TR Harrington | Exiting in China as a Foreigner, Social Media for Customer Service, & Investing in SE Asia

Today on The Negotiation, we speak with TR Harrington, Co-Program Director at Mobile Only Accelerator and Program Director at SOSV. He is also a Startup Mentor at Antler, Mucker Capital, and Chinaccelerator.

TR discusses the mindset and strategies he used to run a Shanghai-based marketing agency in China, and gracefully enact an exit strategy after over a decade of serving as CEO. He says that the key to his success as a foreigner was his ability to adapt to the culture and expectations of the local market.

By extension, TR encouraged foreign brands, who approached him for his services, to adopt that same attitude if they expected to maximize their investment in China. In addition to being willing to do their marketing the way the Chinese do, they should also be prepared to move at the speed that the Chinese are known for. Finally, foreign brands should not underestimate the power of utilizing social media to reach customers and clients—such as tapping into WeChat’s customer service capabilities.

TR believes that continuous process improvement is a big factor in helping foreign brands stand out in the vast and turbulent sea that is the Chinese market. The key is to go big or go home: TR says that a relatively small company that only makes a 3x improvement will have almost zero impact on their revenue and bottom line. He also says that it is possible to go “too far” or “too deep” with metrics that do not count. Instead, brands should make it a point to prioritize the “500-foot view” metrics.

Asked about which behavioral traits startup founders must have, TR says that it is not enough to follow through with the advice given by investors and mentors. It is equally as important for them to ask why they are being given that advice in order to learn how to make consistently sound decisions in the long-term.