What's next after the Valley of Death? – PolyU and Fudan offer tailored training for experienced entrepreneurs
It is a popular myth that the first steps of entrepreneurship are fraught with risk, and then the rest of the journey is smooth sailing. Once the start-up has survived for two to three stormy years, or hits its first pot of gold – so the myth goes – everything will be fine.
That is not true, of course. Last week (June 27 - July 1), 30 entrepreneurs whose start-ups are three to seven years old attended five full days of workshops at Polytechnic University (PolyU). From August 22 to 26 they will gather again, at Fudan University in Shanghai, for five more days of training.
These entrepreneurs – 15 each from Shanghai and Hong Kong – were taking part in the High Potential Entrepreneurial Leadership Programme jointly organised by PolyU and Fudan University. They came from diverse business areas ranging from hardware innovation to mobile apps to environmental science.
It turns out that seeking new models for business growth, optimising team structures and creating the right company culture are very common problems in start-up leadership, according to Raymond Chu, assistant director, entrepreneurship and commercialisation at PolyU's Institute for Entrepreneurship (IFE).
“Start-ups have different priorities at different stages. Launching their product and raising funds successfully is not a guarantee of long-term success,” he said. “The right attitude should be to stay humble and to continue to learn.”
Raymond Chu, assistant director, entrepreneurship and commercialisation at PolyU's Institute for Entrepreneurship (IFE)
As the entrepreneurial ecosystem is still at the rudimentary development stage in Asia, the needs of start-ups in the more mature stages are often overlooked, and that is why PolyU has worked with Fudan University to create this programme, Chu said.
A lot of government and privately funded support is poured into helping early-stage start-ups to take them from idea to prototype to fundraising.
“However, their focus may be more on offering business networking or partnership opportunities, or acceleration for angel or VC investments,” Chu said. Fudan and PolyU have therefore identified the opportunity to serve the needs of experienced entrepreneurs.
The programme costs HK$22,000, with significant discounts for PolyU alumni or for those who apply to become mentors for its youth entrepreneurs. This includes lectures in English and Putonghua by academic staff from PolyU and Fudan, and sessions with trainers from institutions such as Peter Drucker Academy and other eminent entrepreneurs. They cover topics including change management, the corporate value chain, and core driver analysis, which can be particularly useful for those entrepreneurs who come from a technical background and who do not have a business education.
But the most highly valued aspect of the programme seemed to be networking.
“The network built up between entrepreneurs from the two cities is regarded as most valuable”, said Edna Choi, manager of corporate development and training at the Institute for Entrepreneurship (IFE) at PolyU.
Over dinner after the first day of workshops, excited conversations abounded. One entrepreneur from Shanghai discovered another whose office was in the adjacent building at Fudan University Science Park, and yet they had never met. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs from Hong Kong were asking about mainland market expansion strategies. Those from Shanghai asked about whether Hong Kong permanent residency is required for setting up an office at Cyberport and Hong Kong Science Park.
These entrepreneurs, being founders and CEOs of their companies, do not normally take 10 business days out of their schedule for training or networking. But when they do, it is clear that they want to make the most of it.
The PolyU Institute for Entrepreneurship is considering offering other programmes for experienced entrepreneurs. Workshops on specialised business disciplines and management topics are in the pipeline, Choi said.
For those aspiring entrepreneurs who are just starting out, is there anything they can do early on to avoid the scaling problems or corporate culture challenges at a later stage? Chu and Choi advise them to find good mentors, but they also say that no tactic is foolproof.
“That does not mean that they will not make mistakes or that they can have a straight road leading to Rome,” Chu said. “Sooner or later they will face the challenges [that] all successful entrepreneurs will need to go through.”
