Asia Startup Pulse

PK 是一位在内容、社交媒体和直播领域的印度创业者和天使投资人，他的创业公司InstaLively和Pulse曾被腾讯的Hike Messenger收购。之后，他前往中国走出自己的舒适圈，探索新的机会和挑战。目前他为Various Startups担任咨询师，帮助中国和印度企业和风投理解印度和印度尼西亚市场，同时担任中国第一家加速器中国加速的导师。

在本期播客中，PK分享了他将创业公司卖给腾讯的过程，以及其对中国和印度市场的分析和理解，例如中国企业如何在印度市场本土化以及中国的数据驱动模式是否在印度仍然行得通等。

PK is an Indian entrepreneur and angel investor in social network, content and live-stream space who built, grew and finally sold his startups InstaLively and Pulse to Tencent-owned company Hike Messenger. After selling them, PK came to China for new opportunities and challenges where he started being a consultant for Various Startups which helps China-India Startups and VCs in building the next billion Internet users in Indonesia and India, as well as mentoring founders for Chinaccelerator.

In this episode, PK shared his journey about selling startups to Tencent and also delivered insights about the China-India startup and investment ecosystem, including the challenges to localize Chinese companies in India and how the Chinese data drive model works in India, etc.

Show Notes: 

1:00 Introducing PK 

1:37 Introducing InstaLively 

2:51 Process of Tencent Buy-Out 

6:57 Experience with Mergers and Acquisition 

9:28 Transition with Hike Messenger 

10:10 Difficulties from culture differences 

11:50 Due Diligence 13:30 Alignment with the new team 

15:02 Moving to Beijing and the experience in China 

17:20 China-India tech ecosystem 

20:45 The Belt and Road Initiative in China 

23:01 Advantages and obstacles of Chinese investment and startups in India 26:05 Challenges for Chinese companies to localize in India 

28:20 What works in China doesn’t necessarily work in India 

30:19 Will Indian companies be able to come to China? 

31:38 PK’s future plans 32:20 Contact PK (Full name: Prakhar Khanduja)

Feel free to leave a comment and start a conversation with us! If you have an ideal guest whom you would like to listen to, please let us know and we'll do our best to realize it!

Many thanks to our host Oscar Ramos and guest PK, producer Eva Shi, editor David and Geep, organizer Chinaccelerator and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

英语流利说由国内领先的人工智能教育公司LAIX在2013年发布，是一款人工智能驱动的英语学习平台，其于2018年9月在纽约股票交易所上市。

本期China Startup Pulse，我们很荣幸邀请到了英语流利说的联合创始人、首席科技官兼成人英语负责人胡哲人。他在本期播客中分享了英语流利说的从最初的6个月到后来上市的增长故事，以及他从管理5个人至200多个人的团队管理经验。他认为，兼具同理心和策略性思考是团队管理的必要要素。

截止2018年6月，英语流利说已有超过8380万用户，720万月活跃用户，在175个国家运营。平均每用户每日使用时长超过1小时。

Liulishuo is an AI-powered English language learning platform operated by the AI firm LAIX founded in 2012 and it went public on New York Stock Exchange in Sept 2018. We are lucky to have Ben Hu, Co-Founder, CTO and Head of Adult English of Liulishuo to share the first 6 months of starting the company, their early successes, the growth, as well as his insights about managing a team from 5 to 200 people. “Empathy and strategic thinking together make the management easier.”

As of June 30, 2018, Liulishuo has over 83.8 million registered users and 7.2 million average monthly active users in 175 countries. The average daily time per user is 60+ minutes.

Show Notes:

0:00 Summary 

1:24 Introducing Ben Hu 

2:13 What is Liulishuo? 

4:25 Artificial Intelligence’s Evolution and Change 

6:56 Ben Hu talks about the product launch and first version of Liulishuo 

9:05 Length and process from ideation to first launch 

10:44 Ben Hu shares about Liulishuo’s beta experience 

11:15 Engagement with Liulishuo’s beta user experience 

11:55 Metrics used in Early Days 

13:19 Ben’s advice for past-Ben, in the Early Days of Liulishuo 

15:16 Practices for entering Chinese Markets 

19:17 Management in Liulishuo’s expansion 

22:10 How Hu developed management skills? 

