Framework
The $83K License Play
Build one hyper-specific feature — so niche you can describe it in five words or less — and sell one enterprise license at $83,000 per month. That is $1M ARR from what may be four lines of code packaged as an executable. The leverage is not in the complexity of the code. It is in the specificity of the insight, the proprietary data that makes it work, and the distribution that gets you in front of the one buyer who needs it.
How it works
- 1The canonical example: a routing protocol fix that recovered bits lost in internet transmission — a tiny executable sold to telecoms for millions in licensing fees.
- 2If you cannot describe the feature in five words in H1 text on a website, it is too broad. One core feature. Everything else is noise.
- 3Enterprise pricing at $83K/month is only possible when the product solves a problem the buyer cannot solve with generic tools — which requires proprietary data or domain-specific insight.
- 4The code is almost never the moat. The moat is the relationship with the industry, the data that trained the model, and the distribution that made the sale.
- 5Charging based on value rather than cost requires holding your poker hand tighter — the moment you reveal the simplicity of the implementation, you destroy the pricing leverage.
Hear it on the podcast
Everyone Is Building AI WrongListen to the episodeMore from this episode
The Three Checkbox FrameworkBefore building any AI product, three boxes must all be checked: (1) distribution on the cap table — equity to people already inside your target market's networks, (2) defensible IP — proprietary data, SOPs, or formulas that cannot be replicated with another model call, and (3) an industry expert involved. If you cannot check all three, the project does not start. Not pauses — does not start.Zero to One SpecializationIdentify exactly what you are best at in the zero-to-one phase of a company — product, talent, capital, first distribution — and build structures that let you do only that. As each company scales past what you do best, promote yourself upward to a strategic role, hire a CEO, and delegate the execution to people better suited to the next phase. This is how you run multiple companies without burning out.
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