An orange clownfish smiled in the middle of the screen on Ying Junjiu’s computer at the tech startup event — the mascot of a productivity app he’d designed. Downloading the app would allow users to monitor their “fishing rate,” or how much time they had spent on work versus non work apps.

This was Momoyu Timer: an ocean-themed macOS app that makes time tracking feel less like an audit and more like a game. The app’s name comes from the term mo yu — literally, “feeling for fish” — slang for slacking off during work hours.

“I wanted something that felt lighthearted and a touch of fun,” he said.

Just two years ago, Ying’s app would have required multiple people, if not an entire team, to code, design, and scale it.

But he had built it entirely himself.

For years, Ying had been a user interface designer, a master of screen layouts but largely unfamiliar with the code that makes software function. “I’ve always been fascinated by programming,” he said, “but I was stuck at the surface. Simple web pages I could do, but full, functioning apps and software were beyond me.”

Then came a layoff in 2024, and with it a turning point thanks to the rise of AI. Using AI tools such as Cursor and Codex, Ying built, debugged, and launched Momoyu on Apple’s App Store.

In China, founders like Ying are at the forefront of a new career trend — using artificial intelligence to start “one-person companies,” or OPCs. Most are young, born in the 1990s and 2000s.

The OPC concept has existed for years and earned legal recognition under China’s Company Law. For a long time, however, it was largely symbolic, as solo entrepreneurship was rarely viable due to technical barriers, startup costs, and the manpower required to build and scale a business.

Advances in AI over the past three years have changed that. From coding to workflow management, powerful AI tools such as ChatGPT, DeepSeek, and more recently, OpenClaw, now allow individuals to handle tasks that once required entire teams.

By June 2025, China had registered over 16 million OPCs — more than a quarter of all businesses in the country — according to an industry report released by the Beijing-based Zhongguancun Talent Association. OPCs span from digital content creation and design to cross-border e-commerce and professional consulting.

Policy is quickly catching up, bringing OPCs into the public spotlight. More than 20 Chinese cities have worked OPCs into their development plans so far, with perks ranging from incubator spaces to subsidies.

Policy push

The OPC fervor began spreading in November, when the city of Suzhou in eastern China announced plans to become a hub for AI solopreneurs.

A slew of regional policies across the country followed quickly: Shanghai’s Pudong New Area offered to cover startup computing costs up to 300,000 yuan ($44,000), and the southern tech hub of Shenzhen set targets to build more than 10 OPC communities exceeding 10,000 square meters each by 2027.

Similar policies followed in cities within the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and emerging industrial cities in central and western China.

For serial entrepreneur Chen Dabo, the craze evokes nostalgia. It takes him back to 2014, when the state led the “mass entrepreneurship” push to spark internet-age innovation. Under the initiative, China funded new ventures and offered subsidized workspaces, giving rise to tech giants such as TikTok owner ByteDance, e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, and lifestyle platform Xiaohongshu, known internationally as RedNote. Prior to 2014, entrepreneurship had rarely been considered a serious career path for both Chen and in China generally.

Riding that wave, Chen, who graduated from university that year, founded three companies, including a design software firm that raised millions of yuan in venture capital.

“A popular saying back then was that a startup was like a new-generation rock band,” Chen said. Startups at the time were considered “cool” — synonymous with rebellion and ambition. “Now, OPCs seem to be the cool thing,” he added.

The change is reflected in the quick rise of OPC communities — gated communities offering flexible workspaces, networking opportunities, and resources tailored for solo founders. Across 38 Chinese cities, 143 OPC communities have emerged, according to a report by online entrepreneur platform OPCquan.

“I Have A Demo,” an OPC accelerator — a company that provides startups with funding and business guidance — based in the eastern city of Hangzhou, was among the first to capitalize on the OPC policy push. The program operates through a public-private partnership in which the local government supplies financial backing and policy infrastructure, while private-sector experts handle implementation.

Together with the city’s Qingju AGI Youth Innovation Community — a government-backed initiative aiming to recruit 300 OPCs this year — the accelerator is located in a four-story technology innovation hub owned by a city investment group, and provides clients with digital computing power, financing channels, networking opportunities, and integration into industrial supply chains.

The accelerator’s day-to-day operations are handled by Wang Nuo, a veteran investor with more than a decade of experience in project selection and mentorship.

When “I Have a Demo” was founded last September, opinions within the industry were divided on what qualifies as an OPC. Without a clear definition, Wang said it would be difficult to decide which companies to support. Some believed that OPCs should be built by a single individual, regardless of the number of team members, while others defined them as all AI-related projects, Wang said.

Wang’s team has settled on three criteria for OPCs entering the program: they must be AI-focused, be led by a primary founder with no more than a few collaborators, and have commercially viable applications.

He cited one admitted startup as an example: A leader of a hobbyist car club who developed an AI agent to manage group chats, handle repetitive questions, and extract commercially valuable information. Within a month of launching, his agent attracted more than 50 similar club organizers, all willing to pay to use the tool.

“The most crucial aspect of a startup, whether it’s run by one person or more, is to make business or transactions happen,” Wang said.

He added that the push for OPCs carries broader social significance. By promoting AI through the OPC model, China aims to accelerate adoption among the general public and make tools that were once the domain of specialists available to everyday users. “Without a basic understanding of how to use AI to solve real problems, many people will inevitably be left behind,” he said.

“With the policy push, more people would at least establish their first connection with AI, rather than remaining a complete outsider to the change,” he said.

