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There’s a meme circulating in tech circles: the one-person billion dollar company. AI has amplified individual productivity so dramatically that a single talented operator could build and run what used to require entire teams. It’s an exciting vision.
But what if that person doesn’t need a billion dollars?
Look at the current SaaS landscape. Companies charge considerable subscription fees for tools that are trivial to build and maintain. These companies made sense before AI — building a successful SaaS took a whole team, and paying $10s/mo or $100s/mo was worth not having to build your own. These companies don’t make sense now.
Today, a single talented generalist could run one of these companies alone. Maybe one of them will create that mythical billion-dollar solo venture. Or maybe they’ll be satisfied with something different: a generous salary, delivering maximum value to users, and a monopoly.
Enter the At-Cost Single Employee Service, or ACSES (pronounced like “access”). The model is simple: accept a good salary, take no additional profits, and pass the savings to customers as an extremely low price.
It’s like Open Source Software, but instead of developing a free software package, you develop a SaaS product that costs money and pays a salary. You focus on building the best possible product for your customers and charge only what it costs to run — your salary plus infrastructure costs, divided by your user base.
A natural market consolidation effect emerges. The more customers an ACSES has, the lower the price drops. Customers are incentivized to promote the service, creating viral growth. To get the greatest value per dollar, the market consolidates on a reliable monopoly. By supporting the established ACSES you’ll pay the lowest price and the price is likely to decrease over time.
But the advantage goes beyond pricing. We see many examples where the profit motive sacrifices product quality and user experience: confusing pricing tiers, gotchyas that make your bill spike, UIs AB tested to increase revenue through obfuscation, features artificially gated to justify an “enterprise” plan. The product becomes a vehicle for extraction rather than the best possible tool for the user.
An ACSES flips this dynamic. Without the pressure to maximize revenue, the operator can focus entirely on building the best possible product. No tricks or gotchyas aimed at moving the revenue needle. Just a straightforward tool that is easy to use, priced at what it costs to run.
Won’t ACSES operators just compete on lowest salary? I don’t think so. I think the market will prefer an operator that is well-compensated, comfortable and happy to operate long-term. Financial incentive is the effective mechanism for motivating the highest quality service to the market – a non-profit model or Open Source Software-style volunteer model won’t cut it.
This isn’t about altruism or anti-capitalism. It’s about recognizing that some problems are now small enough for one person to solve alone. As AI begins to eliminate software engineering roles, a good salary with job security is an attractive prospect to a software engineer. And by reorienting a business’ focus from maximum profit to maximum quality, a great new array of products enter the market: maximum quality at minimum cost.
I launched acses.dev to debut some ACSES offerings. This organization will aim to establish ACSES standards and best practices, and build a team of operators – the best and brightest – to bring ACSES to as many domains as there is demand. If you’re interested, visit acses.dev to join the early access waitlist.
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