China Business Cast

Entrepreneur and marketer with strong focus on Mainland China and over 12 years of experience in the region, Ashley Galina Dudarenok is specializing in creative, social media, digital content and campaigns – supporting client’s growth and expansion strategies. Major clients include Star Cruises, Cyberport, Sa Sa, Astana Expo-2017, Synergetic, Preciosa, etc.

Ashley was repeatedly featured in a variety of local and international press including Forbes, Huffington Post, SCMP, TVB, Asian Entrepreneur, China Daily, HK01, Jumpstart Magazine, Do Marketing, ITAR-TASS, etc.

Specialties: WeChat & Weibo; influencer marketing in China (KOLs), partnerships and creative campaigns.

Languages: Mandarin, English, Russian and German

Episode Content:

• Planning a business trip to Portugal
• Shanghai trip on September 19-24, Chat Conference on September 21-22 and a GFA meet-up on September 20
• New Patreon Campaign "Supporter": Jons Slemmer
• What Ashley is doing these days
• Talking about other social media channels that people can use on their marketing in China
• Best social media platforms in China now aside from WeChat and Weibo
• Video Streaming: How it's different from the west, how foreign marketers can use it, and examples of successful foreigners of foreign companies doing well with live streaming in China
• Question: When would you choose to go with the largest platforms WeChat and Weibo vs. other social media channels?
• Interesting partnerships between social media platforms like payment and cross promotions of feeds
• Examples of companies who did really well in the alternative social media channels, as well as bad examples
• Ashley's book recommendations
• How to get in touch with Ashley

Episode Mentions:

• Shanghai E-Commerce Meetup
• Book Recommendation 1: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
• Book Recommendation 2: China's Super Consumers: What 1 Billion Customers Want and How to Sell it to Them
• Ashley's China Marketing Blog
• Ashley's YouTube Channel
• For business enquiries, contact [email protected]
• Support China Business Cast on our Patreon page.

Download and Subscribe

• Download this episode: right click on this link and choose "save as"
• Subscribe to China Business Cast on iTunes
• Or check out the full list on subscription options
• Periscope Live broadcasting of the recordings follow @StartupNoodle (open link on mobile)
• Add Mike ('michelini') or Shlomo ('shlomof') on wechat to join China Business Cast WeChat group

Nils is a sought-after and often quoted speaker and author, whose work is regularly featured in prominent publications and blogs like Game Developer Magazine and Gamasutra. By merging the fields of meme theory, behavioral psychology, and game theory, Nils has created a compelling new vision and understanding of what drives human behavior in the Internet era, and is a recognized thought-leader in game design.

He has taught his own brand of sales and consumer psychology to companies like Apple and Sina in over 10 countries.

Before founding Mention and Traintracks, Nils was the International Channel Manager at HansaWorld. He studied philosophy at Lund University, and served in a special operations unit in the Swedish Army.

Episode Content:

• Shlomo Intro
• Nils tell us a bit of what you do these days?
• How did you come up with the idea for Traintracks.io?
• What were the things you’ve done for starting out and keep it lean? Also, listeners ask us about grants and help from VCs/government. Can you elaborate on this; what kind of "help" you had?
• Basically, Traintracks is an enterprise solution, guess it has a long sales cycle because of that. How do you handle this as a startup?
• I’ve read somewhere , I think it was on a post you wrote , where China is where REAL big data is. So big data in the US is just not interesting? Not challenging enough? The problem in China is more challenging?
• Let’s get to #BeiArea movement
• What’s the goal of #BeiArea movement ??
• Which kind of startups you think are better to grow in China vs. better to grow in the US?
• Since you spend time in SV every year I wonder what you think of it compared to China? In what terms it’s better and in what terms with worse?
• What are the best ways to get in touch with you?

Episode Mentions:

• Uncapped convertible notes
• Zynga report
• Sql
• Tantan dating company
• Sina weibo
• Renren

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• Download this episode: right click on this link and choose "save as"
• Subscribe to China Business Cast on iTunes
• Or check out the full list on subscription options

Periscope Live broadcasting of the recordings follow @StartupNoodle (open link on mobile)

Today’s guest is Todd Embley, program director at Chinaccelerator, China’s first mentorship-driven seed stage accelerator program. The Shanghai-based, 90-day accelerator program is driven by the mission of helping entrepreneurs who are innovating at the cutting-edge of information technology to create successful start-ups. It also claims to be China's only pure & authentic accelerator program. Today, we’re here to discuss the tech accelerator and tech start-ups scene in China.

