祝融说。

When you are alone in the deep of night, having finally turned to this page, I first want to congratulate you.

Congratulations, not because you finished a book. But because you have endured an excruciating "lingchi" of your own cognition. In this journey of hundreds of thousands of words, I have been like a cold executioner, slicing away, piece by piece, from your mind the false and complacent beliefs you once relied on to survive.

I shattered your self-congratulatory notion of "hard work." I punctured your blind superstition about "data." I mocked your childish fantasies about "innovation." I tore apart your ignorance and naivety about the "supply chain." I overturned your passive and sluggish response to "time."

This process must have been painful, humiliating, even infuriating.

If you have persevered, then from this moment on, the way you see the commercial world is fundamentally different from 99 percent of people.

But please remember: this book is not your "victory proclamation" upon taking the throne.

It is merely a "survival map" I stuffed into your backpack as you left the novice village.

The real war begins the moment you close this book.

The world outside is ten thousand times more complex and a thousand times more brutal than I have described in these pages.

And you, as a new recruit who has just completed a "cognitive upgrade," are most prone to the most fatal mistake: "arrogance."

You might feel that you have grasped the secrets of the universe, that you have a "God's-eye view," that you can look down upon all mortals.

The moment you have this thought, you are not far from death.

Because your so-called "God's-eye view," before the true God -- that is, the market itself, forever chaotic and forever unpredictable -- is as insignificant as a grain of dust.

So, in this final chapter, I want to discuss only two words with you.

These two words come from Steve Jobs's famous commencement address, but they are the ultimate wisdom I have truly lived and understood through half a lifetime of storms in the business world.

They are the last and most important talisman I give you.

Stay hungry, stay sharp.

Section 1: On "Hunger" -- Always See Yourself as an Apprentice with Nothing

"Stay hungry" -- these four words are misunderstood by too many people.

They think it means hunger for money, hunger for success, hunger for fame.

No.

That kind of hunger is low-grade. It is enslavement by desire. It will make you greedy, short-sighted, anxious, and ultimately lost in the pursuit.

The hunger I want you to maintain is a higher-dimensional hunger: a hunger for "ignorance."

It is a deep and persistent unease -- the feeling of "never knowing enough."

The core quality of a true master is not "I know," but "I do not know."

He is always the quietest, most humble person in the room. Because he knows clearly that beyond the boundaries of his cognition lies an infinitely vast unknown world he does not understand. And that world is gestating the next force that will overturn him.

Hunger for "Ignorance" Is the Only Fuel for Continuous Evolution

When you use the methods I taught you to successfully create your first hit product and make your first million, you will face the most dangerous moment of your life.

You will start to believe you are a genius. You will start to repeat your successful path. You will start to show disdain and resistance toward new information and new methodologies.

Your cognition, at that moment, stops evolving.

And a species that stops evolving has only one fate: extinction.

You must force yourself to regularly "empty" yourself.

• Every month, find a field you know nothing about and be a "fool" for a day.
  • Go to an offline gathering of a circle you have never visited -- a reptile pet exchange, a hanfu enthusiast tea party. Do not speak. Just listen. Absorb their jargon. Understand their joys and sorrows.
• Every quarter, buy a business book you strongly disagree with, one you even consider "nonsense," and force yourself to find arguments for its positions.
  • If you believe in "product is king," force yourself to study cases that succeeded through "model innovation." This trains your "reverse thinking" ability and prevents your mind from becoming rigid.
• Every year, go to a completely unfamiliar city or country and live there like a local for a week.
  • Avoid the tourist areas. Go to their farmers' markets. Ride their buses. Visit the parks where they relax on weekends. Understand how people from another cultural background live and what they value.

This hunger for "ignorance" will keep you forever like a dry sponge, desperately absorbing nutrients from the world around you. Meanwhile, those self-righteous "smart people" have long since turned into stones that cannot absorb a single drop.

Hunger for "Pain" Is Your Only Compass for Discovering Gold Mines

In Chapter 1, I told you to look for opportunities in your users' "complaints."

