I sometimes get phone calls or emails from people asking me for advice about whether they should set up their own business or not. For me the first question is always “Why do you want to be an entrepreneur?”. If people are not intrinsically motivated to build a new product/service/company, they will fail. Always. (well, except for a very few very lucky ones – don’t count on being among them). Then I tell them about the risks involved, that they should keep in mind that most companies won’t survive, that the business will be in their minds 24/7, and that it will be a long emotional roller coaster.

But from now on I don’t have to tell them most of this anymore, because I can send them a link. Marc Andreesen (among others co-founder of Netscape) wrote an excellent blog post today about why NOT to set up your own business. If you read his article and still want to do it, you might be a real entrepreneur. If not, consider staying in your current job and accept that not everybody is fit for this.

Marc’s story is only about Silicon Valley. If you want to do it in China things are even more of a challenge. Regulations can change overnight, permits are very difficult to get, the non-convertible RMB will cause you serious headaches… You name it, think of the worst possible scenario before you set out on your own, because this scenario might happen to you.

But, if you are confident and ambitious and realize you might fail, I think it is still better to be in charge of your own company and ideas, than to work in a 9-to-5 job for a boss.

Spill Group Asia and its game development company Zlong Games are looking for a CFO, based in Shanghai. This is a newly created position, because of the fast growth of our company (currently 62 people). The ideal candidate would be a native Chinese with at least 5 years experience as an auditor for one of the big international accounting firms in China, plus preferably several years experience for a company in a financial management position. M&A experience would be a plus. The CFO should be an expert in Chinese accounting and taxation law (CPA title preferred), and needs to be fluent in English and Mandarin Chinese. The job might require some traveling to Europe and other Asian countries where we operate websites.

Responsibilities include among others budgeting, planning, controlling, reporting, cash management, and taxation. The candidate will become a key member of the management team. Spill Group offers the right person an exciting position in a young, dynamic and fast-growing company. Working hours are not as crazy as in the top accounting firms, so if you currently work there and are looking for a more relaxed life, feel free to apply. Are you interested or do you want more information? Send me an email at marc (at) spillgroupasia dot com.

We will pay a reward of RMB 10,000 to the person that refers the right candidate to us. Blogs that re-post this entry can also receive this reward, if the final candidate acknowledges that he/she first heard about this job opportunity through that particular blog. The reward is payable after the candidate has successfully finished his/her probation.

This is not a hoax, I will personally ensure that this money will be paid.

Bas took these pictures last week, and I stole them from his Flickr stream. If you’re in China install this Firefox add-on in order to see the pictures (thanks to the Net Nanny, Flickr’s photo servers are still blocked in China).

It is not uncommon for Chinese companies to make themselves look bigger than they really are to attract potential foreign customers, by making a flashy site and pretend to have offices at a prestigious address. But yesterday I came across a US company that is trying to do the same. The story started last week when I was meeting with a European multinational to discuss about several serious gaming projects that they plan to develop (such as a virtual world or a Second Life presence). The person I talked to told me that they are contemplating to work with a US development studio in Shanghai as well. He told me their name, but I had never heard of them. That is actually a bit strange, because there are not too many foreign-owned (or partly foreign-owned) game studio’s in this city, let alone ones that also make serious games.

So I decided to get in touch with them, to find out how they had ended up here, and see if there are possible ways that we could work together in the future. When I called them, however, it turned out that the address and phone number belonged to another company. The lady who picked up the phone said she did not know much about this company. They did not have an office in China and just used their phone number, but that they have a US sales person with a Chinese mobile number who I could call. The Chinese mobile number she gave me did not work, likely because it was the middle of the night in the US (where this person was based, I found out after a Google search). At first I thought the Shanghai company was their outsourcing company in China, but even that was not the case. The company actually only sells analytical instruments.

It seems the US company just pretends they have a Shanghai office, but is in reality probably just an outsourcing company without telling their clients this. From their (high quality) website you can see that they have many multinationals as clients. They even have a corporate blog in which they describe that they travel around Asia, among others visiting their office in Shanghai. Not sure what they did here (or if they even were here), but likely they did not visit their office. For merchandisers it’s now almost standard practice to visit factories in China before doing business with them. But it seems that the internet industry should also do this in order to ensure they are working with a professional company.

Oak Pacific Interactive is a Chinese company that runs several web 2.o sites, including mop.com and donews.com. After their 48 million USD VC round last year things have gone a bit downhill for them, especially after most of their revenue was cut off last August when China Mobile restructured the service provider industry. Since then they have been cutting costs heavily, among others by laying off lots of employees and moving to a cheaper office.

