@yaohui12138: A five-year grassroots entrepreneur's three suggestions for young people First suggestion: Follow the times and find where the times will land next Over the past few years, I have met many entrepreneurs, and I found that all young entrepreneurs often start from an information gap For example, AI self-media: many people ask, is self-media still an opportunity? In the second half of 2026, …

Three Pieces of Advice from a Five-Year Grassroots Entrepreneur to Young People

First piece of advice: Follow the times and find where the era will land next.

Over the past few years, I’ve come into contact with a great many entrepreneurs, and I’ve noticed that all young entrepreneurs often start from information asymmetry.

Take AI self-media, for example. Many people ask: Is self-media still an opportunity?

In the second half of 2026, the number of self-media creators nationwide is approaching 200 million, far exceeding the total number of pets. Creators are everywhere, the tracks are brutally competitive, and self-media has long since gone from a booming red-ocean industry to an extremely saturated bloodbath. Only 4% of creators can earn more than 100,000 yuan a year, and over 60% of practitioners make less than 1,800 yuan a month.

So my answer is: Self-media is not where the era will land next. AI OPC (One-Person Company / Super Individual) is.

What is AI OPC?

In 2026, seven national ministries jointly issued a document, officially incorporating AI OPC (One-Person Company / Super Individual) into the national new quality productive forces cultivation system for the first time, explicitly supporting AI solo entrepreneurship and super-individual employment, and establishing an official OPC Chief Operating Officer role system.

Simply put, it means arming yourself with AI tools and becoming a super individual who can do the work of an entire team all by yourself.

You can use AI for self-media, or you can use AI for design, programming, consulting, education, or any business you can see.

Self-media is just a training ground for AI OPC, not the endpoint.

Then why do I still advise you to do self-media?

Because self-media is the lowest-cost place to test and make mistakes: You don’t need to rent an office, stock inventory, or hire employees. A phone plus a computer is enough to start. The biggest cost is just time, and the cost of failure is small. If today’s post doesn’t perform well, you can keep going tomorrow. If the account doesn’t work, you can start over.

When you experiment with self-media, what you’re really doing is training three core abilities:

• Content production: How to use AI to quickly produce high-quality content
• Traffic acquisition: How to understand platform algorithms and get precise traffic
• Monetization: How to turn traffic into income

These three abilities are the foundational capabilities of AI OPC.

Once you’ve figured out this logic through self-media, you can transfer these abilities to any field.

When I sold phone cards in my freshman year, I was essentially training my traffic acquisition ability.

When I built mini-programs in my sophomore year, I was essentially training my product ability and monetization ability.

Now I’m doing OPC, and all these abilities are being put to use. Trust your judgment, be brave, and go for it. Latecomers always have a chance.

Second piece of advice: Start with what you can see, start small, and first develop the character foundation for personal success.

This was my biggest realization after losing money in my junior year.

Many people who want to start a business have this first reaction: I want to do a big project, I want to raise funding, I want to build a team.

But the truth is: Character foundation is the first principle.

So what you need to do isn’t to jump straight into a big project, but first to cultivate a successful character foundation.

What is a successful character foundation?

• Dare to enter no-man’s-land (don’t follow the mainstream path)
• Achieve the best results with the least resources (extreme efficiency)
• Own your losses and keep going (long-termism)

If you really don’t have survival funds, then work a job while doing self-media on the side. Once the self-media income can sustain a good life, find a business opportunity and jump straight out to start your own venture.

Third piece of advice: Don’t be afraid of the hustle. Whether your efforts end in success or failure, you’ve already become much stronger than others.

This is the most important thing I want to say.

In 2026, 23-year-old post-00s entrepreneur Jin Jianan built “AI short-drama entrepreneurship” from zero in six months. He said: “AI makes the one-person company a better way for individual workers to start a business. Test with small steps first, don’t blindly go all in.”

The biggest growth was shifting from a student mindset to a business mindset, and learning how to solve problems independently.

The essence of the hustle is trading time for experience, not trading time for money.

Many people are afraid of the hustle because they equate it with failure.

But the truth is: The hustle itself is success.

If you hustle, you’ve gained one more opportunity to try and learn than those who don’t dare. If you hustle, you’ve gained one more opportunity to grow than those who don’t dare. If you hustle, you’ve gained one more opportunity to accumulate than those who don’t dare.

The compounding effect of time only works for those who keep hustling.

Research shows that there are too many smart people in the world, but as long as you keep learning every day, no one can catch up with you. Life will produce a huge compounding effect. Continuous learning is the core strategy for dealing with all change.

Wealth has never been just money. Wealth is the compounding result of unique expertise, amplified by the era’s leverage, accumulated over a long period.

When you use time as the lever to move these resources, the compounding effect of time truly explodes.

Finally, I want to give every young person one sentence: The most precious thing in this world is time.

Super Individual | Persimmon (@yaohui12138): Why should you follow me?

1. From me, you can learn both the ruthless drive of the grassroots entrepreneur and the methods of the disciplined professionals from big companies.

2. I used to fail at everything I tried. Now I succeed at everything I try. I know exactly what kind of training lies in between.

3. I am one of the few bloggers on the market who teaches both practical AI knowledge and real-world AI implementation.

Most grassroots bloggers don’t have solid AI methodology, which means they’re destined never to capture the big AI dividend.