The Philippine startup scene: Asia’s best kept secret? | Hacker News Reader

The Philippine startup scene: Asia’s best kept secret?

sgentrepreneurs.com

53 pointswyclif20 comments

Yes! Love it. I'm actually producing a book about the Entrepreneur's Guide to the Philippines : http://woodegg.com/ph

If anyone's interested, or wants to contribute, or has a business they want profiled in the book, please contact me at derek@sivers.org

Hey, this looks awesome, but you might need to work on your copy / landing page a bit:

"What is Philippines’s relationship with Hong Kong? Cooperative or competitive? Similarities or differences? What is the main trade between the two?" x20 for each neighboring country is a bit excessive :) Also, there are a lot of interesting tidbits that get lost in the following 20+ pages that you probably could have as highlights on the top of the page.

Site needs a mailing list so I can be informed when it's released! :)

Agreed. And please add me to the list!

Looks interesting. I see a part of it as being useful to anyone, the world over, interested in outsourcing to the Philippines, but it looks like there's then a bunch of other material that's perhaps less useful from that point of view, and likely has a smaller audience: those interested in actually operating in the Philippines.

"One cause of this problem is an outdated curriculum that doesn’t correspond to the needs of the industry. The academic sector has not been agile enough to meet the human resource needs of tech startups"

...or the top developers were already pirated by big corporations in Singapore and other countries. For example, there's a shortage of senior .Net developers in the Philippines because most of them are working abroad.

It's very true that you can't expect to build a startup in the Philippines solving first world problems.

The Filipino entrepreneurs I respect tell me that if you want to target the largest group of consumers today, your best bet is SMS. That's where the action is. AFAICT the RP is the texting capital of the world.

Mobile is the main web connection for a lot of people in Philippines. Makes sense they will try and tackle that first.

"Free" texts, to be exact. 3G/4G networks in the Philippines aren't very good or reliable. And they are expensive, so only a very small minority use them.

Betteridge's Law of Headlines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridges_Law_of_Headlines

So, I'm guessing: No.

As an aside, in this podcast [1], Johnny Arbitrage is mentioned as a model of entrepreneur. Essentially someone who takes advantage of the difference between the money in their own country and a cheaper country, and moves there to try to make things happen.

Could work for many people with the Phillipines I guess.

[1] - http://www.lifestylebusinesspodcast.com/seven-types-of-entre...

I've tried to hire in the Philippines for 24/7 operations and have had a hard time... there just doesn't seem to be a big community, or as the article says, everyone leaves.

If you need someone in that part of the world, it seems like you're best off going to Singapore. Better English, more educated, more business friendly...the list goes on and on. The good Filipinos will have gone there, as you said.

I think it also depends on the type of operations you're looking to hire. I've found that people with stronger skill sets (for example, engineers), are very difficult to hire for swing or overnight shifts, even if salaries are double or triple the daytime shift.

(I run 24/7 operations in Vietnam, I'd love to talk shop.)

There's a lot of factors why people leave but the top two reasons are salary and management.

LobangClub from Singapore has relocated to the Philippines. When I asked them why, it's because they're convinced they could hire Python talent cheaper than if they did it in their own country.

That is not the only reason. There is also the issue of quantity. 1% of Singapore is very very different from 1% of the Philippines.

Turnover is a big challenge. Pinoys aren't always motivated purely by cash. I lived there from 2008-2010 and filipinos are very receptive and intelligent people.

I think the Philippines has a lot of good entrepreneurs (both expats and native) and for a country as a whole I can't think of anywhere else in Asia where English is a near universal language where even the poor can speak well enough (Singapore doesn't really count since it's more of a city state or micro country).

Unfortunately (someone can correct me but) there a few problems with PI's startup scene (which the article mostly mentions):

1) Most PI entrepreneurs concentrate on traditional industries (mostly in the food sector). I rarely see companies in riskier and more innovative sectors.

2) A lot of entrepreneurs inherit their businesses.

3) Historically PI's greatest export is its English speaking workforce. To my knowledge, it hasn't changed much. Good engineers leave for western countries or elsewhere in Asia where both the pay and conditions are better. The engineers that stay on a whole are sub-par. From experience, PI has a great (manual - not automated inclined) QA workforce; programmers not so much.

Are there any reliable numbers on how many Filipinos are using Android?

Neal Stephenson? Is that you?

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