What is the reason these young Chinese of different backgrounds joined hands to start up an enterprise? And how did a few young men with little experience carve out their own territory in the information industry, which has long been in the grip of the USA? Let's take a look at the tale of their entrepreneurial adventures.
On a winter's night in northern California, all of Silicon Valley is enshrouded in darkness and silence. The parking lot that was packed during the day is all but vacant at this hour; only three cars remain scattered across the wide, empty space. From the little corner of an office building, a tiny light shines out.
Drawing closer to the light, the thumping of keyboards and the clicking of mouse buttons can be heard. Occasionally the clatter ceases for a moment, and the sound of voices in the midst of discussion takes its place. If one listens closely, one can tell the voices are speaking Mandarin Chinese.
It turns out that three young people of SinaNet are still at work. For Jack Hong, Ben Tsiang and Hurst Lin, these are nearly normal working hours. A poem that Ben Tsiang wrote probably serves as their most apt description: "A little base that, like a fortress, lets out a light every evening. The Internet knows no night; we know no night either."
People on the margins of culture
SinaNet was founded in early 1995 by Jack Hong, Ben Tsiang, Hurst Lin and Mark Hsu. Hurst Lin was born in Taiwan and immigrated with his family as a young student. Ben Tsiang was born in California, but since boyhood grew up in Taiwan; only after he graduated from university did he move to the USA to attend graduate school. Jack Hong's background is the most complicated of all: He was born in the central United States, moved to Taiwan with his family when he was 11, had all the experiences of a Taiwanese high school student, and at the age of 17 moved back by himself to the USA where he finished high school and earned both a bachelor's and a master's degree. Mark Hsu is a typical "American Born Chinese." These four young ethnic Chinese who met each other at California's Stanford University came from very different backgrounds, but they have all felt the impact of both Chinese and American culture.
When asked about how the four of them met, central figure Jack Hong recalls with a smile, "Hurst and I met while we were taking the same class. That was when I was in the graduate program of mechanical engineering, and he was getting his MBA. Ben was an underclassman in the same program. Our backgrounds were very similar; we both had a little bit of a background in the fine arts. Although I was studying mechanical engineering, I never could forget art and design. We seemed to have a lot in common. Mark was an undergraduate, and he had once been the chairman of the Club Taiwan at Stanford. We met while organizing a New Year's Eve party. Because we both were born in the States and we both also had a very deep relationship with Taiwan, after a few long talks we discovered we both had very profound emotions about the experiences of people like ourselves at the margins of culture. So we had the idea of working together."
Because his doctoral dissertation had to do with "remote collaboration," Jack Hong started researching the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) as early as 1993. Hong, who had always been avid about art, was completely intrigued by this new medium which combined the visual arts and information technology, and he constantly brought up the subject with his friends. Furthermore, he took part in designing the Japanese government's website "Japan Window," and he therefore was very keen on creating a website exclusively for Chinese people. And after Hurst Lin came into contact with the new medium of the Internet, he was attracted to its limitless commercial opportunities, and consequently energetically pushed the idea of establishing a company.
A bicultural base
SinaNet was brought into being through chance encounters and a desire to hop aboard the new wave of Internet culture, but more than that, its founders hoped to use the medium to bring together overseas Chinese people. SinaNet's self-introduction clearly states, "Because we care: In spite of the numerous individual success stories, overseas Chinese from Taiwan have maintained a long-standing habit of community isolationism. Not only has this caused a widening gap between first and second generation overseas Chinese, but it has hindered our community's social and political presence in the United States and other adopted countries." Therefore, SinaNet was determined to "provide an information link between fellow overseas Chinese and a virtual bridge back to your roots."
Jack Hong adds an explanation of his personal experience growing up: "As a grade-schooler, I often was the only Oriental among several hundred white children. When I was back in Taiwan in junior high and high school, I couldn't read Chinese and I led a different lifestyle, so I was once again viewed as an outsider. That feeling of being discriminated against as a person from the outside is very intense. I often ask myself, where exactly does my value as a person come from?" He gives his glasses a nudge and with a serious expression comments, "Most second-generation ethnic- Chinese Americans like myself, so-called ABC's ['American Born Chinese'] don't have any sense of cultural identity. They aren't certain whether to identify with Chinese or Western values. The ultimate purpose of creating SinaNet is to provide a bicultural, bilingual base. We want to use Western technology to transmit Chinese things, and to make it so that young ethnic Chinese can at least cease struggling to survive in a narrow cleft between cultures, and can come to swim freely between the two cultures."
