
Singapore witnesses the rise of the entrepreneur - bootload
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/money/article/without-fuss-or-fanfare-singapore-witnesses-the-rise-of-the-entrepreneur?platform=hootsuite
======
xiaoma
The biggest problem I see in Singapore is that regulations are directed at
making startups hire locals. Aside from strict quotas, there are also rules
about not being able to underpay _or_ overpay foreign talent. This means
paying 5k/month for a programmer can often be deemed "overpaying" and the
application gets rejected. This is a problem because you can't make a top-tier
tech hub on Singporeans alone.

Even Silicon Valley wouldn't be Silicon Valley if it only employed Americans
as early employees either. Just look at all the Indians who were early Google
employees, Jan Koum of Whatsapp, the Canadian team behind Flickr and Slack.

The US immigration system is deeply flawed and hurts the tech ecosystem.
Singapore has a golden opportunity to compete on this axis, but it isn't.

[https://www.techinasia.com/talk/dark-side-tech-
development-s...](https://www.techinasia.com/talk/dark-side-tech-development-
singapore)

[http://sbr.com.sg/hr-education/news/singapores-new-hiring-
ru...](http://sbr.com.sg/hr-education/news/singapores-new-hiring-rules-target-
foreign-professionals)

[https://www.quora.com/How-does-a-Singapore-based-startup-
hir...](https://www.quora.com/How-does-a-Singapore-based-startup-hire-
overseas-talent)

~~~
creamyhorror
My startup was actually incubated by the writer of that first article you
linked. I agree with his points.

I fear the truth is that it's simply hard to hire good talent from overseas
when you have limited funds anyway. This goes back to the larger issues of
limited investor risk appetite and difficult market conditions/access.

Personally I've seen fellow startups try to hire foreign developers, and
successfully get approvals from the government (yup it's troublesome), and
then the developers decide not to come to Singapore after all, or come but
don't perform to par. You can't mitigates risks like these without significant
cash in the bank (which only the top-funded startups have).

My chosen alternative was to hire remotely and not muck around with approval
from government, which also meant benefiting from lower market salaries in
cheaper countries. It's taken a lot of filtering of employees, but things are
going fine so far. This approach won't work for everybody, of course.

All that said, I do think the core issue holding Singapore startups back is
the market size/access thing. It leads to most of the other issues, including
startups' inability to pay for skilled developers. Looser government
regulations on employment by startups would help somewhat, but it might not
change the outcome significantly.

~~~
toni
> it's simply hard to hire good talent from overseas when you have limited
> funds anyway

Interesting you mention that. I applied for a JavaScript job in Singapore and
expressly mentioned that I don't want a Google-esque salary, just something I
can live by in Singapore. I would even pay for my own relocation expenses, I
said.

They flat-out told me "Sorry, locals first."

~~~
creamyhorror
Sorry to hear that. I guess that company thought it could get a local
developer of sufficient calibre. It's more administratively troublesome to
hire a foreigner, so some companies ask for citizens/permanent residents only.
Did the job ad specify that?

You'll probably have better luck applying to larger, foreign tech firms based
here, if you still want to come. They'll have a process in place for hiring
foreigners.

~~~
toni
There really wasn't an ad for the job. They mentioned on their website that
they always welcome applications from motivated programmers. But as I said the
subsequent email exchange with them went nowhere. In the end I went to work
for a startup in a somewhat less glittery Southeast Asian city (KL).

This all happened a couple of years ago. In the meantime I'm back in Europe.
These days I see a lot of job ads originated from SG so maybe I will try
again, and this time with more luck :)

I didn't want to apply to a large multinational because I was looking for a
vibrant and small startup environment.

------
creamyhorror
There's not much new here for anyone who's already read an article or two on
Singapore's startup scene. My view as a local startup founder is, it's not as
rosy as one would expect for a city of burgeoning startups:

\- Singapore startups face the big difficult of a tiny domestic market (5m
people) and a fragmented regional market (10+ different countries). To expand,
you have to localise to multiple different languages and market environments.
Entrepreneurs don't have exposure to the problems & conditions of these
foreign markets, making it harder to find scalable opportunities.

