Go Mobile, Go Global – Participating in Cross-Border Innovation

I’ve attended a hefty stack of events over the years, many of them connected to web technology and few of them memorable. So when I attended the Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC) in Beijing earlier this year, I knew I had stumbled on something rare.

Like any responsible conference, there were celebrity CEOs from the US, Japan and Europe. But there were also freshly minted startup CEOs and eager developers from Eastern Europe, Africa and South America among the 156 speakers and 5,000+ attendees. And this audience was hungry to spread their influence and innovation beyond their home countries.

Innovative technology, access to capital and a willingness to invest early in scaling globally has finally started to mature outside Silicon Valley. And here was the perfect forum for these new nomadic entrepreneurs, laser-focused on mobile technology.

So I’m excited that GMIC is coming to the US for the first time and btrax is proud to support their mission to make innovation a truly international conversation.

To give you just a taste of what to expect from GMIC Silicon Valley (tickets here), I’m publishing a few of the choice quotes that surprised or inspired me during the multi-day GMIC Beijing:

Phil Libin – Evernote CEO
“Every app and web entrepreneur should think and act like a global product company.”

“We don’t think entering China market will be easy, but it would be foolish in the long run not to engage this market.”

Wallace Wang – Danqoo CEO
“In the mobile market if you only copy it’s difficult for you to survive. If it’s real innovation it will succeed anywhere.”

Pony Ma – Tencent CEO
“A product can’t survive without a platform or marketing.”

“We need both police (mobile device security) and private security (app security).”

Abhinav Mathur – Spice Labs CEO
“There is no test market anymore, because real people will start to download and use, so you have to build good user experience from the start.”

Yu Chengdong – Huawei Mobile CEO
“Feature phones are good for quick money, but they don’t have much of a future.”

“Instead of copying the industry leaders we want to innovate and surpass them.”

Chenhao Zhang – Pacific Epoch Managing Director
“The capacity to adapt is what is most valued by venture capitalists, the product is second.”

Song Xiao Fei – Moca World CEO
“Micro innovation is here in Asia, but the real innovation is coming from the US for gaming – China, Korea and Japan are all copying the US.”

“Government shouldn’t be involved in innovation.”

Ray Yam – HTC China President
“China companies focus only on building their own team, but global leaders hire and integrate a high percentage of local management.”

“There is huge opportunity abroad, but each market needs different products with different laws, in Brazil handsets must be assembled locally on order to distribute.”