The Republic Day of India, the date on which the Constitution of India came into effect on 26, January 1950, replaced the Government of India Act (1935) as the governing document of India and thus, turning the nation into a newly formed republic. We gathered together to celebrate the Republic Day of India and invited Indian experts from different backgrounds to share information about the market & investment in India at the celebration tea party. After the peak of the epidemic in 2021, the vaccination penetration rate in India has increased, and the government has also sprung into action to promote monetary and fiscal policies to strengthen the economy. With China cracking down on the technology industry, international investors are looking to India as an emerging market for investment, which leads to an IPO boom of technology startups in India in 2021. Moreover, the growth of tech startups and the electric vehicle industry is expected to continue growing substantially in 2022.
Prior to the main sharing session from the speakers, we belted out the national anthem of India to celebrate this special day. Throughout these years, we’ve nurtured more than 40 startup teams to pursue their dreams and have seen booming Indian startup power in Taiwan. In addition to introducing STARTBOARD’s Indian teams, Dr. Dinesh Kumar launched his new product – DAILYGUDS, a trade automation platform that aims to automate the goods redistribution process of a country starting in Taiwan.
DAILYGUDS – product launch
India & Taiwan: A Synergic Collaboration for a Better Tomorrow
Ms. Arpita Dutta as the Senior Legal Consultant of Louis International Patent Office gave a detailed overview of India & Taiwan’s synergic collaboration. Based on both countries’ policies, talent resources, import & export categories, Taiwan is now facing a talents shortage and India’s young & high-tech talent pool is an important resource. Also, the trading categories of both countries seem to have complementary advantages. She also analyzed the startup environment and emphasized the importance of IP support, legal & pre-investment consultation, and company registration when developing the business into a new market.
Senior Legal Consultant of Louis International Patent Office – Ms. Arpita Dutta
The Investment Environment and Preferential Policies of Indian Market
Dr. Dinesh Kumar as the Regional Chairman-Asia of Indo-Foreign Business Council(IFBC) shared the information of India’s market and investment opportunities. In FY 2020-21, FDI inflows (including equity, re-invested earnings, and capital) reached the amount of US$81.72 billion, 10 percent higher than the previous year. Utilities, financial services, and healthcare ranked highest amongst industries likely to make new investments in India. There are also more and more international investors looking to invest in India, like Japan, the UK, Singapore, and the USA.
Regional Chairman-Asia, Indo-Foreign Business Council(IFBC), India. – Dr. Dinesh Kumar
How I Became a Serial Entrepreneur in Taiwan
Dr. Nikhil Pathak as the Founder of Sohum Foods shared his stories and experiences of being a serial entrepreneur in Taiwan. In 2018 he founded GoEco, producing bio-based, disposable eat-ware products. After several unsuccessful experiences, he combined those and founded Sohum Foods – an Indian vegan restaurant & cloud kitchen. He not only shared his failure but mentioned the important mindset of being an entrepreneur. Besides, he gave a brief introduction of Taiwan’s startup environment and its main strengths – convenience, speed & reliability, events & interactions.
Founder of Sohum Foods – Dr. Nikhil Pathak
We were happy to see the audience asking questions and networking with all the speakers after the speeches, building connections with the Indian community in Taiwan. And that’s STARTBOARD’s mission from day 1, providing enterprises interested in the ASEAN market with firsthand information, and encouraging more ASEAN talents to build their business in Taiwan. We celebrated Republic Day and hope for the continued prosperity of India.
Launched by the Thai government in 2016, the new economic transformation strategy – ‘Thailand 4.0’ aims to accelerate industrial transformation and to promote innovation, creativity, and advanced technology. Thailand has made remarkable economic development to further its strategy as Asia’s business center for multinational companies looking to penetrate into the Asian consumer market. Even though there are some challenges remaining due to political factors and the COVID-19 pandemic, many innovative business models have been created to accelerate the digitalization of the companies’ services and recent startups specializing in fintech, e-commerce, online trading, and SaaS have become more trending. Major steps have been taken to create ecosystems for startup incubation as it follows the ‘Thailand 4.0’ policies to support startup development at all stages. The steps include financial support and risk management, capacity-building for Thai and international startups, and increased connectivity with the regional and global communities. And so, STARTBOARD held the Thailand Theme Night on November 19th, 2021 in hope to encourage more entrepreneurs nor investors who are interested in the Thailand market to have a better understanding of the startup environment.
