From the program: Mr. Graylin is the CEO of mInfo, the leading Mobile Search Service in China providing natural language search services to users throughout China via SMS, WAP, IM and embedded client applet.? Mr. Graylin is a seasoned technology entrepreneur and business leader with over 15 years of management experience, seven of which are in Greater China. Mr. Graylin co-founded mInfo in early 2005. He is intimately knowledgeable about the wireless search and mobile marketing space in China.

Started off with his background, moved to US as a kid, top of class in high school, uni, grad school, says it doesn’t mean much and you should tell your kids you don’t have to work that hard! Moved back to China, spent a few months looking for a good team. Make sure you have a complementary team.? He brought in a good CTO (Derek Huang).

Know your market. Mobile subscribers are growing at 5-7 million users per month!

Make sure it’s scalable.

He saw that Google had no mobile solution in China and neither did Baidu. They knew they’d be successful in China because the successful companies are all locally owned in China. Foreign management practices often hinder growth, and local management leverages local know-how/ingenuity.

Know the industry 1G –> 4G

Handsets are not just phones anymore. Open/rich OS platforms. Faster networks / unlimited data. 95% of people in China use SMS, and they use it a lot more than they use voice. Mobile ubiquity/dependence, and mobile ads are becoming a real revenue model.

More, but I had to run out!?

And now the day is over — how fantastic was that?!?

From the program: Sam is Wellington born and bred. After attending school in Wellington and a brief but unsuccessful stint at university, he started his career as an IT consultant for Deloitte Consulting. In 1999, Sam founded Trade Me ? New Zealand?s largest and most successful Internet business. Trade Me now accounts for over half of all of the locally served traffic on the NZ Internet. Sam sold Trade Me to Australian media giant Fairfax for $750m in 2006. Sam is now the non-executive Chairman of Trade Me, an investor in tech start-ups, such as Sonar6, and is a director of NZX listed company Xero. Sam also has a portfolio of social investments, from funding the development of affordable medical devices for developing countries to supporting successful microfinance projects in the Pacific Islands.

When they started, they didn’t really have a specific number of listings or members that said they had ‘made it’. He showed a funny caricature of him getting a check for $700 million.

Design principles:

Principle 1: your customers are nothing like you. Hands up if you use Firefox or a Mac (most people put hands up) — no one else does.

Principle 2: Design for speed. One of the reasons why they’ve been successful, and, he believes, one of the reasons Google has been so successful as well.

Principle 3: Convention beats invention. You’re not allowed to innovate certain things, but you are allowed to innovate in others. Let’s talk about innovation regarding the automotive industry — shows car from 1929, you don’t really even know how to start the car because the conventions hadn’t been established. (Did he read my article about automotive design??? He’s practically quoting it.)

Web conventions:

• Logo: top and clickable
• Links: blue and underlined
• Go button on search
• Tabs represent containers of pages

Measuring what matters: they measure bids per minute, etc. Business is a conversion funnel: you put lots of people in the top and a few people coming out the bottom. You can think you put lots more people in the top, you get more people in the bottom, but that’s really inefficient. Shows the TradeMe seller process. The difficulty of each of those steps is what dictates how much comes out the other end of the funnel, and making those steps easier will have a massive difference on how much comes out the bottom.

They run a dating website — funny! He said it’s not really a good business because after three months, you’re either successful (in which case you leave) or you’re unsuccessful (in which case you leave).

Top 10 lies of entrepreneurs:

• Gartner says our market will be worth more than $50bn by 2011
• Our projections are conservative
• We only need 2% market share in the US (and China is all upside)
• We only need $500K to get to break-even
• No one else is doing what we’re doing (he says there are two reasons for this: one is that you haven’t looked hard enough or can’t read Portuguese, and the other is that people have done it and failed)
• Google is not in our space (Google is in your space)
• Vodafone is really interested in what we’re doing
• We have 2 customers in NZ, but the UK market will be huge (UK ten times size of NZ, so you’ll have what, 20 customers?)
• Our Deloitte valuation is 26m
• Flickr sold for $45m (when you normalize that to NZ it’s $400k)

What matters? Deep understanding, realistic growth plan, momentum, strong financial management, realistic fundraising strategy. Smarter capital is more expensive (shows a chart with cost of capital vs. smartness of investors — at bottom are parents –> uncle –> staff –> some guy with a vineyard –> professional investors.

