Japan continues to struggle after being struck with the most powerful earthquake in its history

For those of you who have been following the news or have Japanese friends, Japan's woes continue to worsen.

Quake survivors forage for supplies

(UKPA) – 10 minutes ago

Millions of Japanese are without drinking water or electricity, surviving on instant noodles and rice balls, two days after a powerful earthquake and tsunami hammered the north eastern coast, killing at least 1,000 people.

Although the government doubled the number of soldiers deployed in the aid effort to 100,000, it seemed overwhelmed by what is turning out to be a triple disaster.

Friday's quake and tsunami damaged two nuclear reactors at a power plant on the coast, and at least one of them appeared to be going through a partial meltdown, raising fears of a radiation leak.

"First I was worried about the quake, now I'm worried about radiation. I live near the plants, so I came here to find out if I'm OK. I tested negative, but I don't know what to do next," said Kenji Koshiba, a construction worker, at an emergency centre in Koriyama.

According to officials, at least 1,000 people were killed - including 200 bodies found today along the coast - and 678 were missing in the earthquake and the ensuing tsunami that hit with breathtaking force and speed, sweeping away everything in its path.

The US Geological Survey calculated the quake to have a magnitude of 8.9, while Japanese officials raised their estimate to 9.0.

Either way it is the strongest quake ever recorded in Japan.

Teams searched for the missing along hundreds of miles of the Japanese coast, and thousands of hungry survivors huddled in darkened emergency centres that were cut off from rescuers and aid.

At least 1.4 million households had gone without water since the quake struck and some 2.5 million households were without electricity.

Large areas of the countryside were surrounded by water and unreachable. Fuel stations were closed and people were running out of petrol for their cars.

Baby's first step: First corporate contract signed

Ok, for those of you who grew up in the 80s, you should get the reference....

I'm riding on a high right now -- just inked our first corporate deal!  It sounds more glamorous than it is.  There's no long-term relationship going or recurring ongoing services, but for a new company that's trying to get credibility, this will be big and will be a great reference case if we do a good job.  We're doing testing and advisory consulting to a big multinational company here in Shanghai as they renovate two floors.  We'll be testing the before and after and helping project manage the vendors through auditing the air quality (and  therefore the work that they do and the materials selected).  The value of the contract is small -- around $6k, but it's quite a step up from residential projects and I'd like to see more of them.

Lately, I've also been looking at two new segments.  The first is the upstream architecture/design/interior renovation space.  I was introduced to a boutique design firm that built the first LEED Gold certified retail store in China and also did the Urbn Hotel in Shanghai.  We hit it off and the owner/partner thought that we could have a pretty strong offering if he added my knowledge of indoor air quality to his green building.  We could help each other and create a stronger  total package for clients.  So, we have started on several projects and last week, he brought up the idea of me formally starting up a company that merged these two concepts:  building fit-out/interior design and indoor environmental testing and consulting.  He would offer up the part of his company that was dedicated to interior design and I would do the air testing/consulting part.  Since he's busy expanding the architecture piece and doing other things, he asked if I would consider heading it up as its own company -- when I explained that I wanted independence, he said he'd be amenable to me keeping it under my company's brand-name if that's what I wanted.  Little premature to think this is a done deal, but it certainly is an unexpected direction this early in the game but also an interesting idea to scale up and add some revenue pretty fast.  It would be a little scary and really turn this whole venture into much more of a managerial role (instead of the satisfying solo expert that it's been).

Also, I am going to start expanding into the Japanese market.  To date, the vast majority of my clients have actually been American or Brits.  But there are 200,000 Japanese in Shanghai and only 30,000 Americans.  The Japanese are almost always here on contract, are very health-oriented and used to high levels of hygiene and environmental health, and expect a high service level.  These are all well-suited to my business model.  The key will be to get someone who is Japanese and can help me localize my materials and offerings and then be the Japanese face of my business.  I think I may have found someone who can at least start part-time and then later, I can look for someone who is able to do this full-time if it is promising.

Hope you're all having a great week  -- Shanghai is finally warming up and the sun on your face when you go outside really does pick you up.  Looking forward to Sarah's brother Tris and my mom coming to visit in two weeks.

