China property venture You+ helps its young tenants achieve their dreams
With financial backing from Xiaomi's Lei Jun, You+ co-founder Liu Yang is developing a new kind of investment property business -- one that cares more about tenants' dreams than profits
Liu Yang, co-founder of You+ International Youth Community, worked as a sales and marketing executive in different cities, including Chongqing, Fuzhou, Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong, for more than 10 years before he went to Guangzhou in 2011 to start his own venture.
Based on his experience and the hard life for new migrants in China's big cities, Liu wants to shelter "young souls", particularly those who have a dream. Most importantly, he is trying to build up the feeling of family among tenants so they can help each other in their life and careers.
It has proven popular so far. All his projects have been leased out within one month after opening and there are still long queues in cities such as Beijing and Guangzhou that keep Liu busy in raising money and looking for new projects.
During China's urbanisation process, most of the migrants to big cities were young people. I'd been drifting across a few cities for over a decade and asked myself what these young people really wanted.
