i think there's
definitely that existential threat of
would my chinese identity or chinese
branding
hurt my business maybe 99.9 of the users
on take talk they don't know that it was
a chinese company before the
administration brought it up
people are not willing to wear their
chinese-ness
on their sleeves they also like to you
know bring in a random white guy to join
the group photos
just to make themselves look more legit
[Music]
the u.s market is massive and an
important one for brands to break into
chinese companies are no exception but
for creators who want to make it big in
the u.s
they have to overcome their own risks
and challenges
customers and government regulators
scrutinize their data and privacy
practices for one
and they have to refine their products
design for a market they don't live in
maybe most challenging of all though is
overcoming the stigma of being chinese
publicizing where they're from is often
a tough risky decision for founders to
make
and one that could have wide reaching
repercussions
a lot of these great companies with
great products
don't usually talk a lot about the fact
that they are
designed and made in china my name is
liu
i am the general manager of global
strategy
indiegogo so what i do and what my team
does is we
help chinese entrepreneurs successfully
launch crowdfunding campaigns on the
platform
we first started looking into china as a
growing market
four years ago really at the time we
were seeing so much
innovation coming from the country but
what was
challenging is that you know language
barrier cultural barrier
was quite significant although these
companies have interesting products to
offer potential backers
they still feel like they have to
obscure where they're from
the team section is a huge part of
storytelling
in a crowdfunding campaign but that part
is often the emphasize
for campaigns coming from china a lot of
times when they do
have their team photos they like to
grayscale it
to kind of de-emphasize their skin tone
founders will anglicize their names none
of these
tips and tricks are actually validated
or a b
tested on their page and i think a lot
of it is that passed down knowledge
of what they think this is how they
should approach the american
market by ways of you know the burden of
representation
if people see a copycat product
that is made in china then they will
draw the connection of
because it is a chinese product then it
is a
counterfeit
if you look at the successful brands
coming out of europe and u.s they're
usually quite
true to their identity my name is jerry
yen i'm the general partner of highway
club hcvc
jerry's an investor who works at
hardware club a venture capital firm
that invests in early hardware startups
he says european and american companies
usually don't de-emphasize their origin
and instead use the same messaging
internationally as they do in their
domestic market
they're selling a specific western image
chinese companies on the other hand
feel like they have to change their
messaging which is
kind of an unfair situation for a lot of
chinese brands that are now
successful in domestic market but then
they're trying to piggyback
into a american market which is one of
the most likely market because the story
that works
domestically most of the time those
stories are not attractive enough for
american consumers we talk about tick
tock it didn't pretend to be an american
company it's just basically push our
service that people like
that people just find it neutral and and
started to use it
if they put the chinese later in the
logo if they
say this is you know creating china you
can make a very strong argument that
people will be more doubtful when they
use the app
even if users didn't realize tic tac was
a chinese company
the us government knew and deemed it a
security risk
now to president trump's threat to ban
tick-tock the widely popular but
chinese-owned video sharing app out of
fear that the link to china poses a
security risk
over the summer the trump administration
announced that it would ban tick-tock
from the u.s market unless it found an
american buyer
the administration argued tick tock's
ties to the chinese government
and its security practices were risk to
american consumers
at the same time the trump
administration also wanted to ban wechat
the most popular chat app in china over
the same concerns
these are just the most recent actions
against chinese companies
the gay dating app grinder sold to an
american firm after the us government
expressed national security concerns
and huawei and zte two other chinese
companies
are now locked out of us government
contracts
some of these concerns are real and
verified meaning the chinese government
could potentially access user sensitive
data or censor their speech
so when chinese companies enter the us
market
they have to be transparent about how
they treat customers data
many creators find ways to work around
the chinese government or at least
prove their security when zoom was
scrutinized earlier this year it doubled
down on privacy and collaborated with
facebook's former security chief alex
damos
another smaller creator jenkin shaw says
she and her team rent servers from
amazon to preserve data
before backers started to back the
project
we got that questions a lot related to
data storage where did you store your
data
or how are you going to protect our
privacy
jenkin is the co-founder of wooc labs a
smart home device company that launched
its first product
wooc a smart doorbell on indiegogo in
2019.
