Is entreprenuership really encouraged?
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Look at silicon valley for example. They have this culture of taking risks and not giving up. In silicon valley, it's easier to obtain funds if u failed the first time round, coz how the venture captialists feel is that, good! this guy failed b4, now he has experience and he will be more careful this time.
Yeah I think we Singaporeans should learn from the Americans. Its true, I've failed in my first startup, I've pondered and reflected on all the actions I've taken that resulted in the failure. Now I am ready to go back into a new business armed with this knowledge and guess what? No one is willing to lend a helping hand in terms of finances.
We Singaporeans are just a bunch of followers. We follow the footsteps of those who have succeeded. One good example will be 4D.
We hear from so and so, that by going to this place to pray we will kena 4D. So everyone starts to go there, guess what? All kena makan.
This is the typical Singaporean mentality. We will never be innovators!! Even Sun Yan Zi has to start from Taiwan, get fame there and then get recognition in Singapore. Thinking from the general public is : " Wah she so hot in Taiwan, must be damn good hor?" -
There's too much of the 'following' mentality here, I agree. It's like everyone's waiting for everyone to be the first one to take the plunge before they follow.
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To be fair I think the govt is trying to encourage entrepreneurship but the progress is painfully slow. The constraints ranged from tight govt control to education to societal factors.Originally posted by ndsef:Just caught the Cross Fire Episode on Channel U. Was very interesting as it was talking about whether we can make big bucks in Singapore. The topic veered to entrepreneurship as the answer to making money, and that employment is not a source of wealth at all.
Present there was the man behind the now failed Tang Dynasty Village, who is now a bankrupt. He was mentioning that Singapore cannot accept failures let alone bankrupts. Bankrupts are never given a chance to recover from failures and start again.
I find this very true having been through a failure myself. I had a few legal cases before as a result of being a gurantor for the loans my business took. 3 years has passed, now I am employed, but I am still unable to get a car loan of from any bank at all!!! This is utterly stupid!!
But yes failure is not well tolerated in here. Singaporeans including the civil service, GLC and local private companies are very unforgiving. -
1st we have "Bubble Tea", then "Pedicure Manicure, after that "Bread Talk, Papa Roti, Mama Roti etc" now we have dessert stores. Don't these ppl realize that once someone goes in and do something, then don't follow lah....Originally posted by timothytsgsg:There's too much of the 'following' mentality here, I agree. It's like everyone's waiting for everyone to be the first one to take the plunge before they follow.
Mentality is always, wah so good money ar... maybe hor we should also do the same thing.
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For those considering becoming a local entrepreneur, consider this:
a stark difference between the entrepreneurial environment
in the US and SG is the US environment allows the failed entrepreneur to easily/quickly make a comeback whereas SG environment (unlike the environment GLC thrive in) doesn't allow/support the failed entrepreneur to "fan sen".
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anyone remember the luohan fish craze? and now look at all the coffee bun clones!
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Hey Macjoe, interesting... but how does the US environment allow failures to "fan sen"Originally posted by macjoe:For those considering becoming a local entrepreneur, consider this:
a stark difference between the entrepreneurial environment
in the US and SG is the US environment allows the failed entrepreneur to easily/quickly make a comeback whereas SG environment (unlike the environment GLC thrive in) doesn't allow/support the failed entrepreneur to "fan sen". -
Simply, they don't judge failures and mistakes as harshly as ours. Americans also view 1st time failures as a step towards eventual success.
Top bosses in the US, even the rich famous ones have had experience with failure but it didn't make them less than a man that they are. If they had resigned with a mistake they had made(which most locals do when they experience their 1st failure), then we wouldn't have these big US companies now.
Bill Gates have had experience with failure a few times, Steve Jobs had a difficult times in the 80s- till the point where Apple nearly went down..Amazon.com also experienced many years of staggering losses but they are still around..
So the lists of failures that these men are staggering but so are their successes now. -
In Singapore, there are a lot of peer pressure going on:
For example, when young uni grads first came out to work, their aspiration would be get rich young and retire rich. Any thing wrong on this statement?
YES. Why? It simply shows the culture in Singaporean minds: make quick cash, dun know how to do with the $$ and simply just retire (brain dead). With this type of mind set, it is hard to really have a strong corporate cultures in Singapore, let alone of nurturing a pool of young successful local entreprenuers.
Look at Mr Warren Buffet, he is the 2nd richest man yet he is still working hard to build his empire. That simply shows that singapore is a short sighted. Why is this so? Simple, rich singaporean are "kai su", they are unwilling to risk their "hard earn" $$, they rather put it in bank to collect interest. So that they can enjoy the world class life style in singapore.
But there are another group of singaporean, who tried and tried to build his business time after time. Still ending up just enough to meet his ends. Few reasons for it:
1) lack of professional knowledges
2) high overheads in doing business
3) far too many regulations and rules
4) small home market size
5) alot of talks from gov but little actions and many many red tapes
6) Local "kai su" mindset vs Jap/Korean/Taiwan/China "Can Do" mindsets
7) Singaporean tends to be very stright in working business deals people rather put $$ in SGX than start up business
(stock market at least have bull runs, local business outlook is very bearish since 1997-1998 crisis)
9) Heavy burden eg medical cost, HDB flat, transport cost and ultility bills
10) Moving out of MNCs (which use to supply tons of subcon jobs for local)
11) Less FDI (Foreign Direct Investment $$$) into Singapore, slower employment growth and not-so-good tourism money paints a poor retail business outlook.
12) Tax is high for new businesses setup. Even equipment purcahse need to pay the GST as well. This is unheard of in the states.
13) Local businessman seldom re-investment into the business or expanding the business due to many many reasons, including too much time and $$ spend with China Mei Mei at Tian An Men