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At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Awards-Style Tour of Mighty One-Person Businesses Earning Millions Without Teams
- Prompted by news that one-person gaming app Wargraphs sold for $54 million, the hosts rank one- or two-person businesses across award categories such as biggest, hardest, easiest to recreate, most fun, and worst of the best.
- Examples range from Stardew Valley, StreamYard, PlentyOfFish, TinyWow, and Photopea to information businesses like Lenny's Newsletter and Marketing Examples, and low-maintenance sites like Milled and BuiltWith.
- The hosts note that 'one person' loosely means a founder with contractors or agencies, or a business that started tiny before hiring, so they apply the spirit rather than the letter of the rule.
- Kevin Van Trump's daily newsletter and Ben Thompson's Stratechery are named 'worst of the best' because the relentless daily writing pressure outweighs the money.
- In closing takeaways, Shaan Puri says these businesses depend on exceptional distribution or product, a real skill, and leverage through code, media, or capital, while both hosts say solo work is lonely and two people is the sweet spot.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasA single person can build an outsized business
Wargraphs sold for $54 million and Stardew Valley has made roughly $150 million in sales, both from one developer.
Traffic can be harder to create than product
Sam Parr says TinyWow's 6.6 million monthly visits, mostly from social, are the hard part, since building the product is often easier than getting users.
Free niche content can be turned into a paid business
Shaan Puri says Lenny Rachitsky and Harry Dry build authority in a narrow niche, then monetize through job boards, sponsorships, paid communities, or consulting.
Several founders leave money on the table
TinyWow earns about $20,000 a month with little monetization, Milled relies on basic display ads and affiliate links, and Photopea uses simple banner ads. The hosts see big upside.
Timing and showing up early matter
Sam Parr notes that Lenny and Harry were early on Twitter in their niche. Shaan Puri compares entrepreneurs to surfers who must paddle out to catch the waves.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesBig businesses are awesome. But what about mighty businesses? What about the guys who are punching above their weight, so somebody who has just themselves or just one or two people that does millions in revenue profitably, flies under the radar.
— Shaan Puri
Most entrepreneurs are actually surfing waves. You don't get to create the wave, but you do have to paddle out. You gotta be on your board out there in the water.
— Shaan Puri
You need to use code, build it once and then it runs as software. You need to use media like podcasts or newsletters or whatever. Or you need to use capital, because you're not gonna use labor, right?
— Shaan Puri
It's really hard to push yourself this hard and to think big when you're by yourself, and it's just hard to do this every day alone.
— Sam Parr
I think doing it by yourself is honestly a terrible idea, and you should definitely try to get one other person to do this. I think two people is the sweet spot.
— Shaan Puri
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
