What Start-up would you Build with $5 Million?

At the Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC) last week, the moderator posted an interesting question to the panel: what would you build if you had $5 million in your pocket now?

Turned out, most of the panelists voted for social e-commerce. Steven Goh of Mig33 led the discussion as he explained that there are a lot to explore in this young social commerce sector. The social e-commerce is likely to follow the same growth trend as social gaming.

Without a doubt, social gaming is leading the social ecommerce front as it naturally has a robust in-game buying system driven by game mechanics and social influence from the community. James Gwetzman of Popcap said that his company is still very much like a game maker and it would be great if the company could combine data and revenue making features within a game. Gwetzman pointed at DeNA and Zynga as leaders in gaming data and revenue making, respectively.

The social layer on the Internet has more or less taken shape. Now, the next layer could be the commerce layer. In fact, Groupon has already taken advantage of the social layer through group buying. Facebook tries to sell credits and Facebook store front while Twitter hinted last year that it could go into songs with Ping.

While social ecommerce is hot, Harry Xiao, CEO of d.cn said that he would prefer to build a company that provides a better smartphone interface. He explained that the current smartphones interface are good but challenge the very way it is structured right now. “Mobile is going to be huge, but can we do better than what we have?”

It is a pity that the discussion didn’t have the chance to expand and go into depth as the panel ran out of time. At least, in this short five minutes discusssion, it highlighted the potential of social ecommerce ahead.

Throwing the question back to you: What would you build if you had $5 million? Share with us your thoughts via the comments.