Prior to the main sharing session from the speakers, we received a few welcoming speeches from our special guests at the event. Firstly, Acting Executive Director of Thailand Trade and Economic Office (TTEO) Mr. Sunh Arunrugstichai briefly explained Thailand’s development as a country. Despite the COVID situation, the bilateral trade and investment between Taiwan and Thailand are still sailing smoothly. In terms of ease of doing business in Thailand, it recently has shown more opportunities, especially to young entrepreneurs, due to increased internet access and access to mobile banking. Moreover, he also mentioned how the Thai government has been initiating an Eastern Economic Corridor project (EEC) to prepare the zone for the digital era by emphasizing in the 12 industries that are considered as important drivers for the country’s sustainable development.
Mr. Sunh Arunrugstichai – Acting Executive Director of Thailand Trade and Economic Office (TTEO)
Assistance Investment Promotion Officer of Thailand Board of Investment (BOI) in Taipei Office Mr. Kittipong Thapanapaha talked about ‘Thailand Investment Opportunity for Digital Industry’ and briefly explained why chose Thailand as a place to invest. Thailand is considered as the Crossroads of ASEAN due to the country being surrounded by the world’s economic powerhouses which can provide more opportunities for startups and investors to not just focus on Thailand, but also on the surrounding neighboring countries. The country has also been recognized to be a manufacturing-based industry for decades but it’s time to move forward with the Thai government strategy called ‘Thailand 4.0’ so as to enhance efficiency in the production process and increase competitiveness. He also briefly introduced the BOI promotion incentive package and the digital promotable activities.
Mr. Kittipong Thapanapaha – Assistance Investment Promotion Officer of Thailand Board of Investment (BOI) in Taipei Office
Director of Thai Trade Office in Taipei Ms. Kallaya Leewongcharoen briefly introduced the Department of International Trade Promotion (DITP) with its mission to help Thai entrepreneurs to be competitive on the global stage by providing consultation and facilitating them through various service channels. It is also DITP’s mission to increase business opportunities for Thai products and services through international trade shows while also continually increasing the quality of their services.
Ms. Kallaya Leewongcharoen – Director of Thai Trade Office in Taipei
Representative of Thai Student Association in Taiwan (TSAT) Ms. Natwara Lohapraditakon briefly introduced TSAT which is an online community where Thai students gather together to share information about life and education in Taiwan. TSAT has done collaboration and receives funding from the TTEO for the events and gatherings they hold each year.
Vice President of NTUST Thai Student Association Mr. Chairat Mooksri briefly introduced the NTUST Thai Student Association in hopes that through this event the Thai students from NTUST can get more opportunities in the future such as special seminars, workshops, collaboration from organizations, or sponsorships.
In the video, President of Taiwanese Student Association in Thailand Mr. Nicolas briefly introduced the Taiwanese Student Association in Thailand which is officially the first Taiwanese student organization in Southeast Asia. Their organization’s main emphasis is to strengthen the relationship between full-time and exchange students that are living in Thailand. They also want to advocate the interchange of culture and education between Taiwanese and Thai people, especially the students.
By moving on to the main topics of the event, STARTBOARD has also invited wonderful speakers from different companies to share their experiences in building or expanding their business into Taiwan or Thailand.
