Tell HN: My 3 competitors are all super polished companies run by solo devs

Once the person makes their 100m company, 10 competitors will undercut them by using AI to duplicate the work.

"I built my entire startup with o3."

including security? auth? database design?

a bit unrealistic and unserious to ask such questions, as one never know how the customer will behave. Just imagine, that another one start the exact same thing, but do, for example, faster & better support - because it's not a one man show. And then? then you'll see better marketing, because there's a sales & marketing professional employed, you see better & faster feature development. Etc...

In my life, its not as long that I can fill each discussion, I've seen quite a few situations, where I said "thats it. Thats an perfect idea no one have had before" -> nope. Each one turned out to be not as good as I thought and, I wasn't the only one who came up with that... My experience tell me, you need a differentiator. You have to solve a pain, but the medicine must be better than of your competitors.

In your case, I would rather say "if the others, like you, are really solo-interpreneurs and do exactly the same thing as you do. Then it will be ok, as long none of the others start to invest heavily in marketing with a dedicated marketing department. That will be the differentiator that might break your neck."

Stop dreamin, reinvest the gains and employ some people to bring your business to a new level. Don't risk it without necessities. Dont slow down your pace with "principles". My opinion.

I may be wrong, but I'm a different risk profile. I like to have everything under control. What is your risk taking capabilities?

may be, this will be some kind of inspiration. That guy build and sold for 100mio as a solo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR2H7X1HBEM

How are your customers finding you?

Yeah my theory is that we'll soon see the end of massive tech companies. The size is more a liability than an asset now.

Have you considered the possibility that 1 million similar companies worth $100 each will appear?

I know nothing about product, but think how many people could have done it with the same tools as you.

"I have this million dollar app idea, I just need somebody to build it."

Nothing new under the sun.

I believe that solo founders will have way more leverage than today. At the same time, I find it paradoxical how the people that say these things have the most simple idea, that could be copied in a weekend, to show as example. Founders with great ideas, domain knowledge and money to do marketing will make a lot of difference. The diary that I created using AI to fit my taste? Everybody can copy that code in days.

Your business isn't the code. It's a combination of things, but you can't just expect to write some code and go win. You have to sell it. Market it. Maintain it. Listen to customers. Support customers.

A very long time until a 1-person unicorn. For good reason. You need a lot more than software. Even if you say oh well AI can also automate marketing and customer support, etc. Bulls---. Only to a degree.

You want to know why Facebook was successful while others weren't? Or why people couldn't just copy them? It's not the software.

> I get 3-5 new paying customers per day without doing anything. I'm crossing 300 signups soon.

> I already considered myself a good engineer.

> I built my entire startup with o3.

> How long until the first 1-person $100m company?

Truly grim stuff.