Last month, I was talking to an entrepreneur I had heard of before but hadn’t met in person. We got to talking about the ups and downs of his business, and he shared that things are going really well. Revenue has been growing fast. They just had their first profitable month, and it looks like it’s going to be a great business.
I asked how they approach things from a team and work perspective, and he shared something I’ll never forget. Their goal is to never have more than 10 employees and instead, they lean heavily on ChatGPT and other AI tools to augment their onshore, in-person team. Then, they have a growing presence in Eastern Europe for all of their development efforts and a customer service presence in the Philippines.
So, the business is based in Atlanta. The founders are in Atlanta, and their goal is to never have double-digit official employees. Instead, the main work is done by experts in one country, and the main support is done by experts in a different country. Everything that can be automated internally is automated; everything that can be outsourced is outsourced.
The ultimate result is a new category of startup: the forever lean startup.
Thinking more about this model, I think this is going to be a serious trend in startupland.
Entrepreneurs are always trying to figure out how to do more with less. They’re always trying to figure out how to scale their organization in a repeatable, flexible way. Funding has gotten more challenging as valuations have gone down for most types of startups (excluding AI ones!), and entrepreneurs want to control their own destiny.
When you raise money from VCs and other funding sources, nine times out of ten, that means you’re on the fundraising treadmill, and every 12 to 24 months, it’s time for a new round of financing. What if the business could grow fast, have limited fixed costs, and still achieve the entrepreneur’s goals, but do so in a way that automates as much as possible, outsources as much as possible, and still delivers an amazing experience to the customer?
The rise of the forever lean startup is something we’re going to see much more of over the next decade. Look for a whole new class of entrepreneurs that refine and build best practices around this model of maximum flexibility with minimum overhead.
Entrepreneur
via https://www.aiupnow.com
David Cummings, Khareem Sudlow
