Meet the Co-Founder and CEO of Hong Kong's biggest startup platform and community builder!

Key Takeaways

we are the purposeful project we help entrepreneurs for free welcome to today's pep talk we will take just 20 minutes to interview leading experts from around the world who share actionable know-how insights and life lessons to hear these incredible insights follow us on spotify apple music or anywhere you listen to podcasts or you can simply visit theproposalproject.com sign up to our main list and get the podcast in your inbox every single week hi karina welcome to the podcast thank you so much for taking time out would you mind please perhaps by starting off sharing your story what you're doing and how you're involved in the start me up hong kong festival this year thank you simon i'm thrilled to be back on the podcast with you so very brief introduction i am the co-founder of w up and angel up who are both behind sis the big conference w hub just in a few words is the largest startup community platform and power connector really proudly headquartered here out of hong kong with over 500 partners around the world and with a huge passion on helping startups grow and scale their business and connecting all stakeholders to the innovative power of the ecosystem and hence fostering the growth of all and angelhub is taking care of a very specific connection and research is helping startups who have access to capital and potential investors to have access to fundraising opportunities so it's the very first and still only sfc regulated equity crowdfunding platform we also have a fund and we co-invest alongside so we're behind sis that started off three years back as startup impact summit with the value proposition of showcasing impact and making impact and this year we're elevating sis to scale up impact summit with the promise about co-creating future and we are very happy to be once again the main event of the startup hong kong festival which is a week-long festival as you pointed out and last year was the first time we went hybrid so we had over 20 000 participants from 97 countries an amazing lineup from speakers and this year again we're looking about you know connecting the world and co-creating futures together and so and for anyone listening to this podcast after the event we'll put all the links below that you can still grab all the information from w hub and and start me up uh hong kong festival so if you are listening and you've missed the event for whatever reason don't worry you can still get all the all the insights so tell us a little bit about your personal history why why are you in hong kong yes so my personal history is very long if we go into all the details the short version would be that my passport is german but i partially grew up in in the us and i have a double diploma from germany and france and then joined a very large multinational corporate called tractor and gamble that had that mission about improving people's lives and it's that what brought me actually from germany to other parts of europe and then to asia first to japan responsible for northeast asia and then here to to hong kong and taking care of uh big parts of of greater china and that same passion about improving people's lives is actually what connected me to the tech and innovation scene here and together with my co-founder who's french so uh somewhere as my husband so my better half death body is french and we became very passionate about entrepreneurs changing the world creating our futures together and we wanted to help them to connect to the resources they need to scale and that's why we launched what back in 2000 and it started off with a with a recruiting platform and then just took pain point by pain point from startup founders to make sure that they also get opportunities to get visibility to get you know programs of co-innovation with with corporates to uh expand internationally and then all the way actually to building a fundraising and equity crowdfunding platform now uh the crowdfunding platform you just mentioned angelhub just in case people missed it tell us how that came about be regulated and get that all to happen is is quite the achievement so tell us a little bit about how you made that happen yeah thank you so again it was really um about very back in 2013 this mission and passion on on elevating you know the hong kong startup ecosystem and the startups at the center and in the global ranks we said you know there's no reason why hong kong should not be a major tech and innovation happen back then the biggest problem was really about talent recruiting and then visibility um and then obviously if you start you know seeing your ecosystem material you know that fundraising and making a difference in the fundraising part and is really crucial we really say that we wanted to solve the problems of time access and know-how for both for the founders uh but also for so many potential investors as you know simon um hong kong is actually a very important financial center there's a huge density of high net worth individuals family offices um institutional monies with vcs and ps but we felt there was not enough resources flowing into the um into the ecosystem and to your point when we said you know what what we look you know what what works um in other parts of the world we saw the benefits of crowdfunding um just a little parenthesis though i mean we're for professional investors yet so not for retail crowd crowd funding so not like an indiegogo um but and so again for equity crowdfunding said you know this is something that's the meanest meaningful business model that can really help make a difference and we realized