Qunar Co-Founder on How to Make Money in China

This is a part of our TechCrunch Disrupt 2011 event coverage.

There is so much investment in China these days but we don’t hear much about acquisition. Even when we do, it is usually foreign companies acquiring a Chinese company.

Fritz Demopoulos, the co-founder of Qunar.com (the e-travel company which received a $308 million investment from Baidu) says at Disrupt Beijing that exits are less probable in China now.

He describes the competition in China as being similar to the story in Romance of Three The Kingdoms. The story tells a tale of three kingdoms (Wei, Shu, and Wu) fighting over total domination in China. Demopoulos makes the analogy between this and the scene in China that we have now, as no one is willing to give way to seek possible merger and acquisition.

While competition is harsh in China, there are still plenty of opportunities. And as an entrepreneur in the country, Demopoulos explains that there are basically four ways to make money in the market:

1. Being a broker, middle man
2. Telling the China story, issuing reports, etc.
3. Government-related opportunities
4. Great products that scale

Demopoulos says that point four is the biggest prize and entrepreneurs like Robin Li (Baidu) and Jack Ma (Alibaba Group) are nailing it.