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Anyone quizzed to define the much-overused word "entrepreneur" can surely come up with at least a short list of hard-hitting synonyms. Self-starter. Risk taker. Trailblazer.
When a clutch of Asian and western entrepreneurs was asked the same question at the Asia Business Conference, however, they phrased their answers slightly differently.
"I've never seen a single entrepreneur that is not optimistic," replied Victor Wang, who is himself an entrepreneur. "They are invariably and always over optimistic. People say, 'Entrepreneurs are risk taking.' I disagree. [Entrepreneurs] just take risks without knowing it.
"That means that they're dumb," he said with a wink.
The Chinese-born Wang is founder and president of the wireless solutions firm GWcom, Inc., headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, with operations in Hong Kong and other Chinese cities. His opinion met with amused agreement among four other risk-taking entrepreneurs who filled a panel at the conference.
Though some characteristics of the breed may be universal, panelists said, there are also a number of uniquely Asian conditions for entrepreneurship that even the smartest, and dumbest, risk takers need to know.
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The same, yet different
Even governments can be entrepreneurial, suggested Yong Ying-I, of Singapore. Yong (HBS MBA '90), the CEO of an information and communications technology group, Infocomm Development Authority, within a ministry of the Singapore government, believes that neither segment necessarily cancels out the other.
Asked if there is a difference between conditions for starting businesses in Asia versus the west, Yong replied of herself, with a smile, "[As] a government person, you're going to hear a government answer. The answer is yes and no."
Some aspects of entrepreneurship, Yong allowed, are the same everywhere, and she broadened the term to mean not only the inception of new businesses but also innovation within large companies, a factor not usually contemplated when talking about entrepreneurship.
The main determinant of whether a particular country will be successful from the entrepreneurship developed there, she said, stems from the education level in that country. "The big problem is about knowledge-intensive jobs," she said. "If you ask which country in Asia will do well in the new economy, and in entrepreneurship, I would look at those with high levels of education."
Societal mindsets also weigh in on what constitutes an appropriate career, Yong offered. Historically, in the Chinese division of Asia, she said, many parents yearned to see their children grow up to become doctors or lawyers. "Merchants were at the lowest end of job acceptability," Yong explained. "These attitudes are changing; they're changing very rapidly. I would argue they're changing across Asia.
"The reason is simple. It's publicity. And it's enormous wealth. Everybody knows who Bill Gates is. I would say the name recognition is probably 95 percent; the other five percent would be the farmers in the villages." Increasingly, Yong added, there are Asian success stories, too, which inspire other people to try their hand.
New, yet old
James Root, president of e-business service provider NetCel360, headquartered in Hong Kong, outlined a couple of other activities going on in Asia that don't fit the usual definition of entrepreneurship, either. Neither of the entrepreneurial activities, he hastened to add, is anything new in Asia. ("The only other word that's more devalued and misconstrued [than entrepreneurship] is strategy," Root pointed out, in an aside.)
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| People say, 'Entrepreneurs are risk taking.' I disagree. [Entrepreneurs] just take risks without knowing it. | |
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| —Victor Wang, of GWcom, Inc. |
For one thing, Asia is a land of small businesses, Root reminded the audience. And, entrepreneurs have also cropped up among managers of multinational corporations operating in Asia. "You may think [this] is a strange addition to this list," Root noted, before providing one example about Phil Kelly, the founder and chairman of Root's company. According to Root, Kelly got his start in Asia when he was hired by Dell Computer, and was reportedly instructed by Michael Dell to 'Build me a business; there's nothing there.'
The government influence on industries is also a factor affecting entrepreneurship, Root told the HBS audience. Governments obviously control the means of production, financial services, telecoms, infrastructure, and power, he said; and these are all areas where entrepreneurs have found great opportunities in the U.S. and in Europe. The Asian landscape is not so inviting in that regard.
"Connected to that at some level are cartels," Root noted. "Cartels are difficult to entrepreneur against. Some cartels are very explicit, some are very implicit."
According to Robert Kenny, cofounder and a vice president of the Hong Kong incubator IncubASIA, the main drivers of entrepreneurship in Japan and Korea stem from the fact that people are losing their jobs due to corporate reshuffling. "They haven't been given a choice," Kenny declared. "They've been sacked. They become entrepreneurs by default."
A unique dilemma
While all entrepreneurs need five basic qualities, stated Shanghai native and venture capitalist Tao Feng, the emphasis is going to shift depending on which country the entrepreneur works in. An innovative spirit, the ability to take initiative, and ambition, as well as what he called "strong compromising skills" and good vpeople skills" are necessary everywhere, he said. For China, however, Feng, the managing partner of Shanghai-based NewMargin Venture Capital, which invests in IT, telecommunications, and software, said that the abilities to compromise and to work with other people are bound to take precedence.
Victor Wang offered remarks for the HBS audience based on his unique perspective as an Asian who operates both in the east and the west—with work in China and Silicon Valley. An entrepreneur is someone who creates incremental wealth through innovation, Wang pointed out. Based on that definition, he said, entrepreneurship is universal and "a part of human desire.
"There's no such thing as 'Asian economics,'" declared Wang. "There's no such thing as 'Asian science.'
"Having said that," he continued, "the environment, the cultures, the infrastructure are vastly different." American entrepreneurs, he observed, seem more idealistic, better at challenging the establishment. Asian entrepreneurs, in Wang's opinion, are more practical.
There is an additional difference, he added. "In China, and I believe in most Asian countries," he said, "the most important thing is that you cannot afford to lose face.... While in America, [people are] always trying to cover their ass. That's the real system.
"So when people ask me, 'Victor, when you come back to China to run a business, what's the biggest change?', my answer is, 'I'm caught between face and ass.'
"But," he added, "universal entrepreneurship can deal with both."
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