Asia Startup Pulse

In this episode, we invite Mukesh Bansal, Founder and CEO of Phable, a healthcare startup from India that recently raised a $12 million Series A; and Riaz Mehta, Founder and CEO, of allrites, Asia’s leading B2B marketplace for film and TV content. Our guests bring with them a cumulative 40+ years of building, and running businesses across Asia. We dive deep into what makes experimentation a pre-requisite to running a successful startup and how small changes can have a colossal impact on the business.

Show Notes:

2:26 - Introduction to Mukesh Bansal and Riaz Mehta

5:56 - Experimentation in a startup context

9:54 - How the healthcare industry encourage/discourage experimentation

13:08 - Source of inspiration in deciding about what and how to experiment

20:49 - The The Minimum Viable Experiment

25:58 - Framework for prioritizing action items

31:41 - Should founders go against their own beliefs and convictions

41:14 - How COVID has impacted experimentation

46:47 - Actionable advice to aspiring entrepreneurs

Our 8x8 Global Speakers Series event is taking place on April 10th, where we bring 8 amazing speakers to share their insights in 8 minutes on building, running, and scaling businesses across Asia. Join us online via Zoom or offline in Shanghai.

RSVP here: https://chinaccelerator.com/8x8-speakers-series/

Many thanks to our guests Mukesh Bansal and Riaz Mehta; host Oscar Ramos; producers Eva Shi and  Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

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To join our listener group on WeChat, please add SOSV Helper (WeChat ID: sosvhero) and ask for the group  invitation.

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Today, we invite Shao Lee, Partner at Global Founders Capital, who spearheads their China operations. We talk about GFC’s investment thesis and their unique proposition of Geographical Arbitrage. We dive deeper into understanding the Chinese ecosystem and the drivers of enterprise SaaS in China. As a leading investor in the TMT/ SaaS space, Shao shares his insights on how GFC evaluates enterprise SaaS companies in China.

Show Notes

01:19 - Introduction to Shao Lee and motivations to become a VC

04:18 - What is Global Founders Capital?

05:53 - Bringing the Rocket Internet model to Asia

10:19 - GFC’s Geographical Arbitrage

13:00 - How to discover new business models?

14:45 - Why is it time for Enterprise investment in China?

17:10 - Trends in Chinese companies overseas expansion

19:00 - GFC’s investment decision-making process

20:34 - Founder’s pedigree in the decision-making process

25:45 - Late entrant to China: Is the market still worth entering for VCs?

27:40 - China’s competitive value proposition in global market

32:24 - VC Trends for 2021: The Rise of Enterprise SaaS

35:22 - The drivers of Enterprise SaaS

38:24 - Evaluating Chinese Enterprise SaaS companies

Many thanks to our guest Shao Lee; host Oscar Ramos; producers Eva Shi and  Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

Share, subscribe, review, enjoy!

To join our listener group on WeChat, please add SOSV Helper (WeChat ID: sosvhero) and ask for the group  invitation.

Follow us on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/company/asia-startup-pulse

Email us: [email protected]

Today, we invite one of our special friends Matthew Brennan, author of “Attention Factory; The story of TikTok and China’s ByteDance”. He is often featured in global media and has delivered presentations on Chinese digital innovation to global firms such as Google, Tencent, DHL, etc. Having monitored the Chinese tech ecosystem closely for a number of years, Matthew is well-positioned to answer our questions, dig deeper into ByteDance’s remarkable success, and share his insights on the mobile-tech environment in the East and West. We will also discuss the digital marketing schemes partaking in all startups and all kinds of business sizes. Last but not the least, some key insights on future tech innovations that can be observed from the ByteDance case.

You can find the book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Attention-Factory-TikTok-Chinas-ByteDance/dp/B08L3NW6VM/
 

Show Notes:

02:09 Introduce Matthew Brennan

03:20 Why ByteDance is able to build a global product, TikTok

05:57 TikTok, the product and technology

09:42 TikTok’s from-zero-to-one journey

16:30 TikTok’s monetization model and their new initiatives

22:20 Lessons from the success of ByteDance

30:40 Contact Matthew

Many thanks to our guest Matthew Brennan; host Ryan Shuken; producers Eva Shi and  Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

Share, subscribe, review, enjoy!

