NUSEA recently went to the Womens 2.0 napkin challenge, an innovative event where participants had to mail their business idea on a napkin. =)

The top 5 teams would pitch their ideas (this time with presentation slides) to a panel of VCs and industry experts, as well as a packed audience of eager entrepreneurs, excited to see the ideas.

The 5 companies that presented were:
• FindYourScene: A community website where people can find “their crowd” and post, discover, and rate social events.
• Laser-Seal: Exploits ground-breaking interaction between light physics and cell molecular biology to reduce cost and improve quality of surgical wound closure.
• QTstar: Video monetization and intermediary ad service company in China and the United States.
• O’Light: Cutting-edge OLED technology to lighting designs.
• (YOU)STYLEME: Online fashion community where men and women who have particular style needs can connect with other consumers who are style-savvy in a fun and engaging way.
All of them had solid presentations with well thought out plans. In the end, the 2 winning teams were O’Light and Laser-Seal. The audience choice award went to O’Light as well. More details on the event can be found here.

Winning Team: Laser-Seal

Winner and Audience Choice - O’Light

(Pictures courtesy of Women 2.0)

The takeaway I got from this was not so much on the ideas and how people were pitching it. I learnt that there were so many people out there who were passionate about their own ideas and willing to share it publicly to get feedback. Trust me - Coming up with an idea and making the effort to come up with plans is hard. But to pitch the idea in front of a large crowd and pitching it to a panel of critical and experienced entrepreneurs and VCs was no mean feat. That was something I believed NUSEA members and Singaporeans alike could greatly learn from. What we really need are people who are passionate about what they do and not be afraid of risking everything to go pursue it. Having an idea that is perceived as bad or “just won’t work” is fine. It’s the effort and the process of going through it that really counts. A true failure is one who never tried in the first place. In my eyes, everyone who took the effort to draw out their ideas on that little napkin and send it to the Women 2.0 team deserved a big pat on the back for making the effort and trying.

-Mohan Belani

Evan Huang, CTO of XMLCities was kind enough to grace us with a visit this evening. Despite his status and achievements, he was humble and eager to share his experience with us. His focus tonight was on market segmentation and product positioning.

As we huddled around a table in the middle of the NOC office to enjoy a good spread of Vietnamese sandwiches, Evan began his story of his time back in Adobe where he and a couple of folks worked on several projects ranging from the very exciting array signal processing to plain telephony. It soon became evident to him that the telephony project, simplest amongst the plethora of cool projects his team was working on, turned out to be the most profitable project simply because there was a market for it.

Read: Technology is not the end all - there must be a market for it

Stories came one after another ranging from his unsuccessful venture in color OCR, which served its intended function well - perhaps too well as it soon caught the attention of software pirates who eventually destroyed his business model.

He also touched upon his version of a secret sauce for a web startup - collecting user information.
The key insight is that if one can somehow harvest information from customer visits, that information can be very valuable and not easily copied. An example of this is showing a user what multitudes of users before him/her think about a product.  This is only valuable once there is enough traffic and another me-too site will find it hard to duplicate such information.
He wrapped up the sharing session by demoing/pitching his thumbdrive solution that will allow any computer to boot an operating system (Mac OSX, Windows or Linux) of your preference from the thumbdrive.

Users of this technology will not have to worry about key logging and viruses as the operating system booted from this device is encapsulated in a Linux Operating system, which are additional compelling reasons apart from the obvious portability and archival purposes.

All in all, it was a most interesting and enlightening evening.

SG Entrepreneurs will play the role of a virtual business incubator, establishing Singapore at the forefront of the interactive and digital media (IDM) revolution worldwide, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. We will help young entrepreneurs and individuals turn their ideas and prototypes into seed funding stage startups. By having an experienced team screen proposals and identify promising IDM ideas and prototypes, and thereafter providing mentorship to translate these ideas and prototypes into reality, SG Entrepreneurs aims to nurture the future of new media.

We will also aim to make Singapore one of the main centers of new media as follows:

1. We are not just current but are ahead in understanding new emerging IDM technologies.
2. We aim to utilize multiple and diverse channels to attract people with promising IDM ideas and prototypes to submit proposals.
3. We aim to undertake the necessary research and due diligence to understand each idea and prototype and its specific field.
4. We will fund up to $55K per start-up. The funds can be used to develop your prototype, finance a patent or even to secure manpower. There is almost no red tape and it is really not too difficult to secure funding from us. All you need is a great idea and be passionate about it. Send in your ideas through email for any inquiries on funding.

We will leverage on the depth of experience, network and growing diversity of the individuals in SG Entrepreneurs to provide a multidisciplinary environment where wide and unique perspectives come together to create creative yet practical solutions.

We will focus on the following IDM areas:

* - Internet and Web 2.0 technologies
* - Interactive and digital media
* - Technological gadgets

We welcome enterprising and passionate individuals or teams with IDM-related ideas or prototypes to email us for possible funding opportunities.

