28 Jan 2026 · 1 min
Jim James recounts hosting Jack Ma at a Hong Kong event that drew 350 people, then explains how entrepreneurs can become visible industry nodes by running groups, inviting speakers, and hosting dinners. Practice snappy presentations even without deep expertise.
350 people.
About 50 people.
In the mid-90s.
We had this entrepreneur from China show up. Small company, 50 people. He was super dynamic. We had 350 people show up to that event. And that was Jack Ma, the richest man in China. One thing that I brought from venture to venture is this really high leverage insight that I got when I first started my career in the mid-90s in Hong Kong, which was being in industry groups. What you do is you bring to together a whole group of people from the industry who are very grateful for that. You become a node in the industry, you get to be well known. You can bring out your inner extrovert and just be up there. Like, you look at Steve Jobs in the early days, he was a lousy presenter. It's super important, it's incredibly important, and it's a learned skill. One of the most powerful things that I've done is once you collect enough of those speakers, I can pull them together to have dinner with you and they can give you insights into the industry. Matter of fact, you don't have to be an expert. You have to be really good at just keeping it interesting and snappy.
How can this be easy? The mindset approach approach to change how you build your business.