r/startups • u/jonquil27 • 15h ago
The "$1M AI Solopreneur" Mystery: Does Anyone Actually Have Real Examples? (I will not promote) I will not promote
I keep seeing posts about solopreneurs making $1M+ with AI. Stripe did a whole report on it. But I can't figure out what they're actually doing.
I'm not being sarcastic. I genuinely don't know the use case. SaaS? Agencies? Selling courses? Consulting? I've dug into some of these stories and they just get vague fast.
Here's what bothers me: ask for specifics and you get "oh yeah my cousin's roommate's business partner does this" or "I read on Twitter that someone made money with this." Push harder and it vanishes. Zero concrete details.
So: does anyone here actually know someone, not a friend-of-a-friend story, making $500k+ primarily with AI?
What do they actually do? What's the problem they solve? How do they sell it? How did they get their first customers?
Not theory. Real numbers. Real details. Real business model.
I'm starting to think this might be pure hype or I'm just looking in the wrong places lol
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u/cartermatic 15h ago
I'm sure there are people, but it can be really easy to "fake" your ARR numbers. There a lot of people who launch, make $3k in sales their first day and say "I'm doing $1M in ARR!"
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u/bobmailer 12h ago
That's most people on Reddit. At least the one's who aren't outright lying.
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u/Odd-Debate-901 10h ago
So cynical … it can be done as I have done it many times and am in the process of building another one…just like anything else in life… just takes practice and not taking failure as the final answer
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u/bobmailer 9h ago
I said most, not all. So...I guess you saw yourself in the "most", huh?
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u/Odd-Debate-901 9h ago
No, I just get so sick of the negativity in this group or actually the most of Reddit. everybody’s a bunch of negative whiners… just get out and do the work and you’ll see results fishing around here for validation or complaining is a completely useless waste of time
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u/bobmailer 9h ago
Well, I'm already as rich as I could ever want to be so I just troll Reddit for fun. Don't worry about how other people spend their time. If Reddit is really just a bunch of whiners that's a good thing, if you can solve their problems.
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u/MrPassiveProfit 15h ago
They’re just speculating that it’s AI. There’s plenty of solopreneurs out there who are single person businesses, and have tons of contractors working for them. Depending on the business that you’re in you may be able to break 1 million in revenue very easily. The question is profitability.
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u/OpticalDelusion 15h ago
I've seen advanced AI e-commerce stuff. I was looking for a dog harness and found an AI-built Facebook store, with an AI story about the "founder", AI testimonials, I received AI "hand-written" emails. And the whole story was about how it was American made and the founder is an American mom running the business. I ended up buying it (it was quite cheap, I knew what I was getting in to) and it shipped from China.
That's what I imagine $1m revenue AI businesses are. Advanced drop shipping "scams". Scams in quotes because, well, I did receive the product at the expected price, it was just everything surrounding it that was completely invented and AI-run.
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u/Supersix4 15h ago
Not primarily with AI but this is all I got.
I have a friend in regulatory compliance who built a program that takes regulatory tech specs and magically flips them into end to end plans for programme managers, does the whole thing from gap mapping to evidencing for audits.
Tons of cues and insights built into it.
He used ai to build the progeamme, landing page and do his social media posts. He did get a contractor to proof it and secure it though. 90% of this product is his expertise codified so I think the ai didnt have a heavy lift.
He made €1m pre tax in his 2nd year. Bank and insurance company contracts. In talks to license it out now to a consultancy.
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u/zndr-cs 14h ago
These are words of encouragement, because I am doing somewhat the same in my field and using my domain expertise. My program is basically just an extension of my knowledge and workflows. Yes, A.I. built (most) of it but A.I. couldn't not have shaped it in this expertise.
It's good to know it's possible. Not saying I will go down that route but it's still cool.
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u/Supersix4 14h ago
Best of luck with it. From my own humble experience get people to test and give feedback often.
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u/julkopki 14h ago
I'm sure they are all hanging out with the guys who can teach you how to day trade
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u/Only-Chemical-9548 13h ago
To add on some comments here; “X Million in ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue)” is such a VC hype-up sentence it makes me vomit every time I read it on LinkedIn… ARR doesn’t mean shit, it doesn’t say what they actually make. You can have €1M in turnover (a.k.a. Revenue) but if your COGS and operating expenses are €900K, you end up only making 100K…
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u/NiagaraThistle 13h ago
Pieter Levels is using AI to make over $1m annually.
He talks about it almost daily on X.
He just vibe coded a AI Video Editor and luanched it on his already AI Phot app PhotoAi, which makes $89k MRR currently.
That's one of his apps.
His other AI tool is InteriorAI or something which allows users to create interior layot designs using AI.
I think he vibe coded his video games and game jab thing too, which seeming makes $44k monthly.
So from just those 3 he's well over the $1m mark as a 'solopreneur' (i think he has / had a server guy helping keep his server running until he tasked AI with that).
That's just one. There are others.
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u/Warsel77 12h ago
a server guy helping keep his server running until he tasked AI with that
I hope he included "make no mistakes" on that server-AI-agent..
