Business

In school and the workplace, you are trained to be a “Problem Solver”: the problem is fixed, the conditions are given, and as long as you put in the effort, you are guaranteed to get that “correct answer (salary/score).” But in the Real World, you are an “Explorer”: there is no problem, no known conditions, and not even a standard answer. 1. Sales Cures All (Sales Cure All): Sell First, Then Build The Matrix tells you: “As long as you polish the product to perfection, customers will naturally line up to buy it (Build it and they will come).” Real World Common Sense: The sole core of business is generating blood (acquiring cash flow). Without sales, even the best product is just a pile of expensive junk. Underlying Logic: Are you still debating whether to write a perfect business plan? Stop. A business plan is a sci-fi novel written for clueless investors. How do real entrepreneurs validate the market? By selling first! Even if you haven’t produced a single sample, you go post it on Xiaohongshu, run a Facebook ad, or set up a pre-sale link. If 100 people click on it and no one pays, you haven’t lost a single penny of R&D cost, and you immediately move to the next project. What if someone does pay? You go buy inventory from the factory, or even buy one at the original price from Taobao and send it to them, or even refund the money and tell them, “It’s temporarily out of stock.” Conclusion: Never delay sales because you are “preparing.” A transaction is the only standard for testing a business model. 2. Plagiarism is Shameful, but “Arbitrage” is Glorious The Matrix tells you: “You must be original, you must innovate; copying someone else’s idea is embarrassing.” Real World Common Sense: In the business world, the pioneer often becomes a martyr, but the settlers divide the land. Underlying Logic: Innovation means you have to bear 100% of the market education cost and the trial-and-error cost. What qualified businessmen love to do is called “Time Machine Arbitrage” or “Cross-Industry Arbitrage.” A model that works in the US, you replicate in Southeast Asia; a trend that explodes on Douyin, you shift to Xiaohongshu; a product that others sell to corporations, you repackage and sell to individuals. Someone else has already spent millions validating that this demand is real, and all you have to do is be 10% cheaper, or 20% better in service, or cover a traffic channel they haven’t reached yet. Conclusion: Put away your worthless “originality complex.” Find a competitor who is already making money, deconstruct them pixel by pixel, imitate them, and then surpass them. 3. Stripping Emotion: The Product is Not Your “Child,” It’s Your “Money-Making Tool” The Matrix tells you: “You must love your product and nurture it like your own child.” Real World Common Sense: If you fall in love with your product, you will aggressively hold onto it even when it should be cut. Underlying Logic: The biggest mistake engineers and office workers make is falling into “self-satisfaction.” You think this feature is too cool, this design is too brilliant, but the market simply doesn’t buy it. When you treat it like a “child,” you think, “These users just aren’t good enough.” Business people are extremely cold-blooded. The product is merely a probe used to extract profit from the market. If the market likes it, you increase investment; if the market feedback is poor, even if you stayed up for three months writing it, you immediately toss it like a used rag. Conclusion: Your passion should be focused on “solving the market’s problem,” not on “my own solution.” 4. The Truth of Socializing: The Weak Seek “Circles,” The Strong Engage in “Value Exchange” The Matrix tells you: “Connections are money veins; you must attend more dinners and meet more big shots.” Real World Common Sense: Before you have chips, who you know is useless; the big shot whose WeChat you added is just a zombie in your contact list. Underlying Logic: The essence of business socializing is mutual leverage. Why is a big shot willing to help you? Not because you handed them a business card, not because you treated them to a meal, but because you can help them reduce costs or expand revenue. If you have nothing, the greatest value you can offer is your “execution ability” or your “labor leverage.” You become the person who runs errands for the big shot and handles the dirty work, in exchange for a word of advice from them at a critical moment—that is a fair trade. Conclusion: Don’t go “begging” for help; go “buying” help. Even if you use your time to buy it. 5. Cash Flow Trumps Profit, Profit Trumps Scale The Matrix tells you: “We must first scale up and seize market share; losses don’t matter, we can always earn it back later (the poison of internet companies).” Real World Common Sense: Paper profit is not money; only cash that can flow in your account is life. Underlying Logic: How do many small business owners go bankrupt? They “earn” 2 million in profit this year, but they tie 1 million up in inventory, and the other 1 million is outstanding accounts receivable from customers. When it’s time to pay rent and salaries at the end of the month, they can’t pull a single penny out, so they have to borrow high-interest loans, and eventually, the funding chain breaks. This is why excellent entrepreneurs prefer “cash cow” businesses—cash exchanged for goods, and ideally, a “prepayment” model (gym memberships, SaaS subscriptions). Conclusion: The Profit & Loss statement can be accounted for, but the Cash Flow statement is absolutely real. Always keep the cash in your hands. 6. Don’t Chase “Fairness,” Build Your “Unfair Advantage” The Matrix tells you: “The market is like a stadium; we must compete fairly and win with product quality.” Real World Common Sense: Business is not the Olympics. If you find yourself in a perfectly fair competition, it means you have already lost half the battle. Underlying Logic: True massive profits are always born from “unfairness.” What is your Unfair Advantage? You have an uncle at customs, and you know which goods clear customs the fastest (absolute monopoly on resources). You master an extremely niche software skill, and you are the only one in the city who can fix it (information/technical barrier). You are extremely shameless; others give up after two rejections, but you can squat outside the client’s company for a week (the moat of thick skin). Conclusion: Find the area where “it feels like playing for you, but like dying for others,” or utilize any seemingly unethical (but legal) leverage you have, and crush your competitors. Final Word: Your First Assignment Sam, you don’t need to think about that 90% successful plan. Because such a thing doesn’t exist in the world. Jack Ma’s success rate when starting a company might only be 1%; Elon Musk felt his rocket launch success rate was only 10%. ...