Raise smaller amounts at lower valuations to avoid later pain. Talk to your folks first

Brian Seth Hurst is CEO of The Opportunity Management Company, Inc., a strategic consultancy and cross media production company that is driving the next generation of entertainment.? Referred to as ?the father of cross platform?, Hurst coined the term in 1998 as MD of Convergent Media at Pittard Sullivan, where he launched TV Guide as the first ever cross platform brand.

Great start: he commanded us to sit up straight, plant our feet on the ground and pay attention! Opportunity is not in the past or the future; it’s in a present. Time is hugely valuable; if you’re going to pitch me, you’d better have your act together and be on time.

“Money is like manure; it should be spread around, encouraging young things to grow.”

He asked what our purpose in life is. Your purpose is what you live from. You have a purpose, your product or concept has a purpose, and you’d better know what it is.

His purpose was seeing opportunity where others see tragedy.

Mentors and experts: Brendan has set up something really wonderful here. You need to have mentors and experts in your life; you’re not going to know everything. It’s wise to take constructive criticism in, and let destructive criticism go.

For God’s sake, you have to be a business person! Don’t just say, “I’m creative; I don’t know about that stuff…” What is the value proposition? What is the audience going to get out of it? How is your audience going to talk about it? His company is techno-pologists (anthropologists and technologists). If you don’t want to run a business and you just want to sell your idea, do that.

With a brand, you make a promise to consumers, and you have to keep that promise. Life is a sales job and you are a brand. Don’t let people take away the seed of light that is in you about your idea. This world is at your disposal. Go read Deepak Chopra: the more significant you make your idea, the less you will be able to communicate it to the people who can help you.

Alternate reality games are the fusion of linear, television stories, social media network gaming, and video games. To him, this is a new genre that is organic to the people creating it.

Showed a video about participation drama: fiction without limits. The story was called The Truth About Marika. Marika disappears without a trace but her best friend is convinced she has joined a secret society. The series used TV, online, and physical gaming in an integrated way — looks way cool.? People from all over the world are trying to buy the format rights.

The only thing you really have of true value is your integrity. Some of your ideas won’t work. If your heart isn’t in it, you’re not in it. Finished with that ‘Boldness has genius, power and magic…’ quote that I put up recently.

Great presentation.

Afternoon tea!

Founded 201 to help owner-managers of creative businesses to build and release value in their businesses.

Ideas Businesses: what is an ideas business? Are ‘ideas businesses’ special?

Fueling the knowledge economy: money. Take money and stick it into research, and you get science. If you want to make mondy, you have to innovate with the science and turn it into products and services. You can also take money and turn it into culture, which you then have to run through creative industry and turn it into products and services. The products and services of course turn back into money.

There’s a continuum from science to art, and many of the most exciting developments now are smack in the middle of the continuum.

Get the right vehicle for the journey. Do you have a bike and a car? Oftentimes entrepreneurs want to realize all their ideas through one vehicle.

Businesses are vehicles for ambition. Urge 1: Do great work (cultural wealth, work focus). Urge 2: Build a better world (social wealth, workplace focus). Urge 3: Make money (economic wealth, market focus, perhaps 5% of SMEs).

Most businesses don’t grow.

The challenge of growth: most companies scrabble around at a small level. In between there is an uncomfortable journey. He showed a chart with a model of business growth: freelancers –> artisans –> clubs –> value creators –> value growers –> value realisors –> acquirers –> public companies.

One of the things Pembridge does is help people make the transition between these stages.

Foundations for growth: a team. Every business needs: a finder, a minder and a grinder.

When you put a presentation in front of an investor, think about what the structure of the team is.

Great quote: “Don’t let the creative be the chief executive!”

From the program: Ms Gao has more than 8 years of experience facilitating the entrance of international businesses into the China market, and establishing themselves in Suzhou, China. As Deputy General Manager of Suzhou International Science Park (SISPARK), on behalf of the Suzhou Industrial Park local government, Ms Gao is responsible for promotion of the hi-tech, digital media and creative industries. Ms Gao leads the team that selects the right projects from China and abroad that are interested in expanding into Suzhou ? providing a one-stop service for business set-up, policy and business consultancy, property renting, business incorporation, talent training and recruitment, business matching, funding and venture capital support.

China is transforming towards an innovative nation. GDP per capita exceeding USD3,000.

Net surfers reached 210 million in 2007. Cellphone users exceed 574 million. Average online time per day around 137.8 minutes in 2006. Highly competitive market.

Market innovation: 2D animation: Cuckoo’s Nest. 3D animation: Golden Cartoon. (Incidentally, they just signed an MoU with Virgin Comics).

