AI Built 11 Companies in 60 Days

So we are looking at a stack of documents today. Business plans, architectural blueprints, and strategy decks. All centered around something called the Black Hills Consortium. Right. And our mission for this deep dive is pretty clear, right? We're testing a hypothesis on economic speed. Exactly, speed. Because it's a fascinating case study in, you know, velocity. That really is. Usually when we talk about reviving rural America, the timeline is, well, it's glacial. Oh, absolutely. You're talking five-year plans, federal grant applications, endless meetings. Just to get a sidewalk approved years. Right, but then you have this guy, Luke Alvarez, in Custer, South Dakota, a town of what, 2000 people? Around that, yeah. And according to these sources, he didn't just write a 10-year projection. He used AI to stand up 11 functional corporate entities in just 60 days. 60 days. And we really need to be clear about what entities means here. Yeah. Because it's not like he just bought 11 domain names. We're talking completed legal structures, functioning software, a whole 15 acre campus design. And active revenue models. It's the difference between having an idea and actually having a business. And the core mechanic behind all the speed seems to be what he calls the AI 80-percent multiplier. Okay, let's drill down on that. Yeah. Because the map in these notes is pretty aggressive. It is, but the logic kind of holds up. The thesis is that AI tools, we're talking Claude for legal, cursor for coding, chat GPT for strategy, they can't do 100% of a job. No, the hallucinators just get stuck. Exactly. But they can do, say, 80% of the heavy lifting. And they can do it instantly. So the human isn't replaced. They're just skipping that whole blank page face. They're skipping the drudgery. If AI handles the initial drafting, the compliance research, the code structure, one person becomes maybe five times faster. Wow. So Alvarez's plan is to train 16 employees in custer on this exact workflow. And the claim is that those 60 people can output the work of a 300 person organization, which just completely changes the unit economics of a small town. You don't need a huge labor pool anymore. You just need a small, lethal team. Let's look at the flywheel concept then, because he's not just building these companies in isolation. No, not at all. It's a zero waste ecosystem. You have the cash engine, which is this company called GrowWise. Right, the compliance software for the cannabis industry. And the docs show it has what, 27,656 leads. And a potential for $10 million in annual returning revenue. So that's the money that funds everything else. Right. That capital flows directly into something called the OP. It's a local cafe and merch hub. So tourists visiting Mount Rushmore come in by coffee, hoodies, whatever. And that revenue pays for employee perks and culture. It's brilliant. And then it loops again, right, into the seed foundation. Yeah, the same tech, the same suits, the same laptops used by the employees are given to local K through 12 students. It keeps all the money and the skills right there in the community. And there's even a convention, the cult, that's projected to make 350 grand in his first year. It's all connected. I want to pivot to the physical build, though. This is usually where the tech founder saves small town story falls apart. You can't code a building. And construction permits can take years. Exactly. But this is where Alvarez's background is the wild card. He isn't your typical Silicon Valley exec. He's a builder. He's done the whole van life thing, built tiny homes. He built a custom barned aluminum too, right? Using airy tech designs. He did. And he didn't hire an architect for this campus. He designed it himself with AI. And I saw a note here about a 60 by 40 building already on site that needs no remodeling permits. That is the ultimate speed hack. A traditional developer would be stuck in zoning hell for like 18 months. He has a shell ready to go. The day funding hits, he's taking bids. He understands the physical bottlenecks just as well as the digital ones. And he's timing this for a very specific window. Oh, yeah. The roadmap points directly to July 4th, 2026. America's 250th birthday. And Custer is right next to Mount Rushmore. The strategy is pretty explicit in the documents. The world will be watching South Dakota. Donald Trump's been invited. The media will be there. And he's positioning the consortium as the big AI saves rural America success story. A story that politicians will be desperate to stand next to. It's a very saddy play. Whether it's Governor Rodin or Dusty Johnson, they need to show that the heartland isn't dying. Alvariz is basically handing them a pre-packaged win. Precisely. It frames the whole debate as speed versus stability. Private capital and AI velocity. Versus government grants and bureaucracy. And if it works in Custer, the implication is that you could just drop this model into the rust belt or Appalachia. That's the hope. It leaves us with a pretty provocative question, I think. Which is. In a world where AI can build empires and weeks, are we just running out of excuses for leaving these towns behind?