the doorbell system is designed for
people who live in apartments or move
around frequently
it collects some personal data given
that has a live feed of who's entering
and exiting people's homes
and employs facial recognition software
its customers of course have concerns
about how their data is stored
we do a few the pressure to answer these
questions
for example for europe we specific
telling people that
your data is covered by gdpr and then we
combine that laws
when we are building the software or
using the cloud
for u.s market for instance we are using
aws
we will be really transparent to backers
about these facts
that we really respect and protect their
privacy following their local loss
but even these considerations might not
be enough to satisfy the american market
or regulators concerns
we are seeing a lot of these
high-profile very successful
companies from china are getting bad pr
were getting directly targeted by the
u.s government
you really never know these days what
kind of policies what kind of tariffs
will be
coming through right it really is random
it comes at any time
at the stroke of midnight the u.s hit
china with tariffs on 34 billion dollars
worth of goods
china's great firewall hinders creators
in other ways too
namely restricting their access to
popular social networks
the chinese internet unfortunately is
silo very much siloed
from the rest of the world chinese
people didn't
grow up using google facebook instagram
so when chinese entrepreneurs are trying
to enter the american market
really they're learning everything from
xero even if let's say they
are quite established in china and
they've got
you know a million followers on weibull
right which is a chinese twitter you
know another 100k
on wechat it doesn't really mean
anything for the rest of the world
because it's not facebook and twitter
so even if these chinese companies
manage to overcome these challenges
they still have to consider the basics
designing a product that appeals to a
new market
a product that does well in china might
not succeed in the us
you have to change the design for sure
if you have something that works for
china
especially if it works very well you can
be sure that it's probably not going to
be working well in different cultures
a campaigner that we worked with they
created the world's lightest
e-bike that is also very affordable
right you know when they launched their
campaign actually it didn't do
as well that as they expected for a few
reasons
first of all you know that foldability
wasn't actually that much of an
attractive feature for the american
consumers whereas for
asian countries living spaces and much
smaller so that feature was actually
highly desirable
you know a year later they came back
with the second
version of their e-bike and the product
positioning is actually durability you
can do it
in different terrains and it's good for
camping that campaign did
so much better but for all the struggles
they might face
chinese companies do have one major
advantage
ironically the biggest challenge was
actually
the biggest advantage they have if we
talk about physical good
obviously today allows things are made
in china
hardware is always a challenge but when
it comes to campaigners from china it's
less of a challenge right
instead of trying to figure out on the
internet
who will be a good factory to
manufacture your product
a lot of the creators that we work with
they can really just
walk across the street right and sign a
contract
with the manufacturer and then get their
product made so
in that sense it is a significant
advantage
[Music]
the stigma against chinese companies is
real honestly even trying to find a
creator to talk about these struggles
was difficult because of how sensitive a
topic this is
but hopefully over time chinese creators
will find ways to address their us
customers concerns
and bring their products abroad for
jerry and lou the key for these
companies is to be true about who they
are
don't try to pretend to be some sin or
someone you're not if you're not
american brains you're not the story
with dji where they didn't pretend to be
american or european companies it's just
a company that has the best product
and you keep building best product
better product on top of that and
eventually win
almost the entire market just by doing
that we do
observe some very successful brands or
companies that are started by chinese
founders
are doing really great such as oneplus
or zoom
so i think that's something that we look
up to and we do
think that those are examples or models
telling us that
chinese identity won't be something that
stops you from
building a very successful company or a
product that people love
you know be proud of your country origin
right because
at the end of the day it is really about
the product being awesome when your
audience you know
buy the product use the product and then
like it
that's that's all it matters it doesn't
matter if it's labeled made
in china all they care about is that
this is a great product
hey y'all thanks for watching this
episode is part of our new season of in
the making so if you haven't yet make
sure you check out episode one
which is about the challenges that
gadget startups face when trying to sell
their products on live tv
as always subscribe to the verge okay
see you later bye