YouYiXing: From General Healthcare to Assisted Reproduction – How Xie Guo’ao Built a Cross-border O2O Platform

Xie Guo'ao, CEO of Youyixing

In late 2012, Xie Guoao left a large state-owned enterprise where he had worked for six years. Driven by his passion for the internet and a strong desire to start his own business, he moved from Guangzhou to Beijing, becoming an entrepreneur among the city’s migrant professionals.

After arriving in Beijing, Xie Guo’ao’s entrepreneurial journey was far from smooth. Out of necessity, he continued to work in traditional industries for two more years, all while persistently seeking the startup opportunity he had long envisioned. As Steve Jobs once said, “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.”

Two years later, the inaugural Beijing session of Stanford University’s “Ignite Program” was launched under the slogan “Change lives, Change the society, Change the world.” This program is designed for entrepreneurs with a passion for entrepreneurship and innovation who do not have a business background. It was here that Xie Guo’ao’s “Youyixing” was born, developing a viable business model through market research and interviews. Fortunately, the project received high praise from Stanford professors and the venture capital firms present.

Soon after, Beijing Youyixing Technology Co., Ltd. was registered and established in the Zhongguancun Entrepreneurship Building, with support from overseas study-abroad funds. Focusing on international healthcare, “Youyixing” primarily provides high- and middle-income individuals in China with access to premium international medical resources for serious illnesses, precision health screenings, and assisted reproductive technologies. Its core services include information inquiry, online appointment scheduling, remote consultations, and advisory services, along with comprehensive one-stop VIP services for overseas medical care.

During the project’s implementation, Xie Guoao observed that among individuals seeking medical treatment abroad, those with infertility seeking overseas assisted reproductive services represent a core market demand. They look to high-quality overseas medical resources to help them conceive and fulfill their dream of having a child. Consequently, he established “Youyunxing,” a service brand dedicated to overseas eugenics and healthy pregnancy, committed to integrating premium global assisted reproductive medical resources and building a world-leading one-stop platform for overseas conception and childbirth.

So, what business adjustments has Youyixing made in its transition from general practice to the vertically specialized field of assisted reproduction? And what insights has it gained?

In China, against the backdrop of a stark imbalance in the doctor-to-patient ratio and a relative scarcity of high-quality medical resources, healthcare and service perpetually constitute a complex contradiction. Public hospitals “provide medical care but lack corresponding humanized services,” while private hospitals “offer services but lack truly high-quality medical care.” This dichotomy is inconsistent with China’s socioeconomic development and fails to meet future public expectations for upgraded medical services.

According to Xie Guo’ao, although the number of people seeking medical treatment abroad is growing rapidly, many patients have a poor experience due to information asymmetry. Most Chinese patients choose overseas medical care through intermediaries. Based on Xie Guo’ao’s user research and visits to overseas medical institutions, while the currently prevalent intermediary model in China has opened a channel for overseas medical treatment, it still has significant drawbacks, leaving both users and medical institutions highly dissatisfied.

For patients, using an intermediary entails several drawbacks: first, the payment of exorbitant agency fees; second, inconsistent service standards among intermediaries, which fail to guarantee the quality of medical care and services; and third, inadequate protection of privacy. Furthermore, excessive promises made by intermediaries to overseas medical institutions have occasionally led to incidents involving Chinese medical disputes abroad.

Therefore, Xie Guoao considered leveraging the advantages of the internet to address information asymmetry in overseas medical care and resolve destination service issues. On one hand, hospitals would be onboarded onto the “Youyunxing” platform; on the other hand, users could select desired services based on their capabilities, namely, one-stop personalized overseas services.

As of now, the “Youyunxing” platform has aggregated more than 30 leading fertility institutions, third-party assisted reproductive technology (ART) providers, and reproductive centers, including 10 in the United States, 5 in Thailand, 1 in Malaysia, and 2 in Russia. In the future, services in Japan, Taiwan, and other regions will also be launched to provide more solutions for Chinese patients with infertility.

With the relaxation of the “universal two-child” policy, the overseas IVF market has become increasingly booming. It is understood that individuals opting for overseas IVF primarily fall into three categories: first, couples of advanced maternal age or those with fertility impairments, who are drawn by the higher success rates of overseas assisted reproductive technologies and more precise diagnostic capabilities for various complex conditions; second, mid- to high-net-worth individuals emphasizing eugenics, who find significant appeal in services such as legal sex selection and high-quality IVF treatment available abroad; and third, same-sex couples, who need to travel overseas to access third-party assisted reproductive services.

For these three categories of customers, Xie Guoao provides higher-quality and more reliable fertility solutions, primarily reflected in three aspects:

1) More comprehensive and secure appointment plans

Authoritative, professional, transparent, disintermediated, and customer-centric—these are the core brand principles upheld by Youyunxing. Through the platform, users can directly contact and simultaneously schedule appointments with multiple overseas fertility institutions, ensuring that clients receive the most suitable eugenics and optimal pregnancy plans. Youyunxing guarantees that every hospital on the platform is authentic, reliable, certified, world-class, and seamlessly integrated, providing the most professional and considerate medical assistance whenever clients need it.

