Crafting Excellence: The Product Love Story of Robin Zheng, CEO of Ptmind

Greetings! Today, we would like to introduce you to Robin Zheng, the CEO of Ptmind. Despite what the title may suggest, the photo reveals his rare onstage presence. You might be curious why we have chosen to write this article. There’s a good reason.

To understand our company and products, it’s best to start with Robin’s personality. It’s a testament to who we are. He’s someone who sparks humor effortlessly; we all affectionately know him as Robin. This familiarity speaks volumes about his character and our company’s culture.

To give you a snapshot of who Robin is: He is, in essence, the epitome of purity.

Describing him with just three keywords, you’d get “Global ambition, profound love for the product, and genuine care for users.” These epitomize Robin. However, I want to share his personal thoughts with you—though he’s shy from the public eye, he’s graciously allowed me to write this article.

For Ptmind’s CEO Robin, entrepreneurship came naturally. Born in Fujian, China—a province known for its entrepreneurial spirit—it’s unsurprising that nearly half of his classmates now live overseas. Influential entrepreneurs from Fujian, like the founders of TikTok’s ByteDance and Meituan, may have played their part. Robin grew up witnessing his family’s business and learned early that “Survival in business demands equal effort, regardless of the company’s size.” This understanding sparked a desire in him to “rather do something that impacts the world than endure the same hardships!”

Unwavering Passion from Childhood to Present

Robin’s personality has always been marked by steadfast passions. His childhood love for airplanes remains, now indulged through VR. His loyalty to AC Milan stands strong; he married his first love. He cherishes simplicity and, while his interests are wide, he prefers to dedicate himself to what he truly enjoys.

This trait is mirrored in his business philosophy. His boyhood dream to “make an impact on the world” has matured into ambition.

Sustainable Business Growth: Three Core Principles

Our first principle is “compound interest.” You might question its relevance, but Einstein dubbed it “the greatest invention of mankind.” Though commonly associated with finance, Robin believes efficient growth via compound interest is crucial for global impact.

The second principle is to “Invest in constants.” In the ever-changing business landscape, Robin values the advice of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and focuses on the immutable potential of data.

The third principle is to “Keep people happy.” It’s a simple truth: happiness begets reward. Robin’s ethos, learned from his mother’s struggles with illiteracy, is: “Never betray your integrity, even if betrayed. Continue to make people happy.” Translating this to business, he maintains that making people happy is the foundation of a successful enterprise.

Ptengine: A Global Phenomenon with 200,000 Users in 184 Countries

During my third year of university in Japan, I established Ptmind Co., Ltd. After several years of exploring different ventures, in 2014, we launched Ptengine—a comprehensive analytics tool featuring a heatmap to track website engagement.

Our Product Development Mantra: Three Key Principles

Our foremost principle is to “Maximize the Value of Data.” We believe that bringing “people,” “data,” and “workflow” into harmony is where true value emerges. This conviction drives our product development process.

Ease of use stands as our second principle. With an intuitive interface, Ptengine offers a “freemium model,” allowing users to begin free of charge. This approach is aimed at empowering a broader user base. The entire Ptmind team believes that once users engage with our product, its quality becomes evident. Contrary to the norm where “sales drive the product,” we experienced a gratifying reversal: our product’s demand grew so robust that it outpaced sales efforts. We pride ourselves on creating user-centric products that are universally accessible.

The third principle is to “Stay Close to the User and Evolve Accordingly.” Although chat support is now a given, there was a time it wasn’t so common. Robin envisioned a service where users felt fully supported, a sentiment so strong that despite internal hesitations, we introduced chat support. Today, a customer-first mindset is ingrained in our team.

Ptengine, born from these ideals, earned the Good Design Award and was quickly embraced by the quality-conscious Japanese market. Since 2014, the product has grown popular through word-of-mouth and media attention, without the need for traditional promotion. Used by 200,000 individuals in 184 countries, Ptengine’s success, we believe, is largely owed to our Japanese user base. In Japan, Ptengine is recognized as the second most popular analytics service after Google Analytics, with the user base growing by nearly 1,000 each month.

Ptengine: Japan’s Preferred Analytics Platform

Embracing a Fusion of Cultures: The Ascent of Asia

Ptmind stands as a unique MIX company, developing SaaS from Beijing and cultivating a large user base in Japan. Robin frequently shuttles between the two hubs to balance the strengths of China and Japan within our offerings. We’re convinced that the amalgamation of these cultural DNAs will propel Asia to make a global impact.

IMF statistics from 2020 show that Asia’s GDP (based on purchasing power parity) surpasses that of other regions combined. By 2030, Asia is projected to represent 60% of global GDP. Companies like Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei, Baidu, ByteDance, DiDi, and Xiaomi, all flourishing with Chinese DNA, have the potential to reshape the world. With a third of the world’s unicorn companies hailing from Asia, global entrepreneurs must take note.

*Unicorn Company: A private startup valued at over $1 billion, established within the last decade.

In conclusion, I’d like to share Robin’s thoughts on Asia’s vast potential:

Robin says, “Japan possesses ‘investigative power’—evidenced by numerous Nobel Prizes—and ’empathetic power,’ giving rise to ‘omotenashi’ (hospitality). This creates an extraordinary environment where products can evolve from market feedback. China has mastered rapidly applying the basics of existing technologies to forge new business models, and there’s a fervent development environment for products integrating numerous AI and deep learning patents. We believe that the synergy of these strengths forms our competitive edge, enabling us to deliver products that ignite innovation.”

Thank you for reading!