Each story comes from one of the four ages of Chinese entrepreneurs as illustrated in Edward Tse\u2019s book \u201cChina\u2019s Disruptors\u201d.<\/p>\n
Uneducated First Wave of Chinese Entrepreneurs from the 1980s<\/h2>\n![\"first-wave-chinese](\"https:\/\/media.licdn.com\/mpr\/mpr\/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAkZAAAAJGIzMGQzZTMwLTllNTAtNDk5Yi1hMmNjLWZjNmU0YTljNWE1Nw.jpg\")
<\/div>\nThe first wave of Chinese entrepreneurs often solely owned their businesses and had little formal education.<\/p>\n
CEO Haier Group Zhang Ruimin did not attend university since the Cultural Revolution shut many educational institutions. Instead, his career accelerated during his time at the Qingdao refrigerator plant in 1982. Realizing that poor quality of goods deterred company growth, he\u00a0demonstrated his commitment to high quality products through the destruction of 76 faulty fridges<\/a>\u00a0in 1984.<\/p>\nThrough the formation of Qingdao Haier Group in 1991 and reorganization of human capital into 2,000 self-managed teams among other changes, Haier now owns largest market share for white goods with $32.8 billion revenues reported in 2014.<\/p>\n
Founder Ren Zhengfei had just retired from the People\u2019s Liberation Army before setting up Huawei in\u00a0Shenzhen<\/a>. Ren continually infused vitality within the company by sharing his passion and establishing structure in the enterprise. His selfless nature showed in his possession of\u00a0only a mere 1.4% of company\u2019s shares<\/a>.<\/p>\nToday, Huawei is China\u2019s largest private exporter with two-third of its $39 billion revenues from overseas.<\/p>\n
Second Wave of Chinese Entrepreneurs from the 1990s<\/h2>\n![\"second-wave-chinese](\"https:\/\/media.licdn.com\/mpr\/mpr\/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAj_AAAAJGFhODg3OGMyLTk5OWQtNDAxZC04MzMzLTE1YjI5MGUxMWQyOQ.jpg\")
<\/div>\nThe second wave of Chinese Entrepreneurs was instigated by Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping\u2019s \u201cSouthern Tour\u201d of 1992. Through consistent assertion of open and liberal economy principles, his actions and words fostered strong entrepreneurial spirit.<\/p>\n
During this time, prominent entrepreneurs were holding government positions. Vantone Holdings\u2019 founder\u00a0Feng Lung used to work for state bodies<\/a>\u00a0while Chen Dongsheng, founder of\u00a0Taikang Life Insurance,<\/a>\u00a0the fourth-largest Chinese insurance, was formerly an assistant researcher in the Ministry of International Business and Cooperation in Beijing.<\/p>\nAs China progressively opened up, these Chinese entrepreneurs travelled extensively and closed deals involving technology transfer. The breaking of international barriers to the Chinese market and global competition allowed private companies to grow.<\/p>\n
The Internet Chinese entrepreneurs\u00a0of the Third Wave from the early 2000s<\/h2>\n![\"third-wave-chinese](\"https:\/\/media.licdn.com\/mpr\/mpr\/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAiKAAAAJDBmOWRkNTY4LTJlYTQtNDI1My1iNmM4LTI0Y2QyMjMwOWRjNA.jpg\")
<\/div>\nAs China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001, it\u00a0began to leverage on Internet-powered businesses. Alibaba\u2019s Jack Ma journey is extensively documented in\u00a0Alibaba\u2019s former VP Porter Irishman documentary \u201cCrocodile in the Yangtze\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\nHe understands that the Chinese business landscape can only be adequately evaluated within national borders. Moreover, Ma envisions the creation of bridges between China and the world through the tools of the Internet and online marketplaces.<\/p>\n
Chinese entrepreneurs were confident about raising financial capital overseas. Particularly, they were grounded firmly in principles of self-assurance and respect for government leadership.<\/p>\n
These companies target Chinese internet users who differ significantly from their Western counterparts. Through their avid consumption of virtual entertainment, Tencent sold $4 billion worth of virtual gaming goods with only $1 billion worth of advertising.<\/p>\n
Tencent\u2019s Ma Huateng grew the company from a small game studio in 1998 that eventually launched instant messaging service QQ and WeChat in 2011<\/a>\u00a0and acquired 600 million active users.<\/p>\nFourth Wave of Chinese entrepreneurs from the 2010s<\/h2>\n![\"fourth-wave-chinese](\"https:\/\/media.licdn.com\/mpr\/mpr\/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAeCAAAAJDUwMzZiNmM3LTlmYzMtNGExOC04YmFkLWNkZTQyNzdjZWVjZA.jpg\")