2) More Considerate and Reliable Intelligent Matching of Institutions

Users can find the fertility clinic best suited to their needs on Youyunxing based on their age. For example, if the female user’s age is under 35, Youyunxing intelligently matches her with fertility clinics boasting live birth rates exceeding 60%.

If the female user's age is between 35 and 40, the Youyun Behavior system matches her with the fertility institution that has the highest live birth rate for her corresponding age group;

For female users over the age of 40, Youyunxing recommends institutions with the most extensive experience in treating advanced maternal age cases and a proven track record of successful live births, ensuring that clients receive satisfactory and cost-effective solutions to their concerns.

3) Faster and More Authoritative Professional Remote Consultation Services

U-Pregnancy is dedicated to building a bridge for reproductive health between China and the rest of the world. Clients can not only travel abroad seamlessly and worry-free for eugenics, fertility treatments, and childbirth services, but also access video consultations with top-tier experts from both domestic and international fields through the U-Pregnancy platform.

“Even a hero needs the support of three others.” For entrepreneurs, having ideas and dreams alone is not enough. Transforming a promising project from concept to reality requires the backing of a passionate, visionary, and industry-experienced team.

Xie Guoao currently serves as the Chairman and President of the Company. He holds a master’s degree in Industrial Design from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. During his graduate studies, he also pursued coursework at the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, and the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar in Germany. In 2014, he graduated from the inaugural cohort of Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Ignite Program (Beijing). Previously, Mr. Xie served as the Automotive Design Supervisor at the Automotive Engineering Research Institute of GAC Group, where he was assigned to overseas assignments for an extended period. He also worked as a freelance contributor to CAR DESIGN NEWS, a globally renowned automotive design website, thereby accumulating extensive experience in product development and media public relations. In 2012, he assumed the roles of Vice President of Wuzhou Global Group and President of Wuzhou Global Investment Co., Ltd. During this tenure, he participated in angel investments for multiple internet-based projects, gaining substantial investment experience and developing a profound understanding of the evolution and trends of the internet industry.

Zhang Di, currently the Chief Medical Officer of the company, holds a Master’s degree in Healthcare Administration from the University of Southern California and was awarded the Cathay Bank Cheng Shi Hengkuang Scholarship. He has previously served at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, UCLA Health, and Libertana Home Healthcare Services Co., Ltd. With a robust medical background, he possesses in-depth research expertise and understanding of hospital electronic health record (EHR) systems as well as the structuring and digitalization of healthcare data.

Tan Liang, currently Chief Product Officer of the company, holds a master’s degree from the European Institute for Knowledge Economy and Management, a bachelor’s degree from Queen Mary University of London, and a bachelor’s degree from the International School of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. He previously served as Assistant to the Vice President at Chukong Technologies, worked as a Product Manager, and co-founded the online travel startup Suiji Zhilv. He possesses in-depth expertise in internet product development.

Cao Dong, Chief Channel Officer, holds a Master’s degree in Social Medicine and Health Services Management from Peking University. He previously served as the North China Regional Manager at Johnson & Johnson (Shanghai) Medical Devices Co., Ltd., a Fortune 500 company, and as Chief Operating Officer of Beijing Mudao Technology Co., Ltd.

In fact, cross-border healthcare is highly complex. Although it represents a major trend, patients are geographically dispersed and place significant emphasis on service experience. “In the early stages, we simultaneously managed multiple disease conditions. We later found that our services struggled to keep pace, and the lack of clear focus severely compromised efficiency and speed.”

Indeed, in early 2016, the Youyixing team chose overseas fertility services as its core entry point and established the vertical brand “Youyunxing,” promoting the brand philosophy that “love begins with the conception of life” to address the pain points of a large population in China facing difficulties in conceiving and bearing children.

According to relevant statistical data, there are over 50 million women in China experiencing infertility or subfertility. With the relaxation of the two-child policy, the number of older women preparing for pregnancy has surged domestically. However, IVF centers in China can only provide in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment to approximately 300,000 patients annually. Consequently, the majority of these individuals do not receive timely and appropriate diagnosis and treatment, resulting in the loss of precious time.

To efficiently connect with users, Xie Guoao opted for a model combining self-built networks and partnerships with third-party institutional platforms to acquire customers. On the "Youyunxing" online platform, patients can access the following features:

I. Patients gain direct access to high-quality overseas medical resources, enabling a "direct express" pathway for seeking medical treatment abroad.

II. Through secured transactions, the interests of both patients and healthcare institutions are safeguarded.

III. Lowering the threshold for patients seeking overseas medical care through financial and insurance solutions, such as installment payment plans.

In the profitability segment, revenue is primarily generated through third-party value-added services, such as medical translation and travel services; commission-based referrals from IVF clinics, egg donation agencies, surrogacy agencies, and postpartum care centers; as well as customer acquisition revenue sharing, advertising, event sponsorship, and financial installment plans.