Making a change? New Fund can help by Vivi Zainol

I refer to the above article in Straits Times (Needs online subscription).

This new scheme is very suitable for entrepreneurs out there, particularly for those who are aspiring social entrepreneurs. You can suggest and implement your ideas by applying to the funds involved.

I thought that the assessment criteria for the idea is quite similar to a simple executive summary submitted to business plan competitions.

The URL direct to the application of the Young ChangeMakers is here.

So all of you out there, it’s time to pitch your idea and make it happen.

Yours Sincerely,
SG Entrepreneurs Editorial Board

Can Entrepreneurs be mass produced? by Vincent Chia

I refer to the article Can Entrepreneurs be mass produced? by Vincent Chia published on 18 August 2005 in Today Online.

Note: The writer is a co-founder and writer at Oaktree Research, a website with business and finance articles for all to read.

While reading this article, I believe that the theme of the article is closely related to an earlier blog entry of mine entitled “Can entrepreneurship be taught?”. (see also the comment by Heavenly Sword). Why is it so? If one agrees that entrepreneurship can be taught, one can make the naive inference that it is possible to mass produce entrepreneurs. However, it goes deeper into that. As I have argued in the earlier blog entry, one can teach the tools on how to advance the entrepreneur’s cause, for example, elevator pitch to an investor, writing a business plan and doing cost-benefit analysis whether the idea of the entrepreneur is viable. The problem is that one cannot teach the entrepreneurial spirit (as rightfully pointed out by Heavenly Sword) to the individual. The author brought it out clearly in his article what distinguishes an entrepreneur from a business development manager and salesman. What most people forgot aboout entrepreneurs, is that they are not just people jotting down some theoretical and innovative ideas on paper, but they also make it happen. I think that it’s hard to teach entrepreneurship to students because it is a contact sport. I find it hard to believe lecturers who have not started an enterprise to preach about entrepreneurship. I have encountered people like that, who does not know what it is like to be an entrepreneur and yet be academic about the subject. Being an academic myself, I have also experienced what it is like to be an entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs are a special breed. I am not suggesting only the elite or academically brilliant can be entrepreneurs. Rather, it is like finding a concert pianist or track-and-field star; to nurture such individuals, you need specialised music and sport schools.

I disagree with the above view. The skill set required by an entrepreneur is general and easy to teach. I agree that some of those skills can be taught by a salesman and a business development manager. However, to utilize these skills to create an enterprise and develop a vision and strategy (or general picture) around that, is what distinguishes the entrepreneur from these specialized skills. I don’t think that the entrepreneur is a gifted artist. Most entrepreneurs find something that they are passionate about and want to create value by changing the landscape. Strangely, a lot of people forgot that most innovations made by entrepreneurs were borne out of necessity. There are several case studies in entrepreneurship which showed that the entrepreneur wanted to change the way how people think about the product and they brought it out into the market. If you badly need an example, think of the personal computer and the http protocol (that gives you access to the world wide web) which you are using to read this blog entry.

In the article, the author pointed out that there is a distinction between being a businessman and entrepreneur based on Robert Frank’s definition in an economics textbook. He also brought out two central features of an entrepreneur as compared to a businessman: innovation and sustainability. The issue here is the following: the entrepreneur can be a businessman but the converse is not true. Let me use a simple example to make that distinction: if there are 100 cafes in Singapore selling the same type of services and products to the customers and you want to start a cafe business mimicking them, you are not really an entrepreneur. You are a businessman. If you decide to start a cafe by differentiating your services and product from the rest of them, for example, promoting a new kind of drink which no others can produce or you cater to a specific group of customers, you are an entrepreneur and a business man. In the second case, you innovate the business and second, you make it sustainable as a business man. Since there exist other classes of entrepreneurs other than business ones, for example, social entrepreneurs and political entrepreneurs.

Another interesting point from the author goes in the following:

A businessman, in contrast, sniffs out opportunities to make money. His opportunistic approach can be time-sensitive. His gain is usually another’s loss.

Why do we want more entrepreneurs? An entrepreneur creates new value while a businessman finds existing but hidden value. In the zero sum game of an efficient or matured economy, a successful businessman implies another failed one. The entrepreneur increases the size of the pot to ensure there is more to go around. Thus, he is more valuable to the economy.

I agree that the entrepreneur creates new value, but I also dispute the definition that only the businessman finds hidden value. One of the features of an entrepreneur is that he/she can create new value by changing the nature of the market landscape. In other words, he can find hidden value like the businessman. By identifying a particular missing spot in the market and create a “blue ocean” around that missing market niche, that is considered a form of business. In the business pursuit, it is not necessary that it’s a zero sum game. The author also forgot about large corporations can also cooperate to create new products that might change the market landscape. The issue is much more complex than that.

