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Comment by rememberlenny | Hacker News Reader

I lived in Shanghai and worked in the startup community there from 2012-2013. Im happy to answer any questions people might have. Very interesting space. The government is taking a very active role at developing startup "infrastructure", but it looks incredibly different from anything in the West.

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The government is taking a very active role at developing startup "infrastructure"

Could you elaborate on this statement? Are you referring to financing of startups, or more? Thank you for the offer to answer questions!

Investment into incubators, co-working spaces, government projects such as tech parks, building office space, streamlining of company registration and visa's, doing official visits (XiJingPing at Cheku, China's finance minister at 3W Cafe), yeah, they're pretty involved in things.

I've heard about these places from colleagues. Every local government is starting incubators, but many of them are like ghost malls. Which is funny, because they are converting a ghost mall in Beijing Zhongguancun near my office into an incubator space....

Yeah, haven't bothered checking any of them out tbh, don't really see the draw of it. I do have a friend who was trying to get a spot in one of them, but the materials he showed me seemed pretty sterile. Can't fault them for not trying though.

I know someone who works at one of the government backed incubators in Shanghai and he told me that a few of the companies they have are pretty promising, but there are a lot of accepted companies who don't have much of a shot. Startup solve a national problem of having too many college graduates and not enough job opportunities, so some of the incubators just soak up some of the extra graduates with the hope that maybe they could make something useful with time. Of course, with continued government support the incubators could improve and become more focused, but for now it seems at least a few are a way to provide jobs to what may otherwise be unemployed college grads.

What are the best startup spaces that you found? How would you define the startup community in Shanghai?

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