Last month I struggled to ride my mountain bike over the terrible roads up Mount Everest. This is what I wrote about the ride:
“My dad and I were not sure what to do, because this was hardly biking anymore. I am not sure how to describe it, but the road was in such a bad condition that even the Land Cruiser drivers complained about it. Walking was often the easiest or only way, and that’s what we did for some parts. If anybody plans to ride up to the Mount Everest Base Camp I would advise them not to do it. If I had known this in advance I would have given up. But because we had started we wanted to finish. And that’s what we did, but don’t ask me how. I was completely dizzy and could hardly eat or drink anymore.”

Maybe a government official read my blog and felt embarrassed, because yesterday it was announced that the unpaved road to Mount Everest Base Camp (108 kilometers, 67 miles) will be changed into a “blacktop highway fenced by undulating guardrails”. The job should be finished in four months already. I wish they had done it half a year earlier…

But is this really good news? Except for the few crazy cyclists that ride up here, I doubt it. Think about it, if you go to Mount Everest, do you really want to go there by highway? Part of the adventure is that you are in the wilderness, far away from civilization. A paved highway does not really give you that feeling in my opinion. But maybe I am too much of a romantic…

On the other hand, it is good news for the locals. A good road means that more tourists will visit, so there will be additional ways of earning money. The locals living in Rongbuk, the village closest to Mt. Everest (the few houses in the picture), are dirt poor: they begged for the left-overs of our dinner when we were finished. Hopefully this road can improve their living conditions a little. Don’t be surprised if the tour groups start showing up now as well, riding in comfortable touring cars to the base camp.

If you plan to go to Mt. Everest after the road is finished and still want to experience the ‘original’ feeling, that will still be possible. Instead of taking the shorter paved road, you can continue the Friendship Highway to Tingri and take the dirt road through the mountains from there. Only a few Land Cruisers per day take this road, so I don’t think it will ever be paved. You will have to cross some streams, and there are no villages or a mobile connection for the full 125 kilometers from Tingri to Rongbuk, so be prepared.

Writing a blog from China is becoming more and more difficult, because the government seems to be blocking all of the major foreign blogging platforms. WordPress has been blocked for a long time already. Blogger was blocked, unblocked, blocked, unblocked and is now blocked again. And today I found that Typepad blogs also stopped working. I first thought it was an office internet issue, but also at home I get error messages. A lot of Chinese bloggers will be unhappy tonight.

I sometimes get phone calls or emails from people asking me for advice about whether they should set up their own business or not. For me the first question is always “Why do you want to be an entrepreneur?”. If people are not intrinsically motivated to build a new product/service/company, they will fail. Always. (well, except for a very few very lucky ones – don’t count on being among them). Then I tell them about the risks involved, that they should keep in mind that most companies won’t survive, that the business will be in their minds 24/7, and that it will be a long emotional roller coaster.

But from now on I don’t have to tell them most of this anymore, because I can send them a link. Marc Andreesen (among others co-founder of Netscape) wrote an excellent blog post today about why NOT to set up your own business. If you read his article and still want to do it, you might be a real entrepreneur. If not, consider staying in your current job and accept that not everybody is fit for this.

Marc’s story is only about Silicon Valley. If you want to do it in China things are even more of a challenge. Regulations can change overnight, permits are very difficult to get, the non-convertible RMB will cause you serious headaches… You name it, think of the worst possible scenario before you set out on your own, because this scenario might happen to you.

But, if you are confident and ambitious and realize you might fail, I think it is still better to be in charge of your own company and ideas, than to work in a 9-to-5 job for a boss.

Spill Group Asia and its game development company Zlong Games are looking for a CFO, based in Shanghai. This is a newly created position, because of the fast growth of our company (currently 62 people). The ideal candidate would be a native Chinese with at least 5 years experience as an auditor for one of the big international accounting firms in China, plus preferably several years experience for a company in a financial management position. M&A experience would be a plus. The CFO should be an expert in Chinese accounting and taxation law (CPA title preferred), and needs to be fluent in English and Mandarin Chinese. The job might require some traveling to Europe and other Asian countries where we operate websites.

