Are Couple Partnerships in Global Selling Really Good? After Meeting 5 Global Selling CPs Offline, I Summarized 3 Characteristics of Money-Making CPs

On April 12th, I held a closed-door meeting in Shanghai. Originally, I happily decided to make it a small-scale in-depth AI special session, but the number of people increased to more than 20. After going around the room, I found it became a "Taoism Special Session" and a "CP Special Session." Because among the 26 people, 5 were doing Taoism (and metaphysics) related work, and 4 couples (and husband-wife) CPs were doing global selling together.

Deep Discussion

Is It Less Tiring When Men and Women Work Together?

1. Sister L's Remote Control of Foreign Husband Group

This is a super interesting combination. Sister L works at a global selling company herself, and in her side hustle she "remotely controls" her husband to try some global selling attempts.

Their initial product category direction is exactly what I often say: many people actually don't have much of a product selection phase, they simply list and sell things they're familiar with because they like a certain lifestyle/hobby.

Her husband is full-time trying global selling and is a foreigner. At first, he sold some peripheral products related to a certain hobby. As Sister L shared on site, "In the early days, when placed on platforms like eBay, they would sell quickly; later when trying Etsy, they could also easily earn 10-000 to 20,000 a month."

Then Sister L also shared many product development experiences from her company, some original innovative gadgets. In other words, they take many products we usually see and do some "iterations" to fit some special scenarios of local people. It was also quite eye-opening. I've already added Sister L to my deep content recording invitation list. Another day, I'll arrange to meet and share more with everyone.

2. Sister R's QQ Group

I'm very glad that after holding two events, I've met two real QQ players. Because online and in groups, I've seen too many bragging players who constantly talk about QQ products. So from their sharing, you can get real experiences and insights.

The female mainly does it, with a background in fashion design. They are in a细分 vertical category further down from QQ. From their introduction, you should also be able to feel that their operational capabilities are quite strong. They haven't been doing it for long but have already gotten some real orders, and also heard about real promotion and traffic channels for QQ products. Their original words were, "When we ask some related questions in ChatGPT, our site will appear in AI's answers."

Finally, I asked a "stupid" question that all newbies love to ask, similar to "Do you think QQ products can still be done?" I just changed the angle to ask them, "Based on what you've done during this period, will you continue to firmly choose QQ products? Or will you choose to try switching directions?"

Their answer was quite firm: continue doing it.

This CP's background resume and what they're trying seem quite interesting. I'll arrange to chat in depth.

3. Sister T's Programmer Group

One programmer CP group. For well-known reasons, this label background is considered the most "welcome" crowd in various startup side hustle tracks today.

Sister T made two sites in 3 months, and both have closed the loop, but she's still exploring how to get higher profits. They are very similar to many programmers trying global selling. At first, they also thought costs would be low so they tried WP (but actually found that due to server reasons, it wouldn't be much lower, so they switched back to SP).

4. Brother S's All-Around Group

Both of them have strong main careers. Then the male does Amazon and current independent stations as a side hustle, and the female uses her network resources to introduce first-hand supply sources to the male to start the side hustle together.

Currently, they have their own supply cooperation model, and Amazon has already run through. It sounds like a bright future. I will definitely invite them to share more in the future.

5. Donkey Group

My global selling startup stepping stone was slapped on my head by my wife. Then usually in her spare time, like when walking the dog or eating together, she will discuss my startup matters with me. Even slowly, she will help me execute and land some things together.

Actually, I have more communication needs than others because I'm always challenging myself to try different things. Every attempt faces at least 3 months of anxiety period and no-result loss period. For example, doing independent stations, doing self-media private domain payment, including current events, etc.

For a "full-time soft-rice man" like me, if the other half can provide opportunities to listen and communicate, that's already very good. Moreover, if the other half's professional ability is also strong and can give you valuable feedback and accessible resources, that will definitely be even better.

These 3 Characteristics Are Really Hard to Get

1. Down-to-Earth Practice!

This is something all the above CPs have. Especially taking Sister T the programmer as an example, their professional halo amplifies this trait even more, which is down-to-earth doing, practical implementation. Sister T said that as a newbie, she did 3 months and already launched 2 sites, which amazed some partners at the scene. But actually, if we observe the app export track next door, programmers launching a site every few days is commonplace.

To be honest, solid execution and landing, I've already said it until I'm tired. But what can be done?

Having an appropriate partner to start a business together has the benefit of encouraging each other. Of course, in inappropriate partnerships, it can sometimes become a disaster, with each other pushing blame or saying discouraging words.

2. Clearly Know Your Own Advantages and Bring Them to the Extreme!

The sharing from the male in the QQ R group made me feel particularly sympathetic, and it's also a pain point all newbies face. Actually, they didn't create any original products because at the initial stage they felt it wasn't necessary and didn't have the resources or ability to do more product actions.

They clearly understand their capabilities in operations, so they push website aesthetics and product visual aesthetics to the extreme, which can absolutely become effective competitiveness.

Newbies, don't belittle yourself. Any professional expertise you have can actually be used in a multi-faceted startup project, such as global selling independent stations, which is a track requiring composite capabilities. Don't blindly worry about your shortcomings, and no one is a fully capable bucket at beginning. Just do it, bring out your strengths, and slowly make up for your weaknesses.

