Tech Buzz China 英文科技评论 podcast

26:01

Richard (Rich) Turrin is the international best-selling author of “Cashless - China’s Digital Currency Revolution” and “Innovation Lab Excellence.” He is an Onalytica Top 100 Fintech Influencer and an award-winning executive previously heading fintech teams at IBM following a twenty-year career in investment banking. Living in Shanghai for the last decade, Rich experienced China going cashless first-hand. Hear about: What is the Chinese digital yuan, and why it is different from cryptocurrencies; What are the different levels of anonymity the digital yuan offers; Will the Chinese digital yuan help break the duopoly of the Alibaba and WeChat mobile payments in China; How will the Chinese digital yuan impact the world; Rich's personal experience using the digital yuan in Shanghai; How does PBOC enable the digital yuan to be used without internet access? Find Rich on LinkedIn, Twitter, and check out his book Cashless on apple books, Amazon, and any other digital bookstores across the planet.…

1
Ep. 84: 2021 China Internet Report with SCMP CEO Gary Liu 41:22

3 years ago41:22

41:22

Episode 84 of Tech Buzz China features co-host Rui Ma in conversation with Gary Liu, CEO of the South China Morning Post on the hottest five trends shaping the China internet industry in 2021: tightening regulations, bumpy roads for IPOs, overseas expansion plans, shifting demographics, and growing private domain traffic. SCMP is a leading news media company that has reported on China and Asia for more than a century with global impact. Also, Tech Buzz China is growing! We have a Livecast series of interviews with entrepreneurs and investors in China tech — TBC Livecast. It's mostly recorded live in front of our new paid community Tech Buzz China Insider. For TBC Insiders, we have an active Discord server, a forum, and regular members-only events. If you're really into China tech, join us starting with the quiz. In addition, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, tweet at us at @techbuzzchina, and write to us at team@techbuzzchina.com. As always, our transcripts are available on our website, as well as at pandaily. Thank you to our teams at SupChina and Pandaily, and especially to Bryce Ye, and Kaiser Kuo. If you enjoy our work, please leave us an iTunes review! They do matter and we appreciate it so much!…

1
Livecast #12: Andy Tian, Copy from China, Exporting Live Social Apps Globally 31:08

4 years ago31:08

31:08

Andy Tian is the founder of Asia innovations group, a company that has a suite of live social apps, e.g. Uplive, Lamour, SupreFans with more than 410 million registered users located in over 150 countries and regions worldwide. Andy has strong opinions about what's the best way to take the most interesting things he has seen in China and throughout Asia, and export them to the rest of the world. Hear about: How China's uniquely firewalled off environment created a different ecosystem, thus resulted in different revenue models of social apps in China; What is Operation aka Yunying (运营) in China, and how it works differently in western countries; The twin trends of globalization & localization in social apps; Why Andy implemented multi-regional operations from the start; What he believes are the unique catalysts for the explosion of livestreaming eCommerce in China, and why it hasn't taken off just yet in the U.S. or anywhere else.…

1
Livecast #10: Richard Xu Investing in Chinese Entrepreneurs Going Overseas 22:08

4 years ago22:08

22:08

Richard is the co-founder of Grandview Capital, a VC fund focused on investing in Chinese entrepreneurs who do business outside of China (AKA go overseas or "chuhai" in Chinese). He's based in Silicon Valley and his co-founder is in China. Hear Richard explain: Why he started to look at Chinese entrepreneurs who are attacking overseas markets back in 2015; How the nature of the manufacturing & technology industry makes it easier for these companies to globalize; How he believes in applying the "time machine" paradigm to his investments How it's no longer about copying but localizing Why Chinese companies favor Southeast Asia and Latin American markets What he's investing in these days. Find Richard on LinkedIn!…

