An Engineer’s View of Entrepreneurship
Before building Innowave Tech, CEO Xu Jinsong worked on production lines and in engineering and quality leadership, often dealing with urgent operational problems. Sharing his journey with members of the Tsinghua Entrepreneur & Executive Club (TEEC), he connected that experience with the motivation behind his move into entrepreneurship: using technology to make work smarter and more balanced.
The exchange brought together TEEC members from around the world and founders in Singapore. In his Mar 14, 2026 reflection, CEO Xu Jinsong traced a path from engineering into leadership and then the startup journey. The common thread was the work itself: what technology could change for the people facing industrial challenges.
That background gives a practical frame to the discussion of innovation. In an engineering and quality role, an urgent problem demands an answer that can be used. Read in that light, CEO Xu Jinsong’s emphasis on customer value carries a clear test for entrepreneurship: whether a new idea helps solve a problem that matters to the customer.
Four Questions behind Building a Company
His reflections centered on four themes, echoing insights shared by TEEC chairman Dr Liu Sheng. The first was direction: choosing the right track matters as much as the effort committed to it. For a founder, this brings the choice of problem into focus before the intensity of execution.
The second was core competitiveness, grounded in innovation that creates real customer value. The third was the partner ecosystem, which CEO Xu Jinsong linked to the pace and potential scale of growth. These themes connect the strength of what a company builds with the relationships that help it reach and serve customers.
The fourth was sustained effort over the long term. Read together, the themes provide a useful set of questions for a founder: are we working on the right problem, creating something valuable, building the relationships required to grow, and prepared to keep going? Each brings a different discipline to the work of building a company.
Keeping Industrial Work at the Center
For Innowave Tech, the account links the founder’s manufacturing experience to the choices involved in building an AI company. It places customer value, partners and persistence alongside technical innovation. The ambition to make work smarter and more balanced remains the thread connecting the production line to the company’s entrepreneurial journey.