Understand monetization and compensation plans before you spend any time building a product or company. If you jump in with both feet, only to realize 12 months down the road that it will take another 5 years to generate a profit, you might find yourself in a situation where you run out of money to support yourself. Always evaluate your personal money situation before you assume any startup, team or product has any potential for growth. read more

There shall be 3 important steps: 1. Make sure the product has it's unique edge that could beat up any competitors 2. Make a good name and hire suitable PR and marketing agencies to launch and marketing campaign to boost the sales and public awareness of your product. 3. Collect as much data as possible for future customer relationship management. (CRM) to turn potential customers to paid customers. read more

There are different types of M&A happened in HK. So far, from the past 5 years, the Merger of PacificLink to Accenture shall be the largest one in the IT industry. Just sorry that we can't disclose the amount. Reference from the available largest IT acquisition cases performed by Listed companies, PacificLink was the largest case among all. read more

If your project has the potential to scale up by capital investment, you should ask Angels investment funds to boost your growth. T12M Ventures is one of the early stage Angel investment firms. read more

There are many Gov't Fund managed by Cyberport and HKSTP. You could also apply for different Gov't ITF funds for different types of startups. At your starting point, you could raise fundfrom 3F, named friends, family and Fool. read more

It's always the hardest to balance the two haha I always ask myself that question too but I honestly find it possible to do both at the same time!!! Since it's a chicken and egg problem, if you don't have a good product it'll take you forever to look for funding right haha? And as long as you have a killer product idea and just a prototype, you can start pitching to get funding in no time!! And in startup world, words spread out quickly and doesn't harm to be more active in the circle like attending networking events and listen to talks since you'll never know who you can meet there and learn from!] read more

Sales and business development is definitely a big part of the revenue income for any startup, and to attract the best talents it's not only just creating a competitive sales commission structure, there are many other ways to incentivise the sales team such as share options plan. Traditional sales commission structure may work such as KPI-driven targets. Most importantly it's an aggressive target, if you've got a solid and passionate team that sees the product as their little baby, they'll for sure go the extra mile right? read more

I haven't worked in nor managed a U.S. tech startup before but I do understand the landscape is very different! U.S. tech startups are much more focused on work-life balance, benefits and flexibility whereas Hong Kong tech startups are more about working smart, speedy, passionately and maximizing the most deliverables with limited resources. I believe some level of this is due to the level of funding, Hong Kong tech startups unfortunately don't get as much funding if comparing with tech startups in the U.S. given the target markets can be totally different and would drastically affect the salary, benefits and all. But at the same time, both work cultures are super hardworking and passionate in my opinion to help the team grow bigger and make the products fly to the max! read more

Anytime! In my opinion there's no "best" time to ask as investors wouldn't be only looking to invest in certain times of the year. I would say as soon as you have a prototype or proof of concept in place, you can start pitching investors like crazy! Meet as many people as you can and join as many startup community events as possible to put your product out there so people can see and feel. We were grateful that we got our seed funding with just a prototype in hand and that was by joining the Rise Conference back in 2016 and we won the IBM competition. Also, I think it's fine to take little steps and make the most with what you have in hand at all times, be it funding or manpower resources or product. With the never-ending passion and passionate heart you won't stop trying hard to deliver the best product as you can and people will surely see the amazing product and getting the community talking about :) that's when you'll start getting the traction and interest from investors to know more about your product and business ideas! read more

Startup communities such as Whub and co-working spaces definitely help to find people with the startup passion and attitude to help you make the company fly. There are now also recruitment agencies where they specialize in startup talent acquisition which is super helpful for us while they understand the needs of a startup and most importantly they have the flexibility we desperately need in terms of cost, selection process and basicallyanything throughout the recruitment process really. read more