Miranda Qu is the co-founder of Xiaohongshu (“Little Red Book” in Chinese), the world’s largest lifestyle platform that integrates community and content with ecommerce. Over 75 million users spend a total of over 100 million yuan per month on the app to buy fashion, cosmetics, and lifestyle products from both overseas and domestic brands. Xiaohongshu is a pioneer in integrating content, commerce, and community — the “3 Cs” that GGV managing partner Hans Tung thinks today’s ecommerce platforms must possess in order to stand out in “the age of Alibaba and Amazon.”
Miranda graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University with a degree in journalism, and left her job in 2013 to start Xiaohongshu. In this episode, Miranda discusses how she met her cofounder, Charlwin Mao, in a shopping mall in Boston; Xiaohongshu’s journey from a “Lonely Planet for overseas shopping” to one of China’s most popular ecommerce platforms; and why young Chinese consumers increasingly prefer domestic brands over foreign ones.
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The 996 Podcast is brought to you by GGV Capital and co-produced by the Sinica Podcast. On this show, we interview movers and shakers of China’s tech industry, as well as tech leaders who have a U.S.-China cross-border perspective.
GGV Capital is a multi-stage venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, Shanghai, and Beijing. We have been partnering with leading technology entrepreneurs for the past 18 years from seed to pre-IPO. With $3.8 billion in capital under management across eight funds, GGV invests in globally minded entrepreneurs in consumer internet, e-commerce, frontier tech, and enterprise. GGV has invested in over 280 companies, with 29 IPOs and 22 unicorns. Portfolio companies include Airbnb, Alibaba, Bytedance (Toutiao), Ctrip, Didi Chuxing, DOMO, Hashicorp, Hellobike, Houzz, Keep, Slack, Square, Wish, Xiaohongshu, YY, and others. Find out more at ggvc.com.
