I am currently working on a book about China Internet.
The central thesis of the book is why U.S. Internet companies were incapable of dominating China. I want the subtitle to be something like “Why Google, eBay, Yahoo, etc. all failed to conquer China.”
It will also stress:
1) How local companies thrive by finding clever ways to adapt to China’s unique environment and how many entrepreneurs have gone from the brink of bankruptcy to huge riches.
2) That opportunities are not limited to the local Chinese – foreigners can grab them too. The easiest way is to be an investor. Long term investment in the top players can be most rewarding, as past performance has shown. The more daring can actually try to build their own companies in this fast-paced, fascinating world, like some of the foreigners I know.
The target audience is readers in the U.S., the U.K. and the rest of the developed west. That’s why I am writing it in English. Although this is a business book meant for a serious business audience, I want it to appeal to a wider readership. (Though it is not actually a tech book, I won’t mind if the publisher puts a few copies in the tech section of the book shops. It helps sales.)
It is business strategy I am writing about - entrepreneurship in particular. But for readers to be able to understand the strategy they have to be familiar with the background: the companies, the people behind them and their life stories. That’s why a significant portion of the book will be devoted to the lives of the major players.
But this is not just history - each story is also an illustration of what works, what doesn’t and why. And readers who are inclined to take on the challenge of entering the Internet business in China can learn from these examples and avoid some of the pitfalls that American companies have fallen into, despite their fabulous success in other parts of the world.
Moreover, the lessons to be learned have implications for many other industries in China.
I know of the China head of a large multinational food company who says his bosses at home can’t resist trying to foist things like nacho cheese flavour snacks on the Chinese market. Even if a product has failure written all over it, he knows that arguing is futile. Only once the product has flopped does it become possible to convince headquarters that maybe something more suited to the local palate, like prawn flavour snacks, stands a better chance of success.
So it’s not just in the online world that something that works brilliantly in one country is a flop in another.
I have written a draft. As of now, it is a skeleton that supports a central thesis – that Google, eBay, Yahoo and every other U.S. internet firm have failed to dominate China because they really don’t understand China. At this early stage the focus is mainly corporate and mostly analysis, without getting into the background of those companies.
Later on, the flesh – the in-depth stories about the people behind the companies, their struggles and successes – will be placed over the skeleton, together with the Internet user side of the story.
Helping me to write the book is a former colleague of mine, James Allen, who has been a business editor for twenty years with prestigious business news outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Reuters and Bloomberg.
With both business and reporting experience (view about), I think I can write a book that is comprehensive, accessible to a worldwide audience eager to know more about entrepreneurship in the world’s fastest growing economy, and – most importantly – a good read.
Part One
Part Two
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