Traffic will return to zero, but trust will not: In the AI era, what is the real leverage of a one-man company?
I listened to a sharing tonight by Mr. Sun Zhihua from the Strategic Thinking Business School. He invited my good friend Nico, who is also a speaker on the one-person company route, to talk about “One-person companies leverage the technique of getting out of the circle.” I have been practicing it myself in the past few years. After listening to what resonated with me, I wanted to write down a few points that hit me while my memory is still fresh.
A story about being banned, explaining clearly what is an asset
Nico told a story that stuck with me. She mentioned that her advertising campaign was going well in 2024. When she opened her mailbox one day, Meta informed her that her advertising account had been blocked and all advertising in the background had been stopped. She described the feeling as “the store is still there, but the sign has been pulled down, and no one knows where you are.”
But miraculously, her income increased that month instead of decreasing. Because her podcast and e-newsletter have a group of long-term readers who remember her and trust her; in addition, she began to take the initiative to cooperate with others and borrow resources. So she came to a conclusion: traffic can return to zero, but trust cannot. Trust gets stronger as it gets stronger.
I agree with this sentence so much. I have always told students that what really accumulates in content is trust, not numbers. She used a painful account ban to explain this matter more convincingly than any theory. She also added another touch and asked everyone: “If one of your accounts was suspended tomorrow and the algorithm was revised, would you still be able to find your customers?” Indeed, this question is worth thinking about seriously for everyone who puts their wealth on a single platform.
Three levers redefine “effort”
She organized the capabilities that a one-person company should master into three levers. I think the order is very good.
**The first is relationship leverage. ** She said that instead of waiting for advertisements to help you gain customers, it is better to take the initiative to write letters and invite cooperation. She went to find a teacher with three or four times more fans than herself to co-organize a live broadcast. The other person’s trust will be transferred to you in a sharing, bringing you to the same level. She even polished the invitation letter over and over until the first one had a 90% success rate. I smiled knowingly when I heard this, because today’s sharing itself is the best demonstration: she stood in Teacher Sun’s field and inherited the trust of Teacher Sun’s audience. That’s what advertising can’t buy.
**The second is system leverage. ** I feel the same way about this. She said that people without a system are most likely to lose their temper, because you are putting out fires, chasing progress, and replying to messages every day, and you have no time to really care about customers. She had a very harsh saying: “The biggest risk of a one-person company is that everything can only rely on you; if it stops without you, it is not called a one-person company, but a ‘one-person unlimited liability company’ because you are the only employee in the company who cannot take leave.” I found it very interesting after hearing this, because this is almost saying something about many serious creators, including myself at some point. Her solution is not to turn you into a workaholic, but to turn repetitive things into processes and leave the warmth to the most important people.
**The third one is AI leverage. ** She specifically put AI last, and the reason is very precise: without the first two levers, AI will only make you more efficient. This is the same thing I always talk about about judgment and taste. But she talked about an angle that I like very much: the greatest value of AI is not to help you with OEM work, but to be a mirror. She threw all the content scattered in podcasts, newsletters, and posts for more than ten years to AI and asked it to find recurring concepts and patterns. As a result, AI helped her see “what I have been teaching and what I am really good at.” Secretly, I have tried this usage before.
Find customers first, then make products
There is another concept that I think everyone who wants to start should listen to: find customers first, and then build products.
She said that most people immersed themselves in finishing the course recording, setting up the official website, and creating the logo, only to find out that no one bought the tickets after finishing the work. This meant that the entire theater had been built before anyone bought the tickets. The correct sequence is to sell tickets first, confirm that the play can sell well, and then build a small theater. Her first product was just a Calendly appointment link, and she received payment without a course outline or official website. She had a stay-at-home mother student who chatted with novice mothers without taking lessons first. She found that the experiences she took for granted were life-saving straws for others, and services grew out of the conversations.
It’s similar to what I always say about “things only you can say,” but she turns it into a more concrete sequence of actions: Don’t sit at your desk imagining what the market wants, get out there and talk to real people first.
Three things I took away
The actions she gave at the end were very clear, and I also left three for myself:
First, I take stock of the things I have on my hands and see which ones can be amplified using the three levers of relationships, systems, and AI, instead of continuing to shoulder them with one person’s strength.
Second, I went to three people this week to chat with them without any purpose, and asked them about their pain points. I’m so used to outputting that I don’t have the ability to listen back.
Third, pick one of the trivial things that I have been doing repeatedly and turn it into a system. She said that the real leverage of a one-person company is not time management, but choice management: instead of asking “Can I do it?”, ask “Do I need to do this myself at this moment?” I will remember this sentence for a long time.
After listening to the whole lecture, what impressed me the most was her summary: Hard work may not necessarily lead to success, but hard work alone will often make you more miserable as you go; what really widens the gap is how much strength you can borrow. I have always believed that one person can do a great job, and this sharing reminded me that one person does not mean doing everything by oneself. Leveraging your strength and cultivating trust will make this road longer and easier.
If you also want to turn your major into a profitable career
After listening to this sharing, I am more certain of one thing: in the AI era, monetizing your expertise does not depend on working harder, but on knowing better how to leverage and cultivate trust little by little.
If you also want to polish your experience and expertise into a career that can be continuously monetized and go far without relying on explosive traffic, welcome to learn about the Concept Realization Accompanying Running Camp that I am leading. I will accompany you to turn vague ideas into clear positioning, products and business models step by step, so that every effort you make will be more than doubled.
See you in the content.