\- Therefore, the ideas that stand a good chance of success are mass-market,
possibly copycat ones, not technologically innovative ones like one would find
in SF or Boston. We don't have too many high-value niches here.

\- The winning exceptions are startups that target a globally integrated
market, e.g. gaming products (Razer) or web services (Zopim). If you can sell
to the world (or very large markets) instead of struggling to penetrate many
small markets, you're golden. Israel has been a leader in this regard.

\- There's a lack of exits because most startups struggle to gain huge reach
in such a fragmented region. Plus, monetisation can be a problem in the poorer
countries.

\- Angel investors are therefore more cautious and mostly take small or less
risky bets. Which encourages entrepreneurs to focus on more mass-market, less
innovative ideas. It's hard to build a Google without a wide-ranging and risk-
taking investor network as exists in Silicon Valley.

\- The government's general support for startups is a bright spot, but a
startup's success general depends on whether they manage to expand overseas
and build their partner/investor network. Those are high barriers for most
startups.

A small market can't support that many competing ideas anyway, so as Dr
Theseira says in the article, _“Entrepreneurs should make sure that they are
valuing their own time appropriately when making the decision to become an
entrepreneur or when they are considering whether to remain or exit from an
industry.”_

------
logancg
I spent some time in Singapore. The startup ecosystem has critical pitfalls
and successes.

There is a lot of money (Government and private), accessible accelerators,
mentors, and business ecosystem support. Taxes are low and registering a
business can take only 1 day. [1]

But the ecosystem lacks genuine technological development and experimentation.
Most startups I saw were ineffective copies of semi-successful American
startups. My entrepreneurial friends there lambasted their friends' desire for
stable careers at the expense of creative engineering.

If anything, it'll become a home first for lifestyle entrepreneurs. It's a
lovely place to live, it's easy to start a business, and may become a great
3-year "start a business for fun" destination for expats.

However, Singapore has top-tier scientific institutions (NUS in particular)
and the government is ruthless in attracting talent internationally. [2] This
may be a good sign for proprietary science startups.

[1] [https://www.quora.com/Is-starting-a-business-in-Singapore-
di...](https://www.quora.com/Is-starting-a-business-in-Singapore-difficult)
[2] [http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/three-top-
singaporean-...](http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/three-top-singaporean-
scientists-coming-home)

~~~
crdoconnor
>If anything, it'll become a home first for lifestyle entrepreneurs. It's a
lovely place to live, it's easy to start a business, and may become a great
3-year "start a business for fun" destination for expats.

It's not that great for that either. Property rents/prices are sky high and
cars are all but unaffordable except for the very wealthy.

If you're location independent you might as well pick somewhere with a lower
cost of living.

Added to which, the ease of starting a business is something of a trap. You
can only go so long before creating some jobs for locals which isn't so much
fun if you want to keep your lifestyle business small.

~~~
ceoj
>>Added to which, the ease of starting a business is something of a trap. You
can only go so long before creating some jobs for locals which isn't so much
fun if you want to keep your lifestyle business small.

What do you mean by starting up a business being a trap?

------
nopzor
I lived in Singapore for 15 years. I founded a startup in the US, and we ended
up opening an Ops and Sales office in Singapore.

Being +12 hours ahead of NYC, it worked out great for us to get to 24x7. Back
in 2008 it was easy for us to bring in foreign talent (both from the region
and from the US), and we built a great team there.

It's much tougher now, for foreign startups that want to hire foreigners
there. Quotas and salary thresholds to get visa approval are much higher.

Why did we want to hire foreigners instead of locals in the first place?
Definitely both educational and cultural. Educational: I can relate to this
since I went to a Singapore school for a while and the only thing they cared
about were your test scores. You really weren't encourage to think; just
memorize stuff. It was awful. Cultural: there was a bit of a stigma working
for a small scrappy startup, good candidates always wanted to go work for a
large multinational bank. This was much more extreme than in the US.