Issued by SG Entrepreneurs.

For further information kindly contact:

SG Entrepreneurs
Gwendolyn TAN
funding@sgentrepreneurs.com

About SG Entrepreneurs: SG Entrepreneurs was established in 2005 and started off as a web portal for Singaporean entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in Singapore. It strives to be the organization that helps translate mere ideas and prototypes in the fields of interactive digital media into commercial entities. With a strong core team and experienced board of directors, SG Entrepreneurs has the necessary relevant resources to attain its goals.

“If it’s a bad idea, then chances are that there won’t be competition for it” - An interesting and refreshing insight from a veteran VC, who believes in going contrarian.

Thanks to Wei Chong, Weijin and Yujun (notice the Weis and “Jins”?), a group of us was able to meet Gus Tai, an accomplished VC from Trinity Ventures and Hasan, a first-time entrepreneur for our Conversation Series session. It was meant to be a casual discussion that revolves around the topic of We were really grateful to our two guests since we don’t really see any immediate benefits for them to even travel to our humble NOC office (with only pizza+soda served) to give us their insights on the topic discussed.

It was a shame that we can’t get more people to attend the discussion because all of us are so bogged down with work, especially the 10th batch. Our business plan presentations and reports (50%) are due on 5th Dec, our GEL assignment worth 30% and coaching report (10%) is due on the 1st Dec, and there’s so many other interesting people that we would love so much to meet, and so many other things that we would love to do.

Musings aside, I like Gus’s style of GTD (A lingo for Getting Things Done). Only 1 out of 200 business plans were accepted by Gus, and he gave a very interesting insight into the way he handles business plans.

“I take 15 seconds to decide whether I want to meet the founders. If I can’t decide after 15 seconds - I will take another 2 minutes to decide. The rest of the emails are deleted.”

He gave us some glimpse about the life of a VC. It appears that the general VC spends 60% of their time meeting the companies in their portfolio, and the remaining 40% on upcoming business plans. I think that Trinity holds a pretty good policy that they need only to invest in 2 plans a year. It relieves the burden to make investment decisions based on a specific target, but more on whether a company is profitable.

Hasan brought a really refreshing touch to the discussion because we felt that we can connect to him better in terms of status. What can be more inspiring than meeting up with a brillant first-time entrepreneur and getting to know how he maneveur pass pitfalls and his tips and tricks in the way he handles his startup.

Hasan sees cold-calling more than a sales tool, but rather as a feedback mechanism to what customers really want. By calling customers, you can perfect your pitch, and through the knocks and bumps along the way toughen yourself against rejections. The best startups adjust their idea according to their customer feedback.

It’s interesting when I try to sum up the various thought process that goes through my head throughout the discussion. Gus shared with us the insight of an entrepreneur “showing passionate disinterest” in his idea. This oxymoron phrase is more clearly defined as the entrepreneur’s need to balance between to detach his ego from his idea so that he can accept feedback more receptively; and yet at the same time be passionate enough about his idea so that he keep trying and finding a way out.

I was so lucky to have meet 4 VCs today. My company just organized a lunch session between our employees and our board of directors, and the 3 VCs for my company gave really awesome insights into the way they handle the decision making process.

But on behalf on NUSEA, I would really like to thank Gus and Hasan for spending their time to come down to the NOC office to share with us their experience. I don’t think they will ever understand how much the interaction means for us!!

Innovation goes hand in hand with entrepreneurship, and with this notion in mind, a couple of us set off to attend a pretty promising conference over two days during the weekend; “Roads to Innovation – International perspectives on the generation of ideas, technologies, and new business”.

Hosted by the NOVA, the Italian MBA Association, this conference “aims to disentangle the drivers of innovation in the economy and the role of universities, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and corporation in promoting new ideas and technologies, engaging distinctive policy makers, businesspersons, and scholars in the debate on the enablers of innovation in both technology-intensive and traditional services”.

Quite a mouth-full indeed; so many ideas and factors in one short sentence, yet amazingly, the organisers managed to pull it off, successfully achieving their aim through a series of 5 different panels that covered topics as varied as government policies, venture capital funding, high tech firms, biotech, power grids and washing machines.

