This is a young team with an international vision of the post-80s and post-90s generation. What they do is also a project with a very Chinese characteristic -- to take foreigners to Chinese restaurants to taste good food, and to take foreigners to travel routes with Chinese characteristics. Its online platform seeks to be "known as the city of douban" for foreigners. "We want to make LetsChina a window for foreigners to come to China." "Said Lin shen, founder of LetsChina.
An Arab meal.
In September a weekend afternoon, bright a Arab restaurant by the river, ma Lin deep and several of his team members to come here early, waiting for friends who come here to participate in the activities at night.
This is the seventh time that LetsChina has organized the LetsEat since it was launched in September. To put it simply, LetsEat is to let some strange foreigners go to dinner parties in unfamiliar places in China, and enjoy the special food and exchange and play. The theme of the event is to taste the Arabic cuisine and start at 6 PM.
He dressed himself up early, dressed in a white Arab robe and a red and white chequered turban. Some of the participants came together, others came; There are university students from Beijing, young people who study abroad, white-collar workers and foreigners. One of the Canadian boys has come for the second time to dine with such a stranger.
Before the event began, people had been chatting in twos and threes. There was a girl who was writing little notes in Arabic, ready to be used for a little while, and sharing little anecdotes about learning Arabic. The subject requires a person who knows Arabic, which she has specifically recruited from the Internet. At six o 'clock everyone came and sat down at two large tables. Lin took off his dark glasses, and everyone laughed -- it wasn't Arab, it was like! The game starts with a few simple Arabic words, and then comes the game. We play together, language and action, simple and exciting, soon the atmosphere becomes hot. As the dish goes up, Lin explains the characteristics behind each dish and the experience of reading in Saudi Arabia.
In fact, LetsEat is only one of LetsChina's offline products. Besides, it has special tourism, which is the earliest product of LetsChina. LetsChina has also launched an online platform that seeks to create "zhihua-douban" for foreigners. LetsEat is LetsChina's second offline service product. "We want to make LetsChina a window for foreigners to come to China." Lin said.
Young people
LetsChina's team can be described as "raw", with members born in the 1980s and 1990s, the smallest born in 1996, the largest born in 1986, most of them foreign-language majors, some already with entrepreneurial experience. LetsChina, another founder of LetsChina, was born in 1996, and LetsChina is already her fourth venture. Another partner at Beijing language and culture university did a project on the foreign kitchen. Lin is already a second startup, and his first project is still in the works: "with this first bucket of gold, I was able to do this project."
Lin has a tour of Saudi Arabia and the United States. When he was studying in Saudi Arabia, he was selected by the school to attend many international conferences. Lin felt that he had benefited greatly from participating in these activities and, in his words, "see a lot of the world". But he also found that very few Chinese students in the international conventions, he felt that there should be more students to take this opportunity to expand international vision, and she can show Chinese students around the world to the international convention, and return with entrepreneurial ideas. That's what he calls the "first bucket of gold".
Lin has been exposed to many foreigners abroad and knows they have a strong interest in China. After returning to China, Lin found that foreigners in China also wanted to know more about and integrate into China's cultural life, but there was no good way. He had a vague feeling that he could do something with foreigners to experience Chinese life.
Lin found his friend, shi minyue, and they decided to do LetsChina together. The LetsChina team gradually gained seven people after joining them. The first thing they think of is to learn from the model of Airbnb, a short rental platform from abroad, to be a host family service for foreigners in China. To this end, they also conducted a questionnaire survey to see how many Chinese families are willing to receive foreigners and get good feedback. But the problem came quickly.
Because most LetsChina team members just out of school, or school students, can come into contact with foreigners are students, so they decided to start from the foreign student market. Paradoxically, these students are already settled in their schools, and there is no need to provide them with homestay services. Lin can only think about other services.
LetsChina core team members are from Beijing, have strong traditional culture colour place of visit in Beijing, and tie-dye, clay, paper cutting, the characteristic such as guqin technology experience points are understanding, Lin deep think it should be interested in foreigners. And these places are relatively small, in terms of revenue ratio, big travel agencies generally do not go. Therefore, LetsChina began to make the service of characteristic tour routes, taking foreigners for "short day trip", starting from Beijing.
