China's Internet and Media Market 2012: Perspectives from Five Chinese Internet Entrepreneurs
Date: 10 February 2012, Friday
Time: 2.00pm to 5.30pm
Venue: NUS School of Computing
Seminar Room 1 (SR1), COM1 Level 2
Location of map and driving instructions here
Register at: https://register.comp.nus.edu.sg/entseminar/
Perspective 1
The Dilemma of Multinational Companies in the China Internet Industry
Speaker:
Henry Hua
Founder & CEO
IDFsoft Co Ltd
Synopsis:
Many multinational Internet companies, including Google, Ebay and Yahoo, have faced difficulties in the China market after entering it. Google has since suspended its Chinese operation. Ebay sold its China company to tom.com, a local portal company. Yahoo closed its Chinese site, and had all its assets merged to Alibaba.com. Similar stories are playing out with other multinational Internet companies. Why can’t these big players repeat their international success in the China market? Is this a problem that may be traced to the government? Is there irrational competition in the market? Has the wrong strategy been applied in the companies’ approach to China? Or is the problem a localisation issue or a leadership problem?
Henry Hua, Founder & CEO of IDFsoft Co Ltd, and a former country lead of NCsoft and Microsoft, will share his insights on the above areas from his professional experience gathered over the past years. He will offer suggestions for foreign Internet companies that intend to start business operation in the China market.
Perspective 2
Failures and Entrepreneurship
Speaker:
Jiang Mingliang
Co-founder and Chief Financial Officer
Youja.com (U+)
Synopsis:
Since graduating from NUS School of Computing, Jiang Mingliang has ventured into quite a number of fields, including retail, TV media, logistics and Internet business.
In his years doing business across these fields and the region, Mingliang has learnt the best of his lessons through a difficult path – from the mistakes and failures he has had. Mingliang will share with his fellow NUS Computing alumni and students his experience, including the failures he has faced and the multi-million dollar mistakes that he and his companies have made, so that others may avoid these pitfalls.
Perspective 3
How to Run A Mobile Internet Business and Make Money
Speaker:
Leo Wang
Investor in mobile Internet startups
Synopsis:
Current wisdom says: mobile Internet startups are very much like Internet businesses. They invest lots of money first and eventually make money if they can successfully get to the top position in a niche market. So raising a round of money becomes a key issue for the founders. Now this is actually quite wrong!
What if the founders are still students in college? They have no idea how to deal with angel investors and venture capitalists. So how can they start on the right track and build a great company from the very beginning?
One solution is to use the new technology of mobile Internet to change traditional industries. Help them build a better brand and get more customers while retaining the more loyal ones and sell more products. Finally, support them to make more money and benefit from mobile Internet technology itself.
Leo Wang will share how in every niche market of traditional business, he sees opportunities.
Perspective 4
O2O- consumptions with High Price and Low Frequency Online Services in China
Speaker:
Xu Xiangtao
Co-founder, liba.com
Synopsis:
The online exchange forum is one of the most popular online community portals for consumers seeking home and lifestyle services such as home repairs, wedding planning, childcare and car financing. The industries providing such services are quite unlike those dealing with Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) as they offer services that are of low consumption and high frequency, where consumers are often first-time users who have insufficient market information about the service that they are interested in. This is where liba.com, a leading online to offline (O2O) service provider, fills the gap.
Xu Xiangtao will share his knowledge on industries with high consumption and low frequency based on his 10 years with liba.com. He will touch on how O2O business can thrive, even if it does not fit into traditional marketing methods or the traditional e-commerce model in terms of product details display, transaction negotiation, payment and delivery of product.
Panel Discussion:
Entrepreneurial Opportunities and Challenges in China’s Internet Market
Henry Hua, Jiang Mingliang, Leo Wang, Xu Xiangtao and Dai Jianbiao
Speakers' Profiles
Henry HUA
Founder & CEO
IDFsoft
Biodata
Henry Hua is Founder and CEO of IDFsoft, a startup company focusing on Mobile gaming and Gamification. He was previously the Chairman and CEO of NCsoft China, positions that he had held since November 2008. NCsoft is one of the biggest online game development and publishing companies in the world. In his role at NCsoft China, Henry focused on long-term strategy and overall daily business operations. In March 2011, Henry and his team acquired the company by Management Buyout (MBO) and they started a new company, IDFsoft, based on the MBO.
Henry is also a Co-founder and Chairman of Shanghai 5G Group, a user group and community in East China which focuses on the Internet, new media and other emerging trends of interest. The group currently comprises a thousand highly motivated entrepreneurs, senior management personnel from Fortune 500 companies, industry experts and professionals. Shanghai 5G Group is well regarded by both local government and industry.
