Is the environment really bad?
The day before yesterday, I was chatting with a friend, and he told me: 'Right now, 80% of the businesses in the country are just copying what has already been done abroad.'
Take him as an example: last year, he collected and edited funny pet videos from abroad, added background music, and provided Chinese commentary, then posted it on a domestic short video platform. Once he gained a large following, he started selling pet products through a mini-app, and on Double Eleven, he made a pure profit of nearly 20.
He said that making money isn’t as hard as it used to be, and the logic of earning has already changed.
Here are a few examples:
1. Spend 200 yuan on a foreign creative writing website to buy a bunch of story outlines, translate them into Chinese using translation software, combine them with popular domestic themes, and then use AI to polish them into novels for serialization on domestic novel platforms. Once he accumulates a certain level of popularity, he can start charging for reading, and after a few months, he earned tens of thousands.
I saw on Xiaohongshu that someone translated a tutorial on making handmade clay ornaments from abroad, removed the watermark, translated it into Chinese, and sold it on Xiaohongshu for 99 yuan each, having sold 2,580 copies.
2. Someone discovered a niche foreign fashion brand with unique retro glasses, contacted the brand to become an agent, and sold them on Xiaohongshu. The import cost from abroad was 50 yuan per pair, but they sold for 200 yuan on Xiaohongshu, which is a considerable profit.
Others scoured foreign second-hand markets, found some vintage vinyl records for 100 yuan, and sold them in domestic retro music enthusiast circles for 300 yuan each, with many people eager to buy at a higher price.
3. A teacher went to a foreign educational website, spent 300 yuan to buy a set of science experiment course materials, translated them into Chinese, optimized them in conjunction with domestic textbooks, and created an online course, selling it on an education platform for 199 per course, attracting many parents and students to enroll.
In this world, 95% of the wealth is actually hidden in information gaps. While you're still complaining about the poor environment, others have already made a fortune from these information gaps. With a population of 1.3 billion in China, there are 1 billion people who have never flown on a plane, making the information gap unimaginable.
Making money is about finding supply for demand, then facilitating it, and looking for price differences to profit from.
2025 is the era of the one-person company, looking forward to evolving together with you.