If you want to invest in stocks, rely on Golden Unicorn analysts' research reports, which are authoritative, professional, timely, and comprehensive, helping you uncover potential theme opportunities. (Source: Huxiu APP) — Douyin blogger @周槿源. This article is from the WeChat public account: Kanjian Lab, author: Kanjian Depth. "Normal people can't do well with self-media; you have to be a bit crazy!" — Source: Douyin blogger @周槿源, used with the author's permission.

A few days ago, blogger @周槿源 said this to the camera. It instantly ignited emotions on the short video platform, leading to a wave of meme creation and challenges. Major bloggers basically used his sentence as an opening, then began to perform "acting crazy" and "being sick." Zhou Jinyuan was very open-minded. Originally, this sentence was the opening line of a long video. He simply cut this 4-second video into a separate video, released it, and opened authorization and download, instantly sparking a wave of popularity and goodwill. This is, of course, a self-deprecating remark with exaggeration. But it directly articulated a rule rarely stated in the short video world: normal, restrained, and steady often have no memory points; more exaggerated expressions, more extreme emotions, and more distinct contrasts make it easier to be retained from countless swipes.

Platforms don't judge whether a person is "sick." They only use cold algorithms like plays, dwell time, and shares to calculate real popularity, repeatedly rewarding expressions that better capture attention. For professional creators, this has become a habitual way of working. But when the camera is aimed at a boss who has been in business for over twenty years, things start to become absurd. Kang Ti, an author for "Daily People," recorded such a scene. The young director asked Boss Huang to be more irritable. When walking out of the office, it would be best to knock over the pen holder on the desk. Boss Huang felt this action was too heavy. Although the company was facing difficulties, it hadn't reached the point of bankruptcy. But the camera needed a clearer moment of collapse. So, he sat back in his chair and re-enacted the experience of borrowing money everywhere and constantly hitting dead ends when starting his business ten years ago. In the shot, after making a phone call, he slumped in his chair and stared at the ceiling; outside the shot, his company had just delayed wages for the first time by half a month. The predicament was real, and the entrepreneurial history was real. It's just that when reality isn't attractive enough, it needs to be re-directed.

Where to Start

Boss Huang didn't suddenly develop a desire to perform. Distributor payments slowed down, terminals couldn't sell, new products had no brand awareness, and some branches were gradually closed. In the past, he didn't quite believe in marketing; later, short videos became a lifeline he was willing to grasp. This is not hard to understand. The "China Online Audiovisual Development Research Report (2026)" shows that by the end of 2025, China's online audiovisual user base reached 1.099 billion. Among major internet applications with usage rates exceeding 80%, short videos are the only category maintaining growth in both usage rate and user scale. In the survey, 40% of respondents purchased items like food, beverages, and daily necessities due to online audiovisual content, and 26.7% paid for offline services like dining, movies, and performances because of it. Customers have already moved onto the screen, so bosses naturally want to follow them there.

Why the Focus on the Boss First

There are many ways for an offline business to enter the short video space: optimizing maps and search, managing corporate accounts, clearly showcasing products, designing group buying deals, inviting influencers to visit, or consolidating the reputation of repeat customers online. However, in the rhetoric of some boss IP service providers, these complex choices are compressed into a more impactful conclusion: the problem isn't that products lack traffic, but that the boss themselves lack traffic. Consequently, issues like product aging, channel failure, declining foot traffic, price competition, and unstable delivery are all translated into the same diagnosis: you don't know how to build a personal IP. — Image: Short video platform accounts of county-level bosses. Source: "Daily People," original caption noted as from the internet. Meeting this demand aren't just one type of company. Traditional MCNs and signing incubation agencies sell teams, platform experience, and monetization mechanisms; IP coaching companies sell positioning, diagnosis, and ongoing guidance; course institutions compress methods into three-day boot camps, annual communities, and entrepreneur circles; short video agency operators promise to handle scripts, shooting, editing, publishing, and even paid promotion. Their services vary, but sometimes they coexist within the same company. Free courses lead to boot camps, boot camps to private coaching, and then to agency operations and profit sharing. The MCN in the title is more of a proxy for this vast industry. What they collectively sell is a tempting certainty: as long as the boss is willing to step in front of the camera, the business has one more chance to be seen again.

