I didn't have the habit of writing year-end summaries. In my opinion, December 31st to January 1st is just another orbit around a spiral arm of the Milky Way. However, there were some achievements in 2019 that I would like to share with everyone.
2019 is a Continuation of 2018#
After graduating in 2017, I started working right away. The overall feeling was that I was sliding into adulthood, and I had to adapt to various changes. In the second half of the year, I lived alone in Beijing and felt very down.
In 2018, I gradually stabilized and developed my own framework for viewing the world. I also established the main direction for my career development and found my own rhythm. Specifically, here are a few points:
- Tower of Babel: I realized that the Tower of Babel is a great metaphor. What prevents humans from building a tower to the heavens is not the division of language, but the barrier of the mind. Everyone is lonely, and the only ultimate way to overcome this loneliness is through creation. Through creation, you can transcend space and time, resonate with countless humans, and influence distant places. Then, you are no longer alone.
- Existentialism: One night, I repeatedly read Sartre's "Existentialism is a Humanism" and became an existentialist. Existence precedes essence, and morality and soul are created through creation. A person is the sum of all their actions. After I understood these things, I no longer felt "lost".
- XYZ Coordinate System: This is a concept I created to describe the three main aspects of "success". The Y-axis represents vertical cognition, such as the coding ability of an engineer or the market research ability of a researcher. The X-axis represents horizontal mobilization ability, the ability to mobilize people, capital, and resources, or more simply, management ability. The Z-axis represents the ability to navigate through cycles, knowing what to do at what time, which is the ability of a CEO. With this coordinate system, I started consciously developing myself in these three areas.
The cognitive improvement in 2019 was an extension of the foundation laid in 2018. I gained more practical experience, tested theories, and developed more practical and down-to-earth skills.
- Consumption and Creation: I started consciously distinguishing between "consumption" and "creation" in my life and work. Buying a handbag is consumption, creating a product by buying an SDK is creation; scrolling through TikTok is consumption, writing an article is creation... When you view everything in life from this perspective, you will find that many things become completely irrelevant, while others become incredibly important.
- Creative Professional: I have always used this phrase as my LinkedIn profile summary, but the experiences of 2019 have made me more determined in my career choice. Only creation can dispel loneliness, and the creation of a product manager can be infinitely amplified by the Internet. There is nothing more wonderful than this. I also realized that being a product manager is a transitional career. In the end, you will either become a professional manager or a CEO.
- Optimistic Nihilism: I used to love Leonard Cohen's quote, "The pessimist is someone who is always worried about rain, while I am already soaked to the bone." However, after being educated by reality, I have become more optimistic. Optimism has at least a possibility, while pessimists will only stagnate. The universe has no meaning, meaning is created, so let's create optimistically. This is optimistic nihilism.
- I Can Do It Too: In 2019, I did many things that I had never thought of before. It's not that I lacked imagination, but I thought these things were far away from me. Later, I realized that they weren't as difficult as I thought, and I could do them too. In 2020, I have more confidence and energy to expand my boundaries.
- Freedom: One day, I suddenly realized that I don't have many material desires, but there are many things I want to do but don't have time for. I realized that for me, I don't even need "financial freedom". I just need a stable cash flow. What I need more is complete "freedom", the freedom to do what I want when I want to do it.
Personal Infrastructure#
One thing I focused on in 2019 was Personal Infrastructure.
This was inspired by Stephen Wolfram. Stephen Wolfram is an extraordinary person. Some say he is one of the smartest people alive. He won the MacArthur Award at the age of 21 and later founded Wolfram Software. After reading his article on his Personal Infrastructure, I was deeply impressed. He meticulously records, digitizes, and analyzes his personal life and work, which allows him to maintain abundant energy and creativity even at the age of 60.
I am not able to be as detailed as him, but I manage my personal infrastructure in the following ways:
- Scientific Internet Access: I spent some time studying network communication knowledge, configuring my network, and I rarely encounter internet censorship now. Due to this convenience, I have access to information of much higher quality than the Chinese internet. I have abandoned various rogue internet services in China and switched to products developed by top-tier internet companies.
- Information Intake: In addition to reading books, I carefully select my daily information intake, mainly through RSS feeds supplemented by a small amount of social media. This way, I don't miss any content from people I admire, and I can also come across content that I wouldn't normally be exposed to. I strongly believe in the saying, "You are what you eat."
- Calendar: I have been using a calendar to record my daily life since 2016, almost like a diary. I have recorded every important event that has happened in the past four years. This year, I redesigned the rules for recording, making it more powerful and enjoyable to use. One side effect is that I am often stood up by friends, but I almost never stand them up because I record my schedule.
- Task Management: In 2019, at the recommendation of a friend, I switched from Todoist to TickTick for task management. With the Kanban feature of TickTick, my task management ability has gone from "linear" to "multi-dimensional". I don't blindly believe in methodologies like GTD, but tools do have a significant impact on shaping the user. When I can arrange tasks in a more visually pleasing way, it becomes easier for me to complete work with enthusiasm.
