On Thursday, the WTIA and member company TUNE hosted former VP of Alibaba and newly published author of Alibaba’s World, Porter Erisman. Over 60 attendees came out to listen to Erisman speak about his experience working with the wildly successful Chinese e-commerce site.

Erisman’s talk was geared towards people in the startup and entrepreneur community, offering advice for best practices based on his learnings from Jack Ma, Founder and CEO of Alibaba. Part of his presentation included video clips from his documentary Crocodile in the Yangtze, showcasing the early days of Ma’s company in a small apartment in Hangzhou, China.

Holding the event in TUNE’s Belltown location was perfect for this Tech Author event as Erisman proclaimed Seattle to be one of the meccas of e-commerce. “Seattle is a great example that you don’t have to be in Silicon Valley to create a successful, global company,” he said.

After the presentation, Erisman stuck around to sign copies of his book and network with attendees. Big thank you to our host Tune, our speaker, Porter Erisman, and everyone who attended last night. Our next event will be May 20^th, Tech in Focus: Disruptive Technologies, hope to see you there!