Could AI unlock a one-person unicorn? Serial founder John Rush thinks
so.
AI-powered automation is reshaping startups. This founder believes it could soon make solo entrepreneurs capable of building billion-dollar companies.
Whether it's agents, models or tools, AI firms are dropping new developments pretty much every day. It's especially exciting for indie hackers, who are well-positioned to profit from the tech.
But you don't need me to tell you this. The vast majority of IHers (78%) see AI as an opportunity, according to a recent poll we ran on X. If you're one of them, you're probably already equipped with coding skills, an entrepreneurial mindset and the freedom to experiment. Could AI take you to the moon?
Serial founder John Rush is confident it can. He's launched more than 20 businesses and brings home over $2 million ARR. And over the last few months, he's already put AI behind much of his sales and marketing.
Within five years, he believes we'll already have 10 $1 billion companies where "most of the work has been done by AI."
Sound outlandish? Well, it shouldn't. Just think of Youtube and video creators.
"AI is a form of leverage," Rush said. "Mr Beast has built a billion dollar company there. Without Youtube, it wouldn't be possible and wasn’t ever done before by a such an outsider with very little resources."
An AI for everything
So how can you make the most of this opportunity? Let's start at the beginning — ideation.
Rush suggests making an AI-first version of an existing tool, where the user interacts with AI to get the task done. Create a UX where the user can talk with the tool in natural language, as if they were having a conversation with a regular human employee.
To get that UX right, he recommends looking to AI agents like Devin, or his own AI tool SEObot. "Take risks on the UX side and build as if you’re building an artificial intelligence rather than a tool."
With every traditional tool a target for reinvention, "there are like one million ideas up for grabs," Rush says. "There's no need to even make a list. Pick any existing product that works and redo it with 'AI-first.'"
If an AI-first tool isn't for you, you can still use an LLM like ChatGPT to brainstorm and work through simple business ideas.
"I chat with ChatgGPT every hour, all day long," Rush said. "It replaces my tutors, teachers, cofounders, brainstorming friends and more. It’s my biz copilot."
Simplify your workflow
What if you've already got an idea or a working business? You can give AI plenty of the tasks you're still doing yourself.
First and most obvious is text and content creation. It's what LLMs like GPT are designed to do. "Legal documents, terms and conditions, blog posts, emails and the list goes on," Rush said. "This used to take so much time, now it takes 100-1000x less hours."
But AI can help with a whole lot more. Design, accounting, coding. "Pretty much everything that an indie hacker does day to day."
Yes, AI will make mistakes. It can't do everything perfectly just yet. But neither can most of the other tools and services you might use for your startup.
AI tools "can only do the 95% of the work," Rush said. But "it’s a 20x productivity boost anyways."
In his own businesses, Rush ultimately wants AI to do almost all of the day-to-day work.
He already uses his own AI tools for sales and marketing across his startups. Next, he wants to launch dedicated PR AI agents, an ad agent, an AI agent for accounting, an AI COO for paperwork and an AI project manager that will run his whole organization.
"The end game here is that literally everything is done by AI and I just watch and teach it to do a better job," he said.
The last 10%
So what about that leftover 10% that AI isn't quite good enough for yet? Rush is still doing social media for his personal accounts (because AI just isn't intuitive or emotionally intelligent enough for it), and managing the coding.
Although AI is getting better at coding all the time, it messes up — sometimes critically — without oversight. He's confident coding will still require a human touch for the next decade or so. That's good news for developers who're worried about jobs (although it would be naive to think the market isn't going to get much tougher for employees and freelancers over the next few years).
Ultimately, founders should look at AI agents like staff. Watch their outputs and use your judgement to assess their performance. Give AI feedback and ask it to redo things it gets wrong. And keep in mind the specific things AI is worse at than humans. LLMs struggle to spot fact from fiction and return shaky results with more confidence then they deserve. Knowing your staff's weaknesses can help you improve their outputs.
In the end, "I’d say it’s no different from the traditional biz, where the CEO and employees do this," Rush said. "It’s just that “employees” will be replaced by AI agents."
Creating content is a lot faster for me with AI. But when it's done, I can't just hit post. I end up editing the blog post for a while before I feel good about it.
I have a feeling that markets will self-regulate here to some degree. Even if solo-entrepreneurship like this is possible (which I doubt in some respects), you can't just flood a market with thousands of billion-dollar startups.
We've seen the same thing with app development over the last decade. The app market has been flooded with so many worthless apps, that its much, much harder to get a good app into circulation.
