Singapore Entrepreneurs

1. wannapreneur

   How very true … I guess that unlike your maths grades, being creative / entreprenuerial is not something you can just throw hours of hard work at and expect to exit with something in hand.

   Think that government’s done a good (too good?) job at the infrastructure and support and the ball is no longer in their court anymore.

   Anyway, I never consider grades to be the “key ingredient for tech entrepreneurs”. Just look at Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba. Passion and Ideas are the currency in trade, not academic brillance.

   Jun 30th, 2006

2. Claris

   Singapore has the right infrastructure but currently does not have the right culture and mindset overall. Though awareness is builting up and situation is improving, I could not help feeling that there is something still lacking locally. Maybe it will take times since Silicon Valley itself takes more than 5 decades of growth. What government doing is basically builting infrastructure but did little to nurture the culture to fully take advantage of infrastructure. It just like a rich father keep pampering his daugther with thing thinking that’s the way to love his daugther. But his daugther think otherwise, his daugther need concern and caring primilarily not physical object to replace it.

   Moreover, the education system here seem to me is all about teaching to work for big firm, not much about being entrepreneur. Furthermore, to teach entrepreneur in school at all seem to be superficial unless the teacher themselve is previously a entrepreneur, it will be hard to persuade other to be one, let alone tell about their experience.

   Could it be that Singapore need different kind of
   system since it small size does not give it a distinct characteristic ? Remember, at one time, Bouna Vista is planned by government to be the next IT hub region, but then now what it promote to be ?
   So around there, you find Biopolis and then Insead, the world famous MBA business school. So I wonder if Singapore government finally realized that segmenting region to have a distinct specialty like IT, biotech,business has little meaning.

   Silicon Valley is larger than Singapore, and is associated been a very much high-tech location, New York is associated with business-like and urban society of it own. But the identify Singapore give seem to create a one-size-fit all culture. Would it work ? The IT mentality and business mentality is very much different. Sometimes, to be innovative might mean to sacrifice profitability. Look at Silicon Valley, the culture is more about taking risk and creating cool stuff and it is respectable to fail. It tend to give more than to receive.

   The Venture capitalist is willing to fund those student from Stanford , MIT and likes of them even though what these ppl do does not have a viable business model. Just look at http://www.meebo.com, I yet to understand their business model. But I think the VC do not primarily of $$$ money first, but to improve the relationship with institute and promote the spirit of entrepreurship. It also help since some of the VC might themselve graduate from those prestigious institution. It just the way of giving thing back to the society. Instead of giving instition $$$ endorsement, they indirectly help the institution by funding startup setup by their student. At least if they successful, money will flow to VC, if not , they at least help to simulate entrepreneur and innovation growth in Silicon Valley.

   So do those VC and angel investor have that kind of mindset and connection with local university like NUS, NTU ??

   Is it the lacking of giving back the society their wealth the cause of the reason ?? It seem like most will want to keep their wealth rather than to give because Singapore is a realistic society.

   It is something that I ask myself when I try to find out the root cause.

   Jun 30th, 2006

3. Anonymous

   I would just have to say Asian Education System and Western style education system differ from one another? One is more like memorizing textbook everyday and the other is like use your creativity to design or write?

   Though basically, I was educated in both education system Asian Education System and then complete my O’level, A’Level and tertiary qualification via overseas. I recognize this difference. In western Education system, We actually had to do things practically. Spend most of our time in natural environment like for example. If we study about Crabs? The teacher doesn’t just catch a few crabs and you dissect it in your classroom? But you actually have to go to the site to study the crab habitat. And they expect you to be creative and be original with your findings as well.

   And most of the time in western education system, The students had to be independant? The teacher don’t explain in great details? So you have to study by yourself/do extra reading to gain more information or what we call group study?

   I think to Think out of the BOX is just like to be able to think out of your facade. Just like they do not want just what the teacher spoonfeed you. But they expect you to do extra study and gain extra information. Be creative and innovative.

   In Asian Education System, However one thing good about us is we know several different language not just English. I think there are Pros and Cons in reality..And realise one thing good abt Asian.. Mathematical solving problem is often quicker/faster compared to Western Education System. ;)

   Jun 30th, 2006

4. darius

   “Singaporeans are good at taking orders, but they don’t think outside the box,”

   i think this is rubbish.

   singaporeans are creative, hardworking, intelligent and savvy, they can be great entrepreneurs. just too comfortable to bother, just too lazy to go against odds.

   we singaporeans should stop blaming everything from culture to government and just it a shot.

