Digitally China

We need your help to create Season 2 of Digitally China!

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As many of our loyal listeners might have felt, Digitally China has been taking a short break. But don't worry, we'll be coming back with Season 2 in no time.

Throughout the 26 episodes of Season 1 we've really appreciated all the support and feedback from our fantastic listeners who have tuned in to the bi-weekly series. Thanks to this feedback, Season 2 of Digitally China will see a few changes. We will fine-tune the format a bit and use each episode to deep-dive even more into the exciting Chinese tech ecosystem.

If you've listened to the “The War of a Thousand Groupons” or “From 8 to 800 Million Internet Users,” these episodes give you an idea of the direction we want to take for the new Season 2 — but we still want to hear your thoughts and ideas on what topics to cover and how we can do better.

This episode of Digitally China is about Brian Wong, his experiences from being part of the early days of Alibaba but at the same time also a story about how it was to first-hand be part of how China grew from almost nothing to the largest internet market in the world. 

The location is a hotel in San Francisco, the year is 1999. The internet hype is in its peak. United States at this moment have over 100 million internet users, 10 times more than the much larger country in the East, China. While his friends are leaving school to join the company that seems to be the next big thing, Google, Brian is instead meeting a fairly unknown entrepreneur at that time with the first name Jack who enthusiastically is talking about his company, Alibaba.

As many of his friends on the west coast of the US, he believes that technology will change the world. But instead of staying in his hometown and the Middle Kingdom of innovation, Palo Alto, he moves to Hangzhou to work with e-commerce in country that barely have internet users.

In this episode we’re listening in on Brian’s story, reflecting on the learnings from the growth of the Chinese technology sector, what we can learn from it and how it will impact the rest of the world.

Guests:

· Brian Wong, VP at Alibaba

Hosts: Tom Xiong & Eva Xiao

Producer: Jacob Lovén & Katarina Andersson

Digitally China is a subjective but independent depiction of the tech scene in China. Audio clips used in the podcast have not been distorted nor taken out of context and are included for commentary and educational purposes and thus shall be considered “Fair Use”. Digitally China is powered by RADII (www.radiichina.com), an independent media platform exploring China from all angles.

In the latest Digitally China we’re looking back on history. Meituan-Dianping is China’s clear market leader within group buying, offline discovery and online-offline services today. But it wasn’t that clear a few years back. In fact, the opposite was true, with the American giant Groupon entering China backed by a powerful partner in Tencent. In a hyper-competitive environment, there were suddenly thousands of group-buying services all fighting for the position that Meituan has today.

For a sense of what that time was like, we interviewed Tim He, who was a senior executive of Gaopeng, the Chinese subsidiary of Groupon when they entered the market. Tim, who took a break from Harvard to go back to China to take on the daunting task of trying to win in such an enormous, sprawling market, takes us through some of the incredible stories from that exciting period.

As a seasoned investor at one of Europe’s most renowned venture firms, Kinnevik, Tim also reflects on learnings from the Chinese technology sector as well as the success factors behind today's “super apps” of China.

Topics covered in this episode

How Groupon entered the Chinese market

The group-buying industry

How to operate in a market with thousands of competitors

What lessons can you learn from China that are applicable for Western markets?

The success factors behind super app companies such as Meituan-Dianping, Alipay and more

Guests:

· Tim He, investor at Kinnevik and previous senior executive of Gaopeng, the Chinese Groupon.

Host: Tom Xiong

Producer: Jacob Lovén & Katarina Andersson

Digitally China is a subjective but independent depiction of the tech scene in China. Audio clips used in the podcast have not been distorted nor taken out of context and are included for commentary and educational purposes and thus shall be considered "Fair Use". Digitally China Is powered by RADII (www.radiichina.com), an independent media platform exploring China from all angles.

In the latest episode of Digitally China, Tom is joined by Jill Tang, co-founder of Ladies Who Tech, an influential Chinese organization focusing on entrepreneurship and gender diversity in China.

