Article Source: ChuangTouTiao
Author: Shi Huifang
Image Source: Generated by Unlimited AI
Some say that in the AI craze, only those who sell computing power and courses make money.
This statement is not without reason. AI application developers are working for platforms, and platforms are working for graphics card manufacturers, and in the end, the money goes to NVIDIA.
Many AI startups with valuations in the hundreds of millions have almost zero revenue.
There was a foreign AI painting company that went bankrupt after only 4 months. Before closing, the founder lamented, "This thing can't make money at all."
In China, many AI entrepreneurs work hard to develop applications, but when it comes to making money, they are easily defeated by someone selling AI courses.
If you are interested in technology or AI, you have probably seen Li Yizhou on Douyin.
Li Yizhou can be called the "ceiling" of individual course sellers. He once made millions of yuan a month by selling courses.
Currently, he has 3.25 million fans on Douyin. Now he is advertising and selling courses on WeChat Moments. Is he about to embark on a journey of monetization in a new field?
1. A Ph.D. from Tsinghua University's Academy of Arts & Design, earning millions by selling courses
For over a year, there has been a trend of selling AI courses on short video platforms. A self-proclaimed Tsinghua Ph.D., Li Yizhou, has launched a 199 yuan AI course, attracting millions of fans on Douyin.
Recently, Li Yizhou has started advertising on WeChat Moments again. This time, he is selling an AI course originally priced at 999 yuan for 199 yuan.
The gimmick is as usual, "Tsinghua Ph.D. teaches you understandable artificial intelligence courses." And he used the tactic of "limited to the first 200 students, each with 1 million computing power units."
In the field of paid knowledge in the past two years, many internet celebrities have emerged. Li Yizhou is one of them, consistently topping the list of course sales.
Friends who often browse Douyin probably occasionally come across Li Yizhou, vigorously promoting his AI courses.
In my personal opinion, the most striking label for Li Yizhou is his status as a Tsinghua University Ph.D. and an expert in artificial intelligence.
When it comes to Tsinghua graduates, the impression is practical, low-key, and technically idealistic… In the wave of AI entrepreneurship in China, Tsinghua graduates often play a "leading" role.
When the labels of Tsinghua Ph.D. and AI are combined, Li Yizhou's image as a Ph.D. instantly becomes impressive.
However, Li Yizhou's major has nothing to do with AI.
Li Yizhou, a native of Changsha, Hunan, graduated from the Academy of Arts & Design at Tsinghua University with a Ph.D. in industrial design and design innovation methods, and design strategy and prototype innovation.
Unlike many well-established Tsinghua graduates, Li Yizhou completed his undergraduate and master's degrees at the School of Design and Art at Hunan University.
As early as 2012, Li Yizhou appeared on the stage of "Only You" and engaged in a war of words with the BOSS team, and was then sought after by various companies, becoming the "most powerful job seeker," and thus became famous.
Later, Li Yizhou experienced repeated failures in entrepreneurship until he switched to Douyin to become a self-media figure teaching entrepreneurship, and began to thrive.
A Tsinghua Ph.D., eloquent, and good-looking. Such a person in the field of self-media is simply a natural choice.
At the end of 2021, Li Yizhou seized the wave of traffic on Douyin, spent 3 months outputting entrepreneurial knowledge, and accumulated over 100,000 fans.
Later, the account began to gain more traction. Riding the wave, Li Yizhou made a wave of transformation, starting his journey of paid knowledge.
With his image as a Douyin entrepreneurship mentor, his Douyin entrepreneurship course "Yi Zhou's Course" sold well, once topping the sales chart for Douyin entrepreneurship courses. He once achieved a turnover of 23 million yuan in 4 months, and his fan base also grew to over a million.
In early 2023, as the traffic of ChatGPT surged like a storm, Li Yizhou decisively abandoned "Douyin, the last hope for ordinary people to turn the tide" with a monthly sales of 2 million, and turned to launch "artificial intelligence courses that every family of three must learn."
In less than a month, a set of 199 GPT courses sold 200,000 copies, with sales revenue exceeding 40 million yuan.
From being an "expert on Douyin" to an "AI expert," and from being a "business consultant for several billion-dollar companies" to a "business consultant for several billion-dollar AI companies," one cannot help but admire Li Yizhou's ability to seize opportunities.
2. Li Yizhou's journey to self-media success
On the road of paid knowledge, Li Yizhou is definitely a top-tier anchor. Some describe him as a "self-media genius."
Li Yizhou has an almost perfect image: a Ph.D. from Tsinghua University, founder of three technology companies, with millions in financing, a professional manager, proficient in solving AI, business models, knowledge IP, and traffic issues…
It can be said that he almost satisfies everyone's imagination of Tsinghua, high education, high knowledge, making money, and traffic.
