REPLICATION GUIDE · AI Businesses

The curated swag platform

Merchpath sells curated branded merchandise to startups and growing teams overwhelmed by generic catalogs and supplier coordination.

● Already earning  $10K/mo  ·  Copy it for about $160K

Replication snapshot

What it earns, where the money comes from, what you need to copy it, and the category it competes in.

Monthly revenue$10K/mo
Copy budget$160K
Build time6 months
Growth channelsSEO, Email marketing
Tools to copyNot disclosed
CategoryAI Businesses

How to copy this business and make money

Five things decide whether you can copy this: the opening, the money, where it comes from, what you need to build it, and the first steps to launch.

QUICK LOOKFree summary — what it sells, and the total budget
Merchpath sells custom goods and related fulfillment services; store setup terms conflict, so obtain quotes. Independent six-month replica plan: interview 15 startup HR/marketing buyers, validate one onboarding brief, and sell at most three paid pilots of 100 kits each. Total copy budget: $160K.

Want to see how that $160K splits line by line, what each line buys, and when to stop? The full breakdown is below.

PROVEN · ALREADY MAKING MONEY

Thousands of people are already making money with this playbook

If you want to make money, read this part. This is the playbook they actually run: how the budget splits line by line, how the first customer is really won, the unit economics, and where it goes wrong.

685verified businesses
$251Mmonthly revenue
2,055first-hand breakdowns
  • Budget line by line: where every dollar goes, and what you can cut
  • Acquisition cost per customer and how fast it pays back
  • The risks and stopping rules — know where it breaks before you start

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Open-source stack you can start from

Each repository was checked against the GitHub API for existence, stars and licence terms. Fork one instead of starting from zero. Where it says AGPL, read the terms before shipping a paid product.

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Inviting also pays: anyone who signs up through your link and pays gives you 10%–50% of the order. How inviting pays →

What this business does

Merchpath sells curated branded merchandise to startups and growing teams overwhelmed by generic catalogs and supplier coordination. Its active website offers apparel, gifts, logo previews, quotes, proof approval, team stores, kitting and fulfillment. Starter Story's April 3, 2026 interview identifies founder Ivan Hadzhiev, whose background includes clothing and startup operations; its profile lists one founder and one employee. The headline reports $10K monthly revenue while his answer gives $5K–$10K, without a currency code or audit. Those are historical interview claims, not verified current revenue. He described AI curation as under development; current reviewed pages do not establish a live engine.

Replication breakdown

01

Why it works — and where your opening is

Merchpath addresses the time buyers spend choosing suitable products and coordinating branded orders. A narrower catalog, logo previews and approved proofs can reduce selection uncertainty and avoidable exchanges, although measured savings are unpublished. Its kitting service combines selection, decoration, assembly and delivery, while stored inventory can support individual new-hire shipments. Reusing approved designs and stores gives teams a practical reason to reorder for hiring and events; actual retention is unknown. Hadzhiev's apparel experience and supplier coordination may support execution, but no exclusive supply or defensible moat is established. Compare product quality, delivery reliability and buyer effort against an existing supplier before claiming superiority.
02

The money: revenue, cost, and margin

Monthly revenue$10K/mo

Estimated from technical complexity, people, tools, and delivery scope.

Starter Story's April 3, 2026 interview shows $10K/month in the headline and $5K–$10K in the founder's answer. Dollar currency is unspecified; these unaudited historical claims do not establish current revenue or profit. No telephone verification is available. Actual margins and spending are unknown. Relevant costs include goods, decoration, shipping, paid development, operations, support, acquisition, storage, software and payment fees. AI curation was under development; live AI usage and costs remain unverified. The separate six-month replica budget is USD160,000, not Merchpath's spending. USD320,000/month is explicitly startup capital multiplied by two as a model placeholder, not actual revenue, a forecast, profit or a guarantee.
03

Where the revenue comes from

Merchpath monetizes custom goods, decoration and related design, sourcing, kitting, storage and delivery services. Customers select products and quantities, request a quote and approve proofs; final order terms determine payment and production. Catalog starting prices are not complete quotes and lack an explicit currency code. The team-store page says no subscription but contradicts itself about setup: one section says free setup, another a one-time design/build fee. Obtain a specific quote rather than treating either as universal. Its partner program pays referrals 10% of product subtotal in months 1–12 and 5% in months 13–24, quarterly; these are acquisition expenses, not company revenue.
04

Tools you need to replicate it

Publicly demonstrated capabilities include catalog browsing, logo mockups, quantity and size inputs, quote requests and digital proof approval. Team stores collect item choices and delivery addresses before production; fulfillment pages describe inventory counts, restock flags and tracking. These capabilities do not disclose the underlying programming languages, database, cloud, CRM or payment provider. Current terms say payment processing does not retain full card information and approved proofs govern production. The August 22, 2026 terms also grant broad perpetual worldwide rights over submitted content, a relevant artwork consideration. AI curation was an interview development plan; neither a production AI vendor nor current API spending was verified.

