On Wednesday, 20 Web start-up teams will compete for the attention of potential investors and tech companies at the IDEAS Show in Taipei. Winners will receive cash prizes and be given the chance to travel to events in the US and China. The catch? They only have six minutes to present their products.
“It’s a competition, it’s more like a show,” says Kate Lin (林麗真), the associate planner of the Institute for Information Industry (III, 財團法人資訊工業策進會) IDEAS Institute, a think tank and Web start-up incubator that organizes the show. “We want to create an exciting atmosphere.”
The 20 teams, whose products include online services and mobile apps, will not be revealed before the event to preserve an element of surprise, she says. (Tickets are NT$2,000 each, while the IDEAS Expo, which is being held the same day as the IDEAS Show and features booths set up by about 40 Web companies, is free).
Photo Courtesy of III IDEAS Institute
Jeff Yang (楊濟成) of bargaining auction site Saja.com.tw (殺價王), which launched at the 2009 show, says his six minutes onstage were nerve-racking.
“You look down and it’s all members of the media, venture capitalists,” says Yang. “In six minutes, we had to get our most important points across as concisely as possible, ask for what we needed and explain why consumers would want to use Saja.”
But the presentation paid off. “Even though investors didn’t immediately flock to us as soon as we got off the stage, later on when we met with them they told us that was where they had first seen us,” says Yang. Saja.com.tw also received a subsidy from the Ministry of Economic Affairs (經濟部), which enabled its team to move operations out of a university library into an office. Saja.com.tw now has 50,000 registered users and has received a patent in the US, where it plans to expand soon.
Photo Courtesy of III IDEAS Institute
Participants of the IDEAS Show hope to replicate the success story of Atlaspost (地圖日記), which launched as a location-based social networking service in 2007. The next year, III brought the fledgling company to DEMO Fall 2008 in the US; it also participated in the 2009 IDEAS Show.
In December, Atlaspost, which then boasted 1.2 million members, was acquired by Groupon and became Groupon Taiwan.
“All you need for a Web start-up is a computer and a concept,” says Lin. “It’s easy, but also very difficult because entrepreneurs have the ideas but no money. We try to lower the threshold for them.”
Photo Courtesy of III IDEAS Institute
This year’s IDEAS Show is the fourth and largest edition of the annual event, which bills itself as “the Web sector’s Computex.” It will be held at the Taipei International Convention Center (台北國際會議中心). The IDEAS Show is designed to act as a matchmaker that pairs Taiwanese entrepreneurs with an international lineup of investors. Companies that will attend include Intel, Qualcomm and Zynga Japan (the social network game developer’s general manager Shintaro Yamada is the keynote speaker), as well as show sponsors Asus WebStorage, Sonet and FarEastTone.
The IDEAS Show is directed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and planned by III IDEAS Institute. It has grown quickly since its launch in 2008 — there were 400 attendees at the first show; last year there were 2,000 attendees. The 20 teams participating this year were selected from 60 applicants.
Nathan Chiu (邱繼弘), the chief executive officer and founder of FunP (www.funp.com), a social news Web site, says III’s roster of intensive workshops and one-on-one consulting was instrumental to the success of his site, which launched at the 2008 IDEAS Show.
Before FunP’s debut, Chiu and his business partner learned marketing strategies and how to communicate with journalists and potential investors. III’s consultants worked with the start-up team on FunP’s user interface, bringing in a focus group to test the Web site’s design.
“They were a huge help,” says Chiu. “For all of our new products, we always think about launching them at the IDEAS Show.”
III Ideas Institute claims a 67 percent success rate with the teams that are part of its start-up incubation program, but Web companies founded in this country still face many challenges. Yang says that it is difficult for new start-ups to convince investors to give them money.
“All the big companies, you have to get their attention and then work for two or three years before they are willing to invest in you,” says Yang. “In the US, people are more willing to invest in brand-new start-ups, but it is harder here in Taiwan.”
