The Million Dollar Question for Singapore: What's Holding Back Our Entrepreneurs?

Entrepreneurship is a state of mind. - Guy Kawasaki

Over lunch, I asked my friend from the Singapore-MIT Alliance program his plans after graduation. I was curious whether he would stay here in the US, head to Singapore or return home to India. He replied he would eventually want to start his own company, and that launched an extended discussion on entrepreneurship in Singapore. He felt Singapore was the shining star in Asia for starting up due to its excellent Intellectual Property laws, I countered by saying the culture of risk-taking is absent, success stories are few and stale, and related stories of a couple of would-be entrepreneurs I know who are now bankers.

Banking
Dipankar, a Director of Technology in a small Singapore firm, wonders at the lack of Singaporean presence on BusinessWeek's Asia's Best Entrepreneurs under 25. Part of the answer can be found on the Straits Times' titillating headline today of "Young super earners" (emphasis mine). The cover story details the astronomical compensations bankers receive. The moral of ST's story? The best way to earn money is no longer through studying law or medicine, with banking you can make more - faster. Singapore is trying to do everything at the same time, attract more private wealth and develop the banking industry while encouraging local start-ups. Does banking, an industry that promises money straight up, siphon off talent that might have otherwise ventured into starting companies?

National Service
Since the BW article specifies "under 25," Paddy Tan, founder of BAK2u, guessed that "hitting it big before 25 years of age is not easy especially where majority of the males have to enter the national service for a couple of years." If age were not the issue, would Singapore measure up to the rest of Asia? I know at least Israel does really well in entrepreneurship and tech start-ups.

Lack of poster boy/girl companies
Hardwarezone, the closest Singapore gets to YouTube, was sold to Singapore Press Holdings for $7.1 million when it had an annual revenue of $6million. Tangowing encapsulates the idea in his lament that "the Creative story is just so old." Cobalt Paladin points out that Finland, with the same population as Singapore, has Nokia.

Risk Adverse Culture, Scholarships
In an interview with InnovationMagazine.com, Guy Kawasaki brings up Israel as an example where population is small but people are risk-takers: "Israel has five million people, six million entrepreneurs, and fifteen million opinions. Singapore has five million people, six entrepreneurs, and one opinion."

He also suggested some radical ideas like "eliminate government service following government-sponsored education abroad."

Money
MIT's entrepreneurship competition gives USD$100k, SMU's competition gives only USD$20k. Is that why???

My friends
Since I'm trained as an economist and an engineer, I'm always inclined to dismiss anecdotes as biased sampling. But here I would like to share some random personal stories of friends with you. Stories related people who, at one point or another, were pursuing activities for reasons like passion on top of money.

1. A friend who was part of the team that was in the semis for the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition (USD $20k) He now works for a big pharma firm, a MNC. I'm not sure if he will start-up something some day.
2. A friend who worked at O'Brien's in preparation of starting his own sandwich shop in the underserved (in terms of healthy food) CBD. I helped him draft corporate identity for the store. He now works for a big bank.
3. A friend who took a semester off Wharton to start a boxers line under his parents' license. My other friend made a documentary. After graduating, he'll start by working for some big firm.
4. Some alumni I met as a pre-frosh, who left banking to start a photography+film school.
5. Close friend of mine, photographer.
6. Another photographer, related to a close friend of mine.
7. My favorite Singapore graphic designers (:Phunk) who made it.
8. My friend Kaushal, who used to work with Woolert (still under development).
   

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My friend says over MSN:

VCs in Singapore
but anyway, its not for the lack of entrepreneurs or wannabes.....its the mentality of VCs here, who i find very diff from those in US. VCs or even angels here demand to see a positive cash flow before wanting to invest and thats ridiculous. VCs/angels here are risk averse. yes why not just mention the VC/angel environment here
hmm but singapore is truly unique, it wont be a silicon valley, but hey, the gov is as entrepreneurial as they come by. if govs could win awards for being entrepreneurial, i dare say Singapore would be in the running for the award

My friend also points me to a success story from the NUS Overseas College program

snami8 vodcasts

Snami8 is by "a bunch of Singaporean students studying in the US, with an interest to feature the diverse activities and lifestyles of Singaporean students overseas."

Episode 1 - The Boxer(s) Rebellion
You can watch it on YouTube or download via snami8.com
Description of episode:

The premier episode of snami8 video podcasts is about a friend of mine, Philip, and his range of Levi's Inside Boxers. Last fall, Philip took a semester off from his studies at the Wharton School to start a business, and half a year later he was hawking Levi's boxers, which are now available in Levi's stores all across Singapore.

Now, what's your geographical imagination of the world?

