A That's weekly series where we ask a China-based somebody to tell us 5 Things that we should really know. This week we turn to start-up developer Michael Park, creator of the translation app Lipsync.
Every time I hear Frank Sinatra tell me that, if I can make it in New York, I can make it anywhere, I feel compelled to tell him to move to China. As China expats, we’ve proudly cut our teeth in one of the toughest emerging markets in the world.
Growth, however, leads to growing pains. While we are privileged with the opportunity to witness and take part in China’s rise, we also endure the chaos that comes with surfing a rising tide.
The best growth opportunities usually come from hassles and struggles, and the need to find a solution to those challenges. You might be an enterprising young expat who has stumbled upon a great start-up idea, but are struggling to take your first steps toward proving the concept and testing the waters.
With that in mind, here are 5 tips that early-stage China start-ups can use right away!
1. Find your early adopters NOW
It’s never too early to source early adopters for your product. The probability exists that, if you are launching a tech start-up, you probably intuitively understand the unique pains and needs of your target market because, more often than not, you actually belong to that demographic.
You should find a way to collect your early adopters into an audience. For my start-up LipSync, I created a Facebook page that eventually attracted more than 20,000 expats in China. As a result of creating this asset, I was able to rapidly build a mailing list of over 1,000 early adopters.
Facebook is a counterintuitive but highly effective means of building an audience in China. The platform is banned in the Mainland, but expats and locals remain highly active on this network. Moreover, they are often willing to engage with your brand, assuming your value proposition is clear and your message is useful and/or hilarious.
TAKE ACTION: Set up a Facebook page that targets your demographic, not your brand. If your start-up is called “Thrive” and your target users are party goers and socialites in Shanghai, you should create a Facebook page called “Shanghai Party People” instead of “Thrive.” The name of your page should identify with your target users’ personal identities, not the name of your brand.
2. Start collecting emails today
If your main channels for sourcing users are social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, you may be on thin ice. The increasing crackdown on VPNs in China means that these marketing channels might not be available forever.
In contrast, email will always be viable in China, even if it is aggravatingly slow. As such, you want to be converting people from social media channels into leads on your mailing list as quickly as possible. "It's only when you get your followers on your mailing list (with their consent!) that you can start engaging them on a deeper level with your product or service," says Alessandro Duina, co-founder & CEO of Prodygia - a platform that offers online courses and insights on business, technology, entrepreneurship and culture in China.
TAKE ACTION : Go to Launchrock.com and set up a landing page immediately so that you have a website to show off your brand and collect user emails. You can have a professional and clean lander in about 15 minutes. Go to your Facebook, WeChat, Linkedin and other personal networks to manually recruit the first 100 people who are interested in testing your product.
For business-to-business start-ups, the marketing channel most commonly used in China is an entrepreneur’s personal social network, according to research conducted on China start-ups by GoToLaunch Asia. In this case, it is still important to build an email list to leverage future opportunities for communication and sales, and the advice still holds.
3. Engage and embrace early adopters
Your early adopters are critically important in shaping the initial design and functionality of your product, as well as helping you spread the word. As such, once you’ve created your Launchrock page and begun collecting emails, you should begin emailing and skyping with them as soon as you can. “It’s important to listen to your audience and hear what they want and need before you spend time creating a product you think they may be interested in,” says Nick Ramil, co-founder of Enter China, the leading membership community for business in China.
TAKE ACTION: You should manually recruit at least 100 people who have signed up on your Launchrock page. Email them designs of your product prototype and ask them for feedback. Even better, if your product is at a stage where it’s possible to for your early adapters to try it out, ask them to test it. The more brutally honest their feedback, the better.
4. Get PR with guest blogging
Getting featured in prominent local or international publications will give your start-up credibility in the eyes of users and potential investors. Reach out to journalists and bloggers who have a following in your target market in order to get some exposure and, hopefully, more users.
TAKE ACTION: Create a list of 10 magazines/newspapers and 10 prominent blogs that your audience frequently reads and send each of them a well-crafted email requesting to guest-post on their site. Propose to write an article that provides practical tips and advice to their followers, and then have your bio and a link to your start-up at the bottom of the page. Make sure that the proposal is a win-win for the magazine, for the magazine’s readers and for your start-up’s PR and brand.
5. Start sourcing investors now
Even if you have the next Facebook, investors might not necessarily be convinced. Begin reaching out to investors and making connections as soon as possible. Sourcing investors is more like several hundred tiny and somewhat repetitive tasks as opposed to a monumental feat.
In general, the best way to get the attention of an angel investor or venture capitalist is to be directly introduced by someone they respect, preferably a start-up founder they have funded in the past.
According to Jack Chen, Vice President at J&J Capital: “There are two types of angels: There are people with less domain expertise who put in a lot of time and energy. They can provide broad support, like helping to recruit people or sorting things out. Then there are those who are very professional, connected and involved in the space. I suggest that young start-ups try to find both types.”
Before you begin this process, make sure that the following are complete:
- Linkedin profile
- Angel List Profile
- You’ve created a pitch deck and put it on Slideshare
- Create an elevator pitch, a 30-second explanation of your start-up
TAKE ACTION: Once you have those preliminary steps handled, it’s time to start meeting people. The most direct way you can do this is to get on Clarity.fm and book a paid call with entrepreneurs or venture capitalists themselves. By booking a call, you are adding value to them by handing over cash as well as enabling them to share their expertise with you. Many of them will follow up by making introductions for you. This strategy has worked exceedingly well for our start-up.
If you don’t have the cash to drop on a Clarity call, don’t worry. Remember how I suggested that you book a few guest posts in prominent magazines and blogs? As you are writing up your value-added articles for these publications, reach out directly to venture capitalists and well-known entrepreneurs on Linkedin and ask them if they’re interested in being quoted in your piece. By doing this, you are adding value to the publication by sourcing expert opinions and you are adding value to the investor/entrepreneur by enabling them to gain some PR credibility. It’s a win-win all around and you’ve just created value out of thin air.
// Michael Park is the CEO and Cofounder of LipSync. Many travelers end up feeling stranded and scared when they go to countries like China because they have difficulty navigating the language and culture. LipSync enables them to instantly access a bilingual person over a mobile app.
// To see more from our 5 Thing series, click here.
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