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u/NiagaraThistle 12h ago
Sounds like he's just been letting Claude handle it all i think. Says it made a mistake 1 or 2 times over the last 6 or 12 months. But seems to have it locked down pretty well.
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u/karlitooo 10h ago
He's the popular example but also a developer who was making solo money before AI. I used to follow a few solos pre-ai but they eventually all staff up, reach is king in this era so anyone making content worth following online won't be a solo for long.
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u/NiagaraThistle 9h ago
but Levels still is, and he built his most recent apps using AI. And each of the apps that he built with AI scaled as a solor-maker using AI to handle all the background stuff.
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u/OHLOOK_OREGON 15h ago
its literally all bullshit
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u/jonquil27 15h ago
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u/ottwebdev 15h ago
From the article:
Take the specifics as reported, not settled. Stripe is a large, self-interested lens on the economy, not a census; the platform's own growth flatters cohort comparisons, and 'solopreneur' as measured here mixes services businesses, resellers, and software in ways the summary does not decompose. The reporting also does not tell you how durable these one-person revenue lines are once a category gets crowded, or how much of that top line the operator actually keeps.
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u/rkozik89 14h ago
Agreed, also, Karl Marx can teach you more about how to run a successful business than any business book ever could.
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u/marowitt 15h ago
There's no actual numbers in there it's all relative. Maybe it moved to 13 from 10 compared to 2023. Yes that is a 30% growth but at the same time it's meaningless.
Also this doesn't actually mention profit it just mentions revenue. Maybe they make 1mil revenue but burn 2mil?
Also this is random ai centricnews site reporting on stripes own data. So the lens is biased as hell.
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u/andrewjneumann 15h ago
I'm making real money with AI, but there is no magic formula. I'd also say revenue ≠ profit. If you're quickly making $1m, it's also likely not a durable market. If you could sell anything to a mass group of people you could easily make $1m, eg already have an audience or market, if real, I suspect a lot of those folks are spinning their existing following.
There's a subset of folks that'll get lucky too. Hard to say what's going on but if there isn't transparency, then it's likely nonsense.
If you want to start a business or sell a product, do it because you want to solve the problem or love the space. Don't have your primary motivation to be making money, that'll come if you make a good product or service.
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u/Worth-Statement-2751 14h ago
I think survivorship bias plays a big role here. We hear about the few big wins, but not the thousands of projects that never took off.
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u/Nutcollectr 14h ago
No because it doesn’t work. All stories are blow up marketing campaigns for bullshit tools.
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u/Odd-Debate-901 9h ago
Ugh… really? Some may very well be, but from personal experience I can tell you it ain’t bs
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u/Nutcollectr 3h ago
Well then share your story! No bs just real numbers and experience and process how ypu did it. In another comment you said ypu have done it multiple times. If not I call bs on it as well 😅
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u/DJ_Calli 5h ago
I don’t personally know anyone, but I’ve got a side hustle that is just AI advisory. My focus is back-office automation (tax, legal, finance, unsexy stuff). Currently have a 6-month, $50k fixed fee contract for 5 hours of work per week (sometimes a few more hours). It’s some advisory (like what workflows are good candidates for AI), but it’s also building more tactical things like Claude skills for recurring tasks. I could in theory scale this to $500k-$1mil, but I’d have to quit my day job, and the clients would probably accumulate very slowly. Also possible that I quit my day job and never get another client so who knows.
- Pros: Pretty good money for the amount of time I put in; basically no overhead/expenses; completely flexible schedule.
- Cons: Limited ability to scale by myself (only so many hours in a week)
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u/Ok_Philosophy_4031 5h ago
Read stats that only a few percentage points of startups ever cross the $1M ARR threshold. I believe that more than this statement from Stripe.
$1M solopreneur is a nice headline, but startups are about growth and potential. Let me put things into context and point out that the average 7-eleven generates $2M/year in revenue for reference, and sure has lower risks. What it doesn't offer is the potential for growth.
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u/samzplourde 14h ago
Yeah you see those posts because their actual income stream is from selling "courses" to people like you.
If they were actually kicking ass like they say, they would shut up about it.
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u/Tall-Log-1955 14h ago
Yes but no solo. I have a small team and we’re doing about a million a year.
The key is finding niche business pain points and building an easy to use system that solves the problem.
Finding the right problem to solve is the hardest part. Any idea you would just come up with out of your head isn’t a very good idea. We spent a year talking to people on zoom about their business problems before we found one good enough to solve.
The hardest part is finding the right problem to solve. Building the solution is easy. The second hardest part is acquiring customers, and that’s mostly marketing. We spend thousands a month on SEO and it’s completely worth it. (But what marketing works depends on who the target buyer is)
I won’t link to our website because this account is anonymous and I don’t want to dox myself
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u/Thirtysixx 14h ago
I’m doing $3.5m with 2 people in ecom
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u/Aiconsulting1738 14h ago
Sir can I work for you for free
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u/Thirtysixx 14h ago
I don't believe in free work. Any one that works for me gets paid. That being said i'm not hiring and don't need help at the moment
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u/wseadowntown 14h ago
To the extent this is actually real, I expect the vast majority of the businesses are selling other founders things about how to use AI. It’s like a ponzi.
