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

61–69 of 69 posts

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#61

Post by culturestate »

j0ncc wrote: post #6
slackstation wrote: post #2

They make $350 sheets. Think about that for a second. $350 for cut and sewn planes of linen. I was all about it until I saw the price. Elevated for no reason. They sell it a premium price point to just give the illusion of extreme quality. It's made just like any other linen bed sheets you can buy with a few buttons to connect the top sheet to the duvet. Someone could make a duvet with some buttons and sell it at 1/1…

Actually, if you price us up against other _linen_ bedding you’ll see that we’re incredibly competitive. Something comparable would cost upwards of $600. Once you factor in the fact that linen lasts up to 10x as long as cotton the price becomes much more stomachable.

This is something I'd genuinely like to know more about. Ikea sells an (ostensibly) 100% linen duvet + pillowcase set for $80; aside from the two sheets, what else makes up the delta?

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#63

Post by [deleted] »

snicky wrote: post #56
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 :)

[deleted]

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#64

Post by [deleted] »

snicky wrote: post #56
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 :)

[deleted]

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#65

Post by walrus01 »

snicky wrote: post #56
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 :)

These are the sort of people who give Americans a bad name overseas. I mean seriously how do you fail to learn that China requires visas? Or know the history of HK-China and why there is a border? At least they're apparently not blistering blowhards like some merkins in Europe.

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#66

Post by walrus01 »

yitchelle wrote: post #53
donquichotte wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

To be fair to China's chauvinist culture they would've done the same of the visitors/clients were Chinese. Actually if they were Chinese they probably would've been taken directly to a brothel.

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#67

Post by [deleted] »

yitchelle wrote: post #53
donquichotte wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

[deleted]

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#68

Post by zaguios »

snicky wrote: post #56
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 :)

This is a little unfair, a lot of these really aren't too unreasonable if you are unfamiliar with China. $730 for 3 Chinese Visas with rushed service actually isn't really overpriced, in fact it's about the price I would expect.

It's hard for them to know exactly how good the Hong Kong public transit system is without being explicitly told, taking cabs is a natural choice for most foreigners in a new city. They also stated they knew there was probably a better way for the boarder crossing, but chose not to look since it was convenient and they didn't mind spending the money.

I'm pretty sure they knew the menus in China would be in Chinese, they were just stating the fact so the reader could understand that doing a simple task such as eating was actually a challenge to a foreigner.

It's not crazy to want to eat something familiar and safe. It's good to try new things which they did, but some times you just want to order something to fill you up that you know will taste decent. It takes awhile to figure out which local cuisines are delicious and which are a bit too foreign for westerners.

I do think that they should have been a bit more prepared, but they certainly did a lot better than most people who travel to China. The entire experience is quite a culture shock no matter how much you prepare.

Re: Visiting Factories in China as an Entrepreneur

#69

Post by ePierre »

zaguios wrote: post #68
snicky wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 :)

This is a little unfair, a lot of these really aren't too unreasonable if you are unfamiliar with China. $730 for 3 Chinese Visas with rushed service actually isn't really overpriced, in fact it's about the price I would expect. It's hard for them to know exactly how good the Hong Kong public transit system is without being explicitly told, taking cabs is a natural choice for most foreigners in a new city. They also…

> This is a little unfair, a lot of these really aren't too unreasonable if you are unfamiliar with China. $730 for 3 Chinese Visas with rushed service actually isn't really overpriced, in fact it's about the price I would expect.

If you are unfamiliar with China, you read about China instead of playing Nintendo DS... This is everywhere on the Web if you take 1 minute to look it up.

> It's hard for them to know exactly how good the Hong Kong public transit system is without being explicitly told

Again, it's everywhere on the Interwebs. The expat community is HUGE in Hong Kong and therefore there is a HUGE source of documentation online (not only official websites, but also blogs and the like).

> It's not crazy to want to eat something familiar and safe. It's good to try new things which they did, but some times you just want to order something to fill you up that you know will taste decent. It takes awhile to figure out which local cuisines are delicious and which are a bit too foreign for westerners.

And that's why you usually prepare a trip like this, at least to know how to recognize characters like 雞 (chicken)， 豬 (pork)， 牛 (beef)， 魚 (fish), 麪 (noodles)， 飯 (rice). With these 6 characters alone, you can already have a much better understanding of any menu in Chinese.

I'm laughing at Chinese tourists who, after two days in Paris, are sick of the French food and want fried rice, but it looks like it's the same the other way around (and even worse, cause usually the Chinese tourists are old and I can understand they are not used to some food, but when you're young... come on!).

Post reply on HN