Derek Ling, CEO of Tianji, Talks On Professional Social Networks In China

Derek Ling, CEO and founder of Tianji

Derek Ling is the CEO and founder of Tianji, the largest professional social networking site (SNS) in China with over 6 million registered users.

Prior to Tianji, Derek was at Motorola to lead the company’s market entry strategy and business development in Greater China. He also served as Apple’s Director of Business Development for Greater China and was responsible for building iPod and education markets in China. He was also the former Vice President at Sina. In this interview, Derek shared with us about Tianji and also the professional social network market in China

1. In your view, what is Tianji and why should people join your network?

Tianji provides Chinese people with a platform to build and maintain their professional networks and to look for career and business opportunities. It’s a place to build their professional identities and to promote themselves, so that opportunities find them. We don’t want it to be simply a site for people looking to get something, but rather somewhere that people can be part of a community.

Most of our members are mid to upper mid-level professionals, ranging from 25 to 40 in age. We have a younger target audience than you might find in other markets. For comparison, LinkedIn’s average age is 43. However, in China, people above 40 are generally less Internet savvy and thus not our ideal target market.

2. What inspired you to create Tianji in China?

The original inspiration came from a realization that professionals in China, unlike their U.S. counterparts, get very little help throughout their career development. Tianji was created to help young professionals connect with like-minded elites of the business world.

From my experience as a VP at Sina, I could see that there was tremendous potential for the Chinese market. We understood that there was real value in a Chinese-focused platform that could help professionals keep in touch and leverage a broad base of relationships. The problem was that nothing in the Chinese market could provide this kind of value. It’s been truly exciting building a base of six million users, and the future looks even better.

3. Do you see yourself as the “LinkedIn of China”?

We feel that the best way for us to succeed in such a unique market is for us to be ourselves. We make great efforts to ensure that our services are specifically tailored to the needs of Chinese professionals.

China is traditionally a connection based society. Everyone knows about the concept of “guanxi,” but it means something totally different in the modern world than it did even 20 years ago. People understand that having three close friends who are well connected, and going to bars and KTV with them is not enough to succeed in modern China. We have worked hard to ensure that Tianji provides our users with a solution for a better way to stay connected in an increasingly complicated and geographically diverse landscape.

4. How does Tianji differentiate itself from similar services?

The value of a professional social networking is the quality of the users and contacts that you can make. We have 6 million registered users, more than any other site in China, and our monthly increase of new users has doubled since the start of the year to 200,000. Our users have access to a broader range of professionals than any other site can offer.