Since leaving my job in late August 2021, I hadn't updated articles on my personal website for about a year. Let me share some of the achievements from this year:

September 2021 — Approved for the Taipei City Incentive Subsidy Program

December 2021 — Passed the Social Innovation Experimental Center's fourth batch team review

January 2022 — The official website of my brand CrossOver went live, now with one thousand users

March 2022 — Signed contract for my second personal book (with Happiness Culture Publishing)

May 2022 — Selected for the Female Flying Goose Startup Accelerator

June 2022 — Participated in PitchCamp and reached the finals; began preparing crowdfunding for a Hahow online course《Career Side Hustle Management: Complete Guide to Freelancing Your Way to Double Income》

July 2022 — Second personal book officially released 《15 Minutes to Writing Viral Thousand-Word Articles: Decoding the Principles Behind High Views and Shares, Turning Writing Passion into Profitable Reality》; joined BNI Business Network.

Projects still in development that I can't yet announce — staying quiet on those for now :)

In the second part, I'll discuss some basic information about the company, which is also the first time I'm comprehensively documenting this in writing. Over the past year, I've spent most of my time on business development, company operations, internal exploration, corporate positioning, and exchanges with many entrepreneurs, meeting many great collaborators.

  • Company name "Girl Karen Limited Company" — established May 12, 2020. The company name comes from my pen name "Girl Karen." Of course, when first introducing the company, I was quite embarrassed and worried whether employees could accept it. Fortunately, they can. I hope that one day when the company grows, I can proudly say this name!

  • Company capital: NT$500,000 | First year revenue: NT$2.25 million | Current year provisional close: NT$2 million (Note: this is revenue, not net profit)

  • Company brand projects: Three projects total, as follows, with brief reflections:

(1) CrossOver: Positioned as a creator accelerator, with plans to adjust to personal branding consultant for professionals in the second half. We've been selected for accelerators multiple times and received government subsidies. The business model is subscription-based—members pay a small monthly fee and gain access to media exposure, brand collaboration opportunities, article editing and feedback, unlimited reading group participation, and training courses.

I started this project because in 2019 I founded a reading group that at its peak had 120 unique participants per month. Being a full-time employee at the time was exhausting, so I designed many mechanisms, solutions, and support systems. Then we kept iterating—from reading group to knowledge community to a creator accelerator combining media resources. In the future, frankly speaking, I'll be more proactively building personal knowledge brands, which means adjusting pricing and payment models.

One outcome I can share now is that our May publisher matching event resulted in 80% of participants receiving further publishing contracts, suggesting we truly guide amateur creators toward more socially influential paths :)

We'll also extend this service to B2B clients.

(2) ExtendCircle Media Consulting: Simply put, a media PR agency helping clients build brand image, arrange media lunches, host media receptions, organize press conferences, manage social reputation, and distribute press releases. With deeper clients, we even advise on business models and marketing. This comes from my nearly ten years of media resources and practical experience. Growing up in the service industry, I naturally think from the client's perspective. Despite our small team size, we've accumulated over 100 brand projects in 1-3 years and signed long-term annual contracts.

Our best achievement to date: Golden Melody, Disney, and May Day chose them — Designer duo MixCode picked by Luo Shenjun. Who are they?

Explanation: Though the client previously hired other agencies for media relations with limited proactive coverage, this year after engaging us, knowing in January about June and July Golden Melody exposure needs, we started contacting media in June, coordinated online buzz on the day of the event, and achieved 13 total proactive media mentions afterward ^^

These two projects represent B2C and B2B respectively, and we're working to find the flywheel effect.

(3) Girl Karen

I personally manage my own brand accounts, building influence through writing that's led to speaking invitations, book deals, and course opportunities. Despite focusing on entrepreneurship, I continue developing myself. This year alone I've signed four book contracts and launched online courses, with new brand developments continuing in the second half.

III. The Growing Pains of Entrepreneurship:

(A) There's no perfect decision, only the most suitable one

In my first year focused on entrepreneurship, I had to balance personal content creation, nurture creators, and manage a custom-built website (not a template) from scratch. For a while I even acted as product manager—the process was incredibly painful because I didn't understand anything, constantly lamenting to engineer friends that I felt stupid. Because of my lack of understanding, I had to compromise on many aspects. Additionally, legal and financial arrangements really made me want to cry by the roadside at times.

