uy Kawasaki, entrepreneur extraordinaire, famous for his role in making the Macintosh computer a cult-like worldwide phenomenon, visited Singapore
recently as a speaker and a judge at the Stanford Global Entrepreneurs Challenge held in Singapore. INNOVATION’s Tan Lay Leng talked to the founder of multiple personal computer companies and current Chief Executive Officer of Garage Technology Ventures to get his opinion on entrepreneurship in Singapore.
I: What do you see as the biggest difference between the United States and Singapore in terms of inculcating entrepreneurship? What do you think the local environment lacks?
Kawasaki: Singapore has based its educational system on the expectation that its graduates will work for the government or multinational corporations (MNCs), neither of which prepares one for entrepreneurship. In America, if you work for a large company for a long time, people ask why. In Singapore, if people leave a large company, people ask why. This is a huge difference.
In addition, the Singapore leadership has been visionary and strong and as a result have developed the strategies and tactics for the growth of the country from the top down. As a result, the educational system has encouraged the society to learn and pick up knowledge and facts but not necessarily to be creative, which is a key factor in entrepreneurship.
I: Do you foresee any shift in this mentality soon?
Kawasaki: Singapore is concerned that manufacturing and MNCs are going to China. So if Singapore is not making products and MNCs are not bringing in capital, I would think something has to change. Physical goods may have had to pass through Singapore, but intellectual capital and financial capital doesn’t. Recent speeches given by the government show a recognition that Singapore needs to evolve to adapt to the changing global conditions. There also appears that resources are being allocated towards programmes for developing entrepreneurism in Singapore. If there is a country that can decide to do something and then do it, it’s Singapore. But entrepreneurship and its necessary risk taking may go against current thinking and “the system.”
I: Do you think change is possible in a structured environment?
Kawasaki: Anything is possible. The first 90% is already done: people in Singapore realise that technology entrepreneurship is crucial to the future. The second 90% – producing a generation of entrepreneurs – is the hard part. Ironically, Singapore’s past success is a barrier to its future.
You can increase the probability by changing regulations; for instance, allow using money from the Central Provident Fund to start a company or eliminate government service following government-sponsored education abroad.
I: Does the small population base in Singapore serve as a barrier to success in entrepreneurship?
Kawasaki: From day one, Singaporeans have to think “international” because a population of three to four million people does not provide a large enough market. Israel proved that this can work. It has clearly created great technology that has been exported around the world. Israel has five million people, six million entrepreneurs, and fifteen million opinions. Singapore has five million people, six entrepreneurs, and one opinion.
If Israel can do it, why can’t Singapore? It will take changes in social conventions. If Singaporeans are raised to think that the best people work in government, education and large companies, change will be slow. Singapore needs a few technology entrepreneur heroes – for instance Creative Technology’s Sim Wong Hoo.
I: Does making money figure very highly in motivating someone to become an entrepreneur?
Kawasaki: Contrary to popular belief, it’s not the most important motivation. Money is one of the natural outcomes for successful companies, but it’s very seldom the original and central goal.
I: What motivates you personally to start up something?
Kawasaki: I am beyond the point of starting companies. I’m interested in helping others start companies that change the world.
I: Any advice for those raring to be entrepreneurs?
Kawasaki: Go for it! The unlived life is not worth examining. And don’t let anyone’s estimation of your capabilities limit what you try to do.
I: Does one need to have talent to be innovative, or is it sheer hard work?
Kawasaki: This is the same as asking if entrepreneurs are born or made? They are made. Many factors contribute, but almost anybody can be an entrepreneur if he or she puts in lots of hard work along with being open-minded enough to gather lots of input, process it, and be effectively creative.
I: Would you advise somebody to go abroad to build up their exposure and their spirit of entrepreneurship?
Kawasaki: I would encourage everyone who dreams of being an entrepreneur to do this. They will see another “operating system” in action. There is one danger in doing this, however. People often come to Silicon Valley and see the lawyers, venture capitalists, bankers and incubators and think, “All we have to do is build this infrastructure, and we’ll have entrepreneurship.”
If only it were this simple. Entrepreneurship is a state of mind. You get the entrepreneurship; the infrastructure will grow around it. If you build the infrastructure without the entrepreneurship, all you’ll do is waste money. The key is the education and inspiration of your young people.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP SPECIAL: Made-in-Singapore Entrepreneurs
A very good article.
The true entrepreneurs are those that who are successful, straight to the point and yet humble in their words.
He is right on the dot about the entrepreneur attitude in Singapore.
He is also dead right on the part that our past success is our barrier to entrepreneurship. The government had trained the people to be workers, not entrepreneurs and our education of over emphasis on results is also helping to kill the entrepreneurship spirit.
The hard way of education in Singapore is definitely not helping. In our school, we learned to follow the rule and if you move out a little, you will be ‘put’ back into place. In our education system, you are to act like an worker ant, not a individual person!
