Chinese co-working space operator Ucommune is seeking to maximize the value of the thousands of start-ups and entrepreneurs on its platform, by bridging start-up resources with Chinese schools and students through a newly-introduced brand, Ucommune Academy."We're trying to figure out the future [development] direction of the co-working space because co-working is a new concept in China, with only three to four years' history," said Josh Zhang Peng, chief strategy officer of Ucommune and executive headmaster of Ucommune Academy, in a phone interview with China Money Network earlier this month. Zhang said that Ucommune believes education is an effective avenue to test if the new business model can truly help them export start-up resources and capacities.
Ucommune launched the new brand as the Chinese government is aspiring for home-grown innovation and an upgrade of its economy in the industrial value chain. Chinese educational institutions were among the first group to answer the government policy by starting to provide entrepreneurship and innovation education to students in senior schools and universities. "But the Chinese market already stepped forward, while schools are slow to catch up, so we think maybe our capacity in serving the market can be helpful in building the equivalent entrepreneurship education," said Zhang.
Josh Zhang Peng is the chief strategy officer of Chinese co-working space operator Ucommune and executive headmaster of Ucommune Academy, an entrepreneurship and innovation education affiliate launched by Ucommune in March 2019.
Ucommune Academy raised nearly RMB10 million (US$1.48 million) in an angel round led by Letai Capital, an investment vehicle of Chinese online learning service provider Shanghai Retech Enterprise Management Group. The company already forged cooperation with a few universities in Beijing, with a 2019 plan to scale up across China through collaborations with over 50 schools.
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Below is an edited version of the interview.
Q: Can you give us a brief introduction of Ucommune Academy, including what does it do, and what are the reasons behind the launch of this brand?
A: Ucommune Academy was launched in 2018. As we have gathered over 10,000 small and medium enterprises on our co-working platform Ucommune after three-and-half-year operation, we want to maximize the value of these companies and entrepreneurs.
Since 2014, Premier Li Keqiang launched the so-called "massive entrepreneurship" as a national policy, universities are actually among the first group of institutions to answer the government's appeal. A lot of Chinese universities started to build their entrepreneurship academies or entrepreneurship faculties. But since universities don't a resourceful start-up related ecosystem, Ucommune Academy wants to help universities build their entrepreneurship education.
Universities and senior schools are the first tier we target by helping students start their own projects and businesses. We seek to select high-end entrepreneurs: someone who has run a business for over one year; someone who already attracted venture capital in series A or B round; someone who is a pioneer in a certain industry. We send these entrepreneurs to schools to teach students how to start a business. By doing so, we try to link the market with universities, and also give universities more innovative ideas, information, support, and service in their entrepreneurship education.
Q: What are the most frequently-asked questions from these young students you've talked to?
A: The most frequently-asked question is: If I start a business, what could be the most valuable industries to start with? Because they don't know the general trend. To give them the answer, we usually select the most popular industries based on the start-ups on the Ucommune platform,
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