24:00 Decision-making in Management 

25:36 Ben Hu’s management framework for unlocking potential 

28:34 Exciting technology in Education Space 

30:43 Wrapping Up and Closing Thoughts 

31:35 Contact Information and Job Postings 

31:52 Close Off and Partner Appreciation

Feel free to leave a comment! If you have an ideal guest whom you would like to listen to, please let us know and we'll do our best to realize it!

Many thanks to our host Oscar Ramos and guest Ben Hu, editor David and Geep, producer Eva Shi, organizer Chinaccelerator and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com.

Drew Kirchhoff是一位出色的产品经理，曾发行全球下载量超过1亿的移动游戏，之后成为一名创始人，联合创办了英语学习产品Yoli，用户可以直接通过微信小程序在线随时随地学习英语。在这期播客中，他分享了如何抓住微信崛起的机遇、创立公司、开发语言学习产品以及不断学习技术以发展产品的过程。

Drew Kirchhoff is a product guy. After studying finance in the USA and working for a diamond investment firm in China, Drew became one of the most successful product managers to publish the game Crossy Road in the market achieving more than one hundred million downloads.

“A great product manager makes a great CEO”. After being a product manager, he co-founded Yoli which allows users to learn English directly through WeChat. He shared how he and his co-founders found the market opportunities driven by the advent of WeChat, how they launched the company, developed Yoli WeChat mini-program and later, he explored deeper in the technical area to improve the product.

Show Notes: 

1:20 Drew’s background and his experience in China 

5:50 Working in a mobile gaming company 

7:50 Brought the game Crossy Road to the market 

10:28 Performance of Crossy Road worldwide - 9/10 kids were playing the game 

11:38 Product management to being a WeChat Mini-program entrepreneur

12:02 How WeChat changes Chinese business 

14:00 Formation, MVP launch and goal of Yoli 

21:40 Importance of Mini-programs for User Experience 

24:00 Relationship with funding and development 

26:30 Competing with huge competitors in the market 

26:52 Exciting developments in Yoli’s language education service 

30:50 Understanding Conversion Rates - from product to business 

33:30 Drew Kirchhoff’s contact information

Feel free to leave a comment and start a conversation with us! If you have an ideal guest whom you would like to listen to, please let us know and we'll do our best to realize it!

Many thanks to our host Oscar Ramos and guest Drew Kirchhoff, editor David and Geep, producer Eva Shi, organizer Chinaccelerator and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

与搜狗语音交互中心技术总监陈伟探讨语音人工智能技术的突破和前景 

人的感知系统是多方位的，声音是目前在人工智能领域应用较为广泛的主题之一。搜狗在2012年成立语音识别团队，探索智能语音、机器翻译等科技，是中国语音技术的领先者。这一期播客，我们邀请到搜狗语音交互中心的技术总监陈伟，介绍搜狗翻译产品背后的技术突破，包括语音识别、机器翻译和语音合成等。陈伟及其所在的团队还开发了知音os系统，践行着”语音交互+知识计算”战略。这一技术的边缘还延伸到了硬件设施、视觉识别等领域。

收听这期播客，还能获得免费票参加NewCo上海创新嘉年华2018，参观商汤科技、哔哩哔哩、IDEO、新车间、唐硕创新体验咨询等公司，与公司高管见面交流。票数有限，先到先得。https://chinaccelerator.com/newco-shanghai-2018/

The system of human perceptions is multi-faceted and voice is one of the perceptions that people pay the most attention to in Artificial Intelligence areas. Sogou established a speech recognition team in 2012 to explore technologies such as intelligent voice and machine translation. Now it is obviously a leader in the Chinese voice technology field. 

In this episode, we’ve invited Chen Wei, the Chief Scientist of Sogou Voice Interaction Technology Centre, to introduce the technological breakthroughs in speech recognition, machine translation and speech synthesis behind Sogou translation products.

