My Room Abroad: A Success Story for Taiwan’s Support of Startups

Taiwan has become an attractive destination for international students that wish to pursue higher education programs on the “beautiful island.”

The number of international students enrolled in Taiwanese universities has climbed steadily over the years. In 2018, there were 126,997 foreign students in Taiwan, accounting for about 10% of all college and university students in the country, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Education.

These students still face one major hurdle upon arriving in Taiwan, however: Finding adequate and affordable housing. My Room Abroad, an online housing platform, is one of a growing number of options targeted at helping them.

Taiwan has worked to attract foreign talent through its education system, along with initiatives such as the entrepreneur visa and the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals. However, these initiatives must be combined with measures that make international students and foreign employees in general feel more welcomed in the country.

Currently, there are few options foreigners can use to rent a room before arriving in Taiwan. Most major online apartment rental platforms are only in Chinese. There are a few Facebook pages geared toward English speakers, but they offer a limited selection of housing options.

Many newcomers who do not speak Mandarin—including the scores of foreign students coming to Taiwan to learn the language—often rely on the help of embassies, representative offices and student associations to simplify the process and have a place to stay immediately after arriving in the country.

Sebastien De Schietere, founder of My Room Abroad, came to Taiwan to study in 2015. His unpleasant experience with housing is one that is shared by many foreigners who don’t speak Mandarin or Taiwanese.

De Schietere told Ketagalan Media how, while searching for an apartment, he had to constantly ask his Taiwanese friends to help him. He used Google Translate to try and navigate the labyrinth of Facebook house rental posts in Chinese, with very poor results.

That is why he came up with the idea of founding My Room Abroad, along with his friends (and fellow Belgians) Vincent Mechele and Sandrine Dieudonne. Their main objective is to help foreign students and entrepreneurs to find apartments in Taiwan by providing them with a collection of more than 3,000 rooms to choose from.

The founders of My Room Abroad attribute their success in Taiwan to government support. (Photo courtesy of My Room Abroad)

Their business model allows tenants to book and pay for their rooms in advance and offering contracts of less than one year, which is often a big issue for exchange students.

My Room Abroad was one of the first companies to benefit from Taiwan’s entrepreneur visa, a program launched to attract more skilled foreign talent to the country’s startup ecosystem. The visa allows foreigners to apply for an Alien Residence Certificate (ARC) for one year without having to first incorporate a company, with the possibility of renewal. Three foreigners may apply for an ARC using a single application.

The program requires interested individuals meeting at least one of a set of qualifications to apply for the visa with Taiwan’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, or from a Taiwan representative office or embassy outside the country. In the first two years of its launch, the program allowed up to 2,000 individuals per year to obtain the visa—an effort to foster innovation as Taiwan deals with effects of a low birthrate and an outpouring of young Taiwanese talent to other countries.

Today, three years after the online launch of My Room Abroad, their website includes a multilingual interface and a blog section in which they cover different topics, such as getting started upon arriving in Taipei, to the different government subsidies available for entrepreneurs.

By sharing their stories and explaining the process that they have already gone through, they expect to motivate other foreigners that wish to stay in Taiwan, start their own business and pursue their dreams.

Mechele talked about how grateful they are to Taiwan, and how none of their achievements would have been possible without the support of the Taiwan government—which, along with offering entrepreneur visas, also offers subsidies, awards and loans to startups like My Room Abroad.

Taiwan is also making improvements to make the process of setting up a company friendlier for those who are not proficient in Chinese, including its initiative to become a bilingual nation and provide more services in both Chinese and English. Should Taiwan succeed, it could hurdle the language barrier that currently restricts foreign entrepreneurs interested in starting operations in the country.

My Room Abroad is currently expanding into Malaysia and later plans to move into different countries in the Asia-Pacific region. For now, they are happy to help Taiwan improve its image as a destination country for students and foreigners around the world.

(Cover photo by Ke Hugo via Pixabay)