Author Archives: Yangzhihao

On May 17th I went to the monthly Stockholm Tech Meetup #STHLMTECH. Once again, it is an inspiring session to listen to the advice from the investors and watch two startups pitch on stage.

The host asked the investors some interesting questions: like what is the criteria when comes to invest a startup, and what is your favorite / least favorite word in a pitch?

“Great people”, answered by one of the investor to the question of invest criteria. I am surprised he didn’t say “Great product” but put a focus on the team. “Global” is one of the favorite words they like in a pitch which indicates that your venture has the ambition and preparation for future international expansion. And among the least favorite pitching words, I am most impressed with the word “Development”. Why? The investor explained that many startups mention their products or services are under development before launching, but he thinks they don’t need to wait until they have perfect products or services. To my understanding, even if your application is not 100% implemented, you can still use it to reach out to your users and collect the reactions, comments and suggestions, and better improve your products and services based on the feedback.

It’s a very good chance to meet the ecosystem of startups and entrepreneurs in Stockholm, which also gives me some lessons on the wording during the investment pitch.

By Zhihao Yang

I have posted this blog before on my website about how IKEA adjusts its business model for localisation, thinking it is a good chance to share with you to discuss. Any thoughts and comments are welcomed 🙂

“宜家(yi jia)” is the Chinese name of IKEA, which literally means “Suitable and nice for your home”. Efforts can be seen in the process of expanding IKEA’s market from Europe to North America, from western countries to the oriental world, like Japan, China, South Korea, etc.

In order to set foot in local markets in different countries, IKEA does do many changes to its business model. I want to share some interesting points that I found about how IKEA adapt to the Chinese market.

Target customer segment: In western countries, IKEA serves as the furniture provider for everyone and gets its popularity especially among families with middle or low level income. But when IKEA opened its first store in Beijing in 1999, IKEA products’ high prices scared aways many price-sensitive consumers in China. After realising this, IKEA decided to target its consumer group of young middle-class professionals, who get relatively higher salaries, are better educated and have better understanding of western cultures and design styles. This major strategy change helps IKEA to build the impressions of itself as an aspirational western brand and get many customers.

Value Proposition: in Europe, the value proposition mostly focuses on good quality and stylish furniture with affordable prices for everyone. In China, it slightly changes to good quality, western or more nordic designed aspirational brand for middle-class consumers.

Store location – How the customers are reached? As we can see in many cities, like in Stockholm, IKEA stores are mostly in suburbs with easy access by car. The driving time from Stockholm central to both of the two IKEA stores nearby is about 20 minutes. But considering the situation in China, “Only 20 percent of visitors in Shanghai have cars”, says the marketing manager of IKEA China, Ulf Smedberg, you often find the IKEA stores in the outskirts of cities near public transportation station. Actually I have been to one IKEA store in Shanghai which is quite in the city center, just walking distance away from Shanghai Stadium and two nearby metro stations.

Due to the efforts that IKEA has put to the Chinese markets, IKEA becomes more and more famous and popular in China now. Currently there are 18 IKEA branches in the mainland of China, including 8 of 10 largest IKEA stores in the world. And IKEA China is becoming one of the most important space in business growth thanks to the rapid growing middle-class population in the big cities.

References:
http://www.chinabusinessreview.com/ikea-with-chinese-characteristics/
http://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/lbs-case-study/how-ikea-adapted-its-strategies-to-expand-in-china/story/196322.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA
http://brandongaille.com/ikea-business-model-and-marketing-strategy/
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/sep/09/ikea-sales-rise-china-middle-class

By Zhihao Yang

It’s been an inspiring experience to attend the Start Up Day 2016 to get a “tangible” feeling of the ecosystem of entrepreneurship and innovation in the startup hub – Stockholm.

Here are some of the notes which I made during the speeches that I found interesting and worth spreading.

The day was started by the talk by Nick Kaye, Co-funder of Klarna:
– “Success is luck combines a lot of work.”
– “You need time to do some reflection to know how you are satisfied.” (Nick has found the “White Space” during his vocation, which is doing good by his social entrepreneurship project to be launched during this summer and he referred it as a way to refuel.)
– “Don’t go to all the network events, office is where all the work is done.” (He mentioned that it is important to meet people and exchange ideas, but don’t be obsessed about it.)

The talk “Can our society cope with AI?” given by Christoph Auer-Welsbach, IBM Waston BD Leader Europe, also impressed me a lot.
– “A machine will always reflect the values of its creator.”
– “Human need to adapt quickly and be changed for the new era.”
– “AI is a tool to assist human, not to replace them.”
– “AI could be considered during startups’ product design and development process.” (To my understanding, he was suggesting that startups could adopt AI as new features to improve their products and services, and create more values for users.)

The whole day speeches was ended by Simone Giertz, the famous “Queen of shitty robots”. She builds many robots that are fun but spectacularly useless things. Her videos went virus and famous worldwide. In the talk she explained why she is doing this:
– “The best way to learn is by doing it.” (Learning by doing is her motto.)
– “Idea first, tools later.” (For me, this concept that it is not difficult to implement as long as you have the idea, is little bit hard for me, an engineer student, to understand at first. When we want to build something, the first thing come to our minds is “Is it feasible?”. However, I think, for a creator, innovator, entrepreneur, feasibility might be an constraint for thoughts and innovation.)
– “Your ideas might be smarter than you.” (She said she always got many comments about her video on how her robots could be used to help others’ lives, which she didn’t thought about before. The idea you think is useless might be useful for others.)

Here is a short video about her “shitty” projects:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcxlSLNH5M0

It’s an intensive day full of ideas and knowledge. The words “#Luck” and “#HardWork” said by Nick in the beginning are used throughout the day by Moderator, Aurore Belfrage. Let’s see how these two words accompany us in our journey of entrepreneurship.

By Zhihao Yang