Thought I'd share two cool little pieces of news I got about military equipment soldiers are starting to get on the frontlines.... The new helmets that are lighter and 70% stronger are a huge benefit. I wore the old ones two generations prior in Ranger School and remember them being so heavy that I had problems keeping my head up near the end. Love the quote, "We're going to have to get more powerful test guns to see how strong they really are"!

New Helmet Blocks Rifle Shots

February 04, 2011

Military.com|by Christian Lowe

The Army and Marine Corps may soon field a lighter combat helmet with nearly double the bullet and blast protection of the current Advanced Combat Helmet.

Army officials said that recent tests of the so-called "Enhanced Combat Helmet" showed the helmets were so strong that engineers didn't have equipment powerful enough to penetrate them with simulated IED fragments.

"The test lab we sent it to couldn't calculate an [average ballistic rating] because … the test guns they had couldn't shoot fragments fast enough to penetrate the helmet," said the Army's top protective equipment buyer, Col. Bill Cole. "We don't know exactly what the [average strength] is, but it's better than we've ever seen before."

"We're going to have to build stronger test guns to figure out how good it is," he added.

Testers hoped to get about a 40 percent increase in ballistic resistance over the ACH. But Cole said in some tests, the new ECH was 70 percent stronger than the helmets worn by Soldiers and Marines today. Additionally the new helmet weighs about four ounces less than the ACH.

"It's really a huge leap forward in terms of head protection capability," Cole added. "The data that we were getting from prototypes is even better than we'd hoped."

Marine Corps Systems Command in Quantico, Va. runs the ECH program for both services. Officials with the command were unable to comment on this story by post time.

In 2007, the Army and Marine Corps began looking into how to make current helmets -- the Army's ACH and Corps' Lightweight Helmet -- stronger without increasing weight. Both could withstand a direct hit from a 9mm pistol round and some bomb fragments, but senior officials in both services wanted improved protection against rifle shots.

At the time, military helmets were generally made from layers of Kevlar or Twaron material -- both of which get heavy when the layers pile up. In recent years armor makers have developed technology to shape ultra-strong materials akin to plastic sheets that are lighter than Kevlar and have similar ballistic resistance.

After a first round of test failures in 2009, the Army has finally found a design made by Ceradyne, Inc. that works -- so well, officials say, that some types of 7.62 rifle rounds can be fired point-blank at the helmet without going through.

The service plans to purchase 200,000 ECHs beginning in the fall of 2011, with Soldiers in Afghanistan or deploying there getting the rifle-stopping helmet first. Officials say the new helmet costs about $600 each, double the price of the current ACH.

"We're very excited about this and we're going to try to take this revolutionary capability in head protection to the field as quickly as we can," Cole said. "This is like stepping up from an up-armored Humvee to an MRAP in the head protection arena."

© Copyright 2011 Military.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

‘Punisher’ Gives Enemy No Place to Hide

February 03, 2011

Military.com|by Christian Lowe

A new Army weapon designed to target the enemy hiding behind barriers is being affectionately called "The Punisher" by Soldiers fighting in Afghanistan.

And by all accounts, the futuristic XM-25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System has been quite a rude surprise for the bad guys.

"I don't know what we're eventually going to call this product, but it seems to be game changing," said the commander of the Army's Program Executive Office Soldier, Brig. Gen. Peter Fuller, during a Feb. 2 briefing with reporters at the Pentagon. "You no longer can shoot at American forces and hide behind something. We're going to reach out and touch you."

After years of XM-25 development, last fall the 101st Airborne submitted an urgent request to field the weapon for troops on patrol in Afghanistan. In response the Army took the five weapons it had been testing at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Md., added 1,000 hand-made explosive rounds and shipped them to the war zone in October of 2010.

On arrival the XM-25 gave infantry squads the capability to precisely target bad guys hiding behind walls, in irrigation ditches, or among rocky escarpments. The Heckler & Koch-made XM-25 pairs a barrel-mounted targeting computer and a 25mm programmable air-bursting round that's fed precise range information just before being fired. A Soldier can simply push a button to range an enemy firing position, dial in one more meter, and the round will explode precisely where the bad guy is sitting.

"I had one lieutenant tell me that normally these engagements take us 15 or 20 minutes to get through, [but it's] several minutes when the XM-25 is involved. It's that quick," said the Army's top weapons buyer, Col. Doug Tamilio. "One major told me every time the XM-25 was involved in engaging enemy positions, firing stopped immediately."

