4 ms·
I visited Eric Migicovsky’s presentation in Hong Kong a year ago dedicated to YC China. He is a founder of Pebble, YC partner, and helped Qi Lu a lot in establi
by zkid18 7y ago
I visited Eric Migicovsky’s presentation in Hong Kong a year ago dedicated to YC China. He is a founder of Pebble, YC partner, and helped Qi Lu a lot in establishing YC China.
Although China VC investments have almost surpassed US, there were only three projects from Great China (Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan) in YC. They wanted to find out how they can bring more local talents to SV.
Unfortunately, it seems they haven’t succeeded much. I think the main reason is that Chinese entrepreneurs rarely want to target the international market. They don’t really know much about it, they don’t have the network and they have a huge domestic market, where they feel much more convenient.
The state of early-stage investment is different in China, compare to US or Europe. You won’t find here many events or meetups where angles or early-stage VC connected with entrepreneurs. They don’t actually like sharing events of that kind. For example, the largest community of such kind in Shanghai is founded by non-Chinese. The only way to reach a well-known VC fund is your network. A warm introduction helps multiples your chances for fundraising dramatically. Probably YC failed with establishing a good network among early-stage VC funds in China, and moreover, they don’t have a strong brand there.
The Chinese market is not mature enough. Maybe in US you eager to make a blue ocean project, but in China entrepreneurs mostly driven by higher returns. China is all about scale - even a bad product may have a huge IRR. However, never underestimate the local competitors. If the company managed to get a series A fundraising and got coverage in media most probably they surpassed 30-40 completely identical companies. Such tight competition brings some innovative ideas - WeChat, Doyin, VipKid. The western world can study these cases.
Unfortunately, there's been mostly negative coverage in media about China nowadays. I worked in Chinese startups and in Chinese academia. People are bright, high-skilled, and motivated. There are great visioners like Allen Zhang or Frank Wong. Only a few entrepreneurs take advantage of CCP regulations. Many of them claim that the party negatively affect the investment and business climate in the country.
- archibaldJ 7y agoThanks for the intel! This is super great to know. It definitely helped to put things into more perspective. So kudos for that! I saw an interview with Qi the other day (back when it was still YC China) and Qi mentioned about funding ambitious start-ups that play the long game and are in early stage but have little or no connections in China which mean these start-ups would otherwise be ignored by Chinese investors. Do you think Qi's MiraclePlus will continue to do that in the spirit of YC? I saw an article coverage of YC China's last demoday (17 Nov) and noticed that most start-ups graduated this year have had their angel rounds before entering YC China, which could be due to the reason as you've described - YC China failing to establish a good network among early-stage VC funds in China, thus looking out more for post-angel companies. Or it could also be because there were just too few aspiring early-stage start-ups in China. Perhaps funding early-stage start-ups in China imposes a much higher risk than say in the Valley. Anyway do you think it would be possible for someone who has okay track record but no direct connections with angels and VCs in China to get their early-stage start-up angel-funded? Will it change a thing if it is an early stage with MVP that has thousands of active users? What about an early stage in artsy-style (i.e. as a small self-publishing media company related to the tech/product being developed) with a self-media WeChat/Weibo account that has tens of thousands of visitors every week? I'm one of those people that ended up moving back to China and looking to start a blue ocean project here. The early-stage investment landscape in China really is not looking good right now, just wondering how that will change over the next few years (especially in China where things are so fast-paced!) So would also love your opinions on that! Thanks!
- zkid18 7y ago> I'm one of those people that ended up moving back to China and looking to start a blue ocean project here. I assume you're fluent in Chinese, that helps a lot. As for angel-funding without connection, it could be a bit tuff. Also sometimes it helps to go through your current Chinese network and to ask whether someone is envolve or know people who involved in PE and VC. Btw, which city are you based? > What about an early stage in artsy-style Try to reach https://www.parklu.com/ https://www.parklu.com/ or similar KOL companies. They should be more familiar with the state of the business. But there've been a lot of media-incubators recently. >I saw an article coverage of YC China's last demoday (17 Nov) Do you have a link? P.S. You can reach me in twitter for more questions https://twitter.com/kidrulit https://twitter.com/kidrulit
- archibaldJ 7y agoThanks for the pointer! Here is the link of the article coverage: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/KdfV4hF4qz8Ti1XL0i_S3A https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/KdfV4hF4qz8Ti1XL0i_S3A (it's in Chinese though) I'm based in Guangzhou at the moment.
- zkid18 7y agoThanks. I can read a little Chinese. Unfortunately, I don't know much about GZ. However, I think in SZ the entrepreneur community is slightly more developed
- archibaldJ 7y agoI see. Yeah SZ definitely a more vibrant city. But am stuck in GZ for a while. It's alright. Will figure out something. I'm connecting with people in the contemporary art scene here. They are pretty nice.