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Japanese Venture Capitalist Firm Pivoting to South East Asian Startups

Innovation Weekend Winner

Japanese venture capitalist firm, Sunbridge Global Ventures, is aggressively moving into the South East Asian startup scene, which has exponential growth over the last couple of years.

Like many savvy incubator investors, Sunbridge Global has recognized the scene is to hot to miss out on. What is more, and unlike Japan in many sectors- it remains relatively unsaturated, as this excellent “opportunity map” from TechinAsia shows:

SE Asian opportunity map

Sunbridge Global is partnered by some of the biggest corporations in Japan, such as NTT, Kao, VEC and in the US with the likes of Amazon. Last week at the Innovation Weekend at Singapore, hosted by Sunbridge Global Ventures. The winner, StudyPact, and the runner-up Haystakt– both taking the new crowdfunding fad to new and unique levels. Both projects qualified for attendance, and a chance to pitch, at a Tokyo-based pitch contest in December of this year. Joining them will be the winners and runners-up from pitch contests in Boston, London and Osaka this year.

Sunbridge Global, along with many other established and up and coming venture capital firms in Japan- are evolving from being traditional VC types, to “incubators” who provide platforms and guidance to startup ventures. With their Jannovation Week in Silicon Valley, they are investing in companies all over the world, such as the US platform AnyRoad. It is surely a sign of the times that the new way of approaching investment in South East Asia, with many collaborations between Japanese and Chinese VCs and technology firms (such as LanguageCloud, which Sunbridge Global also invested in)- will not be overly influenced by the older generations still harboring grudges over events which happened over 75 years ago, such as the nanking massacre. The younger generations are not only tech savvy and forward looking, along with awareness that previous generations didn’t have (e.g: the environment, health, etc)- but they also recognize that socially aware entrepreneurship and staying connected to their fellow men and women around world, without censorship, is the best chance the world has for peace and prosperity for all.

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    Originally posted on May 14, 2014 @ 2:39 am

    Bloggers Worst Enemy?

    8 Replies

    I was going to say that carpal tunnel was the worst enemy to bloggers, but Jeff already chose that for his post, and so I will select John Chow (not linking him, go search him out) as the worst enemy to bloggers. Sure, it has been done many times before, and picking on John, who I’ve met and is a great person, seems kind of silly, but let me explain why.

    John Sells the Dream

    One of the biggest misconceptions still out there regarding blogging is that you can make a bunch of money overnight. John earns $1000 per day from his blog, and he built that little empire in a year, so anyone can do it, right?

    Well, not quite. Even if you took all of the same steps towards building and monetizing your site as he did, you would still fall quite short in terms of traffic, fame and revenue. Things have changed online and I highly doubt anyone could copy his steps to get to the same point in the same amount of time.

    John, also rarely adds valuable content to his site, with a strong mix of paid reviews, affiliate program posts, and a variety of content on his own life. These posts really only help to earn him more money without providing much content worth remembering and serves to only persuade people further that what he does is easy to replicate.

    I hear, “I could blog about food and weird products all day too” and shake my head. If only it was that simple, then everyone would be doing it.

    People have long since forgotten that “if it is too good to be true, then it probably is” and this rule holds even more true online than any other medium or communication space before it.

    John Chow is a blogger’s worst enemy. He shows the world a slanted picture of what it means to be a blogger, and is probably solely responsible for many horrible blogging trends online.

    Originally posted on June 23, 2011 @ 8:36 am

    Focus is Hard

    7 Replies

    There are many people that don’t understand what I do for a living. They assume that I can start and stop at any time, and that I am free to go with them to do the things they want me to do. They don’t understand my long hours or why I need things to be structured a certain way, but it all comes down to focus.

    If you want to succeed at working from home and making a living online, be it from blogging or something else, you need to have focus, and you need to find ways to make others understand that the focus to do your job well isn’t easy.

