How to Run the Professional Social Network in China, Interview with Co-founders of UShi.cn

We’ve been trying Professional Social Network in China for a couple of times. The copycats or Linkedin-likers failed: Linkist is dead; Wealink is running still but the team has shrinked to <10 people; Tianji used to claim 3millions users and now partners with a French professional social network Viadeo, which I don’t know what is the value for both parties. And the localization also failed, Xing, the popular service from Germany used to have office in Beijing, but was closed a long time ago.

The Culture of doing business in China

Why direct copy of Linkedin or Xing does not work in China? It seems an easy question. Chinese is willing to upload pictures, share links, poke friends, play social games etc which make the social networks like RenRen, Kaixin001 growing relatively easily, but when it comes to business, Chinese is cautious and more like the traditional ways, such as meeting in person, having business dinner, and of course drinking alcohol and so on. They still prefer a phone call instead of InMail even for some discussion. There is almost no way the business Guanxi can be well maintained online.

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