How we work
Two ways to build the right China operation.
Founder decisions and technical-project development start with the problem to solve. Discover capabilities, build candidate routes and verify the next step before implementation.
Arrived from the District Decision Desk
Continue with a case-specific district shortlist.
Your source surface is carried only in this link and email subject; no browsing history or profile is created.
Request a district shortlist →Two operating modes
Start with the question that brought you here.
Founder-initiated decision work
For founders asking whether China fits, whether an entity is needed, which city or district should perform each role, and what must be verified before buying downstream services.
A conversation can lead to a Founder Landing Sprint or another defined founder-paid scope. The Sprint framework and indicative pricing below describe this mode.
Start with the Free Founder Fit Check →Technical-project development
For global technology companies and technical teams, from university spinouts to established organisations. Start with the bottleneck: national capability discovery, candidate multi-node routes, counterpart verification and development coordination. Beijing / Jing-Jin-Ji is our deepest operating geography; Hainan is specialist coverage.
Email a short, non-confidential outline or reply to your existing conversation with Leo. You do not need to purchase a standard Sprint or complete the Fit Check before that conversation.
Map a technical route →The commercial structure follows the project.
Meridian Flow LLC may be compensated by the foreign organisation, a Chinese receiving-side organisation or another project participant for different work, including project development, coordination, referral or success-based work. Selected initial qualification, mapping or introductions may therefore be founder-side free.
We disclose the existence and nature of a receiving-side financial relationship materially relevant to your route, in writing before you rely on the recommendation. Specific compensation amounts and separate commercial terms remain confidential unless disclosure is required by applicable law, a specific contract or an agreed project scope. Read the commercial disclosure terms.
CyberNomad China is operated by Meridian Flow LLC, which contracts paid work under a separate written scope identifying the commissioning party, our role, deliverables, payer and agreed costs. You may decline an introduction, obtain separate quotes or choose your own providers.
Initial work is not universally free. A project can move between the two modes as its needs become clearer; the indicative Sprint range below does not price every engagement.
Fit selects the route. Execution economics follows.
We begin with the project’s technical and operating needs. Research and recommendations are developed under an agreed scope, with verification and clear commercial disclosure.
Technical and operating fit asks: does this solve the problem? Verification asks: does the named capability exist, and can this project actually use it? Execution economics asks: what does it cost, who pays, and is it practical to carry out? Compensation and incentives enter the execution discussion after fit has been established.
Receiving-side compensation does not, by itself, determine technical ranking or route selection. Payment does not make a park technically superior, exclude other Chinese regions or turn a subsidy into evidence of capability.
A route may place research, testing, pilot engineering, manufacturing and commercial or legal presence in different locations. A park can support one part without becoming the whole route.
Any receiving-side contribution to project costs is disclosed separately from the technical recommendation. The client can compare costs and decline introductions.
How capability routing works: the China Capability Graph explains our method. Start with what you’re building to explore technical capabilities. The Beijing Capability Router adds our regional depth.
What you can inspect in a route recommendation
The agreed scope defines the deliverable. A typical route brief makes the recommendation and its alternatives reviewable; you can ask why a candidate was rejected and what evidence would change the decision.
- Bottleneck definition and required capability.
- Candidate nodes and routes considered, with evidence and verification status.
- Rejected alternatives, the reasons for rejection and evidence that changed the recommendation.
- Open questions, access dependencies and remaining uncertainty.
- Execution options, responsibilities, budget, timing and success threshold.
- Recommended next action: proceed, modify or stop.
What would make us recommend stopping?
A China route must improve the next milestone enough to justify the work. Do not proceed, modify the route or wait when:
- China does not materially improve the current bottleneck, or another geography or route is operationally superior.
- The required capability cannot be verified, or the facility or programme is not accessible to the project.
- Transition friction outweighs the benefit, or an added node creates complexity without changing the milestone.
- The project is not ready to use the capability, or technical, regulatory or commercial constraints make the route unattractive.
Share the bottleneck, keep the secret.
Initial contact, Fit Check and exploratory intake need only a non-confidential outline. Share enough to define the bottleneck, not enough to disclose the secret.
Do not send source code, full BOMs, unpublished formulas or invention details, trade secrets, proprietary datasets, confidential customer lists, sensitive clinical information or export-controlled technical documentation at this stage.
If deeper technical review is needed, first agree a written scope and confidentiality framework, including an NDA where appropriate. Before external outreach or sharing project materials, we agree your authority, intended recipients and the information that may be shared.
Mode 1 · Founder Landing Sprint
Buy the Decision Before You Buy the Implementation
A founder-side decision product for designing your China operating node.
There is no shortage of information about doing business in China. There is no shortage of company formation, registered addresses, bookkeeping, work-permit support, banking assistance, incubator packages, offices, leases and other things you can immediately buy.
