As time flies by us we enter into another year. Starting from 2016, this is our fifth year-end summary and new year outlook. 2019 was destined to be a thrilling year. As I think back, it turned out so many topics to review and so many stories to share. So, let’s clear our thoughts and start with the earliest positioning of XNode.

In June 2015, we opened the first co-working space at the Bay Valley Science and Technology Park. The co-working industry in the next few years went through big waves of ups and downs. In 2019, the leader and founder in this industry, WeWork, was suspended from listing and WeWork China was rumored of a low-price acquisition by Temasek Holdings and TrustBridge Partners replacing Softbank. The crazy investments pushing co-working expansion regardless of cost came to an abrupt end. The industry returned to rationality, and profit became the primary indicator of the co-working industry.

Fortunately, from the beginning of 2016, XNode decided to choose the strategy of enabling space with innovation services and contents and creating new business growth. Because of the change in strategy, we worked hard to build the core competitiveness of our services and content. Today, space revenue only accounts for about 20% of our total revenue. In a cold winter environment with industry-shrinking in 2019, we managed to achieve a 100% growth in business revenue, and our space is more dynamic than ever with more and more outstanding entrepreneurs and innovators joining our community.

Looking forward to the future from 2020, we will still focus on entrepreneurship and innovation, and continue to cultivate corporate innovation and cross-border startup acceleration in China. After serving nearly 50 Fortune Global 500 companies, we hope to start working with more large Chinese companies by leveraging innovation systems and methodologies for new products and services with core technology competitiveness.

We hope to deepen our ties with domestic and overseas governments to push forward innovation. In addition to our current projects with governments of Australia, Italy, Singapore, South Korea and Japan, we plan to collaborate with more European countries and governments in 2020 for Launch China programs, creating clustering services for foreign startups to land and localize in China. In particular for overseas deep-tech and cutting-edge tech startups, we will officially launch the "China Venture Builder 中国新创工坊" in the beginning of the year. Together with the top international law firm King & Wood Mallesons, we will help the startups find partners in China, set up China entity, build a local Chinese team, and thus in full operation in China. At the same time, we plan to launch the "Gazelle Out 中国瞪羚出海" services in the summer of 2020. We will work intensively with our overseas accelerator partners to build a systematic and integral service ally for go-global acceleration.

In the field of industry verticals, XNode plans to launch two vertical innovation centers in Shenzhen and Shanghai for 2020. We will cooperate with leading industry companies and universities, leveraging the knowledge and skills of top industry experts and global networks, and in combination with advanced management methodology and systematic frameworks. Rooted in China and connected with the world, we will jointly build vertical global accelerators with Chinese characteristics.

With above strategies in mind we will expand XNode's overseas offices following Singapore, Tokyo in Japan, and Eindhoven in the Netherlands. The overseas practices in 2020 will rely on local hiring and local ecosystem partners to empower global innovation with China engines. As our company name XNode suggests, combining the force of unlimited "X" NODEs to push forward innovation and entrepreneurship, to build an active ecosystem, and to link China with the world. Our vision is to become the China engine in global innovation!

As we enter our sixth year in 2020, we would need a comprehensive reflection on ourselves. At the same time that ambitions are high, internal capacity and strong team must also keep up. 2020 will be a year of improvement in XNode’s management capability. No matter what business model or strategy is planned, management capabilities are key to really achieve what we want to do. Management could be time consuming and often much less exciting or inspiring as strategy. But you can never neglect it. Management methodologies can be trained and copied, but only when they are properly implemented can we produce results. After all these years, now that we grow bigger, we need to improve systematic management capacity, leading by example, and integrating knowledge with action.

We are a group of common people, but what we want to achieve is exceptional. We set high goals for ourselves and believe in "a strategy that’s called doing things". Please allow me to reflect what we expressed in January 2016, "Together we will make a positive impact on the journey of every entrepreneur and innovator, creating future for this city in the age of great changes." After 5 years of practice, we should believe in the road we have chosen more than ever. There will come with more interesting stories in 2020. Let us remember our original resolutions and move forward steadily!