Upon graduation, some people became millionaires while others became debtors.

Following DS, recently Manus has been all over the internet, with an activation code being hyped up to 50,000 yuan online - it has become a luxury comparable to an LV bag.

There are three labels attached to Xiao Hong, the founder of Manus:

First, he is very young. Born in 1992, he is only 33 years old today. He is 7 years younger than Liang Wenfeng.

Second, he is a serial entrepreneur and has never worked a single day for an employer.

During his college years, Xiao Hong started to assemble a team and participate in competitions. He used the money won from the competitions to treat people to meals, which directly helped him build a "talent fan circle" for his later entrepreneurship.

Before graduating from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2015, he registered his first company: Wuhan Nightingale Technology Co., Ltd. He successively launched "MieMie" anonymous social networking, Yiban Assistant, and Weiban Assistant. Riding on the wave of the explosion of WeChat official accounts, he provided "tools" for self - media entrepreneurs, which allowed Xiao Hong to earn his first pot of gold.

After that, he had his second entrepreneurial project, Monica, and now Manus.

Third, Liu Yu, Xiao Hong's tutor, commented: Xiao Hong is very calm in doing things. He doesn't follow the crowd, doesn't blindly agree, and adheres to long - termism.

Actually, when Xiao Hong was working on "MieMie", the project was on the verge of failure at one point, and the user growth was slow. He then urgently launched a second - hand market platform for students, but it still didn't work out. He had run out of money and even started talking about job offers. Coincidentally, he saw that Tencent was holding a Hackathon. He participated with a light - hearted attitude, but as soon as his work was presented, he immediately received investment from ZhenFund.

The product born out of this magical turn is Yiban.

Source: Yiban Assistant Mini - Program

Xiao Hong's vision is very different from others. At that time, there were many plug - ins in the WeChat ecosystem. Xiao Hong believed that at this sensitive time, Tencent's invitation for a competition indicated that they wanted to eliminate the plug - ins and replace them with regular ones. This meant that what was in front of him was not just a competition opportunity, but a market window period for a substitute tool after the plug - ins were removed.

Based on such calm thinking, Xiao Hong achieved a goal that even senior programmers in big companies find hard to reach before he turned 30: Financial freedom.

Then, Xiao Hong didn't stop. He launched Monica and Manus, and each project received a greater response than the previous one.

However, this young man who is particularly good at making money seems to have a natural vigilance towards wealth. It is said that ByteDance offered 30 million US dollars to acquire Monica, but he refused.

Xiao Hong's understanding of price and cost is different from many people. He believes that price is part of positioning, and the essence of cost is the comparison between consumption and the price of different choices.

When he couldn't find a direction in his entrepreneurship, he planned to go to work. The main reason was not the living pressure, but the fear of being trapped in the current situation and being left behind by the fast - moving technology train - and never being able to get back in the game.

He travels frequently on business, but rarely takes first - class flights.

His explanation is: (If) your living situation suddenly becomes more expensive, then more expensive things will surround you. These so - called expensive things will make you get used to them. When you try to do something bigger, the cost will be even higher.

Before him, some startups didn't understand this principle. Some died in more expensive office buildings, some were dragged down by a more than ten - fold increase in the number of employees in a year, and some founders bought luxury mansions and cashed out early after raising funds.

But Xiao Hong revealed, "To this day, I still live in the house I rented during my first startup."

His entrepreneurial experience has given Xiao Hong a better understanding of how to "define price" than ordinary people. He said that when measuring some things, one should:

"Think with the age of the era, not with your physical age."

Few people can do this in the face of huge wealth effects.

Zhou Hongyi, the "Red - Suit CEO", talks about Manus

Compared with Wuhan, where Xiao Hong's startups are based, Zhejiang is considered one of the best places for entrepreneurship in the country. There are not only a large number of active small, medium, and large enterprises here, but also the first - generation Internet companies Alibaba and NetEase, as well as the "Six Little Dragons of Hangzhou" in the AI era.

This positive impression easily makes people overlook another hobby of Zhejiang people: buying real estate.

Before the emergence of the "Six Little Dragons", Hangzhou was more well - known for its folk nickname, the "Capital of Real Estate Speculation". The provincial capital took the lead in real estate speculation, and cities like Wenzhou and Ningbo followed suit. The first wave of real estate speculation in the country was initiated by Zhejiang people.

