Recently,one of the co-founders of NextStep, Gregory, opened my eyes  to DocStoc.com, and I have been more than pleasantly surprised by the offerings on the site. If you need legal, financial, or just about any kind of business document, they have it. If you want to be a contributing member to the community, you can register and upload your own documents that the free-sharing world may find to be useful. It must be said that these documents are definitely not your last line of defense, but at least it is a good jumping off point, especially for a cash strapped entrepreneur.

Check it out, DocStoc.com

We constantly hear about the China media propaganda machine and how it is able to shape and control the opinions and knowledge of 1.3 billion people. Western media is equally guilty of brain washing the rest of us, and I personally believe it is more damaging to the general understanding of geo-political situations/events to be influenced and spun by western media than what is spun off the presses here in the Middle Kingdom. Take for example a NYTimes article I was reading this morning (CLICK HERE TO READ). A great read for 80% of the content that discussed the role automobiles play in the lives of low/middle class Chinese. But, then Keith Bradsher takes a very peculiar turn by attempting to debase the stability of the social welfare system in China without any hard evidence to defend his arguments. Unfortunately, this leaves the thousands of NYTimes readers left with the notion that China is doing nothing for it’s people. I firmly believe that China should be doing more to bolster its welfare system, but I am also a strong proponent of providing a well-rounded picture of the China story to the readers/viewers of western media. Unfortunately, 90%+ Americans don’t realize they may be subject to misinformation.

The China nationalism that is now building up steam around the world may be well-founded.

Have a look at the NYTimes article “With First Car, a New Life in China”, remember you need to have a NYTimes.com account(free of charge).

We launched 4 new categories (Express Delivery (Local), Import/Export, International Movers, Sourcing) yesterday on the NextStepDirectory and we’ll be adding Chambers of Commerce at some point in the next couple days. There has been a lot of activity recently at the Tangential office and trying to organize all of our limited resources is critical. David Suissa, our head programmer, wrote an email to the entire NSD team recently outlining various points on the website that we need to address in the near future and to give us an overall update. The email is written in very simple terms so that people with very little internet experience can understand it. Here is a short excerpt from that email:

here is an update on the coming developments of the nextstepdirectory.com website.

I’m going to introduce a structured workflow for all of us to work together. Then, I will let you know the coming updates and new functions on which we are currently working. Finally I will give you a sense of the difficulties through which we will be going and the time that is needed.

As many of you have noticed, after releasing a new version last Tuesday, allowing users to register and post comments, we encountered numerous bugs and had to make many adjustments as quick fixes. The new companies that are posted on the website and the ones that we have locally for development purposes differ which adds a delay in the synchronization of the data resulting in an important overhead.

I have been working on restructuring the workflow for making additions to the website and I will be proposing a complete structured workflow by Wednesday 30th of April at most. It should include several distinct parts:

- The development cycle will be split into 3 different websites: Development, Preproduction and Production on different platforms in order to avoid releasing a buggy version.

- Every change shall be logged into a bug tracker.

- Data entries and inputs should be regularly resynchronized with the local database.

- Release of moderator/stats/admin user accounts to have different people work on different functions directly on the production site.

- Several other points which I shall detail in my proposal.

The current version of the directory is still limited and shall be extended successively with a version increment. Here is a detail of the functions that we should deploy in the following weeks in that order:

- Company submission with workflow

Workflow allows moderation of new registrations and adding a pending state to edited company surveys.

- Votes and ratings

API allowing a 5 stars rating. Weight of ratings include different criteria. Enables creation of Top rated blocks, top 5 in category block, etc…

- Internal search engine

Search for keywords, advanced search in categories, for different surveys or user profiles.

- Add Graphic elements according to layouts

Several elements missing: comments link | more on listing pages, anchor icons to jump from section to section on detail view page, etc…

- RSS Feeds

Currently are buggy and not visible enough. RSS feeds is an essential feature for this kind of website and should be brought to a more obvious level. In addition it’s a good way to attach loyal users to the site.

- 404 & 403 pages

Page not found, Access denied: currently these pages are very simple and need to be improved in order to give more information to the user on how he got there and how he can get to the correct page. Enable automatic redirect.

