The Switzerland Strategy: How to Build a Profitable AI Business Without Building AI
While AI giants burn billions battling in the model wars, a quieter class of companies is raking in profits by doing something brilliantly simple — staying neutral.
The Real AI Gold Rush? It’s Not Where You Think
We’re in the middle of the most explosive technology shift since the rise of the internet. AI is eating the world, VCs are deploying billions, and startups are racing to build the next “ChatGPT killer.” But here’s the twist:
The companies profiting the most from AI aren’t the ones building AI. They’re the ones connecting it.
Think of them as Switzerland — neutral, infrastructure-focused, and quietly becoming indispensable to everyone in the ecosystem.
If you're chasing the next big thing in AI, you might be looking in the wrong place. Let’s explore the “Switzerland Strategy” — and why it might be the smartest business move in the AI era.
The Phone Call That Changed Everything
Two weeks ago, a seasoned venture capitalist called, voice full of panic.
"Ritesh, we put $50 million into an AI startup. They're burning $800K monthly on GPT-5 and Claude. Their biggest competitor? A scrappy team using Llama and Mistral, spending just $50K monthly — and delivering 85% of the same features."
I asked one question:
“Why didn’t you invest in the company that helps both of them?”
Silence.
Then: Click.
One hour later:
“Holy sh*t. You’re talking about OpenRouter, aren’t you?”
Bingo.
That’s when it hit me — most of the tech world is looking at AI all wrong.
The Company Processing $100M Without Building AI
Meet OpenRouter — a company most people haven’t heard of, and that’s by design.
While OpenAI, Anthropic, and Mistral fight over model dominance, OpenRouter does something almost boring in its simplicity:
It routes API calls between 400+ AI models across 60+ providers.
Their business? Take a 5% cut on every dollar transacted.
Let’s do the math:
$100M+ in AI spend processed
$5M ARR in May 2025 (up from $1M in December)
Over 1 million developers onboard
Profitable, with 400% growth in 5 months
They’re not building AI. They’re monetizing the infrastructure AI depends on.
Sound familiar?
Because if you’ve been around long enough, you’ve seen this pattern before.
Infrastructure Always Wins
When I worked at AWS, we had a saying:
“The people who build the pipes always win.”
Amazon Bedrock — AWS’s model-agnostic AI platform — was laughed at when we launched it. People asked, “Why not just pick the best model?”
Now?
Bedrock powers Fortune 500s.
4.7x customer growth in 2025.
AI backlog: $156.6 billion.
The secret? We didn’t pick sides. We gave customers access to all the models through a single API.
And here’s the kicker:
Every scale — from indie hackers to Fortune 100 — needs Switzerland.
Quick Wins: $10K–$40K MRR Businesses You Can Build This Weekend
You don’t need to be OpenRouter or AWS to win. You can start small — and still play the Switzerland game.
Here are real, revenue-generating tools built on simple pain points:
Idea
Revenue (MRR)
What It Does
Prompt Converter $10K
Converts prompts between ChatGPT, Claude, Llama
AI Cost Alert $25K
Warns teams when they overspend on AI usage
Model Speed Test $15K
Compares model inference speed live
Token Counter $8K
Chrome extension that counts tokens
Compliance Layer $40K
HIPAA wrapper for AI APIs
Batch Processor $30K
Queues and optimizes API requests
One developer built the Token Counter in 4 hours. Today? $8K/month.
These aren’t revolutionary apps. They’re essential tools. And they’re profitable.
The GitHub Playbook Repeating in AI
GitHub never built programming languages. It just hosted everyone’s code.
Result? Microsoft acquired it for $7.5 billion.
Hugging Face is now doing the same for AI models.
Hosts 1M+ open-source models
Used by Meta, Google, researchers worldwide
$70M–$85M ARR
Now profitable
Business model?
Free for developers
$9–$20/month for premium tiers
Big enterprise contracts with Nvidia, Amazon, Microsoft
While OpenAI loses $5B/year, Hugging Face prints profits. That’s the Switzerland Strategy in action.
