It used to take an army.
Hundreds of engineers to build what we now call basic features. Massive teams, massive budgets, massive coordination costs.
That's changing.
A team of five can now build what once required fifty. A solo developer can ship what once needed a department.
AI tools are part of this. So are better frameworks. So is accumulated infrastructure that nobody has to rebuild.
But the real shift is mental.
Companies are realizing that small teams move faster. Less coordination. Less process. Less friction. More ownership. More clarity. More speed.
And users can't tell the difference.
They don't know if their favorite app was made by three people or three hundred. They only know if it works.
This changes the economics of software.
You don't need venture scale to build venture-quality products. You don't need an office to build something millions use.
The playing field hasn't been leveled. But it's smaller than it's ever been.
That's the shift worth noticing.