1. 10 Shocking Truths
about Silicon Valley – Lessons
from 100 Startup Founders
Loo Cheng Chuan, Head, Local life at SingTel’s
Group Digital L!fe

2. I networked a lot in Silicon Valley

3. Truth 1
Multi-billion dollar businesses require
multi-trillion dollar markets

4. $3T $1.7T
UK INDIA $6.9T
CHINA
$3T
FRANCE
$15T
US $6.4T
JAPAN
$0.3T
THAILAND
$0.7T
INDONESIA
$0.3T $4 - 5T
MALAYSIA
SOUTH EAST $0.2T
ASIA SINGAPORE
$1T
AUSTRALI
A

5. Most listed internet companies are based in Multi-
Trillon dollar markets
1 Google 196.38B 21 SouFun 796.58M
2 Baidu 33.03B 22 Web.com Group 727.98M
23 HealthStream 539.45M
3 Yahoo! 18.81B
24 InfoSpace 499.91M
4 LinkedIn Corporation 11.32B 25 Travelzoo 386.87M
5 Groupon 7.456B 26 Move 323.41M
6 Akamai 5.274B 27 TechTarget 245.94M
Technologies 28 Phoenix New Media 200.22M
7 TripAdvisor 5.046B 29 Global Sources 196.53M
8 Yandex 30 Bitauto 188.21M
3.503B
31 Jiayuan.com 160.68M
9 AOL 2.472B International
10 HomeAway 2.030B 32 Rediff.com 149.66M
11 Bankrate 1.833B 33 Quepasa 126.54M
12 Youku 1.827B Corporation
34 ChinaCache 123.56M
13 Sohu.com 1.697B
International
14 Renren 1.410B 35 Market Leader 104.06M
15 ValueClick 1.398B 36 Tucows 63.35M
16 InterXion 1.213B 37 TheStreet 56.60M
17 Zynga 967.59M 38 Local.com 54.54M
Corporation
18 Ancestry.com 967.35M
39 Autobytel 35.51M
19 OpenTable 873.59M 40 China Finance 35.12M
20 Shutterfly 845.01M Online
‘B or ‘M denotes the current market capitalization in USD

6. Truth 2
Most starting directions & eventual
destinations are different

7. Success
Starting point

8. Planned
Destination
Eventual
Destination
“Success
Frontier”
- Craigslist started out to be an event bulletin board, today is the largest classified portal
- Amazon began as an online bookstore, today, sells more much on media, electronics etc.
- Mark Zuckerberg wrote Facemash, before Facebook, a site that choose the hotter person.

9. Truth 3
The failure rates are really high. 97% of
the online businesses fail!

10. Implication
You need to try a lot.

11. Truth 4
Goliaths don’t usually win.

12. Truth 5
Sexy sells

13. “Damn Sexy” “Damn Simple”

14. Truth 6
Most in Sandhill road are not
interested in SEA.

15. Truth 7
Foreign talents: Singapore hates them,
Silicon Valley loves them.

16. “Singapore” “Silicon Valley”

17. Truth 8
There is a X-factor that matters more
than experience and the ideas…

18. Marten Mickos, MySQL,
What do they have
in common?
Park Harris, SalesForce
Richard Fairbanks
Capital One
Susan Lyne Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn
Gilt Group

19. Truth 9
It takes Passion, Passion, Passion!

20. Truth 10
It also takes time…