来自纳米比亚的北大光华MBA毕业生Kristofine的电商梦想

Kristofine 李娜

Founder of Tulande Online

Come from Namibia

来自纳米比亚

What is your background?

I am Kristofine Ekandjo, I first moved to China in 2013 and studied Mandarin for 2 years at 第二外国语学院 then moved to Beihang University where I completed my undergraduate degree in Economics. During my undergraduate we focused on international trade and economics and that sparked my interest in International Trade. I then started researching the digitalization of International Trade and realized that my home country of Namibia had many businesses that had no digital footprint and so I started working on the formation of Tulande Online an e-commerce company that promotes digital trade.

How the idea came about?

Living in China introduced me to the world of e-commerce. Using Taobao, J.D and other digital apps on the daily sparked my interest in the field and I used this information to analyze Namibia’s international trade contribution and saw that we mainly imported items. This was the basis of starting Tulande Online and having lived in Beijing for 6 years I saw how advanced the business community is and I enrolled in the MBA program at Guanghua School of Management in Peking University to understand how businesses are run in China. After graduating, my team and I launched Tulande Online and we have been operating ever since.

How is the company going and operating on your country?

Tulande Online is an e-commerce company that houses both domestic and international vendors. We have been operating for five months now and during this time we have onboarded Namibian, South African and Indonesian vendors. The business has been going well and we see consecutive growth, we do go through challenges but get through them as a team.

Did you have any difficult moments or challenge, how did you overcome it?

When challenges occur I look at it from a logical and not emotional point of view, so I always ask myself “ What happened? How did it happen? How can I prevent it from happening again? And What did I learn from it?” This helps me analyze the situation and come up with solutions. I usually brainstorm solutions with the team and sometimes the solutions take us a few minutes or even a few days. In the end a solution is found and the problem is solved.

What’s your future plan for the business?

We are currently in the process of developing a new project, it’s in the early stages but, we are excited for it and hope to share more soon.

Is there anything you would like to say to the Dream Chasers?

I hope my story inspires international students to learn from the society they are in as Tulande Online came about by using what I learned in class and pairing it with what I learned and observed within the Chinese society. “Travel is the best teacher” is something my dad always said and right now, speaking from experience, it truly is.

以下翻译出自ChatGPT

能否介绍一下您自己？

我是Kristofine Ekandjo，于2013年第一次来到中国，在第二外国语学院学习了两年中文，之后去了北京航空航天大学，获得了经济学学士学位。在本科期间，我们专注于国际贸易和经济学，这激发了我对国际贸易的兴趣。我开始研究国际贸易的数字化，意识到我的家乡纳米比亚有许多企业没有数字足迹，因此我开始着手成立Tulande Online，一个促进数字贸易的电子商务公司。

你是如何产生这个创业想法的？

在中国生活让我接触到了电子商务的世界。我每天使用淘宝、京东等数字应用程序，这激发了我对该领域的兴趣，并利用这些信息分析了纳米比亚的国际贸易贡献，发现我们主要进口物品。这是创立Tulande Online的基础，我在北京生活了6年，看到了商业社区的发展程度，并报考了北京大学光华管理学院的MBA课程，以了解中国的企业经营方式。毕业后，我的团队和我推出了Tulande Online，我们一直在经营。

公司在国内的运营情况如何？

Tulande Online是一家电子商务公司，既有国内供应商，也有国际供应商。我们已经运营了五个月，在这段时间里，我们已经招募了纳米比亚、南非和印度尼西亚的供应商。公司经营状况良好，我们看到连续增长，虽然我们也遇到了一些挑战，但我们团队一起克服了它们。

创业过程中是否遇到了任何困难时刻或挑战，如何克服？

当遇到挑战时，我会从逻辑的角度来看待它，所以我总是问自己：“发生了什么？怎么发生的？如何防止它再次发生？我从中学到了什么？”这有助于我分析情况并提出解决方案。我通常与团队一起进行头脑风暴，有时候解决方案只需要几分钟，有时候需要几天。最终，我们找到了解决方案，解决了问题。

公司的未来计划？

我们目前正在开发一个新项目，虽然还处于早期。

你有什么话想留给我们的追梦者？

我希望我的故事能够激励国际学生从所处的社会中学习知识，正是通过将我在课堂上学到的知识与我在中国社会中学到和观察到的东西相结合，才有了 Tulande Online 这个项目的诞生。“旅行是最好的老师”这句话是我父亲常说的话，现在，根据我的经验，这确实是真的。

编辑 | Flora