It never occured to me that maps are not as factural nor impartial as they seem to be until i started reading geography at university. What is depicted on the map, as well as what is not included tells a lot of stories. Of course it would be highly impossible to do an exact replica of the actual ground conditions on a map, therefore information has to selectively chosen to be represented on a map. Ever wondered who holds the power to choose what to include on a map and why in that manner? Why are there so many colours and lines dividing countries on a map when in the real physical world, there are often no mammoth lines separating two countries?

During my first geography class in university, the lecturer gave us the task of drawing either the world or singapore map without referring to any sources. It was supposed to be a hand-drawn map based entirely on our own perceptions of our own country or the rest of the world. This task yielded some very interesting results.

For instance, some people drew the whole MRT lines of Singapore, complete with the exact station names --> this person probably takes the train very frequently. Yet another person drew all the major expressways of Singapore --> this person is probably a driver or biker. Or some people are able to locate on the map the places around their homes very well, but left the rest of the spaces blank. All these information gives a very good indication of the map-illustrator's background.

I am highly tickled by "map" below, which is based on the perceptions of some Singaporeans. I am quite sure this might be how some Singaporeans view our neigbouring countries and the world beyond, such as how Indonesia is only restricted to haze and Batam or how India is only filled with programmers. The portrayal of Thailand reflects the mindset of many a Singaporean. Ever since the budget airlines burst into the aviation scene in our part of the world, many of our countrymen have been making numerous weekend trips to Bangkok for cheap shopping, food and massages. I have had friends who commented "Wah, i didn't know Thailand can be so advanced with such a happening night scene and so many chio girls." Then i replied "That is Bangkok, not Thailand."

Indeed, it is highly amazing how some people (not only Singaporeans) can view the world with such warped and stereotypical mindsets. It should be noted that Singapore appears many times larger than what it really is on this map.

Now, how does your view of the world looks like? Try drawing a map of your own locality, town, country or the world. It will probably show how much you know of the world, or conversely, how little you know of it.

The Vegasification of Singapore

[img: Will the new Singapore look like "Paris?"]

With URA's new lighting plan, Singaporeans will soon experience unprecedented freedom in choosing their paths - at the Orchard and Bideford road junction. At other decisive junctions, STB remains firmly in control.

In the 90s, Singapore was Disneyfied to attract more tourist dollars. The historic Tiger Balm Gardens was insensitively developed into the multi-million dollar theme park "Haw Par Villa." A new Chinatown was constructed because the living version was not sanitary for tourist consumption. In September 1993, William Gibson named Singapore "Disneyland with the Death Penalty" in Wired magazine. Rem Koolhaas followed with an even more scathing critic:

Well, Singapore has succeeded in removing any trace of authenticity. It is a culture of the contemporary. And many Asian cities are like this now, seeming to exist of nothing but copies - in many instances bad copies - of Western architecture.

Now as we enter the age when the ash has settled from the failures of the commercial Haw Par Villa and Sentosa's Volcano Land, when Dubai has become more Disneyfied than us, we decide to enter the next stage: Vegasification. Developments like the XL mall Vivocity and two future casino resorts aren't enough - we need bright lights a la Times Square or the Strip. The city is already warm enough and guzzling enough energy, but we now have the CBD in a "blue-white glow" that does as much as air-con in truly bringing down the outdoor temperature of Singapore.

Why are we doing this? The Straits Times vodcast suggests that we can't be contended "after being voted number two most exciting city for dining and nightlife, the city will certainly have a glowing future ahead and become number one."

Yes, it's back to being number one again. Meanwhile, let's relocate Geylang next to the casino resorts - what is Vegas' exciting nightlife without the seedy side?

Related posts:

• Singapore is sick, architecturally
• $100 in Singapore

"Uniquely Singapore"

Are Singaporeans Spoilt? Once again another complaint has managed to garner newspaper coverage, this time with regards to overcrowded trains. SMRT says that trains do not reach full capacity even during peak hours whilst commuters claim that trains are overcrowded and indadequate. What is interesting is the inclusion of opinion from "people who have experience of commuter trains overseas" who are full of praise of our train system. Comparisons were made with the London, Tokyo and NY with the final conclusion that our system is not as screwed up as theirs and therefore we should quit complaining. Being "very famous overseas" ( probably becasue of my chewing gum jamming up a train door in Tokyo) and having travelled on all the 3 subway systems mentioned I do agree that Singapore's MRT system is pretty SMaRT. BUT so what if their rush hour transport system is worse than ours? Does that mean that it is tolerable for us to put up with this status quo? Complaints and criticism is the way Singapore works, it is part of our culture making us "uniquely Singapore".

