Profiles
Charging his customers by the clock
By Cheng Yingqi (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-18 07:51
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BEIJING - Everyone knows time is money, but few Chinese people will probably claim to know it better than Qian Wei.
Qian, 27, is the founder of what is being touted as the first website in China that allows people to trade their time online.
 Qian Wei's website is being touted as the first one in the country that allows people to trade time online. [China Daily] |
Qian started his own website, www.goooose.com, last November. Similar to online auction and shopping portal eBay, Qian's site allows buyers and sellers to trade on the Internet - with time as the commodity.
"Everyone's time has a price. So there should be a market for it," Qian said.
The time provided by sellers on his site is used for services such as sharing experiences with buyers on subjects ranging from acing exams, teaching languages and wealth management.
Qian has his eye on the "potential value" of his trading platform.
"It will create more need for information sharing, just like what Facebook did when social networking was not so popular."
After registering an account on Qian's website, users can check the information posted by individual sellers. Generally, service and prices per hour will be listed in the description posted by sellers.
Once users decide to buy "items", Qian said they will be given a few minutes to ask related questions to verify sellers.
Buyers will pay for the time they purchase online via payment service Alipay.
In most cases, people sell their time for 100 yuan ($14.6) to 200 yuan per hour, Qian said.
More than 10,000 people are using his website, Qian said. The portal hosts up to four transactions a day and recently decided to stop collecting commissions from sellers after a successful transaction.
"The most popular services are career consulting and professional training, " Qian said.
"We are planning to invite some celebrities to sell their time on our website, so that we can introduce paid listings and advertisements when the website gets famous."
Qian cited US investment guru Warren Buffett as a celebrity who seemed to enjoy "selling his time".
Buffett, one of the most successful investors and one of the richest men in the world, has been putting his lunchtime on auction once a year since 2000. The winner pays millions of dollars to have dinner with Buffett and the money goes to charity.
"The first time I came up with the idea of goooose, I was inspired by the Buffett lunch," Qian said.
Last May, Qian was still an employee of a Hong Kong-based corporate foundation. Despite drawing a generous salary, he never stopped yearning for his own business.
"I took the job in the corporate foundation to prepare for my own business, because I could meet people, study various industries and observe how capital works," Qian said.
In Hong Kong, Qian met Guo Xulin, who was then working for a US finance company. Both got along well and Guo is now a partner of Qian's website.
"I told many friends that I wanted to start a company, but none showed as much interest as Qian," Guo said. Guo and Qian discussed their business for four months and they targeted the Internet.
"We both have a banking background. We know the Internet will be a good investment if you have limited funds and do not want to take too much risk," Guo said.
The duo considered a few business ideas like group procurement and online auditions, but gave them up later because they thought the development of the website would be limited.
Then they remembered the Buffett lunch.
"You won't believe how excited I was about the idea," Qian said.
"If we succeed, time trading will bring about a bunch of new businesses."
Guo and Qian sold the idea to a friend. The three collected 400,000 yuan ($58,600) and started the website in May 2009.
In the following six months, Qian quit his job and jumped into designing the website.
"From fixing prices to ensuring the quality of service, I thought over every detail and adapted it again and again," Qian said.
"I could start the website smoothly thanks to several things I did previously," he said.
In 2000, Qian, then 17, studied banking at the elite Peking University. Somehow, he spent most of his time playing computer games and chatting online.
"I had never used the computer before and I knew that the Internet held huge potential when I was sharing photos, chatting with friends and doing online research. It changes people's lifestyles," Qian said.
"Of course, I did not think much into it at that time."
Then Qian forgot about the Internet and headed for investment banks.
"At that time, anyone who enter an investment bank would become the superstar among classmates. I decided to chase after that trend," Qian said.
He spent two more years in the university to learn about security investments.
He even invited 10 academics and bankers to give lectures to the students preparing to join investment banks. Five years later, someone Qian met in the group attracted 1 million yuan of investment for his new website.
In September 2006, while most had not yet started job-hunting, Qian got an offer from an investment bank in China. But he quit after two months.
"A perfect job should give me spiritual fulfillment, not only money," he said.
"I spent two years to get the position that turned out to be a mistake and I could not figure out what I liked," he said.
In November 2008, with advice from his parents, Qian took a job offer from a company under the Ministry of Commerce.
But three months later, he quit again to start an investment company with four friends.
"My second resignation sparked bitter quarrels between my parents and I," Qian said.
"It was one of the toughest conflicts I ever experienced."
Qian grew up in a well-off family in Chuzhou, Anhui province.
He always did his parents proud because of good grades. He never met with any major setbacks as a child.
However, Qian found himself looking for work again one year later, because his investment company collapsed.
"You have to be prudent when you are choosing partners," Qian said.
"That is what I learnt from my first company - you have to be sure your partners are in the same camp with you for the long term."
For a whole month, Qian felt he was at the lowest point in his life. He started reading books that covered subjects besides finance and economics.
"I read arts, history and philosophy, because I wanted to know why I felt so bad. I did not like every job I had," he said.
"I quarreled with my parents and I said mean things to my father, regretting them later. Why would I do that?" Qian asked himself.
He did not expect to use the pointers he picked up in his self-study to help him design a website of his own that sells time.
Qian now believes in the words of US IT icon Steve Jobs: "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards."
