
Singapore's startup scene - zachytab
http://e27.co/heres-everything-you-want-to-know-about-singapores-startup-scene-20150528/
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nbevans
I've been living in SG for a year and the startup scene here is asthmatic at
best. Really, it would be generous to call it a "scene". It isn't. If you can
document all the startups in a country on a single infographic then... yeah.

The government claim to support startups but actually they barely do anything.
There is a Entrepreneur Visa but you need a serious amount of funding, proof
of intellectual property (even patents), backing of a VC or incubator, and
credibility in the industry to get it. And even then the visa granted is
dependent on your startup making hires of local citizens at a certain rate per
year, in line with revenues. The actual visa itself is also relatively short
term, it is basically issued on 12 month periods which isn't really enough to
provide assurance and stability to a startup director.

The culture here is all wrong. The culture here is to go to Uni, attaining 2
degrees is not uncommon, then get a boring job in a mega corporate. And then
spend the rest of your life twiddling your thumbs, stabbing and getting
stabbed in the back, etc etc, where the gossip often revolves around bullshit
job title acronyms like VP, ED etc. That is just the life here. If you ain't
working in a mega corp then you are a nobody. And that's not my opinion, I
have many many friends here that tell me straight that that is how life is
here.

There is also an issue that working in "I.T." in Asia is stereotyped also. It
is perceived as a somewhat low skilled office job. Even if you are a top level
super senior software developer, try explaining that and most people will
still just file you under "I.T." in their minds and maintain a superiority
complex over you if they work in a dead-end mega corp job dealing in Excel
Spreadsheets all day every day.

If you work in an actual startup in SG you are "different". You are seen as
abnormal, risky and even stereotyped as "not being good enough" to work in a
mega corp.

When I first came here I was introducing myself as "working on my startup".
Most people assumed, seriously, I was just being shy about explaining I was
unemployed at that moment, and they wanted to quickly change the subject. Even
after clarifying that it is indeed profit making and growing well. So yes,
saying your working on a startup here is actually almost as bad as saying you
are unemployed. I learnt a better way of doing self introductions very quickly
here.

~~~
crdb
Source: been here three years and counting...

You forget that the EntrePass (the entrepreneur visa you speak of) requires
investors/VCs from an approved list, all of which are Singaporean; and that
even SEEDS funding requires a local investor. So if you're foreign, or even
local but with foreign investors (like, say, a US VC), no funding. I talked to
these investors and they either aren't investing or want to see 30k/month in
revenue. I suspect people were buying themselves residencies with the
EntrePass at a fraction of the investor visa amount so they made it
ineffective as a visa.

On the visa side, I've seen a lot of people play some kind of musical chairs.
The key is the local director, so you pay a few hundred dollars to a firm to
hold that directorship whilst incorporating, apply for an EP (standard work
visa) for yourself which comes through in 7 working days, and then get the
local directorship assigned to your EP. This does involve plugging in 50k or
so of capital and paying yourself 8k/month (SGD) out of it (income tax being
quite low it's not too onerous).

I don't like playing games with immigration (I don't know if the EP local
directorship game is officious or a hack soon to be eliminated) so my startup
is incorporated in the UK and Hong Kong until I get PR (I did Hong Kong first,
but the paperwork and agent fees just killed me - I'd rather pay an accountant
and 20% corp tax). That local directorship rule is a real pain in Singapore
and I hope a government official is reading this.

That being said, if you are a local (citizen/PR), it is cheap and very fast to
incorporate a Private Limited, the rule of law is exemplary, taxes are low,
and it's probably the most visa-friendly first world country in the world.

Status-wise I think a lot of bankers and MBAs are getting into "startups",
unfortunately, and just as in the US it's become an acceptable career path. I
don't think the feeling towards startups is any different from say, most
European countries, amongst the older folk.

Singapore's startup scene suffers from the same problem every non-Valley
startup scene suffers: the best valuations and deal speed that we hear of in
the Valley doesn't really exist anywhere else. For example, I remember
calculating that the Bay Area received around 20x as much venture funding as
the entire of the United Kingdom, despite the latter's status as an old
startup hub containing the world's largest non-US financial centre. The causes
have been debated to death in many places, I personally favor the "lack of big
exits locally" explanation, which makes it hard for local investors to want to
touch the asset class and in turn disincentivizes talent from getting into
startups (mostly, they go to the US). When it takes you 6 months instead of 2
weeks to close a round, and you give up 20% instead of 7% for the seed round,
it's much harder to grow that into a global business.

edit - just noticed who the author was. Strongly recommend London based folks
go meet him! Zach is a fantastic guy and the kind of investor I would LOVE to
have in my startup (if I had investors).

