Where the Stuff Gets Made or Shenzhen Manufacturing Tour for Hardware Startups

Part I HWTrek Some travel tips for Shenzhen & Hong Kong

5 min readApr 29, 2016

FlipFlic got selected to HWTrek Asia Innovation Tour 2016 and I spent this week visiting different manufacturing facilities in Shenzhen, China. My co-founders visited Shenzhen in September last year during the Highway1 program. Since we are planning to manufacture in Shenzhen for FlipFlic Kickstarter pre-orders, I decided to go on the tour myself and see everything with my own eyes before we move there with the whole team to set up and keep an eye on production.

Transportation

Hong Kong to Shenzhen

I had a flight to Hong Kong as it is usually cheaper than to fly directly to Shenzhen. Only miles aways from Shenzhen in Mainland China HK is at the separate territory with its own visa regime. So keep in mind every Shenzhen<>Hong Kong trip is another entry to both of the countries and you might need two or multi- entry visa if you are planning to move back and forth between the cities.

There are several options to get from Hong Kong to China: by the metro, bus, ferry, or taxi.

I chose the ferry and didn’t regret it. You get on a ferry right at the HK airport without passport control and without getting your luggage as it gets automatically to the ferry. When you get off the plane just go directly to E zone and follow the “Ferry” signs. When buying a ticket (220 HKD, accepting VISA) give them you luggage tag. Ferry is more expensive though more comfortable, faster and more secure than the bus, where you can even get robbed.

It takes only 30 minutes of quite a bon voyage to get to Shekou port where you will get your luggage and go through immigration control. Have your China visa ready.

Right next to the port there is a metro station and metro is the best way to get anywhere you want in the city. It is very neat and modern and not too crowded to my surprise. Metro is open from 6–30 AM till 11 PM.

You can buy Metro ticket only with only 5 RMB notes and ATMs usually give you 100 RMB notes — so just go and buy something in Shekou port like a bottle of water (I bought a city map) and ask to give you change in fives.

Try to book a hotel next to the metro station and it will get you securely from the port to your place.

Shenzhen to Hong Kong

The ferry would easily bring me back to the Hong Kong Airport but I had a meeting in Hong Kong so decided to go by metro to get to the Hong Kong Central. Well, it was much longer and harder than by the ferry, so I got late to the meeting :) If you are not a female founder and don’t have this lame excuse to be late try to move out of a hotel and start your trip about 3–4 hours before the meeting.

So Shenzhen metro brought me to the last stop of the Green Line — to Luo Hu. That’s where you will get through passport control and leave Mainland China.

The tunnel gets you to the entry point where you’ll fill in a simple Immigration Card and get into the Hong Kong territory.

You’ll get to the train station where you’ll be able to withdraw some HKD and buy a ticket to any station — mots likely to “Central”. At this point, they have only one line to Hung Hom so you’ll need to change lines. Hong Kong is a great place where 90% of people around you speak English so just ask one of the officers to give you a small map of the train lines and help decide on the best route.

Money

Hong Kong is not a problem as they have plenty of ATMs and accept all kinds of cards.

In Shenzhen cash is the best, they have some Union Pay system which didn’t accept any of my 3 cards (Visa, MasterCard, Maestro) from 3 different countries. Not all banks will accept your card so try to find one like China Bank to withdraw some cash.

Please mind that Hong Kong (Hong Kong Dollar) and Shenzhen (RMB is another name for Yuan) have different currencies. In Hong Kong, you can withdraw in both RMB and HKD so you may want to get some cash for Shenzhen beforehand.

Internet

China has its firewall which makes the Internet a pain. First, install Express VPN both on your smartphone and laptop to be able to use Skype and Google. Second, get a China Unicorn prepaid sim card.

I had a trouble with that as our tours were starting very early in the morning when everything was not opened and we were getting back very late when everything was closed. I simply didn’t have a chance to buy a sim card.

Don’t expect too much from the hotel internet as well :).

Food

I was surprised by the broad menu and all the exotic products you can find in China. If you like spicy food, China cuisine is for you. 80% was spicy, 90% was tasty, 100% is absolutely edible. It is rather difficult to tell if the food you are looking at is sweet or salty, what’s inside and what’s that, so prepare yourself for everything from grilled seaweed roll with coconut taste up to these cute chicken paws:

Ksenia Vinogradova is the Founder and CEO of FlipFlic, currently taking pre-orders on Kickstarter. FlipFlic creates the responsive natural daylighting solution. The add-on device automates ordinary window blinds with sensors as well as integrates them into existing smart home systems. Each device responds automatically to its environment, maintaining the ideal level of daylight, promoting optimal health while maximizing energy savings.