A couple of months ago Dunkin’ Donuts announced that they would open their first store in China in May this year. I love donuts, so I was quite happy to read that there would be an alternative for the Japanese-owned Mister Donut chain. However, so far Dunkin’ Donuts promise did not come true. I have not seen any retail outlet for their donuts in Shanghai, even though it’s July already. Maybe they got cold feet at the last minute? The company already had a bad China experience: As some long-term residents in China might know Dunkin’ Donuts used to have some outlets in Beijing in the late 1990’s, but they closed them down because China was not ready for donuts yet at that time.

Well, if Dunkin’ decides to cancel or postpone its market entry, there might be another competitor that is more willing to take risk: Krispy Kreme. This company already has stores in Hong Kong, but not on the mainland so far. By coincidence I saw a job ad for senior executives for Krispy Kreme in today’s Shanghai Daily. The advertisement says that a Krispy Kreme joint venture will launch Krispy Kream outlets in Shanghai, but it does not state a date.

I wonder, however, if they will be able to attract any serious talents because the English in the ad is terrible. Why don’t they just spend a few dollars to proof read it? Especially when they want to recruit people who are fluent in English!
A few examples of strange sentence structures that I noticed in the ad:
– (Krispy Kreme) offers special tastes of doughnuts and coffee loved by diverse people all over the world such as U.S., England, Australia and others.
– Common facts: No disqualifications for the international business trip
– Year of birth only from 1965 to 1980 required
Furthermore there were spelling mistakes, and instead of fast food they used the word quick service restaurant. Hopefully their donuts will not be as localized as their ads are!

Today Spill Group officially changed its name to Spil Games. Over the past years Spill Group has become known as a leader in game portals. Therefore the brand image under the name Spill Group did not accurately reflect who we are, what we do and what we stand for. The main purpose of the new brand name is to quickly give our customers, portal visitors, the press, and other business partners an accurate representation of our identity and exactly what we do.

The logo has changed as well, the new logo is more playful and exciting, as a gaming company’s logo should be. The new logo keeps the original corporate colors and branding, but has been revamped to include a bouncing ball element. And of course with a new company name you also need a new website: check it out at http://www.spilgames.com.

The name Spill Group Asia won’t be used anymore either, from now on our Asian operations will carry the name Spil Games Asia.

This afternoon I was walking through Taikang Lu, the hip entertainment area in Shanghai, when I saw a new ice cream shop. In front of the shop a young blond man was using a hammer to hit nails into a wooden chair. He turned out to be Bing van der Lande, the Dutch owner of the shop. Bing is only 23 years old and told me that during the day he is doing an internship at Dutch company Randstad. But instead of going out at night and spend his money on beer, he decided to use it to set up a business in Shanghai: a fresh ice cream shop. Coincidentally his name is the Chinese word for ice, so to find a name for the shop was not difficult: Bing.

The idea to set up this retail business came to Bing when he was on holiday in Sanya in May. There he saw someone selling ice cream that was made on the spot with a machine that deep freezes the ingredients. Back in Shanghai Bing managed to find the producer of the machine, and he bought one of the freezers. He then went to look for a place to set up the business, and found a side street of Taikang Lu that was still mainly residential. He negotiated to use a front room of one of the houses, broke out the front wall, installed the machine and set up his shop there in late June. A few weeks later a lot of new restaurants and shop have appeared in the street, so he chose the right place at the right time.

Two young women run the shop during the daytime, when Bing is at work for Randstad. But during the weekend Bing is here himself to serve ice cream to customers and to upgrade the shop (he is now adding a small terrace in front of the shop, so customers can sit down). Bing recommended a lemon mint ice cream to me, which indeed tasted very good. One of the girls put the fresh ingredients into a blender and then put the liquid mix into the ice machine. Basically a stove that freezes instead of heating up. In a few seconds the liquid started to freeze and in less than a minute I had a fresh ice cream.

