Similar hurdles face women’s start-ups in Asean

Start-up entrepreneurs in Asean countries face similar hurdles, saying they lack support from both governments and investors. 
They urge for support from their governments and for more cooperation among Asean communities to help boost their initiatives.
The biggest challenge for start-ups in Vietnam was the lack of initial funding and connections, said Nguyen Pham, chief executive officer of that country’s EasyJob. 
“I encountered many difficulties working on my start-up at first. Luckily, I got some seed funding to help us get through the validation stage,” she said. 
She hopes that her government will support start-ups through more funds and connections to get them going and that more Vietnamese start-ups will be successful.
As in Vietnam, the most challenging thing for start-ups in Myanmar is investment, said Lei Yi Soe, co-founder of Pearl Yadana Software Solution. 
“Now we are running with our own investment. 
“The government as well as the private sector should support start-ups more because they can grow and will be beneficial for the country. 
“Not only financial support but also other things are needed,” she said.
But in the Philippines, start-ups can see a brighter future. May Montero, founder of Tambio/AdsAttack Inc, said that compared with three year ago, start-ups in her country now could see a brighter future in terms of funding and government support.
An innovation hub was set up recently by the government and the private sector, which was the start of something for them to look forward to, she said. 
However, there are still a handful of government agencies and their front-liners who are still not used to the concept of a start-up, she said.
The start-up ecosystem in the Philippines is still very young. “This can work both ways, good or bad. Good, because there’s a lot of opportunities for innovation. Bad, because we still need improvement in infrastructure and government policies, etc,” she said.
Another female entrepreneur in the Philippines, Ginger Palma Arboleda, chief operating officer of Taxumo, said: “I think most of the people in our country were born to have an ‘employee’ mindset. Our parents taught us that education was key in getting good jobs and high salaries. 
“We were never really wired or encouraged to start a business.
“Most of us learned that entrepreneurship can be a viable path through seeing the success of families and friends who were brave enough to take that leap,” she said.
However, looking at the scenario now in the Philippines, starting a business is becoming an option, she said.
The Philippine government and the private sector should listen to the people and maintain an open communications line with the different communities, Arboleda said. Also, cultivating a culture of innovation and openness to change will go a long way. 
New technologies, business models, etc, are also created, so it wouldn’t hurt if government officials and employees of the private sector are educated, trained or made aware at least of all these new things, she said.
Maneerat Wongjaroenporn, co-founder and chief operating officer of LenNam (TechFarm) in Thailand, said younger people were becoming more and more interested in start-ups, but there was scant support from the government and private sectors. 
“I think doing a start-up in Thailand is very challenging. It’s not difficult but also not easy to become a start-up here,” she said.
One solution they need to see to help start-ups in the region be able to compete with other countries is cooperation at the regional level. 
Nguyen said: “We should build firm bonding to support our Asean start-up ecosystems with more Asean funding, competitions and networking. Only by doing so, I strongly believe we will be able to compete with other developed countries soon.” 
Montero wishes to see a network created for neighbouring countries like Thailand’s “Stronger Together” initiative. 
“This is something that I’m hoping our government will embrace and help start-ups expand in both local and international markets,” she said.
Lei Yi Soe said governments in Asean countries should join hands to support or help promote the start-ups together on behalf of Asean. 
“It can help the Asean community become more developed and fruitful,” she said.

Tel Aviv model
The five women spent five days in Tel Aviv as “female entrepreneur” winners in the “Start Tel Aviv” project held by the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality. 
The women were impressed by the city’s start-up ecosystem. 
“They always use the division thinking for developing any process. It’s a way to think in some small parts first and no need to think about the whole system. 
So it will help people to dare to do some process first. I think I will apply this one to our current work,” Maneerat said.
In Israel, there are many accelerator programmes supporting start-ups and they might not take any equity from a company, she said. 
The nature of their nation is daring to change, which is the key point for accepting start-ups into their culture. 
During her trip, she also was impressed by the talented women from all around the world whom she spent time with. 
As this year’s theme was female entrepreneurship, all of the representatives were women and they were super brilliant and inspiring, she added. 
Nguyen learned that networking was one of the powerful tools for success. 
The event gave her an opportunity not only to network with key people in the field but also to network with future worldwide cooperators from international start-ups, she said.
“The Israeli advanced technology facilities and government’s great support toward Israeli start-up ecosystems impressed me a lot. 
“This proves the promising and blooming development process of the Israeli start-up ecosystems,” she said.
Lei Yi Soe said she was awed by the start-up ecosystem there, and learned a lot about how to boost her start-up.
Montero liked the workshop that was prepared for the winners, as it would help improve and innovate their process and the way they see things. 
“Always think outside the box and not be bounded by the rules, is what I learned” from the trip, she said.
“Israel’s start-up ecosystem is really impressive. Innovation can be seen anywhere! With great support from their government, it’s an ideal place for a start-up to thrive,” she said. 
Another notable experience is the availability of the Internet everywhere. It was awesome to be travelling anywhere in Tel Aviv without worrying about Internet connections, she said.
Arboleda learned that a pain point that is evident in one part of the world may not be present in another part of the globe. 
More developed countries have different needs than less developed countries. 
Even if scalability, or being present in as many countries as possible, is the name of the game, a start-up should get to know the pain point in different areas and focus on that when they scale up or launch in different countries.

Passion, hard work
After meeting with other winners from 31 countries on the trip, Arboleda thinks Asean women entrepreneurs definitely have a chance to launch start-ups that will be successful. 
The Asian start-up founders, at least those she came across, were very hard-working and passionate about what they did. 
“What I have seen also is that these people really know their customers and know the pain point that they want to address. 
“The fact that these start-up founders want to make a change in Asia is what I see is the main driving force that fuels their passion,” she added.
Maneerat agreed, saying she thought the Asean start-up ecosystem was booming and growing rapidly. 
“Since the culture and environment in our countries and in developed countries are totally different, we are in a different position. 
“Some start-ups might not be able to adopt in developed countries but work very well in our countries,” she said.
“If we gain more support from the government and private sector, our ecosystem will be stronger and better for sure,” the woman from Thailand said. 
Nguyen may have a different point of view. 
“The start-ups in Asean countries, in my opinion, are still in the immature stage,” she said.
“The developed countries have had many impressive IoT [Internet of Things] projects while we focus more on software projects due to low budgets and funding,” she said. 
Indeed, IoT is proving to be one of the major technology points in our future life. 
“At this early stage, we are not ready yet to compete with other developed countries,” she said.