Singapore’s Web 2.0 Readiness
Recently, James Seng lamented that Singapore is not ready for web 2.0. He listed out three important factors that impede us from entering into that industry namely, no talent, market too small and no private VC funding. Of course, this is a highly debated topic, given that a lot of people are skeptical whether we can create another Skype or YouTube (You can listen to this Mr Brown’s podcast for his skeptism on the web 2.0 revolution in Singapore). Our resident contributor, Bjorn Lee, co-founder of Entrepreneur27 offers his own perspective towards the points raised in that article.
Contributed by Bjorn Lee
This is sort of a reply to James Seng’s post. James is considered one of the Internet pioneers in Singapore, based on Wikipedia. He is also an advisor to the non-profit organization that my friend Ming Yeow founded - The Digital Movement. I should start by thanking him for approving the E27 submission on Tomorrow.sg, Singapore’s top social media news outlet (which James founded). Thanks, James. =)
James had 3 points on why Singapore is not ready. I generally agree. I am nowhere near James in terms of reputation nor experience and all I am doing is to offer my humble viewpoints. Almost exactly a year ago, I blogged about finding zero Web2.0 startups in Singapore, only to amend that statement when I found some and profiled them at the first E27 event. Still, we are a far cry from the Web2.0 frenzy in Silicon Valley. I know it’s unfair to compare, although recent media exposure on the national (rather the government’s) desire to create the next “YouTubes and Skypes” from our shores have made this a hot topic again. Below are my personal views on his various points.
Lack of Talent
I wholeheartedly agree. As a NUS student, I was indeed very shocked, upon my return from Silicon Valley in early ‘06, when I failed miserably in finding talented programmers in Javascript, Ajax, or even familiarity with LAMP systems. There are a few, but I expected at a minimum, not proficiency, but awareness among the majority of students. It’s not just NUS, but NTU too. My interactions at the various universities and polys, during E27 outreach sessions in 2006, proved this hypothesis correct. There is an abject lack of students educated or aware of the technical building blocks of Web 2.0. I am a Business student, but I found my knowledge of the latest changes in the web industry better than students in the computing faculties. We need young university students in Singapore to be aware, understand, be excited to learn and envision more about Web2.0 because the older generations can’t.
Chats with friends in the Computing faculty also do not reflect well on the faculty staff who are neither favorable towards supporting new initiatives (such as events on web 2.0) nor proactive in communicating the newest trends in the IT industry to them. There is a high emphasis on pragmatism in the design of the curriculum which aims to, IMHO, produce only skilled technicians, network administrators and “technical plumbers”. In other words, with our already small population size, the odds of finding tech visionaries like Steve Wozniak, Marc Andressen, Blake Ross is disappointingly low. Numerous theories abound on this phenomena like lack of funds, national policy focus etc. I don’t want to guess.
Solutions? We need to hire professors who understand what Web 2.0 is, invest some funds on flying entrepreneurs and visionary leaders from Silicon Valley, Israel, Japan, Korea, China a to speak here and do some workshops, seminars etc. Curriculums need to be amended too. And a culture of optimism needs to be injected across the faculties in order to change people’s mindsets that IT is a dead industry. This culture has to be bottom-up too, in the form of brainstorming sessions, hack days, unconferences in order to foster idea-sharing and provide a social support ecosystem to like-minded thinkers and entrepreneurs. Let those who have ideas know where to go and who to talk to to share ideas in this field.
Singapore thinks small.
We might be small, but our appetite for web-based media is voracious. Many times have Singaporean-related news memes made it on Technorati (for either blogger chicks, controversial hangings and s’pore elections) and even the recent “Pok Curry” video on YouTube garnered 6-digit views, coming in above 400,000 for the first video alone. That is very good ratings for a YouTube video with the short span of time it was available.
I disagree on using Metcalfe’s law to measure network value. Reed’s law is more appropriate in explaining viral processes that grow exponentially on the web through group-based channels like email or IM. I think Reed’s Law explains the cliched “network effect” better than Metcalfe’s Law, the latter of which was conceptualized more for technical networks (like telecom or fax) where the marginal cost of a connection/link is higher than social networks like email/IM networks where linkage cost is negligible.
At a consumer level, I am saying we do seem to have the masses for good content. The real problem I see is in scalability of our content material. Stuff that we like are culturally contextual. Our content producers are not geared towards making content for a regional or global audience. Our jokes simply do not work outside of our meager 700+ square kilometres. Maybe a bit of Malaysia or Indonesia but it stops there. It doesn’t help too when our media laws here do not sustain a gossipy culture with paparazzi and tabloids coming up with sensational juicy materials. Our “boring” media culture with coverage and scrutinty of local celebs are very civil with whatever few scandals contained within the evening Chinese dailies. If we have a HK-style paparazzi, we might be able to have more content sites here that can sustain more adventurous experimenting with social networks, blog networks and create more advertising inventory to challenge the mainstream print media monopoly here.
