Easily one of the most busiest guys in Shanghai, UK expat Thomas Lynch is behind some of the city's favorite places to get a drink and a dance: Gin & Juice, Original Sin, and popular Jing'an summer rooftop destination, Stardust. He counts no less than seven venues and community platforms in his entrepreneurial portfolio in Shanghai and China – all undertaken alongside his day job as a VP at the Top 100 UK company, Informa.

We caught up with Thomas to get some insights on his entrepreneurial journey since moving to Shanghai in 2018, the business environment that attracted him to move here, and the lay of the land in creating communities and connections today.

CNS : Maybe, to start with, can you introduce yourself and talk about your work in Shanghai?

Thomas Lynch: Okay, my name is Thomas Lynch. I'm a Vice President of Strategy and Research at a company called Informa, which is one of the top 100 UK companies. We're a global company, and I've been in Shanghai for nearly six years.

So, that's my day job. And then I'm also an entrepreneur. And so far, I've opened seven businesses in Shanghai.

Seven!

Yeah, imagine I started work today at 7am, and last night I finished work at about 2am. And that is my normal. I would definitely say Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

I try to keep Mondays and Fridays more normal, but they are normally from 8am until about 11 or midnight. And then the weekends are really all about entrepreneurial activities.

CNS: Okay, wow. Seven businesses? Do you mind listing them off?

Yeah, sure. So Reef Bar. That's still in operation out in Houhai village. So that's our beach bar in Sanya, and we've converted a gym there now as well, which is great. My partners are out there.

I have partnered with all of these businesses. I'm more like an investor than actively involved all the time because I have my career.

CNS: Do you have some influence on the creative direction?

I absolutely do, yes. Yeah. I seem to be the guy on the creative side. You're absolutely right.

Okay. Gin & Juice, for which the brand's still open. We're literally just looking for a new location. And actually, we've had discussions about opening more stores across China. But we want to open Shanghai Volume 2 first, and then we will look to take that further. Then there was House Sessions Music Entertainment which was a small events project during 2020-2022.

Stardust, where we are today.

But where I first started was FoS…

CNS: This is Friends of Shanghai? Can you explain what that is?

So, that was a community-based, event-oriented company at the very beginning. And soon, we wanted to convert into a more lifestyle brand. Still oriented around connecting people, online and offline.

We probably had about 500 events in five years.

CNS: Is networking the right word to describe it?

It was one of the pillars. So, this was mainly for young career professionals. And maybe young ladies and gentlemen looking for dating. So, that was a bit of a mix. But catering to especially career-oriented expats and locals.

We're heavily committed to Shanghai. So, my team is heavily committed. I certainly am.

CNS: What year was that?

At the beginning of 2019, we started.

So, I arrived here in 2018. With a plan.

And by 2019, we had set up the business. Then we had FoS Media. And we were even running online events during COVID. So, when everybody was at home, we were running something called the Festival of Shanghai. And what we do is have 30 DJs or some live streams from some concerts. And we'd mix it up every time.

And at one point, we had 50,000 people online switching between the different channels. It was a way to engage with our audience and our communities. And a wider community who were looking for things to do.

And then I was involved in one of my very first projects, which was a bar called Curfew. So Curfew is now another brand. And doing extremely well.

…So I think I've covered most of the ground there.

What sort of demographics are you seeing?

Pre-COVID, I would say at the very front end, maybe 70 percent locals, 30 percent expats. I think if I were to do that now, the balance would be slightly off that. It's probably been more on the local side, and less on the expat side, to be honest. But at the time, maybe 60 to 70 nationals – that's the best way to put it. And then there are 30 to 40 expat foreigners.

CNS: What were the numbers in attendance? It sort of really blew up, didn't it?

Well, what happened was that it started off as a small community. Yeah. And then we were invited by other event organizers or venues to partake in what they were doing.

And we did one event with a company called MVP, and after we started doing a few things with them. And we're friends with MVP to this day. They were a fantastic company to work with, with great people. And they really taught us a lot about how to build bigger events.

Because at the time, we would just do very small things. But there was one event – I think it was at the Ritz or the Bund – and we were asked, Hey, do you need a guest list for this? And we said, well, sure. And we thought we were going to bring about 20 people.

We brought about 200. Okay, great. And then that was the beginning. And for almost every single event, we were bringing 200-300 people.

And one day, someone said, Look, Thomas, you're a community kid. I know you want to hold on to the community. But maybe you should throw your own events because then you can control the events.

We were doing a whole host of different types of events. It wasn't always a big DJ, big entertainment, rooftop on the bund. We were opening parties. We were doing afternoon lunches and brunches. And we were actually doing a whole different stage of things.