You have the choice of many fresh ingredients for your ice cream, including many kinds of fruit but also things like red pepper and even champagne. There is a fixed price of RMB 25 for a big bowl of ice, maybe not cheap for local Chinese but quite acceptable for most people eating and drinking at Taikang Lu. During the 20 minutes that I talked with Bing he had at least 6 customers, and all seemed to like the ice cream. Very soon he will start using ecologically friendly materials (cups for the ice cream for example), which is a smart marketing idea.

The original idea for him was to earn some extra money during his internship, but because he now sees the first signs of success he is thinking about building out the business. I gave him some advice on this, and hope he manages to make his business even more successful and maybe build it out to a chain of ice cream stores. Although the concept has a low entry barrier I think with good branding and consistent quality he can stand out from the potential competition. I told him to think big and use his cash-flow to invest in one or more new sales outlets. The problem is that he will have to go back to Holland in September to finalize his studies, but he has a trusted Chinese business partner / friend that will help him to run the store during his absence.

Bing, good luck with your business. I admire the fact that you dare to take some risk and invest your time and money in something you believe in.

Bing – Address: No. 4, Lane 278, Taikang Lu
Bing put signs on two of the main entrance roads of Taikang Lu, so you cannot really miss the shop.

This afternoon I went to China’s biggest gaming conference and exhibition, ChinaJoy. It’s a fun event, but it’s also very crowded. And when it’s 38 degrees outside it’s also very hot. I mistakenly thought that today was an industry day, but when I arrived I saw lines of people waiting to buy tickets that were literally hundreds of meters long.

Luckily in China there are always scalpers around, and I managed to buy tickets for 75 RMB (normal price 50 RMB), which saved me an hour of waiting in full sunshine. Other scalpers were not too happy with my seller, because none of them wanted to go below RMB 100. But this one was smart, and he understood that selling me 4 tickets for 75 RMB would bring him the same profit as 2 for RMB 100. We had to walk away from the others before I could pay him though. I actually was not sure if the tickets were real, but we managed to get in without any problem.

The show itself is almost the same every year. Huge lines of people waiting to try a new game, get a free poster or take a picture with one of the ‘cute’ girls. Most of the people visiting the show are young men, and they all seem to love the innocent Barbie doll-look that the girls are chosen for. It sometimes seems they have never seen a girl before, let alone taken a picture with one!

The main reason I go to the show is to meet some other gaming companies, and to look at some at the new games that are coming out. Despite the huge amount of people I indeed met some colleagues from the gaming industry and also some VC’s looking to invest in games. It’s easy to spot them in the crowds: we are about the only ones above 30 years old. I got a few ideas for new games and for an application that we can possibly use with flash games, so it was worth the trip to the outskirts of Pudong.

Some pictures of the show, the companies (and of course the girls) can be found in this set.

Last Sunday night while shopping at Grand Gateway, I found a small shop specialized in coffee and coffee accessories. If you follow me on Twitter you probably know I like to drink good coffee, so I decided to venture into the shop. I not only came out with some nice cappuccino and espresso cups, but I also found a chocolate-flavored syrup from Monin (Le Sirop de Monin). The shop owner told me it would be a great combination with coffee or espresso, so I decided to give it a try.

For some reason I forgot about the syrup until about an hour ago, when I was looking for an espresso cup. I decided to put some in my espresso, and the result….. was heavenly! A fantastic combination. I normally drink my coffee strong and black, no sugar or milk for me. But this really adds something to the taste, as long as you just put in a few drops. I won’t add it to every cup I drink, but for afternoon coffees it’s a great alternative!

I am not sure at what other places you can buy Le Sirop de Monin in China, but I found it in a small shop in Grand Gateway (Gang Hui) in Xujiahui on the fourth floor, on the connection between the two buildings. A 250 ml bottle sells for about RMB 80 (EUR 8) if I remember correctly. The Chinese importer of Sirop de Monin can be found here.

This April I co-organized a trip for over 40 Dutch new media business people, entrepreneurs and investors to China. The delegation visited many internet and new media companies in Shanghai and Chengdu, and based on the group’s experiences and research we made a 76-page book about New Media in China. The result was presented last month during a seminar about New Media in China in The Netherlands.

