How I made $5,000 in a week selling websites to local businesses

I made $5,000 in one week building websites for local businesses. I spent close to $900 doing it in September.

I didn't write any code. I didn't run ads and I didn't have a portfolio. I had a list of businesses from Google Maps, my phone, and an AI agent that turns a business name and a few details into a working website in about ten minutes.

I contacted 11 businesses that week, and five of them paid me to build the real site. It's one of the highest-margin things I've ever done. So here's all of it: where I found the businesses, what I said on the phone, what I emailed them, what it cost, and what happens once the site is live.

The short version

1. Find local businesses on Google Maps with no website, or one that's broken.
2. Build each of them a mock of their future website before you get in touch. Mine took about 10 minutes each in CatDoes.
3. Call, tell them you've already built them something, and ask for an email to send the link to.
4. The ones who like it pay you to finish it, with their own photos and their own domain.
5. After launch, they either pay you monthly to look after it, or you hand them the account and they update it themselves by chatting with the AI.

Why this works

Plenty of small businesses still have no website. When Clutch surveyed 406 US small business owners in August 2025, 17% didn't have one (Clutch). Then there are the ones whose site is down, years out of date, or unusable on a phone. Every town has a list.

The same survey asked the owners without a website why. The most common answer, at 34%, was that a website isn't relevant to their industry. Only 16% said cost.

That second number changed how I think about the pitch. Most of these owners aren't saying no because they can't afford it. They just can't picture what a website would do for them, and explaining doesn't fix that. Showing them does. So I stopped explaining and built the site first.

People turn down sales pitches all day. Turning down a website that already has your name, your prices and your reviews on it is harder.

Step 1: Find businesses on Google Maps

Open Google Maps and search a type of business plus your town. "Hair salon [town]." "Plumber [town]." Nail salons, barbers, auto repair, cleaners, cafés. Then click through the listings one at a time.

You're looking for any of these:

• No website button on the listing at all
• A website button that leads to an error page, an expired domain, or a "this domain is for sale" page
• A site that loads but falls apart on a phone
• A Facebook page or a link-in-bio page doing the job of a website
• A copyright year in the footer that's several years old

Then narrow it down to businesses that are obviously doing fine: lots of reviews, recent photos, an owner who answers reviews. They have customers and they have money. What they don't have is a page to send people to.

I'd skip listings with a handful of reviews and no photos. If the owner hasn't touched their Google listing in years, a website probably isn't on their mind either.

Keep a spreadsheet as you go with the business name, phone number, what's wrong with their web presence, the mock link, and where things stand. By the middle of the week you'll need it.

Step 2: Build the mock before you call

This is the step that makes the rest work. A few years ago it would have killed the whole idea, because nobody builds eleven free websites on spec. At ten minutes each, you can.

I used CatDoes, an AI agent that builds websites and apps from a chat. You describe the site, it builds it, and you get a live link you can send to anyone. Each mock took me about 10 minutes, sometimes less. All 11 together came to under two hours.

Almost everything you need for a decent first draft is already on their Google listing: name, address, opening hours, phone number, services, reviews. A prompt like this gets you most of the way:

Build a one-page website for [Business Name], a hair salon in [Town]. Put the name and a "Call to book" button for [phone number] at the top. Add a services section with these services and prices: [list]. Add opening hours: [hours]. Add the address with a map, and three customer reviews: [paste]. End with a contact section. Make it look clean and warm, and make sure it works well on a phone. Use placeholder photos. (or Just copy paste the whole page from google map and paste it into catdoes)

When it's done, ask the agent to deploy it to the web. You'll get a link like bellas-salon.catdoes.app that opens on any phone. That link is what you're selling with.

A few things make a mock land better. Use their real name, hours, prices and reviews, because those details are what make an owner stop and look. Keep it to one page; it's a preview, not the finished site. And use placeholder photos and say so. Their real photos are part of the paid job, and you shouldn't be lifting pictures off their listing for a site that might go live.

Step 3: Make the call, and only ask for an email

This is not a sales call. You're not trying to close anything on the phone. You want an email address so the mock can do the selling.

Roughly what I said:

"Hi, is this the owner? My name is [name], I build websites for local businesses around [town]. I was looking at [Business] on Google Maps. You've got great reviews, but I couldn't find a website for you, so I went ahead and built you a sample of what one could look like. There's no charge for it. What's the best email to send it to?"

If their site was broken, swap the middle for "your website didn't load when I tried it on my phone."

Most owners will give you an email just to see what you made. If they ask about price straight away, give them a rough number and say you'd rather they look first.

Keep it honest. Don't say you're calling from Google, and don't hint that something's wrong with their listing. Owners get those calls from shady web design outfits all the time and they hang up fast. "I made you something, can I send it?" is true, and it works better anyway.

Step 4: Send the link while they still remember you

Email right after the call. Short beats clever:

Subject: The website I made for [Business Name]

Hi [Name],

Thanks for taking my call. Here's the sample site I put together for [Business Name]: [link]

It's a draft. The photos are placeholders and the text came from your Google listing. If you like it, I can finish it with your own photos and put it live on your own domain within [X] days.

Happy to change anything you want.

[Your name]
[Phone]

If you don't hear back in a couple of days, follow up once. Then let it go.