The LetsChina team works as a tour guide, renting a car and buying tickets, as long as more than 10 people sign up for a group tour. As a member of the Chinese academy of Beijing foreign studies university, and some foreign friends, they soon succeeded in forming a group, and then began distributing leaflets and class propaganda in the school. "In the future, travel agency travel line products can also be sold here. Even when we have more money and more hands, we can focus on route planning and publicity, and then outsource to the local tour guide team. Lin said.
However, tourism is not enough. This is not a high frequency demand. It cannot meet the needs of foreigners in China to continuously integrate into Chinese culture, nor can it keep users' stickiness. Therefore, Lin thought of the online platform, but not only the tourism information, but also the integration of more information.
In addition, they noted that the problems encountered by foreigners when they first came to China were not available on the existing platform. They want to make the online platform of LetsChina a foreigner's knowledge, where to go, douban city, mainly provide three aspects of service: tourism, q&a, tongcheng information. The site was first in English and Korean, and Lin was also trying to make a multilingual version.
Lack of manpower is the biggest problem that LetsChina has faced in the early stage. At the same time, Lin is still considering whether there is a more efficient and popular way to communicate with people than offline travel, until he sees a report on EatWith on ABC News. EatWith is a kind of dining mode for diners in a foreign country. A quote from the report inspired Lin: "EatWith is very similar to Airbnb. Let founder some unexpected is, swathes of the world is much larger than the tourism enthusiasts, so that the global travellers had been intended to prepare big platform, is now the cooks from domestic or even dinner party leader occupied more than half."
On the second day of the report, Lin decided to add the service of special meals to LetsChina.
这是一个由80后、90后组成，拥有国际化视野的年轻团队。他们做的也是一个非常有中国特色的项目——带老外到中国特色餐厅品尝美食，带老外参加有中国特色的旅游线路;其推出的线上平台力图成为针对外国人的“知乎+豆瓣同城”。“我们希望把LetsChina做成外国人来中国的窗口。”LetsChina创始人林深说。
一次阿拉伯特色的饭局
9月一个周末的下午，亮马河南岸的一家阿拉伯风味餐厅里，林深和他的几个团队成员早早地来到这里，等候晚上来这里参加活动的朋友们。
这已经是LetsChina在9月份推出LetsEat之后组织的第七次聚会。简单地说，LetsEat就是让一些陌生的外国人到中国国内陌生的地方去吃饭聚会，边品尝特色美食边交流玩耍。而这次的活动主题是品尝阿拉伯美食，晚上6点开始。
