words.
Like, back then, it was even worse. Like, it all started with, like, this what if. Like, what if I could do this?
Right? What if? What if?
And, like, I want to drill this in your guys' heads because with AI, there's so much fear and anxiety and so many things happening. But also, it opens up this great, like, what if? Like, what's possible?
Okay, next, what is my life? The next one is like, it kind of ties the same time as it's like, what if I could be a speaker, right? I was so scared.
I never wanted to be a speaker. And you guys have seen this clip before probably, but I'll show you a shorter version. Like, this was my first time actually speaking.
I was so scared, right? But I was like, this is the only way I'm going to be able to get my message out to figure out this skill set, okay? So this is my very first time speaking.
Am I getting close on time? You do join the affiliate boot camp. It's a $47 a month value.
You'll get it for free. Who would like a piece of that? Here's my irresistible offer.
From a standing ovation, he did a great job.
Okay, that kid has no, who wants a piece of that?
Okay, that kid has no business being a speaker. He should not be speaking. If he went to, like, any speaker training, like, yeah, you should not be speaking.
You should definitely, this is not an, but I was like, what if? Like, what if I could be a speaker? Why can't I?
Everyone else can do it. Why can't I do it? Right?
And that what if is what created this gap for me to go figure this thing out. Versus most people are just like, ah, I wish I could do that. I wish I could do that.
Versus like, what if? Like, what's possible? Right?
Okay, my next thing. I remember being at an event. It was an Armored Mourn event.
And there was a speaker up there talking about you should write your own book. And I was like, I remember sitting there. I'm like, what if I could be an author?
And I was like, no. Like, writing a book, that's a different skill. It's a different, like, there's no way.
And I started seeing people, and I would be at these events, and I would meet these different people who were writing books. I remember the first time I went to the airport, and I'm at the thing, and I'm looking at the bookstore. I walk around, and there were like three people I knew who had books on the bookshelf, like people I'd met at an event just like this.
And I was like, their books are in the, like, at the airport. I was like, I know who these people are. Like, I wonder if I could be an author.
Like, what if I could be an author? Like, what would that look like? Okay, and this one was very scary for me, because I'd never written anything before.
Right? Like, I don't know how to write. I barely graduated college.
Like, I'm not good, but I was like, I felt that calling. I'm like, what if I could be an author? What if I could write something?
I remember for a decade, I was so nervous about thinking about it, talking about it, and like, just having so much anxiety. I remember this shift happened for me. One time, I was like, I was like, I need to start this, because if I don't start it, it's never going to happen.
And so I was like, I'm just going to start something. So I started writing a book. And then, you know, you meet people, and they're like, so what are you up to?
What are you doing? And usually you're like, yeah, I'm just, you know, not much, just whatever. But the first time after I'd started my book, someone said, what are you doing?
I'm like, I'm writing a book. And they're like, what, you're writing a book? And I was like, yeah.
And they're like, whoa, that's the coolest thing in the world. And I was like, I'm writing a book. And all of a sudden, like, it became, like, part of me.
And I was like, and I kept that identity for a couple of years. And I was like, I got this book done because some people think I'm lying. But I was like, I'm writing a book.
Like, I could be, like, why can't I be an author? Right? Other people do.
What if I just figured out how to do it? What if I figured out how to put these things together and just actually do it, right? And it created an entirely new identity for me.
I became an author. I wrote a book. And then I wrote a second book and a third book.
And it was just a whole new thing. It all came off of just that question of like, what if I could be an author? Right?
Okay. Now during this time, We were selling stuff on the internet.
We were building funnels with front page, and eventually I found people smarter than me, and they were building it however they built funnels, through custom code and stuff. When I'd have an idea for a funnel, I'd have to go talk to them, and they'd put things together, and we'd kind of figure things out, and we'd build these funnels back and forth and back and forth.
And one time, this was, man, 12 plus, 13 years ago now, we had the question, what if I could actually build funnels? If I could actually build funnels, that would give me freedom. Okay?
And that what if was a conversation with Todd Dickerson. And me and Todd were sitting there in Boise, Idaho, sitting in a room in front of a whiteboard. Like, what if we could build something where, like, Russell, non -technical guy, could actually build a funnel?
What would that look like? And start that next what if, right? We started figuring out, okay, well, it could look like this and this and this.
And from that, we built a tool that initially was built for me to be able to build a funnel. And I remember after I was, I mean, the very first time. Todd and our co -founder at the time, his name was Dylan, who built the original editor.
