This article was first published in the April 2016 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Edith Yeung
Partner, 500 Mobile Collective "China was so poor for so long. I remember when there were cows outside my grandfather's house in Beijing in 1980. Most people made less than $50 [£34] a month and bicycles were the most popular transportation. That's why Chinese startup founders are uniquely hungry: they want to show the world they can be centre stage in the world economy. Another thing Chinese startups do better than anyone else is scale. This is the only place where having a million sign-ups in a year is considered a failure. Startups don't have a choice but to learn how to scale up from day one."
Julie Zhang
Partnership director, Baidu News "The leadership of the best Chinese startups often includes multi-co-founder partnerships that have survived since the beginning. The best known examples are Alibaba's 18 Arhats, Baidu's Seven Knights and Ctrip's Four Tigers: these groups lasted the whole startup cycle and are still there today, so the management structure in these companies has been very stable. In the US, you rarely see this. How to manage co-founder burnout is a global challenge - and the best Chinese startups are winners on this."
Liam Casey
CEO, PCH International "The most innovative Chinese startups think globally, eliminate inventory, sell products before they are made and build a direct relationship with consumers. Inventory is especially important: the capital demands of keeping stock can strangle startups, preventing them from investing in the future. If you look at companies such as smartphone maker Xiaomi, they have zero inventory, so they actually have positive cash flow. We show this model to startups in the US. This is when it becomes really capital-efficient for people to create proper startups."
Connie Chan
Partner, Andreessen Horowitz "The ferocious pace of competition in China means startups release products there before they're fully tested, they lock up distribution partnerships early on and they know how to use media strategically. Facebook Messengerintegrating with Uber is similar to WeChat's promotion with taxi-hailing app Didi Dache. Chinese apps and services serve a diverse population and are therefore refined to succeed. An app that has been polished by 200 million users likely has something worth learning about."
Peter Williamson
Professor of international management, University of Cambridge, Judge Business School "Chinese startups are faster and more flexible than startups anywhere else in the world. They know that in China there are only the “quick and the dead”, so they drive for massive scale fast. That means they put the emphasis on getting an initial product out in the market as quickly as possible so that they can start collecting market feedback – they then adapt quicker than anyone else, jettisoning their initial business models or greatly extending them to add new features, customers and revenue streams. Dating site Momo is a good example: it is quickly morphing into a local, interests-based social network that’s not only about dating to build a more stable, long-term clientele that can underpin growth."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