So far the still-experimental XM-25 has stood up to the harsh combat environment of Afghanistan with "no maintenance issues," Tamilio said.

"To me that means we've got the ruggedness part of it right," he said.

Tamilio admitted that they need to make some tweaks to the weapon, including finding a new power source for the targeting computer that currently uses rechargeable batteries.

"We are learning some features that we do have to enhance," he added.

The five hand-made weapons have been field tested by two Army units so far and a third unit will get "The Punisher" next if the Army can find the money to buy more ammo, officials added, declining to be specific about which units will get the weapon.

"The kids are naming it ‘the punisher' because … a person can't hide anymore," PEO Soldier Fuller added. "Now I can go punish them for trying to engage me."

Officials say Soldiers aren't complaining about the nearly 13 pound weight of the XM-25 since it's been so effective. Gunners wielding "The Punisher" often opt for an M4 or a pistol for personal defense, but some carry no other weapon at all.

The Army wants to buy 36 more XM-25s -- which run about $35,000 each -- but the buy isn't fully funded. And the air bursting ammunition costs about $1,000 per round, but Tamilio claims that full rate production will drop the price to $35 per round.

Even in a tight fiscal environment with many high-dollar programs competing for scarce resources, many top Army officials say "The Punisher" is worth the investment.

"We're giving Soldiers a capability down range that's making a difference in terms of lethality," Tamilio said. "There are many times that weapon has disrupted attacks."

© Copyright 2011 Military.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Home Sweet Home

After 3 days of basically living out of airports looking for flights, Sarah and I made it back home.  I thought that this poster was pure irony.

Few lessons learned on dealing with a situation like this in the future that I thought I'd pass on:

• Always monitor flight status -- Don't assume the carrier will notify you or rebook.  We never were, even after repeatedly giving our contact info.  They didn't protect us either, by putting us on another flight until we pushed the issue.
• Have a contingency plan for alternate routing in case flights get cancelled.  Know the next flight going, alternate connections, seating availability
• Often, it's really hard to get through on the phone, so use travel agent or hotel staff to help you get through.  EgyptAir staff often just ignore the phone.  Usually, the most effective way to get something done is to go directly to the airport or airline company sales office.
• First try to rebook through United or whoever booked the original ticket.  If they did this, the local company often cannot make changes.  The good thing about working with the local company directly is that they are not bound to award travel only, but may put you in a regular seat if they feel like it.
• Be polite but persistent and talk with different people and departments.  Don't give too much info and clearly state what you want – usually a rebooking, upgrade, compensation, or hotel accommodations. Often, we have been told no on the phone, then a different story at the airport or sales office.  Or, a counter agent will deny us seats, but a conversation escalated to the supervisor gets us there.  Document everyone's name and last name (and ideally a phone number) – don't be shy because if someone tells you something and you don't have their info documented, it's useless.  If possible, if someone promises that someone else will do something, rebook you, set you up with hotel, etc, have that person call over to their counterpart where you're going to make sure someone on the opposite end knows.  
• If this doesn't work, tell them you would like to formally lodge a complaint.  Do this in writing, make a copy or take a photo, tell them you will follow this up with Star Alliance (or whatever mother network), and add their own name and why this was unsatisfactory.  Ask for a receipt or other formal acknowledgement.  Pushing it to this will often be enough.  A different person came out, all smiles, and said that they would put us up (despite everyone earlier telling us this could not happen) with full board.  He asked if this was satisfactory and if it would still be necessary to file the complaint.

We're safe in Egypt

Thanks for the emails and SMSs of concern.  We've been on the open sea for most of the past week and since the Egyptian government cut internet and SMS service early on in the unrest, we weren't able to get word out.

Our weeklong liveaboard dive trip was interrupted as governments started pulling their citizens out of the country.  We had Polish, Dutch, and Greek divers onboard that had to leave early.  We decided that the safest place was on the open water, so decided to stay put and then take our chances.  Turned out to be a good idea, as the local port that we're in now, Hurghada, is actually quiet.  Unfortunately, we had planned to spend 4 days in Cairo, seeing the Giza Pyramids, the Sphinx, etc, but we just happened to pick the first time since 1953 that there's been civil unrest.