that you know this means in hong kong um you know with with very diligent regulators that you're entering the space of the licensed activity and hence uh we went out and started the dialogue with the regulators and to see that we can you know get equity crowdfunding licensed and and uh life here in hong kong i think hong kong is uh well it is an international city one of the top financial hubs in the world but i don't think it's recognized as a startup hub in the way that it should be and i think that having uh platforms like yours there really is i think putting hong kong on the map do you feel for anyone that's listening that perhaps wants to go and start a business in hong kong that there's there's a clear route to getting into hong kong what are the steps for people that if they wish to start a business that you think they should take yeah and i like that the way you ask the question because what we also realize there's a lack of visibility and awareness on the great opportunities here in hong kong and that's the very reason why we put that educational aspect of what we do on the forefront and we created white paper so i'm just going to put a shameless plug and say if you really want to connect to hong kong we have white papers on our platform for free download where you can already understand what's happening in the market what is the infrastructure why is hong kong such a fantastic breeding ground for successful companies and just you know two weeks back we have given birth to the 10th unicorn for seven million people that probably puts us one of the highest densities of unicorns per capita um and there are a lot of good reasons um why this um is possible and and really having that at your fingertips through the white paper is one of the things that we wanted to make sure that you can come and scale into hong kong you do not necessarily need us but there's a lot of resources out there um and and i think that's uh something that hong kong has proven to be true uh over the past few years and so um what do you think are the benefits of of being in hong kong in your experience and view yeah so i think one of the real biggest benefits and one of the ways to describe hong kong's ecosystem best is to talk about the diversity and the diversity comes into play when we look into different sectors that are going to be innovative not to use the d word disrupted through technology and it's just because it has such a rich history so you obviously find you know health tech fintech you know we talked that hong kong is a very important global financial center um and you also have then industries and sectors that you may not find in other ecosystems such as textile tech or property tech or travel tech just because a lot of traditional businesses you know have used this hub to do business on a successful and regional level and talking about that hub place is also a fact that it's very diverse in terms of background of founders one third of our founders are from you know originally not hong kong and that holds even true for our unicorns so again the fact that you can scale a company very successfully uh from coming from abroad into hong kong i think it's something that you would not necessarily find in a lot of different ecosystems and even you know my co-founder me very passionate about the tech and innovation scene and being able to scale that platform here it's also true in terms of age so um obviously if you look into you know talent and the talent pool once again amazing fintech talent you know with 75 percent of the world's banks here um but also in terms of talent you have now more and more youngsters that are looking into the tech and innovation see and you have a lot of career switches right that are um available um here and based here because maybe their traditional jobs brought them here same as for me and nice and to finish off is it's also a pretty and gender diverse ecosystem we cannot really say that we're at 100 parity yet but we're way ahead um and if you just even look into sectors such as fintech or so you can see a lot of female leaders that are making a big impact here so the diversity is definitely one thing and we all know that the power of um you know scaling companies successfully um is uh having a very large diversity i think other elements are are kind of like and it's just to run very briefly through that is it's very strategically positioned right in terms of demand and supply it's very close to the pearl river delta and now with the gba the greater bay area initiatives there's more and more collaboration between hong kong macau shenzhen guangzhou and you know entirely eleven cities in that in that wonder area it is a place that is very well connected physically and online you know with amazing uh smartphone distribution so we have tons of companies that are mobile first that come into hong kong connected over social media the traditional western social medias as well as the chinese social medias and it has a very strong regulatory and legal system that is very safe but at the same time very very easy very open in terms of immigration laws so it's it's really a wonderful pool of all infrastructure and resources you need to scale a company from very early stage to very large stage because even though the market very often is relatively small with seven million people you have all these business connections into china into southeast asia here well said i mean i as you know was there for 20 years so i have a real love of the city and you know the setting up of a company is i've set up companies in the uk and the us it's so complicated setting up coming in hong kong is so simple and a flat tax rate it's