How the Persona Business Gets Marked Up

MCNs are certainly capable of creating success. In the spring of 2019, boss Zhu Gen rode a shared bike to the office. His subordinate Zhang Ce noticed he was wearing a polo shirt, carrying a backpack, and had a Rolex on his wrist. The combination was somewhat contradictory: like an ordinary office worker, but clearly not. Zhang Ce also noticed that Zhu Gen often played a matching game on his phone in the office. A character was thus extracted: wealthy, idle, and seemingly indifferent to his surroundings. Zhu Gen's experiences, attire, and demeanor were all real, but Zhang Ce only kept the most easily recognizable parts and amplified them. This character was called Zhu Yidan. — Image: The real Zhu Gen and the shadow of "Zhu Yidan." Photography: Su Li; Source: GQ Report, reprinted with permission from Pinwan. According to a GQ report, three days after the first episode was released, the account already had over 200,000 followers; in about half a year, it had around 8 million followers across all platforms. The real-life serial entrepreneur Zhu Gen increasingly became known as "Dan Zong." His real name became hidden behind the character. This is the most successful and thorough form of a boss IP: the boss is no longer just the company's communicator; they themselves become the content product co-created by writers, directors, photographers, editors, and voice actors. The success of Zhu Yidan cannot be easily replicated. It occurred during the window period of short video content entrepreneurship, with a distinct creative team and a uniquely compelling character contrast. More importantly, it proved that a character can become a traffic business, but it does not prove that any business facing difficulties can save its core operations by copying such a persona. However, the service industry needs demonstrable examples. When success is summarized into methods, and methods are turned into courses and coaching, the irreproducible chemical reaction of Zhu Yidan is broken down into persona, contrast, tags, emotions, and viral points. More and more bosses receive their first piece of content advice, not to clearly explain their product, but to first identify a personality trait within themselves that can be amplified. — Image: The boss is pushed into a persona labeling machine, while the product is left aside. Kanjian Lab Original. Min Ge, who runs a villa design business, initially believed professionalism could be turned into traffic. According to public statements from both parties as reported by media outlets like 36Kr and Southern Metropolis Daily, he paid 500,000 yuan for account coaching and also built his own 5-person new media team. Over three months, the coaching teacher changed three times, dozens or even hundreds of videos were shot, and Dou+ was also used. — Image: Left image is a screenshot of Min Ge's public rights protection video; right image is content from his original account. Source: 36Kr authorized reprint. Min Ge later publicly stated that the account only gained 189 followers and failed to generate revenue. He requested a refund, while the service provider responded that they had invested a team of about 10 people in the project and were willing to have the lead person re-coach, but couldn't offer a full refund just because the results didn't meet the client's expectations. Both sides could list their investments. Min Ge invested money, employees, and time; the service provider invested teachers, plans, meetings, scripts, and execution. The problem is that they were never measuring the same thing. The boss thought he was buying a result: making his expertise visible and bringing traffic into the business. What the coaching contract more easily delivers is a process: positioning done, meetings held, scripts revised, data reviewed. The most ironic twist came after the dispute became public. The original villa design content didn't generate the desired traffic, but the content about the 500,000 yuan coaching fee dispute quickly attracted attention. Someone who wanted to become an IP through their expertise finally became widely seen for the first time because of their failure to do so. This dispute hasn't been through judicial adjudication, so no one can be deemed to have committed fraud based on this. It's more like a fable about the IP business: when a person's experiences, grievances, and even failures can all be turned into content, the failure of the service itself can become the next successful short video.

