Personally, I benefited from Singapore’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Against the wisdom of the crowd , I graduated in 1994 and went straight to start my own business. I founded more than 10 businesses since.
To me, superstars of businesses are propelled not by genius and talent alone but the beneficiaries of extraordinary opportunities and seasons that allow them to strive, to make sense of the world in ways other cannot comprehend. Most of the entrepreneurs I know of are outliers in their fields or the barbarians at the gates who redefine the norms and rules of the industries. I have witnessed how successful people rise on a tide of advantages like MMI, JIT, Venture or even Hyflux who immensely benefited from the period of manufacturing boom in the 90s. Even our water-resource strain has produced a Hyflux who benefited from this demand gap.
The Singapore business ecosystem evolves, particularly, public policies which play an important role in stimulating and accelerating the pace of developments in certain sectors. The government seems to have a hand in shaping the desired industries and in picking the sunrise and sunset businesses. For that, some alleged that Singapore’s entrepreneurial ecosystem has been uniformly weak for start-ups or even backward. The key is to pick the right type of business to start in Singapore where the business can leverage on the strength of Singapore’s infrastructural, financial, political strengths. Connecting the red dot to other hinterlands and making Singapore into hubs of sorts will be a good starting point.
The power of guts is not taught enough in schools and for now, many of the successful self-made businessmen in Singapore can attest to that. I have been the beneficiary of various windows of opportunities and I know that the impulse factor has been key- some of us play it safe while others risk it all. I chose to risk it all when I started and had never look back.
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