Chen Wei and his team also developed the Zhiyin OS system which is a system with multi-modal perception capabilities including speech recognition, handwriting recognition and lip reading ability. The edge of this technology also extends to areas such as hardware and visual identification.

Perks for our listeners: You can find a promotion code to get free tickets for NewCo Shanghai in this episode. Limited tickets and first come, first serve.

https://chinaccelerator.com/newco-shanghai-2018/

Show notes:

01:23 Introduce Chen Wei

02:14 His interest in voice AI technology

03:17 Simultaneous translation demo in Chinese, English and Spanish

04:56 The job of the Voice Interaction Technology Centre

04:49 The technology breakthroughs of the translator

06:09 The technology challenges of speech recognition in 42 languages   

12:44  How does the Sogou input method work

15:10 Explain the meaning of “Zhiyin” in Chinese

15:39 The reason that Sogou creates a new system Zhiyin

16:40 Realize AI technology in different Sogou products and develop Zhiyin system for different partners

18:24 Why Sogou produces a translation hardware device

19:37 Other interfaces for translation except for the voice

21:21 Future projects, such as lip recognition and virtual anchor

24:07 Potential partnerships

24:41 The gap between the industry and the universities

25:22 How to contact Chen Wei

本期播客我们采访拼多多早期投资人Nicolas du Cray分享其投资拼多多的理由以及其对拼多多商业模式的理解和评价。

You must have heard of the Chinese social commerce legend Pinduoduo, the fastest-growing mobile shopping platform featuring “team purchase” and social sharing function in China which became a $23 billion empire in under 4 years.

For this week’s episode, we invited Nicolas du Cray, an early investor of Pinduoduo and Partner at Cathay Capital - Innovation Fund to talk about Pinduoduo and Social Commerce in China. Nicolas shared how he decided to invest in this company, analyzed the strengths of Pinduoduo, and the challenges of internationalising the social commerce model. He also answered many questions collected from our listeners.

Show Notes: 

0:00 Welcome Back to China Startup Pulse 

1:26 Introducing Nicolas du Cray 

2:06 Du Cray’s experience in China 

3:16 Shift from Engineering to Venture Capital 

3:49 What is Cathay Capital? 

4:28 Importance of Venture Capital to Multi-National Corporations 

5:22 Cathay Capital’s Investments and Trends in Chinese Innovation 

7:26 Value of Foreign Venture Capital to Chinese Startips 

8:30 What is Pinduoduo? 

9:07 Social Commerce, Pinduoduo, and WeChat ecosystem 

11:44 Cathay Capital Innovation and their Investment in Pinduoduo 

12:47 Audience Question: History of Pinduoduo and Cathay Capital 

15:22 Audience Question: Pinduoduo’s Innovation in E-Commerce 

17:54 Growth Trigger of Pinduoduo 

19:07 Pinduoduo’s Business Model and Competition in China 

20:15 Audience Question: Challenges for Pinduoduo’s model going Abroad 22:05 Future of WeChat’s platform 

23:06 Audience Question: Future of Pinduoduo 

23:36 Does Nicolas use Pinduoduo?

24:31 Signing Out and du Cray’s Contact Information

Feel free to leave a comment and start a conversation with us! If you have an ideal guest whom you would like to listen to, please let us know and we'll do our best to realize it!

Many thanks to our host Oscar Ramos and guest Nicolas du Cray, editor David and Geep, organizer Chinaccelerator and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

本期播客我们邀请中国加速第7期校友创业团队Shopal 创始人郭璐分享

Shopal的成长故事以及其早期在加速器的经历。2018年9月，国际新奢品牌集团Shopal获近2亿元B+轮融资。

As an early pioneer in cross-border commerce, Lu Guo chose to leave a multinational company and jump into the jungles of entrepreneurship. She shared her belief behind building her startup Shopal which aims to help global brands to build a strong presence in China through a data-driven process. She also shared her early stage business life in an accelerator - Chinaccelerator. Here is a quote from her: “The scary piece is that you only believe in system”.

