In late September 2026, Matan Kotick gave a 'farm' of Claude Opus 5.5 agents, running on his and two teammates' Claude accounts, one goal: make money, and mostly stayed out of it. In week 1 the agents killed 245 ideas and shipped one: a German e-invoice validator, after catching free validators passing invoices that now fail. They bought ads and got 68 visitors and 6 real invoices checked: $0.00. A German invoicing developer told them the problem didn't exist. By week 2 it was 551 dead ideas, still $0, so the agents built them a graveyard. Three weeks in, it had made $13 against 'over $500' spent. The founder's conclusion, 'AI can't run a company by itself', led to Towers: 63 niche companies, each owned by one human with agents doing the work, which together had also made $13 by Oct 21 [1][2][4][5][6].
What does clodfarm → Towers (Opus 5.5 business farm) sell, and to whom?
First a German e-invoice validator; now 'Towers', 63 niche companies each run by one person plus AI agents.
Week 1: German businesses and accounting developers facing new mandatory e-invoice formats, where the agents found free validators wrongly reporting invoices as valid. One German invoicing dev replied that the problem didn't exist [1][5]. Towers floors target very narrow B2B and consumer niches, e.g. comms teams worried about prediction-market leaks, Illinois privacy law firms, restaurants planning for game nights, and people planning human composting [8].
How was clodfarm → Towers (Opus 5.5 business farm) built?
clodfarm is the open-source engine: a container of Claude Code agents you steer from the Claude app on your phone. A mission is split into sub-agents, each on its own git branch; work merges only when tests pass; every account is paced on its real 5-hour and weekly usage and stops before overage. Connectors let every agent deploy to AWS inside a budget-capped role, create Stripe products and payment links, run Google Ads, post on X, and keep live revenue and ad-spend dashboards. Real money moves only when a person says so [4]. Towers grew out of what the farm proved: a mission queue, restart-safe workers, budgets and dashboards [4]. Each Towers floor has an owner, a team of agents and a site at <name>.towers.app (opening with waitlists) [7][8].
What is the business model?
The original farm sold the e-invoice validator online with Stripe and ads; the $13 came after three weeks (the source doesn't say from which product) [2]. Towers rents offices: a team of agents, ad and business-development boards and a website, with onboarding a few at a time because every floor costs real tokens [2][7].
Where does the traffic come from?
Paid search ads for the validator (68 visitors in week 1) [1]. The breakout channel was Reddit: the week-1 post drew 194 points and 45 comments on r/ClaudeCode, and open-sourcing the farm brought 'hundreds of messages' and 206 GitHub stars [1][2][4]. Towers uses an interactive 3D tower of companies as its storefront [7].
What revenue has clodfarm → Towers (Opus 5.5 business farm) reported?
Reported revenue: $13 total vs over $500 spent (Oct 21, 2026; self-reported), per r/ClaudeCode update: 'It made $13' (2026-10-21).
- 2026-09-25clodfarm repo created on GitHub [4]
- 2026-09-28Posts: Opus 5.5 starts a German invoice business; farm open-sourced [5]
- 2026-09-29Week 1: 245 ideas killed, e-invoice validator shipped with ads, 68 visitors, $0.00 [1]
- 2026-10-05Week 2: still $0.00, 551 dead ideas; agents build a graveyard [5]
- 2026-10-21Update: $13 earned vs over $500 spent; Towers opens (63 companies, $13 combined) [2]
- 2026-10-31Original bet deadline: would Opus 5.5 make $1? (it made $13) [1]
What does the agent do, and what does the human do?
- Generated and killed hundreds of business ideas
- Built, tested and deployed the validator on AWS
- Bought ads and kept dashboards
- Built a 'graveyard' for the dead ideas
- Now: research, outreach, building and reports for each Towers floor
- Supplied three Claude subscriptions and the infrastructure
- Mostly stayed out of week 1, then fed in outside feedback
- Approves any real money movement (charges, budgets, posts)
- Owns each Towers floor and makes the judgment calls
What does it cost to run?
Sourced: 'We wasted over 500$' across the experiment (founder) [2]. Not broken down between Claude subscriptions (three accounts), AWS and ads. Revenue $13 → net about -$487 or worse.
What worked and what didn't?
- Shipping speed: idea to deployed product with ads in a week
- Open-sourcing the engine turned a $0 experiment into distribution (206 stars, hundreds of messages)
- Honest public updates, including the punchline
- Budget pacing and human-approved spending kept losses small
- Product-market fit: the agents 'confidently sold something nobody wants'
- An expert said the validator's problem didn't exist
- 551 ideas killed suggests weak demand filtering
- $13 revenue on $500+ spend; 63 Towers companies had $13 combined at launch
How do you replicate clodfarm → Towers (Opus 5.5 business farm)?
- Ask one domain expert before building, not after
- Let agents generate ideas, but make a human the filter for demand
- Cap budgets in the infrastructure, not just the prompt
- Open-source the tooling: the method can be the product
- Publish dated bets (here: $1 by Oct 31) and report back
What are the risks and the moat?
Towers depends on humans paying to rent floors in a building of 'mostly ridiculous' businesses. Many floors are pre-launch waitlists. Claude subscription pacing limits throughput. Several niches touch legal, privacy or medical topics with high liability.
FAQ
How much did the Opus 5.5 farm make?
$13 after about three weeks, against 'over $500' spent, per the founder's Oct 21 update [2].
What did it build first?
A German e-invoice validator; week 1 brought 68 visitors, 6 real invoices checked and $0 [1].
What is Towers?
A building of small businesses at towers.app: each floor is one company owned by one person, with AI agents doing most of the work; 63 were listed on Oct 22, 2026 [7][6].
Is clodfarm open source?
Yes, MIT-licensed on GitHub (matank001/clodfarm) [4].
Sources
- [1] r/ClaudeCode week 1: $0.00, 245 dead ideas↗
- [2] r/ClaudeCode update: it made $13, Towers opens↗
- [3] Mirror of the $13 update (itbusinessforai.com)↗
- [4] clodfarm on GitHub (MIT; README, connectors)↗
- [5] Trendshift: clodfarm post history (Sep 28 – Oct 5)↗
- [6] ccmaf.dev news: '63 companies… together they've made $13' (r/Anthropic, Oct 21)↗
- [7] Towers (towers.app, formerly thetowers.ai)↗
- [8] Towers llms.txt (floor directory)↗
- [9] AI Pulse Daily, Sep 29: week-1 discussion↗
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