CNS: Any nights stick out as particularly good memories for you?

Always the New Year's Eve parties. The biggest event we did was for 2,000 people. This was New Year's Eve in, um, I always get mixed up with the years – 2022. Can you imagine, right in the middle of COVID? That was our biggest event.

We were the last people to open the whole of Mint. So, FoS opened Mint in 2021. It had all closed, and we just, had one last pitch for one night on New Year's.

And then we did 1Oak in 2023.

How about the marketing aspect of it? How are you getting the word out? How are you building the community?

Obviously, WeChat helped. We use Instagram as well for foreigners. That was a very good way to plug into the foreigners. We had a very, very strong relationship with a popular English media right from the beginning, which was really advantageous. But we also tried to use other platforms. But we're a pretty loyal brand.

But actually, the real value of what we did was that we were active on the ground with offline activation. So, we would be there.

People would come along, and we'd make the effort to introduce ourselves. Myself, I'm very social, but you can imagine my partners and the team. And we had a team of about 20-25 people at one point just doing FoS.

And everybody had their own communities that ended up intertwining with ours. They were all socially engaged. I remember in 2018 we started with a few WeChat groups with around 800 people, and by 2019 we had expanded to 8 FoS WeChat groups and around 4,000 people. And now we have over 100 WeChat groups with more than 50,000 people.

They were all active in terms of the brand and how we wanted to grow. They really cared about us being a lifestyle brand, but also caring about all the different people on personal levels.

You mentioned before that you came to Shanghai with a plan.

Absolutely. So the company, Informa, does a lot of different things. However, the division that I'm part of is a technology-oriented strategy research provider division.

So when I got here, I knew the power of new communications and new technology. And I knew that the future would include things like AI.

And I knew that we'd be able to have ways and means to bring communities together using technology and platforms.

I knew that we could do this even on user-friendly, accessible platforms such as WeChat. Because WeChat allows you to have 500 people in a group.

Before this, if you were to go back to some of the other popular apps, such as WhatsApp and Facebook, you would maybe get 15-30 people in a group. And that group would be tied off or about as functional as you could get.

But WeChat provided this multimedia-capable platform where people could see if their friends were in the group. People could communicate with each other, add each other, people could post pictures. We could post dates. There's a whole plethora of different things that we all know and we all enjoy about WeChat.

But the rest of the world is still... they're really behind that level of what WeChat is and what a great platform that is.

But certainly, when I got here in 2018, I'd fallen in love with Shanghai many years ago before visiting on business trips. And the moment I got here, I always said, this is the city I want to move to. Imagine that I've been to 59 countries, and this is the city that stole my heart!

And I haven't even counted the cities. But I'd expect there to be around 150 cities.

And Shanghai is the city... It's number one... that I fell in love with.

Then you add technology, which is my second passion. And then there is the ability to connect with people from all over the world. It made Shanghai the absolute place where I wanted to build something.

And also, it lined up with my company's corporate goals. Because my company recognized China as one of the key markets. We invest in China. We hire in China. We've just built new offices in China. And we continue to push into the Chinese market as part of our expansion strategy.

CNS: And getting into nightlife and hospitality?

The plan was to build a community. And that was the major focus of my spare time. And then getting into the kind of bigger events was just a direction that allowed us to actually gain momentum in terms of brand recognition and sponsors.

So, we ended up having multiple-year sponsorship contracts. Which allowed us to employ people full-time. Which was wonderful. We were able to give everyone, especially expats, opportunities in Shanghai. Otherwise, they probably would not have had the opportunity to stay. And that was really something that we hold dear. We were able to employ people in design, PR, and marketing. We did media.

And the sponsors. And they helped us leapfrog and grow quite a lot.

CNS: So, going back a bit, what was it about Shanghai that made it number one for you to relocate? You mentioned the technology, but what else?

So, you know, Shanghai across the board is number one.

Listen, the majority of coffee shops in probably the world are here, haha. I'm telling you, it's something similar with bars right now.

They're popping up everywhere. Actually, the main reason is that the government allowed street bars and small bars. Instead of big bars, traditionally, now we get lots of local guests. So, it's easier to get licenses. It's more convenient as a smaller bar.

Everybody always asks me about doing business in Shanghai. I would say I've never really worked anywhere where it was so easy to do business.

CNS: You're seeing a lot of support on the government side of things for new business?

I think the word is... not lenient because it's still very professional. You still have to go through all the stages and procedures of everywhere else. But Shanghai is an open opportunity market.

