I've mentioned The Upstream in almost every issue. I've been deliberately low-key about it, which is intentional — I'd rather you find out about it because you've been reading these issues and decided you want more than because I sold you on it.
But today I want to describe it directly, because I think there's value in knowing what you're being offered, and because the way I've been describing it — "the community," "going deeper" — is vague enough that it probably doesn't help you decide whether it's for you.
What The Upstream actually is.
The Upstream is a paid community for people who are doing some version of what we're doing here: testing, building, experimenting with AI-enabled income or creative work, and wanting to do it alongside other people who are serious about it rather than in isolation.
The word "community" gets used so broadly in the online business world that it's nearly meaningless. Let me be specific about what that means in this context.
It's a place where I share what we're testing before it hits the newsletter. The granular details, the early data, the thinking that doesn't make it into a newsletter issue — the stuff that's too specific or too tentative for a general audience but genuinely useful for people who are working on the same kinds of problems.
It's also a place where members share what they're working on. Some of them are running their own stream experiments. Some are earlier in the AI learning curve and working through the fundamentals. Some are primarily here to follow the TenStreamsLab experiment and ask questions about it. The diversity is deliberate — the different vantage points make the conversation more interesting than a group where everyone is at the same stage.
And it's a place where you can ask me questions and get actual answers. Not a FAQ, not a support system — a genuine back-and-forth with someone who's in the middle of the same work and will tell you what they actually think rather than what sounds good.
What it isn't.
It is not a course. There's no structured curriculum, no modules to complete, no certificate at the end. If you're looking for a step-by-step program, The Upstream is not it — and I'd point you toward the guides in the free toolkit, which are more structured and probably more appropriate for that need.
It is not a high-ticket mastermind. It's priced for accessibility, not for exclusivity. The value proposition is the community and the access, not the perceived status of being in an expensive room.
It is not a replacement for doing the work. The people who get the most out of The Upstream are the ones who are actively building something and want a thinking partner and a community to process the experience with. If you're not building anything yet, the newsletter and the free resources might be the better starting point.
Why I built it and what I need from it.
I want to be honest about the economics, which I think respects the intelligence of the people I'm trying to serve.
TenStreamsLab is documenting an experiment that has real costs. There's the AI tool stack, the platform subscriptions, the time invested, and the ongoing operational expenses of running multiple stream experiments. The newsletter alone doesn't cover those costs in the early stages. The Upstream is part of how the operation becomes financially sustainable — not a theoretical future revenue stream but a current contribution to the economics.
I also genuinely believe in the community model. The intellectual companionship of doing hard things alongside other people who are doing similar things is not nothing. The people in The Upstream challenge my thinking, catch my blind spots, and occasionally point out that I'm about to make an obvious mistake before I make it. That has real value that's not capturable in a newsletter.
Whether it's right for you.
If you've been reading every issue and finding yourself wanting to ask questions, or wanting to see the data before it's published, or just wanting to be in a room with people who are genuinely trying to figure this out — then yes, come in. It's the right call.
If you're still getting oriented — if you're in the first few weeks of thinking seriously about AI and income streams and you're not sure yet what questions to ask — I'd recommend staying with the newsletter and the free resources for a while first. Join The Upstream when you have something to bring to it.
The door is always open.
This Week in AI: Online communities organized around AI-adjacent topics — tools, income experiments, creative applications — have proliferated significantly in the past two years, which means the quality variance is wide. The best ones have an active core of people who are genuinely doing things, not just talking about them. That ratio — doers to observers — is worth evaluating before you join anything. It's something I think about for The Upstream constantly.
The Upstream is accessible through start.tenstreamslab.com. If you've been waiting for a reason to join, this is me saying: you're welcome here.