I posted my first article on LinkedIn on May 22, 2015. I labored over it for about a week and then finally hit “Publish”. And basically nothing happened. Over the next several days, it eventually got about 50-100 reads. My followers inched up from 500 (my connections) to like 505. It was a pretty frustrating beginning […]
*The following is an excerpt from our new One Hour China Contrarian Book (which is available here.). “Jonathan Woetzel (McKinsey & Co, Peking University) and I have written three speed-read China books together. In this latest one, we have put together a collection of our essays that basically make four main contrarian points. These are: […]
In a previous article, I laid out some basic theory for how platform businesses compete (you can read here). Based on this thinking, I think Airbnb should do 6 things differently than Uber in China.: #1: Airbnb will need to crack the code for Chinese home-sharing. Unlike in ride-sharing and taxi-hailing, the right services and […]
We are seeing increasing collisions between leading Chinese and Western platform businesses. For example: Since buying Uber China, Didi has continued its international moves – such as its investments in Indian Ola, American Lyft and SE Asian Grab. Jack Ma has repeatedly said that 50% of Alibaba’s revenue will be international by 2025. This, plus […]
More than a thousand Chinese healthcare apps have been launched in the past five years. These startups, targeting the seemingly super-hot intersection of booming smartphone usage and modernizing healthcare, were supposed to be the next big thing. And many have been backed by top venture capitalists and leading Chinese companies such as Alibaba Group Holding, […]