Traveling to a different American city every 2-3 days over a 3 week span is extremely exhausting…but it was again eye opening and ever expanding in my “life calling and purpose”.
I now more then ever feel I belong in China. I want to bridge Chinese and American internet and ecommerce…its such a challenge…and I love challenges!
Here are some revelations from various cities and meetings:
Los Angeles – visited the new LA fulfillment center that is initiated by a Chinese logistics company. really strange to fly to 15 hours on an airplane and still feel like I’m in China, eating Chinese food, surrounded by chinese workers…..through Chinatown. Just made me realize its happening….quickly…the bridge of the Chinese brand into the USA market directly.
New Jersey – my friend Julian’s Jewish wedding…leaving me as one of the last unmarried in my college “crew” of friends. Feeling a bit…different then everyone else at the wedding being an entrepreneur in a different country, whereas most of my friends have careers and living the married life.
Spoke at my old university, Stevens Tech (didn’t get to blog this one specifically, but did blog about it last year) but again, seeing students with wide eyes amazed at the travels and experiences I’ve been through is inspiring, and talking to professors I look up to getting their perspective helps.
New York Working deals…..bargaining and making strategic alliances for New York Bar Store, geek cook, talking to distributors and marketers all over the NY/NJ vicinity….running from meeting to meeting.
Seeing Various coworking offices in Hoboken, New York City, and Brooklyn….loving the idea of flexible work and living. Staying at a different friend’s house (couch, guest room, etc) again gaining life perspectives of my American friends back home while I’m over in China.
Florida – spent quality time with dad and mom, uncles and grandma getting acceptance in being in China. Talking to accountant about future of having a registered US corporation, meeting more bar product distributors.
Back to California, quick day in LA to see Piotr, his newborn son Jakob, talk to Sean and his wife Julie about my experiences in China. They had inspired me to even consider living in China, I never really fathomed it possible, thought I would only visit on business trips. Discussing ideas on how to bring more Americans to China
First real business trip to San Francisco (had driven through w/ Scott on a 2003 USA road trip) visiting more ecommerce fulfillment and IT companies, meet Startup Weekend to firm up a first ever Startup weekend in Shenzhen in November. Spending time with my old buddy Dave Tsang living here the past couple years doing bond trading. Met my Chinese friends from Angelhere, dinner and a web interview … just hyper active networking and business development. Had a couple calls with potential VCs on a new commerce platform (maybe Loadpipe)
So to summarize, I did a bunch of business development such as: ecommerce warehouse visit, and
ecommerce services considerations, distributor visits and alliances for the bar products business, finding sales agents and reps for various Chinese businesses looking to enter to USA market, intern exchange program ideas, also discuss at stevens tech, looking to find USA social media company, and China sales of USA products. I have to say also personal things like friend’s wedding, family, and friends. gotta always do business and personal on my USA trips…part of living the international business hat.
Now I’m typing this from the plane from San Francisco to Beijing, going to post it once I am on my Beijing layover….Don’t try sleeping on these 15 hour flights anymore, read books, type blogs, make a huge to do list… motivate myself.
Plane rides are these strange forced transitions or “life events”.