Luxury Internet Entrepreneurship

Wen/Feng Dahui

In the view of Silicon Valley investors and analysts, China may, for them, be the big market for a billion of people first. Each mobile phone user installs one of their apps, it will definitely achieve a huge user base; everyone clicks on the ad and they make a profit; Every company buys a piece of equipment and they can have an IPO.

But China's already hand-to-hand entrepreneurs understand the Chinese market better than they do. Silicon Valley bosses are less concerned about the plight of Chinese internet entrepreneurs. Let's take a look at what these entrepreneurs need to deal with Karez that span the past. The issues discussed in this article may not be unfamiliar to Chinese internet entrepreneurs, but they are a myth for Silicon Valley readers.

Plagiarism or innovation

This is a country that lacks any protection for "innovation".

From the path, China's plagiarism can be divided at least: big companies copied Silicon Valley big companies, startups copied Silicon Valley start-up companies, big companies copied small companies, small companies copied each other ...

The biggest headache for Chinese internet entrepreneurs is the plagiarism of large Chinese internet companies. Even if you innovate a little, a bigger competitor can rob you of your work in an entrepreneurial environment where "innovation" has no one to dispute and any effective protection is elusive. Perhaps some people say, why not use legal weapons to protect themselves? You will find that a lawsuit can not beat the other side-the "plagiarism" of several large internet companies, has been quietly applied to the patents should belong to you, the interests of the entrepreneurs can only be helpless.

Google's search for "copycat" is all about criticism, and some have even raised the issue to cultural level. Interestingly, the stigma of "plagiarism" seems to be largely carried by entrepreneurs, and big companies may not care at all. You can despise them on a moral level, but ultimately the winners of the economic benefits remain. The founders who danced in chains were not even alive, accusing them of "plagiarism" and the significance was Dalo.

Perhaps the swing between plagiarism and innovation is no longer important, it is important whether you can create value for users. Is there any need for Chinese users to have good services that are shielded from GFW? This is a question.

The obstacles brought by GFW

GFW First law: As long as the "user-generated content" (user-generated, UGC) foreign sites will be harmonious.

GFW Second law: As long as the site is harmonious, there will be at least a clone version of the domestic.

The third law of GFW: the site that has not been harmonized is certainly not the best of its kind.

The title of the first e-mail in China was "across the great Wall we can reach every corner"-this is a prophecy-today, we visit the foreign Internet, many times, will have to cross the wall. Today, the existence of GFW (Firewall) is no secret. Even some state media are talking about it. Some even believe that the presence of GFW has set a barrier for internet companies outside China to enter the Chinese market, thus giving local followers many opportunities. In fact, domestic internet entrepreneurs have also lost the opportunity to compete with international peers. In the long run, the result of losing competitiveness is that we are going to lose the bigger market and protect it.

The bigger problem with the GFW is that the world's best generic technology platform cannot serve Chinese entrepreneurs, such as Amazon's S3, Google's Apps for Business, where entrepreneurs have to find solutions, Can not find the only own development, which also indirectly caused a large number of labor waste, repeated the invention of the wheel of the phenomenon abound, is helpless.

Myths like Instagram or Dropbox are unlikely to happen in China, which has nothing to do with "innovation", and we have no such soil. Even if a small company can make good products in the early stage, once the larger user size is needed, the infrastructure (IDC, bandwidth, distributed storage services) is worn down, productivity drops, and unless you quickly become a big, bloated company, the ability to innovate may be gone.

So, Google, Amazon's Big brothers, find a way to come in, your best service to China, like IBM, Oracle to occupy the Chinese market, entrepreneurs need your services.

Infrastructure is backward and expensive

Data from the end of 2011 show that China's average broadband connection speed is about 100KB/S, well below that of the developed world, and in fact it can only be called a "narrow" band or a "230kb/s". In 2012, China's Ministry of National Development to carry out broadband speed, from the current point of view, indeed there has been progress. But as broadband speeds rise, the costs associated with them rise. If it is Startup in the name of the company to apply for Internet broadband Access Office, the cost will be staggering, whether the world's most expensive broadband services are unknown, but poor quality is not a falsehood.

