🏗️ Before You Make Your Next Hire

You're running a business. You've got more work than you have time to do.

So naturally, you start thinking about hiring someone.

But what if hiring isn't the answer? What if AI could take some of that work off your plate instead?

That's exactly why I created Hire or Build? for you: a free business operations workbook to help you decide when to hire someone and when to delegate to AI.

Because there's a question showing up in conversations about building businesses with AI, and I think every business owner should be asking it:

"Could you do this with just five people?"

A few years ago, that question might have sounded ridiculous. 

Today, it's worth taking seriously.

Last year, I came across a Forbes Technology Council article 🔗 about how AI is changing the way companies are built and funded.

The author made five predictions about where things were headed.

That was 17 months ago. And a LOT has changed since then. In AI years, that’s just shy of a lifetime.

So today, I'm revisiting all five predictions to see what he got right, what was missed, and what it means for you.

Especially if you're wondering whether your next move should be hiring another person or putting AI to work.

🧍 The Company of One Is Real Now

Something interesting is happening. Business owners are finding ways to get more done with fewer people. And the numbers are worth paying attention to.

• 👤 More solo founders: In 2025, 36% of startups formed on Carta had just one founder, up from 31% in 2024. 🔗
• 🏭 More businesses getting started: Americans filed 534,947 business applications in September 2026 alone. 🔗 
• 💸 Small teams making serious money: Stan, a platform for creators, reported $40 million in annual recurring revenue with just 60 employees. That's roughly $667,000 per employee. 🔗

Now, having one founder doesn't necessarily mean having no employees. 

And AI isn't the only reason companies are staying lean.

But there's a shift happening in how businesses are built.

And it's worth asking what that means for yours.

🔧 What Forbes Saw Coming

Back in May 2025, Mofe Blessing-Kayode wrote about how AI was changing the rules of entrepreneurship.

His argument was pretty simple: AI is making it possible to build and grow a business without hiring a big team.

He pointed to several changes already underway:

→ Building products is getting faster. Work that once took a team of developers months can sometimes be done in weeks or days with tools like Cursor and Replit.

→ Small ideas are becoming real businesses. One person can now build a tool that solves a specific problem, like summarizing contracts or automating paperwork, without needing a whole development team.

→ Testing ideas costs less. Instead of spending months building something and hoping people want it, founders can test, learn, and make changes quickly.

→ AI is taking on more everyday work. Content, customer support, outreach, and reporting can all be handled, at least in part, by AI.

→ Even investors are thinking differently. Instead of asking how big a team needs to be, some are asking how much a small team can accomplish with AI.

He also pointed out that AI was making design faster, from marketing graphics to product mockups.

His big takeaway? "Shipping speed becomes a moat."

In other words…

The faster you can create and launch something, the harder you are to compete with.

But he wasn't buying all the AI hype.

He called out the tools that promised to do everything but couldn't reliably deliver. 

He believed in more focused tools: AI assistants built for specific jobs, workflow automation, and data summarization.

You know, the less exciting stuff that actually gets work done.

Keep that in mind.

✅ The Scorecard: 17 Months Later

So, how well did his predictions hold up?

Prediction 1: Startups will stay small longer.

✅ Looking pretty good.

More than a third of startups formed on Carta in 2025 had a single founder. And we're seeing companies generate serious revenue with surprisingly small teams.

The Logic profiled Floqer, which reached seven-figures in annual revenue with nine employees.

That doesn't prove every startup is delaying hires because of AI. But it does show how much a small team can accomplish.

Prediction 2: AI agents will get more specialized.

✅ I think he got this right.

The most useful AI tools I've seen solve a specific problem really well.

The tools that promise to do everything? They're still not always reliable when things get complicated.

Turns out, the boring stuff is pretty valuable.

Prediction 3: Software will feel more like a conversation.

✅ I've lived this one.

A few weeks ago, I told you about a proposal I built as an interactive artifact in Claude.

ICYMI - read it here 🔗

Instead of sending my prospect a static document, I gave them something they could actually use. They could change options and see how those decisions affected the proposal.

No developer. 

It took me part of an afternoon.

