Recently, there have been a lot of things going on. Last month, I took on an outsourcing project, and I've been contemplating the positioning of the project, which is why I haven't made any adjustments yet.

Since resigning in March, I've been unemployed for nearly half a year and have met a group of very interesting people. Starting from June, I began attending various offline entrepreneur events, mingling in different communities, and learning from the experiences of successful individuals.

Now, let me share some recent progress and situations.

**Self-Media**

If some attentive friends have noticed, my public account hasn't been updated for a long time. It's not that I've abandoned it again; rather, my positioning for the public account is still to share interesting information and insights from my own research.

Starting from early June, I suddenly had the idea to drive traffic to myself, so I began writing articles. Of course, you might say that the content I share lacks substance and quality. But not everyone comes out as a wizard or a half-Buddha. I'm just an ordinary person trying to reflect on my experiences after attempting things.

Currently, the platforms where I publish my articles include: Bilibili, Zhihu, Toutiao, Xigua Video, YouTube, Himalaya, WeChat Public Account, and Video Account.

**Article Category**

**WeChat Public Account**

As mentioned earlier, I won't be posting many articles that I don't think have substantial content on the public account anymore, especially since the reading count for a single article can only maintain between 200-300, which isn't very effective. So, I stopped.

The traffic on WeChat mainly comes from shares and viral content, but not everyone can achieve 100,000+ views. Your public account's traffic largely comes from your friend circle and the groups you share in. And then, there was nothing more.

As of July 25, the number of followers on my public account is only 78, not even enough to qualify for a nuisance advertisement. I hope everyone can support me by clicking follow; life is not easy.

**Zhihu**

Zhihu is a very interesting place where everyone values substantial content. Currently, I have 2 articles that account for a significant portion of the reading volume, basically making up 80% of the total reads. Many people also ask if they can borrow some data from my articles, and they are particularly polite.

Here’s a little tip: the "salt value" on Zhihu affects recommendations, and there are many ways to increase it. One way is to maintain good community operations, which simply means reporting inappropriate comments in the community.

Due to excessive reporting of colored comments, Zhihu now frequently promotes posts that are "driving" (a term for sensational content), which is a downside of the recommendation algorithm. If I want to drive, why would I come here?

As of July 25, the total reading count is 45,137, with 546 followers.

**Toutiao**

Previously, I hardly used Toutiao, but after seeing others discuss how to operate a Toutiao account on Zhihu, I registered and moved my previous public account articles there. I didn't expect one article to receive as much as 150,000 recommendations.

This was beyond my expectations; for the first time, an article had nearly 10,000 reads. After being repeatedly brushed off on the public account, I felt a glimmer of hope. With subsequent original posts, I smoothly passed the Yellow V certification, but there wasn't much improvement afterward, and I didn't have much time to write articles. So, this area slowed down.

As of July 25, the total reading count is 55,380, with 915 followers.

**Video Category**

Why did I suddenly start making videos again? Mainly because I discussed this with others offline. In the past, I used Final Cut Pro X to edit videos, which was too difficult. Often, it would take a whole day to produce one video, and adding subtitles was simply overwhelming (friends who know me are aware that I made three pet videos last year). Later, I tried Jianying (a video editing app) and found that my efficiency greatly improved.

Then, due to the user validation of my own project not going smoothly, I had the idea to learn about other entrepreneurial companies and wanted to document my story, so I started recording videos.

**Video Account**

First of all, the Video Account aligns with my previous views; it serves as a stepping stone to drive traffic to the public account or mini-program. Since the videos can only be 5 minutes long, I initially kept my videos strictly within that limit, but it was still easy to exceed, so I eventually gave up. Especially after the updated version introduced the little red dot, I became even more annoyed with this feature.

As of July 25, I have a total of 25 videos, with 394 views and 4 followers (all friends supporting me).

**Bilibili**

Firstly, Bilibili has become a battleground for long video content creators. Basically, when I eat, I watch TV, and it's either Bilibili or YouTube.

The issue with Bilibili is that the top-tier traffic is particularly pronounced, making it difficult for those below the top to stand out. The trending and top 10 traffic in various sections rises quickly, with a large amount of homogenized content flooding the first screen, primarily featuring various eating shows with the same style and theme but different creators. Another category consists of various passionate and energetic videos, especially regarding recent issues in Sino-American relations.

It sounds quite hopeless, but interestingly, after joining Bilibili for 52 days, I found that my videos actually had viewers, with some being saved and liked.

As of July 25, I have a total of 25 videos, with 450 views and 5 followers.

**Xigua Video**

Due to Toutiao, I also uploaded videos to Xigua, and the results exceeded my expectations. The total playback time reached 123,588 minutes. It seems people enjoy watching a bald guy tell stories?

As of July 25, I have a total of 28 videos, with 93,242 views and 915 followers (combined with Toutiao).

**Himalaya**

This is the only audio platform I tried, but I just uploaded videos directly.