How Traffic Can Return to Operations

Course institutions offer another kind of hope: you don't have to hand over your account to others; as long as you learn their methods, you can master your own traffic. Lao Liu, the founder of a Japanese restaurant in Wuhan, attended a 3-day offline IP boot camp and later joined an annual subscription boss community, investing over a hundred thousand yuan in total. Back at his store, he wrote jokes and shot videos following the founder IP approach. He did this continuously for three months. Some videos achieved a hundred thousand views, but according to his account reported by the "Wuhan Evening News," this content didn't bring in customers. Later, he stopped putting effort into performing the boss persona and instead directly shot videos of the dishes and the restaurant environment. Conversion then appeared. Lao Liu didn't completely dismiss the training. He still felt that the content about management and systems was valuable. Precisely because of this, this story can't simply be written off as a boss being cheated. What it truly reveals is a misalignment between two evaluation systems. The algorithm likes a boss with emotions, contrasts, and the ability to make people stay; a customer about to enter a Japanese restaurant might just want to know if the ingredients are good, if the environment is comfortable, and if the price is right. The former can generate a hundred thousand views, but the latter determines whether anyone will come to eat tonight. Some courses distill accidental success into stable methods, then lay out a staircase with ever-increasing prices. Titanium Media once analyzed the public product offerings of a certain knowledge influencer: starting from a 2,980 yuan anchor course, a 5,980 yuan traffic course, a 9,980 yuan private domain course, and extending to an 80,000 yuan entrepreneur alliance. When a boss moves from one class to the next, it's easy to feel: the lack of results isn't because the method doesn't suit my business, but because I haven't studied deeply enough or invested enough. If the boss doesn't have time to learn, they can buy agency operations. A Ms. Sun from Wenzhou paid 29,800 yuan for a one-year agency operation service. The contract promised to create 32 industry-specific custom videos, provide scriptwriting, shooting, editing, makeup, and account management, and grow the account to 10,000 followers. After one year, the service provider completed 28 videos, and the account had only over 300 followers. Ms. Sun wasn't just a passive observer. Because she was dissatisfied with the results, she intervened midway on some scripts; the service provider also believed that the client's changes to the content direction affected the original plan. Ultimately, the court terminated the contract considering the performance of both parties and ordered the service provider to return 8,000 yuan. This is not a simple true-or-false story. The agency operation team did do the filming, and the boss indeed didn't get the promised growth. The boss bought a fully managed service, but when the data failed to improve, she couldn't really let go; once she intervened, responsibility for the failure became blurred. Another public page from a Shanghai Pudong New Area Court judgment records a more expensive content production line. A high-end tea company paid 240,000 yuan to operate its Douyin account. The service costs included scripts, directors, photographers, post-production, lighting, tea artisans, and venue. Three concentrated shooting sessions resulted in 7 published videos and a large amount of material. The parties later agreed the account would reach 60,000 followers by the end of September, or the cooperation would be terminated. A platform reply showed the account had 7,149 followers on the target date. The court, based on the termination conditions agreed upon by both parties, ordered the return of 180,000 yuan. A full team of professionals stood behind the camera, yet the boss still couldn't buy a guaranteed result. Because content can be outsourced, shooting can be piecework, and followers can even be written into a contract. But why customers trust a company, why they are willing to order, and why they will come again, still cannot be captured in a production cost sheet. — Image: Play counts, follower numbers, and business results are not the same finish line. Kanjian Lab Original. A personal IP is not a false proposition. Zhao Zhiqiang, founder of Pizza Hut, checks the comment section during business trips. Someone complains about a broken air conditioner or long queues at a store. He screenshots it and sends it to employees, demanding a time-bound investigation. Some employees even report shift managers being absent via private messages. According to his own account as reported by the "National Business Daily," in 2025, his videos achieved nearly 300 million views across all platforms without paid promotion. — Image: 2026 China Chain Catering Summit Roundtable, Zhao Zhiqiang (third from right) participating in discussion. Source: "National Business Daily," provided by the organizer. What's truly noteworthy isn't just this number. In Zhao Zhiqiang's case, the comment section didn't stop at popularity and praise; it turned into a public store inspection