Project Completion Report SECTION A: Project profile Project number & title: SME 01 2013 - APEC Startup Accelerator Initiative – Startup Leadership Summit 2013 Time period covered in report: March 1, 2013 ~ September 1, 2013 Date submitt ed: January 2014 Committee / WG / Fora: Small and Medium Enterprise Working Group- SMEWG Project Overseer Name / Organization / Economy: Ms. Maggie Hsiu-Ling Hsu Small and Medium Enterprise Administration, Ministry of Economic Affairs,Chinese Taipei SECTION B: Project report and reflection Briefly answer each of the questions below. Section B should be a maximum of 2-3 pages, inclusive of the questions and tables provided. 1. Project description: In 3-4 sentences, describe the project and its main objectives. As a response to APEC leaders’ instructions to engage in startup promoting activities to strengthen and promote startups in the APEC region, this project, in cooperation with ABAC, seeks to connect entrepreneurs with the innovation needs of these enterprises, build international business relationships, and facilitate VC/startups fundraising activities by hosting the APEC Startup Accelerator Leadership Summit 2013 (two-day forum) in Taipei in August 2013. For two days, 30 startups and 200 top executives/officials from the APEC region were invited to challenge current assumptions regarding how public and private sectors collaborate to build sustainable startup ecosystems in the APEC region and to recognize how startups can more effectively find new markets, customers, business models, revenues, and profits. Day 1, the Leadership Summit Day, aims to enable startups to facilitate business relationships and create content, both of which are highly relevant and actionable. Day 2 is the Intel APEC Challenge for startups to enable business development activity combined with fundraising opportunities. 2. Meeting your objectives: Were the proposed objectives of the project met? If so, please describe how. If not, please include any major changes to the proposed scope of the project. Please outline any problems you may have encountered that resulted in delays to the delivery of the activity. The main objectives had been achieved. As for providing access to management and business startup information and guidance to commercialize new products, systems, services and internationalization.
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aimp2.apec.org Docs/1525/C… · Web viewIn the ASA Summit, world-top entrepreneurs, VCs, representative of ABAC and delegates of APEC members shared their business points of view
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Ms. Maggie Hsiu-Ling HsuSmall and Medium Enterprise Administration, Ministry of Economic Affairs,Chinese Taipei
SECTION B: Project report and reflection
Briefly answer each of the questions below. Section B should be a maximum of 2-3 pages, inclusive of the questions and tables provided.
1. Project description: In 3-4 sentences, describe the project and its main objectives.
As a response to APEC leaders’ instructions to engage in startup promoting activities to strengthen and promote startups in the APEC region, this project, in cooperation with ABAC, seeks to connect entrepreneurs with the innovation needs of these enterprises, build international business relationships, and facilitate VC/startups fundraising activities by hosting the APEC Startup Accelerator Leadership Summit 2013 (two-day forum) in Taipei in August 2013.
For two days, 30 startups and 200 top executives/officials from the APEC region were invited to challenge current assumptions regarding how public and private sectors collaborate to build sustainable startup ecosystems in the APEC region and to recognize how startups can more effectively find new markets, customers, business models, revenues, and profits. Day 1, the Leadership Summit Day, aims to enable startups to facilitate business relationships and create content, both of which are highly relevant and actionable. Day 2 is the Intel APEC Challenge for startups to enable business development activity combined with fundraising opportunities.
2. Meeting your objectives: Were the proposed objectives of the project met? If so, please describe how. If not, please include any major changes to the proposed scope of the project. Please outline any problems you may have encountered that resulted in delays to the delivery of the activity.
The main objectives had been achieved.
As for providing access to management and business startup information and guidance to commercialize new products, systems, services and internationalization.
In the ASA Summit, world-top entrepreneurs, VCs, representative of ABAC and delegates of APEC members shared their business points of view and experiences with each other. The main topics discussed in the Start-Up Accelerator Leadership Summit include “Borderless pursuits”, “Foster Innovation and Entrepreneurship in a Globally Connected World”, “Bad News: Entrepreneurs Will Fail” and “Application - A Smarter World”, which help enhancing the communication and collaboration between public and private sections, and establishment of sustainable startup ecosystem in the APEC region.
As for increasing the availability of private financing for SMEs and Startups by facilitating closer proximity between suppliers of funds and those who need financing.
