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China Expat Entrepreneur: Active Startup Networks Add To Shanghai's Lure https://ift.tt/2HOUm1k Shanghai is China’s most popular city for expatriates and boasts an active startup networking landscape that includes global groups such as Startup Grind and AngelHack. weHustle, a Shanghai startup founded by Ukraine native Marian Danko, aims to create an information-sharing and social network among startup communities. I talked to weHustle’s CEO Danko at the TECOM conference held in Shanghai on Saturday, which attracted several hundred attendees. weHustle, once known as China Classifieds, was an event co-organizer. Danko has been living in China since 2011 and in Shanghai since 2013 Shanghai’s international connections and startup network make it “a comfortable place for startups to be,” Danko said. Excerpts follow. Q. Where’d the idea for TECOM come from? A. At weHustle, we work with tech and entrepreneur communities in Shanghai. Those communities have their own events on a regular basis. If you're interested in entrepreneurship, then we host a platform where you can find information about upcoming events from different communities. We organize small events ourselves as well. I’d never seen an event like TECOM where you have all these communities together, because each community each has their own direction. The idea with TECOM was to bring all these communities in one place, and let them mingle. Q. About how many communities are here? A. We have well over 20 communities represented here. All of them are in Shanghai. Some of them are in other cities as well. And some of them are global, but all of them have a presence here in Shanghai. Q. What are some of the trends happening in communities these days? Are more people joining communities, for example? A. What I see is that communities now are growing. They want to contribute and they want to network. Another a big trend recently is that lots of big corporates are trying to tap into communities. They are looking for innovation among startups. They go to events, and can reach out to hundreds of startups involved in the communities. Bayer and Merck are active. Q. How do Shanghai’s strong points for expat entrepreneurs compare with other Chinese cities? A. I think this is the one of the best places in China just because it's an international city. There are at least 20 communities that we know of and we work with, but there are plenty other communities. For women, you have Ladies Who Tech, IPWS (International Professional Women’s Society) and AngelHack. How do you connect with people here? How do you find media? How do you find investors? These communities run so many events and you can find answers. You get in touch with them, and then you go. You pitch, build your network and grow. Let's say you have a startup in Shanghai and one startup in Nanjing. There’s is a huge difference. Because in Nanjing, there aren’t that many events happening. You have no place to talk about it. Shanghai is a comfortable place for startups to be. Q. What about government policy incentives? A. The Shanghai market is very mature and very structured. There are some (incentive) policies but they're not that big because Shanghai already has a huge ecosystem developed. They do need to push it forward. Second-tier cities or third-tier cities are very active. They have the top-down initiatives that we need to attract more international entrepreneurs and talents, and they're willing to help. But not many things are happening – that’s their challenge. We did a few events outside of Shanghai, but it's tough to attract people. And that's why I believe that the communities they are the pillars of ecosystem, the whole startup entrepreneurship ecosystem. If there are no communities, there isn’t so much happening compared with that bring wide attention and bring people together. When that happens, more startups come and things grow faster. Q. Which second- or third-tier cities do you see as relatively aggressive? A. Chengdu is very impressive and growing. Nanjing is also growing very fast, along with Hangzhou, obviously, because of Alibaba. We did a couple of events in Ningbo, and some of the districts are pushing really hard. --Follow me @rflannerychina
Business via Forbes - Entrepreneurs https://ift.tt/dTEDZf March 26, 2019 at 12:22AM
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