This is a methodology, but even more so, a value system.

Most people are naturally wired to "seek pleasure and avoid pain." They like positive feedback. They like growth curves. They like everything that makes them feel comfortable and pleased.

But you must train yourself to become an outlier who "seeks pain and avoids comfort."

You must maintain a perverse "hunger" for negative emotions like "pain," "trouble," "embarrassment," and "complaints."

Be like a bloodthirsty shark that can smell the faintest trace of blood -- user pain points -- in the water from a kilometer away.

• When you are queuing at a restaurant, do not just scroll through your phone. Observe. Listen. What are people getting irritated about? The long wait? The overly complicated ordering process? The uncomfortable seats?
• When you help a family member with a mundane chore -- installing software, fixing an appliance -- feel every "friction" in the process. Is the manual anti-human? Are the screws too hard to turn? Is the customer service line always busy?
• Treat every one of your own "dissatisfactions" as a "demand prototype." Write it down.

This hunger for "pain" will give you a unique "problem radar." While others are complaining about life's inconveniences, your brain will automatically translate those complaints into "product opportunities."

This world is not short of "icing on the cake" solutions for "happiness." But it is forever starved of "charcoal in the snow" remedies for "pain."

Hunger for "Failure" Is Your Only Path to Reducing Risk

In Chapter 4, I taught you the MVP testing method.

Its essence is to have you actively and methodically embrace "failure."

Novices fear failure, so they dare not try. They spend a year cooking up a "perfect ultimate move" and then gamble everything on a single throw.

Masters crave failure.

But they crave the kind of "cheap," "fast," "information-rich" failure.

They will spend a month trying ten different ideas and welcome nine failures.

Each failure is like a "mine clearance," eliminating one wrong direction.

The cost of those nine failures is the most cost-effective "insurance premium" they pay for the one success that follows.

You must thoroughly "demystify" failure in your mind.

Failure is not your pillar of shame. It is your "data source."

A product selection journey without "failure" is extremely dangerous. It means all your successes might be due to nothing but "luck," and you are completely unaware of it.

Hunger for "failure" is hunger for "certainty." Every small failure adds a measure of certainty to your ultimate victory.

Stay hungry. It means maintaining a state of "empty cup," a posture of "looking downward," a mindset of "embracing uncertainty."

It keeps you forever humble, forever learning, forever evolving.

It keeps you from getting carried away in victory and from collapsing in defeat.

It keeps you forever like an entrepreneur with nothing, not a miser sitting on everything.

Section 2: On "Sharpness" -- Perceive Like a Beast, Act Like Lightning

If "hunger" is an internal, spiritual state,

then "sharpness" is an external, action-level ability.

A hunter who has only hunger but lacks sharpness can sense that prey is in the forest, but cannot track its trail or deliver the fatal strike at the critical moment. He will still starve to death.

Sharpness is not "cleverness," not "quick reflexes."

It is a fusion of "high-resolution perception" and "unhesitating decisiveness."

Perceptual Sharpness: Turn Your World to "4K Mode"

Most of us live in a world of "standard definition" or even "pixelated" quality.

We look at things and see only the rough outlines. We listen, and it goes in one ear and out the other. We are blind and deaf to our surroundings. Our senses, dulled by years of passively receiving junk information, have become extremely "blunt."

You must recalibrate all your senses, like a spy training for a mission.

• Train your "vision":

  • Practice "deconstruction": When you see a product, a poster, or even an app interface that you think is well-designed, do not just say "it looks good." Force yourself to "deconstruct" it. What colors did it use? In what proportions? What font? What is the font size and line spacing? Is the composition centered or using the golden ratio?
  • Practice "comparison": Look at two similar products side by side, like two different brands of mineral water bottles. Compare the differences in their bottle curves, label designs, and cap threads. Reflect on what "feeling" each of these subtle differences conveys.

