Can't Earn 300 Yuan After Losing My Job—Should I Really Leave Shanghai?

After deciding to embark on an independent survival mode, I initially tried fishing record videos, but found that I wasn’t very suited to this direction, which can be considered as a learning experience.

1 Reasons Why Fishing May Not Be Suitable for Me

First, it’s hard for a beginner to produce good video content. Second, finding good fishing spots in my hometown is really difficult. While there are plenty of resources for sea fishing, the terrain for rock fishing is complex, making it hard to find suitable places to set up the camera. Filming with a phone hanging around my neck results in shaky footage, which worsens the viewing experience. Third, fishing exposes you to the sun and wind, and if the catch is poor or none at all, it can be quite frustrating. Lastly, and most importantly, I didn’t find joy in doing it.

However, this attempt gave me valuable experience in being a video creator, allowing me to go through the entire process from filming and editing to uploading. I’ll continue pursuing video production because it’s currently where the traffic is concentrated. No matter what you do, you have to go where the wind is blowing. In the last decade, I caught the wave of mobile internet. Where’s the next trend, and can I catch it?

In the next stage, I’m planning to return to Shanghai for a while. Based on how well I can sustain myself independently, I’ll decide whether to leave the city.

2 Challenges After Returning to Shanghai

The main challenge I face now is how to support myself. The cost of living in Shanghai is 5,000 yuan per month. If I can earn that much, I’ll break even. But this goal is clearly too high and hard to achieve in the short term. My current monthly income consists of 2,500 yuan from my housing fund and 2,175 yuan from unemployment insurance, so I only need 325 yuan more to survive in Shanghai. I’ve lowered my target to just 300 yuan. While 300 yuan might not seem like much, it’s a significant challenge for me at this early stage. I could earn that by doing some quick, short-term projects, but the return on investment is low, and it distracts me.

To reach the 300 yuan target, I need to both increase my income and cut expenses. For income, I’ll rely on my existing skills by offering Kubernetes-related consulting services while continuing to explore the video production path. On the expense side, I plan to reduce housing costs by moving to a lower-cost area or even another city. Living with my parents in my hometown isn’t ideal for content creation, and I’m also not keen on living with them. I still prefer the convenience of big cities, where I can distance myself from mundane, trivial matters (I’m not fond of traditional Chinese family ties and pointless social relationships).

2.1 Should I Stay in Shanghai if I Can’t Support Myself?

Living costs in Shanghai are indeed high. I do have some savings, and even without income, I could live here for a few more years by relying on those savings. But I don’t want to live off my savings. I need to at least generate some passive income. While I’m not aiming to return to my previous income level, I want to at least cover my basic living expenses.

Big cities offer abundant resources, rapid change, and exposure to the cutting edge of markets. Staying in Shanghai allows me to sense economic and market shifts more quickly. Although the internet can help bridge information gaps, knowing about something and experiencing it firsthand are two very different things. If I can’t support myself, I’m still unlikely to leave in the short term. If you have any thoughts on this topic, feel free to share them in the comments.

3 Why Focus on Being a Content Creator Instead of Independent Development

The main idea is to first learn marketing. Only when there’s demand should I move into independent development. First of all, videos are also a product, and they provide quick feedback (as soon as you publish, you can see views, watch time, comments, etc.), allowing for a quick product-market fit (PMF) process. The hardest part of independent development is not the coding itself but understanding user needs, marketing, and promotion. It’s not too late to start developing after you’ve built up an audience and understood their needs. Being a content creator helps me strengthen my weaknesses in marketing and promotion, areas where programmers typically lack experience. It also teaches you how to attract and manage an audience by promoting your videos in high-traffic areas. My initial strategy is to rely on the “1,000 true fans” model for support, and later I’ll explore other models as needed.

When creating products, I aim for long-term sustainability and high barriers to entry, rather than short-term speculation. Sustainability means the potential for compounding returns. There are many quick-money projects online, but they rarely last, such as AI writing viral articles for public accounts or AI virtual people livestreaming. High barriers to entry and having a moat mean that the field has certain thresholds, and competition isn’t too fierce. Overall, I aim to create small but refined products.