Startups in Taiwan (KP29)

When we talk about startups, what’s the first place you think of? Silicon Valley, for sure, but what about Taiwan? Recently, an article in the Harvard Business Review mentioned Taiwan as possibly more innovative than Silicon Valley.For sure, Taiwan has always been a nation of startups—and we are not just talking about electronics and IT. Since centuries ago, entrepreneurial seafarers made Taiwan a trading post, and successive waves of migrants to Taiwan found opportunities for all sorts of commerce, and of course, factories that made consumer goods like umbrellas and bicycles in the 70s and 80s that propelled Taiwan’s economic miracle.

But let’s talk about the present and the future. We ask Mike Lee, the founding chairman of Entrepeneur+, a non-profit helping and training people who want to turn their ideas into a viable business, and the business development and marketing at a new medical venture, Toothfilm, in Taiwan, about the state of entrepreneurship in Taiwan today, and how startup founders see the current economic debates going on there.

(Feature photo of Taipei’s night view, by Jerome Chen, CC BY-SA 3.0)