1163 – New Ways To Build A Business: Tom talks One Person Opportunities

SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

Tom Antion’s main point is that AI and modern automation tools are making it possible for a single person to operate businesses that previously required multiple employees, specialized technical skills, and significant startup capital. The opportunities themselves often aren’t new; what’s new is how much one person can accomplish.
He gives several examples: graphic design, video editing, niche publishing, advertising agencies, research services, micro-software development, virtual training companies, and even entire media businesses producing podcasts, videos, newsletters, and courses. AI can dramatically increase one person’s capacity—for example, allowing a researcher to serve many more clients or a non-programmer to create software by simply describing what it should do.
A major advantage is extremely low overhead. A solopreneur can potentially operate without employees, payroll, workers’ compensation, employee health insurance, or 401(k) administration. Tom isn’t opposed to hiring; his argument is that you can now postpone hiring until the business generates enough revenue that you actually want the additional help.
His practical advice is: don’t necessarily quit your job. Keep the security of your regular income and build one of these businesses as a side hustle. AI allows much of the operation to continue working around the clock while you retain your regular salary. If the business eventually exceeds your employment income, you then have the option of leaving the job.
Bottom line: AI’s biggest entrepreneurial impact may not be inventing completely new kinds of businesses. It may be transforming traditionally multi-person businesses into viable, inexpensive one-person companies, giving individuals substantially more leverage than they had before.

