Who wants to be a Technology Entrepreneur in Singapore?

There is a shortage of inventors/scientists/technologists but a plethora of business people in Singapore. The reason is simple. It is easier to do business than to be a scientist. The traditional viewpoint is that you will end up as an academic (like myself) in the university and spend your time teaching. This view belongs to our parents’ generation. The US and UK, unlike Singapore, employ scientists in all sorts of top-notched careers – from investment banks to management consultancies. If you look at the top technology universities in US, you will also notice that your professor is not just a teacher, but chances are, he is also a consultant for the industry or is working on a piece of cool technology. As a scientist and entrepreneur (since I have co-founded a biotech company back in the UK and am now a shareholder), I will explain how this kind of entrepreneur arises and how to harnass their unfair advantage as they enter into the world of business.

Being a technologist has its privileges. Most of the time, I talk about the business aspects of an entrepreneur here. This time round, I want to talk about what being a technologist is like. My day job is a scientist in a research institute specializing in genomics and applications to translational healthcare. I enjoy research because it is fun and helps to create some new knowledge. The other perk is that I can commercialize my research and bring it to the market. That will allow me to harness the knowledge I learned in business. To do a technology startup, you need to have an intuitive understanding of technology and the intellectual curiousity to tamper with it. When I purchase a gadget (be in a Mac mini or iPod), my first instinct is to try a few interesting hacks or discuss with a fellow technologist over the phone as to how to get the system to run better.

However, a scientist need not be confined in the laboratory. There are a few good examples of scientists who are also good technology entrepreneurs, for example, Professor Sir Richard Friend from Cavendish Laboratory who was one of the pioneers of plastic electronics and the digital display screen you see in Samsung products. If you want better examples, the late Robert Noyce, one of the co-founders of Intel and known by his nickname “Mayor of Silicon Valley” (where he mentored a generation of top-notched entrepreneurs including Steve Jobs), was also an inventor who created the integrated circuit board that power the computers and machines today.

The view that academics should not be involved in business and commercialization is old-fashioned – is a matter of fact, silly. Here is a good reason why you should not look at it that way. Some academics see that it is a necessity to be involved with commercialization, because it is an alternative source for research grants and funds. Increasingly the top US scientists are now in the private sector instead of in the universities. Charles Bennett, the inventor of quantum computing, is the head of IBM research labs and he invented it in IBM, and not in any university.

What should you do to be this kind of entrepreneur? Here are the few ingredients you might need to assemble together before you become one:

• The non-PhD track (and you are not fated to be a test-tube washer): If you don’t want to do a PhD, I suggest that you should do some research work with a professor. Oftentimes, I hear students telling me that they want to be technopreneurs, but they have no idea on how a network works. Successful technopreneurs like to sink themselves in gadgets or tampering the circuit of the gadget. Even if you are not geeky and want to be a CEO or business development director, you must know how technology works. The best way is to work in a lab for at least two years. The best way to do this is to go and do a summer research project. It is optional to do a PhD and as I have said before, not all people can do a PhD. If you have a honours or masters degree, you can go to technology companies like GSK, IBM or Google and work for a few years to get the network and experience. With the business experience in a technology company, you can be a technopreneur because you can understand and sell technology.
• The Geek track: If you like to be a technologist like myself, then do a PhD, but have an open mind to business. The most important point to remember if you want to pursue this path is that you need to decrease your ego. Most inventors like entrepreneurs have egos that are as tall as mountains in the Himalayas. It is good to read business books to get an idea of the business process or even attend workshops teaching you how to start up an enterprise. The best place to get networks is to be part of an entrepreneurship society. You can have all the inventions, but without an industry network, business mind (i.e. understanding the concept of value proposition and market forces) or a good team, you are nothing.

  One advice that I like to give students who want to pursue this track is the following: if you do a PhD, do one postdoctoral position and decide whether you want to shift into the private sector or into the university. Do a postdoctoral with a scientist who have a strong record in commercialization of technologies as well. When you have a faculty position (not tenure these days), you can work on your technology and licence it to big companies. That’s where you build up your network. Once you have the network and a portfolio of technologies, start the company and then hire an experienced CEO, preferably someone from the industry to run your company. You can safely become the chairman and chief technological officer. The problem with a lot of inventors here, as far as I have observed even in working with them on commercialization, is that they don’t trust the business people. Even in business, trust is important. A good scientist entrepreneur knows how to harness their business counterparts to get the best deal and a bad one ends up screwing up and retreating to academia.

In reality, the geek track is harder than the non-PhD track, and since most Singaporean students want the easy way out, we have less inventors. That’s the reality in Singapore, otherwise, we won’t have a government agency frantically giving out scholarships for PhDs. Even being a medical doctor (which is the holy grail for most Singapore students) is difficult. Nowadays, it is fashionable for the medical doctor to be good clinical researchers and work with scientists to invent medical devices or biotechnologies that foster translational healthcare. The real story about the technology market in Singapore is that we have a lot of private wealth investors demanding to invest (but not in early stage or series A technology companies), but the supply of technologies has not reached critical mass.

The real reward which a lot of students don’t see in having a PhD, is that as an inventor, you have a competitive advantage that a business person doesn’t. To tell the truth, a scientist-entrepreneur is a high-risk, high-return venture, whereas to be a business entrepreneur in technology is just the risk adverse strategy. Ninety percent of the time, most students who are self-proclaimed “technopreneurs” have no clue on how to harness or even tamper technology compared to their counterparts whom I have seen in the US and UK.

If you are thinking about changing the world, be an inventor or a scientist. Yes, it’s a hard path, but as I have always said, to be the first successful person, it is always difficult.

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