A study becomes an office
In 1995, relying on their own idealism and enthusiasm, the four men started up an office in Jack Hong's study, moving in their own equipment such as personal computers, printers and faxes. In this way, the SinaNet Internet enterprise was born. There was no business sign and no store front, much less any salaries. But the group often stoked each other's spirits: "The two founders of Hewlett-Packard* got their start in their garage. We can certainly succeed."
Jack Hong and Ben Tsiang, with their technical and artistic backgrounds, took charge of designing and setting up the website. When he was not working at a consulting company, Hurst Lin drew up the company's operation plan. Mark Hsu provided the perspectives of the younger generation and summoned up a bunch of enthusiastic workers to run errands and give their opinions.
Taking the entrepreneurial path turned out to be no leisurely journey. The work load was great and helping hands few. Everything had to be accomplished by themselves, and they had no capital to buy equipment. They even had to run down to the local copy shop to copy papers. Added to this was the fact that everyone already had classwork or full-time jobs. Creating SinaNet from scratch ate up everyone's recreational hours and even their sleep time too.
In order to help Chinese living overseas understand the events happening in their homeland, SinaNet first started a free "Taiwan Headline News" service, providing the latest news of Taiwan on a daily basis. Because Lin, Hsu and Hong all had relatively difficult times growing up, this sparked the idea of opening a chat room called "SinaChat" and a free event calendar. The hope was that the Chinese people of North America and even the whole world would interact with friends in this network environment and create a virtual community.
And in order to make SinaNet a genuine bridge between Chinese people and full- fledged Americans, and between first-genera-tion Chinese immigrants and their American born children, SinaNet's on-line information and services are almost all carried out in both Chinese and English. Mark Hsu even recommended that within the chat room they should open up a forum specifically for second-gen-eration Chinese Americans, and the contents of discussion should be left open, to let parents understand what the younger generation of overseas Chinese are talking about and what concerns them.
When English met Chinese
After the hard work of frantically rushing around for several months, the SinaNet website formally began in June of 1995. There were no formal advertisements. They only used email to contact several dozen student organizations. The first day they attracted four or five hundred people to take a look.
Email offering applause and encouragement came in from both the eastern and western United States and Canada, and even Europe and Asia. Lee Jeng-feng sent email from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology saying, "I've been waiting for this kind of on-line Chinese-language news for many years. I'm sure this service will play an important role in the lives of Chinese people living abroad." University of Florida doctoral student Dzwo Tzong-horng commented, "SinaNet's Chinese news leaves one with a deep impression, because overseas students often have to wait several days before they can see the Central Daily News. By then the contents aren't news anymore."
The major concept behind the Chinese-language news provided by SinaNet is a technique devised personally by Jack Hong. Chinese characters are first converted into a graphic file, so that Internet users do not need to use the Chinese-language operating system, Chinese Web Browse, to read Chinese.
As soon as this technique is mentioned, he enthusiastically explains, "According to a survey SinaNet made of North American Chinese Internet users, only a minority have a Chinese-language operating system. This means that most of the Chinese information on the Net is just a bunch of garbage on the screens of most Chinese people in North America. So we developed this technology, so that without any extra expense, the majority of North American Chinese can enjoy the pleasures of reading Chinese on the Internet."
Currently, the most popular news site on SinaNet is "Taiwan Headline News." The Western edition of Sing Tao Daily News, the Chinese Daily News' entertainment section, the Min Sheng Pao's special computer section and horoscope, and other sources can all be browsed without the need for a Chinese operating system. Furthermore, most of the work is done automatically without the need for human processing. Their first project "Taiwan Headline News," was the first Chinese-language news network to use this technology, and at the time they raised quite a commotion. Afterwards, all their new competitors have imitated their methods and have taken SinaNet as their perceived rival.
In addition, SinaNet's beautiful web page received even greater praise. In the trial edition of its international Chinese edition, .net magazine lauded SinaNet's web page design as "very elegant and rich with Chinese ambience." Dynalab Inc. of Taiwan and Microware, a Silicon Valley company specializing in computer education, both invited SinaNet to give seminars on web page design. A China Times reporter described the SinaNet website as "very, very beautiful. The first time I browsed through SinaNet, it left a very deep impression."
Giving Harvard a miss
From this point SinaNet's browsing rate began to consistently increase, and the four founders were overjoyed. At the same time, they faced a decision--if they were to maintain this hard-won beginning, and realize their entrepreneurial ideals, they would have to commit themselves 100%.
The result of the four men's discussion: Ben Tsiang would turn down his chance to attend Harvard University's architecture program. Jack Hong would cancel his doctoral studies, already at the stage of writing the rough draft of his dissertation. Hurst Lin would quit his high-salary, stable job at a consulting company. Because Mark Hsu had yet to graduate from university, everyone agreed that he should first concentrate on his studies and wait until he finished his undergraduate degree.
Looking back at this tremendous decision, was it really worthwhile? Hurst Lin alacrit-ously remarks, "Of course it was worth it. I have an MBA from a prestigious school, but working in a big corporation, you seldom see the full picture. The customer wouldn't necessarily follow my suggestions all the way. What I'd really be doing is working for someone else. When I start my own company, I can clearly keep track of every earning and expenditure and thus comprehend to a greater degree the detailed development of the enterprise's operation. It helps give me a lot of experience."
The more reserved Jack Hong enigmatically comments, "I don't regret it, nor do I have the right to regret it. Of course, it's a real pity that my research work in school was only half complete when I laid it aside. But seeing SinaNet continually grow, from a tiny beginning to the information platform it is today, responsible for serving over ten thousand people, I feel very proud."
Ben Tsiang offers a logical analysis: "Although I studied engineering in university and graduate school, I don't have that much of an interest in pure mechanics. I applied to the architecture program at Harvard because architecture is a sort of synthesis between engineering and the humanities. I hoped to harmonize my background in engineering and my love for art, and to forge a career from it. However, it was impossible to know if I would succeed in that path, and right in front of my eyes was an opportunity to combine my interests and my expertise, so I decided to give Harvard a miss."
A balance between commerce and art
Because of different backgrounds in life, education and profession, when the three friends began the process of building their company, they did not share identical perspectives or attitudes about getting things done.
Jack Hong had a researcher's personality. He was very prudent, but also relatively idealistic. On the other hand, Hurst Lin tended to be more business-minded than academic, and he was more practical. When addressing any issue, he first considered its impact upon company profit.
During their early period of cooperation, their meetings would stretch into marathon sessions, as they exchanged their differences of opinion. Although they were all good friends, they would argue until red in the face.
Hong and Tsiang insisted that the SinaNet homepage achieve a professional standard of design. Its color tone, layout and text font, as well as the links and logical flow between web pages, all had to be meticulously created. Frequently, Tsiang would make repeated adjustments on an image's color scheme or the font in a string of text, continuing for hours on end before he found a combination that satisfied him. And Jack Hong would often want to try a number of projects that would be interesting but not necessarily make money--for example, the free Chinese-community event calendar, or a greater variety of free Chinese-language news.
Lin, on the other hand, believed that since they were a company, they should concern themselves with turning a profit. He used an example from his experiences helping his father run a store in New York: "My father often told me, 'If we can't provide customers the things they want at a reasonable price, if we decorated the store front as beautiful as it could be, we still couldn't possibly have a business.' If we habitually focus on the esthetics of the web page and consequently increase overhead, SinaNet won't be able to survive."
After endless discussions, the three men came to comprehend each other's original motivations for starting up SinaNet, and they realized that although their perspectives were different, it was all beneficial for the company.
Jack Hong and Ben Tsiang have slowly come to accept Hurst Lin's viewpoint on commercial value. Says Hong, "At the beginning I wanted to take hold of this medium to express the feeling of a modern China and Taiwan, and after that to create some new additions to culture. But I also realize that if we merely go by this kind of ideal, we can't survive, especially in Chinese society."
And Ben Tsiang, who held a personal art exhibition during his college days, remarks, "As far as my quest for art is concerned, in the past I approached it from the inside out. I would express myself in order to win the praise of others. Now within the context of a company, I am conversely trying to address the demands of my customers, and thus express the spirit of the thing that is being designed. This has opened up for me a different level of creativity."
Since the three arrived at this consensus, SinaNet still maintains the ideal of high-quality design, but they also take into consideration such questions as the company's return on investment. They have found an agreeable balance between art and commerce.
Putting all their effort into it
Most of their friends lent their support to the three-man enterprise. Some served as workers, some introduced customers, and some offered new ideas. Friends from as far away as Texas and Taiwan even sacrificed their holidays to visit and help out.
Nevertheless, the reaction of their families was not unanimous. Hurst Lin relates that his family was basically in support of his starting a new business, but they had some reservations as to his choosing a new industry with such high risk. They were not sure how the company would make money.
