The Rich Robinson Show - Season 1 - At the Speed of China
Candid and fun interviews with my amazing guests – entrepreneurs, operators, experts - that will help you unlock actionable insights around the Asia region and the entrepreneurial activity that defines it.
Season one is titled At the Speed of China, like at the speed of light. The idea is that there are both outdated and clouded views on China while there is much to be learned from China's rapid rise after opening but even more importantly the lightning quick pace of business execution, consumer adoption and scale.
The Rich Robinson Show - Season 1 - At the Speed of China
Looking at China Speed through the lens of smart glasses
TianTian Zhang or Angela Zhang is one of the co-founders of Vue Smart Glasses which is a futuristic, indistinguishable-from-regular-eyewear.
In this episode, Angela shares her compelling journey on the front lines of a hardware startup in both Silicon Valley and Shenzhen.
Key Takeaways
-Chinese education is very competitive. Only 1 in 1,000 people get into Beihang, while only 5% of people get into Harvard.
-Gaokao is like the SAT in English-speaking countries.
- Competitiveness is the key to success in China.
-Most Chinese students are hard-working.
-Shenzhen is a fascinating city that is growing quickly and makes more than 40% of Indonesia's GDP.
Best Moments:
-Angela shares her fun experience volunteering at Beijing Olympics
oA closing ceremony. Yeah. So it was dancing while Jackie Chan was singing, "Beijing, Beijing." Yeah. That was a really fun, unforgettable experience. But in order to keep it, like", secretly we normally woke up at 11 or 1:00 AM and go to the next Niaochao to practice. Do all the rehearsals until seven to
(00:11:52.99-00:12:19.11)
-Angela talks about how she looked for the mother's coworker's daughter, who said she went to a great school.
oSo Chinese parents, they're very competitive. They would like to, compete their kids' performance, especially their academic performance. Like, "Even though I'm not as rich as you are, but my kids go to a better school than you, so my life is more successful." Anyway, my mom's school worker, her daughter she claimed that she went to CUP, so I was like, "Really?" So I went to the school dictionary and looked up her name. I didn't find it. I was like, "Really? How could I not find it?"
(00:18:17.07-00:18:50.06)
- Rich praising Angela for being a badass woman.
o Because you're a badass woman, right? You're like yawning before the Gaokao and showing up to grad school, all injured and, doing all kinds of other stuff that mere mortals, normal people can't do. But like that's not so accessible for somebody who's not really from China and has that sort of like, global perspective in a way too, right?
(00:01:02:05.54-00:01:02:17.06)
XCD: Post-production, transcript & show notes
And Showtime. Welcome to the pod, Zhang, TianTian. Angela Zhang, ladies and gentlemen, on the pod, calling in not from China but from the US. Where in the world are you right now?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Right now, I'm in San Francisco. Yeah.
Rich Robinson:On the West Coast excellent. And I just have to get it out there, right from the get-go. Graciously, agreeing to be, on the pod. I really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:No problem. Yeah.
Rich Robinson:That's great. Yeah, wonderful. For you to be here on the pod, we first met through Virginia Tan, who is the founder of "She Loves Tech," which is the biggest tech competition for female founders in the world. And I've been teaching, this is my seventh year at Peking University, the Guanghua International MBA Program. I'm a clinical professor of entrepreneurship, and I said, "I want kick ass Chinese female entrepreneur," and she was like, "I know just the person." I couldn't even finish my question before. She was like, "You've gotta talk to this powerhouse woman." And you came and spoke to my class, and it was fantastic because, you have a great story and great storytelling ability, but your journey in the hardware space is amazing. And we're gonna deep, deep into that, but let's go back to the origin story about you, you're like, Jo Ling ho as they say, 1990 and above. Like, you know, tell me where you grew up and some stories about your sort of path to now, please.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me here today. Yeah. I would love to share a lot of things about myself and everything I learned through my start-up journey. So, I was born in a city called"Zhengzhou," I think if you are not from China, you've probably never heard of this data before, but there's one thing I can help you to connect. The city is actually, most of the iPhones now are produced in Zhengzhou
Rich Robinson:So it's one of those cities — like, there are so many cities in China that are gigantic, big, you know, pretty big cities. But America only has like less than 10 cities of more than a million. But China has, you know, over a hundred, right.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, I think so. So actually, Zhengzhou is a capital of Henan Province. And we have over a hundred million people in my province. So, my parents actually, they're like from the very classic Chinese family that Western people probably what think what China will be like. Like, their parents were all farmers. And they just grew up in the village super poor. My mom, when she was eight years old, she only had one shirt every day. She couldn't afford school. So she didn't make school until she was eight because she couldn't pay the tuition. My grandpa passed away during the culture revolution, so my grandma, had to raise six kids herself. Both of my parents came from big families, so my dad has six siblings and my mom has five siblings. So that was like a very classic Chinese family in that generation. And both of them started really hard to leave the small village and move to Zhengzhou, which was a capital of the province. And then they met, fell in love, and then gave birth to me. And I was born during the "One Child Policy." So I'm the only daughter in my family. When I was a kid, the way our family commuted was just a bicycle, you know. We didn't have cars, we didn't have any fancy electronic devices, which is funny because now I'm building, like the roles, I would say, like, one of the most advanced smartware device. And so in that age, if you want to get married, there are three things you need to prepare. One's a bicycle, one's a TV, and one's a radio. So that's the three things they prepared then they got married, they have me. So by then, I've never heard like, "I've never been abroad." Do you know, actually never been abroad 'til I was twenty-one. And that was when I applied for a foreign internship for myself. I got a chance to go abroad. But before that, I never got chance to travel abroad or see like how is the outside world look like or like what kind people they are. But the weird thing is like since I was in primary school, I set up the goal that I need to go to US to study.
Rich Robinson:All the way back then. Wow. But obviously you went to Beijing, to Beihang for undergrad, a terrific school. So you must have been a really good student because the Gaokao the whole, like SAT of China, is brutally competitive, right? And to be able to get into Beijing school, being from a different province and such a big province too, because so many provinces are allowed to get in. So Henan has to be one of the most competitive provinces because just so many people. So you kind of have like the numbers against you.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Totally. Cause actually, it's a really good story, because, I remember, in that year for Gaokao, there were over 900,000 students to attend Gaokao. And for example, Beihang only recruit like 60 students or maybe 80 students in a whole province. So it was super, super competitive.
