Thursday, April 26, 2012

Silicon Dragon Beijing 2012: Serial Entrepreneurs Set up Shop in China

If at first you do succeed, try, try again! That must be the motto of a growing group of startup founders in China who just won’t quit! More and more young entrepreneurs are racing to do their second or third startup in China’s highly energized markets — before this opportunity to catch the wave is gone.

The first generation who made it with Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Sina and Renren are moving on to do their second or third startup in China. It’s one more sign that China’s Silicon Valley is growing up fast! and becoming more and more like the original.

In the Valley, I often meet entrepreneurs who are on to their next new venture. Ask them their track record and most will admit that they have at least one failure among the bunch. The culture of moving on, despite failure, is one reason why Silicon Valley has thrived. Now, this same mindset is catching on in China, and as the fear of failure goes away, we may see another golden era for startups in China that outdoes the first wave from 2004-2008.

Read more at my Forbes post.

Silicon Dragon Beijing 2012 will spotlight these trends at our May 31 program featuring venture investors Hurst Lin of DCM, Neil Shen of Sequoia Capital and CEOs Joe Chen of Renren and Andy Tian of Zynga China – all examples of serial success.