Note I am only talking about content-based sites here. An extension from content-centric sites will be to build communities around them like those social networking sites. I am shying away from the really innovative service-based companies like search, Joost-style P2P media streaming services or web telephony services like Skype here cos we don’t have the technical talent. I think we stand a better chance with content and community-based sites as there is a shortage of Asian-oriented online ad inventory. No fantastic technology but they earn money at least by displacing spending on traditional tv, print, radio. There’s now a gold rush towards the buying out of content-heavy sites like CollegeHumor.com .
No VC funding
MDA can argue there is the $500M IDM fund now. And I agree that to really push a Web2.0 industry forward here, you need investors who have made their money successfully on investments or startups that do not think too much about short term revenue obligations.
But Web 2.0 doesn’t need too much money to start, seed-funding wise. The lack of funding is not really an issue because when Web 2.0 startups really start gathering the traffic numbers, VC money from Singapore-based VCs will flow back from India/China, or we can get money direct from the Silicon Valley VCs. Rather than argue about lack of money, I think the more important issue to focus on is lack of traffic.
Until traffic and inherently bandwidth costs become an issue, I think it is premature to say that Singapore has no VC money to support a successful Web 2.0 site that has say, a million page views per month. I know of almost no Web 2.0 sites, save for TYLER projects, that have that kind of high traffic. You can setup the servers, code out the applications with free open-source software platforms and rely on web marketing, which again, dun cost money when you target the right communities with the right message.
Related Links:
[1] BL, Can Web 2.0 companies make money in Asia?
[2] Justin Lee, Wanted: S’poreans to develop the next YouTube or Skype. Can it be done?
[3] Lim Der Shing, Can Singapore produce our own YouTube?
Editor’s Note: The article is republished from Bjorn’s site.
Loading ...
19 Comments, Comment or Ping
Han
I think the problem revolves around that of talent. We do not have talented, risk-taking, creative individuals who dare to try things which others have not tried before.
Web 2.0 pioneers didn’t have people teaching them how to create Web 2.0. They just did it, with the daring to do something different, and the courage to go against obstacles that others have put before them.
Feb 13th, 2007
nay min thu
what i feel is that the education system in S’pore is training the students to become good “employees” instead of “risk-takers” and “out-of-the-box-thinkers”..
as a result, the students are more concerned with passing the next exams, getting the good grades and landing a stable well-paying job.. so, the majority of them don’t tend to go beyond the textbooks..
Feb 13th, 2007
bjornlee
thanks for all the comments, guys. =)
I think some of us are well versed in the difficulties. Do you all think there’s any short-term solutions to solve this problem?
Feb 13th, 2007
wonderdoggy
hmm… actually i have a different angle to offer. Singapore does not only have little web 2.0 businesses, we actually have very little dot coms or 1.0 ones that made it. To me this is a consequence of our geographical size which allows SPH to be effective enough on many media fronts.
So rather than just look at web 2.0, why not also explore traditional dot com models which somehow are not present in singapore. Eg, real estate classifieds, personals, content ezines, enewspapers etc
If someone pulls off such a site, then it would be simpler to leverage on it to offer a web 2.0 version of it and have resources also to scale overseas. Seems logical to me to do it this way.
Also, just for reader information, there are quite a few Singapore web 1.0 companies around whose pageviews easily surpass 1M per month. Perhaps this says something also about how applicable the US web 2.0 experience is to a smaller country like ours?
Feb 14th, 2007
bjornlee
@ wonderdoggy, you are right. online classifieds like craigslist in US are successful as well, enewspapers (or news aggregators), like Topix.Net have proven to have traction, In fact, just to throw an idea out. a news aggregator that scans the major asia-pac newspapers will have appeal and a rather cool niche. take RSS feeds from the indian newspapers, thai dailies, australian, china and consolidate in one site alongside asian blog content. Asia’s media market is fragmented enough, this site might help solve that on the web. Think of it like a pan-Asian “IntelligentSingaporean” but with lesser human effort in content organization. =)
as for the “exceed 1M traffic” sites, i was referring to blogs that exceed that number. Proper portals like AsiaOne are not what I refer to. For sites like those, 1M is way under par.
I was referring more to content publishers who ride on the success of their initial amateur publishing efforts to go on to bigger and better things. Mr Brown is an example, he might not get 1 million, but at least he’s building a good media production pipeline for his browncasts and slowly becoming a PodTech of Singapore (?).
Feb 14th, 2007
justinlee
actually i think Singapore can build Web 2.0 capability.
really web apps aren’t too hard to build. apis aren’t too hard to use.
mashups + widgets. getting school kids interested in hacking out mashups and widgets would generate lots of interest
probably a few areas that need to be addressed if we want to examine it at the national level:
search. we are no where on the world map when it comes to search research. should try to move somewhere further if we can
open source. we are probably no where on the world map too. how many people here contribute to opensource? maybe we need somekinda index for that?
maybe u guys can identify more interesting areas?
Feb 14th, 2007
RSE
As a undergrad of one of the many technical arts, I have to defend my kin :)!