Rich Robinson:But you're talking about 900,000 from your province, obviously, right? Yeah. Not even like, yeah, I mean, like, that's already a ridiculous pool, right? 1% of that is 900, right? Is that right? I'm sorry. 900,000. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. No, I'm sorry. 9,000 raise 1%. 9,000 is 1%. See, I would've failed the Gaokao because I just couldn't even get that. So a 10th of 1% is 900, and a hundredth of 1% is 9. So it was like seven hundredths of 1% or something that the chance that get into a school like that, right? It's like the odds are really not good.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah. It was just funny because when I talked to my husband and he told me all the crazy things he did there when he was a teenager, I just realized I didn't have time to do those things. We don't know what part it was at that time. All our time were just spend on academic, like studies, just like endless homeworks. We woke up at six, have breakfast and go to school, start out early, recitation
at seven, 7:30, and study all the way to 9:00 PM and then you go home.
Rich Robinson:It's still not enough, right, because everybody's doing that. In America, you'd be like, "That's crazy." And like, "Nope, everybody's doing that." And then you still have to beat everybody else, right?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah. So you have to extend your hours from night since you got home to
11:00 as long as you can last.
Rich Robinson:So it's funny because, I don't think that doesn't change much in college, right? And people aren't partying in college. And even at the Guanghua MBA Program, I have one third locals, one-third Asian, and one-third Western in my class. I remember a conversation where they were like, the Chinese students there, right? And if you're a Chinese person getting into Beida, that's a different story than an exchange program from the US right? And they were like,"What's your goal here?" And then one of them was like, "I just wanna have fun." And the Chinese student was like, "What? You came to Beida to just have fun. You kidding me? What are you even talking about?" But then if you look at, like, you try to get into Harvard, Harvard is 5% acceptance rate, 1 out of 20, right? But then Beida, like if you're not from Beijing, even if you're from Beijing, they get into Beida. Like that acceptance rate is like one out of a thousand, or maybe, you know, it's like 50 times more difficult to get into that school than it is to Harvard even, right? So it's like, and Beihang is right up there. That's like a terrific school. So, that must have been some partying in your house, when you got that acceptance letter.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, I still remember. I felt pretty relaxed for Gaokao. I don't why, like, I slept in, for my Gaokao and my parents literally woke me up for the test. Like, "It's time to go." I didn't have any like, sleepless nights.
Rich Robinson:Yeah, that's great, but that shows why you're such a badass. You were like,
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Chill.
Rich Robinson:"I could do it. No problem." Just do it. And that's probably a lot to say for that, right? Just to be able to show up and you're like, "I'm ready."
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, but now I'm just thinking like going back like I think because the time, that time and now it's so different. Like, I know so many kids from Zhengzhou now, they started to apply to overseas school since they're in high school. For me by then, because I didn't know that so I decided to apply school in China and then continue my graduate school abroad. So I was just thinking like,"Wow, if I was born like 10 years later, probably I would just start my college in US already."
Rich Robinson:But then, if you were born 10 years earlier, maybe you would not go to college at all, right? How quickly things change in China.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah. totally yeah.
Rich Robinson:And like I even think about our story, like my grandparents were farmers in Ireland. So it's not that far off, but it's just such a much softer landing because they moved to America, and then, like, it was so much easier for me to go to school or go to like the competition level is so much higher in China in so many ways. And you're kind of like holding like literally like 5,000 years of generations, like on your shoulders, like to go and it's like such a big change.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, for my parents at that time, being a good student to have a good academic performance is the only important thing in my life, and it's only requirement they had. The first story is like, if you want to date someone, I remember when I was in middle school me and like some other boys we had crush on each other and we even just tried to go home together. And then got caught by my teacher, and she called my mom. So my parents literally went to school to pick me up to go home, even though I was already in middle school. So they just tried to cut every other possibilities that could distract from study. That was very intense.
Rich Robinson:Fascinating. Now you're married to a foreign guy, and you guys are living in the US, right? I remember there's a book called "Chinese Lessons" by a guy named John Pomfret. He was the bureau chief for the Washington Times. And he studied in China in 1981, and he met a Chinese woman there. And they're both like college students, right? And they're kind of like, "Hey, you want to go for a date?" And she's like, "Okay, well, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna go to the Fragrant Hills, all the way up in the northwest of Beijing. But I'm gonna get on the bus in the front, and you get on the bus in the back, and then we're gonna start walking. And then once we're in the mountains, then we can start talking to each other." So they walk to the bus stop, they get on the bus, they take the bus 45 minutes an hour out there, they start walking 20 minutes later they start walking next to each other and talking. And a guy jumps out of the bushes, and then runs away. And that's how was like 1981, right? Things were so different then, right? And of course, now, like if anybody's going, it's the Chinese woman with her phone on her own and then posting it to Weibo, right. So it's like 40 years, right? And it feels like that's a hundred years ago or more, right. So anyway, wow. And then so Beihang, and then from there, did you go directly to an internship right after school? You went to the US to do that?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:So the first year when I was in Beihang, that's summer, because it was Beijing Olympic Games. So I did all my volunteer thing, like the Olympic closing ceremony dance search.
Rich Robinson:Come on. That's not a normal volunteering. I saw the opening ceremony. It was amazing. And you were actually dancing in the...
Angela Tiantian Zhang:A closing ceremony. Yeah. So it was dancing while Jackie Chan was singing, "Beijing, Beijing." Yeah. That was a really fun, unforgettable experience. But in order to keep it, like secretly, we normally woke up at 11:00 or 1:00 AM and go to the next Niaochao to practice. Do all the rehearsals until 7:00 to 8:00 AM.
Rich Robinson:Big commitment. How many days of that?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:So the Olympic Games was in August and we started training since April. So we prepared four months just for that four minutes performance.