1
Livecast #8: Ray Hu of Blue Lake Capital on China SaaS 39:50

4 years ago39:50

39:50

Ray Hu is the founder of Blue Lake Capital, an early stage VC fund in China with about $700mm under management. Blue Lake specializes in SaaS investments. Hear Ray explain: The current state of Chinese SaaS, enabling factors and requirements for success Case study: Jushuitan (JST), an ecommerce SaaS and their sales strategy Enterprises' willingness to pay and other differences in the Chinese market Internationalizing…

1
Livecast #9: Albus Yu of China Growth Capital on China DTCs 21:16

4 years ago21:16

21:16

Albus Yu works for China Growth Capital, a venture capital fund that manages about 1.4 billion dollars. He specializes in consumer internet, consumer brands, and services investment. Hear Albus explain: The reason that he had started to invest in consumer internet and e-commerce marketplaces; What the growth of DTC brands in China looks like these days; The differences that the DTC brands are growing between the US versus in China right now, and Why it is a better opportunity from both the consumer side and supply & manufacturing side; and he gave the Chinese "Lululemon" as an example; The reason that Albus recommend brands to start off online and build offline presence as well; He perceives the potential for some Chinese new brands to expand internationally as positive.…

1
Livecast #6: Ron Cao, A 20 Year China VC on Semis, SPACs and Blockchain 28:36

4 years ago28:36

28:36

Recorded March 9, 2021. Ron Cao has spent 20 years as a venture capitalist in China. He first went there during the 90s when semiconductor investing was a thing, but then found himself investing in consumer internet startups such as ByteDance and Pinduoduo because that sector yielded the greatest return, and is now finding himself investing in semiconductors again. We talk about the impact of the pandemic, if deeptech investing is really taking off, investing in returnees, blockchain, antitrust, & SPACs!…

1
Livecast #4: Deep Dive into Agora $API with Kevin Xu of Interconnected.blog 29:47

4 years ago29:47

29:47

Recorded Thursday 2/10/21. Kevin, now at Github, is the founder of interconnected.blog, a bilingual newsletter on the intersections of tech, business, money, geopolitics, and US-Asia relations. We go over: What is Agora? It's a platform as a service company. The origin story of Tony Zhao the CEO who was previously at WebEx & then CTO at YY, where he achieved substantial success. Agora's technology & business model, which is developer facing and self service and usage based What happens when there are more Chinese companies like Agora building infrastructure technologies? Does innovation have to be something super different / sexy or can it also be arising out of battle-tested scaling-up technologies, like Agora? And finally, Agora's latest acquisition, another Chinese company called Easymob.…

1
Livecast #7: Jordan Berke, former Walmart China Head of E-Commerce 27:06

4 years ago27:06

27:06

Jordan Berke spent fifteen years transforming the world's largest retailer into a truly digital organization by leading strategic alliances with JinDong and Tencent. He's now the founder of Tomorrow Retail, a consulting company. Hear about: How does Walmart China outstrip the US in four major categories? What are retailers in the U.S. focusing on right now? How do retailers turn their business into a platform? What are the differences in the China and U.S. business ecosystems? What myths persist in the industry? And finally, what's the future outlook?…

1
Livecast #5: Boyu Hu of XVC: Early Kuaishou Investor 25:57

4 years ago25:57

25:57

Early on in VC, Boyu Hu was at DCM China and worked on the Kuaishou deal. Now he has his own fund XVC, managing $600mm, focusing on consumer internet. I asked what's changed in the last ten years and: Why's he continuing to invest in consumer internet? Is rural China where it's at? Are the big platforms more important? Are the big funds more important? How's he adjusting his strategy? Our conversation was recorded Feb. 24, 2021 over Clubhouse app and Zoom.…

