Malaysia Serving Asia
Within a span of a few years, Tony Fernandez rose from relative obscurity to become the most visible global Malaysian trailblazer. He achieved this by tapping demand from the South East Asian consumer market and turned a flailing airline into one of the fastest growing transportation enterprises in human history. However almost ten years before AirAsia was defibrillated, this model was established by earlier generation of younger trailblazing Malaysians - the technoprenuers.
Before Google, iPods and Napster were born, Mark Chang created MOL.com in 1995 and its spinoff Jobstreet in 1997. MOL was subsequently reborn and steered by Ganesh Banga into the regional virtual payment juggernaut. Macrokiosk, Asia's mobile messaging leader, were created by the enterprising Goh brothers in 2000. In 1989, even before the time of Netscape, Windows 3.0 and the Intel 80486 chip, Goh Peng Ooi started Silverlake. Silverlake have since dominated retail banking technology in South East Asia.
Successful Malaysian technoprenuers did not invent their respective products or service offerings. Similar to AirAsia, they excelled by applying their second-mover advantage in a burgeoning market. In fact, the cup of history is filled by enteprenuers that used the same formula.
The "Anheuser-Busch" phenomenon
In 1852 mid-west America, ten years before MIT and forty years years before Stanford University, a St Louis based venture was silently created between two German immigrants. They took over an ailing, debt ridden brewery. Eberhard Anheuser, a successful and experienced soap entreprenuer partnerned with his son-in-law Adolphus Busch, descended from a family involved in breweries. In order to survive, this new partnership had to do something different.
Much like Malaysia and South East Asia today, North America had no new knowledge or technology at that time. This forced Busch to look overseas for ideas. He trekked and researched Europe extensively, looking for something new for America. After much effort, he discovered and imported a new process called pasteurization which lengthened the life of their product to allow sale in distant markets. Before this venture, brewers could only conduct their business in local communities because the product had a limited shelf life. Busch also imported a new cooler taste that suited USA's warmer climate, especially newly minted states such as Texas and Louisiana.
The result was a hit. The combination of a burgeoning consolidated market, smart use of imported technology and guidance by an experienced entreprenuer created one of the largest companies in the world: "Budweiser".
Not all Blue Oceans need invented products
Irish playwright Oscar Wilde, born in 1854, once said "Talent borrows, genius steals". Prominent Americans of his generation tended to agree. Henry Ford, a first generation Irish-American born in 1863, built the largest car company in the world by selling cheap vehicles to Americans using the automotive assembly process developed by Frenchman Marc Brunel. Andrew Carnegie, born in 1835, was a poor Scottish immigrant who became extremely rich by importing the Bessemer process from England and selling cheap iron to the American market.
Another example of imported know-how is rubber. Today, Malaysia is a global leader in rubber industries and technology. This leadership came from English colonists who brought rubber production capability into Malaysia from South America in the 1870s to serve a burgeoning global market fuelled by the second industrial revolution.
Today, the next big thing in business is cloud, mobile, social media and the social enterprise. The big opportunity for Malaysians and others in the region is to localise and optimise the newest models in North America. This is the model used by successful Indian and Chinese technology firms in their markets.
South East Asia is turning into a Red Ocean market?
Coincidentally, South East Asia is also starting to fire all its pistons. After fifteen long years in the dark, South East Asia has finally shaken off most the stink from the Asian financial crisis. Its middle income population exceeds India's and continues to grow. The region is also swiftly gaining recognition from world-leading economists as a major market. In fact, CLSA forecasts the number of millionaires here should double within five years.
The internet giants of the 1990's ignored South East Asia and allowed Malaysian players to dominate during the crisis. This time will be different. South East Asia will be crowded by old school technology giants, web 1.0 and 2.0 titans, established Malaysian players, and newbies from around the region. You can also count foreign ventures such as iProperty and myDeals that use Malaysia as their home, testbed and international launchpad.
One can look at Malaysia's players in the same way the global market is looking at Google today. Some argue Google is a 15 year old company which has lost some of its original excitement and lustre. Newcomers such as facebook, twitter, pinterest, foursquare and Groupon have found a more alluring and lucrative way to generate revenue from the same users and corporations that feeds Google coffers. They could do to Google, what Google themselves did to Microsoft's Office and Windows.
