Foreigners tell us about internet entrepreneurship in China: 5 times times more difficult

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This is the second time with the help of 5 founder Yin Ruje chat, compared to a year ago, the need for Chinese and English inclusions, often pause to translate the dialogue, Yin Ruje in China is rapid, the entire communication is very smooth and fluent, it is difficult to let you imagine sitting opposite is a Korean, only learned a few years of Chinese.

In the past 15 years, Yin Ruje founded 5 companies, in China to do parity shopping search site to help 5 buy before, there are U.S. parity shopping site Mysimon, the U.S. search engine WISEnut, South Korean corporate search engine Company WISEnut, the United States compare shopping site become ( 2005 into Japan).

Yin Ruje December 1995 graduated from Stanford University Computer department, founded in 1998, founded Mysimon,1999 wisenut,2000 year in February, CNET bought Mysimon for 700 million dollars. And April 2002 WISEnut by the United States directory navigation search engine provider LookSmart acquisition.

In the 2000-year sale of Mysimon at the same time, Yin Ruje also in South Korea Seoul set up a corporate search engine company Wisnut, currently South Korea has more than 150 electric companies to adopt the program, the company plans to IPO this year. 2004 Yin Ruje again entered the Parity shopping website, founded in the United States become, and in 2005 to extend to Japan, has now been profitable.

These entrepreneurial achievements, did not let Yin Ruje stop, in his view the United States although entrepreneurial opportunities, but the opportunity to make big business is very small, and China's Internet is full of opportunities.

2007, Yin Ruje with the successful enterprise search technology in Korea came to China to start a business, but did not succeed, until the end of December 2011 to do shopping search website to help 5 buy, just started some fame, and received 2 rounds of financing.

For each country's difficulty, Yin Ruje listed a ranking, if the U.S. entrepreneurial difficulty coefficient is 1, South Korea is 1.5, Japan is 2, China can reach 5.

Since it is so difficult, why do you insist on starting a business in China as a foreigner? What's the sentiment in the past few years? To see Yin Ruje tell:

China's first failure

I've done 3 startups in the U.S. Although not much success, but still relatively good, feel that the United States do not have the opportunity, Japan and South Korea's market is also limited, especially in 2007 saw China's future is likely to have great development, and want to have entrepreneurial experience in every country, came to China. Another important reason is that my family in Korea, the United States and South Korea is too far away from the original once a year to see, Shanghai to Seoul as long as 2 hours, from China is very convenient.

2007 years in China, there are not so many electric companies, so do parity search is not very reliable, I was in Korea to do a business search engine is relatively successful, is to other companies and institutions to do site search solutions, South Korea, including Samsung, SK, 1800 of companies and institutions, including several government departments, are using 13 million dollars a year, and I think China needs such a solution, so entrepreneurship in China starts with an enterprise search service.

The project has been in China for three years, but we have found that Chinese companies are unwilling to pay for corporate search engines, and Chinese companies are less likely to co-operate on the project. Of course, this is not the same as the national conditions, in the United States, Korea and Japan, the human cost is very high, so if you do business search projects will waste a lot of resources, they are more willing to outsource.

But China's labor costs are lower, they are not willing to spend 20.3 million of the price to buy services, but they think that a few employees to spend more time on the line, and Chinese companies like the word "size", as if the more employees feel the company more powerful, so do not pay attention to small team output.

Another cultural habit is that company engineers rarely use third-party technology, as if the use of Third-party technology will not have their own value, will be laid off, so this makes it difficult to promote corporate search service solutions, large companies do not have the money to buy small companies, so the first attempt in China is not too successful.

The lesson of this is that you need to do enough market research before you do a project and learn more about cultural differences. As for the current comparison shopping search 5 buy, although I am a foreigner, there are a lot of challenges, but I think the opportunity lies in parity or a technical work, this technology is difficult to copy, and in addition to a Amoy, large companies rarely involved, to help 5 buy is one of the only independent start-up companies.

How to localize foreigners

When it comes to foreigners doing business in China, we all talk about acclimatized, such as Google, Groupon and so on. With these previous cases, I also deeply understand that in China entrepreneurship needs localization, how to localize? The 1th is to conform to Chinese culture.