Now the book is also available in digital format, and you can read or download it for free here on Slideshare. The only downside for many of my readers will be that the publication is in Dutch. Well, at least you can look at the pictures that we took during the trip!

A couple of months ago the government announced that plastic bags would be banned starting June 1 this year. I was a bit skeptical when I first read it; often this kind of new rules are announced but in the end many of them do not get implemented. But in this case it looks like it was not just an announcement, but something that is actually enforced and it even seems to work. I am quite happy with this, because everywhere you would get plastic bags to put your goods in. Even if I would buy just a bag of potato chips at the Lawsons in the basement of my apartment, I would get a plastic bag for it (and sometimes two). I normally refused them, but most people did not.

It is not a total ban, however. You can still get a plastic bag, but you now have to pay for it (the price ranges from about RMB 0.1 to RMB 1). This stops most people from using plastic bags for their groceries, and it certainly stops them from using two bags instead of one. Most stores seem to follow the rules, even at Lawson’s you are now requested to pay, even thought that was the store where I got most of my bags from before. At Mister Donut you get a paper box or paper bag for your donuts, and if you want a plastic bag you have to purchase it. And even at IKEA you don’t get the ubiquitous yellow bags anymore, but you need to buy a big blue bag (not sure if that one’s environmental-friendly, and because of it’s awkward shape it’s hard to re-use). Paul’s bakeries in Shanghai now charge RMB 1 for a plastic bag, but donate the money to charity. The only free bags I still get are at the DVD shop. I guess those shops are illegal anyway, so they might as well break another law. And at cheap take-away restaurants they still put the boxed lunches or left-overs in plastic bags. Let’s see how long that lasts.

In October this year M1NT will open its first private club in mainland China, on the 20,000 square foot penthouse floor of the M1NT Tower in Shanghai (currently still called the Cross Tower, on Fuzhou Lu close to the Bund). The 24-story building used to be owned by Goldman Sachs, but they sold it last year for USD 150 million, and it is now being upgraded to a Grade A office space with the M1NT premises on the top floor.

The concept of M1NT is that the club is owned by shareholders who are also members, with the business model being that ownership encourages patronage and will in turn reduce promotional expenses. In total a maximum of 500 shareholders will be accepted, plus a total of 2000 ordinary members who pay annual fees. The model was successfully launched in Hong Kong, where M1NT opened its club in 2006 on 108 Hollywood Road (Central).

My wife and I had lunch with two people from Investor Relations at M1NT last week, and we visited the future club. I have to say hat I was very impressed by what I saw. First of all is the location absolutely stunning. From the club you have a complete view over the Huangpu river and the Pudong skyline on one side (see the picture on top of this post, taken from the building), and over Puxi in the direction of People’s Square on the other side. The penthouse floor itself is also quite amazing, because the ceilings are almost 7 meters high. Something you do not expect in an office tower! With windows up to 6 meters high you have an obstructed 360 degree view of the whole city.

When you enter the first thing you will see is a 17-meter long hammerhead shark fish tank, behind which the private shareholder lounges are located. Walking past the sharks you will find the big cocktail lounge area and one of the largest bars in Asia. Past the bar you will enter the dining area where head chef Ian Pengelley (of London’s Gilgamesh fame) will be able to show off his talents in an open kitchen setting. The restaurant will feature Pan Asian Cuisine, a fusion of Chinese, Malay, Thai, Indian and Japanese cuisines.

The place also has a rooftop terrace that will open in April next year. There you can lounge on deck chairs or watch the city below you from a big jacuzzi, in a setting surrounded by palm trees. It certainly seems like a great place to bring business guests or for a summer night party. If it becomes as nice as I imagine it will be, it could be a big hit. This is the kind of high-end place that Shanghai is still lacking, and I look forward to seeing it once it opens!

If you are interested to become a shareholder you can find more information about the application process on M1NT Shanghai’s website.