When You’re Winning, Hold Steady—When You’re Losing, Push Hard

  1. I moved to Beijing because of his call. He’d just arrived too—hired as an executive at a well-funded conglomerate, building its internet operations team. We’d never met in person; we connected online, chatted over QQ for three months, and I trusted him enough to pack up and go.
  2. These years have been full of peaks and valleys.
  3. His first big windfall came in 2003—at age 20, he earned his first 2 million RMB plus an apartment in Guangzhou. Back then, 2 million meant real wealth. But overspending and divorce wiped it all out fast.
  4. His second windfall came in 2016—at 33, he hit 20 million RMB as an executive at a P2P firm. He exited just before the industry imploded, walked away with cash, and dove into investing: 19 startups—all failed. Several side projects with his apprentices collapsed too. High-leverage Bitcoin trading led to multiple liquidations. He lost the entire 20 million—and more, ending up deep in bank debt.
  5. That crash stripped away illusions. It clarified human nature—not just others’, but his own. “That’s what I call seeing all beings,” he said.
  6. The “beings” he saw included his apprentices and close friends. Of the many he mentored, not one reached out after his fall—not a thank-you, not a check-in. “I failed there,” he admitted. Now, he’s made peace with it.
  7. Another example: a mutual friend whose current two solid jobs both came through his introductions—jobs that reshaped that friend’s life trajectory. Yet over the years, the friend offered only cold indifference, no gratitude.
  8. He’s worked across multiple Beijing-based companies—but few founders ended well. Some owe over a billion RMB; some are jailed; others ruined their families. When entrepreneurship becomes gambling, failure is inevitable.
  9. The only former boss still living comfortably? One who retired early—living off pension income and lowered ambitions.
  10. “I’ll have a third wind,” he insists. “2023 was my most intense year yet—I added nearly 800 new WeChat contacts, almost all face-to-face. This year, I’m pushing again—to earn, to build, to become a super individual.”
  11. At rock bottom, you choose: lie flat—or charge forward. He chose charge.
  12. He loves Guangzhou and Shenzhen—their speed, their grit, their unpretentious loyalty. In his lowest moments, it was people from those cities who treated him not as a title or status, but as a person.

  13. I asked: “What’s your target this time?”
    He replied: “Ten times the last round—no more. No greed.”

  14. Later, he shared the distilled truth behind all his ups and downs: “When you’re winning, hold steady. When you’re losing, push hard.” I nodded—deeply.

Education Entrepreneurship Insights

A weekend education salon yielded these takeaways:

  1. Super-user mindset: Obsess over user value—help them achieve maximum real-world results.
  2. Track every cent: Know exactly where money flows—in, out, and where leaks hide. Clarity reveals opportunity.
  3. PEST comes before SWOT: First scan Political, Economic, Social, and Technological forces—then assess internal strengths and weaknesses.
  4. Own the crisis: When trouble hits, founders must shoulder full responsibility—never deflect to team or external factors. Blame-shifting guarantees worse outcomes. Taking ownership opens paths forward.
  5. Go global—now: International expansion isn’t optional. It’s the largest untapped opportunity for Chinese enterprises. Start planning today.
  6. True global vision: Think from day one about how your idea serves all 8 billion people—not just domestic users. That’s how you spot real leverage.
  7. Global capability is hard-won: It demands deep international literacy—choosing markets, designing cross-border models, managing distributed teams, bridging cultural gaps. None of it is trivial.
  8. Strong candidate markets: North America, Japan/Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East—less saturated, higher upside, lower competition.
  9. Get out and see: Nothing replaces firsthand exposure. Build your own mental map—don’t outsource cognition to headlines.
  10. To beat #1, you need one of two things:
     • 10× better product experience (e.g., iPhone vs. flip phones),
     • 5× better operational efficiency (e.g., Didi vs. street-hailing taxis).
  11. Why is Li Auto the most profitable domestic NEV maker? From the user’s view: crystal-clear positioning—“extended-range” + “family-focused.” No ambiguity.
  12. Small customers care about survival. Big customers care about efficiency.
  13. When demand is clear, focus relentlessly on supply execution.

Launching Private-Domain “Hit” Products

Insights from a private-domain product launch expert:

  1. Product selection drives 70% of success.
  2. Example: Xiao Yuan Study & Practice Device—slogan: “30% learning, 70% practice.” Simple, sticky, user-centric.
  3. Hit-making = product + sales alignment: no separation between what you pick and how you sell it.
  4. Is a product truly “S-class” (hit-potential)? Ask:
     • Category maturity & growth headroom
     • Real differentiation (not just “me-too”)
     • Market data (size, trends, saturation)
     • Brand commitment (R&D, marketing spend)
     • Product quality & durability
     • Channel fit (where it lives, how it moves)
     • User resonance (does it solve their pain?)
     • Unit economics (margin, LTV:CAC)
     • Post-sale support strength (trust builder)
  5. Selecting right is the core skill—not marketing, not hype.
  6. Tutoring and edtech will see a modest resurgence—driven by renewed parental urgency and regulatory clarity.
  7. The first launch sets the tone. Match timing, audience, and message precisely.
  8. Key levers for community-channel launches:
     • Official platform reviews (third-party credibility)
     • Early-user “planting” (authentic word-of-mouth)
     • Public order-sharing (social proof → herd effect)
     • User testimonials (trust acceleration)
     • Authority endorsements (lowers decision friction)
     • Micro-rewards (boosts engagement + conversion)

Listening to Your Inner Voice

I took a former National Model Teacher to dinner. He later left teaching to become an executive at a multinational—and a shareholder in a listed company.

He confessed he’s deeply conflicted: “I want this and that. I need this and that.” Too many options—paralyzing.

That reminded me of a simple, powerful tool:
When choices multiply, listen inward.

“Too many options” is often just noise—your thinking mind hijacking attention. When thought dominates, your inner voice drowns out.

How do you hear it?
Try this: notice what story, phrase, or example you repeatedly bring up, almost unconsciously. That repetition is rarely random—it’s your intuition nudging you. Follow that nudge.

This week, I read The Power of Now. One line struck me—echoing the same idea:

Feeling brings you closer to who you truly are than thinking ever can.

Being yourself isn’t just honest—it’s the deepest form of freedom. And joy.

The Attribution Trap

We love assigning causes.
Attribution helps us learn, synthesize, and grow wiser.

But it’s treacherous terrain—with two common traps:
1. Subjective bias, and

2. Mindless conformity.

Take Li Yizhou’s AI course: recent backlash sparked waves of schadenfreude and instant “analysis.” A friend declared it “fraud”—“a classic ‘leek’ harvest.”
I asked: “Did you buy it?”
“No.”
That’s subjective bias—judging without evidence, fueled by mood, not data.

Another friend shared “four foundational reasons” for Dong Yuhui’s rise—reasons lifted verbatim from recycled forum posts. Whether right or wrong, they weren’t his insights. Just echo-chamber cargo.
That’s conformity—not thinking.

We should hold space for humility. Any outcome emerges from layered, interacting forces—economic, psychological, historical, accidental.

Demanding a clean, linear “why” for everything—insisting on logical closure—is often just self-deception dressed as rigor. Sometimes, the wisest response is: I don’t know—and that’s okay.