Joey Chung, Co-Founder And CEO At The News Lens- An Independent Digital Media Startup In Taiwan With 14M+ Readers

Joey Chung is the Co-Founder and CEO at The News Lens. It is an Independent Digital Media Startup, now one of the largest independent media platforms in Taiwan and Greater China with offices in Taipei, HK, and other parts of Asia Pacific.

With 14M+ unique readers monthly and investors from the previous manager of the Washington Post, 500 startups, we aim to be the go-to platform for the global Chinese millennial crowd regarding news, opinions, video, and mobile content.

Joey earned a Master’s Degree in business administration from Harvard University in 2009. In 2011, he became General Manager of Sanrio China.

He then returned to Taiwan and co-founded The News Lens in 2013, one of the fastest growing digital media in Asia that focuses on facts and offers diverse news and voices perspectives. Joey has written several books and is also a columnist of Business Weekly.

In an exclusive interview with AsiaTechDaily, Joey Chung says:

I keep myself motivated every day, just like how I imagine every parent wakes up every morning. No matter what, your baby has already been born, so as a parent, it’s my job to ensure that the baby reaches its full potential and is one day able to self sustain. Anything other than that is static, and we don’t have too much time to waste worrying about intangible things, so we should be fully focused on making sure our baby grows up to its full potential, and that keeps you going every single day to the point that you don’t stop to think about it everything else.

We only have one shot at life, so my biggest fear ever since I was a young child was that one day I don’t want to look back when I was 30 or 40 or 50 and regret not having done the things that I can only do during certain stages of life. Once you accept that assumption, you’ll do your best not to waste time, leap at every opportunity, and leave no regrets and all that forces you to do a good job if you are passionate about it.

I hopefully will be remembered one day for being one of the people that helped bring one of the largest independent digital content plus technology platforms from a startup to its eventual exit as a public company on the international stage and prove that this journey is worth it and doable and therefore have a positive impact on future wave of entrepreneurs.

Read on to know more about Joey Chung and his journey.

Please tell me about your personal background and What motivated you to get started with your company?

Joey Chung: I grew up in the US but went to school both in the US and later in Taiwan, where my family is originally from. After graduating from business school in the US, I worked previously in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and was later sent by my last employer to Shanghai to manage the Shanghai office. I used to work for the Japanese licensing/branding and media company called Sanrio, the owner of Hello Kitty.

I met my current co-founding partner right before we started the company. We discussed the need in Greater China and global Chinese markets for fair, balanced, and high-quality digital media for the millennial generation at a time when traditional media was slowly transitioning to digital. We thought we were in good time and opportunity to seize that need.

What is your current main product, and can you share any previous product pivot story to the current product?

Joey Chung: We originally started with one media brand, the News Lens, which was meant to be focusing on serious global news and only focus on worthy news and high-quality content. After that became increasingly larger and larger, we did pivot into becoming a media group. In the past 2 1/2 years, we have bought four different other media verticals ranging from sports to movies. Our recent acquisitions was another pivot, acquiring a big data market research firm and mobile advertising tech, symbolizing that the company is increasingly becoming more and more big data and tech service-related, complementary to our existing media business.

How much money have you raised in total so far? When was the recent funding round?

Joey Chung: So far, over the past six years, we’ve raised less than US$10 million. We are currently trying to raise our final funding round before hopefully aiming for an IPO exit within the next two years.

What were the internal decision processes in determining when to begin fundraising, and what were the logistics for this? And how many investors have you met so far, and how did you meet these investors, and which channels worked best for you?

Joey Chung: Since we’re almost 7 years old, to date, we’ve gone through four rounds already. Since we’ve gone through four rounds already, I would say by this moment; we’ve met most of the large institutional venture capitals or angel investors in Taiwan, Asia, and many parts of Silicon Valley. We determine it’s time to begin fundraising again when major milestones from the last round are completed, and we are six months to a year away from needing our next capital injection.

What are the biggest challenges and obstacles that you have faced in the process of fundraising? If you had to start over, what would you do differently?

Joey Chung: For us, since the original goal of the company was to be an independent media with no political bias or corporate influence or agenda, by far the largest challenge and obstacle during the fundraising process is that many of the potential investors that might offer you the best valuation or most interested in you at the end of the day often are exactly the kind of investors that you need to avoid to preserve your independent media image. They are often aligned with certain political groups or large conglomerates or families that have a proven history or agenda to influence media, so it’s very challenging to screen investors very carefully while at the same time often having to say no to certain groups of investors.

