Businesses born over a simple cup of coffee
Print Edition
IN a cafe at the center of Zhongguangcun, Beijing’s tech hub, ideas are flowing as budding entrepreneurs meet investors in a bid to see their visions realized.
The Garage Cafe is on the second floor of a hotel in Zhongguancun. Humming with activity, it is regularly filled with ambitious business people working on creative ideas for start-ups.
A whole day can be spent in the cafe for the cost of a single cup of coffee. The first person to arrive when it opens receives a free cup.
Liu Zhixiong has been coming to the cafe since his business was nothing more than a concept. He is now CEO of Haogougou, a social networking website designed especially for pet-owners.
“I was a member of the cafe’s first club in 2012,” Liu said. “Garage Cafe offers two important things for start-ups. First, it provides a space for us to meet and help each other out so we don’t have to do it alone. In addition, it provides us with opportunities to meet investors.”
The cafe was founded in 2011 by Su Di, an investor who was having a hard time finding suitable start-ups to invest in. The cafe’s name was inspired by US firms such as Amazon and Google which started off in garages.
Jin Zisen, the cafe’s CEO, said it was designed as a platform for start-ups to find all the necessary resources and help they need. They began offering assistance with company registration, financial support, investment, tutelage and patent information.
“We are also home to a community where start-ups can meet and help each other. In fact, some of the most successful projects came not from singular ideas, but were the outcome of brainstorming between entrepreneurs,” Jin said. “The core spirit of Garage Cafe is helping each other.”
About 300 start-up projects have been successfully hatched at the cafe over the past three years.
The cafe caught the attention of Lu Wei, director of the China Internet Network Information Center, who visited it on December 1 before a trip to the United States.
Lu listened to young entrepreneurs and spoke of his visit to students at the University of Washington as an example of how the Internet is bringing immense opportunities to China.
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