Our education had also place great fear for failing. You fail an exam, you are dead! You did not get to the ‘preferred’ school, you are dead! You did not get to the Uni, you are dead! If you ended up in ITE, they say ITS THE END!
We have placed so much emphasis in education till it had gone crazy. A degree is considered a minimum for the ticket of entry to success and anything lesser than that is not an option.
The crazy trend of starting early ‘education’ for children is getting younger and younger. These parents are doing this for the sake of giving their children an early start, hoping to beat the others in the rat race. There are parents queue up wee hours in the morning at the school to just get ‘registered’ and not even a confirm place. Shifting their house within the proximity of the ‘preferred’ school so that their children will have a chance to be given a place. Parents doing social work for the schools. All they crazy things that they did for getting their children into the ‘preferred’ schools, you name it they did it.
It is all about results, results, results and playing on the safe side.
If failure is not an option then who will take risk and venture?
The fear for failing is so great that it stifle the entrepreneurship spirit in many people.
In US, if you start a business and fail, you will find that you can easily goes back to employment without the interviewer viewed very negatively towards you asking why you fail and they make you look like a loser. For the same scenario in US, people around felt that you did tried, but just did not make it and some may even encourage you to go again! But in Singapore, you deem a failure!
Singaporeans had a very narrow mindset toward success and failure. I know that many family members are not supportive of them venturing if they had a steady job. Most Singaporean women are especially critical of failure. If you are married and you wanted to start a business, the most difficult person to convince is the wife. Even you managed to ‘persuade’ her and managed to start your venture, you should be aware of the fact that you wife might immediately file for divorce if you fail, lose all the saving or in debt!
Even many parents still have this mentality that children should get a great paying job and don’t take the risk. When you fail, though they might help you, be prepare that they will say: “See, I told you that you will fail and get into trouble!”
So is failure such a terrible monster?
Robert the Bruce of Scotland was defeated as many as 7 times by the English, enduring great humiliation before his final decisive victory at the Battle of Bannockburn and later crown as King of Scotland and a Celtic pride.
Liu Bang, the founder of the Han dynasty of China, was the underdog in the Chu-Han Contention. He had lost so many battle that he was known as the ‘Loser General’. But his one final major victory marks the beginning of a long dynasty in China.
I knew this person, a low profile multi-millionaire now in China. He had failed 3 times before his final ‘decisive’ victory. His first failure ended up in his wife divorcing him. He took 4 years to repay his debts. By his 3rd failure, he had almost lost all his friends and even his brothers and sisters were trying to stay clear of him. When he wanted to ventured for the fourth time, everybody said that he is totally mad and his direct family members had almost wanted to break their relationship from him. But this time, the big break comes in. From that moment onwards, it is all the way to success and money started to pour in. From his first failure till his fourth venture, it took a total span of 20 years!
He told me this: “I am glad that I failed early in my life. When I am young and I failed, I learned my mistake and I have the energy to start again. However, if you are too successful when young but fail when you are much older, you may not have the energy and will to try again. Every time I failed, I learn from my mistakes and I fight again and again and again. Yes, it takes a lot of determination, but if I give up after my third venture, do you think I will be what I am today? In real life, nobody knows for sure what lies ahead and so you must learn to fail before you learn to be successful. This attitude is what people called as battle hardened!”
Many of the younger guys I know had this problem. When they started out to work, they have to plan for all the ‘big’ ticket things.
A fabulous wedding, because you future wife said that it is a must ‘since it is only once of a lifetime’. But women nowadays do not hesitate to file for divorce at the first sigh of trouble! She will also said that all her friends and relatives had wonderful weddings, so she must live up to that! I had a young friend, an average earner, spending 50 thousands on his wedding!
The context of love in Singapore is simple, a lavish wedding and minimum a 4 room flat. If a car is also part of the package deal then there will be even more love!
No wonder so many young men can’t find love and Sim Wong Hoo refused to get married.
Next, a house, with the soaring prices, you cannot afford to lose your job to stop servicing the monthly installments and starting a business means you may have no income for quite a while before business picks ups. Unless you have rich parents to help, your wedding, house, renovation, furniture had already break your piggy bank! With the lower salary and rising prices, many young guys are already having not much of savings. In fact getting married before age 30 is almost out of the question for many youngsters. As a matter of fact, many young people that I know of, managed to get married only because of the financial assistance from their parents!
Some people will then start to ‘harbor’ the thought of car ownership because of the ‘convenience’ in raising a family. With the return of the ‘peak’ of COE prices, always rising petrol and parking charges, more and more ERP gantries, your income is only enough for you to see you through the end of the month with all these ‘commitments’!
If you are ‘fortunate’ enough to pick up the good news that your wife is pregnant, that means you just got a new 20-25 years commitment! In that case, is your business venture going to be on hold for 20-25 years?
The bottom line is, how are you going to start a business with the situation above if you are an average Joe with no rich parents? Many small businesses are already experiencing difficulty with cash flow because of the stringent requirements from the banks, where are you going to get the start-up capital when you don’t even have the ‘track records’ to show the banks?