The missing layer sits directly between information and implementation: the operating decision itself.
Does China belong in the business model? What exact capability should a China node provide? Does it require a local entity? Which city or district should perform each function? Which policies matter, what still requires verification, what should happen first, what should wait—and what should not happen at all?
You are not buying billable consulting hours.
You are not buying a generic market-entry PDF.
You are not buying an artificially bundled package of administrative services.
You are buying a founder-side operating decision.The missing decision layer
Information Layer
Reports, policies, city guides, industry research, advice and news.
Decision Layer
What should we actually build, why, where and in what sequence?
Implementation Layer
Registration agents, accountants, banks, landlords, specialists, incubators and execution providers.
Both surrounding layers have their place. But abundant information does not automatically produce a coherent operating architecture, and the ability to implement something does not mean that thing should exist.
Decision framework
The Six Dimensions of the Operating Decision
China Decision
Should China become part of your company’s operating system at all?Valid outcomes include Proceed, Proceed conditionally, Wait, Use China without forming a local entity yet, Use another structure or location, and Do not proceed. A paid engagement does not require an artificial yes.
Functional Dependency
What specific job is China performing for your business?Enterprise sales, strategic customers, AI infrastructure, research, talent, hardware prototyping, manufacturing, sourcing, testing, deployment, policy access or another concrete dependency. The operational function comes first. The corporate vehicle follows it.
Structural Requirement
Which legal, commercial, institutional and physical components are genuinely necessary?The answer may include a foreign-invested company, no Chinese entity yet, an address, partner, supplier network, employee, bank account, workspace or work-authorisation route—or none of them. The structure follows the dependency.
Spatial Geography
Which geographic location should perform which function?Registration, daily work, institutional access, customers, suppliers and residential life do not have to occupy the same postcode. That is not a relocation question. It is an operating-design question.
Factual Verification
Which assumptions are solid enough to build on, and which still need to meet reality?Material assumptions are classified as Confirmed, Likely — Requires Confirmation, Open, or Not Applicable. Interesting information is cheap. Decision-grade information is not.
Critical Execution Sequence
What needs to happen first, what depends on something else, and what must not be executed out of order?The sequence is designed around the actual project: function, activities, constraints, founder status, locations, policy fit, verification, address, providers, money, institutional nodes and living geography. The order changes by project. That is the point.
Operating Geography
Five nodes. One operating system.
The company does not need to imitate the founder’s home address. The correct geography follows the operating model.
Registered Node
Where the entity can lawfully and practically be registered.
Work & Institutional Node
Where access to incubators, laboratories, universities, technical facilities, industry clusters or government programmes matters.
Client Node
Where important buyers, commercial partners and counterparties are concentrated.
Supply-Chain Node
Where components, prototyping, tooling, manufacturing, testing or vendors are concentrated.
Living Node
Where the founder actually wants to live, focus and maintain a workable daily operating rhythm.
Interesting information is cheap. Decision-grade information is not.
How we produce the decision
Three Evidence Layers
Published information, direct confirmation and field evidence are not interchangeable.
Published Evidence
Laws, regulations, official policy documents, government guidance, programme and incubator materials, institutional pages, technical documentation, industry sources, company materials and credible reporting. Public information is valuable. It is also only the beginning.
Direct Verification
When a material question can be resolved by the responsible party, we ask: district offices, incubators, service counters, programme operators, providers, banks, property operators and institutions. The objective is to move the question to the party capable of answering it.
Field Evidence
Some operating questions are physical. Where required, field verification can include site visits, workspace and property checks, connectivity checks, access observations, institutional visits, outer-district checks, rural fieldwork and local operating-condition checks.
Reusable working system
The Four Working Assets
They are the system through which the operating decision can be understood, challenged, handed off and executed.
Founder Landing Brief
The structured operating baseline: founder and ownership, business model, activities, China dependency, operating requirements, money flows, policy opportunities, place needs and unresolved specialist questions. It lets implementation partners begin from a common brief instead of reconstructing the company each time.
Operating Geography Map
A functional map of where each part of the operation should happen. We replace ‘Where should I base myself?’ with ‘Which function needs to happen where?’
Verification Register
A record of each material claim, its evidence, status, remaining unknowns, responsible confirmation party, required action and whether it blocks the next decision.
Execution Board
The surviving implementation path after unnecessary branches have been removed: action, reason, owner, dependency, status and next step. It is not a generic relocation checklist.
The decision is allowed to be “No”
A decision product that is only allowed to recommend more implementation is not really a decision product.
Proceed
China creates enough operating advantage to justify the next step.
Proceed Conditionally
The opportunity is real, but material assumptions must be verified before capital starts moving.
Wait
China may matter, but incorporation or physical landing is premature.