One of the IDEA Show’s goals is to raise the international profile of this country’s Web industry. Teams that succeed at the IDEAS Show will have the opportunity to jump-start their entry into the global market. The IDEAS Show’s outstanding teams are sent to industry events abroad, like the DEMO shows in the US and China, the two major global markets for this country’s start-ups. Intel will also pick a team to compete at Intel Challenge, which takes place this November at the University of California, Berkeley.
While many Taiwanese companies set international expansion as one of their goals from the start, Lin says launching in a small country gives entrepreneurs an advantage because they are closely connected with their user base.
“They have already perfected their products and customer service while developing in Taiwan,” says Lin.
US companies also view opening offices in Taiwan or acquiring local companies as a stepping-stone into China’s market, which is difficult to penetrate because of censorship systems, regulations and cultural differences, says James Hill, an associate analyst at III. For example, Living Social (www.livingsocial.com), the group buying Web site that is Groupon’s closest competitor, recently began looking for a general manager in Taiwan as part of its bid to overtake Groupon, which has already launched sites in Hong Kong, Singapore and the Philippines in addition to this country.
“Taiwanese groups have the advantage of understanding the Chinese market better than US start-ups do,” says Hill.
The IDEAS Expo will be divided into three sections: cloud applications, social networking and mobile apps, all created by Taiwanese developers. Consumers can test out new Web sites and mobile apps and ask developers questions at the event’s 40 booths.
“People did not understand Saja’s concept at first. We had to educate consumers and let them test it out for themselves,” says Yang. “If we hadn’t had had a booth at the Expo, we would not have known how to develop in Taiwan. We would have never had the exposure we needed to succeed.”
EVENT INFO
What: The 2011 IDEAS Show and Expo at the Taipei International Convention Center (台北國際會議中心)
WHEN: Wednesday from 9am to 5:30pm. Speeches for the IDEAS Show start at 9:30am, while the team demos begin at 1pm and continue for two hours
WHERE: 1, Xinyi Rd Sec 5, Taipei City (台北市信義路五段1號)
ADMISSION: Admission to the Ideas Show is NT$2,000 per ticket and includes the team demos and speeches, including a keynote by Shintaro Yamada, the general manager of Zynga Japan. The IDEAS Expo is free
ON THE NET: ideashow.web20.org.tw, www.iii.org.tw. Attendees with iPhones or smartphones that use Android can download the IDEAS Show app and vote for their favorite Web companies at the IDEAS Expo by scanning barcodes at each booth
USER EXPERIENCE
Here are a few of the Web sites that have participated in the IDEAS Show or IDEAS Expo
‧ Saja.com.tw: Saja users pay per bid to bargain down the price on items like consumer electronics or plane tickets. Yang says deals on his Web site have included a moped sold for NT$1,000 and two plane tickets to Shanghai for NT$6
‧ Pinkoi (www.pinkoi.com): An online e-commerce Web site that features handmade items, Pinkoi seeks to raise the profile of Taiwanese designers and artisans (see page 13 of the March 2, 2011 edition of the Taipei Times for more information)
‧ iPeen (愛評網, www.ipeen.com.tw): One of Taiwan’s largest lifestyle sites, iPeen allows users to share their opinions about restaurants, hotels and other businesses
‧ 5945 Master Call (呼叫師傅, www.5945.com.tw): Looking for a handyman? This Web site allows users to search by service and see ratings by other customers
‧ i-Part (愛情公寓, www.i-part.com.tw): With about 2,700,000 members, Taiwan’s largest personals Web site gives lonely hearts plenty of chances to find a soulmate
‧ 9X9.tv (www.9x9network.com): Tired for searching through YouTube and other sites to find interesting videos? 9X9 allows users to curate and share channels with videos gathered from around the Web
‧ iFans (www.ifansapp.com): An app that allows individuals and businesses to quickly communicate with fans and clients.
‧ YOMOpets (www.yomopets.com): Taiwan’s biggest social networking site for pet owners
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