2026-01-08 21:19 Tags:Money
To summarize in one sentence:
I learned an incredible amount in short time: how to create products and services, how sales and marketing actually work, how to set reasonable prices, how to learn from others, how to outsource tasks, and how to collaborate with others. Honestly, I could talk about this experience for a long time.
The Experience and the Story
December 2024 was when my journey really began.
I started running my own social media account for a very simple reason: I wanted some extra income. At that time, I had just arrived in Canada and was trying to adapt — or, more accurately, to survive 😂. Everything felt expensive. Coming from China, I was used to thinking in RMB, and with the exchange rate being roughly 1 CAD = 5 RMB, my brain automatically multiplied every price by five. I even wished RMB were “stronger.” Only later did I realize that a high exchange rate doesn’t mean pure benefits. Back then, I knew almost nothing about economics 🫨.
I noticed that the study-abroad application space seemed to make a lot of money, so I thought, why not try this? I started creating content about program applications, but it didn’t work at all. Almost no one was reading my posts. Instead of giving up, I tried to understand why. It was winter, not application season. People simply didn’t care about this topic at that time. I needed to change direction.
So what should I focus on instead?
I realized it was the season for summer research program applications. I asked a friend to join me, and we worked together to collect information. We posted one single post — and it went viral. That first post performed extremely well, and we quickly knew this was the right direction.
We built a shared spreadsheet to record summer research program information and offered it to users for free. This helped us convert public audience into private accounts, where we could talk directly with potential clients and build trust. At the same time, we continued posting content, focusing on both program information and application guides. The goal was to show that we weren’t just information aggregators — we understood the application process and how to improve success rates.
At first, we did something super helpful. We studied similar accounts carefully, analyzing their content, covers, and positioning. We documented what we could learn from them and discussed our own content style and visual design together.
As our audience grew, a new question emerged: how do we monetize this?
What services should we offer?
What kind of products make sense?
How should we price them?
How should we market them?
We asked ChatGPT 😂 — many times. I’ve been using it as my business mentor ever since.
Eventually, we built three core offerings:
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A Summer Research Application Toolkit
This was a collection of our experience, detailed guidance, and templates. It was our lowest-priced product and also our MVP. We probably sold around 40–50 copies, but that itself reveals a problem: we didn’t track sales properly at the beginning. It was messy. -
Consulting Services
Based on clients’ majors, we invited friends and classmates with similar backgrounds to provide tailored advice. -
Full-package and Semi-package Services
Full-package meant handling the entire application process. Semi-package focused mainly on personal statements and writing, while clients handled the rest themselves.
This naturally formed a funnel model: low-price, near-zero marginal cost products at the top, and fewer but higher-priced customized services at the bottom.
Pricing was another challenge. At first, we had no idea how to price anything. We set prices too low and quickly realized the effort we put in far exceeded the compensation. We adjusted prices gradually, and now they are relatively stable.
Marketing was also something we learned the hard way. At the beginning, I tried commenting under popular posts, but it barely worked. Later, we relied on free information sharing, consistent posting, building group chats, and early-bird pricing. Looking back, there are two things I really wish we had done earlier:
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Offering small cashback incentives for honest reviews, especially for the toolkit.
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Creating pinned posts that clearly summarized our services and user feedback.
Our division of work also became clearer over time. Since I invited my friend to join, I naturally took on more responsibility in account operations, direction setting, and sales. My friend, on the other hand, was excellent at information collection and organization, and also handled part of the writing work. Profit sharing was adjusted gradually as we figured things out.
The Things I Learned
SOPs matter.
Very quickly, I realized I was answering the same questions over and over again. Repetition is exhausting and inefficient. That’s when we started building our own SOPs: division of work, weekly schedules, service templates, inquiry scripts, pricing responses, and FAQs. Our SOP system is mostly in place now, but I still think areas like sales and marketing processes can be improved.
Being proactive matters.
This was my first time trying to make money on my own, and asking for payment felt awkward at first. But I learned quickly: if you don’t follow up and ask, you don’t get clients. Simple as that. Proactively checking in, asking about intentions, and asking for feedback really matters.
Record everything.
One of our biggest mistakes was not tracking revenue properly. Even now, we don’t know our exact total income. Record every transaction — client name, service, amount, date, revenue split. Everything.
Reflection matters.
Since April 2025, we’ve been doing weekly or biweekly reflections. We review data, plan next steps, decide what content to collect, and adjust task distribution. This habit alone improved our efficiency a lot.
Data tracking matters.
I learned from a well-known content creator that platforms won’t preserve your data for you. Download it, store it, and analyze it yourself. Since then, I’ve been doing exactly that.
Positioning evolves.
After the summer research season ended, we faced an identity crisis. We tried early-round study-abroad services for two weeks, but the data was terrible. We stopped quickly and shifted toward general research-related content, which performed much better. Eventually, we positioned the account around research, with research application services as the core offering.
Industry reality matters.
Looking back, this industry is already a red ocean. AI tools are shrinking information gaps, the target audience is students with limited purchasing power, and the niche itself is small. I’ll write a separate piece explaining why this isn’t a great business model in the long run.
Should I Continue?
Honestly, I don’t think this is a strong business model. I’m also tired of content censorship. Platforms have become stricter and more unpredictable, especially for foreign programs. You can put in a lot of effort and still get your posts taken down.
That said, since we already have SOPs and the system runs with relatively low effort, we can keep it as a side hustle, but not as a scalable business.
In the end, I truly enjoyed this journey. It’s only been one year, and I can’t believe how much I learned in such a short time. Practice really is the best teacher.
Just start.
Learn as you go.
Improve along the way.