At the beginning, Li Yizhou's journey in self-media was not so smooth. For a long time, it was lukewarm.
It wasn't until February 14, 2021, when he posted a video with a different direction from before, titled: "After the age of 35, how many friends have the same feelings as me?"
This video had over 40,000 views within an hour of being posted. Li Yizhou promptly promoted this video, and the next morning, the video's views reached 200,000, and his fan base grew significantly.
Li Yizhou judged that this content direction might be what Douyin wanted. So he shot several similar videos. For example, "How do poor people counterattack" and "How do ordinary people become wealthy"…
As expected, one of these videos became popular, even more so than the first one.
In two days, Li Yizhou posted 8 videos, 2 of which went viral, gaining nearly 100,000 followers.
To seize this wave of traffic, Li Yizhou went live in his car, broadcasting for 5 hours, answering various questions from fans. After the broadcast, his fan base directly exceeded 100,000.
Since then, the gears of fate have begun to turn faster.
After successfully establishing his presence, Li Yizhou officially embarked on the journey of paid knowledge.
From selling courses to now, there have always been people criticizing him, saying he's "harvesting leeks," has no bottom line, and has poor course quality, among other things.
But it must be admitted that Li Yizhou has a good grasp of the target audience and the rules of the game.
In Li Yizhou's live broadcasts, he has repeatedly mentioned that his courses are very suitable for students with zero foundation.
His fans are around 35 years old, some are full-time moms at home, and some are small business owners with a bit of money… They have one thing in common: they are somewhat intelligent, but not much.
No matter how low-level or "low" a course may seem, as long as someone is willing to pay for it, it means it can solve some people's pain points.
It also tells us a truth: the product is just one part, and the rules of the game are also crucial.
Li Yizhou's promise to users with "Yi Zhou's Course": to give you a lesson every week. This promise makes users feel that they are inputting knowledge, which is very important.
Starting from September 2022, Li Yizhou broadcasted for almost 3 hours every day, and at the peak, he broadcasted for 8 hours a day, which also increased the number of people in his live broadcast room from 10,000 to 100,000.
In addition, Li Yizhou's ability to seize opportunities is also worth learning for ordinary people. When the AI trend came, he immediately started selling AI courses.
3. In 2024, it is worth investing in AI, but one should avoid being "harvested"
In the midst of this traffic frenzy, Dr. Li Yizhou shed his thin literary skin and donned a businessman's armor.
His success once again proves that those who sell water, maps, and shovels to gold prospectors make more money than those who pan for gold.
Since the beginning of 2023, ChatGPT has been on fire, and within two months, the global user base has exceeded 100 million. The knowledge paid industry, with the most sensitive sense of smell, also sharpened its sickle within a month.
A course seller named He Lao Shi, who used to teach investment, also quickly went all in on AI courses. His "AI Enlightenment Course for Everyone" has been embraced by 14 million fans.
A Douyin account named "Shi Tong AI Learning" has also made a good profit from its "AI New Human Business Course."
However, users have mixed reviews of these courses. Some users bluntly say they are "very basic" and "very beginner-level," while others admit to being "harvested."
Just like the previous big data, blockchain, and metaverse crazes, after ChatGPT became popular, a wave of "AI mentors" emerged on major content platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Zhi Shi Xing Qiu, offering countless "courses."
The tactics of these AI "mentors" remain unchanged. First, establish a persona, then chase hot topics, instill anxiety, and then point out the path to overnight wealth—buy the course, all in a seamless and smooth process.
In recent years, selling courses and training on Douyin has created many myths of wealth, including Li Yizhou, Da Lan, Hai Shen, and Tou Tou Tang. Whether selling courses or live streaming, they have made hundreds of thousands or even millions in revenue.
It must be acknowledged that the current capabilities and impact demonstrated by AI products, as well as the entrepreneurial opportunities brought by AI, are beyond doubt.
However, the "gold content" of the vast majority of so-called "AI courses" may not actually provide any help to the students.
To reduce costs, mentors often use extremely low-quality teaching materials, which may come from free resources on the internet or simple tutorials they have written themselves. Furthermore, some may even just do simple "patchwork."
Someone once attacked Li Yizhou twice, first saying that he had never truly started a business but was teaching others how to start one; and secondly, saying that he was a student of Tsinghua's Academy of Arts & Design but was teaching others about artificial intelligence.
Despite the continuous attacks online, it still did not stop the rhythm of Li Yizhou's course sales and monetization.
Any course or content will have its opponents and attackers.
For some people, Li Yizhou's courses may be useful, while for others, his courses may be too simple, inevitably giving rise to the feeling of being "harvested."
In any case, large-scale AI model technology has gradually entered everyone's daily life.
In 2024, it is worth investing some time to learn about AI, or spending some money to learn AI courses from reliable sources.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
