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e27’s Kevin McSpadden joined Analyse Asia for a fireside chat covering Hong Kong, Singapore and an interesting debate on ex-pat founders

Analyse Asia is a weekly podcast hosted by Bernard Leong, and features guests from across Asia’s vibrant tech community. e27 will republish the series covering a range of companies, topics and news analysis. To follow Bernard and Analyse Asia, check him out on Twitter and Facebook.

Kevin McSpadden (@kevinmcspadden, LinkedIn), Southeast Asia correspondent, e27.co

• Story of Kevin McSpadden
  • How did Kevin get started in journalism and eventually end up in tech reporting? [1:05]
  • From moving from traditional (Time, Reuters) to online journalism (e27), what are the interesting lessons he learned from his career? [2:26]
  • What made Kevin move from Hong Kong to Singapore to join e27? [3:08]
  • What is his coverage with e27 on Southeast Asia? [3:56]
  • The problem with Asian startups being afraid to disclose their valuations unlike the US startups with their tech media. [4:48]
• Startup Ecosystems in Asia:
  • Singapore vs Hong Kong
    • Reference Grace Chng from Straits Times: Results for OddUp research on HK and SG comparisons – SG 2.5 startups formed per day vs HK 1 startup form per day, ROI for investors – 4.5 times in SG compared to 2.9 times in HK, 13 startups valued over US$100M. [5:47]
    • How is Hong Kong shaping up against Singapore as a hub for entry to Greater China? [6:35]
    • Is the Hong Kong startup ecosystem totally driven by the private sector contrasting that to Singapore which is totally driven by government? [8:05]
    • Influence of China to Hong Kong:
      • Alibaba’s investment into Hong Kong’s startup ecosystem
      • Alibaba’s acquisition of South China Morning Post (SCMP)
      • RISE Conference pulling major guests from Silicon Valley to Hong Kong, and not in Singapore. [10:48]
  • Singapore vs India
    • Singapore as a place where Indian startups such as Flipkart registered their companies due to zero capital gains tax. Will the startup India initiatives announced by Modi deter Indian startups going to Singapore? [12:44]
      • Singapore’s legal, branding and intellectual property laws are close to US and possess strong competitive advantage.

Also Read: This is the year of consolidation for Indian startups: SAIF’s Deepak Gaur

• Malaysia
  • Departure of Cheryl Yeoh from MaGIC – will that derail the Malaysia’s government initiatives to be the startup hub against Singapore? (Ref: Is it time for Malaysian startups to look beyond MaGIC?) [17:16]
  • Malaysia’s bumiputra policy as a hinderance to their startup hub ambitions. [17:43]
• Indonesia
  • What’s the impact of conglomerates such as Lippo Group to the startup ecosystem? [20:28]
  • Singapore VCs like Monk’s Hill have moved to Indonesia, will they be competitive against the big funds? [25:09]
  • What is the impact of Japanese VCs in Indonesia with East Ventures, Gree and DeNA ventures? [26:40]
• Vietnam [27:40]
• Thailand [28:30]

• Discussion: Do immigrants make better startup founders against locals? [29:10]
  • BL’s view: The distribution is about 50-50 and it’s just confirmation bias.

Photo Courtesy of DoublePHOTO studio/shutterstock.com

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