Likely the VC’s forced them to cut costs, but maybe the investors pushed a bit too hard. On BBS forums mop.com employees are now complaining that the company refuses to put the airconditioning on in the office. Given the fact that Beijing just went through a heat wave, that seems like a bit of a desperate and very short-sighted action. In that kind of weather even the most motivated person cannot do his job anymore.

If I would be an investor in this company, I think it would be time for a serious discussion with the management about how to run a company. Or maybe this action was intentional, and this is a creative way to get rid of more staff without having to fire them?

This afternoon I was strolling around Xintiandi when I saw a nice pair of shoes in a new (?) shoe shop called Silvano Lattanzi. I went inside to take a look at the shoes, and was impressed by all the other models they had on display. I was told that all shoes are handmade in Italy, and I started to suspect that the price may be on the high side. But when I looked at the price of my favourite pair I was literally shocked: RMB 79,990 – more than USD 10,000 for a pair of shoes!

I dont’t mind paying a bit more for quality products, but this is outrageous. In Shanghai I normally pay less than USD 50 for handmade tailored shoes, meaning I could buy 200 pairs of those for one pair of Silvano Lattanzi. The Chinese staff told me that this brand is actually quite famous, but until now I had never heard of it (which does not say much, fashion brands is not an area that interests me very much). They tried to convince me to buy a pair by telling me that royalty and US presidents buy their shoes, but that failed to impress me. Even though the shoes look fantastic, I will stay with my Chinese custom-made shoe maker for now.

Since yesterday I am having problems accessing pictures on Flickr. I did not think too much about it, because internet connections in China are not always optimal. But when it still did not work this morning I suspected there might be a problem at Flickr. When I looked in my RSS reader I found that Shanghaiist wrote a post about it, saying that the Flickr image servers are blocked in China.

That explains why I can still load the site and all the information on it, except for its main feature: the pictures. On the Flickr forum users are all angry at the censors at the Great Fire Wall for blocking the images, and theories are spread about the reasons why (the June 4 anniversary, the student protests in Zhengzhou – apparently still censored in the Chinese press!).

However, I don’t really believe it. Why would the big Nanny decide to only block the image servers? Would it not be much easier to block the whole domain – like they normally do? In that case users cannot even discuss about it on the site, making the censorship much more effective. I think it’s just a mistake in the settings of the GFW, and it will take the censors a few days to discover their error and sort out the issue. I hope I am right – my whole life in pictures is on Flickr and even all the pictures on this blog are hosted there.

The national college entrance exams have started again in China. This yearly ritual is one of the most important moments in the lives of Chinese students. Doing well during these few days can mean access to a top university and therefore a good job and career, temporarily underachieving means going to a lower ranked university (or not going to college at all) and therefore not being able to get a good job in later life. For this reason the GaoKao is hyped up in the media, and websites and newspapers all report about it today.

Not far from my office is a high school where parents were all waiting outside until their kids would come out for a break between exams. It was very crowded and police were making sure the traffic would not be disrupted, and that nobody would dare to blow the horn. The interesting thing was that all parents were all very quiet, afraid that their talking would disturb the kids inside. The parents mean well, but if I would be an exam-taking student it would probably freak me out.

In past years the Shanghai Daily used to run stories about hotels being fully booked by parents that wanted to ensure that their kids would get a good night’s sleep before the exams, so they would have an advantage over their classmates. But this year it seems parents have become even more desperate: the Shanghai Daily’s feature story about the exams reports about parents trying to buy drugs so that their only child would perform better during the exams!

The drug they are turning to is Ritalin, a so-called psychomotor stimulant that is normally used for children that are hyperactive. Parents assume this will help their children to perform better. The drug is not available over-the-counter, and parents tried in vain to get hold of the product at local hospitals. When that did not work they used other strategies, for example asking friends or colleagues with a hyperactive child to buy supplies for them. One mother took her son, who had already recovered from the disease, four times to the hospital to buy the medicine in order to resell it.

Of course also websites sell the product here, claiming that the drug is useful and not harmful at all. A quick internet search disagrees with this though: not only is it dangerous and addictive, but it also can cause fainting, a bad headache, insomnia and nervousness. Drugs.com warns not to take it if you are severely anxious or tense – symptons that are not unlikely to occur during exam time. Parents do not seem to care, however. One mother was quoted in the newspaper saying: “I don’t want to see my child lag behind others even though it is a bit risky. Getting a high score is the top priority.”