Rich Robinson:But what an incredible. Yeah, I was there. It would like, Li Ning was like running with the fire in the opening. It was just then the drums and it was just crazy, crazy, awesome. Wow. Excellent. That's a terrific experience. And then from there, from '08?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah. So, for the second year of the second summer, I was like, "I want to do some internship, but I want to do a different one than all my other classmates, I want to do something really cool." So I was like, "Is that possible for me to go to another country to do an internship?" So I started to look up online myself and find a lot of places and submit my application. And then eventually me and this water park in Greece called "Bloom Water Park," we both like each other, and they passed my resume review, and they need like someone to do their website design. So I end up in going there. The craziest thing at that time was, because that was 2009. So the visa was not like nowadays, there's so many people traveling abroad, so it's very easy for you to get a visa. It was still very hard for me. I mean, it took me a very long time to get my visa, and that summer I also had my military training, which is at Tienshan, I don't know if you heard of it. So after my Tienshan, I have to be there in two weeks, but normally if in order to get that visa, you will take you a month or two to get that special internship visa. I didn't know anybody at embassy, and I only had two weeks. If I can make it, then the company won't let me go. And so I literally just went to the embassy every day in the hottest time in Beijing, which was like the early July. I stayed outside and then waited for my turn, and just walking every day. And eventually, I think all the staff in the embassy know me, and they said, "What kind of document you need? I'll help you. I'll do it for you." So they literally call around the call like the certification center to help me get all those documents approved and got me the Visa right one day before the due date of my program start. And I just literally emailed the people there. In the noon, I got my visa and I emailed them right after I got my Visa, and then
booked a ticket on that night, 11:00 PM. I even didn't got the reply email from the other side. I even don't know who's gonna pick me up in Greece. And I just run to the Capitol airport and took the earliest flight. I can go to Greece to another country. But luckily, in airport because the people wear the company's t-shirts. So recognized, this must be the people, that company send to pick me up. But now I think about that, it's pretty crazy. Like, I even don't know anybody in that country. I was not super fluent in English. I only had a few hundred Euro cash in my pocket. And I was, just a young girl, like, by myself. And I just did it.
Rich Robinson:And you're in Athens?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Huh?
Rich Robinson:Were you in Athens, Greece, is that right?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Oh, so the internship was in island called "Hills" so it's the third largest island.
Rich Robinson:sure.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Oh, you've been there?
Rich Robinson:That's great to be there. That's beautiful like place to be, right? It's like the white buildings and the blue ocean, and the Greek food is great. And wow, that's your first time abroad to go to Greece. That's a nice job.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:I know and actually my dorm was like right by Aegean Sea. And I can see Turkey Island, and the Aegean Sea was just so amazing.
Rich Robinson:Wow. Yeah. And you're lucky it was Greece because if that was the US there's no way you show up there every day for two weeks and they're like, "Nope." But Greece, still has that sort of like, "Come on." And they're like, "Alright, alright. Come on in." And then after that, did you get to travel around Europe at all or did you just stay in Greece for that? For that summer?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:I just stay in Greece. So after I finished my internship in Hills, my friends invited me to Athens, and stayed there for about two weeks. So I stayed there in total about two months. And then my new semester was supposed to start, so I flew back to China. I got so tan, like, I remember it was funny when I was at the Chinese classroom, they were like, "Where did you come from?"'Cause on a visa, the country name was Elas, now Greece. So they didn't recognized the country's name, they were like, "Did you come back from Africa or something?" Because I was so tan.
Rich Robinson:And if you were in America, people would be like, "Oh my God, that's amazing. You have an amazing tan." But in China, there's still, like maybe a negative thing with a tan, right?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah. Still today. But I mean, I definitely see like girls becoming like more diversity, like their perspective, a few those diverse.
Rich Robinson:Yeah, it's so funny because it's like the exact opposite in America. It's like, "Oh, try to having a tan," means that you have time and you can go in the sun, right? But in China, means that you're like, "You're a farmer," right? So it's like, you want to be like, whiteish skin, right? So it's still funny how that's kind of like a holdover in some ways. But yeah. I'm glad you got a lot of sun in Greece. That must have been a great summer. And now you're back in China, and what's next? Like, what's your path to this hardware start-up that you're running running now?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah. So, after that the next summer, like, it's a time that you normally will start to prepare, like what you're gonna do for the next stage of your life, right? So some people will prepare for"Cohen" which is like in China, the exam for graduate school. If you want to study abroad, then you will start to prepare, like TOEFL test or all those English tests and start to prepare like any other documents you need to assist or like some paper or portfolio all those things. So the next summer, I just stay in school to prepare my English test and my portfolio, all those things to be prepared to go to US. And so I finally got my offer in the last year, and it was my dream school. I was so happy. Yeah. So Chinese parents, they're very competitive. They would like to, compete their kids' performance, especially with their academic performance. Like, "Even though I'm not as rich as you are, but my kids go to a better school than you, so my life is more successful." Anyway, my mom's school worker, her daughter, she claimed that she went to CUP, so I was like, "Really?" So I went to the school's dictionary and looked up her name. I didn't find it. I was like, "Really? How could I not find it?"
Rich Robinson:Ah. Yes
Angela Tiantian Zhang:So I went to Penn State, and I saw her name.
Rich Robinson:Not you Penn, which is your school. Ha ha ha. so funny.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, so I was like, "You know what, I'm gonna prove it." So I applied first and I got the offer. Yeah. So sometimes, I feel this kind of competition is good. It encourages you.
Rich Robinson:That's great. Excellent. Yeah, I mean, UPenn is, you know, a terrific school.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah. And also, it has, like, the program, I'm just so obsessed with, is called "Integrated Product Design." So we literally went to three different schools to study engineering school, design school, and business school. So it was really challenging for me at the beginning. I remember day one after the first class, I came back, and that was so hard. So a little bit about my personal experience was so, you know, as a Chinese, if you want to study a abroad, I mean if you want to go to US to study, and to do a, like a health check, like a physical check, and my doctor said there is something unclear on your kidney. You'd better go to another hospital, do another check. So my mom, she's a dentist. So, I called her, and she literally just scheduled the next appointment for me, and I did the check. So when they asked the operation my parents is at the moment, they're just trying to be like the best parents. They didn't tell me what was the result was. But actually all the doctors said I got cancer on my kidney. So, my mom was like "TianTian, you had like a cyst on your kidney. So we need to do a surgery for you as soon as possible. Maybe, to some extent, after the surgery, you could not go to school right away you need to take a break. But just relax. It will be fine." Anyway, so I did the surgery like two days after my physical check. It was a really intense surgery because they all thought it was cancer. But turned out to be as lucky. I just had a double kidney system on my right side, which means technically, I have three kidney which is very rare. But from the CT, everything, all the check, you couldn't tell from those checks. So, it was still a very intense surgery, lasted for four hours, and in the last 15 minutes, they successfully separated the additional system from my body. So now I only kidneys. But it was still a huge surgery like my wound was over 20 centimeters long. Yeah. And I remember after the date I finished my surgery was around August 25th, and my first class supposed to be only 10 days away from my new semester. So I emailed them, and they said,"Sorry about that, but if you're gonna skip like one month, we'll probably push you to January." Now, I was like, "Wow. That's a big trade-off because I need to literally wait another half year. What should I do?" And then, in the end of the day, I talked to the people in the hospital, like the professors and the doctors. They said, "You can leave three weeks after your surgery." So I end up in doing that even though I was not fully covered from a huge surgery. And I just flew to you guys by myself, and I left.