To some degree, a product is valuable because of the challenges overcome when creating it. If everything is just done with a click of a button, wheres the value? The only products that would make it big are the ones that are really revolutionary, which are few and far between.
there are 50,000 billion dollar companies.
technically, it's possible to transition to having 50 million of million-dollar companies(such mine). that's the future I want
Solo-Preneurship will overtake the world soon, AI has proven to be more efficient, more productive, manageable, less overhead
I strongly agree that one-person unicorn is possible (or it will be a must)
so, what makes a unicorn
- fundamental: market needs x new and much better solutions (products), this won't be changed so far like AI can't imagine a new art style. if super intelligence happens, no one can predict
- product dev: this will be insanely fast by using AI
- scale infra: I don't see blockers, cloud infra is built to deal with scaling
- mkt and user/customer acquisition: like hacking codes, online media require content (trend) hacking skills, but if you get it, touching your target users is also 10-100x faster than before. Of course, you can use influencer mkt
- coldstart ventures: this isn't solved yet, now the VC system still requires great background (like stanford or MIT or ...). But as more and more one-person startup, unicorn happens, the venture system will adapt to this
look forward to a fantastic new world of indie makers (coders, hackers, designers, artists, flimmakers ...)
I'm pretty convinced it will. I suspect it will unearth new problems to solve that we havent yet conceptualised or are so obvious they're like 'the water'. Fascinating times. I reckon we're possibly close already.
This is a fascinating look at how AI can turbocharge a solo founder’s productivity—even if we’re still catching up to full automation. I run a project called Brief News Daily (https://www.briefnewsdaily.com), where I use AI to help summarize key headlines and produce concise, engaging briefs. It’s similar to what John Rush describes: treat AI like staff you train and oversee, and stay mindful of what it can’t handle. For indie hackers, it’s an exciting blueprint—use AI where it shines, keep the human touch where it’s still needed, and iterate quickly. It’s inspiring to see the possibilities for one-person unicorns!
LLMs cannot create business value without significant human interaction. It’s a means to an end, not a superpower. There are no shortcuts.
its a good blog thanks for sharing us
It's definitely inspiring to see so many solopreneurs creating amazing services with AI boosting their productivity but at the end of the day, customers want something that can help them solve a pain point, not just a fancy solution with the "AI" buzz word slapped onto it. If everyone can use AI to create a solution, then what would differentiate your SaaS product from the others?
This is exciting!
AI is absolutely changing the way small businesses operate. It's easier than ever for one-person startups to scale to billion-dollar businesses. With AI handling marketing, coding, sales, customer support, and even project management, founders can focus on strategy and innovation. AI isn't perfect, but its efficiency boost is undeniable, making it a powerful tool for indie hackers and small teams. Using AI as a workforce can allow 95% of tasks to be automated, while the remaining 5% needs to be managed. Could the next unicorn be built by one person?
I have the same idea of this article I trust this idea even just one man can use AI tools to build something and later if everything is going well he was the can hire peoples
I believe AI can empower individuals to create unicorn companies, and the concept of 'mass entrepreneurship' will undoubtedly be a future trend. Currently, AI's capabilities already surpass those of the vast majority of humans. Through interaction and collaboration with AI, people can now accomplish tasks that previously required significant time or human resources. In this context, I believe the most crucial thing for humans is to engage in self-reflection and understand the world - analyzing what they truly desire and what humanity needs. We should utilize tools like AI to fulfill both personal aspirations and collective needs, while exploring the world. This will ultimately lead to genuine harmony, happiness, and fulfillment.
An AI virtual assistant will be able to handle everything from scheduling meetings and answering emails to generating marketing content and even basic coding. It's like having a whole team working behind the scenes, without the overhead of actually hiring anyone thereby allowing the "one-person unicorn" to focus on the big-picture stuff: strategy, innovation, and building relationships.
AI is revolutionizing solo entrepreneurship could it create the next one-person unicorn? John Rush shares insights on the future of AI-driven success!
I wanted to delve deeper into this idea, and I found the book on Amazon to be very interesting. I read a book called "One-Person Unicorn", and the author bets on this idea. It's not only possible, but it will also become a reality in 5 to 10 years. I love the concept because I dislike managing people and wish to have a company solely with AI agents.
Human oversight in coding and strategy remains key.
Indeed, AI - powered automation brings unprecedented opportunities for solo entrepreneurs. It can significantly boost efficiency and make up for the lack of manpower. However, to build a one - person unicorn, not only does it rely on technology, but also requires unique business insights, precise market positioning, and continuous innovation. It's a challenging yet highly promising path.
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I suppose that we all will have an AI for everything, it learns way too quickly, a decade is a lot to say
Really great summary of the shifting AI landscape. Do you think opportunities in the space will continue to open up or get saturated in the coming years?
I love how you share everything with us
Nice article, thanks for sharing :)