So, you know, if I were to tell you in London that every corner across Mayfair, Oxford Street, all the main places, and every key store has probably been there now for 20 years. There's no accessibility. Shanghai is still a developing, open market. There's still a lot of opportunity for creativity to redesign spaces – to convert a space that might be a grocery shop today into a whiskey lounge tomorrow.

Shanghai has that beauty of flexibility.

So, if you have the creative energy, the capability, and the ideas – actually, you know, things like getting licenses and those types of things – as long as you're on board and you tick all the boxes, the government is supportive here and happy to help you through that process.

CNS: How would you describe Shanghai's social scene to someone who's never been here?

Exciting. There is so much choice. There is almost an abundance of choice. Unlike any other market, you can get around Shanghai relatively easily and quickly. At very low cost. So the infrastructure here is second to none.

So whether you're getting DiDis, local taxis, metro, or any other form of communication, you can get around this city very quickly. And also, there are quite a few spots to relax and socialize. And then they host quite a lot of choices within those areas.

So you can move around. You can go to Fuxing Park at INS. That has a certain demographic.

CNS: What's trendy in Shanghai nightlife these days, would you say? What's big?

I mentioned the small bars. But I'd say bars and restaurants in general. This is a global trend. This is not just a Shanghai trend. The younger generations are more health conscious. They want to go to sleep at night. They want to be active during the day. They want to experience the sun. And Shanghai has so much to offer during the day as well as at night. But we're talking about nightlife.

Drinking an abundance of alcohol is not the goal or strategy for most people now. It's to go out and have a nice social evening. Like a dinner.

Have a nice dinner. Have a few drinks.

Go and see some live entertainment. And the clubbing business is the hardest business now in Shanghai. And I know because I've done restaurants, bars, small bars, and events.

CNS: As someone who went through the pandemic period, have you seen the demographics change?

I have. For sure. It's clear. During COVID, certainly from the expats, which is the demographic I can talk to more. A lot of families. Corporates. There were people who may have come to the end of their tenure in Shanghai anyway. And then they decided to leave early. And maybe there was just no replacement for that person.

But what I would say is recently that's changing. And every time I go out now, I see new faces. People from all around the world. People are super excited to be here in Shanghai, and there seems to be a steady stream of new expats coming in.

These are like new people. These are totally new people. Some are visiting for a holiday, and some are moving here.

CNS: Are you seeing new business professionals coming to Shanghai?

Yes absolutely. Obviously, because China has recently opened up a lot of new policies to make it easier to travel here. To make sure that was more accessible. I see a lot more business conferences now. I can tell you about the National Business Arena, the NECC. They have events every week. From people all around the world. Covering a multitude of things. China Plus, cosmetics, technology, and AI conferences. We see all of those people now filtering in Shanghai's social scenes both on short-term and long-term basis.

But also, as I mentioned, we're seeing people at all times of day, not just in the evenings. I would say the daylight is just as busy as the nightlife in Shanghai.

CNS: Have you got any interesting predictions for Shanghai in 2024 and next year? In terms of anything we're talking about?

Absolutely, I think we'll see a lot more expats coming back. More younger people. We've seen a lot more student exchanges.

This is great, by the way. This is good for Shanghai. I see them at Stardust.

I ask them what they think about Shanghai, and they say, "Hey Thomas, we've only got three months here, but sure as hell, I'm coming back."

CNS: Right, right. That's what used to happen with people back in 2014. They come as students, and then they come back to start a career.

Exactly. I think that pattern is coming back to life.

And also, I feel like the expats have more of a voice. Probably more than ever. And for people like myself, I hope that I can be, in some way, a confidence boost, an inspiration, whatever you call it.

To other people in Shanghai, other people looking to move here, to start an entrepreneurial career, or to develop their career. To know that there are actually big opportunities here and that Shanghai is a place where you can do that and be incredibly successful. This city has been for me, and I know for soooo many others, life-changing.

CNS: What keeps you in Shanghai? Do you still believe in the city? I mean, you were sort of answering that...

I feel like the number one fan of Shanghai. You know the meme with Leonardo DiCaprio? Where he's saying, "I'm not going anywhere!"

CNS: The Wolf of Wall Street.

I've felt like that since day one. I'm like, I don't care. I am not going anywhere. I've been invested in this city from day one.

I was invested in this city six years before I got here. I'm all in, basically.

CNS: Have you got any advice for new people coming to Shanghai?

Yeah, come with an open heart, and an open mind. Ask lots of questions.

Get around as much as possible. And truly experience Shanghai life. Because it's a city like no other.