~~~
creamyhorror
Nice rundown - you've clearly done the foreign-startup runabout, and "lack of
big exits locally" is also my thesis for why startups & their valuations
aren't so positive. The fact is that Asian investors haven't seen big paydays
from new ventures, so they're all demanding traction or recurring revenue
instead of risking funds on unproven businesses. I've also been struggling
with this.

We startup HN people in Singapore should have a beer sometime, would be great
to trade stories/news. Send me an email (check my profile) if you/anyone is
interested.

~~~
crdb
I try to go to Hackerspace and the JFDI friday beers, I think that's where you
find the mass. But yeah, not much participation, nowhere near US levels. The
Big Data group has more people. These days I don't really get out of the house
much, too much work!

I've found it easy to find investors but when you can make the funding in
consulting revenue in 6 months, without giving up equity, it's hard to accept
the idea of funding. Provided one has permission to work in SG (the client can
sponsor an EP, remember!) it's just much better to bootstrap, I think. Oh, how
I envy the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, who can toil 100% of the time on
their startup, without worrying about paying the rent. Still not worth moving.

~~~
creamyhorror
I don't think it's so easy to make that sort of money from consulting revenue
so quickly, unless you have serious skills, a good portfolio, and access to
good potential clients (which I guess you have, especially as a foreigner).
But I haven't done consulting, so what do I know. I hope to cross over to the
US or a bigger market to raise the next round of funding! At least the
valuations will be a good bit nicer.

Catch you at a JFDI Friday event maybe; I don't go to Hackerspace often.

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scurvy
Singapore is an interesting place for sure. I've been a half dozen times for
work and fun. The biggest hindrance to Singapore startups is the Singapore
government. Their iron-fisted approach to things from chewing gum, drugs, and
even dancing on tables (for example) is antithetical to the dual veins of
libertarian and liberal US political thought which is so firmly entrenched in
Silicon Valley. Many believe that these competing, but sometimes
sympathetically overlapping political schools are what made (and currently
make) Silicon Valley so great.

Hard to convince a programmer to move from SF to SG if they're going to be
hanged for smoking a spliff. While the drug use is just an example, it just
illustrates the difference of Laissez Faire in the US vs What's Best for the
Country in SG.

~~~
crdb
Seriously, you guys are getting tiring. If it's so important, Thailand's a 1
hour flight away, Malaysia a short bus ride, Indonesia a short ferry. By the
way, when's the last time someone was hung for smoking a spliff? It's like
tourists in Sydney being scared of being bitten by a funnel web...

Singapore has high quality of life, very low living costs compared to large US
cities, efficient government (but not overbearing), and is a hub for one of
the most exciting and growing regions of the world. It's an international city
where a large proportion of residents come from all over the world and dozens
of languages are spoken. The air is clean, there are no traffic jams, the
metro is extremely cheap and spotless. And there's giant toucans living in the
mango tree of my garden, right next to the centre of town - beat that SF.

Most importantly, government is not corrupt and has over the last 40 years
gotten a pretty good track record of doing what is right. Both Lees have been
exceptional leaders under any measure; amongst other things, the father
influenced the direction of the world by directly influencing DXP towards the
Chinese "glasnost" that is responsible for how the world looks today. I used
to be pretty libertarian (think Swiss "don't have a Federal government"), but
realized living here that a clean, non-corrupt government can also work
incredibly well.

Another thing that flies under the radar of most critics is that Singapore has
successfully set up a system to allow migrant manual labour legally; it is one
of the very few places in the world where your Bengali construction worker on
$500/month can go to the police, complain he hasn't been paid on time, and see
his employer fined within two weeks. Try that in Qatar. Try that as an illegal
in the US (over 80% of minimum wage labourers!).

~~~
tomjen3
It is called Disneyland with the death penalty for a reason. Forget weed, can
I drink a glass of wine in public?

~~~
gotrecruit
erm, actually yes i'm fairly confident we do not have such a thing as open
container policy - there is no such rule that you cannot drink in public.

