Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

needwant.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 69 posts

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#51

Post by culturestate »

mdorazio wrote: post #24

I have to wonder if there's a market for people who specialize in helping foreigners do factory tours like this more efficiently. For a few hundred dollars, someone who actually knows China could have easily paid for themselves by preventing ripoffs like the taxi to the border (as others have pointed out, the train is dirt cheap) and the rush visas (you can get them done in HK within 24 hours for way less than $200),…

> you can get them done in HK within 24 hours for way less than $200

They didn't mention whether that price included the PRC processing fee, but if it did that's not a terrible deal for having expedited it in the States. Honestly, given some of the crap I've had to go through with PRC immigration, I don't blame anyone for paying extra to make sure everything's in line before they fly 18 hours across the world.

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#52

Post by TXV »

Nice blog post, it makes me remember my early years as a professional in China. Now as a 27 year old who flies back and forth once every 1.5 months to manage a team of 3 Chinese developers, I really miss the times when everything was a discovery and looked so fresh and cool. After a while you get used to it and start noticing all the bad details. It takes away a lot of the enjoyment that pushed me there in the first place. The good part is that China always finds ways to amaze and entertain me.

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#53

Post by yitchelle »

donquichotte wrote: post #48
jordanb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their doe-eyed turnip truck perspective was cringy all the way through. McDonalds is the same, but different! And they negotiated 3000 dollars off! How lucky! And he sent them off to Hainan Island. Prosperity and success can not be in doubt.

"Winston wanted to send us away to a Chinese island called Hainan for a few days during the slow part of production." Of course he didn't want foreigners snooping around in his factory. It must have been cheaper to pay their holidays than run the factory at Western standards for "a few days" to please naive visitors.

Not to be too sexist about it, they appointed two young ladies to accompany these three young American men to the island. I guess it provided some extra incentive to visit Hainan.

Wish the Chinese would stop doing this kind of shady behavior.

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#54

Post by eitally »

pcr0 wrote: post #12

I hope you didn't just take taxis around all day. Public transport, especially the trains in Hong Kong are day and night compared to most other countries in terms of pricing, speed and reliability. 6000USD/Month for 600sqft is ridiculous, even by HK standards. It's probably a 5-star serviced apartment, i.e. long-stay hotel. Paying 200 to drive across the border is a rip-off though. There are trains and buses that tak…

Regarding border crossing ... if you haven't crossed into China before, it's quite possibly worth taking a full-service car that has driving privileges on both sides of the border. For a first timer who might not have much international travel experience, disembarking on the HK side, going through customs & immigration unaccompanied, then finding the right transport on the other side and being able to communicate destination, can be daunting. After you've done it once, no problem, but the first time is anxiety inducing. Also, the lines. If you pick the wrong time and you hit the border with tens of buses in line, you're going to have a bad time.

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#55

Post by cflee »

ddeck wrote: post #19
walrus01 wrote: post #5

" All we had to do was download an app and click on some mysterious Chinese advertisements to top up our data. " This is the sort of shit that keeps network security people awake at night. I bet they enabled third-party app downloads on their Android phones and uninstalled some unknown .apk The future business leaders of America... fuck...

For anyone travelling to China through HK, China Mobile sell a $15 SIM in their HK stores that will give you 1.5 GB of 3G/4G data in both HK and China for 10-days. China Mobile have the largest network on the mainland and I've used it a number of times without issue. This also has the benefit of allowing you to access any site that is accessible from HK (all) while in China. Edit: URL: https://www.hk.chinamobile.com/…

If you only have a 3G device, or a 4G device that doesn't support the available FDD-LTE bands, you might be better off getting a China Unicom HK card instead. They have HSPA+ on 2100 MHz. Google services work fine on them.

The cards are hard or impossible to find within the HKIA transit area, so you will want to either pick it from a street retailer in HK, or order from their English webstore - http://www.cugstore.com/hk_en/. Street prices are usually cheaper.

(No affiliation, just a happy customer from a few months back. I got their "Greater China 30 Days Data SIM" because I was spending time in Macau and Hong Kong as well.)

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#56

Post by snicky »

walrus01 wrote: post #5

" All we had to do was download an app and click on some mysterious Chinese advertisements to top up our data. " This is the sort of shit that keeps network security people awake at night. I bet they enabled third-party app downloads on their Android phones and uninstalled some unknown .apk The future business leaders of America... fuck...

> The future business leaders of America... fuck...

* Didn't know they need a visa to China.

* Paid $730 for 3 visas.

* Didn't know there's a border between HK and China.

* Didn't know there's a public transport in HK and didn't need to take cabs for 200 USD.

* Didn't know menus in China are in Chinese.

* Had to eat McD on their 4th day in Asia.

* Had McD again on day 5.

Hilarious story :)

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#57

Post by kriro »

This seems like a pretty strange road trip with very little business content. More like a "ZOMG-wow we are in China" (wait you need Visa for that?). I would have been very suspect and have refused to go on that booked vacation. And smoking because you don't want to upset someone...strange. Oh yeah we will just take that click on a bunch of adds thingy..what could possibly go wrong. ALL IN ALL IT WAS WORTH IT.

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#58

Post by b0ner_t0ner »

Michelada wrote: post #11

Nice post, but I am disappointed that you did not post the names of the hotels you stayed at. I would have enjoyed details of where you spent your money.

The Hong Kong one is most definitely Ovolo Southside:

http://needwant.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/17.jpeg

http://www.35mm.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Hong_Kong_...

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#59

Post by dublinben »

puranjay wrote: post #43
johnloeber wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're native speakers, but the style is weird, agreed. I think it's the generally extremely simple sentence structure and vocabulary -- this blogpost is probably at a third-grade reading level. There's also no deep commentary on any of the things they encountered or things they thought about. I couldn't help but feel as if I was reading some kind of picturebook intended for children.

These are smart guys who are catering to the wannapreneur/internet marketer crowd, not tech geeks and seasoned entrepreneurs.

>wannapreneur/internet marketer crowd

I have to agree with this, based on the 'products' they 'make' at their company.

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#60

Post by culturestate »

eitally wrote: post #54
pcr0 wrote: post #12

I hope you didn't just take taxis around all day. Public transport, especially the trains in Hong Kong are day and night compared to most other countries in terms of pricing, speed and reliability. 6000USD/Month for 600sqft is ridiculous, even by HK standards. It's probably a 5-star serviced apartment, i.e. long-stay hotel. Paying 200 to drive across the border is a rip-off though. There are trains and buses that tak…

Regarding border crossing ... if you haven't crossed into China before, it's quite possibly worth taking a full-service car that has driving privileges on both sides of the border. For a first timer who might not have much international travel experience, disembarking on the HK side, going through customs & immigration unaccompanied, then finding the right transport on the other side and being able to communicate des…

Lo Wu and Lok Ma Chau are fairly straightforward; it's really hard to screw up. I'd wager that taking the train to Lo Wu would have been easier for them, actually, because their contact could just meet them in the (relatively) small at-grade Luohu exit that everyone is forced to funnel through.
Post reply on HN