Forget the garage startup.
Forget the big team.
We are entering the age of the one-person unicorn.
AI has slashed the cost of building a business to almost zero, turning solo dreamers into global competitors overnight.
But when you go it alone, who catches you when you fall?
After that, it's just an innocent red envelope.
So why is it causing so much family drama?
This spring festival, the Hongbao, was at the center of a legal tug of war.
Parents see it as a social currency.
Kids, though well, the law says it's theirs is I'll keep this safe for you the biggest lie we tell our kids.
Coming to you live from our studios in Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm Steve.
Thank you very much for being with us today.
And for the show, I'm with Fei-Fei and Yuxin.
First up, AI has rewritten entrepreneurship rules.
Upending the traditional notion that starting a company requires a whole lot of people.
Once dependent on complex teams and substantial capital and resource accumulation, entrepreneurship now has a new paradigm.
AI-powered one-person companies.
They're called OPCs.
Globally and in China, these OPCs have evolved from niche projects to a thriving trend, supported by policies and local initiatives and industrial ecosystems.
They empower individuals to turn ideas into profitable businesses with minimal cost, sparking a super-individual entrepreneurial wave.
In recent years.
Fei-Fei and Yuxin good afternoon to you both.
Topics like AI one-person companies or OPCs, or super individuals or AI virtual partners.
These have gone viral on Chinese social media platforms.
And I guess this is reflecting a pretty significant shift in the way that the country is building its entrepreneurial landscape, because I think I mentioned it already.
Traditionally, when we think about building your own business, we think about a lot of money up front, a lot of people need to be involved.
But the OPC is changing all of that.
Especially in the era when the AI is just becoming more and more capable and is giving more possibilities that a company can run by couple of AIs and also one person.
So that's why these kind of topics are getting more and more popular on social media and also globally.
So the concept of this one person company is originated from the UK company law in 2013, originally referring to one person limited liability companies in the legal sense.
And in the wave of artificial intelligence that we just mentioned, it has been redefined and evolved into a new type of entrepreneurial model where an individual or very small team can achieve a full link, closed loop from idea to operation with the help of ai tools.
So probably just with one person or few people in the team, you will finish everything, from starting up the company, doing the tax, doing the registration, finish the deal and everything.
I've even seen the advertisements for these tools, these ai tools, on social media when I'm scrolling and they're advertised like this.
Usually it's one man or one woman sitting at a desk by themselves in an office and they say I used to depend on a whole team of people when I ran my company, but now I depend on Fill in the blank AI tool.
And then I keep scrolling because I don't have my own one person company.
So that's not applicable to me.
But my point is that, yeah, I've seen these types of things advertised for a while.
And now we know there's a reason that they're advertised.
People are using them.
Yeah, because AI can do a lot of things for them at this point.
They're becoming practically the partners of these entrepreneurs.
For example, in market research, in code writing, in design, in copywriting, in data analysis.
So a lot of, for example, paperwork can be shifted to AI agents.
And also when it comes to, I think, the support coming from, for example, the governments.
When we're talking about starting a company in a traditional sense.
First of all is you need to find a place for this company to get registered.
Yeah, there's support for that too.
And we're going to get to that in a little while.
But these OPCs, I mean, we say one person company, right?
But it's not simply that, right?
It's more than that.
It can be one person or more.
And it's mostly the single founder-led decision-making.
And I think that is also one of the points that leads to that one-person company idea.
The founder retains full control over development direction, resource allocation and also key decisions, eliminating the internal conflicts and inefficiencies of co-founder teams.
So they can move really fast when it comes to having this idea and then sort of making them a real product on the market, because there is only one person to do that.
There is no team conflicts when it comes to that.
There's no Monday morning meeting about should we do this or should we not.
Well, I mean, maybe the AI virtual partner can serve as a platform to bounce ideas off of, though.
Yeah.
This year is really the year of the AI agents.
And it's been just so heatedly discussed.
And many, many other AI agents is coming up on the market telling people that there is a possibility that we can just do more things with these AI assistants or agents.
And these have evolved from a simple auxiliary tool to an autonomous partner that independently complete tasks.
And of course, I think this has been very, very popular.
The bot, the name is called Cloudbot.
And then later it changed in other names and it's becoming just so popular.
Popular globally and people are discussing and talking about it on how it can really do things for you and the possibility of really run a company with this AI agent and They can just do everything from just post listing, do marketing things, making queries, complete transactions and handle tax filing and is literally helping you to do things.
And I think that's why people are saying that wow, we're really entering the era of the year of AI agents.
It can do all of the things that a company needs to be done that typically would have to be done by a human staff.
You mentioned it, Yushin, already.
There are plenty of global examples of this.
There's data from last year.
It was done by Carta.
More than one-third of all new startups in America were founded by a single person in 2025.
That's a pretty impressive number.
Actually, this was surprising to me too, because if you go back to 2019, Solo Founders made up almost 24 of new companies in America.