林深早早给自己装扮了一下，穿上阿拉伯白色长袍，戴上红白格子头巾。参加活动的人有的结伴而来，有的一个人赶来;有来自北京高校的大学生，有在国外念书回国旅游的年轻人，有公司白领，也有外国人。其中一个加拿大小伙子已经是第二次来参加这种陌生人聚餐了。
活动开始之前，大家已经三三两两地聊上了。有个女孩一边用阿拉伯语写着小纸条，准备一会儿在活动上用，一边分享着学习阿拉伯语的小趣事。这个主题活动需要一个懂阿拉伯语的人，她就是被特意从网上招募来的。6点钟，人都来齐了，满满围坐了两个大长桌。林深摘下墨镜，大家哄笑一片——原来不是阿拉伯人啊，还挺像!活动从游戏开始，先学了几个简单的阿拉伯语单词，然后现学现用到游戏当中。大家一起游戏，语言和动作配合，简单又刺激，很快气氛就变得热络起来。菜一道道上来，林深在一旁给大家介绍每道菜背后的特色，夹杂着自己在沙特读书时的见闻经历。
其实LetsEat只是LetsChina的线下产品之一，除此之外还有特色旅游，这是LetsChina最早的产品。LetsChina还推出了线上平台，力图打造成针对外国人的“知乎+豆瓣同城”。LetsEat是LetsChina的第二个线下服务产品。“我们希望把LetsChina做成外国人来中国的窗口。”林深说。
年轻人生猛
LetsChina的团队可以用“生猛”来形容，成员横跨80后、90后，最小的1996年出生，最大的1986年出生，大多都是外语专业，有的早已有创业经历。LetsChina的另一位创始人石旻玥是1996年生人，LetsChina已经是她的第四个创业项目了。团队另一位合伙人在北京语言大学做过关于外国人厨房的项目。而林深自己也已经是第二次创业，他的第一个项目目前还在做：“有了这第一桶金，我才得以做现在这个项目。”
林深有在沙特和美国游学的经历。他在沙特念书时，被学校选派去参加了很多国际大会。林深觉得自己从参与这些活动的过程中获益匪浅，用他的话说，是“见了很大的世面”。但他也发现，在这些国际性的大会中中国学生非常少，他觉得应该有更多的学生来借此扩大国际视野，而自己可以带中国学生到全世界参加国际大会，于是有了回国之后创业的想法。他所说的“第一桶金”就来自于此。
林深在国外接触到了很多外国人，知道他们对中国有浓厚的兴趣。回国之后，林深发现，在中国的外国人同样希望能深入了解和融入中国的文化生活，但是没有好的途径。他隐约觉得可以做一件带外国人体验中国生活的事情。
林深找到自己的朋友石旻玥，两人决定一起做LetsChina。身边的朋友加入之后，LetsChina团队逐渐有了7个人。他们最先想到的是借鉴国外的短租平台Airbnb的模式，做外国人在中国的寄宿家庭服务。为此，他们还专门做了问卷调查，想看看有多少中国家庭愿意接待外国人，得到的反馈还不错。但问题很快就来了。
由于LetsChina团队成员大部分才刚刚脱离学校，有的甚至还是学校学生，能接触到的外国人都是留学生，所以他们决定先从外国留学生市场做起。但矛盾的是，这些留学生本来就在学校里安顿下来了，没必要再向他们提供寄宿家庭服务。林深只能再思考其他服务。
LetsChina团队的核心成员都是北京人，对北京有浓厚传统文化色彩的游玩地点，以及扎染、陶泥、剪纸、古琴等特色工艺体验点都比较了解，林深认为这应该是外国人感兴趣的。而这些地方相对比较小众，从营收比例上讲，大的旅行社一般都不会去。于是，LetsChina开始做特色旅游线路的服务，带外国人进行“短途一日游”，先从北京做起。
LetsChina团队自己当导游，自己租车、买门票，只要超过10人报名就可以组成旅游团带出去游玩。由于成员有北京外国语大学中文学院的学生，认识一些外国朋友，他们很快就成功组成了一个团，之后便开始在学校发传单和进班宣传。“今后，旅行社的旅游线路产品也可以在我们这里卖。甚至等我们资金和人手更多之后，可以侧重线路策划和宣传，再外包给当地的导游团队去做。”林深说。
但仅有旅游还不够，这不是高频率的需求，不能满足在中国的外国人持续融入中国文化的需求，也无法保持用户黏性。于是，林深想到要做线上平台，但不仅要放旅游信息，还要整合更多方面的资讯。
另外，他们注意到，外国人刚来中国时遇到的问题在现有平台上是找不到答案的。他们想到要把LetsChina的线上平台做成外国人的知乎、去哪儿、豆瓣同城，主要提供三方面服务：旅游、问答、同城信息。网站最先做了英语和韩语版本，林深还想做成多语版。
人手不够是LetsChina在前期遇到的最大问题。同时林深还在考虑有没有比线下旅游更有效率、更受欢迎的文化交流方式，直到他看到ABC News上面一篇关于EatWith的报道。EatWith是国外一种食客们组团吃饭的饭局模式。报道中的一句话给林深带来了启发：“EatWith与Airbnb极其相似。让创始者有些始料不及的是，这个世界的吃货比旅游爱好者多得多，以至于这个原本是为了环球旅行者们准备的大平台，现在被来自本国乃至饭局主导者的厨子们占领了一大半。”
看到这个报道的第二天，林深决定在LetsChina的线下增加特色饭局的服务，取名LetsEat。
林深最先对LetsEat的定位就是陌生人在陌生的地方吃饭，并没有特意强调吸引外国人。但他后来逐渐发现，外国人确实是个很好的切入点。而LetsChina团队对外国人的习惯，以及对中国饮食文化都有所了解，确实也能提供更有特色的服务。所以，LetsEat的运营重心也逐渐放在了外国留学生上。事实证明，每次参与的人有外国人也有中国人，大家都是冲着与一群不一样的人在一起分享美食的感觉而来。
