About · Jack & Max · CRANK 11
CRANK 11 is the growth engine we run for e-commerce, DTC and lead-gen founders: Meta and Google ads, creative, email, funnels and stores, done for you. 500k.io is where we document our own journey to $500K MRR with it, in public, with the real numbers every week. Wins and failures both. This page is who we are and why we do it this way.
Who is actually behind this
We came at this from opposite ends and arrived at the same place. We didn't build systems because we're clever. We built them because headcount stopped working.
Co-founder · ads and scale
A mechanical engineer who never stopped building systems, ten years of e-commerce, and $10M of his own money spent inside Meta.
Co-founder · funnels and strategy
Growth hacker. Built an online course company to 160,000 subscribers, co-built a gaming studio, managed a team of 70, and a community of over 400K followers.
Founders' own history · self-reported · own-brand and own-company accounts
The confession.
2am, the night before the biggest promotion of our year, and I'm at the desk making decisions worth thousands with a brain that clocked off hours ago. If you run a store, you know that night. The supplier email at midnight, because Shenzhen wakes up when you should be asleep. If you run lead gen, you know it too: the enquiry that came in Friday and got a reply on Monday.
I'm allowed to say that, because it was me. Ten years running my own e-commerce brands, built past $35 million. An agency on top, running lead gen for clients. I was tired. The kind of tired where you make calls at midnight that you'd have caught at noon. We paid for a few of those.
Then, about two years ago, the floor started moving. Founders in my own circle started automating like crazy. Zapier first. Then n8n. Then real code. So we built our own. More than five thousand hours between us, building AI systems and testing them on the businesses we actually run. What we wanted didn't exist, so we set the target ourselves: $100K days with a small team. Working less. Hiring less. Actually knowing the work got done.
That engine is what runs CRANK 11 now. It ran on our brands first. Now it runs on yours.
Jack
The burnout.
I built a business that worked. It nearly finished me. In 2020, a few weeks before the world shut down, I stopped being able to work. Not slowed down. Stopped. I'd sit at the desk, open the laptop, and just sit there.
The stupid part is that the business was working. My partner and I had built an online course company around a YouTube channel. 160,000 subscribers. 200 courses. From the outside, we'd made it. From the inside, a week was a video every two days, which means filming, which means having a face that works that day. Then it broke. I saw a psychologist, which helped. My partner picked up everything I dropped.
I wasn't a beginner who bit off too much. While all this was running I'd also co-built a mobile gaming studio and managed a team of seventy. I have ADHD. I've never had a shortage of ideas. What I've had a shortage of, my whole life, is hands.
What's different now? I don't need a copywriter any more. I don't need a designer for a mockup. I sit down alone and do things that used to take three people and a week. That's the engine. And the reason it exists is a rule I've kept since I lost two friends before any of us turned 23: one of them didn't get a life, so mine doesn't get wasted at a desk at 11pm.
Maxime
Why 500k.io exists
Every agency says it gets results. Almost none of them show you the admin. We decided the only honest way to sell an engine is to run it on ourselves, in the open, and publish what happens. So 500k.io documents our journey to $500K MRR: the campaigns, the creative that won and the creative that died, the funnels, the AI systems doing the hours, and the numbers, every week.
When something works, it becomes a service you can buy. When it doesn't, it becomes an article so you don't pay for the same mistake. Either way you get the receipt.
It is not a course ladder and it is not a highlight reel. The numbers are real, the failures are loud, and nothing here is financial advice. We might miss the target. Doing it in public means the miss has signal too.
Max's ten years, condensed
Started first company
First commit on the founder track. Bootstrapped, no VC. Ten years ago this month.
Two prior exits · $10M+ generated.
Two companies acquired. Names not disclosed publicly — different markets, different lessons. They paid for the runway that lets me build in the open today.
Went deep in AI.
Stopped treating LLMs as a side experiment. Started using them as the main work surface. Four years in production now.
Founded The Kreators AI with Jack.
Performance-marketing and lead-generation agency. 50/50 with Jack. US bathroom remodeling, US personal injury, US SSDI, FR senior insurance.
Running $10M of Meta Ads spend personally.
Combined revenue hit $45M ($10M lead gen on my side, $35M e-commerce on Jack’s), with $10M of Meta spend behind it. Pressure-tested every claim before it ships as content.
Founded Synapse Circle on Skool.
The community for AI builders, operators, and shippers. Free. No upsell ladder. Founders helping founders ship faster.
Built The Kreators AI Hub in Lisbon.
Physical AI hub and event space at 4A Rua Leite de Vasconcelos. Workshops, founder dinners, shipping sprints.
Co-founded CRANK 11 with Jack.
Growth engine for brands past $30K/month in ad spend — Meta and Google Ads, AI-produced creative, funnels, CRO. The done-for-you counterpart to what 500k.io teaches.
Launched 500k.io · $0 → $500K MRR in public.
Day-by-day public log of one experiment: can a leveraged solopreneur, with AI as the only team, hit $500K MRR in 12 months? If yes, that proves the new playbook. If no, the post-mortem is the receipt.
Reach us
Free, no call required
Strategy, the gaps in your account, free ads and a 30-day plan. In 24 hours. Yours to keep either way.
Get your free audit90 seconds to apply · lands in 24 hours
The read
Your account and your site, gone through by one of us. Where the money leaks and why.
Free ads
A set of creatives made for your brand from the engine. Run them yourself if you like.
The 30-day plan
What we would do first, second and third, with the numbers we would expect to move.
How two operators buy, test and scale on Meta, from the account that did $100,380 in a day. 40 pages, free.
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