I also had to build CrossOver's operational support systems and various management know-how, but honestly I was too busy to do this well or educate team members, so some details can't be maintained as well as before. This needs review. Speaking of what needs review, because we evolved from the reading group, we kept iterating. When we opened to new users, we discovered original and new users were different target audiences, but my strategic and judgment errors placed them together.

Some should focus on brand community voice, others on profitability, but putting these contradictory, conflicting elements together didn't just stall progress—it failed to attract the right audience.

After deep reflection and consulting many reading group-hosting entrepreneurs, each suggested I pause temporarily to avoid burnout. I evaluated extensively and concluded I currently can't responsibly manage CrossOver reading groups because I have more important missions. How long this pause will last, I don't know. But I still believe organizing 200 reading groups was incredibly rewarding. However, I'm honest that my personal growth from the reading group has diminished—the books are no longer ones I chose for myself, but selected to match market and reader preferences. This reduced my motivation to attend and organize. It felt like everyone else gained while I experienced depletion. This is something I need to apologize to long-time members for, though we can still be wonderful lifelong friends ^^

(B) Accountability: All problems come from myself—there's nothing to complain about

When I was a junior employee, I was difficult to work with—always complaining about work, superiors, salary, and I loved breaking organizational rules because I believed my methods were fastest and best (and performance was good). I lacked organizational teamwork mindset. Honestly, such employees rarely advance far in companies despite good performance, because they lack team spirit and can't think from the company's perspective.

I once wanted to change jobs but repeatedly failed because my perspective was narrow—I couldn't view problems from broader angles or longer timeframes. I easily obsessed over small details.

After entrepreneurship, those past complaints seem laughable.

Entrepreneurship brings a series of uncontrollable problems, and these uncontrollable risks exist precisely because I wasn't proactive or thoughtful enough—they're caused by my own errors.

For example, financial management. Until early this year, I didn't understand "why" entrepreneurs can only draw a fixed monthly salary plus bonuses. Especially since our company is sole proprietorship with highly flexible finances, when financial problems occasionally occurred, we could improvise. But after taking courses at many accelerators, accounting classes, and talking with many entrepreneurs, I discovered my previous financial concepts were wrong.

Because entrepreneur salary is also a monthly operating cost, yet I easily overlooked this reality—not calculating this expense, deceiving myself that projects were truly profitable, sustainable, not too difficult. But actually we had to draw funds from other projects to cover fixed monthly costs exceeding our capacity.

Discussing this with professionals revealed this was very unhealthy and dangerous, but my weak financial knowledge delayed serious management until recently. Though I'm glad I finally can manage it properly now... (embarrassing)

(C) Self-Care: If we can't provide others with equivalent benefits when taking their time, we're wasting time.

If you've done the CliftonStrengths assessment, you'd know that aligning strengths with calling maximizes performance across all aspects. My first strength is "Achiever," meaning "this topic describes your inner drive, showing you constantly want to accomplish things. Each day feels like starting from zero. At day's end, you must have tangible results to feel good. Your 'each day' includes work days, weekends, and vacations. No matter how much you need a break, if that day you do nothing, you feel unsatisfied. There's raging fire inside you. It drives you to do more, to produce more." (Original)

Meaning, I truly love working.

However, my view on loving work changed. In June this year, my life underwent unprecedented transformation that changed my understanding and definition of work. I used to love helping people; I still do. But now I assess whether these things benefit me sufficiently. I only want effective work—I don't want others' requests to trouble or waste my time. So I do only "effective" communication.

This "effective" of course means genuine revenue or growth in spirit and knowledge. If it's idle chat, complaining, or pointless matters, I really won't engage further, or only help based on relationships—understanding these must be effective behaviors.

Because I choose self-care.

Everyone has the same amount of time. If we can't provide equivalent benefits when taking others' time, one party loses. Is that fair?

My growth over this focused year of entrepreneurship far exceeds any previous period. I've learned to navigate business situations with greater wit, to communicate and negotiate more effectively. I can now better empathize with others in difficulty and understand what support they need, completing things with mutual benefit. My assessment of what to do is no longer just based on whether I like it, but whether it has meaning. This is because I cherish the time and money I've worked hard to earn, letting every action become nourishment for my life, and every investment generate compound returns on myself.

Karen (End of July 2022)