“Web 2.0″ is not new technology but a new business buzzword — maybe that’s why the computing folks don’t seem to be receptive towards it? It’s not exactly a revolution in their field. Believe me, developing “Web 2.0″ applications are one of the least technically challenging endeavours in their field.
Did you know the current NTU timetable planner was completely a student effort (written, hosted and maintained) that was unsupported by NTU initially? Last semester, there was also another student-written app to assist timetable planning, much to the consternation of the IT dept.
The technical ‘building blocks’ of “Web 2.0″ are also not set in stone: Why not use the tools that they know to solve problems instead of making them use specific ones? I’m sure the computing folks know what can or cannot be done using a specific tool, best leave the technical details up to them.
Perhaps the “Web 2.0″ issue is approached from the wrong angle (i.e. business angle). A vast majority of the Web 2.0 successes were built by geeks in their spare time, not the business people out to make money. I have noticed however, that there are very few geeks in NTU/NUS — the students are simply not interested in what they are learning and I wonder why?
Feb 14th, 2007
lesile_lee
Justin,
it is not the problem of building a web 2.0 service, but the problem of sustaining web 2.0 interest and support.
If we agree that Yahoo, Google, Youtube, Skype is not driven by economic value and more by user value, then we have the drive, capability and motivation to create and redefine web 2.0 in our own ways. We do not have to be followers. Unfortunately, what I see here is that everything cool, interesting, and potential must have a economic value in very short-term. In other words, it is much economic-driven kind of innovation rather than user value. With that kind of mentality, we rather stick to innovation that is proven successful and been validated like Youtube, but then one have to realize that only early bird get to eat the worm (though may have exception)
It is interesting to note that We and VC, incubators, investors here are always in dilemma. We always want to build something sustainable, innovative and potential, and not a follower-type of innovation. Yet we want something that proven, copied money-making business model, and validated so as to reduce the risk of investment.
We always say that we need to be innovative and creative but yet action doesn’t reflect that somehow. Many just could not come to term that doing real innovation thing is really about “Just do it and see how” and not about managing risk. We are actually 2 steps forwards but 4 steps backwards if you really think about it.
Think about that: Will there be Youtube, Google, Skype if the founders really be bother by such risk like copyright, infringment, politics etc ? Perhaps they be troubled by such issue, but then no risk no gain.
Instead of anticipating their success, we are just only following their success.
Feb 14th, 2007
bjornlee
@ RSE, yes thats true. The geeks in NUS/ NTU don’t have much of a voice, either in the blogosphere or offline.
What technical discipline do you belong to? I do not understand what you mean by “developing “Web 2.0″ applications are one of the least technically challenging endeavours in their field”.
As for “technical ‘building blocks’ of “Web 2.0″ are also not set in stone”, i totally agree. I am with you when you say the technical details should be left to them but not when the technical guys are simply not aware of why newer languages and platforms are favored over older languages. If its a conscious decision to opt for older languages, then its fine but i am referring more to the lack of awareness and adventure in trying out the new stuff. Of course, different applications have different architectural requirements. The new languages do not do everything well.
The article did not look at Web2.0 form a business/ revenue angle. Believe me when I say I do not think revenue is the most important component in business. User/ customer satisfaction and takeaway value is. Money’s a side effect. Focus on money and i think its a superficial way of thinking of business. The Chinese saying: “Treat the root cause, not the symptom” can best explain this. The user/ customer is the importance, not the numbers in the bank account.
Feb 14th, 2007
chong3
youtube and skype has been consuming the most attention of the world media. The founders believed in and work hard for their business ideas. The VCs involved believed and bet on their idea against the general intelligent analysis and belief. Breadtalk, Osim, Creative Technology and many others, the acknowledgement of their successes by our society have no different than many great figures by the respective societies in history, The founders or creators have been all based on their belief that were against the general intelligent analysis and belief at the time of founding and growing their businesses or ideas in their formative years.
The world is dominated intelligently since history of society. Socrates was put to death 2400 years ago by the most intelligent at that time. Since then history were repeated many geniuses were put to death by the decision makers due to the ignorance of the new invention or idea which were against the general intelligent analysis and belief.
As a matter of human survival and evolution, the world and societies have to be dominated intelligently and evolve through the education system. The increase of intelligence in people, the creativeness decreases. Since the second generation of Singapore, the entrepreneurial spirit has evolved from individual to governmental that has built an intelligent society- a miracle of a nation building in recent history. The success of the governmental entrepreneurial spirit has been widely studied by the world. With this sense Singaporean do not lack of entrepreneurial spirit but an evolution of it.
Along with the evolution and revolution of Internet, technology and globalization, the topic of entrepreneurial spirit, new marketplace idea, new invention and creativeness have been emerging and stirring much dispute in world media and academic world. The fundamental root of all causes has not been touched that is the intuited instinct and the natured instinct of human. The different of the instinct makes all that different. The instinct of all governors of all societies and professors most if not all in all trade were intelligently intuited in the process of social and family education system. All the great inventors, great people in business and geniuses were those who could maintain their natured instinct in the world of people of intuited instinct. These people could not be accepted in the elite group, and could not be valued by the intelligent analysis until their successes storm the world or the society.
