From Solo Dev to 17-Person Company: How AI-Era SEO Sites Rebuilt One Chinese Developer's Career
gefei55 · x · 2026-09-16
A tech lead's long personal account: earning 30k RMB/month in 2023, he leveraged SEO skills from his 2008 webmaster days to build overseas websites after ChatGPT launched.
Key beats: a painful 2018 — losing a 30-40k/month outsourcing client, a failed 100k project, a cash-flow crisis bailed out by his father — before returning to employment. After ChatGPT's release in Dec 2022, "websites + old-school SEO" in the AI era out-earned his salary. He quit in Oct 2023, brought in a technical co-founder, and now runs a 17-person company doing outbound business, larger than his former employer's.
Related event: Tech lead turns 2008-era SEO skills into a 17-person startup after ChatGPT(2 posts)→
More from Venture
- Bain Capital Ventures raises $1.6B for Fund XI to back the AI era — lishali88 · 2026-09-17
- Tibo's Clipatra pays 17 creators $2,565 in 30 days before launch — tibo_maker · 2026-09-17
- Pulley's abrupt shutdown puzzles customers: $50M raised, no buyer, no acqui-hire — atShruti · 2026-09-17
- Open-model startup Arcee AI raises Series B at a $1B+ valuation — code_star · 2026-09-16
- Footprint raises $25M Series B to fight AI-powered financial crime with Percy — marcbhargava · 2026-09-16
- 75M views in 6 months: how a team runs social media with an AI content system — cneuralnetwork · 2026-09-16