Time for a Malaysian vanguard
If Malaysia attracted or started to build world-class technology universities in the mid-1990's, the game for other nations in the region would be over by now. Malaysia would also be in pole position for the next race. Although this still may not happen for at least another 15 years, there is still a great advantage. Malaysians already have a small army of seasoned, successful and battle hardened technopreneurs. They are also joined by a stream of digital media firms such as Les' Copaque, Animonsta, Third Rock and KRU who have taken the region by storm. Like Google, the Malaysian entreprenuers are far from dead. They are strong, well managed, and have considerable room to capture new markets.
So the question is why are the key players in the market not leveraging on each together? One example is smart capital. If you look at the best venture capital firms, they are stocked with successful entreprenuers. It is the perfect time for fund managers from public and private sectors to find ways for successful Malaysian technoprenuers to become venture capitalists.
Every successful startup had partners, every entreprenuer who made it had world-class mentors. The "lone wolf" entreprenuer is a fallacy. All the successful Malaysian technoprenuers had mentors who played a critical role in their success. It is the same case for American icons, including Steve Jobs. Malaysian startups must find successful entreprenuers to guide them or face oblivion. Likewise, successful leaders of Malaysian industry should pay forward and payback to the industry, or face obsolescence.
South East Asia is going to be an interesting battle ground for Malaysian players. Even without world-class universities, Malaysia has a good chance of consolidating leadership in the region. The challenge is not to spoil what has been built. The opportunity is to identify where our strength truly lies and leverage on it. But the window is closing fast.
***************************************************************
Box: I wrote last year about Singapore's potential to attract more top-tier venture capitlalists because of their commitment to world class education. Well it has happened through Tim Draper, who runs DFJ. His father founded and ran Sutter Hill Ventures in 1964. His grandfather founded and ran the first venture capital firm in the California, in Palo Alto. Tim Draper invested in a Singapore based incubator last year and there are prospects for more to join.
Within a span of a few years, Tony Fernandez rose from relative obscurity to become the most visible global Malaysian trailblazer. He achieved this by tapping demand from the South East Asian consumer market and turned a flailing airline into one of the fastest growing transportation enterprises in human history. However almost ten years before AirAsia was defibrillated, this model was established by earlier generation of younger trailblazing Malaysians - the technoprenuers.
Before Google, iPods and Napster were born, Mark Chang created MOL.com in 1995 and its spinoff Jobstreet in 1997. MOL was subsequently reborn and steered by Ganesh Banga into the regional virtual payment juggernaut. Macrokiosk, Asia's mobile messaging leader, were created by the enterprising Goh brothers in 2000. In 1989, even before the time of Netscape, Windows 3.0 and the Intel 80486 chip, Goh Peng Ooi started Silverlake. Silverlake have since dominated retail banking technology in South East Asia.
Successful Malaysian technoprenuers did not invent their respective products or service offerings. Similar to AirAsia, they excelled by applying their second-mover advantage in a burgeoning market. In fact, the cup of history is filled by enteprenuers that used the same formula.
The "Anheuser-Busch" phenomenon
In 1852 mid-west America, ten years before MIT and forty years years before Stanford University, a St Louis based venture was silently created between two German immigrants. They took over an ailing, debt ridden brewery. Eberhard Anheuser, a successful and experienced soap entreprenuer partnerned with his son-in-law Adolphus Busch, descended from a family involved in breweries. In order to survive, this new partnership had to do something different.
Much like Malaysia and South East Asia today, North America had no new knowledge or technology at that time. This forced Busch to look overseas for ideas. He trekked and researched Europe extensively, looking for something new for America. After much effort, he discovered and imported a new process called pasteurization which lengthened the life of their product to allow sale in distant markets. Before this venture, brewers could only conduct their business in local communities because the product had a limited shelf life. Busch also imported a new cooler taste that suited USA's warmer climate, especially newly minted states such as Texas and Louisiana.
