4 ms·

It's cool to see Cheku mentioned on here, they just celebrated their 5 year anniversary a month or so ago. Does seem like a lot of the cooler projects have left

by 50CNT 10y ago

It's cool to see Cheku mentioned on here, they just celebrated their 5 year anniversary a month or so ago. Does seem like a lot of the cooler projects have left for greener pastures though, and the people that are left, ah well.

kyledrake 10y ago
There's an endless supply of people to fill in those that leave. Mind you, the greener pasture might just be Shanghai. Shanghai looked a lot more developed than Beijing, but I was only there for the day, so I didn't have time to really explore the city. It reminded me a lot of Hong Kong in many respects. I'd love to spend a month deep diving into the tech scene there.
- 50CNT 10y ago
  From what I've heard the more mature startups with interesting end up moving to Shangdi for cheaper office space. That kinda leaves the has-beens and never-will-be's behind, but I guess that's to be expected. Even the founder of the place has started another venture a bit down the street. We met some interesting people during their anniversary party, but then we met an equal share of idiots, so my guess it's 50/50 right now. The was this one guy drilling us on the market for phone cases in the US/Europe (f..k if we know, you're trying to compete with local retailers or something?), who didn't understand the concept of stealth mode, for example. Not to say that there aren't promising founders out there, they just don't go to the events. Probably better that way, since the C2C attitude isn't just restricted to copying from abroad.
  - kyledrake 10y ago
    > We met some interesting people during their anniversary party, but then we met an equal share of idiots, so my guess it's 50/50 right now. Oh there was plenty of that when I was there, but that was part of the fun for me. Easy to write off the dude I spent half an hour talking about Chinese punk rock bands with as a goober, but maybe he's the one that kicks off the Chinese version of Sub Pop records. I gave up a long time ago on the idea of ever knowing who's going to do the awesome stuff. Almost more often than not it's the people I thought were the idiots and the lunatics. Actually what I really liked about the people I met was that they were real characters with a lot of personality. I expected a lot of blank faced marketing pitch lameness but didn't get much of that (I'm sure it's there though).

by 50CNT 10y ago

kyledrake 10y ago

There's an endless supply of people to fill in those that leave. Mind you, the greener pasture might just be Shanghai. Shanghai looked a lot more developed than Beijing, but I was only there for the day, so I didn't have time to really explore the city. It reminded me a lot of Hong Kong in many respects. I'd love to spend a month deep diving into the tech scene there.

50CNT 10y ago
From what I've heard the more mature startups with interesting end up moving to Shangdi for cheaper office space. That kinda leaves the has-beens and never-will-be's behind, but I guess that's to be expected. Even the founder of the place has started another venture a bit down the street. We met some interesting people during their anniversary party, but then we met an equal share of idiots, so my guess it's 50/50 right now. The was this one guy drilling us on the market for phone cases in the US/Europe (f..k if we know, you're trying to compete with local retailers or something?), who didn't understand the concept of stealth mode, for example. Not to say that there aren't promising founders out there, they just don't go to the events. Probably better that way, since the C2C attitude isn't just restricted to copying from abroad.
- kyledrake 10y ago
  > We met some interesting people during their anniversary party, but then we met an equal share of idiots, so my guess it's 50/50 right now. Oh there was plenty of that when I was there, but that was part of the fun for me. Easy to write off the dude I spent half an hour talking about Chinese punk rock bands with as a goober, but maybe he's the one that kicks off the Chinese version of Sub Pop records. I gave up a long time ago on the idea of ever knowing who's going to do the awesome stuff. Almost more often than not it's the people I thought were the idiots and the lunatics. Actually what I really liked about the people I met was that they were real characters with a lot of personality. I expected a lot of blank faced marketing pitch lameness but didn't get much of that (I'm sure it's there though).