Gary Cheng

About

I have been a entrepreneur for more than 25 years, including 8 years in Taiwan and 18 years in mainland China.

In Taiwan, I grew my media firm to second largest in the business advertising industry from a subsidiary firm of a family business which I founded. In 2002, I shifted my focus to mainland China and founded Yuanchuan Advertising, which I eventually grew it to be the No.1 player in China’s radio industry and successfully exited in 2015.

To me, running a business in China was like taking an intensive entrepreneurship course. Because the competition is incredibly cut-throat—coming from both prestige internationally players like Virgin Radio with lots of expertise and resources, as well as from ferocious local players who had strong government connection and local resources—entrepreneur doing business in China faces challenges that would normally occur in developing markets, as well as challenges that would occur in developed markets. In addition, the intensity and frequencies of challenges faced are at least 2x that of other developed market. This experience has helped me accumulated lots of practical experiences on scaling business.

Because I had started my career in a family business, I understand firsthand many challenges that second-generation business owners in Asia face when they attempt scale their family businesses.

I am currently a senior advisor the board of YEN (Young Entrepreneur Network), an entrepreneur association with chapters in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Entrepreneurs are different breed of people—a breed who enjoy creating things and make things happen in their life. It simply excites me to be able to helping other entrepreneurs overcoming challenges and growing their businesses. In addition to the time when clients hit their annual or quarterly targets, it is equally gratifying to me when I observe client’s eureka moments during their scaling up journeys. It could be the time when they discover their why, when they identify flywheel, or even when when all their metrics on the dashboard turn green for the first time.