There is no single "China plan."
Treating "enter China" as one line in a plan is where most Western brands go wrong. What entering China actually breaks down into, and how to think about each part.
2026-07-24
Notes.
Short writing on launching and growing brands across Asia and the West. What we see when we help companies enter a new market, find their first customers, grow revenue, and fix what breaks as they scale.
Fractional isn't part-time.
Hours per week is the wrong way to measure a senior operator embedded in your team. Here is the right way, for founders who confuse fractional with freelance.
Why Western brands fail in China.
The famous exits — Home Depot, Marks & Spencer, Amazon's marketplace — weren't marketing failures. They were operating-model failures. What they had in common, and what to do differently.
Douyin vs TikTok Shop, explained.
Same parent in ByteDance, two different machines. Separate accounts, separate algorithms, and a commerce gap you can't run as one — and why it changes how you sell.
Tmall vs JD.com for foreign brands.
Two operating models, not two storefronts. Tmall is a pure marketplace where you run your own flagship; JD is a hybrid that can buy and hold your stock. Which fits your category, and what changes once you pick one.
How to expand an Asian brand into the US market.
It isn't a translation job. The regulatory, logistics, and channel gaps an Asia-side brand hits first — from the MoCRA responsible-person rule to the end of US de minimis — and the order to fix them in.