On March 23, 2022, the Cyberport Greater Bay Young Entrepreneurship Programme (Cyberport GBA YEP) announced its 2021 application result. The project “Shunlu Ecosystem (顺鹿生态)” founded by GTIIT students was selected and gained a fund of HKD 100,000.

Starting from June 2021, the “Shunlu Ecosystem” won the third prize of the second GT Start-up Challenge and went to the finals of the “Community Entrepreneurs Cup” Guangdong Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition. It has been incubated in TusStar and setting up subsidiaries in Chengdu.

Here is the story of “Shunlu”.

STEM students can start a business

“When I first came to GTIIT, my family sent a lot of parcels to me. It took me dozens of trips to collect all of them,” says the team leader Yang Cheng, a student from the class of 2024. To prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus and ensure the campus’ safety, deliveries inside the campus have been strictly limited. Acutely aware of the needs of on-campus delivery, Yang started to search for more information and did marketing surveys.

Yang Cheng

Later, the project “顺鹿 (Shunlu)”, which pronounces the same as “顺路 (‘stop by’)” in Chinese, emerged. It aims to provide delivery services of take-outs, drop-offs, express, canteen foods, as well as running services for students, faculty and staff inside the campus. “Save time, efforts and money” is its position.

"Shunlu" logo

First launched, “Shunlu” met the double twelve online shopping festival and received dense orders. Yang recalls, that to save costs, team members would run the service themselves if no delivery person was available. “We also found things that can be improved during the running, and will adjust them at our stage two.”

Members of the startup team

 “I think STEM students can also start a business,” says Zheng Xiyin, a team member. For him, joining a start-up project is a good practice. GTIIT creates an innovative environment that has integrated the Israeli Chutzpah and Chinese diligence, while GTIIT’s teachers, Dr. Constance Van Horne and Ms. Canny Wang, are their business consultants. Assistant professor Guillaume Emmanuel Hoffmann provides support for technical issues. Zheng also makes new friends through “Shunlu”.

For Yang Cheng, to build a start-up is to plant a sprout and set down roots. He is interested in finance and investment management and enjoys reading biographies. He hopes to put what he learns into practice and make products comparable to mainstream apps.

Grow with "Shunlu"

“Starting a business is interesting though, it takes time and effort,” says Yang Cheng. The founding team is mostly freshpersons and sophomores without the capability to develop a platform on their own; thus, they determine the framework and structures while local companies assist with their programming and technical maintenance.

Being students from different majors with the pressure of coursework, they can’t do a full-time job in the start-up. To tackle this, the team releases internship programs for college students to recruit excellent buddies to the team. Besides, “Shunlu” has a clear organizational structure with functions subdivided into operations, human resources, branding, finance and business to operate efficiently. Then, the team, full of motivation, won third place in the GT Start-up Challenge in May, 2021.

In the development stage, the team often went downtown to discuss with tech companies the details, busy until 2 or 3 AM. But they have also reaped experience. Yang regards entrepreneurship as making one initial step to the society from the campus. This experience makes him calmer and more mature. Zheng notes that after joining the team, he learned that there are so many aspects to consider when developing a business, such as platform adjustments and top-level design.

Discuss with the technical company

 When preparing the Cyberport GBA YEP, “Shunlu” needed to participate in the CCMF training camp to qualify. Then, the group consists of Zhou Jiayu, a GTer, and three Hong Kong members, through multiple online meetings and discussions, entered the final round of the program. With sweat and efforts, “Shunlu” was eventually accepted into the program.