Can Xiaohongshu succeed in building a tech community with the "feeling of real people"?

Text | Zhong Yixuan

Editor | Qiao Qian

No one can stay out of the AI wave, and community apps are no exception.

Compared with Doubao and Qianwen, which are usually backed by large companies capable of creating consumer - end entrances, communities seem to have natural disadvantages. Looking at the past development path, they can only get infinitely close to technology in terms of content and become a geeky presence. However, they ultimately face the fact that the growth of niche users has reached its peak.

What about a comprehensive community? In the past niche operations, large - scale introduction of KOLs and KOCs was a common way to quickly solve the industry coverage problem. However, a one - size - fits - all approach may bring about a conflict in the characteristics between new and old residents. Especially in the technology niche, which has a relatively high threshold, if new users don't gain a sense of achievement, their lifecycle will be shortened rapidly.

Xiaohongshu today may be a good observation sample. It is very active, and the Tiktok refugee incident to some extent proves the community's certain inclusiveness towards different races and even different cultures. Since last year, the core proposition of Xiaohongshu's community business has been to build an interest - based community. It has the ambition to expand, and technology has become one of the fastest - growing content niches in the past year. The release of technology content on Xiaohongshu has increased by more than 100% year - on - year, and the scale of content creators has increased by more than 200% year - on - year.

More importantly, there hasn't been a truly popular technology community in the Chinese - speaking world yet. Communities are either too hardcore or diluted. However, overseas, X (formerly Twitter) has proven that a UGC platform has the opportunity to grow into one of the most active and real - time core positions for global technology content. X even once created the Musk effect. Whoever gets a like from Musk will become popular. In March this year, when Musk commented that Kimi did “Impressive work”, the tech circle was instantly in an uproar.

As the most active community platform in China, Xiaohongshu has this ambition. San Bing, the person in charge of Xiaohongshu's technology operations, mentioned that a broad goal of Xiaohongshu is to become the best technology community.

But it also hopes to be special. San Bing told media such as 36Kr that in the operation strategy of the technology niche, Xiaohongshu doesn't focus on news and tutorials. Instead, it prefers to be “a connector between people”.

To understand this somewhat abstract term, we may be able to start from a Hackathon Peak Competition recently held by Xiaohongshu. At this competition, we met many young technology entrepreneurs on site. They are the people Xiaohongshu hopes to attract first in the process of developing the technology niche. We also talked with San Bing about the strategies and changes in Xiaohongshu's technology niche operations in the past year.

The scene of Xiaohongshu's Hackathon Peak Competition

Build in public

“Before developing a product, we will post our ideas on Xiaohongshu first to verify if there is a demand.”

At the scene of the Hackathon Peak Competition in Shanghai, a participating student said such words. Hackathon is an old tradition in the programming world, but it was the first time for Xiaohongshu to hold one. In this Xiaohongshu Hackathon Peak Competition, participants were required to complete a product from idea to implementation in a closed - door collaborative team within 48 hours. The product could be either hardware or software.

The student's name is Liu Xiaoben. Unfortunately, their project didn't make it to the finals. He told 36Kr that their entry was called Mozao, a product for the era of vibe coding (AI - assisted programming). Since voice input in vibe coding is three times faster than keyboard input, they designed Mozao for introverted engineers. It is a black mask that can enable free voice input in public places without disturbing others through noise reduction and microphone communication.

Liu Xiaoben and Mozao

Originally, it was intended for outdoor scenarios. However, after he uploaded a product video on Xiaohongshu during the competition, he made an unexpected discovery. Some users said, “I really want to buy one for my roommate. He makes too much noise playing Genshin Impact, and it affects my sleep.” Some programmers also commented that this product is suitable for use in the workplace, as many programmers are used to voice input.