If you've been watching the news (we're only just catching up ourselves), you may know that Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, who has held power for over 50 years, has agreed to step down in September.  Against him is a large group of the people who believe that the government is no longer for the people and want him ousted and a fresh change.  So far, the demonstrations have been peaceful and non-violent.  Mubarak, after mobilizing the Army, installed martial law and curfews as well as cutting internet and SMS.  Most countries, including the US, sided with the protesters and are urging Mubarak to let go.  

Depending on who you talk to, it was either a way for him to save face (instead of getting forced out right away) or a ploy by which he managed to stay in power.  Regardless, order has been restored, international flights are back on time, and the internet is back up.  There were up to a million people demonstrating on the streets (even in Hurghada) and it was by and large peaceful.  Tonight, when Sarah and I walked around Hurghada, we saw signs that there was still some concern – we saw military APCs, lots of police and security on corners, and groups of people holding banners and dancing through the street.  The most striking thing was that everyone we asked seemed to be pro-Mubarak and the atmosphere in town seemed to be pretty celebratory, although by many accounts, Mubarak had lost and the protesters had won concessions.  According to one shopkeeper we spoke with, in Hurghada, the government worked with the people and they gained from working through the government and with tourism, whereas in Cairo and some of the larger cities, there was a big gap between the haves and have-nots, and a perception (deserved or otherwise) that the government was corrupt and not helping the people.

Cairo still seems to be a hotspot -- apparently pro-Mubarak forces are now shooting, throwing rocks and bombs, and otherwise inciting direct violence.  Hopefully, the anti-Mubarak side can turn the other cheek and allow the media to report what's going on and pressure the government to let the Army intervene and restore order.

We'll be spending two days in Hurghada where it's peaceful and then transit through Cairo to Instanbul for a night before returning to Shanghai.

Happy New Year's! Lady luck starting to smile?

Happy 2011 to everyone!  I'm late for the calendar new year, but in time for the Chinese (lunar) New Year!

This year, unlike the past 5 or 6 Xmas' I've been in China, I did not send an update out, nor cards.  The original plan was that I'd call everyone, but things got busy in the end, I snuck away to the Philippines, and well, you know how it is.  If the company every goes public, I'll buy you all ranch houses :)

Small business owners frequently say that they didn't take vacations for years in the early, lean times.  That probably means that they didn't have something like the Philippines nearby and they were really busy, which is a good thing.  Because: (a) my customers all went away for holidays in December or weren't thinking about testing, I didn't have much demand; (b) I don't run a retail store or other business that requires a regular working day presence; and (c) was able to get a roundtrip ticket to Manila for about 1000rmb (~$160), I escaped to go diving for about 5 days with a couple of buddies.  Sarah couldn't work, but went to HK for NY's, where I joined up with her to celebrate a friend's birthday.

As soon as the New Year's holidays were over, I expected things to get hot and heavy, as I caught up with unfinished conversations and sales leads from before the break.  Things were frankly, slower than I had anticipated, and honestly, I started questioning the business model and asking myself if we had fooled ourselves into thinking the market was ready.  Or was it the wrong marketing approach?  Wrong segment?  Wrong pricing?

For the past month or so, I've been thinking hard about the scalability of the business.  The sales process of an average residential air/water assessment is long and the execution and followup is as well:

1. Once I get contacted, I need to introduce the company.  I could probably use the website to introduce this more, but right now, I type out emails or have calls.  

2.  I then conduct an interview with the client to understand their background, health sensitivities, building structure, occupant activities, and any other concerns.  All of this background info is used to recommend the appropriate test panel and come up with potential hypotheses about any potential problems (ie. think there is mold, humidity is or a source of water is usually the primary cause, need to confirm that this exists or not)

3.  Send a project scope and cost quote

4.  Wait, wait, follow up, convince, wait some more until client finally agrees

5.  Schedule event & coordinate with relevant staff/partners

6.  Conduct site visit, sampling, and investigate the building, which may take 1-3 hours

7.  Wait about a week for lab results to come in.  Translate results and do analysis to complete detailed graphical assessment report for client

8.  Schedule followup debrief with customer and wait for them to pay me before debriefing

9.  Debrief with customer to review any problems found, impact, severity, root cause analysis, and recommended solutions -- usually a 60-90 min session, since I answer their questions and also discuss remediation

10. Follow up with them on solutions -- air filter sales, mold remediation, VOC elimination, plant sales, etc.

As you can see, this is a pretty painful process to make the small amount of money I am each time I do this.  I have to keep reminding myself that right now, this is worth doing because I learn from each client, gain good baseline data, create good word of mouth, can use the testing as an intro into the higher margin remediation work, and most of all, to get reference clients.  But, long-term, there has to be a way to make this more automated, easier, or to not have to do this all by myself.