Rich Robinson:What? You just did it, you started in September 5th?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:I went there five days late.
Rich Robinson:Wow.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:So, yeah, it was really intense, because I flew to US by myself. I even didn't time to schedule pickup. And even though I didn't schedule a pick up, again, my English was not perfect. At that time when people say, "How are you?" I even don't know how to answer them. Or when they say "What's up?" I don't know how to answer that question.
Rich Robinson:I still don't know. I'm not sure. What's it?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah. But luckily, I met someone during my flight, and she asked her landlord to give me a ride to my student dorm, and I made it there. And then next day I had my first class and 'cause IPD is a very small program. We only had 12 students in my batch. And most of the besides me and another American guy, all had work experience. Some them were used to be a company's VP. Warton, they were ex-Warton, MBA, graduated from Princeton, John Hopkins, they were only three foreigners in my class. And I was the youngest one. Even the other two girls, used to work for Samsung. All those big names. So at first class, I couldn't understand everything. I just had a lot of problem understanding.
Rich Robinson:Yeah. So it wasn't even English. It was all new, like terminology and language that they're already fluent in and already understand, right? So it's like two different things, right? Wow.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah. Was a huge shock.
Rich Robinson:And then none of them had kidney scars either.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:They were all healthy.
Rich Robinson:Wow.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:And I remember that day after class, I went to buy a sandwich, and I usually live in China. I eat all the hot stuff, work, warm things. I bought a cold sandwich, I tried eating at my dorm as eating a cold stuff. Like, cloudy day after stress class and still feel pain of my surgery. I was crying. I was like, "Why am I here?" So that was a really tough beginning for me.
Rich Robinson:So, hey, can we peel back to that surgery? You know, it's funny, it's actually an interesting phenomenon in China that I think there's a movie about that as well too. And I've seen it again and again, where somebody is sick in the family and then the family doesn't tell them the full story, right? But they do it out of love. They do it out of love, right? It's not out of like, you know, they do it. I know from personal experience with many Chinese friends of like, they don't tell, and it's usually like telling the mom or the grandmom, right? Like you, and they just tell a different story, right? Because it's out of a place of love, right? It's really different from the West. Like in the West, people would never do that, right? But it's a really interesting thing because of that Confucian sort of like bubble where people are like, "You know what? I'm going to take this hit, I'm not even gonna," because in some ways, people feel so bad themselves, like, "Oh, my mom is sick, and I'm gonna like cry. And then, I need support," right? And like, they're not even giving themselves support. They're being stronger by not telling them, am I right?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Totally. Yeah, I've seen that movie too. And actually, this did happen to me. It's the same to my grandma. So my grandma got cancer last year, and all her kids, like my mom, my uncles, they decided not to tell her. And I asked them like, why you are not telling her? Maybe there's something she wants to do. It's exactly like the girl in the movie. She asked her parents like, "Maybe there's something she wants to do in the last time, last period of her life or some day," and they told me, if she knew she got cancer, then she probably will even try to give up her life, like give up on her life cuz she think, she just couldn't make it. And also because my grandma was a very traditional Chinese woman. She believed in all those, like the gods, all power, like those things. So she would say like, "What I've done wrong in my life that the God sends like those kind of sickness to torture me, it must be something I've done wrong. So I got this sickness." She won't think about like genes or there's just something like scientific way.
Rich Robinson:Yeah. So it reduces her suffering, right? And also, I think I've also seen too, with like Chinese people, they're like,"Hey, I don't want to be a burden. I don't want to be like, difficult for the family. So I'm just gonna give up and die, right? It's just like, "Whoa. No, stay around grandma. We want you to stay around." Right? And if she thinks, "Okay this is just a minor surgery and I can get past it, then I'm just gonna be happy and hang around." It's okay, right? And like, yeah. So it's a really interesting, like, just love those like differences between East and West, right? Where you're just like, once you actually open your mind up as a westerner, you're like, "I get that now. I wouldn't even think of that, you know? But I understand why, right? So, anyway, I mean, that program's excellent, you even met one of your co-founders from the program, is that right?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:I met him at school, but not from that program. But there was interesting thing about my program is 6 out of 12 students, after we graduated, we started our own company. So 50% of the graduates started there.
Rich Robinson:That's great. Which is kind of like mission accomplished, right? Because isn't that really kind of one of the reasons starting that program, right? Because they just see this kind of like rise of this, democratization of like hardware, right? Where you can be like, I don't need to be Sony or, you know, some gigantic company. I can be a grad student and just be like, I'm gonna go and do it, right?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Exactly. Yeah. And I think how the class we took from the program were all perfect to help you to understand different perspective about like, building a product and business and this sending you consumer your customers. So, yeah, that program really helped me to start my company and also during school. So I met my Co-Founder, Jason, and we co-founded a talk show called "Three Fellows." The reason we started that was because that was still kind of early, like back to 2012, 2013, and you know, two meet in China. So the social media in China was not that popular at that time. So traditional media, like paper, those were like still gets people's majority attention. And when they talk about overseas students, especially students in those private school in US, normally describe us as, like, just some rich kids. You don't study hard or work hard. And we want to tell people, what was a real like overseas student's life like. So we decided to do this talk show.
Rich Robinson:Yeah. And first of all, like, definitely true. Like there's a lot of new Chinese students that are really rich that are just like, "I'm gonna take pictures of my cars and like, hang out." But like, it's such a small percentage, right? Like the vast majority of Chinese students are exactly your profile, right? Which is like, "I worked my ass off as a student in China, and I am like the person in my family that's gonna take our whole family to like another," like, it's such a different profile of a student in the US for the most part, right? There's a lot of immigrant students in the US that are like, "You know what, my parents are from Mexico, or from Africa, or from wherever," right? And I'm like, "I've got a lot of pressure on me to be able to do that," right? And I'm gonna have a different level of seriousness. But in some ways, like I felt it in college in the eighties. And grad school of course, less, but like, there's a certain element of like, "I'm in college and like, it is time to party. Of course, what am I here for anyway," right? And yeah, like you just don't, you just, and of course there are spoiled rich kids in the US too that are just like, "I'm just gonna just go to, you know, undergrad and grad school." But yeah, I think that story needs to be told, just like the same reason I'm telling this story of, like, the speed of China, so people can understand what's really happening. So tell me some of the stuff that you did and like you put that together.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, so first we want to let people know, like, does it really worth you to spend that much money to study in US? So we did interviews to students, like foreign students in the campus, to ask them like, "Do you think it worth your parents' to spend that much money for you to send you here?" And then we did, like, "Is it easy to find a job in US after graduate?" So people care about like, "I spend this amount of money and what can I get afterwards?" And also we did a little bit like entertainment topics, like, "What are the Chinese beauty, like Asian in a Western perspective?" So we give them like some celebrities photos and ask them to rank like who is the cutest girl among all this. And also like, trying to match like some popular topic in China. So at that time, like if you, in China, they just launch a new policy. If you run into yellow traffic light, you get a ticket. So we interview people here, like, "If you see a yellow traffic light, what would you do?" A lot of people say like,"Oh I will speed up." Some people say, "I'll wait." Just something like from like a daily school life to like real life here.