Overall, it's changing for the better. The Singapore government is actually
super competent, and this problem isn't lost on them. Hopefully it will change
quickly and Singapore will have a better local start up scene over time.

~~~
hellofunk
>Quotas and salary thresholds to get visa approval are much higher.

In Singapore, this is partly (or more than partly) due to a strong, rising
anti-foreigner attitude that has caused much formal protests from the locals.
The government has allowed the free hire of foreigners to take the nation to a
point where nearly half the population is from other countries, and this has
finally weighed thin on the others.

It's certainly not a unique problem: many nations (certainly the U.S.
included) are having problems convincing the locals that foreigners/immigrants
can be a good thing for the society. But it's up to that society to decide.

I lived in Singapore for several years and enjoyed many parts of it, but I
agree that global success for any company based there would absolutely require
foreign talent.

The last 2 years in particular have seen a significant change in the
government's open-arms strategy for foreigners to work there, and it is now
much harder indeed.

------
crdoconnor
>we have not yet seen many successful exits that are typically seen in mature
ecosystems such as Silicon Valley.

This doesn't surprise me. Singapore provides tons of cash for new startups but
the quality of the talent just... isn't that great. If your startup requires
creative, detail oriented professional work (e.g. a developer), good talent
isn't easy to come by.

This isn't really the fault of Singaporeans per se, it's just the nature of
how the society has shaped them. Compulsory military service and test-driven
schooling engenders this type of attitude at a subconscious level and on top
of that, pay scales are way out of whack - you'll get paid more as an average
manager as you will as a really good developer.

The successful businesses in Singapore that I've noticed tended to be rather
blatant imitations of other businesses and a lot of the failures tended to be
cargo cultish SV wannabes.

Added to which, the local market is tiny and the regional market is highly
fragmented.

~~~
sjogress
Do you think it would be possible, and if so a good idea, for foreign talent
to form startups in Singapore targeting foreign markets?

~~~
crdoconnor
No, since you'll have to maintain a proportion of local employees in order to
keep your business there. Most companies I had dealings with ran up against
this limit all the time.

~~~
creamyhorror
Just to clarify, the proportion-of-local-employees isn't really a problem if
you're mostly hiring programmers. Programmers generally come in under
Employment Passes, which there's no official quota on. The main issue is the
wait time and the uncertainty of approval.

The businesses that run up against the limit are those that hire lower-pay
foreigners, which the government doesn't want to encourage anyway. For
tech/innovation-driven startups, the limit shouldn't be a barrier.

@sjogress: It makes sense to start a company in Singapore if you're looking to
target multinational companies that have their regional headquarters here.
Also, if you're considering setting up in Singapore, it's good to have a
Singaporean as a cofounder - it makes getting the smaller grants simpler.

@nopzor: Really? Is it an unwritten quota? All the official statements are
that there's no quota for Employment Passes[1][2]. It makes sense that the
government wouldn't allow a company to be 100% foreigners on EPs, but I think
there's some flexibility in how many EP holders you can hire.

@mdda: The advertise-to-locals-first rule only applies to companies larger
than 25 people, so it doesn't really hinder startups. We actually applied for
an EP for my co-founder (a foreigner) and got it on appeal, with only 1 local
employee besides me. As you say, the process is fairly straightforward if
somewhat tedious.

