A That's series where we ask a Beijing-based somebody to tell us 5 Things specific to his or her life.
One thing we love about Beijing is that it’s full of creative people doing highly creative things. And Mikey Chee is one of those people. For those of you who haven’t heard of him, Chee is the man behind Fresh Prints – a WeChat photo printing service.
Originally from New Jersey, Chee has been living in Beijing for the past two years. He started Fresh Prints in December 2015 and managed to turn it into a full-fledged business in just a few months. Though Fresh Prints is a relatively new startup in Beijing, Chee has used branding and marketing to create a unique, memorable and fun product. It’s the little things like the use of WeChat, Polaroid-style photos and Toasty the toaster (more on that below) that make Fresh Prints stand out from the crowd. And it's no wonder why Fresh Prints is all the rage in Beijing right now.
When Chee's not running around town meeting with printers and customers, he spends most of his days working from home with his dog Burger by his side. Chee did manage to take a little bit of time out of his busy shecedule to chat with us here at That’s Beijing about the keys behind his entrepreneurial success.
How did the idea for Fresh Prints come about?
Last November, I took my girlfriend to Jiuzhaigou and we took a bunch of great photos. I wanted to print the photos out for her when I returned, but when I went to the print shop I was so upset with the customer service. With a background in customer experience, I couldn’t accept the smell, quality and attitude from the overall operations. At the same time I was wondering why nothing like this existed within WeChat.
A year ago I heard of a company called Grata. They scale customer service through commercialized messaging in the WeChat platform. With a career background in customer experience, I knew this was something special and that I always wanted to build a platform using Grata. Flash forward to last December when the idea of Fresh Prints came together. The moment I printed out some photos for my buddy’s surprise birthday party I knew it was something special and had a lot of potential to reconnect anyone with their special memories.
Why a toaster?
When I came up with the logo, I knew I needed something that was similar to the brand and name. With Fresh Prints, you send photos in and photos come out. Just like a toaster, It’s that simple. At the same time, a lot of my friends were sending me photos of these white label solutions (WeLomo) that print your photo through WeChat. I thought that was cool, but it wasn’t really what Fresh Prints was about.
The idea of the toaster put together the speed, efficiency and warm-baked love that goes into our service. Also, it’s super adorable! Our O2O printer, Toasty, is a fun and simple way to experience new photo printing. We pretty much broke down a printer and put together a toaster shell with some decorated stickers. He’s so cute! I love Toasty.
How does your background influence your business?
I have a very mixed background. Growing up I was a restaurant kid. My parents are the classic immigrant story. Go to America, find each other, get married, start a restaurant and give everything up to raise their sons in the middle class. Throughout my time growing up, I spent a lot of time in the restaurant watching my mom and dad deliver great customer service to those hungry for General Tso Chicken.
When I entered the workforce I worked a lot of service jobs until I graduated and moved into a fulltime boring analyst role at a small pharma consulting office. On the side, to fuel my passion, I worked at Tesla Motors as a Product Specialist pretty much talking to customers. In April 2014, I moved out to China with Tesla Motors and transitioned into customer experience training. After Tesla I moved into a Beijing auto consulting company specializing in electric vehicles, project management and data strategy.
My background is a mix of so many different industries and colleagues. The resources I’ve gathered and learned throughout my journey, I believe, are the key to my success and how I shape my company and business today.
How did you come up with the name Fresh Prints and what makes it a good fit for your brand?
Now this is a story all about how
My life got relocated to China, holy cow!
And I’d like to take a minute just sit right there
I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Beijing.
In central New Jersey, where I was born and raised, in the Tesla showroom is how I spent most of my days. Educating the masses about electric cars and making hot sales on the spot, when all of a sudden my manager got weird. I got in one hot streak and my boss got scared. He said you're moving to China because they need some good air!
#freshprinceofbeijing was my alter nightlife ego for a while and the name Fresh Prints just followed through with it!
What’s it like being an entrepreneur in Beijing?
It’s awesome! The community here is amazing and everyone is incredibly helpful. Beijing is about raising people up and no douche BS. #BeiArea is a movement that I’m involved with along with some other founders in Beijing. It’s a motion to progress the community of movers and shakers.
To find Fresh Prints either search for 'kubiyin' on WeChat or scan the QR code below:
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