An American Who Moved to China 7 Years Ago Runs a Profitable Startup

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Joshua Charles Woodard, 29, cofounder of The Sparrows, a manufacturing consultancy based in Shenzhen.

I’ve always liked building real, physical products. When I was 8, I took pottery classes and made small sculptures of superheroes.

When I was 14, I learned that a Hong Kong company had bought a significant stake in Legendary Entertainment, the studio behind “Inception” — a favorite movie at the time. It sparked my curiosity about China.

Both influenced my studies at MIT, where I majored in mechanical engineering and minored in Mandarin.

I thought being fluent in Chinese and able to build products could be a killer combination.

Rethinking China, firsthand

In the middle of my third year at MIT, one of my professors invited me to Shanghai for a two-week Peking opera program. There, I learned the physical movements and enough Mandarin to perform.

I expected a poor, communist country, but instead, I found one of the most capitalist and consumerist places on earth. I kept thinking: What policies built this infrastructure?

In 2018, during my final year at MIT, I was accepted into the Schwarzman Scholars program — a fully funded, one-year master’s in global affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing. A few months after graduation, I moved to China and have continued living here for the past seven years.

From MIT to Tsinghua

My time at Tsinghua was different from my experience at MIT. I had fewer hours of class and more opportunities to hear from special speakers — including John Kerry. One day, I visited Xiongan, an experimental city near Beijing, where I surveyed development projects and met with government officials.

That year, I gained a foundation in how China works, from governance to history, and a master’s degree.

After graduation, I moved to Shenzhen — about 1,200 miles south of Beijing — to join a small product design firm as a project manager and mechanical engineer.

Ninety percent of the engineering team only spoke Chinese, so I had to learn Mandarin in an engineering capacity. I met up with a Mandarin teacher once or twice a week. I carried a notebook for industry-specific words, like “screw,” “injection,” and “molding.”

Then in 2021, after nine interviews, I joined Apple’s camera R&D team as an engineering program manager. I worked there for close to four years.

But I knew that there, reaching leadership would take another 10 to 15 years. That would have been fine if I wanted to live in Shenzhen forever, but if I were risk-averse, I’d have gone to Silicon Valley. Instead, I developed a unique skill set by staying here.

Adjusting to life in China

I grew up in a working-class Chicago neighborhood — my mom’s a nurse, my dad’s a laborer. Back home, long stares could mean danger. In China, they usually mean curiosity. I had to adjust.

Once, on the Communist Party’s birthday in 2019, a drunk man demanded my passport and accused me of stealing jobs. Police escorted him away.

Now, Shenzhen feels like a second home. Life is more comfortable, my money goes further, and I’ve built a solid network.

I have my network. I play badminton. It’s what all young people here do and a great way to make friends.

Doing my own thing

This year, Susan Su — a Chinese American MIT grad — and I started The Sparrows, a manufacturing consultancy.

We realized that some companies need help managing production and factories but can’t afford a full China-based team. Our goal was to fill that gap. We don’t do engineering but handle everything else.

We’re a team of four: the two of us plus a supply chain expert and a lawyer.

In the US, you sign a contract, and it’s done. In China, it’s about trust and relationships — with the factory and its managers — driving production and efficiency.

There’s a local phrase, shuangying, meaning “double win.” It’s about building genuine relationships with vendors, growing together as partners.

We were in the black from day one. I pay myself $2,500 a month from profits. I split a 969-square-foot apartment with a friend, and we each pay $600 a month.

Trade policy, meet real life

Tariffs do affect my work at Sparrows.

It feels like America is trying to be God now. But iPhones, medical consumables, and products for Google, Amazon, and Sam’s Club are still made in China.

Unless someone figures out how to move 40 years of supply chain development — the human resources, skilled workforce — and address the fact that most immigrants to Shenzhen are willing to work 60- or 70-hour weeks to send money back home, this is all noise.

There are legal tariff workarounds. We’re talking to a partner in Colombia to split production.

Once the company can run more independently, I’d like to be closer to family and drive US business development.

At first, my parents thought leaving Chicago for MIT was far. Moving to China was even harder for them. But as long as I call often, we’ve found our rhythm and stay connected.

Eventually, I plan to split my time between China and the US.