Use Another Structure or Location
The original direction may be right while the company, city, district or operating model should change.
Do Not Proceed
The operating advantage does not justify the cost, friction or complexity.
Stopping is not a failed engagement. Avoiding the wrong structure can be the highest-value result.
Category principle
A Company Is an Implementation Object, Not a Strategy
Company formation, registered addresses, accounting, banking, work-permit support, offices and professional services answer: How do we execute this?
The Founder Landing Sprint answers the question that comes first: What should exist in the first place?
Sometimes the business needs five implementation objects. Sometimes it needs two. Sometimes the answer is not yet. We would rather remove unnecessary implementation than coordinate work that should never have been purchased.
Pricing follows the decision problem
Scope first. Fee second.
We do not force founders into rigid, one-size-fits-all packages.
A full Sprint may include:
- founder and business-model review
- China and Beijing dependency mapping where relevant
- multi-node Operating Geography design
- city, district or institutional shortlisting
- entity, work-authorisation and registered-address dependency mapping
- policy and programme research plus eligibility questions
- direct verification and selected factual checks
- provider handoff design
- Founder Landing Brief, Verification Register and Execution Board
- final decision review
Less scope can cost less.
One incubator route, district programme, provider quotation, location, address comparison, operating dependency or institutional route may need a narrower engagement.
Not every question needs a US$1,500 answer.Complex work is scoped separately.
Multiple cities, extensive outreach, repeated counter checks, site visits, supply-chain routing, property or rural fieldwork and longer launch coordination can require materially more work.
There is no artificial ceiling where the real work requires more.Illustrative scenario — not a client case.
Deconstructing the “Courtyard Dream”
A two-person European AI software company believes Beijing matters for enterprise customers, research relationships, AI institutions and the technology ecosystem. The founders do not want to live permanently in central Beijing.
“Register an AI company in Beijing and rent a courtyard somewhere in Huairou.”
That sounds like a plan. It is not yet a decision. It is two attractive assumptions sitting next to each other.
Business
China dependency may be strong. Beijing dependency may be meaningful but intermittent. Most software development may not require permanent CBD presence.
Founder status
Founder ownership, company formation and legal work status are related but separate dependencies. Their correct sequence must be determined for the actual project.
Corporate
Activities, ownership, business scope and operating model must fit each other. The company should be designed around the real operating function.
Policy
The useful question is not whether an AI or OPC-related policy exists. It is whether this founder and company actually fit it, verified with the responsible operator where material.
Spatial
Registration, institutional access, customers, daily work and low-density living may use different nodes. Huairou remains a candidate only if it survives access, connectivity, winter, accommodation and property checks.
Professional boundaries
What Is Explicitly Excluded
The Founder Landing Sprint is a defined advisory, verification and operating-design engagement. CyberNomad China provides source-led research, business consulting, founder-side operating design, factual verification, field research and coordination.
Unless included in the agreed scope, third-party costs and specialist services remain separate:
- government statutory fees and company-registration charges
- accounting retainers, audit fees, formal legal opinions and tax advice
- professional immigration or work-permit fees
- bank charges, notarisation, apostille and certified translation
- office, registered-address, incubator, residential, renovation and telecommunications costs
- travel, third-party inspections and other provider costs
What happens after the Sprint
A clean handoff. Not a service lock-in.
Execute independently
Use the Brief, Geography Map, Verification Register and Execution Board yourself.
Use your own providers
Hand the assets to your accountant, corporate-services firm, lawyer, bank, specialist, incubator, supplier, institution or local partner.
Continue with CyberNomad
Separately scope additional verification, fieldwork, institutional contact, site checks, provider comparison and coordination, supply-chain routing or selected execution support.
Stop
If operating friction outweighs the business advantage, stop. No downstream package is required.
Who This Engagement Is Built For
Founders with a genuine China operating question.
The Sprint is designed for independent international founders, solo founders, indie hackers, small AI and software companies, robotics and hardware-enabled ventures, research-driven companies, teams choosing between Chinese cities, and founders separating commercial access from living geography.
It is built for people who want the architecture before spending capital on implementation—and who are comfortable discovering that their original plan may be wrong.
Decision-as-a-Product
Information is abundant. Implementation services are everywhere. The scarce capability is deciding what should actually be built.
We combine public intelligence, official sources, founder-specific constraints, direct verification, field evidence, operating geography and execution dependencies into a decision a founder can act on.
The objective is the leanest operating structure that captures the exact advantage you came to China for.Start With the Free Founder Fit Check
A lightweight diagnostic for whether China belongs in your operating model and which questions need answers next.
Start the Founder Fit Check →Discuss a Founder Landing Sprint
Scope the actual decision, verification and operating-design work.
Discuss a Founder Landing Sprint →Invited technical team? Continue your original email conversation with Leo, or return to Beijing Node.