As someone who works in the unique cross-section of tech, diversity, multinational companies, and market-entry in China, Jill shares her observations and thoughts on how multinational companies can be more gender inclusive in China, and how China's younger and more international workforce is changing work culture in the country.

Topics covered in this episode:

- Ladies Who Tech & gender diversity at companies in China

- Entrepreneurship, different types of entrepreneurs and startups

- What multinational companies in China do well and can be better at

- Market-entry for foreign brands to the complex Chinese market

Guests:

· Jill Tang, co-founder Ladies Who Tech

Host: Tom Xiong

Producer: Jacob Lovén

Digitally China is a subjective but independent depiction of the tech scene in China. Audio clips used in the podcast have not been distorted nor taken out of context and are included for commentary and educational purposes and thus shall be considered “Fair Use”. Digitally China is powered by RADII (www.radiichina.com), an independent media platform exploring China from all angles.

Companies around the world are latching onto social commerce, but in China, where mobile payments are ubiquitous and consumers are extra wary of fake goods, the integration between social media and online shopping has been especially fast.

That doesn’t mean it’s a silver bullet for brands though -- or even the multi-billion dollar internet celebrity industry, where influencers are tasked with advertising products without appearing too commercial.

In this episode of Digitally China, we’ll discuss Xiaohongshu or RED, which is often compared to Instagram and Pinterest.

The fast-growing app, which is popular among young, female urbanites in China, has over 85 million monthly active users and is valued at $3 billion following a $300 million funding round last year led by e-commerce heavyweight Alibaba.

But the e-commerce side of RED is still behind more price-conscious competitors like Pinduoduo — and the app hit its latest roadblock earlier this week, when it was pulled from Chinese app stores.

We’ll cover some of the challenges the app is facing as it tries to grow its e-commerce business – monetizing its vibrant user community -- and manage the thousands of influencers on its platform.  

Episode summary:

· Xiaohongshu backstory and introduction

· Xiaohongshu vs. competitors

· Xiaohongshu’s content quality problem

· Success cases of brands working with influencers

· Cosmetics: an industry where Chinese brands have really optimized social media and ecommerce

Guests:

· Elijah Whaley, chief marketing officer at Parklu, an influencer marketing tech firm in China

· Huo Qiu, a fashion and cosmetics influencer with over 1 million followers on Weibo and about 30,000 followers on Xiaohongshu

Hosts: Eva Xiao and Tom Xiong

Producer: Jacob Lovén

Digitally China is a subjective but independent depiction of the tech scene in China. Audio clips used in the podcast have not been distorted nor taken out of context and are included for commentary and educational purposes and thus shall be considered “Fair Use”. Digitally China is powered by RADII (www.radiichina.com), an independent media platform exploring China from all angles.

In China’s fast-growing tech industry, it’s easy to focus on exciting new products and businesses while overlooking one of the most important elements of any company: the talent.

Inthis episode, we look at how the recruiting process at Chinese tech firms does -- and doesn’t -- differ from that of multinational firms, and how China's new wave of tech professionals view their career options.

EpisodeOutline:

Incentives/disincentives for working at multinational firms vs. Chinese internet companies

The importance of 996 or working overtime

Probation and the concept of “hire fast, fire fast”

Unstructured vs. standardized hiring practices

China’s gender discrimination proem

Guests:

Vincent Wang, a senior associate at executive recruiting firm Atkins & Associates

Ben Jiang, who runs the India bureau of Krasia, an Asia-focused tech media platform 

A Zhen, a product manager and team leader for front-end development at a Shanghai-based internet company

Hosts: Eva Xiao and Tom Xiong

Producer: Jacob Lovén

Digitally China is a subjective but independent depiction of the tech scene in China. Audio clips used in the podcast have not been distorted nor taken out of context and are included for commentary and educational purposes and thus shall be considered “Fair Use”. Digitally China is powered by RADII （www.radiichina.com）, an independent media platform exploring China from all angles.

Corporate offerings such as secondary listings and IPO’s from Chinese tech companies are accelerating. This year alone we have seen 161 such events, which is already 72% of entire last year.

