The Big Opportunity for Internet Professionals Building One-Person Companies in the AI Era

“If people can simply tell AI what they want, who will still open your app?”

That question is worth thinking about. For people with experience in product, design, development, or operations, the AI era makes small products for a global audience worth taking seriously again.

AI can help one person connect product, design, development, and operations. The route can be concrete: start with a real need of your own, build the core experience well on iOS, use the web to make it easy for people around the world to discover, try, and share it, then build revenue slowly through continuing value.

You do not need to announce on day one that you will change the world. First, help a small group somewhere in the world think, “This is good. I want to use it again tomorrow.”

People who have worked on internet products have usually learned a set of useful skills: recognizing needs, organizing flows, refining copy, watching the experience, and finding ways to help people stay.

In the past, those abilities were often spread across different roles. When you build your own product, you suddenly realize you are still missing several colleagues.

The opportunity I see in AI is that one person can now carry more of the chain. Prototypes, code, translation, test plans, content organization, and operations can all be supported by AI. Judgment and acceptance still belong to you, but an idea no longer has to wait for a full team at every step before it becomes something people can experience.

For me, this is the opportunity: the product judgment and design experience accumulated over the years now have a shorter path to reality.

More people will also become able to build products. Merely saying “I made one too” will soon be insufficient.

The real questions are: how will people find you, try the product once, and want to return after that first use?

I begin by asking myself.

I follow one principle: I am always the first user of my product. I start by meeting a need of my own.

Each of my small products occupies a place in my life.

Yixiu Meditation is what I open before sleep. I listen to it during a midday nap; when I wake too early at night, I keep listening and gradually fall asleep again. My reason for opening it is direct: I want to hear a sound and settle down now.

Wendao is what I read one chapter from each day. I especially value the sections that ask what the text can teach us and how its ideas return to daily life.

Bu'er Human Design is like a personal manual I can browse. I use it as an entry point for observing my habits, feelings, and choices. It offers one perspective; the answers still have to be tested in life.

Xiazi is what I look at each morning. Its nine carefully made news posters in changing visual styles help me stay curious about the world and committed to beauty.

Yixiu: care for the body, settle the emotions, then continue forward.
Bu'er: do not judge; accept peaks and valleys, and embrace wholeness rather than perfection.
Wendao: slow down, take your time, slowly become. Like water, root inward and flow outward; adapt without losing yourself.

These needs are not grand, but they return again and again. A small product that earns a real place in someone's day is already meaningful.

First, make something you would miss. Then find people with a similar need.

My own use does not prove that others will pay. Real users still need to try it, and I need to listen to why they stay or leave. But the starting point is at least a living need.

The web can be an easy front door, while the app becomes a room worth staying in. A linked web experience also supports discovery through search and future partnerships.

People may encounter a shared card or an article, open a page, understand what problem you solve, and ideally experience a little value immediately.

For situations that invite repeated use, I prefer to refine the continuous experience inside the app.

Consider Yixiu: someone hears a nature sound through WeChat or the web and finds that it suits them. Later, they want to return at any time and start listening easily. The web can handle the first meeting; the app can support the longer relationship.

Going global can begin with one specific audience, one scenario, and one or two language markets. Chinese and English are enough at first. The pages, examples, and app-store listing can all speak to those people.

Being accessible worldwide is only the starting point. Being needed by a particular group is where a business begins.

When resources are limited, it is worth deciding carefully where to test willingness to pay.

RevenueCat's State of Subscription Apps 2026 observed advantages for the App Store in measures such as download-to-paid conversion and early revenue per install, while some later-stage differences were smaller.[1]

My choice is to use iOS first to test willingness to pay for personal products that suit subscriptions and repeated use, concentrating limited energy.

If the intended users mainly use Android, if the product primarily serves people in China through a WeChat mini program, or if the task naturally belongs in the browser, the order should change. Android also brings substantial work across device certification, adaptation, multiple stores, payments, and ongoing maintenance.

What I like about subscriptions is that a small product can accumulate a long relationship by continuing to do its job well, while still keeping many functions free.

A first payment may come from curiosity or expectation. If someone pays again next month, the question becomes direct: “Did you actually help me during this time?”

So “a valuable app can work as a business” needs a more precise definition: it must keep solving a problem, people must keep choosing to pay, and the remaining income must be enough to support continued work.

Only then does a sustainable loop become possible.

Subscriptions should not be forced onto every product. A one-time problem may suit a purchase or per-use fee; products with an ongoing reason to return deserve thoughtful renewal design.

This is the part I most want to discuss.

In June 2026, Apple described a direction for Siri AI with stronger cross-app finding and action capabilities.[2] Through mechanisms such as App Intents, developers can make an app's actions and content recognizable and callable by the system.[3]

This distinction matters: these abilities have integration requirements. They do not mean Siri can already access every app without conditions. Apple's announcement also described testing plans and device, language, and region limits; actual use depends on availability.

Still, the direction suggests another way to look at value: fewer taps on an app icon do not mean the product completing the task has lost its value.

Imagine a user saying, “Start a three-minute relaxation practice.” Understanding the sentence is one job. Providing the practice, selecting appropriate audio, playing it reliably, and preserving personal history are another set of jobs. This is a hypothetical scenario; it does not mean Yixiu already supports that Siri command.

I think of the AI assistant as an increasingly intelligent front desk. It can understand what a guest wants and shorten the route. But once the guest reaches the room, someone still has to make sure the hot water works and the bed is comfortable.

The front desk may also provide some services itself. Simple, generic functions with no accumulated value may indeed be absorbed by the system.

That is why my judgment has a condition: the apps most worth building offer distinctive content, reliable capability, or a continuing experience—and make those capabilities easier to call.

What excites me about the AI era is not how many apps can be generated in a day.

It is that ideas once blocked by “I cannot build this alone” can now reach real users.

A small problem I encounter every day. An iOS product I willingly reopen. A web entrance that helps people understand and experience it. A group of people who return. Revenue that supports continued improvement.

Every step needs validation. Together, though, these steps form a path I want to follow seriously.

I do not expect the whole world to line up as soon as I launch.

What I hope for is that one day, someone I have never met tells me in another language: “I use this every day.”

Then one small need of mine will have connected with another person's life somewhere in the world.

The one-person-company opportunity I want to pursue can begin here.

Sources and notes · Checked 2026-09-17

[1] RevenueCat · State of Subscription Apps 2026
https://www.revenuecat.com/state-of-subscription-apps

[2] Apple · Siri AI announcement (2026-06-08)
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/06/apple-introduces-siri-ai-a-profoundly-more-capable-and-personal-assistant/

[3] Apple Developer · Apple Intelligence / App Intents
https://developer.apple.com/apple-intelligence/

This article was co-created by Elian and AI. The discussion of business opportunities reflects personal judgment and does not claim that the products have achieved corresponding revenue or integrations. The illustrations were created with AI assistance.