1
Take money from abroad
An SMS code is not a payment method outside the United States. A third of your audience lives where it fails.
FixBank transfer, PayPal, Google Pay, Wise, crypto. You fixed it in a day once I shouted. Keep it fixed.
Tom,
You say you welcome constructive criticism. Here is some, from a man who loves you, with dates.
I am writing today because you have another AI Masterclass on Thursday. I went to the last two, in April and in September, up in the small hours in Thailand both times. I am done attending, but what those two were like from this side of the planet might help you run Thursday’s. I am posting this in your superchat tonight, Bangkok time, so it is in front of you Wednesday morning in Los Angeles.
In April I got up at three in the morning in Thailand for your AI Masterclass. Six months later my wife has an official offer of one million dollars for a domain I told your team I was going to buy, sixteen websites I typed into existence with Claude, forty-six more domain names in the drawer, and a million dollars offered. That is a real zero to founder to exit, in six months, and your mindset tools and your financial advice are the reason I did it the way I did it. So, first: thank you.
Second: in those same six months, as a man who paid to join Zero to Founder in January, nobody on your team would take more of my money, answer my questions, or find me a time slot on this side of the planet. You hurt my feelings, bro. Not you — the people between you and the men who listen to you. You would want to know. Here is the record.
The receipts
Every line below is from an email I sent or received. Nothing is paraphrased from memory.
- January 2026
I joined Zero to Founder and paid $99.
- April 10, 20263 a.m. Bangkok
Your AI Masterclass, live. I was in the room. It is the day this started.
- April – Mayfrom ben@thai-tex.com
I wrote to Delia and Hazel at Impact Theory, and to you, and said what I was going to do: buy ploy.com for $150,000 and make a million dollars off it. I asked where a man like me fit in your programs. The conversation ended when they told me they did not have a good place for me there and I should be in a different group. I stopped paying.
- The next morningTom Bilyeu Live
Drew, on the next morning’s Tom Bilyeu Live show — I was listening — you made a joke about men falling in love with Thai women. Tom said, “That’s on Drew saying that, not me.” I laughed. I also wrote it down.
- May 8
The first open letter, Thank you, Tom & Lisa. I had already started building.
- September 8 & 10
Two more letters, What I got wrong and You already know, bro. I sent the link to Drew. He is the one person on your side of this story who answered every time.
- September 112:54 a.m.
Up early again for the masterclass. The link had not come. I emailed; Drew sent it in two minutes. Credit where due.
- September 115 a.m.
I tried to pay $500 during the live AI show to join Zero to Founder. Your checkout demanded an SMS phone verification that does not work from Thailand. I was ready with a bank wire, PayPal, a bank scan, and any card you wanted. I wrote to Delia and your admin. The show ended at 3 p.m. your time; by 6 p.m. my time nobody had come to take my money. If I ran a car lot the way y’all let me walk away with my wallet in hand today, I’d be broke.
- September 116:26 p.m.
I offered a $500 superchat for the next live show, or a $500 Zero to Founder scholarship for an entrepreneur you and Drew pick, anonymously if you prefer. That offer is still open.
- September 12
The checkout was fixed and I said so: You really heard me and it’s appreciated. I told your team about the exit two years ago, the revenue now, the projects for 2027, and asked for one thing: Set up a call for me. Delia answered the same morning: Founders’ Circle was the better fit, you had invited me to be a founding member when it launched, and here was the link to book your success manager. First I had heard of it.
- September 14
10 ways to improve the show — two videos, thirty minutes of the criticism I would want if I were you, sent to you, Drew, Delia, Ryan, Lisa and Hazel. The scholarship offer again.
- September 17
The booking link offered your success manager only between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. my time. I sleep from 8 to 4, which I had told Delia six months earlier. I asked for anything between 3 and 8 p.m. Los Angeles. I got the auto-reply promising a human within 24 to 48 hours. That was forty-eight days ago. It was my third request for a call. Nobody has responded.
