Fun Live: The First Knowledge Live Streaming Platform
This blog post was translated by ChatGPT.
At 21, I am launching my second entrepreneurial project, Qu Zhibo, a knowledge-based paid live streaming platform. Initially, it will have three categories: experience sharing, programming, and design. In the future, we hope to make it a paid live streaming platform for knowledge sharing across all industries. This will allow more people to make a living by selling knowledge, creating high-quality content, and earning better income than a regular job. Users will also benefit by accessing better content through small payments.
My connection with live streaming began in March this year when Gucheng Ye invited me to live stream tech content on Douyu. The average viewership of 800 people per session felt great—sharing some little-known techniques with everyone.
On Qu Zhibo, you need to pay 1 to 100 yuan to participate in a live stream happening tonight or tomorrow. When the live stream starts, you will receive an SMS notification. In the live room, the host shares their knowledge or experiences, and the audience can interact with the host through text or voice.
We are currently using a paid registration model, with ticket prices ranging from 1 to 100 yuan. Essentially, the speaker and content are key. If the speaker has a strong background and the content is appealing, higher-priced tickets will still attract many participants. If the speaker is average and the content isn’t particularly novel or interesting, even free tickets won’t attract many viewers. However, ticket prices do influence decisions. If the price is too high, even with great speakers and content, people may find it too expensive and not join. If it’s affordable, people are happy to try it. This raises an interesting question: what is the right price for a live stream? From a cost perspective, Alibaba Cloud’s bandwidth costs 0.8 yuan per GB. A user watching for an hour consumes about 2 GB, which costs 1.6 yuan. There are also server costs and other expenses. Importantly, this income can provide good motivation for the speakers. Nowadays, people feel that not earning money means wasting time. Sharing for free once is fine, but doing it multiple times feels like a waste of time. For tech and design experts, they’d rather do freelance work or research their own interests.
How should the live stream revenue be split between the platform and the speaker? There are generally two scenarios: if the platform handles promotion, the revenue is split equally between the platform and the speaker. If the speaker has a large following and handles the promotion, the speaker gets 90% of the revenue. In this case, Qu Zhibo provides a paid live streaming tool.
Why not use a tipping model? If mobile or show live streaming platforms used our prepaid model, probably few people would watch. If you keep giving gifts to the streamer, spending thousands, and then ask for their WeChat or try to meet them, and they keep rejecting you, you’ll eventually leave. It’s like walking into a bar, seeing a beautiful girl, and buying her the most expensive drink. If she doesn’t leave with you, you’ll never approach her again. This reflects a certain reality.
Our model reflects real-life events and lectures. Many lectures require paid registration. People pay for a ticket to see someone they want to meet or hear content they want to learn. Live streaming gives us this opportunity, allowing more people to see and hear what they want while greatly lowering the ticket price.
In the future, we even hope to become the “Taobao of the knowledge field.” Live streamers will be like Taobao shop owners. These people don’t make a living by selling goods but by selling knowledge. They research the latest industry knowledge at home and present it in the best way possible. The advantage over a regular job is that if you work twice as hard this month, your income immediately doubles. In the tech industry I know, at least some people can achieve this. A live stream with 500 viewers, each paying 10 yuan, can earn the streamer 4500 yuan (500 * 10 * 0.9). This is much better than a day’s work. Providing ten live streams a month can earn 45,000 yuan. This is a very promising prospect. To maintain such a large audience, the streamer must put a lot of effort into the content. By working harder, they can earn higher income, which aligns with fundamental social principles. At the same time, everyone only needs to spend 100 yuan a month to get nearly face-to-face access to this knowledge.
This sounds exciting. I strive to run this live streaming platform well and also become a streamer myself.
Initially, my plan was to invite friends around me to stream and then attract others with the income from these streams. My friends agreed, but it was clearly out of friendship. I worried that no one would stream in the future, making it unsustainable. Now, I’m not so worried. As long as I build this platform well, allowing streamers to make a living by providing high-quality content, they will work harder and earn more money, attracting more people to stream. Like Jack Ma made Taobao successful, allowing individual merchants to make money, thus attracting more people to open Taobao shops.
The advantage of a live streaming platform is similar to Taobao: I can increase the audience size significantly, just like increasing product sales. This means that if the streamer provides excellent content and promotes it well, they can earn a lot of money in one night, while users get great content. Moreover, it doesn’t involve warehousing or shipping, making it more convenient and scalable.
Qu Zhibo has launched its WeChat version and will soon release an iOS version. Desktop and Android versions are also in the works. Stay tuned.
In tonight’s live stream launch, I’ll talk about our product, my entrepreneurial story, my experiences, and my insights from visiting Silicon Valley. You’re welcome to join! If you have any product suggestions or want to be friends, you can add me on WeChat at lzwjava.
This year, I’m 21. From coding in middle school to dropping out in my sophomore year to work, to earning 25,000 yuan a month in my junior year, reaching 20,000 to 30,000 yuan levels in Android, iOS, backend, and frontend development, to starting a business for half a year, failing, and now starting again. Over the years, I’ve worked harder and harder to earn more money, support my family, and live comfortably. Now, I want to build a platform that allows thousands of people like me to directly face the market, work harder to earn more money, create more social value, and live more comfortably.
Thank you all!
If you’re not using WeChat, please copy the link below and open it in WeChat:
http://m.quzhiboapp.com?liveId=7
Click the link below to join the live stream~