Today, I read an article about a 19-year-old college freshman who sold the start-up that he and his friends started two years ago while they were in high school. Its product is a calorie-tracking app that allows you to take pictures of food to track the number of calories you consume. The founder says the company has a $50 million annual-recurring-revenue run rate. It’s reported that it generated in the neighborhood of $30 million last calendar year. This founder embraced AI technology early and used savvy social media marketing to get customers. All while being a full-time student.

This story isn’t the norm and likely won’t become the norm, but I think it demonstrates that we’ve entered a new era of entrepreneurship. Building a product and distributing it have gotten many times easier (though still not easy).

Entrepreneurs who are driven and understand how to best solve a painful problem can now build a solution faster than ever with AI. You don’t have to be technical to build a software- or internet-based solution. If you can describe the problem and the solution, AI will literally write the code to build the product and will do it quickly, perhaps in just a few minutes. To get customers and distribution, entrepreneurs can create content that resonates with their potential customers on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and X using a smartphone (fancy equipment isn’t necessary). If they’re successful, their company can scale rapidly.

Now, to be transparent, the stickiness of customers of AI solutions and the durability of AI revenue are yet to be determined. Regardless, it’s clear that starting and scaling a company rapidly is now a viable option for anyone considering entrepreneurship.

If you’re interested in reading what the founder said about the sale, see his post on X here.

You can read more details about the deal and the CEO of the company that acquired the students’ app here.