Wall Street Journal: AI Empowers 'One-Person Companies': Solo Founders Can Earn $1 Million Annually

Last December, Ben Broca founded a company that provides artificial intelligence (AI) tools for entrepreneurs. Today, he has acquired 10,000 paying customers, and his company is on track to generate $10 million in revenue this year. Yet, there’s one thing he hasn’t done: hire new employees.

The 40-year-old entrepreneur represents a growing cohort: individuals who launch companies alone and often continue to operate them solo. AI tools not only help Broca reply to emails, write code, and debug programs but also handle customer requests, onboard new subscribers, and issue refunds when issues arise.

Broca enjoys the freedom of making decisions independently, often working from his sunlit living room in Sausalito, California. "I believe compromise only leads to mediocre outcomes," he says.

At one time, running a sizable business required a team. AI is overturning this notion, as more aspiring entrepreneurs choose to go it alone.

An analysis by payments company Stripe shows there are now thousands of solo operators on its platform earning over $1 million annually. This group has doubled in size between 2023 and 2025. Over the same period, the number of solo founders earning over $10 million has nearly tripled.

"In the past, people without business networks or specific entrepreneurial instincts might not have known how to bring their ideas to life," says Ernie Tedeschi, Stripe’s chief economist. "Now, AI can be a constant business partner."

AI’s ability to handle administrative tasks gives it potential to empower solo ventures across many fields. Moreover, the technology excels at critical technical tasks like coding, making the tech sector a hotspot for solo entrepreneurship.

Taylor Bowley, an economist at the Bank of America Institute, analyzed Census Bureau data and found that applications for new businesses in the information sector grew by nearly 45% over the past year—the largest increase among all industries. Meanwhile, among all sectors, the share of information-sector applicants explicitly stating plans to hire employees declined the most.

While the Census Bureau dataset doesn’t specifically track solo-run businesses, the data broadly indicates that applications from companies planning to hire employees have remained flat across industries—including tech—while other types of applications have generally risen. Economists say this is a strong signal that the solo founder population is expanding.

"The barrier to starting a business has never been lower," says Julian Weisser, who runs an accelerator in San Francisco for solo tech founders. The program offers seed funding and mentorship in exchange for equity. In its latest cohort, 10 spots attracted 4,500 applicants—nearly five times the number from when the program launched in May last year.

The cost of going solo with AI can still be surprisingly high. Broca said he once paid to use Anthropic’s Claude to handle customer requests, during which time he was losing money on many customer accounts. Like other AI companies, Anthropic charges based on usage. He has since switched to free, open-source AI models from China.

Broca says he has raised $30 million from investors and, by not needing to hire a team of software engineers, has saved millions in salary costs.

Another risk: if one entrepreneur can easily launch an AI-assisted business, others can replicate the model just as easily. This worries founders like Troy Johnston, who runs an AI-assisted business solo in Orlando, Florida.

"Now everyone has a sword; we all have the ability to draw that magic sword," says the 40-year-old Johnston. He used AI to code a program that helps people maximize credit card benefits. His company generates about $3,000 in monthly profit without any employees and continues to grow.

The impact of solo businesses on the labor market remains unclear. Polls show Americans fear AI will replace human jobs, and top economists are examining this possibility. Yet AI is also creating vast new employment opportunities, and these solo founders demonstrate that the technology can open new doors while potentially limiting traditional job opportunities.

"If every company hires fewer people, but the total number of companies quadruples, what does that mean for overall employment?" asks Rembrand Koning, an associate professor of entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School. A recent study he co-authored found that among the 50,000 startups examined, those focused on AI typically operated with 25% fewer employees.

Koning also believes that a tough hiring environment, leading to prolonged job searches, has pushed more people to try entrepreneurship.

Other founders cite different motivations. "It’s like a perfect storm: post-pandemic career burnout, reevaluating personal priorities, the booming AI landscape, and the allure of infinite possibilities—all converging," says Samir Ahmad, a 39-year-old living in Bangorville, Pennsylvania.

Two years ago, Ahmad quit his nearly 20-year corporate job at Verizon to launch a solo coaching and consulting business. He had seen many social media posts promoting AI’s convenience and advantages, so he used AI to draft his business plan and assist with marketing. "It was like my chief of staff, my second-in-command," he says.

However, the business quietly folded within months, and Ahmad is now back at a utility company as a full-time employee.

For 41-year-old Claire Vo, AI helped turn a fleeting idea into a business. In late 2023, while still working full-time as a tech executive, she used AI to help write the code for an app designed to help her manage documentation and design for new products—used by companies across industries from financial services to healthcare.

"I was just copy-pasting from ChatGPT at the time," says Vo, who lives in San Francisco.

She launched the app at $1 per month, and within weeks, it had thousands of downloads. Nearly three years later, Vo’s company now has 100,000 users and is on track to generate seven-figure profits this year. She ran the company solo for nine months before hiring engineers. Today, AI handles marketing, sales, and customer support.

While AI is a shortcut, Vo says her industry connections and credibility were key to her success. "I feel people overemphasize the convenience of AI and underestimate the effort I put in to get here," she says.