That's a pretty big change in what's possible for one person.

Prediction 4: AI will change how businesses find customers.

🤔 Partly right. But there's more to the story.

I recently looked back at every deal I closed this year.

Want to know how many came from cold emails?

Zero.

They came from content, referrals, and relationships I'd built over time.

AI helped me manage the follow-through. But it didn't create the trust that brought those clients in.

And I think that's an important distinction.

Prediction 5: We could see a billion-dollar company built by one person.

⏳ Not yet.

He called this "extreme, but not impossible."

I haven't found a verified example of a billion-dollar company built and run by one person with AI.

But his more realistic prediction, that we'd see more small companies generating big results, is already showing signs of coming true.

And that's the part I find most interesting.

🤨 Where I Push Back

I agree with a lot of what he wrote.

But there are two things we need to talk about.

First, speed isn't enough.

He argued that being able to build and launch faster gives you a competitive advantage.

And sure, speed matters.

But what happens when everyone has access to the same tools?

Everyone gets faster.

So being fast isn't what makes you different anymore.

Knowing your customers does. 
Building trust does. 
Having good judgment about what to create in the first place does.

Look at my own deal audit.

AI helped me get proposals out faster. 

But years of showing up, sharing what I know, and building relationships are really what helped me win the work. After all, you still have to give people a reason to choose you.

Second, smaller doesn't always mean easier.

Back in March, I wrote about why AI might actually be making your workday longer.

You can read it here 🔗

When you can get more done, it's tempting to keep adding more things to your plate.

And suddenly, all that time AI was supposed to save you is gone.

POOF. 💨

And you have more work than ever!?

A five-person team might be able to produce the work of a much larger company. But that doesn't mean those five people should work around the clock.

I'm building my latest company, a done-for-you podcast editing service called Casthouse 🔗 right now.

We're keeping the team lean on purpose.

And one of the hardest parts isn't figuring out what AI can help us do.

It's deciding what we shouldn't be doing at all.

🧠 What This Means for Your Business

Here's why I think all of this matters, even if you're never going to launch a tech startup or raise money from investors.

Maybe you run a salon. A law office. A roofing company. A coaching business.

It doesn't matter.

Before you make your next hire, there's a question worth asking:

What parts of this job could I build a system to handle instead?

Think about scheduling appointments, collecting customer information, writing first drafts, sending follow-ups, or putting together reports.

AI can help with a lot of that.

But there are still things you need people for.

The customer who's upset and needs someone to listen. The important decision that requires experience and judgment. The relationship you've spent years building.

The goal isn't to replace people with AI. It's to stop using people for work a good system could handle.

That leaves more time for the work that actually needs a human.

👉 Four Questions Worth Asking

Before you add another person to your team, think about this:

1. What would your next hire actually spend their week doing? How much of that work could AI help with?
2. If a competitor started tomorrow with two people and today's AI tools, what could they do faster or better than you?
3. What do your customers trust you for that AI can't replace?
4. What's one idea you've been putting off that you could finally test this week?

You don't have to answer all four today.

But I'd spend some time on that first one.

⭐ Remember to grab your FREE WORKBOOK: Hire or Build? 🔗 It will help you figure out which tasks need a person and which ones could be handled by AI.

Before you write that next job posting, give it a try.

✅ Your Challenge This Week

Here's a little exercise I want you to try.

Think of one position you're planning to hire for. Or just pick a job you find yourself doing every single week.

Take the job description or a list of tasks and paste it into Chat or Claude with this prompt:

"Break this job into its recurring tasks. Put them in a table with three categories: (1) AI can handle it, (2) AI can help, but a person needs to review it, and (3) a person needs to do it. Explain your reasoning, flag any risks, and be realistic about what AI can actually do today."

Then take a look at the results.

You might find that you don't need to hire someone for every task on that list.

Or you might discover that hiring is absolutely the right move.

Either way, you'll have a much better idea of what you actually need.

And that's the whole point.

P.S. On Thursday, my friend Chris Harder and I are going live to show you how Casthouse, our done-for-you podcast production service, works. I'd love to see you there. Save your seat here.