Phl technopreneurial market still at infancy

CEBU, Philippines - While identifying the strengths of the country, a global startup founder described the Philippine technopreneurial market as relatively underdeveloped but cited a lot of opportunities for the local startup community to improve on.

Bowei Gai, founder of World Startup Report, visited Cebu last Monday to meet up with local technopreneurs and interview startups, investors and incubators to gather thoughts as part of his Philippine version startup report.

He also went to Manila last week during his stop in the country from April 3 to 13.

He aims to understand the success stories, strengths and challenges in various ecosystems in the globe, connect with local entrepreneurs and active members of the startup community, share best practices and knowledge from Silicon Valley, and enrich them with new learnings.

He will then write a collaboration of these ideas into an innovation map of the country that is intended for local and foreign entrepreneurs, foreign angels and foreign companies.

Gai shared his impression about the country, describing Philippines as a place with big and potential market given its population and economy.

He, however, said that the local startup community is relatively underdeveloped.

He cited that the country has low credit card, Internet and smartphone penetration levels that need to be addressed to cope with the global market.

“As country reaches a level of internet penetration, there should be a series of innovation to be introduced. This should be an opportunity for local entrepreneurs,” he said.

He said that technopreneurs should come up with payment options for online transactions to help people pay for goods even if they don’t have credit cards.

He added that people in South America do not have credit cards but found an alternative to still purchase and pay online.

Online customers get the serial numbers for the online product they have bought over the Internet and present it to their banks for the latter to handle the online payment for them.

Gai added that the local startup community in the country does not also have enough mentoring and success stories, citing that Filipino technopreneurs are “below average”.

“The tech community here is small. They don’t have mentors and enough training compared to other countries do. But it’s okay to have problems. When you’re go, you have no other way to go but down. But when you’re down, your way is nowhere else but up,” he said.

He said that local technopreneurs should change their outlook and aspire for higher goals such as aiming for billion-dollar companies in the future.                      

He, however, pointed out that the local startups should not be discouraged but be challenged instead.

He said that Filipinos should take advantage of their strengths such as English fluency, immediate access to information and economic growth.

“You have a lot of advantages in this place but you haven’t taken of such. It will take a little bit time but it will happen. Don’t worry about that,” Gai said.

He further noted that local startups should change their mentality into a global perspective and think as entrepreneurs.

“In the Asian culture, people follow the norms and rules. But it is different from what is happening in the world. The lifestyle in the country is different in the global market.  For a local to make it big, you should partner with a global company or stay outside of the country. You just don’t listen, you challenge yourself and others to be different Filipinos are a bit afraid of risks though,” he stated.

Angelhack Chief executive officer Greg Gopman echoed the same sentiments as Gai and lauded the huge developer population for startups in the Philippines.

“You have a great market here, the right talent and the right language. It is just a matter of time,” he said.

He noted that the entrepreneurial revolution and resonance has been driven by the hype and influence of people from being geeky and outcast to being cool and trendy.

He cited new and potential markets for startups and developers include Manila and Sydney, Australia but named Bangkok, Jakarta, and Kuala Lumpur as the areas lagging behind in the technopreneurial arena.

Gai is a serial entrepreneur from Silicon Valley who sold the company he co-founded, CardMunch, to LinkedIn in 2011.

In January 2013, he boarded his first flight for a nine-month long trip across 29 countries and 36 cities to research the world's startup ecosystems.

For the first four months of the year, he has visited India, Australia, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Myanmar, Thailand and the Philippines. /JOB (FREEMAN)