Tim Lee, cofounder of QFPpay, a global mobile payment service, solution and technology provider. (Photo provided to China Daily)
He monitored the emergence of the mobile internet, which was then less developed on the mainland than in Hong Kong.
Lee was fluent in technology and English, and had access to devices like iPads, which were cutting-edge at the time.
"I was one of the few people on the mainland who understood what's new internationally," the 34-year-old Chinese University of Hong Kong graduate says.
But Lee didn't quite understand mainland culture and business practices.
Some investors even mocked his ideas as unrealistic.
"But you have to trust yourself and proceed with resilience," he says.
Lee engaged mainland culture through Chinese micro blogs and learned to input pinyin on electronic devices to write the simplified characters used on the mainland.
He kept meeting investors and potential business partners. He even learned Beijing dialect.
Lee cofounded QFPpay, a global mobile payment service, solution and technology provider from China, in 2011.
"I want every transaction to be more convenient and efficient," he says.
The sector has exploded over the past half decade.
The mobile-payment market reached 38 trillion yuan last year－about 50 times that of the United States－compared with less than 1 trillion in 2012, internet-research company iResearch reports.
Lee's enterprise has benefited from the mainland's Internet Plus strategy, sufficient investment and large market. It has over 1 million merchant partners and over 50 million customers.
The company has also partnered with Tencent's WeChat pay and Alibaba's Alipay to extend mobile payment from China to Japan and countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative.
"I think Hong Kong's greatest value is that it functions as a bridge," he says.
"We know how to work in an international environment in terms of managing customer relationships and understanding different business models."
Hong Kong Professionals (Beijing) Association founder Eric Fung encourages young Hong Kong residents to move to the mainland because innovation is the core driver of sustainable development in both places.
"The mainland possesses a large market, and rich scientific and technological talent, while Hong Kong is endowed with a highly developed education system and historically entrepreneurial environment," he says.
"Both will increase prosperity and innovation by combining their strengths."
