The Blue Sky in Zhong Guan Cun, Beijing

If there is a potential candidate which can pose as an alternative to the Silicon Valley in California, Zhong Guan Cun in Beijing is possibly the only candidate in the present. The best benchmarks are perhaps the amount of talent, the vast market size, the successful tech companies (Baidu, Lenovo and the Founder Group) that rose from China and the amount of venture capital that has turned up in Beijing from US, for e.g. Sequoia China. While traveling to Beijing, I took a nice walk around the technology cluster under a clear blue sky during the 60th National Day Celebrations in China. Read more

Startup in China by Chris Evdemon

Yesterday, Chris Evdemon (board member, BANSEA and partner, Eastern Bell Venture Capital) gave a interesting presentation about investing and doing business in China. Organised by the Business Angel Network – Southeast Asia (BANSEA), Chris has now uploaded into slideshare. There are some interesting notes about how to set up in China. For SG Entrepreneurs who might plan to move to China, this is a good set of presentation slides for reference particularly about who to seek for early stage capital investing, infrastructure and what needs to be done. Read more

Thoughts on Setting up in China from an SG Entrepreneur in Beijing

Setting up an enterprise in China is a relatively challenging task. While traveling across from Shanghai to Beijing, I met up with my friend Boon, a Singaporean entrepreneur who set up shop in China. He runs the Eden Juice bar, located somewhere in Sanlitun North Road, Chaoyang District (an area that is reminiscent of Holland Village in Singapore). While following him across Beijing, here are some thoughts that I extracted out from him which may be of help to those who might be thinking about setting up in China: Read more

In Conversation with Dr Gang Lu, MOBINODE and OpenWeb Asia

Recently, during the E27 Unconference 2009 event, Gang Lu, the founder of MOBINODE and OpenWeb Asia, came to Singapore and participated in a panel about “Innovation in Asia”. With an interesting background of working in an European company, Netvibes.com, he has recently moved back to Shanghai. So, we managed to catch him for an interview and have him to tell the story behind MOBINODE and OpenWeb Asia workgroup, and some of the interesting trends happening in China, and some tip for the Singaporean entrepreneurs on how to move to China. Read more

The Geek Goddess Show Episode 3: Virtual Worlds & NetBash

The 3rd episode of the Geek Goddess show is out. Do take a look and send us your feedback on the Geek Goddess Show website. This episode centers on virtual worlds in China, with a little mention of the Singapore company, First Meta, and our friend, Bjorn Lee, co-founder of E27. We also have our friend, Daniel Cerventus, across the causeway to share with us what he thinks of the web 2.0 scene in Malaysia and the difference with Singapore. You can also check out my own production notes here. Of course, as usual, my thanks to Podfire for the support, and the hard work put in by the hosts: Estee and Peter and co-producer, Michael. Read more

Press Release: UeeeU.com, Leading Provider of Digital Commerce Platform for Global Travel, Tourism, and Leisure Market, Receives First Round Financing from BAF Spectrum

Singapore, March 18, 2008: Singapore seed fund BAF Spectrum today announced a SGD $1m investment into UeeeU.com, a Singapore-based Internet and Mobile commerce platform for global travel. UeeeU.com will initially focus on the tourism, travel and leisure industries in China and the rest of Asia. Read more

The Entrepreneur’s Bookshelf: Silicon Dragon – How China is winning the Tech Race

If you survey the history of the rise of the internet companies in China, you will find very few books talking about them. Of course, it has mostly gotten to do with the language, and these companies are relatively unknown outside China. From the US side, many books have been written on the tech giants from the US. Even the web 2.0 founders are well documented in the book by Jessica Livingston in "Founders at Work". So, here we have a book "Silicon Dragon: How China is winning the Tech Race" written by Rebecca Fannin, a journalist who has been working in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Beijing. In this book, she interviewed 12 top chinese entrepreneurs and their investors, and give a brief overview on how the top Chinese internet companies are now rising to the challenge against their western counterparts. By the way, the author will be speaking in a talk entitled “Silicon Dragon” organized by E27 on 18 March 2008 in NUS (check the link for more details). Read more