⏳ Peer Groups > Mentors

T.I.N.Y Blog, Time Billionaires #027

In today’s T.I.N.Y email, I cover:

• Thought: Find yourself a peer group

• Interesting: A list of 1-person companies that make $1M+/year

• Not to be missed: Can AI write and draw out a story? Yes.

• Yes: AI will encourage more 1-person businesses

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Find yourself a peer group

I think mentors provide a ton of value. They’re a few steps ahead of you so they share their experiences and knowledge on how you can level up. They’ve probably been through a similar journey as yours which is why they’re in a position to advise you.

I’ve realized that mentors can be older or younger than you. They’re usually older because they’ve had more time to go through the same experiences that you have. But in some niche cases, they can be younger than you. They may have done this one thing that you haven’t explored yet in which case they are in a position to advise you.

In my recent experience, peer groups have been more fun. They're a mix between mentors and friends. They’re more relatable than mentors and more aligned than just your friend from work. Peer groups tend to have people that have a similar obsessive fire that you have about a particular topic.

Mr. Beast had a version of this when he used to get on 18-hour Skype calls with other people obsessed with Youtube.

People in your peer group might be on the same level or a step ahead of you. In that case, they were literally where you are a couple of weeks/months ago meaning their experience is unlikely to be outdated and more relevant.

Another benefit of having an obsessive peer group is that they are more generous with their time. You teach them what you've learned from your mistakes while they do the same. It’s a win-win.

In short, I think peer groups are just as important as mentors (if not more). I honestly consider people in my peer group as mentors. So I’d recommend either creating or joining one as soon as possible. It doesn’t have to be a formal Slack channel. Something like a iMessage group will do just fine. Even a mental peer group in your head is useful (doesn’t have to be an actual group - just a list of obsessive people). I found Twitter to be a great place to find candidates for this.

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One-person businesses with $1M ARR

If you didn’t already know, I love high-revenue per-employee businesses.

Here are a couple that stand out to me:

1. BuiltWith
   It helps you find what tech and services a website is using on the backend
   Revenue: $14M per year

2. Photopea
   It’s basically Photoshop in the web.
   Revenue: $1.5M per year

3. Digital Inspiration
   It builds google plugins for docs, sheets, slides, and more.
   Revenue: $10M per year

4. Justin Welsh
   He builds high-quality digital products (like the LinkedIn OS, the playbook he used to grow on the platform rapidly).
   Revenue: $3M per year

5. Carrd
   It’s a tool you can use to build a landing page or website very quickly. I recently switched from Wordpress to Carrd for my website: aaditsheth.com
   Revenue: $1M+ per year

There are more here:

Aleksandr Volodarsky 🇺🇦 @volodarik

I'm obsessed with 1-person companies and have spent over 50 hours researching them. Here are the 10 most impressive ones that have generated millions in revenue with 0 employees:

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Someone made a full story using AI

Eric used ChatGPT to write the stories. Then, used DALLE-2 to illustrate them.

Here’s what he came up with:

Eric Zelikman @ericzelikman

ChatGPT can write stories and then tell DALLE-2 prompts to illustrate them. I asked it to write a children's story about "a robot that wanted to be a human." Here's the story it came up with: (0/11)

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There will be more 1-person businesses

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Aadit’s picks:

1. Marketing examined is a newsletter that I’ve been enjoying lately. I love learning about how the greatest companies in the world market their products.