In recent days, I've been looking at two things.  One is certification -- it's a set number of parameters and pricing, and only two packages, so it streamlines most of the pre-sales and sales.  Plus, by working with relocation companies, I can actually incent them to push my services because they get a markup themselves.

The other is getting into the upstream green or sustainable design space.  When a building is designed, the architects need to consider indoor environmental quality.  To get certified as a LEED project, there are specific rules and credits gained through testing that the air, sound, electricity, etc meets certain standards.  This means that I don't need to do the selling -- my services are needed to get LEED certified.  I only started exploring this maybe 3 weeks ago, attending a couple events, getting a couple introductions.  The book is still out on whether I can do this successfully, but I think if I stick to the boutique or smaller firms, there is not a lot of specialized knowledge about air quality, so I can help be the expert on LEED projects to do not only the testing, but also all of the paperwork as well as investigations if there are any problems.  Or, I can recommend ways on getting more points as related to indoor environmental quality.

Last Friday, I had two meetings.  Met with a Singaporean sustainable design firm that is quite impressive for their R&D know-how, deep knowledge of engineering science, and green building innovation.  I thought I would have little to offer them, but apparently, in China, they are almost brand-new and don't really have a lot of knowledge.  We were able to help each other, just through info transfer and through promises of joint intros to other people.  I do think that this is how business is done in China.  Then, I met up with a friend who has been helping me do website optimization, marketing, and other related work.  Originally, she was supposed to do a lot with Google Adwords and search engine marketing (SEM), but this went on ice when Google Adwords inexplicably decided to blacklist us (whole separate blog post).  But, we agreed that she would work until the end of January since she had other commitments and also we are really cash-strapped.  She did make a difference.  If nothing else, it's very good to be able to really toss around ideas and brainstorm with someone with a lot of initiative.  It will be lonely in Feb back on my own with my interns!

So, on Friday, aside from these two positive outcomes, a few other very happy things happened:

1.  I was given the green light to do a testing project with a very prominent, high end green architecture design firm

2.  Had the same design firm suggest that I would be able to fulfill an IAQ role with a large property development project

3.  A commercial company that Sarah introduced me to and has been a little bit of a black box, invited me to give a presentation to their finance director and facilities manager (this would be a great "reference" project)

4.  An acquaintance I met last week (for whom I had made an introduction to someone else) returned the favor by introducing me to yet another architect

5.  A request for a mold problem conversation turned into a formal meeting request

6.  One of our website visitors contacted us through the form and was in the ideal target segment (couple with a baby on the way)

So, just as I am about to leave for 2 weeks in a couple days, we suddenly have a lot of stuff going on.  I am thrilled of course, and very excited.  If things keep up like this, I will really have to start looking for reliable help.

How is everyone else's New Year's going?  Any resolutions you want to share since I didn't even think about making any?

Project Startup Update Week 27 - The name of the game is SEO

Hey y'all - it's been awhile since I've blogged. Now that I am also blogging for the business website, chances to write are fewer and further in between. But, because this is not only a way to update some of you guys, but also a way to look back later and see how the business "grew up", I'm going to try to do at least one update a week.

Overall, up until the past couple of weeks, I've been still nailing down our operational model and figuring out processes -- the best way to follow up with sales leads, making sure our testing lab partner was using the right methods, tweaking the report analysis, creating invoice forms, etc. Most of that has been done, so now the emphasis is on getting the work out and creating awareness.

Nowadays, no business, no matter how small, can get by without a website. Especially for us, where credibility is key to customer acceptance, and in this market, where expatriates turn to the internet to find answers to their questions more than back at home, we had to create a very professional website, and one that would be current, relevant, popular, and most of all, highly ranked in searches. Enter SEO or search engine optimization. Up until two weeks ago, this was just a term. I had no idea what went into the mystical Google ranking algorithm. Then once the website launched and I started playing around with it, looking at what sort of traffic it was getting (or not getting), I figured I had to learn how to make the website more visible.