They were working all night, every night for six, eight, 12 months building this thing. And I remember they would send it to me because I was the person like, if Russell can do this, then anybody can do it. And so I remember they'd send it to me.
And I remember the very first time I opened it up and I opened the first page in the editor and I changed the headline. I was like, I just changed the headline. And that may seem so simple nowadays, but...
12, 13 years ago, that was not simple. I changed the headline. I remember the picture was in the spot, and I grabbed it, and I moved it, and it moved.
And I was just like, oh my gosh. I can do anything now. My entire life, I have all power and control in my hands.
And that came from the next, what if I could actually go forward? What would that look like? What would we have to do?
How would that work? It opened up a huge thing, right? It opened up an entire movement, as you guys know, that I believe has literally changed the world.
And that was the next calling. What if we could create something that would change the world? What if we could create a group of entrepreneurs that are collectively going out there and creating stuff?
Not just giving software that they can do something, but creating a movement of people. And that became the next thing. And initially, when this what if came, I didn't want to do it.
This is what you kind of find a lot of times when you have this what -ifs. You get excited for a minute, and then you're like, I don't want to do that. That sounds scary.
Okay? It's happened for me so many times. I remember with this one.
We had done events in my older business, and I remember the last event, we had two events in a row. We had one event in Salt Lake City, and we sold, I don't know, we sold 300 or 400 tickets. We get to the event, we walk in, and there's like 50 people in the room.
And I remember I was just like. So devastated, so embarrassed. I'm like, I'm never doing events again.
And I was a partner in this company. In this partner company, we had an event, 1 ,500 people were supposed to be there. And we showed up, and there's less than 100 in the room.
And I was like, I will never do an event again. This is the most awkward, embarrassing, painful thing ever. And so I was like, I'll never do an event.
And we decided to stop that. And after ClickFunnels launched, first FHO was in May. So we launched in, what, September?
So we're like four or five months in. And I felt that calling of just like, you should do an event. I was like.
I don't do events anymore. My last two went really bad. It was very embarrassing.
But I felt like this is the next thing. What if we do that? What if we create something bigger than just a product?
What if we created a movement? What if we could try to change the world? And so those were the what ifs leading up into this world that you guys are all part of, right?
Into Funnel Hacking Live, into ClickFunnels, and all these crazy things we're doing. Okay. Now I want to take you guys through my next set of what ifs.
Okay, because these next what -ifs were crazy and some of them are positive some are negative. So not every what -if turns out perfectly, right? Seven years in the ClickFunnels, we're having tons of success.
We've got millions of people like wanting to throw money at us to invest in all sorts of stuff and we get somebody initially comes to us and the first and they came to us initially they said, hey, we have a buyer who wants to buy ClickFunnels. They think based on what they know about you, you guys are worth over a billion dollars.
And we're like, what? Hello? Right?
And that became the next what -if. Like what if we were to sell ClickFunnels? Like, what would that look like?
And for me, it was, like, very scary. Like, but this is my baby. These are my people.
Like, I don't want to do that, right? But it was like, but what if? Like, you have to, like, address it.
You have to look at it, right? You can't not look at that. And so we spent seven or eight months going through this whole process where anyone who's ever gone through this process, it's kind of a nightmare.
But you go out there, and you go through all your financials, and you get people. You pay them tons of money, do all these audited financials and everything, and then you go, and you put it on the market, and it puts out there, like, tens of thousands of businesses. From that, you get, you know, 500 that are interested, and then they look at your stuff, and then from that, like, it comes back, and there's 100 people interested.
And then it comes down to 30 people, and you go through round after round after round, right? And it's really kind of an emotional drama, if you've ever gone through it, because they come to you, like, you're worth a billion dollars, come right here. And every single time, as they get closer and closer, like, well, actually, you're not that good.
And, like, by the time you're done, you're like, we're horrible at everything. And they're like, you're not worth anything. And like, this is the process we're going through, right?
And so we go through this whole process. And at the end of the process, we do get an offer. And we've never actually publicly shared the offer, like what it was.
I'll give you some hints. They valued us at over a half a billion dollars, which is amazing. And they gave us an offer for percentage of the company based on that valuation.
And it was one of those things where it's just like, wow. If we say yes to this, like, we never have to do anything again. And that sounds really, really nice.
