It makes sense to be covered in the South China Morning Post and HK Business but when lifestyle periodicals Time-Out and HK Magazine start covering the startup scene in Hong Kong, it sounds like we’ve gone mainstream!
In this week’s HK Magazine out today, there is an 8-page cover story on the HK startup scene that we invite you to pick up (or download below.) The writer @SarahFung interviews a wide spectrum of people like our very own Casey Lau and Jon Buford, 10 startups from Hotel Quickly to ShopHop to Spacious with tips from Nest’s Simon Squibb and overviews of some of the co-workspaces.
Some quotes:
“I think the startup scene has grown a lot since we started meeting in a coffee shop back in late 2009 at the first Startup Mondays,” agrees Jon Buford, who’s another of the founders of StartupsHK and also behind 3D printer Makibox. “We started with six members,” says Casey Lau. “Now we have 5,000-plus. We had 1,000 square feet of co-workspace in January 2012—by the end of 2013, we will have 150,000 square feet.”
Don’t Think It’s Gonna be Easy. Doing a startup is the hardest thing you can do. A lot of people leave big companies to do a startup and suddenly there’s no one to pick up the phone for them anymore; there’s no one to take care of their accounts. People just don’t realize how much is involved, and how much multitasking they need to do. – Simon Squibb
The other great advantage is the sense of community. Networking events and venues exist to help startup founders meet and help each other out. “Hong Kong’s blessing and curse both lie in its size,” explains Michael Gasiorek of fashion app ShopHop. “The startup scene is tight-knit, incredibly supportive, and you’ll have more difficulty picking the events worth your time than finding them. Still, while it’s a great test market, it’s an even better launching pad to the rest of Asia.”
You can download the full issue here or have a look at just the story about HK startups below:
