"Woman Dotcom Entrepreneur Gets Creative... In Asia"

(Preview)

TAIPEI, TAIWAN, (date TBD) -- For young entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, getting access to investors these days is tough. First, you have to know the executives in the investment community, and more importantly they need to know you. If you don't have a prominent CEO on your management team, it is hard to get your foot in the door. 30-second elevator pitches are a shot in the dark and are not even an option if you do not live in the bay area.

So what does a young Chinese-American female dotcom entrepreneur in Taipei, Taiwan, do? Build a personal website and throw her daily journals about the trials and tribulations of building a start-up company... online.

Christine Hsu, creator of HeyChristine.com, decided to put a spin on things. She asks, "How do I tell the most number of people within my own social and professional circuit - savvy, aggressive, Asia-oriented, international professionals, the very people I want to join me as either investors or employees - who I am and what I am doing, in the most effective way?"

After spending four frustrating months meeting with investors, potential partners, and possible staff, pitching her ideas and trying to raise interest in her start-up company ORIENTED.COM, Hsu concluded that such a process is ineffective and "one incredible waste of time".

According to Hsu, "Even if they are friends or relatives of my friends, which many of them are, they really have no idea who I am or what I am capable of doing, and I cannot blame them. It's not a gender thing. It's a trust thing, and no business plan or personal recommendation or Power Point presentation or passionate speech I could ever conjure up is going to make them take action, much less help them to trust in me. At the end of the day, that's what really matters."

Hsu adds, "You can have the best product in the world, but no one will ever know - much less buy into it - unless you put it in front of them, tell them what it is, and give them a name that they will remember." And that's exactly what she's done with HeyChristine.com, what she refers to as her marketing tool for her start-up company. Hsu believes that the Internet can help raise awareness of her efforts far more than she can physically do alone and in person.

Can Hsu raise the funds she needs to build ORIENTED.COM through her personal website? Hsu states, "I have absolutely no idea. What I do know, however, is that my website will open more doors for me than anything else I could possibly do on my own two feet, and that it may even create some unexpected opportunities for myself... just because I tried."


For more information, visit the website at HeyChristine.com