But also, for whatever reason, Todd and I were just like, it didn't feel right. Which is always a weird thing, because imagine calling somebody back on the phone, and they're like wanting to write you a check for hundreds of millions of dollars, and just be like, nah, it's cool, don't worry about it. That's a scary thing to do, and like, but that became, but because of that, like, literally, this is like during the presidential election, and me and Dave had jumped in a plane, flew out to hang out with Todd at his lake house, we're hanging out, and the reason why we didn't is because next what if came.
Next what if was like, what if we, would have built ClickFunnels 2 .0? What if instead of us selling this thing, we come back to the drawing board, like what would we build today if we were to do it?
And that what if made us do the phone call and say no, which was a very scary, weird, the guy was like, serious? Like, yeah. He's like, oh.
Like, okay. See, man, thanks for the offer, right? And like that was kind of the juxt of it.
And that's when we came back, like, what if we were to make ClickFunnels great again? What would we have to do? What would that look like?
And that started us on a journey of two or three years of building the new ClickFunnels and putting everything together. As it was getting closer and closer, we talked about Funnel Hacking Live. We were so excited, and people wanted it.
And so a couple years later, we came back, and we said, what if we launch, we do a beta launch right now, okay? And I was excited. I was anxious, and, like, I was kind of pushing it forward probably before we should have.
We had been testing it for over a year. It had been working internally. We would never test it with...
what ended up being 18 ,000 new clients in one week. And in one week, we did the launch, 18 ,000 of you guys jumped into ClickFunnels 2 .0 and started using it. And it was tough.
There were positives, there were negatives. And it was a very painful time because we were trying our best to do this thing.
It's tough. If you guys have ever done something where you put your heart and your soul into something and you believe in it and you're trying to, you literally gave up hundreds of millions of dollars to give this gift to people. And people were mad.
People were upset. And I understand. And it was really hard.
It was a really hard time. Which brought me to our next what if, which is like, what if we made a mistake? There was blowback from that.
We had a lot of stuff. This is a comment I saw one time. It said, I'm still a funnel hacker.
I just started using different software, which broke my heart. I'm just like, what if we made a mistake?
This honestly put me and I think a lot of our team into a really hard era. for multiple years was just like, what do we do? How do we fix this, right?
And coming back to like, man, we were trying to go and try to become this thing where we can do all things for all people versus like, what if we just like went back to like, what if we just focus on ClickFunnels? Like, there's no person on this planet more obsessed with funnels than me, right? And ClickFunnels, when we initially built it, it was a funnel builder.
We were the best in the world. That's all we focused on. And instead, we went and tried to add every single feature and CRM and this and that and that.
And now we're trying to do so many things. It was just hard to be the best in the world at the one thing that we were the best at. And that was the regret what if.
Like, what if we were just focused on funnels? What if we could go back in time and had shifted that decision? And the next question that came back for me, that haunted me for a long time, is like, what if I failed?
How many of you have ever failed that before? Where you try to create something amazing and then... Afterwards, you're like, man, did I fail?
This one's tough.
Thank you. I love you too.
So in that is where the next set of what ifs start coming. It's like sometimes we get stuck in the cycle, right, of like the fear and I failed and those kind of things. It's like, no, no, like we got to get positive.
Like, what ifs are coming in this season? Like, what does it look like? Like, listening again, listening.
What if? Like, what are the opportunities? What's there?
And the first question came back to the one that was prior. It was like, what if ClickFunnels could become the best in the world, the one thing that we love most? Like, just funnel.
We just focus on the thing that I love the most. Like, that'd be my number one wish, right? And then what if ClickFunnels looked different than it does right now?
What if instead of trying to be everything and all things, what if ClickFunnels was simple, right? What if it only did funnels? What if it was built 100 % with AI?
What if all the pages they built literally just split test themselves all the time in real time so that as anyone's driving traffic, he's getting better and better and better and starts making more and more money without you doing anything? And what if all you had to do was just talk to it and it would just build the entire funnel?
You didn't have to actually code or drag or drop anything. And what if your entire funnel from idea to execution could be live in just five minutes? And what if it had...
the ability I built in upsells and downsells and order forms, not just the pages. And what if it also wrote the copy for you? And what if you could funnel hack any page on the internet?
You just copy and paste the URL and did it. And what if it imported every single funnel you already had in ClickFunnels, in Classic, in GHL, in Cartridge, in anything, and imported it into this one thing? And what if it fixed itself every time something broke?
So you have to find out about it later, like, oh, crap, this page is down. It just fixed itself, and it got better over time. And what if it got smarter every single day?