Shopal is a solution provider for online and offline retailers in China which has secured RMB200 million (US$29.17 million) in a series B+ round in September 2018. Chinaccelerator SOSV invested in Shopal as one of Batch 7 companies.

Show notes: 

01:06 Introduce Lu Guo 

02:00 First experience in cross-border commerce space 

03:37 What is Shopal and stories behind Shopal 

07:23 The concept of “TP” 

07:57 Lu’s motivation to leave the comfortable zone 

10:31 Differences between being an entrepreneur and working in corporates 13:47 As a Vice President in Johnson&Johnson 

16:30 What triggered Lu to jump into the jungle of entrepreneurship 

18:50 Change and opportunities in the commerce industry 

22:29 How Shopal helps global brands in China 

24:20 The biggest technology breakthrough for Shopal 

26:23 Data driven process 

27:23 The future of Shopal 

29:11 Business and life in Chinaccelerator 

31:00 Contact Shopal

Feel free to leave a comment and start a conversation with us! If you have an ideal guest whom you would like to listen to, please let us know and we'll do our best to realize it!

Many thanks to our host Oscar Ramos and guest Lu Guo, editor David and Geep, organizer Chinaccelerator and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

这期播客，我们与ofo前全球合作伙伴负责人畅谈中国企业走向海外的挑战与机遇。

Many opportunities and challenges are found in the startup world under the impact of globalization. Today, we have invited Omid Scheybani, former Global Head of Partnerships and Business Development at ofo to share the challenges of Chinese business going international from the perspective of management, product and brand, and also opportunities for overseas talents working in China.

Ofo is a leading bike sharing company in China, which was valued at up to $2 billion and had over 62.7 million MAU (monthly active users) in 2017.

Show Notes: 

0:00 Welcome Back and Introduction 

1:50 Introducing Omid Scheybani 

2:50 How Omid came to China and why he stayed 

4:45 Chinese perceptions on Global Markets 

8:15 Chinese Technology Going Global and shift in Chinese exports 

12:27 Diversity in Chinese Business and need for International Talent 

14:57 Omid’s Advice on working for Chinese companies 

17:55 Challenges in Internationalization for Chinese Businesses 

19:25 Adapting to Chinese Business Norms and Treatment of International Talent 

20:25 Perspectives of Chinese products in International Markets 

26:34 Lightning Round Questions 

29:19 Spread of Chinese Products to Foreign Markets 

33:31 Omid’s Contact Information

Feel free to leave a comment and start a conversation with us! If you have an ideal guest whom you would like to listen to, please let us know and we'll do our best to realize it!

Many thanks to our host Oscar Ramos, Ryan Shuken, and guest Omid Scheybani, editor David and Geep, organizer Chinaccelerator and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

冥想正念训练对创业者的重要性

Mindfulness as a tool for businesses has been growing in the West and is now starting to come to China. Brandon Mehrgut, of Shanghai Mindfulness, explains what mindfulness meditation is and how beneficial it is to the Chinese start-up culture and community. Practicing mindfulness can help improve attention, focus, and stress. It has also been practiced by important people and businesses, such as Steve Jobs and DiDi. Join us, and listen to how mindfulness can improve your business.

Shanghai Mindfulness is an English-speaking mindfulness organization. It was founded by Brandon Mehrgut and has become China’s largest mindfulness community. Shanghai Mindfulness helps overworked, stressed out people find peace and balance.

Show Notes: 

0:04 Introducing Brandon 

1:40 Explaining Mindfulness Meditation 

2:36 Why is Shanghai interested in mindfulness? 

3:09 Mindfulness application to Entrepreneurs 

4:18 How can entrepreneurs practice mindfulness? 

5:12 Reasons for entrepreneurs to seek mindfulness training 

7:00 Silicon Valley-style mindfulness and China 

9:37 How do hard-working, Chinese start-ups adapt mindfulness? 

14:07 Who are the pioneers promoting mindfulness? 