Part One: The Truth of Resources and Decisions (How to Use Your Time and Chips) 1. Comparative Advantage: Don’t Be the “All-Powerful Idiot” The Matrix Tells You: Heaven gave me talent, so it must be useful. You must strive to fill all your shortcomings. Real World Common Sense: Your value lies not in how all-powerful you are, but in how irreplaceable you are. Underlying Logic: Even if you are better than your employees at every skill (writing code faster than the programmer, polishing parts finer than the worker), if you do those jobs yourself, you are a failed entrepreneur. Your time cost is extremely high. Spending an hour polishing a part worth 50 RMB, instead of thinking about a potential overseas strategy worth 5,000 RMB, means that hour didn’t just fail to make money; it lost 4,950 RMB. Conclusion: A business person’s job is not to “do the work,” but to “allocate resources.” Let the person who is relatively best at something do it, even if they are not absolutely the best. 2. Leverage Effect: The Marginal Utility of Diligence Inevitably Decreases The Matrix Tells You: A grain of effort yields a grain of harvest. Real World Common Sense: Wealth accumulation relies on leverage, not the linear stacking of physical effort and time. Underlying Logic: There are four core types of leverage in the world: Labor (The oldest, hardest to manage: e.g., factory workers) Capital (A stronger leverage: e.g., investing in US stock ETFs) Code (The strongest modern leverage: zero marginal cost) Media/Content (Distribution leverage: zero marginal cost) In the same 24 hours, a dishwasher’s output is rigidly locked by physical time; but a line of code written by a programmer, or a video posted by a creator, can be copied a hundred million times while you sleep, earning money for you. Conclusion: The poor sell time; the rich buy time. The true winners create “machines that earn money automatically.” 3. Sunk Cost: Giving Up is Also a Profit The Matrix Tells You: Perseverance leads to victory; you must see things through to the end. Real World Common Sense: Sunk Cost is not a cost. Only future investment and output are the sole basis for decision-making. Underlying Logic: If you have invested 1 million RMB in R&D for a product, and just before launch, you realize the market trend has changed. The Matrix mindset is, “What a pity, let’s invest another 200,000 RMB for a trial run”; but the Real World mindset is, “That 1 million is gone. If investing another 200,000 RMB only returns 0, the optimal solution now is to shut it down immediately.” Conclusion: The ability to cut losses is rarer than the ability to persevere. Those who are afraid to admit failure will ultimately be dragged down by it. 4. Opportunity Cost: There Is No Free Lunch in the World The Matrix Tells You: As long as you work hard, you can have everything. Real World Common Sense: The cost of choosing A is the B you are forced to give up. Underlying Logic: When you are sitting in front of your computer agonizing over a single UI pixel offset, your opportunity cost might be missing a critical market feedback loop; when you stay in the comfort zone for the sake of “security,” the opportunity cost is the explosive growth that could have come from entering the commercial field. Conclusion: Any decision that doesn’t consider “what else could I be doing if I didn’t do this” is blind. Don’t just look at what you gained; look at what you forever lost in order to gain it. 5. Probability Thinking: Don’t Wait for 100% Certainty The Matrix Tells You: Think carefully before acting; prepare everything before setting out. Real World Common Sense: Waiting for the perfect moment is essentially paying a high opportunity cost. Underlying Logic: Business decisions are a game based on Expected Value. If an opportunity has a 51% chance of success, an expected return of 10 times, and the cost of failure is something you can bear, then you should jump in now. By the time you have the environment perfectly set up and the manual perfectly written, the market window will have closed. Conclusion: “Speed” itself is a core competency. In the Real World, the rule is: fire first, aim later. Part Two: The Essence of Business Systems and Wealth (Where Does Money Actually Come From?) 6. The Essence of Wealth: A “Claim” on Others The Matrix Tells You: Money is earned by selling physical labor and hard work. Real World Common Sense: Money is the “proof of service” that society owes you for solving a problem. Underlying Logic: If you are just polishing parts in a factory, you only solved the problem of “physical consumption,” and society owes you very little; but if you design a tool that saves millions of housewives half their time, solving a massive “efficiency” problem, society owes you a lot. Conclusion: Don’t always stare at your own wallet; stare intently at the pain and needs of others. The bigger the trouble you solve, the bigger the claim (wealth) you can demand. 