Benjamin Joffe (@benjaminjoffe) from HAXLR8R joins us for an interesting discussion spanning from his travels around the world to his current role to help hardware companies to incubate and scale in the Shenzhen on-demand hardware global factory. In this discussion, Ben offered a primer to how entrepreneurs from all over the world can leverage on the Shenzhen ecosystem to build an integrated hardware and software companny and scale them out to the world. He shares his story as a consultant, an angel investor (and his three notable companies: CMUNE, Gengo & Tokyo Otaku Mode), a mentor in 500 Startups and HAXLR8R and his role within the global entrepreneurial ecosystem. Of course, we have an intellectual discussion that focus on leveraging Huntingdon’s “Clash of Civilizations” on messaging apps in Asia (WeChat, LINE, Kakao and Whatsapp) and Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs & Steel” on startup ecosystems from Silicon Valley to the rest of the world.

Here are the interesting links on companies and articles which form the basis for our discussion:

The story of Benjamin Joffe from France, as his journey in Japan, China, US (Silicon Valley) and Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia) and his current role in HAXLR8R. His insightful thoughts and slides shared in beautiful presentations from his consulting company, Plus8Star on SlideShare

His angel investments: CMUNE, Gengo and Tokyo Otaku Mode and his role as a mentor in 500 Startups

HAXLR8R, the hardware accelerator for startups in Shenzhen China. Interesting companies: Spark

A primer on the Shenzhen global hardware phenomena and how to navigate within Shenzhen and Dong Guan.

The battle for “Silicon Valley” in China: Zhongguancun (Beijing) vs Shenzhen.

Huntingdon’s “Clash of Civilizations” applied to the messaging space: LINE, Kakao Daum, WeChat and Whatsapp.

His perspectives on the current China technology scene: The Baidu, Alibaba & TenCent (BAT) axis. Reference to interesting reviews from Tech In Asia on Alibaba and Tencent‘s investments & acquisitions this year. The rise of Xiaomi. The rest of them: Shanda, Sohu, Sina, Qihoo, and upcoming ones: Cheetah Mobile and Didi Dache. The OEMs: Lenovo and ZTE.

Guns, Germs and Steel for Startups: Silicon Valley and startup ecosystems around the world.

Podcast Information:

The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) and is sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter & Facebook).