And what if the page is loaded instantly because it was coded completely different, right? And what if it was perfect on mobile the second you were done without you having to touch it ever?
And what if it never stopped optimizing even while you slept? And what if it tested the offer, not just the button color? And what if it told you what to fix next?
And what if you never needed a designer or a developer again? And what if there was nothing you actually had to learn? You could just use it.
Those are, yeah.
And then what if we didn't have to do everything else? What if we didn't have to have a CRM? You can use anything else and just plug it in.
We're the best funnel builder in the world, and you can ask me whatever you want for the other stuff. And what if, what if you, if you have an email autoresponder, you just use that. We don't even do that.
Keep it where you love. What if it hosted all, what if you didn't have to host your courses? I keep pushing the blackout, I think.
What if you didn't have to host your courses? You didn't have to run your membership site. We didn't have to book your calendar, or build your website, your blog, or run your help desk, or any of these things, right?
I don't know why it keeps going black. Am I pushing the wrong button? All right, we'll keep going.
What if it didn't have to run your community and schedule your social media and have 400 new features never going to open? What if it didn't have to have a learning curve? What if it didn't have to have a template library?
What if it didn't have to have a drag and drop thing to master? What if you didn't have to have onboarding calls? What if you didn't have to charge you for 90 % of the features you're never going to use?
What if it didn't try to be your whole business? We were just the best in the world at one thing and one thing only, which is building funnels the way it should have been initially. Okay.
Well, that's been the what if we've been talking about for a long time, Todd and I behind the scenes. Based on that, what if we have been developing and creating something really, really cool called ClickFunnels AI?
Now, we're going to give you guys a glimpse of this today. We're not going to give it to you guys yet, but you guys will have first access here within a couple of weeks to actually start using it. But it's pretty amazing.
I think you guys will love it. But I want to show you guys what it looks like behind the scenes, okay? So to do that, I want to introduce you guys to one of my favorite people on this planet.
this is somebody who we were just talking backstage of a little bit like how long ago we got to know each other and I think it's like I mean click phones been for what 13 14 years now whatever they're 12 years whatever that is so it's probably 15 16 years ago the first time we actually met in person and and And he's been literally like one of the greatest business partners in the history of all time.
He's been an amazing friend. He's a great father. He's just someone who I have so much love and respect for.
He's somebody who it's been such a pleasure to be on this journey through the ups and the downs, the chaos and the happiness and the sadness, all the things. There's no better business partner I could have ever chosen than him. And I'm so excited to have him here.
He flew in. He's got a family trip that happened. He flew in today to be with you guys here, to serve you during Funnel Hacking Live.
And he's flying back to be with his family again. I'm so grateful to have him here. This is a picture of him.
He is my co -founder. My closest friends in the whole world. Everyone's put our hands together for Mr.
Todd Dickerson.
Yes.
My gosh, this venue is amazing, right? Like, how cool is this? So fun.
I love this, man. How are you doing? Probably amazing like this is exciting like I get to show you guys all kinds of new stuff that we're working on and what's coming And we're gonna have some fun tonight, too, which I know we've been dropping some hints about so yeah, it's awesome So first off do you want to talk about just this project of the clickfunnels AI like some of the thought behind?
Why we are creating this yeah, I mean, I think you set it up amazing right like the what -ifs I think AI has made all of us question or should be making all of us question everything we do in our business the product we sell everything about how we operate right and this is just the natural evolution for us of going through that process right uh the tools that exist today did not exist a year ago right like like just the ai models alone are drastically better than they used to be so This is the natural evolution of us questioning and work that I started about a year ago and developing into something that I think will be able to get more impact for more people.
That's ultimately what we were looking for. And yeah, this is that next step. It's going to be so cool.
I'm excited because it's interesting. As we've been using AI, I'm sure you guys feel the same way. Todd was in Boise, we were doing an event together, and we were doing all sorts of AI stuff and moving so, so fast, and then we jumped back into ClickFunnels to create a funnel for it, and it just felt so slow, which is crazy, because when we first launched ClickFunnels, it felt so fast to create things.
And it's like, we have to change everything. For this to work, it can't be an incremental tweak or thing. It's like, we have to start over looking at this from how we want to build funnels with AI in the future moving forward.
So we have a couple screenshots. do you want to talk about a couple of these i mean and honestly what you're talking about there though it's scary for all of us for all of our businesses right it takes us really reevaluating our entire product direction for the entire company this is a this is a scary decision not just externally but internally to your team we're like all right guys this is this new direction that we're going on um so we were right there with you guys like we understand what the what the filling is when you're going through this stuff yep yeah cool okay so this is walk through what's happening yeah absolutely i mean Let me blow your way here.
