Hey there! I'm Xiaochang 🌭
It's time for my weekly letter to grow a little together with you!

During this trip to Shanghai, I observed many interesting internet market phenomena, and I'd like to share insights on those three topics from the title ~

⚠️ A gentle reminder: The content below sometimes refers to the region as 'China' and sometimes as 'Mainland.' I believe words are symbols meant for communication, and I hold no political stance—I'm simply sharing observations from different markets. Please view these three posts without political emotions. Thank you.

Another gentle reminder: At the bottom, there's a 'Student Spotlight' section showcasing outstanding assignments that I've been featuring since two editions ago. I encourage you to read through the entire newsletter and check out these amazing assignments ❤️

✍️ The Biggest Challenge in Knowledge Monetization: Course Piracy and Plagiarism Culture

The biggest challenge in knowledge monetization there isCourse piracy is simply outrageous！！！！

The 'Mirror Duplication Phenomenon' of Phone-Recorded Courses

This phenomenon is really awkward, frustrating, and hilarious. Usually, as soon as you launch a course, it's very likely to be 'recorded on a phone for the entire duration' and then 'resold at a lower price.' These resale locations are scattered across almost every marketplace.

The funniest part is that a Mainland friend told me they saw a third phone recording the second phone's screen, then selling it even cheaper 😂 Eventually, the entire market became a 'mirror hell.'

It means the course screen you're watching is a phone recording a phone recording a phone recording a phone recording... The actual original course is somewhere in the seventh phone's screen XDDD It literally kills me.

Mainland Attitudes Toward Plagiarism

They're not afraid of being copied, they're afraid of not being seen

In China, plagiarism isn't really a 'moral war' but a 'traffic war.' Why do I say this? I specifically asked the founder of the Solo Creator community about this issue. She said that a marketing course teacher she paid a lot for told her: 'The relationship with competitors about traffic is just copying back and forth. After everyone exhausts one trending topic together, you all move to the next topic together. It's a collective thing, so there's no need to waste time complaining about plagiarism!'

They're purely competing on who can grab traffic fastest, with almost no moral consciousness at all!! So in such an environment, knowledge monetization is more likeGuerrilla warfare: Launch fast, monetize fast, exit fast。

Of course, I'm just sharing a piece of news and phenomenon I heard about. We should still ask ourselves, 'What kind of person do I want to become?' If I want to be an ethical person, then I shouldn't do things like this.

Serious Course Piracy on Mainland—How to Solve It?

'In-Person Events' Become the Trust Fortress Instead

Although online knowledge products are widely pirated, there's still a large group of students who value 'supporting original creators.' So knowledge educators typically design in-person events to engage more genuinely interested students in Learning.

Another approach is to create 'hands-on coaching with real-time interaction' bootcamp models. This is why bootcamps have proliferated across the mainland and become their core monetization method.

My flagship course also aims to go this direction—creating a program that truly teaches you Knowledge Management while building 'companionship, trust, and connection.'

🎁 Free Sign-up: 【Gut Talk Sessions】Building Personal Brand Through Audiobook Self-Media: Half-Year Revenue of 20 Million - The IP Path

✦ Speaker: Shitou
✦ Time: 2025/10/23 (Thursday) 19:30 – 21:00 (Q&A included)

This talk is part of the [Each Has Their Gut] thematic series, where Xiaochang invites non-influencer amateur experts (professional craftspeople usually stay offline) to share for free.
One session per month with limited spots available! Amateur teachers may not be professional at "lecturing"—please choose carefully 💛

Shitou is my audiobook mentor, and he's one of my life mentors! He changed my understanding of how knowledge applies to real life. Every behavior he executes in life comes from listening to audiobooks and Learning. Although he doesn't take Notes, he's willing to spend enormous amounts of time repeatedly learning through sheer practice—listening to the same book 50 times, using muscle memory to retain knowledge,(I can't do that, so I rely on taking Notes & Knowledge Management to reach the same level faster).

He then applied knowledge gained from audiobooks in his life, and within six months, his self-media monetization reached 20 million TWD - honestly incredible! I'm happy to invite him to 【Each Has Their Gut】 to share his self-media management philosophy. Six months ago, he was also just an ordinary person.

✦ Why Should You Attend Stone's Talk?

• ✅ The Correct First Move for Self-Media Entrepreneurship (Key Blind Spots from Zero to Profit)
• ✅ How to Turn 'Audiobooks' into an Entrepreneurship Tool, Not Just Enjoyable Listening
• ✅ What is IP? How Do You Make 'Your Brand' Valuable?
• ✅ The Operational Logic and Product Strategy Behind Creating 20 Million in Revenue in Six Months
• ✅ How to Attract Your First Loyal Fans? How Do I Manage Community and Membership?

🖥️ The Differences Between Taiwan and Mainland Self-Media Ecosystems

Why Email Marketing Isn't Viable on Mainland? Private Domain Strategy

When I shared with people on the mainland《7-Day Heptabase Workshop! Build Your Knowledge Management System from Scratch》that I send courses to their mailbox every day, so many people told me they almostdon't use 'email'(they call it mailbox)。

The reason is super simple—their inboxes are almost entirely filled with spam, notifications, and advertisements with practically no valuable content! So when they manage private domains, they don't use email marketing.

Their private domains are on:

• WeChat - Official Accounts
• WeChat - Groups
• RED - Groups

This shocked me!! Much of the email marketing and automation I learned in Taiwan can't be applied there. If you really want to manage these channels, you'd need to switch to a different platform.

Why Operate Both Bilibili and YouTube?