Admittedly, all we did in the past was to complain and complain but at least now the complaints have shifted into more credible forums (from kopitiams to intellectual blogs and the www). I believe that this need for criticism and synicism is a positive point that should be harnessed. It should also extend beyond the realm of public transportation. Take the recent Biennale 06 for example. Some people loved it and some people touted it as absolute rubbish. Those who loved it will feel that people who don't are probably ignorant and vice versa. The right view is not important. Rather what is important is the discourse itself. And with that I think that the Art Scene in Singapore is off to a good albeit late start. Fabian has always been moaning and groaning about the state of architecture in Singapore. Why? Because of a lack of feedback from the people? Because of a general lack of interest in the topic? And his conclusion is that Singaporeans get bad buildings because we don't Complain.

Ahhh the magic C word.

Last friday, the Straits Times ran an article, "Make not owning a car the smart choice". The article started off with an introduction to the transport system in Singapore starting from the 1970s all the way to the present. He then went through all the acronyms from LTA to COE and ERP eventually arriving at "The Solution". However, I was surprised that the Singapore Dream and the 5 Cs were not once addressed in the article. Isn't one of the reasons for owning a car in Singapore that of it being a status symbol. And what better way of flauting a status symbol than to drive it around. Especially since this status symbol happens to be extremely mobile with 4 wheels and all. The article does suggest that a lifestyle change is in order, but I think it goes deeper than that. I think a psyche change is in order. True, the car sharing system in Switzerland seems to work very well for the Swiss and could possibly work well here on one condition. That the cars being shared are all Mercedes. Besides, the Swiss have other status symbols to boast of such as owning a ski chalet at St Moritz and proper cheese fondue. At the end of the day, unless we are able to remove the social premium that comes with owning a car (preferably a Mercedes), the problem of high car usage will always remain. How do we go about doing that? Well ensuring that the public transport system is relatively complain free is a good start. Better still why not remove Car from the the 5 Cs and replace it with Complain instead.

GST Hike: Sugar-coating backfired? Look again and spot the trojan horse.

Just as Wee Shu Min slid off the Technorati charts, the GST hike focused Singaporean bloggers on the elite/lower-income divide again. PM Lee sugar-coating of the bitter pill as an "offset package" appears to have backfired - the widespread knowledge that GST is regressive has riled bloggers into exposing what seems to be a "robbing Peter to pay Peter" scheme. I think the center of gravity of the issue has been misplaced. The lower-income group has been politicized as a red herring. We need to clarify our thoughts. We should separate the issue into its two dependent, yet distinct constituents: first, the GST hike should help Singapore's economy improve its competitiveness and second, the government should offset the regressive effects of GST. And while we've been so busy arguing about the GST hike, did we just let something slip past us? (more on that later)

Lower-income group used as a political tool
During elections, the opposition parties frequently painted the PAP as a party that neglected the lower-income group. In return, the PAP drills new recruits into acting like nuns, making sure their resume includes the item community service. The handshakes made in wet-markets and other photo-ops involving MP+lower-income person is PAP's way of saying "we care."

Bloggers, use our collective wisdom...wisely
Bloggers have been flailing their hands (on keyboards, no less), churning out data, writing to the ST Forum to show how regressive GST is. Bloggers form a tremendous source of intelligence in Singapore - I hope we will stop chanting "GST is regressive" (because we all now it is true) and dig deeper for more problems/solutions. Anecdotal evidence is really flimsy, the other camp has a Finn saying he left his welfare state to come to Singapore and did that convince you? PM Lee already stated how he is going to tackle the regressive problem. Is GST the best way forward for our economy? Let's discuss that.

The GST hike is economically sound
Let us leave the minefield of social policies for a while and look at the other issue - economics. I am of the very few, but certainly neither the first nor the second, who believe that the GST hike is economically sound. The general understanding is that raising the GST creates room to lower the corporate tax rate and attract foreign direct investment, which should eventually benefit all involved in Singapore's economy.

A blogger erroneously concluded that only Hong Kong has a lower corporate tax rate than Singapore. I say that because Reuters already reported that Slovakia's is lower. However, he is right to focus on Hong Kong because Hong Kong is what we are worried about. I found an OECD report that states "corporate taxation has a non-negligible impact on FDI location choices" while emphasizing that other legislative and fiscal policies are equally important in determining FDI. Singapore is on an all-else-equal situation with Hong Kong, (even air quality has become equally bad in both cities) and corporate tax might decide which is favored. The bigger act PM Lee might be trying to achieve is to tilt the FDI balance towards Singapore. The last lines of the Reuters report implicitly praised Singapore as being prescient. In another part of the same article, he succinctly argued that "the lowest-wage earners might not take so kindly to a S$2 increase in their S$100 electricity bill. Yet if people don't have jobs, electricity will be expensive at any price."