You type in what you want and it gives it to you. Right? That's it.
That's pretty much it. And this goes back to what's possible today that wasn't possible before. We can write code on the fly with AI.
We can optimize things. We can research your product. We can set up products.
We can set up checkouts. We can optimize your checkouts. We can do ongoing optimizations of your checkout experiences and of your funnels forever.
for pennies, right? So this is looking at what's possible and not just looking at the power users, but looking at people who are just getting started. Those of you that may not have ever built a funnel before and you're getting ready to or you're trying to figure out what it takes and maybe you're going through the onboarding calls, as you kind of mentioned, or you're going through the documentation and you're setting stuff up and there's just so much complexity to it.
So we were trying to eliminate all of that complexity and that all starts with something as simple as a prompt. And by prompt, I mean I want a funnel that follows Russell Brunson's best practices, and charges $7, right?
Like, we're talking about making it that simple for you guys. Yep. Yeah, it's been fun as I've been playing with it, where I literally, like, I want to, yeah, give him a round of applause.
This is huge. This is a big deal. It's real cool.
Yeah, it's literally as simple as that, like, as, like, I want a book funnel that looks like Russell's. Here's my book. Like, upload my book.
Like, write the copy base and everything you find in there. Do the upsells, downsells, or for months like Russell's, go. And then it just pops out, and you're like, dang, it's done.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, all of us have used, or a lot of us, I know from surveying some of you guys, like there's people all across the spectrum of AI experience. And some of you have used things like Cloud Code, and you've set up hosting and services and all the other things that go with that.
And other ones are just using ChatGPT and haven't really done much beyond the basic editor experience. This is something that really satisfies both those power users, where you can take it and you can grow it and you can expand it and do anything infinite with it, but also... doesn't leave out the people who haven't done anything yet or that are trying to get started online, right?
So it really bridges that gap for both of them. So cool. I got one last screenshot I'll show you guys just to tease you a little bit, but this is what it looks like.
So in the left -hand side, you just tell what you want. In the middle here, as you can see, there's like the pages. Here's your homepage, upsell page down.
It creates all the pages for you. And the right -hand side, you see it, and then it's just done. And if you want to change something, you click it.
Like, I hate this headline. Make it better. Move this over here.
Change this, and you just talk to it, and you tell it, and it moves things, rearranges stuff. minutes your funnel's done click a button like make an order form add this make it charge this much money and then it just it just does it's done like it's it's kind of ridiculous then you click publish and it's live and that's kind of how simple it is to build a funnel today yeah even so far as to checkout experience wop's going to be speaking later cam from wop we partnered with them to make it where even your checkout experience is 100 automated i'm talking no kyc no onboarding experiences that are clunky and time consuming just type in what you want, and have a fully functioning live checkout funnel in minutes.
Yeah, it's so cool. So again, this is a surprise. This is the first time we've talked about this publicly to anybody.
It's not live yet, but we're going to be doing a beta probably next few weeks, and you guys will be all in there to have a chance to play with it and to use it and to give us your feedback. But as of right now, it is sick. It's easy.
It's insane. And funnel building will never be the same, and we're really excited for that. So there's the deal.
Okay, a couple of things I'll talk about. Number one, we launched ClickFunnels. Our mission was simple, okay?
We've talked about this at almost every Funnel Hacking Live since we started. This was the mission of ClickFunnels, to free all entrepreneurs so they can focus on changing lives of their customers. Like, that is it, okay?
When it all comes down, initially it was like, how do we free people by giving them software that frees them so they can actually go do the thing? And it was like, how do we give people education and books and events to help free them so they can go and actually create the things they want to do? And this is still our mission.
But then we started coming back. That darn question again is like, what if? Like, what if there was another way to free all entrepreneurs?
Something else that's going to unlock people who've been stuck at any period of time. And Todd and I were talking backstage a little earlier. I was like, I remember when ClickFunnels came out, how many, 13, 12 years ago?
Yeah, more than 12 years ago now. 12, 13 years ago. This is how I felt, okay?
Prior to ClickFunnels, I felt like I was always handcuffed. I wanted to create something, so I'd have to call Todd or Dylan or somebody like, hey, can you make a page? And then they make a page.
I'm like, yeah, but can you move that? Like, over there. And like, yeah, but can you move the thing?