I sent out requests for help to a few local SEO service firms. These guys are experts at making your website show up higher in search results. After a solid week talking with them (having companies pitch to you is definitely the best way to quickly come up to speed), I have a little sense of the lay of the land.

How your website ranks is based on a number of things, a continuously changing algorithm that varies between different search engines. But in general, there are three things that affect this:

o Onsite factors – how well your website is built: the content, presence of a blog, the amount of keywords in the content, metadata built in, tags in the photos, etc.

o Off-site factors – the interaction of your site with the rest of the internet community: is it referenced by other sites and are those sites quality, is it indexed by the search engines so they can regularly “crawl” your site, is it present in directories, do you have guest blog content posted on other sites that reference your website.

o Search engine marketing (SEM) – you can simply and immediately improve your ranking by paying for advertising that increases your score

The results of running our site through a few free automated assessment tools (is a good one told us that the site was already built pretty well and didn't have a lot of room for easy technical improvement. That leaves content creation (mainly quality blog posts) and link-building as the main areas of work. But, the nature of SEO is that this takes a lot of time, so your rank comes up slowly even if you're doing all the right things. So, what I think we're going to do is to start by giving Google some money through buying some Adwords advertising and then using that to get us instant awareness and also find out what keywords are most effective. Then, we'll use that insight to inform our SEO efforts, and when we've organically built good links, content, and exposure on the internet, scale back inorganic SEM and use our own efforts to stay high on the rankings.

That's the idea anyways, and I think we have a decent shot at it because this space is pretty immature and there are not a lot of competitors who are seriously competing for page ranking in English for our kind of business. To illustrate, a week after the site launched, the first result of Googling "air testing shanghai" turned up a reference to our site from my friend's blog about air quality and our own site turned up at #6. This was without the site even being "indexed" by Google's automated web crawler or conscious efforts. So, by spending some time doing things right, we hopefully should be able to turn up on page one of search results for the main keywords we think people are searching for.

One cool thing happened today. I have some Google alerts set up to keep me up to date on any significant relevant news. In this morning's batch (keywords: China indoor air pollution), I found a blog post I wrote this weekend! Now, if I could only figure out how to get people to read those posts :) ....

Meet the newest member of our family

(Guys at my regular fruit and produce stand)

Nope, not one of "those" emails :)

After 5 years of taking taxis, subway, bus, mototaxis, biking, and just plain walking, I broke down and bought a scooter. What made up my mind was not having income, paying 80rmb (~$12) round-trip 3x a week to go to jiujitsu, and seeing the taxi tolls add up.

So, I did a little research and found out that you can get electric powered cool Vespa-styled scooters for about 3400rmb or about $500. You get a lot of bike for that. Mine will do 55km/hr, is fairly zippy (any faster and I could get into trouble), comfortable, and has a range of supposedly over 50km with each charge. I chose the smaller of two models because I could get longer range and also to get something that is a little lighter and more maneuverable. Best, it's almost totally silent and gives off no emissions. Shanghai's moving to more of these and I think it's great.

I put on about 25km today and have the following conclusions:

1. A lot of crazy drivers (car and bike) out on the road. People turning left from the middle lane, running red lights, stopped in the middle of the road, trying to defy laws of physics... and this is just from day 1. I will definitely have to be driving defensively.

2. It's cold...I need a quality jacket and gloves. I also probably should get a filtration mask -- sucking in everyone's emissions not cool. I'm going to start wearing my skiing helmet. Pretty sure this breaks some sort of motorcycling etiquette rule, but hey, a lot of drivers wear velvet horse jockey helmets, so it's not that bad!

3. When you are riding on the road, you really feel alive. I was reminded of a college and Army buddy's description of riding his bike from Harvard to MIT back when we were going to ROTC -- "It's like a live frogger game!" I will definitely get to know the city a whole lot better this way and looking forward to it.

[Update: after 50km]

Discovered that the battery gauge is unreliable and that effective range is about 40km. Discovered that bike is difficult to push.

Project Startup: Business Launched Today!

It took 5 months, but we finally had our official opening on Sunday's Wellness Works fair!

