PIONEER

HOW DID P1 START AND WHAT AS THE IDEA BEHIND IT?

Sophia and I are old family friends from Beijing. I was born there but grew up in Sweden. Sophia moved to the US to get her MBA, then she went to Sweden and we decided to come back to China to start a business together. we soon realized that there weren’t any social platforms tailored to people like us. Kaixin and Renren didn’t really have the right atmosphere for a more international generation of people looking to maintain relationships with people you actually know in real life.

HOW DID YOU REACH PEOPLE?

There are two approaches we’ve always used, and that’s top-down and bottom-up. The top-down approach involves identifying people who are already super-networkers in the center of a high-status community, and then recruit them as ambassadors. So we have them introduce P1 to their network, and also invite their network to P1. The bottom-up approach is that we have over 100 photographers across China in all the major cities taking photos in high-end shopping areas and at events. They also help recruit potential P1 members.

WHAT WAS THE STRATEGY?

Basically, the target audience was people like us―young Chinese who think of themselves as different from previous generations, who have core values that are more global. They also have a sense of social responsibility and they’re very individual. It’s a niche market but it’s growing fast. In terms of the business strategy, it’s about creating a platform where these people can enjoy and shape a new set of social and lifestyle values in China.

P1 WORKS HARD TO ENSURE ITS USERS CONNECT IN THE REAL WORLD. WHY DO YOU HAVE THIS FOCUS, AND WHAT KINDS OF EVENTS DO YOU HOLD?

we want to provide added value for our members, allowing them to share their lives with people they actually care about… we have different kinds of events. Some we organize for members, such as the closing ceremony of Shanghai Fashion week and the Racing Carnival, which are usually attended by around 500 to 1,000 people, but we don’t do them that often. The second type is co-branded events. These are organized by our lifestyle partners or clients, and we just help them identify people who would be interested in going. So these include fashion or art shows, wine tastings and other different kinds of lifestyle activities.

IS THERE A TYPICAL P1 USER? WHAT DEFINES THEM?

In terms of age, the active core members are between 25 and 35. I would say about 40 percent are in Beijing, where we started. Next is Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing and Hong Kong, and we also have an increasing number of members in many second-tier cities. A lot of them have studied overseas or work in an international company, so that’s where the global perspective comes from. And that’s also why P1 is the only bilingual social network site in China.

HOW DO YOU MAINTAIN THE AURA OF EXCLUSIVITY NOW THAT YOU HAVE MORE THAN 1 MILLION MEMBERS?

For one, P1 is still invitation-only, so even though we have over a million members, it’s not so many compared to the population of our target demographic in China. Second, we have a segmentation system, so we have ambassadors, VIPs and approved members. Only VIP members on P1 have the right to invite other potential members to the network.

WHAT IS THE PROPORTION OF FOREIGN TO CHINESE MEMBERS? DID FOREIGNERS’ INTEREST SURPRISE YOU?

Actually we don’t have that many foreigners. More than 95 percent of our users are Chinese. But foreigners are very active on P1, which is why people get the feeling there are more on the site… There are also American-born Chinese, not just Chinese-Chinese, and we have a lot of them as well.