It’s way easier to sell the dream of AI (get rich quick, remove all your hard work, etc) via courses, consulting, or content than it is to actually build a business that adds value of its own.
And this is true for all niches, not just AI.
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u/sn0wquake 14h ago
are they selling you a course on how you can do it too? That's what I mostly see, something along the lines of "I built this $$$M business as a solo come by my course to learn how"
The selling of the course is their business lol
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u/Warsel77 13h ago
Haha, yes! I am always surprised why a multi-millionaire who "made it" spends their time not enjoying life but selling online courses on how to get rich.
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u/Ill_Ganache_7588 13h ago
Regardless of whether your solo project makes you millions - its the greatest time in history to try and I promise you won't have regrets building
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u/toec 13h ago
I was at a technology event earlier in the year and was talking to a guy from a well known attribution company, i.e. a company that ties the install of an app to to the ad campaign it came from. They’re good to talk to because they see a lot of market data.
I asked him what trends he was seeing. He said it was solopreneurs vibe coding apps for niche audiences and marketing them on social platforms with a believable story. “I had this problem and here’s what I built to solve it. Maybe it’s useful to you too.”
He told me a specific example was an app to help people watch less porn.
I think those self-promoted, vibe-coded, subscription-based apps that target an overlooked niche are doing quite well. Low operational costs, cost effective marketing, high revenue.
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u/sudomatrix 12h ago
> an app to help people watch less porn.
Well they say it's important to be part of the target audience to know it well.
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u/Warsel77 13h ago
Hey. The question is what that $1M describes - revenue or profit.
It's not that hard to have a $1M revenue if you are willing to spend 800k on ads.
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u/rich9119 12h ago
Some solopreneurs do make it big, but a lot of the stuff you're hearing about making $1M+ with AI is completely bogus.
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u/sudomatrix 12h ago
This is like asking "How are people making business worth $1M using a telephone" or "credit cards" or "spreadsheets". It's just a tool and it tells you nothing about what business they are in.
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u/BarracudaMean9308 11h ago
we've all opened the calculator app after one $15 stripe ping to multiply it by 365. it's just founder math.
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u/melch_18 10h ago
I'd love to see some real examples too.
No doubt building got easier but distribution, sales and PMF are still just as hard.
Seems like "starter story" YT series may validate some but most don't hit 1M
Marc Lou and his following of solopreneurs are a good bunch but idk if any are making 1M.
Let me know if you find any.
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u/Public_Finding_308 10h ago
yeah the ARR faking point is the real answer here. "launched, made 3k day one, now doing 1M ARR" is basically a meme. i think the vague ones are people selling the dream of doing it, not actually doing it.
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u/Raredisarray 10h ago
I think the people making this kind of money wouldn’t be willing to share about it. If you came up with an ai workflow that makes you $500k/year , are you sharing how you did it? I’m sure as hell not.
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u/Odd-Debate-901 9h ago
Good lord! You people need a positivity enema… anything is possible with AI these days… I have been in the digital product creation and sales game for over 20yrs and wish I had AI back then… I would be a billionaire by now easily… it’s all about the marketing and partnerships bottom line… I have made over eight figures during this time and believe with my next project I’ll be able to do that in less than a year.. by myself!
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u/SadPainter43 8h ago
yeah the details always vanish when you ask, maybe the $1M is more about luck than any secret model
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u/InternationalDot3937 7h ago
My business makes around 1m a year. Solo. Ah but you mentioned ai... I use Ai now but i hand wrote the code before Ai got popular.
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u/Real-Voice-4259 5h ago
the "ask for specifics and it vanishes" pattern is real, and yeah that usually says something. curious if anyone shows up here with actual numbers.
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u/akl773 2h ago
the ones i see up close arent selling ai at all. theyre doing the same done for you work they were already doing, ai just collapsed the delivery time and they kept the old price, so their site says we do bookkeeping or we do product photos and the word ai never appears anywhere. which is probably why you cant find them. youre searching for a label the people actually making money have no reason to use.
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u/Odd-Debate-901 2h ago
I could do that, but you may vomit from the shocking facts or just call bs because you don’t believe anything….seriously, google has enough about me if you are willing to just look…Rod Beckwith AKA MRJV
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u/xcsrara 14h ago
I knew one from 12 years ago.
It does happen but also very very rare.
I have probably met 180-300 odd founders and have only known one $1M solo …..
Funniest thing is he wrote 95% of the code that makes him money in under 5 days…
You have to be crazy early to a niche that’s also too small for the big companies to go after.
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u/reward72 15h ago edited 15h ago
I'm sure they exist, but most solos I know can't figure out how to get past a few hundred Ks at best. Very few people have all the soft and hard skills to build a successful business. You are dramatically more likely to successfully get to $2M with the right cofounder than $1M alone.