Even if you finally have the means of getting the start-up capital, imagine what happens should you fail in your venture! You may end up in the situation like the multi-millionaire that I mentioned above with a your wife filing for divorce!
Most of the people who are running their own businesses that I know told me similar experiences. When they just started out on their own, they were so stressful because things are not going smoothly with funds running out soon. They could either borrow from family or friends. Most of they are in a dilemma because they do not know if they should continue as they did not know if things are going to get better. Borrowing from family, relatives and friends can mean you get into heavy debt if the business goes bust! Some guys even had to ‘pretend’ things are going well because, they wants to avoid another quarrel with his wife. With pressure mounting everyday and nobody to talk to, running a business may also means running in hell!
The Singapore women is now a very different breed. They are demanding and will a start a quarrel about anything the minute things don’t go their way. Divorce is always on the menu when things don’t work out. This adds to another major obstacle to the road of entrepreneurship.
The situation of the typical guy I describe above refers to those who are ‘fortunate’ enough to go to University, can get a job with a starting salary of S$2000-3000/mth. But please don’t forget that many of those ‘fortunate’ grads still have to repay their study loans for their degrees.
What about the hundreds of thousands that did not make it to Uni, whom starting salary can go as low as $1500/mth. Without a degree, they find it hard to compete with those who have and many turn to the ‘upgrading’ route by going for distance learning degrees. Even a distance learning degree is not cheap and with their low salary, they are in a very precarious situation if they lose their jobs.
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to analysis all the problems that you will face on the ‘road to entrepreneurship’. So, how many guys would even dare to think of starting a business?
Did our minister ever thought about the situation of the average Joe, when they ‘sing’ about entrepreneurship a few years ago? I think they did. Their rational is, only the rich and powerful or scholars are capable of being ‘entrepreneurs’ and the rest can try at your own risk! That is why we have all our ‘entrepreneurs’ at the helm of our GLCs and trade unions, monopolizing all the ‘lucrative’ businesses or squeezing out healthy competition. These ‘entrepreneurs’ have nothing to worry about funds, because we have plenty in the reserves. To lose a few billions here or there is nothing, because no heads will roll. That is what entrepreneurship means in Singapore’s official context!
This could also be why parents are so crazy about getting their kids into top schools and getting a scholarship!
Entrepreneurship in Singapore could only meant as a dream for most of the Tom and Dick but NOT HARRY(Because Harry is Singapore’s most powerful man). On hindsight, did I actually did the ‘injustice’ by discouraging a lot of people from going into business?
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@Marvin – Very well written comment and apt summary of the situation in Singapore. Could not be better described in words…
What a boringly long diatribe, Marvin. Ever considered proof-reading and structuring your thoughts?
O2b6uj Got it! Thanks a lot again for helping me out!
I fully agree with Guy Kawasaki on his opinion about entrepreneurship in Singapore. I did not do well in school and as a result I feel redundant by those top students or teacher’s teaching with the iron fist. When I came into the workforce entrepreneur mindset starts to kick in, so I tried to go back into ITE in business course.
Slowly, I became an entrepreneur junkie. In school I even seek opportunities by single handedly organize events, trips, selling F&B without supervision of teachers. All thanks to the modules I learnt in school. The teachers were engaged in turning the students into good employees while I was experimenting what I had learnt, the necessary business tools to become an entrepreneur. Slowly, I was cast out by my classmates as what I did was not supported my the masses, not even teachers. Some of my good friends gave support in some of my projects. At that juncture, I was able to see the fine line who my true friends are. Although I don’t see this as a barometer to judge true friends, I experienced through the pain, fear, fatigue, with little or no pocket money and at times tears. It was a test of true spirit beyond everything else and what I was holding on is faith of wanting so bad to be an entrepreneur. I even knocked on several doors of small companies and only one came to accept me. I had a mentor and even that he eventually conned me, making use of my resource for his business gain.
However, through that bitter experience I guess I’m still thankful. All that pain I went through I think it was necessary to mold me into a great person.
I even participated in Junior trade challenges and luckily I found somebody with the same entrepreneurial mindset as me. The stage was mostly made up of JCs and Diplomas students, smarter than me that is. Eventually, through the workshops we caught the attention of the Executive Director, Organizing Comittee. I still remembered counter attacking a business product debate from a Raffles Institution student. The room went into silence and I felt humble being able to do that cos I’m not as smart as them.
Conclusion is, our education system is not doing that much about entrepreneurship. Back in my ITE days, I joined the entrepreneur club but I felt redundant as the teacher did not introduce activities that empowers us. I even questioned him and in the end he just pushed me aside. Seriously, I wanted to learnt, but was my teacher doing something about it? I just don’t understand about our school system. Right before my eyes, they’re rewarding top students for good marks. At the point of doing business presentation, they can’t even do a good pitch or be spontaneous in presenting to their audience. I just wonder how our school system operates. I just wonder how we’re gonna let the entrepreneurial spirit survive!