Jason’s Story – Founding Immetech
Founded by Hubei native Jason Xu, the story of Immetech begins with his story
Part 1:
Dongguan is a global hotspot for injection molding, and Changan is at the heart of it. There are about 2,000 mold making manufacturers in the area and Immetech is one of them. From there Immetech sets sail to the world.
The President of Immetech is Jason Xu. At the age of 14, he left his poor homeland, a small town in Hubei’s mountainous area, and went to forge his career in Dongguan. His working life began on building sites, and he eventually worked his way up to be an engineer in a transnational corporation, with the real dream being to build his own company.
Today, Jason can say he has achieved that dream. He learned to speak English fluently, along with mastering enterprise management, and mold research and technology. His company, Immetech, now works with more than 20 countries around the world, including North America, Europe, Australia and Japan.
An important step on this journey was his time early in his career, at the company Bosum, where he began to better understand himself and found a route to success.
“What I gained at Bosum can’t be valued by money alone. I became acquainted with many partners with the same aims as me. They were suppliers, investors, experts and professors, which are a great benefit to the company. Most importantly, I built my social circle around this platform, and joined many charity activities. I learned to be thankful, how to sacrifice and be passionate” he explained.
In 2008, a friend at Bosum introduced Jason to an EMBA program, where he went on to make friends with many entrepreneurs, whose skills and achievements inspired him to do more, and better. His previous target had been to make profit. But wealth is nothing without foresight and knowledge. He saw other entrepreneurs not only managing businesses well, but making contributions to society. So he set upon a new target and direction for his company.
After finishing the EMBA, Jason joined a Traditional Chinese Sinology class, where he was moved by the lessons from Master Guo Ning – The Meaning of Life, and Living Thankfully. Under the guidance of the course director, Mr. Zeng Renguo, the class established a charity foundation in Meigu Town, Sichuan. Bosum+ Lion Hope School has now helped more than 200 children to change their fate. Jason has also donated to his hometown, building new houses for more than 50 elderly residents, as well as roads and bridges.
With 1.5 years study under his belt, Jason had a brand-new concept for company strategy and management, having realized the barriers and bottlenecks of joint venture’s regulation and development. After a quick adjustment of thinking, he established his own business, Immetech, in Changan, Dongguan. Immetech also has its own Chinese name, Han Yi. Han means vastness and compatibility in Chinese, and Yi means the pursuit of high quality and exquisite technology, which represents the company’s culture.
Part 2:
Founding a company can sometimes feel like having a new-born baby. It is no easy task to make your name in the already famous mold district of Changan. Since Immetech’s founding, Jason has worked tirelessly, following his goal and establishing standardized operational directions for further development.
Immetech is positioned in an ever-developing overseas market. With firm knowledge and an orderly company structure, Immetech is truly dynamic. The company designed its own winning business model, to ensure fast growth and future capital, climbing up along a ‘Smiling Curve’.
As company President, Jason Xu is committed to helping others towards self-achievement. Immetech’s strategy involves all employees working for, and developing the company together. Immetech operates an employee-business ownership structure, which allows everyone to feel the worth of their labor and profits.
Immetech has developed rapidly within less than a decade, and is now a standardized enterprise, with more than one hundred professional and experienced, elite, and a few regular, workshops. The company has achieved and remains committed to the goal “to offer reliable service on mold development and product manufacturing for global customers”.
Looking back on these achievements, Jason remembers the hardships that helped to drive him. Despite coming in top of his class, poverty forced him to drop out of school at age 14. His first job in Wuhan was as a building site laborer, for only 6 yuan per day due to his young age. There was no advanced machinery equipment at that time; all tasks such as mixing sand concrete, were done by manual labor. Work was hard and living conditions were poor. At the end of a day of heavy work, with an aching back and calloused hands, home for the night was a temporary bed, under trees close to the building site. Mosquitoes were abundant, and at times heavy rain would flood the camp and they would wake up with their beds in a pool of water.
“Based on this experience, of living in such brutal environments and going through such difficulty during my youth, I am able to dig deeper and work harder, and got better, and became stronger” said Jason. It is thanks to this past, that Immetech can be successful today.
Part 3:
While working hard labour on construction sites, after being forced to drop out of school, Immetech President Jason Xu thought to himself, “I can’t work on building sites my whole life. So when I saw that people taking drawings in the building site with just words could earn much more than me, I told myself I have to learn something, to become an expert by any means”.
In 1995, Jason left construction work and went to Shajiao, Humen Town with his brother, and together they joined a hardware processing factory. In the factory, technical workers with the ability to read schematics earned twice the salary of ordinary workers. So Jason committed to this study, and approached his team leader, who was happy to support his ambition.
Soon Jason was able to adjust the injection machines, mill knives, do machining work, drill holes and more, and he bought books to learn beyond that. He went on to work for the hardware factory for about one year and a half, earned some money and went back to his hometown to help rebuild his parents’ old house.
