

Ask HN: How to expand in China? - tstegart

We've just launched our iOS app (an iPad travel magazine) and I've started to think about how to expand in china and other east Asian countries, like Japan and South Korea (the biggest App Store markets in the region). Does anyone have experience doing this? I would love to hear ideas from people for a bootstrapped PR strategy or from people who actually have iOS apps and how well its been working for them.<p>Right now I'm running into two problems. One, I'm having trouble finding places to send pitches to. Is there a Techcrunch of China? A app review site of Japan? I'm a little lost because of the language barrier. I don't even know how to find blogs that will cover us. If anyone here has names, please throw them out.<p>The second problem I'm running into is related to the first. I don't speak the language, so its hard to communicate or understand Chinese, Japanese or Korean language blogs and websites. We also can't really localize our app. Its a long-form travel magazine, so translating thousands upon thousands of words and making sure they matches the emotion of the story is beyond our budget. It seems silly to translate a menu item in our app just to leave the content unreadable, so we haven't considered it.<p>So not only do I need to find places, I need to find places with English language audiences. Any suggestions? Has anyone had any success with their apps in Asia? I'd be interested in hearing from both people with localized apps and without, and from people whose strategies have failed.
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igorsyl
Try to get in touch with <http://chinesepod.com>. They seem very friendly and
understand the local culture. You could also target ex-pats.

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tstegart
Do you mean to ask them who I should contact over there, or to learn the
language?

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igorsyl
Neither. I did not mean to be sarcastic. Perhaps they can feature your website
in their blog or they can refer you to a site visited by ex-pats. They could
even provide you with Chinese marketing knowledge in exchange for a equity or
a fee or for free. I'm just brainstorming all of this.

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tstegart
Ah, got it. Well, its the only suggestion so far. I guess not a lot of people
think about it.

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igorsyl
Good luck!

