The other night, on yet another taking-care-of-the-project-do-not-let-the-website-down, I bump into Singapore enterpreneur community site. I started with the video cast, The Geek Goddess Show, via sgenterpreneurs.com.
It is pretty amazing for me to live a while in the country with such environment. To see such youngsters to ignite and pull out an energetic event own their own is very motivating. Further, looking into podfire.sg, one of a startup, we can watch many interesting startup video pitch. It’s thrilling to watch and asking myself, when I’m gonna stand in front and presenting one of my own.
Above moment made me think of why Singapore startups look so lively. I can identify four major causes.
First, internet is a common culture. I don’t have any evidence to show that average people here, especially young generation, are internet savvy. However, URL is a common thing to see in TV, ad board, and maybe in other media as well. This is a fertile ground where potential consumer are waiting to be “fed”.
Second, broader connectivity. I can watch youtube, streams last.fm, load flash app without feeling any lag. Most of RIA demands broader bandwidth to compensate features. Not that small bandwidth does not promote creativity and innovation, only that sky-limit environment is a guarantee of unbounded experiment.
Third, available incubators. Incubation is a well known and well supported process by many institution. NUS has their own annual event where startup can take the challange and get funded. Indonesia is not yet near this stage, however some effort seem to be seeded already, eg: INAICTA event, though it’s not designed to look for and fund an idea.
Enterpreneur community. So far, I can only found e27. However, I suspect there are already some startup and wannabe-founder connected via thin line translucent network. Only during a specific event, those enterpreneurs will be visible.
Last but not least (bonus): stop thinking out of the box, get out of the box instead! (quoted from Poh Kam Wong, Professor at NUS Business School and LKY School of Public Policy; Director of NUS Entrepreneurship Centre; Angel investor)
It’s true, there may still many other major or subtle causes that I didn’t notice. You can try to find it yourself by surfing dot sg domains.