BEIJING, December 5, 2011 (City Weekend) — Stacey Shine, as told to Mikala Reasbeck
My business partner, Mark Thirwall, and I met in Melbourne, Australia about 11 years ago. At the time, we were both preparing to set off on our first adventures as backpacking and overland tour leaders throughout Asia. As tour guides, we both noticed a lack of places offering authentic and educational cultural experiences. These, we thought, would be perfect places to take visitors for relaxing but rewarding experiences focused on points of local culture. Since we lease and do not own the property, we decided not to go crazy with renovations. We knocked down some walls to open up the rooms and we did major upgrades to the kitchen in order to host cooking classes. One thing we learned through the renovation process is that no matter how well you think you’ve communicated what you want, someone should always be there to oversee the work. One time I was talking to a contractor about hypothetically knocking out a wall, then I went out for a bit and when I came back the wall was gone. It wasn’t a disaster, but it wasn’t necessarily what we wanted, either. And another contractor brought in his wife to serve as an electrician, a plumber, a construction worker, and we didn’t realize this until we noticed her painting our brand new kitchen chairs! While renovations can be irritating, the business end of things can be absolutely painful. When we were starting the process for the Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise (WFOE), local people said, “No! Don’t register. It just brings attention and you don’t need it,” and it was difficult to do during the Olympics. Registering with a Chinese business partner would have been easier, but we wanted the WFOE. I already had a Hong Kong-registered business, Connecting Cultures, set up, so we used that to register in the Chinese mainland. Now, The Hutong is still registered under Connecting Cultures, but people don’t recognize that name, so we don’t really use it. All told, the registration process took about one year, and getting the fapiao mechanism took a bit longer. Jess, a Chinese woman who works with us, was on the phone every day during the registration process, because we had so many questions. I’m not going to lie: the process can be very confusing. For the WFOE, you have to nominate a currency. We chose the Australian dollar, but the bank couldn’t accept it and, without telling us, switched the currency to U.S. dollars—causing us to lose hundreds of yuan in the exchange rate. In the beginning, it was just Mark and me handling everything from marketing to the website, finances to planning the calendar. We soon realized we would have to trust other people to work for us, like Morgan O’Hara who manages the day-to-day operations. I teach IT at BCIS two days a week, while Mark works on his project, Tea Journeys, and adventure racing. We would love to make our livings from The Hutong, but the business is not quite at that level yet. We also really, really love the other things we do, so it doesn’t seem like a bad trade-off. We don’t have investors. We don’t even really have a business plan. We had an idea, found a space, and have let things evolve. Mark and I agree that this should be fun, and when it’s not fun or it’s too stressful, then it’s over.
It's Mikala! 