‘Everyone wants to build a unicorn’: Hong Kong start-ups should clone more foreign success stories, says former Groupon target
Entrepreneurs in Hong Kong should prepare to expand globally rather than making the mistake of drawing up a blueprint suited just to the city’s small, unique but ultimately limiting market, local start-up founders said this week.
But for some business models, focusing on building a strong base in Hong Kong first can prove successful, according to Khailee Ng, managing partner at 500 Startups.
One thing that I've learnt is that when you start a start-up in Hong Kong, you've got to think of more than just Hong Kong
Ng co-founded GroupsMore in Malaysia in 2011 and Groupon snapped it up five months later. He said this formula of copying popular foreign models and localising them could be used as a stepping stone to future projects.
“This opportunity is not talked about enough because it's not cool, it's not sexy. Everyone wants to build a unicorn,” Ng said, using the investment industry term for a start-up whose valuation has risen above US$1 billion.
“If you're an entrepreneur in Hong Kong today … and you quickly clone a business model that's successful somewhere and there's a good chance someone will buy it, even if they don't buy it, never mind, try again."
EasyVan’s Chow Shing-yuk, a former professional poker player, said entrepreneurs should look further afield to either mainland China or Southeast Asia to further their chances of success.