How many people does an e-commerce company need to launch a new project? The answer will surprise you!

I've seen too muchE-commerceThe boss poured all his savings into hiring for a new business, but the business failed, and he lost hundreds of thousands in team salaries – a classic case of penny-wise and pound-foolish.

In fact, the biggest taboo when starting a new e-commerce business is to make a big splash right from the start.

Many business owners have a deep-rooted misconception: they think that to launch a new product category or create a new platform, they need to have a strong team, hire a director to oversee things, and then assemble a team of a dozen people to show their sincerity and ensure success.

But my experience tells you that this is a huge mistake.

In the new e-commerce business, 10 of them started with "half a person", while those that recruited a full team from the beginning did not last more than half a year.

First, let me clarify: "Half a person" doesn't mean a part-time job; it refers to the "surplus energy" of existing core talent.

Upon hearing "half a person," some people will surely ask, "Does this mean I should recruit a part-time worker?"

It's really not.

The problem with part-time work is that the person doesn't understand your company's core business logic, supply chain foundation, or have enough sense of responsibility. They are likely just going through the motions and won't achieve the purpose of trial and error.

By "half a person," I mean your company's established core talent—such as the operations manager or supply chain manager—who can dedicate half of their work energy to testing new businesses at a low cost.

To give a real example, last year the owner of a home furnishing e-commerce company was launching a new business. He originally planned to hire five people to do it.VibratoThe new product category for the small shop will require an additional 3 yuan in monthly salary expenses.

We stopped him, allowing his main force to operate (which had already...).TaobaoOne of the long-time employees who helped the store achieve monthly sales of 500,000 yuan dedicated two hours every day to testing the Douyin store.

Without hiring extra staff or increasing the budget, this "half-person" managed to get the supply chain, payment collection, and operation process of Douyin Shop running smoothly in just 3 months. They only added 2 more people in the fourth month, and now that new business brings in more than 20 yuan in net profit every month.

This is the core logic of "half a person": try and fail at the lowest cost, instead of going all in from the start.

Why is starting a new business with "half a person" the most reliable approach? Three essential strategic principles.

1. In the early stages of a new business, the core focus is on "validating the process," not "pushing for sales targets."

Many business owners set goals as soon as they start a new business: sell 10 in the first month and 50 in the third month.

This is actually putting the cart before the horse.

When starting a new business, the core task for the first 3-6 months is not how much goods to sell, but to "test the waters"—to try out all the links that might have problems and to solidify the processes that work.

Is logistics reliable? For example, can the shipping cost to remote areas be kept below 8 yuan? Will there be any lost or damaged packages?

Is the payment process smooth? Is the settlement cycle on the new platform 7 days or 15 days? Will there be any issues with delayed payments or deductions?

Is the risk of infringement high? Are there any potential infringement issues with the trademarks or designs of the new product? Will it be subject to complaints and removed from shelves?

Can the supply chain match? Can the purchase price of new products be controlled within 30% of the selling price, and can the replenishment cycle be controlled within 7 days?

These problems don't require a full-fledged team to solve.

A seasoned employee with expertise can dedicate half of their time (2-3 hours a day) to focusing on these aspects, testing and adjusting them gradually, which is more than enough.

Just like a new beauty product category we worked on before, we initially had our supply chain manager spend 2 hours a day liaising with factories, testing samples, and calculating costs, without hiring any new staff.

He spent a month testing three factories, reducing the purchase price from 58 yuan to 42 yuan, shortening the replenishment cycle from 10 days to 6 days, and also avoiding two risks of appearance infringement.

Once this "half-person" has paved the way and established the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure), then it's time to add more people and scale up operations.

Conversely, if you hire a complete team from the beginning, but the process doesn't go smoothly and the performance doesn't improve, you'll have to spend tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands more on salaries every month, and in the end, you can only end up with a hasty conclusion.

Here is some authoritative data: According to the "2025 China E-commerce New Business Development Report", the failure rate of new e-commerce businesses is as high as 78%, of which 62% of the failures are due to "excessive initial investment and blind expansion without process verification".

The report clearly states: "In the early stages of a new business, if the manpower input is controlled at 10%-20% of the existing core team (i.e., the effort of half a person to one person), the cost of failure can be reduced by more than 60%."

Therefore, when you start making goods, never make large-scale orders or difficult products. Just make small batches of low-difficulty samples. The goal is simply to clarify the process and get all the steps running smoothly at the lowest cost.

After all, the lower the cost of trial and error, the greater your chance of turning things around.

2. Addressing the anxiety of "talent overflow" is more important than recruiting new people.

This is the most crucial core of the "half-person" strategy, and it's also a point that many bosses overlook.

Once your core e-commerce business is stable, your standard operating procedures (SOPs) are mature, and your monthly sales consistently exceed 100 million, you'll discover a problem: your S-level employees (core staff) will "overflow".

What is "talent overflow"? It means that people have mastered their jobs so well that they can complete their daily tasks in just 3 hours. They feel bored and unchallenged with the rest of the time, and may even start thinking about changing jobs.

There was a women's clothing e-commerce company that did very well in its main business, with monthly sales of 150 million yuan. However, its core operations manager almost quit because "the work was too simple and there was no room for growth."

