CAST-USA GNY Entrepreneurship Series: Start up business in US vs. China
Guest Speech Highlights
Dr Fang
Work Experience: Siemens, from Postdoctoral to Analyst, to Senior Analyst, to Project Manager, to Head of Research & Development
Why do you want to start a business?
Two reasons. One is that it is often difficult to do meaningful work, even at a Fortune 500 Company. There is limited vision for each position. Second, for Chinese, it’s questionable whether we will retire here after working in an American company.
Three Questions
I always ask myself three questions: Are you able to work until retirement? Do you want to work until retirement? Will your firm want you to work there until retirement?
If the answer of any of the above three question is “No”, then we must think “What’s my next job?” Even we live a comfortable life, we can often reach a plateau in our careers or risks. We you reach 50, you face a crossroad. Your ability to learn new things will decline, your ability to work will decline but your salary will go up. The technology is evolving so quickly; you won’t have the time or the energy to catch up to the younger generation. Therefore, you must always self-evaluate if you are able to work until retirement.
How to choose a good city to achieve your start-up dream?
The start-up environment and start-up trend give everyone a good platform. The opporunties are unprecedented. To evaluate the cost of human capital in a city, it’s important to evaluate both the talent and the salary expectation.
Dr. Shi Hong
Work Experience: Bell Laboratory, start-up was acquired within a year of founding, expert on communications and consumer retail, former Baidu Map CEO
Market Evaluation
How big is the market? How much market share will I reach?
Technology and Product
Technology and product are separate. What is your product? What problems does it solve?
Among start-ups, there is a saying: Early stage is about team, middle stage is about marketing and late stage is about finances. However, Dr.Shi believes regardless of the stage, the team is the most important factor. People is essential while product and service are ne
cessary.
Market and Demand
If a product is ahead of the demand, it may fail. When the demand is not there and the benefit to price is not high enough, there will not be a good turnout. (For example, cell phones were not in demand 20 years ago.) Therefore, when there is demand in the market, to quickly create and launch the product is the only way to gain early advantage. However, when demand is booming, the quality and price to quality ratios are the most important.
Market and Innovation
When designing a product, it’s important to follow the demand of the market. Some innovations will not bring profit. The innovator must ask himself/herself “what will my product bring customers?” “What problems will it solve?” “What will it change?” Prod
ucts that are designed to cater to customer demands will always have market.
Execution
During Angel investment, the execution of a team is more important than a product. To quickly launch a product will catch more attention. Other companies cannot copy you even they know your idea.
Mark Tang
Work Experience: New York Health Capital
Are you suitable for
start-up?
Will your family support the passion for startup? Can you form a competitive team?
Lujia Jia
Mr. Jia introduced the 2017 Entrepreneurship Competition in Hang Zhou, Zhejiang Province, where headquarter of Alibaba is located. There are a large number of venture capital firms focused on early round of investments, something that is significantly different from VCs based in Beijing and Shanghai, most of which focus on later round of investments. The organizing committee and the HangZhou city sincerely welcome entrepreneurs from overseas to consider HangZhou as the base of the busin
ess activities in China.
Guests Introduction
Mr. Lujia Jia
Senior Economist, Service Center for Experts and Overseas Education of HangZhou.
Mr. Jia spent most of his career helpi
ng experts and talents with overseas education start business in HangZhou. He is also the chief representative of HangZhou in silicon valley.
Dr. Tong Fang
Dr. Fang is the founder and CEO of DreamView Digital Technologies Ltd. Prior to founding DreamView, Dr. Fang was a Senior Key Expert Scientist at Siemens, leading the effort of applying 3D modeling and graphics to the manufacturing of hearing aid, simulation of artificial joints, and medical image processing. He had published more than 50 papers and holds more than 100 patents (of which 64 are US patents). He was a Ph. D. of Rutgers University, where his research focused on 3D printing. Mr. Fang was a permanent member of CAST and the Chair of CAST in 2011.
Dr. Hong Shi
Dr. Shi is a well-known angel investor. He was voted one of the Top 100 Investor in Technologies in 2014 and 2015. The VC firm he founded, Redstone, as one of the Top 60 VCs in Technologies 2014, and Top 100 Internet + Technologies VC in 2015. He is known for extremely high returns for his investments. Mr. Shi was Chair of CAST. He obtained his Ph. D. from Columbia University.
Dr. C. Mark Tang
Dr. C. Mark Tang is currently head of WT Global Capital Inc., an international merchant banking and advisory firm specializing in financing and advising high tech enterprises in US and greater China. Dr. Tang has worked in Wall Street in different capacities including equity research, investment banking, and asset management since 1994 including Morgan Stanley and Paine Webber (now part of Credit Suisse).
Edit: Jingyan Zhang / Translate: Guotao Lu / Will Sun, Jingyan Zhang / Translate: Andy Kong / April 14, 2017