7. The True Sequence of Power and Resources: First “Positioning,” Then “Working” The Matrix Tells You: Gold will always shine; as long as your skills are strong enough, opportunities will naturally come. Real World Common Sense: Positioning determines distribution; effort only determines the remainder. Underlying Logic: In a value chain, the person closest to the money (sales, resource holder, decision-maker) takes 80% of the profit; the person closest to the technology (engineer) takes 15%; and the person closest to the physical labor takes the remaining 5%. Conclusion: Don’t get obsessed with “making the code more elegant” (local optimization). As a business person, your first task is to insert yourself into the most profitable segment. If you open a factory in Shenzhen for OEM, you are at the bottom; but if you master the brand and the channel (like Amazon), you stand high in the ecosystem. 8. Transaction Costs: The World Is Not Made of Atoms, But of “Friction” The Matrix Tells You: As long as my product is good and the price is low, it will definitely sell out. Real World Common Sense: What hinders a transaction is often not the price, but the Transaction Costs. Underlying Logic: Why don’t users buy your great product? Because the “trust cost” is too high, or the “learning cost” is too heavy. Why do black market merchants have to bribe? To reduce the “cost of being caught.” Conclusion: Great business models usually don’t create some disruptive new demand; they drastically reduce the transaction costs of existing demand (Amazon solved trust and logistics costs; Didi solved information matching costs). 9. Incentive Compatibility: Don’t Talk About “Feelings,” Talk About “Structure” The Matrix Tells You: A good team relies on a shared dream, gratitude, and values. Real World Common Sense: All betrayal happens because the cost of betrayal is higher than the cost of loyalty. Underlying Logic: Never try to demand loyalty from employees or partners through “brainwashing” or “talking about feelings.” The truly stable structure is called Incentive Compatibility: meaning that when the other party pursues their own maximum self-interest, they simultaneously achieve your goal. Conclusion: If the factory quality is flawed, don’t hold a meeting emphasizing “craftsmanship spirit”—that’s nonsense. Adjust the distribution structure—change the “piece-rate wage” to “qualified piece-rate + high penalty for defects.” Part Three: The Dark Laws of Game and Survival 10. Information Asymmetry: Don’t Be the “Open-Card” Player The Matrix Tells You: Be honest in life; speak everything you know, say everything you can. Real World Common Sense: The information gap is always the most fertile ground for profit. Underlying Logic: In business negotiations, whoever holds more information has the pricing power. If you let a US client know your factory price is only 1 USD, you will never sell it for 20 USD in your life. Conclusion: Protect your information borders. Maintaining mystery and information asymmetry is not about deception; it is about defending your game space and profit margin. 11. Survivor Bias: Don’t Imitate the “Successful” The Matrix Tells You: Read more self-help books; imitate the habits of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Real World Common Sense: Success is often a black-box product woven from luck, timing, talent, and risk. Underlying Logic: Ten thousand people jump off a cliff; 9,999 die. One person survives because of the wind direction. Then he writes a book called The Art of Cliff Jumping: How to Embrace Gravity. If you try to learn from him, you will likely crash worse. Conclusion: The experience of the failure often has more commercial value than the experience of the success. Because failure is often caused by hitting a “systemic logical flaw,” while success is often just a “random statistical anomaly.” Finale: Your Guide to Mindset Reconstruction Sam, the biggest challenge you face right now is not a “lack of business knowledge,” but the “Technician’s Arrogance” in your subconscious—the belief that the world should be logical, cause-and-effect driven, and fair in its rewards and punishments. ...