just it just it makes uh when you work very hard building something it just makes it a lot easier when those things aren't on your back so i'm in hong kong we could probably talk about how amazing it is forever i i wanted to ask you one of the things i guess with people listening they might be thinking of becoming entrepreneurs or they might have got a little bit stuck as entrepreneur but do you think entrepreneurs are born or bred what's your take on this sort of issue i i love this question i just wanted to build on one thing actually you reminded me because we're potentially having people that are calling in from overseas you can you know open up your company in hong kong from overseas you do not physically have to be in hong kong to get a business registration right so just to build on that which comes to your point about you know how do you become an entrepreneur you just do it so i don't really um think that you're necessarily born to be an entrepreneur so i definitely was not born an entrepreneur i had like a very traditional career and i also did not wake up one morning and said like oh great i was just going to be an entrepreneur i think i was too way too risk averse and i really learned and embraced you know that wonderful philosophy of uh not fearing to fail and and learning and learning fast and just you know have that embracing your passion and go out and do it so i think that there are certain maybe mindsets that you um may have at the very beginning um where you might be very adventurous or you may not fear of trying out new things but i think um you know i was really in a very traditional company with a very traditional career path and i were a lot of things i had to unlearn before you know fully embracing um how to incorporate agility and how to incorporate you know that very innovative mindset so um for me no it's not something that you're born with um i think you learn certain things like resilience um in a positive way sometimes i think like i'm probably even more stubborn than resilient um just you know kind of like not giving up um you know um having having pleasure to you know kind of like not mind hardship to go for the the greater good i think these maybe are things that you kind of like learn through childhood um i i was a really loved to play sports and team sports so i think a couple of of things that i really have parallel that i see but again it's not something you're born with right it's maybe something that you realize through your environment and how you grow up that you appreciate um yeah i uh yeah i love i love the answer because it's it's not clear-cut it's true i i think anyone could become an entrepreneur no one's born a doctor right i mean there's there's 50 different types of doctors too there's 50 different types of entrepreneurs right so there's there's no there's no you can choose your own path and and i think that uh you're a great example by the diversity of hong kong both you and your partner karen leading the charge in building the ecosystem in hong kong and the diversity side you know you're good examples of just how powerful it can be when we have an open society like that in addition yeah like you say i think there's just so much opportunity in hong kong i wanted to ask you a little bit you mentioned earlier about the 10th unicorn in hong kong um a friend of both of ours yatsu founded the company i know you're also an investor in them so tell us a little bit about um that that that journey and we're actually going to have yat on our podcast as well i know they're going to you're going to be interviewing yet during one of your streams as well but tell us a little bit about that experience from your side of things yeah thank you so much and i can also really only encourage people to tune in at sis because yeah we'll be giving a keynote about uh the internet of value i love it we provocatively called it decentralize or die um and yeah what time is that by the way the co-founder of the jefferson also didn't do this sorry go ahead go in there go ahead what time is it so people listening can can know when to tune in so that will be on tuesday the 25th of may and the hong kong time will be if i'm not mistaken around 2 o'clock so make sure that right after um lunch you you join in and afterwards he will continue on the fire side chat with um uh tu badur who's the co-founder of meetupers together with mitta coven and they both became quite famous um as soon as they started you know buying the the people the nft um are that was sold off by christie's for over a 60 million u.s dollars a few weeks back but back to animoka and i think it's actually a beautiful story about once again the hong kong startup ecosystem and the power of the hong kong startup ecosystem being um very connected and uh really built by passionate entrepreneurs i mean back to you i think is is probably one of the longest standing um entrepreneurs and investors in the scene um you know back in in 2000 and even before 2000 the year 2000 um very active and um we uh obviously same as when you were here you know at the very beginning it was a very small core of people being very passionate about technology and innovation and uh we know yeah for a long long time and we uh truly appreciate uh both of our missions and passion on advancing the tech and innovation scene and the youth as well um and we were very happy to have yat on on board also on angelhub as one of our investment committee and as you may know on angelhub the reason why we can be sector agnostic and industry agnostic is we have um an ic of 50 very successful entrepreneurs investors and industry experts in their field and yet from the very early on