Perhaps there is no big problem with the Internet broadband problem in China. 2012 Q1 data show that 85.5% of users still use 2G network access, even if 3G users grow more rapidly, 2G users are shrinking, but the base is still huge. This means that in the mobile Internet domain, the application of high demand for wireless bandwidth will not be a breakthrough in the short term, such as music, video and so on. A large number of entrepreneurs can only squeeze in relatively narrow areas of the fighting.

There is a Chinese proverb called "want to be rich, first road", the Internet is the same, in order to prosper the Internet industry, infrastructure must be able to keep up.

Security risks

The last of the three bodies, the famous Chinese science fiction writer Cixin, called the Dark Forest, describes the current state of Internet security in China by applying the passage of the novel:

"The Chinese Internet is a dark forest, every hacker is a hunter with a gun, like the specter of stalking in the forest, gently through the branches in the way, trying not to let the footsteps of a little voice, even breathing must be careful ..." He must be careful, for the forest is full of hunters who are as stealthy as him, if he finds another loophole, whether it's a hunter, an angel or a demon, whether it's a delicate baby or a faltering old man, or an angel-like girl or a god-like boy, there's only one thing to do: Drag the library. In this forest, others are hell, is the eternal threat, any exposure of their own loopholes will soon be wiped out, this is China's Internet security picture.

This is too literary, in fact, the underground hacker industry chain deep-rooted, coupled with China's lack of targeted laws and regulations, over the years led to a continuous state of control. Every day, the website of the entrepreneur is stared, targeted DDoS attacks or infiltration to steal the database, and then obtain network protection fees. The massive data leaks at the end of last year remain just the tip of the iceberg. Security is a constant threat to entrepreneurial projects, and every entrepreneur has to face this reality.

Unique Technical Barriers

It is said that Bill Gates said, "Even with piracy, I want them to use Microsoft's Windows." The proportion of Chinese users using pirated windows is too high, and Windows XP does meet the needs of the vast majority of Chinese users who have no intention of upgrading to a higher version of Windows, and China has become the worst-hit in IE 6 ( There are actually more factors contributing to this result. The presence of IE 6 has made it necessary for Chinese Internet entrepreneurs to consider browser compatibility, which actually adds to the cost of technology. Fortunately, mobile apps no longer need to be considered.

Similar to the problem of IE 6, China's north-south interconnection. China Telecom is divided into the Yangtze River as the boundary, south of the Yangtze River to China Telecom operations, the north of the Yangtze River to the Chinese netcom operations, quite ironically, the original policy makers to do so to break the monopoly, the introduction of competition, this may be achieved, but there are two companies in order to compete with each other to set up obstacles, caused the north-south mutual access speed is very slow situation, in order to take into account the North and South region of users, but also to pay additional costs. This is another problem with Chinese characteristics.

The flow of talent

A new generation of young people tend to be civil servants after graduation. According to various surveys, civil servants have become one of the youth's favorite occupations. It is almost impossible for startups to recruit first-rate graduates. Even if the civil service is not tested, foreign companies and large private enterprises in China are still the top priority for graduates.

The tax burden of Maur

On the one hand shouted to the small and medium-sized enterprises shoulder, on the one hand play Ming drop dark rise of the game, such as "camp to increase", will be the original payment of business tax to the local government rent management enterprises, classified as value-added tax and by the state tax management enterprises, the tax has risen 1%. But the recent hot discussion of the "floating tax" reflects the foresight of the tax authorities.

Record Yuan verse "Drunk Taiping" to praise: Take Mud Yan Kou, cut iron needles, scraping gold Buddha face fine search, no middle find. Quail 膆 in search of peas, egrets leg split meat, mosquito belly router fat, the old man!

The rest belongs to you. Entrepreneurship in China's internet sector has become a pretty "luxury" thing. Entrepreneurs are facing difficulties. The reasons for discussing these dilemmas are not within the scope of this article, but just look forward to a helping hand, even if it is "dancing in shackles", to help the entrepreneurs to dance gracefully.

Although each city's entrepreneurial park has become standard, but that is hardware, software is the need for urgent promotion.

Chinese Internet entrepreneurs, is a group of the most ideal but the most pessimistic, most hopeful but the most desperate, the poorest but the richest, the most happy but the most sad, the most impatient but the most impatient, the most helpless but the most can toss the guy. Without them, the whole society would be dull and uninteresting, and the most hardworking group would not be rewarded, and it would not be fair to share the wealth of the society's little progress.

Well, I know it's not easy for all of us to find hope in desperation.