Will we be able to start a business when Singapore enters the post-Lee Kuan Yew era?

In the post-Lee Kuan Yew era, is Singapore suitable for entrepreneurship?

March 23, 2015 3:18 A.M., Singapore's founding prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew (Lee Kuan Yew), known as "the founding father of Singapore", died at the age of 91. For Singaporeans, the significance of this, from the beginning of independence, this almost no resources, even fresh water resources to rely on neighboring Malaysia, the population is inferior to China's two or three-line city of small countries, under the policy of Lee Kuan Yew, as the current average of 40,000 U.S. dollars of advanced economies, it is the Asian economy "dragons" It is also the preferred "headquarters location" for most international companies to enter Asia.

This laid out Mr Lee's unshakable political and economic position in Singapore, even after years of "abdication".

Since the establishment of the autonomous state of Singapore in 1959, Lee Kuan Yew has served as prime Minister of the government until 1990. But after the 2001 election, Lee Kuan Yew and another former prime minister, Goh Chok Tong, issued a joint statement announcing that he would not take up any role in the new cabinet. To complete the 52-year career in the government cabinet, his son, Lee Hsien Loong, has officially taken over.

However, the death of Lee Kuan Yew is precisely the moment when the whole of Singapore is facing a turning point, and it is the time when the whole global economic structure is reshaped and the international political situation in China and America is treacherous. In the future, how to maintain political stability and continue to stimulate the vitality of the innovative economy and maintain its position in the Asian economy and even in the global economy is a problem that cannot be avoided before the Singapore Government pavilion. Four years ago, the People's Action Party, which has been in power since the founding of Singapore, has fallen to 60.1% per cent despite continuing to win. "It is time for the younger generation to lead Singapore forward in a more difficult and complex situation," Mr Lee said in the face of the election results.

The vodka of Singapore's market economy in the past few decades has been marked by two distinct divisions of the economy, the "Temasek" management model of the state-owned enterprise in Singapore's political body, which was pioneered by Lee Kuan Yew, and the "headquarters economy" model in a global economy that advocates a free market.

The former is the foundation of national influence throughout Singapore, while the latter has lingered for decades in innovation, entrepreneurship and technology under the shadow of "big companies", so that it became the focus of contention that Singapore was suitable for entrepreneurship and how to encourage small business innovation 20 years ago. It also makes it worthwhile for us to draw on the transition of Singapore from "headquarters economy" to "entrepreneurial economy" in the decades under which Lee Kuan Yew continues to influence.

In an interview with Lee Kuan Yew in 2006, Caixin described Mr Lee's economic proposition as:

Singapore believes in a free market economy, but the benefits of a free-market economy cannot be distributed in a laissez-faire manner. Through the tax system, Singapore carries out income redistribution, enabling home ownership and equal access to education and basic medical services. But Singapore is not a fully egalitarian society. In a fully egalitarian society, no one will do their best and society will suffer losses.

Singapore's state-owned enterprises are administered by Temasek. In the 60 's, the government was active in setting up various companies to take the lead in areas where private enterprises were unwilling to enter, and in the 80, Temasek's subsidiaries matured, gradually privatized and listed. In recent years, Temasek has been investing abroad in venture capital, and its long-term goal is to build a portfolio of one-third of its assets in Singapore, One-third in developed countries and one-third in other Asian countries and regions.

Singapore's Treasury is a single shareholder of Temasek. The Treasury wants to ensure a competent board to manage Temasek. The government will not intervene in the day-to-day management of Temasek and its subsidiaries, nor will it give Temasek or its subsidiaries any special care. Temasek operates on commercial principles and is free to choose local or foreign collaborators, and must compete with other companies to obtain government projects through competitive bidding.

From "headquarter economy" to "small and medium-sized Enterprise" transformation

Singapore's first shift occurred around 2000, when the dotcom bust left the first economic weakness in Singapore aware that it was not enough to focus on attracting foreign companies, including large multinationals, to Singapore and set up factories. How to bring the management and experience of these big companies, including the upgrading of technology to the key to "island" innovation, more importantly, the Silicon Valley-style innovation driving force has more lasting vitality. As a result, Singapore began to open a variety of "entrepreneurial centres", starting with the major educational institutions.

Similar to China's subsequent choice of tactics, the Singaporean government opted for "subsidy" incentives, whether incentives to attract investment or subsidies to "small and medium-sized enterprises". The definition of local SMEs in Singapore: at least 30% of the company's shares are locally owned by Singapore, the company's annual turnover is less than 100 million SGD (about 4.5 billion yuan), or the total number of employees is less than 200 (the two are in line with one).

Singapore's investment in large enterprises is exaggerated, for example, if the establishment of research and development centers in Singapore, then 50% of the overall cost of the Singapore government, as well as supporting the establishment of the logistics system, the government for a company to subsidize 70% of the cost of establishing a logistics IT system. The following is the titanium media collection of Singapore's SME subsidy, according to the network public information collation:

The first was a credit fund launched by the Singapore Tax Bureau to encourage productivity and technological innovation (productivity andinnovation, pic).

Pic Has a subsidy for 6 business investment practices (even buying computers and software) in the enterprise, with 3 areas of subsidy: 400% tax breaks, plus 60% cash refunds plus a one-off subsidy of 15k SGD (75kRMB). Tax relief means that you spend 10 dollars on each of these 6 investments and the government will subtract 40 dollars from your tax. The ceiling for tax breaks is SGD 400,000 a year (corresponding to 100,000 yuan investment). The benefits of tax relief are mainly for companies with higher revenues in Singapore. For startups, cash returns are certainly a better aspect. 60% cash return means that every time you spend 10 dollars, the government will subsidize 6 dollars for you. The subsidy cap is $60,000 a year (corresponding to 100,000 investment) because of the lack of funds at the beginning of technology start-ups, these welfare subsidies appear to be extremely important. If these resources are used properly, they can be counted as a small seed investment of up to 300,000 (per year)! Plus a free 75,000 cash.

These 6 types of investment activities include:

1. Purchase or lease IT equipment or software

Hardware can cover such things as buying laptops, desktops, or servers. Software includes cloud services (such as Amazon Cloud Drive), Enterprise ERP software, or Customer relationship system (CRM) software.

2. Staff Training

Employee training includes in-house training and external training. Internal training such as Vice president of the company to take 3 days to do a Sales series training, external training such as sales, marketing, programming and so on. The good is that training venues and companies are not limited to Singapore, that is to say, Singapore's team can fly to Beijing to receive training.

3. Purchase or use of patents from other companies

This is better understood, such as the technology a start-up company needs has been patented by another company that can buy or rent a patent for another company. This is the government's efforts to protect intellectual property rights.

4. Registered patent or trademark

If the company needs a registered patent (such as a US patent), the price is too high for the Singaporean government to afford 60%. It is also an effort to encourage innovation and protect intellectual property rights.

5. Research and development related expenses

may include personnel points or equipment expenditures.

6. Design projects approved by Designsingapore Council.

Design projects include general business design or industrial design.

The second is the Singapore Information Development Agency (IDA), which provides a variety of cooperative projects for small and medium-sized technology companies, offering 50% research and development subsidies for approved projects.

For example, in this quarter, if your company has a social analysis (socialanalytics) application development, or based on GPS geographic information related application development, can apply to the government, the government will subsidize your 50% research and development expenses. Relevant information can easily be found on the IDA official website.

Singapore, as the economic center of Southeast Asia, in addition to the general direct economic level for start-up companies in the production and development of compensation, in many other ways for the start-up companies have different support, such as commercial expansion of up to 70% of government subsidies, for high-tech start-ups, At a stage where you only have an idea, the government can invest 250,000 SGD at a time and not take up any shares in the company.

Internet entrepreneurship is just beginning

Singapore has undergone several transitions from labour-intensive to capital-intensive to technological innovation, from the past to become Asia's "Switzerland" (financial center), as the overall global economic innovation driven by the remarkable strengthening of the entire economy of Singapore is facing the "innovative", the Internet entrepreneurial economic transformation, and the core changes have never been so drastic.

Knowing that an author has answered questions about entrepreneurship in Singapore, he has talked about opportunities and bottlenecks:

Singapore's IT business can do something I think will be more than China, because of domestic environmental control and so on. If you are an IT startup, then your market should be global (unless you are only targeting Chinese users), then Singapore will be a good platform for you. For example, you can open a company in Singapore to enjoy tax concessions, the business environment here and so on, and then build a global (or Chinese-world) products, considering the cost of human resources you can hire employees in China.

However, it is not recommended to consider only the local market, like the Singapore Food Network, although there is his fixed customer circle, has its development bottleneck (can only be limited to Singapore), I believe that the Food Network also want to rush out of Southeast Asia, into the mainland market, but a lot of efforts and opportunities, the current competition in Singapore is far less than the mainland.

In Singapore, the whole venture and investment in the face of the problem can not be avoided: the ecosystem is relatively young, just emerged, and not a lot of local accumulation, many entrepreneurs are still relatively young, has not grown, is still in the initial stage. Lack of local influence, many people are small, for investors said there is little liquidity. When investors and entrepreneurs get the relevant returns, they leave it to the next generation and do not want it to enter the capital market, where liquidity is limited.

The support that is generally dependent on government subsidies is also a double-edged sword that relies on government financing rather than on the market for financing, which does not make companies more focused on customers.

A titanium media writer from Singapore also mentioned that almost as much as mainland China, Singapore's internet-related entrepreneurial park has been in the ascendant for two years.

In January 2015, the Government of Singapore set up BLK71 SF in the US Silicon Valley to strengthen the linkage between Singapore and the United States ' new ecological system, to enable Launchpad, in the original BLK71 Innovation Park, to include the surrounding BLK73 and BLK79, to provide more new ventures, accelerators and venture capital into space , and expand the development of its innovative entrepreneurial clusters. Here are their official introductions:

The National Council said that reference to Singapore BLK71 and London Tech City to shape the international entrepreneurial clustering experience, the National Development Association selected in Taipei City Flower Park Clubhouse set up a national innovation Enterprise Park, and in 104 years January to complete the Operation team selection, by the Ding Qi International Company is responsible for handling, to provide a diversified service entrepreneurs. At present, the National Development Council and the operation team are planning to introduce potential new ventures and accelerators at home and abroad, as well as the relevant service providers (such as venture capital, legal, accounting and other professional services) stationed in the park, and domestic and foreign media publicity, including brand image, the method of settlement. After the renovation project is completed, a complete entrepreneurial ecosystem will be established.

After more than 4 years of development, BLK71 successfully transformed from the abandoned factory into a new enterprise breeding base. In 2015, the Singapore Government set up a BLK71 San Francisco in the San Francisco Bay Area to strengthen the series of innovative ventures between Singapore and the United States, which was established by Infocomm Investment Corporation, the University of Singapore and the Singapore Telecom Innov8 Foundation, will help Singapore start-ups to penetrate the Silicon Valley technology innovation market, but also to the Southeast Asian market interest in the United States venture capital and start-ups to provide access to the Southeast Asian market pipelines and opportunities. The base, which was opened on January 9, will provide 24-hour space for the new corporate event space, with a maximum of 3 months.

Titanium Media based on public information in Singapore currently active internet start-ups, even in the whole Southeast Asian market, the number is not too much:

1. Online multi-language video aggregation network Viki

Viki
Crowdsourcing video subtitle website, Viki, was hit in Singapore in 2013, as the Japanese electric giant Rakuten bought Viki at a price of 200 million dollars. A year later, the report said that Viki had 35 million active users each month, and 25 million mobile users, and that when the company was bought, active users grew by 13 million per month and mobile users grew by 15 million.

2, Instant chat application Zopim

In the post-Lee Kuan Yew era, is Singapore suitable for entrepreneurship?
Zopim, a local company engaged in the development of customer service chat tools. Allow you to chat with site visitors instantly, impress and convert them into loyal customers, Zopim instant conversation window is easy to use, can integrate into your website style, let you chat with the website visitor instantly.

In early 2014, Zopim, a start-up company, sold 30 million dollars to Zendesk, a customer service software company based in San Francisco, which had already applied for an IPO in the United States. Zopim's successful exit sparked a flurry of excitement in Singapore's local entrepreneurial circle.

3, E-commerce company Lazada

E-commerce retailer Lazada is one of the most successful internet start-ups that rocket the Internet team, and Lazada is the only company with a market value of 1.25 billion dollars. Recently, Lazada changed its business model to a third-party merchant market, which lazada the GMV in the second half of 2014, the first half of the year, and the GMV of 2014 to around $274.2 million trillion.

4. Private car loan rental service start-up company Icarclub

Given that most of the owners in Singapore spend a lot of money on their own cars, the idea of equivalent private car rentals has emerged. But it's not easy to turn this idea into a reality, such as the Icarsclub in 2014 about the leasing service, which put the company in a bind. It would not have survived without the company being introduced to the right direction and had already prepared a lot of money for competition. At present, Icarsclub and Ppzhuche (Icarsclub landed in Beijing in October 2013 and named PP car rental) amounted to 120,000 rented private taxis.

5. Real Estate Portal Propertyguru

In Southeast Asia, the online real estate classified advertising industry is a very competitive industry. Propertyguru is lucky to dominate. Recently, 99.co joined the Singapore real estate market and became Propertyguru's newest competitor. According to some previous relevant data, the total number of people browsing the real estate site, 87% of the time is to browse the Propertyguru real estate information. The company ranks on Alexa and market intelligence firm SimilarWeb as well as leading other large companies in the same industry, such as Malaysia's largest property classification website iproperty and Singapore's other real estate website Stproperty.

Steve Melhuish, the company's chief executive, said Propertyguru was planning to go public a few years ago, but there was no movement after that. 2015 may be able to witness the listing of the company.

6, luxury brand electric dealer Reebonz

When it comes to Singapore's local e-commerce shop, the best known is Reebonz, in addition to the two E-commerce retailers mentioned above that are assisted by rocket Internet companies. Unlike other E-commerce stores, it focuses on luxury brands. Reebonz acquired Singapore's online luxury shop CLOUT Shoppe in March 2014, expanding its size.

In August 2014, it was estimated that Reebonz would be listed with Razer, the gaming peripherals manufacturer, and reported that the company's start-ups were struggling to find investors. However, the message has not been followed since.

7, travel search website WeGo

WeGo
In 2013, WeGo, a travel search company, claimed that there were at least 10 million potential customers in the 52 markets in which it served. The company launched its own iOS apps and Android apps in mid-2014, and soon this app is the top of the list of downloads in the Indonesian iOS App store.

The whole country is in mourning and Thanksgiving. But the people of Singapore may also need a brand new Singapore.

(In this paper, the first titanium media, the original title: Post-Lee Kuan Yew era, we can go to Singapore business?)