system. The boss's face connected customers, employees, and management, and traffic flowed along this relationship back to store operations. This is a completely different kind of boss IP from Boss Huang knocking over the pen holder. One designs the emotion first, then waits for traffic to find the business; the other already has specific operational actions, just using content to amplify them. The former requires the boss to continuously provide stronger stories; the latter makes the boss's existing expertise, management, and credibility easier to see. Success is also far from easy. Another restaurant founder, Sun Shunchang, revealed in a platform case study, started frequently visiting stores, shooting videos, and live streaming after age 40. At his busiest, he spent 21 days a month on the road. Once a so-called founder IP truly gets running, it often doesn't mean the boss occasionally takes time to shoot two videos; it means adding a new, unceasing job to their workload. So, the problem has never been just whether to do an IP. What truly needs to be asked first is: before purchasing, must customers trust the boss personally? Can the boss's expertise be consistently converted into content? Can the product and team handle the new leads generated? Can the profit margin cover the long-term costs of production and paid promotion? Even without a viral hit, can this content still be accumulated into search, word-of-mouth, and repeat purchases? If these questions don't have answers, the camera won't solve the original operational problems; it will only show them more clearly. After Boss Huang finished filming his entrepreneurial failure, the pen holder would be put back, and the lights turned off. But the distributors not paying, the new products not selling, and the delayed wages wouldn't automatically reverse just because a video was shot. They still need products, channels, cash flow, delivery, and time. These words aren't exciting, but they decide whether a business can survive to the next year. Normal people might indeed find it hard to succeed with some short videos. Because normal life doesn't have that many plot twists. A mature boss won't have a breakdown, reprimand staff, flaunt wealth, dwell on past hardships, or suddenly announce a decision that defies ancestral traditions every day. But once the platform demands continuous drama, the director has to keep finding material from the boss's experiences, marriage, personality, employees, and difficulties. In the end, the company originally wanted to sell its product, but what gets repeatedly packaged and consumed is the boss themselves. Short videos can certainly be an entry point for business, and a personal IP can indeed help some bosses build trust. But it should serve the business, not replace it. It should amplify the expertise a person truly possesses, not first transform them into a character more suitable for the algorithm. Bosses who have been in business for half their lives can learn short videos and can also purchase professional services. But before being taught to act as "themselves," they should at least have the right to ask: This time, was it my product that became the business, or was it me? This article's writing note: The characters and events in this article come from public media reports, judicial cases, public statements, and platform case studies. The author did not interview the individuals mentioned. Information regarding fees, followers, views, and operational results is based on the original sources labeled as personal accounts, media reports, or as recorded in court documents. Individual cases are not used to imply the success or failure rate of the entire industry. The opening screenshot is used with permission from Douyin blogger @周槿源. Main source materials: 1. Douyin blogger @周槿源 original video and authorized screenshot. 2. Daily People: Driving million-dollar luxury cars, eating customer leftovers, the traffic code of county bosses. 3. Xinhuanet: Key data from the "China Online Audiovisual Development Research Report (2026)." 4. China National Radio: The driving effect of online audiovisual content on commodity and offline service consumption. 5. GQ Report authorized reprint: The boring life of Zhu Yidan. 6. 36Kr: The dream of getting rich by selling courses for online influencers. 7. Southern Metropolis Daily E-commerce Observation: The 500,000 yuan coaching dispute. 8. Wuhan Evening News: Small and medium-sized bosses anxiously seeking "antidotes." 9. Titanium Media: Shen Ge, who teaches bosses and internet executives to be online influencers. 10. The Paper: Spent thirty thousand on short video agency operation, only gained over three hundred followers in a year. 11. Public reprint page of Shanghai Pudong New Area Court (2023) Hu 0115 Min Chu No. 127338 Civil Judgment. 12. National Business Daily: Restaurant bosses "roll" in IP. 13. DoNews: Hotpot brand founder uses Douyin to open over 500 new stores in a year. This content is authorized and published by the author. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent the position of Huxiu. If you have any objections or complaints regarding this article, please contact tougao@huxiu.com. This article is from Huxiu, original link: https://www.huxiu.com/article/4881889.html?f=wyxwapp