Staff-less Founding with AI, the Era of AI-Armed "Solopreneur" Officially Begins

AI Agents Handle Complex Tasks Seamlessly
Even Small Organizations See Big Efficiency Gains
Mastery of Content Construction Becomes Key to Survival

The age in which founding a company required large capital, specialized personnel, and a systematic organization is ending. The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technology has shaken up the startup ecosystem, opening an era in which high-quality services can be built solely with one person’s idea and AI — the so-called “Solopreneur.” As we move from the IT era to the AI era, startup trends are changing accordingly.

Even Coding Beginners Can Launch a Startup with AI

According to sources in the AI and tech industries on December 8, one-person startups led by solopreneurs have recently become a familiar form in the startup world. “Solopreneur,” a portmanteau of “solo” and “entrepreneur,” refers to an entrepreneur who carries out the entire process of founding — from planning to development to operation — alone. At first glance, it might look like freelancing, but structurally it is different.

If a freelancer puts in their labor to do someone else’s work and gets paid, a solopreneur sets up a revenue pipeline that runs automatically once built. Courses, apps, or digital products created once generate recurring revenue through automated online sales. While a freelancer replaces someone’s work, a solopreneur systemizes their own work to generate income repeatedly.

At the center of this change is generative AI. AI is creating an era in which founders without technical background can establish and operate a company alone — bringing about a revolutionary change in the startup ecosystem over recent years. In particular, “Vibe Coding (natural-language coding)” is the core engine of the solopreneur. Even without specialized development knowledge, one can implement a service using AI tools. This environment encourages people with just an idea to attempt entrepreneurship.

One-person Startup Ratio Doubled

In the United States, already last year among a total of 43,492 startups, 35 % were counted as solopreneur companies — demonstrating their presence. This is more than double compared to 2015 (17 %). A prominent example of successful one-person startup using AI is a former New York branch head of a major ride-hailing company, Josh More. After launching a voice-summary app called WaveAI in 2023, he grew it into a business generating monthly revenue of USD 330,000 in just eight months. Despite only having marketing and business experience, he knew little about front-end (user-facing interface) or back-end (invisible backend) development at the time of founding. Yet, he self-taught coding using ChatGPT and successfully built the app by himself.

Another example often cited is Sarah Gwilliam, a typical solopreneur. She is neither a software engineer nor an AI expert. However, after losing her father, she founded Solace — an AI-based startup aimed at helping people like her overcome grief and sort out a deceased loved one’s estate. She co-founded the company with AI, without a single employee. Although still in its early stage, Solace receives support from AI-based startup incubator Audos for online and social-media operations, marketing, product development, and back-office management — all assisted by AI.

In Israel, developer Maor Shlomo founded a vibe-coding platform company, Base44, which was sold in June — just six months after its founding — to local website-builder giant for USD 80,000,000. Shlomo developed the first version of Base44 alone, then later hired 8 people. In Korea, AI meeting-note startup Cluely, led by Roy Lee, raised USD 15,000,000 in Series A funding with a small number of staff. That round was reportedly led by US top venture capital firm a16z.

In Korea as well, interest in solopreneurs has recently surged. According to the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, last year the number of one-person startups for the first time exceeded 1,000,000. That accounts for 20 % of all startups. In China — where cheap AI models are growing rapidly — the number of AI-based individual entrepreneurs is also increasing. In response, Chinese local governments actively court one-person companies (OPCs) as a way to leverage AI potential. For example, in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, eastern China, a “OPC service union” was launched to support individual entrepreneurs; Shanghai designated a building in Jin’an District for one-person businesses and provided office space and computing resources.

Even “Blockbuster-Level” Movies Produced by One Person

In the content industry, the wave of solopreneurs is swelling. With only AI tools, it has become possible for a single person to produce blockbuster-level videos. The most direct impact of AI on the content industry is efficiency. Even producing comparable video content now requires dramatically less time and cost. What once required massive manpower and capital for large-scale CG and special visual effects can now be replaced with a single prompt. For example, in the AI film “Middle-Lands” by Studio Freeillusion, all 18 creatures appearing in the film were synthesized by AI.

AI also alleviates the director’s concerns about visualization. Filmmakers can get hints from AI on how to visualize ideas as images or video. The production company Mofax-Studio, which made an animation of the life of Jesus called “King of Kings,” built AI previsualization combining Unreal Engine and open-source models. Directors can input or modify prompts and preview scenes they envisioned, or change them easily. The filming process has also changed. Instead of building sets at great cost and time, virtual sets generated by AI are used. With just a green screen and AI background composition, shooting scenes that look almost real is possible. In a purely AI-produced video production, there is no filming set at all — no camera, no actors — much like traditional animation without actors or a camera.

Thanks to this, an individual with only AI can now dream of a unicorn (an unlisted company valued at USD 1,000,000,000 or more). A few years ago, it would take months or even years to build and test a product or service. But now, one can create a minimum viable product (MVP) and test it within 24 hours. AI tools support everything from idea to design, production, marketing, and customer service. Even founders without technical background can use AI tools to solve real-world problems and challenge global markets with minimal human resources.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has also expressed a positive outlook on the solopreneur phenomenon. He emphasized that “with a laptop, an internet connection, and a legion of AI agents, a one-person company generating USD 1,000,000,000 in revenue is possible” — stressing that mastering AI tools can make a one-person unicorn no problem.