My startup friends have been asking me a lot of questions about events happening, and I wrote up today’s post to answer that. I’ve been involved with the startup community here since its early days, back in 2009 I attended a first “startup event” I would consider, called “Punch Party” hosted by Guang Yao in Kingdee. That meeting I met a whole group of amazing Chinese entrepreneurs and business people and lead to me organizing e-commerce events later that year in 2009 and 2010 which turned into Shenzhen’s first coworking space and many more entrepreneur pitch events.
Those events turned into a US brand of startup events, as we thought it would be better to cooperate with a global network. Was working well, and I was so excited to bridge some of our Shenzhen Chinese organizers with US people. But in late 2014 there was some management changes I wasn’t aware of and things didn’t end up aligning. I was really sad about this and the organizing team here was so strong about continuing to do amazing things for the entrepreneurs. I had been slowing down my event organizing last year as people who read this blog know I am newly married with a son and also just went through a merger in my startup, so totally overwhelmed. But this startup stuff in China is close to my heart, and I wanted to make things clear with this new organization that has been formed, below is the announcement.
We hope you had an amazing Lunar New Year and are ready for an amazing year of the entrepreneur. New and exciting things are on the horizon here.
What Is Startup Salad?
The life of an entrepreneur can be seen as a tossed salad, we are vigorously tossed together: lettuce, tomatoes, celery, olives and aren’t similar in shape or style. But together, we compliment each other, we are better and stronger as one. This is the new Startup Salad.
There are two types of events this organization will be hosting.
- Big Salad – A day event where startups with a product and a team who are ready to show themselves to the public pitch to an audience full of judges and spectators. Judges and spectators have a vote, and the spectators vote will matter as well! Winning team as well as a random voter backing the winning team will win a trip to San Francisco, California!
- Startup Salad – A weekend event where entrepreneurs come together to build a team and pitch to the audience and judges. The judging criteria will be formatted to fit today’s startup requirements, and the audience vote will also count towards the winning team. Winning team will receive a flight to San Francisco, and also 1 random voter who backed them will also win a ticket.
Rockstar Organizers With Tons of Startup Event Experience
This is a professionally run event, with seasoned professionals who have planned a wide array of startup events in Shenzhen over the past few years.
The team has grown so strong and has a wide range of resources in the Shenzhen community.
Why the new name and organization?
You may be wondering why the team has changed to a new organization. We had worked very hard with other international startup events organizations and had high hopes of continuing to grow in Shenzhen and throughout China. Last minute and unexpected differences sprang up and we were asked to disassociate ourselves from their brand. It has been a difficult t me for us, but the community must go on – and we hope you think we are doing a great job.
Show your support for us and the whole Shenzhen startup community by attending, promoting, referring, sponsoring, or even just smiling as you read this message. We serve the Shenzhen startup community and are confident we will continue to rock the scene with our outstanding international team.
If you would like to get involved and get behind what we are doing, get in at the ground level! We have big vision and are now set free to spread our wings and fly!
Show Your Support For The Shenzhen Startup Community
Thanks for reading this today and remember this as the beginning of a new global startup events organization – Startup Salad where the roots, sprouts, harvest, and mixing of the salad will start.