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12,000 startups are being created every day in China [video]
- dvcc 10y agoSo I had some doubts about the numbers at first, but a rough quick calculation 12,000 / (1.3 billion (people) * .5 (age 25-54)) ≈ 0.002% of the available population a day creating a startup (1 in every 50,000) which does not seem too far-fetched, but still seems a bit high to be honest.
- da02 10y agoI agree. Even if the number is too high, I wonder about the failure rate.
- contingencies 10y agoI probably only know a few hundred people here, and there are multiple people starting businesses every year. 1 in 50,000 per day = 1 in ~136 per year. That sounds about right, perhaps even low.
- da02 10y agoWhat do they use as investment? Personal savings, loans, VC?
- contingencies 10y agoIt depends upon the business. Startup costs are low here, and some businesses can be started and validated without registration or paperwork. Where formalization is a requirement, agents can register companies as cheaply as a couple of hundred USD, including a registered address. At the low end people use personal savings and family loans. At a slightly larger level friends tend to group together to reach capital requirements. Banks do loan but that's not as easy as it once was. There are government payouts available for specific sectors or achievements (eg. if patents are registered). At the higher end there is strong VC availability right now due to a combination of a relative crisis of faith (ie. no longer "it can never lose money!") in real estate, which was formerly the medium to long term investment traditionally considered most accessibly performant, and increased controls on cross-border capital flight.
- credit_guy 10y agoI would think on average a startup starts with more than one person.
- kitschshrine 10y agoit's a lie, much like the government's made up 7% gdp growth. "China's liaoning province admitted that it inflated GDP figures from 2011 to 2014" https://qz.com/887709/chinas-liaoning-province-admitted-that-it-inflated-gdp-figures-from-2011-to-2014/ https://qz.com/887709/chinas-liaoning-province-admitted-that...
- mrslave 10y agoAnd the US government saying there's no inflation, and the recovery is real - just a little slow. ;-)
- golergka 10y agoNow, this I have been wondering for a long time. Chinese authorities, especially on a local level, aren't exactly known for their honesty and high moral standards. At the same time, they have a lot of incentives to over-report one particular metric: population. So, when people are talking about 1,5 billion Chinese - have these figures have been independently confirmed, or just taken straight from the government?
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y agoGenuinely curious, what are the incentives to over report population?
- idra 10y agoIf anything, the population is underreported. The 2010 census claims it to be around 1.3 billion. But it is widely accepted as a fact that a lot of people in the countryside weren't included in the census because they are "illegal" additional children born in defiance of the one-child policy, and were simply hidden in the basement during the census, as they are hidden whenever any government check is happening. Those children have no rights, and according to the state, don't exist. They can't go to school, get an official job, etc. They are born to do physical work on the fields and support their parents into their old age.
- gentro 10y agoThe documentary is about fintech innovation driving funds to SMEs. Their examples are a kiwi producer, a fish farm, and and a steel welding company. What they probably mean is that 12,000 businesses are started in China every day, not necessarily all tech related.
- edblarney 10y agoYes, that's it. And a 'business' can also be a small contractor, a restaurant, or a hot-dog stand. It's difficult to firmly characterize the difference between such business, but it's probably not fair to refer to every registered business as a 'startup'.
- webmaven 10y agoThey are startups. It's just that the use of the term has shifted a bit. What we commonly refer to as "startups" today used to be called "high-growth-startups" (or -ventures, or -businesses) not so very long ago, and the unqualified noun referred to any new business. This is actually important, as, for example, the Lean Startup methodology is applicable to almost any new venture that has to deal with significant uncertainty, regardless of whether it is a high-growth venture, an SME such as a VAR, or non-tech lifestyle businesses.
- edblarney 10y agoThat the lean startup methodology might in some ways apply to other businesses, does not make them startups. A single hot-dog stand will not do something that will change the economy, create 10K jobs, attract investment, R&D etc..