    Right now my focus is really messed up. My wife is only working casually right now which means she is hope a lot more. I am used to her working between eight and twelve hours a day, and so having her home all of the time has absolutely destroyed my normal daily flow and disturbed my focus immensely.

    It isn’t that she is always bothering me, or getting in my way, but she does take advantage of the fact that I am home, no matter how plainly I explain to her that I need to work. She doesn’t understand that I need to take many short breaks between projects to unwind, as well as having uninterrupted periods of time, sometimes for many hours, where I can be productive.

    Without being able to focus on my work, certain extra projects that I used to have time for fall by the wayside. Everything takes longer because I am not getting into that “groove” where I reach my peak productivity, and certain tasks that would normally take me three or four hours, now seem to stretch on for an entire day, only making me feel more stressed, further behind and a little annoyed.

    It definitely makes me want to have an office outside of home, and it is taking a huge amount of time to re-adjust how I get into my focused state so that I can produce quality content in a timely manner.

    So if you have been wondering why this blog has been a little slow lately, now you know. If anyone has any tips to increase my focus, work from home while the wife is home and making the most of such close quarters, I would love to hear them. Please let me know in the comments below.

    Originally posted on May 25, 2011 @ 4:02 pm

    Stay Away From the Obvious

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    I was talking to a friend recently and he wanted me to help him promote an article on a web development subject that was, in my mind, very old news. It was an article on xhtml tables versus divs.

    I knew what the article would say before ever even clicking the link and of course, after checking it out, I was right.

    I told him my thoughts on the article and he was a little taken back. He thought it was a good post about something that beginning users wouldn’t know.

    My advice to him was to stir up controversy and stay away from the obvious. Everyone is fighting over the obvious ways of doing and saying things.

    If the article had said that complex designs were leading to using too many div tags and that while tables were still not the answer, understanding the use of other xhtml elements could streamline code and build a better, more semantic site, then I would have been impressed.

    When you are tackling a subject, you need to find your hook. You need to find something that will set you apart from everyone else. If they are all applauding a piece of software, go over it with a fine tooth comb, and point out its flaws. If they are all loving an application for one reason, then try to find a different reason why it is good.

    Our jobs as writers is to teach, inspire, translate and open people’s eyes. If your post is nothing but a repeat, you loose the opportunity to captivate the people that stumble onto your site, and transform them into repeat visitors.

    What steps do you take to stay away from the obvious? Let me know in the comments below.

    Originally posted on July 25, 2011 @ 11:08 am

    Hire Writers Not Bloggers

    6 Replies

    Recently, I have been hit with something interesting when it comes to hiring entry level people to write some content for me on my blog: hiring a writer is better than hiring a blogger.

    Before anyone gets defensive about this, please let me explain my experiences, and understand that I have nothing against blogging as a career, especially since I’ve been employed as one over the last three years.

    I have hired various bloggers before via a jobs board for freelance writers, and they were all just starting out, nearly all of them had only been experienced in writing on their own sites, and so they started off very excited about the job. They over promised and under delivered. They didn’t know how much time and effort it took to consistently push out great content. They fizzled out fast, and eventually, I had to thank them for their time and move on.

    In hiring writers, even ones that have only written a few articles, they seemed to better understand the writing process. They weren’t in it for big money or fame, but instead they were looking for a steady pay check. Sure, some of them have over promised and under delivered as well, but all in all, I have had a better experience hiring freelance writers versus freelance bloggers.

    Could it just be luck of the draw, or something more inherent in the titles people choose to define themselves? In either case, I suggest that people hire writers rather than bloggers. They might not know publishing platforms, or be very good at promoting the content they write, but if you have talent at those things, they will provide a steady stream of content at a reasonable price.

    Note: Again, this is just my personal opinion based on recent experiences. This is in no way meant to imply that being a blogger is bad, but instead an observation that novice freelance bloggers might want to use as a way to self-analyze, as well as an insight that blog owners might want to consider when looking to hire content producers.

    Originally posted on April 27, 2011 @ 8:53 am