The observation it all starts with
In recent months, as a single person, I have executed things that used to require a small apparatus: rebuilt a complete website including a blog — without an agency. Developed and sold an app of my own — without a developer team. Set up a content system that does the work of a small editorial office — without an editorial office.
I am not telling you this because I am special. I was born in 1972, I am no technician, and none of this was taught at my school. I am telling you because it means something structural: If a single person today can move what yesterday required an organization — then something fundamental is shifting. And that is exactly what I want to talk to you about.
What is a solopreneur anyway?
Quickly clarified, because the word plays the lead role in this text: a Solopreneur is an entrepreneur who deliberately undertakes alone — no employees, full responsibility and full control over their own business. That is different from a “freelancer”: a freelancer sells her time to clients. A solopreneur builds a company — offers, products, systems — just without a workforce.
For a long time this counted as an in-between stage: you start solo, then you hire, then you “scale”. Exactly this picture is breaking right now — and for good reason.
The traditional working world is crumbling — and not because of AI
We are living through great upheavals, socially and in how we work. Our traditional notions of work — the fixed structure, the clear responsibilities, the “that’s just how it’s done” — are crumbling in many places.
And now comes the point where I almost always push back when the topic comes up: AI is not the reason. AI merely accelerates what was long overdue.
Because let’s be honest: that people must do the same things day after day — the same motions, the same reports, the same routines — has been obsolete for a long time. We only accepted it because there was no alternative. The assembly-line logic extended itself into the offices, and we called it work.
AI has now created that alternative. Not as a distant future, but as a tool you can open this afternoon. That is not a threat to work — it is the end of a form of work that never did people justice in the first place.
And the other side of the upheaval: the supposedly secure
This change does not only affect us self-employed. It equally affects those who still feel secure today. Many who are convinced today that they hold a permanent job forever will be looking for new fields of activity in the coming years. Tasks disappear, entire roles shift, and what was a secure post yesterday is suddenly up for debate.
And where it gets particularly uncomfortable, I want to be honest: from a certain age, a fresh start in employment does not get easier but harder. The same when your own pace or your own way of working no longer fits the rigid grid of a corporation. That is not scaremongering — it is an observation many are making firsthand right now.
I say this expressly not to frighten. But because exactly here solopreneurship turns from emergency exit into a genuine choice: whoever builds their own business becomes independent of the question of whether someone else still considers them a fit. And with AI this path is, for the first time, walkable without a team, without large starting capital and without a tech degree. Your years of experience are not ballast to be rationalized away there — they are your most valuable raw material.
The new lever: one person can move big things
What truly electrifies me about this development is not the savings potential. It is the lever.
Through the right use of AI — and I will get to the word “right” in a moment — a single person today can move things that used to take budgets, departments and months. Build a product. Build a brand. Create a system that works while she talks to clients.
That fundamentally changes the arithmetic of solopreneurship. Until now the rule was: whoever works alone stays limited — limited in time, in execution power, in what is possible beside the day-to-day. That limit is dissolving right now. Not the responsibility, not the leadership, not the entrepreneurial thinking — but the execution limit.
That is why I say: The future belongs to solopreneurship. Not as a stopgap for everyone who cannot find a team. But as the form of work that best fits what is emerging: people who fully understand, fully own and fully steer their business — and whose execution power no longer depends on the number of their employees.
What “right” means — and why most people fail there
Now to the most important word in this text: used right.
Because the lever does not come from acquiring twenty tools and collecting a hundred prompts. That is the dead end most people are standing in right now: they collect AI knowledge like provisions for a winter that never comes — and put none of it to work. I deliberately work with one AI tool instead of twenty.
The lever comes from a division of roles I live in every one of my projects: I lead, the AI builds. Concept, decisions, quality control — that stays with me. Execution — the machine takes that over. This is not a technology question but an entrepreneur question: you have to know what you want, what counts as standard in your business and how you recognize good results.
And that is exactly why my audience is not the tech youth but women with decades of business experience: you have long known how to lead — you were only missing the apparatus. It is here now, and it costs no salaries but the price of a subscription.
What this means for you
If you are self-employed, run a small business and sometimes wonder whether you are “keeping up” in this AI world: turn the question around. You are not behind. You are in the best starting position this upheaval has to offer — small enough to move fast, experienced enough to lead, and free enough to rebuild your business the way it serves you.
The big players must rebuild structures that grew over decades. You only have to start.
What that looks like concretely, I will show you on this blog twice a week from now on: Mondays the big picture — my theses, my experiments, my honest calculations. Thursdays the craft — tools, guides, experience. Next week starts with my personal proof of this thesis: why I am deliberately making my own company smaller — and it becomes more profitable in the process.
If you want to walk this path along, sign up for my newsletter — there you get the articles and my thoughts on them straight to your inbox. No tool lists, no hype. The big picture and the craft to go with it.
That is the thesis. Whether it holds is decided not in the text but in what you do differently next week. That is exactly what we talk about in my free community “KI — aber richtig” — the templates and workflows from my videos live there too. And if you want company instead of doing it alone: the AI Business Community offers monthly live calls, workshops and the MACHZEIT! challenge for exactly that.
Frequently asked questions
What is a solopreneur?
An entrepreneur who deliberately undertakes without employees — with their own offer, their own products and full control over the business. The difference from a freelancer: solopreneurs do not just sell time, they build a company with systems that work for them.
Isn’t solopreneurship riskier than permanent employment?
The honest answer: the risks are shifting on both sides right now. Traditional work structures are far less secure than they feel — while the greatest historical weakness of solopreneurship, the limited execution power of a single person, is disappearing through AI.
Doesn’t AI replace solopreneurs too?
AI replaces activities, not entrepreneurs. What it takes over is the repetitive execution work — what it cannot do is lead: decide what gets built, for whom, and whether the result is good. Whoever can lead becomes stronger through AI, not redundant.
Do I need a team to work big with AI?
No — that is the core of the thesis. A single person with clear leadership and the right tools moves today what used to take teams. What matters is not the number of hands but clarity about your own business.
Where do I concretely start as a solopreneur?
Not with the tools, but with the structure: which processes in your business are standard and can be handed over — and what do only you decide? That inventory is the first step; everything else builds on it.
Is the step into self-employment worth it even over 50?
Especially then. Where experience in the job market sometimes counts as “too expensive” or “too inflexible”, in your own business it is the greatest advantage: you know your industry, your clients, your routines. With AI you can put that experience to work today, without a team and without a tech degree — and make yourself independent of whether an employer still considers you a fit.
