Hi, I’m Xianmin, your IT tech butler, and this is my startup weekly journal.

Since last week, I’ve been constantly thinking about how to break through the current situation.

In my current state, making ends meet through freelancing is not a problem, and as long as I’m willing to invest time, I can even have some surplus. To increase income, I either need to spend more time or raise my rates. Based on experience, raising rates is quite difficult. The technology I work with isn’t particularly specialized or high-end, and the price is determined by the market.

I have two products I want to develop, but after market research, I found similar competitors already exist, and the demand is rather niche. To succeed, I still need to solve the marketing problem. This year, I’ve had a shift in my product development thinking: find buyers first; if I can’t find buyers, then either slow down or change direction. Of course, if I’m solving a personal need, then it doesn’t really matter.

This is also why I started writing on WeChat Official Account and Xiaohongshu this year. I still want to increase some exposure to pave the way for possible future products. However, this weekly journal has been running for 12 issues with slow progress. My WeChat Official Account currently has 50+ followers, and Xiaohongshu has 100+ followers. I myself know that the main issue is with the content. The content doesn’t offer much value—it lacks both entertainment value and practical value, and the update frequency is low.

Regarding content, I’ve considered whether to learn from some bloggers’ methods and use AI to rewrite viral articles. After research, I feel the biggest problem with rewriting is the lack of soul. There might be occasional viral hits, but the benefits mainly come from platform incentives. If I rely solely on advertising revenue, the time invested would be better spent on freelancing. So I still insist on writing by hand, although the process is slow, at least it’s an authentic record and sharing.

During the May Day holiday, I wanted to rest well but was interrupted by clients. Entrepreneurs have no holidays—when there’s work, you have to do it; when there’s no work, you still have to find work. Moving forward, I’ll strive for some breakthroughs in content.

Let’s encourage each other.