• Train your "hearing":

  • Practice "filtering": In a noisy cafe, try to focus on one table's conversation -- not to eavesdrop on private matters, of course. Distinguish their tone, their choice of words, and sense their emotions.
  • Practice "translating": When a user writes in a review that "this thing feels a bit awkward to use," do not stop there. Be able to "translate" what "awkward" really means. Is it "too heavy"? "Button placement is anti-human"? Or "the sound is unpleasant"? Sharp hearing means being able to understand the user's "subtext."

• Train your "sixth sense" -- perception of "trends":

  • This perception comes from broad, cross-domain reading and observation. When you see a signal in field A, a signal in field B, and a signal in field C, these three seemingly unrelated signals suddenly connect into a line in your brain. That line is the "trend" others cannot see.
  • For example, you read in tech news that "chip computing power has surged," in social news that "the rate of young people living alone is rising," and on social media that "virtual idols are exploding." A non-sharp person sees three independent news items. A sharp practitioner might see an opportunity: "high-computing-power, emotional-companion home robot."

Perceptual sharpness turns your world from a blurry outline into an ultra-high-definition image, rich with infinite detail. Those details that others overlook are the entire secret of your differentiation.

Decisive Sharpness: Forge the One Narrow Path through Chaos

With sharp perception alone, you can at best become an excellent analyst, a critic.

To become a true practitioner, you must have the courage and speed to make "decisions" under conditions of incomplete information and future uncertainty.

Business decisions are never made after 100 percent certainty is achieved. By the time you are 100 percent certain, the window of opportunity has long since closed.

Real decisions are made when you are only 60 to 70 percent sure, based on your expertise, your intuition, and the risk you are willing to bear -- a "leap in an instant."

• Sharpness is "speed":

  • It is the unhesitating execution of the "T-3 Rule." While everyone else is still hibernating, you have already completed the summer layout.
  • It is the swift and decisive execution of the "MVP testing method." One week, get the data, judge "Go" or "No-Go," never linger.
  • In market competition, speed is the only thing that cannot be broken. Your hesitation gives your competitors the time they need to overtake you.

• Sharpness is "accuracy":

  • It is the precise strike of your "micro-innovation." You do not add ten unnecessary features to the product. You find the single most painful point and use all your strength to push it to the extreme.
  • It is the precision guidance of your "long-tail keyword mining." You do not spray with a machine gun. You use a sniper rifle to precisely take down the highest-value target.

• Sharpness is "ruthlessness":

  • It is the resolute "cutting off your own hand" when facing a declining hit product. You can ruthlessly "pull the plug" on the "child" you raised with your own hands.
  • It is the unwavering defense of your interests and the refusal to compromise when negotiating with suppliers.
  • A soft-hearted, sentimental, indecisive person can never become a top-tier practitioner. Because the marketplace is a battlefield. Mercy to the enemy is cruelty to yourself.

Stay sharp. It means adjusting your entire being to a state of "beast."

Your senses, like radar, constantly scan for the faintest changes in your surroundings.

Your brain, like a supercomputer, processes information at high speed, connecting various possibilities.

Your actions, like a cheetah, explode with all your strength the moment you lock onto your prey, killing with a single strike.

Section 3: The Ultimate Truth -- Pick the Goods, Pick Yourself

Now, I want you to look back at the title of this book:

"Hot Product Method: Pick the Goods, Pick the Person"

Throughout this book, I have taught you how to understand "people" -- your users, your consumers.

But at the end of this journey, I want to tell you a deeper truth, the ultimate meaning hidden in the title of this book.

Picking the goods is not just about picking your "users."

Ultimately, you are choosing yourself.

You choose what kind of product to bring into this world.

That choice, in itself, is a "vote" you cast for the world.

It is a "public declaration" of your personal values, your aesthetic sense, your taste, and your understanding of "what makes a good life."

Let me put it more bluntly: what you sell defines who you are.