As of July 25, I have a total of 28 videos, with 862 listens and 3 followers.

**Summary**

With the same content, video conversion (I will write an article about the video content) is better than articles. Moreover, Toutiao is the only platform that can generate revenue, albeit not much, but enough for a meal at McDonald's.

The public account itself still holds significant value in terms of reading. Even my account with a few dozen followers and 200-300 reads can attract people looking for orders. However, out of concern for account protection, I haven't considered it, as the money isn't substantial.

Another phenomenon is that in our Toutiao group, an author wrote a viral article, which was then plagiarized on WeChat. Although the other party eventually deleted the article, it had already garnered over 100,000 views, and through guidance, at least 70-80 people added him to his community, conservatively estimating that this action earned him at least 10,000 in revenue.

However, the author of the viral article couldn't even earn a fraction of that, which reflects the harsh reality, as long as you have no bottom line.

**Independent Developer or Entrepreneur**

Returning to the topic, how do we define an independent developer? Recently, I joined a community of independent developers and found some information online, discovering that there are two definitions of independent developers.

One type is those who, through their own skills, products, operations, etc., create a product that allows them to maintain income. Common examples include creating a website, developing training courses, various apps, mini-programs, etc.

The second type is those who fulfill various client needs through their own skills, which is the more understandable form of outsourcing.

Upon further reflection, there isn't much difference; it's all about exchanging skills for income.

Another category could also call themselves entrepreneurs. However, generally speaking, anyone can claim to be an entrepreneur, but non-technical individuals wouldn't call themselves independent developers; they prefer to call themselves freelancers.

After all this talk, it's just about labels; everyone can call it whatever they like.

**Lean Startup**

Returning to the root of the question, what is the difference between creating a product independently and starting a business to create a product?

This is something I've been pondering a lot lately. First of all, I believe that all entrepreneurs/independent developers, whose ideas start from a product, cannot escape one thing: demand.

Recently, I've attended many offline events, read some books, and analyzed the entrepreneurial stories of about 20 companies. I've also been reading "The Tencent Story," which tells the story of the penguin.

I discovered something that suddenly left me feeling confused: what is entrepreneurship, and what is lean entrepreneurship?

Usually, if you ask others, they will say you need to minimize costs, quickly identify user pain points, and continuously iterate and upgrade. At first glance, this seems flawless.

From Dropbox to Airbnb, these lean startup stories are familiar to those who have read "The Lean Startup." However, you'll notice that most of their stories are concentrated around 2013, a time when mobile internet was just exploding, and entrepreneurship was everywhere. This book emerged during that era. It was the golden age of entrepreneurship, where any idea could easily attract angel or venture capital.

But is that really the case? When I participated in entrepreneurship back then, we had team members with years of company operation experience, some from major companies, and others who had studied abroad and were product managers at popular companies at the time. Even though our team seemed decent, and the project was not bad, we only secured a small amount of investment in the end, and now there are companies in this area preparing for IPOs.

When I recently took a serious look at these so-called successful lean startup projects, you will find that they did not conduct any customer validation before starting to create their products. For example, Dropbox was born when the founder forgot to bring his USB drive one day and started writing the first lines of code in his car.

Airbnb emerged because there was a design conference, and they wanted to sell breakfast, which led to the first version of their service. However, these examples seem to indicate that they validated first and then continuously improved their offerings. No one will tell you that Dropbox's customer acquisition cost soared to over $300 due to Google ads. Nor will anyone mention that Airbnb's model initially struggled, leading the founders to sell cereal to support Airbnb.

No one will tell you that Tencent considered developing QQ just to compete in a bidding process, even though there were already several similar products on the market at that time.

Good products are never created simply by asking. Many tech-savvy individuals may spend time developing a product only to find that no one uses it, leading to disappointment. At this point, you might wonder what went wrong, and many will tell you it’s because you don’t understand the market, don’t grasp the nuances of the product, or suggest that you ask your users where their pain points lie.

These suggestions are not wrong, but they won’t help you solve the problem. The only way to resolve the issue is to try to solve it yourself.

When you gather a group of people, but they do not use your product, it’s likely not the product’s fault, but rather the fault of the people you’ve chosen.

In its early days, Snapchat aimed to provide a self-destructing message feature for couples driving together, but it actually became popular among a group of middle school students and later among many creative individuals.

In the early days, the investors Dropbox approached were not even using cloud storage themselves.

So these are all necessary stages, whether for entrepreneurs or independent developers. Continuous trial and error, persistent effort, will eventually lead you to a direction that suits you.

Therefore, I believe that the so-called lean startup is about constant low-cost experimentation and adjustment. Essentially, it involves ideas, products, and validation. However, many people confuse this process, remaining stuck on the idea stage, always hoping to first identify the most painful pain point before taking action.

But in most cases, when you ask others, they will only tell you to get a faster horse instead of a car. What’s important is that you need to look further than the current times and have faith and perseverance.