Post-95s Shine! Amazon Global Selling and Forbes China Unveil List of 30 New Generation Cross-Border E-commerce Entrepreneurs

On June 30, Amazon Global Selling and Forbes China jointly announced the '2026 Forbes China New Generation Cross-Border E-commerce 30' list at the 'Cross-Border New Generation' Visionary Summit. The list includes pioneers in hardcore technology sectors like 3D printing, yard robots, and AI hearing aids, as well as innovators transforming traditional industries such as furniture, home goods, and apparel. With an average age of 35, they have carved out differentiated paths for global expansion, driving high-quality enterprise growth through brand value, achieved via product innovation, operational efficiency improvements, or business model restructuring.

At the summit, Amazon also revealed the '2026 New Generation Global Expansion Keywords' voted by the 30 honorees: 'Vast as Stars and Seas', 'Fast and Slow', and 'Pricing Power'. These keywords respectively represent the new generation cross-border e-commerce entrepreneurs' long-term vision of reinventing 'Made in China' through technological innovation for a global layout; the strategic resolve to build brands with a long-term mindset; and the core pursuit of escaping price competition through differentiated products.

Song Xiaojun, Vice President of Amazon China and Head of New Seller Acquisition, Emerging Markets, and Business-to-Business for Amazon Global Selling China, pointed out that China's cross-border e-commerce is rapidly entering a new 'born global' phase. The new generation of entrepreneurs are building differentiated advantages through technological innovation, planning brand journeys with a global vision, and making global business layout the default option from day one.

'These 30 honorees showcase diverse paths of innovation: some are pushing the performance boundaries of categories with proprietary technology, some are converting refined operations into systematic advantages using AI technology, and others are making the leap from OEM to owning their brands based on traditional manufacturing...' Song Xiaojun noted, adding that they collectively validate that China's cross-border e-commerce is shifting from competing on efficiency to competing on value. This transformation is underpinned by the decades of accumulated industrial foundation in Chinese manufacturing, resonating with the breakthroughs in technological innovation and brand awareness achieved by the new generation of entrepreneurs.

I. Product Innovation: Born from 'Insight into Demand'

Product innovation has become a key to breaking through in cross-border e-commerce, a trend particularly evident among the new generation enterprises. They excel at leveraging cutting-edge technologies like AI to precisely capture 'unmet needs' from Amazon's vast pool of consumer data and rely on proprietary R&D systems to translate these insights into differentiated products with pricing power.

Take the example of Miao Jianzhang, CEO of Tingxiang Technology, who made the list. In the hearing health sector, facing the global dilemma for 1.5 billion people with hearing loss where 'affordable options are ineffective and effective options are unaffordable', Miao founded the brand 'ELEHEAR'. He developed a proprietary AI acoustic algorithm capable of 450 million computations per second, improving speech clarity by 30% in noisy environments and restoring natural hearing perception. Within a year, the brand went from zero to become the top seller in the hearing aid category on Amazon US. This exemplifies deeply understanding global consumer needs and building core competitiveness through pioneering technological innovation.

Another group of entrepreneurs leverages the deep-seated strengths of China's industrial clusters, entering overseas niche markets with breakthrough innovations in materials, structure, and design. For instance, Huang Yang, founder of Shenzhen Hanyang Technology, precisely targeted the 'low-frequency, essential need' scenario of yard maintenance in Europe and North America. After eight years of development, he created the Yarbo smart yard robot, addressing the industry pain point of seasonal idle time for traditional yard tools and filling the industrial gap for consumer-grade snow-clearing robots. Xie Xiuzhen, founder of BOCOMAL, developed a proprietary new lightweight flame-retardant material. While maintaining the same protection level, the material reduces garment weight by 35% and increases breathability by 50%. The core product sold over 150,000 units in its first year, becoming the top seller in the flame-retardant shirt subcategory on Amazon.

II. Operational Revolution: Maximizing AI in Operations

On the operational front, the new generation of entrepreneurs are leading the charge in upgrading AI from single-point applications to a systematic operational infrastructure, enabling large-scale growth with lean teams. Amazon research indicates that over 98% of surveyed Chinese sellers are already using AI tools when operating their Amazon stores, with 16% having progressed from single-point AI tools to deploying AI workflows or agents for automated multi-tasking.

Among this year's honorees, the mother and baby products brand 'Hakuna Matata' is a typical representative of this trend. Its founder, Sun Xiang, started with a team of four and integrated AI throughout the entire operational chain: using an AI system to analyze over 4,000 user reviews on Amazon to pinpoint product selling points; deploying multiple AI agents to scrape thousands of real discussions from community forums of the target customer group to uncover demand trends; and identifying content gaps between consumer search intent and product pages across tens of thousands of search terms. This AI operational system, running automatically 24/7, comprises over 20 scheduled agents, 6 resident bots, and more than 60 collaborative skills, forming a highly automated closed-loop operational system.

Reportedly, by deeply integrating AI technology with Amazon's operational tools, Hakuna Matata achieved revenue growth from zero to $25 million within two and a half years, ranking first in its niche category on Amazon US.

III. Model Restructuring: Traditional Manufacturing Accelerates Towards Own Brands

In traditional industries like furniture, home goods, and apparel, a group of new generation entrepreneurs with high educational backgrounds and cross-disciplinary experience are restructuring enterprise operations with digital intelligence thinking. They fully integrate the vertical supply chain advantages of regions like the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta, combining them with Amazon's infrastructure and tools to drive the transformation of traditional foreign trade OEM factories towards own-brand global expansion.

One of the honorees, Huang Qiangshuai, took over his family's cookware factory. He adopted a tripartite strategy of 'OEM, ODM, and Own Brand', restructuring the value chain of the traditional manufacturing enterprise. Under this framework, own-brand orders fill production capacity gaps during peak and off-seasons, technological upgrades from the brand side feed back into ODM design capabilities, and OEM provides stable cash flow to support overall operations. These three elements synergize to form a virtuous cycle, increasing the company's capacity utilization rate from an average of 60% to over 85%.

Furthermore, Huang Qiangshuai initiated a cross-border OPC (One Person Company) entrepreneurial community, lowering the entry barrier for young entrepreneurs by sharing resources like logistics, tax, and AI tools, encouraging more people to embrace cross-border e-commerce opportunities.

Su Qiyun, Chairman of Shenzhen Kaadas Intelligent Co., Ltd., broke the traditional pattern of the smart lock industry, which was 'primarily domestic, with overseas business limited to OEM', by adopting a model of 'deep localization, brand operation, and integrated R&D and sales'. In terms of product localization, after gaining insights into pain points like North American users' high sensitivity to privacy/security and expensive offline installation costs, Su proactively streamlined product features, focusing on optimizing core functions like passwords, card swiping, and keys. He launched smart lock products emphasizing 'easy installation' that users can install themselves. The products have sold over 10 million units globally, covering 36 countries and regions.