<\/div>\nThe \u2018Millenial\u2019 Chinese entrepreneurs combine \u2018opportunism with pragmatism\u2019. They usually have overseas education experience and place a strong focus on systematic business management skills.<\/div>\nMethods of running companies have deviated from the traditional top-down system. Kelly Zong, who inherited China\u2019s largest beverage company Wahaha from her father, has\u00a0revolutionized the company\u2019s leadership style.<\/a><\/p>\nWang Xing, a Chinese serial entrepreneur, first started online business platform Xiaonei that was sold to Facebook in 2005. In addition, his latest venture Meituan, a group discount website, is set to undergo\u00a0a $15 billion merger with Dianping in 2015<\/a>.<\/p>\nLei Jun\u00a0headed the efforts of Xiaomi to become multi-faceted company many liken to Apple<\/a>. He was previously CEO of software company Kingsoft. Currently, the value of Xiaomi is over USD$40 billion under his leadership.<\/p>\nChallenges and opportunities of Chinese Entrepreneurs: Success Overseas<\/h2>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/media.licdn.com\/mpr\/mpr\/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAgfAAAAJDE5MjFlZjkwLWJmZmQtNGExMC05NjBmLWZjODEyMDM1NTQ5ZQ.jpg\")
<\/div>\nFew can emulate elsewhere the success that Chinese entrepreneurs have attained. WeChat has invested heavily in overseas marketing though its effectiveness is only to a\u00a0limited degree.<\/a>\u00a0Xiaomi has ventured into the Indian smartphone market against fierce competition from Huawei and many other manufacturers.\u00a0Recent figures show a decline in Xiaomi\u2019s sales. Possibly, this could be due to the lack of development of the smart home ecosystem. Inadvertently, it is unable to create sustainable revenue streams<\/a>.<\/p>\nIn 2016, the next wave of prolific growth is unclear. The Chinese market shows signs of slowing down with fierce overseas competition in key markets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
China and its Chinese entrepreneurs are entering a new stage of development. Expanding overseas to sustain growth, Chinese companies now threaten the GAFA’s territories. In the last two years, news on Chinese companies have frequently hit the headlines: Telecom equipment giant Huawei fell behind\u00a0Samsung and Apple\u00a0in the smartphone market. Suning Commerce Group accepted a $6 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":4891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[461,87],"tags":[201,46,146,481,220,482,483,103,484],"class_list":["post-4668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia-china-south-korea","category-startups-innovators","tag-alibaba","tag-asia","tag-china","tag-chinese","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-haier","tag-huawei","tag-startups","tag-tencent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/div>\nThe first wave of Chinese entrepreneurs often solely owned their businesses and had little formal education.<\/p>\n
CEO Haier Group Zhang Ruimin did not attend university since the Cultural Revolution shut many educational institutions. Instead, his career accelerated during his time at the Qingdao refrigerator plant in 1982. Realizing that poor quality of goods deterred company growth, he\u00a0demonstrated his commitment to high quality products through the destruction of 76 faulty fridges<\/a>\u00a0in 1984.<\/p>\n Through the formation of Qingdao Haier Group in 1991 and reorganization of human capital into 2,000 self-managed teams among other changes, Haier now owns largest market share for white goods with $32.8 billion revenues reported in 2014.<\/p>\n Founder Ren Zhengfei had just retired from the People\u2019s Liberation Army before setting up Huawei in\u00a0Shenzhen<\/a>. Ren continually infused vitality within the company by sharing his passion and establishing structure in the enterprise. His selfless nature showed in his possession of\u00a0only a mere 1.4% of company\u2019s shares<\/a>.<\/p>\n Today, Huawei is China\u2019s largest private exporter with two-third of its $39 billion revenues from overseas.<\/p>\n The second wave of Chinese Entrepreneurs was instigated by Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping\u2019s \u201cSouthern Tour\u201d of 1992. Through consistent assertion of open and liberal economy principles, his actions and words fostered strong entrepreneurial spirit.