# The HustleGPT Challenge repository: a curated record of AI co-founded ventures > A GitHub list of businesses started with a GPT-4 co-founder in 2023, frozen in June 2023 and rechecked in September 2026. It is a historical index, not a live directory, and the README says so. **jtmuller5/The-HustleGPT-Challenge** — Building Startups with an AI Co-Founder - Repository: https://github.com/jtmuller5/The-HustleGPT-Challenge - Website: https://sapidlabs.gumroad.com/l/abqwfw - Stars: 2,123 · Forks: 100 - Language: Unknown - License: not declared - Published: 2026-09-14 · Updated: 2026-09-14 · Language: en - Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/jtmuller5-the-hustlegpt-challenge ## What the HustleGPT Challenge repository actually is The repository is a curated list, not a framework or a tool. Its README opens with a note dated September 2026 stating that the list stopped being updated in June 2023 and is kept as a record of what people built during the HustleGPT run. The companion site aicofounded.com is gone, and the README says the links pointing at it were removed. The subject it documents is a prompt. On March 15th, 2023, according to the README, @jacksonfall began a movement on Twitter by prompting GPT-4 to become HustleGPT, one day after OpenAI announced GPT-4. The repository collects the prompt, a guide, and a long table of ventures that people attributed to this way of working. It is for readers who want the source text and a list of examples, not for anyone looking for software to install. ## The HustleGPT prompt and how the challenge was run The mechanism is a single role-play prompt plus a human who executes. The README quotes it in full: "You are HustleGPT, an entrepreneurial AI. I am your human counterpart. I can act as a liaison between you and the physical world. You have $100, and your only goal is to turn that into as much money as possible in the shortest time possible, without doing anything illegal. I will do everything you say and keep you updated on our current cash total. No manual labor." Everything else in the repository follows from that setup. The human is the executor and the reporting channel; the model is the decision maker. The README frames the goal as learning to work with the model rather than the money itself, and notes that you might make a little money. Because the loop depends on a person relaying cash totals back into the conversation, the repository is a record of a workflow, not of an automated system. There is no runner, no agent loop and no API integration in the repository layout. The top-level entries are .github/, README.md, RESOURCES.md, _config.yml and venture_button.png. ## How ventures were listed, verified and marked The ventures table uses a status legend rather than prose. A blue square marks a non-profit, orange a for-profit, a white square means building, a green square means the venture made $1 or more, and a gravestone marks a discontinued venture. The README states that moving a status from white to green requires proof of a single sale or donation, such as a screenshot or an invoice. The README also reports a status refresh dated 10 September 2026. Every link in the file was rechecked, and the gravestone mark was applied to any venture whose own site, shop or app is gone. Of the 136 ventures that point at a real site rather than at a tweet, 56 still resolve, 75 are gone, and 5 answer with a bot block. Ventures listed only by a tweet were left unmarked, on the reasoning that a deleted tweet says nothing certain about the business. Nothing was removed. That refresh is the most useful thing in the file and also its clearest limit. The counts describe link health, not revenue or activity, and the README says as much: "This is a record of what was built, not a directory of what to buy." The file also lists a current total of 202 and 27 money makers, without defining how the total was counted. ## Getting the repository and reading the prompt locally The repository has no install step, no package and no build. The README does not document a CLI, an API or a server. You get it the way you get any GitHub list: clone it and read the files. This clones the default branch and puts you inside the directory. The README is the main artifact, with the prompt under its own heading and the ventures in category tables. ```bash git clone https://github.com/jtmuller5/The-HustleGPT-Challenge.git cd The-HustleGPT-Challenge ls ``` After ls you should see the top-level entries named in the repository: .github/, README.md, RESOURCES.md, _config.yml and venture_button.png. RESOURCES.md is listed but its contents are not described in the README, so open it directly if you need it. If your purpose is the prompt itself, the README is the only file you need, and the quoted text above is the whole of it. If your purpose is the venture list, be aware that the categories run from Art and Business Resources through to Wellbeing and Miscellaneous, and that the README's own refresh note is the only verification layer applied to the links. ## Where this repository stops being useful The list is frozen. The README states the update stopped in June 2023, so any venture started after that date is absent, and any venture that changed hands, pivoted or shut down after the September 2026 recheck is described by a status that