Life at any IT start-up can be tough, but at the business founded by Adrian Li Kwok-tung, there is an extra element. As an endurance athlete and a Stanford MBA, Li often tries to rally his team of IT developers to join him for workouts or to sign up for marathons – and many of them have done just that.
“It changed their lives,” says Li, referring in particular to a group of 25 colleagues who ran the Beijing marathon with him in 2008. “They really enjoyed the experience.”
In fact, this was one of his tactics for engaging the high performers in his mainland-based team in a market where it can be difficult to recruit and retain IT talent.
“Our first attempt at recruitment was disastrous,” says Li, recalling the early experiences after founding his online English instruction business in China in 2006. “We hadn't built the necessary ties. People joined, they were trained, and they left after a very short time.”
British-born and a seasoned entrepreneur in China and Indonesia, 34-year-old Li is currently managing partner at Imaginato, a Qingdao-based e-commerce venture, and is also establishing a social dining start-up, Qraved, in Jakarta.
Previously, he co-founded two companies in Beijing, one known as Idapted specialising in online English instruction and the other, Airizu, China's first online marketplace for short-term vacation rentals. The former involved building a team of 30 to 40 developers while, at its height, the latter employed a 150-strong team.