New Hong Kong Based Startup Enables Consumers to Create Customized Metal Business Cards Online
When most people think of startup culture and innovative online businesses they usually associate them with Silicon Valley, MIT, and other North American tech hubs. This is understandable due to the seminal role these hubs have had for the movement over the past quarter of a century, however as important as these locations were, it was always clear their exclusivity could not be sustained.
Hong Kong - Startup city?
In many ways it seems as though the forefront of innovation is already very much in the process of shifting away from the US in favor of Asia’s bustling cities. In no place is this process more evident perhaps than in Hong Kong, where business-friendly laws and taxation, coupled with a tradition of cosmopolitan commerce, are steadily fostering a vibrant startup community. Hong Kong's stock exchange was where Alibaba.com, chose to complete its $1.7 billion IPO back in 2007. At the time it was the biggest startup company’s IPO since Google's 2004 NASDAQ offering.
PureMetalCards
My interview guest and the star of today’s post is Richard Buckley, and although he isn’t quite ready for an IPO he is in many ways he’s characteristic of HK’s unique entrepreneurial spirit. Richard recently launched PureMetalCards.com - dedicated to enabling customers to design and order their own business-cards online, and whereas this idea is hardly new, Richard’s site has a unique twist - all the cards offered are made exclusively out of metal - anything from high polish stainless steel up to 22kt gold.
Mike: So Richard how did you come to live in Asia?
Richard: “...As a Yorkshire man you’ve basically got two options - life as a farmer orlife down the mines. I fled to London... After “being made redundant” during the2001 bubble, I decided to sell up and move to new pastures. I headed out to Australia and Asia and never looked back...”
Mike: How did the idea for PureMetalCards come about?
Richard: “...I’d been looking at a number of business opportunities, including a Groupon type app targeted at affluent women, importing spa fish from Turkey, and investing in a rubber plantation. I was pretty much getting ready to make up my mind when my best friend happened to show me as a curio a metal business card he’d gotten at an Aston Martin dealership. It was a light-bulb moment as the idea came into sight.”
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