Xiaomi, Hong Kong Ecosystem, Communities & Crypto, Decentralization

I am not into shopping at all but each time I have people visiting Shenzhen. I take them to the Xiaomi store.

Xiaomi stores seem like Apple stores at first; except the « Mi Ecosystem » covers everything from personal computing to smart home to travel.

Xiaomi’s sales are already going thru the roof and they broke the RMB 100 billion (USD 15.8 b) threshold in just 7 years compared to Apple’s 20, Google’s 9, Tencent’s 17 and Huawei’s 21 years.

I am very curious to see (1) what will unfold from Xiaomi strategy’s Mi Ecosystem – so far they’ve invested in 89 companies; (2) what will happen when Xiaomi stores expand into Europe full scale (Xiaomi vs Apple store?). They already opened in Spain.

By the way, Xiaomi fans aka “Mi Fans” (米粉) translates literally to “rice noodles” in Chinese.

Anyway – welcome to my 3rd newsletter.

I was asked by an investment firm what are my thoughts on Hong Kong entrepreneurial ecosystem.

People often confuse ease-of-doing-business and healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem, and the criteria of this latter are very different from the former.

There are three ingredients for healthy entrepreneurial ecosystems (source: Nicolas Colin):

While Hong Kong has consistently ranked in the top 5 of ease-of-doing-business index, and has a nascent and growing entrepreneurial ecosystem, it is still lacking quantity in some of the ingredients for a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem – keep reading here.

“What’s Hong Kong Startup Ecosystem Like” by me

These days I am reading a lot about communities and crypto; and software. We already know “software is eating the world”– Marc Andreessen.

And each company is becoming a software company.

Now every country *has* to become a “software country”.

Next step will be *starting your own country*.

I put together this note to depict the environment we are evolving into, I think.

“From Software to Nations” by me

Back in January I attended President Macron’s visit at AI forum; below are my takeaways

“5 years ago we were not doing AI research.

Now we do AI research.

But the research we do has not changed. We still do the same.

[pause]”

– Antoine Petit, French National Institute for computer science and applied mathematics

Research people have been doing AI for decades.

So, why is AI a hot topic now and was not in the 70s?

At the time there was a lack of:

Now we have the data, computational power, and people.

“The organizer finds his goal in the creation of power for others to use”– Saul Alinsky

April 16th — We –French Tech– are hosting a party with Rise’s CEO Paddy Cosgrave and 400 guests. Let me know if you want to join.

April 24th — I will be MC at Open Innovation Summit at KPMG in Hong Kong

May 20-23th — Station F, Paris, France

May 24-26th — Vivatech, Paris, France

June 22-23rd — Techsauce Summit, Bangkok, Thailand

July 9-12th — Rise, Hong Kong

Let me know if I can help.

Romain