Comments on: Hitchhiker’s Guide to Starting your Venture in SG (with Govt as your guardian angel)

By: bjorn

bjorn — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 06:01:38 +0000

this process takes far too longgg… the market would have moved on by the time it takes to get past some of the government schemes’ processes.

By: Meng Weng Wong

Meng Weng Wong — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:25:27 +0000

also, iJam.

also, read Founders At Work.

By: Meng Weng Wong

Meng Weng Wong — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:24:43 +0000

I have an alternative suggestion, for Internet ideas:

Learn to !@#$ing program.

Then you can skip all the fundraising and hiring steps and go straight to building your product.

Fundraising is way easier once you have traction.

By: James Chan

James Chan — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:03:56 +0000

@a perhaps an IOU is extraneous and brings with it questions on related party transactions. My point here is, dollars do not necessarily need to have their owners’ names on them. Neither am I asking anyone to do anything illegal . Go figure.

By: a

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:38:55 +0000

Spring seeds:
pre-revision the grant matches 1:1 up to $300K. post-revision the grant matches 2:1 up to $1 million ($500K from angels).
“Do an IOU with your most reputable advisor/board member and hand the entire sum to him/her. Have him/her approach SPRING Seeds Capital and apply for matching equity funding” – wah you can do this?

i’ve found (from my very very small sample size) that people who take baby steps in starting up generally end up not starting or take a very long time to get going compared to people who just take the plunge. what’s your experience with this?

By: Anon

Anon — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:52:14 +0000

TECS process -

1. Submit application via TECS portal, there is round every 6 months
(Deadline is VERY strict, electronic system, cuts off mid-night sharp, submit ahead of time to avoid last minute system overload. POV projects MUST have letter of intent from potential customers. You can find a lot more info here: http://www.spring.gov.sg/tecsportal/Home.aspx)

2. wait ~2-3 months

3. Shortlist for technical evaluation – no in-person meeting required, government agencies experts of the related area will contact applicants for technical evaluation matters (can get quite in depth)

4. wait ~1-2 weeks

5. Shorter list for committee evaluation (largely commercial but sometimes also technical). Committee usually consist of diverse group of high level executives, investors and senior management from respective gov agencies depending on your industry

6. Usually decision is pretty quick, within one week. Expect the following month or two for various processes, verifications and documents such as confirmation letter, agreement, etc.

7. Project can begin shortly after, costs to be reimbursed starts as soon as the first month of the project

Process is rather competitive and takes about 4-6 months from day of application to project commencement. But generally quite decisive and clear instructions on how to proceed, and not much paper work (SPRING rocks), sensible processes and requirements.

It’s a rather long cycle for startups to bear, but not much cumulative effort, quite worthwhile attempt even though competitive.

By: James Chan

James Chan — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 04:05:51 +0000

The TECS is indeed one other option to consider, given the attractive up-to-100% support for the Proof-of-Concept and up-to-85% support for the Proof-of-Value phases. However, I am not so hot about it given that it’s a competitive grant with limited places each round (and hence uncertainty), and with each round being months apart (timing may not match start-ups’ internal timelines). Still, it can be a good choice if all caveats are taken into consideration.

Does anyone know how the evaluation and assessments are done?

By: D

Sun, 31 May 2009 17:46:16 +0000

TECS may also be suitable for many startups (must be new product!)

http://www.spring.gov.sg/Content/WebPageLeft.aspx?id=52659c28-0dcf-4ce6-94f1-94b06f00c490