Deep relationships with properly handled partners should be able to achieve 1+1>2. But I beg you, don't casually look for startup partners or money-making partners online. If you two are equally mediocre, are you going to peck each other like chickens or rush together to make up for it? Rest assured, it's mostly the former, with a high probability of 1+1 less than 0.1.

3. They Clearly Know What They Have, What They Want, and What They Should Do!

Brother S's all-around group has strong main career backgrounds. One is in head maternal and infant exports, and the other is senior home textile product R&D. This brings them closer to the product supply chain end. This is the opposite extreme from the previous group.

Thus, you can see that with both of them in side hustle status, Sister S provides original designer brand supply cooperation for exports through her network resources, and Brother S chooses Amazon for quick initial launch. Clear thinking, complementary resources.

And once it runs through, to use what I often say, for them, it's actually just a matter of how many resources and experiences they want to invest. The rest can basically be infinitely replicated. Because of their main career reasons, they definitely know more such people.

Startups need to learn three types of positioning: 1) Self-positioning; 2) Business direction positioning; 3) IP or brand positioning. The first lets you clarify what you're suitable for; second lets you determine what to do after deciding, then sink into the business and clarify what you need to do (in global selling, this is product selection); the third, from a long-term perspective, you need to think clearly about how to build a brand for what you're doing.

Other Things

1. AI Must Return

Since this is the theme, let me quickly mention a few points.

1. Facing personalized AI functional needs for each individual, there's still huge, huge space for AI application landing. And how exactly it should land is probably left for AI people to think about. Is it an ALL-IN-ONE for large business scenarios, or specialized tools entering细分 scenarios? This is really hard to say.

For now, I can hear that many people in business have great demand for customized workflows. I feel that most AI practitioners (at this time mainly talking about small teams or individuals) focus too much energy on big and comprehensive things, or put energy on TO C products. You have to know that users with long-term AI needs must be people with real business scenarios, like us global selling people.

I myself have been trying to learn Coze and Dify, but often because of insufficient energy, I get a headache after studying for half an hour. But on the other hand, what is the payment ability of our small B group like this? It's also an unknown number. Maybe it's just demand. Finally, when you want them to pay, they're not happy and would rather use general models. It's an interesting topic. I really want to chat more with some AI practitioners.

2. ChatGPT-4o's image generation has already greatly efficiently helped e-commerce users solve diverse e-commerce image material scenario needs. Remember the word "diverse." Don't foolishly stare at "how to generate product images" all day. I found that only newbies in the early stage keep staring at this problem. On site, many other global selling business scenarios requiring images were shared, but these require personally going deep into the business to discover.

In short, go deep into the business. When you ever feel stuck or struggling, constantly slap yourself awake, remind yourself that you have AI, and then try to use AI to solve this business problem itself.

3. Return to business essence, AI is forever just a tool.

Some people at the scene shared that they used very professional AI products to customize digital avatars for content, used AI for live streaming and customer service, used AI to generate images for ad materials. But when we look back, we find that what we try to solve with AI is "efficiency improvement," this efficiency is one-sided efficiency, not effectiveness. It's very possible that after AI, there's no effect.

This is also a problem too many newbies love to commit. When they hear the two words "AI artifact," their ears stand up, fearing they missed some one-click get-rich password. From my observation, there won't exist a tool artifact that can let a person who is both lazy and lacks industry professional ability easily make big money.

Some people argue, just sell AI courses then. You try it then. Don't just look at others with envy. Do you think selling courses is really that easy to do? Having no conscience bottom line is also a kind of ability. Either you can really brag or you can really deliver. Look at what you have.

2. Some Personal Growth

1. After seeing 40+ people in two events, the deep user portrait base is relatively clear, which makes me feel very grounded.

2. From broad communities, to individual customers, to offline. Enough real cases let me basically have some "one-needle-see-blood" ability for this specific customer group (global selling independent station startup individuals). First is quickly judge whether it's feasible or not; second is quickly give you a solution in a few sentences.

3. For me, the most important value of offline is that I can get more authentic customer feedback. Let me know what to adjust and what to persist. The value of offline for participants, believe me, the offline atmosphere will force every participant to say the most real, most bottom-of-heart things, including my own sharing. Some things are so authentically dry goods that I can't put them online for dissemination. (The prerequisite is that participants are really interesting, not bragging cloud players. This is also what I deeply realize the value of the events I organize. Because I've been sharing self-media content for two years, my positioning is a real personal entrepreneur.)

4. Next, I will continue to see what gameplay offline events have, and iterate and optimize. And I need to slowly contact new customer groups to exercise and improve my stronger business capabilities.

Next

I must force myself to try a small session and see how the deep exchange feedback is.

Therefore, I urgently adjusted the Hangzhou session. Originally planned for one session on April 26th, adjusted to two consecutive sessions on April 19th and 20th, with each session controlled to around 12 people. Currently, 20+ people have signed up, including quite a few "big shots" I specially invited.

Then for the last few spots, I earnestly request other big shots to come for deep exchange together.