ARYZE spoke with Richard Wang about his technical experience, his work in Silicon Valley with startups, and his current endeavor at DraperDragonFund.
Richard’s current position is as Partner with DraperDragonFund in China. DraperDragonFund is a joint venture between internationally recognized venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) and DragonVenture, which helped pioneer venture capital in China in the late 1990’s. As stated on DraperDragonFund’s website:
We look for companies with innovative technologies and business models with market appeal in Silicon Valley and in China. We draw upon the substantial resources and capabilities developed over two decades of venture capital investing.
Venture capital plays a significant role in helping to finance startups and being able to identify which companies might have long-term success requires skill, a bit of luck, and experience.
Silicon Valley Experience
Significant experience and capabilities with tech startups have given Richard an edge at DraperDragonFund as he worked for Silicon Valley-based startups for his whole career prior to joining the company. He notes that the venture capital business was invented and flourished in Silicon Valley, with many startups emerging in the 1980s and even more so emerging in the 1990s. He’s brought the skills that he acquired over the years in Silicon Valley while working with these startups to China, ranging from experience with the founding process all the way to the IPO process. As Richard points out,
With those experiences, I became equipped with the skillset to help startups, advise entrepreneurs, and consult businesses and even government. When I came back China to interview startups, I brought with me this innovative mindset to local entrepreneurs and I advised them about what Silicon Valley entrepreneurship is. That definitely has helped my endeavors in China.
Technical Experience
Richard describes himself as a serial entrepreneur with a background in electrical engineering, and more specifically digital communication and electromagnetic field theory These days, Richard promotes Blockchain technology as he says the benefits of this technology essentially speak for itself and that Distributed Ledger Technology is the future paradigm of the internet. He sees it as good for businesses as Blockchain “would reduce the operation cost and improve efficiency among the ecosystem” which would subsequently create more value for the business.
Having a technical background is beneficial when advising clients about technical marketing strategies and product marketing perspectives. Richard transitioned from technical work to sales when he worked for a U.S. top 500 public company. This company had a very complete and mature employee training program to support employee career growth. Richard attributes his successful transition into marketing and sales to this training, stating that he was, “lucky to grow up with the company and benefit from the program to develop [his] career path then”.
Being able to interface and communicate with very diverse people makes business more interesting to Richard than pure technical challenges. While technical experience and knowledge aren’t necessarily required when working in sales and marketing for tech companies, it certainly has major benefits. Richard’s advice comes with a sense of credibility and enables him to effectively explain the technical side as to why companies might be good to invest in, which is good for DraperDragonFund and his clients.
For more on DraperDragonFund visit their page http://draperdragon.com/home-en.
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