Can you build a €40M brand with only 4 people?

Spoiler alert: Yes, you can.

I've worked with many big lifestyle brands that do 6 figures in revenue per employee.
Which can be great. Nothing wrong there.

But in the last few years, I've been talking to more and more brands that do high 7 to 8 figures in RPE.

Often with only a handful of people.

They are running most of their business with AI, mostly Claude.
And are always working on automating and growing even more. Without hiring.

Until now, growing your business basically meant hiring more people.

More funding. More customers. More people. More managers.

Throwing bodies at a problem to solve it was very accepted for a long time.

Today, some big tech companies I work with myself haven't grown their teams in years.
Backfilling is okay, but new hires need a really strong business case.

And AI is absolutely the reason for that.

Revenue and headcount are now much less related.

I've had long talks with self-funded €XXM/yr founders, and they seem very:
Focused. Confident. Calm and happy.

Free from continuous financial pressure, bureaucracy, and overhead.

Very different mental states from some C-level execs in large businesses I work with.

For me, this is one of the biggest positive changes I see AI bringing to business.

100x RPE means high salaries to hire A-players and to invest in experimentation and growth.

What if you could generate the same revenue with only 1% of your team?

What would your business and life look like?

AI is getting a lot of hate, but I know this is the biggest growth driver of our generation.
That's why I started a dead-simple AI newsletter this month.

Honestly, the best way to go deeper and learn something new about AI myself every day.
And to share AI business value:

No hype. No 40 new tools to learn today. No fear mongering.

One email a day.
One-minute read.
One percent better at AI.

PS: Although I love AI and use it a lot, I wrote this post myself (well, 90% of it). Writing is thinking.