Rich Robinson:That's funny. Yeah. Because in most of the world, it's like, you know, green means go, yellow means slow, red means stop. But in Beijing, green means go, yellow means go really fast, and red means stop, right? Until they changed the traffic cameras in Beijing, things really changed a lot. But also the that aspect of beauty, like Lucy Liu, the Chinese actress, you know, like Aquafina said that she was her kind of hero, like people in the West love her and like, "Oh my God, she's gorgeous." And then you get, like, Chinese men look at her and go, "Really?" Like, "I don't. Not at all." Right. And it's really funny how even those things like perception.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:And they won't get mad because, like you guys they think Western people just pick up a beauty standard. They can't associate at all. And they just say, "This is Asian beauty," and yeah, I know people just not happy with it. Yeah.
Rich Robinson:Yeah. Fascinating. Wow. Interesting. And is it worth it? What sort of consensus like back then? Like, "Yeah, sure. It's totally worth it." Or, I guess it really depends on what you study and where you study, there's a lot of different factors, but what was the general idea, like, going to grad school or going to school in the US worth it or not worth it?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:I think to me definitely is like one of my best choice in life, because before I went to Penn, I never thought about my own company. I never thought it's something I could do, before I went to Penn, I just thought,"Oh, I'm gonna go to a big corporation." It's like maybe, you know, in China, Baidu was like the superstar, like ByteDance nowadays, maybe go to Baidu or those cool internet company or consulting companies like McKenzie, BCGs, those companies. But when I went to US, I figured out,"Oh, there is another possibility in my life, which is start my own company." So I think it truly changed my life in a lot of ways.
Rich Robinson:That's great. Yeah. Going to China changed my life too. I think in some ways, one of the things is like, just get out of where you are, and that can help to open your mind up, right? But what about those other students you interviewed? Like, what was there kind of, could you say that there was like a score at the end of it? Like, thumbs up, thumbs down in general? Like, you should study abroad. You should not. Was there a trend?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, well, in my impression, I think most of the students I interviewed, they said "Worth to study abroad." Like, I think most of them think it's a really cool experience, just to experience a different culture, different country, different life, but whether they think they should stay in US or not after they graduate, that answer varies a lot.
Rich Robinson:Yeah. So I think that's gonna change. That's probably changed a bunch because, it's been eight years since you graduated, right? And I think back then most people said, "Yeah, I'm gonna stay, I think." Right? But now, what do you smell in the air? What's the trend?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Well, I think because of Covid, tons of my friends moved back to China, which I feel is a bummer, because lots of them are like super smart, like genius in different industries. And because of Visa, because you know,"Trump type Visa policy," a huge bummer. And also the COVID, because they can't go back to China to see their family. And so they end up like moving back to China. So all those things just surprised me this time when I come back to San Francisco. I realized, "Wow, I don't have many friends here this time," you know? And before I have all my friends here, like, I'll be pretty busy hanging out with them. But now, I mean, on one hand, it's COVID. So we still need to do the social distancing. But on the other hand, like just tons of them are in China right now. And they even don't know when the next.
Rich Robinson:It's America's loss, right? Like I said, my grandparents were immigrants. I'm second generation, so I can still taste it, right? I think if you're second generation, I knew my grandparents and I knew the struggles that they had back in Ireland, you know, they were born in 1899 in rural Ireland, right? And I appreciate what they gave me. But America's built the entirety of America or everybody's an immigrants, right? Unless you're, from your actual, you know, American Indian, right? Who are actually the original white people of the nation. But the entire country is built on that and not just, specifically, like the gigantic advancements in America are from like, well educated, ambitious, just hardworking immigrants. And China, there's so many of those profiles from China. And to be able to push that back, I think it's throwing out China and America should compete. Like, there should be competition, right? And they should engage. But you know, there also has to be like cooperation, as well too, in many ways. And I think, if there the worries, if there are some like sensitive things, you know, doing stuff with military or other stuff, "Okay, great." Like people should be blocked from that, right? There's a certain level of competition in that, but the vast majority, 99 something percent, are people working in mobile advertising or AI for e-commerce or hardware like yourself, right? It's just like, there are so many amazing Chinese people. And then to be able to, you know, not have access to stay in the US because of Visa policies, I think is absolutely ridiculous, right? And it just doesn't make any sense.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Totally. Yeah. All of my friends, they're just super smart. They work for Google or have their own business here, or like they run startups here. All those people, like now they're just in China. Because of like all those other things, I just feel just a huge loss of the country.
Rich Robinson:Amazing adventure with Vigo and view glasses. So you decided to tackle like your glasses, wear yourself. Like, where did the origin idea come from to like get into this space that you're in and maybe you could tell people more about in podcast land about the company
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, so after I graduate I was like you know, actually in Penn it was very popular if you go work for Wall Street or work for consulting company or if you are engineering field, you go to Silicon Valley. I was also thinking about doing my PhD, and then I was talking to my friend, and I realized, like, all those things, you always can do them in the future. Like Google won't shut down in 10 years, so you always can start your job application, Google. But is there something kind of unique opportunity for you right now? And I just realized like, start my own company right now is the perfect time, because I'm just so young and if I made any mistake, I , least thing and I can learn the most in this time of my life. I don't have a family. I need to raise my parents. Healthy and young, and I just graduated and I just think it's just a perfect time, and it will be the most challenging thing for me, because I'll start a company a foreign country, a different culture. Which, I think that it is very exciting for me. So I end up being, like doing the hardware company with my co-founder, Jason, who actually also did the "Three Fellow" talk show with me together.
Rich Robinson:Jason is also from China.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yes, but he also spent a lot of time in New Zealand, so he went to there for his high school and primary school.
