EP23: 500 Rui Ma and Norman Chang of 500 Startups

In this episode of the Tech in Shanghai podcast I speak with Rui ma, partner at 500 Startups in Charge of the Greater China region, and her colleague and investment associate at 500, Norman Chang.

 

Over the past year or so we’ve spoken with a number of great entrepreneurs on the show, but there's been a notable abscence of guests that fall in to the ‘investor’ category.  With fundraising often being a crucial component of the startup process, I’ve been wanting to speak with an investor for a while now, to get a perspective from the other side of the negotiating table. As it turns out, I literally could not have found a more appropriate guest, as in 2015, 500 startups was THE MOST active VC firm globally. With a portfolio of over 800 companies, who better to speak to about all things funding and fundraising?!

 

Of course, with some much going on for 500 in the greater China region, these two are super busy, so we had to move quickly in this episode. But fear not, we still had time to cover a number of relevant issues that entrepreneurs in ANY region won’t want to miss. 

 

Of particular note, we discuss areas of the tech world they are most actively looking at right now, some of the interesting regional differences in the types of entrepreneurs they have interacted with, the funding landscape, best practices regarding fundraising and a nice discussion on how to approach the inevitable emotional challenges of startup life.

 

Enjoy!

 

500.co

 

www.techinshanghai.com

 

TWITTER: twitter.com/techinshanghai

 

WECHAT: TheHungryFoolish

 

YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4v9ftNF2AFDAOze0uhNrzw