~~~
crdb
Technically, you can't, in Little India, during certain times, because of the
riots recently. Cold Storage also says they can't sell booze between 10.30pm
and 7am for the same reason. I suspect this will eventually go away again.

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sheepmullet
We now have to compete globally for talent. What are Singaporean startups
doing that would convince senior developers throughout the US and Europe to
move to Singapore?

~~~
crdb
At a previous company, we had no issue finding talent. 150 qualified
applicants (i.e. passed the test, which was to design an inventory management
system in Haskell) for ~10 positions, all foreign; the majority came from the
US, Germany and Scandinavia.

~~~
sheepmullet
I'm concerned about the fundamentals. It looks like a low demand, low supply
situation from the outside. I've worked on projects with more than 150
developers. Could one big player simply absorb all the available talent?

To have a thriving industry you need tens of thousands of available workers.

So I'll put it this way. I earn ~10k/month after tax as a senior software
developer. Could I earn that much in Singapore? Or is cost of living so much
cheaper that I'm better off even with a lower pay? Better lifestyle? Better
culture?

~~~
ptrinh
Assuming you're living in SF Bay Area with ~120k/year ($10k/month) income:

Your earning after tax is ~$6600 per month. After ~$1800 rent and ~$1700
living costs (transportation, food, utils, ...), you get ~3100 in capital
savings.

In Singapore, your personal income tax is nearly zero. To match that savings
target and quality of life, you only need to earn SGD 7000 per month (~US
$5200/month, or $62k/year) and you gonna spend about $1100 for rent and $900
for everything else (without car).

P/S: I'm a non-US citizen, lived in Philly for 7 years, got 120k offer in SF
but declined, now working in Singapore.

~~~
sheepmullet
Is $7k/month a reasonable salary for a software developer with 3-4 years
experience in Singapore?

What can you earn with 8-12 years experience?

~~~
crdb
I had 6 months experience (in tech, anyway) when I arrived and still made
7.5k. In fact, that offer was made 4 months earlier, so with 2 months
"experience". I was saving about 50-60% of that.

I think what salary you get can span anything from 2k to the sky
(realistically, 20k and above will be very hard, and probably in finance or
management). It's all about - here more than anywhere in the world -
demonstrating value to the person signing the paycheck. If your value is much
higher than what you want, then you can pretty much name your price. The tough
part being convincing someone that you are worth that much. I think the rate
for an American in a good corporate data science team should be at least
10-15k.

The marginal cost of foreigner vs local is, at least at these salaries, the
flight. The EP costs $250/application and takes about 7 working days, with no
quota. You turn up at the EP centre, pick up the card, scan your finger and
you're gone within 5 minutes. Flying coach, you can get a return flight to the
US for around 1k, less if you wait for a good sale. So, trivial. And it's easy
to change employers - if you get a new offer, just get THEM to apply for EP
and as soon as you have it, quit the first job.

Just be aware that flying to the US just plain sucks. London is a direct 12-16
hour (depending on direction). The US is one stopover, probably 20-24 hours.
East coast worse than west, obviously. The other thing is expatriation has
some invisible but very real downsides, the most painful one being away from
family basically forever. On the upside, they get to visit an exotic country.

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beatpanda
I would be really grateful if every engineer who ever complained about San
Francisco being dirty and full of homeless people would move to Singapore,
because it's pretty crass to complain about poor people in a city you don't
want to live in, whose lives are made harder by you being there. By all
accounts, Singapore is "clean", so, by any means, go there.

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EliRivers
I'm not sure I'd agree with the article's assertion that the infographic is
"intuitive".

Some arrows are double-headed (point both ways), but some are not. So what do
they mean? What flows only in one direction along the arrows that are single-
headed?

Some of the arrows clearly point from one box to another (so what's that; is
it influence? Is it money? Is it people), but other arrows just point to other
arrows. So if arrows represent something flowing, what are these arrows that
just point to other arrows representing?

It's not an intuitive infographic. I get nothing from the layout, colours and
arrows that I wouldn't get from just a list, but I do lose the benefits of a
simple list. Brightly coloured chartjunk.

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michaelhealy
Awesome! Great job!

