The Entrepreneur’s Bookshelf: Strategies

“All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.”
- Sun Tzu

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How To Stop Thinking Like A Pariah In A Networking Session

Oops, excuse me. Harvard, 24, VP Marketing. Pardon me. Stanford, 27, CEO. I’m so sorry…didn’t see you coming. Yale, 22, acting CTO. This unique cajun curry is awesome! Carnegie Mellon, 30, VC. Do these sound like real people to you? Because they probably are. Prestigious degree holders, younglings (early twenties!), yet they have made it. What is this elusive term defined as? Read more

Do Entrepreneurs need more help?

I refer to the article “More help for entrepreneurs on budget wish list: Feedback Unit” by Rita Zahara, Channel NewsAsia dated 18 Jan 2006. While surveying the ground for the entrepreneurs, I am wondering what the extent the government should be involved in helping entrepreneurship. In earlier articles, I have commended the setting up of a board to band the small-medium enterprises (SMEs) together. For all that matter, I always believe that the role of the government is to provide infrastructure for the entrepreneurs, not just by building a big research or science park and link a couple of buses. The signpost to various services (banking, legal and account auditing) are necessary and I believe that the board of SMEs can do exactly that.

NUS Global Entrepreneurial Summit 2006

The event is currently happening in NUS Guild Hall from 16-17 Jan 2006. It brings together prominent venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and educators within the entrepreneurial scene. I had the chance to sit in to listen to the panels and there are interesting take home messages which I will try to put down on the blog after it’s over. You can read more about this in the ChannelNews article entitled Singapore home to more entrepreneurs dated 16 Jan 2006.

7th Start-Up@Singapore Competition Update

Start-Up@Singapore: After the Grand Launch… Read more

Want world beaters? Promote enterprise spirit

The above letter by Mr Chua Chern Pin to Straits Times Forum today is a response to a letter by Dr Huang Shoou Chyuan, ‘Why top S’pore students aren’t world beaters’ (ST, Jan 10). I will quote a portion of his response here:

“I believe one critical condition for Singaporean world beaters to surface is continued focus on the following strategies: promotion of the enterprise spirit, and de-emphasis on academic results.

By enterprise spirit, I do not refer just to the setting up of businesses; after all, not everyone is cut out to be a businessman.

Rather, it is about having a general spirit of adventure, the courage to take a different path and motivating ambition.”

I endorse the above statement, as I believe that the enterprising spirit is more important than making a Google or Microsoft. Here are my two cents worth of opinion. I have been discussing this topic to the death with many people, including people who are involved in enterprise too. My theory is that Singaporeans are not ambitious enough and our comfortable lifestyle has inhibited us to take risk. That is not surprising because the best route to success according to our parents, is education. However, our parents do not realize that the economy is changing and the way that the road to success is the road less travelled.

Harnessing Innovation and New Technologies

- The NUS & NTU, SITF Technology Showcase 2006

Date: 9 February 2006
Time: 6pm – 9pm
Venue: Suntec City NUSS Guild House

Click on the title for more information.

An increasingly competitive market demands that companies harness more
innovation and technologies to generate exciting new commercial
opportunities, revenues and retain their competitive edges.

After the 1st successful NUS-SiTF Technology Showcase in 2005, SiTF is
organizing a second Technology Showcase featuring this time emerging ICT
technologies from both NUS and NTU. This is also part of the NUS and NTU
on-going efforts to increase industry awareness of the cutting edge
research & technologies that are generated constantly from University
research. The technologies covered include the areas of mobile
communications, mixed reality, computer networking, biometrics,
generative design and interactive media.

It provides a platform for industry and investors to access nascent
technologies and an excellent opportunity to foster interaction and
networking amongst high-tech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists,
business angels and researchers where business development opportunities
such as licensing or collaborative research can be explored.

The event is highly recommended for IT professionals, entrepreneurs,
venture capitalists, investors, technology brokers, industry players and
anyone who needs to keep up-to-date with cutting edge developments in
the IT industry.

This event is open to all SiTF members, staff and alumni of National
University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and members of
the public.

For more information and registration, please click
HERE .

News Stop: 10 Jan 2005

“A Board to consolidate help for SMEs?” is written by Lee U-Wen and published in Today Online dated 10 Jan 2006.

From the first look of the article, I felt that the move is a timely one. I support the recommendation of building a board to consolidate help for SMEs. Let me put a supporting argument to this article with a specific reference towards technology startups. Taking politics aside, the government has placed a lot of resources in building infrastructure to spur the creation of small-medium enterprises. However, the issue is whether other of these enterprises can survive. In the case of a technology startup, where it requires initial investment from investors, the startup also requires other services around.

I see that there are three important things for the infrastructure in a technology cluster. They are namely, banking, accounting and legal services. Actually, there are such services around but not all entrepreneurs know about them. For example, going to the clinics organized by the Intellectual Property Office, Singapore. Actually, the big law firms should try to harnass the niche market of SMEs rather than moving for just the MNCs. Let me give an example, the technology cluster in MIT has strong support from a big legal firm named Taylor Wessing. Perhaps, one of the big local law firms should think about enter into this market. Accounting services are not expensive, but most entrepreneurs forgot about that until the first year when they need to submit an annual report to the authorities. Financial services remain to be one of those which is difficult to consolidate.

What are your thoughts in this issue? Please feel free to drop them here.

A Student Enterprise Less Ordinary

A speech by Mervin Chai about NUS Entrepreneurship Society as a student enterprise. Read more

The Elevator Pitch

An elevator pitch is a brief summary of your business idea to an investor. It is called an elevator’s pitch because the time required to deliver the pitch is within the time span of an elevator ride (say, thirty seconds to a minute). The application of the elevator’s pitch is to convince an investor to fund your business. Within that moment, the investor will probe you and judge your idea and team based on the quality of the pitch. If the investor is convinced that your idea is worth pursuing, he or she will grant you a meeting to take the discussion further. So what should you say within that one minute to attract your investor? Here are some tips to help you do that. Read more

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