Feature: Taiwan youngsters experience mainland entrepreneurial enthusiasm

XIAMEN, June 17 -- After Wu Zhanbang, a young Chinese mainland entrepreneur finishes pitching his startup to the Taiwanese audience, David Chia, head of the visiting delegation, asks him how old he is. Wu's answer "22" is met by a huge round of applause.

A group of 20 Taiwanese youngsters are visiting the First Maker, a startup incubator in Jimei Software Park in the southeastern city of Xiamen from Wednesday to Friday. Here, many entrepreneurs, like Wu, are fresh college graduates.

The visit is part of many exchange activities linked to the Straits Forum, the largest annual event across the Taiwan Strait highlighting people-to-people exchanges, which ends Friday.

Each delegate is paired with a startup based at First Maker.

Alan Yeh, 40, from Taiwan's southern city Tainan, is working with Zheng Yang, CEO of e-commerce firm Quality Youth.

Alan, who works in marketing, is impressed that Zheng is also 22 years old.

"I had a very clear objective back in college, so I prepared myself throughout my studies," says Zheng, a graduate from Jimei University just miles away from the software park.

Zheng tells Alan that his company exports mainland goods through foreign e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, and Lazada, an online shopping platform in Southeast Asia.

"The mainland has a lot of good products, hence, huge business opportunities," Zheng tells Alan, unwrapping a box of goods to be shipped abroad, and handing Alan a diving mask that can be hooked up to a GoPro camera.

Most of Zheng's orders are from the United States, and his company, which only launched last year, began to turn a profit this year, according to him.

Alan says he has heard about the fast growth of the Internet industry on the mainland, and he wants to see it with his own eyes. He is impressed with the support startups on the mainland receive.

David says the support offered to young entrepreneurs is very important, because startups can hardly break even in the first few years, but when rent is factored out, aspirant entrepreneurs are more likely to explore their ideas.

Mina Yi, 33, another visitor from Taiwan, photographs every wall hanging at the First Maker office during the guided tour. The hangings feature mainland business icons including Jack Ma of Alibaba and Pony Ma of qq.com, as well as Steve Jobs of Apple.

"The visit has been very helpful, because I also want to start up my own e-commerce business, and seeing how it is done on the mainland is inspiring," Mina said.

"I have heard a mainland friend talking about the situation on the mainland. Seeing it myself makes me anxious that given the speed of progress here, we may not be able to catch up," Mina says with a chuckle.

Alan says experiencing the mainland firsthand is much better than learning from the media.