We have successfully connected more than 200 entrepreneurs and start-ups through the ASA platform with a number of events and resources, including mentoring resources, capacity building activities and trainings. In fact, after the Intel APEC Challenge, one of the startup teams, Gogolook, has been acquired at $18
million USD by Naver, the Korean tech giant that is best known for providing the messenger service “Line”
As for establishing a startup platform that facilitates related projects and sustains the growth of startups through rotating the project event annually among member economies
Our event had served as a platform for startups at various stages to interact with entrepreneurs and showcase their business strategies and products, to acquire fundraising opportunity and operational resources. We have helped more than 30 start-ups enhance their networking availabilities and identify business opportunities by this event. Besides, in 2014, Chinese Taipei’s another APEC project, named APEC Accelerator Network, will be launched in this August for keeping the startup platform sustainable.
Therefore, it is fair to state that all the objectives were achieved.
3. Evaluation: Describe how you evaluated the project upon completion? Detail the results of the evaluations conducted, if any (e.g. participant evaluation, peer review of publication, measurement of indicators, statistics demonstrating use of outputs etc.).
We evaluated the project upon completion by conducting a satisfactory survey on event participation. We have acquired feedbacks from almost all participants during the event, and we have also conduct another survey specifically on the startup teams after the event.
As for the event satisfaction from all participants:
Almost all 752 targeted audiences feel satisfied with our event. The results are listed as follows: – 99% of participants felt that “The forum helped to expand my professional knowledge
and was informative.”– 95% felt that “Presentation was engaging and held my interest.” – 98% felt positive on “Overall quality of logistic.”– 99% said YES about “Would you recommend this event to others?”– 100% felt Excellent and Good on “In general, how do you like this event?
As for the feedback from startup teams
For monitoring business matching activities that took place after the event, this post-survey have asked questions about what they have accessed through the event, which includes the branding effects, marketing chances and fundraising opportunities that they might have been acquired. Up to now, we have collected 6 out of 31 startup teams’ feedback, which are all positive and supportive toward the event(please refer to Annex).
4. Key findings: Describe the main outputs delivered and any broader outcomes achieved as a result of this project. (For example have there been any capacity building outcomes, policy or operational changes, or changes to standards or systems as a result of this activity?) Describe how project outputs relate to fora/sub fora/working group strategic and medium-term priorities and strategic priorities. Please provide examples of important findings or lessons learned arising from the project.
With this project’s efforts, key major findings could be seen in two parts; one from the four main topics discussed in the Summit, and one from the event preparation, implementation and organization
Part 1: Key findings from the Summit
The findings from the topic of “Borderless pursuits”
For entrepreneurs, they need a good idea, experienced mentor and training, a well-cooperated team, accesses of market and the capital for start-ups. As for the economic policy, free trade has the power to overcome traditional boundaries—domestic and international, political and economic.
The findings from “Foster Innovation and Entrepreneurship in a Globally Connected World”,
Governments all over the world have to make entrepreneurship and innovation a priority because in many APEC economies, innovators and entrepreneurs still face gaps on the area of Capacity building, Linking to the global market and Accessing capital.
The findings from “Bad News: Entrepreneurs Will Fail”For entrepreneurs, they need to face the problem quickly, broaden the scope by networking and most importantly, they need to manage expectations.
The findings from “Application - A Smarter World”,A smart business or start-ups needs to focus on the “Smart Investment Themes” which basically include working smart, building smart, learning smart, shopping smart, playing smart and eating smart.
Part 2: Key findings from the event preparation, implementation and organization
As this event was designed with 3 key startup acceleration elements (mentoring, networking, and funding), we have organized the event with a number of activities including ASA Summit, 1-on-1 Mentoring Session, Training Courses Session and Intel APEC Challenge. This event setting is also well linked with the three priorities of 2013~2016 APEC SMEWG strategic plan.
With this multi-phase event design, we found that private sectors are more willing to engage and startups are also more motivated and gain more real business experiences and challenges (such as networking, fundraising, showcasing and necessary capacities), compared to any other start-up event focusing on only one single aspect. We suggest that future start-up related events of the region could consider this.
