This startup doesn’t just use AI, it’s run by AI

What if your startup could build websites, apps, and entire products—all without any human employees? That’s not a futuristic bet. That’s the present-day reality Xiaoyin Qu, Founder of HeyBoss, is building with HeyBoss, the world’s first dev agency run entirely by artificial intelligence (AI) agents.

In a conversation on the Prime Venture Partners Podcast, Xiaoyin unpacks her journey from a Stanford MBA dropout to launching two startups—culminating in her decision to literally replace herself as CEO with an AI agent named Astra. Here's how she did it, and what it means for the future of work, entrepreneurship, and product development.

The Origin Story: From Meta PM to Stanford MBA drop-out

Xiaoyin’s tech journey began as a product manager at Instagram in 2015, where she focused on video growth. “Back then, video was the new cool thing,” she says. But the real leap came when she dropped out of Stanford MBA to build a virtual events startup—well before COVID made virtual events mainstream.

The idea was sparked by her mother, a Chinese doctor struggling to attend conferences in the US due to language and travel hurdles. “I thought, what if we could just livestream these experiences?” she recalls. That idea found backing from Andreessen Horowitz, a VC firm in the Silicon Valley. Coincidentally, the product launched the same month COVID hit—catapulting her startup into hypergrowth.

The company was later sold in 2023, and her next venture took a surprising turn: a pivot from educational gaming to building AI agents that could build software. This was the genesis of HeyBoss, a software company in California.

Meet Astra, the AI CEO

What started as a simple co-pilot for non-technical users soon evolved into a full-stack dev agency staffed entirely by AI agents. One of them, Astra—now serves as HeyBoss’ CEO. "We realized it’s much easier for the AI to manage other AI employees than for me to manage them," Xiaoyin says.

HeyBoss comprises six core AI roles: a product manager, designer, content writer, developer, marketer, and QA specialist. Astra assigns tasks, evaluates performance, and iteratively improves based on customer feedback. The result? A full web or app product delivered in under nine minutes, from a single user prompt.

And she’s serious about autonomy: “I basically resigned as the CEO. Astra runs the company.”

Behind the Scenes: Infrastructure that powers AI collaboration

While multi-agent orchestration is becoming a buzzword—with Google’s A2A protocol and others emerging, HeyBoss was already operating in this paradigm.

Xiaoyin emphasises that this didn’t happen overnight. “We started by building an AI engineer. Then we realised we needed more—PMs, designers, and QA. Eventually, we needed someone to manage them all. That’s how Astra came to be.”

Crucially, HeyBoss doesn’t deliver partial outputs or tasks. It’s outcome-driven. “Our users don’t want to write prompts,” Xiaoyin says. “They want a finished product that just works.” That means the agents must understand the user’s intent, collaborate in real time (visible in an internal AI Slack), and debug autonomously—thanks to a dedicated bug-fixing agent.

They even integrate directly with OpenAI and other platforms on the backend, so non-technical users don't need API keys or vendor setups. “We’re not just generating code - we’re delivering hosted products,” she explains.

Replacing jobs or redefining innovation?

Xiaoyin is candid about the impact of HeyBoss on traditional tech roles. “We’ve replaced the dev agency model entirely. Even my own job as CEO. That’s the reality,” she says.

But she also sees the upside: empowering a new wave of creators. “We’re seeing bakery owners launching SaaS products, and engineers launching 100 ideas in parallel - just because they can.”

She calls it the 9-minute path from shower thought to startup. By democratising software development, HeyBoss is lowering the barrier to entrepreneurship dramatically.

Yet Xiaoyin is keenly aware of the duality: “I wish I could say we create more jobs than we replace.”

In a world of infinite experiments, what differentiates you?

With the cost of experimentation approaching zero, Xiaoyin argues that taste will become the key differentiator. “Instagram wasn’t the first photo app with filters. But they had taste,” she says.

In a world where consumer apps can be cloned and launched in days, the real moat lies in taste, trust, and continuous learning. “Even our agents are designed to learn and improve every day. The question is: can your AI learn faster than others?”

She believes enterprise markets will offer greater stickiness and long-term differentiation due to trust requirements, compliance needs, and high switching costs - whereas consumer apps will become increasingly transient.

What's Next: Humans in the loop or out of the Loop?

Does HeyBoss have any human employees left? “Not really,” Xiaoyin says. Engineers and designers now act as advisors. Support roles are still being debated.

“Some customers want to talk to a real human—and might pay more for it. But it's unclear if Astra should manage human employees. That’s still... weird.”

For now, users can try HeyBoss for free—get a working MVP, and decide whether to continue. No sales call. No onboarding. Just one prompt, and Astra does the rest.

Closing Thoughts: The taste-driven future of work

In closing, Xiaoyin doesn’t shy away from the philosophical weight of her experiment. “Maybe I’m still getting more likes than Astra on social media—but that might just be because I’m human.”

Her vision is not anti-human—it’s post-functional. “The question isn’t whether AI will replace jobs. It’s what new things will humans choose to do, now that they don’t have to?”

As the Prime podcast wraps, host Pankaj Agarwal jokes, “We should do a Part 2 with Astra.” Xiaoyin smiles, “We have a video call link. You can interview her anytime.

Timestamps:

00:00 – Introduction

01:00 – From Stanford MBA dropout to COVID-era startup success

04:30 – Building the first AI-run dev agency

06:40 – Meet Astra: The AI CEO

08:46 – How AI manages product, design, dev & delivery

14:53 – Prioritising quality over speed in an AI world

21:49 – Humans vs. AI: What still needs us?

33:19 – The one human skill AI can’t replace