On this episode of the Tech in Shanghai podcast I speak with a legend of the Shanghai entrepreneurial community, and an all around nice guy, Mr. Mark Secchia.
Mark is the founder of the extremely well known Shanghai food-delivery service Sherpa's. Mark initially thought it was a bit odd that I wanted to have him on the podcast, as he doesn’t really consider himself as a quote ‘tech’ entrepreneur.
However, with 2013 revenues of over $25 million dollars, most of which coming from online orders, I thought he qualified:) I also thought that it would be timely to hear Marks story, as the food delivery market in China is experiencing a boom at the moment, with all sorts of new startups raising vast sums of money and entering the fray, so I thought it would be interesting to hear from a guy who was doing this stuff WAY before it was cool.
In listening to Mark speak you get a sense for the vastness and variety of experiences he’s accumulated over the years, and a distinct maturity, humility and wisdom that have been the result of starting a business from scratch in 1999 and seeing it through to tremendous success today.
We cover A LOT in this show, but some of the more notable things Mark shared with me included, developing the right mindset for success (especially in China) and setting proper expectations, the importance of contingency planning, how to roll with the punches doing business in China, and some interesting commentary on some of the more modern companies entering the food-delivery market.
I also asked Mark, though now it’s obvious that Sherpa’s is a runaway success, how did he deal with the stress and uncertainty before their success was a forgone conclusion.
As is often the case his answer included, among other things, alcohol, deteriorating health, an indomitable will to succeed and, of course, a little luck. Mark was very open and down-to-earth when we spoke, so hopefully you’ll find it both informative and entertaining. Enjoy
WECHAT: TheHungryFoolish
