Why Take Your Entrepreneurship to China?
The question “What are the factors that should encourage you to pursue entrepreneurial activities in China?” originally appeared on Quora. Here’s an answer put forth by TaoTao, the co-founder of GetYourGuide.
Business:
・Cheap labor. One of the many reasons why Google keeps an office in China is because IT talent is still comparably cheap. But if you listen to stories from Chinese entrepreneurs, it’s incredibly difficult to find and attract those of the entrepreneurial type unless you give out a lot of equity or your name is Kai-Fu Lee. Having a Chinese partner is essential though.
・Large & growing markets, even if you go into niche verticals. Opportunities are especially strong in mobile, more so than internet in general, both given larger and faster mobile penetration and already crowded online markets.
・安い労働力。Googleが中国に拠点を置いている理由のひとつは才能あるIT関連労働者をいまだに比較的安く雇えるからだ。しかし、中国の起業家の話では、そういった起業家タイプを探したり惹きつけたりするには相当の資本を投入するか、貴方がKai-Fu Leeでなければ難しい。ただし、中国人のパートナーは必須である。
・ニッチでも垂直的でも巨大で成長著しい市場。インターネット全般よりもモバイル市場は特にチャンスに溢れていて、大規模で急速なモバイルの広がりが既にオンライン市場を賑わせている。
Personal
・The entrepreneurial environment. You’ll often get to meet people who are creating firsts, be it the first whiskey bar in town, the first modern art village, or the first party on an aircraft carrier. Very often, it’s something that already exists in the West, but it’s nice to get to know some people that are shaping the cultural and business landscape of a city and country.
・If you fall in love with the place. As difficult as it is to describe this point, it’s probably the most important reason for anyone to stay in China. As an entrepreneur, you need to be passionate about your product and customers, which is something you can’t do if you don’t like the place to begin with. I can only recount my personal Beijing experience, which was a combination of constantly feeling a little bit out of place yet completely absorbed in the thousands of things going on at the same time. If you live in Beijing, there’s no day or night off. The Economist wrote a great article about being expat in general, and most Beijing expats that I spoke to could identify with the sentiments described there:
To quote the most telling passage “An American child psychologist, Alison Gopnik, when reaching for an analogy to illuminate the world as experienced by a baby, compared it to Paris as experienced for the first time by an adult American: a pageant of novelty, colour, excitement. Reverse the analogy and you see that living in a foreign country can evoke many of the emotions of childhood: novelty, surprise, anxiety, relief, powerlessness, frustration, irresponsibility.
For entrepreneurs and adventurers, China is one of those rare places with a good mix of exotic estrangement, openness to foreigners, and economic opportunities.
「アメリカ児童心理学者Alison Gopnik女史が、赤ん坊によって体験された世界に光を照らす例えを、大人のアメリカ人によって始めてパリで体験された目新しさ、色、興奮の連続といった経験と比較した。
この例えをさかさまにすると、外国で暮らしていると、子供の頃の目新しいことや驚き、不安、安心、力のなさ、落胆、無責任と言った多くの感情を思い出すことがわかる。」
起業家や冒険家のためには中国はエキゾチックな疎外感、外国人への開放性、経済的好機がうまく融合した稀有な場所の１つだ。