News Stop: 18 August 2005

For this week till 18 August 2005,

1. Social entrepreneurs give advice to business students at forum from Channel News Asia, Singapore dated 13 August 2005.

Editor’s notes: Social entrepreneurship seems to be the talk of the town lately.

2. SingNet launches BizWeb Solutions (BWS) tailor-made for SMEs from, Hardware Zone, USA dated 17 August 2005.

Editor’s notes: Seems to be a new product catered for small-medium enterprises (SMEs). I wonder whether there are cheaper services out there.

yours sincerely,
sgentrepreneurs.blogspot.com

CS1001: Basics of Singapore Dining Culture

Culture Studies 1001: Basics of Singapore Dining Culture (and additional rants)

To follow from my previous post on how one should be proactive in learning more about the culture and environment in which one is in, this is not only for one’s own good, but also out of respect for the alien country. How many times have you heard the oft-mistaken “fact” that: “Oh, Singapore? Is that part of China?” Or worse, I had to correct someone when he thought that in Singapore, we read from right to left (like old Chinese books). I was so shocked, and yes, mildly insulted. Come on, Singapore has really come such a long way, and even have our reknowned Mr. Lee Kuan Yew to boot, and all I get are visions of a 1600-type era of a Singapore? Imagine this scenario reversed. That you are now in some foreign land to aim to strike a business deal but you know nuts about the culture, history and environment in which you’re in. Wouldn’t you be severely embarrassed and not to mention, to have subtly insulted your potential partner or client if you had mistaken the 200-year-old and much revered bird-like statue (perhaps for religon or so) for the entrance to the National Bird Park? Or if you had just said of the wife: “She’s pretty, good for you.” and slapped lightly the back of your counterpart playfully in an utterly benign manner in an attempt to cultivate good will and camaraderie, only to have your plan backfire and perhaps be sued for sexual harrassment? Well, such stuff do happen. What are a few things to note when doing business in Singapore (this information might be particularly useful for foreigners)? If you’re taking your client out for a meal, make sure that you go somewhere halal if he/she is Muslim; or even better, go somewhere halal no matter what, if you want to play safe. These days, it is never tied to one’s skin colour or race, one’s religon. If you’re dining in a Chinese restaurant and the tea in the pot runs out, just overturn the cover of the pot and wait for an astute waiter or waitress (we’re assuming that all of them are sharp and always on the alert) to come by to refill the tea. Yup, there’s no need for you to call for someone to refill your tea, though I must admit, habits die hard, and sometimes you’re just paranoid about waiting too long for the tea because of waiters/waitresses who seem to be oblivious to everything except for the ticking of the clock.

But anyhow, sometimes you need not have to spend a bomb entertaining your guests in classy restaurants. As we all might say, the best food in Singapore are those found in our everyday hawker centres. Though it might seem lowly and cheapskate to bring someone there for a business meal (be it informal), but if both parties are easy-going and value good cheap food, why not? The informal setting could just aid you in establishing the camaraderie you need to make the deal!

You’re an entrepreneur, think of new ways to do things. (In this example, how to eat cheap and yet turn this seeming minus-point into an advantage.)

The Advantage of Cultural Knowledge

I’m right, culture knowledge certainly does help in doing business. I’ve always known this but have rarely found this fact so salient as it is now that I am working for a startup company in Silicon Valley in the States. Give me a Singaporean or someone who’s fairly familiar with Singapore or with whom I share some common interests with and I can banter around with that person like we have always been old friends. But recently, I’ve found out to my dismay that culture knowledge does make a difference (at least to a majority of people, am disregarding natural people charmers who can talk to anyone from whichever universe they’re from), albeit a slight one, in being able to truly connect with someone.

Here, “how are you” is a standard greeting to which one must reply along the lines of “good”, “fine”, “never been better” – AND ask the same question back at the person who queried you. What’s more, “have a good one”, “have a good day/afternoon/evening/weekend”, finishes every parting sentence spoken. But that, I’m sure isn’t that alien to us – it’s just how liberally the Americans use them.

But these are minor things. Some of the subject topics that one can bring up whilst in conversation to attempt to make a connection? The weather, horrid traffic conditions, speeding tickets (cops are omnipresent here), and what else have you. For ladies, shopping of course! The universal topic that brings a smile to every female’s face. I’m not a big fan myself, but when the mood strikes, the mood strikes *nods head knowingly*.