5. Next steps: Describe any follow-up steps or projects that are planned following the completion of the activity, such as post-activity evaluations or tracer studies planned to assess the impact of this activity. Have the results of the activity been disseminated to participants and other stakeholders and how? What are (if any) any flow-on effects from this activity? How will this activity inform any future APEC activities?
a. To sustain the utmost of event organizing experience, and to maintain the development of startups in Asia-Pacific region, we plan to hold startup related event annually. We are currently initiating another APEC project, “APEC Accelerator Network”, which will be launched in this August 2014.
b. A self-funded website (http://www.apecaccelerator.org/index.aspx ) was launched in disseminating project related information and outputs. In addition, we also had uploaded the video of the event in August 2013 to YouTube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JVin6FjtIE&feature=youtu.be )
c. We will keep on monitoring the business matching activities by surveying startups’ feedback.
6. Feedback for the Secretariat: Do you have any suggestions for more effective management of projects in the future? Any assessment of consultants, experts or participants that you would like to share? (The Secretariat collates and examines feedback to identify trends for ongoing evaluation of our project management and/or communications systems.)
The Secretariat is very supportive with timely response to our APEC events. We have no further suggestions on the management effectiveness.
7. Participant information: Please provide details, where applicable. Insert rows as needed.
Australia 1 1 Participate in the 1-on-1 Mentoring and Intel APEC Challenge
Canada 1 Participate in the 1-on-1 Mentoring and Intel APEC Challenge
People's Republic of China 2 1 Participate in the Start-Up Accelerator Leadership Summit and Intel APEC Challenge
Hong Kong, China 1 Participate in the 1-on-1 Mentoring and Intel APEC Challenge
Indonesia 3 Participate in the 1-on-1 Mentoring and Intel APEC Challenge
Japan 5 1 Participate in the Start-Up Accelerator Leadership Summit and Intel APEC Challenge
Republic of Korea 6 Participate in the 1-on-1 Mentoring and Intel APEC Challenge
Malaysia 3 Participate in the -on-1 Mentoring and Intel APEC Challenge
Papua New Guinea 2 1Participate in the Start-Up Accelerator Leadership Summit, 1-on-1 Mentoring and Intel APEC Challenge
Peru 2 1Participate in the Start-Up Accelerator Leadership Summit, 1-on-1 Mentoring and Intel APEC Challenge
The Philippines 2 3Participate in the Start-Up Accelerator Leadership Summit, 1-on-1 Mentoring and Intel APEC Challenge
Singapore 3 1Participate in the Start-Up Accelerator Leadership Summit, 1-on-1 Mentoring and Intel APEC Challenge
Thailand 3 1 Participate in the 1-on-1 Mentoring and Intel APEC Challenge
The United States 2Participate in the Start-Up Accelerator Leadership Summit, 1-on-1 Mentoring and Intel APEC Challenge
Viet Nam 3 1Participate in the Start-Up Accelerator Leadership Summit, 1-on-1 Mentoring and Intel APEC Challenge
8. Outputs: Please provide details, where applicable. Change headings or insert rows as needed.
# planned # actual Details
# of workshops / events 04 04
Four events were open session, which are Start-Up Accelerator Leadership Summit, 1-on-1 Mentoring Session, Training Courses Session and Intel APEC Challenge.
# of websites created 01 01 Website with information about the events
# of video 01 01 For videotaping the whole events.
SECTION C: Budget
Attach a detailed breakdown of the APEC- provided project budget, including: Planned costs (using most recently approved budget figures) Actual expenditures Variance notes: An explanation of any budget line under- or over-spent by 20% or more.
Initially, the total budget of the project from APEC was of USD 128,795.00 Dollars and the real cost to implement this project was 117,833.91. The rate of expenditure is 91.4%.
BUDGETAPEC SECRETARIAT
SECTION D: Appendices or additions
Please attach any of the following. This information will help us better understand your project, support overseers of similar projects and plan for future projects.
List of experts or consultants utilized, with job titles and contact details, gender disaggregated where possible.
SPEAKERS/EXPERTS
S/N Title
Name Position Organization Email
1 Mr. Jeff Hoffman Co-Founder Priceline [email protected]@colorjar.com
2 Ms. Lorraine Hariton Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs
Bureau Of Economic and Business Affairs, US Department of State
1. What kind of values have you acquired through our event? Branding effects? More VC interested? Or…?
It was good experience to meet other passionate venture companies in worldwide
2. In general, which part of the event will you recommend, and which part will you prefer not to recommend in the future events?