At 18, Jason found a job in another hardware factory. He was hired as group leader in charge of twenty to thirty people and was pleased with the two thousand Yuan monthly salary. But then, he realized a programme’s salary was several times more, and the job appeared to be less physically demanding. He was inspired once more to keep on learning. “The only way to be successful is to learn how to program”, he decided. So he bought breakfast for the programmer master in the day, and treated him to some snacks at night. He began to learn from the programmers and of course bought some books to learn for himself. In addition, he committed to learning the technology of tooling, and mastered some engineering step by step. Two years later, Jason was promoted to supervisor of the machining department. Jason later moved on to work for a mold manufacturer of model trains. He excelled at that job and absorbed every bit of available knowledge to become a qualified tool maker.
As his career and the industry progressed, Jason’s interests shifted towards a new goal – to be an engineer. In order to do so, he spent eight thousand Yuan to buy a computer to study software programming. After observing his hard work and commitment to study, Japanese company executives provided him with plenty of real operational opportunities. In that year, his professional and technical skills progressed a great deal, and he mastered tool design and manufacturing skills from research and development, to mold making.
Jason stayed in his element at the Japanese enterprise, and was rapidly promoted, from mold master to management positions. The boss eventually gave him a whole project to follow up. From the initial project docking, looking for suppliers, to the later R&D production, Jason controlled all the processes and links and needed to master every step. The project was a success and the product sold well.
In 2001, Jason was again moved to resign. With a good salary and working conditions, and generous welfare from the Japanese company, he had achieved a lot by age 24. The motivation this time was that he was becoming too comfortable. It became a major turning point, and a stepping stone on to the next challenge.
Part 4:
After leaving a good management position at a Japanese firm, Immetech President Jason Xu felt somewhat lacking in direction. Years of frequent job-hopping had left him physically and mentally exhausted. He took three months rest at home and began to rethink the future.
“I always wanted to do something, but did not know what to do. First, there were no funds; Second, no personal connections; Third, my professional skills and management experience were still inadequate.”
Considering the above, Jason was determined to get back to work. After all, the proof of pudding is in the eating.
This time, he went straight to a multinational company in Guangdong, Japan’s ARRK group, to apply for the position of engineer. The company had more than 150 branches, in the United States, Canada, Australia and so on all over the world, mainly specializing in mold research and development. With years of technical knowledge and management experience, Jason was hired by this Fortune 500 Company, and became a manager at the level he had truly aspired to.
In 2002, Jason was assigned to the domestic Baoan Branch of ARRK group. In just half a year, he was promoted to department supervisor, in charge of the engineering department. His performance spoke for itself and he was promoted to department manager for the company in less than 2 years.
Positive business developments at ARRK Group lead to a factory move, to Changan, Dongguan in 2004, where they established their own facility and project management center. Jason was once again promoted, as manager of the 1st Engineering department. The branch expanded from several people in the beginning, to dozens of staff. Jason performed and was rewarded well, and the company was well on track in just 4 months.
Thanks to this success, Jason was assigned a new challenge at the Dongguan branch – to develop overseas marketing. But the biggest challenge for him at the time was English.
“I even did not know Pinyin, not to mention English! What should I do?”
His boss hired a translator for him, but a translator can’t be available 24-hours a day. Sometimes, in order to understand customers’ emails and reply promptly, Jason turned to his dictionary and simply learned English on the job.
Everything was ready, but a chance. Around a time of reshuffling at the company, two senior executives came from Taiwan to Dongguan. Jason instantly felt a rapport with one, and the pair soon left the company, to bring their passion and speed to the injection mold industry. They started their business in Dongguan Changan, a famous location for mold making. One brought strength in management, the other skill in engineering, and with the support and trust from friends in the industry, the company developed rapidly. In the first month alone, the net earnings were hundreds of thousands of RMB, and their business engaged the USA, Australia, Japan and beyond.
The company snowballed and the annual profit increased dramatically. By 2007 net profit was more than ten million RMB. But the pair found they shared different strategic targets, and for that reason, Immetech was established.
Immetech is located in Huixin Industrial Park, Daxing Rd, Dalingshan Town, Dongguan. In the factory’s first floor you will find the tool room, the second floor houses the finishing machining and injection molding room, and on the third floor are the office and R&D room. Upon entering the office, the most eye-catching thing is Immetech’s mission statement on the wall, in both Chinese and English: Serve products to the world; Build tools to the globe.
Since Immetech was established, Jason has been determined to fight for its success.
“In the past, the only thing I wanted to do is earn money. I never had a clear direction for my future. But through working at Bosum, my vision and mind were deepened. I plan that the company can go public and develop on the international market.”
Today, Immetech is working with companies from all over the world. Take a recent case study: a UK R&D company is developing a medical equipment project, and has signed an order for over six hundred thousand sets of medical atomizers. Creative technology and research projects make Jason very optimistic for the future. Immetech has plans to establish an overseas sales center, for more stable commission, stock share, and removal of brokers to increase profit share for suppliers and customers.
When it comes to the future, the past has prepared Jason for any challenge, and he is more than ready for the fight!
