Topic: [2016-01-26]7 key tips for Asia-based startups from Silicon Valley's VCs (Read 230 times)

One might be a sore point with the Asian mentality: the willingness to embrace failure



Silicon Valley’s enormous impact on global tech trends has long served as a model of aspiring startups worldwide. Many eager to replicate such success stories back at home.

In a panel discussion at the Kauffman Fellows’s Southeast Asia Venture Capital Summit in Singapore on Monday, five venture capitalists — drawing from their own experiences — candidly talked about how startup founders and investors in Asia can contribute to the growth of the tech ecosystem.

The panel, moderated by IDA Executive Deputy Chairman Steve Leonard, consisted of five VCs:

1. Jason Green, Founding Partner, Emergence Capital
2. Justin Kan, Partner, Y Combinator
3. Jeff Clavier, Founding Partner, SoftTech VC
4. Rob Coneybeer, Founding Partner, Shasta Ventures
5. Alexander Lloyd, Managing Director, Accelerator Ventures

Here are seven bite-sized takeaways from the discussion:

1. Passion and experience matter more than qualifications

Attaining degrees and PhDs are important and useful, but paper qualifications do not produce tangible results, experience does.

Clavier said that expertise is gained through the result of experiencing both successes and failures. For him, when determining whether a founder is a good founder/market fit, he sees whether the Founder is passionate and understands the workflow of the startup culture.

2. Don’t be afraid to pivot

Your original idea may not be the best idea; iteration may be necessary.

Kan said that all founders must work on the product themselves first. Many big companies started off with crazy ideas, but succeeded because they eventually narrowed their ideas and pivoted, he said. He cited Airbnb, which started out as a service renting out air mattresses in houses, before pivoting to listing whole homes for rent.

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