[1] [http://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/employment-
pass/key...](http://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/employment-pass/key-
facts)

[2]
[http://www.mom.gov.sg/~/media/mom/documents/brochures/servic...](http://www.mom.gov.sg/~/media/mom/documents/brochures/services-
sector-quota-english.pdf)

~~~
mdda
New rules were instituted, requiring jobs to be advertised locally first : [1]

In addition, as a EP-holding business-owner, I was 'asked' to explain my plans
to employ Singaporeans/PRs in the coming year.

OTOH, I don't see this as entirely unreasonable : After all, the USA does the
same (for E-2 investor visas, for instance). Moreover, the Singapore visa
turn-around time is only a few days (after an online application), whereas the
US visa process makes one long for the friendliness of the DMV...

[1] [http://www.mom.gov.sg/employment-practices/fair-
consideratio...](http://www.mom.gov.sg/employment-practices/fair-
consideration-framework)

------
lyonlim
It's true that the number of entrepreneurs in Singapore has increased
dramatically, compared to 5 years ago when my cofounder and I started our
company. When we started back then, many investors told us that to succeed, we
needed to move to SV. However, being based in Singapore has numerous
advantages.

My bootstrapped startup is not consumer focused, so having a large local
population is not key. But working with corporates, it's a bliss being based
here. There are hundreds of multinational companies, of which many base their
(edit: regional) headquarters here. It's so easy for us to reach to potential
customers, and from there, to expand to other regional and global offices of
these multinational companies.

Hiring can be an issue, but it's not difficult to get work passes for skilled
foreigners here. Yes, there are quotas for companies hiring foreigners, but
these are largely for less skilled foreigners. Many foreigners study in local
universities like NUS and in turn have a bond to work in Singapore after they
graduate. If you have a degree from a good, recognised university, it's not
difficult to get an employment pass here.

------
ripitrust
Singapore needs a Role model. For years parents and teachers in Singapore
encourage their children and student to stay stable and follow the traditional
way of success - work hard, steady income and promotion. The role models of
Singapore society are always those who did so. in fact, it is not even
possible to name a sound,successful entrepreneur. But in a real startup
ecosystem (US and China in particular), the role models come from the
entrepreneur world. Their success encourage people to take risk. If Singapore
can have one or two Mark Zuckberg or Jack Ma, it will greatly help the
ecosystem to grow

~~~
ValentineC
> The role models of Singapore society are always those who did so. in fact,
> it is not even possible to name a sound,successful entrepreneur.

There's, among others, Sim Wong Hoo [1], the founder of Creative, and Tan Min
Liang [2], the CEO of Razer. I think a problem comes from these companies
preferring to identify themselves as "foreign", as being "local" is,
ironically, not looked upon as favourably in Singapore.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sim_Wong_Hoo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sim_Wong_Hoo)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min-
Liang_Tan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min-Liang_Tan)

------
nailer
How does entrepreneurship tie in with Singaporean culture? Having worked at a
company headquartered in Singapore, I'd imagine that a talented engineer would
be be pushed towards getting a job at AltaVista rather than make Google.

------
lxcid
I stay in Singapore and used to work remote.

I want to differentiate the tech scene and start up scene.

There's a lot of noise in the start up scene just like most places. Over the
years, I have definitely seen an increase of entrepreneurs. But I care only at
a gossipy level.

The tech scene on the other hand is closely knitted. Running the tech scene is
challenging here. We haven't have much support from companies as successful
local start up don't end up paying forward as much as we hope they would, but
it's improving. We often depend on some government helps and a few very
passionate and committed people.

Over the years, the tech scene have grow slowly but surely. More people are
contributing back in term of sharing knowledges through meetup or doing open
source stuff. This is what truly make me hopeful of Singapore.

I think if we just focus on ourselves and be open to things and grow together.
We can be decent together. :)

Here's some links to get a sense of how far we have come:

Events: [https://webuild.sg](https://webuild.sg) Data:
[https://data.webuild.sg](https://data.webuild.sg) Talks:
[http://engineers.sg](http://engineers.sg)

~~~
xyzzy4
Is it hard to get a visa there if you're going to not work at a local
Singapore company?

~~~
lxcid
It could be challenging I think. But I think tourist visa is 90 days if I'm
not wrong. I really recommend visiting. The food is great and the city walk at
night is kinda beautiful and very safe. :)

~~~
xyzzy4
I want to visit, but I don't have anybody to go with me, and nobody to see
there... so I'd just be wandering around by myself.

