Singapore witnesses the rise of the entrepreneur
themalaymailonline.com
themalaymailonline.com
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...
http://sbr.com.sg/hr-education/news/singapores-new-hiring-ru...
https://www.quora.com/How-does-a-Singapore-based-startup-hir...
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.
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."
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.
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.
Developer == Essential (e.g. : CoFounder)
in Singapore :
Developer == programmer == glorified typist == someone whose job can be outsourced.
This gets in the way of attracting people to programming in the first place.
The environment is also disappointingly oriented towards local graduates aspiring to become Trainee Managers at Multi National Companies (MNCs). It's not a money thing IMHO - more of the status associated with working at a recognisable brand-name firm.
Clearly, there are exceptional people around, but there's an additional (surprising) hurdle for local tech talent here.
- 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.”
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... [2] http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/three-top-singaporean-...
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.
What do you mean by starting up a business being a trap?
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.
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.
They are given the room to think long term because the PAP will be in power for the foreseeable future. Singapore doesn't flip-flop between governments as there is no credible opposition due to various obstacles [1].
[1] - http://thediplomat.com/2015/02/soft-repression-the-struggle-...
Did you try hiring people from the polytechnics (pre-university institutions, for those unfamiliar with Singapore)? I studied at one, and it felt like there was less emphasis placed on test scores, and more on creative thinking and getting the job done. An increasing number of students are starting to choose this route instead of the more conventional A Level system.
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.
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...
[2] http://www.mom.gov.sg/~/media/mom/documents/brochures/servic...
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...
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.
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.
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 Data: https://data.webuild.sg Talks: http://engineers.sg