
Ask HN: YC out of touch in China/SE Asia? - a3d
I am not sure if I am the only one seeing this through but I feel that we are in midst of changing times in terms of the market shift. YC startup playbook is very relevant for valley (meaning a much more mature market such as US or EU). But what we are seeing with China to SE Asis and then India starting to follow defies most of the - how to start a company theory. There are quite a few models - marured to moid and even early stage - from wechat, alipay, grab, mobike, pinduodup and I won&#x27;t mention a host of new one&#x27;s emerging in ecom&#x2F;fintech space. None of these map anywhere near YC theory of how to start a company.<p>This is not a criticism.<p>I am just asking if what I am seeing is what non valley founders are realising also - I am speaking from first-hand experience working in China&#x2F;SE asia for past 3 years and recently Vietnam, where I met many founders.<p>Finally - what I really hope for is if someone can suggest good reads&#x2F;books on growing scaling companies in Asian environments. The english literature is sparse on the topic and usuals of sam altman to peter thiel honestly does not fully apply in the global &#x2F; cross border dynamics. World works somewhat differently for people starting company in Asia now and I kid you not - markets are huge and many huge names will continue to emerge beyond Tencent and Alibaba or Flipkart.<p>I am just turned off by how much good valley advise is now out of touch on what is happening in asia - circa 2018.
======
erohead
As a partner at YC, I can say that we are actively working on how YC can help
founders in China. One difference I've noticed with Chinese startups is the
relative speed at which they move. If you thought SV moved quick...it's
nothing compared to Beijing! Re: what SV advice is transferable, we're still
very much figuring this out. It's not 100% but I highly doubt it's as limited
as I've heard some BJ investors and founders imply :)

Good resources on China and startups: \- 996 Podcast by GGV
[https://996.ggvc.com/category/podcast/](https://996.ggvc.com/category/podcast/)
\- Sinica Podcast
[https://supchina.com/series/sinica/](https://supchina.com/series/sinica/)

Daily/TC style news \- Axios China daily email
[http://link.axios.com/join/signup-all](http://link.axios.com/join/signup-all)
\- Pandaily [https://pandaily.com/](https://pandaily.com/)

~~~
danieka
I'd be interested in reading a blog article that describes in what way Chinese
startups move faster, I feel there is a lot to be learned here.

~~~
njoro
I think it is mostly that competition is insane. Not that competition is low
in Silicon Valley, but you are still able to carve out some niche for
yourself. In China not so much, or at least it is a lot harder. People will
come in and do what you do, what your supplier does and get the same deals as
you, on every level of your business.

------
muzani
SE Asian here. Some things I've noticed:

* Talent is extremely rare. The ratio is about maybe a tenth as much in good areas vs somewhere like NYC. Put it this way - our interview process for _senior_ engineers involves asking them to build a linked list, and it involves a lot of hints.

* The unicorns of the region are app+logistics, things like Grab, Lazada, ofo.

* Or things that cut through heavy bureaucracy - alipay, iMoney, iPay88, WeChat. Stripe and similar companies have tried but it's hard to pierce the bureaucratic layer.

* Scaling is a very different game. You simply can't hire a hundred of the best people. You can get maybe 2-3 excellent people, and the rest will have to be trained from scratch. This makes moving fast difficult.

* However, living costs are low... founders in SEA except Singapore can live off $10k/year.

So from all these points, it's extremely dangerous to move fast. A lot of
local startups overextend into multiple countries then run out of money or
can't manage.

The SE Asian game is similar to the Vietnam War. One has to move slowly and
carefully. Higher tech may not defeat a well entrenched local, and companies
like Uber have bled trying.

I think the startup game in SE Asia and China is moderate tech. You won't have
Google or Apple, but you'll have Tencent, LTE, and Huawei. The biggest tech
companies in SEA are things like telcos and job listing sites.

Asians are not sharks but bottom feeders - they can survive at lower depths,
under more extreme conditions. Ideally startups in SEA would be more like
MailChimp, Reddit, Postman, Runcloud. Where it's not a race, but the unit
economics matter.

------
tlb
Can you zero in on a few specific pieces of YC advice that are most wrong for
early-stage companies in Asia? I think it'd be more productive to have a
discussion around some specific issues.

YC has much less experience in Asia than the US, and we'd like to learn.

~~~
slededit
YC seems very oriented to Software and other businesses where iteration costs
are low. In hardware you have to spend some money to test product market fit.
The only way to not lose your shirt is to follow a waterfall approach with
more traditional planning. From an external view it seems like the antithesis
of the YC approach.

~~~
tlb
YC started with software companies, but a substantial fraction of current
companies are building hardware. See [https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-
winter-2018-stats/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-winter-2018-stats/) and
the links to company descriptions.

Waterfall means different things to different people. I think the key to
success is getting several iterations in front of the customer, and being able
to make major changes based on their feedback. That does usually mean some
duplication of effort, but that's better than building something complete that
nobody actually wants.

Also, there's a new funding deal for biotech companies that provides more
money: [https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-bio/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-
bio/).

~~~
aaavl2821
I think the issue for biotech isn't just you need more money -- you do to get
initial POC (the most analogous concept to product / market fit), but can
actually get to exit with less than tech co's nowadays -- but that you have to
spend your initial money right. product / feedback cycles are orders of
magnitude longer / more expensive, so you need to do more planning to make
sure you do the right experiments. this is the hard lesson that the
experienced biotech VCs have learned, that generalist VCs have struggled with
and why you dont really see many generalist tech VC backed biotech co's
succeed (except stemcentryx)

more money without better planning = more money wasted

------
auganov
Cutthroat competition of well-funded second-movers is a whole different
ballgame. It's funny that you mention Peter Thiel. His "globalization" pretty
much describes this.

I think you'll find relevant advice in more traditional managerial business
literature. You want operational excellence above all.

------
duxup
What do you feel works in Asia, but isn't done or works elsewhere?

Also what doesn't work in Asia that YC and others do?

------
askafriend
I would rather China/SEAsia grow their own networks rather than YC come in and
impose their way of thinking onto a different culture and market. I get a
sense that this notion of American exceptionalism is waning an that people,
especially in China, don't look to America for leadership the same way as in
the past.

And I think there is a general sentiment that China is well on it's way. I
suspect YC needs China more than China needs YC, or at least I think they're
headed towards that future. I've noticed a lot of really talented Chinese
immigrants and students who have worked in Silicon Valley for several years
moving back to China to work for Tencent, Baidu, JD, Alibaba etc.

I'm sure "Trump's America" is also a factor in all this.

------
mabynogy
It's propaganda. They don't have the cultural tools for that (yet).