• If you choose to sell shoddy, copied, boundary-pushing products that exploit human weakness to collect a "stupidity tax," even if you make a lot of money, you are nothing more than an opportunistic, soulless "reseller." Your heart will feel hollow from the lack of any sense of creative value.
• If you choose to sell a product that, though low-margin, genuinely solves a real pain point for a specific group of people -- like the "Drain Hair Removal Hook" I mentioned in the introduction -- then every time you ship, you will feel a simple, honest sense of accomplishment from helping others. You are a "problem solver."
• If you choose to sell a premium-priced design piece infused with your unique aesthetic and cultural thinking, then what you are really selling is your own "taste" and "talent." You are searching for your "kindred spirits" and "soulmates" through your products. You are a "life artist."

These three choices have no absolute right or wrong.

But they will shape you into three completely different kinds of people, giving you three completely different life experiences.

In the early stages of entrepreneurship, we often have no right to choose. To survive, we may do things we do not particularly like but that the market demands. This is understandable.

But when you have solved your survival problem, when you begin to have "choice," you must start asking yourself:

"What kind of merchant do I truly want to become?"

"What do I truly want to leave behind for this world?"

The answer to this question will determine your future direction in product selection.

It will transform you from an opportunistic "hunter" into a "missionary" with your own convictions.

• Your "conviction" is your "brand."
• Your "product" is your "bible."
• Your "users" are your "disciples."

When you have found your "conviction," you will never again be lost over "what to pick."

Because your product selection is no longer an external "search." It is an internal "expression."

• If you are a minimalist, you will naturally create products with clean designs and pure functions.
• If you are an environmentalist, you will naturally choose products made from renewable materials and friendly to the planet.
• If you are someone who loves traditional Chinese culture, you will naturally seek inspiration from intangible cultural heritage techniques and classical patterns.

At this point, product selection becomes an immensely joyful, immensely natural act.

It becomes a journey of self-exploration, self-realization, and self-expression.

You are not working. You are "creating."

You and your product are one.

So, when you feel lost, stop looking outside for answers.

Return to the depths of your heart and interrogate yourself.

What do you truly love?

What do you truly believe in?

What do you truly want to fight for, for the rest of your life?

When you find that answer, you have found your lifelong "product matrix."

You have found your inexhaustible "source of hit products."

Finale: To All E-commerce Practitioners on the Road

As I write this, the sky outside my window has already brightened.

This seems to mirror your journey.

I know this road is a lonely one.

No 9-to-5. No weekends or holidays. Only endless nights and the glowing computer screen.

Your family may not understand why you would give up a stable job to "peddle things online."

Your friends may only see the occasional glamorous posts you share, but not the anxiety behind a single negative review that keeps you tossing and turning at night.

You will encounter unscrupulous factories that swindle away all your savings.

You will encounter malicious competitors who attack you with despicable tactics.

You will encounter sudden changes in platform rules that render all your efforts futile.

You will stand before mountains of inventory, doubting yourself, negating yourself, even cursing yourself for choosing this path.

Please, you must persevere.

Because what you are engaged in is the greatest and most fascinating undertaking of this era.

You are not a simple "merchant."

You are a psychologist, discerning the deepest desires of human nature.

You are an artist, creating the aesthetics that define the future.

You are a diplomat, connecting the two ends of production and consumption.

You are an explorer, charting your own course across the uncharted continent of the market.

With cables and packages, you have woven the most efficient and complex commercial network of this nation and the world.

Your wisdom and sweat allow farmers in remote mountain villages to sell their produce to cities thousands of miles away.

Your innovation and courage bring a whimsical idea born in a small workshop to warm the lives of someone in a foreign land within weeks.

You are the unsung heroes of this era.

So, when you feel tired, remember the original intention with which you set out.

When you feel lost, look up at the stars in the distance. They are the eternal laws of commerce and the principles of human nature that guide your direction.

Close this book. Put it on your shelf.

Then go fight, go fail, go win, go create, go define.

Use your eyes to see through the surface of this world.

Use your products to answer the call of this era.

Use your brand to leave a mark that you were here.

The Eye for the Bestseller has always been within you.

Now, let the world see its light.

May your fortunes be ever favorable.