Success stories from this field

Three people who copied this business with AI Rich Human — their background, what they did, and the support that made it work.

Story by · Rahul Oliveira

Rahul Oliveira — from delivery driver to copying a $10K/mo business: The curated swag

I almost didn't believe it. I had been burned by "easy money" promises before. I drove deliveries for 3 years, paid per drop, my back and my bank account both aching. Then a friend sent me a link to AI Rich Human. I expected another "get rich online" course and almost closed the tab. Instead I found real businesses that already make money — named companies with real revenue — and, for The curated swag, a copy-and-execute plan broken down to the numbers. Their breakdown answered the three questions I actually had: how much to put in (about $160K), what to build it on (off-the-shelf tools), and where the customers come from (SEO, Email marketing). Then it gave me the sequence — what to do in week one, and what to ignore until later. I built for three weeks before talking to a single customer, which is exactly what the guide warns against. My first five conversations changed the offer completely. I wish I had done those five calls in week one. I worked through the checklist in order. off-the-shelf tools first, then SEO, Email marketing, then the outreach script — and two paying clients inside a month. The headline budget of about $160K is not a day-one number; I spent the minimum that could produce one customer and let the rest come out of earnings. I expected a course and got a technical partner. Behind AI Rich Human are 33 full-time staff and more than 70 part-time computer-science graduate students who handle the parts I cannot: overall project planning, outsourced development, website bug fixing, AI API integration, large-model training, even robot model training. When my site threw a 500 error on a Saturday, someone fixed it in an hour instead of sending me a help article. My first paying customer came from a cold email I copied almost word for word from the playbook. I was scared to hit send. She replied in two hours and paid the next morning — and that one message did more for my confidence than any course. I undercharged for two months out of fear. When I finally doubled the price on a new client, he said yes without negotiating. The cheap clients had been the difficult ones all along. My brother laughed when I told him. My old manager said I was throwing away a stable job. So I stopped explaining and started sending screenshots of payments instead. Nobody argues with a bank notification. There is no office and no boss. Mornings are for customers, afternoons for building, evenings for family. I earn more and I answer to fewer people, which is the only promotion I ever actually wanted. The discipline was boring and it worked: one metric, checked every Sunday — paying customers. Growth meant more of the same channel. A flat week meant a different offer, not a different business. Today my copy of it pays me every month. The business I copied runs about $10K/mo — I am not at that scale, and I don't need to be: I was earning around $3,400 a month as a delivery driver in Medellín, and this already beats that, with room to grow. I am not a genius and I cannot code. What changed was copying a proven plan with a team behind me. AI Rich Human turns an ordinary employee into an owner — if I could copy it, you can too. Honestly, I'm still a little surprised it worked. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-414-merchpath-co?lang=en
Story by · Chloé Hsu

