Making Connections on China's Premier Business Networking Website

The Chinese business networking website Hengzhi is fast becoming an insider favorite. A hybrid of Facebook and LinkedIn, the website provides a platform for Chinese businessmen and entrepreneurs to make the personal and professional connections that drive their business forward. Agenda got in touch with founder and CEO Li Tong to learn out how to market to China’s businessmen, why the Internet is so important in China, and the key to running a successful business networking platform.

Why did you found Hengzhi?
I founded Hengzhi as a more efficient way to keep in touch with my friends and colleagues from around the world. LinkedIn wasn’t very intuitive for my Chinese friends, and once Facebook was blocked, there wasn’t really a good way to keep in touch. I went to MIT, so I’m a “trained geek.” When I couldn’t find a place to keep in touch with my friend and organize all of my contacts, I simply built one. That’s how Hengzhi came into existence.

What’s your professional background?
As said, I received my training at MIT and then worked in the US and Canada for a few years, doing things such as investment banking. I’ve been doing startups since 2006. My first startup was a communications company called Tokiva. It’s a communications company that helps people stay in touch through affordable international calls. Other than that I was also one of the founding members of an angel investor organization in Beijing. I’ve got a couple of other things in the works, but I can’t comment on them yet.

What’s the key to your success?
Well, it really comes down to the fact that I’ve been lucky to work with a great bunch of people.

How would you describe the people on Hengzhi?
Well you won’t find drunken pictures or provocative profiles. What our users will share is pictures of outings, their moods, and also interesting links. So it is a combination of social and professional, but a more refined social. People really use this as a platform to get to know people from their industry on a more personal level.

How did you publicize Hengzhi?
That’s a good question. Marketing is always tough, because if you don’t do it well, your product can’t exist. For us there was the added challenge that we wanted to keep the site professional, meaning we didn’t want to let everyone in. So the question we were faced with was: How do we evolve our user base, rather than simply grow it? It turned out that viral marketing was the key. We started out with 100 friends and friends of friends, and then we incentivized them by giving them credits for bringing new people to the website.

This system is very sustainable, and has a lot of advantages as well. Once Hengzhi reaches a certain scale it can actually be really compelling to advertisers such as airlines and hotels, and that is because we have an affluent and professional user base that is unrivaled. These are the ideal users that people want to reach – they are professional, affluent, they blog and share their experiences with others. So at a certain point we’ll invite advertisers to the website, but not quite yet. When the time comes we will carefully select exclusive advertisers.

To what extent do Hengzhi members socialize in real life?
A lot of our members organize events and outings on Hengzhi, and then post their pictures and updates from the events on our website. We also organize dinners where members can come together and get to know each other. We had our launch party in February, and it was great. About two hundred users turned up.

These meetings are a great place for Chinese businessmen and returning overseas Chinese to meet and talk about doing business in China. We invite speakers to give presentations on various topics related to business. At our last event we did have some foreign participants, but they didn’t mix that well with the crowd, even though they speak Mandarin really well. The thing is, the active members on Hengzhi spend a lot of time on the website and know each other really well, so events are an opportunity for them to meet up in person. I think anyone who shows up without being an active member might be left out of the mix.

So do you have non-Chinese users?
Yes, we do, but not a lot. They probably make up less than five percent. Hengzhi is in Chinese only, so if you don’t read Mandarin, you won’t be able to sign up. We don’t do this to be exclusive, but honestly, our current group of users is big enough and complete enough that we don’t need to expand into the international market. Some people ask whether or not this is a nationalistic gesture, and it isn’t. While there is some nationalism in the online forums, we simply choose to keep our target audience very focused.

So what role do you think the Internet plays in people’s lives?
The internet is a communications tool no matter where you go, but especially in China. On Hengzhi we help people find jobs, make connections and more. Back in June there was a post on the New Yorker website that talked about how easily online action is transferred into real-life action in China, and I think that the relationship between the two is really different than it is on the Internet in other countries. You can have lots of friends following you on Facebook, or lots of connection on LinkedIn, but you might not ever see them.

In China, particularly on sites like ours, people are a lot more likely to know each other and see each other in real life, as well as being in touch online. Just look at our activities section. People organize outings, dinners and even karaoke parties. They use the web as a way to get to know each other, but then go the extra step and spend time together in real life as well. At my company we have one employee who met his wife on QQ, and they actually texted each other for two years before they finally met and got married.

Do you think that the lack of quality television has anything to do with people’s desire to be online?
Haha! That’s an interesting way to look at it. I suppose that could be true! What you get on Chinese television is a lot of manufactured content, so you have one or two choices, and hundreds of selections within those categories. I, for one, don’t watch TV here at all.

What do you do in your free time?
When I’m not busy running the company or planning events, I actually have another start-up project – my son Max. I love spending time with him. I also really like to play sports, and often play basketball or go swimming at the Kerry Centre. The basketball court is a great place to meet new people. Other than that, I lay low. I actually live really close to my office, so I spend most of my time in this area. My life is centered on two blocks. I might go out to Sanlitun every once in a while for a dinner at Element Fresh, grab an ice cream at Häagen Dazs, or catch a movie at Wanda.

Kerry Sports Daily 6am-11pm. Kerry Centre Hotel, 1 Guanghua Lu, Chaoyang District 朝阳区光华路1号嘉里中心酒店 (6561 8833 ext 6465)
Element Fresh Mon-Fri 10am-11pm, Sat-Sun 7am-11pm. S8-33, Bldg 8, Sanlitun Village South, 19 Sanlitun Lu, Chaoyang District (6417 1318) 朝阳区三里屯路19号三里屯Village南区8号楼S8-33
Häagen-Dazs 哈根达斯(China Central Place) 11am-10pm. Unit L05b, Bldg 1, Huamao Shangye Jie, 89 Jianguo Lu, Chaoyang District. (6530 7045) 朝阳区建国路89号华贸商业街1楼L05b铺(近新光天地)
Wanda International Cinema Daily 9am-10pm. 3/F, Bldg B, Wanda Plaza, 93 Jianguo Lu, Chaoyang District (5960 3399) 朝阳区建国路93号万达广场B座3层

Explore Li’s creations at www.tokiva.com and www.hengzhi.cc. Hengzhi is invitation-only. If you don’t know anyone on there yet, get networking!

You can read Evan Osnos’ New Yorker post at www.newyorker.com.