What are your milestones for the next round? And what are your goals for the future?

Joey Chung: Our milestones for this upcoming round are to finish our final acquisitions so that we become one of the largest digital media groups in the global Chinese language market and add related data analytics or tech services such as AI advertising technology or big data analytics. After that stage, we hope to be in the early preparation phase for a potential IPO exit.

How have you attracted users, and with what strategy have you grown your company from the start to now?

Joey Chung: The initial first wave of users was attracted quite organically and naturally. We focused on being the go-to platform for the young digital generation, where they wanted to read important news or share the latest opinions about certain social issues. Our goal was to remain as independent and dedicated to that image and ideal as possible, and fortunately, through word-of-mouth, it would attract more and more users going forward based on that image and sense of trust.

Which has been the best marketing software tool for the growth of your startup, and why? And What do most startups get wrong about marketing in general?

Joey Chung: We haven’t specifically used anyone’s marketing software tool for our growth, but from other startups we’ve encountered, a common problem seems to be underestimating marketing’s importance. For many Asian companies, since the original background often comes from engineering or a very technical product background, people oftentimes think that their number one job is to create the best product, and once you have the best product, marketing and sales will come naturally. Often, it’s not that easy. Even if you have the best product, enough emphasis must be put on marketing and sales to go after your potential clients.

How do you plan to expand globally? What are the most common mistakes companies make with global expansion?

Joey Chung: Since we originated from the Chinese language, we plan to continue expanding where there’s a strong overseas Chinese clientele in terms of readership, which means Southeast Asia and the US, or other markets like Australia and the UK. Some of it will be through organic reach by hiring more editors or writers in those regions, and the other more substantial options would be to enter into a joint venture or acquisition with local partners. We think the most common mistakes companies make that to automatically assume that whatever works in their home market should translate easily into other markets even if the culture and language are similar; there are so many different small details and nuances that can be easily overlooked, and all of a sudden it becomes a very expensive drain on resources, time and money.

How do you handle this COVID-19 outbreak situation for your company’s survival in the future?

Joey Chung: Luckily the Covid situation in Taiwan is not that bad and, on average, probably much more normal compared to other markets. For us, of course, it is a chance to settle down, re-adjust internally to make sure that we have a better organization, more efficient, and relook at all of our major priorities in the next few years. It has forced a lot of change in our international expansion plans originally, so it forces you to adapt very quickly.

What are the most common mistakes founders make when they start a company? What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? And What advice do you have for someone who is interested in doing similar things like yours or in a similar direction?

Joey Chung: I think maybe it would being too idealistic in the initial days. Founders are all idealistic initially; otherwise, they wouldn’t have taken all the risk to found a new company, but being too idealistic can be very dangerous and in the long term, sometimes being unable to be flexible, compromise, or face the harsh reality of all of the painful stuff like fundraising, socializing every day with strangers or meeting new investors while trying to hit sales quotas. Therefore, in recent years, the most frequent advice that I give to potential entrepreneurs is that having dreams and being idealistic is great for right before going to bed each night. Still, when you wake up in the morning, you must be prepared for war, you must be painfully realistic, and every plan must be tangible with worst-case scenario planning. Trying to be a good person, contributing to society, all of that stuff is great, but fundamentally at the end of the day, potential investors don’t care about all that if your business model is not working. You must be very harsh towards yourself and all of the upcoming challenges coming forward.

How do you keep yourself motivated every day?

Joey Chung: I keep myself motivated every day, just like how I imagine every parent wakes up every morning. No matter what, your baby has already been born, so as a parent, it’s my job to ensure that the baby reaches its full potential and is one day able to self sustain. Anything other than that is static, and we don’t have too much time to waste worrying about intangible things, so we should be fully focused on making sure our baby grows up to its full potential, and that keeps you going every single day to the point that you don’t stop to think about it everything else.

What are the top three life lessons that you want your (future) sons and daughters to know? What would you like to be remembered for?

Joey Chung: We only have one shot at life, so my biggest fear ever since I was a young child was that one day I don’t want to look back when I was 30 or 40 or 50 and regret not having done the things that I can only do during certain stages of life. Once you accept that assumption, you’ll do your best not to waste time, leap at every opportunity, and leave no regrets and all that forces you to do a good job if you are passionate about it.

I hopefully will be remembered one day for being one of the people that helped bring one of the largest independent digital content plus technology platforms from a startup to its eventual exit as a public company on the international stage and prove that this journey is worth it and doable and therefore have a positive impact on future wave of entrepreneurs.

You can follow Joey Chung here.

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