Built FeiWeiMeiDi in a month
I joined FreeWheel on one condition: build engineering dev center in China. Luckily Jon and Doug supported me on this. I didn't express it much at the time, however, I really appreciated their trust when they said yes.
Although it is popular to build offshore centers in India, it is still at the early stage in China. The practice is largely limited to established companies with big onshore engineering teams. Most startups would have avoided it at the beginning. Who knows, I bet you Jon and Doug didn't know about this either, that this bold move turned out to be THE MOVE that helped FreeWheel launched impressive V1 in a short time frame.
Building a team in China has always been my dream — Greg (my boss at DoubleClick) knows, and almost everyone at DoubleClick knows.
However, to be honest, I didn't know anything about it at the time. I barely got one year of working experience in Beijing after I graduated from Peking U. in 1995. Except that I am a Chinese, I really had no experience running a business or anything in China.
Via friends and family, we found local agencies to do some work. We found our office space at Full Link Plaza, Beijing. And finished the office built out from scratch in 30 days. I remote-controlled how the offices/conf rooms should be laid out and how the furniture should look like from New York. In the meanwhile our lawyer was busying with getting FeiWeiMeiDi (飞维美地信息技术（北京）有限公司）established, we were busying recruiting too.
When I landed Beijing on July 22nd, I knew there was a ready-to-use office at Full Link Plaza and 8 engineers would start the next day. 8 engineers, indeed! And this would be the first time they met each other too.
PS:飞维美地 means "flying thoughts, beautiful places" in Chinese. When I explained the meaning to Doug and Jon, Jon jumped and said "love it, love it"...That is how we got our Chinese entity name.
Although it is popular to build offshore centers in India, it is still at the early stage in China. The practice is largely limited to established companies with big onshore engineering teams. Most startups would have avoided it at the beginning. Who knows, I bet you Jon and Doug didn't know about this either, that this bold move turned out to be THE MOVE that helped FreeWheel launched impressive V1 in a short time frame.
Building a team in China has always been my dream — Greg (my boss at DoubleClick) knows, and almost everyone at DoubleClick knows.
However, to be honest, I didn't know anything about it at the time. I barely got one year of working experience in Beijing after I graduated from Peking U. in 1995. Except that I am a Chinese, I really had no experience running a business or anything in China. Via friends and family, we found local agencies to do some work. We found our office space at Full Link Plaza, Beijing. And finished the office built out from scratch in 30 days. I remote-controlled how the offices/conf rooms should be laid out and how the furniture should look like from New York. In the meanwhile our lawyer was busying with getting FeiWeiMeiDi (飞维美地信息技术（北京）有限公司）established, we were busying recruiting too.
When I landed Beijing on July 22nd, I knew there was a ready-to-use office at Full Link Plaza and 8 engineers would start the next day. 8 engineers, indeed! And this would be the first time they met each other too.
PS:飞维美地 means "flying thoughts, beautiful places" in Chinese. When I explained the meaning to Doug and Jon, Jon jumped and said "love it, love it"...That is how we got our Chinese entity name.
It really surprised me that you are writing a blog... so amazing...
I did read every word in every post carefully and I'll keep watching here
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