Did Jiao Qujing fail in making short videos? How did "Chan Ge" harvest the "elites" of big companies?

This article exposes a person who calls himself "Chan Ge". He attracted many students, including former Baidu executive Qu Jing, through high-priced courses and private meetings, but the course content and effectiveness have been questioned. The article conducts an in-depth analysis of "Chan Ge's" business model and explores the boundary between knowledge payment and knowledge MLM. I hope it will be helpful to you.

Although the Ni Jing incident has come to an end, her "mentor" Shan Ge has been pushed to the forefront.

Former Baidu executive Qu Jing's short videos were criticized by the public for their values, and she eventually resigned. The incident also started because Qu Jing had learned from the business influencer Can Ge, paying 5,980 yuan for a three-day course. After the course, she emphasized short video operations in the company and began to aggressively call on all employees to become influencer IPs. There are also reports that Qu Jing traveled from Beijing to Hangzhou and recorded four videos, spending a total of 160,000 yuan.

Who is the mentor behind the executives of big companies? According to public information, Shen Wenjun, whose real name is Shen, was born in 1987. He is a graduate of the 2002 fitter class of Mouping Vocational and Technical College. Although he is a technical secondary school student with only a junior high school education, he has 18 years of business experience. After several baptisms in e-commerce and short videos, he has become a top paid knowledge blogger who is good at traffic and monetization.

According to relevant media reports, the "Gulfstream Entrepreneurs Alliance" founded by Cang's team had 2,735 members as of January this year, with a membership fee of 80,000 yuan, and all members' income exceeded one million yuan. Based on this estimate, Cang's income from membership fees alone is as high as 219 million yuan. How did a fitter who graduated from a technical secondary school successfully make a fortune? How did he harvest these elite leeks?

Holding the script of the male protagonist who "loser counterattacks", who is Brother Can?

How does Brother Can attract corporate executives on his own?

It is reported that Shen Wenjun, whose real name is Shen, started a Taobao store at the age of 16. He made his first fortune by selling silk scarves on Taobao, and then switched to selling sea cucumbers on Taobao. As the profit of aquatic products was limited, he finally chose to sell bird's nests, which were ten times more profitable than selling sea cucumbers. In his own entrepreneurial experience sharing, he said that in 2016, he achieved sales of 20 million yuan for sea cucumbers and bird's nests through direct sales through WeChat business, with a profit of 3-5 million yuan, and expanded from 1 store to 12 stores.

Unlike business tycoons who have been deeply engaged in a field or industry, he prefers to make quick money. After seeing the decline of the Tmall market, he began to think about "training + traffic" and posted on Zhihu to share his entrepreneurial experience. His original intention was to develop franchisees and operators of sea cucumber stores, but he soon discovered that selling courses was more profitable than selling products.

At that time, Brother Shen lamented that his circle of friends led him to buy a factory when he had money, while one of his friends went to Hangzhou, where the atmosphere was to build a platform when you have money. Both of them are very smart and have achieved success, but the friend who built the platform earned dozens of times more than selling sea cucumbers.

Unsatisfied with the status quo, Haishen Ge happened to encounter the advent of the short video era and quickly changed his track, attracting attention by selling financial and emotional courses, and using a large number of sliced ​​accounts to expand his influence. Haishen Ge once revealed in his speech at the 2023-2024 annual meeting of his company that his company's revenue exceeded 1 billion. In four years, the company has grown from 0 to thousands of people, and it is guaranteed to grow to 3,000 people in 2024.

It is reported that the courses launched by the internet celebrity Haishangge include the "Short Video Traffic Operation Cognition Course" with 56 recorded classes, priced at 5,980 yuan, and the "Short Video Full Case Operator" course priced at 9,980 yuan, which are high-customer products in the knowledge payment industry. In addition, private directors who are attracted by the course will have to pay 80,000 yuan to join the group. According to media reports, the "Gulfstream Entrepreneurs Alliance" founded by Haishangge's team had 2,735 members as of January this year, with an entry fee of 80,000 yuan. Based on this estimate, Haishangge's membership fee income alone is as high as 219 million yuan.

Brother Can boasts that he is the best in the field of monetization, which has quickly attracted many believers. Brother Can mentioned in his company's 2023 annual meeting speech that the company's revenue exceeded 1 billion. In 2023, the company has 3 partners with annual incomes of over 10 million, more than 20 colleagues with annual incomes of over 1 million, and 6 with annual incomes of over 5 million. In fact, this is indeed the case. Among the accounts incubated by Brother Can's company, @毛毛姐 (founder of Mu Wanqing) and @服务者·老纪 are relatively well-known commercial IPs. These representative cases also help Brother Can further attract fans and obtain traffic. The share of the IPs he incubated is conservatively estimated to be 100 million.

