Two questions: What is your dream job when you were still in school? And what is your job now? I hope your answers to the former questions are the same because that means you are both a dreamer and a doer. Does that sound too perfect? Probably. It is not an easy thing for everyone to carry out their dreams under various pressure and unexpected realistic problems.
However, for the young people who are new to this world, who have inherent passion, innovation, and energy about everything they see, they do care about dreams. In other words, they are more likely to take the adventures and do crazy things.
We are lucky to meet someone like this today and to have her share with us about dreams and entrepreneurship. The sweet girl is Jah Ying Chung, a fresh graduate of the university of Hong Kong who just started up a company LaunchPilots. Enjoy the story!
(HK=StartupsHK, J=Jah Ying Chung)
HK: Who are you and What is LaunchPilots?
J: We are a team of Hong Kong, mainland and American Chinese with a passion for helping students pursue their passions! Launchpilots is an online-to-offline marketplace connecting university students and brands through campus event sponsorships. We provide a centralized platform for student to find sponsorships and for brands to engage target student audiences.
HK: How do you come up with this idea?
J: I came up with this idea while working with a youth-led international climate change organization, 350.org. I was coordinating national campaigns across 200 universities in China, and student organizers kept coming to me with one request: sponsorships. I quickly became a de facto sponsorship agent between students and global brands. After the campaigns, I realized that I myself as an individual was not a sustainable solution, but perhaps I could create a platform…
HK: What is your dream?
J: The day when every student has access to the resources and opportunities to pursue their passions on campus and beyond.
HK: How’s everything going?
J: We’re in the middle of raising an angel round after graduating from China Accelerator. We’re doing quite a bit of product development to streamline processes for our users. And we’re looking to bring on a lot more sponsors in the coming quarter! AND, we’re hiring – we’re looking for a student leader, developer and advertiser to join our core team.
HK: What is your biggest challenge so far?
J: Typical marketplace problems! For us, students come first. We’re here to support students, with brands. The tricky bit is to create win-win situations for both sides of the marketplace. We’re also an online-to-offline business, so streamlining offline logistics is another tricky task!
HK: How big is your market?
J: Well, there are about 1,000 major brands in China that are specifically targeting youth consumers. They spend around US$3M annually on their campaigns (just below-the-line, not including print/TV/radio etc). This comes out to a US$30B market annually, in China alone.
HK: What makes you wanna be an entrepreneur?Is it hard to start up a company in school?
J: I did a couple of small businesses while I was in school, but I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur or “wanted” to be one. I really just saw problems or gaps and realised that no one was in any hurry to address them. That annoyed me, so I started “businesses” to solve them. Same goes for Launchpilots.
HK: People complained about the lack of entrepreneurship in the youth in Hong Kong – that they don’t care about the dreams they used to have, they flock into similar jobs, and they don’t wanna change. How do you see this?
J: For me, entrepreneur or not, I think young people are blessed with inherent freedoms – freedom of thought, unburdened by the practicalities of “real life”; freedom of action, in that society expects them to make mistakes and are often much more forgiving when they happen; and often, freedom from financial burdens. I think these are the basic traits that are common to most startup entrepreneurs. So if one were to say that HK is lacking in student entrepreneurship, I wouldn’t say that’s because of the nature of Hong Kong students so much as that social expectations and our economic system encourage people to pursue more well defined paths. In other words, if we were to replicate Silicon Valley 100% in Hong Kong, with all the infrastructure and opportunities, I believe we would see a huge influx of Hong Kong students going into entrepreneurship/startups upon graduation.
HK: Are You Hiring?
J: Yes, we are!! We’re looking for a student leader, developer and advertiser!