Rich Robinson:Oh, okay. So pretty bicultural. Okay. yeah.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, so the reason we started Vue glasses was because when we were in Silicon Valley, after play with all those like, wearable devices and like see what are the smart companies doing at that time, I noticed like people are obsessed with the theory of like design for Silicon Valley, which is people obsessed with the technology or think. The value, what people think. But I was thinking, what about beyond the valley? Like then the 99.9% of the people in the world, like 'cause they were super obsessed with some technologies, but they don't care about design cause they think like, latest technology is a key. But I was like, it's something people are gonna use every day, of course they're gonna care about like, "Is it comfortable, is it easy to use? And like, does it look good?" So at that time, like, you know, a lot of smart glasses just launched, but none of them were designed for people who actually wear glasses.
Rich Robinson:Yes. Yes. Design for Silicon Valley. You're right. That's a great term. Keep going. That's great. I love it.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, so if you wear the smart glasses, they design people will put you into a certain image, like you are a techy person.
Rich Robinson:Yeah, like a loser, geek. You know, image? Yes. It looked ridiculous. Google glasses. Those original ones looked ridiculous. It looked like I was you know, a loser from the future. Right?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:So I was like,"How can we let everyone get benefits from the technology, as well as like enjoying the design of the product itself? So that's Huawei decided to design Vue. I think it's also based on what I studied in school, so like a combination between design and technology to try to see the balance on both sides. So trying to make sure people enjoy the design, while they enjoy the technology instead of just way too much on one side.
Rich Robinson:Wow. That's great. I'm glad you didn't get your PhD, but when you do get your PhD, you're gonna do it like in Russian, and you're gonna break both of your wrists, blindfold yourself. Like you're gonna make it like another level of like difficulty, right? Because that's why you went and did a startup. Because you're like, "I've already done grad school in a different language, in a different country, with fresh surgery scar." You know, and without any external support at all. And I bet at the end of the program, you had crushed it in your master's program. You don't have to brag, but I know you did. And you're also really getting good traction with what you're doing now. And Elon Musk said, you know,"Design and prototyping is fun, and the manufacturing is just brutal. And being cash flow positive is just excruciatingly painful." Right? And all those steps where you're like,"Okay I got the design and I got the whole business concept behind it," but like when you actually go into engineering, when you actually have to make something manifest itself and become real in a way that is manufacturable, then you really have to cheer cool as they, as you say in Chinese, "eat bitter." And I think your ability to be able to eat bitter in a way, right? As shown by your decision to be like, "Screw it, I'm gonna go do it. I'm flying to the US. I'm gonna like, just push through the pain." Right? And I think a lot of entrepreneurship, a lot of life is like that, but entrepreneurship's a different level where you have to be relentlessly resourceful and just willing to chew through the problem. So take us on a journey of like the prototyping and then making this thing happen. That's one of my favorite stories that I've ever heard, and I've heard so many startup stories. And please take us on that journey, please.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, so after we launched the product and it got pretty, like a good like reaction from the customer set and got like over 10,000, pre orders, like people just pay us first even before we kickstart. And yeah, we raise the 2.2 million on kickstart in 45 days. And we just know like this is something like we were so happy. That means like people just agree with us, that it's important to balance the technology and beauty, but how to make it work. That's the next challenge.
Rich Robinson:Describe the product for people listening, like what exactly was the offer?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, so Vue Glasses is a pair of glasses that they just look like normal glasses, so you can put any kinda prescription lenses into it, and we put it on it just, you feel very comfortable. It's lightweight. It's only 20, 23 to 28 grams. Depends on the style you choose, but also you can use it to do a lot of things. So in the first generation, we used phone conduction to transmit sound into inner ears and glasses legs, touch controls. So you can just simply touch your glasses legs to pick up phone calls or, like, play music, pause music, report time. You can do a lot of custom features through the app. And the glasses case itself is a charging heads so every time after you finish using your glasses, you just put it back into the glasses case, and they will charge it automatically. And with the glasses case, it can last for whole week without like additional charge, so that's a first product we launched.
Rich Robinson:What about NextGen? What's the sort of vision before you go into product journey?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:So last year, August, we just launched our second generation. It's even lighter. It's from 18 grams to 22 grams, and we upgrade the material. So in the first generation we only use material called TR90. It's a type of nylon. So it limits a of...
Rich Robinson:Is that what the Terminator is made out of?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:I guess guess so. It's a Swiss-made material. I think they just try to make it sound fancy. So they made the TR90, but then it limit us like lot of ways in design. So we only can design them certain cells, but in the second generation we can be even more aggressive in design. Like, we can mix acetate with acetate frame or metal. Play with different materials combination. It's even lighter. And also instead of using bone conduction, which we got some feedback that some people felt really uncomfortable, because a pad was a little bit tight on their head, where you just use like general speakers and also with a better sound quality. And also the standby time is even longer.
Rich Robinson:Wow. And then, of course, in the future, I guess, you know, there's so many other things that could be, you know, added onto that, right? Because it's probably unrealistic to have something like in your eye, right? It's probably gonna have to be a frame, right? Because it has to be some sort of like, maybe in the distant future. You could have something so small that you couldn't see it. But, I don't wear glasses, but I would wear glasses. If it could give me, you know?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:You wear sunglasses?
Rich Robinson:I do. I love, to wear. Sure, sure. Yeah.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, we have sunglasses. Virgin too. Everyone can be our customer.
Rich Robinson:Oh, okay. I need to be a customer too then that's I need a new pair in Bali. So, AR/VR, I mean, like, I guess that's like something, you know, that you guys can dovetail into in the future as well too, right?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Absolutely. I think we're more interesting AR, because I think, right now, like people still wear glasses to... the purpose they wear glasses is to see the world better, right? So if we can successfully integrate with some augmented reality features, to boost their sync experience, it'll be perfect. But again, we care about how people feel and how they look like when they put the glasses. So right now, with the current technology, if we want to put any cheap parts or batteries into the glasses, will be huge and very expensive. Right now our retail price is only $200, which is like just similar if you buy normal pair of glasses in the glasses store US. But if you do all those components, it's gonna be insanely expensive. So I think what we do is, we'll wait for a little bit and do some in-house development to see when will be a perfect timing for us to launch like a integration with AR. I don't think it's gonna happen, to be honest. I think somebody's gonna come and snap you up. You're too delicious. A more so bigger fish is gonna come and go, give me, and then, like, I think you guys are just really well positioned for that, right? But before that, we are also exploring, and also right now we're already working on other sensors to make the glasses smarter. Like, there are a lot of other features it can do and a lot of data. The glasses can collect like some heart rate, all those things and glasses will be a perfect platform to collect those informations with a user's permission. So, yeah, just there are so many potentials, besides AR and VR.