At this point, new businesses become the best container for these "overflowing talents".

Asking him to dedicate "half a person's" energy to new business is not an extra burden for him, but a challenge, a promotion, and a way to find growth for the future.

He would feel that his boss values ​​him and is willing to give him opportunities to try new things, which would not only improve his abilities but also allow him to receive bonuses from new business, so he would naturally not think about changing jobs.

Conversely, if you specifically recruit new people from outside for new business, not only is it costly (a new e-commerce operations person earns at least 6000 yuan per month and requires 1-2 months of training), but it also requires adjustment (newcomers are unfamiliar with the company's processes and culture, which can easily lead to problems with coordination), the success rate is far lower than using your own veterans.

I know that almost all successful e-commerce business owners do this: they allocate some of the core staff from their main business to new businesses, which solves the problem of talent overflow and reduces the trial and error costs of new businesses.

As Alibaba's former CEO Wei Zhe said, "The best new business talent is never recruited from outside, but from our own core team. They understand the company, the industry, and have a sense of responsibility. Using their spare energy to try and fail is more effective than recruiting 10 new people."

The three core new product categories were all tested by the former operations manager and supply chain manager with the effort of "half a person". They are now not only the backbone of the main business, but also the heads of the new business. Their income has doubled and they have a greater sense of belonging.

3. Maintain market sensitivity and seize every opportunity to benefit.

In e-commerce, the scariest thing is not trial and error or failure, but that when the opportunities come, you don't even have the right to enter the market.

The e-commerce market is changing too fast these days, with new platforms, new ways of doing things, and new policies changing every few days.

For example, the video account store a couple of years ago didn't get much attention at first, but by the time people realized it, the top players had already taken over most of the traffic; and last year...AIMany people thought digital human live streaming was just a gimmick, but those who planned ahead have already doubled their monthly sales thanks to it.

If you don't touch these new things at all, you won't be able to seize the opportunities when they come; but if you invest heavily in them, the risks are too great—if the platform's policies change or the rules become outdated, all the manpower and resources you've invested will go down the drain.

What's the best strategy? It's to leave "half a person" hanging around and do a little bit of business.

This "half-person" task is not to make money, but to stay "present"—to understand the platform's latest policies, be familiar with the logic of new gameplay, and maintain an active account.

I have a friend who runs a 3C e-commerce business, and that's exactly what he did.

He assigned his operations team to spend one hour each day maintaining a...XiaoHongShu(小红书)The account occasionally posts product reviews; it doesn't pursue sales but only account activity.

Last year, Xiaohongshu launched an "e-commerce closed loop" policy to support the 3C category. Because his account was always active, he was the first to receive traffic support from the platform. In just two months, the monthly sales of his Xiaohongshu store exceeded 300,000 yuan, while those who entered the market later could not get traffic at all.

This is the value of being "half a person"—maintaining market sensitivity at the lowest cost. Once the platform's benefits explode, your account is active, the process is smooth, and the people are knowledgeable, allowing you to immediately pounce and seize the opportunity.

As financial writer Wu Xiaobo said, "The essence of business is to capture trends, and the key to capturing trends is not to make big bets, but to stay in the game and wait for opportunities to come with minimal cost."

The same applies to new e-commerce businesses. You don't need to go all out from the start. Just leave "half a person" to guard the entrance to the opportunity, and that will be enough.

In conclusion, the core of new e-commerce businesses lies in "trial and error" rather than "extravagance."

My biggest takeaway from working on new e-commerce businesses is that success in e-commerce never comes from "having a large workforce," but from "precise trial and error."

Many business owners fail when starting new businesses not because they are going in the wrong direction or because their products are bad, but because they are too eager for quick success and instant benefits. They always want to get rich quick, so they hire a full team and spend money on promotion right away, which eventually drags them down.

The "half-person" strategy is essentially a "lean startup" mindset—using the lowest cost to verify the core issues and solve the most critical pain points. Once the process is running smoothly and the trend is clear, then gradually increase investment. This is the right way to start a new e-commerce business.

It can not only help you reduce trial and error costs and avoid business risks, but also solve the problem of core talent overflow, making your team more cohesive and more effective.

In the business world, survival is always more important than quick profits. For new e-commerce businesses, initial restraint is not cowardice, but clarity; not conservatism, but wisdom.

As Lao Tzu said in the Tao Te Ching: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step; a nine-story tower begins with a pile of earth."

The growth of new e-commerce businesses is never achieved overnight. It starts with trial and error by "half a person" and accumulates step by step until the breakthrough from 0 to 1 and from 1 to 100 is finally achieved.

Finally, I would like to remind all e-commerce business owners: stop blindly pursuing a "strong and powerful workforce." Your core talent is the greatest asset of your new business.

From now on, dedicate "half" of your core employees' energy to testing a new product category or a new platform, capturing the next e-commerce opportunity at the lowest possible cost.

Believe me, once you learn to run a new business with "half a person," you'll find that the risks of starting an e-commerce business can actually be this low; and the success of a new business can actually be this simple.

After all, the e-commerce entrepreneurs who ultimately succeed are never the ones who dare to spend the most money, but rather those who are best at trial and error and know how to exercise restraint.