We talk about creation of youtube, the same that we talked about hundred flowers blossom, entrepreneurial nation, graceful society and a world city nation. Unless we understand the different of the intuited and natured instinct of ourselves we would be nowhere near there. We could build the world-class hardware but the people mindset could not be turned into world class unless the people are made known of their natured instinct. Unless the decision makers understand that different and apply changes in polices the great part of effort and expectation would be in vain.
If this point of view is valid that the natured instinct could not be measured intelligently and it could only be easily known when it turned into great success or failure, could the changes in ourselves or the government polices be expected since the world is dominated intelligently that could not and chose not see it?
The “X†factor has been much discussed in our local media in 2004 brought up by our PM Lee. It is residing in the natured instinct of every one of us.
Not only entrepreneur but also genus could be made. Not by intelligently enabled but by engineering the natural growth of the natured instinct of people. Just a deviation of direction, Singapore could create not only the top dotcoms but an entrepreneurial nation the same way it has created the governmental entrepreneurial spirit that is leading in the today world.
It was encouraging that our brave minister talked in the world stage about the youtube-like creation in Singapore after years of quietness in the local media about dotcom business. Should there be in near future any SG dotcom playing in the world stage it would not be dotcom business models that are hype in the current world media. It could be a common idea currently less talked about and only those who could able to bring it to the world stage be the winner regardless which country it is originated.
Internet business and its success blinds to the population and boundary. The capability to fill the cavity of the world demand or to create new demand, either the business funded or not stands the chance to win. Expecting the decision makers in the government or the VCs to fund such business as web 2.0, especially the phobia of the dotcom burst still remains today, would be disappointed. Unless they know such thing called “natured instinct†and see positive side of a targeted fundable growing business that justify with their trained intelligent analysis, dotcom startup in Singapore hardly would be funded.
Feb 14th, 2007
RSE
I’m leaving my field ambiguous out of sheer paranoia. Hope you don’t mind. But as a geek, I’ve experimented with web-development in my free time.
Just think about it from an engineering perspective… what does a typical Web 2.0 application do? 1) Allow users to post content 2) allow them to distribute that content. Both are not hard things to do considering the fact internet is already invented. Codecs for storing content in my experience should be something everyone already have because people don’t want to download X, Y & Z plugins to run your site, hence you only have to utilise existing technology.
Many of the ’so-called’ newer languages and platforms aren’t always preferred for technical reasons, either. Some of it is hype marketed to untech-savvy people who call the shots. That’s a sad fact in this field, most of it is hype, and it’s hard to tell unless you know the field intimately. Some of them are actually old stuff, like Ajax, not a technology but a collection of old-fashioned, well-established tools. Javascript has been around for more than 10 years! Of course, most NUS/NTU students shy away from new stuff for solid technical reasons — most of them are plain uncurious. That’s why we need geeks.
Web 2.0 is more of a business/social phenomenon, not a technical one. I would like to quote Paul Graham from his Web 2.0 essay:
Web 2.0 means using the web the way it’s meant to be used. The “trends” we’re seeing now are simply the inherent nature of the web emerging from under the broken models that got imposed on it during the Bubble.
I’m afraid if we overemphasize “Web 2.0″ as a great way to make money, we’ll kill the internet all over again. I don’t know if any of you have used the internet pre-bubble– I have, and I agree completely with Paul’s description. It’s written from a nerdier perspective than most other web 2.0 essays out there, here’s the url:
http://www.paulgraham.com/web20.html
Feb 14th, 2007
lesile_lee
chong3,
though what you say is rational and should be the logical way of web 2.0 startup. However the examples of youtube and skype if interviews of the founders are to be believe, do not have a concrete business plan initially. It is more of anticipating the user need rather than market need by creating something that solve the need of user first. Their monetization part is adhoc and plan along the way of their ‘adventure’.
The business model and plan which developed along the way is being validated by their respectable VC. Their VC is definitely not tom, dick or harry kind, but very influential in media, public relation, marketing. Their relationship with VC and the interest generated along the way together with luck make one believe that these founders are business-man where in fact they are more geek and nerdy than B-Man.
From experience, I do agee with Bjorn that money is not the most important, it is the product and service that solve the user’s need that more important. Money is secondary and will come if it solve user’s need.
Feb 14th, 2007
Harro!
I think this Web 2.0 topic is getting a little dry. Its true, we have no solutions. But then again, is there a problem?
Singapore as a country is currently running fine with Oil & Gas, Finance, Manufacturing, Shipping, Tourism, Retail and Gambling. Even the education sector is a better.
For any young intelligent graduate, there are plenty of good jobs, with long term opportunities.
