Meet the Characters Behind the China Boom: Mr Dinosaur, the Thoroughbred Entrepreneur & the Little Emperor.

China’s Boom has made world history. But who are the real characters behind the endless statistics?

China is an amazingly entrepreneurial place. Perhaps more so than any other nation you’ll ever visit. This has created some crafty and dynamic businessmen and women.

And while the rise of China is a major talking point today, rarely do we get a closer glimpse at some of the real life characters shaping this incredible story.

My job is to meet and assess factory owners and the companies they run. And many years of doing this has uncovered some interesting characters who I thought I’d share with you today.

There’s three types – let’s start with the scariest.

Meet Mr Dinosaur (T-rex) – Soon To Be Extinct, Hopefully!

Our first factory owner is the last of a dying breed. If you’re unlucky you’ll run into him. He’s big. He’s bad. He’s prehistoric.

Back in the days of a ‘planned economy’ everything was state owned. As such yep, you guessed it, it didn’t matter if the factories made a profit or not! Factories were run very badly.

Talk to T-rex about quality control processes and he’ll look at you like you just announced you’re an alien from a distant galaxy.

After the state owned factories were ‘privatised’ typically, the factory manager at the time became the factory owner. Great idea, right? Well, sort of apart from you can’t teach an old dog new tricks!

The ownership of the factory may have changed overnight, but the mentality certainly didn’t. It has lived on in the form of rubbish goods, time frames thrown out the window and contracts being used as toilet paper. The general attitude of the ‘customer is always right’ is regarded as a ridiculous idea because, guess what? T-rex knows best!

So our advice would be: If you come across T-rex – run, don’t walk away. He’ll make your life a nightmare.

It’s not all bad news though. Why? Because T-rex’s numbers are rapidly diminishing your chances of meeting him are becoming increasingly less likely (thank god!).

In his wake are more nimble, intelligent competitors. We call them “the new kids on the block”. So who are the new kids and what’s the future?

Meet the Thoroughbred Entrepreneur

Jiang Wei – epitome of “the Thoroughbred” started his factory 7 years ago age 24 – now turns over $5m USD a year (making metal brackets)

The future of China is in the thoroughbred entrepreneur who started from scratch against all odds to make their fortune. The child from the village you’ve never heard of who decided: if all these other people can open a factory why not me?

Your average factory owner is male 25-45, although there are successful female factory owners (the richest factory owner we’ve met is actually female, but for simplicity sake we refer to “he and his” in what follows).

His life is something like this:

He started out small, perhaps scraping together enough money to buy a single machine – making just one product. His education was poor by our standards. He probably dropped out not long after primary school. Mr Thoroughbred had to rely on himself and be self taught throughout his life.

Through relentless hard work, trial and error & lots of mistakes his business grew. He got a real business education. He learned how to spot opportunities & branched out into all sorts of product lines & business endeavours.

His father was probably a fisherman or farmer earning 12 cents a day – yet today after years of hard work he’s a multimillionaire – or fast approaching.

His original machine might have grown into a five storey factory, employing 400 people, turning over millions of dollars a year.

He’s smart, knows how to graft, had a poor child hood and somewhere developed a love for the finer things in life. He decided he also wants a Mercedes, Louis Vuitton shoes, designer clothes and a villa just like all the other “Bao Fa Hu” -- a Chinese saying for peasant got rich.

He’s certainly a lot more open minded than his predecessor, and he knows if he wants that deal, he better work hard for it. Because he actually wants you to come back, (someone needs to pay for his wife’s new car), he better make a good job of your order.

Being from that village you have never heard of, 5 hours from any major City, where his relatives have lived the same way for hundreds of years, there may be the odd cultural issue with him.

But generally, his intentions are right – he just wants to make money. He’ll do alright for himself that boy!

Meet The Little Emperor

The third type of new generation factory owner is a different kettle of fish altogether. He is the son or daughter in law! Yep that’s right these kids are inheriting the factory from daddy.

I have a few friends in China that are in this exact position and I’m extremely interested to see how they do.

Some say in China, there is a social ‘bubble’ building. This bubble goes back quite a way.

It starts with the introduction of the one child policy in 1978. It’s a well known fact that only children tend to be far more spoiled and doted upon. Imagine a whole nation of them.

The average 50 or 60 year old Chinese person was made to work like a dog under Mao’s “cultural revolution”. Working out in the fields was no easy life. And they certainly have a desire for their kids to have a better life than they did.

The combination of having one child and being brought up in the cultural revolution has contributed to the little emperor phenomenon.

A little emperor doesn’t lift a finger and goes through life with a silver spoon (sorry chopsticks) in their mouth. They haven’t gone through the extreme struggles one does when less privileged.

Quite the contrary. They’ve always had a cushy life and know the factory is a ticket to financial freedom. They haven’t had to fight, scrap, strain and struggle like less privileged Chinese.

Now to be fair, one thing I will say about them is they are smart. They work extremely hard in school and are pushed academically. Education is the one area that they have excelled. Academically they’re very, very bright.

Yet they don’t know a hard day’s graft. Or the entrepreneurs struggle for success. And finally they don’t have much experience.

But these kids are going to take over daddy’s multimillion dollar factory. Now the question is how smart are they? And will they cope with the demands of running a business with predominantly non Chinese customers?

Based on the people I’ve met, I think some will actually make the transition – successfully. Yet others haven’t got a cat in hell’s chance. A lot of factories will deteriorate away.

It’s going to be a mixed bag of results.