On Tuesday, China Entrepreneurs held a start-up pitch competition to a panel of VC judges and it seems they can’t get enough of the clones. A product called TimeStream was voted the best product and unsurprisingly it was a clone of Path; a popular private mobile social network to share moments with friends.
The amusing and somewhat frustrating comment made by TimeStream’s Founder was that he got the idea himself and was inspired by Chinese philosophy of a timeline. However the redeeming element was that the product was executed very well and as they say in China, ‘execution is what counts the most.’ Although he may have a difficult time competing with the other Path clones who have already launched such as Meike by Kaixin001, Diandi, DengDeng, JiaoYin and Huashuo.
Here are some of the other pitches:
A mobile location based service to help brands and venues manage their own deals through a backend dashboard. The power of PowWow is in their large database of 1 million venues across 300 cities across mid-high end brands.
2. XingBaoShu
Targeting 3- 12 year old children, XingBaoShu offers comprehensive educational mobile paid content. Currently they offer over 120 books across 8 categories including interactive picture books, games, classical music, drawing and coloring, language learning and a sticker book. For publishes, the software provides and editor to create and publish content. Launched 6 months ago and currently without funding, the startup is aiming to hit over 1000 books this year.
3. BonBao
Similar to Flipboard, BonBao aims to make web content from blogs, weibo, and professional content look beautiful on mobile. The app will filter only what is most relevant and interesting to users and also integrates social network features. With a focus on Windows 7 and 8 smartphones, revenue will come from targeted advertising.
4. OpenXLive
Similar to Openfeint, OpenXLive is a gaming social networking platform for Windows. By targeting gaming developers from small grass roots backgrounds, users will be able to connect and compete with each other for the leaderboard and win achievements. The platform aims to cross-promote apps by recommending new games to users.
5. Eeji.cn
Probably the most original idea, Eeji.cn is an online community for crowd creating branding content. Currently communication between brands and users are dispersed and poorly managed, making it expensive. Moreover, user driven content is rather amateur. To bring some quality and consistency to brand related content, Eeji creates bundles of content creation labels such as music or videos, according to a brand’s demographic. Each label creates a content template which is then opened out for submissions from the community. The brand then pays a flat fee per label per month. Currently they are in their pre-launch phase and seeking angel investment.
6. Kwestr
Following the premise that young people want to achieve goals and discover new things and brands have a challenge in connecting with youth, Kwestr allows brands to create gamified challenges to engage the youth. Brands can use a drag and drop solution to create a Kwest in the form of a checklist which users have to achieve, such as ‘name all BMW car models’. As users complete tasks, a message will by synced to Facebook or Weibo to give virality. At the end of the Kwest, users will receive a badge to brag about. The business model is SaaS and they charge RMB 30K per month of 6K per campaign.
7. Baifangzi
Identifying the deep problem that children in China are constantly subjected to pressure to succeed and get good grades, Baifangzi or White House wants to be the ‘Dianping for children’s education’. By giving parents and kids a platform to share and recommend educational content or interesting things, beyond math or science; Baifangzi wants to open up kids interest and knowledge to discover what they really like and want to be. They have not launched yet.