Shopify Veteran Birk Jernström Aims to Empower Developers to Build Billion-Dollar AI Startups Alone

Birk Jernström, the CEO of Polar, aims to help developers create one-person billion-dollar companies, a concept that has gained traction thanks to the rise of AI. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and his tech CEO friends have even bet on this vision, with a pool predicting the year the first solo unicorn will emerge. Jernström's experience in building successful startups began with Tictail, which he co-founded in 2011 with the goal of making it as easy to start an online store as it is to create a blog. By 2012, Tictail had launched and quickly attracted over 100,000 merchants. Recognizing the need to drive more traffic to small merchants, Jernström and his team expanded Tictail's offerings to include a marketplace. This move caught the attention of Shopify, leading to Tictail's acquisition in 2018 for $17 million. Following the acquisition, Jernström joined Shopify to develop the Shop app and the Shop Pay ecosystem. However, in 2021, he decided to resign, motivated by personal reflections and the desire to explore a new venture. This decision led to the creation of Polar, a monetization platform designed specifically to support developers in building and scaling their businesses without the usual complexities. Polar stands out by offering services that handle billing and taxes, allowing developers to launch and manage global SaaS subscriptions and digital products seamlessly. The platform can be integrated with just a few lines of code, a feature that appealed to investors like Accel, which led Polar’s $10 million seed round. Andrei Brasoveanu, a partner at Accel, noted the potential of AI-native, early-stage businesses that wish to grow without being hindered by operational details. Jernström remains deeply involved in customer support, answering dozens of support tickets daily and maintaining a close relationship with his user base. Polar’s success is evident in its rapid growth since launching in September 2024, reaching 18,000 customers, most of whom are developers looking to monetize their software independently. The company’s cap table reflects its strong developer-focused approach, featuring backing from entrepreneurs behind popular tools like Framer, Raycast, Dub, Nuxt, Resend, Supabase, Vercel, and WorkOS, as well as support from fellow Swedish startups like Lovable. These entrepreneurs share Jernström’s vision of simplifying the process of building and scaling businesses around software. Polar's ambition aligns with the growing trend of AI empowering indie hackers and professional developers. For Jernström, this vision is deeply personal, influenced by his upbringing with an entrepreneur mother, his early interest in development, and the success of Tictail in uplifting small merchants. "What I want Polar to achieve is similar to Shopify: How do we empower more entrepreneurship of developers that can actually build and follow their own passions and ship software independently and build businesses around that," he said. Industry insiders are optimistic about Polar’s potential to transform the landscape for independent developers. The platform’s ease of integration and comprehensive support services are seen as crucial in helping developers focus on innovation rather than logistics. Polar’s success story is further bolstered by Jernström’s proven track record and the enthusiastic backing from a diverse range of prominent tech figures. Polar’s mission to democratize entrepreneurship for developers is not only a personal passion for Jernström but also a timely response to the opportunities presented by AI. With the support of seasoned investors and a rapidly growing user base, Polar is poised to play a significant role in the future of solo tech entrepreneurship. Anna Heim, a freelance reporter at TechCrunch, covers a wide range of startup-related topics, including AI, fintech, insurtech, SaaS, and global venture capital trends. Her expertise in the European startup ecosystem is reflected in her extensive coverage and involvement in major tech conferences. Her background as a former LATAM & Media Editor at The Next Web and a Sciences Po Paris alum adds depth to her insights and writing.