Team size of ONE — Small Tech Alert!
Inspired by the Twitterbot @BigTechAlert I built a bot called @SmallTechAlert to keep track of impressive one man companies. With advances in AI tooling, the story of one man shows is just beginning.
What does @SmallTechAlert do?
Similarly to @BigTechAlert, @SmallTechAlert tweets about the actions of our heroes on Twitter. Who they follow or stop following, when do they get followed by the superstars of BigTech — it’s all worth keeping an eye on! However instead of famous VC’s and Silicon Valley executives, the account is focused on AI-hackers, indie developers, build-in-public solo devs, solopreneurs, no-code stars and anyone building a tech company alone and gaining significant traction.
Want to know who @levelsio starts following?
Want to know who @tibo stops following?
Want to know when @sama, @EMostaque, @pmarca, @balajis or other BigTech names start following any of our indie stars?
Follow @SmallTechAlert to find out!
Why did I build this?
Firstly, because it’s fun! Secondly because indie devs are one of the most inspiring folks on the internet. Solo founders living anywhere in the world, hacking away on small products that with internet scales turn into life-changing businesses — if that’s not inspiring, then I don’t know what is. Not everyone is born a white male with access to the best education, capital and opportunity or even has an appetite for the VC funded ruthless unicorn generation machinery of Silicon Valley.
But everyone who has access to the internet and enough grit has an opportunity to build something that makes money.
Thirdly, and most importantly I think this is going to be a remarkable wave. From companies that have generated large valuations with very few employees (Whatsapp — 55 employees at $19B) to individuals that have had ridiculously large impact on the world from projects they started (Linus Torvalds, Satoshi Nakamoto) there is now an even more exciting opportunity coming for small tech.
Welcome to the world of AI-powered entrepreneurs!
Whether it’s
developers whose productivity is upped by AI tools (ChatGPT, Github Copilot etc.)
entrepreneurs that figure out how to capture niche markets with the AI api’s or
artists and creators who command an army of content generation bots and direct their evolution
- it is going to be an exciting time!
The primordial soup is set for another Cambrian explosion — this time for the AI powered entrepreneurs and with the help of the non-biologicals.
For now the market sizes of these opportunities are hard to grasp and we’ll see both VC funded companies and indie’s going after the same ideas, but with time it will become easier to see how the market will split. I’m especially rooting for the longtail — the one man/woman shows that now with the help of AI can also deliver value to a millions of people.
or sign up you email here on Substack for more posts from me:
p.s. If anyones privacy is infringed by the bot to the point they are not comfortable with, please DM me on Twitter.