Startups, not classrooms

A Tianjin job fair attracted more than 6,000 graduates in 2013. Fierce competition in the job market drives many to start their own businesses. Jiang Baocheng / for China Daily

Lackluster students can shine as business owners and entrepreneurs

When Chen Fangyi, a 28-year-old businessman in Xiamen, Fujian province, looks back at his university years, it is not the cloistered towers of academia he misses so much as the garage where he wrote computer programs with other students.

"I relished reading about entrepreneurs in Western countries at college and especially read a lot about Steve Jobs," Chen said. "His garage startup is what impressed me the most."

Chen is a well-known entrepreneur in Fujian province following his startup of an Internet company in 2009 that provides e-commerce and mobile apps. Its products include the website fanhuan.com that enables consumers to earn commissions as they buy goods online.

Imitating Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO of Apple, Chen started working with computers in a garage at Huaqiao University in 2005, his second year at college.

Most of his garage work at that time was related to building websites for faculty members and student clubs but, surprisingly, studying computers was not how he began his college life.

"I majored in biochemistry in my freshman year and I chose that major simply because it is one of the best at Huaqiao," Chen said.

But he quickly discovered the lure of computers.

"I am creative and love to try out new ideas, while courses and experiments in chemistry require you to follow exact instructions," Chen said.

During his first year at university, he got to know students from the college of computer science and technology.

"They were smart, creative and flexible in their thought processes, just the way I liked it," he said. "In no time at all, we started to team up."

Chen passed a series of tests to transfer to the computer science college. Yet he rarely attended classes.

"I just wanted to know more people from the major and continue my business in the garage with more helping hands," he said. The garage became his classroom.

"Teachers wanted me to attend class more but they liked the products I produced, mainly websites."

Five years after leaving university with a degree, Chen is often invited back to campus to speak to students.

Like Chen, some university students in China prefer to focus on setting up businesses.

College dropout Jin Jin, the 30-year-old founder and CEO of Dukou Network Co, was running a business worth 1.2 billion yuan ($193 million) by 2010. That same year he was named one of "China's Most Successful Young Entrepreneurs".

"Universities tend to have a love-hate attitude to starting your own business," said Shi Zugao, a 22-year-old student in Hanghzou, Zhejiang province.

Shi will graduate from Zhejiang University of Technology in 2015. He started running his own business reselling clothes in 2011. In 2013, he and three of his schoolmates started to design and produce T-shirts.

Unlike most of his college peers, Shi is up at 5:30 am every day to check and organize T-shirt orders, then places calls to suppliers before 9 am.

"Some teachers, especially our class instructor, think it's great to develop your own business as they see it as a good chance to see your strength and weakness," Shi said.

The university set up a club for its entrepreneurs to allow them to discuss ideas and any pitfalls they are facing.

"Yet on the other hand, my professors think it important to concentrate on my major as well, as it will help in landing a good job."

According to a survey published in China Youth Daily in 2010, the success rate for college students setting up their own businesses was about 3 percent.

Chen is aware of the challenges but is not daunted.

"When I recruit staff for the company, I look for the ability to learn new skills, and potential," Chen said.

"I don't care about academic degrees. I think potential is the main qualification in starting a business.

"I don't really think there is something you learn from university that you can't learn by yourself. University is more like a place and a period for you to learn what areas you are interested in."

Contact the writer at zhangyue@chinadaily.com.cn.

zhangyue@chinadaily.com.cn