Post by oldman on Oct 20, 2013 5:07:50 GMT 7
Paul, every country in the world wants to be the technology hub of the future. Technology is all about brain power and the more 'smart' people you have, the more likely you will succeed. But smartness is really in the numbers..... the more people you have, the more likely that you will have lots more smart people.
Singapore has a very small population to tap and hence, I am not that optimistic. You can pour money into the infrastructure but so can many other countries. Money is usually not the determining factor for the success of any IT company.
When we started SI, we started on a shoe string and this made us hungry.... very hungry. There were just the 2 of us when we started - a student and I. I remember physically carrying and shifting our first server to 1-Net as we could not afford the relocation services. Our meetings were always held in McDonalds and neither of us was paid any salary.
If we had financing earlier on, I don't think we would have been that successful. Hence, I don't agree with the policy of pouring money into startups as I think this is a sure way of killing enthusiasm and worse still, creating the illusion of easy money and high valuations.
Start-ups must go through the lean times. When the only hope left is your determination, you will then know whether you have what it takes to succeed. Throw money at the problem too early and you will only delay the day of reckoning for you and your company.
Hence, my recommendation to all budding entrepreneurs is to start something that you are crazily passionate about and forget about finding investors at this early stage. Sweat it out on a shoe string and you will find out whether you have what it takes. If you have, believe me, a new personality will emerge from your old shell. You will then be a lot more confident, self assured and assertive and money will come looking for you.
You may find this surprising but my best memories of SI were not when we sold the company or when it was doing well. My best memories were in the early days of SI when we were struggling as these truly were the defining moments of our lives. We grew tremendous in personality and experience during those defining times.... after all, the only asset that we truly had then was our determination to succeed, even though the odds were heavily stacked against us.
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Paul wrote:
Hi Dr Michael, whats your take on Singapore process in the technology world? Singapore gov has been encouraging innovation and supports are set up for the infocomm industry. I seem to be take we are heading to be the technology innovation hub for asia. Theres seem to be alot of work to be done here.
Whats makes you decide on setting up shareinvestor years back?
Can you share with us your start up journey in shareinvestor.com?
Cheers and regards.
Paul
Singapore has a very small population to tap and hence, I am not that optimistic. You can pour money into the infrastructure but so can many other countries. Money is usually not the determining factor for the success of any IT company.
When we started SI, we started on a shoe string and this made us hungry.... very hungry. There were just the 2 of us when we started - a student and I. I remember physically carrying and shifting our first server to 1-Net as we could not afford the relocation services. Our meetings were always held in McDonalds and neither of us was paid any salary.
If we had financing earlier on, I don't think we would have been that successful. Hence, I don't agree with the policy of pouring money into startups as I think this is a sure way of killing enthusiasm and worse still, creating the illusion of easy money and high valuations.
Start-ups must go through the lean times. When the only hope left is your determination, you will then know whether you have what it takes to succeed. Throw money at the problem too early and you will only delay the day of reckoning for you and your company.
Hence, my recommendation to all budding entrepreneurs is to start something that you are crazily passionate about and forget about finding investors at this early stage. Sweat it out on a shoe string and you will find out whether you have what it takes. If you have, believe me, a new personality will emerge from your old shell. You will then be a lot more confident, self assured and assertive and money will come looking for you.
You may find this surprising but my best memories of SI were not when we sold the company or when it was doing well. My best memories were in the early days of SI when we were struggling as these truly were the defining moments of our lives. We grew tremendous in personality and experience during those defining times.... after all, the only asset that we truly had then was our determination to succeed, even though the odds were heavily stacked against us.
------------------------
Paul wrote:
Hi Dr Michael, whats your take on Singapore process in the technology world? Singapore gov has been encouraging innovation and supports are set up for the infocomm industry. I seem to be take we are heading to be the technology innovation hub for asia. Theres seem to be alot of work to be done here.
Whats makes you decide on setting up shareinvestor years back?
Can you share with us your start up journey in shareinvestor.com?
Cheers and regards.
Paul