- webmaven 10y ago> A single hot-dog stand will not do something that will change the economy, create 10K jobs, attract investment, R&D etc. Well, you never know (McDonald's was once a small new company). But that was exactly what I was trying to say: High-growth companies with those sort of ambitions are not the only kind of startup. ALL new ventures are startups, even if they are not intended to grow much, and including quite a few that aren't even necessarily businesses at all.
- kitschshrine 10y agoAnd yet just today... "China’s sprawling Internet censorship regime is harming the country’s economic and scientific progress, a senior official has said in a rare public rebuke of long-standing Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policy." http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2017/03/05/2003666158 http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2017/03/05/20... So they're creating alot of startups that probably are just copycats of what's existing. Not surprising considering China really isn't known for innovations.
- da02 10y agoIt's most likely a jumping off point. One way to learn painting in the past was to copy paintings made by masters. So as the economy develops and more people can afford to take risks, innovations should be more common (unless govt intervention prevents it). Japan was viewed upon as a land of where cheap imitations were made.
- kitschshrine 10y agoThey've been saying that since the Chinese economy opened up in the 80s, really opened up in the 90s, really really opened up in the 2000s. so far, nothing in 35 years. Japan had so much innovations in way less time. meanwhile China's economy is crashing down, and no more free FDI to fuel any further progress
- Gabriel_h 10y agoI have a few anecdotal examples of innovations or ways in which China is 'ahead': Bike-sharing startups like MoBike: Use their app to find the nearest bike to you, scan a QR code to unlock it, and pay $0.15 for one hour. You can then ride and leave it anywhere. Admittedly, this is only possible due to v. high urban density (China has ten cities with populations greater than London and similar urban densities). I can order a lot from the same app/interface: takeaway, cinema tickets, hotels, flights, KTV, etc. I find this more convenient than UK. Mobile payment penetration here is very high here too. Almost everyone pays for almost everything with WeChat. Andrew Ng argues that AI progress in China is underreported due to the language barrier. I suspect this insight applies more generally to all the innovations happening here. *https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/china-artificial-intelligence/516615/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/china...
- DragonTurbino 10y agoIt will be interesting to see how this will evolve and what impact will have it on US in long term.
- ausjke 10y agomy friend went there and opened one a few years ago. it's relatively easy to open one I was told but it's super painful to close that, even though it's a small startup and financially clean, still do not know how he could ever close that, many procedures, paperwork, financial check everything he could not supply as a small player,etc. it's just impossible to close i guess. basically it looks to me that it's a easy-in-hard-out process.
- kitschshrine 10y agoWhy would any foreigner want to start a company in a country that - requires you to give up 50% to a local partner - blocks internet access to foreign websites (thus foreign customers) - can take away your business/assets/customers without trials - treats foreigners as a mere entity to steal technology and clients from?
- juice_bus 10y agoLikely the allure of so many potential customers that are otherwise inaccessible. (I'm not saying this is a valid reason to ignore the above, but potentially why some might.)
- lacampbell 10y ago100% agreed. I would never try and start a business in such a poisonous environment.
- whelp 10y agoStarting a business needs you to be able to focus on a single topic more than weeks at a time. Not everyone is cut out for entrepreneurship.
- candiodari 10y ago> - requires you to give up 50% to a local partner Chinese people. Don't worry, there's plenty. And they do not have subpar education, nor do they have less intellectual capacity (hell, most studies seem to conclude they have -just a little- more, on average). > - blocks internet access to foreign websites (thus foreign customers) I think you'll find that inbound commerce (or outbound commerce) is not all that restricted. Some movies, yes. And newspapers (do they still exist ?). That's about it. Other than that, it's not more restricted than in the west (ie. large amounts expenditures require government/irs/... approval one way or the other). > - can take away your business/assets/customers without trials It's not like Japan did it for 30 years before that ... By the way ... how did the US get started on it's industrial base ? Could it have been copying ? > - treats foreigners as a mere entity to steal technology and clients from? Again, one wonders how Europeans think about America in this area. Yep, similarly.
