Lessons Learned from NINE

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1) Don’t jump into an IPO on its first day. Do some research if you really want to jump.

2) A controlling shareholder is also the CEO: usually not good for small shareholders.

3) One customer (Chinese goverment), one product (custome declaring software), be very worried.

4) Follow the big guys (Duan Yongping, Ding Lei), be careful because big guys have totally different objectives compared to ours. They can take a bigger loss, they can live well without those money…Also, keep in mind, they could be wrong too. Past success does not gurantee future results.

5) Admit the mistake, take the loss, move on…don’t jump back in trying to get back the loss. There are plenty of opportunities elsewhere 🙂  

Separately, I looked at Acorn International (ATV). Shopping on TV is a fairly new concept in China, but I don’t think it will be huge jackpot. I briefly looked at its Q1 result, it derives main revenue from Mobile phone sales. I read from “Finding next starbucks” China has 250 m cell phone users as of 2005/6, and from my observation the new cell phone upgrade cycle in China is shorter than US. After all, many people can not buy a car or a condo, but they can afford a few thousand Yuan for a new phone.

But I had to admit I don’t know the market share of each distribution channel, I mean traditional store, web, TV, etc. I saw many counters selling cell phone at the Cloud 9 Metro station. Like many things else in China, competition is at cutting throat level.

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