1
Livecast #3: Growing 2 Unicorns at China Speed with Jack Yang 36:36

4 years ago36:36

36:36

Recorded live Feb. 10, 2021. Q&A with Jack Yujie Yang who led the growth of Mobike, China's leading bikesharing company (acquired by Meituan for $2.7Bn in 2018) as VP of Growth & Product. He grew the company from 4 to over 200 cities, ~500k to over 30 million trips per day. He then joined MissFresh, one of China's grocery delivery unicorns ($3Bn+ valuation) as Chief Growth Officer. He is now working on his own e-commerce startup. We talk about: Growth in the US vs. China Specific growth tactics used at Mobike and MissFresh, such as red packets, WeChat mini programs, WeChat group chats, etc. Not all of these tactics can work in the US, why? Aside from favorable macroeconomics, some weaknesses Jack perceives in the Chinese market. Difference in (work) culture, equity incentives at Chinese startups Why Jack is working on e-commerce as his next opportunity Can mini programs be used effectively to test out new ideas? How do you find cofounders and employees? How do you hire, what do you look for? Influencer fatigue -- how are Chinese platforms combating this, if at all? Lots of great things about China speed, but what are the drawbacks?…

1
Livecast 2: The Business of Cybersecurity in China with Ed Tsai, ex-QiAnXin 25:43

4 years ago25:43

25:43

Recorded Feb. 5, 2021. On this livecast, we chat with seasoned investor Ed Tsai on the business of cybersecurity in China. Here are the main points: Ed's self introduction of how he ended up in China and some background on his most recent employer, QiAnXin, the largest pureplay cybersecurity company in China, a $15Bn market cap company that is at about 5,000 employees. Overview of the sector & history of the regulations that have really accelerated the industry. Hint: now that you can personally get fined or go to jail for having lax security software, executives and governments are buying quality solutions and willing to pay the price. Consequences of the US-China decoupling and its effects on Chinese cybersecurity businesses. Ed thinks the entire space falls roughly into 4 categories and gives the representative players for each. Differences between US, China and Israeli companies in cybersecurity. Are we going to see foreign companies enter China successfully? What about Chinese companies going abroad? China seems to have a cost advantage. We end with some innovations Ed observes in the Chinese cybersecurity ecosystem but also overall business environment in China. Some of these things are out of necessity, such as training up talent.…

1
Ep.82: Q1 China E-commerce update with BigOne Lab 30:55

4 years ago30:55

30:55

One of Tech Buzz China’s partners is leading alternative data firm BigOne Lab, who is one of the best sources on detailed operational data for large Chinese tech companies. In Tech Buzz's quarterly update, BigOne's head of research, Robert Wu, joined Rui for a live webinar going over everything interesting among the big China ecommerce players, which are now Alibaba, JD, Meituan, Pinduoduo, Douyin, and Kuaishou. We begin with the latest in community group buying, the group-buying next-day pickup business model that is sweeping over China. We go over market shares, warehousing efficiencies, and best-selling items and explain what that means in terms of strategy across the big players. We also talk about how much progress the Douyin and Kuaishou platforms have made in ecommerce, but point out their weaknesses vis-a-vis Alibaba, who is still the towering giant in the space. We touch upon what GMV breakdowns look like across the platforms, and finally end up with some interesting observations you might not have expected regarding creator engagement in Douyin and Bilibili. If you are new to these companies, we highly suggest checking out episodes 28, 55, 57, and 80 on ByteDance, Kuaishou, Bilibili, and community group buying, respectively. Although we edited the audio to make it easy to follow along, such events in the future are best experienced live, as much of the data is presented visually! To sign up for future events like this, please go to www.techbuzzchina.com.…

1
Ep. 81：What it takes to win in China 26:40

4 years ago26:40

26:40

Episode 81 of Tech Buzz China continues our series of audio experiments, and features co-host Rui Ma in conversation with Wharton professor Karl Ulrich on his latest book, Winning in China. The book was co-authored with Wharton Global Fellow Lele Sang, and presents eight carefully researched case studies of successes and failures, from Amazon to Sequoia Capital.…

1
Ep. 80: Community (grocery) group buying: The next must-win market in China? 46:01

4 years ago46:01