If you're young and business-minded, here are some tips for you

Startup landscape in Singapore

In an international survey amongst tertiary students, four in five youth respondents replied that they wish to start a business, while one in five hope to embark on their first venture within five years of graduation. You would have thought that I am describing the enterprising melting pots of Silicon Valley or Israel, but these encouraging statistics come from Singapore.

Entrepreneurial Culture
This is not surprising. I have had the privilege to be involved in the Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE), a movement between private and public sectors to create a more entrepreneurial Singapore. In the past decade, ACE has initiated many entrepreneurship activities – networking sessions, outreach to schools, and business plan competitions to promote entrepreneurship. These initiatives have helped connect people to the start-up community.
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The universities and polytechnics also play a major role in preparing students in their entrepreneurial journey with interactive courses, field trips, internships in startups and incubation services. Today, the three public university incubators house some 100 start-ups by students and alumni.

As evidenced by the Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey statistics I alluded to above, the entrepreneurial spirit among our students is strong. But pursuing dreams is not exclusively for youth. There are many working professionals, including myself, who made the mid-career switch.

When I arrived in Singapore in 1998, I worked with a government research institute - then Information Technology Institute (ITI). With Singapore’s active thrust towards entrepreneurship, various start-ups were spun-off from the institute both locally and in the United States, such as ThirdVoice who found themselves on the cover of Fortune magazine. Encouraged by their success, I joined a KRDL spin-off, Ecquaria in 1999. There, I found myself not only selling software but also writing it myself. That experience led me to believe I could pursue my own ideas, and set me on my own entrepreneurial journey.

Enabling Environment & Supportive Structure
Being an entrepreneur, I understand how difficult it is to survive as a start-up, let alone grow and compete with the Goliaths in the challenging business world. Looking back, I wish I had the support and favourable business environment that is available today when I started off.

I’m glad the government has undertaken the various measures over the last decade to create a pro-busines environment. One such initiative is the formation of the Pro-Enterprise Panel (PEP), which I have been involved in, to garner business feedback to review governmental rules. While PEP recognises that there are rules that have served the country very well in the past, some nevertheless need to be re-examined. 'Re-examination' does not necessarily mean merely adjusting and tweaking rules to accommodate change, but sometimes taking a step back and asking ourselves a more fundamental question - 'Is this rule really required?' In general, the belief is that the lesser the rules, the better. Till date, over 50% of about 1800 suggested changes have been accepted.

It is also heartening to see the improved support for start-ups today. For instance, through SPRING, aspiring entrepreneurial youths can apply for funds to finance their first innovative ventures; technology start-ups can receive grants for proof-of-concept and proof-of-value product development; various startups can also benefit from incubation and mentoring support, as well as equity capital from early-stage investors.

The angel investor circle has also grown actively over the past few years. The Business Angels Network of South East Asia or BANSEA recorded a growing number of investment deals over the past few years. It recently introduced a programme for experienced angel investors to mentor promising start-ups. With such efforts, start-ups gain access to knowledge, capital and market.

Conclusion
Singapore has come a long way in establishing a vibrant and nurturing start-up landscape, thanks to collaborative efforts of the private and public sectors. We are beginning to see some early successes. tenCube, started by a team of young graduates and incubated by NUS Enterprise, was acquired last year by McAfee for a handsome sum.

Professionals-turned-entrepreneurs from Beeconomic, and JobsCentral were also rewarded recently with acquisition deals. These success stories are clear indications of the quality of our local start-ups and I am sure that they will inspire many more to follow in their footsteps in building their entrepreneurial ventures.

Carlos Fernandes is the Founder of PerceptiveI, an enterprise software solutions company and RecordTV, an internet video recording firm. He is a two-time winner of the Tan Kah Kee Young Inventors' Award and was recently named a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum. He is involved in various pro-entrepreneurship initiatives such as PEP and ACE.