was passionate about blockchain and the opportunities blockchain can provide really in terms of democratizing access on allowing for example in the gaming industry where he's really on the leading forefront and to shift market powers to bring basically the monetization of value creation back into the people who are behind the value creation so the gamers themselves um and and with that you know we have been really and privileged to follow his amazing success path early on and then when the opportunity came up to to come on board and and also to fuel his growth and in the latest in investment while we were very very proud um to you know angel harper being up and running in life um playing a role in in that round as well it's another great example of the integration that hong kong brings you know i was trying to describe hong kong as one degree of separation and so everybody's in it together really you know so as you say yeah he's an investor in businesses he's helped platforms like yours and mine and and supported so many people so many so many ways and then when his own platform uh becomes a unicorn in my view in part because of that good energy that he's already put out there and then people like yourself want to support him in return and so that's one of the things i think about hong kong that's hard to explain to people but but there's definitely a feeling that all boats rise together and everybody's kind of in it together so that's so that's awesome thank you for sharing fully agree so who do you think is going to be fully agreeing just to build on it's just just to build on that is uh it's funny you say one one degree of separation and it's half half a degree of separation in hong kong i think the power that the power the power of of really the networking being in the dna of people and the people really being very pragmatic and um collaborative i think is is something that is only uh you can only feel it when you're here it's very difficult to put into words very powerful totally i still try to describe to my london friends about how in one day i'm able to have at least 18 meetings how is that even possible um but it is in hong kong the impossible is possible i guess um just thinking of time i know you've got uh lots to do so um who do you think is going to be the next hong kong unicorn to put you on the spot you've got to pick a favorite yes um so obviously i can only invite you to stay very close uh on you know angel hub and and what we do and uh we're obviously looking forward to not only the 11th but the 12th 13th 14th 15th and the multi and many more to come i think there are different sectors here in hong kong and it's interesting because if you're not close to the scene you would may not realize that a lot of innovation is really driven here not necessarily always on the first and front page of our of our newspapers i think i would definitely encourage people to look on any of the portfolio companies we have in the health fix arena in the health tech sector and also in terms of the food tech sector uh for sure so and you may want to put that as a as a sub sector um i also believe that in you know fintech we do have sub sectors such as insurtech and rec tech that will give birth to you know some of the most successful companies very very recently and obviously i just want to tease people to come and contact me directly if they want to go a little bit deeper and want me to throw some names out there well um very very political answer you didn't you didn't um you didn't mention anybody in particular and uh well done you uh good media training but but i guess um maybe maybe i'm gonna call it i'm gonna i'm gonna say um you know angel hub you know maybe you're the next unicorn in an ironic twist well i'd love us to be the next unicorn because that would mean that we would have enabled um and supported and scaled so many other companies um and that is obviously uh the dream to really make a significant difference here not only to the ecosystem in terms of talent recruiting and visibility but also in terms of fundraising spoken like a true passionate entrepreneur that's uh that's thinking about what they could do with the success that they got to help others so that kind of personifies you in my mind i appreciate you i just wanted to perhaps end the uh podcast today but just asking you if you had any uh inspiring or words of wisdom for entrepreneurs out there oh not really inspiring but pretty much down to earth because i always think you know entrepreneurship is nothing that you can learn in a textbook so just do it um follow your passion for those who know why w hub stands with starts with w it's because it starts with starting with why i'm very passionate about simon cynic's talk um that it's not what you do um and not how you do it but why you do it so all purpose uh driven uh people out there just take the plunge uh i think that's uh that's that's the the only hands-on wisdom i'd love to uh to pass on that's uh appreciated and um as always i'm also a big fan of simon sinek as soon as you mention his name i'm now going to stop my own podcast and go watch his stuff and i suggest the listeners do the same but but thank you so much for what you do thank you for coming on the podcast and sharing your knowledge and we'll see you at the conference thank you simon great pleasure see you thank you for listening to pep talk today powered by the purposeful project if you found it interesting please give us a review and follow us in addition you can sign up to our website and get loads more free entrepreneur knowledge as well as get access to pep talk and the purpose of project podcast direct in your inbox every week