Easier entrepreneurship

For Ying, the leap into the world of OPCs began with a personal challenge: confronting his own procrastination. Traditional productivity apps — with their stark dashboards and relentless tracking — felt more punitive than supportive. Frustrated, he set out to create a time-tracking app that replaces guilt-inducing charts with playful icons and humorous prompts.

Ying has relied on vibe coding for much of Momoyu Timer’s development, a method where the developer describes desired outputs in natural language rather than writing conventional code.

AI tools themselves are evolving at an astonishing pace, according to Ying. “Early last year, writing code felt like ‘drawing cards,’” Ying recalled, referring to the unpredictability of AI-generated programming results. “Back then, I had to save the code at every step because I never knew when the system would crash. Now, I rarely encounter errors that stop development entirely.”

Ying said AI extends beyond coding, assisting with everything from naming the app to crafting marketing posts on Xiaohongshu and analyzing raw user data.

AI has made startups more accessible than ever, with 75% of OPC founders coming from non-technical backgrounds, according to OPCquan.

But while AI makes building a product easier than ever, turning a project into a sustainable business still depends more on execution, marketing, and the ability to build and retain a user base.

Once Momoyu went live, Ying’s major challenges shifted from product development to attracting users and building a community — organizing user groups, hosting small events, and keeping users engaged with regular updates and new features.

The technical barriers may be low, but according to Ying, connecting with real people and nurturing a community remains the hardest — and most vital — part of building a successful product.

“As an introvert, I probably used up my quota for talking to strangers for the next 10 years in just one day,” he said with a laugh, referring to the demo event where he had to pitch his app to potential users.

Meanwhile, business insight and market understanding remain crucial — especially when turning an idea into a commercially viable venture.

Wang Zixiang, founder of Podcast Island, an AI tool that generates text summaries of podcasts, cautioned that tools alone cannot define a business or ensure it delivers real value. “You still need human judgment to enter the right market and deliver the right product,” he said.

But lower technical barriers and faster prototyping do reduce the cost of mistakes. “Investments and development cycles are shorter, and you learn faster from setbacks,” Wang said.

China’s entrepreneurial infrastructure has matured over decades, providing resources ranging from local incubators to government investment at the national and local levels. The biggest difference is that more new models for starting a business have emerged, and OPCs are one outcome of that, according to Chen Dabo, the serial entrepreneur.

“The upside is, there are more choices than ever,” Chen said. “The downside is, if you’re just starting out and aren’t entirely clear about what you’re doing, it’s easy to get lost or swept along by social and technological trends.”

“Tools can help you get started,” he said. “But whether you’re creating real value for users — that still depends on you.”

The new generation of founders represents a new breed of “super-individuals,” according to He Jiaying, an investor at Shanghai-based firm Volcanics Ventures. “They need to be more determined than previous generations because success depends entirely on their own creativity and execution,” she said.

In traditional startups, founders had to respond to investors, attend board meetings, and report growth metrics, which directly influenced their survival. Today, for OPC founders, everything is in their hands.

“Their success is tied less to fundraising and more to ambition, discipline, and what they can achieve on their own,” He said.

Life by choice

But for a growing number of young founders, starting a one-person company isn’t always about rapid growth, scale, or venture capital.

In Chengdu, capital of the southwestern Sichuan province, Men Dongdong creates content on OPCs and operates a community dedicated to helping solo founders. As an OPC founder herself, she views entrepreneurship as a means of building a life centered on passion, collaboration, and autonomy rather than mere financial success.

Before her current role as an OPC influencer, Men worked as a college lecturer. But, feeling stifled in academia, she resigned and moved to Shanghai in 2015 to join a small startup focused on providing sex education for college students. The company was niche and highly experimental. Built around passion, the small team showed her that meaningful work didn’t have to fit within traditional corporate frameworks.

Though the startup eventually failed and she hopped between multiple other jobs, the experience only reinforced her belief that life should be lived on one’s own terms. For Men, the goal of an OPC is not to maximize efficiency or profits but to maintain a sustainable scale that supports a healthier work-life balance.

“I’m not criticizing people who pursue financial success,” Men said. “But it’s important for people to realize there are other ways to live once you understand that income is not the only standard for measuring quality of life.”

Today, she offers courses for solo founders covering topics ranging from how to decide whether to start an OPC as a side hustle or go full time, to how to overcome the sense of loneliness when going solo.

Unlike in large companies, where employees often function like interchangeable parts of a machine, OPCs allow founders to pay more attention to individual needs and relationships, said Zhang Tong, an OPC influencer and one of Men’s collaborators.

When collaborating with a video editor, Zhang said her focus is no longer solely on efficiency or output. She also cares about whether the editor genuinely enjoys the content and finds fulfillment in the creative process.

“The model places greater emphasis on each person’s feelings and sense of value, rather than treating people simply as tools,” Zhang said.

Equally important is the evolution of societal attitudes toward unconventional careers. When Men left her job at university, she was considered reckless. “Now, people are rethinking what stability means. For some, it’s not a steady paycheck but autonomy, creative freedom, and building a life that fits them.”

Wang Zhijun, an entrepreneur from Hangzhou, said that the novelty of OPCs is a strength, as it has allowed them to escape strict definitions. “OPCs aren’t dictated by any one voice,” she said. “They’re open to interpretation, which is why they spark conversation and capture attention.”

Editor: Marianne Gunnarsson.

(Header image: Shijue/VCG)