Rich Robinson:Sure. Wow, fantastic. So tell us about that journey. So it's good that you happen to be from the country where everything is made, right? I mean, that definitely helps, right? When you're trying to make stuff. So, tell people who aren't familiar about Shenzhen and why Shenzhen is such an important city and place.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, so the first time I went to Chengdu was in 2014, and before I went to Shenzhen, I knew about Chengdu was like a city with a really fascinating developing speed. But it was not clear to me like, why and how, to I went to Shenzhen I stayed there a few years. It just gets so clear in my mind. So, one thing I have a really deep impression was when I first went to Shenzhen there were only two subway lines, line one and line two. And by the end of 2020, there are over, I think, 11 or 12 subway lines in Shenzhen. Yes. And over like 284 stops. Just in six years that's how fast the city Shenzhen speed. We even have a term just called, literally called, "Shenzhen speed."
Rich Robinson:Yeah. Indeed. Yes.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah. And Shenzhen is just a city, I think, before 1979 was literally a small fish village. And now, before the interview, I look up the data. I was also shocked, like, in 2020, the city's GDP was 429 billion dollars, so if you want to get a better sense of that, so Indonesia, the whole country's GDP in 2020 was 1.09 trillion which means Shenzhen exceeded city is 40% of that country is GDP last year.
Rich Robinson:I mean, it's fourth largest country in the world. Yeah. 260 million here in Indonesia.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Fish village just 40 years ago. So that is very, yeah.
Rich Robinson:Yeah. And Deng Xiaoping, you know, famously said, "You know, black cat, white cat, who cares as long as it catches mice," right? Meaning like how can we become prosperous? And that was like one of the most incredible, you know, like up until that time, it was literally punishable, it was an illegal offense to start a business. Despite all of that natural entrepreneurial drive in China during that time, in that era, there was no commerce outside of the state, and can you just set that free and then created this special economic zone of Shenzhen? But then Shenzhen is not just, you know, and that's already enough, this gigantic thriving metropolis with hundreds of billions in GDP. And you know, this modern city with all these subway lines it's the hardware capital of the world. And that means something different than where you are now in San Francisco or where I spent 20 years in Beijing, which is kind of the software, you know, Silicon Valley, because the hardware capital of the world is going to remain the hardware capital of the world for some time because you can't necessarily make that virtual anytime soon, right? You have to physically be there because there's tool and die experts and actual prototyping and manufacturing, right? So that physical part, that's where it gets really difficult. And tell our listeners about your experience there, like being thrown right into the arena as a gladiator in the middle of it all in Shenzhen.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah. So first, we got a really good impression in Shenzhen when we first start ed because that was even a few years ago when in the development stage, we tried to get a 3D printing prototype in US. If we wanted to order a sample, it would take us about two to three weeks. But in Shenzhen, only took one to two days. And yeah, because the factory delivery there and if you want to even be faster, you just ask like instant delivery surveys with additional 20 kwai cost, and you can get it like in an hour once the prototype is done. So we were like, "Wow this is amazing."
Rich Robinson:And by the way, twenty kwai is about three and a half bucks, right? So you're like, "Yeah, sure. Yes. Let's give it up."
Angela Tiantian Zhang:And then we decided to continue to build our product there. So we started to talk to other vendors, like the factory owners. One thing actually surprised us was they really support start-ups. We couldn't give them a huge PO at that time. I mean our PO is okay, it's decent, but like can't compare to other client they work with like huge companies like Xiaomi, Huawei, you know, Tesla, those companies, but turned out to be, they treat us very fairly. They didn't treat us differently because our PO is smaller. And they're super supportive because we're trying to create something that was never existed before. So they're definitely a lot of like in manufacturing even like.
Rich Robinson:And most of those people in the States would run away. Like, you're trying to you don't have any resources, you don't have any experience. You're doing something that's never been done before like, "No, see you later." Like, "That's scary and risky and difficult and not scaleable." But these, I have to interrupt there, because, like, that's exactly why the Chinese would be like,"Yes, this could really be huge. So we want to be able to invest in this and make that," like, I don't know any other place. There's so few places where you could really get that help, right? You'd be like fighting.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, they're really open in like trying new things, instead of just do the same things they used to do. And they're just all the, like, even the factories we work with, they're very passionate about like creating something unique instead of just be a standard OEM, ODM factory, just repeat doing the same stuff. So that's one thing, we got a lot of support from. But we also learn so much in talking to them and working with them. So one thing I learned is like in factories, they always tell you they can't do everything. They did try it, but the truth is they can't do everything, but somehow you have to get it done. You have to get things done. Eventually, you'll need to figure out how. So it's like you go to factory, they're supposed to be the expert in doing this, but because you're doing something new and innovative, like no one on earth have done this before, you became the expert, and you are teach the factory how to...
Rich Robinson:You, know as much, or more than them.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, end up in like we teach the factory what they should do, which is a very unique experience, I would say. And sometimes, like, not all the factories are perfect, you know? Like some of them are really like, they have high choosey quality control standard. But some of them, the way they work is just they get all the things done, they give it to you. They expect you could not find mistakes they made, if you found them, they will happily take all the defects and redo it for you, but they always have hope that...
Rich Robinson:You don't find it.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:That you don't find them. So they will just send you the defects,
Rich Robinson:Indeed.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yes, so sometimes, I just like, "Oh my God, why would you guys send me those? It's just so obvious." And when you talk to them, they were just very collaborative. They were like, "Oh, sorry about that. We'll redo it." Apparently, they knew those defects. They still give it to you. That's one thing I just don't get. I was like, "You think we don't care about our product quality or what?" That's something like,"Yeah, you have to be there."
Rich Robinson:So I think that's a downside, right? I mean, like, you know, the book China Speed that I talk about, of course there's downsides, right? And some of it is like the quality is less. But then, you know, the fact is that, if you can do more iteration cycles, then you can make a better product in a shorter amount of time for better cost. But there's all this friction of, like, yeah, you better really be, you know, trust but verify, or don't trust but look really hard, right? So there's gonna be, so I think that's the price.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, I think things always go on both sides. There are some places, they're super responsive and very strict about every single detail of everything they do, but they are also like places they just won't get things done. Doesn't matter in what way. So in the end of the day, since it's your own thing, you need to be responsive in all kinds of situation.