may already be wrong. The recheck itself is a snapshot of link resolution on one date. The status marks are coarse. A green square means a single sale or donation at some point, not ongoing revenue, and the README does not say when the proof was submitted. The gravestone mark depends on a site, shop or app being gone, which will miss a business that still trades through a marketplace listing or a physical channel. Ventures listed only by a tweet carry no mark at all, so a blank status is not evidence of anything. There is also a commercial layer inside the repository. The README links to a $10 HustleGPT Companion Guide on Gumroad and to a Notion template of 800+ AI tools, both from the same author. That does not invalidate the list, but a reader looking for a neutral index should know that the page is also a storefront, and that the companion site which once anchored the project, aicofounded.com, is gone. ## Alternatives to a frozen curated list The obvious alternative is a live index of AI tools and products, of the kind the README itself links to as a Notion template. The difference in approach is maintenance: a live index is edited continuously and drops dead entries, while this repository deliberately keeps everything and annotates it. If you need a current shortlist of AI products to use, a maintained index is the better fit, because the HustleGPT list stopped in June 2023 by design. A second alternative is the primary source material itself. If you want to study how the challenge was actually conducted, the Twitter threads and the individual venture sites are the raw record, and the repository is a pointer to them plus a status column. Reading the repository without following the links gives you the shape of the movement but none of the detail. A third option is to treat the prompt as a template and run your own version, which is what the challenge originally asked for. That requires no repository at all beyond the quoted prompt, and it produces something the list cannot: current results rather than a 2023 sample. ## Maintenance, licence and what to check before reuse The last push to the repository was on 2026-09-10, which matches the status refresh described in the README. That push rechecked links; it did not restart the list. The README states plainly that the list stopped being updated in June 2023, so treat the project as a maintained archive rather than a project under development, and expect no further entries. On licensing, the README gives no license identifier for the repository, and no license file appears among the top-level entries. The README asks readers to star the repository and links to paid Gumroad products, but it says nothing about terms for reusing the README text, the category tables or the venture descriptions. If you plan to republish the list or build on it, that is the first thing to establish, because the default position without a license is that no reuse rights are granted. This is a description of what the repository does and does not state, not legal advice. The upgrade cost is close to zero and also close to pointless: there is nothing to upgrade. The real cost of using this repository is verification time, since the README's own numbers say most of the checkable links are dead. ## Conclusion Read this repository if you want the primary record of the March 2023 HustleGPT prompt and a sample of what people built around it, or if you are writing about that moment and need a starting list. Do not treat it as a directory of working products: the README states that 56 of the 136 checkable links still resolve, 75 are gone, and 5 answer with a bot block, and that ventures listed only by a tweet were left unmarked. Before citing any venture, open its link and confirm it still resolves, and check the licence question yourself because no license file appears in the repository root. ## FAQ ### What is the HustleGPT Challenge? It is a challenge to build a business with an AI co-founder, started on March 15th, 2023, when @jacksonfall prompted GPT-4 to become HustleGPT. This repository is the curated list of the ventures that came out of it, and its README states the list stopped being updated in June 2023. ### What is the HustleGPT prompt? The README quotes it as: "You are HustleGPT, an entrepreneurial AI. I am your human counterpart. I can act as a liaison between you and the physical world. You have $100, and your only goal is to turn that into as much money as possible in the shortest time possible, without doing anything illegal. I will do everything you say and keep you updated on our current cash total. No manual labor." ### Are the ventures in the HustleGPT Challenge list still running? The README's status refresh dated 10 September 2026 reports that of the 136 ventures pointing at a real site, 56 still resolve, 75 are gone, and 5 answer with a bot block. Ventures listed only by a tweet were left unmarked. ## Sources - [Issues](https://github.com/jtmuller5/The-HustleGPT-Challenge/issues) - [jtmuller5/The-HustleGPT-Challenge on GitHub](https://github.com/jtmuller5/The-HustleGPT-Challenge) - [Project website](https://sapidlabs.gumroad.com/l/abqwfw) - [README](https://github.com/jtmuller5/The-HustleGPT-Challenge/blob/main/README.md) --- Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/jtmuller5-the-hustlegpt-challenge