The result was a hit. The combination of a burgeoning consolidated market, smart use of imported technology and guidance by an experienced entreprenuer created one of the largest companies in the world: "Budweiser".
Not all Blue Oceans need invented products
Irish playwright Oscar Wilde, born in 1854, once said "Talent borrows, genius steals". Prominent Americans of his generation tended to agree. Henry Ford, a first generation Irish-American born in 1863, built the largest car company in the world by selling cheap vehicles to Americans using the automotive assembly process developed by Frenchman Marc Brunel. Andrew Carnegie, born in 1835, was a poor Scottish immigrant who became extremely rich by importing the Bessemer process from England and selling cheap iron to the American market.
Another example of imported know-how is rubber. Today, Malaysia is a global leader in rubber industries and technology. This leadership came from English colonists who brought rubber production capability into Malaysia from South America in the 1870s to serve a burgeoning global market fuelled by the second industrial revolution.
Today, the next big thing in business is cloud, mobile, social media and the social enterprise. The big opportunity for Malaysians and others in the region is to localise and optimise the newest models in North America. This is the model used by successful Indian and Chinese technology firms in their markets.
South East Asia is turning into a Red Ocean market?
Coincidentally, South East Asia is also starting to fire all its pistons. After fifteen long years in the dark, South East Asia has finally shaken off most the stink from the Asian financial crisis. Its middle income population exceeds India's and continues to grow. The region is also swiftly gaining recognition from world-leading economists as a major market. In fact, CLSA forecasts the number of millionaires here should double within five years.
The internet giants of the 1990's ignored South East Asia and allowed Malaysian players to dominate during the crisis. This time will be different. South East Asia will be crowded by old school technology giants, web 1.0 and 2.0 titans, established Malaysian players, and newbies from around the region. You can also count foreign ventures such as iProperty and myDeals that use Malaysia as their home, testbed and international launchpad.
One can look at Malaysia's players in the same way the global market is looking at Google today. Some argue Google is a 15 year old company which has lost some of its original excitement and lustre. Newcomers such as facebook, twitter, pinterest, foursquare and Groupon have found a more alluring and lucrative way to generate revenue from the same users and corporations that feeds Google coffers. They could do to Google, what Google themselves did to Microsoft's Office and Windows.
Time for a Malaysian vanguard
If Malaysia attracted or started to build world-class technology universities in the mid-1990's, the game for other nations in the region would be over by now. Malaysia would also be in pole position for the next race. Although this still may not happen for at least another 15 years, there is still a great advantage. Malaysians already have a small army of seasoned, successful and battle hardened technopreneurs. They are also joined by a stream of digital media firms such as Les' Copaque, Animonsta, Third Rock and KRU who have taken the region by storm. Like Google, the Malaysian entreprenuers are far from dead. They are strong, well managed, and have considerable room to capture new markets.
So the question is why are the key players in the market not leveraging on each together? One example is smart capital. If you look at the best venture capital firms, they are stocked with successful entreprenuers. It is the perfect time for fund managers from public and private sectors to find ways for successful Malaysian technoprenuers to become venture capitalists.
Every successful startup had partners, every entreprenuer who made it had world-class mentors. The "lone wolf" entreprenuer is a fallacy. All the successful Malaysian technoprenuers had mentors who played a critical role in their success. It is the same case for American icons, including Steve Jobs. Malaysian startups must find successful entreprenuers to guide them or face oblivion. Likewise, successful leaders of Malaysian industry should pay forward and payback to the industry, or face obsolescence.
South East Asia is going to be an interesting battle ground for Malaysian players. Even without world-class universities, Malaysia has a good chance of consolidating leadership in the region. The challenge is not to spoil what has been built. The opportunity is to identify where our strength truly lies and leverage on it. But the window is closing fast.
***************************************************************
Box: I wrote last year about Singapore's potential to attract more top-tier venture capitlalists because of their commitment to world class education. Well it has happened through Tim Draper, who runs DFJ. His father founded and ran Sutter Hill Ventures in 1964. His grandfather founded and ran the first venture capital firm in the California, in Palo Alto. Tim Draper invested in a Singapore based incubator last year and there are prospects for more to join.