Rich Robinson:Yeah. So you really need to be responsive. So you had this kick ass successful kickstarter campaign, right? And there's a lot of companies... well, I mean, it's not that easy to be successful in kickstarter, but there's a lot of companies that were successful in kickstarter and then crumbled, like they just couldn't make the product manufacturable or scalable. And they just fell down and they had to refund money and like there were some scandals, right? And I think that's where it really becomes so challenging and like what you needed to do. Like you were already in Shenzhen, you're already a completely fluent native Chinese speaker. You already are totally, like culturally, it's not like you were you know, Maji Huan who was like, "Okay, I speak Chinese, but I don't really understand China or Chinese," right? Like you had everything going for you, right? And you're smart and educated and whatever. And yet, it was not any criticism of necessarily of China or Shenzhen. It's like manufacturing is tough. Manufacturing is so tough. And like, you were basically became an assembly line worker. Like the pictures that you showed and the kind of hours that you put in. Like tell us some of those stories.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, I remember, like, ' cause our glasses is something never existed before. So we designed a lot of tools to test a certain part of the glasses because that's not like a standard tool that existed before. So even the assembly line worker didn't know how to use it. So we had to be there like teach few workers side-to-side and show them how to do it, and just sit there for hours and watch them to make sure that they totally learned how to use it. That's like one example and other things like, you know, sometimes we are rushing time, but factories, they're not like we want to deliver things before certain date. But factory has their own policy. Like if their worker continue to work after 6:00 PM, they need to pay them like twice hourly rate, so in order to do that, sometimes we have to sit on the assembly line, just do some quick work to make things more efficient to get our goal. Because, I think one thing we're trying really hard is cost to control.'Cause you know, the longer you extend the production period, the more operation cost you gonna spend. And also, if you just leave everything to the factory, you are gonna get a endless bill. I think that's a very dangerous thing for hardware company. So one thing I try really hard was just make sure every item, every single thing we did, every components we bought and every fee we paid were in the original budget range. It's just so easy to spend more money, or like, yeah, there are, people can solve every single problem for you if you spend a lot of money, but the truth is you don't have, like endless money. You only have a certain budget. And on top of that, we were even trying to be profitable. So I think if you don't learn how to spend your money wisely on day one, it will be hard for you to learn that on day a hundred and and still.
Rich Robinson:Excellent point. Yeah, so you put that discipline in from the beginning. Wow, that's great. So please keep going.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, so I think a lot of time we spend in the factories also trying to figure out like, where the bills come from. Even time we were there all their assembling time for every single step. Instead the factory give us a quote about like how much? Like, what's assembling fee? Wait time, every single step to verify. Is it true to spend three minutes just to put this thing there? Or actually, you just need one minute. So we're crystal clear about every single thing we paid for, and if we have question, we can talk to them immediately. Like we even can say, oh look, I'm not experienced someone worker, but I can just put this lead in 20 seconds, but in a court, they charge us 45 seconds. So I think it's all those little details that can.
Rich Robinson:All adds up.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, that all adds up.
Rich Robinson:Great tip. So let's say I'm a Norwegian woman, or I'm a guy from Boston, and I have a hardware startup, and I want to be able to optimize for time, and reduce my budget, and maximize the quality as well too. Like, you guys joined Hacks, the hardware accelerator under SOS Ventures, you know, or I've been a proud mentor. I've actually had Benjamin Joffe on the pod as well too, and love what those guys are doing. I guess there's the option to do that, to join an accelerator, but like, what advice would you give to somebody who doesn't understand China or speak Chinese? Like, I think what you did was pretty, badass right? Because you're a badass woman, right? You're like yawning before the Gaokao and showing up to grad school, all injured and, doing all kinds of other stuff that mere mortals, normal people can't do. But like that's not so accessible for somebody who's not really from China and has that sort of like, global perspective in a way too, right? Like even I'm on the board of another Chinese startup company and they do hardware and they have funding from Xiaomi, and they suffer like everybody suffers, right? But they're also based in China, right? So if you're not in China, but you have to do your manufacturing in China, like, what can be done do you think realistically?
Angela Tiantian Zhang:The honest answer I would give is you have to at least try to come here, like physically yourself. It's so important, even though you may have a language barrier or like there's some, like a culture difference exist, like you can't accept at the first time, but it's just basically like me decided to go to US, which is a totally different country to get my education done. If you really want to achieve something great in your life, you have to step out your comfort zone. It's fine if you can become fully fluent in Mandarin. I know it's hard. But being there personally, it's a totally different experience than just reading emails or do Zoom calls with people factory standing in the assembly line, see how your product get done, or like stand by an injection mode machine and see how you can get the warm, fresh, even the hot pieces of your product. It's just a totally different experience. You can learn a hundred percent, you can learn 20%, but doesn't matter. It's just this is something you can never experience that through any virtual experiences. So I think you have to step up your comfort zone and being here even one time or twice, as many as you can, and it's not something like you have to do your lifetime. So for example, for me now, I feel comfortable just sending my coworkers to the factory and whatever they told me, like all the issues they report to me, I feel very comfortable and I can easily understand what they're talking about and how to solve that. But you have to build that solid experience with some costs, like some price like some like challenges during that time, then in the future you can. It will just save you so much in the communication and problem solving, all those things. I think it is just really crucial.
Rich Robinson:That's great. Yeah. Maybe get a consultant or a lieutenant, somebody who's bilingual and can help you to navigate stuff. I think that sort of moving from the prototype to actual manufacturing, like I've definitely experienced a lot of pain moving from sort of, wire frames to actually launching products in software. But there's a whole another level of pain. But also, like you said, like, smelling, like I've been to a few different manufacturing facilities and also the headquarter of Hacks and to see it's almost like fresh bread coming out of the oven. Like when you can hold your product and see it's a whole different level of like satisfaction and there's like a sublime, pleasure in that, to be able to be like, "Wow, I made this." Hey, so I didn't know you guys made sunglasses. I'm buying myself a pair and what's the website? I'll put it in the show notes, but vueglasses.com, is that right? Vue.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Yeah, it's www.vueglasses.com.
Rich Robinson:Terrific. Hey, thank you so much. You're doing this very high energy, very compelling, insightful podcast.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:A very unique recording. I'll play to my kids in the future. You're part of the conversation already.
Rich Robinson:Excellent. That's great. Hey, really appreciate you taking the time loved hearing about your journey, and I look forward to seeing amazing adventures and outcomes in the future. And I'll be in touch.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Awesome. Yeah. Thanks for having me here today. I had a great time and so much fun. And I hope I can just give anyone who is interesting in hardware that you feel helpful, then I'll be very happy.
Rich Robinson:Oh, that's very gracious. Wonderful. Thank you. Yeah. I know you were helpful to some of my students at Beida. So thanks for that. Appreciate it.
Angela Tiantian Zhang:Cool.