We set up the booth at about 10am -- most of the other 30 vendors had already finished setting up. It was tough to fit all the stuff needed for the booth in one cab so we took one of the Expo minivans. Fortunately, with 3 interns (plus a

boyfriend), and my wife there, we got set up in only about 15 min. I think the booth turned out fairly decently. Several people who came by the booth during the day mentioned that it looked well thought out and pretty professional :)

We had a good location -- central, with no one to our back and no one competing on either side for signage. Our booth had essentially a backdrop with our logo on a field of green, then two self-standing banners. On the 1.8m table itself, we had a display of 9 common household pollutants and a guessing game where people had to match the pollutant to the proper

name and health effects. Not probably the most fun game, but at least it was an easier way to break the ice than a straight sell. On the right hand side, we had a lucky draw where people could win gas-removing green plants (we brought a snake plant, a peace lily, and several aloe veras), vouchers for free lead testing, vouchers worth 250 or 500rmb, and one grand prize of a free complete home assessment worth 2000rmb (around $300). Also on the table, we had a fair promotion flyer, brochures in Chinese and English, frequently asked questions, and a sample of the completed report as well as a raw Chinese test company report.

There wasn't too much traffic in the morning. At first we found out that it wasn't that easy to get people to leave their personal information. This is probably that we just didn't ask for it. I had

initially planned to offer a lucky draw to people in exchange for them going through a quick little mini-assessment, but in the future, the better idea is probably to just get them to leave a business card and a sense of what they are interested in and then follow up later. I was one of four speakers to give a little talk ("Indoor Environmental Quality in China: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly", but last minute the venue changed. I am not sure if that was the reason, but there was low turnout and only about 10 people (besides our staff) were there. Fortunately, there was pretty good interaction and people asked a lot of good questions and it generated 2 leads who later came to the booth. I also found that one of the best ways to quickly get people to understand the value we add is to show them the Chinese report, which is pretty bare and just has numbers, and then show them our report, which has an initial customer profiling and recommendations on what to test, then graphical test results based on both Chinese and international standards, and then analysis of problem sources and recommendations. People understood that much more than anything else we showed or explained. We really should show this more, but I would be careful to release it as an electronic source, because it could be copied.

Chinese Marketing 101: one big takeaway is that having young, overly formal-dressed, nervous looking Chinese staff hovering definitely drives away traffic. I watched expats literally look up at the booth then veer away. When Sarah, the blonde foreigner was there by herself, she got tons of traffic.

There were other competitors and potential

partners at the fair and I went over to meet some of them. There were air purifier representatives, a water purifier company, and a health retailer. Fortunately, still no sign of anyone else doing anything like what we are doing. It was interesting that several of the representatives from the other companies said that they had heard of us, and at least one rep said he wanted to meet up later to talk about working together. Really is a small community or else word spreads quickly.

At the end of the day, we had 7 potential customer leads, of which 3 are highly likely to convert into test projects. The most interesting one was a guy from sweden who is having a mold problem and was almost begging us for our help. Unfortunately, we don't know too much about mold outside of what I've learned in books. The good news is that there is almost no one else in China who does, so we can at least add some value. When I went into his apartment to take a look (he lived in the apartment complex that was hosting the fair), I felt like I was walking into a tropical jungle. Mold loves humidity, so it wasn't hard to be able to tell him that no matter what he does, it won't be successful until he can reduce the humidity.

Since Sunday, I have been able to meet with the retailers, who want to partner with us to certify their products and co-market, and will be meeting with an air purifier manufacturer tomorrow in order to work out some sort of referral relationship. The tough thing will be finding a balance between keeping our independent third-party position, while also offering downstream solutions and being able to make some money off of it.

I also did a lot of research on mold to be able to advise the customer with the mold problem. Followed up with a call today and we spoke for about an hour. He is very happy to have someone to talk to and is an "ideal" customer. Not only is he a good customer, but if we succeed with him, we can almost certainly get more business in that apartment complex and he will probably be a good advocate. I sent a proposal earlier tonight.

In the next few weeks, we will need to keep ironing out our processes, do good work to get a solid reputation, and then start expanding our marketing channels. Once we hit about 10 customers, I think it will be time to pull the trigger on full-time staff and some investment on test equipment.

The website is live too and that's a whole another animal -- adwords, blog maintenance, promotions, cross-marketing, search engine optimization... take a look and let me know what you think. Send me a message if you don't know the website address.