I had to go through NUS Enterprise, who manages SPRING funding
schemes for on-campus start-ups. They had a strong preference for
tech-based start-ups; not start-ups that make use of the latest
technologies, but start-ups which sole purpose of existence is to
commercialise some novel technology that has IP value.
That being said, my shortcomings are:
1) Market is too niche/small to allow any
meaningful growth.
2) Barriers-to-entry are too low due to lack of
proprietary IP element.
3) Financial projections are not impressive
enough to justify funding my enterprise.
NUS Enterprise receives on average 1 business plan a day, and
they reject more than 90% of all incoming proposals. I personally
have approached them twice and failed to proceed further.
What is your business about, generally?
1) If market big, then the big business people would be going
into it already lah, why need small timers like you?
Obviously start from niche market first what.
2) If barriers to entry high, that means only big players can go
into it. That was why this scheme was set up right? To help
the small startups put their foot into that business
section?
3) Financial projections are just financial projections.
Again, if the financial projections are very impressive, small
timers like you would go to the big players and not SPRING.
NUS enterprise run this scheme for small startups or big MNCs?