And like, that was my, I always felt handcuffed. And with ClickFunnels, I felt like it gave me freedom to control my destiny. At 2 o 'clock in the morning, when I had an idea and I couldn't sleep because I was so excited, I could just log in and build an entire page or a funnel.
Or if something wasn't working, people weren't buying, I could change the headline right then. Like, it felt like I had freedom, okay? Now, when I felt free with funnels, I'm not going to lie, I still felt handcuffed to developers for software, membership sites, everything else.
So I felt like this, or my feet were still like, I'm free here, but my feet are still stuck. And so that started this next what -up over the last year or so, which was like, what if I could actually build software? What if I didn't need a Todd?
Because Todd's great, but he's also so busy, and I want to build stupid things sometimes, and I can't, like, Todd, make this stupid thing. So we had something crazy. In April, we did an event called AI Secrets Challenge.
Are any of you guys part of that event? You guys joined that? Okay.
So during that event, Todd revealed this new platform he was building. This is our first beta test. I'd never used it yet, and we're live.
This is actually the video, that picture right there. That's when we were live, and Todd's like, okay, build something right now in front of everybody live. And there was, I don't know, 10 ,000 plus people on here.
I'm like, okay, I hope it works. I hope I don't look like an idiot. And so I remember there was this product idea we had for a long time, and we called it Braindump.
And there was like, we had a couple partners and everyone had different ideas. We hired programmers, everything got shifted around, everything. And so I'm sitting there, I was like, I wonder if I could build Braindump the way that I wanted it to be built for me back in the day.
And so I didn't type, I clicked a little button, and we'll talk about it later. I clicked the button, I was like, I want to build a project management software that you can brain dump ideas. I want it to be endless bullet list, kind of like workflow -y, but I want to build Trello cards so that each Trello card is kind of like its own workflow -y, unlimited bullet list.
So I just gave the visual I wanted, I clicked the button, and then it started doing the stuff, and then we were sitting there doing the rest of the event, and 15 minutes later, it makes this noise, and you guys will get used to this noise, it makes this noise, and it popped up, and Braindump was done. Not just was it done, like, the sales page was done, the bullet things were, like, the entire app was completely finished.
And I was like, oh my gosh, I just built software, live in front of everybody, and it was like that same moment where I felt like, like, I felt free again. And so, the what if that started for us recently, It was like, what if we could change the world again?
What if this is like the next level of the calling for both Todd and I was to change some stuff, okay? And so as you guys will find out, we're going to talk more about this today, but we created a new platform called Overskill. Anyone here had a chance to play with Overskill yet?
Okay. We got some of you guys who've had some fun with it. That's a good sign.
Okay with over skill I feel like I broke off the shackles my feet and now like I am unlimited power to do anything I can build funnels. I can build software like I literally I think I was counting it for one of the slides I think I've done like 34 full -blown software apps I've built from start to scratch by myself inside of I think you have the the winning number of credits used to right now I think you're around three million maybe unless somebody at this point.
That's a lot. I have problems. I can't sleep at night.
I'm addicted That's all I can do gas my wife like I'll sneak out of bed. I might going in there like adding more It's the most addicting, most fun thing ever.
We're going to get you guys all addicted to it tonight. In fact, I'm going to show you guys the last few months. Here's a couple of things I built.
I built some really cool productivity tools. This right here is called Link Hub because I always have a million links. I can't find things.
So I built linkhub .com and now I can do my links here. And you guys can also get access to it if you want. And then I built Braindump like I showed you guys here.
I also built, this is called To Do Secrets. This is like. I always struggle with sticky notes of all my to -dos, and I've always wanted to do software a certain way, but I could never have it until I built it, and I have the greatest to -do software ever for myself, and people are signed up buying it now, which is really cool.
So that's some productivity tools I built. I also wanted to build a lead magnet, so I built this new app that builds funnels, where you drag and drop and you map out your funnels, and you click a button, and it goes and builds it in whatever funnel builder you want, and this is a free lead magnet I'm about to launch. It's just like, I'm giving away for free, and my bet is I'll probably get a million people to join my list from this one free lead magnet that I built inside of Overskill in like a day.
and it is insane, okay? I've also built... I have a lot of people ask about supplements I take and stuff like that, so I built a little affiliate site.
It's at bodyevolution .com. You go here, you take a little quiz, and it creates you an account, and it logs you into the software, and then it sends you an unlimited, like an endless number of emails promoting all my affiliate products, my favorite supplements, my favorite protein, like all sorts of stuff, and just makes money all day long.
