10K+ in One Week! Independent Site on Autopilot? But Found More Money-Making Possibilities — and Why Some Never Make It. W16-17

This Week's Progress

Global Commerce

• Successfully activated Klarna installment payments. (Tips shared in paid community)
• Instagram at 9K followers!
• Independent site on complete autopilot for over a month: daily routine is just replying to customer messages, occasionally reaching out to KOLs for social media posts. Everything else has been neglected — blog is discontinued. Less than 10% of my energy goes to the independent site these days.
• April 15th, Shopify deducted the annual fee. I officially paid on May 15, 2023. May will mark one full year.

Personal Brand & Monetization

• WeChat Official Account at 3K followers!
• April 14th finally launched the paid community service, currently in trial operation, but maintaining near-daily updates during workdays. There's still tons to optimize and improve, plus endless content and techniques to keep sharing.
• I've actually planned many, many content topics I think are interesting and meaningful. But one person simply doesn't have the time.

The Joy of "Making Money"? Makes Me Nauseous.

#MakingMoney# has been one of my most讨厌 (hated) Xiaohongshu trending topics since 2023.

"Anyone want to be a money-making buddy?" "Stay-at-home mom making money on the side — the joy of making money!" "Post-00s girl financially independent, making money is the only way."

You can search "搞钱" on Xiaohongshu yourself — the 韭味儿 (leek scent/scammy vibe) is strong enough to burn your eyes.

Ideological Clash, But I Understand

I remember when we were kids, people avoided being called "smelling of copper" by shying away from discussing money with friends. Why, in recent years, does everyone suddenly love flaunting "making money"?

Later reflection gave me some understanding. Generation 80s/90s was still influenced by traditional values, accepting "restraint and modesty" as virtue. If you're in this age group, think back — parents always taught us: stay low-key, don't make noise, don't cause trouble. But starting with Gen 95s and 00s, people are more expressive, eager to share and display their excellence. That's why young people dominate social media with quality content — their lives are diverse and rich, and they're not shy about expressing themselves.

It Went Sour

But this topic has completely gone sour.

When I first saw similar content, I felt slightly uncomfortable but would click in to see why these people were so impressive. Later, it made me extremely uncomfortable — giving me the feeling that everyone online is making big money except me. Then things got worse: they not only showed off their earnings but also displayed a relaxed attitude about it — easy passive income, easy this and that. That's when my self-PUA hit its peak, spiraling into anxiety and self-doubt.

Pure Scam, I've Moved On.

Eventually, I saw through it. I found the patterns. 99.98% are purely selling courses and cutting韭菜 (scamming people). When I see this content now, I swipe away immediately — not even wanting to contribute one click (but their traffic is still great, so annoying).

There are many self-consistent logics for this phenomenon, like the most common one:

"Who would be stupid enough to share profitable methods online, letting more people compete for their business?"

Trust me, given Chinese people's intelligence and work ethic, the moment any business opportunity appears, it won't be shared — it'll be "monitored," discovered, quickly tested, and everyone will start competing immediately.

After Real Practice, Money, Indeed, Can Be Made.

I consider myself a true, authentic "money-making" practitioner, right? And I've recorded almost my entire journey for you to see, so I feel I have some credibility to share.

My current understanding: when you远离 (get away from) the "office vibe" and immerse yourself in an industry for over six months of research and practice, you'll discover:

1. Even if your initial direction didn't make money, you will find various monetization opportunities within that chain.
2. Many opportunities have nothing to do with ability — they depend entirely on your bottom line and conscience. Without these two things, plus some effort and leverage, you can skyrocket overnight.

What Monetization Expansion Opportunities Do I Have?

Looking back, actually from the day I paid my Shopify annual fee, I started sharing on social media. Two reasons:

• Force myself to see exactly how much I can embarrass myself, overcoming laziness and excuses.
• Two-legged walking — maybe there's a chance for monetization through personal brand and IP?

So in November 2023, I quietly launched consulting services, truly monetizing from my personal brand. After some thought, the initial plan for 2024 was to invest more energy in this direction.

In April 2024, I iteratively launched related services:

• lvsao Paid Consulting Service v4.0
• Global Commerce lvsao Paid Community (Trial Version)
• UK/US Company Registration Service v1.0

Looking ahead, I'm actually discovering many more monetization products: website building services (including SP opening), SEO management (including backlinks), social media management (Instagram followers guaranteed). So many possibilities.

Whether to do them or not depends entirely on my effort and judgment of market demand. How fast I can go depends on my conscience and bottom line.

Why You Can't Make It: Nobody Can Save Your Laziness and Incompetence

Sorry for using some harsh words, but this is also one of my methods for self-反射 (reflection).

People I've seen who can't make money roughly fall into these categories:

1）Right direction, but lazy. Simplest type — just lazy. Beyond help.

2）Right direction, but incompetent. Incompetent means not using your brain, not summarizing, not optimizing, not reviewing. What you do every day is exactly the same as three months ago. No learning, no research, no follow-up. Again: nobody can save you.

3）Wrong direction. Wrong direction is the saddest — working hard for three months, half a year, even a year, only to find you've walked a narrow path or even a dead end. But this type is actually most worth saving — just adjust the direction. The scariest part is not knowing your direction is wrong.

4）All three above. Beyond help.

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