Also for individuals, there are no problems at all. There are plenty of great paying jobs out there and biz opportunities out there. Ignoring Web 2.0 is not going to make a difference to any Singaporean, or to any potential entrepreneur in Singapore. It may not even make a difference to the Singapore economy.
So tell me, who has a problem with Web 2.0 that needs to be solved? And tell me who has a decent budget to address it?
To encourage Web 2.0 foolishness in Singaporean youth is not wise at all.
And for those with real problems and are looking for real solutions, they should stop toying around with ghost budgets (disguised as Venture Capital) and start listing steps to a long term strategic goals for Singapore to take in IDM, and then staff it with real salaries, real jobs, and hopefully real careers.
Ideas are cheap. The RISK to attempt Web 2.0 is REAL. (unless you’re a clueless graduate :)) Talking about it is not going to make the risk disappear.
wonderdoggy also has a good point, however the gap between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is quite significant. To succeed in Web 2.0 requires vertical focus.
(hmm… where did I hear that before?)
Feb 15th, 2007
lesile_lee
Harro,
What you say is rational in economical value. From my view, the WEb 2.0 is not about economical value, it’s about passion and innovation. There are a lot of passionate soul who really want to live their passion to do work and innovation in this area. Create awareness in web 2.0 here will encourage and motivate those soul here.
The problem with web 2.0 is that business and gov trying to define web #.0 to fit economically.
Doing work in technology is perhaps the last thing
one ever want to be in as a job because it is tough, long working hours, stressful with tight deadline, and technology is ever changing.
Singapore’s industry in many area will eventually become unsustainable due to global competition. Unless we keep up with forthcoming industry and keep exploring new opportunities like web 2.0, technology, etc, we will not able to attract foreign investors and talent, and sustain our overall growth. Many ppl come here and live because of Singapore’s potential not past success. Web technology could probably bring us to next level (Fat hope ?)
Though ideas is cheap, but the risk to attempt anything at any industry is risky at best. Investment in volatile enviroment is just as risky.
The point is that every once a while, old thing and ideas need to be revamped to simulate interest and growth.
Web 2.0 and above is anything that goes since it is defined by whoever can come out exciting technology can define it in their own ways. Etc, google with google map popularize mashup and ajax. Solution actually lies within us not gov, VC, incubator. To seek help from them could probably discourage more than encourage since their interest are different and may not be aligned with the entrepreneur.
I do agree with you that we are indeed superficial in promoting web 2.0 though. A lot of interest seem to be debated on ideas, concept and talking, ghost investment about web 2.0, very little is seemed of actually doing it here.
Feb 15th, 2007
Jeremy Yew
Good point Harro, especially the part about “is there a problem?”.
I agree, I think currently there doesn’t seem to be much a problem that needs to be solved, that’s why we don’t see a strong desire for young S’poreans to develop the Web 2.0 scene.
I think what’s happening is that we’re pretty satisfied with the available Web 2.0 offerings (most of which come from the Valley) - we’ve got YouTube for videos, we’ve got Skype for calls, we’ve got Wordpress/Blogspot/etc for blogs, we’ve got Flickr for photos, we’ve got Technorati for blog search, we’ve got Techcrunch for tech news, etc…why fix something which ain’t broke?
It’s not that we aren’t embracive of Web 2.0 technology. I think S’poreans embrace Web 2.0 pretty well. (I think at one point we were one of the biggest users of Friendster, and we feature prominently on Technorati). If a good Web 2.0 application from Silicon Valley comes along, we’ll probably be quick to adopt it.
However, it just doesn’t make sense for us to develop such things here in S’pore, because of the high level of risk (which Harro has rightly mentioned), as well as the lack of available resources (both talent and funding).
Sometimes I wonder - are we wanting to be the next Silicon Valley just for the sake of being the next Silicon Valley? Is there a pressing need to do it? Do we, given our natural attributes, have a realistic chance of doing it?
In the same way, why not try to be next Hollywood of entertainment? Or the New Orleans of Jazz? Or the Vienna of classical music? Or the Las Vegas of gambling? (ok, don’t answer the last one…)
Feb 15th, 2007
chong3
lesile_lee,
I do agree with you that money is not the most important when implementing a new idea of product or service. It is the instinct or intuition and more on the strong and always unchallengeable believing to
make the decision on the existing condition for the commonly unknown or unexplored. This is what makes the different of entrepreneur and inventor than the businessman and general public.
The unusual value paid for youtube and skype, market cap. of Google have brought up the world attention of new and fastest way of wealth creation. Unavoidably, new web startup and existing dotcom may not project how much their business worth in number of years but expectation is always there. Such expectation or dream naturally comes with planning of revenue generation.
The founders of youtube, skype, have proven the great success of applying new use on existing resources and creating of new business model. time needs to tell if they are the inventor or entrepreneur. The VCs involved believed and has the capability to see thing others do not that make them different.
I agree with Harro “To encourage Web 2.0 foolishness in Singaporean youth is not wise at all.â€
The Web 2.0 could be replaced by anything in near future. What is winning odd the SG web 2.0 to grows up to compete in the world market? It may be viable to work on web 2.0 to explore and create new business model.
