China Exclusive: Keyboard wizard finds new type of Chinese success

Rail Salimov, an ethnic Bashkir in Russia's Bashkortostan republic, feared the Internet age would kill the Bashkir language.

No mobile devices had keyboards for the language spoken by 1.5 million Bashkirs, who had to use Russian letters to write online.

But a little known Chinese tech startup named Kika restored his hope.

"I had found three or four keyboard apps, but only Kika keyboard team answered me last year," Rail wrote in an e-mail to Xinhua.

He gave the Bashkir layout scheme and a word bank to the Kika team, and in three weeks they released first keyboard with Bashkir letters.

A potential market of just 1.5 million is not feasible for many companies, but Kika founder Hu Xinyong said it was worth doing: "If more people communicate in their own language, the language has a better chance of survival."

The company went on to make keyboards for Romansh speakers in Switzerland and for Hindi speakers.

With a growing number of Chinese high-tech startups competing in the domestic market, Hu has looked abroad, aiming to make his input method China's best new export.

Hu and his team have created different input methods for 70 languages under the Kika brand, drawing 130 million users in 140 countries a year after the launch of its keyboard app on Google Play.

Unlike most Chinese exporters who debut their products in developing Asian neighbors, his team went straight into the United States and Europe. It had 60 percent share of the U.S. third-party input method market, Hu said earlier this year.

"We have taken a globalized path since the company was founded, and we believe we will achieve success globally as long as we create good products," the 40-year-old said in an interview at Kika's Beijing headquarters.

Hu has transformed the Chinese mobile keyboard startup into a Google Top Developer, a hard-won honor that very few Chinese companies share, setting an example for Chinese startups in creating a global brand.

A CHILD'S LAMENT

With an EMBA degree from China's renowned Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, Hu is well versed in operating Internet companies. In 2011, he quit an executive job and began to realize a long-cherished dream of having his own company.

At that time, mobile Internet use had exploded. By 2011, China had 400 million smart phone users, triggering an entrepreneurial boom and prompting the government to offer greater financial support to Internet startups.

"I didn't want to miss the opportunity," said Hu.

But it was easier said than done. After almost two years of trial and error with more than 70 products and services, his team had yet to find the right business.

His young son eventually enlightened him.

"In the first two years, I worked hard and late so my son was asleep when I came home. Most time we used WeChat to communicate. But I was not good at texting and seldom included emoticons or punctuation. One day my wife told me my son felt I was too serious and he was scared to chat with me online," Hu recalled.

He suddenly realized the importance of keyboards: with evermore people using mobile devices to communicate, texting services failed to convey feelings.

"We focused on input method products that we believed would enable people to express themselves accurately, freely and interestingly at the era of mobile Internet."

Hu and his team enriched their products with a wider variety of choices or functions - including 1,600 emoticons, trendy stickers and customized layouts, fonts, and themes - while also marketing overseas, as the domestic competition intensified.

"China is a leader in input method technologies, and many giant companies with millions of users have carved up local markets," said Hu.

"But if you have a global vision, you will find among the world's 7 billion people nearly 5.5 billion people abroad, which is a totally uncharted sea of opportunity for startups with advanced products."

LISTENING TO CUSTOMERS

Despite never having been out of China, Hu realized the key to a successful global company lay with understanding foreign markets. He set up a design center in California, formed an international team - with 10 percent of staff employed abroad - and hired engineers with language skills or experience abroad.

To understand foreign consumers and their tastes, Hu studied big data. "I went through all the comments that users left everyday," he said. "Sometimes they swore, but they were still important to help us identify flaws and improve our services."

Listening to customers helped the company establish a reliable international brand name.

Novel designs and its reputation have made Kika competitive and recognizable, said Hu. "It took us half a year to get a million users, but just two month to break 10 million."

The future of the keyboard is bright, but innovation is essential.

He wants to work with U.S. companies to customize layouts with Disney or NBA elements.

"If you want sustainable worldwide demand, you need to engage with foreign cultures," said Hu. Endi