The Business Opportunities between Thailand and Taiwan in a Post-pandemic Future
Ms. Woranath Khemasiri as the PwC Thai Accountant (Thai Expert of NETA) shared about the PwC launched the yearly Taiwan CEO Survey by interviewing CEOs of Taiwanese businesses who are listed in the Taiwan stock market and also the private sector. Based on this year’s Taiwan CEO survey, the CEOs’ view towards the post-pandemic future is positive as they expect the business to continuously expand and grow abroad. They also see the potential of Thailand, Korea, and Malaysia to be the biggest markets in the next few years. Due to the pandemic and the rise of conflict between the U.S. and China, it pushed the Taiwanese CEOs to consider risk management of their business and determine the possibility of which country to expand into. Then, she moves on to explain a few things to know about Thailand’s recent economic challenges and prospects for recovery. The tourism sector around the world undoubtedly got affected the most during the pandemic which led people to find places that are safe to travel to. For the country to change into a post-pandemic future, they need to upgrade the automatic sector as they are still traditionally doing business. And as for foreign investment in Thailand, business owners would still encounter some restrictions so they need to make sure that their business complies with the law while also managing to get tax incentives from the government.
Ms. Woranath Khemasiri – PwC Thai Accountant
Connect the Future by mmWave Technologies
Mr. Su-Wei Chang as the Founder and CEO of TMYTEK mentioned that two important things to remember when moving towards digitalization are energy as in power to the future and communication. The company’s mission is to improve life quality with mmWave bandwidth as the 5G spectrum will keep growing bigger into the future. Then he moved on to talk a little bit about Metaverse which is about connecting the virtual world with reality. With a lot of bandwidth like mmWave, it can support the foundation of Metaverse and also achieve a future where all smart cities are connected. As a startup, he wants the company to be able to solve any problems related to mmWave. And so, the first product they made is BBox which currently has delivered 100 sets of it to companies including KDDI, SoftBank, Fujitsu, several Fortune 500 companies, and research institutions. Furthermore, the company recently announced the world’s 1st 5G mmWave Developer Kit for Academics and Research while also wanting to support mmWave talent incubation. Lastly, the reason Mr. Su-Wei Chang chose to enter the Thailand market other than having good connections with many Thai friends, it’s currently not easy for the business to go back to Europe and the U.S., especially with the recent global economic situation. He concluded that Thailand is considered to be a good place to build businesses for many reasons such as the population being very open to it.
Mr. Su-Wei Chang – Founder and CEO of TMYTEK
KOL Marketing in Thailand
Ms. Thelma Lin as the Director of Taiwan to South Association talked about how some of the social media are utilized in Thailand. During the pandemic, few of the internet eConomy sectors were on the rise, especially the online media sector. Firstly, Facebook is still widely used by Thai people even with its complex algorithm to reach the target audience. She emphasizes the importance of knowing how the algorithm works and to try an advertisement mix to analyze what kind of content will attract the right audience. Then for marketing through Instagram, picture quality matters because it can attract more followers if the quality of content is good. Last but not least, Youtube is all about putting more emphasis on long-tail SEO, especially in how frequently you update with quality content. In addition to those social media platforms, LINE is also considered to be very popular in Thailand. According to Ms. Thelma Lin, Thailand has the second most LINE users, coming behind Japan as the number one LINE users in the world.
Ms. Thelma Lin – Director of Taiwan to South Association
The e-commerce market and industry in thailand
Ms. Bow as the Thailand Marketing Specialist of GDT briefly mentioned the company’s services such as e-commerce, influencer, and payment & fulfillment. In terms of e-commerce solutions, GDT would always recommend building an official website as it’s the best way to build first impressions and gather brand-based memberships. Moreover, nearly 98% of users browse websites via portable devices so owning an application is also useful to save marketing budget and enhance the relationship between customers and brands.
GDT can also provide OMO (Online Merge Offline) solutions and fulfillment solutions; which is about building the company’s very own warehouse. With their solutions, the GDT team is capable of providing the most thoughtful service with effectiveness in cost and time, plus OMO opportunities. Lastly, when Ms. Bow was being asked about the differences in marketing strategies in ASEAN countries, she mentioned some countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia would have their own social media platforms so it may be harder for business owners to penetrate into those markets. However, in the case of Thailand, it has more international platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LINE, etc. The other problem that should be taken into consideration when applying the marketing strategy in other countries such as ASEAN would be the language barrier.
