Wei Liang

Develop chopsticks with aerospace materials

As a post-80s returnee with post-doctor degree, Wei Liang serves as Chairman of two tech companies in Chengdu. For many people, he deserves to be praised as “young and promising”.
Despite his strong education background, Wei Liang keeps a low profile.
What are the stories about him? As a Post Doctor of Medicine, why does he start a chopstick business in Chengdu? This time, we will focus on Wei Liang, Founder of HIME.

Returning from Silicon Valley to start his own business

 As a well-mannered scholar, Wei Liang is clear in logical thinking and expresses himself fluently. He is actually a medical researcher at an organ transplantation research institute.
He was admitted to Sichuan University in 1999 and spent ten years studying in Chengdu. After finishing his doctoral degree at 27, he left for School of Medicine of Stanford University to work. This journey to Silicon Valley became an important turning point in his life, “at that time, people around me talked about new ideas and how to realize them.” Influenced by the entrepreneurial atmosphere in Silicon Valley, the 27-year-old man wanted to give it a try.
In 2014, Wei Liang came back to his “second hometown” Chengdu and started his business.
His office is like a chopsticks museum. Various chopsticks with their detailed source introductions are displayed on the special display stands.

Targeting the chopsticks market worth tens of billions of RMB

As a medical researcher, Wei Liang has been thinking that organ transplantation and cancer treatment are the final battlefields for human beings to struggle with diseases. Looking forward, what are the active measures that can help healthy persons to avoid disease risks in their daily life?
In this case, Wei Liang founded HIME, a consumer-targeted massive health tech company. Its first product is chopsticks.
Why chopsticks? Wei Liang said that chopsticks are small objects, but people have to contact them more than five million times in their life. Therefore, chopsticks are closely related to health. Moreover, the annual sales of chopsticks can reach tens of billions of RMB, which is a huge market.
Different from ordinary chopsticks, the chopsticks developed by Wei Liang’s team are made from the aerospace PAS polymer science and technology material. “This material has been used in tableware and baby products in European and American countries. Through joint efforts with our partners, we try to control the cost so that this kind of material can be used in our daily tableware.”

Hoping to be a household name

Nowadays, many young people opt to start their own businesses. However, Wei Liang is not favor of the idea of blindly starting a business without careful thinking and preparation. In his view, starting a business is an ordinary but challenging job. One has to keep passionate and clam.
Wei Liang is much thinner than he was a few years ago. He said that he cannot sleep well, because he often thinks too much after starting his business.
If you must attach a label to Wei Liang, a “low-profile entrepreneur” should be the most appropriate one. “I’m still far from being a successful entrepreneur. What I need to think about is that how I become known to all. It is only then that I will be truly recognized for what I had done.”
Facing challenges in starting a business, Wei Liang keeps optimistic. He deems that as long as there is hope, all the difficulties will be gone.

West China City Daily – The Cover, reported by Shen Mengyun

Original link: HTTP://E.THECOVER.CN/SHTML/HXDSB/20190828/114113.SHTML