Originally sent as "what used to cost you €50K is now €50" to the From operator to owner newsletter.
In July, a message landed in my LinkedIn inbox from someone I'd never met.
"We don't know each other, but I've been watching what you do. I'd like to challenge you to a conversation with a concrete goal. Teaching AI in executive education at Nova SBE."
Miguel runs the AI portfolio there. Programs for executives with 15+ years of experience, most of them sent by their companies.
The reason he reached out is simple. I built an entire B2B SaaS product, Mazo, from scratch. Zero technical skills. Just vibe coding. He wanted me to teach others to do the same.
On our first call, the challenge got bigger. He invited me to build two programs. One on AI and innovation, for future entrepreneurs. Another on scalability and growth, for corporates. We agreed to both go away and think about how to structure it.
I didn't think. I built. Before our next conversation, I had the entrepreneurship program designed from scratch. A limited number of sessions, every hour mapped, a name: Entrepreneurship and Innovation with AI: From Idea to Launch.
When I told Miguel, he said the university had been looking for exactly this. The value of a program like this isn't the content. It's answering the question everyone is carrying around right now: "In this AI era, how do I actually create something?"
Building stopped being the hard part
The cost of building has collapsed. Testing an idea used to take €50K and six months. Now it takes €50 and an afternoon. You can have a live product this weekend. Payments connected by Monday.
Building stopped being the hard part. Validation and distribution are. Miguel sees it from the university side too: 90% of new AI-based businesses die because they can't grow past their first 50 users.
Which makes the builder-distributor the most valuable person alive right now. The one who ships the product and gets it in front of people. Same person. For the first time, one person can genuinely be both.
I think that unlocks the biggest boom in micro-companies we've ever seen. One-to-ten-person businesses generating real cash, serving small communities they understand, running on AI and organic distribution instead of headcount. Some people will build one. Some will build five. Some will build one that accidentally becomes big.
We are at the very beginning of the very beginning. If you've been waiting for a sign to start something, this is the cheapest starting has ever been.
Most people who build a portfolio of small businesses started with one. Built badly, on a laptop, at night. The difference now is you don't have to do it badly, or alone.
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