- SEO –> URL rewriting!!!

SEO is a critical factor of success for this kind of site. Current urls are not rewritten. There is no XML sitemap, and the site hasn’t been submitted to any SE which should higher the PR. This step is called: site SEO pre-formatting and is not so costly.

- Optimization

Enable gzip, header expires, page caching, CSS & JS aggregation, etc… Speed up the site, enhance user experience, reduce bandwidth cost and server workload.

- User’s stats

Collection of relevant information about users (clicks, page visited, IPs logged, etc…). Provide a serious online marketing tool that can output reports.

- Banners and ads statistic control

Enhance the banner module and plug it on the statistics module. Define display schemes based on current banners’ advertisement models.

- Newsletter system

Professional newsletter system. Complex system featuring templates, lists, send scheduling, mailing reports (failed, success, opened, deleted, etc…). Integrated to the NSD database.

So that was an excerpt from the email for those of you wondering how things were moving along with the site.

When trying to explain your company to a friend, customer, or potential investor it is key to have a concise message that defines what your company does and what value it brings to the marketplace. Surprisingly, this message should be nearly identical whether you are delivering it to a customer, or sitting down with a VC. As entrepreneurs we tend to spend too little time on thinking this explanation through, and prefer to speak on the fly. This leads to rambling, the rambling leads to confusion, and you have lost your sale in under one minute. For instance, LexDex.com has many offerings on hand for students, but our main draw is online and mobile flashcards for students’ textbooks. Yes, we offer internal messaging, pdf files, forums, and user profiles in addition to the flashcards, but this is all ancillary to our core: online and mobile flashcards. So when somebody asks me what we do over at LexDex.com, my one sentence answer– We create online and mobile flashcards for university and high school textbooks.

Of course the above statement will change as we expand our core offerings and alter our business scope, but at the end of the day, when I am asked what I do, I stick to only explaining the core. The rest can come later if necessary. Have a look at the BootstrappingBlog.com for other interesting information.

Well for those of you who concern themselves with the Chinese financial markets (aka The Great Bingo Halls of the Orient), you are fully aware of what has been in the making for the past decade of creating a marketplace for NASDAQ-like companies in China. For those of you not in the know, it is called the GEM (Growth Enterprise Market). This may be the craziest thing to hit the financial streets of Asia in years. This is also being coupled with the opening of the Over the Counter Markets (OTC), and greater leniency for VC fund establishment in China. This all comes at a time when international markets are in a bit of a flux. As if the Chinese markets could not get any hazier, the government wants to open the flood gates to full-on gambling in ‘mom & pop’ shops all across the wide expanse of the Middle Kingdom. The current state of the markets can be best described in one word, shady. In the midst of the haphazardness that is the Chinese financial markets, which is dominated by SOEs, the regulatory authorities are choosing to allow its uber-saving population to start gambling on the GEM. The biggest winner in all of this is the PE and VC firms who now have an easy out. It seems to me that the PE and VC will be shelling out tons of cash with little risk, with an easy exit strategy. If you got a great idea and want it funded, start drawing up that business plan…you may just get funded.

Have a look here to see what Zero2IPO.com has discussed on the GEM topic.

So the User Registration/Profiles and the comments are up and running on nextstepdirectory.com. We also added 5 new categories to the directory (Financial Services, Headhunters, Insurance (General), Quality Control and Trading/Logistics). Next week we’ll be releasing the Submit a Company function along with a ratings system and a few more categories.

We’ve also had a lot of user feedback to add a few categories to our website. The only problem with that is making sure the category is sustainable. A company asked us to add a category and I think they might be the only one that qualifies under that description.

I thought I would also mention, once we open up the website so anyone can submit a company and edit their profiles, this will not apply to all categories. The reason is that in a category such as (Corporate Banks), I don’t foresee ICBC maintaining their profile. So in categories such as (Banks) and (Consulates), the information can be edited by any user. Once the update is submitted, it will be verified on our side before we upload the update onto the site.