This is what Liu Xiaoben meant by verifying the demand. To some extent, they are all entrepreneurs who fit Xiaohongshu's “Build in public” style. The so - called “Build in public” means that the creation, verification, and iteration of products are co - created and participated in by Xiaohongshu users. In reality, Liu Xiaoben has his own Xiaohongshu IP and will actively share various creative ideas on Xiaohongshu, such as “How much would you be willing to pay to make your thoughts eternal”. Now he has a startup company researching consciousness upload technology. From the idea to the birth of the project, Liu Xiaoben has fully shared the process on Xiaohongshu.

In this competition, the concept of “Build in public” was repeatedly mentioned by Xiaohongshu. This is not a coincidence. Like the holding of the Hackathon Peak Competition itself, it is related to the transformation of Xiaohongshu's technology category operation strategy.

In the second half of last year, an AMA (Ask Me Anything) spontaneously became popular on Xiaohongshu. This activity, which originated from foreign social platforms, is well - known overseas because it advocates real - person Q&A and has a short and straightforward form. On Xiaohongshu, Xu Huazhe, an assistant professor at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences of Tsinghua University, initiated it. The AMA trend in the Chinese - speaking world soon swept through the tech circle. Celebrities in the AI field such as Li Kaifu and Yin Qi participated, and later even celebrities from various fields such as Mo Yan, Li Yinhe, and David Beckham joined.

For the operation of technology content in the Xiaohongshu community, this was a very important node. Before the AMA became popular, in the first half of 2025, Xiaohongshu held an independent developer competition, which focused more on the projects themselves and had a more geeky flavor. The purpose was to give independent developers a chance to showcase their works. For users, it was not easy to discover and participate in these discussions if they were not industry insiders or technology enthusiasts.

However, AMA is a clever form. You may not understand AI, but you must have heard of Li Kaifu. Whether you really want to ask questions or just watch as an outsider, the fact that there are tech giants on Xiaohongshu has been spread. It makes more ordinary people know that Xiaohongshu can be related to technology. Industry insiders can post content here, and followers can find like - minded people here.

As San Bing said, the main strategy for Xiaohongshu's technology niche operation in 2025 was to “create a circle of friends for tech people”. For this purpose, they continuously introduced many KOLs who are influential in the academic and business circles.

However, in 2026, the operation strategy of the technology niche has changed. “After the introduction stage, we found that many people on Xiaohongshu are building in public. Entrepreneurs post their products on Xiaohongshu, and investors look for projects on Xiaohongshu. So in 2026, we positioned ourselves as 'a connector between people' to connect the needs of small circles with those of the general public.” San Bing said.

In short, Xiaohongshu wants to make it possible for technology entrepreneurs to find a closed - loop on the community, from finding demand, developing products, getting financing, to even selling products.

This is why there was an independent developer competition last year and a Hackathon Peak Competition this year. Because the strategy has changed, and people have become the anchor point. San Bing mentioned that startup projects change very quickly. After a year, the style has completely changed. It's too late to chase after projects. “Compared with focusing on projects last year, we think the more cutting - edge thing this year lies in people themselves. And the Hackathon itself is a competition full of uncontrollable content, where creativity and people's performance can be maximized.”

Based on today's user base, if Xiaohongshu wants to focus on technology content, it naturally can't be like Jike, which is a pure and niche discussion platform. The logic behind this is naturally contradictory. A small circle means precise and efficient interaction, while a large circle will bring more attention but also dilute the depth of content. More importantly, people may not need a second Jike.

For Xiaohongshu, to retain these tech people, it needs to think about the greatest common divisor, that is, how to adapt technology content to the foundation of the general community, so that technology entrepreneurs can find value here and ordinary people can find these contents useful, and the flywheel can finally operate.

Can Xiaohongshu create the right “space”?

A natural logic is that for a content community, news and tutorials are the fastest shortcuts to create something useful for users. However, Xiaohongshu rejected them from the beginning.

San Bing said that in the content strategy of the technology niche, the team made a clear choice early on not to focus on news and tutorials. The reason is that news has a strong sense of timeliness, and tutorials often end up aiming at selling courses due to excessive supply, which also creates Fomo anxiety.

