The most successful one-person businesses have these things in common
As more Americans pursue one-person ventures, data suggests those that perform best combine strong business fundamentals with the latest technology solutions. According to the Intuit Quick Books 2026 Small Business Index, interest in entrepreneurship is booming in the United States: One in three adults plans to start a business or side hustle this year, up 94% from last year. Meanwhile, current and aspiring business owners aren’t keen on hiring, suggesting more are going it alone: According to the Census Bureau, of the nearly half million business applications filed in August of 2025, less than 30,000 plan to hire staff this year. With nearly 30 million nonemployer businesses now contributing $1.7 trillion to the American economy, new research finds those who outearn and outlast the competition tend to have a few things in common. They lean on AI Those who are excelling in their one-person ventures tend to use artificial intelligence as more than just a high-powered search engine. Instead, they’re embedding AI deeper into their processes, building custom agents to automate some of the routine and administrative tasks that would otherwise require a significant share of their time and attention. “We see across a number of different surveys that the top uses for AI broadly are still marketing-based, text-based, creative-based. But then there is that small number that uses AI more meaningfully, more operationally in their business,” says Simon Worsfold, head of data communications at Intuit QuickBooks. “They can do more with AI as a single operator or solopreneur than they could even one or two years ago.” According to the Intuit QuickBooks study, more than 60% of those breaking into entrepreneurship say they plan to use AI to help them launch or run their business. And a recent survey of 600 American solopreneurs by Lettuce Financial found that those who earn over $150,000 per year and have been in business for more than five years are likely to use AI in five or