Business SNS in China, This is not an story that I can tell easily, because the core of Social Networking is the culture of the society, so the Business SNS market in China is representing the culture and reality of business society in China.
China is still a development country, which means the business environment, law system, credit system, trust system and even morality system are still under construction.
There are lots of examples:
- The CEO of PPG (www.yesppg.com) just get 20M USD (from VC) out of the company bank account and disappear;
- Xiaonei.com (Chinese Facebook, got 384M USD for Softbank Japan) lunched white collars focusing SNS - kaixin.com (copied from Kaixin001.com which is really appealing among Chinese white collars), they are useing the simillar domain name but better than the orginal kaixin001.com because he's got more money, so he can buy this kaixin.com domain name. And they are using the exact same Chinese name - Kaixin Wang (meaning: Happy website); (Will you do that in States? What a shame.)
- The founder of donews.com was sent to jail because he blackmailed lots of Nasdaq listed companies, if they didn't give him some money, he would release bad information (no matter truth or lies) to the market via donews.com which is popular among Chinese IT industry.
- ......
There are many more, and believe me, you don't wanna know all of them.
Relationship matters, that's true, not only in China. But the point is that relationship matters more. That's because our market are not mature yet. We only want to do business with brothers, relatives, classmates, workmate, close friends, or friends' friends. We worrie about been cheated by our so called partners, clients, customers, suppliers. We feel safer when we are doing business with someone we've been known each other for years. There's this olding saying "knowing root and knowing bottom" that means we know everything about him/her, even his/her family, every relatives' performance.
I know it's the same among western country, but anything you concern there, we concern more here.
So, business SNS is more required here, but more difficult to build.
To do that, you have to:
- be a pure local Chinese, born here and grew up here;
- speak local language, Mandarin and some other local accents;
- experienced in business world, knowing what business men think;
- traveled a lot to know the culture difference among different provinces;
- super connected with the industry, be a hub, a social networking node;
- passionate, love social networking, comfortable with talking ,chatting, presenting, bridging, introducing, shaking hands, hosting conference, giving speech...
- To release a software application is easy;
- To develop a software platform is a little bit harder;
- To build a qualified social network is even harder;
- To run a social network business is almost impossible;
But that's the reason why private hold linkedin is worth billion dollars.
Now, you can see these business SNS giants are all peeking Chinese business market, but non of them has succeed or, not even started.
With all of these Chinese market failure story of Google, eBay, MSN, Yahoo, Myspace, etc. They really are hesitating.
Though, as the only local business focused SNS startup in China, we still see the lights of our future, we even feel the the success of wealink.com , along with the benefits we bring to the society, the contribution we delivering to the industry, and the country.
As a super adviser for lots of startups, a social network hub for mobile industry, an enthusiastic friend, a passionate entrepreneur, a telecom, wireless and Internet veteran, a SNS addict, I really really see the power of relationship, the future of Business SNS in China.
We are wolves, we work together like brothers, we fight together like armies, we are ready for the winter, we know the feeling of cold, we are not fair. We are ready for anyone who wants to take our share.
But we are open, we welcome every kind of cooperation, locally and globally.
I'll give you an "Business SNS in China" PPT if you want, just send me an email to apply.
Leo Wang
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