The $100 Test: Building AI vs. Routing AI
Let’s say you have $100 to spend on AI infrastructure. You have two choices.
1. Build an AI model:
$100 burns in 1 day on compute
You serve 2,000 API calls
You make... $0
2. Be Switzerland:
Route 2M API calls for others
Serve 10,000 developers
Take a 5% cut
You make... $5,000
Same $100. Different outcome. Welcome to leverage.
The Market Gets It — Wall Street Bets on Switzerland
Two massive public companies recently validated this thesis:
CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV)
Provides GPU infra, not AI models
IPO at $40/share → Now trading at 3x
Market cap: $58B+
Just acquired Weights & Biases for $1.7B
Nebius (NASDAQ: NBIS)
Ex-Yandex cloud spinout
Signed a $17.4B AI infra deal with Microsoft
Stock jumped 50% overnight
These companies don’t compete in the model wars.
They build roads for everyone else.
The Pattern You Can’t Ignore
The Burners (Building AI, Losing Money):
OpenAI: -$5B/year
Anthropic: Deep in red
Mistral: €600M raised, no profit path
Inflection / Character.AI: Acqui-hired
The Switzerland Players (Neutral, Profitable):
AWS Bedrock: 4.7x growth
Hugging Face: Profitable
CoreWeave: 3x stock increase
OpenRouter: 400% revenue growth
Vercel AI: 12% stock uptick
Together AI: $30M raised just for routing
One group is innovating. The other is accumulating.
The Playbook: How You Can Build a Switzerland AI Business
Step 1: Identify the Pain
Look for real-world friction:
Confusion over model selection
Cost bloat
Legal/compliance gaps
API incompatibility
Monitoring needs
Step 2: Don’t Innovate. Aggregate.
Build simple wrappers, dashboards, comparison tools. Don’t reinvent — repackage.
Step 3: Stay Neutral
Don’t favor OpenAI or Anthropic.
Support them all. That’s your value.
Step 4: Charge Everyone
Developers: for time-saving tools
Enterprises: for compliance/reliability
AI Companies: for distribution
Being neutral doesn’t mean being free.
Your Switzerland Math
If you capture just 0.01% of the $644B GenAI market:
$64.4M in revenue
At 70% margins: $45M profit
At a 20x infra multiple: $1.3B valuation
Yes — with just 0.01% market share.
DeepSeek Changed the Game Forever
In early 2025, DeepSeek built a ChatGPT competitor for $5.6 million.
Not billion. Million.
And performance? Within 2% of GPT-5.
That’s when everyone realized:
Models are becoming commodities. Infrastructure is not.
Why You Need to Move Now
This window is closing fast:
Microsoft just made $17B worth of infra bets
VCs are pivoting from foundation models to tools
M&A is heating up (CoreWeave x W&B)
First-movers like OpenRouter are scaling like crazy
In 12–18 months, the obvious plays will be gone.
The 48-Hour Switzerland Startup Challenge
Here’s your roadmap:
Hours 1–2: Brainstorm 10 AI friction points
Hours 3–4: Research what already exists
Hours 5–8: Build a simple MVP using Cursor, Replit
Hours 9–16: Get 10 beta users (LinkedIn/X)
Hours 17–24: Iterate
Hours 25–48: Launch on Product Hunt
You’re now a Switzerland player. Congratulations.
The Twist Most Founders Don’t See Coming
AI companies want Switzerland to exist.
Why?
They don’t want to build billing, compliance, or uptime
They don’t want to manage every customer need
They want distribution through your platform
Meta open-sources Llama. But relies on Hugging Face to host it.
OpenAI uses CoreWeave for infra.
Microsoft pays $17B to Nebius despite owning Azure.
They need you.
Final Thought: Be the Arms Dealer
In the gold rush, miners chased dreams. Most went broke.
But the people selling picks and shovels?
They built empires.
In AI, the arms dealers will win.