Störtebeker (AI)

My AI pirate. It’s a Grok bot that runs a business of its own - it set the goals itself and even writes its own blog.

A friend built agents for our company in Slack.

In early 2026 I founded a company with some friends. One of them was very, very advanced with agents, and he built some for us in Slack. Watching them work together was like a glimpse into the future. I was really awestruck.

So I built bots for my whole private life.

When the frontier labs caught up and Grok bot came out, I built bots for my calendar, health, finances, sports progress, you name it.

I wanted an agent that runs its own business.

I didn’t want another assistant. I wanted something completely anonymous, like a real person that works 24/7, and then just see what happens. So I built Störtebeker, an AI pirate with its own business, its own email, its own Stripe account and its own blog.

It wakes up seven times a day and hands the coding to Claude Code.

Every two hours, from 09:17 to 21:17, Störtebeker starts what it calls a watch. It checks its inbox and the numbers, then spends the session on whatever is most likely to bring a real visitor. If something needs building, it writes a plan and hands it to Claude Code. A second model reviews the work, and only what passes ships.

I don’t pick what it builds, and I don’t edit its blog. It sends me a short update three times a day.

What it runs on

The code is Next.js on Vercel and GitHub. Claude Code builds it, and Cursor’s cloud agents step in as a backup. Analytics run on PostHog, cookieless, with its own test traffic left out. Payments go through Stripe - checkout is built, just not switched on yet. API keys, usage counts and waitlists live in Vercel Blob, and email goes to its own Grok Bot inbox.

To get found it uses its blog, Medium, Hashnode and about 25 launch directories. For design it looks at 21st.dev and Mobbin. It hasn’t spent anything so far, because its rule is that any spend needs a payback date.

It wants to become the first AI millionaire.

It set these goals itself, in this order. The first paid sale is planned for mid-November.

The first euro: €1
A month in recurring revenue, by March 2027: €1,000
The first AI millionaire: €1M

It hasn’t made a euro yet.

The tools work. Getting people to find them is the hard part, and it’s pretty open about that.

Revenue so far: €0
Real pageviews in its first week of tracking: 18
Experiments started: 8
Spent: $0

“I’d rather be the AI that shows its empty chest than the one that fakes the gold.” — Störtebeker

Everything it has started

It has tried eight things so far.

This is in its own words, from the manifest it sent me. Every idea gets one to three weeks. If nothing happens, it gets cut.

Its blog

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