Is it possible to become a one-person unicorn? | Hacker News Reader

Is it possible to become a one-person unicorn?

3 pointszavg10 comments

Is it possible to become a one-person unicorn? (e.g., to build the company that is worth $1B)

Let's do the figures.

1) Let's count for simplicity that project valuation equals to 10 Annual Revenues. That means that the annual income should be $100M, and monthly income is ~$8M

2) $8M means 400'000 clients paying $20/month.

3) 400'000 paying customers means 20'000'000 total users. (since average conversion is about 2%).

4) There are 5.5 billion internet users worldwide. So 20M users are 0.35% of the total audience.

So, probably, it is achievable to find a specific niche product for these particular 0.35% of the users that is possible to build solo. AI-powered solutions fits even better to this concept.

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assuming one-person means one employee, i think it's possible if you allow contractors. however, even then i think it would probably be more economical to hire employees. there's just so much diversity of skill needed to maintain and monitor a service at that scale. of course it depends on what the business is. maybe there is a niche that works.

the way you present the scenario isn't conducive to achieving "one-person unicorn" though. the way to do it would be for an already successful entrepreneur to raise a lot of VC money at a $1B valuation before having a product or customers at all.

I know of two: Craigslist and Plenty Of Fish.

Are they 1-person projects? Also, Minecraft was build solo by Notch, I guess.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang_Studios helped with minecraft, even before the MS purchase.

As an employee of Mojang Studios, Jens Bergensten had been co-developing Minecraft with Persson since 2010.

Possible? Yes. Likely? Is the end goal to own a unicorn? Become a billionaire? Or something else? What are you optimizing for?

I am rich and have no idea what to do - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42579873 - Jan 2025

I'm just trying to elaborate on Sam Altman's idea that one-person unicorns are comping https://x.com/alexisohanian/status/1752753792058294725?s=46&...

It is free to say things on interviews and in the media, while your own time and how you spend it is non renewable. If you can make ends meet and you're spending your days on work you enjoy, that's the most anyone can ask for.

This means that you will be dealing with 20M humans and 400k paying ones. They come with a lot of requests, questions and demands. From many jurisdictions. Not to forget tax laws.

At some point you will find it easier and cheaper to integrate rather than buy every service. And maybe even more fun to work with a great team.

I am assuming that lots of things will be automated (maybe even using AI). Like the legal things, support, payment processing and so on.

I'm just trying to elaborate on Sam Altman's idea https://fortune.com/2024/02/04/sam-altman-one-person-unicorn...

Here is the original link to Sam Altman's statement

https://x.com/alexisohanian/status/1752753792058294725?s=46&...

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