I'm Sarah Lacey [sp?].And I'm Alexia Soces [sp?].And TechCrunch is finally here in Beijing. We're here for Disrupt conference I've been working on for a couple years, and I can't believe it's finally here. We're at The Great Wall. It is Tuesday morning. It's not really Tuesday morning, but we're putting this up Tuesday morning, so we're pretending. And we're going to tell you if you're in the West and it's six o'clock and you're thinking about going home from work, why you need to stay tuned into the live stream.Alexia, what are you most excited about today?Well, I'm excited about a panel by Fritz Demopoulis. You're the Greek one!
Fritz Demopoulis on why foreigners fail in China, namely because I want to learn. I'm not quite, other than the fact that there's obviously some cultural you know, lost in translation going on. I'm not sure what key points.Right.Are the breakdown points between communication between the two countries.And i think that's the biggest question everyone has when they come here from the Valley; is, you know, there's a lot smart people in Silicon Valley who have, you know, built big audiences all around the world, but can't do it in China. And it's not as simple as just saying the government blocks them, you know, it's more complex than that. I think Fritz is the perfect person to speak to it because he came here with FOX many years ago, and, you know, FOX just had a disas[xx] strategy for China. He quit there but stayed as a local entrepreneur, and he's actually had two pretty sizable exits. He is one of the only foreigners who's had success as an entrepreneur in China. So, he is sort of the example of the guy that some how succeeded, and so he's a good person to talk about it. I'm probably, one of the one's i'mmost excited about today, is this guy named Lazian [sp?] who is not super well-known in the West. In fact, i didn't know about him until a couple months ago, but he's been called everything from the Ron Conway to the emerging Steve Jobs of China, which is a lot of things to encompass. He had a big hit, a big e-commerce hit, one of the Amazon clones, that was sold and made some money, and became a, really, sort of a kind of avant-garde angel investor and there's not a ton of angel activity here. Really giving favorable entrepreneur terms, so sort of a champion of local entrepreneurs. He's got several companies that are, you know, getting ready to go public that are pretty big, so he's had some big financial wins as an investor. He's also started a company that's building one of the first locally made, branded, high-end Chinese phones, for the Chinese market, and so, and it's a fraction of the cost of the iPhones. It's a very ambitious play, going after the iPhone's growth. As you were saying in a previous segment, you know, this is the biggest growth market for Apple, so this is a big throw-down. There's, you know, nationalism in play here. He's playing with the advantages of the Chinese supply chain which Apple has leveraged for a long time. Fascinating, ballsy, gutsy story. I can't wait to hear what this guy says on stage. You know, it's amazing. I see the cars here with the Chinese logos on them even though they're Toyotas and Hondas, and it I feel like, a play, a homegrown play, for something like the iPhone Right.You might just succeed.They haven't done product yet. They've made the product, but they haven't had 'brand.' And so it's, like, you had this whole, like, pyramid of consumer products and for a long time everyone in the U.S. said, well, we're the brand, people, we know how to do cool, we know how to do innovative. They can never catch up to this. His phone is really going to be one of the first times we've seen. Are the Chinese ready to do design, to do brand? And it's going to, a lot of people he's the guy to pull it off. So it's going to be fascinating to watch. Who else are you excited about today?I'm excited about Kevin Systrom, actually, because I can't access Facebook or Twitter via my phone on the WiFi, but I can't access Instagram. So, it's accessible here. I feel like I want to use Instagram more to communicate with people. I'm trying to figure out to send messages through Instagram instead of using Facebook.Interesting.So, this is another huge social network trying to compete in China with like QQ or things that are already in green. So I'm wondering again about strategy, what do you need to change, do you need to change anything about it?. Instagram...
Yeah....to pick up usership here? He tells me that some of their hugest, like, activity points are night in Japan. So I'm wondering if something similar is going on in China and what he has to say about it.And also just the issue with clones. There's a ton of Instagram clones here. And there's...you know, we also have Phil Libin of Evernote and there's actually a clone that's like a cross between Evernote and DropBox and I think it's called Everbox. Like it's just unabashed...
It's like a Groupon clone called Groupon.That's called Groupon?Yeah.But we also have a panel with Groupon clones and we're going to find out why Groupon has failed, what they didn't learn. But getting back to Phil Libin, he...I think he'll be fascinating because we've talked about on TechCrunch how Evernote is sort of the anti-Zynga. It's taking those small down times of your day, but helping you do something to build your brain power, not just waste time. And the Chinese web has totally developed around time waste and entertainment, so I'm really curious to see how something like Evernote plays here, and I think they're starting to get aggressive in China. And he's such a great entrepreneur. He is, to me, an entrepreneur's entrepreneur. He's man who's tried to build a company that will be around around for a 100 years. He's not trying to flip it. I think he'll be a good role model and inspiring for a lot of the entrepreneurs here. I mean, the idea of building something that's been around for a hundred years, or in this case, two thousand.Yeah, as we're standing on The Great Wall.Is endemic to Chinese culture. So, I think...
