Bulletin No. 1, 2018

After graduating from the Department of Marketing in 1988, Steve Lau started a business with HK$200,000 in 1993 and became the first person to secure the nationwide distribution rights for Nokia products in the mainland Chinese market. With sales doubling year after year, he took his company public in 2000, which made him the chairman of China Fortune Holdings Ltd. The advent of smartphones opened a new chapter in mobile telecommunications history. Since then, Nokia’s fortunes have taken a turn for the worse. In the early 2000s, Steve, focusing on clearing out the inventory every day, ended up missing out on the opportunities in the booming Internet business. ‘In year 2000, when Jack Ma started making forays into the Internet and e-commerce business, I only cared about disposing of the remaining handsets in my inventory.’ However, Steve did not let the tech craze pass him by. In 2011, he set his sights on the third megatrend—mobile Internet—and established the Eagles Fund in the mainland the following year. He made the transition from an entrepreneur to an angel investor, dedicated to helping young people to start an Internet-related business. ‘As I get older, it has become tougher for me to start another business due to my limitations in knowledge, physical energy and time. Rather, through my role in angel investing, I can get to know many young people, help them set up their businesses, become their shareholders, mentor them and use my experience to help them avoid unnecessary detours on the entrepreneurial path. ‘It is my vision to spend 30 years to accomplish 1,000 startup projects. I only have to invest in 33 companies each year for there to be 999 in three decades.’ GivingWings to Dreams Lap Man majored in Japanese Studies at CUHK in the 1990s, during the rise of the Internet. Several Internet giants such as Netscape and Yahoo! were founded in 1994. He rode the dot-com tide at the age of 25 and founded the DYXnet Group, which provided Internet service in the Greater China Region. His business soon suffered from the bursting of the dot-com bubble. ‘In 2003, the highest level of debt we owed was $50–60 million. We were $26 million in debt to one vendor. Fortunately, we managed to persuade the creditor to accept a settlement and convince the shareholders to inject capital into the company to prevent liquidation. I learned from this crisis that good investors not only invest money but also share experience and provide guidance.’ Different venture capital funds have emerged over the past five years, but very few of them focus on the Hong Kong market. Lap Man therefore co-founded Beyond Ventures with Hony Capital, eGarden Ventures and Hop Hing Group last October, to help local startups actualize their innovative business ideas and cultivate the local startup ecology. Apart from providing funding support, they have lined up some successful entrepreneurs to provide mentorship and help the startups grow and extend their business networks throughout Greater China and other parts of the world. ‘Most of the established Hong Kong entrepreneurs of my generation sought opportunities beyond Hong Kong, and many chose to stay behind in mainland China or overseas. I’d like to work with my partners to motivate the veterans to groom young Hong Kong entrepreneurs and to help the local startup scene flourish.’ Local Angel Lap Man Steve Lau Photos by Keith Hiro, Cheung Wailok & Eric Sin Equipping Tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs 13