One point I still haven’t figured out is what we are going to do about user submitted survey questions. On the one hand, we need help in developing the best possible surveys for each category. But quantifying a good question from a bad question can be at times very difficult. Moreover, at what point do you have too many questions, even if they are all good? If you have too many, how do you enable users to quantify, sort and view them in an efficient user friendly manner?

Thats all for now. Go register on the NextStepDirectory and leave comments about your experiences. Lets support the companies in our community.

Nowadays, brand value is a well appraised concept. Every company hopes to have a brilliant name and a well established image. However, facing so many existing brands, companies may easily fall into the infringement trap. How to avoid this risk? The Labbrand team can give you some hints to understand the rationale behind trademarks registration’s criteria.

According to Trademark Examination Standards, if the pronunciation, character form, meaning, and character order of a newly created name is identical with, or similar to, the existing trademarks from the same or closely-related trademark registration category, this name is at high risk of infringement because it can easily create confusion between existing trademarks and itself. The famous malicious trademark Registration case for Starbucks is a good example.

The famous American café chain STARBUCKS registered in 1999 “STARBUCKS” and “星巴克” (xīng bā kè) as its trademark in mainland China after its entry on the Chinese market. Its Chinese name is a combination of transliteration and translation. “星 xīng” means star, “巴 bā” is the name of an ancient Chinese place, “克 kè” is kilogram. These three characters, no matter if analyzed one by one or together, have no direct relationship with coffee or with the food industry. Today, the fact that the evocation of well-cooked coffee and the leisurely life style arise when we see this name depends entirely on STARBUCKS’ continuous brand construction. Nevertheless, in 2000 a local coffee chain, tried not only to register the same Chinese name - Shanghai Xin Ba Ke (星巴克) - of its American competitor, but also a very similar English name: “starbuck”. Furthermore, the trademark color, shape and layout were all extremely close to STARBUCKS so that the two brands were hardly distinguishable. In 2003 Starbuck filed a lawsuit against Shanghai Xinbake Cafe claiming they had violated the rule of fair competition and infringed upon the US Starbucks trademark and eventually won it in 2007: the Shanghai Municipal Higher People’s Court, in fact, ruled that Shanghai Xingbake intentionally used Xingbake in its name to mislead the public and thus infringe the trademark of US Starbucks. Similarly, other brands such as “辛巴克” (xīn bā kè) and “星吧客” (xīng bā kè) are at risk of infringing in trademark registration laws for their the similar pronunciation with “星巴克” (xīng bā kè).

However, according to our rich experience in brand research, we found out that some similar brands can also co-exist. Let’s look at the example of “资生堂/SHISEIDO”(zī shēng táng) and “养生堂/YANGSHENGTANG” (yǎng shēng tang). The Chinese name chosen by the famous cosmetic brand, “资生堂/Shiseido”(zī shēng táng) originates from a sentence “至哉坤元，万物资，乃顺承天” of the well-known ancient Chinese book called Yi-Jing, which means that all living beings are born according to the natural principles. Here, “资生zī shēng” represents “滋生zī shēng” which means growing, while  “堂” táng is a traditional name for a shop. As for the health product brand “养生堂/YANGSHENGTANG” (yǎng shēng tang), “养yǎng” means maintain, take care of; “生shēng” can be understood as life and energy. Although these two names are close to each other, they exist in different industries and convey different messages. For these reasons consumers can distinguish them easily. Therefore no infringement was caused in this case.

Again in the cosmetic industry, we may find other cases of brands having similar names such as “兰蔻/LANCÔME” (lán kòu), “兰芝/LANEÍGE” (lán zhī), “兰皙欧/RECIPEO” (lán xī ōu). Are they then at infringement risk? Labbrand provides its point of view:

The character “兰lán”, from the point of view of the Chinese culture and tradition, has an positive meaning conveying the idea of perfection which is naturally quite desirable to be included in companies’ names. “兰lán” refers to orchid: orchid, plum, bamboo and chrysanthemum are regarded as “four most noble among all plants”. This flower has always been admired and praised in Chinese literature since ancient time. It is said that Confucius praised Orchid as the flower having the most elegant fragrance among all. This connotation meets well the psychological need of cosmopolitan women who pursuit the perfection and beauty. That’s why this character is used so often in cosmetic brands. Let’s have a look at another example. The brands “雅芳/AVON” (yǎ fāng), “雅倩/ARCHE” (yǎ qiàn) and “雅漾/AVÈNE” (yǎ yàng) all use a same character “雅yǎ” translating in elegant, cultured, refined. The reason behind the common choice of this character among different companies here is very similar as for the previous case. In our opinion, even though these companies are in the same industry and use this same character in their names as well as the similar name structure, the meaning they strive to convey comes from the Chinese culture. Meanwhile, their logos and packages are clearly different and can be easily distinguished so that consumers will not be deceived or confused in recognizing one brand from the other. Therefore, the risk of infringement is low.

The accumulation of brand value is a long-term process. Brand value is gradually built with great efforts both in marketing and branding, and it will be therefore a nightmare to put it at risk of legal infringement. In order to avoid this, companies need to spend more efforts during the creation stage and to reflect well about different options. This is, in fact, the first step on the long path toward branding.

To get more information on branding services please surf Labbrand website at:

 www.labbrand.com  

Vladimir Djurovic

As many of you know the founders of NextStep are active on several projects. Most of the projects that we are working on or consulting with can be considered start-up or early stage investment opportunities. We are constantly in touch with the investment world, and are aware of the ever-changing demands and tendencies of the individuals running the show. Despite the appearance of a never-ending investment train into the China marketplace, one must look through the smoke and mirrors. Have a look at this post from post-my-site.com that lays out current cash call failure possibilities. The information is only magnified today due to the recent developments since its original posting in January of this year. The information within is not groundbreaking, but it clearly lays out what entrepreneurs and early-stage companies are currently up against, and must factor into their future plans.

If you are in the exporting/sourcing business this is definitely old news. With the rising price of consumer goods leaping forward at break-neck pace in China and throughout SE Asia, 4+% in China, 5+% in Vietnam, 6+% in the Philippines, how are Americans and Europeans going to be able to bite the bullet and pay more for the Wal-Mart linens and televisions.? Have a look at this stat filled piece from the NY Times.

Asian Inflation Begins to Sting US Shoppers

When I first pitched the idea of the NextStepDirectory to the other NextStep organizers, the immediate question was, who else is in the space? To be honest, there are a lot. And they range from ‘does this guy know how to use a computer’ to ‘wow, I should think twice about competing against this guy.’

Here is a list of some directories I found when googling ‘Shanghai Directory’, ‘Shanghai Business Directory’, ‘China Directory’ and ‘China Business Directory’. I didn’t list all of the results, just the ones that came up on the first page and had the most relevance. I’ll bet you’ve never been to most of these sites let alone hear of them.

http://dir.blogflux.com/tag/shanghai
http://shanghai.asiaxpat.com/directory/
http://www.thisshanghai.com/
http://www.directoryshanghai.com/
http://www.shanghaicentral.info/
http://www.chinavista.com/
http://www.chinabusinessreview.com/directory/
http://www.chinainfo.org/
http://china.zeezo.com/shanghai/index.htm
http://www.business-china.com/
http://www.myvirtualshanghai.com/Business-Directory-Shanghai-China.shtml
http://www.chinapages.com/
http://www.chinainfo.org/

The thing that most surprised me was that the sites I would actually use weren’t listed in the search results. So there is one major point. No one with a great product has very good search engine optimization. The other thing is that even when you think of the directories you might use, they are ancillary features. I’ll give you two examples: SmartShanghai and EnjoyClassifieds. These are both great websites that I use regularly. SmartShanghai to find new places to eat and EnjoyClassifieds to find new employees. Both these websites include directories. But neither was built to be a directory so there has to be limitations based just on that fact whether it be layout, design or backend programming. On the other hand, we built the NSD to be nothing but a business directory. So everything we do, layout, design and programming is to create a better directory. Then we asked ourselves, can a business directory as a stand alone product be successful? Is there enough of a market? For us the answer was an immediate yes. Now the only remaining question is, are we capable of building a great business directory? I hope so. But I guess that remains to be seen.

By the way, here is a very extensive directory for creative services: www.jujudirectory.com