Fritz (left) talks to our own Batik-clad blogger.
In order to help our startups learn from a success story, we’re talking to Fritz Demopoulos, the co-founder of the China-based travel booking site Qunar – in which Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) has invested US$306 million. He’s our guest onstage here at Startup Asia Jakarta where he’ll be interviewed by our own blogger, Charlie Custer.
(Refresh the page occasionally for updates, which will appear at the top of the timeline):
#10:23: Thanks for following the live-blog.
#10:22: Fritz jokes that “angel investors” are the new “consultants” who’re just looking around for something to do. Now he’s moving around for six months to a year, looking at great startups in Asia and Brazil, and then maybe “in a year or two I’ll reassess if I’m a good investor or not, and then perhaps start a company.”
#10:18: So, what does Fritz look for in a startup as an investor? He looks for “some skin in the game,” and entrepreneurs who’re totally focused, such as investing their own/family money, or giving up their day-job so as to devote to it. For him, you’ve got to take your project seriously for any investor to take it seriously. Secondly, he looks for a founder who can recruit other good people. Lastly, he’d look to a startup that could morph into a half-billion dollar company. Even in Indonesia. Perhaps $250 million in future value is fine. The investors need to get their money back.
#10:15: What would Fritz do now if he were about to create a new startup? He points to trends in mobile and social, especially with Asian characteristics of being more social and chatty, which makes it even more exciting. He also sees a lot of travel startups – think of stuff like Wego in Indonesia – in the region, and e-commerce in general is another major vertical for Asia.
“Any market that chats a lot loves games,” he says, pointing to online social gamimg and its ubiquity in the region. Think mig33 or Tencent’s QQ games.
#10:14: “Maybe local companies have unfair access to capital,” says Fritz, but nonetheless there are plenty of funding opportunities out there for anyone operating in China.
#10:09: Onto the thorny issue of ‘relations’ – guanxi – in China, which often involves back-handers and some dark-side dabbling. Fritz admits that this all goes on, even at the highest levels. Fritz is phlegmatic about is, saying that he tried to focus on communication so as to convey the message that “we’re a good company” and so they didn’t engage in that kind of under-the-table payments, even to government agencies. He achieved that, he stresses, by solid communication with academics, officials, and other businesses, to give the impression that they wouldn’t sink to such strategies.
#10:06: In addition, Qunar could’ve focused more on expanding in a meaningful way, rather than fretting the financials and funding.
#10:03: What, asks our blogger, did Fritz do wrong in the China market (so as to help other startups learn what not to do)? Fritz says that being very self-aware is the best way to make mistakes. But he does concede they hired some of the wrong people, even among key staff, and then moved too slowly to replace them because they had too much invested – emotionally and financially – in those folks.
#10:00: So how did Fritz make Qunar stand out in China? “The only way to succeed [in China] is to be first … and be unique.” Chinese companies, he says, tend to be “very aggressive, flexible, smart” and a whole bunch of other adjectives. Fritz claims that he’s lazy and hates competition, and so his way to succeed his to be first – as Qunar was in China – and then to back that up by executing it well; executing in terms of hiring great personnel especially.
#09:57: “Everyone’s fighting it out … no-one wants to work together,” says Fritz, painting a picture of China’s super-competitive web companies, particularly in the e-commerce sphere.
#09:55: “We aggregate consumer demand … and make money in a similar way to Google or Baidu,” explains Fritz by way of introduction. Basically, Qunar is a travel search engine, not a conventional travel booking site like Expedia or China’s Ctrip.
This is a part of our coverage of Startup Asia Jakarta 2012, our startup event running on June 7 and 8. You can follow along on Twitter at @startupasia, on our Facebook page, on Google Plus, or via RSS.