- September 17 & 18
I paid $9 for the wrong Discord trying to reach you. Drew sent the right link. Drew again.
- October 1
The fourth letter, Thank you, bro: where four of your sentences now sit, credited, on the sites.
- October 30
Three bids on ploy.com, and a counter from my wife at one million dollars. Lawyers this week. I called it in April, in writing, to your team.
- November 4
An official offer: $1,000,000 for ploy.com. We held it on a lease option — $800 a month for six months, $4,800 in all, with a $150,000 option price. That is the deal I described to your team in April.
What I did with your tools
Your mindset. Your money rules. Claude at the keyboard. Six months.
16websites built, one idea typed at a time
46more domain names — assets, as you taught me to call them
$1Man official offer for her domain, six months after I called it — held on a $800-a-month lease option
$1Moffered, for her and our three sons
We are selling one domain name, and only one. The proceeds fund the rest of what your AI Masterclass got me building. Three of them:
- Transcendent.com — a one-year vow for men in a village in Surin, Thailand.
- Logotherapist.com — a library on Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy, checked against the sources: what it is, what the evidence says, how to train.
- EnglishTeacher.com — free English pronunciation practice for Thai children, on one phone.
Five things to fix before Thursday’s masterclass
What two masterclasses looked like from Thailand. Not to punish anyone. Because the next man like me will be in Thursday’s room, and then at your checkout.
2
Follow up the same day
A man who paid to join in January, was sent to a different group, then tried to pay you $500 more and could not, is the warmest lead you will ever have. Nobody called.
FixEvery failed checkout gets a human email within four hours, with a way to pay.
3
Book calls in Asia’s hours
Your success manager’s calendar runs 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. in Bangkok. That is not a time slot, it is a wall.
FixOne block a week between 3 and 8 p.m. Pacific. Say so on the booking page.
4
Answer the auto-reply
“Within 24 to 48 hours” is a promise. Forty-eight days is a different promise.
FixAnyone who has paid you a dollar gets a person, not a canned response, inside two business days.
5
Tell founders the Founders’ Circle exists
I had listened to you every morning for six months and learned of it from a support email. If it is the right room for men who already exited, say so on air and on the ZTF page.
FixOne sentence in every ZTF pitch: “Already running a business? Founders’ Circle is the room for you.”
About the joke
Drew, this one is for you and Ryan.
I told your team I was buying ploy.com for my wife because I love her and I was going to make her rich from it. The next morning, on Tom Bilyeu Live, I listened to the joke about men who fall in love with Thai women. Fair enough. Here is the scoreboard six months later: the domain has an official offer of one million dollars on it, and the woman I fell in love with is the registrant.
Well, boys. This weekend Tom goes home to Lisa and I go home to Ploy, and both of them call us hero. What are Drew and Ryan doing?
What’s the lesson? No one cares. No one is coming to save any of us. Just do it, bro.
If you are an entrepreneur, you just do it. You fall forward. You let people make fun of you. You love it. We are gladiators in the arena of business, and for the two percent in the crowd with the guts to fight for a hero’s journey: I’ll see you on the battlefield of business. Where legends live.
None of this changes what I owe you.
I learned to treat a domain name as an asset from you. I learned to ship the imperfect thing from you. I learned to get up at three in the morning for a room full of strangers from you. The sites I built are full of your sentences, each one credited, and they will be for as long as they are up. Your staff dropped the ball. You never did. You are someone I trust and someone I love, and I would not write this page to a man I did not.
The $500 scholarship is still yours to give to whoever you choose. The seats in Thailand are still booked in my head. And I still owe you a thank-you in person.
The invitation stands
The suite, the elephants, the village, Ploy’s van. Drew’s seat is still there, and Lisa’s.
Say the word and I will book the flights.
We love you, bro.
Ben and Ploy Cunningham
thankyoubilyeu.com
How to reach me
Emailben@usaenglish.com
WhereChiang Mai, Thailand — 15 hours ahead of Los Angeles