Startups worldwide eye opportunities in Bay Area

As some business big shots are vigorously expanding in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, international startups are earning a place in their own ways.

JU&KE, a creative design studio, is one of them. It was founded in Shenzhen in 2016 by two young designers - Christophe Branchu of France, and Julien Gueuning of Belgium - after working for international companies and tapping into the rich local manufacturing industry for many years.

In contrast to some governments' and big business brands' vigorous moves, the two entrepreneurs are not planning to expand their eight-staff team or set up new offices in other cities in Guangdong province.

"Taking full advantage of the increasing transportation solution in the Bay Area, we are able to extend our client reach in many cities around Shenzhen, such as Hong Kong, Zhuhai, Macao, Foshan, so it is cost-efficient for us to stay small," Gueuning said.

He mentioned in particular the newly opened high-speed train station in the heart of Shenzhen, which is also close to their office. It shortens transportation time from their office to other Bay Area cities to just one to two hours.

The convenience enables them to adopt a cost-saving approach - growing by co-brand and collaboration.

Their initial aim is to help international companies design and manufacture, but their focus and client base started to shift as they realized the intense innovation activity happening in the Bay Area. "All the innovative companies in the area, including Shenzhen, Dongguan, Foshan, Guangzhou and Zhuhai, are trying to go to the international market," Gueuning said.

For instance, they helped a Shenzhen-based technology startup Kandao in the re-designing and branding of a 360-degree VR camera, which won many international awards, such as the CES Best of Innovation Award and the iF Product Design Award.

Besides innovative firms, they also focus on mixing Chinese culture with modern design and create something totally new. Taking a speaker they designed with a local wood workshop as an example, it integrates "mortis and tenon", a traditional mean of joining wood in Chinese history with modern technologies.

They cooperated with a furniture association in Shunde as well, a production base for traditional Chinese furniture, to co-produce a series of modular sofas that can adapt to different sizes of rooms.

Branchu said he is surprised that many factories there actually have a strong desire to integrate with modern design.

However, Gueuning admitted he has seen knock-off of a watch product that he designed in Shenzhen, but he is confident that the brand itself, with a clear identity, is hard to copy.

Branchu said they would like to become a bridge between the Bay Area and the international market. He realized there is a need for such a bridge when he went to Silicon Valley and most of the startups over there told him they know that they have to come to the Bay Area to realize their ideas.

About 70 percent of the design studio's client base are local companies for now, but they are confident that both local and international partners will grow with the development of the Bay Area.