15:19 Mindfulness Arrives to China 

17:40 Shanghai Mindfulness’s work with DiDi and other Chinese Companies 19:38 How does management implement mindfulness? 

22:25 What is the data behind mindfulness? 

25:55 How to contact Brandon Mehrgut

Feel free to leave a comment and start a conversation with us! If you have an ideal guest whom you would like to listen to, please let us know and we'll do our best to realize it!

Many thanks to our host Oscar Ramos, guest Brandon Mehrgut, editor David and Geep, organizer Chinaccelerator and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

中国科技企业对企业可持续化发展日益关注，比如饿了么的RELAB实验室，美团对环境保护计划的支持。围绕共享单车模式的争议之一，就是怀疑其是否真正引领绿色的生活方式。在中国，有许多行业，许多机会，能够让你试验和执行你的可持续发展理念。Richard Brubaker是企业可持续发展领域的专家，曾在多个大学开讲。这期播客，他会带来他的看法。

Chinese companies are exploring many initiatives to achieve business sustainability, including Ele.me‘s RELAB and Meituan’s emphasis on environment protection. One hot topic is that are Chinese bike sharing companies truly leading the sustainable lifestyle or just creating the waste. You can see many opportunities in different industries in China to experiment and implement your idea of sustainability. Today, we have Richard Brubaker, expert in business sustainability, to share his perspectives.

Collective Responsibility is a Shanghai-based firm to design and develop corporate responsibility, sustainability, and leadership strategy for corporates, nonprofit and academic institutions.

Show notes: 

01:20 Introduce Richard 

02:06 What makes Shanghai special 

03:44 Why sustainability is a very important thing in China 

06:19 How sustainability in China is relevant with the rest of the world 

10:44 Is sustainability leading the born of China innovation 

13:05 Chinese consumers are amazing early adopters. Is Shanghai a perfect lab for sustainability? 

15:13 Is the booming E-Commerce industry in China sustainable? 

18:16 How do you see that ele.me launched ele.me Lab because of the impact of sustainability 

22:05 Are these bike sharing companies truly leading the sustainable lifestyle? 

25:00 Mobike’s GPS functionality helps improve the sustainability 

28:08 How consumers think about sustainability 

34:14 How can a founder start thinking about sustainability in the user experience and core of the company 

38:00 In the space of sustainability, which industries in China are more friendly for foreigners 

40:20 How to contact Richard

Feel free to leave a comment and start a conversation with us! If you have an ideal guest whom you would like to listen to, please let us know and we'll do our best to realize it!

Many thanks to our host Oscar Ramos, guest Richard Brubaker, editor David and Geep, organizer Chinaccelerator and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com

新零售对传统零售行业的冲击以及国际传统品牌面临新零售的挑战和变化。

The buzzword “New Retail” has swept through China for over one year. What challenges does it bring to the traditional retail industry and how can international brands cope with the new retail concept? Today, we have invited Stephane Monsallier, founder of shops for the future. He shared with us his views on the very exciting concept that was born in China and is now rapidly spreading to the rest of the world.

Shops of the Future helps international brands navigate the new innovation in the retail space in china.

Show Notes:

1:27 Introduction 

3:13 How things have changed in China

4:30 Changes in retail industry and how mobile payments are disrupting the industry in China 

7:08 International brands coming to learn in China 

8:56 Relevancy for all brands or brands that have presence in China 

10:00 China is not an easy market 

11:50 Hema experience in China 

13:17 New retail wave of startups 

15:39 Not too much about technology, but mindset change is key 

17:00 Embrace the wave of new retail 

19:10 The China speed 

21:31 Importance of business thinking 

22:45 Traditional Chinese retailers 

24:49 Convenience stores 

26:41 New retail changes consumer habits 

28:28 How to reach out to Stephane Monsallier

Feel free to leave a comment and start a conversation with us! If you have an ideal guest whom you would like to listen to, please let us know and we'll do our best to realize it!

Many thanks to our host Oscar Ramos, guest Stephane Monsallier, editor David and Geep, organizer Chinaccelerator and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com