Ms. Bow – Thailand Marketing Specialist of GDT
Smart Fitness Solution and Business Model
Ms. Frances Huang as the Business Development Manager of Uniigym introduced the company as a platform that consists of people who love sports and builds solutions for people who love exercise without worrying about time and space. Furthermore, they help to enhance the fitness experience by the use of AR trainers (AI interactive fitness service). The service not only benefits the families but also the trainers who want to build their personal brand. The technology will track the movement for its accuracy and also record exercise history and health data tracking. Lastly, the reason why she chose Thailand for expanding Uniigym services is that the people in Thailand are very open-minded to new things and are looking for convenient ways to connect with each other. So due to already having connections in Thailand, she easily managed to hire trainers, employees and influencers.
Ms. Frances Huang – Business Development Manager of Uniigym
After the speeches, we also arranged time for the audience to ask questions and to network with all the speakers. Many Thai students and talents in Taiwan came to build connections with Taiwanese companies and startups. And connecting the entrepreneurial ecosystems of Taiwan and ASEAN countries is always our mission. STARTBOARD will consistently fulfill our vision and we toasted for the continued prosperity of Thailand and the everlasting friendship between our countries.
Singapore is known for being a great place for expatriates, investors, and entrepreneurs looking to tap into emerging markets in Asia. However, due to the outbreak of COVID-19, any further business plan nor expansion came to a halt. Fortunately, Singapore already has a strong foundation in “Fintech”, “Information and Communication Technology” and “Service Industry” which can lead to further development of digital transformation. And so, STARTBOARD held the Singapore Theme Night on October 29th, 2021 in hope to encourage more entrepreneurs nor investors who are interested in the Singaporean market to have a better understanding of the startup environment.
The successful event was filled with many honorable guests such as Mr. Stephen Sun (Secretary-General of NUS Business School Taiwan Alumni Chapter), Mr. Chien-Ping Chung (Director of the Incubation Center of NTUST), Mr. Michael Lai (Public Relations Director of Singapore Taiwanese Student Association), and Ms. Roanne Hsieh (Vice President of AIESEC in Taiwan). STARTBOARD has also invited two Singaporean experts who are willing to share their hands-on experiences in the Singaporean market. Firstly, Mr. Aaron Asher Su (Seasoned Marketing & Sales Professional), who has gained a wealth of experience of 15 years in marketing, sales & business development. Next is Mr. Quentin Yang (Business Development Manager of Glints) who is the founding member of Glints Taiwan and has rich insights on the market trends and the startup ecosystem.
Cultural Differences in the Workplace between Singapore and Taiwan
Mr. Aaron Asher Su as the Seasoned Marketing & Sales Professional guides us to answer one of the main questions for today’s event: “Why choose Singapore for business or as an individual?”. Since he is a Singaporean living in Taiwan, he shares the reasons why Singapore is considered as the Asia HQ for thousands of global businesses. Strategic location, bigger talent pool, business-friendly environment, and many more as the government will provide various benefits for future startups in Singapore. While it may sound good for businesses only, there are also other benefits for the individual who plans to seek out more opportunities in the country. The work culture in Singapore is more flexible than in Taiwan as the people emphasize the results instead of the work progress. Also with other attractive benefits such as the robust job portals and multicultural diversity can attract numerous opportunists coming to Singapore. Due to the pandemic, many business operations are affected so Aaron emphasized the importance of being digitally transformed as it will bring great advantages to businesses and also upgrade one’s skills from time to time.
Mr. Aaron Asher Su – Seasoned Marketing & Sales Professional
Taiwan Startup Expanding to Singapore
Mr. Chien-Ping Chung, the Director of the Incubation Center of NTUST, shared his insights about expanding businesses into Singapore. Due to the Covid-19 worldwide, the government released policies to support startups with various subsidies in the country. As such, startups can get resources, funding, and the opportunity to expand into other countries. Numerous recommendations will also be given from the government and the efficiency of opening a business can be shortened to one day.
And in the latter section of the event, he moved on to share his experiences as the former director of AImazing. AImazing is a platform for mall management to collect shopper insights, tenant performance, and benchmarking in order to create data-driven decisions. It has supported more than 99% of Point of Sale Systems in Asia. Due to Covid-19, the impact on the economic sector has been greatly affected but more opportunities arise with the presence of digital transformation. To conclude his speech: “Singapore is a great location for most startups because it provides various subsidies”. As he mentioned before, various benefits from the government are accessible to anyone who is interested in setting up their business in Singapore.
