Why a Factory Boss Decided to Build in Public

Two years ago I made a decision a lot of people in my circle did not understand. A man who has spent over a decade in hygiene manufacturing — factories, channels, B2B deals — started showing up online, writing and filming in person, as himself.

The obvious question: why not hire a team, commission the content, and stay behind the scenes? I have thought about it a lot, and the answer is that it would not work. Here is why.

The founder is the one who actually knows

When a consumer trusts a brand, at the bottom of that trust is a person. Twenty-plus years in fast-moving consumer goods and years on the hygiene factory floor leave you with judgments — pitfalls you stepped in, conclusions you paid to reach — that no copywriter can express for you. A ghostwriter can polish. They cannot know.

Rented traffic stops. Owned trust does not.

If your growth runs on paid placements and promotions, the traffic is rented. It stops the day the budget stops. The audience you build yourself, the trust you accumulate by showing up consistently — that is an asset nobody can switch off. In a category where buyers place large OEM orders with strangers across borders, being a known, verifiable person is not vanity. It is risk reduction, for both sides.

True stories outperform ad copy

When I tell people how I lost ¥5 million and rebuilt the company, or how our first overseas venture collapsed because we did not sign a proper contract, nobody experiences that as marketing. It holds attention precisely because it costs something to say. No slogan does that.

What I actually do with it

Since 2025 I have been systematically learning short video and live-streaming, publishing across platforms under my own name. I do not expect overnight reach. I treat it as a long-term position: say the things nobody inside the industry says publicly, explain the common sense consumers deserve to know, and be honest about the price wars, the chaos, and the opportunities in this trade.

There is a second goal I care about just as much: helping mothers — the women who know feminine hygiene users best, because they live the use cases — learn to create content and build their own small audiences. If the people who understand the user can express themselves publicly, honest products reach more of them.

Building in public is not about becoming famous. It is about making sure that the people who actually know an industry are visible in it. In an era of manufactured consensus, an industry veteran willing to speak plainly deserves a microphone.

If you source hygiene products and want to work with someone you can actually see — we are here: hnnafei.com.

Li Genyuan is the founder of Hunan Nafei Biotechnology, an OEM/ODM manufacturer of sanitary pads and menstrual pants. More from Founder's Notes.