Solo Entrepreneur
“Solo Entrepreneur” – A cartoon that illustrates how advances in software tooling are making it very possible we will soon have a 1-person unicorn company (one that is valued over $1BN).
The evolution of technology development has significantly reduced the number of personnel required to build and scale tech companies.
Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator, mentioned that startups can now achieve revenues between $1M to $10M annually with teams of under 10 people, a feat previously considered unattainable without larger teams.
He noted that tasks which once required 50 to 100 engineers can now be accomplished by a team of 10 proficient in vibe coding.
Sam Altman went a step further, when he said AI will soon allow a founder to surpass a billion-dollar valuation without hiring a single employee, even sharing that he has a betting pool among CEO friends on when it will happen.
He thought the most likely candidate for this single employee is a creator, empowered by AI agents to handle editing, research, outreach, and admin, thereby freeing the creator to focus entirely on content and growth.
One way we are seeing this materialize today is the new focus on the Revenue Per Employee (RPE) metric, which measures the average revenue generated by each employee.
For example, General Motors reported an RPE of approximately $1.2M, with a workforce of 162,000 employees and Disney‘s RPE stands at about $411K, supported by 225,000 employees.
Meanwhile, with approximately 42 employees and an annual revenue of $1.3BN, OnlyFans achieves a RPE of $31M per employee.
Sources:
Paolo Confino (Feb 04, 2024) – Could AI create a one-person unicorn? Sam Altman thinks so—and Silicon Valley sees the technology ‘waiting for us’ – Fortune
Noah Sheidlower (Jun 28, 2024) – More and more solo entrepreneurs are raking in $1 million. Here are the industries where business is booming. – Business Insider
Kaushik Tiwari (Mar 11, 2025) – The Rise Of The One-Person Unicorn: How AI Agents Are Redefining Entrepreneurship – Forbes
