Comments on: Why No Singaporeans in BusinessWeek’s Asia’s Best Young Entrepreneurs?

By: Dipankar Subba

Dipankar Subba — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 16:10:23 +0000

Paddy > Surely, lets get in touch after the hols. You can contact me via http://kuzzuk.net/?memberid=1 which also has my mobile phone number.

By: Paddy Tan

Paddy Tan — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 16:56:53 +0000

Dipankar, lets catch up after this holiday period. Appreciate your offer. I really enjoy reading your articles.

A happy holiday to every readers here.

paddy

By: Dipankar Subba

Dipankar Subba — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 14:21:31 +0000

Frog > I’d reason otherwise as I tend to agree with the point brought forward by Herry. I think in these countries, entrepreneurship is fueled by necessity and not by abundance.

Cheers,

Dipankar

By: Frog

Frog — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 18:02:44 +0000

One other thing to point out is the fact that these countries listed have extreme rich and wealthy families who can support their pursuit of higher risk, higher capital investment returns and thus making them young entrepreneurs of the year. In Singapore, there are hardly any supra rich families. So to become an entrepreneur and strike out and make it big will take a long, long time. By then, you would not be considered young anymore.

By: Dipankar Subba

Dipankar Subba — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 11:05:47 +0000

Fabian > Great post and I was nodding away as I read your blog entry. Yes, Singapore’s slowly but steadily changing and I hope we become as entrepreneurial as the founders and architects of Singapore.

Paddy > Since, I’m still single maybe I don’t have the driving force like yours. I believe family can be a big motivation. You are also right about us engaging too much in competition instead of coopetition - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coopetition. I wish you all the success in your venture and let me know if I can help in any way.

Cheers,

Dipankar

By: Paddy Tan

Paddy Tan — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 23:02:02 +0000

Hi kuzzukadmin,

thanks for your comment. Mine is a small startup trying to make a living driven to give my parents, brother and wife a better life.

Personally, I feel that to be successful here in Singapore as a business, many owners need to start changing their mindset moving together like a pack of wolves instead of busy guarding against each others in this small island, whilst others are already conquering the world.

Just look at the way the Chinese and Taiwanese businessmen are moving. They may have infighting amongst themselves but with a common goal to be successful, many put aside their differences and form strong alliances together. One of the classic examples are they moving into the China market with such speed penetrating the industries, transfering knowledge but at the same time have a strong foothold in it.

Here in Singapore, how many believe in moving together partnering with alliances. It may take time to do so but then it may be too late for all of us as an industry.

By: fab

fab — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 14:21:55 +0000

You can read my blog post at http://hovivo.blogspot.com/

thanks

By: fab

fab — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 14:19:18 +0000

Hi, I wrote a blog entry on this topic, and referenced your post. I agree most with Guy Kawasaki who says “Entrepreneurship is a state of mind.” I feel the success of Singapore, the stability of certain Singapore jobs, the tendency for us to over-value $ (if that’s possible) are holding us back.

I’m happy my scholarship company provided me with this opportunity to study abroad and the experience has changed my life. Yet I think the system of sponsoring students could do with more flexibility. I will, upon return to Singapore, visit JCs (or similar) to encourage the kids to explore various options like no-strings attached scholarships from universities themselves. Singapore’s changing, slowly, but surely.

Thanks for your post, I read BusinessWeek.com but missed that article somehow.

By: Dipankar Subba

Dipankar Subba — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 12:15:34 +0000

Paddy you do have valid points but overall we do not see a trend of people just jumping in and striking out on their own. Yours truly is one of them.

By: Paddy Tan

Paddy Tan — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 00:29:34 +0000

There can be many other reasons why singaporeans are not in it, but I believe there may be a whole bunch that are just outside the list that are over 25.

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. More likely, they be able to bloom only after our of the services and into the market.

The hunger will be much bigger than many others as we know that we are losing the edge having slower by several years than our overseas counterparts.

Paddy Tan
CEO
BAK2u Pte Ltd

By: Dipankar Subba

Dipankar Subba — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 15:51:30 +0000

Herry you are right because great things happen either out of inspiration or desperation.