Because it’s not all about the chickens and the eggs

What should come first, a good venture capital scene ready to fund risky new ventures or an entrepreneur who can do a million dollar venture by bootstrapping rather than raising funds? Our resident contributor, whysgentrepreneurssuck, offers some perspective on how entrepreneurs need to break free of the naysayers and cynics in order to be ready for the start of a great enterprise.

Whenever the question is raised as to why Singapore has yet to see a world-class startup emerge (since the dot-com boom days) from its shores, people turn to our poor chicken and her egg for what appears to be a logical response.

Without good venture capital funds investing in Singapore, our startups will forever remain in the backwaters of the Straits of Malacca and die a slow death. On the other hand, without top quality Singaporean startups to begin with, those top venture capital fund managers in the moulds of Draper Fischer Jurvetson, Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers will never cast a glance in our direction.

And so we are faced with a Catch-22. Or is that so?

Let me ask you this in an attempt to illustrate – which of the following scenarios would you (as an entrepreneur) prefer to be in?

1. – You are hooked up with a great team, and given the barren venture capital landscape in Singapore, ended up settling for $2M in seed funding from a mediocre VC. While you love the chemistry within the team and how everyone’s awesome at what they do, you can’t help but feel that the business idea isn’t quite “there” yet.
2. – You were floored by this kick-ass Web 2.0 idea and was asked by your friend to join his team. You’re even more psyched when you realise that they’ve received $5M in funding from Sequoia. However, 3 months down the road, half the founding team has quit due to personality clashes and disagreements over the direction that the startup was heading in. You wonder why you joined in the first place.

Ok ok, so I set it up on purpose, and if your answer is to prefer the latter, I salute your guts.

My point is that the people in a startup are absolutely critical – no world-class idea is going to take off unless you have a world-class team at the helm. With a world-class team, even the lousiest ideas can be turned around, or new investors found. Silicon Valley has always been about the people – the VCs were a by-product of these great people who “moved up the value chain” and continued to 拉其他的企业家一把 (lend fresh batches of entrepreneurs a helping hand). Why should it be any different in Singapore?

Many of us tend to forget that a large part of being an entrepreneur is to have the ability to ignore the naysayers and achieve unprecedented success. Well ok, ignore the majority of them, because some of these naysayers do occasionally impart words of wisdom. Entrepreneurship is also not for everybody, the same way we’re not all cut out for professional sports. It’s a bloody entrepreneurial world out there, and if you don’t have the DNA to pick yourself up after multiple falls, you best stay clear. That is why I believe it’s ok if most Singaporeans prefer a regular job and a regular paycheck – we need you guys to offset the crazy things that we’re prone to doing, so that Singapore’s economy doesn’t go out of whack overnight. The problem only gets magnified when our limited pool of entrepreneurs lose the ability to ignore the naysayers.

The potpourri of cultures that is Singapore has given rise to a nation of nay-sayers. Our government says no to a lot of things, good or bad; no to chewing gum, no to littering, no turning at red unless light says green, no bar-top dancing (until recent years), no to politically sensitive and irresponsible blogging. We’re so used to the government taking such good care of us Singaporeans that we’ve also taken on their nay-saying attitude. Heck, we’re even saying no to casinos and no to allowing more immigrants into Singapore to hit that magical 6.5 million population, even when it’s clear we need these force multipliers for our continual survival. Our government has always led the way, and today, when the government is slowly but surely changing its course, our people are struggling to follow.

The next time your friend shares with you his or her plans for a start-up, try to take off that nay-saying hat you’ve always had on, and give them your balanced opinions. It’s ok to criticize, as long as you’re not blatantly nay-saying. That’s what I’ve set out to do here at whysgentrepreneurssuck.com, and that’s what I hope you will join me in doing.

For I am but one, and can never compete with the wisdom of the crowds.