   Jun 30th, 2006

5. darius

   after thought -

   yes and that includes you, investors, stop worrying about not getting your money back, just give it a shot. don’t expect a perfect business plan with definitive 20x return in 5 years, you wont get those here, and these startups have better investors to go to then you.

   take a risk, if it doesnt work out, call it national service and try again. may take 5, 10 years to build a leading, profitable startup ecosystem.

   but hey, if you want to be the arthur rock of Asia, you’ve got to start early and take some arrows.

   Jun 30th, 2006

6. Claris

   Hi darius ,
   you could be right, we Singaporean may too comfortable to even go against the odd. We want good life, want materialistic achievement, and want success fast, but then don’t want the pain and struggle.

   Jun 30th, 2006

7. Justin Lee

   for me i think entrepreneurship can be taught.

   i have benefited tremendously from entrepreneurship education in NUS. some lecturers in NUS are top class. like kwanghui.com i’ve learnt alot of what is nececssary for a technology entrepreneur from him. so much so that I dare say I understand this better than even some Stanford undergrads or silicon valley people.

   by going through classes, it helps you compress time and learn faster.

   of course there is no substitute for practical experience.

   lastly, as an entrepreneur, I don’t really have to bother whether Singapore is up to par with Silicon Valley. Why? because it will take decades to do so.

   So why bother at such a macro level? Just startup and aim for success rather than worrying too much about whether Sg will beat SV.

   For me, Silicon Valley is a mindset and a culture. My 1 year there was spent learning what that meant.

   So I can be anywhere in the world but I can still consider myself a Silicon Valley person.. u know what i mean?

   Another point to note is, a lot of action actually happens online… i’m referring to the blogosphere of silicon valley.

   you really dont have to be there to succeed… because u can be virtually there with your feed reader.

   in fact, i’d like to offer a counter intutive point:

   it’s more efficient not to be in SV at the starting stage.

   because you dont want to be distracted by too many events and parties that goes on there.

   it’s more efficient, to spend time communicating with the entire blogosphere and building word of mouth online.

   that’s why today, u dont have to be silicon valley. it’s what’s in your mind that counts.

   Jun 30th, 2006

8. Cobalt Paladin

   Do we need to keep comparing ourselves with Silicon Valley? Silicon Valley has 50 years of history and that’s even longer than our nation’s history since independence! Silicon Valley is a unique place where the technopreneurs from all parts of US congregates. Singapore? I think it is not fair to compare Singapore’s number of entrepreneurs as compared to big countries like USA, China, India or any other large country. If a country only has 0.1% of the population who will become successful entrepreneurs, Singapore would have only about 4,300 (big and small) of them whereas USA would have 299,000 of them! Of course USA and Silicon Valley would seem to produce more entreprenuers!

   True entreprenuers will be entrepreneurs regardless the environment and condition so stop wanting the government to do more. At least we have good infrastructure and stable polictical climate. The rest is up to us.

   Jun 30th, 2006

9. Gwen

   I’m like so sick and tired of reading “experts” coming to a “conclusion” that the Singapore education system cultivates a rigid atmosphere…and thus inhibits entrepreneurship…blahblahblah. Get out of the Stone Age, will ya? Is it that wrong that the leaders of Singapore from decades back wanted to ensure the survival of the country? And even so, much has changed and these “experts” are simply behind in time.

   Jul 1st, 2006

10. Cobalt Paladin

    Hear! Hear!

    * Applause! *

    Jul 1st, 2006

11. Cobalt Paladin

    Oh by the way, do you get a feeling that western countries, especially US academics, politicians, reporters etc like to take pot-shots at Singapore?

    Jul 1st, 2006

12. Gwen

    Definitely! It’s like it’s fashionable to disparage Singapore - especially amongst the “more intellectual circles”. Like “oh, most of my western counterparts have either never heard about Singapore and think that Singapore is in China. But hey, I know better. Singapore’s a small, wealthy but repressive society…yadayada”. And they go on citing extremely normal and copied-and-pasted claims and thus showing an inability to think independently themselves.

    Jul 1st, 2006

13. Claris

    Just my opinion: can be disputable though.

    What I trying to find out is what exactly make Silicon Valley click. We shouldn’t be silicon valley and must not be. But what are exactly are the things that most people who return from silicon valley can teach us about. In what ways can we short-circuit the decade of experience of silicon valley to work within Singapore framework to nurture entrepreneurial spirit. What exactly are we lacking that can be amended not by individual growth but by the society as a whole ?

