China strategy

Fast, low profile and free

At Coachbase, we have 3 offices: Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Portland (USA). Although Hong Kong is technically part of China, as a former British colony it is quite different from the rest on China. This post is focused on greater China.

I’ve often been asked about my plans for entering the China market and my answer is we’re not ready yet. The recurring advice I keep getting from asking successful founders in China seem to be: Fast, low profile and free.

Free

Growing up in Asia, consumer behaviour is very different than the US. Free is the way to go because of 2 reasons: cultural and currency. Asians will spend $100 to jailbreak their phone rather than spend $100 paying the developer. USD$2 can barely buy you anything but convert that to asian currency and all of a sudden HKD$15 buys you alot of stuff.

Low profile

China’s really good at copying. There’s a term called “micro improvement”, it’s a source of pride if you copy someone and make it slightly better.

My personal take is that the education system in Asia trains graduates to have amazing execution abilities but does not prepare them for creative thinking.

Fast

Do or do not, there is no try. The advice I get: if you go into China, go all out with everything you’ve got.

ES File Explorer File Manager is a great example. Even with 50 million downloads they kept a low profile, had no monetization strategy and I was only able to meet them after they got acquired.