Says it nicely. You still have to make smart decisions and reduce the risk to increase the likelihood of your success, but that’s good. Nice article.

With regards to your point on Singapore having well-established entrepreneurship infrastructure and govt support for high-tech startups, I beg to differ.

In terms of debt financing, govt funding schemes are not ‘proactive’ ventures, but can only match any third party’s investments dollar-for-dollar. There are no ‘pure grant schemes’ like those available in the U.S.. Commercial banks in Singapore are conservative – loans require not only the guarantors’ assurance but also their collaterals. For equity financing, I believe many reputable VCs in Singapore only talk about investments for companies that are ‘revenue generating’, certainly not the case for start-ups in the tech development stage.

Thus, Singapore may not be the best place to do a high-tech start-up.

You’re right. China entrepreneurs have plenty of in-born advantages, especially the ease of crossing the chasm. I guess what’s lacking here is the well established entrepreneurship infrastructure and government support (like what S’pore has). If that’s fulfilled, I foresee the rise of those under-developed cities in the near future.

— Orius’ reply —-

Encik Wan, your point is entirely valid. However, there’s plenty of such resources around the web. I am not a negative person by nature. It’s just that we’ve not been spending enough time looking at the other side of the coin – too many sites offer how to do be a better entrepreneur, but few really examine why Singaporean entrepreneurs fail to succeed. That is my positioning in the blogosphere, and while I do not rule out adding useful resources on how things can be done better, it’s certainly not going to be the majority of my work.

Wu Di, those ‘successful Asian companies’ were not intended to be comprehensive. There’s plenty of large and successful Chinese corporations, as you’ve rightfully named. Sure, Chinese entrepreneurs may not be subjected to the inferiority complex that the rest of their Asian brethren do. However, let’s not forget that Chinese entrepreneurs have plenty of 先天(in-born) advantages such as a large domestic market and their fierce sense of nationalism, that their Singaporean brethren don’t. MNCs are forced to share technology just to gain access to the lucrative China market.

These advantages allow Chinese startups to scale, get past the ‘catch-up’ phase and effectively ‘cross the chasm’ a lot easier than their peers.

If you really go find out more about China, you’ll find plenty of very successful companies such as Lenovo (which bought the PC line of IBM many yrs ago), Haier (another international home electronics brand), Sina, Sohu, Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent (its IM client QQ was one of the first Instant Messengers in the world, and dominates the billion china market. Its wide range of money making services & products today, I would say far outweighs many global players), etc, etc.

My trip back to China this holiday brought me tons of surprises, especially the speed of growth & innovation taking place everywhere – food, clothings, entertainment, IT, etc. This is probably the 8th time I’m back, and it’s the first time I can confidently say the life here(in beijing at least) is better than that in SG.
So I’d say that “Asian companies” or at least “China companies” are “NOT” caught in the “vicious cycle” of playing “catch-up”. They may play the role of catching up (or rather call it – learning from) successful western companies. However, the rate they innovate upon that, is stunning. If we really have to call it a “catch-up” game, then I’d rather call it the “beneficial cycle” of “catching up” and “overtaking” in China.