Advice: quickly scan your memories and overlap that with your assessment of the stranger whom you’re speaking to. Try to guess possible topics of interest that might be in common and start throwing your fishing line that way. If the stranger responds with merely a whimper, switch topics and creatively pull your fishing line into another way through which you think might stand a better chance of hooking the catch. It’s all about thinking on the spot whilst building up one’s knowledge base of what will and will-not work in connecting with different people of various cultures.

Unfortunately, the amount of knowledge gleaned need not necessarily be proportional to the amount of time spent in another country. If you’re a Singaporean just sitting your ass behind a computer 24/7 in France playing Solitaire without going out into society and meeting people, I can assure you that this loner is just a self-imposed pariah of societal knowledge. So, go out there and yield useful knowledge for your own benefit.

Can entrepreneurship be taught?

Contributed by BL

Can entrepreneurship be taught? This is the million dollar question which everyone seems to have different answers. Since 1999, there is a huge wave of entrepreneurship education running across many parts of the world. Many governments including ours, have thrown their resources to teach entrepreneurship to young students. One of their aims is to get more younger people to be creative and start their enterprises.

Entrepreneurship is a contact sport . Whatever you do, be it an ivory-towered academic to a secondary student, you have to practice before you preach. It’s not an easy sport because you will tend to failure most of the time. I have my personal muses when educators start to claim that they teach entrepreneurship in order to generate more small-medium enterprises. It’s the same issue with schools teaching creativity. It will be better off for them if they say that they are educating people with tools that are linked to being creative, instead of claiming to teach creativity. Similar in entrepreneurship, the same thing happens.

Instead of writing a content neutral position, I will prefer the challenge of taking one position and defend it. Anyone can disagree with my opinions here. It’s exciting if it can generate some debate. Here are the sum of my views for the issue:

Not everything in Entrepreneurship can be taught.

Most people in this school of thought believe that teaching entrepreneurship is just as oxymoronic as teaching creativity. Some of them believe that an entrepreneur is borne and not made. You cannot teach someone how to be an entrepreneur, because successful entrepreneurs possess traits which defy social conventions. That’s why we know that out of 10 new startups, only 1 survive. Even till today, this rule of thumb seems to hold with the overwhelming emphasis of teaching people to be entrepreneurial.

The entrepreneurs who made it are usually people who bring ideas that are out of the socially acceptable or the business model does not look appealing from first impression. It’s like telling someone in the 14th century that the Earth is round. Entrepreneurs need to do that all the time, by convincing their investors that the earth is round. They will either try to sell you the idea that there is a market for their idea or their method of marketing that will create the need for their product.

Sadly, even as an academic, I will say the same thing that there are just things in entrepreneurship that you can never learn from the textbook. I read books telling me about how to be an entrepreneur. Yet, when I do it, some of the things just do not match the real world. My favourite example is fund raising. Most books advocate fund raising as a process which has to be done continuously to keep the business alive. When I was fundraising, my mentor told me that there is no difference to raise £1K and £100K. You should decide how many rounds of fundraising and just do it in a discrete manner. That will ensure the entrepreneur can get time to do their business. Most start-ups die because of the burden of fundraising. It is human nature not to part with their money even if the venture capitalists and business angels are rich people.

The best part is that when people start to generalizing processes for entrepreneurship, for example, if you are a biotech company, this is the “A to Z” method on setting up structures and processes. I will agree that some of the experience are useful for the entrepreneur. However, the entrepreneur has to be wary about them. He must also be aware whether his business adheres to traditional views in how the industry is run. If you have a business which is suppose to redefine the landscape of the market, it is very likely that the business model for your product is not in existence. You are face with a dilemma. Do you want to come up with a new business model or modify an existing business model to help you to market and sell your product?

What I do think that it can be taught, is simple business finance. A good entrepreneur must have financial prudence and ability to take calculate risk. It is a myth that most entrepreneurs are heavy risk takers. Of course, when I mean financial prudence, it means how to maintain cashflows to run your business and generate revenue. Most traditional family businesses failed because the entrepreneurs don’t know about corporate finance. However, the world is different today compare to the past.

Entrepreneurship as a lifestyle

Some people decided a long time that they don’t want to work for anyone but for themselves. It’s their point of view and I totally respect that. It’s a lifestyle choice in a way to choose to be an entrepreneur. However, learning to be an entrepreneur does not mean that you have to start a business yourself.

Actually, most of the skills that people teach in entrepreneurship courses are basic networking, financial and project management, fund raising and writing a business plan. Honestly, these skills are not catered to entrepreneurs but to people from all walks of life. If you work for a big corporation, you need to network your way and come up with new project proposals to get your promotion. If you are a research scientist, you have to write grant proposals to get money in funding your ressearch. It’s hard to explain what is real life or not.

