Primary tabs

Singapore needs clever ideas, not more marketplaces, says investor John Tan

Zavier Ong Published on Mon, Oct 31, 2016 / 3:06 PM GMT+8

A-

A+

Five years ago, John Tan invested in a company peddling a restaurant reservation system. Chope had been founded by a friend and former neighbour, Arrif Ziaudeen, and Tan saw potential in both the company and its founder. He says, “I understood and could see the need for a restaurant reservation system. Arrif was also one of the people I knew would be successful, and it was this confidence in him that primarily led me to invest in Chope.”

The investment also launched Tan into the world of angel investing. Since then, he has put money into at least 16 investments, including custom shirt maker Marcella, online grocery delivery service RedMart and a programming school he co-founded called Saturday Kids. The school provides coding lessons for children aged five to 12.

He is increasingly looking for startups outside the country. In fact, Tan has not invested in a Southeast Asian company in the last 12 months. “Many of the local start-ups are taking ideas from the US and trying to make it work here, particularly the B2C [business-to-consumer] start-ups,” he says. But Southeast Asia is a much more diverse market. So, ideas that work in the US may not work uniformly across the region. “It’s not so easy to expand across a region that has a combined population of 600 million across 10 countries, each with its different practices and rules.”