An entrepreneur is someone who is always on the lookout for problems that can be turned into opportunities and finds creative ways to leverage limited resources to reach their goals. In this course, learners will be introduced to the fundamental concepts, theories, and frameworks of entrepreneurship and learn how to apply them within the context of the world's largest market: China. Through cases, articles, and experiential learning, learners will gain expertise in how to identify and evaluate opportunities; interpret, analyze, and build financial models to enable high-growth ventures; practice living life as an entrepreneurial leader; and create a new product or service for the Chinese market.
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Module 1: What Is Entrepreneurship?
In this first module, you will learn to appreciate the mindset of an entrepreneur. If you are thinking of starting your own business, it is critical for you to adjust yourself to be one if you want to succeed.
Associate Director, EMBA Program, Associate Professor of Practice in Entrepreneurship, Project Director, Centre for Entrepreneurship Department of Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics
Why why Shanghai as the first city
outside Hong Kong?
So, first of all, it’s a Tier 1 city.
It is very diverse compared to…
compared to other Tier 1 cities,
it’s quite similar to Hong Kong.
And also because we want to focus on
different verticals… besides car… so,
some luxury brands or some,
for example, expensive cameras.
These brands’ headquarters are also in
Shanghai, so we chose to go to
Shanghai to be closer to these people.
But when you move like from Hong Kong
to Shanghai, you already expand
beyond the car-sharing industry.
So, you already… but but that you also
copy that model for Hong Kong cos I know
in the Hong Kong model, you you stick
with just sharing car (Yeah.) but in
Shanghai not only expanding in terms of
geographic but you also expand
in terms of the range of shareable items.
Then, what makes you think of…
you're not just replicating the model in
Hong Kong (But also expanding.) cos at
the same time you’re actually trying out
to expand that model. (Yeah.) So,
wouldn't that be a little bit more risky or
why or why wouldn’t you try that first
in Hong Kong and then expand there?
Well, on hindsight, it's definitely a lot
riskier and it turns out having your…
having your focus spread across all the
different verticals make the team really
difficult to to find collaborations and to
build the business.
What we learnt is that, for example,
the target audience for using cars...
is actually very different from people
who may use a camera or who may
use… who may want to borrow a dress.
So, it makes the marketing costs
basically really high. (Right.) And
also… and also, so we basically had
kind of like a rush because we wanted
to tap into the China market.
One of the main reason is that we found
out that there were competitors starting
to come up in China for a cost-sharing
space. (I see.) So, we chose that time to,
ok, let's go to China at this time,
into the market and get some market
presence first. And then, yeah, basic...
basically … right I may need to kind of
(Sure.) re-structure this.
Because you said there are already people
starting the car sharing in Shanghai.
So, that would've been, that would've been
direct competiting… competing space...
so you are expanding beyond that.
(So.) Is it to avoid to avoid a direct
competition with that and then…
Yes, one of the reasons is we wanted to
kind of stand out and basically, kind of,
absorb a larger group of audience
but then basically after thinking…
hindsight it's basically we were kind of
spreading ourselves too thin.
So, if I understand this correctly -
although the idea of sharing seems to be
universal but but because of the items
that are shared, it actually results in
different customer segments and and
unfortunately there seems to be little
overlap for some of the major categories
(Yes.) and therefore, it makes it makes
the marketing costs that much more
expensive and it makes the whole
operation a lot more… difficult. (A lot heavier, yeah)
And also, I would say the timing of
entering into the sharing economy
business for all the different assets,
the timing is probably too early.
Because unlike more sophisticated
market like in the States, China actually
they don't have a really centralized…
they didn't really have a centralized
kind of reputation system (Right) in in
in place. I think it started to have
like a… like a credit score for people
around 2015 or 2016, (Right.) but then...
back then when we were there at 2014,
I think, we basically don't have the
infrastructure to support doing
such business models.
So, I guess what you're saying…
because in the center of the sharing
economy, there is a lot of trust and
therefore, the rating system becomes
very important. (Yeah.) What people...
whether people can trust each other
and… and that's the very essence of
sharing economy. (Yes, exactly.)
So, that’s a little bit ahead of time.
But I also know by the time but by the
time you start… kind of operating and
you already see competitor
also popping up, right?
Yeah, so basically when we entered the
China market, we were the… I think we
were the second one in the market
and then basically every month there is
a new competitor (Every month!)
for around a year. Yeah, so there…
at the end, there were twelve...
business doing the same business model
and all trying to expand to a lot of cities
very fast. Yeah. I think that
that ties into kind of like the China
culture of doing businesses.
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Prof. Dominic ChanAssociate Director, EMBA Program, Associate Professor of Practice in Entrepreneurship, Project Director, Centre for Entrepreneurship
