HKUST hosted a panel discussion which compared startup ecosystems in India, Hong Kong and Mainland China by looking into how they have navigated challenges, successes and failures
The event series “Starting Young Starting Smart - The Next Dialogue: The Entrepreneurial Bridge between India, Hong Kong and China” aimed to encourage closer ties between entrepreneurs from Hong Kong, China and India.
During twodays of activities, held in the Asia Society and HKUST in Hong Kong, panellists talked about the challenges and successes they had experienced while building their businesses.
At a kick-off session officiated by Ms Priyanka CHAUHAN, Consul General of India to Hong Kong, the panel at HKUST examined why Hong Kong startups have succeeded in scaling up internationally, but demonstrated limited success in developing an entrepreneurial mindset. By contrast, Indian startups have benefited from having an entrepreneurial mindset embedded in their company cultures, but have struggled to scale up globally.
Lack of belief
“Hong Kong’s startup ecosystem is definitely younger,” said Kevin WONG, Co-founder and CEO of Origami Labs, a company which makes ORII, a smart ring that enables hands-free control of a smartphone. “The system is there, the information is there, and there are some great VCs and institutions trying to push the idea of entrepreneurship. But it has to start from the heart, and I think there’s a lack of belief [in entrepreneurship in Hong Kong],” he said.
Wong, who is an HKUST MBA alumnus, thinks the lack of belief came about because there are no clear-cut instances of entrepreneurs making it big in Hong Kong. The top 100 IPO companies have remained more or less the same, and no startups have really cracked that ceiling, he said.
“Entrepreneurs only take massive risks if there are massive gains to be made” Wong said, adding that the ability of startups to make such impactful gains has yet to be proven. As a result, Hong Kong entrepreneurs tend to take their ideas abroad, and scale up overseas rather than at home.
Entrepreneurship in India is very different, the panel discovered. Ashish WADHWANI, Managing Partner of IvyCap Ventures, said that every decade of the last 50 years has seen one industry in India rise from humble beginnings. Indian culture is entrepreneurially driven, and there have been entrepreneurial success stories in sectors like textiles, gems, auto-components, and IT services. But Indian startups find it difficult to scale up.
“India has a large community of social entrepreneurs,” Wadhwani said. “The challenge has always been to scale up and to globalize. This has happened in pockets, but start-ups have not realized their full potential in these areas.”
The drive to succeed
Start-ups in Hong Kong and India have their differences, but they do share a drive to succeed. This is what made the HKUST panel important, Wadhwani said. “We need to talk about what we have in common. Instead of viewing the situation as ‘them and us’, we need to find commonalities.” Entrepreneurs in both places are driven more by purpose than money, Wadhwani noted: “It’s an emotional decision to form a startup. It’s driven by the heart.”
The latter was true of the panellists. Amit GOYAL, Country Head of India for online course provider edX, was motivated by the desire to help the less fortunate gain access to education. Kevin Wong of Origami Labs was inspired by his hearing impaired father, and Rohit DUGAR, Founder of Young Master Brewery, left a high-profile role in finance to pursue his love for authentic microbrewing.
The next step is to form a viable ecosystem around the product, and then scale up, panellists noted. “You need to add value,” said Goyal. Instead of focusing on low-cost manufacturing, startups should think about creating an ecosystem around the product for the long term, and this includes plans to scale up, Goyal said.
One size does not fit all when it comes to achieving success, panellists said. While some companies focused on scaling up internationally, others focused on the product. Each success story had a different lesson to offer potential entrepreneurs.
Ravneet PHOKELA, Chief Business Officer for Ather Energy, an Indian company which produces an intelligent electric scooter, said it was important to build an ecosystem before scaling up. By contrast, redefining a product that was hundreds of years old was the key to Dugar’s success. “The life cycle of each product is different and every stage of each company’s lifecycle is also different,” said Samir SHAH, Managing Partner at Peak Venture Partners.
Now is the time to take the plunge, panellists agreed. “The aspirational jobs in business schools are now in the world of startups. There is confidence in startups, there is access to talent, and there is access to capital. It’s the perfect storm,” Phokela said.