So anytime someone's like, Russell, how'd you lose weight? Russell, what supplements did you take? I'm like, just go to bodyevolution .com.
And this thing cranks out cash for me now, behind the scenes, magically, and I built in over skill in like 30 minutes. It's insane. But I also built other stuff.
I built membership sites, okay? This is the new Secrets of Success. This site is insane.
I've got now 150 books in here. I audibly read every single book in here. You click the button and it has Russell Brunson read an entire book to you.
A whole bunch of other crazy things. I built that site. We built Overskill Games.
We're building this 12 -month millionaire site. I'm building full -blown membership sites that have software integrated and weaved into every single page, every single step, which is crazy. I've been building full -blown, this is why I can't sleep at night, you guys.
I'm going to ruin all of you. I apologize in advance, but it is amazing on this side, and you're going to love it. A lot of times you buy software out of the box, and it kind of does what you want, but you're like, I wish I did this or this or this.
And so we built a bunch. So this first one. He has no Circle or Square or whatever.
Is it Circle, the community one? Yeah. We were paying like $300 a month for his community software.
I didn't really like it. And school's kind of weird, too. And I was like, I wish we could just build our own.
And so we just told Overskill, build a community app, kind of like Circle, but way cooler. And then it built it. I was like, oh, it's done.
And I was like, I want to add this feature and this feature. And we built a whole full -blown community app, which is insane.
Which was, oh yeah, I wanted a project management app, because every project management app is stupid. And I was like, I want to build it the way my brain works, because I want every project to look like a funnel, where it starts like this, and you move down a huge funnel. So I built a project management software built on a funnel, and it's insane.
My whole team is using it now. And then I was like, I want to build my own CRM email autoresponder based on how my brain works. And so I built followupfunnels .com, which is this whole CRM all by myself, do emails and text messages the way that I want to do it.
And I built it by myself, you guys. It is insane what you can do. He's not joking.
I didn't jump in and help on any of this. This is awesome. I feel free.
First time I can create anything I want. Other fun stuff, I started a conspiracy secret site because this is important. If you go to conspiracysecrets .com, you can sign up.
Basically, you sign up and it builds an evidence board. You're like, I want to build a board for JFK. You build it and you can throw in all your stuff and you build an evidence board.
You write the strings between it and you're like, I want one for the moon landing. It's the coolest thing for me. I built it for me, and I gave it to all the rest of the conspiracy theorists, and they love it too.
So I built that. I built this one because I wanted a timeline of my entire life. This is called Life Timeline.
You create a thing, and you put all your pictures in a timeline, and you can see a timeline of your entire life with pictures, and it's amazing too. And then I was with Aiden, my son, and I was talking about it, and I'm like, you can make games. I'm like, what game do you want to make?
He's like, Flappy Birds. I'm like, make Flappy Birds. And I have my own Flappy Bird game now.
It is insane, but it's not just me getting addicted to it. Everyone inside of our company is as well. This is Taylee, my assistant, and we had a team of eight people who were doing all of our product development, like books, covers, everything, right?
And we decided to shut that division of the company over, and I gave Taylee, I'm like, Taylee, can you run this now? And she's like, you want me to do eight people's jobs all at once? I'm like, that would be fantastic, on top of everything else you're doing.
And she's like, hold on, and she went to Overskill, and she built this app that does... those eight people's jobs single -handedly. Now, in about less than an hour a day, she can run the entire department through this app that she built by herself.
I didn't tell her how to do it. She just did it, and she told me the next day, hey, I built an app that just took care of all of it. The entire process is done now.
Which is crazy. And this is Sean who runs our sales team. And Sean's like, I hate all of the sales software.
He had a whole bunch of them out there. He's like, I don't like any of these things. And so he went there and he built his own.
It does CRM sales for ourselves the way that we wanted to do it. And it's done and it works. And our entire sales CRM is now built on our own thing that we can add and tweak things whenever we want without having to go ask the company to add a new feature for us.
We just talk and it builds a new thing. Yeah, and the big thing there is it has exactly what you need for your processes, but none of the other stuff for your team members get lost in too, right? I think it's funny just listening to you talk.
different categories and we've seen it across the other users in overskill as well you have like people building personal apps right things just that they want to do for themselves or just for fun conspiracy secrets although that could turn into a business right huge business right or lead acquisition like affiliate affiliate take uh body evolution right um you have things like that But you also have people building things to automate processes in their business like you saw here with Sean and Taley.