- Personal Management: I started using Notion to comprehensively manage all aspects of my life and create a personal wiki. In December, I also started trying quarterly OKRs (2019/12~2020/02). When I write down my OKRs, my life feels more organized, and even fragmented time can be effectively mobilized (X-axis ability).
About Work#
In 2019, I made a job change, leaving Shimo Documents and joining a startup company. I was the 4th employee and the only product manager.
Shimo is a company that values taste (which is a high praise from me, as taste is something that cannot be learned). My time at Shimo was very interesting, and my colleagues were all very talented. However, due to changes in the external environment, the company's development and my personal goals became misaligned. When I first joined Shimo, everyone wanted to make a big impact, but later we had to give up for various reasons. Later on, I found that my ideas had been implemented one by one by DingTalk and Yuque, which was a bit regretful. I wish Shimo the best.
However, this experience made me start thinking about what business is. Product managers always emphasize user experience, and in my opinion, the best user experience should be providing services to users while also making money. Because without the ability to sustain your team, it is impossible to provide good user experience in the long run. The goal should be to pursue long-term global optimization.
After our new company was established, we collectively went to Delhi, India for a month. We didn't have much time to explore, as we were focused on development and street research. India is full of vitality, and in the foreseeable future, the world will be dominated by China and India. In fact, India may be more competitive than China for two reasons: 1. Indians speak English; 2. India has no internet censorship. These two factors allow Indians to access information of much higher quality than what is available within the Chinese internet. It struck me deeply that when an Indian wants to find something, such as "how to do ASO", they will directly use YouTube. YouTube has high-quality content from all over the world for online teaching, which is much more efficient. In China, we can only use Baidu? Toutiao search? Don't make me laugh.
Our team spent some time in the early stages deploying infrastructure and getting to know each other. Then, we launched our first product, which didn't meet our expectations, but we found a viable path. The second product was temporarily taken down due to some issues, but after resolving them and relaunching, it quickly gained traction. We continued to optimize and polish the product, releasing a new version every week. User retention rapidly improved, and eventually, we reached #18 on the Google Play India category chart, with a DAU of 200k and a next-day retention rate of 55%. Compared to our competitors, the data is very good.
Originally, we planned to focus on user experience, but the market changes exceeded our expectations, so we promptly changed direction. I won't go into detail about the ongoing projects, but we are quietly making progress and doing well. Θ..Θ
Someone asked before, "Do young people think ByteDance is a cool company?" My answer is: Yes, it's cool. It's cooler than BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent), similar to Facebook, but far behind Tesla and NASA. A super powerful recommendation system isn't cool? A commercial system that can monetize traffic isn't cool? The transformation of an airplane museum into a low-rise building isn't cool? Of course, it still falls short compared to a spaceship.
Leaving Huawei and joining ByteDance in 2017 was an extremely correct decision. Shamelessly, I can say that I already foresaw that ByteDance would grow into a new BAT. I learned a lot from ByteDance, although a large part of it was realized in hindsight. Now I have a better understanding that business is a great thing, and profitability is the greatest morality in business.
About Life#
In 2019, I still didn't have a cat.
However, I made many new friends this year, and many of them have become very good friends. The connection between people is a mysterious thing, and some people feel different from the first meeting. This year, I also reconnected with some old friends. Sometimes, my mind gets confused, and I even argue with friends, but we always make up. I am grateful for their understanding.
In the new year, I hope to meet more friends. I still prefer meeting offline, so I welcome all friends who see this to have a meal, coffee, drink, or anything else.
In October, I went to Australia and went skydiving with a friend. I saw the Great Barrier Reef, but unfortunately, I didn't get to hold a koala. Later, Australia experienced a terrible forest fire, and many koalas were burned to death. I hope everyone can pay attention to them.
One afternoon in November, I had a conversation with a friend about the future world. With my friend's help, I turned the idea into a script and made it into a comic that was published on GQ's public account. Thank you to my friend. One evening in November, after drinking a little alcohol, I wrote a science fiction story in one breath and sent it to a few friends for feedback, which seemed to be very good. It marked the beginning of my new venture. My imagination is still alive, and I am still young.
After the snow season started in December, I went skiing every Sunday, living a routine life of working from Monday to Saturday and skiing on Sunday. I became addicted to snowboarding since my first experience last year. This year, I consciously practiced my skills and learned from professional snowboarders on YouTube. I made good progress. When I can confidently tackle advanced slopes, I will be ready to leave Beijing. Skiing is a sport that suits me very well. It's just me and the slope. I have to be fully present, or I will fall. I have to keep going because stopping will make me cold. The moment I fall is the most relaxing moment of the week, giving myself to life and falling on the ground with all my heart is the most authentic moment of the week (children, please do not imitate). Learning to ski has also given me a lot of confidence. I used to be very physically uncoordinated, but now I believe that my lack of coordination was simply due to being discouraged too much when I was young. With the right guidance, I can teach myself any sport, no matter how uncoordinated I am.
That's about it for 2019.
Wishing everyone a fantastic 2020!
Don't wish me smooth sailing, wish me to ride the wind and waves.
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2020/01/01 @ Beijing