Responsibilities include among others budgeting, planning, controlling, reporting, cash management, and taxation. The candidate will become a key member of the management team. Spill Group offers the right person an exciting position in a young, dynamic and fast-growing company. Working hours are not as crazy as in the top accounting firms, so if you currently work there and are looking for a more relaxed life, feel free to apply. Are you interested or do you want more information? Send me an email at marc (at) spillgroupasia dot com.

We will pay a reward of RMB 10,000 to the person that refers the right candidate to us. Blogs that re-post this entry can also receive this reward, if the final candidate acknowledges that he/she first heard about this job opportunity through that particular blog. The reward is payable after the candidate has successfully finished his/her probation.

This is not a hoax, I will personally ensure that this money will be paid.

Bas took these pictures last week, and I stole them from his Flickr stream. If you’re in China install this Firefox add-on in order to see the pictures (thanks to the Net Nanny, Flickr’s photo servers are still blocked in China).

It is not uncommon for Chinese companies to make themselves look bigger than they really are to attract potential foreign customers, by making a flashy site and pretend to have offices at a prestigious address. But yesterday I came across a US company that is trying to do the same. The story started last week when I was meeting with a European multinational to discuss about several serious gaming projects that they plan to develop (such as a virtual world or a Second Life presence). The person I talked to told me that they are contemplating to work with a US development studio in Shanghai as well. He told me their name, but I had never heard of them. That is actually a bit strange, because there are not too many foreign-owned (or partly foreign-owned) game studio’s in this city, let alone ones that also make serious games.

So I decided to get in touch with them, to find out how they had ended up here, and see if there are possible ways that we could work together in the future. When I called them, however, it turned out that the address and phone number belonged to another company. The lady who picked up the phone said she did not know much about this company. They did not have an office in China and just used their phone number, but that they have a US sales person with a Chinese mobile number who I could call. The Chinese mobile number she gave me did not work, likely because it was the middle of the night in the US (where this person was based, I found out after a Google search). At first I thought the Shanghai company was their outsourcing company in China, but even that was not the case. The company actually only sells analytical instruments.

It seems the US company just pretends they have a Shanghai office, but is in reality probably just an outsourcing company without telling their clients this. From their (high quality) website you can see that they have many multinationals as clients. They even have a corporate blog in which they describe that they travel around Asia, among others visiting their office in Shanghai. Not sure what they did here (or if they even were here), but likely they did not visit their office. For merchandisers it’s now almost standard practice to visit factories in China before doing business with them. But it seems that the internet industry should also do this in order to ensure they are working with a professional company.

Oak Pacific Interactive is a Chinese company that runs several web 2.o sites, including mop.com and donews.com. After their 48 million USD VC round last year things have gone a bit downhill for them, especially after most of their revenue was cut off last August when China Mobile restructured the service provider industry. Since then they have been cutting costs heavily, among others by laying off lots of employees and moving to a cheaper office.

Likely the VC’s forced them to cut costs, but maybe the investors pushed a bit too hard. On BBS forums mop.com employees are now complaining that the company refuses to put the airconditioning on in the office. Given the fact that Beijing just went through a heat wave, that seems like a bit of a desperate and very short-sighted action. In that kind of weather even the most motivated person cannot do his job anymore.

If I would be an investor in this company, I think it would be time for a serious discussion with the management about how to run a company. Or maybe this action was intentional, and this is a creative way to get rid of more staff without having to fire them?

This afternoon I was strolling around Xintiandi when I saw a nice pair of shoes in a new (?) shoe shop called Silvano Lattanzi. I went inside to take a look at the shoes, and was impressed by all the other models they had on display. I was told that all shoes are handmade in Italy, and I started to suspect that the price may be on the high side. But when I looked at the price of my favourite pair I was literally shocked: RMB 79,990 – more than USD 10,000 for a pair of shoes!

I dont’t mind paying a bit more for quality products, but this is outrageous. In Shanghai I normally pay less than USD 50 for handmade tailored shoes, meaning I could buy 200 pairs of those for one pair of Silvano Lattanzi. The Chinese staff told me that this brand is actually quite famous, but until now I had never heard of it (which does not say much, fashion brands is not an area that interests me very much). They tried to convince me to buy a pair by telling me that royalty and US presidents buy their shoes, but that failed to impress me. Even though the shoes look fantastic, I will stay with my Chinese custom-made shoe maker for now.