I love it. It's so fun. So, but it's not just me.
We did this like Overskill Games a little while ago and we had 300 people in the room. How many of us were there for that event? Yeah, these little guys.
And we did a 24 -hour thing where people started building apps and that group built 203 done, finished live apps in less than 24 hours, which was insane. And then like a month later, we should pull an all -nighter with a bunch of people. So we did a virtual version.
We spent 24 hours and from that, We almost hit a thousand complete apps. We're six off and I was like trying to like push the clock in three minutes but we had 994 people built and submitted apps completely done in a 24 -hour window.
Each app is a software company or it's a tool to help replace something, whatever it is like it's insane. And so I look at what our mission now is it's not just helping people with funnels which has been last decade right. We're looking at like How do we free all entrepreneurs so you guys can focus on changing the lives of your customers?
And so obviously with the new ClickFunnels AI, it makes it so simple. But also with Overskill, you guys have the ability to create anything you want, anything you can dream of. And tonight you're going to have a chance to actually play with Overskill because we're going to be doing a hackathon.
We're going to be feeding you guys. We're going to be building apps. We're going to do some cool stuff tonight.
We'll talk about that a little later. And so my biggest takeaway from this first session I wanted you guys to do is just I want you guys getting back to that time, that energy of what if. Right?
Because right now, it's not just like, what if I do that? Well, I can't because I don't have the resources, blah, blah, blah. Now it's like you can dream again.
Anything you can think of is possible today. Like, what if? Like, what if you guys became an author?
What if you guys started your own software company? What if, like, anything you guys want to do literally is possible today? You just got to get back to that mindset of what if.
And so that's what I wanted to leave this first presentation with you guys, is getting you guys thinking about what's possible. Because what you're going to be learning over the next three days is going to change everything. And we're going to be going baby steps.
We're going to talk about some AI stuff. We're going to stack some more and some more. And by the time day three is done, you guys will understand how we are moving so fast, what we're doing.
Todd had a conversation with somebody. big tech firm and they said something basically he's like i don't think there's 50 people on this planet doing what Todd is doing with AI on the entire planet.
And you guys are going to have a chance to see behind the scenes what he's doing, how he's doing it, and hopefully we can help you guys implement all these things into what you're doing. So that's what I want to do in my intro session. What I'm going to do right now, actually, is I'm going to be passing it to Todd.
Todd's going to go take you guys through a presentation right now where he's going to walk you guys through the secrets of getting your company and your team all using AI the right way so everybody can run together a lot faster. And so that's kind of the game plan. And so with that said, everyone let's give Todd a huge round of applause and hand the stage over to him.
All right. Thanks. Appreciate it.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Russell Brunson opens Funnel Hacking Live 2026 by telling the audience he almost didn't come back to do this event at all, then spends the next 47 minutes explaining why he did: a single reframing habit that talked him into starting his first business as a teenager, founding ClickFunnels, turning down a nine-figure buyout, and now shipping two new AI products.
Frameworks
Named ideas worth stealing.
03:20concept
The What If Method
Brunson's recurring personal device for approaching fear: instead of stating a plan or a wish, he poses the decision as a specific 'what if' question, which he says creates a gap he then has to go figure out, versus stopping at 'I wish I could do that.'
Steal forreframing a scary business decision (a pivot, a product cut, turning down money) before committing to it publicly
CTA Breakdown
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
28:20product
“You guys will have first access here within a couple of weeks to actually start using it.”
Soft-launch tease embedded in the keynote reveal rather than a hard sales pitch: no price or signup link given on stage, just anticipation built ahead of a beta rollout.
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A three-hour-forty webinar where Russell Brunson and Todd Dickerson build working SaaS apps live from one-sentence prompts, then wrap the demo in an offer for the software that turns your frameworks into your own product.
Russell Brunson opens his own ClickFunnels dashboard to show the exact three-page order funnel, plus two supporting funnels, that have filled Funnel Hacking Live for a decade.
A four-and-a-half-hour Brunson webinar arguing that AI killed standalone courses and standalone software, and the only survivor is the fusion of the two.
Russell Brunson and Todd Dickerson spend three hours turning one contrarian metaphor — the poop brownie — into a repeatable framework for making AI actually make money.
A creator turns Dario Amodei's three filters for a solo billion-dollar company into a real product: AI software that quality-checks other companies' AI agents.
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