They call YouTubers 'oil tube creators' and those on Bilibili 'UP creators.'

I thought the mainland market was big enough that just uploading videos to Bilibili would be sufficient, but a 300K+ RED creator who uploads to both platforms told me she also puts videos on YouTube because she wants to 'reach the global Mandarin-speaking market'!

She said: Overseas Chinese are willing to pay for Chinese-language courses, and these courses are both affordable and cost-effective for them (earning a monthly salary in USD and converting to TWD or RMB is completely different scales!), so this is actually their main 'monetization' domain.

Fewer People Manage 'Personal Domains and Websites'

What they call a 'personal website,' they call 'independent site,' and with various platforms thriving in China, they've almost replaced the role of 'websites.' In fact, all their SEO is about managing platform SEO! For example, during this visit to the Digital Nomad community, I met an SEO optimizer for 'Ctrip App' - so cool! They break down SEO this finely~

There are probably political factors too in why few people run websites. Private domains are something the government can't control, so the application and review conditions seem difficult, which has resulted in few people running personal domain websites.

I want to emphasize that these are my observations. As for the actual reasons, you'll need to do your own in-depth research!

🤖 AI Tool Applications

Their Speed of Domesticating Digital Tools Is Astonishing

I think this is incredibly cool 😂 I can only say their ability to replicate, pay homage to, and copy is really strong... You'll understand what I'm saying as soon as you open 'Feishu.' Because Feishu is basically Notion...! Even connecting with various China platforms & AI, those automation features are even easier to use than Notion, it's honestly ridiculous.

I'll share a few corresponding AIs here. If you go to China, you might as well try them:

• ChatGPT → DeepSeek, Doubao
• NotebookLM → Tencent Ima
• Perplexity → Kimi

📣 This Week's Heart-Warming Share

📌 《Daily Gut Intelligence Bureau》 - Xiaochang's first 'in-person workshop' is here! (Different themes each session)

In this in-person workshop, I will publicly debut my self-developed 'Knowledge Management 5-Step Action Framework' for the first time:S.H.A.P.E Reshape

I initially started by running an events company, so I'm already veryfamiliar & meticulousabout hosting in-person events, plus I can share my passion domain 'Knowledge Management' with you. I'm honestly incredibly excited!! This workshop will let youbecome an intelligence agentand directly 'experience' the entire Knowledge Management process from input to output—not just by yourself. I'll first train you to become a qualified intelligence agent, then let you team up with teammates to research 'Daily Gut Knowledge' together.

🎉 Master Heptabase in 7 Days Workshop｜Featured Homework

Student – Chun

Check out Chun's daily assignment feedback reflections:

1. Hello, I'm Chun. Every day I'm surrounded by work, parenting, and my own matters. I want to use the workshops and courses Xiaochang offers to consolidate knowledge and build better processes. Thank you, Xiaochang (💖)
2. Using a world map as the practical topic is awesome. It's easy to brainstorm, and the operation is very intuitive. My mind immediately bursts with many countries I've saved for a long time. Thank you, Xiaochang (one more 💖)
3. As a Heptabase newcomer, topic exploration is a great fundamental skill. Thinking about my own life planning and Knowledge Management content directions took some time, but it gave my mind the most basic framework and helped organize my thoughts. Thank you, Xiaochang (💖)
4. Only after actually writing a gratitude journal did I realize there are so many things to be grateful for. In a day's life, besides myself, many things are completed with help from others. A gratitude journal isn't just about thanking yourself; thanking others is also very important. Thank you, Xiaochang, for providing the gratitude journal assignment (💖)
5. Successfully completed the organizational chart, YA! Heptabase's visualization can intuitively present the organizational chart I had in mind immediately. It feels awesome. Thank you, Xiaochang (💖)
6. Following Xiaochang's template to write reading reflections. This assignment felt a bit challenging. Besides being unfamiliar with mind map connections and some function key usage, this assignment showcased knowledge organization, summarization, absorption, and output. I got stuck, but actually operating it helped me understand better. Thank you, Xiaochang (💖)
7. YA~ First, thank you, Xiaochang, for providing such an awesome 7-day workshop, and I'm happy to have completed the 7-day assignments. I suggest everyone spend a little time each day completing the assignments. You don't have to finish within 7 days, but give yourself a deadline and complete the assignments without pressure. The sense of accomplishment is amazing. I'm a Heptabase newcomer and had never downloaded it before the workshop. I happened to ask in the LINE group, and Xiaochang suggested taking the workshop first before buying the course. The workshop felt more like conceptual guidance without detailed function key explanations, but you can operate while using Xiaochang's function teaching cheat sheet. Since knowledge collection, connection, and transformation is the software's main point, combined with Xiaochang's explanations and examples, thinking becomes much clearer. After completing the 7-day workshop, I want to keep using Heptabase and also want to purchase Xiaochang's 《Effective Input ∞ Fast Output》 course

I hope this newsletter helps you learn something, feel more connected to the world, and grow a little!
If you have any feedback, suggestions, thoughts to share, or recommendations for me, please reply to this email. I'll respond to you thoughtfully.

See you next 《Gut Talk Newsletter" again~ 😘
by KnowledgeGutfounder Xiaochang

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Xiaochang is meticulous about typography; if you spot typos or formatting issues, please reach out to Xiaochang's IG Contact! All articles come from Heptabase Xiaochang's Second Brain🧠 Content is purely human-written, never AI-generated.

If you have any questions about the article content, or if there are any parts you'd like me to elaborate on, feel free to leave a comment below and let me know～
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by Knowledge Management Mentor Xiaochang🌭