Exclusive | The shy geek behind Hellobike – the latecomer that battled for survival in China’s bike sharing industry
- Hellobike has survived a brutal shake out, emerging in third spot behind Ofo and Mobike
- Yang does not engage in small talk in the office, preferring to get on with the job while listening to light music with his Airpods
It was the only moment of relief in two years of anxiety. In November last year, Yang Lei got confirmation that Alibaba Group Holding’s financial arm, Ant Financial Services, would back his bike sharing start-up Hellobike. It meant nothing less than the continued survival of the company which Yang, a serial entrepreneur, had co-founded two years earlier when he was only 28.
A year on and the anxiety is still there, but Shanghai-based Hellobike has survived a brutal shake out in China’s bike sharing industry, emerging in third spot behind two Beijing-based companies, Ofo and Mobike.
“You need to deal with pressure and anxiety everyday when you are an entrepreneur,” Yang told the South China Morning Post over coffee at the Kempinski Hotel’s cafe in Beijing. “I’m already very satisfied to have experienced that brief moment of exhilaration,” he said, referring to Ant Financial’s investment.
Earlier this year, Hellobike announced that it secured 2 billion yuan (US$288 million) in funding from Ant Financial, a case of a little-known start-up being backed by one of China’s most valuable internet companies. That is when Hellobike got the attention of local and international media.
Yet Yang comes across as media-shy and even modest, declining to answer when asked if he is good at dealing with technical problems. The computer science graduate, who earned the nickname “Da Niu” (expert) at college because he always won playing video games, said he does not like to be portrayed as a tech genius. For this interview with the Post, Yang wore a black down-filled coat and dark blue jeans that day, looking more like a college student than the chief executive of a company employing 3,000 people.
