Peren Xiao, GMBA Class of 2018 (with contributions from Alvaro Montoya and Lucky Hao)

If you pay attention to the signs and banners put up by the government in Chinese cities, you’ll often come across the phrase, “创新，创业,” which means “Innovation, Entrepreneurship.” The Chinese government has identified that future economic growth will not come from state-owned enterprises as much as from privately owned companies started by entrepreneurs. While many people have criticized the top-down approach to something that is inherently a grassroots undertaking, it may be worth noting that governments throughout history have, from some perspectives, also done this. Christopher Columbus was petitioned by the monarchs of Spain to discover new trade routes, and the U.S. military contracts to thousands of private businesses every year. On a local level, it seems that the efforts of Tsinghua University to create an environment for startups have been successful in helping students to explore the realm of entrepreneurship.

My personal experience with the Tsinghua entrepreneurial environment has been positive. I first visited a weekend startup event with a classmate, where I was introduced to the x-lab, Tsinghua’s pre-incubator program. The program itself is very comprehensive, allowing anyone within Tsinghua to apply. I’ve met a range of participants, from companies who have already generated revenues to students who don’t yet have a concrete idea but are interested in joining a team. The application process is simple: participants only have to register on the x-lab website, and then they can join an array of available activities. Teams with ideas are vetted every Thursday, where they are brought in to be interviewed by x-lab staff, entrepreneurs, and investors. While the x-lab does not itself make liberal investment into its startup projects, it provides many nonmonetary benefits such as mentorships, training, and networking – all without taking any equity. The x-lab is often considered a stepping stone to outside incubators, which are plentiful in the Haidian area in Beijing. After all, Tsinghua is located next to Zhongguancun, which is one of the best entrepreneurial spaces in China. The area houses many incubators, including Tsinghua’s own x-lab incubator.

All of these benefits do come with a caveat, which is that in order to extract maximum benefit from these resources, Mandarin proficiency is optimal. Just as entrepreneurs wouldn’t expect to get far in the U.S. by only speaking Mandarin, many doors will be closed to English-only speakers due to the local language barrier. Communication is key in many areas in life and essential in business. When explaining our own concept at the x-lab, my team found much greater success when using Mandarin than when using English.

From my perspective, communication presents the biggest hurdle for the Tsinghua startup environment. When some of the many available events are lost in communication to MBA students, which I believe constitute a major target audience for the x-lab, some of the platform’s value may not be fully realized. Absent an in-depth x-lab introduction, classmates may view the x-lab as a curiosity without fully leveraging its many available resources. Of course, cohort involvement may well continue to develop over the coming semester, as students are now better adjusted to life at Tsinghua and more inclined to take new risks. In my view, Tsinghua’s path to competing directly with top-level incubators lies largely in continually refining student communications. In addition, the MBA program will serve its students well by continuing to nudge them towards x-lab participation and increasing student exposure and awareness – and thus, comfort levels with active participation. If Tsinghua can do this, I would envision Tsinghua’s locally renowned entrepreneurial environment transforming quickly into a globally renowned environment.