In 2020, at age twenty-six, Raymond Hou (Raymond) officially left traditional employment and co-founded the “Raymond Thirty” and “柚智夫妻” brands with his wife, Yuzu (Song Zhiyou). They shifted from employment and freelance work to a company of one centered on the individual. The decision was not prompted by a single event; it followed several years of preparation. Freelance remote work as a student, the contrast between two full-time jobs in Beijing and Taiwan, and an overseas plan interrupted by the pandemic all contributed to the transition.
Background Before the Decision
Raymond’s freelance habits took shape as early as college. Influenced by his family’s financial circumstances, he began remote freelance work in his second year, organized paid workshops, and worked remotely at the Korean company JANDI. He paid his tuition and living expenses through writing and courses (see From Freelancer to Business Operator). Before entering the workforce, he had already developed methods for personal branding, client relationships, and remote collaboration.
Starting in 2019, Raymond entered a period of intensive full-time employment. First, he worked in product operations at the Beijing fitness app Keep; after returning to Taiwan, he became a digital-transformation consultant at a traditional brand group, earning above the standard salary for an employee. In an interview at the time, he said his work performance was good, but his core desire had not changed: he still “liked assigning work to himself.”1 This was the internal motivation behind leaving: he was not fleeing failure, but did not fit the employed-work model itself.
The Pandemic as a Trigger
Raymond and Yuzu had planned to go overseas before turning thirty to search for meaning in work. They had rented a home in Beijing and furnished it, expecting to live there for three to five years. During Lunar New Year in 2020, they returned to Taiwan with only two empty suitcases. The global pandemic then broke out, preventing them from returning to Beijing. In the end, they asked friends and movers to empty their Beijing home remotely.2 The forced end to their overseas plan became an opportunity to rethink their life path.
A Choice Made After Building a System, Not Quitting on Impulse
Raymond has repeatedly emphasized that leaving was not an impulsive act but “a choice made after building a system and methodology.” The difference was that he did not give up stable income without preparation. He had already verified that he could support himself through writing, courses, and freelance work, and formally turned his side business into his main business. Another constraint was that he was married. In an early-2020 interview, he said that because he was already married, he “could no longer make a decision impulsively on his own”; the plan to return to Beijing was therefore put aside, and they began refining their work in Taiwan.
The choice was supported by an existing combination of capabilities. In a public talk, he summarized three: market insight similar to that used in internet products, the operational ability to sell oneself, and basic financial and legal knowledge. This self-assessment made leaving, in his view, a risk-controlled transition rather than a gamble.
Borrowing to Start: Bringing Resources Forward
In 2020, Raymond borrowed startup capital from a bank to build a company of one from scratch (see Starting a Business with a NT$1 Million Government-Backed Loan and No Ads for Three Years). The borrowing came after he had developed a methodology and an initial audience. Its purpose was to bring resources forward and accelerate the launch, not to take on debt from a position of weakness. That year the brands began to take shape: in March, he started recording the “Raymond Thirty” podcast and launched a “Company of One” story series; the Raymond Weekly newsletter began with about one hundred subscribers in its first month; and in November he began planning the membership subscription service that came later. The workload during the early startup period was extremely intense. In 2022, the couple converted a tiny living room in Keelung into a studio and often worked until they fell asleep on the desk.
Consequences and Adjustments
Leaving employment to start a business established the main lines of Raymond’s later business: paid content, online courses, and membership subscriptions (see Three Seasons of the Raymond Thirty Brand (2020–2023)). But “company of one” did not mean never making mistakes. In course materials, he reviewed a lesson from one expansion: while subscriptions and traffic were growing quickly, he hired two full-time colleagues at once and gave them loose targets. Six months later, he found that personnel costs clearly exceeded the digital-product revenue for that period. The experience led him to redefine the core of a company of one: expansion should rest on sustainability rather than excitement, and operating principles should include “optimal scale” and “collaboration rather than control.”
The decision also defined his later identity story: from employee and freelancer to a Super Individual centered on the individual and working with a partner (see The Self-Employed Era (2020–) and Super Individual). In a reflection at age thirty, he summarized his changing attitude toward work in three stages: “working for an ideal, working for money and survival, and working so that I would not have to work.” He proposed integrating work and life instead of pursuing a balance between them, a long-term footnote to this choice.3
Sources
Footnotes
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Raymond Hou, “A Conversation with a Freelancer: How Did a Chemical Engineering Student Become a Remote Worker Without Focusing on His Major?” WordPress article, 2020-03-04. View original ↩
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Raymond Hou, “Week One: Recording Our Retreat from Beijing, Drying Our Tears, and Starting the Raymond Thirty Podcast,” WordPress article, 2020-08-21. View original ↩
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Raymond Hou, “About Turning Thirty: What I Learned in Ten Years,” WordPress article, 2024-09-17. View original ↩