I’ve spent the last ten years working with some of the most exciting startups, founders, and investors in ‘The Valley’. After two failed startups, one successful exit, eight equity positions as an advisor or investor, and six years at Apple, I thought it was time to shake it up and made the call to move to Asia sight unseen (yes, I’d NEVER been to Asia prior)! While it wasn’t some master plan at first (my wife had a fantastic job offer), I quickly came to realize the unparalleled opportunity that is the Asia startup scene.
Before coming, I decided to approach Asia with an open mind and give myself one year to learn before starting or joining a new company. I had spent the majority of my career developing business channels and ecosystems for startups, investors, and Apple in the United States and thought I would need time to learn before getting back to executing. Well, that didn’t last long! After being here for just six weeks, I was off to Chinaccelerator to mentor their startups, Geeks on a Plane (#GOAP) with Dave McClure (@davemcclure), GMIC in Beijing, GSMA to meet with startups and investors from around Asia, and began creating Brinc (brinc.io) with my Co-Founder Manav Gupta (@manavg).
My first instinct was that I should bring as much of ‘The Valley’ to Asia as possible. That was a HUGE mistake! While ‘The Valley’ name is helpful (really, Apple is much better), bringing ‘The Valley’ mentality to Asia was not the way to approach this market.
