Anik Devaughn on building companies with AI, featured in Inc. Magazine

Inc. Magazine featured Anik Devaughn, founder of Wired to Create, as a lead example of the new one-person startup: how he built Karo with AI doing the work of entire teams, and why he says polymaths build companies.

On 23 July 2026, Inc. Magazine, one of the most-read business publications in the US, looked at a new kind of company: the startup that launches and grows with almost no payroll. Anik Devaughn, founder of Wired to Create, led the piece as a working example. He built Karo, an AI-native commerce platform now working with Swedish retailers alongside Worldline and Visma, without a design, content, or operations team.

For Anik, the lean setup was a design decision, not a constraint to escape. “Everyone treats a one-person setup like a phase you suffer through until you can afford real hires,” he told Inc. “I built it on purpose. Starting Karo, I had no design team, no content team, no ops team, just a method and AI doing the work of each of them.” One of those AI operators, Milla, is openly identified as AI; the company doesn't pretend customers are talking to a human.

The article draws out why the model works for him specifically: the roles a typical founder outsources are ones he already carries in his head, so AI extends a range he already had. “AI gives it wings,” he said, “one mind moving at the speed of a full department.”

Inc.'s wider point is that AI changes when founders hire and what those hires do, not that teams disappear; someone still needs the expertise to spot weak output. Anik's version of that is the line the piece leaves on: specialists build features, polymaths build companies.

Specialists build features. Polymaths build companies.

Anik Devaughn in Inc. Magazine, July 2026