Switching from Chinese to English cut my reach by 90%. I still think it was the right decision.
For years, I posted almost exclusively in Chinese.
Some of my best threads reached tens of thousands of people. I had an audience, a network, and a language I was comfortable with.
Then I started posting in English.
Almost overnight, my impressions collapsed.
Some posts barely reached a few dozen people.
And honestly?
I expected it.
Because this was never a traffic decision.
It was a growth decision.
Most people optimize for the next 30 days.
I’m optimizing for the next 10 years.
The reality is simple:
The most important conversations in AI, crypto, startups, technology, and internet culture happen in English.
The founders I want to learn from.
The builders I want to collaborate with.
The ideas I want to explore.
The opportunities I want to access.
Most of them live in the global conversation.
And the global conversation happens in English.
So I made a choice:
Accept short-term pain in exchange for long-term expansion.
Yes, the algorithm doesn’t love it.
My account was trained for Chinese content.
Most of my followers speak Chinese.
When I suddenly switched languages, engagement dropped.
That’s not unfair.
That’s just how platforms work.
But every meaningful transition looks ugly in the beginning.
When you start lifting weights, you’re weak.
When you start building, nobody notices.
When you start speaking a new language, you sound awkward.
Growth often looks like regression before it becomes progress.
What excites me isn’t today’s impressions.
It’s who I might connect with five years from now.
An AI founder in San Francisco.
A crypto researcher in Singapore.
A lawyer building technology in London.
A creator documenting their journey in Argentina.
People I would never have met if I stayed inside a single language bubble.
So this is my new chapter.
I’m building publicly at the intersection of AI, crypto, law, and personal systems.
I’m learning English in public.
I’m experimenting with AI workflows.
I’m building products.
I’m sharing lessons from wins, mistakes, and everything in between.
Some posts will flop.
Some ideas will fail.
But the mission is bigger than the metrics.
From local creator to global builder.
From comfort to growth.
From familiar territory to a much larger world.