One thing I want to point out about software is that its perpetually commoditized. Any piece of valuable software will get a free version after some amount of time.

It happened to compilers, operating systems, and renderer. It's gradually happening to game engines.

That's why the largest software companies are really just network effect monopolies. You only use it because other people use it or it relies on some sort of proprietary format.

Many companies like Adobe, Microsoft and Google could sustain a dramatically lower headcount if they started from scratch and never went outside the confines of their network monopoly markets.

From that perspective a one person unicorn is very feasible if we think about it as building a network effect monopoly.

In fact a close example already exists -- Minecraft was very close to being a single person unicorn.

If we have a one person unicorn, I'd imagine it'd be something more like Minecraft than someones newsletter or Google!

> Any piece of valuable software will get a free version after some amount of time.

There are still plenty of areas where this isn't true. Or where the free versions are so far behind it may as well be true.

I work on CAD software that integrates with Catia, NX, and Creo, and the pro CAD software is light years ahead of the free alternatives. And even if the free stuff catches up, there's practically zero chance the biggest users will switch from what they're currently using. CAD lock-in is tricky. A lot of times the different CAD systems target different niches, so it's not just file format lock-in, but that a certain CAD system is better for making planes, or designing for CNC, or whatever. And most companies have automation that integrates with their particular CAD system. And the parts have to be read by newer software for decades and produce identical results, or they won't fit together right.

Some of the vendors release free versions, but they're not open source, and they're only there to steer people towards the paid versions later on.

> From that perspective a one person unicorn is very feasible if we think about it as building a network effect monopoly.

To build a one person unicorn, the main thing you need is an arbitrage opportunity for getting users that is unattractive to multi-person companies. Once established, this business may well turn into a network effect monopoly, but I don't think that is the crux of what is needed to get going.

There are still counterexamples. Nobody's commoditized Gurobi or k/qdb, and nobody will. But these companies won't ever become household names because they're not driven to grow and build a monopoly at all costs, they're driven to build and sell very specific software to very specific organizations.

This, and I'd add that if you're fortunate enough to have the resources to pursue an idea, use that time to your advantage. Don't rush: build it at your own pace. Time can be a real competitive edge compared to startups that are under pressure to sprint toward unicorn status. Network and build.

Building a global network requires not just building a successful product, but exporting that product to different geographic markets & cultures. Core product team might be 1 AI enabled developer, but what about all the other dimensions of a successful global enterprise?

> Any piece of valuable software will get a free version after some amount of time

Technically. The reality is much closer to "Any piece of valuable software will get a crappy free version after some amount of time, and multiple paid copies"

Minecraft? Not at all. Please stop rewriting history. Minecraft definitely had a small dev team but it wasn’t a single persons effort and wasn’t close to being one. You don’t create a world changing video game by yourself.