Everyone is watching China with bated breath at the moment. Its recent stock market turbulence, currency devaluation and lower growth projections have left the world wondering whether the Chinese economy will continue to thrive. Despite these problems, entrepreneurship is flourishing in China, one of the few developing economies that has managed to successfully foster a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. The Chinese no longer consider entrepreneurship risky behaviour. Now, instead of discouraging it, they actually appreciate entrepreneurs as a critical factor in the success of the economy.At a recent World Economic Forum conference, in Dalian, in northeast China, Premier Li Keqiang said: "Millions of small and micro enterprises are the hope and future of China." He said innovation and entrepreneurship were the key drivers for growth.South Africa's desire to boost innovation and entrepreneurship is quite similar to China's. So let's pause and think about what we can learn from this generation of successful Chinese entrepreneurs - those who have turned their start-ups into global organisations in only a few years.story_article_left1As part of a group from Silicon Valley that went on a trip to Beijing to learn more from this new generation of Chinese tycoons, I visited the headquarters of the most successful start-ups in a number of industries. The most notable were technology giants such as Alibaba, Baidu and Xiaomi. We also engaged with aspiring entrepreneurs to solicit their views on this topic.I was struck by what we found. The Chinese entrepreneurs did not let foreign companies dominate the Chinese market. Instead, they developed solutions that were more relevant to their market, optimising their local knowledge for their customers.Baidu, known as "the Google of China", is one example. Instead of creating another version of the Google search engine in 2000, it created a search engine that had China-specific features such as symbol recognition. This works for the local market, because of the Chinese use of symbols rather than an alphabet. The quality of the end product was comparable to, if not better than, Google. Today, Baidu has 63% of the Chinese search market.Alibaba, known as "the eBay of China", is a similar success story. It proved that e-commerce could succeed in an environment where the infrastructure was poor. It was founded in 1999 and has become the biggest e-commerce company in China. It made history last year as the world's biggest IPO to date.This should inspire all of us to build products that will solve problems for South Africa and the rest of the continent. Sometimes, first-world products are not the best solutions for us, and have repeatedly failed in this environment.The benefit of localising business ideas is that entrepreneurs end up designing products that don't just work for China, but also for developing countries that have similar challenges to China's.For example, Xiaomi, now the third-largest maker of smartphones in the world, started as a cellphone manufacturer for the Chinese market in 2010.I recently spoke to Puneet Kumar, a Stanford graduate who was a consultant for Xiaomi on its global growth strategy.He explained that the company discovered how to produce a quality phone for much less than the Apples and Samsungs of the world. Lower prices are important - not just for the poor communities in China, but for poor communities around the world - and now Xiaomi is expanding into South America and the rest of Asia.story_article_right2These examples from China should motivate all of us to create solutions for the many problems that remain unsolved in our country today - solutions that could eventually become relevant to the rest of the world.The CEO and co-founder of Clickatell, Pieter de Villiers, is an example of a South African who designed a product that became a market leader not just in South Africa, but far beyond our borders.In 2000, Clickatell was the first product that enabled businesses to easily send bulk SMSes to customers. I listened to De Villiers share his story with aspiring entrepreneurs in Cape Town last week.He has successfully led the business to operate across 224 countries and territories. He strongly advocates the creation of products that solve real problems in compelling ways.Let us all start using business to solve real problems in South Africa, with an eye on having an impact beyond our borders. This is a great legacy to leave for the next generation.Sikhakhane advises and funds African entrepreneurs. She is an international retail expert, writer and motivational speaker, with an honours degree in business science from the University of Cape Town and an MBA from Stanford University in the USziphosikhakhane@gmail.com..