An idea to offer here, I have been talking the “intuited instinct and natured instinct of human†Should anyone spend a bit of time to study it further. Work on it if value is truly found, you may make a fortune out of it. This may be a new concept of the instinct of human and may not have been explored before. It is against the general belief that geniuses is born and could not be made.
I would appreciate greatly if anyone has different view than what I put across here about the instinct. My view may be wrong?
Lack of talents.
This should not be a question; a new startup should know what the technology and coding skill to adapt to embark on the idea. If he does not know he would have to learn to master it. If one has the money to employed people to do the coding and if no talent could be found he could get the second class and he should have capability to inspire the employee to be creative. Many new business model of Web 2.0 are the new use on old technology. The idea and speed of bringing the product to the market that counts. Create something from nothing is nature to entrepreneur and inventor.
VCs. Fund in Singapore.
Should your business or startup has the honey, let the VCs smell it by the nose, they will come. You tell them yours is web 2.0 and show them the honey, they would take it as poison. Hard instinct dominated the intelligence happened only once during the dotcom rush.
Market is small.
Local market is truly small. To think the Internet cyberworld is small is to limit ourselves. Asia is virgin land to grow the top dotcom. Sg has every thing ready but lack of actor.
“Is there a problemâ€,
It is big problem to each individual, and bigger problem to our next generation. And the sum of all these problems is one of the main factors to decide the destiny of SG in the coming years.
The root of the cause of all the negative view about the creation of web 2.0 in sg is the same as the negative view about entrepreneurial spirit in sg- These are all natural and correct view by the people with the intelligently intuited instinct. The natural outcome of the intelligent analysis which could not and the intuited instinct choose not to see the opportunity beyond the cloud.
This posting is long to read, it explains fundamentally to the problem everyone is facing.
It is the world and our own common belief, today in Sg, the government entrepreneurship is leading but the individual entrepreneurship is lacking.
Why there is no sg dotcom playing in the world stage given the advances of the financial, Internet, logistic and technological insfrustratural, sg brand name and all the government assistance schemes in places?
Why we are still debating the possibility of the creation of web 2.0 while there are many successes and failed web 2.0 life story happening in the west? It is also general feeling that sg is a nanny state to the extent that cover walkways built everywhere to shield us from rain and sun.
Singaporean supported and built the government. It built up sg into an intelligent society. The success has been mainly contributed by the adopted education system. Our parent and we went through that system that we were trained and expected to be good employees or administrators. The government to its people is just like a extreme strict and kind parent to their children. We made the government what it was, it made us what we were. In time of difficulty and need, people look to government for help is of no wander, but how many people and to what extent and how long the government could help.
The govt. was seriously concern the future of sg at time of difficulty and it was instrumental to the implementing “Remaking Singapore†since 2001. We could see how it was efficiently planed and implemented as other public policies. It has not been effective on one of the engines of sg future growth as defined- entrepreneurial spirit. A lot of activities on entrepreneurship are still going on but we do not see the light, what we see are the debates going on- positive vs. negative and negative prevails.
The difficulty of job perspective faced by people elder than 30s, the lack of entrepreneur and fear of failure is the consequence of the world competition raised by the globalization and incidentally by our education system. This has been a known fact. How and to what extent the education system affected the mindset of individuals, it has been many opinions going on. All the opinions are bolt down to the instinct of human. The instinct of individuals has been excellencely and intelligently intuited under the governing policies and the education system.
The answer to the govt. call to make sg an entrepreneurial nation and to help ourselves by changing our own mindset for living better for the years to come is just to understanding the different of the intuited instinct and natured instinct.
If this is a true answer, the govt. has the responsibility to take the lead.
The natured instinct that resides in everyone of us is the answer to the “X†factor that our PM Lee mentioned in the speed on the 3rd Dec 04.
“But ultimately, what determines a great city is that extra “x-factorâ€. You cannot quite explain it, but you know it when you arrive in a city that has it. It is the quality that brings pride to the people living there and at the same time excites visitors. The outlook is globalised and cosmopolitan. You immediately feel the vibrancy and excitement, the opportunity and optimism. You want to work and play all day and all night, because there is too much to see and do, and the city never sleeps.â€
I would say all entrepreneurs and inventors with the “X†factor willing to work all day and all night for realization of their ideas and dreams. Only one thing in their mind, “keeping on exploring until success†No fear and no worry, no hesitation and so no time is wasted.
The below stated is retrieved from my blog.
Natured instinct of entrepreneur.
Knowledge, experience, social statues, wealth, education, networking etc individually could only be variables on path to success but appropriate natured instinct determines the success.
The best combination of the variables could make individual and the governmental entrepreneur to build great enterprises on the existing resources, technology invention on its existing base. They build on the known condition today and of the future.
Creation of a new business model, an invention of new technology, growth of genius of all type are all based on the natured instinct on the existing known condition to explore the unknown or commonly unknown of the future. Geniuses in cases are made idiot or intelligent person by group of intelligent people- the natural occurrence of the education system.
