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Why we are taking our startup to Hong Kong and other crazy stories of 2011

leostartsup.com

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Re: Why we are taking our startup to Hong Kong and other crazy stories of 2011

#21

Post by thomaspun »

dhkl wrote: post #12
thomaspun wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right on! Leon, I'm connected to the HK startup folks (founders of StartUps HK and Boot) there as well. Feel free to ping. Here is their FB group which most communication is done: https://www.facebook.com/groups/startupshk/ It's a closed group but I could add you.

Is the group still active? My request's been on pending for a while now :-(

Group is very active. I think they require people to physically show up to their Startup Monday event to be added to the group. Ping me offline and I could connect you to the group organizers. Or tweet them at: http://twitter.com/startupshk

Re: Why we are taking our startup to Hong Kong and other crazy stories of 2011

#22

Post by xiaoma »

ebaysucks wrote: post #7

Could people from the Hong Kong startup community please comment on HK vs Shanghai for doing a startup? I've lived in HK during my student exchange and loved every minute of it - I also have an employee working from Hong Kong. At some point I'll set up teams to target Asian markets with China as the most important one. What are pro's and con's of HK vs Shanghai? Edit: Thanks for all the answers! I really want to go b…

I'm at a start-up in Beijing, and here's my 2 cents:

The internet is broken in China. Rather than an international internet, we've got a really fast domestic intranet. Not only is every cool, important site since 2004 blocked (e.g. Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox...), but VPNs are less reliable than they used to be. Gmail is unreliable. Even paying for significant bandwidth, international sites are slow and video is a pain. I've seen an office full of really smart people's unproductive because they can't load a basecamp page or because dropbox transfers through a VPN move at a crawl.

Every time I go to HK, it's like a breath of fresh air having the internet. For this reason alone, I'd say don't do a start-up in China unless your market is China and you plan to be using primarily Chinese services.

Re: Why we are taking our startup to Hong Kong and other crazy stories of 2011

#23

Post by [deleted] »

kloncks wrote: post #2

As an American, our immigration policies make me so damn mad. I know both Leo and Joel quite well, having went through AngelPad together, and they were building a solid company that should have stayed in America. The fact that wealth-builders, and innovative startup founders that seek to create new frontiers can't legally find a way of staying in this country is preposterous.

[deleted]

Re: Why we are taking our startup to Hong Kong and other crazy stories of 2011

#24

Post by pyre »

_delirium wrote: post #16
samstave wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that HK went back to chinese rule years ago - how is HK not behind the same great FW?

They still have a (somewhat) separate judicial system and government, which results in a considerably freer media and society; for example, many of the newspapers print anti-PRC editorials that wouldn't be allowed in mainland China, and there are open demonstrations on things like the Tiananmen anniversary.

Also, IIRC you have to have special papers to travel from mainland China to HK.

Re: Why we are taking our startup to Hong Kong and other crazy stories of 2011

#25

Post by maxklein »

samstave wrote: post #13
OoTheNigerian wrote: post #10

Have fun guys. I am sure you guys will do well in any country. Once I settle, I will definitely invite you to Nigeria. Your visas will be taken care of ;)

You should have chosen "419TheNigerian" as your username :)

That is EXTREMELY offensive

Re: Why we are taking our startup to Hong Kong and other crazy stories of 2011

#27

Post by LeonW »

thomaspun wrote: post #9
dhkl wrote: post #3

Hong Kong has several vibrant, English-speaking startup/hacker communities where people are passionate about building stuff and making things work. Some notable communities to checkout: http://codeaholics.hk/ - Technology agnostic programming community http://www.startupshk.com/ - A tight-knit startup community http://boot.hk/ - A great gathering place for hackers and builders. See you in Hong Kong!

Right on! Leon, I'm connected to the HK startup folks (founders of StartUps HK and Boot) there as well. Feel free to ping. Here is their FB group which most communication is done: https://www.facebook.com/groups/startupshk/ It's a closed group but I could add you.

Hi Thomas and dhkl, thanks a lot for the resources, will look into this and get in touch, that's very useful! :)

Re: Why we are taking our startup to Hong Kong and other crazy stories of 2011

#29

Post by LeonW »

rdl wrote: post #5

Hong Kong is my favorite place in the world to live or work. If I were working on something other than computer security, I'd have a hard time not doing it there. I'm sure you will be very successful there.

thanks for the enouragement!

Re: Why we are taking our startup to Hong Kong and other crazy stories of 2011

#30

Post by albahk »

Hong Kong is a great place for business and for most important purposes (GFW, law, freedom of speech, immigration, language, etc) it is a different 'country' to China.

Another place to check out is the govt sponsored incubator at Cyberport http://www.cyberport.hk/en/about_cyberport/our_5_centres/ent...

Look forward to seeing you around HK

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