01
Build
Creating things from zero.
New ventures, products, business models and experiments — from the first question through structure, operations and execution.
Venture creation · Products · Business modelsAaron Zhu / 朱自强
I build businesses,
systems and ideas
across markets.
I work across business, technology and operations — creating projects, developing systems and helping companies solve problems that do not fit neatly inside a predefined category.
AZ / 朱MADRID — 2026
I tend to start with the same question:
Why does it have to work this way?
Sometimes the answer becomes a company. Sometimes software.
Sometimes, simply an idea worth exploring.
Sometimes, simply an idea worth exploring.
01 / Practice
What I do
Three ways I usually work — often overlapping.
02
Advise
Looking at the problem first.
Working with companies and entrepreneurs on strategy, operations, international business and problems between traditional disciplines.
Strategy · Operations · China / Europe03
Develop
Turning processes into systems.
Designing software, internal tools, AI workflows and operating systems around how a business actually works.
Software · Systems · AI02 / Selected work
Things built — and still being figured out.
C欧
VISUAL STUDY / 01CHIAOLINK
Business operations that deliver.
An external operations layer for companies working between Europe and China.
BUSINESS · OPERATIONS · CHINAView project ↗AZ/OS
VISUAL STUDY / 02OPERATIONS SYSTEM
Software should adapt to the business.
An evolving internal operating system connecting companies, documents, operations, data and AI.
SOFTWARE · SYSTEMS · AIView project ↗N人
VISUAL STUDY / 03NoMo
Remember people, not contacts.
An experiment in relationship memory — what if technology helped us remember people instead of simply storing them?
PRODUCT · AI · RELATIONSHIPSView project ↗03 / Field notes
Not everything becomes a company.
Some ideas become businesses. Others stay experiments, questions or useful failures. All of them leave a trace.
01Systems
AI agent organisation
BUILDING
02Commerce
New retail concept
EXPLORING
03Operations
Food operations model
EXPERIMENT
04China / Europe
Procurement systems
OPERATING
05Technology
Relationship memory
BUILDING
06Lessons
Past ventures
ARCHIVED
04 / Thinking
Questions before answers.
The questions behind the work — and the ideas that have not found a form yet.
001
Why should companies adapt themselves to software?
↗002When software becomes cheap to build, what becomes valuable?
↗003Which parts of a company actually need to exist inside the company?
↗004How much of knowing someone is simply remembering them?
↗005What happens when execution becomes easier than deciding what is worth executing?
↗05 / Writing
Some questions need more than a project.
AZ / 01Why does it have to work this way?AARON ZHU · 朱自强
BOOK · WORK IN PROGRESS
Why does it have to work this way?
Notes toward a book about ordinary systems, inherited assumptions and the structures underneath the things we rarely stop to question.
Read about the book ↗MADRID40.4168° N
3.7038° W
3.7038° W
06 / Context
Between places.
Born into one culture, living in another and working increasingly between both has shaped how I look at businesses, people and systems.
China and Europe are more than markets to connect. They are different ways of doing things — and understanding those differences often matters more than translating between them.
中国CHINA
EAST ASIA
EAST ASIA
07 / About
Aaron Zhu
朱自强
I create projects, advise companies and develop systems. My work moves between business, technology and operations, usually beginning with problems that do not fit neatly inside one category.
This website documents the things that became real — and a few that might.
More about me ↓08 / Work together
We might have
something to work
on together.
I work with companies, entrepreneurs and people building things. Sometimes that means creating from zero. Sometimes solving an operational problem. Sometimes figuring out what the actual problem is.
010203
Build something
You have an idea, market or opportunity and need help structuring and developing it.
Tell me about it ↗Solve something
There is a business or operational problem without an obvious solution.
Let's look at it ↗China / Europe
You are building, sourcing or operating between two very different markets.
Start a conversation ↗