Two quarters ago, the future seemed optimistic for Southeast Asia (SEA). Economic projections for the fastest-growing of these economies rose to the high single-digits. Broadband adoption was reaching a critical scale.
New startups driven by a generation of young founders with international experience were rising to the region’s challenges and searching for traction.
It now seems very likely that the economic consequences of this disease outbreak will be generation-changing. While economic and tech expansion will continue, the ground-truths of the current COVID19 situation show that innovative thinking will have to lead us through the disaster.
With sealed off countries, work-from-home lockdowns, and breakdowns in profit growth in nearly every industry vertical, where can founders turn when it comes to finding solutions in this environment?
At AppWorks, we are certain that founders will be among the group of people creating solutions that will bring SEA back to normalcy, and as always, we are ready to rise to the challenge. We have evidence to show that Taiwan can be a country from which SEA founders can re-launch when they are ready.
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Taiwan possesses an e-economy that is not only well-versed in tech usage, but as the largest e-economy in the region, at US$42 billion per year, it has not slowed down significantly during this pandemic. Startup founders have worked with government officials to take an already planned-for mitigation strategy and accentuate it with tech.
From the installation of vending machines that distribute face masks, to an unprecedented tracing technology through mobile and GPS coordinates, Taiwan has stayed ahead of the pandemic curve. It’s economy and its national health statistics have reflected this tech-forward approach.
The knowledge networks that have kept the country’s portion of the supply chain running, and a decade-long history of aiding startup growth, means that smart founders who still have their eyes on expanding through SEA should consider the island as their starting point when this horrifying pandemic eases.
Taiwan will clearly be among the first countries for startup founders to turn for growth and learning when it becomes possible to move freely around the region again.
Taiwan shares more in common economically and technologically with SEA than any other country outside that traditional moniker
Taiwan is an undiscovered launch pad for the region
Companies originally from Singapore — Shopback, social streaming company M17 and the e-commerce unicorn Carousell — have established engineering and R&D teams in Taipei.
Companies such as AI-driven consumer analytics company Tagtoo (AW#1) and Hong Kong-based Omnichat (AW#16) whose founders participated in the AppWorks accelerator, gained much of their traction by leveraging the Taiwan ecosystem.
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All of these companies have used the microcosm of the AppWorks Accelerator and the macro-economy of Taiwan to gain a foothold and expand, through either direct or indirect experience in the semi-annual sessions devoted to blockchain and AI and the community.
Community is an accelerant for learning and scaling
For young founders, a community is a lifeline to growth. In the AppWorks network, 376 operating startups and the 1,113 founders who run them have proven vital for any founder that is trying to solve a hard problem, grow at scale, make acquisitions of talent, or find funding.
Sometimes this network and community come in in-person format, but it can also be virtual, as it has been so especially during the COVID19 pandemic. To accommodate founders who are not able to travel to Taiwan, and to enable connection among founders who continue to build during this time, the accelerator team holds virtual office hours and online seminars via Zoom on a regular basis.
This would be true, in any case, and it has become something of a new manner of doing business. Over the past three years, AppWork’s community has started to span across tech hubs throughout SEA and become more distributed. Over the past 18 months, the number of these startups infiltrating SEA has grown at a 1.6 times pace.
The types of founders in this network give some insight into what kind of knowledge network is at hand during these virtual calls and virtual meetups. In many cases, former accelerator teams have reached a point where they have started to grow and are raising money to fuel expansion. Their insights can provide valuable feedback for other founders who want to go down the same path.
Mentorship by leaders of IPOs shaping decades of ecosystem growth
The AppWorks mentor network provides access to more than 100 seasoned founders, each with at least 10-20 years of experience in nearly every technology business vertical.
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Through an in-person Mentor Day, the accelerator team connects early-stage founders to this network in an intimate setting organised around pitching and personal meetings.
Founders get to meet founders in our investment portfolio such as Sui Rui Quek, founder of Carousell; Joseph Phua, co-founder of live streaming social platform M17; Benjamin Wu, co-founder of iChef.
Peggy Cheung, a Hong Kong founder who established photo platform startup KaChick (AW#19) with co-founder Larry Lam, has firsthand experience with this. She came to Taiwan last year and says that the experiences with her mentor, Ming Chen from travel startup KKday, have focused her development efforts.
“My mentor sometimes sees what I can’t see in myself and gives me the courage to be bold,” she says. “In some cases, our discussions saved me time from dwelling into unimportant matters or walking towards directions that make little sense.”
Resources
Having this kind of human support makes it easier for founders to extract value and make important connections with the macroeconomics of the country.
AppWorks alumnus Andrew Jiang, founder of hardware-as-a-service (HaaS) venture builder Soda Labs, was part of cohort #17. He came to Taiwan from Silicon Valley. To build out his HaaS startup, he partnered with tech giant Foxconn and hired local engineers. These AppWorks Accelerator-fostered connections solved critical problems in Jiang’s mission.
Besides connections, AppWorks provides all the essentials that a startup needs in the early days and that they could otherwise find scattered around the island’s tech hubs like business credits supplied to founders from partners at AWS, GCP, and more.
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Separate from the AppWorks offering, the Taiwanese government itself makes it easier for founders to get established on the island. Recently, the government built out a new initiative called Startup Island, geared to help international founders explore Taiwan as a launching pad.
Though the COVID19 pandemic has put a freeze on new visa issuance temporarily, the government makes it possible for entrepreneurs to apply for an “Entrepreneurs Visa.”
In December, Taiwan’s National Development Fund — a fund of over US$18 billion — announced that it is primed to make investments of at least US$180 million in the next few quarters, largely in Blockchain and AI.
The next steps
While many economies around SEA find themselves grappling with precipitous falls in GDP, with many eyeing security strategies that will seal off their borders and preserve resources for their citizens indefinitely, Taiwan will remain a willing partner to SEA founders seeking to find a foothold here.
We expect that when life returns to what will likely be a new form of normal, the nation and our accelerator will be open, and willing, to help founders from all around the region.
AppWorks runs a semi-annual accelerator for Blockchain and AI startup founders. Their next application period opens in May. Founders can register their contact details at their accelerator site and get the application details sent directly to them when the process begins.
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