Holy cow she talks fast.

iQue, technical and market partner of Nintendo.

Suzsoft: IT service and outsourcing management.

SIP: Unique G-to-G project

• A window:? for China opening and reforming
• A pioneer base: for scientific and sustainable economic development and harmonious social development.

SISPARK

• Incubator for hitech companies
• National Animation Industry Base
• National Software Industry Base

Trying to consolidate a lot of the resources you need for new companies.

Talents:

1. High education: 23 universities and colleges. Over 184,000 students in the city.
2. Special talent training and attraction programs
3. Over 20,000 expatriates in Suzhou

High class infrastructure

1. Science hub
2. Idea pump: loft-style office
3. Animation museum
4. Creative industry park

Public technical platform

Basically, these are the people to talk to if you’re trying to grow a new media business in China. They’re fantastic!

The Science & Technology Fund was more than USD400 million last year. Special govt fund to encourage original content and offer subsidies for training outsourcing talent.? Stock market, venture capital, fund of funds, bank guarantees. Lots of financial support. Also IP protection services.

She showed some slides selling Suzhou as a city: cultural, pretty, high economic strength, “One of the 10 best cities for business” according to Fortune.

From the program: Tom is a New Business Development Manager who assesses new business opportunities for the company. Prior to joining Google, he helped to launch two companies in the Internet and consulting spaces in China, playing the role of CTO and sales manager for both ventures. While in China, Tom also helped multinational corporations negotiate significant market entries there in the form of domestic acquisitions and joint ventures. Tom graduated with a degree in physics from Macalester College after which he accepted a scholarship to attend a university in Beijing to improve his Mandarin. He also has an MBA from MIT Sloan. Tom is fluent in Mandarin and French, and has lived in China, Japan, France, Belgium, and the U.S.

This guy is wonderful! Really humble, even though he’s obviously a genius (of the astrophysicist variety).

Simple Observations

Wires, hammers and rucksacks.

Today’s hammers are incredible! Tools today are cheap! Games (Flash), video (HD camcorders), music (Garage Band), web (blogs, vlogs). The flip side of great tools is distribution, and open distribution is becoming the norm: free, YouTube, social networks, RSS.

Any amateur can create content using tools that are equivalent to what the best professionals were using a few years ago.

Today’s wires are fast and getting faster. Speed is not the barrier. What is cool to think about is that there will be a generation that never has a concept of waiting online.

Rucksacks (like tools) are cheap! Just how much does a gigabyte cost? 1992: $4,000. 2000: $20. 2008: $0.30.

Add it all up, and… the business of starting companies is the right business to be in. It’s a golden age for this. He believes that, in the future, people will look back on this age as another Renaissance in human creativity.

Business of Ideas

People: collaboration. “Some secrets are more valuable when shared,” Ed McCracken. You can’t do things by yourself, so, if that’s the case, wouldn’t it be critical that you bring on the right people? Find those friends who are the right friends to bring on, because those people can help you take your idea to the next level. People that you hire are more than arms and legs; what you’re bringing on is also a body, a mind, a heart; if you can capture that in terms of your core group, you’re already halfway there.

Fulfilling user needs should be the focus. 70-80% of new product development that fails does so because of a failure to understand user needs.

Iterate often. “Big will not beat small anymore. It will be fast beating slow.” — Rupert Murdoch.

The Internet as a platform encourages you to iterate as quickly as you can. You’re online 24/7. Your customers are online 24/7. Small changes, quickly, rather than large, earth-shattering ideas.

He then put up a blank slide with the heading: “Yes, this is a blank slide,” and asked us to imagine a graveyard for dead businesses, a physical place where you could go and pay your respects and read the tombstone. This graveyard has written on every tombstone the cause of death. He thinks not only would this be an interesting place, it may prevent future deaths. What’s the heart attack for businesses?

He thinks the number one killer for new businesses is poor management of cash.

You don’t want to get close to the finish line and run out of cash. When your coffers are out, you can’t pay your employees. The first time, maybe they’ll forgive you. The second time, they might not forgive you, and if they leave they take your business.

Showed some great old pictures from Google: Larry and Sergei in Susan’s garage, Google at Stanford, Google’s first data rack circa 1999.

Today + Tomorrow

“The world we have created today, as a result of our thinking thus far, has problems which cannot be solved by thinking the way we thought when we created them,” Albert Einstein.

If that’s true, his parting statement to us is that in two or three years time, some of the people here will have fundamentally changed reality. If that happens, it would be really cool to trace that back to this conference.