Yep.I heard Libin talk, you said that the vision of Evernote and the, you know, cultural traditions of some of these countries are very simpatico.Yeah. And, you know, this is not a country that flips. It's not considered successful to sell your company for a lot of money. It's considered successful to build a public company. He's more like-minded here than he is in the Valley right now. You know, we're closing out the conference with someone who I think is a surprise to some people. Ben Haugh [sp?] of the cheeseburger network. So, Ben did this. First of all Ben is fun to have on any trip.Yeah, that's true. Second of all, i saw him do this amazing key note at a conference in Omaha and it was all about failure, and it was about his journey as an entrepreneur. and it was about building this company around throw-away moments and silliness, and just making people happy for five minutes every day. And I think his keynote keynote encapsulated so many of the cultural things about Silicon Valley that are missed outside of Silicon Valley. You know, we focus on evaluations, we focus on the money. We don't focus culture around failure and why that's okay. We don't focus on, you know, the fun and the whimsy in the Internet scene. So, I'm hoping he's going to bring a little bit of that to the chat scene because I think it's something they can learn a lot about. And then, of course, the biggest thing is we will have our first ever international winner of the Disrupt Cup. the Disrupt Cup.Is it here?It's not here yet. It's not here yet?I mean, hopefully when you're seeing this, it's here. As i'm filming this, the Disrupt Cup is not here yet. We'll see if Shaker sp?] has stolen it. And I bet you that you're sitting there. I know, we'll not give it up. This is a little unfair. They kind of got [xx] switched, they won the cup and. And then we [xx] Look, i had a. No, we have a conference the next month. I think we're getting it back, we're doing some [xx] time share. It's sort of, like a condo in Hawaii. [xx] So we will give the Disrupt Cup to the first company. And, you know, the battle field was open to everyone, not just Chinese companies. We've got European companies, i think we've got a couple, at least one American company competing, but it is mostly Chinese companies and they're not all copy cats. So, I'm really excited to see who'll win. And some of our loyal viewers know that I have a Disrupt curse. Typically, the company that I want to win never wins, and so, at the last companies said, please don't publicly endorse me, because I was cursing everyone. I am the dictator of this conference.I think the curse will be lifted.So the curse will be broken, Yes, it will.One way or another.It's your deal. I mean, I will just read the wrong name if i have to.You'll break it.The curse will be broken. So, you know, if you're a finalist, you're watching this video, i'm the one you need to kissing up to. down.All right, anything recreational you want to make sure you do before you leave China?Oh, I want to go to the Arts District, but the people on the plane were, like, make sure you go to the Arts District. I think we're going now to 9-2-6, 7-9-8.7-9-8. Good work, Alexia. 7-9-8. There's a 9-2-6?We're going to that afterwards. So, I want to go to 7-9-8, which is apparently an amazing art gallery.Which is where we were supposed to be holding the conference, but a certain Italian designer stole our venue. So next year, at Disrupt will have the 7-9-8 District. So if you're watching this video and you did not come to the conference this year, next year we'll have it at the super cool venue.And I want to go shopping, to Di....
You're such a girl.I know. Well, the women here have such amazing style. It's like very French, very chic and then of course super-modern French. So I want to see where they're buying these clothes. And then hopefully start.Well, and you're tiny; you can actually fit into Chinese clothes. I just had a baby. Shut up; it's just that I'm not pregnant. I'm not pregnant either. I hope, I'm not pregnant. Oh, she's pregnant. Or she was pregnant. Please stop telling people I'm pregnant. A very short time ago.
I don't think it's even biologically possible.
And she's running a conference after 6 weeks of not having. a baby inside her, so we need to give Sarah mad props for this. See, working women, we can do it all. Exactly.All right. Well, let's get going! Don't turn off the computer. Make sure you watch the live stream. It's gonna be a day you want to pay attention to.
In case you haven’t read through the 50 or so China posts on the site right now, the last day of our first international Disrupt conference will be starting at 9 am Beijing time/6 pm PST today. If you need even more reason to watch, catch Sarah and I above, talking about who we’re most excited about in today’s lineup.
And for some reason you can’t make it to China this morning/afternoon, you can find the livestream here.
