Greek Complexity

The argument over Internet freedom

...aka piracy, depending on who you talk to, is fast becoming a hot-potato issue.

Even in sedate Singapore. Entrepreneur Bernard Leong makes his case to the Singapore government as to why they should not enact a law similar to SOPA. You'll find his piece here. He says:

The burden of reviewing every blog post, tweet and video submission is impossible to manage for any company. This is similar to the situation in China, where video sites such as Tudou have to hire people to monitor content uploads 24-7 to ensure that no sensitive political content is uploaded.

SGE‘s opposition against SOPA/PIPA legislation is not focused on freedom of speech arguments which have been brought forward by many digital advocates. You can read about these elsewhere. Our concern is that such legislation has profound implications to our economy.

He later says:

There has been strong resistance against both bills not just from many technology entrepreneurs from the start-up space but also from multi-national companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook.

...meaning that the opponents of such legislation are, as one would expect, those who would suffer most from SOPA-like legislation. Now, The Economist said in their usual forthright style a few weeks ago that:

The bill’s supporters want this [how content should be distributed and paid for] to change as slowly as possible, so they have time to adapt. Opponents want to see more rapid changes in business models to speed up overdue innovation: cheaper pricing in poor countries, more use of on-demand digital services, less exclusivity in distribution, and ultimately, less reliance on selling albums and DVDs. Yet self-interest is at work on both sides: many of the bill’s critics are trying to create just these kinds of business.

A related issue is now boiling over in India. Global Internet companies are in effect being held accountable for things that their users said, even though a law had previously been passed specifically to clarify that Internet companies and other intermediaries could not be held liable for their users' misdeeds (as long as certain conditions were met). See Is India Ignoring its own Internet Protections?.

So who's right? I'd rather focus on the freedom-of-speech argument that Bernard eschews. High-minded? Idealistic? Yes and yes. But that doesn't make the argument any less valid. In fact, focusing on dollars and cents cheapens the issue.

Note also, as The Economist implies, that arguing purely on economic grounds is to pick winners and losers. Who is to judge whether Google's and Facebook's claims are more valid than counter-claims by Newscorp and CBS? On what basis can one pick one side over another?

Taking the freedom-of-speech tack will probably not have much effect in Singapore (possibly the reason Bernard avoids this argument to begin with) but I think this is the right argument as a matter of principle. Possibly the only right argument. It certainly doesn't have the conflict of interest of the economic arguments advanced.

Singapore vs Hong Kong as a business jurisdiction

Link of the day: Singapore as a Holding Domicile for Your China Operations

This piece contrasts the use of Singapore as a location to set up holding companies for Asian operations versus using Hong Kong instead. Mostly about tax but also other matters. Not as boring as it sounds. The article doesn't mention it explicitly but Singapore also has bilateral trade and tax arrangements with India, separate from the India-ASEAN tax treaty. China and HK don't.

Business opportunity for mobile game developers

Mobile gaming companies in Bangalore or other parts of India who have content that they would like to expose to a large, established base of paying subscribers in emerging markets, please ping me.

Lenskart spam

As regular readers of this blog would recall, I talked about Lenskart.com a few days ago and wondered whether people would buy eyewear online. They must be reading my blog closely because, to convince me that my misgivings are unfounded, they've put me on their spam, ah, mailing list. Ok, I'm joking, of course.

I mean, I'm joking about their trying to convince me. I'm not joking about the email itself. I did get an unsolicited email from them touting their wares. Not just glasses but also watches, wallets and ladies' handbags. The email was sent not to my murli.net email address, which might be sort of understandable if this was a robot crawling the web for mentions of Lenskart, but to my work email address. How did they get this? (I do know the identity of one organisation that has sold my work email address to third parties in the past, but that's a story for another day.)

I wonder if their investors IDG Ventures know that their newest investee buys email addresses in bulk for spam purposes. I also wonder if one of the metrics presented by management to their board is "unique users" or "prospects contacted" or "email list size" or some such, whether people like me are (inappropriately) counted as part of this and whether -- listen closely now -- this metric determined to some extent the valuation that IDG assigned to the company.

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Update: The funny thing is, the email ends with the following:

"Call: +91 8860004379/97 It's almost as amazing as our customer service."

Yes, I've no idea what that means.

Another inspirational cycling story

No commentary necessary.

The school we recently visited in the Bihar village of Bumbuar, where we were encircled by a fleet of ambitious young girls on bikes, was also full of success stories, and since the scheme began, regular school attendance among girls has shot up to 90%.

