Taking a long overdue trip to Shanghai, June 15 to July 3

Yes, will be back on the road soon, came back to Shenzhen after an amazing 2 weeks along the west coast of America – then to Guangzhou for a startup weekend.

Its been over 2 years since visiting Shanghai, that was spring 2010! Amazing how time flies. I have been building up meetings and connections there to visit, and below I will outline my itinerary for the trip

Planning to go from June 15-ish to July 2-ish (about 2 weeks, still confirming flights) probably take a 1 way ticket on June 15 timeframe and then plan return flight.

Here are the events (adding more as it goes along):

1. Mobile Monday, Monday June 18 – Boyd Jones introduced me to Bruno Bensaid, organizer of the first ever Mobile monday China Mobile Startup Competition on June 18th, a joint-event between Momo Shanghai and Beijing, with the endorsement of GSMA Ltd, the organizer of Mobile World Congress (Barcelona) and Mobile Asia Expo (MAE) in Shanghai on June 20-22. Register (and apply) at http://www.amiando.com/RROOJRP.html (English and Chinese page) Info on Mobile Monday
2. 1 day mobile app hackathon Friday, June 22 called AppTime in a massive 4 day Shanghai Mobile Expo Event (mobileasiaexpo .com the team Kawai, Nik, and I that have been organizing Startup Weekends in China were asked to organize and market a 1 day “mobile app” hackathon / demo day. Its a bit crazy to do it in 1 day, so Nik is talking to the organizers to get more details confirmed, it may be more a pitch day than actually building something on site, with prizes for top winners. Update – the sub-event has been added to mobileasiaexpo .com/apptime
3. Social media training seminar Sat June 23 – When I was did an english social media training in Shenzhen, China, many people in Shanghai contacted me about it. There is a big demand there, and I think I can hold a seminar on a Saturday afternoon for those in Shanghai who want to attend. Need to confirm a venue and date, wondering weekday or weekend. Maybe Xin Dan Wei coworking space? I’ll speak to you soon, Li Yan – finally we can meet in person!
4. Speaker at Next Step, Tuesday June 26 A “startup tuesday” style meet up. There are bimonthly Tuesday night pitch nights / meet ups and I have talked to the group and they invited me to speak about “My business experiences starting up a business in Shenzhen, China”. Looking forward to sharing this presentation, its been a hit when I’ve done it in LA, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, hope the audience gets something out of it.
5. Hero Meets Hero / Global Sources e-commerce meeting, Thurs June 28 – The foreign trade federation I cooperate with, Hero Meets Hero will organize a business life meeting in Shanghai on June 28th , and during this period of time , a global resources of electronic products and components sourcing fair will also be held in Shanghai from 2012-6-25 to 2012-6-28. more information can be found (In Chinese) on http://www.hiwto.com/thread-1740-1-1.html
6. Lean Startup Machine, June 29 to July 1 weekend – the last weekend of June there is a Lean Startup Machine weekend, based off the book “Lean Startup” by Eric Ries, this is a more “mature” variation of Startup weekend, in that you come with an existing business and want to work all weekend developing it, deciding if you should pursue in the current model, or pivot. I’m really looking forward to it. I hope to use Shadstone consulting as an example during the weekend, to further develop my business scope. More info from http://www.greendrinkschina.org/tag/lean-startup-machine/

Each of these bullet points will probably turn into individual blog posts as they develop more. I’m trying to figure out the best way to share my schedule / travel plans. Paul Chong, I look forward to catching up!

Tons of friends and business associates to visit in Shanghai. Please contact me to arrange a meeting! I’ll hopefully update this blog post as events develop, or add new full blog posts for the details on each event. Rock on!

updates, Sunday June 17
booked my flight for Monday June 18th – return flight isn’t confirmed yet. Adding more events above, like Mobile Monday.