#11: The Billion-Dollar Solo Act

We're back. Welcome to our new subscribers.

AI moves at warp speed, yet daily conversations with friends "outside the bubble" remind me how massive the adoption gap remains.

That's why we're here. No regurgitated AI news—just doers exploring high-level business unlocks and roll-up-your-sleeves tactics that actually move the needle.

Let's crack on.

First, a quick preview of the first Inside Track product I’m brewing on:

One of the hardest parts of using AI is making it part of your actual workflows in meaningful ways.

I’m building a Notion workspace designed to help you do just that.

It’s based on my own daily systems—planning, content, research, delegation—and built to help you move from casual prompting to habitual leverage.

🔥 Read more and grab it while pre-orders are open

💡 One Idea

The Billion-Dollar Solo Act

The first true solo unicorns are coming – and they'll rewrite business as we know it.

When Sam Altman famously said that "AI will break capitalism," most interpreted this as hyperbole about automation displacing workers. But there's a far more interesting interpretation – one that's already unfolding: AI is breaking the scaling laws of companies themselves.

The New Math of Business

Throughout history, building something massive required armies of people. The internet's first wave gave individuals distribution superpowers, but execution remained a bottleneck.

AI is dismantling that last barrier.

The new equation is simple:

What will be possible for those who nail this combination?

Early Signals

The precursors are already emerging:

• Mr. Beast built a $500M empire with a relatively small team

• Pieter Levels generates $3M+ annually running multiple SaaS products solo

• Ali Abdaal scaled to $10M+ revenue with just a handful of contractors

The next wave will push these boundaries further. Can one person with the right AI stack match the output previously requiring 50 employees? 100?

I think so.

Will it be possible to build solo unicorns? Companies consisting of a singular founder/creator with a swarm of AI agents valued at north of a billion dollars?

I think so.

Why This Works

Three key factors make solo unicorns possible:

1. Time multiplication: AI systems work 24/7 across multiple domains simultaneously

2. Knowledge extension: LLMs can apply specialized knowledge across dozens of disciplines

3. Administrative elimination: Automation of operations that previously required entire departments

This isn't about replacing humans with AI. It's about creating entirely new operating models where human creativity is amplified to unprecedented degrees.

How You Should Think About It

Businesses are systems. When you start a new business, it's a small system – you, your objectives, and tasks. As you scale, that system grows in complexity. Traditionally, this happens through adding human team members.

I think there's another path: growing your business capacity via AI as the foundational architecture from day one.

How far can you take your business idea by treating it as a system that grows with AI? First through thoughtfully crafted, reusable prompts. Later through automated systems and autonomous agents?

I would (am) approaching it this way:

• Identify and delegate highly specific tasks that win back some time

• Do the above multiple times for compound effect

• Embrace experimentation and play

• Document everything (makes for easier AI delegation when it's time)

The Opportunity Window

We're in a unique moment where solo operators have advantages that won't last forever. As AI capabilities become commoditized, the differential advantage will shrink.

The solo unicorn pioneers will likely come from unexpected places – combining domain expertise with systematic thinking and AI leverage.

The question isn't whether solo unicorns will emerge, but who will build them first – and how they'll reshape what business can be.

🛠️ One Tactic

Using AI to craft a detailed “Ideal Customer Profile” brief for your business

In a previous issue we discussed Ideal Customer Profiles. Many of you wanted a structured process for developing an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) with AI. Here it is; a prompt sequence that takes you through the process.

Defining your ICP early when exploring a new business idea is very useful. It focuses your product development, shapes your messaging, and is a great tool as you build our a business plan. 

With AI tools, having this clarity from the start multiplies your effectiveness across all downstream work.

ICP development can be tedious. This prompt transforms the process into a dynamic conversation where you can explore market segments and test assumptions through conversation, ending up with a full ICP doc. The beauty of this process is that you can also ask the AI questions.

Here’s an example of me going through the steps for a fictional “dog fitness app”. As you can see, I wasn’t sure of the answer to this question. The AI did some online research for me to come up with a data-backed answer.

Here’s how to use it:

1. Get the prompt here. 

2. Copy-paste it into ChatGPT

3. Go through the steps

4. Save the output document for future use

This document is great to use as context for other tasks. Want to workshop some marketing copy? Drop in the ICP as an attachment to instantly focus the AI. 

That’s it for today. Thanks!

– Martin