Mr. Chien-Ping Chung – Director of the Incubation Center of NTUST
Singapore Entrepreneur in Taiwan
Mr. Quentin Yang, the Business Development Manager of Glints shared about the recruitment journey with Glints. Glints is the largest talent platform for career development and recruitment in Southeast Asia. Their vision is to impact 100 million careers and 1 million organizations and also to be the number 1 talent platform in greater Southeast Asia. Glints’ status is currently on Series C and has over 900 employees; including in Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and Taiwan. They have seen many cases where companies have problems with a talent shortage, longer hiring time, and high hiring costs. To help tackle the recruiting issues, they have built a well-developed talent pool database algorithm and have professional consultants to organize the profiles for matching with the recruiters’ requirements.
The difference he sees between Southeast Asia and Taiwan is that the market in Southeast Asia has shown potential high growth and is also home to the emerging tech ecosystems. With Taiwan, he has seen the blooming startup ecosystem and the growth of skilled tech talents which led him to build the foundation of Glints Taiwan in hopes to expand the company across Taiwan and Northeast Asian countries.
Mr. Quentin Yang – Business Development Manager of Glints
Suzy Shih: A generation Z girl’s wisdom of working and living in an exotic culture
As the leader of Group Southeast Asia in a Japanese corporation, Suzy has equipped herself with strong soft skills in public speaking, effective negotiations and coordination with foreign partners. From her own experiences, she has listed some crucial points we cannot ignore if we ever want to expand career paths to other countries!
Before you negotiate with foreign partners, stand in their shoes instead.
Don’t let culture shock restrain yourself from gaining hands-on experiences.
Focus your sights on things you truly believe.
Anbert Lin: Advice from a senior investor has been a big shot in the arm to potenitial investors.
For those setting your sights on investing Thailand market, sit tight! Mr. Anbert Lin just shared his laser-like perception in making an investment!
E-commerce
In recent years, Thailand’s e-commerce has been gaining popularity, which contributes to its rising value from 2.03 trillion baht in 2014 to 2.81 trillion baht in 2017. In this industry, LAZADA, Shopee could almost best describe the ecosystem, since they are the biggest two leaders in Thailand!
Start-ups
To create more level playing fields for entrepreneurs, the importance of the ecosystem cannot be overestimated! Here are some trivial matters that enable us to see, Thailand’s startup market is quite glorious and could prosper in the near future.
In 2012, there’re only three officially funded startup companies with 2.1 M baht raised; nonetheless, from 2017, there are more than 90 startups founded in Thailand while 280M baht is raised for some brilliant ideas! Investment in a young company could be risky, so detailing inquiry and research become quite pivotal before making any decision!
STARTBOARD participated in 2018 IDEAS Show which were held on July 24 at NTUH International Convention Center. IDEAS Show is a competition for startups companies from different countries, including Taiwan, South Korea, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Peru, the Philippines, Singapore, and also Vietnam.
In this event, each of the startups delivered a 6-minute speech and there are also some exhibition booths to introduce the companies’ products. The event attracted both foreign and Taiwan’s startups who seek for resources and connections, also both local and foreign investors from each industry. Furthermore, it is STARTBOARD’s second time to join IDEAS Show. STARTBOARD is honored to meet and connect a lot of ASEAN-India startup companies in IDEAS Show. Through this event, STARTBOARD connects a total of 5 Southeast Asian startups who are interested to develop in Taiwan markets.
TechGrind, STARTBOARD’s good old friend, also paid a visit to Ideas Show!
The first company that we met is TechGrind from Bangkok, Thailand. TechGrind has teamed up with STARTBOARD since 2017, it’s our utmost pride and joy to participate in this grand event together!
Throughout the years, TechGrind have nurtured 10 startup teams, who are outstanding enough to separate themselves from the crowd. Take Kiidu for example. Kiidu provides all sorts of caregiving services to household, which has been deemed an urgent need across the world — since we’re living in an aging society. Just as its catchy slogan goes “kindest caregivers for the ones you love,” their services are quite catering to people who are always on the go, lacking the time to take care of their babies or elders.