Jack Hong's parents had hoped he would get his PhD and obtain a stable teaching position. Therefore, they did not entirely approve of his starting a new business, yet they respected his decision. Now that SinaNet has gradually become more stable, he notes with a chuckle, his mother and father even carry his business card around, passing it out all over.
Ben Tsiang was the luckiest of the lot. The older generation in his family always gave him their complete support. They only stressed that "you have to like it yourself, you have to enjoy what you're doing and put all your effort into it." And his significant other Beryl Hsieh, who during this time went from being his fiancee to being his wife, was always loving and supportive.
Says Hsieh, "Ben has ideals. He wants to accomplish some things. SinaNet was a good opportunity for him. In the future, the chance to go to Harvard can be found again. At any rate, the school isn't going away. This group of people are the cream of the crop at this time. These people coming together at the same time that the Internet is just taking off is an opportunity that you might only bump into once in your life. If you pass it by, it might never come again. So I encouraged him to devote all his energies to it."
Nevertheless, Ben's frantic work schedule left him very little time to spend with his new bride. Concerning this aspect, Hsieh says with a smile, "When they first started, he would often come home late, and I couldn't help being unhappy. But knowing just how busy they were, I couldn't argue too much. I would only get angry when he'd stay up all night and not come home at all. But now it seems I've gotten used to it. My level of tolerance is getting greater and greater." Beryl has now even joined their ranks, using her past background in an art studio to help SinaNet produce web pages, and she has become SinaNet's most productive designer.
Flowers from far afield
Besides the technology of converting Chinese characters into image files, SinaNet's greatest innovation has been establishing the United States' first Chinese on-line shopping mall.
These little generals of technology, who had no experience in sales or endeavors of that ilk, began their on-line shopping mall by going out on the offensive themselves. Collecting products appropriate for selling among the overseas Chinese community, they contacted the manufacturers one by one. Because many products are manufactured in Taiwan, they even flew across the ocean, using a return trip to Taiwan as an opportunity to make special visits, promoting the SinaNet concept and a plan of cooperation. Ben Tsiang recalls that when they were first starting up their company, they had a hard time finding products suitable for marketing on the Internet. They had also talked with the Central News Agency about setting up a daily headline news service, yet they felt they had too few cultural products. Particularly scarce were products whose target customers were overseas Chinese. He thought of Sinorama, which he had often seen as a student. It reported primarily on the culture and social phenomena of Chinese people, which would be quite compatible with the interests of SinaNet's users. The magazine also had parallel versions of Chinese and English, and had itself just recently gone virtual. The two parties found themselves on common ground, and SinaNet signed its first letter of intent with a cultural publication.
Because of SinaNet's advanced technology, the esthetic appeal of its web page design and the fact that it is the most popular Chinese website in all the United States, many well-known manufacturers, such as Hsin Tung Yang, the World Book Company, the Mandarin Daily News, and CommonWealth magazine all invited SinaNet to design and implement websites for them. And SinaNet provided the technology to allow users to directly order products and services through the Internet.
In order to fully exploit the global nature of the Internet, SinaNet came up with the unique idea of setting up arrangements with several Taiwanese florists, so that Chinese people anywhere in the world can order flowers to be sent to their loved ones in Taiwan. Some of these retailers have reported that when many people receive flowers and hear that their husband or friend sent them from far across the sea, they are moved to tears.
Simultaneous election coverage
SinaNet has also thrown its hat into the ring of public opinion surveys, cooperating with the Chinese Daily News to start the "Golden Gate Forum" in which net users can debate and express their opinions. The content is often impassioned to a degree verging on belligerence.
The period of time during which SinaNet evoked the greatest response was the recent crisis in the Taiwan Strait during the ROC presidential elections.
Because Beijing was threatening to attack Taiwan, SinaNet issued an appeal to President Clinton in Washington, asking him not to ignore the military threat of mainland China. In a short period of time, this letter attracted the on-line signatures of nearly 20,000 supporters. Taiwan's China Times, when reporting the story "Chinese of the world use Internet to assail Beijing's military exercises," specifically noted that the subject was the focus of America's single largest protest petition.
What is especially interesting is that Internet viewers included Chinese from mainland China currently in the USA. Therefore, some people posted email to SinaNet protesting this petition. When the crisis was at its height, many net users feared for their families living in Taiwan and, finding the news on the Internet insufficient, wanted to find immediate information on the current situation on the island. Because of this, SinaNet specially cooperated with the ROC's Central News Agency to put out on-line editions of breaking news, automatically offering hourly updates of the latest reports. This service elicited the unanimous praise of Internet users. At the time of the election, SinaNet worked through the night at an even more furious pace to provide the latest ballot counts. The number of virtual visitors at that time was SinaNet's highest ever.
