Top intern wins S$10,000 to fulfill entrepreneurial dreams

Besides the usual spending allowance of S$3,000 (US$2,500), along with goodies like free housing and free plane tickets, one intern at MyCube’s Digital Life Academy has also won an additional S$10,000 (US$8,300) to kickstart his entrepreneurial ambitions.

That person is 19 year-old Anjney Midha, a Stanford University Computer Science and Economics undergraduate. Besides the prize money, he will also serve as a Digital Life Ambassador in the coming years. He plans to set up his own Internet social enterprise. Read more

Founder2be: Helping you find a match made in heaven

Finding the right co-founder can be tough. Like a marriage, getting into it before you know your partner well can be a really bad idea — it could cause plenty of misunderstandings and even a bad and messy breakup.

For tech-savvy entrepreneurs, however, there’s an online service that can assist you in finding that perfect match more quickly. Founder2be is a focused social network that connects you with potential co-founders. Although started in Finland, the service has attracted users from all around the globe.

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Singapore’s Entrepreneur of the Year 2011 winners announced

Jimmy Fong, founder of Apple store EpiCentre‘s, and Eldwin Chua, who started F&B franchiser Paradise Group Holdings, are this year’s overall winners of the Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2011, organized by the Rotary Club and the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (see story). Read more

New Channel NewsAsia programme on tech entrepreneurship

Growing BiG Ideas, a four-part program that will introduce viewers to the tech entrepreneurship scene in Singapore, is inviting questions on its Facebook Page for Frank Levinson, managing director of the commercial incubator, Small World Group (see interview). Read more

How Singapore firms can scale for success — and other vids from Dr Tony Tan Q&A

On August 3, SGE organized a Chillin’ With session with presidential candidate Dr Tony Tan where entrepreneurs and investors got to ask him questions relating to doing business in Singapore. Here are some of the videos.

Please share some lessons learned in developing entrepreneurship in Singapore over the past twenty years – Dr Tony Tan from Office of Dr Tony Tan on Vimeo:

Singapore was forged on risk-taking. How can we encourage self belief and self confidence? from Office of Dr Tony Tan on Vimeo:

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Entrepreneurs and investors pour grievances during Dr Tony Tan Q&A

For half-an-hour, Singapore presidential aspirant Dr Tony Tan sat under the spotlight, his glistening white mane emphasizing his 71 years of age and extensive experience in both the private and public sector.

Displaying the calm and measured demeanor of an elder statesman, he took in a barrage of questions from 30 odd entrepreneurs and investors regarding the state of innovation in Singapore. Held at The Pigeonhole Cafe on August 3, the question and answer session is part of a regular SGE event called Chillin’ With — which gathers innovators in a casual setting to connect with one another. The moderators were SGE chief editor Gwendolyn Regina Tan and lead developer Isaac Timothy Tay.

Photo: This is not the first time Dr Tony Tan (left) has engaged entrepreneurs like Gwendolyn (center) and Isaac, co-founder and lead developer of SGE respectively. Read more

Starting Up Start-Ups @ Neoteny Conference

For those who have missed the Neoteny Conference earlier this month, you should check out this interesting panel entitled “Starting Up Start-Ups” moderated by Sean Bonner (Founder, Bode Media), together with Rob Mee (CEO, Pivotal Labs), Andrew ‘bunnie’ Huang (Head Engineering, Chumby Industries), Joi Ito (CEO, Creative Commons) and Samir Patel (Co-Founder, SearchForce). There are some interesting insights shared during the panel and perhaps, it will be great to check out the video here: Read more

Realistic Forecasting

Here is the 2nd part on my recent experience as a judge in a business plan competition. Of course, it is a good learning experience for me to see why some business plans fail. In fact, here is a known secret from investors. There is a very simple way to know which start-ups we do not want to invest. We decide by whether the entrepreneurs can provide us a realistic cashflow forecast on their start-ups. Read more

Entrepreneurs should focus on Core Competency, then Expand

Last Friday, I was invited to be a judge for the finals of the NTU Business Plan Competition: Creative Lab. The competition was very well-organized and professional, reminiscent of the Peking University and MIT business plan competitions that are held strictly for students, staff and alumni within the university. Of course, every time when I turned up as a judge for the local business plan competitions in NUS, NTU and Insead, I learned something new. Here are the three interesting lessions (plus some of my counter-intuitive thoughts about what could have been done): (i) You should focus on what the position of your company product is the strongest, (ii) There is a distinction between “must have” and “will be good to have” and (iii) Please don’t take the investors as fools by showing us you can break even within a year. In a three part series, I will focus on the first point about core competency using a hypothetical idea. Read more

The Legal Paradox of too much Marketing Success

While startups struggle to gain some big of recognition, big companies get into trouble because of too much recognition sometimes. Resident contributor, wannapreneur, looks at such a conundrum. But such a problem is better than not having any marketing success, ain’t it? Read more