How Online Games Can Build the Internet Industry (Startup Asia Preview)

Alan Tan, co-founder at Shanda

If you head over to China and ask any gamers on the street, it’s likely that they’ve heard of Shanda (盛大) or perhaps even played some of their games online. Shanda is one of the largest internet companies in China and was ranked as one of China’s top ten companies by revenue. Shanda started as a gaming company but eventually branched out to other businesses including e-books, smartphones, and cloud computing.

Alan Tan co-founded Shanda with Mr. Chen Tianqiao in 1999. When we recently met for coffee in Singapore he briefly told me the Shanda story. It was fascinating, and I knew that I wasn’t the only person who wanted to hear it, so I invited him to speak at our upcoming Startup Asia Singapore conference in April.

Through his experience as Shanda co-founder, Alan said that gaming has had a big impact in Chinese internet industry since 1999. He believes that gaming habits like purchasing items online and consuming internet content for long hours (not that that’s always a good thing) helped shape user behavior and eventually the internet industry in China. It makes sense and it is an insight that the younger generation might not be aware of.

Alan feels the same is true for Southeast Asia and believes that the maturity of the internet ecosystem is connected to how prosperous the gaming industry is. After all, he is in Singapore for a reason, which I believe is to spot and invest in potential Southeast Asian companies.

In our coffee chat with Alan, we will talk about the founding story of Shanda and how he and his partners worked hard to make it one of China’s most successful internet companies, and how they played a role in building China’s internet industry.

This year’s speakers at Startup Asia Singapore 2013 (held April 4 and 5) also include Darius Cheung (co-founder at BillPin), Ole Ruch (managing director APAC at Airbnb), Steve Melhuish (co-founder at PropertyGuru), Stefan Jung (Co-Founder and Managing Director SEA,
Rocket Internet), Daphne Lee (international business director at Taobao), and more.

We also have Startup Arena, our pitching competition, where startups battle for the $10,000 grand prize. So far, we have accepted some very exciting startups from China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Early-bird tickets are selling fast and are available until March 8. Grab your tickets now.