In these girls' families, and for the rest of Bihar's rural poor, bicycles used to be reserved either for parents in their daily life, or for older brothers. But now, as many of Bumbuar's girls are attending school more regularly, not only is their knowledge of academic subjects improving, but their hunger for knowledge and a professional future is also increasing.

One keen young cyclist we met echoed the opinion and aspirations of many of her schoolmates, saying: "Every morning I look forward to going to school. When I'm older I want to go to university." This leap in the village girls' education and aspirations represents a quantum leap from their parents' era: just four of the 70 schoolgirls we met have mothers who made it to the tenth grade.

via How cycling set deprived Indian girls on a life-long journey

A different kind of start-up event

I was attending a closed-door, fairly free-wheeling discussion last week here in Singapore hosted by one of our coopetitors when someone brought up the topic of events for VCs and entrepreneurs. Now, if there's one measure of commercial activity in Singapore that's always flashing bright GREEN, it's the number of conferences, seminars, fora and networking events held for tech start-ups. So when this person asked the rest of the group whether, in our opinion, Singapore has a sufficient number of platforms for VCs and entrepreneurs to meet each other, the answer seemed pretty obvious. Even if one doesn't go to all the events, going to a few every year is sufficient to get to know pretty much everyone else in the space. Singapore's VC industry isn't that big after all. It's essentially the same in India as well.

But it struck me that one thing I (and my portfolio companies) continue to find difficult is finding good mid to senior staff to join existing start-ups. I think there's an opportunity for a platform specifically targeted at people who want to move into the tech start-up space but don't want to start one of their own for whatever reason. Yes, this exists to a small extent on online fora but I have yet to see an event specifically created to allow start-up teams to get to know their brethren from larger organisations and vice versa. The opportunity exists across all roles -- sales, finance, technology, HR, operations, you name it. Put a critical mass of qualified people in a room and I can practically guarantee that it won't be seen as yet another start-up networking event.

Who wants to do this?

How many Indian Internet users?

Short answer: no one knows. Estimates vary widely according to 45 mn or 121 mn Indians on internet? Who is the bluffmaster?

The article quotes a few people for their views. I am with Alok Kejriwal, who says simply, "Who cares?" For most entrepreneurs, the actual number doesn't matter beyond a point. What matters more is what they do with it. I think India has long since gone beyond that point.

But, at a pinch, I'd have to say that 45 million users does seem to be too low an estimate -- and lo and behold, this estimate (by Comscore) doesn't include users at cybercafes or on mobile phones.

Hiring: venture capital associate

We are seeking to hire an associate to join our South Asia venture capital team. The actual title will depend on the profile of the candidate eventually chosen.

Job description:

• Entry-level investments role but with considerable responsibility, exposure to C-level executives and prospects for growth
• Work across the entire spectrum of investment activity including market analysis, evaluation of investment opportunities, preparing investment proposals, driving legal completion of transactions, reporting on portfolio companies and assisting on exits
• Report to the head of the South Asia team covering India and South-East Asia
• Based in Singapore with some travel

The ideal candidate:

• Undergrad or greater qualifications in engineering, science or related technical disciplines
• Good commercial awareness gained via work experience of 2-5 years
• Basic understanding of financial statements; MBA welcome but not necessary
• Strong cultural understanding of India
• Highly self-motivated, comfortable with ambiguity and exceptional at time management
• Good sense of humour!

Leave a comment on this post with your email address, phone number and a brief description of yourself. Your comment will be seen only by me and will not appear publicly.

No recruiters please.

Eyewear online?

Lenskart.com just announced funding from one of our coopetitors IDG Ventures. Maybe I'm not representative of the company's target market but I can't imagine buying spectacles and sunglasses online. Would you?

The name, of course, is directly, ah, inspired by one of India's largest e-commerce portals Flipkart.com.

VC/PE in India vs SE Asia

Interesting piece at VCCircle here. I thought the comparison below of PE in Indonesia to India a few years ago was apt. The writer's estimate of the number of Indian PE funds in the market today is quite extraordinary too.

Another VC investor mentioned in a discussion yesterday -- and I know that he had the same views three years ago -- that although Vietnam presents great opportunities for the canny investor, entrepreneurs there don't yet have familiarity with terminology and structures that VCs are used to in other markets. For instance, in the Vietnamese legal system, loans and equity are understood, but the concept of preferred shares trips them up.