I read "Energy Compound Interest": E-commerce merchants are the best at calculating compound interest, but they are the last to calculate it.

We were all in the e-commerce circle of that era

When I opened Zheng Wanting (opens in a new tab)’s new book “Energy Compound Interest: Choosing Techniques to Balance Achievement, Self and Relationships under High Pressure (opens in a new tab)”, the first thing that made me stop were the words in the author’s introduction: He was a new e-commerce operator.

Read further the recommendation preface by Xie Wenxian (Brother Xian), and the past events come to mind one after another: I recall that she founded Tianmu Yanxuan at the age of 24 and built the online shooting business into an annual revenue of 300 million yuan; at the age of 32, she gave up the title of co-founder and turned to become a professional manager. Later, she joined a foreign technology company and participated in the creation of a digital gifting service that many people have used on their mobile phones.

Friends who know me well know that I have an indissoluble bond with the e-commerce industry. In September 2014, a group of friends and I founded the Taiwan E-Commerce Entrepreneurship Association (TeSA). But even earlier, I often communicated with a group of friends in the e-commerce circle on online business forums.

In short, I have known Wanting for more than ten years. Although Wanting and I are in different positions in the same industry, I have been paying attention to her developments in the past few years. She is on the front line responsible for revenue, the team, and the numbers for each season; I am more like observing and recording from the sidelines, and occasionally accompanying the bosses to think about the next step. Also because of standing on the sidelines, I have seen many e-commerce bosses’ eyes light up when talking about conversion rates, customer unit prices, and repurchase rates, and then fall silent when they talk about whether they have slept well recently.

In the e-commerce industry, compound interest is the best, and it is also the easiest to overdraw.

When reading this book, I kept thinking of the language that e-commerce merchants are most familiar with.

When we talk about membership economy, repurchase, and Amazon’s flywheel, we all talk about the same thing: every bit of effort invested in the front should be able to generate more value later. The term customer lifetime value (LTV) itself is a kind of compound interest thinking.

However, few people use this algorithm on themselves.

Double Eleven, anniversary celebrations, schedule after schedule, the rhythm of e-commerce is almost no off-season. Wanting describes in her preface that she was once a top driven by inertia. The faster it spins, the blurrier the world becomes. The only thing that remains clear is the whip that keeps beating herself. I read this passage twice, because many e-commerce bosses I know can probably say similar things, but they usually don’t write them down.

What this book “Energy Compound Interest” does is to take the language used by e-commerce merchants to run their businesses and flip it around to run their own businesses. The book is divided into three parts: deficit, compound interest, and spillover. First see where the energy is leaking from, then practice using choices to let the investment begin to accumulate, and finally let the accumulated energy flow to the people around you. For those who have done business, this structure requires almost no explanation. It is the same sequence as looking at a profit and loss statement.

That sentence in Chapter 5 should be most appreciated by e-commerce merchants.

There is a chapter title in the table of contents, which I think is addressed to the entire e-commerce circle: Inertial deficit, yesterday’s method, cannot reach tomorrow.

In the past two decades, the battlefield of Taiwan’s e-commerce has changed several times. From online auctioneers on auction websites, to opening shopping websites and entering shopping malls, to running communities, doing live broadcasts, and placing ads, now it’s AI’s turn. Every time the battlefield changes, there are people who were doing well but fell behind because they believed too much in yesterday’s successful method.

Looking at Wanting’s career, it is a series of changes. From an entrepreneur to a professional manager to a senior foreign business executive, she described her life as like a comic strip and a microcosm of Taiwan’s e-commerce development over the past two decades. I agree with this statement. Being able to stand firm in so many changes of scenes probably depends not only on ability, but also on something she repeatedly emphasizes in the book: consciously re-choosing.

The two chapters on professional compound interest remind me of the consultant scene

Chapters 13 and 14 talk about professional compound interest. The titles are “The devil of profit is hidden in the details” and “Those who do small things to the extreme will be seen in the end.”

Anyone who has done e-commerce knows that gross profit is often eaten up by details: the return rate is one percentage point higher, the logistics takes an extra detour, and the customer service reply is half a day late. The most common situation I see at the consultant site is that the boss spends all his energy on improving traffic, but does not look back at the areas that are missed bit by bit.

This is actually the same thing as the energy deficit discussed in the first part of this book. Business will leak, and people will leak too.

I also resonate with the story Brother Xian told.

There is a paragraph in the recommendation sequence that I particularly like.

Wanting once went to a briefing class. She originally thought that she would have an advantage because she went on stage to give briefings every day. However, she fell into the lower class in the competition. Instead of using more efforts to prove herself, she temporarily put aside the familiar business presentation and practiced the relatively unfamiliar pure speech. She practiced deliberately again and again, and finally won the first place in the speech contest.

Over the years I have taught writing, I have seen too many professionals encounter something they are not good at. Their first reaction is to tell themselves: This is not my strength. Wanting’s approach was just the opposite. She went back to dismantle the problem and changed her practice method. This is also what I think is the most credible part of this book: the mental toughness she talks about has evidence of her own practice.

Start with choice, not with hard support

Wanting writes in her preface: “Hold on” is to give the initiative to the environment, while “energy compound interest” is to regain the ability to choose.

This sentence is particularly harsh in the e-commerce circle, because this industry is so accustomed to insisting. The schedule needs to be supported, advertising expenses need to be supported, and cash flow needs to be supported. If you can survive, you will be a hero. But if you hold on for a long time, the energy will just keep flowing out.

Who is this book for? I would recommend it to three types of people: e-commerce bosses and managers who are still struggling for performance on the front line, middle- and high-level executives who are running between work and family, and those who are very good at helping the company settle accounts, but rarely help themselves.

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Book information: “Energy Compound Interest: Choice Techniques for Balancing Achievement, Self and Relationships in High Pressure (opens in a new tab)”, written by Zheng Wanting, published by The Times, published on October 13, 2026.