The keynote speaker of the event was Mr. Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google. He broadly touched on the emerging trend and potential of user-generated content, especially with regards to YouTube, Google’s 70-20-10 policy (70% focus on core business, 20% creative initiatives, 10% others) , and free mobile phones. However, what stood out the most to me was not the content, but the manner Eric presented; he didn’t stand behind the podium, was full of hand gestures, humorous, casual and sincere – definitely the kind of boss I want to work for, and hopefully can become one day. Oh, and did I mention that Vincent and I actually ran after him when he exited the hall to get a photo, cool ya! J

Roads to Innovation 11/11- 11/12 Sat-Sun at Arrillaga Alumni Center Stanford

Naturally as a conference organised by the NOVA, there was a strong Italian presence in the crowd and on the panels. The first panel begun with a strong Italian flavour with mentions of European market liberalism, importance of reform within universities and capital investment. Personally, things got a lot more interesting when Paul Romer, leading US economist, brought up 3 factors that speed up the rate and scale of innovation –

1) Infrastructure and communication, technology building on technology
2) Synergising with other people, the need for scale and critical human mass
3) Institution and government policies

He even mentioned Singapore as a positive example where the institutions have been put in place to encourage innovation (contrary to what some of us may feel), and put down Singapore’s inability to create the next Google to the fact that we just don’t have the necessary critical mass. What do you guys think?
As the conference progressed, things just got more interesting - below are couple of thoughts and personalities that stood out;

1) Greg Waldorf, founding investor in eHarmony and CEO – Luck and timing is everything! Seize the right opportunities and ride the waves. Be open to failure, as long as you know the right decision was made.

2) Jeff Clavier, angel investor in Web 2.0 companies, French – Started off by saying “it’s weird that a French man is here speaking to a bunch of Italians after what happened at the World Cup. See you at the Euros”, not the exact words, but soccer fans will appreciate it. Excellent moderator, open minded and candid investor who doesn’t mince his words and is completely open about his mistakes.

3) Marco Milani, Indesit Company’s CEO, Europe top 3 producer of household appliances – “The fish dies from the head” (translated from Italian); the top management must be open to failure and innovation, or else innovation can never take off within a company.
Pricing on innovation; allow people to spend what they want to spend by providing unbundled pricing, i.e. separate the basic features from the add-ons, e.g. budget airlines focus on transportation, SIA provides a service beside transportation.

4) Diego Rodriguez, Director, IDEO - Think like a designer, be optimistic about making changes and improving lives. Do thorough market research by hanging out with real people. Ultimately make your team happy - Measure less, understand more, innovation will start taking place. Talk is cheap; nothing beats showing a prototype, and forget about PowerPoint.
During the event, I also had the chance to speak to freelance writer, Marguerite Rigoglioso, who wrote a more informative and well-written article. Without a doubt, this has been one of the best conferences I have been to. Thumbs up to the organisers - Andrea, Giovanni and team! Thanks guys!

5 Hours since Rainmakers Live! “The New Argonauts” ended. 0300. My last day as President of NUSEA. And I can’t seem to contain my post event excitement.

Meeting Professor AnnaLee Saxenian and hearing her speak was a dream come true. No one really knew the extent in which she impacted my life.

1 year ago
It all happened one year ago, after I applied to the NOC program, I took on the assignment to write a paper about Silicon Valley, what are the lessons that organizations and the government can learn about this region. That was when I first came across the terms “Regional Advantage”. I read about the rise of Silicon Valley and the stagnating of Route 128 back in the 1990s and I was fascinated by the story. Route 128 was in many ways, parallel to Singapore. AnnaLee’s story of stressing the cultural element in an innovative region opened my eyes to why Singapore might not be taking off as an entrepreneurial region.

I arrived, and I thought
It was then, my goal to come to Silicon Valley, and be consciously thinking about what makes Silicon Valley attract the top talent from around the world? How did they create a culture of cooperation and continuous learning? Can Singapore learn anything at all from the Silicon Valley story?

I started observing. I observed how mentors share their experiences with us. I observed how people behave in networking sessions. I observed how Starbucks is a place of ideas. I observed how there is such a strong sense of cooperation between companies and individuals. I observed how every profession in Silicon Valley can contribute to the success of the region. A lot of things I see happening around me reinforce all the descriptions and insights AnnaLee had about Silicon Valley.

The Secrets of Silicon Valley
The more I thought about AnnaLee’s words, the more hypothesis I formulated. I tested out these hypothesis, and when they are proven true, I called them “The Secrets of Silicon Valley.” And NUSEA really took off as an entrepreneurial organization because we discovered so many secrets of Silicon Valley. Does anyone question how Silicon Valley evolved?

The appreciation of the history of Silicon Valley made us acutely aware of the nature of Silicon Valley, and it was the basis of our strategic planning in NUSEA 6 months ago. There was a strong emphasis in connecting people, forging new areas of partnership and cooperation, being sincere, passionate and righteous in all that we do. All these outlooks and discoveries paved the way for NUSEA’s rise in Silicon Valley. The more we observed, the wiser we became, the more we leveraged on the collective wisdom.

Can Singapore become an entrepreneurial hub?
AnnaLee made an important point in the event just now. She mentioned numerous policy makers calling her to ask “How do we build the next Silicon Valley?” And the answer is, “You can’t”. It was perhaps 9 months ago in which I began to feel that Singapore may never take off as an entrepreneurial region. There is a strong cultural element of pride, lack of trust, fear of failure and competitiveness that restricts innovation and creativity. I was losing hope.