换 The Exchange交换 · jiāohuàn See the board

The other half of doing business in China.

An invite-only board where the person you are missing is already a member — and where nothing happens between two people until each of them is what the other is looking for.

I am a Director looking for an Agent

That is the whole of it. Two halves of one sentence, and the board introduces the people whose halves fit together.

A Manufacturer→a Distributor A Director→an Agent A Buyer→a Manufacturer A Founder→an Investor A Writer→a Producer A Brand→a Performer A Student→a Recruiter A Producer→Crew A Manufacturer→a Distributor A Director→an Agent A Buyer→a Manufacturer A Founder→an Investor A Writer→a Producer A Brand→a Performer A Student→a Recruiter A Producer→Crew

The problem

In China, the useful introduction never comes from a search box.

It comes from somebody who already knows both of you. That is true everywhere and it is load-bearing here: LinkedIn does not work in the mainland, WeChat has no discovery, and a foreign company arriving without a network spends its first year buying the wrong introductions from people who charge for them.

Meanwhile the person on the other side of that trade — the fixer, the line producer, the factory, the lawyer, the founder — has the same problem in reverse and no way to be found.

How it works

One sentence in, two decisions out.

You say what you are.
Two words: what you are, and what you are missing. That is the entire sign-up. No form, no CV, no profile to maintain.
The board finds the fit.
You come up for people who are what you are looking for and are looking for what you are. Anything else is not shown to either of you.
You both say yes, or nothing.
A match takes two decisions. Only then does a private room open, and only then can contact details move.

Why it holds

Members bring members, and their name stays on it.

Every member was brought by another member, whose name stays visible on the profile of whoever they brought. Nobody is here by accident, and vouching costs something.
An invitation is earned, not issued. A member can only bring somebody in while the people they already brought are still here and taking part.
It opens in WeChat. No app to install, no account, no VPN. A link forwarded into a group chat opens where it lands, on the phone it lands on.
It is two languages, not one translated. Every word on it was written twice, by somebody who meant it in both.

What it holds

Almost nothing, on purpose.

There are no accounts. A member is a random number their own browser made up, hashed before it is written down. No phone number, no email, no location, and no record anywhere of who read whose page.

Contact details are filtered out of every public field and move only between two people who have each chosen to hand them over — which can be taken back. A directory of foreigners in China with everybody's contact details on it is the one thing this must never become, and the design is arranged around not being able to.

The whole of what is kept, in plain words.

Getting in

It is invite only.

If you know a member, ask them. If you do not, there is a waiting list — say which room you belong in and you are let in with the rest of it, rather than on your own into an empty feed.

Join the waiting list I have a code