The China Startup Pulse

When you ask foreigners why they come to China to start a business, many people will say that because the Chinese market is very large and they marvel at China speed. But the key to the problem is not what brought you to China, but why you have stayed in China for so long. Today we have a special podcast with 3 "Laowai" guests who have been in China for over 10 years and are respectively leading the frontiers of venture capital accelerator, corporate innovation and entrepreneurship in Shanghai. From their mouths, you will hear China's great changes in the past decade in the eyes of foreigners. Let's listen to it!

Host: Graham Brown, Host of Asia Tech Podcast Guests: Oscar Ramos, Chinaccelerator Partner and Program Director
Kapil Kane, Director of Innovation at Intel Geoffrey Handley, Founding General Partner of Haitao Capital

With more than 8 years of experience at the world’s leading gaming companies, Kevin Yu decided to stay in China and build Sidechef, “Netflix for recipes” after his first startup exit. Realizing people’s passion for food and cooking, Kevin is determined to unlock the inner potential of people and used the lessons from gaming industry to food industry.

With 11 team members working and living in 5 different cities, Fei Yao and her company QLC are redefining working, learning and living. After leaving a traditionally successful career path as a management consultant, Fei founded the remote internship platform QLC. In this episode, she shares her view of the growing demand of people changing their jobs, and advocates the idea of lifelong learning and co-living.

“Entrepreneurship helps me to define who I am,” says Brian Tam, the founder of a creative and innovation consultancy named Let’s Make Great. Realising the need for creative thinking and innovation in China, Brian shared with us how he started his self discovery adventure in China and later catalysed his ideas into creating “Let’s Make Great”. He also touched upon how innovation in China has involved, the changing perceptions of innovation in China and his take on how to approach it.

Venture Capital tends to shut the door if you don't have a team, a product and some customers due to too many risks. Increasingly, entrepreneurs in China with just an idea are having difficulty in getting money and help. Focused on the ideation stage before accelerators and incubators, Albert Liang, CEO and Founder of IGENESIIS, is dedicated to inspiring people to become founders through a 4-month process with their mentor community and courses on various skills and core values. As a serial entrepreneur, Albert has prospective insights about why the current environment is already ready for IGENESIIS and what investors will do about this opportunity.

When young, independent professional women struggle to find the right network, resources and support, what dilemma are they facing? In this episode, Michelle Li, founder and CEO of Sorority China, has all the answers. Coming from a single child background and having experienced living in a supportive sisterhood in school, Michelle tells her story on how she started creating a sisterhood for women entrepreneurs, growing mentors and changing the gender dynamic in China.

When trust has become the biggest issue in the Chinese healthcare market, how do you tackle the market and rebuild trust? In this latest episode, Sébastien Gaudin, CEO and Co-Founder of the CareVoice shared with us his experience tackling one of the biggest market in China - healthcare. His solution, “trip advisor” for healthcare, helps bring private healthcare trust and a sense of peace of mind with very simple ideas.

Assumptions will never become facts untill you validate it. How to validate your idea? Design helps. Grace Ng, Co-Founder of Lean Startup Machine shared how and why she built the Javelin Board and many interesting ideas about optimisation in design needs for questions. As a female entrepreneur, she has also observed how the global scene is opening up to women in technology ecosystem.

Building something that doesn't exist is what some entrepreneurs thrive on. The risk, challenges, and potential drove Archie Hamilton to pioneer an entire industry in China. Archie Hamilton founder and CEO of Split Works, started in 2006 to help build the music festival industry in China. Realizing that there was no audience here, he started to make up the rules and fought to understand his audience while learning how to survive, and built one of the greatest music festivals in China.

Step 1: Validate your assumptions! Startups all over the world make the same mistake; they build a startup based on assumptions, with no data to validate a need. Trevor Owens, Co-Founder of the Lean Startup Machine, and author of The Lean Enterprise takes us through his winning method. His vision: "I want to create more millionaire entrepreneurs; if you really want to start a unicorn, it really helps if you already built a successful company, it really helps even more if you have a few million in your bank."