And then about six years later, that number climbed to almost 37%.
I was surprised to find that it was even that high back in 2019.
But it's still growing and it's continuing to grow as well.
But I want to talk about the examples that are here in China because there are plenty to talk about.
Yes, first of all, we have a lot of sort of industrial parks or industrial zones that offer spaces for these one-person companies to register and operate.
For example, in Beijing, in the district of Haidian, particularly in the area of Zhongguancun, they have this park where people can start their own business.
For example, there's one person called Li Tao.
Very interestingly, he started his company from his own experiences because when he was studying overseas, the biggest first headache that he encountered was to find the school, the college that you want to study.
And for example, the program that you want to enroll yourself into.
But that can be a problem because when you were studying in China your whole life, the information out there can be very overwhelming and you don't know which choice to make.
And now Li Tao.
Coming back from his study overseas, he started to integrate AI technology and building this study abroad matching platform for students.
Oh, so he took the data from the overseas university programs and input it into the platform, and then it helps the students figure out where to go.
Yeah, so of course it's a paid service.
This is where his company's revenue comes from.
But, for example, students can input their gpa, their test scores, their intended major and other basic information and then they'll receive a customized list of recommended schools across three tiers.
For example, what are your safer choices out there?
What would be the solid matches for you?
And which schools can be the one that a little bit out of your reach, but you can try in certain ways.
That's a pretty great service that's provided.
And you said it's a paid service, but it's actually not that much.
It's only 99 yuan.
That's about $14.
And within a couple of months, he was able to get about 3,000 users.
And I guess that's one of the advantages, isn't it?
Is that when you are a one-person company, you don't have a lot of overhead.
You don't have a lot of monthly bills to pay.
So that saving gets passed on to your customers.
That's a really cool idea.
That's one from education.
There's another one from the medical field.
Also, the examples includes the precision medicine area.
One founder called Tang Meng, and they are producing that kind of products that leverage population genetic data and also patients' medication history, using AI algorithms to predict side effects of their patients.
This is an area that has previously been overlooked in clinical practice in China, and they've established a close relationship and partnership with National Cancer Center to build valuable data assets.
And so far, they've gathered case data from over 5000 cancer patients, resulting in more than a million follow-up records.
And that is also, I think, another point of a lot of these people would like to do this one-person company because they can focus on that very specific, detailed area that maybe still has a huge market.
And then they can just focus more on the research area apart when they can put other things aside or outsource it to other part of the company.
So I think that is also one of the benefits of running a one person company.
Yeah, because they can start their idea really fast when it compares to, for example, a bigger company.
When you have an idea as a staff member.
You need to make I don't know millions of proposals to your bosses, to the supervisors, and they need to evaluate a lot of things.
But now with OPCs, with one-person companies, you don't have to do that.
You have an idea, you notice there is a need on the market.
For example, I have another example coming from Zhou Hongbai.
He now runs his company in Shanghai.
He noticed that when a lot of factories in China, when they are trying to expand overseas, they face difficulties when it comes to how to do their marketing and how to do their branding in a foreign environment.
And he sort of started also leveraging AI tools and on research on document processing and he himself can focusing on coordinating with these clients and manufacturers.
So very fastly.
One year after the founding of his company, he has reached a number of agreements with scented candle manufacturings and open up online stores for them.
So if we are thinking about, for example, a bigger company like Alibaba, it will cost more than one year, I guarantee.
But for a younger person, they can do it right away.
They can start to having partnership pretty fast within one year.
So why are these booming now, I wonder?
Because the concept or the idea of a one-person company isn't brand new in 2026 or even 2025.
But why are they all of a sudden taking off?
The one thing is that we've been mentioning the AI technology is upgrading and it's getting so fast in recent years.
It is evolving from a supporting tool into something closer to an autonomous virtual partner that they can actually do things for you and work that once required.
An entire team, like coding, design and copywriting, can now be handled by a founder orchestrating a group of AI agents, and they can just run 24-7 right.
They just eat electricity, though.
That's true.
I guess the literacy of these founders the AI literacy, I mean is an important aspect as well, because if you have multiple AI tools running your company, you have to know exactly how to use those AI tools.
Yes.
Yeah, and also right now.
I think most of the entrepreneurs in their 20s or even early 30s.
They are quite familiar with the use of AI.
For example, there is a data coming from Tencent Research Institute.
They said that almost 96 of people have used AIGC products and nearly 70 use them every single day, so they're quite familiar, especially compared to other generations, and this is getting into schools now too.
Um, there was another report from seoul app and it said that 992 that's basically everybody of university students have used AI-generated content tools before.
And amongst that, almost 100 66 said that when they run into a problem, they instinctively turn to AI first.
For many young people,
And for many people in general now, I think it's their default reaction now.
When you don't know the answer to something.
It's like when you used to go to the internet before and type in your question.
Now people are using AI for it, but not just things about what should I cook for dinner if I don't have this ingredient?
