Is it Possible to Build a One-Person Billion Dollar Company?
This is exactly how I picture this would look.
A few months ago I was at an event where one of the speakers was talking about how transformative generative AI is for start-ups. Not only could you use these new tools to build products, but likely you could also use them to reduce the number of people you need in a start-up. He claimed that it may now be possible to build a billion-dollar start-up with only one person!
As I was starting up Snowdrop at the same time, I thought it would be interesting to see if it is in fact possible to do this, and to document the kinds of help I’d personally need along the way, and whether existing AI-enabled tools are good enough to not have to hire people to do the usual start-up things.
I’ll likely keep adding to this post as Snowdrop matures but right out of the gate there are several areas that I don’t have the inclination or ability to do.
Here they are, together with the best tools I could find that claim to automate these, and my experiences using them.
Thing #1: Accounting and Bookkeeping
A necessary part of running a business is keeping your accounting in order. All your expenses, income, and all that need to be correct. To put it mildly, this is not my strength.
Usually one of the first things I do with a new startup is find a good accountant to make sure the books are exceptionally well done, taxes are properly handled, that sort of thing. While it’s hard to imagine being able to completely get away from this part of the business, it seems like an ideal candidate for AI-enabled automation!
Thing #2: Legal, Including Company Legal & Intellectual Property Protection
The very first thing I usually do when starting a new company is call up a corporate lawyer friend to remind me what needs to be done. They send over a long list of stuff which then I fill out and send back to them. This includes incorporation, business permits, articles of incorporation, employment contract templates, stuff like that.
Once the company gets going, from time to time corporate lawyers help with things like altering the board of directors, having properly defined and executed annual general meetings, contracts, and personnel issues (but in this case maybe this won’t come up :-) ),
For most of these things, I’m good just engaging directly with the lawyers to get what I want. I generally don’t hire in-house counsel unless it’s obviously required, and for Snowdrop it seems unlikely I’d ever want to.
However there is a different type of legal thing that I usually do hire someone to take care of: intellectual property protection. This includes drafting and filing patents, managing external patent lawyers, interacting with patent examiners, deciding which jurisdictions and type of patents to file, and generally managing all parts of the patent process. This also includes protecting software using a variety of approaches to keeping code proprietary.
I wonder if it’s possible to use generative AI techniques to turn invention disclosures into patents?
Thing #3: Marketing, Including Social Media, Community, and PR Management
I love coming up with marketing and communications strategies, and I also love executing on aspects of both. However this sort of thing is very difficult and time consuming to do well. I would want to have my fingers deep into all of this stuff, but I would like to have a lot of help.
Here’s some things I don’t like or don’t know how to do: press releases, being on social media too much, setting up interviews with press (doing them is fine!), setting up and broadcasting online competitions, and establishing an online community for building game playing agents and answering questions.
Thing #4: Browser-based Game Development and Upkeep (Full Stack Software Engineering)
I am a pretty good python developer, but I don’t know anything about how modern web app development works. Is it possible to build what’s essentially a software company with one enthusiastic amateur python developer?
Thing #5: Financing via Capital Raises
I’m very good at raising capital, but I don’t necessarily want to have to do this at Snowdrop for two reasons: (1) I don’t want to give away any equity or control unless what I get back is worth a huge amount; and (2) raising money is not very fun, and I don’t think Snowdrop needs a lot of cash anyway, especially since we only have one employee :-)
Thing #6: Financing via Government Programs (IRAP, SRED, MITACS, Supercluster, DARPA, etc.)
We have a very good government financing system in Canada for very early-stage companies. It’s terrible once a company gets going. But at the very beginning, there is a lot of capital available, generally to match other sources the company brings in. As I’m using my own money to fund this, I’d like to get as much government leverage as possible. Usually I hire someone to take care of all of this (generally the accountant!).
Thing #7: Sales, Including Managing Customer Transactions
I’ve never set up a browser-game based business before, and I’m still not sure what I have in mind for monetization is a good idea and/or will work. My current thinking is that Tangled is free to play for small game boards, but you have to pay per play if you enter one of the competitions where you can win money. So the pay per play thing needs to be set up, and the mechanism for payout of winnings also needs to be set up. There is also the possibility that Sales could involve outreach to and communication with groups who could build competing AI systems. There could also be merch possibilities, but that might be more trouble than it’s worth — could the entire merch chain from order-taking to shipping be automated?