I code Quentin Peccoux Vibe every day. He is one of seven full-time employees of the AI-powered startup. Initially, he feared that technology would replace him. Now he says it “feels like a superpower.”
He's not just boasting about the impact of AI. Shivam Sagar, one of nine full-time employees from another company, said that AI agents can do the work of two or three engineers. Increased productivity is energizing, but work-life balance is still difficult to achieve. For the first six months at work, he felt that he was just eating, sleeping and chording.
For better or worse, this is the time for small teams. Modern startups have proven that they can scale faster, spend less and withstand competition by opposing competition with just a handful of employees.
So, how about working in a team with only a few people?
We asked the founders and employees of Startups about working with AI agents to employees with a small staff of less than 10. We talked about what they like, what they stress, and what skills are rooted in AI. These are the experiences they shared with us. The quotes have been edited for length and clarity.
“As a team of seven, we can work like a team of 50 using AI.”
Quentin Peccoux started full-time with Arcads AI in January. Photo courtesy of Quentin Peccoux
Quentin Peckax, 28, based in France, works as head of AI products and partnerships for Arcads AI, an advertising company founded in 2023 that creates AI-generated video ads. Arcads AI has seven full-time team members.
Until I joined full-time in January, I worked at Arcads AI as a freelancer. I led the AI content operation and became the head of AI products and partnerships.
I used to work as an SEO strategist so I can read HTML code, but I am not a developer.
In AI content manipulation, we managed the gap between product and technical teams. We monitored what AI models came out and how they could be used. We also worked with our technical team to build and develop the features.
The team uses AI to optimize the codebase and diagnose what's happening in the code when there are bugs and when it needs to retrieve any kind of data. It is also used to assist with internal communication, writing and ideas.
We don't see any part of the business that doesn't involve AI.
I generally vibrate cords every day. When I first tried vibe coding, it was about testing some features, looking at the AI workflow and understanding what it could do with my device. But with LLM like cursor things get 100 times faster.
When I'm doing vibe coding, I feel like I'm right next to a senior developer and tell them what I need. It's like having a superpower. However, those using this tool need to know how to read the code to properly use it.
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Even those of us who use a lot of AI in our daily workflows, that's 1% of what we can do with it. As it evolves, I think team strength will shift to people with ideas rather than people with hard skills.
“It's a heavy lift and a lot of pressure.”
Senior Full Stack Engineer Shivam Sagar works with Aragon AI. Photo courtesy of Shivam Sagar
Shivam Sagar, 27, is based in northern India and is a senior software full stack engineer at Aragon AI, an AI headshot generator company founded in 2022. ARAGONAI has nine full-time team members and two offshore members providing customer support.
It's been about 10 months since I joined Aragon AI as a senior full stack engineer. For the first six months here, I struggled with the lean business model. In my previous job, I had around dozens of engineers on my team, so going to a team of nine was a huge transition.
Large companies have product, design, front-end and back-end teams. For example, if you have a larger team, you have a dedicated person working on a product plan that guides the flow. Here you need to attend product meetings, understand the project, code it, and design the user experience and user interface. We have everything from start to finish, but our team has a technical lead to consult if we get stuck.
The work-life balance is not very smooth. Just spend time with family and friends on the weekend. I don't have much time on weekdays to see how fast we are.
I think more about workflows, so using AI tools has made me significantly more productive. By aiding in research, coding and review, you can do two or three engineers' work.
“Each of us has the opportunity to play a major role in the company.”
Tech Lead Raul Alcantara said he is learning to balance his time with Aragon AI. Photo courtesy of Raul Alcantara
Los Angeles-based 25-year-old Raul Alcantara is the technical lead of Aragon AI.
I started in June as a technical lead at Aragon AI. My job is to ensure that the code we push and unfold it reaches a certain standard. I graduated from both an undergraduate and master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked with my own startup for about a year before joining Aragon AI.
Expectations for the speed of using AI in lean teams are intense. Previous biweekly sprint goals have been changed to weekly sprint goals.
Each of us has the opportunity to play a major role in the company, which is exciting, but the expected speed is difficult. They are trying to improve their ability to know when to rest. This isn't eight hours a day work, but that doesn't mean it should be 24 hours a day.
“The way AI builds means that results don't necessarily mean skills, so candidates need to be considered in greater detail.”
The company of Oleve founder Sidhant Bendre runs with six full-time employees. Photo courtesy of Sidhant Bendre
New York-based Sidhant Bendre is the CEO and co-founder of Oleve, an AI-led consumer software portfolio company founded in 2024. Oleve has six full-time employees and has hired seven additional contract employees for support needs in the past four months.
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AI was there when my partner and I started the company, so all the jobs we hired increased. Over 40% of everyone's workflows are augmented or fully owned by AI. This is a conservative estimate that differs from person to person on the team.
At first, keeping the team small was somehow driven by profitability. Because profits have given us the power to continue exploring options and do what is best for the company. All of the contractors we hire are engineers for support, except for the ones we use in marketing.
I've hired experts in one system and then am trying to expand capabilities with AI to achieve more.
The rates we scale up and the patterns we follow are completely different from what AI is currently involved. Every time you discover a new process, it will be seasonal in the sense that you put people in place to do them, but once they understand that, you can automate and augment the system so that they can do more than that one process.
For example, when I hire an executive assistant, my expectations are that instead of doing the same task over and over, my goal is that I can work with me to build a system that utilizes AI to do the work and move on to other systems I need.
There are principles for a new Lean Startup operation set. This includes a world where one person can start scaling an entire team of agents and directed. Finding employees also requires their ability to command.
“AI has never run a show completely, but we were able to take advantage of it.”
BoldVoice co-founder Anada Lakra says that despite some limitations, being on a small team has many benefits. Photo courtesy of Anada Rakula
New York-based 33-year-old Anada Lakra is CEO and co-founder of Boldvoice, an AI accent coaching app founded in 2021. Boldvoice has seven full-time team members.
The advantage of being a small team is that you don't have a bureaucrat, a process for a process, or a meeting for a meeting. We were able to use AI to work on days that took several weeks.
In addition to me and my co-founders, there is one product designer, two full stack engineers and two machine learning engineers. We also sign two voice coaches when necessary. The engineers report to him and I manage the designers and coaches.
Using AI to maintain lean is a superpower because it reduces costs when scaling products. This allows it to grow very quickly and test positive cash flow this year. We are in a very good position that does not require external funding.
If the team size is doubled or tripled, there will be a lot of adjustments, people will have issues and middle managers will need to keep everything working in the same direction. Losing priorities like that has become easier and you don't need it now.
When you have a very small team, there are always restrictions. Everyone is stretching quite thinly and something attractive may always pop up. We don't have enough people so we can't do it anytime soon. That can be frustrating.
However, there are no longer days when 100 teams are needed to achieve regular revenue of $10 million a year. Now we can do it with a team under 10.