The company has 0 employees participating in the insurance program and the company has been deregistered. Is this “knowledge payment” or “knowledge MLM”?

At the end of March this year, Douyin issued the "Notice on the Special Governance of "Thick Black Studies" and "Pseudo Success Studies"" to crack down on "scam" behaviors such as low-quality fan-attracting and traffic-driving course selling. Haishen Ge was punished by the Douyin platform. Users could not search for the main account, but nearly ten matrix accounts were still updated normally, including @纯然业务, @金尚业务说, @参哥思考圈, @参部门不说非非, @参哥带你走天下, @私域参部门, @参哥识圈@参哥 (daily account. Recording growth), etc.

Entertainment Unicorn found that Haishange's courses cover emotional intelligence, equity management, IP incubation, etc., with prices ranging from 199 yuan to 80,000 yuan. Currently, the products sold in the "Shangge Takes You to Grow" video store include amateur IP training camps and a full set of equity contract management. Among them, the online course "Short Video Speculator Plan Course" is priced at 9,980 yuan.

Can Ge, who was repeatedly banned, changed his account and made a comeback. Is it really that easy for him to monetize? Is commercial monetization really that easy? The Douyin platform believes that a small number of "self-media" take advantage of the psychology of ordinary people who want to succeed quickly, plan content in a targeted manner and open matrix accounts, simplifying the way to success, making it routine and even shady, and monetizing it by setting up private board meetings and training courses.

How did Brother Can’s rise take advantage of ordinary people’s desire to succeed quickly and reap their benefits?

First of all, the form of Haishangge’s knowledge is more important than its content. He takes advantage of many users’ knowledge anxiety and information panic. Haishangge’s team does not clearly promise to be responsible for specific business results, and the effect of such paid knowledge courses is indeed difficult to quantify. Many people who fall into the trap can only blame themselves for their bad luck.

Secondly, with Cangge as an example, the craze for paid knowledge has led many non-professional knowledge IPs to attract traffic by producing learning short videos. These non-professional knowledge IPs do not have a deep understanding of knowledge, and often even have problems of "taking things out of context" and "over-interpreting", which has caused the audience to misunderstand knowledge. According to the complaints of the boss who has purchased Cangge's services, "Cangge's IP incubation is just a companion, and you spend 120,000 yuan just to teach you how to learn from plagiarism and IP methodology, and there is no after-sales service at all."

From many revelations on the Internet, it can be seen that Sea Cucumber Brother often chooses controversial topics and uses exaggerated and shocking titles as well as impactful images and music to arouse the audience's curiosity about knowledge. The form of knowledge is greater than the content, resulting in the lack of value and meaning of knowledge content, and it is difficult for the audience to gain knowledge and skills from learning short videos.

A video about "What happened to those who paid to learn from Haishang" published by the self-media "Vulcan Economy" mentioned that it is ridiculous to pay millions for a "trader course". In addition to basic editing, it only teaches "copying" and "benchmarking". As for what a trader should do? Which are right and which are wrong? No one in Haishang's company knows. Haishang's so-called "thousand-person company" is actually composed of a lot of traders who paid 50,000 yuan to learn. They do the same things as employees every day, clocking in and out, and submitting daily reports. They are all free labor, and what these people do is called "joint creation."

The boss who paid 50,000 yuan in tuition turned into a free labor force, hoping to succeed in starting a business in one fell swoop, doing the most basic operations and editing. The bosses who paid millions of yuan were arranged in a live broadcast room that was not even as big as a toilet, listening to the instructions of operators who did not have regular jobs, asking them to plagiarize, read scripts, make biased speeches, talk about their sufferings, and sell misery. Some business owners were tortured every day to the point of doubting their lives.

In addition to Cangge, the female business IP "dada" was also banned. Dada's management trainee model also borrowed from Cangge's co-creation model. Dada claims to be the boss of a 400-person new media company with 15 million fans across the entire network matrix. Among the 400 people in her company, more than half have no salary or even no basic salary, and rely entirely on "profit sharing".

What is more noteworthy is that according to the data of Qichacha, the company in which Cang Ge holds shares is Yantai Xingliu Media Planning Co., Ltd., which was established in August 2021. The legal representative is Jiang Defang, with a registered capital of 1 million yuan. Shen Wenjun and Jiang Defang hold 70% and 30% of the shares respectively. According to the annual reports from 2021 to 2023, the number of insured persons of the company is 0. It is worth mentioning that recently, the company added a simple cancellation announcement, and the announcement period is from April 25 to May 15.

Since Lei Jun started to become an Internet celebrity, IP creation has indeed become a hot track. However, it is worth thinking whether the business of IP creation relies on form or content. However, from the current situation, knowledge payment is no longer an era of wild growth. Cange's "co-creation model" has been closely watched by regulatory authorities, and his business model is probably not a long-term solution.