Insights
Field notes on international growth, AI and the markets between Europe and Asia.
Your Chinese Factory Is Not Your Problem. Your Specification Is.
After 20 years building hardware in China, the quality problem is almost never the factory. It is the specification you sent. An operator's rules for sourcing.
Your AI Product Has a Buyer Problem, Not an AI Problem
Enterprise buyers don't reject AI agents on capability. They reject them on accountability. Why narrow scope, audit trails and staged autonomy win deals.
China+1 Is Not a Cost Decision. It's an Ecosystem Decision.
Labor is the smallest line on the bill. What you buy in Shenzhen is a 50km radius of suppliers. An operator's guide to a china plus one strategy that works.
Your AI Feature Passed QA and Lost You Revenue
Your AI feature can pass every eval and still cost you money. Name the commercial metric, set the trust boundary, canary the model like a price change.
Nobody Buys Your AI Feature. They Buy a Number That Moved.
AI earns its place when it moves a line item someone already owns. A practical test for deciding where AI belongs in your product, and where it is theatre.
Stop Worrying About IP Theft in Shenzhen. Worry About Your Spec.
First-time hardware founders fear cloning in Shenzhen. The real risks are an incomplete spec, no tooling ownership, no golden sample, and low order priority.
The Boring Thing That Kills Asia Expansion: Getting Paid
Legal, hiring and marketing get budgeted. Money movement never does. What actually breaks when you expand into Asia, and the decisions to make before entry.
A Major Retailer Said Yes. Now You Need $1M You Don't Have.
A big buyer's interest is not a fundable asset. How to shrink the ask, de-risk the first order and finance working capital instead of a capacity leap.
Your Chinese Supplier Didn't Steal Your IP. You Handed It Over.
Chinese supplier IP theft is usually a design flaw in the commercial relationship, not a broken contract. An operator's architecture for protecting IP in China.
Stop Getting Export-Ready: Why Certification Is the Most Expensive Way to Avoid Selling
Export readiness is often validation theatre. Sell one ugly, manual unit abroad first: the order tells you which certification, price and channel you actually need.