‘We need more risk takers in Asia’
By Willis Wee, Penn-Olson
Craig Mod, designer at Flipboard, has written an interesting piece for the New York Times about the differences between New York and Silicon Valley. While the story mainly talks about the two cities in the U.S, it makes me think about the growing entrepreneurial scene in Asia.
Mod's story is about embracing the local differences rather than trying to replicate the very same model and success of Silicon Valley. The key to doing that is having more risk-takers, more entrepreneurs. This paragraph from the piece says it best:
Rather than find a way to transplant Mountain View into Manhattan, New York should provide greater support for risk-taking. Nobody wants to see New York clone Facebook. Instead, we are anxious to see the sort of Facebook that can only emerge from the unique fabric of New York.
Interesting. So where does Asia stand? I can't represent this great continent but I do have my personal thoughts. Every week we're getting submissions on interesting start-ups from across the continent, a good indication that entrepreneurs are turning ideas into reality.
But we seriously need more risk takers, more people to fight against the fear and be their own bosses. But I realize we can't just tell people to be risk-takers. The ecosystem and culture have to support it too. For example, Singapore is famous for giving entrepreneurs funds (with a fair share of complains from the locals) to run their ideas through the government funding scheme. It's a good initiative that helps entrepreneurial wannabes lower their financial risk. However, the culture here doesn't seem to support entrepreneurship.
Culture War
Many of my friends wanted to run their own business but none have actually had the courage to start one.
In Singapore, fresh graduates get about $2,500 to as much as $8,000 a month. So what's the point of being an entrepreneur? The math tells them that it isn't worth taking the risk. Asian parents always tell their kids to get a good degree and then a stable job — the simple success formula in life. And friends add on to the brainwashing and pressure as well.
In general, in Singapore at least, we are very skeptical about what entrepreneurs can do and achieve. And as more of your friends join the rat race, the aspiring entrepreneurs get shaken and join the crowd. It's understandable because we all want to belong as a part of a 'normal' majority, not the minority. This continent never embraces failure (not yet at least) which really piles on the pressure upon would-be entrepreneurs in Asia. It sucks.
As a recent grad, I go through this, too. But thankfully, my family is pretty supportive of the things I do, even if they don't understand what the hell I'm doing or how am I going to make money out of my work.
Fighting along side with you
Penn-Olson is a blog, but a start-up as well. And we're still figuring it out too, fighting the very same battles as many of the people we cover. But I do believe that our team here is doing an awesome job for the tech industry in Asia. We cover at least three to four tech start-ups on a daily basis and write about their journey/stories like a "professional media" outlet (sort of).
No big media in Asia does that, so we jumped in and just started doing it. Why? Because we hope to help build a ecosystem for the tech entrepreneurs in Asia. Someone has to tell the story. Just as TechCrunch and VentureBeat write about start-ups in the U.S, we want to do the same for Asia. Think about it: Silicon Valley wouldn't be the Silicon Valley you perceive without these tech blogs.
It's a big risk. We don't know what will happen to us in one year's time but I do know that we're promoting tech and entrepreneurship in a positive way. Even if we fail, someone will learn from our experience and build the "TechCrunch of Asia." In fact, TechCrunch itself has just announced that it will be organising DISRUPT at Beijing and will soon open a Chinese and English language tech blog in China. It's an exciting time ahead. (more on this later…)
We need more risk takers. And hopefully we can do our part to encourage some of them by highlighting some success stories here in Asia, acting as a bridge to put them on a global stage. I'm not sure how much we can help change the culture, but we're urging budding entrepreneurs to stand out and give it a try for once. Even if you meet with failure, you'd be surprised how rewarding and educational it can be.
If you're a start-up founder, drop us a line. We'd love to hear your war stories.