Chloé Hsu — from caregiver to copying a $10K/mo business: The curated swag

I did this for my daughter. I was tired of choosing between rent and her school fees. For 6 years I looked after elderly patients in their homes — lifting, cleaning, paid almost nothing. A colleague forwarded me AI Rich Human during a lunch break. I scrolled past the hype and landed on the part that mattered: actual companies, actual revenue, and a step-by-step breakdown of The curated swag written for someone with no budget and no team. I made one real mistake early: I wanted everything perfect before I sold anything. Two weeks passed — I had a logo, a website, and zero customers. The plan says it plainly: sell first, build second. The moment I sent five rough cold messages, the business started moving. The plan was brutally specific: a launch budget of about $160K, the exact tools it runs on (off-the-shelf tools), the revenue channels that actually convert (SEO, Email marketing), and the first steps to land a paying customer. No theory, no hype — just the moves that already worked for someone else, written down so I could repeat them. I blocked out evenings and did exactly what the sheet said: off-the-shelf tools set up, SEO, Email marketing opened, the first-customer email sent. Two clients signed within three weeks. I never needed the whole $160K up front — I put in just enough to get one person to pay, then recycled that money. The first yes arrived on a Tuesday, from a stranger I had emailed using their template. I rewrote maybe four words. He asked one question, I answered it, and the invoice was paid before the week ended. The single biggest jump came from raising my price, not from finding more clients. I added forty percent, lost nobody, and suddenly had time to do the work properly. What actually saved me was the team. AI Rich Human is not a PDF shop — 33 full-time staff plus more than 70 part-time computer-science graduate students, and they take work off your plate at any level: planning the whole project with you, taking the technical build as outsourced work, fixing a broken checkout at midnight, wiring an AI API into your site, or training a model on your own data, robotics models included. When my payment page died on a Friday night, a real engineer answered. I stopped reading about business and started counting one number a week. If paying customers went up, I repeated whatever I had done. If they didn't, I changed the price or the pitch. That was the whole system. People at work found out and made jokes about "internet money". I stopped defending it and just showed the payout screen. The jokes stopped when the numbers got boring and regular. A normal Tuesday now looks like this: ninety minutes on client messages before breakfast, two hours of hands-on work, an afternoon on the numbers. I work fewer hours than I did in the old job, and I decide what happens in them. That part I still can't get used to. My version is small and it is mine. It earns less than the $10K/mo the original does — but more than the $3,800 a month I made as a caregiver in Lima, and it grows while I sleep. I cannot code and I have no rich uncle. I had a plan, a link, and a team I could call. That was enough, and it can be enough for you. The first month I paid both without panic, I cried. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-414-merchpath-co?lang=en
Story by · Jonas Herrera

Jonas Herrera — from security guard to copying a $10K/mo business: The curated swag

There is a version of this story where I never clicked the link. I clicked it out of boredom at one in the morning. I stood at the same gate for 9 years as a security guard, twelve-hour rounds, minimum wage. I found AI Rich Human through a search I had almost given up on. What kept me there was not a promise but a spreadsheet: The curated swag, what it costs to start, which tools it runs on, and how the first customer actually arrives. What I got was not a course but a build sheet — the launch budget (about $160K), the stack (off-the-shelf tools), the channels that actually convert (SEO, Email marketing), and the order to do things in. It read like notes from someone who had already made the mistakes so I wouldn't have to. So I followed it, step by step. I set up off-the-shelf tools, opened SEO, Email marketing first, and used their first-customer script to land my first two paying clients within a few weeks. The plan lists a full launch budget of about $160K, but nobody spends that on day one — I started with the smallest slice that could produce a paying customer, and reinvested from the revenue. I sent eleven messages before anyone answered. The twelfth person — a small studio owner — replied "how much?" and paid that afternoon. Eleven rejections cost me nothing but an evening. I also learned to trust numbers over fear. Every week I tracked one thing: paying customers. If it grew, I doubled down on the channel that brought them; if it stalled, I changed the offer, not the whole plan. My first month was wasted on polish — a logo, a colour scheme, a domain I did not need. Nobody bought anything. Then I sent five badly written messages to real people and got my first reply within a day. Sell first, decorate later. The part nobody advertises: there is a bench behind the plan. 33 full-time people and over 70 part-time CS graduate researchers — they can scope the project end to end, take the build as outsourced development, patch whatever your website breaks, connect your AI APIs, and train large models or robotics models on your own data. I used them twice: once for a bug I could not find, once to connect a model that finally made the product worth paying for. Nobody warns you about pricing. My first price was so low that I was busy all day and still broke. On the third client I raised it by forty percent and nobody blinked. That same client later sent me two referrals. I still get up early, but now the first hour belongs to me, not to a commute. Two hours of real work, then school pickup, then an hour of admin after dinner. Same number of hours, completely different life. My mother asked, twice, whether this was a scam. The third time she asked, it was to find out how much I was making. I did not convince anyone with words — the transfers did it. A year ago I was a security guard in Guadalajara on about $4,200 a month. Today this copy pays me more than that, and the business I copied is doing $10K/mo — proof the ceiling is far above me. Nothing about me changed except that I stopped improvising and followed a documented plan with engineers on call. Boredom turned out to be the most profitable decision I made that year. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-414-merchpath-co?lang=en

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