From Zero to One: My Independent APP Journey After a week of hard work, my first independently developed APP is finally live! It’s priced at $9.99, and two copies sold on the second day. This marks a brand new beginning for me, opening up a new revenue stream 🥳🥳🥳 Choosing a Niche Market I specifically selected a very niche market with almost no competitors—it’s practically an untapped area. Naturally, the demand isn’t huge, and it’s not a hot application field. But looking at it another way, this might be the perfect place for a beginner to hone their skills 🤠. ...

The Basic Potential of an Excellent Merchant Always maintain interest in others, focus your interest and energy on them, initiate conversations centered around others, and conduct exchanges revolving around other people. Achieving this while also mastering the boundaries—asking questions that everyone finds comfortable, rather than feeling constantly scrutinized and uncomfortable—is quite difficult. ...

Human Vulnerabilities: Greed: The unlimited desire for wealth, profit, and benefits, making one easily attracted to temptations like “get rich quick,” “insider information,” and “low risk, high return.” Influencers utilize this psychology by offering giveaways, benefits, and “secret” investment tips. Sloth: The unwillingness to put in effort, craving easy success, happiness, knowledge, etc. The content provided by influencers—such as “learn in one click,” “easy weight loss,” and “passive income techniques”—directly exploits this tendency. ...

Recently read Enough_ True Measures of Money, Business, and Life by John C. Bogle, which gave me a deeper understanding of the essence of the market. Rather than technical analysis and frequent trading, it is about long-term commitment to corporate value. I want to organize these thoughts for future review and hope they can inspire friends who are exploring the path of investing. Let’s dive into some insightful quotes about investing and what they truly mean. ...

The Only Normal Source of Wealth Must Be Production The core reason why the vast majority of people fail is not because they don’t engage in production, nor is it because they never accumulate, but rather because they fail to accumulate for a sufficient period of time. Consequently, the amount of money is insufficient, and thus, they fail to acquire or master true wealth. Life should be centered around production. Everything else, no matter what it is, must be ranked after it. Nothing is more important than production—at least, until basic necessities are met. ...

Any Form of Prediction is Merely Speculation Investing is a probabilistic activity, and decisions made in a very rational manner sometimes result in poor outcomes. Even when decision-makers formulate a perfect plan and implement it smoothly, unfavorable results can still occur. However, in the long run, focusing on following the correct process, rather than any specific intermediate result, is always wise. Whenever you want to buy a stock, someone is selling… so, you are forced to frequently ask this question: “Why am I the correct side in this transaction?” ...

Never stop learning At the end of the day, founding a star up primarily request you to do one thing: learning. don’t look for tricks the fact is there are no shortcuts in starting a start up . There’s no trick to get people to like you product. You just have to make a good product because that’s all your user care about.

Pain Points Hugo is a very useful static site generator framework. Many people use it to write blogs and deploy them on GitHub Pages. However, this solution can only be used on a computer, meaning you have to open your computer every time you want to write an article. I strongly need a solution that allows me to record my thoughts at any moment—when my mind is racing, I can open my phone and immediately record it. Therefore, I need an APP that can be operated on a mobile phone. ...

The True Enemy of Success The enemy of success is not failure, but dullness and lack of interest. Therefore, we must make it interesting. The Key to Product Development It is the same when building a product; you must have people using it, interacting with it, and providing feedback right from the start. Otherwise, it will be difficult to sustain. You must have seed users from the beginning, and a group of people anticipating it throughout the development process.

1. Do consumers recognize that they have the problem you are trying to solve? 2. If there was a solution, would they buy it? 3. Would they buy it from us? 4. Can we build a solution for that problem?" The common tendency of product development is to skip straight to the fourth question and build a solution before confirming that customers have the problem.

No matter what you are thinking about, the most important thing is to first understand what kind of framework you need to establish. In fact, once you have the framework, all that’s left is to fill it in. Conversely, if you don’t have a framework and immediately start thinking about the details, you will inevitably face a pile of unorganized, messy information, wasting time for nothing.

usually are full of very similar competitors, fighting it out over price and marginal differences. This saturation makes it hard to enter a market, and even the businesses that are already in that market suffer.

I believe that many bootstrapped businesses only do half the work. They solve a problem, but they don’t address the most critical problem.

You built a solution for customers who think they have that problem under control. You solved the wrong problem. You developed a solution that helps only at the margins. You solved the wrong problem. You built something, but your customers have bigger fish to fry. You solved the wrong problem.

You want to build a “need-to-have” instead of a “nice-to-have.” You want to develop a painkiller instead of a vitamin. You want to be their aspirin. How can this be done? By finding their most important problem: the one issue that is critical to their success.

The most crucial problem a customer faces is on their minds most often. It’s the most important because it’s coming up frequently and is never easy to solve. It has the most impact on their lives, but it’s not always the obvious choice. If you can help a customer with their most critical problem, they will benefit the most.

A Critical Problem Is Painful Problems can be a nuisance. They come up, and you either deal with them or ignore them. We can’t ignore critical problems. They persistently make the lives of those who have them harder until they are resolved. They can’t be just ignored, because they consistently reduce the quality of life.

Find the critical problem where ignoring something causes a lower quality of life.