To join our listener group on WeChat, please add SOSV Helper (WeChat ID: sosvhero) and ask for the group  invitation.

Follow us on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/company/asia-startup-pulse

Email us: [email protected]

In this episode, we talk about Peng’s journey as an investor and how he perceives the great potential in Southeast Asia. More importantly, he summarizes a very important trend in SEA’s startup ecosystem, "Technification". We also talk about the impact that China's Internet giants have on SEA through investments and M&A.

Show Notes:

1:54 Peng’s journey as an investor

3:22 Main differences btw seed round and Series A

9:15 More capital investment in SEA

10:20 The most interesting trend in SEA

10:56 “Technification” in China

12:24 The opportunities of “technification” in SEA

14:33 “There is no way for a company to grow that fast without technology”

17:31 The core DNA of a successful founding team

18:54 China’s role in SEA’s service industry

22:22 The role of Chinese and Japanese corporate venture capital in SEA

26:20 The infrastructure development in SEA

28:25 A hard push on deep technology in SEA?

Many thanks to our guest Peng T.Ong; host Oscar Ramos; producers  Eva Shi and  Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

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Follow us on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/company/asia-startup-pulse

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Our first guest is Michael Friedman, CFO of Xinhua Pictures. Mike previously held the position of Director at Shune River Capital where he was responsible for investment, financial analysis, and risk management. He has over two decades of experience in global financial markets.

Our second guest today is Aaron Choi. Aaron is the VP of Global Business Development for Kava Labs, a blockchain solutions platform providing DeFi services such as stable coins, bonds, and lending to crypto users across many blockchain networks.

Show Notes:

[02:43]  What happened with GameStop?

[13:59] Centralisation vs Decentralisation. Is GameStop the pivotal moment for DeFi? What are its merits and demerits?

[34:55] Closing Remarks

Many thanks to our guests Michael Friedman and Aaron Choi; host Oscar Ramos; producers  Eva Shi and  Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

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Follow us on LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/company/the-china-startup-pulse/

Email us: [email protected]

2020 is over, finally! Happy New Year to everyone! In today's episode, we would like to give you a quick recap of China Startup Pulse in 2020 and also make a major announcement in the end.

Show Notes:

00:00 Catch up with Oscar and Ryan

06:38 Episodes featuring founders

22:14 Episodes featuring investors

30:40 The big announcement

Big, big, big thanks to our hosts Oscar Ramos and Ryan Shuken; producers  Eva Shi and  Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

Share, subscribe, review, enjoy!

Follow us on LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/company/the-china-startup-pulse/

Email us: [email protected]

Today we’re bringing you the final episode of our Chinaccelerator 8x8 Global Speakers Series where we invite some of the most accomplished members of the global startup ecosystem to share key lessons for startups in eight minutes or less.

Show Notes:

02:18 - Yara Paoli

11:30 - Adam Najberg

19:27 - Shamik Talukder

Our first speaker is Yara Paoli. Yara is the former VP of Growth at Skyscanner (acquired by Ctrip) and is currently the Co-Founder and Chief Growth Scientist of Growth OS, a growth enabler company. Having contributed to growing Skyscanner from a 32-employees small startup to a GBP 1.4 Billion  valued company with over 1,000 talented people working across 60+ markets, Yara is the perfect guest to talk about growth mindset, which she talks about in this episode.

Our next speaker is Adam Najberg, Global Head of Content at Alibaba Group and Former Global Director of Communications at DJI. Having been in the field of journalism and PR for over 25 years, Adam has amassed a wealth of experience in storytelling. Today, he talks about why storytelling is important for startups, and how someone else could tell their stories if startups don't do it themselves.

