A New Perspective on Asia
About a month ago, I decided to quit my job at a Bay Area, California startup and took a plunge to explore Asia. Here I am in Singapore giving an update. After spending some time in Indonesia and China, I have convinced myself that it was not a bad decision after all. In fact, there could not be a better time to be back.
Economic growth has shifted from the West to the East. The United States is still trying to recover from its bruised economy, while Europe is currently swimming towards a financial storm. The destabilization of the European Union’s economy due to the PIIGS countries (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) would further dampen the already low economic growth of the western world. According to the April 2010 World Economic Outlook by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Europe and the United States is projected to grow on average about 2%, while Asia will grow at least three times as fast.
My observations were furthered confirmed when I attended three conferences in the last two weeks, namely Salesforce Cloudforce 2, Echelon 2010 (Singapore’s version of TechCrunch) and ad:tech Singapore. I was fortunate enough to meet many new people from all walks of life. A common theme resonated with the attendees of these conferences, which is “Asia is the future”.
Given that the conferences are regional focus, I have also acquired many new insights about the Southeast Asian market. Having recently recovered from the 1997 Asian financial crisis, this region has finally rebuilt its economic fabric for growth. I would say it is currently in a sweet spot with many promising markets with little or no players.
I might be a little biased since I spent my childhood in Singapore and Indonesia, but I do strongly believe that an abundance of opportunities has emerged in the ASEAN countries. As a matter of fact, I was pleasantly surprised to see many Singapore and Indonesia startups at the Echelon 2010 event. It looks like these two countries are starting to have favorable environments for aspiring technopreneurs to participate in the technology revolution. This was evident from the recent news that Koprol, an Indonesian startup was snapped up by Yahoo! It is an event that nobody will believe two years ago.
What history tells us is that countries that experience tremendous economic growth would also experience an increase in purchasing powers. Being in the U.S. for more than a decade, I have also begun to realize many things that I have taken for granted but are not available here. An opportunity arises to recreate what is missing. Quoting from Apple CEO, Steve Job’s commencement speech, one just have to “stay hungry, stay foolish” to make it happen!
More information
- Indonesia’s Growing Mobile Industry
- Yahoo Acquires The Asian Foursquare, Koprol
- World Economic Outlook by International Monetary Fund
- GeeksOnAPlane at Echelon 2010 in Singapore with an Overview of South East Asia’s Web Scene
