293: Entrepreneurship in Asia (Digital Lives Asia DLA5)

Podcast highlights:

• 14:30 Simon: it's interesting to consider how what you see defines the reality you believe in. An exposure to other entrepreneurs early in your life likely gives you the confidence you can do something similar. Digital has changed this so much because we are no longer confined to just looking at the people around us. You can see fascinating stories all over the social media platforms today. Graham: digital then is a great leveler, isn't it? Look at how women in China can see people around them using these digital platforms. They no longer see the model entrepreneur as someone who is older and male.
• 39:05 Simon: when it comes to scaling a business, it's really striking to see the barriers women face in getting access to funding. Graham: in some ways this isn't surprising given investors tend to back what they know, and what they know is men being successful in business. The challenge in Asia is generational. It will take a generation of entrepreneurs who exit with success and decide to go back in to fund the next crop of people. These will be the investors more likely to back women or non-traditional founders.
• 44:55 Simon: the theme emerging from our conversation today is there is definitely an energy around entrepreneurship in Asia. A lot of this is just waiting to be activated. What we need to do is find out how to create the cultures to allow this energy to flourish. Graham: it seems the best thing we can do is to tell people's stories. Help people access inspiration.

Podcast notes:

• 00:05 DLA7 - Digital Lives Asia with Graham Brown and Simon Kemp
• 01:00 Graham: Let's start with the question of where is the most startup-friendly city in Asia today? What city has the best startup to overall population ratio? -- Simon: The obvious answer seems like it would be somewhere in China. But this seems too obvious. Let's say somewhere in Indonesia. Graham: Actually it is in China.
• 02:37 Graham: The city with the most startups per head is Zhuhai, which is right next door to Hong Kong and Macao and part of the whole Pearl River Delta ecosystem. The level of startup activity in Zhuhai is 10 times higher than in the city with the highest level of startup activity in the US, Miami, Florida.
• 05:45 Simon: In looking at entrepreneurship in Asia among millennials, Asia does not seem to be suffering the lack of people trying to create things. Graham: if you look at some of the data coming out of places like the US, you see entrepreneurship as a percentage of the overall population has slipped to something like 5%, which is down from the high a generation ago near 10.5%. The data suggest this generation is the least entrepreneurial generation in the US.
• 08:55 Graham: thinking about why this is the case several things come to mind. First it's a lot harder in the West to be an entrepreneur. Also people are generally comfortable, so there's less of a drive to hustle. Simon: the data also show the burden of student debt in the US. It could also be the people with the drive to be entrepreneurs are finding other ways to scratch that itch so to speak. One way they're doing this is through the gig economy.
• 14:30 Simon: it's interesting to consider how what you see defines the reality you believe in. An exposure to other entrepreneurs early in your life likely gives you the confidence you can do something similar. Digital has changed this so much because we are no longer confined to just looking at the people around us. You can see fascinating stories all over the social media platforms today. Graham: digital then is a great leveler, isn't it? Look at how women in China can see people around them using these digital platforms. They no longer see the model entrepreneur as someone who is older and male.
• 24:08 Graham: coming back to the subject of megacities in Asia.