On a somewhat related note, Germany aims to lower its corporate tax from 39% to 29% in response to globalization (from IHT).

The GST hike might not be the best way forward
We have PhD in economics candidates arguing about this issue, so I hope we'll see more academic discussion being pulled in. Today, one of the greatest economists of all time died. Coincidentally, Milton Friedman championed one of the most innovative taxation and welfare policies. His idea was to have a "negative income tax" that involves a flat tax (like GST) coupled with reimbursements based on income. He argued that it was a progressive tax while not being dragged down by (inefficiencies of) bureaucratic welfare systems. A paper from Johns Hopkins on NIT is available here. The government needs to explain to us why the GST hike is the best way forward, compared to the alternatives like NIT.

Trojan Horse
The GST hike has featured so prominently that we seem to have let a greater sum of money pass by without being debated. The Channel News Asia report on the GST hike ended with these words

"Another change will be the amending of the Constitution to allow the government to tap the capital gains received from investing the national reserves."

If you remember ex-President Ong Teng Cheong, arguably our President who did the most to act as an agent of checks-and-balances against the government, you will remember that he ran into most trouble using his Presidential power vested by the Constitution to investigate the use of our national reserves. I haven't investigated how much "capital gains from investing the national reserves" amount to, but I suspect the GST money will appear to be peanuts. (Disclaimer: I am not an elitist, the GST hike is painful and involves lots of money).

I would deeply appreciate feedback on this blog post. Thank you for reading.

Language links and breaks

Just picked up a book about the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia (SEA) and that got me thinking...

For those who have done a bit of travelling in Southeast Asia, you would have realised that Chinese can be a very useful language in the region. If one can speak the native language, that will be the most ideal. But many a times, i feel that Chinese comes a close second to English as the next widely used language in the region.

The Chinese influences on Thai language and culture are aplenty. For instance, as many Sino-Thais are of Teochew origins, the Thai language has absorbed many Teochew words into the language system, such as tâwkay, tâuhuay, suai... If you are familiar with either Teochew or Hokkien, i am sure you will be able to figure what these few words mean.

I have had several amusing encounters with the Thais. Once my friend and i stopped by the roadside to buy some street goodies to fill our rumbling stomachs in the middle of the night. As i was still speaking in halting Thai then, the hawker could not hold his curiousity and asked where i was from. So i replied Singapore. He continued to ask me if i have heard of a guy called Kim Yõng. At that moment, i was thinking inside my heart "there are so many Chinese in Singapore, how would i know a guy called Kim Yõng?" Seeing the blank look on my face, my friend went on to tell me that the hawker was actually referring to a writer. Then it struck on me that he was referring to the famous wuxia (martial arts & chivalry) author - Jin Yong (Louis Cha).

And then there was another time when i sat down for coffee with a couple of newly-made Thai friends at a local cafe. Knowing that i am a Singaporean Chinese, one girl was very interested in the Chinese language, so she enquired if i have read sãam kok. I was once again lost for a few seconds until they said curiously "don't your know that book? It's a chinese classic." It then dawned on me that they are talking about Sanguo Yanyi (or widely known in English as The Romance of the Three Kingdoms).

Last December, a group of friends and i decided to take a trip to Cambodia. There, we also had quite a few instances of talking to Cambodians of Chinese origins. There was one evening where we stopped at a roadside stall for supper in Phnom Penh. When the young girl delivered noodles to our table, we asked her the price of the food in English. She then surprised us by replying in Mandarin! That really piqued our curiousity, so we enquired about her background and found out that she learnt Manadarin from her mother and she had a keen interest in learning the language.

Isn't this interesting? The Chinese has a popular saying - wherever there's water, there will be Chinese. (Just a side note at this juncture: Hey, i am no Chinese chauvinist, just like to ponder how the identify of the SEA Chinese will differ from society to society, and time to time).

In SEA, the Singaporean population has the greatest proportion of ethnic Chinese. Elsewhere in the region, some of the Chinese have successfully assimiliated into the local society, adopted local names, etc. but there are examples where they still stick out like sore thumbs from the so-called indigenous majority. There were also periods in recent SEA history when the Chinese were labelled Communists, suspected of disloyalty to the native country, suffered discrimination, etc. With the exception of Singapore, the Chinese diaspora in SEA are often viewed as having immense economic power but lacking in the political power.

Sometimes, i wonder how differently our lives would have mapped out if our grandparents and forefathers had not chose to sink their roots in Singapore.