Today we brought in Walter Benadof, COO of DefinedCrowd, and Aya Zook, their General Manager of Asia-Pacific. DefinedCrowd is Microsoft for Startups backed leading AI and big data startup focused on crowd-sourcing data collection of speech and language. They focus on providing language data for established corporations looking to expand their horizons. Now, they are looking to expanding onto the global market. They already have offices in Seattle and Japan and is looking to expand into China through Microsoft. In today’s episode, Walter and Aya will share their experiences and insights from China trip. 

1:26 What propelled them to start a company like DefinedCrowd?

2:12 How did they come up with the name DefinedCrowd?

3:17 Their experience in China and why they decided to come at this time

5:57 Go China dinner

6:51 Specific example, understanding challenges in expanding the business

7:53 Differences between US and China innovation ecosystem

9:00 Is China big enough of a market

9:33 Future Plans for DefinedCrowd

10:33 What suggestions would they giver foreign startups similar to them?

11:39 What does the Chinese people want?

13:14 How they identify Microsoft as a valuable partner

14:00 Differences and similarities between Microsoft for startups in Shanghai compared to Seattle

14:39 Takeaways from CES Asia