Social media is one of the most influential means of communication in the world. It helps brands to engage with customers quickly and effectively. However, it also brings potential risks.

Social media management platform KAWO recently published a report analyzing social media crises in China during the last 10 years. It shows that there were 42 brands crises in 2019 in China, while only 1 incident happened each year from 2009 to 2013. Geographic sovereignty and politics are apparently the dominant causes for these crises.

We invited Alex Duncan, co-founder of KAWO, in today’s podcast to share his insights about the report, how to manage social media in China, and most importantly how to prevent PR crisis.

Find KAWO’s report here: kawo.com/bcr

Design thinking. Lean startup methodology. Validation. Market Research. These concepts are familiar to every founder, and they are vital to any company’s success, but so few startups are able to do them well.

Today’s guest, Alvin Chiang, is an exception. A veteran of internet giants NetEase, Alibaba, and Renren, Alvin founded Gululu in 2014. Gululu enhances children’s wellness through smart IoT technologies, and their first creation is a smart water bottle designed to help children cultivate healthy habits.

In this episode, we discuss the extensive market research that went into the birth of Gululu and the ongoing development of the product. During the course of the conversation, we were thrilled to discover that Gululu is a perfect use case for design thinking.

What’s next for OTAs?

The growth of online travel users and transactions in China has slowed in the past two years. Has the online travel market hit a bottleneck? Where will the next opportunities arise? As one of the industry titans, Trip.com Group (formerly known as Ctrip) is at the forefront of experimenting with new initiatives to maintain its competitive position in the market.

As Head of Innovation at Trip.com Group, Margaret Feng, shares how they are exploring new offline products and planning how to acquire more customers in lower-tier cities. More importantly, she explains how Trip.com Group is embracing the concept of open innovation by investing in and collaborating with startups. Stay tuned to learn how Trip.com Group runs pilot programs with startups and tests new concepts and technologies in the market.

What factors are RMB investors considering that USD investors are not? What can the difference between Chinese VC firms and American VC firms tell us about the innovation and entrepreneurship lanscape in these countries? As venture capital funding slows down in China, how is this affecting entrepreneurs?

Today we are lucky to have the perfect person to answer these questions: Victor Chao, Partner of the RMB fund at SAIF, a leading private equity firm in China. Victor has lived and worked all over the world, and so he has a great perspective on how understanding VCs can help us understand the state of innovation in a country.

This is the third and final episode from our Chinaccelerator 8x8 Speakers Series. Twice a year, we invite some of the most accomplished and thoughtful members of the China startup ecosystem to share key lessons for startups in eight minutes or less.

Our theme for this episode is partnerships and relationships in the startup world. We have three fantastic speakers who will talk about this theme from different angles: Jill Tang, Shameen Prashantham, and Catherine Kang.

Today we’re bringing you the second episode from our Chinaccelerator 8x8 Speakers Series. Twice a year, we invite some of the most accomplished and thoughtful members of the China startup ecosystem to share key lessons for startups in eight minutes or less.

Our theme for this episode is investor insights. We have three amazing speakers with very different perspectives on Asia investment: Shirley Mao, Paul Meyers, and Katherine Lui.

We have a special episode today, it’s the Chinaccelerator 8x8 Speakers Series! Twice a year, we invite eight speakers to share key lessons for startups in eight minutes or less. This time, our speakers include serial entrepreneurs, investors, professors, and more. They are some of the most accomplished and thoughtful members of the China startup ecosystem, so we are thrilled to bring you their insights.

This week, the theme is entrepreneurship lessons. We have three talks from successful founders who have experience building companies from the ground up. Stay tuned for insights from T.R. Harrington, Sarah Keenlyside, and Guy Sivan!

Navigating the world of B2B in China is tough business, especially when you are dealing with giant state-owned enterprises. It can be even more difficult when you are foreigner. As a result, most foreign entrepreneurs focus on the B2C space, yet a few have found the key to creating successful B2B companies.

One of these businesspeople is today's guest, Olivier d'Arros. Olivier started his career in venture capital, and then co-founded 4 technology companies, all in B2B applications. He is now Managing Partner at MAVIE Technologies, an investment banking boutique with a focus on cross-border transactions in healthtech and industry 4.0.

In his many years working in China, Oliver has seen firsthand how B2B has evolved, and there's plenty to learn from his experience. Join us for this week's episode, as we dive into China's B2B landscape.

To many people in the West, China is thought of as a copyer rather than an innovator. However, according to today's guest Richard Turrin, there are many areas in which China is out-innovating even the most advanced Western countries. Richard says "Innovation is really about people and how they relate to new technologies," and in China, both companies and people develop and adopt new technologies at an astonishing rate—they are "some of the best users of technology on the planet."

This innovation isn't only happening on the tech side, but also in the corporate space. Richard is the former head of IBM’s Cognitive Studio and author of the book ‘Innovation Lab Excellence’, with over 20 years experience in innovation in both China and the West. During this conversation, he also shares insights on why innovation labs become ineffective. Big corporates all around the world are spending massive amounts of resources to connect with startups. Yet, there are still doubts about the tangible impact of many innovation labs.

Tune in for a provocative conversation on the mistakes innovation labs make, and the differences in attitude towards innovation in the West and China.

Every technology has a human impact. Live streaming is certainly no exception. In China, live streaming platforms have connected millions of viewers with a small number of idols who receive massive amounts of donations—but at what personal cost?

Hao Wu, knows more about the societal impact of live streaming than anyone else on the planet. In his award-winning documentary, People’s Republic of Desire, he explores why live streaming has been so successful in China and examines the effect that these platforms have on both viewers and creators.

In this episode, Hao Wu and Chinaccelerator Managing Director Oscar Ramos cover all aspects of live streaming: from the business models and the future prospects of the industry, to the social consequences of this technology.