China's exponential growth is propelled by its entrepreneurs. This concise overview analyses what drives them - and what holds them back. Four different types of entrepreneur are profiled.....

1. China:
10 Insights
into Chinese
entrepreneurs

2. Asia 5
Bringing you a flavour of business
trends in Asia...in just 5 minutes
A Futures Coaching initiative
www.futurescoaching.com

3. engine
The changes in China
have been propelled
by Chinese
entrepreneurs....
Aided by
government's policies
towards economic
reform

4. aspiration
71% Chinese business people want to be self-employed
(vs 55% USA, 45% EU)
Chinese entrepreneurs want to go fast.....
37% want to expand quickly vs 14% USA and 17% EU
(source: Eurobarometer, 2009)

5. four types
There are four types of entrepreneur in China
1. Self-employed subsistence workers
2. Tide Players – driven to escape poverty, emerging from late 1980s
3. Sea Turtles – Foreign educated Chinese returning to start
businesses from late 1990s
4. Young entrepreneurs motivated by recent economic opportunity

6. tide players
These people are
true survivors: they
have a pragmatic
philosophy:
“When you face a
great tide, the
important thing is
action”
>50 year old Chinese entrepreneurs started with
nothing...but at least had no incumbents nor inherited
wealth to challenge them
Grew up under Mao: worked on farms; very poor; self
taught maybe had 'rightist' parents who were executed
Luckiest went to University when opened up after
1975; but few speak English

7. sea turtles
Aware of the role foreign-educated Chinese played in
Taiwan's take-off, authorities have actively encouraged
this return e.g. by setting up science parks, working with
foreign companies
Returnees from the
West are known as
hai gui
Many of China's most successful entrepreneurs
skillfully have adapted winning American concepts
for domestic consumption e.g. Taobao (the Chinese ebay)

8. young
Profile of young Chinese entrepreneurs
- fewer single children
(since solo child's parents are more controlling)
- more mid-region than eastern coast
(more virgin territory, plus coast
now affords salaried alternatives)
- more male, urban
- educated, often studying law
or business (but less to PhD level)
- motivated by opportunties or
dissatisfaction with standard office work
(source: 2011 study by Tsinghua University)

9. political realism
Business people in China are politically conservative and
favour slow change over radical
What counts is stability and efficiency –
and the ongoing goodwill of the regime
Official policies toward private business
radically improved after 1992

10. the way things
get done
Politics is important. 40% of entrepreneurs are in the
Communist Party; it is essential to court good
relationships with the authorities
Guanxi (connections) is much misunderstood by the
West; even returning Chinese have to re-educate
themselves to the rules of the game
It is said that the US is ruled by law and China by people
Entrepreneurs must be ready for factionalism,
opportunistic power realignments, gifts for officials etc.

11. still murky
Things holding back entrepreneurs
- continuing political and legal uncertainty
- access to funding (capital markets are underdeveloped)
- difficulty attracting high skilled labour and management
- less nurturing talent (although colleges for entrepreneurs
have opened e.g. by Alibaba businessman, Jack Ma)
- residual low status attached to private business (but this
has radically improved)

12. more
Get into the
heads of some
of China's
successful
entrepreneurs
(and academics)

13. About Futures Coaching
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