Dr Bernard Leong, recent recepient of the IT Leaders Award: Young Professional of the Year from Singapore Computer Society, kindly wrote to express his support for JFDI.
Bernard is Co-Founder and CTO, Chlkboard, Co-founder of SGEntrepreneurs.com and a Partner in Thymos Capital LLP.
To Whom It May Concern:
Re: Letter of Endorsement for JFDI.Asia
This letter is written in my own personal capacity to strongly endorse and support the JFDI.Asia initiative, co-founded by Hugh Mason, Wong Meng Weng and Loo Soon Yau. As both an entrepreneur and an early stage investor, I believe that an initiative like JFDI can strengthen the current high technology entrepreneurial ecosystem in Singapore in the following ways:
- Success of Precedents such as TechStars and Y-Combinator in the US: Currently in the US, TechStars and Y-Combinator have been successful in growing small start-ups before they are to receive actual angel investment in the seed stage or series A investments from the venture capital firms. In Singapore, the venture incubators in the seed stage are tied down with both product development and taking product to market. Hence with a JFDI model, the venture incubator such as Thymos Capital can focus on the business aspect of the company while JFDI can assist in the product development phase.
- Provide a good training ground & support system for new and aspiring entrepreneurs: With the location of JFDI in Hackerspace SG, the entrepreneurs will have access to advice and resources from mentors and programming talent in creating and do rapid-prototyping of the idea they have in mind. It also helps in grooming the entrepreneur with a “fail-fast” mentality such that they can move onto another idea if the first one fails. Given the peer pressure in Singapore, the entrepreneurs in JFDI can support each other and worked together in teams to cope with the struggles of being an entrepreneur.
- Focus on quality and speed to take product prototype to market: The JFDI initiative can help the entrepreneurs to focus on product development and prototyping in an early stage before seeking initial pre-seed or seed stage investment. The focus on quality and speed in doing rapid prototyping allows the entrepreneur to refine their product based on customer feedback. The experience with Chlkboard’s location based advertising which was rapidly prototyped within 21 days showed that it is possible to have a beta version of the product to show and also at the same time, gather feedback from customers on whether an idea really works. This can only be achieved by inculcating strong values of execution and teamwork among a team of founders from a start-up.
I hope that you or your organization can strongly support JFDI with the financing required or infrastructure support to build this initiative into a sustainable business that can help drive technology entrepreneurship in Singapore.
Yours sincerely,
Bernard Leong