AI TURNS TIME AND MONEY INTO LEVERAGE
FROM MONTHS TO MINUTES
AI lets you do work that used to take teams and months in minutes and for a fraction of the cost. Think: analyzing 1,000 customer reviews or testing dozens of ideas in one afternoon.
THE FOUNDER’S TRIANGLE
EXPERTISE × CRAFT × DISTRIBUTION
Million-dollar AI ideas sit at the intersection of three things: your domain expertise, your depth of craft, and your unfair distribution advantage. Weak in any corner, the business wobbles.
1. DOMAIN EXPERTISE
5+ YEARS INSIDE THE PROBLEM
Domain expertise means you’ve lived in an industry long enough to feel the real pain points. Five years or more gives you pattern recognition, context, and language competitors can’t fake.
2. DEPTH IN CRAFT
WHAT FEELS EASY TO YOU, HARD TO OTHERS
Depth in craft is the skill where you are on autopilot while others struggle. Writing, selling, design, operations, analysis. AI lets you multiply that craft across more clients and products.
3. DISTRIBUTION ADVANTAGE
YOUR UNFAIR ACCESS TO CUSTOMERS
Distribution is how you reach buyers in a way others can’t. It can be a captive audience, key partnerships, trusted communities, or a channel where you already own attention and trust.
THE DREAM FUNCTIONS
DEMAND, REVENUE, ENGINE, ADMIN, MARKETING
DREAM is a simple solo-founder operating system: Demand, Revenue, Engine, Admin, Marketing. If each function is running, you don’t have a project. You have a real business.
D = DEMAND, R = REVENUE
WHO WANTS IT, WHO PAYS
Demand: who actually has the problem and urgently wants help. Revenue: how money flows in, pricing design, packaging, and billing. AI can help you test offers and price points quickly.
E = ENGINE, A = ADMIN
HOW WORK GETS DONE
Engine is the system that delivers value: product, service, fulfillment. Admin is the paperwork: invoicing, contracts, records. AI can automate repetitive ops so you stay in high-value work.
M = MARKETING WITH AI AS A WORKER
ATTENTION ON AUTOPILOT (ALMOST)
Marketing is how people find and trust you. AI can draft content, repurpose clips, write emails, and suggest hooks. Your job is judgment: what message is true, sharp, and aligned with your offer.
START WITH ONE RECURRING TASK
SMALL AUTOMATION, BIG MOMENTUM
Don’t automate your whole life at once. Pick one recurring task in one DREAM function and let AI handle 80% of it: lead enrichment, report summaries, proposal drafts, or basic support replies.
WHY YOU NEED A MOAT
AI LOWERS BARRIERS, NOT COMPETITION
If AI is available to everyone, your idea alone is not defensible. You need a moat: something that compounds over time and makes it painful or irrational for customers to leave you.
COUNTERPOSITIONING AS A WEAPON
OFFER WHAT INCUMBENTS CAN’T COPY
Counterpositioning means you design an offer that threatens incumbents’ core business model. For them to copy you, they would have to hurt their own cash cow. That hesitation is your shield.
STICKY HABITS AND DATA LOOPS
FROM NICE-TO-HAVE TO DAILY TOOL
Make your product part of a daily or weekly habit. Layer in proprietary data and feedback loops so the system learns and gets better for each user. Habits + unique data = high switching costs.
THE HUMAN EDGE IN AN AI WORLD
TASTE, PURPOSE, JUDGMENT, RELATIONSHIPS
As AI handles tasks, your real advantage becomes taste, purpose, relationships, judgment, and critical thinking. Tools get cheaper. Good decisions, clear values, and trust become the scarce asset.
REGRET MINIMIZATION AND REAL RISK
THE COST OF NOT TRYING
Successful solo founders feel fear and self-doubt, but they move anyway. In the long run, the bigger risk is avoiding all risk. The regret of never betting on yourself usually costs more than failure.