Investors on duty
Bands of young IT entrepreneurs stationed at the café seem to be multiplying, and many eagle-eyed investors are paying frequent visits here to spot projects with potential.
Wang Jing is an investment manager who works for a risk investment fund that concentrates on start-up projects in technology, media and transmission. He is a micro blogger too, and usually posts a heads-up saying "I will be on duty at the Garage tomorrow. Dear entrepreneurs, please chat with me."
Wang likes to sit at a table near the window for the whole day until 8 p.m., with a stack of his business cards on hand. Different business teams approach him constantly. In busy periods, he doesn't even have time to take a sip of water.
Café boss Su Di has initiated all sorts of activities to support starting a business and finding investment. There are two "information walls" of job and project opportunities at the café. Besides that, theme salons and seminars are held from time to time, involving topics such as technology, law, and human resources, to name a few.
Su cares little about whether his café club is profitable in the short term. If the Garage Café cultivates IT enterprises as brilliant as Apple and Google, Su and his counterparts are the heroes behind them.
Li Kaifu, the founder of Innovation Works, a Chinese incubator and investment firm, published an article on New York Times on December 5 to express his faith in China's IT industry. He says "In a country full of energy, desire, talent and ideas, there is no doubt that China will become a world leader in information technology."
American garages incubate American dreams. Will the Chinese café spawn successful IT undertakings in our own dreamer-friendly platform? Well, God speed.