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- ericjang 10y agoFascinating documentary, thanks for sharing! If I understand the business model correctly, isn't the 融道网 (Roadoor.com) 9.00% guaranteed principal + interest mentioned in the documentary considered a Ponzi scheme in the US? How much of the return on capital is from RoI from investment into companies (exits, dividends, organic growth) vs. just increased AuM from (老百姓) investors? Edit: just realized that businesses requesting loans to 融道网 are screened prior to being made available to public investors, so the deal flow appears to be capped by available business opportunities.
- smaddox 10y agoYeah, just like mortgage lending prior to 2008 was "capped" by the availability of quality debtors.
- chvid 10y ago9% pa. guaranteed by a bank is amazing in a strong currency like the yuan. It is not a ponzi per se since money actually flows into real investments; however there is probably a "systemic" risk at the level of the Chinese economy as whole. Funny that this excellent documentary is made by the Japanese national TV channel NHK. There is quite contrast between China and Japan today wrt. speed, risk taking and growth.
- pcurve 10y agoDefinitely skip the first 20 minutes or so. It's not just funding VR and what's obviously bubble areas. Many investment companies are also making small loans to traditional industries like metals, farm, and fisheries. Fascinating stuff.
- cscurmudgeon 10y agoNot all businesses are "startups", the way the word is used in the West.
- OJFord 10y ago'Startup' comes from 'start[ing] up a business' - so 'startups are being created' doesn't strictly speaking make sense, or at least calling them 'startups' isn't adding anything not provided by 'created'. You're right that the word is increasingly used to refer to SMEs that have been around years, are stable, etc. - just because it carries weight as a buzzword. But in the context of newly created businesses, that's exactly in-line with proper/original meaning. (A better title might have been '12,000 new startups in China every day', or equally '12,000 businesses created in China every day'.)
- cscurmudgeon 10y agoThere are a few thousand created a day in the US. Given that the US population is a third and more developed/mature, these numbers seem normal.
- webmaven 10y agoYou have it backwards. The term "startup" today commonly refers to what used to be called a "high-growth startup". The fact that new businesses such as SMEs that are not intended as high-growth ventures are using the term is a reversion to the original meaning. It is no bad thing to have to start using the "high-growth" qualifier again.
- omarchowdhury 10y agoHere's an example of one of these startups: https://www.aiadvertising.org/ https://www.aiadvertising.org/
- zhte415 10y agoIs this a parody? It is far better done than most China serious companies with similar delusions.
- omarchowdhury 10y agoI saw it listed on AngelList today.
- zhte415 10y agoWow. This is Time Cube level stuff. And knowing China FinTech, as currently working in it, they could well believe themselves. -- A broadcast message to investors: There is no China magic. There is little innovation. There is a lot of following buzzwords. There is a lot of iteration, however. Follow the companies that iterate, even on old-tech like mainframe. They're where value happens.
- idra 10y agoExtremely accurate and valuable comment, thank you. Your "broadcast message" explains the situation very concisely.
- aisofteng 10y ago> online marketing optimization articulately convolutes into data analysis stream Beautiful.
- IndianAstronaut 10y ago>commodiously embeds into Business Intelligence which creates an interurban transcendence Wow.
- myprasanna 10y agoI feel like these people have no clue what they are investing in. Is it just me? :)
- sametmax 10y agoAgain i feel like everybody is using the word start up to replace the word business.
- mrweasel 10y agoChina really has to do something to create their "own" companies. If they do nothing and the rest of the world decide to move manufacturing, either home or elsewhere, China will go back to be a poor 3rd. world country. No one will be keeping their business in China due to not being able to get the same quality else where, or because the Chinese is such nice people to do business with. So it makes sense to fund and encourage new businesses so China can start to produce their own product, and not just be a big factory (and copy machine).
- idra 10y agoChina has never stopped being a poor third world country.