Instinct is the key factor that makes the different. It is natural call to action. All existing education system have made human to be intelligent which is good at building on the existing not on the growth of entrepreneurial spirit.
Resilience spirit
It is a natural occurrence while the natured instinct insists on concentrating its mind and energy in the process of finding the answer it has no time for the ill feeling.
Passion
It is generated at the time when the natured instinct finds the vale for its insistency and believes in the chance of success. The passion emerges stronger while the natured instinct develops
Feb 15th, 2007
rw
I think it’s not so much the funding that we lack, it’s the drive and passion to explore and learn that’s missing. Plenty of students are pretty content to just mug what’s been going on in their lectures without bothering to go outside their coursework.
Not knowing about LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/Python/PHP) systems? That’s really quite sad. Not not knowing about LAMP per se, but not knowing about systems that aren’t covered in normal coursework, or part of their everyday environment. Contrast that to Stockholm (where I am now), where students use a variety of OSes across their laptops, and lab machines. Unlike in NUS where there is almost a Windows/Microsoft-only monoculture. (.. and I had a friend in Computing ask me what “Firefox” was.. no kidding)
We need people who are willing to explore, willing to tinker. People who think skipping a few lectures to develop a new, cool web service or widget isn’t a deadly sin =) People who code for fun and passion and not for grades.
And with such tinkering, eventually something good might emerge (a Web 2.0 company maybe?) and encourage this culture further (E27 is actually doing quite a good job of promoting this actually). Give it enough time and VCs might eventually divert their love back to Singapore.
“Web2.0 or not?” perhaps shouldn’t be the question at hand. True, the industry might change, new trends and markets might emerge, but what’s really important is what we are going to do about it. If we lack the drive and passion to explore, that’s not really going to help very much, regardless of how much funding we have.
Feb 17th, 2007
chong3
All the great inventions, great businesses include Google and the all the successful web 2.0 business are created by the people with the natured instinct.
Development of the natured instinct of people would set to revolve the education system worldwide in the years to come because genius could be made.
Natured instinct on the variable provided by education.
We know there were founders of the top dotcoms choose to drop out half way from the universities to explore their believes or ideas. Sim Wong Hoo did not continue his study after poly. These were the people found the time spent exploring on their own would gain more than the time spent on being trained. Education teaches what is known and which provides the variables for success. These people worked on these variables and had created new business models and new invention that had moved the world.
We all kwon determination, resilience spirit, passion and creativeness are the main ingredients for success. These are the trait that could not be taught and trained. It is just natural occurrence when a person believes in something and finds the value for insistency in exploring it. Naturally this person would become wiser and braver as he or she has less fear and less worry, less hesitation and so less time is wasted. If this person has the unchallengeable faith in what he is belief and doing he has no fear and no worry even at the cost of his own life.
What is the core factor that makes these people, entrepreneurs, inventors and even terrorists different from the general public? This is the natured instinct that they could unconsciously maintain and develop further on the known variable provided by the academic training or the society.
Natured instinct on wars and terrorist.
The most powerful elite group rules US that dominate the world, but the US failed in China war, Korea war and Vietnam wars. These were the natured instinct of the leaders won over the intelligently intuited instincts.
These lesions have not been leant, as there is terror war going on, though the outcome yet to know,
The intelligence analyses all the factors and launched the wars. But the natured instinct of the people of the opposite could not be measured and analyzed intelligently or were not known to the intelligent. The intelligent could not understand and the intuited instinct blinds to it.
The failure of Adolf Hitler was the result of his natured instinct acting on his deteriorating total cognitive sense. The quality of the natured instinct and total cognitive sense of a beggar developed that created the Ming Dynasty. The natured instinct explains the trait in LKY who had built Singapore.
Nobody has ever talked about the natured instinct in detail. Today only the top leaders of the terrorists know well. They might be inspired and leant from the way the Japanese building of the Kamikaze (”divine wind”) military suicide attacks
These were the intelligent leaders who knew the ways to engineer the natural growth of the natured instinct of the suicide attackers. It was natural growth because it was not by force but by incubation or guided to enable the natured instinct of the suicide attackers to believe and find the values to for the mission. At all time having full faith and unshakable determination and knowing their actions would cost their own lives.
Natured instinct could be engineered because these leaders have the capability to create the beliefs and inspire the natured instinct of suicide attackers.
The motivation of the suicide attackers in today terror war or Kamikaze in World War II remains debatable. But the natured instinct of human could be the ground to initial the summery of it.
The suicide attackers were not fool. By definition of success, their successes in missions were no different than the success by entrepreneurs and inventors.
The intelligent- the elite groups that rule the societies.
All the professors in all trade, all the policy and decision makers in all democratic governments and all CEOs if they are not the founders of the enterprises, their instinct are the most intelligently intuited by the academic training and most influenced by the social norm and family education.