<\/p>\n During this time, prominent entrepreneurs were holding government positions. Vantone Holdings\u2019 founder\u00a0Feng Lung used to work for state bodies<\/a>\u00a0while Chen Dongsheng, founder of\u00a0Taikang Life Insurance,<\/a>\u00a0the fourth-largest Chinese insurance, was formerly an assistant researcher in the Ministry of International Business and Cooperation in Beijing.<\/p>\n As China progressively opened up, these Chinese entrepreneurs travelled extensively and closed deals involving technology transfer. The breaking of international barriers to the Chinese market and global competition allowed private companies to grow.<\/p>\n As China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001, it\u00a0began to leverage on Internet-powered businesses. Alibaba\u2019s Jack Ma journey is extensively documented in\u00a0Alibaba\u2019s former VP Porter Irishman documentary \u201cCrocodile in the Yangtze\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n He understands that the Chinese business landscape can only be adequately evaluated within national borders. Moreover, Ma envisions the creation of bridges between China and the world through the tools of the Internet and online marketplaces.<\/p>\n Chinese entrepreneurs were confident about raising financial capital overseas. Particularly, they were grounded firmly in principles of self-assurance and respect for government leadership.<\/p>\n These companies target Chinese internet users who differ significantly from their Western counterparts. Through their avid consumption of virtual entertainment, Tencent sold $4 billion worth of virtual gaming goods with only $1 billion worth of advertising.<\/p>\n Tencent\u2019s Ma Huateng grew the company from a small game studio in 1998 that eventually launched instant messaging service QQ and WeChat in 2011<\/a>\u00a0and acquired 600 million active users.<\/p>\n Methods of running companies have deviated from the traditional top-down system. Kelly Zong, who inherited China\u2019s largest beverage company Wahaha from her father, has\u00a0revolutionized the company\u2019s leadership style.<\/a><\/p>\n Wang Xing, a Chinese serial entrepreneur, first started online business platform Xiaonei that was sold to Facebook in 2005. In addition, his latest venture Meituan, a group discount website, is set to undergo\u00a0a $15 billion merger with Dianping in 2015<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lei Jun\u00a0headed the efforts of Xiaomi to become multi-faceted company many liken to Apple<\/a>. He was previously CEO of software company Kingsoft. Currently, the value of Xiaomi is over USD$40 billion under his leadership.<\/p>\n Few can emulate elsewhere the success that Chinese entrepreneurs have attained. WeChat has invested heavily in overseas marketing though its effectiveness is only to a\u00a0limited degree.<\/a>\u00a0Xiaomi has ventured into the Indian smartphone market against fierce competition from Huawei and many other manufacturers.\u00a0Recent figures show a decline in Xiaomi\u2019s sales. Possibly, this could be due to the lack of development of the smart home ecosystem. Inadvertently, it is unable to create sustainable revenue streams<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2016, the next wave of prolific growth is unclear. The Chinese market shows signs of slowing down with fierce overseas competition in key markets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" China and its Chinese entrepreneurs are entering a new stage of development. Expanding overseas to sustain growth, Chinese companies now threaten the GAFA’s territories. In the last two years, news on Chinese companies have frequently hit the headlines: Telecom equipment giant Huawei fell behind\u00a0Samsung and Apple\u00a0in the smartphone market. Suning Commerce Group accepted a $6 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":4891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[461,87],"tags":[201,46,146,481,220,482,483,103,484],"class_list":["post-4668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia-china-south-korea","category-startups-innovators","tag-alibaba","tag-asia","tag-china","tag-chinese","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-haier","tag-huawei","tag-startups","tag-tencent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Second Wave of Chinese Entrepreneurs from the 1990s<\/h2>\n
<\/div>\nThe Internet Chinese entrepreneurs\u00a0of the Third Wave from the early 2000s<\/h2>\n
<\/div>\nFourth Wave of Chinese entrepreneurs from the 2010s<\/h2>\n
<\/div>\nChallenges and opportunities of Chinese Entrepreneurs: Success Overseas<\/h2>\n
<\/div>\n