So, in the end, it is important to decide whether you can subject yourself to a different lifestyle. If you don’t think that you want to take the risk to start up your own company, it is perfectly alright to choose a career which match your needs. Don’t be persuaded by the media in doing what’s cool and fashionable. Do something that you think that you can create and add value to. It is important to know that entrepreneurship is a lifestyle and it is not the only kind of choice that you can make.

Author’s note: It might be more interesting if we hear views from people around whether the subject of entrepreneurship can be taught.

News Stop till 12 August 2005

Hi all,

Some quick news on entrepreneurship happening in Singapore:

1. More nominees expected for Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year dated 3 August in Channel News Asia, Singapore.

Editor’s note: Does that mean that we should be seeing more successful small and medium enterprises ready to go global?

2. Sick boy gets his Disney wish
dated 28 July 2005 in Electric New Paper,Singapore.

Editor’s note: A professor in entrepreneurship from MIT once said that entrepreneurs are people who aspired to change things that they want to see. Yet one of the important things which they should do, according to him, is to be able to contribute back to society, helping those in need. I agree with that principle.

3. Banyan Tree honoured by London Business School for brand dated 18 July 2005 in e-Travel Blackboard (press release) – Australia

Editor’s note: We should stop bashing Creative, and look at other examples of Singaporean entrepreneurs who have successfully developed a brand and gotten themselves known to the world.

If you have any new stories about entrepreneurship happening in Singapore, please let us know via email and we can flash it on News Stop every week here in sgentrepreneurs.

yours sincerely,
sgentrepreneurs Editorial Board

Brand Democratization

Cory Treffiletti is right – perception is reality. What the people say about your brand is what your brand will become. Simply put, perception is reality. How true. The onus is on the marketing and advertising people to create a lot of hype and good vibes about the product to complement the wonderful product eh? The two must go hand-in-hand, you can’t have one but not the other and hope that it’ll be successful. Having a fantastic product that no one knows about or that people think is crap because the advertising campaigns aren’t any good, or having such wonderfully enticing campaigns which inadvertently disappoint users when they buy the sub-standard product is no good either.

I guess Apple got it right as opposed to Creative.

iPod a hit because it is born out of a big idea

There is a letter to the forum today by Subodh Deshpande, who responded to Alfred Siew’s article last week. For those who have not been following the story on Creative’s failure to grasp the market against Apple, here is the link to an earlier blog entry in sgentrepreneurs.blogspot.com

In the last paragraph of the letter, I quote here:

What is the idea that will guide Creative’s next move? Will it be another digital product with multiple options? Will that make people love it? When people buy Creative, what idea do they experience? What deep individual motivation does Creative respond to?

These are questions Creative should ask, as much as it seeks investment in new products.

Because the idea is critical. It is the idea that creates consumer passion.

I will like to add that Creative needs to understand that who their customers are or what the market is. It is no point in creating a better mp3 player with 10 or more features better than IPod. The problem is that they need a vision for the Zen micro. There is a lack of vision in what they want to do with the product. What is the vision for the product? Is it the gadget that everyone must have on their hand with the latest music in the gadget? I believe that the makers of IPod have a clear vision on what they want to achieve in the first place. Price slashing and cost cutting are not going to help Creative in anyway. The problem lies in vision and branding.

yours sincerely,
sgentrepreneurs Editorial Board

Advice to Charities: Start a Business by Theresa Tan

I refer to the article “Advice to Charities: Start a Business” by Theresea Tan in ST (Need online subscription) on 5th August 2005.

Dr Mechai Viravaidya, founder of one of Thailand’s largest NGOs, the Population and Community Development Association (PDA), is a social entrepreneur. In his social entrepreneurship model, he took part of the funds to start a business to generate revenue for the PDA.

I quote one of his comments from the article

“This is one reason why wages in the non-profit sector don’t match those in the business world, he said. Staff working for the PDA’s business arm earn less than similar employees employed in the private sector, said Dr Mechai. But staff at both the PDA’s business and non-profit operations are paid the same.

‘Both are doing good work. Our business people know what we are doing and where the money goes.’

Note that the profit motive is used in the social entrepreneurship model to align the staff towards generating more revenue for the non-profit operations. It is also clear where the revenue are channelled towards to, hence there is accountability to the public for scrutiny. It is important to note that social enterprises are adopting the profit making model as well as making their accounts transparent.

For more interest in social entrepreneurship, please look at an earlier entry in the blog.

yours sincerely,
sgentrepreneurs Editorial Board

Next Page »