Daily life for Luo, a former English teacher, is now a series of inflicted indignities. He is barred from taking flights or high-speed train trips as well as any sort of lavish spending, such as staying in luxurious hotels or golf clubs, according to a Chinese court’s recent ruling.

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Luo, who has also been legally barred from buying property or sending his children to private schools, said in a post on microblog site Weibo on Sunday that he will work hard to pay his debt. He also apologised to Smartisan’s creditors, investors and users. He declined to make any further comments on his situation, according to a company spokeswoman.

His Weibo post followed a ruling issued last week by a court in Danyang, a city in eastern China’s Jiangsu province, in favour of plaintiff and creditor Jiangsu Chenyang Electronics Co.

In his post, titled “Confession from a deadbeat CEO”, Luo said he personally vouched for a loan of more than 100 million yuan (US$14.2 million) and raised tens of millions of yuan more to help save Smartisan at its “most difficult” period.

Smartisan, which was founded in 2012, has managed to repay 300 million yuan, estimated to be around half of the company’s total indebtedness, over the past 10 months, according to Luo. One of Smartisan’s creditors, Yulong Communications Technology, sued the Beijing-based company last year for unpaid components valued at US$650,000.

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The scramble to pay off Smartisan’s debts has come amid an economic slowdown in China, the world’s largest smartphone market, which has felt the effects of a protracted trade war with the United States.

Smartphone shipments in China fell for the fourth consecutive quarter in the three months to September, which saw market leader Huawei Technologies capture a record 40 per cent share, according to a report last week by Counterpoint Research. It said the top five brands accounted for 92 per cent of the market.

“The Chinese smartphone market is becoming increasingly concentrated and difficult for smaller brands,” said James Yan, research director at Counterpoint.

That deal with ByteDance showed how Luo, who helped raise Smartisan’s profile by talking big and bashing technology giant Apple whenever he had an opportunity, failed to sustain the hype he built up over the past few years.

At a show in May last year, Luo said his goal was to “make Smartisan a great company like in the era of [Steve] Jobs” and deliver products that surpassed Apple’s iPhone, iPad and Mac line of personal computers.

He predicted that Apple “will copy us like crazy” after Smartisan launched its new R1 smartphone model and the TNT Station, an all-in-one personal computer that uses the Android operating system, in the same event.

Last week, Smartisan launched its first smartphone since the ByteDance deal, but without founder and chief executive Luo. In a video posted on Weibo, chief operating officer Wu Dezhou said most of the Smartisan team had already moved to ByteDance and that Luo left the firm because of personal reasons.

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“While he may be capable as an individual, the company has had to deal with all these issues over internal management and dealings with suppliers,” said Counterpoint’s Yan about Luo and Smartisan’s troubles. “The company’s capital flow got squeezed because its business was so broad. Its failure to pay suppliers on time and in full was the final straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“Starting a company is a hard thing ... filled with distress and embarrassment in the process,” Luo said in his Weibo post.