Why do Chinese tech companies turn to public markets to raise capital? Why are the Hong Kong stock exchange increasingly popular? And how does the domestic Chinese stock market fit in all this for tech companies?

In the latest episode of Digitally China we are interviewing the co-host of China Tech Investor podcast James Hull to get an understanding of the latest trends and what all of this means for Chinese technology companies.

Topics covered during this episode:

The rush to IPO from tech companies around the world

Differences between Hong Kong and US public markets

The future of domestic public listings in China

Hosts: Eva Xiao and Tom Xiong

Guest: James Hull, founder of HullX and co-host of China Tech Investor podcast

Producer: Jacob Lovén

Digitally China is a subjective but independent depiction of the tech scene in China. Audio clips used in the podcast have not been distorted nor taken out of context and are included for commentary and educational purposes and thus shall be considered “Fair Use”. Digitally China is powered by RADII (www.radiichina.com), an independent media platform exploring China from all angles.

Chinese telecoms giant Huawei is one of China’s largest success stories in tech.

No other domestic tech firm has been ae to grow its business overseas around the world and beat the competition the way the Shenzhen-based company has, despite keeping a relatively low profile.

But over the past six months, Huawei has found itself increasingly in the limelight and under puic scrutiny. After the arrest of one of its top executives in December and an escalating trade war, the Chinese telecoms company has become a symbol for both China’s technological rise and ambition -- and the threat that poses to Western countries like the US.

To take a closer look at the company -- at a more human-scale -- we decided to dive into the people and unique ‘wolf’ culture of Huawei, from its dark history of employee suicides to inspiring “war” stories, where company staff brave earthquakes and civil war to serve clients.

So what makes the company tick? How does it produce both die-hard loyalists and Huawei-haters? In this episode, we explore the following topics:

Huawei’s management system and how it works

Founder Ren Zhengfei’s influence on Huawei

Militaristic Huawei slogans and sayings

Company training and “boot camp”

The trade-offs of a “wolf” culture

Host: Tom Xiong and Eva Xiao

Producer: Jacob Lovén

Guest: Shen Rui, an ex-Huawei employee who worked there 2011-2015

Digitally China is a subjective but independent depiction of the tech scene in China. Audio clips used in the podcast have not been distorted nor taken out of context and are included for commentary and educational purposes and thus shall be considered “Fair Use”. Digitally China is powered by RADII （

www.radiichina.com

）, an independent media platform exploring China from all angles.

Together with Jonas Leijonhufvud and Sven Carlsson, the authors of a new book telling the inside story about Spotify and the fight for global dominance in music streaming we are discussing if ByteDance actually have a shot at beating the giants.

ByteDance, the company behind the huge International success TikTok, or Douyin as its called in China is really on the offense. Fueled by the position as the 3rd most downloaded app in the world 2018 and a valuation of 75 billion dollars, ByteDance have recently both announced plans to enter messaging to directly compete with Tencent and Facebook as well as launching a smartphone.

And now, reported first by Bloomberg ByteDance seem to have far advanced plans on getting into music streaming to compete with Spotify, Tencent Music and Apple Music. Already positioned among hundreds of millions of teens around the world with a short video and music app - this actually doesn’t seem that crazy.

In this episode of Digitally China we are discussing:

TikTok’s current position on the market

The challenges of monetizing through music streaming, learnt from Spotify and Apple Music

How music streaming companies work with record labels and how that would impact TikTok’s ambitions

The validity of TikTok’s presumed music streaming service and how their position among teenagers around the world could support that

Host: Tom Xiong

Producer: Jacob Lovén

Guests: Jonas Leijonhufvud and Sven Carlsson, reporters at Dagens Industri and authors of the book Spotify Untold

Digitally China is a subjective but independent depiction of the tech scene in China. Audio clips used in the podcast have not been distorted nor taken out of context and are included for commentary and educational purposes and thus shall be considered “Fair Use”. Digitally China is powered by RADII (www.radiichina.com), an independent media platform exploring China from all angles.