Finally, we have Shamik Talukder, co-founder of Be Tagged, an influencer marketing company, and the founding member of the largest Radio FM Network in India, Radio Mirchi, and former Vice President at Viacom 18 Media. In his talk today, he shares two important lessons that the covid19 pandemic has taught him and how he believes that could help startups.

Many thanks to our guest Benjamin Qiu; host Oscar Ramos; producers  Eva Shi and  Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

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Follow us on LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/company/the-china-startup-pulse/

Email us: [email protected]

Airbnb, undeniably the world’s most popular vacation rental online marketplace, just went public recently. In just days, Airbnb’s valuation has exceeded $100 billion and now eclipses even some of the world’s largest hotel chains such as Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt.

This episode is a blast from the past, where we revisit our conversation with Sean Pan, the former Head of China Operations at Airbnb, who had overseen the transformation of Airbnb’s strategy, management system, and branding in China since 2015 when the company only had 6 employees!

Today, China has become one of the most important markets for Airbnb where the company is seeing exponential growth. Airbnb, or Aibiying, as it is better known in China managed to not only survive in the China market but also growing from strengths to strengths, something that most international startups have failed to do when they enter China.

In this episode, Sean mentions one of the key obstacles confronted by many foreign companies who want to localize in China is the communication problem between the global and China team. How did Airbnb manage to successfully tackle this issue? What efforts does the company put in to build internal trust?

Show Notes:
[01:26] Introduction to Sean
[05:33] The Philosophy behind Airbnb’s office in Beijing
[06:30] Building and maintaining Airbnb’s unique Culture in China
[08:09] How to foster a commitment to China from the global Team?
[12:00] Key finding for Airbnb’s success
[15:38] Managing the relation with head-quarters
[16:12] Evolution of Airbnb’s China strategy
[18:03] Creating a China-specific brand
[22:38] Challenge foreign entrepreneurs are facing in China
[26:00] Is there an opportunity for foreign companies in China?

Many thanks to our guest Benjamin Qiu; host Oscar Ramos; producers  Eva Shi and  Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

Share, subscribe, review, enjoy!

Follow us on LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/company/the-china-startup-pulse/

Email us: [email protected]

Welcome everybody to another episode of the China Startup Pulse. We have a special one today. We are back with our Chinaccelerator 8x8 Global Speaker Series with eight influential speakers from all over the world to share their insights for startups in eight minutes.

In today’s episode, we bring not one but two incredible investors to share their insights in building and investing in global businesses, bringing different perspectives drawn from their own careers.  Stay tuned for insights from Shannon Kalayanamitr and Per Welinder.

Show Notes:

02:30: Shannon Kalayanamitr

12:05: Per Welinder

Our first guest is Shannon Kalayanamitr, Partner at Gobi Partners. She has made her mark in the tech world building businesses such as Orami/ MOXY, Lazada, and PPTVThailand] and driving the ecosystem through tech investments as CEO of the IKIGAI GROUP and 5GCatalyst Technologies, in Southeast Asia.

In today’s talk, Shannon brings a very unique approach to viewing M&As and marriages. Like marriage, M&A is a long-term commitment. And like marriage, M&A also requires a lot of work in order to be successful. Shannon gives some interesting insights that are applicable to both marriages and M&As.

Our second speaker is the legendary skateboarder Per Welinder, who many people may know from the movie, Back to the Future. Per is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist focusing on culture, lifestyle, and consumer technologies. He has co-founded influential skateboard and lifestyle brands including Birdhouse, Flip, Baker, etc.

In today’s talk, Per shares his story of how he transitioned his career from being a professional skateboarder, starting his own skateboard company, to becoming a venture capitalist and investing in lifestyle companies and the lessons he learned along the way. He is sure to entice the audience with his entrepreneurial insights as he has done with his skills on the skateboard.

Many thanks to our guest Benjamin Qiu; host Oscar Ramos; producers  Eva Shi and  Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

Share, subscribe, review, enjoy!

Follow us on LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/company/the-china-startup-pulse/

Email us: [email protected]