We can see that Xiaohongshu has chosen such a niche, combining the entrepreneurial process of technology entrepreneurs with ordinary people. People's needs are seen in the early stage, their opinions are adopted in the middle stage, and their purchasing power determines whether the business can be realized. People participate in the whole process, and entrepreneurs thus gain attention and commercial value.

36Kr asked Liu Xiaoben where the value of Xiaohongshu lies for him as a technology entrepreneur.

“If I have to say the advantage of Xiaohongshu in technology content, I think it has a strong sense of real people,” he said. This is an old - fashioned view, but besides that, Liu Xiaoben said something very interesting: “The essence of business is to interact with real people and finally serve people. At present, all real - person interaction links can be done on Xiaohongshu.”

The entrepreneurial experience of Sun Donglai, a participant in this Hackathon, is also an example. At first, Sun Donglai just posted a survey post on Xiaohongshu, roughly asking “Do you record your dreams?” Without any promotion, it unexpectedly got hundreds of thousands of views. Some people commented that they record 800 - word dream diaries every day, and some even started writing their dream stories on a novel - writing platform because they couldn't find a suitable tool.

Sun Donglai soon noticed that this was a huge and neglected demand. On January 21, 2025, his Dreamer app was launched on the Apple Store. In one month, it got 3,000 users without any promotion, and now it has stabilized at more than 4,000 users.

For early - stage entrepreneurs, this traffic and user feedback can make the project visible and bring lower trial - and - error costs, which are very precious. Therefore, on the night of the finals, on the jury panel, investor Cao Xi also asked an interesting question: “So do young people not need VC money now?” There was a light laugh at the scene.

The card - sized guitar smart hardware that can fit in a pocket won the grand prize of the competition

However, from the perspective of the “people - product - space” logic, there may still be two aspects that need to be improved for Xiaohongshu to build this “space” well.

First, technology is a high - threshold category after all. Most Xiaohongshu users are not able to engage in serious technology discussions. Discussions on some overly professional or B - end applications are difficult to develop on Xiaohongshu.

Therefore, if entrepreneurs want to efficiently find useful information feedback for their startups in the community, they need to have strong expression abilities, as well as the ability to control user emotions and content promotion logic. They even need to be able to create a personal IP. The reason why the aforementioned entrepreneurs were able to post and get a large amount of user feedback and finally successfully implement their projects is essentially because they hit the right spot in the community's promotion mechanism and the needs of the general public.

Second, due to the user attributes of Xiaohongshu, currently, some general - technology or entertainment - oriented projects often get high attention on Xiaohongshu. Take this Hackathon Peak Competition as an example. A video of a cosplay headgear + robotic arm walking became one of the most popular hotspots of the competition because of its eye - catching effect. In addition, this competition also focused on the new generation of AI creators with high topic - generating potential. More than 60% of the short - listed contestants were born in the 2000s, and the youngest was only 12 years old. The theme of the competition was “Create a big toy for the world in 48 hours”, which had a lot of topic - generating elements.

However, an investor told 36Kr that although the projects on Xiaohongshu have certain reference value, it is not easy to find suitable investment targets at present, and the screening cost is high. “Many ideas are interesting, but they are highly entertaining and difficult to commercialize.”

For a young community, Xiaohongshu has made rapid progress in the technology category. It is also very clear about its own advantages. The wave of vibe coding today has further magnified these advantages. When technology becomes more accessible, more people have the opportunity to engage in programming, and there is a possibility of user generalization and public discussion.

However, as San Bing mentioned, a broad goal of Xiaohongshu is to become the best technology community, but it will take a long time to achieve this vision. Creating a big toy for the world is just the beginning.

At the end of the competition, Liu Xiaoben said that although Mozao didn't make it to the finals, during the exhibition, a visitor expressed willingness to pay 200 yuan to buy their product.

“We didn't sell it. We only have two models, and we have to take them back for iteration,” Liu Xiaoben said. The comments and feedback have given him more important value.