The brightest and most intelligent form the elite groups that rule the societies. By nature of the intuited instinct as what they are trained of, they make all policies and decision depends on the justification of intelligent analysis. This has been how the education system evolving to meet the societies needs as decided by the decision makers.
If a decision maker emerges to act the way as entrepreneur or inventor to talk something in the policy or decision making against the intelligent analysis by the elite group. He could not be accepted. A single natured instinct against the intuited instincts and risk against stability as in the case of death penalty to Socrates by the rulers then.
The entrepreneurial spirit of Singapore.
Singapore has been showing the world how efficient its education system have been transforming our nation from the 3rd to 1st world, how the individual entrepreneurial spirit has evolved to be the governmental entrepreneurial spirit, how the disruptive technology could be applied to a nation development through such entrepreneurial spirit evolution.
The Singapore brand name and its world top ranking in many field is mainly the result of the governmental entrepreneurial spirit. Singapore has defied in “Remaking Singapore†the entrepreneurship is one of the engines of the economic growth of the Singapore future. An entrepreneurial nation, graceful society, globalised and cosmopolitan city and a global hub for many fields have been the vision for Singapore future.
Singapore may be able to built all these in 2 to 3 generations as what Singapore have taken to reach what it is today. We know of our capability and limitation and we also know of many factors possibly affecting the stability of the world and regional are beyond our control. There are too much of risk to anticipate over a span of 2 to 3 generations.
Could we do it in 20 years time to accomplish our vision for our nation?
All the instincts of our children are intelligently being intuited as what it has been going on for the generations. As a result and individually, we are lack of capability to see opportunity beyond the intelligent analysis, the mindset that could not think independently and creatively with a global view. We could not find the value and believes for creation to explore on and so no resilience spirit and passion, which produce no great actor in all fields,
If the decision makers understand, take the lead and make known to the people of the different of the intuited instinct and natured instinct, it would generate the explosive response and would become a national exercise because the intuited mindset of individual would be freed to allow new creation of ideas, resilience spirit and passion to flourish. The billions dollars and human resources spent on developing the people and nation would then be much better yield as it would generate new and benefit the possibilities that are excluded from the intelligent analysis the way we used to.
The most naughty and the worst performers in the schools could possibly emerge to be the great entrepreneurs or geniuses if their natured instinct could be engineered to growth naturally.
Make changes in educational system and guideline to let the children learn what they like, guided and not forced, and so the potential of their inherent talent could be maximized
Flourish in many yield of talents like Ike See a young musical prodigy, spotting and growth of talent as Sim Wong Hoo would be better chanced, the people and decision makers would love to embrace if the natured instinct is understood.
On the experience and platform, of the economic and national stability that has been built, of the evolution of entrepreneurial spirit to governmental entrepreneurial spirit, an entrepreneurial nation, a truly great city and its people possess the “X†factor could be built in 20 years time. The natured instinct of people must be made known as it involves the welfare of everyone, the next generation and Singapore future.
The natured instinct in the process of civilization.
Wars and Colonization were part in series of civilization and human evolution. When chaos happened in a society, people with the natured instinct emerged to fight for survival or for whatever reason to establish stability. Once the stability was established, people was educated or forced to abide to the law. Either by education or force the instinct of the people was intuited. This has been the path of civilization as intended by the founding rulers or the elite group. After generations of stability, the instinct of rulers and people in the elite group as all ordinary people were intelligently intuited in the education system and the social norm.
Social stability flourishes civilization but at the expense and scarification of the natured instinct of human. The increase of intelligence to society decreases creativeness in individual.
Natured instincts have been engineered to produce suicide attackers. The great businesses and inventions have been created unconsciously by the natured instinct of entrepreneurs and inventors. This has not been commonly known because the natured instinct could not be measured by intelligent analysis and comprehended intelligently.
Following the exposing of the use of the natured instinct by the terrorist for weapon of destructive, the use of the natured instinct for constructive purpose that benefit to the mankind by the democratic world would emerge.
The development of the natured instinct of people would set to revolve the education system worldwide in the years to come.
Whether genius is born or could be made would be no longer a debate.
Feb 21st, 2007
James Seng
This is a bit late but better late than never.
I think we agreed on most points but I wanted say something on the funding.
On the lack of funding, notice I didnt point the finger at the government. I am aware of MDA 500M fund for IDM and there are several other schemes you can tapped upon too as a start-up.
There is something wrong with a culture that needs the government incentives/grants before stepping out to start your own business but thats another story for another day.
Yes, you dont need a lot of money to start a web 2.0 company. 10k to 20k probably get you a prototype. But you definitely need more money if you want to grow, no less than 1/2m to 2m. Then you may need another round of 10-20m to give you a final push if you are lucky to go to IPO stage.
The problem in Singapore is the 1/2m stage. If you are rich enough to fund it yourself, good for you but otherwise, this is where most startup dies. Sadly, we dont have local investors.
Mar 17th, 2007
Reply to “Singapore’s Web 2.0 Readiness”