In addition, TechGrind also runs TechGrind Hub, which helds events, workshops, conferences. Holding common values and beliefs, STARTBOARD and TechGrind will make constant efforts hand in hand, looking for the common good for our startup teams!
STARTBOARD team with Pavel Laletin (the second one from the left), the co-founder of TechGrind.
Get your fresh products 24/7 online from Pushkart, a delivery startup from the Philippines!!
Pushkart, based in the Philippines, provides online delivery such as groceries, foods, and goods to the consumers’ house in Manila. Offering such 24-hour delivery services in the area where traffic chaos has been perceived common is an intelligent decision, but why and how did the ideas come on the table? During a casual conversation between two good old friends, Josh Aragon and Bryan Reyes, they sensed the crux of problems — people’s hectic lifestyle, congested traffic in Metro Manila and a long queue of people waiting for payment as well as the time consumed by exiting a parking lot — all sorts of nuisances can freak you out! Therefore, targeting busy workers who have no time to go for groceries, the two brilliant business minds then commit to making online delivery services possible, and here came Pushkart! What’s better, they don’t limit their services only within walking distance to consumers’ location.
Nowadays, Pushkart continues to cooperate with a well-known supermarket from the Philippines, Fish Market and delivers to all areas throughout Metro Manila. In their services, not only do they guarantee consumers the best and fresh products, but they also charge them with legit and just prices!
Are you still anxious about the lack of job opportunities? With the presence of Empleo, job hunting no longer puts you at the wit’s end!
Empleo also originated from the Philippines; it’s a network that tap short-term jobs from individual and enterprises and connect them to trained individuals. Empleo connects the workers to consumers based on consumers’ needs. For example, if a consumer needs someone to fix their generator, then it will connect them to the workers based on the location, skill, and rate. Empleo also has partnership with establishments like restaurants and waste management services that will help them deliver certain wastes to manufacturing industries as alternative raw materials.
With their interesting ideas blossoming, Empleo is also going to apply for STARTBOARD’s batch member, leaving footprints in Taiwan! Now that taking part-time jobs is gone viral among the younger generation, let’s wait and see how Empleo’s platform will work out for Taiwan market.
STARTBOARD with Michael George Lim, the Chief Technical Officer from Pushkart (left) and Mark Balmes, the founder and CEO from Empleo (middle).
Gosama amazed us with a complete omnichannel sales system, which tears the wall between online and brick-and-mortar stores down!
Gosama J.S.C, an ambitious adventurer from Vietnam who offers both retailers consumers with delicate online-offline experiences. To make their omnichannel ecosystem safe and complete,Gosama utilizes blockchain-based platform and even develop Gowallet (Gosama version of e-money) to integrate their services. If these notions are not concrete enough, Gosama has an infographic to offer:
STARTBOARD with Gosama team, the gentleman on the left is the product designer, Alex Hoang, while the lady on the right is Joanna Chilicka, customer relations manager of Gosama.
EZQ, a word of mouth that would be a real shot in the arm regarding comprehensive ecosystem for online business in Vietnam.
EZQ is a comprehensive ecosystem for online merchants, shipper, and buyers. It includes a sales management and promotion tool, and also a straightforward delivery tool. For now, they have two applications which are Snail and Crab respectively.Snail is an application that helps freelance shippers to find delivery orders.As for Crab, it’s an application that helps people to manage the online store easily on the phone.
STARBOARD with EZQ team, Lily Nguyen, the CPO / Co-founder (on the left )and Tom Nguyen, the founder (on the right).
On July 19th, 2018, Thailand Theme Night held by STARTBOARD drew people’s attention, not only because of Thailand market’s volatility and attraction to the general public but our keynote speakers’ crucial insights – It’s undoubtedly an enlightening night full of excitement! So, without further ado, let’s review some of the best lines from our keynote speakers!
Mr.Olan Sumananusorn Culture differences and business development that we cannot ignore
Mr. Olan was born and raised in Thailand; through his 24/7 dedication, he’s had a real good command of Chinese. Believe it or not, he even delivered the speech in Chinese!