For Zhejiang people, the two most important things in life are: doing business and speculating in real estate.

In February 2021, in Fenghua District, Ningbo, a project called Linyu Qiuyue was launched. Although it is nearly 30 kilometers farther from the core area of Ningbo than Lishe International Airport and the price is as high as over 21,000 yuan per square meter, more than 300 people still paid a deposit for pre - registration.

Source: Ningbo Real Estate Transaction Information Service Network

After entering the lottery process, a girl who had just graduated from college half a year ago was lucky enough to win the lottery.

She used her family's 600,000 - yuan savings as a down payment and bought an 89 - square - meter apartment, and smoothly took on a mortgage of 1.22 million yuan.

Many young people in Zhejiang have similar experiences and growth paths. Some achieved wealth growth a few years earlier, while some were trapped a few years later.

In the second half of 2021, the real estate market in Ningbo cooled down rapidly. On July 30, Linyu Qiuyue had another launch. There were 474 housing units available, but the number of people who pre - registered was only "52".

By November of that year, when Linyu Qiuyue launched its fourth batch of housing units, the number of people who signed up dropped to "0".

Xiao Hong of Manus said: In the technology industry, the biggest problem is that the opportunity cost of people's choices is extremely high. One wrong choice or one pause, and you may be left behind by the train.

In the real estate industry, there is a more vivid term to describe this phenomenon: Panic buying of real estate.

It wasn't until a group of people paid a high price for their "panic" that this trend suddenly stopped.

In 2020, more than 140,000 housing units were sold in the six districts of Ningbo, and 22,000 units were sold in Fenghua District alone. By 2022, the total sales in the six districts dropped to just over 60,000 units. Nearly 60% of the demand disappeared in two years.

Compared with the decline in transaction data, homebuyers feel the most strongly about the sharp drop in housing prices.

The latest price of Linyu Qiuyue starts at 9,000 yuan per square meter, and they are all existing homes. The lowest transaction price of its second - hand houses has dropped to around 8,000 yuan per square meter.

Source: Lianjia

Lianjia's official website shows that there are currently 40 housing units listed for sale in Linyu Qiuyue, but only 4 units were sold in the past year.

One of them was the apartment of the "lucky lottery - winning" college graduate mentioned above. The transaction price was 770,000 yuan. He said:

After deducting miscellaneous expenses from the money from selling the house and using it to pay off the bank loan,

he still owed the bank 400,000 yuan

He became a debtor as soon as he graduated.

Someone replied in the comment section: If you bought a house in Beilun District, you would owe even more.

The listed price of second - hand houses in Beilun District has dropped by 22.23% in the past year. (Statistics from 58 Anjuke)

Someone else asked: If it's for self - occupation, why sell the house? If you don't sell it, you won't lose money, right?

A local from Ningbo replied: Those who rushed to buy houses in Fangqiao, Fenghua know what's going on.

Actually, he should be glad. Two months after he sold his house, several owners of Linyu Qiuyue continued to lower the price. An 88 - square - meter non - top - floor apartment was listed at 765,000 yuan, including taxes and with free decoration.

Moreover, the price is negotiable.

Source: 58 Anjuke

Many real estate speculators are deeply trapped.

In 2024, the average transaction price of second - hand houses in Fenghua District was 9,794 yuan per square meter, which was 1 yuan lower than the average transaction price of land in the district three years ago.

Source: Real Estate Data King

However, since the end of last year, real estate agents in Ningbo have been very excited. Because the number of second - hand houses listed for sale in the six districts of the city has returned to less than 100,000 for the first time since November 2022. It will only take 16.8 months to sell out the inventory. It is: The best - performing year in the three - and - a - half - year deep adjustment of the Ningbo real estate market!

Xiao Hong said that he asked DeepSeek a question, "What does 'greed, anger, and ignorance' mean?"

DeepSeek replied: "Greed" is the attachment to favorable circumstances, "anger" is the dissatisfaction with adverse circumstances, and "ignorance" is the ignorance of the truth of the world.

"He is so good at explaining." Xiao Hong thinks AI is more sober than humans.