He Got Cocky, Fell Apart, Had an Epiphany, Then Built an AI App That Hit #3 on the Paid Charts | A Conversation with Chunxiang Zhao, Founder of *Stomach Book*

What should an AI app look like? What form should it take? Perhaps Stomach Book — which shot to #3 on Apple's Food & Drink in-app purchases chart just two months after launch — offers some clues. Hailed as the gold standard for AI app interaction design in China, it uses LLMs for summarization rather than generation, wrapped in a black-and-white hand-drawn UI. All of this emerged from developer Chunxiang Zhao's hard-won lessons: after a failed startup and building multiple apps, he distilled his philosophy and reverse-engineered his way to this design.

Zhao's journey is fascinating: in college he became a signed writer for The One, the literary magazine founded by Han Han, writing novels and working as a screenwriter. When he felt his creative purpose being compromised, he pivoted to product management. His most recent startup plunged him into what he calls his "darkest hour." During six months of "lying flat," he immersed himself in Daoist philosophy, returned to "creating," learned to code, built apps to earn a living, lectured on the Tao Te Ching on Bilibili and Douyin, and kept developing mobile apps — right up to the present.

In his telling, you'll hear about his dramatic ups and downs and his accumulated wisdom on AI app development. To us, Zhao isn't so much a developer as he remains, at core, a creator — novels, products, code: all are his creation and expression. AI simply adds new methods to that creative toolkit. Building popular apps matters, of course, but equally important is finding fulfillment in the act of creation itself. We recommend listening through to the end. Good luck to us all.

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Related links: Stomach Book | Chunxiang Zhao's personal website

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🎬 Timeline:

Part One: Getting Carried Away — Before Coding

2:01 Zhao's self-introduction: before coding, writing fiction, working as a PM 3:30 Starting sophomore year, writing for Han Han's The One, earning ¥10,000 monthly — got carried away 4:38 "The fundamental problem with arts and culture is the need for discursive power" 5:35 A short story moved Feng Xiaogang to tears three times, yet realizing screenwriting wasn't his path 7:51 Startup story: when market demand and user experience couldn't both be satisfied 11:10 Lesson learned: "When a film is ruined, everything is the director's responsibility"

Part Two: Shattered, Then Awakened — From Darkest Hour to Enlightenment

12:58 Startup failure, the darkest hour 14:54 "He shattered" 16:56 After six months in darkness, beginning to study Chinese philosophy 19:04 Enlightenment vs. after enlightenment

Part Three: Stomach Book and Lessons in AI App Development

25:33 Lessons from building many apps: beautiful; assume the user only opens it once 28:04 Building Stomach Book as a deductive conclusion 29:26 Chunxiang's Three Nevers 36:34 Deriving Stomach Book from the Three Nevers 38:30 The development process of Stomach Book 41:42 Why no international expansion? 43:50 Thoughts on Stomach Book's UI, aesthetic reflections on next-gen AI apps 47:00 How the counterintuitive "Chat to JSON" interaction pattern emerged 48:15 On "the shifting paradigm of mobile app interaction" 50:34 The "design secret" accidentally discovered in an air conditioner remote 51:39 What AI app developers around him are building 52:53 "If we wanted Stomach Book to work best, we should white-label a bowl" 54:35 On AI-native applications 57:57 An entrepreneur who never mentioned PMF 59:12 Favorite products and idol products 1:01:30 Will AI apps replicate the flourishing ecosystem of mobile internet? 1:04:11 What once lived on the app idea list

Part Four: Being Sisyphus Pushing the Boulder Isn't So Bad — The Journey Is the Reward

1:08:33 After the darkest hour, where fulfillment now comes from 1:09:43 "Turns out I don't love money — I love being able to outspend others" 1:11:21 How the stretch of building apps no one noticed was endured 1:12:35 The journey is the reward 1:13:33 We are all Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the mountain. Good luck to us all

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