    Well, it is true that true entrepreneur can strive under many adverse condition. But how many “true entreprenurs” Singapore is trying to “wait” without those proper support ?? Singapore is trying to create not ten or twenty entrepreneur superstars but trying to create perhaps thousands and thousands of them. And that only achievable if we can obtain moral support and financial need if possible. And true, smart people like to stay around smart group of people, and perhaps that’s why they have something like technology cluster and Malaysia’s Multimedia SuperCorridor. Only by concentrating those “culture” together, those entrepreneur will be more motivated to create more innovative product/service.

    Most probably, some school in Singapore love to concentrate smart/intelligent students together in different stream and class. Because like-mind think alike and tend to conform to majority’s behaviour. And even in work, smart and hardworking people want to work with similar people of same character and attitude.

    I could be wrong, but if anyone has opinion, feel free to give one, I would like to understand other’s viewpoint, so that these points could be used to explain to other “intellect” in other countries.

    thank

    Jul 1st, 2006

14. Claris

    Unless we can really find out the root cause of the reason why the majority of Singaporean lack entrepreneur spirit, and how to improve on these area, all other work done to improve it has little impact or may not be effective since what it actually trying to solve is just the consequence of a problem, not the root cause.

    Jul 1st, 2006

15. wannapreneur

    I think that root cause is too comfortable a life and the mid-term security of a having a job. Risk-taking goes out of the window.

    Jul 1st, 2006

16. Cobalt Paladin

    Actually, I beg to differ. Maybe because I’m an entrepreneur but I seem to notice that I’m surrounded by entrepreneurs in Singapore. I guess it is a matter of perspective. However, when I started out, I find it easier to talk to other entrepreneurs what I’m going through. They are more understanding and are willing to share their experiences with me. When I converse with non-entrepreneurs, I realise I may not be able to talk with some of my friends. They usually express shock and would disuade (out of concern) me of taking the risky path. Some just plainly don’t want to see me succeed and make disparaging remarks. After a while, I just learn to keep quiet and just say that I’m working in a company (conveniently leaving out that it is my company :p). I’m not embarrassed about what I’m doing or anything, I just find that it is not necessary to mention that I’m trying to setup my own business. I don’t want to be treated like a rare panda on display. Sometimes, it is weird that everyone’s attention begin to turn on you. Maybe that’s why entrepreneurs may seem even lesser because we don’t usually go around declaring we are. Maybe it is just our innate Asian culture, we don’t usually go round blaring our own trumpets.

    I do believe that Singapore culture has changed and this has been brought forth by the dotcom boom/burst cycle. During the boom, they were so many new startups. It is true that not many survived but that cycle has kick-started the entrepreneur culture and it is in motion, you just need to know where to look.

    Anyway, everywhere in the world, it is normal that entrepreneurs form only a small group of the population.

    It is just the way it is.

    Jul 1st, 2006

17. Cobalt Paladin

    Regarding why there seems to be lesser VCs willing to invest in Singapore startups. I feel it is a catch-22, chicken-and-egg situation. It takes two hands to clap. In order for VCs to have confidence in investing in local startups, we’ll need to have more successful cases. We’ll need to show and prove to them local startups can do it first before they dare to risk.

    Guess we happen to be the pioneer batch who will pave the way for future generation of entrepreneurs.

    Jul 1st, 2006

18. Cobalt Paladin

    Hi Gwen,

    Maybe the “liberal” and “democratic” Western countries can’t stand to see a Eastern/Asian country like us succeed even though we are a “repressed”, “controlled” and “socialistic” country? :p

    Jul 1st, 2006

19. Cobalt Paladin

    Hi Wannapreneur,

    I guess it is common problem in all cultures that people are too comfortable in their life and revel in the security of having a job. I think it is also inherently just human nature not to take risk. If not, why would the super-thin book like “Who moved my cheese?” become such a hit?!

    And that includes country like USA which was suppose to have a strong entrepreneurial culture!

    Jul 1st, 2006

20. darius

    haha this thread really exploded huh..

    applaud to all of you - claris, cobalt, gwen, wanna, justin.

    i think singapore is going to turn out just great.

    Jul 2nd, 2006

21. Justin Lee

    ya man, it’s exploding..

    ok la enough talk. let me delegate some work.. each of you go out to create a Fortune 5000 company. then we can come back to this thread to report back.

    thank you.. over and out!

    haha!

    Jul 4th, 2006

1. Location Doesn’t Matter: Stop Thinking You Have to be in Silicon Valley to Succeed at Justin Lee’s Web 2.0 Blog - Jun 30th, 2006
2. » Where Have All The Cowboys Gone? - Singapore Entrepreneurs - Entrepreneurship in Singapore - Jul 4th, 2006

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