Now they're asking about how to run companies and things like that.
And also, I think I do want to also say that policy support is another thing.
For example in China, when we are talking about starting even a one-person limited company in the legal sense at least, you have to have 100000 yuan to register.
But now that requirement is gone.
So you can start with whatever amount of money you have. to start a company.
And, according to a report from 2024, about 90 of these one-person company founders.
They start with less than 500 in their initial capital.
That's basically then it's available for everyone.
Yeah.
So you can see that even the laws and the governmental system are sort of clearing a lot of barriers for them.
And they are starting offering, for example, simpler and easier registration standards and process for them.
A lot of local governments, for example, are offering a lot of their services online.
So you don't have to go through different agencies for about several days.
You can do them online within one day.
And that attracts more people.
More young people who have ideas, who sort of want to sort of have a go at first, can really start their company very fast.
That's the idea of a startup, because and I was just thinking about What's the difference between this one-person company and a sole proprietorship like running your own business, like running a restaurant.
Or a shoe store or whatever.
Yes, you need to register for that as well, right?
And that also can be seen as a company, but it's just an entity, right?
But when you're having this one-person company, it is a limited liability company with only one owner, which means the business is a separate entity legal entity from their own personal.
Which means that when there are something bad happened or you need to declare bankruptcy for a company, then it is only risk is the capital that they invested in the company, not the whole wealth they will have.
And I think that is also one of the aspects of getting the risk down when people are thinking about starting.
Oh, one million percent true.
I mean if your startup cost is next to zero and you have very low financial risk if things don't go according to plan.
Well, that's just an incentive for people to try.
And if people try, you never know what might happen.
And another incentive, too, is that there's a lot of support.
China has done a lot of things to promote this particular one person company model.
Yeah, particularly starting this year, in 2026, we see a lot of Chinese cities and provinces rolling out plans and measures and support basically for these entrepreneurs, for these small startups.
For example, in Shanghai, they have this super individual 2088 initiative that not only offers a lot of, for example, tax reduction, provincial preferential policies,
They're also offering support, for example, zero rent for entrepreneurs and accommodations.
So for these young people who are not living in Shanghai, they don't have to worry about rent in the first place.
They can just start trialing very easily.
And also the same thing can happen in, for example, in the city of Shenzhen.
They are offering for as long as 15 days of free accommodation to new graduates.
And then after that you can also enjoy for example, I think it's 40 off in your accommodation.
Rent for as long as three years.
So when you are starting your company with next to nothing, you also don't have to worry a lot about your living costs as well.
There's a district here in Beijing.
They launched the first phase of their 60,000 square meter innovation space for businesses.
And they offer a bunch of different services like office space, early stage incubation.
They even offer matchmaking opportunities for different enterprises as well.
They have an 800 square meter shared workspace with meeting rooms, a kitchenette, and a dining area.
So they're really starting companies without needing anything.
Why are we not starting our one-person companies?
I mean, I'm seeing very, very little risk here.
You know, obviously...
There is because it's your personal time.
It's your personal effort.
It's the opportunity cost right of of giving up your own You know, guaranteed office job if you had one before.
The security of that you're giving up the security.
But I love the concept of promoting all of this support for these OPCs because I
You never know who has a great idea.
I'm reminded of the way people used to make music, right?
You used to have your band used to you had to go to the studio.
You had to rent a studio, which was very expensive per hour.
And then you needed to use all of this expensive equipment to put the songs together.
And now I mean, this isn't new, but you can be a DJ in your mom's basement and make a global hit track.
It's kind of the same concept here.
And all you need is that great idea to get it started.
But it doesn't mean that it's just so easy to success.
I know.
I make it sound like everybody's going to be a trillionaire by Saturday.
Yeah, there are many challenges when it's business anyway, and it is like starting up a company.
And there are going to be a lot of still paperwork and registration to be done, and then when you are running this company by yourself, it means that you need to do it by yourself and even though you have these, AI can help you but go to the like governmental paperwork, it is really also very time-consuming and it's the complicated procedures and greater time commitment is the thing that you also need to consider.
Yeah, And also, you know, the reason that I'm not an entrepreneur is because I don't like making decisions all the time.
Like if you are the only person in the company, where do you go next?
What's your plan in the next, even tomorrow?
That's the things you need to think all the time.
Where is your next client?
Where are you going as a, even as a company on the market?
Oh, I'm suddenly worried for your children's future.
So you can see there, you need to worry a lot of things.
If you're working for somebody, you don't really need to think about this.
You just finish your task as you told.
So when it comes to these OPC entrepreneurs, I think a lot of them do need to work overtime a lot.
It's true.
And competition too.
Yes.
Because if the entry barrier is so low, And there are so many incentives to give it a shot yourself.
That means that you're not the only one trying.
There are a lot of people who have similar ideas.
So how do you survive in that competitive world?
Still, though, overall, I think it's a really cool thing that it's happening.
