These 7 US startups show that your business can survive in China

Twitter, Facebook, Dropbox, and nearly everything that Google produces – all blocked in China. But that’s not discouraging some US startups from entering the notorious tricky and divergent Chinese market.

Let’s take a look at the fate of seven American ventures in China – including Evernote, LinkedIn, Uber – and see if their progress holds any lessons for other overseas apps and services looking for a slice of the Chinese web.

We’ve ranked these seven US startups on their performance so far in China and given them a score out of 10 for their ability to (so far) cut it in a tough, unique market. Using a mix of user numbers where available, app store ratings and comments, and the gut feeling from someone who likes to peek at what other people are using on their phones whilst on the subway (yes, not exactly scientific), we’ve put the list in order of which US firm is making the best job of their Chinese expansion. First places goes to…

Evernote

Official China launch: May 2012

Success rate thus far in China: 9.2 / 10

Having already accrued some Chinese users over the course of 2011, Evernote arrived in China in May 2012 with local staff and a new brand name. Indeed, operating in China necessitated a whole different service that’s disconnected from the international version of Evernote. In China, it’s branded as Yinxiang Biji.

Upon launch, the Evernote blog cautioned people: “[U]sers of Yinxiang Biji should be aware that Chinese authorities may have the right to access their data according to current regulations.” That’s why a spin-off service was needed. The Chinese service lacks collaborative notes.

Evernote’s main rival – indeed, its larger competitor – is Netease’s (NASDAQ:NTES) Youdao YunBiJi. The Chinese web giant hit 15 million users for its note syncing app last summer, shortly after Evernote grew to four million Chinese users. But since then Evernote managed to double its China user-base to eight million as of November last year.

Netease is being aggressive with pricing, offering 80 percent of Evernote’s premium features for free. Netease also has the advantage of being able to cross-promote its notes app in its popular news-reader apps – effectively giving it free advertising. In contrast, Evernote is on its own.

While the Youdao Yunbiji app is more popular than Evernote’s Chinese app in the local app stores, Evernote is holding up well with plenty of comments and five-star ratings on the China iOS store, and over 1,200 ‘likes’ on the Wandoujia store.

LinkedIn

Official China launch: February 2014 (in beta)

Flipboard

Uber

TuneIn

Pocket

Path

You can survive on the Chinese web, but…

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