China News Service, Beijing, January 31st: How to tell China’s innovation story well?
——Exclusive interview with Zhou Hengxing, founder of technology media Pandaily
China News Service reporter Bo Wenwen
There is such an English-language media called Pandaily, which incorporates panda elements into its name and logo, and has a large number of readers overseas. However, Pandaily is not a "Panda Daily", but a media dedicated to letting the world better understand China's technology and business.
Recently, Zhou Hengxing, founder of technology media Pandaily, accepted an exclusive interview with China News Service's "East-West Question" in Beijing, sharing his story of founding Pandaily and his thoughts on how to better promote Chinese innovation overseas.
The interview transcript is summarized as follows:
China News Service reporter: What was your original intention in starting Pandaily?
Zhou Hengxing:
I was a technology reporter stationed in Silicon Valley in the United States. When interviewing Silicon Valley technology entrepreneurs and investors, they would always ask me many questions about China’s technology circle and introduce me to other friends around them who are interested in China. Since then, I have realized that there is a huge information asymmetry in the Chinese and American technology circles. Unlike China, which knows Silicon Valley well, Silicon Valley does not understand China, but has gradually realized that China is no longer a simple "Copy To China". In recent years, there have been many product and model innovations in China, and they are eager to learn from them, but since most people cannot read Chinese, they can only get information by communicating with people like me.
Later, I discovered that in addition to Silicon Valley, many other regions in the world were also interested in China’s technology industry, such as India, Southeast Asia and Europe, so I came up with the idea of starting my own English technology media. The development of Internet technology has provided us with a very good platform. With the help of search engines and social media in China, we can reach audiences anywhere in the world, and the cost is very low.
The reason why we chose panda elements as the name and LOGO is because the main subject of our report is China and we don’t want to be too serious. The panda is a cute image that foreigners can easily associate with China. Coincidentally, I also registered the domain name "pandaily.com".
Pandaily introduces China's technology industry to overseas investors and entrepreneurs. Photo provided by interviewee
China News Service reporter: How did Pandaily develop?
Zhou Xingxing:
In 2017, Pandaily was officially established. Its overseas social media accounts and websites were registered and opened at the same time, because social media is very important and can interact with many overseas users and better help them understand China. When attention is not high in the early stage, we will expand our influence by contacting "key opinion leaders" in Silicon Valley and participating in various activities in Silicon Valley.
At the beginning, Pandaily mainly provided text information, and later started to make videos. We also have a podcast that is quite influential in Silicon Valley.
In addition, some overseas readers are not just satisfied with getting news. They also want to visit China in person. We regularly organize study tours to take them to China for inspection and visits, such as to Tencent, Alibaba, Meituan and other companies. For e-commerce entrepreneurs, we will take them to visit Hema offline stores, eat Haidilao, drink Heytea, and visit Huaqiangbei. They will find this experience very good and gain a lot. Pandaily’s reporters and industry professionals will also give them lectures, providing them with more in-depth and professional information on China’s technology industry.
I remember that there was an Indian entrepreneur at that time, the founder of the Indian food delivery company Swiggy. He felt that the O2O model of the Chinese food delivery platform was very advanced. He saw a new business model here that was not available in India, which inspired him a lot. Later they The company has also carried out some cooperation with Meituan.
Pandaily leads overseas investors and entrepreneurs to visit Chinese technology companies. Photo provided by interviewee
China News Service reporter: Where are your readers mainly located? Do readers from different regions have different concerns about China?
Zhou Xingxing:
Our readers are mainly foreigners who want to know more about China, including technology practitioners, entrepreneurs and venture capital investors. At present, the region with the largest number of readers is North America, followed by Southeast Asia and Europe. Recently, readers in the Middle East have also increased.
There are indeed differences in what readers in different regions pay attention to about China. Readers in the United States, especially those in Silicon Valley, pay more attention to some new Chinese startups, artificial intelligence companies, and some Chinese concept stocks. Readers in Southeast Asia and India are more concerned about companies with local products, such as Xiaomi, OPPO, OnePlus, etc. In the past year or two, Chinese artificial intelligence companies and cross-border e-commerce platforms have gradually attracted more attention overseas.
China News Service reporter: You have interviewed Tesla CEO Musk and Altman, CEO of the American artificial intelligence research company OpenAI. You are also the translator of Musk's biography "Silicon Valley Iron Man". How do they view China?
Zhou Xingxing:
These Silicon Valley technology leaders are very optimistic about the Chinese market. Musk’s Tesla entered China more than ten years ago and has come step by step to where it is today. Without the Chinese market and the supply chain and factories provided by China, it would not have been able to develop so fast. It can be said that they all have a strong desire to cooperate with China.
In addition, both Musk and Altman know Chinese entrepreneurs very well. Musk is very familiar with some Chinese automobile companies such as BYD, as well as some aerospace companies. Altman was previously the president of Y Combinator (YC), the most famous incubator in Silicon Valley. During his tenure, he established YC China to specialize in cultivating some Chinese entrepreneurs.
China News Service reporter: As soon as you open the Pandaily website, you can see the slogan "Everything about China's Innovation". What are your experiences in telling China's innovation story to the world?
Zhou Xingxing:
This slogan is the positioning established from the first day of Pandaily’s establishment. In the early days, we still received a lot of doubts, especially from some foreign science and technology journalists, who would say "China has no innovation." But in fact, China has a steady stream of innovations. Only by persisting in reporting will it be recognized by more and more foreign colleagues and readers.
What we can do is, first of all, provide good content so that overseas users can obtain useful information. But simple information input is not enough. Online traffic can gather users and understand their needs, and then provide additional and customized services to better meet their needs, such as taking them to visit and inspect China. Experience Chinese products and services, etc., so that they can more intuitively and fully feel China's innovation. Secondly, try to influence young people as much as possible. The young generation around the world has been exposed to more innovative Chinese products than the previous generation, and social media can better reach these young people.
Through reporting and interacting with readers in the past few years, my most intuitive feeling is that human emotions are common. People from any country like good products and designs, like the high-quality experience brought by innovation, and like high cost performance. And many Chinese companies can provide this. I also hope that more people in the world will know and understand China's innovation, so that more people can benefit from learning from China's innovation and achieve better development. The foreign entrepreneurs I know hope to cooperate with China and oppose "decoupling and breaking links" because anti-globalization will hinder the development of business and innovation. (over)
Interviewee profile:
Zhou Hengxing, founder of Pandaily, was interviewed by China News Service. Photo by Bo Wenwen
Zhou Xingxing, founder of technology media Pandaily. Pandaily is an English-language media that focuses on reporting on China's technology industry and has a large readership in North America, Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Before founding Pandaily, Zhou Xingxing worked for "Chinese Entrepreneur" magazine and Geek Park, reporting on the Silicon Valley technology industry for a long time, and was the translator of the Chinese version of Musk's biography "Silicon Valley Iron Man".