Everything's good, but enhancing the mentoring session could be recommended, like not only giving advice about presentation, but also funding or technical issue. (maybe you could ask before mentoring session, about what kind of help(or advice) they need)
3. Is it possible to let us know the funding opportunities and amount you have acquired after the event?
none
4. Other Comments?It was great opportunity for me. Thanks for your commitment.
2.Team: Golface Name: Alin Chen
Feedback Form
1. What kind of values have you acquired through our event? Branding effects? More VC interested? Or…?
Thanks for holding this event and we gain lots of attention about our team. Absolutely including branding effect, more VC interested, more marketing chances, and more media opportunities.
2. In general, which part of the event will you recommend, and which part will you prefer not to recommend in the future events?
One-on-one mental section is definitely the most important part and also open to public section.
3. Is it possible to let us know the funding opportunities and amount you have acquired after the event?
We are not in this step yet.
4. Other Comments?Maybe APEC can invite more VC to visit this competition. If possible, teams could get a room or a place for them to prepare or being a rest area. Thanks for helping a lot and you guys are super awesome!
3. Team: Malaysia Name: Evenesis (Y Us Sdn Bhd)
Feedback Form
1. What kind of values have you acquired through our event? Branding effects? More VC interested? Or…?
How to make a good pitching presentation and depth understanding on the business proposition and positioning, as well as understanding the market for our services in Taipei.
We received few inquiries (potential clients and partner) however the interest and enthusiast did not sustain; perhaps they are not the right potential for our business.
2. In general, which part of the event will you recommend, and which part will you prefer not to recommend in the future events?
I would like all of the events to be sustained and it will be great to have a pre-arranged business matching session for the participating teams.
3. Is it possible to let us know the funding opportunities and amount you have acquired after the event?
We are not in this step yet.
4. Other Comments?Maybe APEC can invite more VC to visit this competition. If possible, teams could get a room or a place for them to prepare or being a rest area. Thanks for helping a lot and you guys are super awesome!
4. Team: ShuR Group Name: Junto Ohki
Feedback Form
1. What kind of values have you acquired through our event? Branding effects? More VC interested? Or…?
After coming back to Japan, our winning was on news. And Kawasaki city mayor wanted to meet us so we had a talk and the talk was on newspaper as well. Also more VC started to talk to us which we have never talked before.
2. In general, which part of the event will you recommend, and which part will you prefer not to recommend in the future events?
Some talk before the pitch was not so interesting however most of part was great.
3. Is it possible to let us know the funding opportunities and amount you have acquired after the event?
Still talking.
4. Other Comments?
5. Team: Waygo (USA) Name: Ryan Rogowski
Feedback Form
1. What kind of values have you acquired through our event? Branding effects? More VC interested? Or…?
It helped with our brand recognition in Asia. We feel we have a much stronger presence in Chinese Taipei and Southeast Asia. We were not fundraising at the time so it did not have big effects on our funding. 2. In general, which part of the event will you recommend, and which
part will you prefer not to recommend in the future events?I enjoyed the startup pitches. I felt the workshops were not wholely applicable to all the startups present. There should only be a couple mandatory and the rest should be optional as I felt some of the even talks were more relevant than the startup workshop talks.3. Is it possible to let us know the funding opportunities and amount you
have acquired after the event? We were not fundraising at the time, but we had 2 strong partnership meetings afterwards. One with HTC and one with the Chinese Taipei government travel branch. 4. Other Comments?
6. Team: Wegentech, Inc. Name: Karl
Feedback Form
1. What kind of values have you acquired through our event? Branding effects? More VC interested? Or…?
As one of the 15 early stage startups from APEC Accelerator Program, the value we acquired was not limited to the following:
• Network Experience – we have gained not only experience as an individual but opportunity to talk with other people and to gain insight in the startup community in APEC region.
• Brand Effect – we have gained PR in our economy as one of the early stage startups from APEC that gives us support to our current investor.2. In general, which part of the event will you recommend, and which
part will you prefer not to recommend in the future events?The event is well prepared and the activities are recommended.3. Is it possible to let us know the funding opportunities and amount you
have acquired after the event? We haven’t gained new investor in our startup. We are not looking for investor for the meantime but seeking for grants like DOST TAPI and ADB grants instead in this early stage.4. Other Comments?
Any other relevant information or resources that would help us learn more about your project
FOR APEC SECRETARIAT USE ONLY APEC comments: Were APEC project guidelines followed? Could the project have been managed more effectively or easily by the PO?