Pivotal Labs, the agile software development firm, set up its first Asia office in Singapore in April 2010. Six months since its inception, Pivotal is getting plugged into the startup ecosystem by hosting meetups, sponsoring events, giving talks on agile development methodologies and more.
Pivotal has a team of seven full time staff, dedicated to creating software products. In the first part of this interview, Carl-Coryell Martin and JB Steadman take us through Pivotal’s process of building products and why they chose Singapore as a base.
In this second and last part, they speak about how to grow the ecosystem, expansion plans for Pivotal and some interesting products they’ve been impressed with.
What’s your general perception of the startups here (in Singapore)?
Carl: I do feel like, one of things we always look for is, people who do product design and ownership and trying to find as many people in that. I think that’s an area where there is an opportunity of growth here.
Another thing we’ve seen is that, fewer people have gone through the multiple cycles of working with startups and have experience on the business side, investment side, product side, design side. So, perhaps some startups reflect certain level of lack of experience. That’s probably going to quickly change.
JB: What’s nice about community here is the enthusiasm and willingness to take risks in a culture that perhaps doesn’t really encourage that. I’ve been impressed with people who are trying to strike on their own and especially in a place like Singapore that might encourage a stable career for something that entails more risks.
What are some of the interesting products you are impressed with?
Carl: I think foound is pretty good. And I think firstmeta is pretty cool too. I think their currency exchange is pretty nifty. I haven’t used their product yet.
According to you, what are some of the challenges facing the startup environment here?
JB: The fact that it’s a nascent ecosystem for a startup can be a challenge. So the investment side of things is not well built out and likewise product engineering is relatively new and growing. Also the career path. You are competing with government and bank to hire talented people and people don’t have role models to look at. They feel a lot of family pressure to go into government agencies and banks, where things are much more stable.
I also think that lack of a big local exit is a factor in the state of lesser market for a startup. Once we see a local company doing well, acquired by Yahoo, Google or Tencent or going public, that could really change the ecosystem in a dramatic way.
Carl: Seattle is full of people who have graduated from Microsoft. Though, not with enoromous amount of wealth but enough wealth that, they can pursue high risk activities such as starting on their own. Now Amazon has done the same thing in the last decade and there are probably hundreds of people lurking around creating companies. That hasn’t happened here yet.
How important do you think education system plays in all this?
Carl: My sense is that it’s sort of a talent pool. If you look at cities in the US with strong startup programs, almost all of them have attractive universities. Like MIT in boston, Stanford, UC Berkeley. I think NUS and NTU are both attractive pools for talents from Singapore.
Do you hire fresh graduates?
Carl:We will. We haven’t yet.
JB: Students are becoming aware. They recently asked us to speak at a student group – linuxNUS. I went there and spoke few weeks ago. About 60 people or so were interested in learning about agile. Not just here, but in the US, people are a little more focused on computer science theory and less concerned about practical aspects of managing projects effectively. That is changing. We recently met up with Ben Leong at NUS who runs a summer program for students to work with real life clients to make projects happen.
Carl: I’m really excited about that program
JB: Yeah, speaking of Ben, a key role that universities can play in helping grow the pool of engineering talent is that showing the engineering students that engineering can be fun. Getting them hooked on the idea that know your craft, something that they can make a career out of.
You said, you’ve been speaking to a lot of investor community here, what’s your sense of the venture community here?
Carl: I feel there are a lot of people in Singapore who are sort of looking for companies to invest in. But this might be my own personal bias because I’m talking to a lot of them. But I feel there is immense pool of money chasing attractive startups.
Is it just the government or private investors as well?
Carl: I’ve been talking to mostly private investors. I feel there really should be no small startup in Singapore wanting for cash. We’re figuring out how Pivotal will fit into the ecosystem here. Our feeling is for us to grow, the ecoystem has to grow and that’s why we are helping to grow. We are going to do the RedDotRubyConf – I’m very excited about that.
Since you mentioned it before, how do u think we can actually grow the ecosystem here?
JB: Finding success is the key, as we have discussed earlier. Taking some companies and getting them to next step, getting them to be regional successes and making the rest of the world aware that yes, u can start successful companies here.
There are a lot of risks in starting such new companies. I think that lowering the risk is effective
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Serial entrepreneur and investor Marc P Bernegger founded his first company at 16 and sold his second one, party portal Usgang.ch, to German listed media company, Axel Springer in 2008. Since then, he went on to cofound event ticketing platform, Usgang.ch, to German listed media company, Axel Springer in 2008. Since then, he went on to cofound event ticketing platform, Amiando and also does seed investments through his own firm. 
