Xuejineng.cn, China’s Answer To SkillShare? Maybe Not

SkillShare is “a community marketplace to learn anything from anyone.” If you know how to play a guitar, you can probably teach a beginner for a couple hours each week in exchange for cash. The idea sounds good but it hasn’t been proven successful yet in the U.S. I mean, there’s a lot of press coverage but it isn’t proven to be a workable model like (for example) AirBnB.

But Chinese entrepreneurs were still quick to spot the “SkillShare idea” and execute it in China. Co-founder, Yong Chen, acknowledged that the idea is similar to SkillShare but is confident that they are the first, or at least among the first to develop the SkillShare concept in China.

Despite starting just a couple of months ago, Xuejineng.cn (the name means learn skills in direct translation) is adding five new courses each week. He says that Xuejineng.cn now has a small but active community. Assuming the idea is fresh in China, it could possibly pick up steam. But I seriously don’t see much activity on the homepage. The use of Kung-fu panda as illustration is pretty smart though.

Xuejineng is under the Gaoren Group, which also runs About-me.cn, an About.me clone in China.

Besides Xuejineng, Singapore-based start-up Learnemy and Chinaccelerator’s eProf also have similar concept to SkillShare’s. It’s interesting to see how the SkillShare ideas are popping up and makes me wonder if the concept can prevail in Asia.