Singapore Startup FAQ

By Isaac Souweine, GM for Pollenizer Southeast Asia. A version of this post first appeared on the Pollenizer blog.

I’ve met with dozens of folks over the past months who are interested in the Singapore startup scene. The questions they asked were often similar, so I thought I would take a crack at writing up my standard responses. For the record, this post is not meant to replace a good coffee chat, just to make those chats even more productive and interesting.

ORIENTATION

Q: How can I learn more about the scene from the internet?

A: There are three main blogs that cover the Singapore scene:

• e27 – Strong coverage across SEA plus tidbits from across Asia Pac. Highest volume of articles.
• Tech In Asia – Broad Asian perspective with good drill down on SEA and some good analysis.
• SGE.io– Lowest volume but strong on analysis and research pieces.

Jon Russell of the Next Web also weighs in semi-regularly on the SEA scene, and there are a few entrepreneurs and investors who blog semi-regularly:

• Bernard Leong – ex-Chalkboard. SGE.io co-founder.
• Michael Smith – aka Smitty. Ex-Yahoo. Now at Spuul.
• Jon Yongfook – Pitch Pigeon and various other projects.
• Jeff Paine – Founder’s Institute. Golden Gate Ventures Partner.
• Ray Wu – formerly of LSM, now of JFDI
• Andy Croll – CTO, ImpulseFlyer and organizer of Red Dot Ruby Conference.
• James Chan – Venture capitalist, Neoteny Labs & now Silicon Straits.

This list is not exhaustive i.e. I’ve probably forgotten some other folks who share regularly. For online discussions, the JFDI Open Frog list is a good place to start.

Q: How can I learn more about the scene at events?

A: If it’s startup events you want, then you’ve come to the right place. There’s something on almost every night, from user groups to speaker series, and most nights you’ll have choices. As many have noted, attending startup events can be a distraction from actually building a startup. That said, they can also be great opportunities for learning, networking and just feeling the buzz. So put your Startup Weekend t-shirt on and get on out there.

I won’t attempt at a comprehensive event index here. Just join The List and see what’s on that week. I will pimp my own events, namely Lean Startup Circle, which features talks from lean startup practitioners, and blinkBL_NK, which has nothing to do with startups but which a lot of startup people attend.

Editor’s note: Also check out SGE’s events calender and Startup Digest.