Due to his close ties with Thailand, he’s able to walk us through the maze of this overseas bonanza with unique points of view. Take the detailing explanation of its industry for example. Thailand has made the progress by leaps and bounds by focusing on distinguished industry during different period of time; from Thailand 1.0, which essentially made agriculture a focal point, then proceeding to light industry, followed by heavy industry. Nowadays, Thailand 4.0 has been highlighting the significance of creativity as well as innovation, paving the way for “Smart Thailand!”
Given Thailand’s complete supply chain and holistic trade ＆ investment system, in Mr. Olan’s terms, those conditions would rather be attractive, grabbing even more young talents’ attention.
Fiona Lee A Taiwanese young lady’s laser-like perception ultimately led to her huge success of starting up a business in Thailand
In her early 20s, some thoughts had constantly been tangling with Fiona – She’s always longing for a career success and the lure to expand her visions overseas was never settled. Therefore, she started to think about which country she should go and win a hand. She’s made her point very clearly and precisely “ Since in Western countries or such developed Asian markets as Korea or Japan, things were already heated up, and the environment is also highly competitive,” with firm resolution, as a consequence, she chose Thailand to make her stage debut.
Even though quirky challenges got in the way from time to time, Fiona got the talents to conquer all the obstacles; for those having startup ideas at heart and feeling deeply interested in Thailand market, here’s advice from Fiona if you want a successful case: Looking into the market
Her “looking into” here doesn’t merely mean the online research but includes your personal immersion into the market. Recalling the memories, Fiona said she used to sit down on the side, observing what Thai fashion is, and which genre of products may be the hits, so on so forth. Yes, when it comes to a business, standing in clients’ shoe is the priority! Language learning
“If you want to negotiate with Thai people, you definitely need to know their language!” Fiona stated. If in each occasion, whenever we wanna make a deal with Thai people, but instead of direct communication we hired an interpreter, it shows we actually lack the passion to deal with matters! Speaking their language is not just our capability, but also a way to show our concern and respect. Meanwhile, from attending a language school, we can make friends with locals, thus getting deeper insights into what they love, hate, and what their characteristics are! That’s something in terms of building up close social networks. Understanding of legal concepts
This part might be complicated and tedious, but if we ever want to steer our career life right, the basic understanding of legal concepts is a must! Incorporation, recruitment, taxes, bank accounts and visas etc, there’re various procedures we must bear in mind. Don’t let these quirky challenges steer you wrong, take the initiatives and be a problem solver!
Here comes the first Viet night in 2017!!!
This theme night had diverse discussing topics related to startup field such as the passion, the challenges and how Taiwan is a great destination for startups over the world generally and ASEAN-INDIA specifically. Specifically, in the Vietnamese night, not only having Vietnamese Experts Association in Taiwan (VNEAT), but also we invited the founder of Vnimation, a very experienced company in Vietnam about VR Techonology in building and construction, to shared their story while attending the IDEA’s Show @APEC and their plan to expand market to Taiwan!
On July, STARTBOARD team had a chance to visit Tran Thi Hoang Phuon, a lecturer of Vietnamese at National Chengchi University, who serves as chief of DPP New Immigrants’ committee. This committee is under the DPP and launched as a part of the New Southbound Policy of President Tsai Ing Wen. The 12-member committee is composed of new immigrants, scholars and experts, according to the party.
Teacher Tran has lived in Taiwan with her family for many years, so she experienced both pros and cons of being an immigrant in Taiwan. She supported STARTBOARD in the aspect of helping the ASEAN students and startup. We hope in the future, we can work with her and her team in more inspiring projects.
It’s warm-hearting conversation with Teacher Tran and her husband about how to contribute the society.
STARTBOARD team with one of 10 iconic people in Taipei
Recently, STARTBOARD attended different events and meetings with Government representatives, also Taiwanese start ups. Here is some of the photos summarizing our last week.
Meeting with Taiwanese start up Follia
Meeting with Taiwanese start up Follia
Attending with Aimazing on Microsoft BizSpark Event
visit to Department of Industrial Development, National Development Council.
“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.”
