I help mid-sized companies get real answers in China — which factory, which engineer, which phone number, and what it will actually cost to get it done.
Reports tell you the total. Analysts tell you the trend. Somebody has to tell you what to do on Monday.
A consultancy will tell you how many GWh CATL and Hithium added this year. Accurate, useful, and completely unactionable if you need capacity in Q2.
A senior analyst will tell you Hithium's production ramp, the line utilization, the expansion plan. Better — still not a phone number.
Who to talk to. What it costs. How fast you can lock allocation and when the containers actually ship.
The first two are free. The third one is why you're here.
Not case studies. Things I actually did, with the parts that didn't go perfectly left in.
A consultancy tells you how much storage capacity was added in China this year. An analyst tells you the production schedule. Neither tells you who signs the allocation, what the real price is, or how fast a slot can move.
That part I do in person — in the meeting where allocation is decided, with the person who can actually move the number.
"The market data tells you it's tight. I tell you which door to knock on, and what happens after it opens."
Industry reports will tell you two of the world's top five energy-storage companies are based in Xiamen. Technical research will tell you which chemistry suits your wind farm.
Neither will sit with the engineering team and work the problem: given your technical constraints and your local building code, what design performs best, prices best, and still leaves redundancy for the next phase.
That's the conversation I get into — and stay in until the numbers hold.
"A report gives you a technology. I help you get a plan that passes your building code."
My parents ran a 100 m² tobacco, liquor and tea shop in Xiamen. Three people. At its peak it turned over about ¥10M a year.
We sold ¥50,000 bottles. We also talked people out of them.
A client would come in for two bottles of Louis XIII to visit someone important. We'd tell him no — that man drinks baijiu, and only his circle knows it. Bring the Cognac and you've announced you don't know him.
What we sold instead was the fit: whose organization to be introduced through, which relationship to build first, and what the man actually likes to drink.
"We were never selling the bottle. We were selling the outcome of the visit."
Fixed fees. No commission, no finder's percentage. The person who gets paid on a deal can't afford to tell you it's a bad deal.
Four steps. If I can't do step two, I tell you before you pay anything.
Not the topic. The decision you're actually facing, and the date it has to be made.
What can be found out, what can't, what it costs, how long. In writing, in one page.
Calls, factory floor, engineers' room. Usually 5–15 working days depending on the ask.
One page you can act on, with the parts that are uncertain marked as uncertain.
Three people, 100 square metres, about ¥10M a year at its peak.
My parents never sold products. They sold the answer to a question the customer couldn't quite ask: what is this visit supposed to accomplish, who is the person receiving it, and what would make that person feel seen.
Everything I do now is the same trade, moved from a shop counter to a factory floor. I find out what the customer can't find out — and I tell them the truth about it, including when the truth is "don't do this".
I got my accounting degree at Ohio State University and worked in Boston for a year and a half before coming home. That's where I learned how the other side of the table thinks.
The shop taught me what people actually want. Ohio State and Boston taught me what they need to see before they believe it. Both matter.
I'm based in Xiamen, and I work in Xiamen, Shanghai and Shenzhen. I don't take work I can't physically show up for.
One piece every two weeks. What I saw, how I found out, and what it cost.
What a 100 m² shop in Xiamen taught me about information asymmetry — and why I still ask the same question today.
The three layers of a Chinese supplier's price, and which one the sales rep is allowed to tell you.
Thirty minutes, no charge. If I can't help, I'll say so in the first ten and point you at someone who can.