Zaizher, Building The Professional SNS from Events

As we covered in our previous posts, Chinese LinkedIn clones do not work very well.  The original Linkedlin relies most of its revenue on recruitment service. And, for most people, they open their LinkedIn account just to put their resume in. But that does not work in China, as there are not enough business professionals looking for jobs here. With GDP growing near 10% every year, the economic is red hot in the country. And any professionals with over 5 year experience are rare commodities. Head hunters are calling them every now and then. There is simply no need to put their resume online for recruitment purpose.

If finding a job is not a good enough reason for business professionals to put their information on a social network, what will be ?? Beijing-based Zaizher (means right here in Chinese) is trying a new angle – how about meeting other business professionals at conference ??

All of us might know how messy the process could be. You heard certain conference is good – so and so will be there and you have been dying to meet with them. You stock up your name cards and go to the event. You randomly walk up to a group of people and start chatting with them, exchange name cards and ask what they do. Only to discover they are totally irrelevant. Politely tell your new acquittance, “let’s meet another day”, you move on to the next group. Half an evening can be wasted before you find the people you are interested to meet.

Is that a better way? Can I know who are in the conference when I sign in at the door? For those I am interested in meeting, can I send them a message with my phone? And here is Zaizher’s solution – an app on iPhones and Android phones.  It allows users to check who are in the same event as them, and if they discover someone they are interested, simple add them to “friend list” or send them a message to meet later. “Valuable time can be saved and every conversation can be a meaningful one,” said Zaizher’s CEO, Robert Hsiung.

It also offers services to event organisers. They can send event invites via Sina Weibo and SMS, run real-time polls, conduct votes and surveys, and analyze behaviors of participants. “For example, how many digital business cards have been exchanged during event ? The list of people participating online on Weibo or through our app ?” said Robert, “This data is valuable to the organizers. It helps them to develop future events.”

Currently in the market, if an organizer wants to do real-time votes for an 50-people event, they need to pay about Rmb 5,000 for the service and renting the required hardware equipment. “Our solution will be less than 1 yuan per person,” said Robert.

Currently, it is working with 36Kr, a popular technology blog in China, and Tsinghua University MBA School. “We will be running the 14 day MBA Student Orientation from Aug 27-Sep 11,” said Robert.

Robert graduated from University of Pennsylvania studying computer science. He went to Stanford for an MBA in 2006 after working as a strategy consultant with Monitor Group for 5 years. In 2009, he came to China and started his own company. Zaizher, started in May, is his third project, after OneCircle.cc and Foxfly.com. Robert is raising a round of funding for the new venture. He hopes 10 million users will join Zaizher’s network and 100,000 events will be using their service in 18 months.