REPLICATION GUIDE · AI Businesses

Activity-based timesheet system

HMS Software publishes TimeControl, activity-based timesheets serving organizations that need one record for project management, payroll and finance.

● Already earning  $200K/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$200K/mo
Copy budget$160K
Build time4 months
Growth channelsEmail marketing, Brand Authenticity
Tools to copyAmazon, Google Analytics
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
Independent four-month replica estimate, not HMS operations: target 20–50-person consultancies reconciling project hours with payroll. Interview 12 finance/project buyers in month one; build in months one–two, then deliver one six-week paid pilot within months three–four. 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

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What this business does

HMS Software publishes TimeControl, activity-based timesheets serving organizations that need one record for project management, payroll and finance. Approvals, reporting and integrations address conflicting departmental time-record requirements; online and on-premises editions are offered. Founder Chris Vandersluis describes starting a two-person programming and consulting team in 1984, followed by TimeControl publishing in 1994. Starter Story’s 2024 follow-up reports fewer than 20 employees and founder-reported 2023 revenue of $2–3 million, with currency unspecified and no independent audit. The official product site names clients and claims hundreds more without dating that count. Current demo and trial pages indicate an available offering; present revenue is unknown.

Replication breakdown

01

Why it works — and where your opening is

A shared approved timesheet can reduce reconciliation between project progress and finance records. HMS’s founding account describes repeated redesigns because finance and project managers initially wanted different outputs. TimeControl combines those uses, potentially avoiding duplicate entry while preserving approval controls. Buyers may value consistent information for payroll, project costs and invoicing; quantified savings were not independently verified. Recurring approval and reporting cycles provide a plausible reason to keep using the system, rather than subscription billing alone. Long deployment experience and established integrations may be difficult to reproduce, but this is an analytical advantage, not proof of an unbeatable moat. A new entrant must test narrower workflow needs rather than assume missing incumbent features.
02

The money: revenue, cost, and margin

Monthly revenue$200K/mo

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

Starter Story’s 2022 headline reports $2M/year and its card $225K/month. The 2024 follow-up attributes $2–3 million in 2023 revenue, 84% recurring revenue and 20–30% profitability to the founder. These historical, unaudited bare-$ claims have unspecified currency; no telephone verification exists. Current revenue, profit and detailed company costs remain unknown. Independent replica startup estimate: USD 160,000; the USD 320,000 monthly field is startup×2 modeling only, not actual revenue, profit, forecast or guarantee. The four-month budget funds development, maintenance, support, hosting, external assurance and acquisition. Its USD 4,000 pilot has USD 6,550 allocated direct costs, a USD 2,550 loss before overhead, acquisition and tax.
03

Where the revenue comes from

HMS sells TimeControl Online subscriptions and on-premises licenses. Its undated hosted-service page offers monthly subscriptions or annual contracts with volume discounts and advertises a starting $10 per user monthly; the currency is unspecified and a current customer-specific quote is necessary. Hosted support and upgrades are included, while training, configuration and help linking internal systems can cost extra. Buyers move from trial or demonstration to a scoped sales quotation and purchase or subscription. These are revenue mechanisms; referrals and educational marketing are acquisition routes. Historical founder reports do not establish the current mix of license, subscription and service revenue or current renewal rates.
04

Tools you need to replicate it

Vandersluis directly named Salesforce for customer management and LinkedIn for marketing in the 2022 Starter Story interview. The undated official TimeControl Online page describes Windows 64-bit servers, a MySQL database and IIS, and its security-whitepaper description mentions Amazon EC2. These are published architecture claims, not an independent audit of today’s deployment. Product integrations are separately documented capabilities. The proprietary source language, payment processor and complete internal stack remain unverified; article tool widgets cannot establish them. For the independent replica below, a web client, PostgreSQL, hosted authentication and email are recommendations, not claims that HMS uses that proposed combination.

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 · Lucas Fujita

Lucas Fujita — from delivery driver to copying a $200K/mo business: Activity-based timesheet

I am not going to pretend this was easy. It took four months before anyone paid me a cent. I drove deliveries for 7 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 Activity-based timesheet, 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 (Amazon, Google Analytics), and where the customers come from (Email marketing, Brand Authenticity). Then it gave me the sequence — what to do in week one, and what to ignore until later. I worked through the checklist in order. Amazon, Google Analytics first, then Email marketing, Brand Authenticity, 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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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. 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. Today my copy of it pays me every month. The business I copied runs about $200K/mo — I am not at that scale, and I don't need to be: I was earning around $2,000 a month as a delivery driver in Marseille, 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. Four months is a long time. It is still shorter than any degree I ever finished. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-598-hms-ca?lang=en
Story by · Noor Duarte

Noor Duarte — from caregiver to copying a $200K/mo business: Activity-based timesheet

I read the whole plan twice before I believed a word of it. For 10 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 Activity-based timesheet written for someone with no budget and no team. 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. 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 (Amazon, Google Analytics), the revenue channels that actually convert (Email marketing, Brand Authenticity), 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: Amazon, Google Analytics set up, Email marketing, Brand Authenticity 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. My version is small and it is mine. It earns less than the $200K/mo the original does — but more than the $2,300 a month I made as a caregiver in Tulsa, 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. By the third read I had already started. That is usually how belief arrives. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-598-hms-ca?lang=en
Story by · Felipe Kowalski

Felipe Kowalski — from security guard to copying a $200K/mo business: Activity-based timesheet

I didn't quit my job. I built this at night, after my shift, on a borrowed laptop. I stood at the same gate for 13 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: Activity-based timesheet, 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 (Amazon, Google Analytics), the channels that actually convert (Email marketing, Brand Authenticity), 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 Amazon, Google Analytics, opened Email marketing, Brand Authenticity 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. 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 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. 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. 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. A year ago I was a security guard in Osaka on about $2,600 a month. Today this copy pays me more than that, and the business I copied is doing $200K/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. I kept my salary until the new income was real. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-598-hms-ca?lang=en

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