Wu Songyun, 35, used to work in international trade in Chengdu, where long hours and a hard-charging boss left her chronically stressed. In 2024 she quit and built TideFlow, an app that tracks your sleep, walks you through meditation and suggests how to rest better. The work pressure was overwhelming, she told the Journal; “Now, I am better.” Her company, less so: about 1,000 users, roughly 35 of them paying, and a loss every month.
She’s one of a wave. Katrina Northrop and Hannah Miao report from Hangzhou that young Chinese, facing a bleak job market and a corporate culture that grinds people down, are starting companies with one employee and using AI to write the code, answer the customers and do the marketing. State media count more than 7 million new one-person companies last year, up about 42% from 2024 — a figure that includes plenty of non-AI businesses, but the direction’s the point. Beijing likes it: solo ventures push AI adoption in the race with the U.S. and soak up young people who can’t find the right job, so local governments hand out subsidized housing, office space and computing-power vouchers, and hundreds of micro-enterprise incubators have opened in hubs like Hangzhou and Shenzhen.
Fifty founders on the 13th floor
Honghub, founded last September by Hong Kong investor Johnny Zou, sits on the 13th floor of a Hangzhou high-rise, with signs urging tenants to fight for what they want and leave anxiety at the door. It houses more than 50 one-person companies, many with up to $50,000 in startup money; a third of the founders are serial entrepreneurs and a third came out of big tech. The surrounding Shangcheng district launched a plan in March to attract 1,000 solo operators this year. Arvin Chen, 25, is building a microphone for talking directly with AI agents, and founders get cheap open-source Chinese models and a manufacturing supply chain next door. Sam Altman of OpenAI has predicted AI would create the first one-person company worth $1 billion. Honghub’s own survey of 1,500 solo firms is more sobering: more than half bring in less than $1,000 a month.
Our read
The one-person company isn’t a Chinese story. It’s a real option for anyone here with a laptop and a skill, and the tools are the same. What Hangzhou adds is a data point most founders never get before they quit: more than half of these firms clear under $1,000 a month. So plan the leap like a business, not a mood. That means a cash runway in months of household expenses — not weeks — sitting somewhere boring before you give notice, and a revenue timeline that’s written down with the honest version of Wu’s numbers, not the Altman version.
Two more things a salary quietly did for you. Health coverage: price it before you leave, because it doesn’t come with the laptop. Retirement saving: when the paycheck stops, so does the 401(k) match. A Solo 401(k) or SEP-IRA is the replacement, but it can only be funded from net self-employment income, so a money-losing month like Wu’s puts nothing in; write the contribution into the revenue plan so the habit doesn’t lapse. Wu says she’s better, and we believe her. Better’s a fine reason to go solo. It’s just not a cash-flow plan, and the runway is what buys the time to find out whether the company can become one.