Prior to joining NCsoft China, Henry Hua and his partners formed MediaCommunication Group (MCG), an outdoor digital media company, which now owns the biggest LED media network in China, with coverage of the entire metro systems in major cities.
Before MCG, Henry held various positions in Microsoft over a period of 10 years. He was the founding member and top executive of Microsoft Global Engineering Center. Under his management, the Center grew from a staff strength of 25 to over 600 while its service coverage extended from Greater China to the entire world, and its focus expanded from consumer to enterprise and mission critical systems. Henry also served as Vice President for Sales & Marketing at Wicresoft, a joint venture of Microsoft and the Shanghai government.
Henry Hua holds an Executive MBA and a Bachelor of Statistics from Fudan University in China.
JIANG Mingliang
Co-Founder & Chief Financial Officer
Youja.com (U+)
Biodata
Jiang Mingliang co-founded U+ in early 2011. U+ is a venture-backed Mobile Social Networking Service.
Before setting up U+, he co-founded Asia Network Ventures (ANV, a media group in China) and sold its main business to a listed company in 70 million RMB in November 2010.
Prior to ANV, Mingliang had served in senior management positions of Teckwah Online China (subsidiary of SGX listed Teckwah Group), Myrice.com (subsidiary of Japan Internet Portal Livedoor) and i-DNS.net (Singapore-based Internet company which pioneered the multilingual Domain Name System standard used worldwide).
Mingliang is pursuing an EMBA degree from the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS). He obtained his BSc degree from School of Computing, National University of Singapore in 1999, and is now a member of the Management Committee of the NUS Research Institute (Suzhou).
Leo WANG
Investor
Mobile Internet
Biodata
Leo Wang is a professional seed-round investor in mobile Internet startups. He invested in 50 startups in 2011, including LewaOS, 51Weijing, Senscape, mFunz, Kuaishuo, OpenXLive, ZuneDown, GuruDigger, SyncBox, Oxyful, Wodache and SXBBM.
Leo also founded Mobile 2.0 Forum in 2008, the well-known mobile Internet conference in China, and organised over 50 successful industry events in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. The events have served over 5,000 professionals, with the support of companies like MediaTek, Coolpad, China Telecom, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom and French Telecom Orange.
Leo has more than 10 years of experience in the field of mobile Internet. He started his career at Huawei as a Marketing Manager in 2001, and from 2004 to 2006, he worked for a Telecom Value Added Service Provider, MDC (invested by SAIF). From 2007 to 2009, Leo served in Chipnuts (a feature phone co-processor IC design firm) before he embarked on his career as an investor.
XU Xiangtao
Co-founder
liba.com
Biodata
Xu Xiangtao started liba.com, a leading online to offline (O2O) service provider, with two partners to provide local e-commerce services. The online exchange forum is one of the most popular online community portals for consumers seeking family and lifestyle services such as home repairs, wedding planning, childcare and car purchases.
The company has been maintaining revenue growth since its inception and is still enjoying increasing revenues. It has garnered private venture equity injection totally US$18 million from Chengwei Ventures LLC, Investor AB and Walden International. Currently, liba.com's headcount is 500 and registered 40 billion RMB annual turnover of deals on its portal, and recorded annual total revenue in excess of 1 billion RMB.
Xiangtao was COO, then Vice President of liba.com, and was involved in portal implementation, customer support, community groups, marketing, public relations, strategy formulation, and has particular expertise and interest in virtual Internet communities, e-commerce, internet product sales & marketing, traditional business models and the Internet in general.
He has previous work experience in financial software development and project management in Chinese IT firm, Fang Zheng Corporation. He graduated in 1995 with a Bachelor in Computer Science from Zhejiang University, and completed an EMBA from Fudan University School of Management in 2011.
Dai Jianbiao
President
Shanghai Informatisation Youth Talent Association
Biodata
Dr Dai Jianbiao is President of the Shanghai Informatisation Youth Talent Association, an experienced technical expert and entrepreneur in the Shanghai IT field. He has taught at Shanghai Jiaotong University and the University of New Orleans, and is currently an adjunct professor at Dillard University and Shanghai Ocean University. Since 2001, following his return to Shanghai from the US, Dr Dai has been active in the IT field of Shanghai, and has been involved in venture startups and the funding of Zenitek Group, Ragonsoft, Long Chuang Group, and DragonSoft United Software Outsourcing Park. He won the first
He serves on the board of trustees of the Young Entrepreneurs IT title, a prestigious annual award that is associated with the IT elite in Shanghai. Dr Dai serves as technical expert with several departments of the Shanghai Municipal Government, yet finds time to mentor university students in Shanghai. He is committed to the promotion of public welfare, champions independent thinking, and supports entrepreneurship.
