Erik Walenza-Slabe first came to China after graduating from the University of Oregon in 2005 as part of a trip to see the world. He returned in 2010, and today is a co-founder of the Shanghai-based startup IoT ONE as well as director of the Shanghai chapter of Startup Grind, an independent community that connects one million entrepreneurs in 98 countries through events and media. Startup Grind helps entrepreneurs find mentorship, connect to partners and talent, obtain capital and reach new users. I talked to Erik recently about his path to China and Startup Grind’s aims in Shanghai. Excerpts follow.
Q. What brought you to China?
A. I first came to China in 2005. I just graduated from college and wanted to experience how people lived in other countries. At that time, I went to Cost Rica, Guatemala, China, Korea, Nepal and Japan, just spending three months here and six months there. I was blown away by China, but I was teaching in the suburbs of Nanjing at a college where wealthy parents basically bought their kids a degree. Nice kids, but not the highest quality.
So I thought, “This is an incredible country, but I don’t want to be doing this.” In 2010, I was doing my MBA in George Washington. It was a dual MBA and M.A. in International Affairs, with a big focus on Asia. I pitched my professors on letting me do my thesis and a few independent study courses while living in Shanghai. While I was here, a consultancy hired me in 2011. That gave me the footing to be stable here since.
Q. How did you get involved in setting up Startup Grind in Shanghai?
A. I wanted to learn more about entrepreneurship and get in touch with the startup community. In 2013, the startup community in Shanghai was quite a bit less mature than today. Startup Grind had gotten sponsored by Google, which gave them some resources and a mission to be more ambitious and expand globally. I believe Shanghai was the third chapter of Startup Grind in China when it started in 2013 -- it started six months after the Shenzhen and Guangzhou chapters kicked off. They entered Shanghai via meetup.com but hadn’t hosted any events.
So that’s how I came across them in Shanghai. I sent a chat saying, “Hey, looks like you have a good following here, 100+ people, but no events. Why don’t you host an event?” Startup Grind’s founder, Derek Anderson, replied to me a couple days later with, “Hey, why don’t you host an event? If you really want to get involved in a community, you’ve got to be the community. Don’t just be a participant, youreally have to get involved.” I thought that made sense.
At the same time, there was another guy, Albert Young, who has turned into a good friend. He had also contacted Derek, who suggested we try to do it together. We decided, “Let’s go for it,” kicked off a couple of events, and then it just kind of kept going after that.
Q. How have things evolved?
A. In terms of participants, I’d say when we started we had 30, 40, 50 people coming to the events; now, it’s easily 150 or so. We don’t want to grow bigger. We are trying to focus a bit more on quality, meaning trying to focus more on entrepreneurs that have a track record -- people that have a bit more experience -- and also on Chinese engineers. Chinese engineers are one demographic group that may be the most valuable in the community but that is difficult to engage with. First, they don’t speak English well, and our events are generally in English. Second, they are more comfortable in small gatherings among friends, and not big at networking events. We are trying to figure out ways to get them more involved.
Q. What percentage of your participants are expats?
A. I’d say right now the average event depends on the speaker, but it is usually about 50-50. There are probably more European representatives among the expats as opposed to Americans. Among the Chinese, it’s typically people who speak English well, have studied abroad, or work in a foreign company. We get more people that are either a founder or part of a very early age startup on the Chinese side, or people that are in sales, marketing, and business development as opposed to the technical parts of the business.
Q. It seems there’s a big increase in the number of expat entrepreneurs in Shanghai the last several years.
A. Absolutely. I mean in both expat and Chinese entrepreneurs. The Chinese government has been very successful at promoting entrepreneurship. Among expats here, one focus is on cultural or consumer businesses, as opposed to Beijing and Shenzhen where there is more hardware or core IT. Expats often have something they remember from their home country, something that they think is valuable and is not being represented in the Chinese market, and they are trying to bring it over. There are also a lot of companies that have good, innovative business models and see an opportunity here. So I’d say, there is a diversity of companies in Shanghai.
Q. To what extent is Startup Grind in Shanghai a conduit to the venture capital and financing community?
A. We’ve interviewed probably a dozen VC partners at events since we kicked off. And we try to make recommendations where it makes sense. We also focus on advising early stage startups on how they should approach the conversation with VCs. How do you find them? And how do you represent yourself? People think money is easier to raise in China. That may be true if you have the right connections, but most people -- especially most foreigners -- don’t have connections, so it’s not that easy. Most VCs are not actually trying to invest in foreign entrepreneurs.
We advise founders that they should build relationships with VCs at least 12 months before they need investment. Trust is low in China and you invest time to build that trust as early as possible before you want to ask for money.
Contact Erik at erik@startupgrind.com or erik.walenza@iotone.com
--with assistance from Jessica Jiang
--Follow me on Twitter @rflannerychina
