I'm a serial entrepreneur who has started 3 companies since 1996. My first company, Netcentives, developed online loyalty programs and virtual currency that powered the marketing efforts of over 240 Web companies and brands like American Express, AOL, Yahoo!, Nortel, and Barnes & Noble. We took the company public on NASDAQ in 1999. We struggled to survive the downturn in 2001 and ended up selling the company (in a distress situation) to InfoUSA (direct marketing leader) and Cendant (now Travelport). But I remain passionate about online marketplaces, virtual currency, and customer loyalty.
In the depths of the downturn, I co-founded Loyalty Matrix, which delivered customer intelligence and analytics solutions to companies worried about attrition and low retention. We served some great clients like Yahoo!, Starwood Hotels, LA Times, and 24 Hour Fitness. Loyalty Matrix later sold to Responsys, Inc. I'm proud of the my co-founders and the team for successfully steering this company during tough times and bringing the deal to a good home.
In 2003, I was recruited to head up online marketing for QuickBooks Group. My job was to sell software and services via QuickBooks.com, and we took a mature site in a mature business growing at 7%, and ratcheted that up to a 50%+ annual growth rate. My team built traffic through SEO, SEM, Affiliate, cross-sell from other sites/channels, and increased conversion rates substantially. While I love the people at Intuit, I left the company because I felt it was too stifling and slow-moving for me, and I wanted to get back to an entrepreneurial opportunity. But there were teachable moments from Steve Bennett and Scott Cook that I look back on and would have happily written a $1000 check to them for each of those learning experiences. And I'm even more willing to do that now that I don't work at the company!
In 2006, I invested in 2DuNet, a Chinese company building a B2B automotive auction marketplace. I also advised United Automotive Association (UAA) which aimed to build the AAA for China (and I believe has shifted its model to car rentals in China). Ever since my summer internship in Hong Kong in 1989 while I was in college, I always had interest in China's development and a love for Hong Kong, where my family is from. I toyed with the idea of advising and investing in various Chinese startups, and also developed a startup idea around a B2B search engine for cross-border business information. But for personal reasons choose not to move to China to pursue these ideas.
Yen Lee, who has been a good friend of mine for 10+ years, left Yahoo! Travel and decided to start a travel search engine. I liked his model and frankly felt it was far better than my ideas and 95% of the startup ideas I had looked at. So in 2007 I joined Yen as a co-founder and investor in UpTake Networks, Inc. and have been busy building this business up for the last 18+ months. (as of 10/2008).
My passion for China continues, and UpTake has several top search engineers here who are originally from China. They ended up building a team in Beijing, and that has given me an excuse to go to China occasionally. In late 2007 I also started a blog, CN Reviews (http://cnreviews.com) that aims to help Westerners be successful in business and everyday life in China. This blog has been a huge blessing to me. I got to know Christine Lu, and she invited me to be an Advisor to The China Business Network. In November, I'll be attending the China 2.0 Tour organized by The China Business Network, Web 2 Asia, and also by my blogging team CN Reviews (David Feng, Min Guo, Kai Pan, others).