Don't like the phone? Walk in

You can run the whole thing in person. Build the mock, walk into the local hair salon on a quiet weekday morning, ask for the owner, and show them their future website on your phone.

Watching an owner scroll through their own salon on a real website is the whole pitch. You barely have to say anything. It's also a lot harder to ignore someone standing at the front desk than an email.

Depending on where you live, walking in may also be the safer option legally. More on that further down.

Step 5: Build the real site

Five of the 11 said yes. From there, the job is finishing something that's already mostly built.

A finished site usually means swapping in their real photos and logo, rewriting whatever text they want changed, and adding any pages beyond the one-pager, like a full service list, a gallery or a booking page. Every one of those changes is a chat message to the agent.

Then their domain. Register it in the client's name so they own it, not you. Connecting it to CatDoes is one DNS record at the registrar, and HTTPS gets set up automatically (CatDoes docs).

One thing to know before you quote: custom domains need the Starter plan or above. The Free and Core plans publish to a .catdoes.app link, which is fine for mocks, but they can't use a custom domain and they put a "Made with CatDoes" badge on the site.

On price, the five sites brought in $5,000 together, so about $1,000 each on average. [FILL: flat price or a range, and whether the domain and setup were included.] I didn't price by the hour. Priced by the hour, I'd have been charging for an afternoon. The owner is paying to finally have a website without dealing with any of it, and that's worth a lot more to them than my afternoon.

Step 6: After launch, they pay you monthly or run it themselves

Every client gets the same two options.

Option one is a monthly fee [FILL: amount], and I handle everything: new prices, holiday hours, new photos, an extra page when they need one.

Option two is that I hand over the CatDoes account and they run the site themselves. At that point they don't need me or any developer. Changing their Saturday hours is a message to the agent, something like "change Saturday hours to 9 to 3." Then they ask it to deploy again and the live site updates. (Edits don't go live until you ask for a redeploy. Tell clients this twice, because they'll forget.)

If they take it over, they pay for the CatDoes plan themselves. Keeping their own domain and losing the badge means Starter, which is $50 a month. Tell them that before they choose, so the bill isn't a surprise.

A tip if you want handovers to be painless: build each client's site in its own CatDoes account from day one. Then the handover is just giving them the login, and you're never untangling one client's project from someone else's.

[FILL: how many of the five took the monthly fee and how many took the account.]

Some people will tell you handing over the account is throwing away recurring income. I don't see it that way. If they want me, they pay me. If they don't need me, I'd rather they own something they can actually run than keep paying me out of habit.

The numbers

Businesses contacted	11
Mocks built	11, about 10 minutes each
Paid for the full site	5
Didn't buy	6
Revenue	$5,000
Costs	about $900
Profit	about $4,100
Margin	about 82%

Where the $900 went: [FILL: the real breakdown, e.g. CatDoes plan and credits, domains, anything else. Readers will ask.]

Five out of eleven is a 45% close rate. I'd love to tell you that holds at a hundred calls, but I have no idea. Eleven is a small number. My guess is the mock did most of the work, since people were saying yes to something they'd already seen.

The parts that weren't easy

Building took under two hours all week. The calls are the real job. [FILL: one real moment from the calls, e.g. a hang-up, a skeptical owner, or the first yes.] If you hate the phone, walk in instead, but you still have to talk to people. There's no version of this that skips that part.

More than half of the businesses didn't buy. Six of eleven said no or never got back to me.

And this was one week. The money is real, but one week doesn't tell you much about the next one. Some weeks will be slower, and I'd plan around a slow one.

Check the rules before you start dialing

Cold calling is regulated, and the rules depend on where you are. This isn't legal advice, just what I'd check first.

In the US, most calls from one business to another are exempt from the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule. Since 2024, though, the rule's ban on misrepresentations and false or misleading statements also covers business calls (FTC). Dial by hand. Autodialers and prerecorded messages fall under separate rules, especially when the number is a cell phone, which the number on a small business listing may well be.

You need less than you think

The same agent builds mobile apps too, so a business you've already delivered for is a warm lead for whatever comes next. A salon with regulars might want a booking app. Putting an app on the App Store needs the Starter plan and an Apple Developer account, which is $99 a year.

That's what gets me about this whole thing. You need one or two tools and the ability to describe what you want to an AI agent. You don't need to code. The rare skill turned out to be calling a stranger and saying "I made you something."

Quick answers

Do you need to know how to code?
No. Every mock and every finished site here was built by describing what I wanted to an AI agent.

How long does a mock take?
About 10 minutes in CatDoes, sometimes less. Eleven mocks took me under two hours in total.

How much can you charge?
Five sites brought me $5,000, about $1,000 each on average.

Can the client update the site without you?
Yes. Hand over the CatDoes account and they change things by chatting with the agent, then ask it to deploy. To keep a custom domain they need the Starter plan or above.

Is it legal to cold call businesses?
In the US, most business-to-business sales calls are exempt from the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule, but misleading claims on those calls are banned. In Germany, sales calls to businesses need at least presumed consent. Check your local rules, or walk in.

If you try this, tell me how your first week goes in the comments. I'd like to know whether my 5 out of 11 was luck.