AI Systems & Workcraft for Entrepreneurs | LachlanCB
The vault

Things I killed

A public record of business ideas I stopped working on — what each one was, why it looked good, what actually killed it, and the skill I kept. Most idea lists are graveyards without headstones. This one has the reasoning attached.

08
Deletions
100%
Kept the skill

I was telling myself I was short on ideas. I was long on ideas and short on deletions. Plausible ideas are the dangerous ones — they never fail loudly enough to bury, so they sit there quietly eating the attention the real thing needed.

  1. № 01Killed2023 — research Mar, live Oct

    Wise Lightning — e-commerce brand

    My first e-commerce brand, 2023. A wireless-charging lamp with custom branding, ~300 units, sold on Amazon via the traditional FBA route.

    Why it looked good
    A real physical product with custom branding, not a dropship reskin. I took the slow, legitimate route — samples, freight, proper listings — and the freight and launch actually went fine.
    What killed it
    Margin, structurally. I ran roughly a 3× multiplier from cost to sale price when the floor is 5×. At 3× the ad spend, returns and marketplace fees eat the product alive before you make a mistake — and I made mistakes: stock bought upfront before any proof of demand, a listing pulled a month post-launch over a verification issue, and a ~10% return rate from units failing inside warranty.
    What I kept
    The margin rule, which now governs anything physical I look at. Plus a content-first validation method: prove attention before buying inventory, never the other way round.

    Rule5× cost-to-price or don't start. A 3× margin is not a thin business, it's a slow loss.

  2. № 02Killedkilled 2026

    SOTE — faceless history YouTube channel

    A faceless, documentary-style YouTube channel narrating Asian history. Long-form, production-heavy, assembled with generative tools.

    Why it looked good
    Evergreen library content, no personal exposure, and other channels were visibly succeeding with the exact format. Every input had a tool that could produce it.
    What killed it
    Cost per datapoint. On YouTube the only validation loop is the algorithm — you cannot test a channel with friends or DMs, only by shipping. With episodes running up to an hour and three quarters, every single datapoint cost weeks of production. That's structurally untestable for one person. I'd also mistaken replication for validation: their success validated *their* channel, not the format for a new entrant.
    What I kept
    Video-form fundamentals — pacing, hooks, script structure — which went straight into the weekly vlog. And a rule about how to test anything algorithm-judged.

    RuleWhen an algorithm is the only judge, minimise cost-per-datapoint. Earn the right to produce long-form after it confirms the audience.

  3. № 03Ruled outretired 2026

    Anything faceless

    A standing rule rather than a single project: building audience assets with no face attached.

    Why it looked good
    Privacy, and the belief that the work should stand on its own without a personality attached to it.
    What killed it
    Faceless removes the one thing that is genuinely hard to copy — you. In a market where anyone can generate competent content instantly, the face is the moat, not the constraint.
    What I kept
    The decision to put myself on camera at all, which is what made the weekly vlog possible.

    RuleNever faceless again.

  4. № 04Killedconsidered and killed 2026

    Amazon PPC agency

    A done-for-you Amazon advertising agency — a channel I have a real, verified track record in.

    Why it looked good
    Genuine competence and provable results. It's the single skill where I had numbers I could show without qualification, and there is real demand for it.
    What killed it
    A distribution treadmill. The work only pays while you're actively standing on it, on a platform that holds all the leverage and gives you none. Competence in a channel is not the same as a business worth owning.
    What I kept
    The PPC skill itself — pointed at a proof asset and my own products instead of sold as a retainer service.

    RuleKill the business, keep the skill.

  5. № 05Killedresearched and killed 2026

    Faceless KDP publishing

    Publishing books at volume through Amazon KDP, including a children's-book line, produced largely with AI assistance.

    Why it looked good
    Low marginal cost per title, a real marketplace with buyer intent, and an obvious pairing with advertising skills I already had.
    What killed it
    Same treadmill shape as the agency, plus a values problem: the volume approach only works by flooding a category, and I did not want to be the person doing that.
    What I kept
    The publishing research fed a decision to write one authority book properly, audience-first, on a multi-year horizon — instead of many disposable ones.

    RuleIf the strategy only works at flood volume, it is a channel exploit, not a business.

  6. № 06Ruled outresearched 2026

    Affiliate content sites

    SEO-driven affiliate sites monetising review and comparison traffic.

    Why it looked good
    The classic passive-income shape, and I have the SEO and content-production capability to execute it.
    What killed it
    The model is mostly dead and what survives is brutally hard — AI summaries absorb exactly the informational queries the model depends on. I set a validate-at-15-pages gate and the research said don't start.
    What I kept
    A framework for validating any content play before writing at volume, plus a much sharper read on which content types survive AI summarisation.

    RuleValidate the channel before producing for it, not after.

  7. № 07Killed2026

    Cold email to local trades

    Scaled cold email and SMS outreach selling automation systems to local service businesses.

    Why it looked good
    Deliverability and sequencing were solved problems for me — I'd hit 60–80% open rates elsewhere. It looked like a volume equation.
    What killed it
    Roughly 5,000 emails and 100 SMS produced zero replies. Not a poor rate — zero. The diagnosis wasn't the copy or the list: the audience had no felt pain about the problem I was solving.
    What I kept
    The infrastructure, and a hard lesson about channel-to-audience fit. Trades get reached by phone; email works for higher-ticket buyers who already know they have the problem.

    RuleChannel follows audience. Never the reverse.

  8. № 08Ruled outtested 2026

    Physical noticeboard advertising

    Reaching local trades through physical noticeboards in supply stores and depots.

    Why it looked good
    Cheap, hyper-local, and it put the message where the audience physically is — with almost no competition for attention.
    What killed it
    No measurable path from placement to enquiry. Untrackable channels can't be optimised, which means you can never tell a bad message from a bad channel.
    What I kept
    A bias toward channels with attribution, even when the untracked one is cheaper.

    RuleIf you can't measure it, you can't iterate it — and you'll blame the wrong variable.

The things I tested

Live projects aren't listed here — only decided ones.