===

Episode 1163 – One Person Opportunities
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.
[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 1163 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're going to talk about new one person opportunities. And they don't even have to be new, but now they're one person opportunities rather than having a whole crew and a fortune in startup fees for these businesses. And I hope you didn't miss episode 1162 that was called AI Does Not Make You Special. This was an episode to help you determine the things you should put to the forefront that helps you stand out from the crowd. That was 1162. Anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com/then the episode number. That was 1162. AI does not make you special. And pick up a copy of my brand new Automation e-book, How to Automate Your Business Without Pulling Your Hair Out. That's version 4.0. If you've had 3.0, which thousands of you have. This one is going to blow that one away. So it's time to download the new version at screwthecommute.com/automatefree and check out my mentor program at GreatInternetMarketingtraining.com and my school at IMTCVA.org, certified to operate by SCHEV.
[00:01:42] All right, let's talk about the next million dollar company you could start. And it might have one employee and that's you. Okay. Sam Altman, the guy, you know, the open AI ChatGPT guy. He just said, today, as I'm recording this AI, it could produce the biggest boom in small business creation because of lower technical capabilities needed to do all the stuff you need to do, and startup costs that in some cases are cheaper than a visit to a, you know, a restaurant or a cheap restaurant.
[00:02:30] I mean, a McDonald's, which isn't cheap anymore, but literally, you know, this AI could could help you start businesses like bam. All right. And an example with me now, I've been preaching for years that people in the graphics field should find another way to make money because it I mean, even years ago, I used a program called I picky. It's like a TEMU photo shop, right? But it was so easy for me to create graphics. Now even that's almost by the wayside because now I'm just thinking up ideas, talking them into ChatGPT, because the image two model is way better than their first image creation. That was crazy. But now I just think up an idea and I come out with a gorgeous, properly sized, unique graphic based on my idea that nobody else is going to have unless they copy mine. I mean, if you download this new automate free e-book, I'd say 98% of the graphics in it, maybe 99% were me just talking into ChatGPT to support the ideas that I'm teaching in that book and it's blowing out beautiful graphics. All right, now let's uh, and now graphics typically was a one person business for freelancers in the past, right? So that's not anything new. And by the way, I'm not talking about new businesses so much here today as opposed to having a business that you can start for almost nothing by yourself with no payroll and all that stuff.
[00:04:23] Okay. Another thing, video editing. Now I have a full time video editor, but he doesn't edit video full time because he's also the chief instructor of my school. So he's got other projects going on that he works on running the school and, you know, handling students questions and grading assignments and things like that. And I still rely on him for really difficult edit video editing because video editing is, is way harder. Like, I've edited every one of these podcasts because I'm like a trained monkey, basically. All right. Because once you learn how to do it, it's just over and over and over the same thing. But video editing is much more difficult. Except now you can tell a program, take this raw footage and make a finished video out of it and just hit the button and go have a drink, a cup of coffee. All right. And Capcut is got all these things. You see a lot of my Facebook stories. If you look at that, or just templates that I plug a picture of mine or a video of mine in and come up with this very, you know, crazy unique video, say. So there's all kinds of things like this. So some other examples. And again, most of these are not any kind of new business. These are businesses that typically took multiple people right off the bat to run, and one is niche publishing. So that's and yeah, you could be a sole solopreneur for years now and publish Kindle books and so forth, but to turn them out in large quantities.
[00:06:12] Well, that's a different story and have them, you know, good. You know, not just, uh, Kindle slop. I that's a new term we're developing. So niche publishing ad agencies, you could have a small ad agency running ads for multiple businesses all by yourself because of the tools available for it. Research services. Yes. There's, there's been freelancers doing that for a long time by themselves, but they could only handle so much because how hard it was to research. Well, now they're they could handle. I don't know. Lots and lots of clients because they're going to type it into ChatGPT and go deep dives and then have it turn out a report and deliver it to the client. And they could have ten clients in an hour if they they wanted. See? So that's another one. Micro software. Now, software is something I never touched. In the 32 years I've been doing this, I think I tried one little thing, but it was a nightmare and it was just crazy. So I want nothing to do with that. However, I just created a piece of software for my crowdfunding book where I went to lovable and I pay a small fee per month and I just tell it what I want the software to do and it does it all right. So I'm going to make one when I. As soon as I get a chance for this, this new automation book that I just came out with that you're going to download for for free at screwthecommute.com/automatefree.
[00:07:57] So you can make software. I mean, even before lovable came along, you could tell ChatGPT, make me this certain thing and it'd give you the whole the code for it. I mean, it's just crazy stuff you can do by yourself. That used to take a team of programmers to do. You could have training a training company that's all virtual. So virtual courses and, and you can have an entire media company that creates podcasts, videos, newsletters and courses and all whatever else that is invented. One person doing all of it say, and it might not even be full time to do it. I mean, that's how you could be doing it on have a regular I hate to use dirty words on these things, but JOB you know what I mean? That dirty word and and doing this on the side. And it's running all day 24 over seven. In addition to your salary from work. All right. Like I said, these are not new businesses. They're just now you can do them with one person running it with no payroll, no workman's comp, no payroll, no health insurance for employees, no. 401 K administration for them. You still might want to do this stuff for in a corporation or LLC for yourself. Okay. That's cool. But, uh, it's just amazing what you can do by yourself now. And I've always been, you know, I started hiring employee.
[00:09:31] We got to like 1.2 million a year 20 years ago. And I said, well, I'd rather hire people and take a load off myself than, than just pay in taxes. See? So, so now you have a choice. You can do as much as you can yourself until you get sick of it. And if you've got enough money coming in, then you hire somebody. I'm not against hiring people or or I prefer freelancers because the payroll tax situation. But you have to make sure they're actually in the US. 1099 employees or 1099. I just messed up their 1099 contractors is what they are. Do you have to make sure they really are? Or you could get a lot of trouble with the tax people and and end up paying a lot of money. So make sure they're actually freelancers. And I think we have episodes on how to prove that. But anyway, uh, the opportunity is just enormous now for single people. If you're, if you want, if you're afraid to, to, to jump in because you don't want to quit your job. And it's, you know, that's the security you need for your family and yourself. Keep your job. Do this on the side as a side hustle. Quit watching the stupid football games and quit wasting your time in the evenings with Netflix and start a business. And. And for most people that are diligent about it, they say, man, I wish I'd have done this 20 years ago or ten years ago or whatever, because they exceeded what they were making at work, and then they could quit and spend more time with their family and doing the things they want to do rather than, you know.
[00:11:16] Well, that's what this podcast is about, screwing the commute. All right. You drive somewhere when you want to, not when you have to. All right. That's my story. I'm sticking to it. Check out my mentor program. Greatinternetmarketingtraining.com. We work with you one on one to help you through all of this stuff. And it's the most unique, most successful ever in the field of internet and digital marketing. So check it out at GreatInternetMarketingtraining.com. And if you're in it, you get a scholarship to my school, IMTCVA.org, and that's certified to operate by SCHEV. What does that mean? That means that a body, a government body is scrutinizing my every move. All right. As opposed to almost 100% of every ad you see online, nobody is checking up on that person. They could be lying through their butt. And there's nobody there's no consequences to it. See? So I had to go through three years of background checks and curriculum checks and all this stuff. And every year have to do it again. All right. Check that out. So it's a safe place to come to get your education that you need to be successful in all this stuff. So check that out IMTCVA.org. And I will catch you on the next episode. See you later.