P.S. Chinaccelerator is accepting applications to Batch 6 of their program (deadline Friday July 18th, 2014 midnight). To apply, visit http://www.chinaccelerator.com/apply

Episode Content:

• Understand the environment for technology accelerators in China and their role in shaping the Chinese start-up ecosystem
• Learn about some exciting start-ups that are innovating at the cutting-edge of technology

Episode Mentions:

• SOS Ventures – venture capital firm backing Chinaccelerator
• Cyril Ebersweiler - venture partner at SOSventures and founder of Chinaccelerator. He also founded HAXLR8R, an accelerator for hardware-related startups based in Shenzhen, China.
• Yixun.com – eCommerce shop similar to JD.com or Amazon
• Article by Aileen Lee from Cowboy Ventures – Welcome To The Unicorn Club: Learning from Billion-Dollar Startups
• Order With Me – Chinaccelerator graduate and winner of Tech Crunch Beijing 2011
• Piktochart – infographic platform
• NeoNan – Men’s digital publication
• Daily Themes – personalized English writing improvement for Chinese users
• Other mentioned Chinaccelerator companies: eProf (online education platform), Splitforce (mobile A/B testing and optimization), AYLIEN, Launchpilots, Seeder, Shoe Lovers
• Start-Up Chile – seed accelerator created by the Chilean Government based in Santiago, Chile

Follow up:

• Chinaccelerator.com
• 中国加速 on weibo
• @chinaccelerator on Twitter

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• Download this episode: right click on this link and choose "save as"
• Subscribe to China Business Cast on iTunes
• Or check out the full list on subscription options

Today’s guests Nick Ramil and Tim Nybo are the founders behind Lexell, a stone & steel watch brand that raised over $220,000 dollars on Kickstarter. But like every overnight success, it was years in the making. They arrived in Guangzhou, China from the US in 2010 on a one-way flight looking for opportunities. Since then, they’ve taught English, worked on a wine distribution business, started The Elevator Life (a video blog about their experiences in life and business in China) and launched this Kickstart project, among other things. Today we’re here to learn about their experiences as young entrepreneurs in China and the story behind Lexell’s Kickstarter success.

Episode Content:

• Understand, from a personal perspective, the experiences of Tim and Nick as young entrepreneurs who came to China looking for opportunity
• Talk about some of the work and business experiences they've had before starting Lexell
• Dig into all the work that went on behind the scenes to launch this successful Kickstarter project

Episode Mentions:

• The Elevator Life – Tim and Nick’s video blog about their experiences as young entrepreneurs in China
• Royal American Wines – Tim and Nick’s company that imports American wine to China
• Lexell – the stone & steel watch brand that raised over $220K on Kickstarter
• Baijiu (白酒) – a hard alcohol often consumed at business dinners
• Dynamite Circle – private online community for location independent entrepreneurs
• The Kickstarter Video for Lexell
• Minaal – Kickstarter project for a travel backpack that raised over $340K
• The Elevator Life – Video talking about why 2014 is the year of product development
• Fastcompany article – “This is Why Your Kickstarter Project is late”
• EnterChina – a private online community for entrepreneurs doing business in China
• Book recommendation: The Slight Edge

Follow Up:

• Find out how to connect with Tim and Nick on The Elevator Life and EnterChina

Download and Subscribe

• Download this episode: right click on this link and choose "save as"
• Subscribe to China Business Cast on iTunes
• Or check out the full list on subscription options

Today we have Martin Li from Uber’s Asia Expansion team on the show, talking about how Uber is expanding in the Chinese market. Uber, which has the motto “Everyone’s Private Driver”, allows users to summon a car at the touch of a button via its mobile app. In case you’re thinking that’s not a big deal, you should know that earlier this year, Uber closed a $360 million dollar round of funding, valuing the company at over $3.5 billion dollars. Today, we discuss how Uber is expanding into the massive Chinese market.

Episode Content:

• Understand what Uber does, and how it’s approaching the China market
• Dig into some of the intricacies and difficulties of localizing a Silicon Valley tech startup in China
• Talk about some interesting ways Uber is gaining traction as a consumer tech product in China.

Episode Mentions:

• Uber raised $360 million earlier this year, including $258 million from Google Venture, its largest investment ever
• Alipay – an online payment platform similar to PayPal, created by the Alibaba Group
• Related article on TheNextWeb – Uber prepares to face its toughest challenge yet: China

Follow up:

• If you know someone who wants to join this hot startup, check out www.uber.com/jobs/
• Get your first free ride for free. Download the Uber app and enter the code "uberchina" to get the first ride for free!

Download and Subscribe

• Download this episode: right click on this link and choose "save as"
• Subscribe to China Business Cast on iTunes
• Or check out the full list on subscription options