In 2020, after Raymond Hou (Raymond) returned from Beijing to Taiwan and the pandemic prevented his return, he formally left employment and founded the “Raymond Thirty” brand with his wife Yuzu. At the start of the business, he made two choices about capital and growth: use a startup loan with interest subsidized by the government, and run no paid advertising for the first three years of the brand. Together, these choices defined the early financial rhythm and growth path of “Raymond Thirty.” They also became a starting point Raymond repeatedly cited later when explaining the bootstrapping phase of a “company of one” or Super Individual.
Background: Starting with a Loan Rather Than Investment
On the eve of starting the business, Raymond’s annual income from traditional employment was not low, and after returning to Taiwan he could still have chosen a high-paying job. His decision to leave and borrow to start a business was not an impulsive resignation; it came after accumulating experience in remote work, side projects, and content methodology. During the first week of setting up the company, he and Yuzu applied to a bank for a youth startup loan from the Ministry of Culture, intended for cultural and creative businesses and content creators. The review and disbursement were quick.
The source of the funding is documented: a Ministry of Culture youth startup loan available to podcasters; the government subsidized interest for the first five years, no business plan was required, the bank reviewed and disbursed the loan within seven days, and the amount was NT$1 million.1
The core reason for choosing a loan rather than venture capital was control. Raymond compared the bank to a party that “expects to get the money back later”: after lending the money, it does not interfere with the company’s operating direction, and the founders can work out the company’s path themselves. Venture capital, by contrast, would mean investors limiting direction and demanding scaling—at odds with the company-of-one philosophy of minimizing the core, maximizing collaboration, and not pursuing size for its own sake. He described the company’s cost structure as “our brains and bodies are the costs.” With no large fixed payroll, NT$1 million was enough to cover expenses such as the website, outsourcing, servers, and equipment.
During the application, Raymond also internalized “credit” as a long-term principle. He learned from a bank employee how credit reports work, regarded on-time repayments and paying more than the minimum on credit cards as ways to protect “the most important invisible asset,” and incorporated this understanding of credit into later public content.
The Decision: No Buying Traffic for the First Three Years
The second decision was restraint in the approach to growth. For the first three years of the brand, Raymond bought no paid advertising. His argument was that spending money on traffic before the product was stable and trust had been established would be wasteful: incoming traffic could not be supported by existing work and word of mouth, and could not turn into sustainable relationships.
This choice complemented the loan decision. Startup capital was limited and had to be repaid, so spending it on ads would accelerate cash consumption without building a compounding asset. By contrast, investing time and attention in content, validating demand, and accumulating work was what the bootstrapping phase required. Raymond therefore described the period as one for “accumulating work and trust assets,” rather than “making money.”
Consequences and Significance
The NT$1 million was gradually used up over roughly one to two years, corresponding to the “bootstrapping phase” Raymond describes. During the first three years, Raymond and Yuzu lived frugally, tracked their spending, controlled expenses, and focused on content channels that could accumulate over time—newsletters, podcasts, and blogs—as well as retaining control of their own lists and data. When the brand became more stable and they needed to expand marketing, Raymond admitted that a considerable share of early course-sales costs went to advertising because the brand lacked awareness. He saw this as confirmation that growth driven by product quality alone has a ceiling, rather than a repudiation of the earlier decision not to buy traffic.
Raymond later abstracted these two decisions into principles that could be taught, including a list for the bootstrapping phase of “three stages of a company of one”: do not take on everything, do not pay to buy traffic, and do not compare your pace with others’. They also align with his broader Business Thinking: business is exchange and a mutually beneficial relationship with people who need what one offers after doing good work, rather than endless expansion driven by capital and advertising.
“Don’t pay to buy traffic: when the product is not stable and trust has not been established, advertising is wasteful.”
“The only people we have to answer to are our learners and readers.”
The loan amount (NT$1 million), the Ministry of Culture’s podcaster startup loan, and the government subsidy of interest for the first five years come from Raymond’s public podcast and interviews. Detailed financial figures such as the share of advertising costs in each later period are not public and are not expanded here.
Source
Footnotes
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Raymond Hou, “[Company of One #12] A Measure of Intelligence? Let’s Talk About Credit and Loans,” podcast, 2021-02-26. View original ↩