It started with a Christmas movie script called "Swipe Right on Christmas." My mom managed a Hallmark store, and one night I couldn't stop thinking about a gossipy bakery character joking about "spilling the tea." Four scripts later, I decided to see if I could sell them using the same playbook I'd run at companies with armies of BDRs and six-figure marketing stacks — just with none of that budget.

Total spend: $580.86 over six months. A $27 domain, a $204 Wix site, $120 of Gemini AI, a $20 IMDb subscription to build a list of 114 writers and producers from that year's 116 Christmas movies, and a $120 email tool that told me the moment someone clicked a link.

The close came from something I teach every seller: professional persistence. My sixth and final email — modeled on the Sandler Pendulum, essentially "I'll stop bothering you now" — got two phone calls and ten script requests the same day. Nobody's optioned a movie yet, but the lesson held up: the fundamentals of lead generation don't require a big budget, they require the discipline to run all seventeen touches.