Many of the previous failed foreign companies usually do two of the structure of the company, one is the foreign staff to do the management, and the Chinese staff to do the implementation, the team is not good. And in a company that buys 5, only I am Korean, others are Chinese, although I manage the leaders, but all the leaders are in the management of China, our weekly meeting I only set a quarterly goal, and the various KPIs and decisions, implementation by their own decision, and I 99% of the time in China, Communication is very smooth.

I also brought in the Silicon Valley culture, we are very transparent, the number of shares, how the company structure is very transparent. And we also pay special attention to welfare and the need to comply with the Chinese labor laws, we want to let employees feel that this is a local start-up companies.

People will say you are a Korean after all, how can you understand Chinese culture thoroughly?

In fact, in Korean schools, everyone will learn Chinese characters, because Koreans in their own prophecies will also use Chinese characters, when I was in the middle school and high school, I have learned 1600 Chinese characters, I am from the heart of the love of Chinese characters, I will often read some information on Confucius and other enlightened wisdom, At the same time I am also a loyal Chinese Kung fu movie fan.

From 2007 to China, I have been in China for 6 years, from the day I came to China to learn Chinese, every day I insist on meeting in Chinese, adhere to write in Chinese mail, and the company's high-level, staff exchanges are also in Chinese, I am in communication, reading the basic not much of the problem, first of all in the attitude to become a " Chinese. "

Of course, there are big differences between Silicon Valley and China in doing business. Some Chinese companies, for example, do not look the same from the US, but China has its own characteristics, so I often study 360 and Alibaba to see how they succeed and learn some of their practices.

For example, 360 inspired me is that if you do a very good product, to provide users with value, many users will not mind you attached to other things, such as adding online games, plus advertising. So as long as providing a very powerful service, it is possible to make money through a lot of ways. Of course, I will have some reservations when learning these company experience, the most important thing is to do without hurting the user.

Why Baidu can succeed? is because Chinese people are not easy to remember very long URLs, we remember Baidu, you can find the Web page. This opportunity in fact does not exist in the United States, our strategy is based on such market conditions to adjust, I hope that users in shopping, by helping 5 to buy the aggregation to check, and then make the ideal shopping decisions. Of course now a Amoy also do such things, but their backs Taobao cat, and can not be said to be particularly objective, this is to help 5 buy opportunities.

Of course, 5 buy also have the opportunity to sell successfully, but now has not reached that level, at least 1-2 years of development, because my investors are foreign, so many foreign companies have been interested in helping 5 buy. For me personally, I will continue to start a business and plan to be a company around the world when I help 5 to buy.

The difficulty coefficient of Chinese entrepreneurship

I venture in so many countries, if you want to give the ranking of countries, the United States the lowest threshold is the easiest, if the U.S. entrepreneurial difficulty coefficient is 1, then South Korea is 1.5, Japan is 2, China's difficulty coefficient can reach 5. Having stayed in China for so many years, I can understand why so many foreign companies fail, but I don't know if I can succeed in the future.

If you want to specifically talk about the differences in Chinese entrepreneurship and other countries, there are the following:

First, there are many rules in China that make it difficult for foreigners to do something.

Second, Chinese culture and industry practices are different from those of foreign countries. For example, China's Internet does not have detailed laws and regulations, do not know one thing is not legal, and the United States has a clear law, can do or can not do to know. The difficulty for foreigners is that it is a long time to learn about the boundaries of the unspoken rules, and only through experience or research on competitors.

Third, Chinese companies are usually not transparent, in fact, we also consider the acquisition of some companies, but when talking about the purchase price, found that the other side of the flow, revenue is not transparent, in the U.S. company valuation is based on the flow of income conversion, and in Chinese companies are entrepreneurs think is how much.

The pattern of the Chinese market is different, even a large company in the United States market share will not exceed 20%, but Taobao's share in China can reach 70%, Baidu's traffic can reach 60%, there are almost all areas of Tencent, even Google in the United States market share does not exceed 50%, That's a lot of pressure for startups.

Five, the Chinese consumer's shopping habits are not the same, the U.S. electric business consumers can bear a high price, and China's 80% consumers to withstand the price of electricity is less than 200, many dealers do not pay attention to the data analysis, not very good to study market data.

The staff requirements are different. Chinese employees are very sensitive to cash, they are interested in options, they are most concerned about what income is now, the key to pay, if the pay is high will immediately work. How to promote and encourage Chinese employees to do good products, I have been learning.

Seven, China's labor law and other countries are very different, in the staff holiday, dismissal and other aspects of strict rules, there are many things to learn.