The One-Person Billion Dollar Business

If you are new here, hello—my name is Gary Farnham, and I am curious. I like to say I never made it out of the "why" phase. I am viciously curious about the way things work, why we are here, and how humans behave. This curiosity has led me to a wide range of books and informational content, lands very unfamiliar to where I grew up, deep conversations with homeless individuals on park benches, and mansions in the Hollywood Hills. Up until a little over a year ago, all that I had learned and experienced had been confined to the inside of my own skull and the pages of my personal journals.

Then, I began to share. It started with posts on Medium, which you can find here: https://medium.com/@chatg. Since then, it has transformed into this newsletter, which is growing each day. I have always said, if just one person reads something I write and learns something new or has a brighter day because of it, I am satisfied. If you have made it this far and are still reading, thank you. I appreciate you, and this is just the beginning.

Now, onto today's piece:

As a precursor to this article, please take a look at the clip below, in which Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, shares that he discusses with other tech CEOs when (not if) there will be a one-person company valued at a billion dollars.

Gone are the days of putting butts in seats and throwing people at problems. Couple this with the following:

And you get a vision into the future of entrepreneurship and the labor market.

If you are a business owner, you have likely said to yourself, "It just seems like nobody wants to work anymore," or, to quote Jack Johnson, "Where'd all the good people go?"

If you click and scroll down the thread, as this tweet shows, there is a written record of this same sentiment since 1894. So what gives?

I believe that in all of the newspaper clippings shown above, there were likely a wide range of different reasons why people felt this way, and I am sure you have your own. I am going to share mine for the present day… and the solution.

People are working; they are just working for themselves. It has never been this easy to be an entrepreneur. I do not mean that it is easier to achieve success as an entrepreneur or build an empire. I am not implying that these individuals are all budding JBs or Elons. However, it is easier than ever to possess the infrastructure required to run and operate a business with little starting capital or assistance from outside parties and to generate a fairly significant income from it. In many cases, this income, after expenses, is equivalent to or greater than that of a paycheck as an employee, with added freedom.

Use no-code tools to build a website for your product or service. Start a social media page and build content with Opus Pro, and create marketing campaigns using Jasper.ai to run ads on said social media page. Accept payments via Stripe. Establish a company via Stripe Atlas, where its $500 setup fee includes:

• Formation of a company in Delaware

• Delaware state filing fees

• Signed documents to establish company bylaws and protect IP

• A tool to issue stock to founders

• The first year of registered agent fees

• Tax ID (EIN) filing

• Stripe Atlas Community membership

• Templates for post-formation legal needs

Create presentations using Beautiful.ai, automate manual tasks with Zapier or Harpa.ai, and ask your relatively all-knowing executive assistant, ChatGPT-4, for analysis, first-draft writing, code help, and many other ancillary tasks. Build an online course and nurture your customers or clients on Skool.com. You get the picture: combine a basket of online AI-powered tools that, as they progress, could give one person enhanced capacity, productivity and the ability to operate from anywhere.

Whatever your thoughts on this are, and whether it is feasible or not, due to a lot of popular content in certain circles on social media, this is a thought in the minds of young people. I introduce to you Iman Gadzhi, a 23-year-old who has his 4.5 million YouTube followers convinced that they can do far better than they ever would as an employee and even live lavishly by being an online agency owner (by using his SaaS, of course). But regardless, he may be onto something.

Of course, you must have a product or service that actually provides value to your target market, and that is arguably the hardest part, but the point here is that it is relatively accessible to have a very lean startup on your hands. If you have the skills, can sell, and provide value, there are very few barriers to setting up your own gig and bringing in clients and income.

Some of the most ambitious, innovative, and forward-thinking people I know, who are the “good people” you are looking for, are out on their own, offering a product or service online.

The demands of employers to be an outstanding employee are high, and with the effort and skills required to meet these demands, Gen Z, who has been told their whole lives that the only way to develop wealth in the US is to own a business, is opting for just that. They are putting their effort and skills toward their own business and seeing how far they can take it, rather than doing that for someone else.

And if they aren’t making it with just one of these online businesses, they string a few different offers together to make enough to pay the bills.

I believe the younger generation has listened to the sound advice of those before us; fail early, fail fast, take risks, and are venturing into the unknown of being a business owner early on. They are learning from their mistakes and being scrappy to find something that will pay the bills and then some and most importantly, on their terms. If the energy, resources, and luck required to climb the corporate ladder and the energy to build a viable business are around the same, wouldn’t you test your luck and give the business route a go? Worst case, you fail and end up working for someone else, but along with this, countless skills were acquired that will lead to success in future ventures. Best case, it works and and you find yourself operating a successful business.

Never before have you had a wider customer pool and more accessibility to tools to operate and establish a business. Sure, some may fail, and some may learn entrepreneurship is not for them, but valuable skills will be learned regardless.

I believe those good people you are looking for are working for themselves, paying the bills with self-employed funds, and working when and where they want to.

Sure, you may argue this isn’t beneficial for today's businesses that are struggling to find, keep, and maintain good talent, but these are the next generation of entrepreneurs who will go on to create the lean, efficient, innovative, one-person billion-dollar businesses solving the problems of tomorrow.

For those with skills and ambition, all roads lead to entrepreneurship. It is more accessible than ever before in history.

For the prime movers who would make great employees, all roads lead to entrepreneurship.

Why not give it a go?

Will there be a one-person Billion Dollar Business?

Who is John Galt?

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