Recalling the events of the past year, all three main co-founders independently comment that it was extremely arduous, but also very worthwhile. The most trying aspects were long-term physical exhaustion and having no time to be with their families.
Hurst Lin laughingly remarks, "Our biggest problem was how to make it so people would only have to work 12 hours a day instead of 16 to 20."
Nevertheless, it is obvious that all three gained something from it. Gesturing with his hand for emphasis, Hurst Lin explains, "Doing business for yourself, directly waging combat in the marketplace, there isn't the slightest bit of insulation. As long as you take action, you will be able to see some results. This kind of feeling is very stimulating." Ben Tsiang feels that viewer response gives him the greatest sense of accomplishment. "When I tell my friends that I work at SinaNet, and my friends reply, 'That SinaNet on the Internet! I read it every day'--Wow! At those times I really feel like a champion." Jack Hong feels the most worthwhile part is putting his ideals into practice, and using this medium to bring overseas Chinese together to get things done.
Not merely nostalgia
SinaNet is the first Chinese-language Inter-net website to address the overseas Chinese community, and to date it is the enterprise of its kind with the most achievements. Examples of Chinese people starting new businesses are abundant. More than a few Chinese have achieved outstanding success in Silicon Valley's computer industry. Many others have started small retail enterprises. But few are the cases of a group solely composed of Chinese people who, instead of making their mark through the strictly technical skills of engineering, have created a business that combines technology, art and marketing. Moreover, by facilitating interaction that flows two ways, SinaNet has expanded the participation of overseas Chinese, and by using the Internet's special ability to eliminate spatial distances, they have brought together overseas Chinese scattered in many different places. This is certainly something other enterprises have not managed to do.
Perhaps a passage by veteran reporter Ku Meng-jen, written as a commentary on Chong Shu's novel The Chinese People, is particularly apropos: "From the Chinese laborers of the past to the immigrants of today, from the narrow alleys of Chinatown to present-day Silicon Valley, the peregrine steps of the overseas Chinese on the one hand reflect the changes of the times, and on the other hand express the growth of the Chinese people in foreign society. The roles of Chinese people have evolved, but their wandering nature is still the same as of old. The Chinese people's roots and their longing for the culture of their ancestral home remain planted in their hearts. It is not merely nostalgia, but a sense of mission..."
*David Hewlett and Bill Packard, founders of the Hewlett Packard corporation, also studied at Stanford University.
p.92
SinaNet is the most popular website for Chinese people in North America, with as many as a million visits a day. "The widest-ranging content, spanning food, clothing, home life, travel, entertainment and more." This is the guarantee of the entire SinaNet team.
p.94
Inside the SinaNet office, in order to achieve the most perfect web page design, groups constantly gather together for discussions.
p.95
The use of Chinese calligraphy in the SinaNet homepage reveals the designers' knowledge of traditional Chinese artistic culture.
p.96
SinaNet's Jack Hong played an important role in designing the Japanese government's website, "Japan Window."
p.97
Taiwan's headline news appears on SinaNet, updated every day, so that the Chinese of North America can receive information about Taiwan as fast as possible.
p.98
SinaNet offers an introduction to magazines from Taiwan, a chat room where virtual chums can gab about the cyberweather, and even a chance to send flowers to loved ones in Taiwan!
p.100
The bright personnel of SinaNet were all educated at California's Stanford University. The photo shows an outdoor cafe on the Stanford campus. The open and relaxed atmosphere gets the students' brain cells working. (photo by Cheng Yuan ching)
p.101
A blend of cultures East and West has made SinaNet "an information link between fellow overseas Chinese and a virtual bridge back to your roots."
SinaNet's Jack Hong played an important role in designing the Japanese government's website, "Japan Window.".
Taiwan's headline news appears on SinaNet, updated every day, so that the Chinese of North America can receive information about Taiwan as fast as possible.
SinaNet offers an introduction to magazines from Taiwan, a chat room where virtual chums can gab about the cyberweather, and even a chance to send flowers to loved ones in Taiwan!
The bright personnel of SinaNet were all educated at California's Stanford University. The photo shows an outdoor cafe on the Stanford campus. The open and relaxed atmosphere gets the students' brain cells working. （photo by Cheng Yuan ching）
A blend of cultures East and West has made SinaNet "an information link between fellow overseas Chinese and a virtual bridge back to your roots.".
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