Page 143 - How China Is Winning the Tech Race

Chinese Internet portal SINA and the software firm Neusoft in addition to the
telecom operators China Unicom and China Telecom, which have rolled out
popular mobile phones with pre-installed stock and financial services
software. Additionally, Oriental Wisdom needs more capital to get into the
direct distribution of financial services by mobile phone. Liu started tapping
the money well in spring 2007.
Oriental Wisdom has to keep inventing marketing gimmicks such as free
currency converters, risk calculators, and portfolio management tools to
8
entice the right consumers. The majority of Chinese mobile subscribers are
low-end users, not likely buyers of financial services. To be successful,
Oriental Wisdom must “build its brand to high-end users and partner with
reliable financial and insurance companies,” says Duncan Clark of BDA Con-
sulting in Beijing.

Management hurdles

The biggest issue for Oriental Wisdom is management. Liu, like many other
young, passionate entrepreneurs, wants to try a lot of new things without real
grounding. This is his first stab at entrepreneurship, and his board keeps
reining him in. For instance, he’s had to drop two areas beyond the firm’s core
competency: mobile games and software training for building features on
mobile phones. But he has the risk-taking DNA of a successful entrepreneur.
Liu is representative of the new breed of innovator in today’s China; he
has honed his technological abilities entirely on the Mainland, not in one of
America’s finer institutions of learning. His three cofounders are all locals too.
The chief financial officer, Bill Huang, and the head of marketing, Kevin
Cheng, joined the start-up from a venture capital firm Liu was pitching for
money to form Oriental Wisdom. The technology chief, Steven Fu, is a former
classmate of Liu’s and has a Ph.D. in computer science. Workaholic that he is,
Liu can’t make up for a lack of managerial experience and Silicon Valley
know-how—that is understandable in light of the fact that capitalism is a new
force in China. Venture investor Tina Ju says that Liu may have to accept
working alongside a more seasoned executive to help the young company
mature.
That advice may be hard for Liu to digest. He is a natural competitor who
keeps himself in shape by swimming nearly every morning before he drives to

Oriental Wisdom—Confucian Capitalism 117