I’ve Returned to That Youthful Self.

I feel as if I’ve returned to my university days, with a calm mindset, not in a hurry, and actively exploring various ways to make money.

In college, I was the type of student who didn’t study well and failed courses every semester. I disliked my major, and the future career path as a teacher was something I hated the most. So, starting from my freshman year, I researched what to do after graduation and how to find a job, even attending job talks for graduates in my first year.

In my sophomore year, I earned my first 50 yuan by selling daily necessities to freshmen. Selling these items to newcomers is a tradition among seniors, and I was also sold to when I enrolled. Later, seeing classmates make money by playing games, I tried that approach too, but found that while I earned some money, my account levels and attributes were low, leading to inefficient earnings.

During my sophomore and junior years, many classmates needed to buy computers, and I had some knowledge in this area, so they would invite me to the computer market. I did some brokerage business, but later stopped because the boss didn’t pay me as agreed.

At that time, college students mainly made money through offline small businesses, but I always hoped to earn money online, believing it to be more technical (my parents did small business, and I didn’t want to follow in their footsteps). So, I continued to explore online earning opportunities. At that time, the PC internet was booming, and there were many reports online about making money on Taobao. I opened online banking and registered an online store. Since Taobao had no credibility at the start, it was difficult to operate. I chose to sell phone cards to build my credibility, but the online card platforms were very exploitative, relying on a franchise system to make money, making selling cards unprofitable. My attempts on Taobao were exhausting and ultimately only netted me over 100 yuan from selling game hacks. The failure of my Taobao store was due to a lack of investment—without funding, there was no traffic; I lacked resources and channels, and due to my personality, I was unwilling to interact with people and didn’t seek suppliers.

In my junior and senior years, I continued to study online earning paths, starting a blog to share software and make money through cloud storage. At that time, Baidu Blog had significant traffic, SEO was relatively easy, and article views were good, but the cloud storage platforms frequently deducted download counts, resulting in very little earnings.

After all this, I realized that the money I earned was less than what students who studied hard and received national scholarships made. The tight living expenses were my biggest motivation to explore ways to make money. With a monthly budget of 500 yuan, about 400 yuan went toward daily expenses, leaving me with barely enough for additional costs. My various attempts during college did not yield positive feedback, and ultimately, I had to find a job. While job hunting, I was determined to enter the internet industry, but that year, no internet companies came to campus for recruitment. In 2008, Google China had even visited our school for hiring. Most of the job fairs at school were for non-internet industries, and most students aimed for public service jobs, civil service positions, or teaching jobs, with few considering further studies. In the end, most of my classmates became teachers, including those in training institutions.

After some winding work experiences, including roles as a group buying business developer, high school teacher, IT network manager, and self-studying Linux during a gap year, I arrived in Shanghai in 2014 and finally entered the internet industry, seizing the decade-long benefits of the mobile internet boom.

Now, I find myself back in the state I was during university—confused yet fearless, with a touch of passion as I explore various ways to make money online. I am no longer as easily duped by “stupidity tax” because I have already paid my dues. In Shanghai, some colleagues joined big companies through campus recruitment, years ahead of me. However, the journey of life is never in vain; these experiences have provided me with countless lessons and knowledge reserves that will be useful at certain moments. For instance, the SEO knowledge I learned before is now applied to my blog and can be used for future product promotions.