5 Things You Need to Know If You're Thinking About Founding a Start-Up In

5 things you need to know if you’re thinking about founding a start- up in Asia

Five trends we are seeing in Asia that could help young start-up companies.

For the past four years, Telenor has run start-up incubators in markets across the region, illuminating important, sometimes overlooked realities of Asia’s start-up scene. Here are 5 things we've learned.

#1. Thailand is for techies

With the recent announcement of a US$570 million venture fund by the government, Thailand is taking its goal to nurture 10,000 start-ups over the next two years seriously. Can the country achieve this? Very likely. Its convenient transport connections, affordable living and working costs have long been a draw for entrepreneurs. Pair this with a welcoming business environment, strong public support and a vibrant creative community – the opportunities ripe for disruption and innovation are many.

#2. E-commerce: An overlooked opportunity?

Despite the growing adoption of smart devices, e-commerce has yet to really hit the region. India and China have embraced Flipkart and Taobao, but other countries in Asia lag behind with an online retail penetration of just three percent (source). Internet speeds still hamper e-commerce in markets like Pakistan, Myanmar and the Philippines, while logistics across archipelagos have posed cost issues for online retailers. But where there are challenges, there are opportunities: Daraz, an ecommerce retailer recently partnered with Telenor Pakistan to roll out a series of “Easy Shops”, connecting consumers that live in areas with low broadband connectivity and access to urban retail centres.

#3. Mobile-only

Huge swaths of the region are leapfrogging the use of digital services in such a way that start-ups are not thinking “mobile first” but rather “mobile only”. One obvious consequence of this is how the mobile chat phenomenon actually got its start in Asia with in LINE and Kakao, only later catching on in the US and Europe (with Messenger, SnapChat and the like).

#4. If you can make it here…

Telenor Group is one of the world's major mobile operators. We keep our customers connected in our markets across Scandinavia and Asia. Our more than 30,000 employees are committed to responsible business conduct and being our customers' favourite partner in digital life. Connecting the world has been Telenor's domain for more than 160 years, and we are driven by a singular vision: to empower societies. … you can make it anywhere. For start-ups, South- and Southeast Asia is one of the toughest places to get going. The region’s cultural and business environments are as diverse as its geography, making it time consuming and highly complex to grow digital services across the region. But this fragmentation could also provide better “training” to start-ups – forcing them to challenge boundaries in terms of innovation and scalability. And in such a fragmented setting, big digital services providers may be useful partners in the start-up environment, taking on a position as a connector of people, services and business, and an enabler for deals to happen.

#5. SMEs need start-ups, too

It’s not just about social, sharing economics and food deliveries. Real-time mobile-driven market analytics, supply chain support and other data-driven B2B services are climbing the rungs of the tech scene in emerging Asia. One start-up examining this issue is the winner of dtac Accelerate this year, Freshket. Today, they’re building a marketplace for restaurants and fresh food suppliers, which has the potential to improve the balance between supply and demand in the food and beverage industry. In the long term, they could even consider expanding into logistics and improve the supply chain themselves. For more on Telenor and the start-up community visit planet.telenor.com.