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  • Uncategorized e-commerce Taiwan

    Taiwan – An Introduction to: E-Commerce

    Samuel is an Indonesian economics graduate from National Taiwan University, fluent in Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian. He previously worked for Taiwanese financial institutions, experienced in financial institution corporate strategy and corporate banking. A General Introduction to Taiwan's Digital Economy Taiwan, to many young Southeast Asians, will seem like a place that is the birthplace of bubble tea and fried chicken a-la Hot Star. To an older generation, a place where F4 and Jay Chou is from. Apart from the Chinese-speaking populace in Southeast Asia, the layperson in the region perhaps do not know much about Taiwan. Despite the cultural pull that Taiwan has, tech startups in the ASEAN region do not really think of Taiwan as a possible market to expand to, mostly because they are simply not acquainted with Taiwan as a market. To people who are a bit more well-versed about Taiwan economically, they might point out that it is a developed country but lagging in growth compared to South Korea, as recent GDP data shows Taiwan only growing 2~3% yearly. Behind the facade, there are actually many more things to be more optimistic about in Taiwan, there is still a very significant market to be exploited, especially in the digital space. Although the world has known Taiwan to be a country with strategic importance in the global high-tech sector, Taiwan is mainly but a hardware manufacturing hub. Given the global slowdown in the hardware market, many are looking into the software and services space to expand to, but traditional Taiwanese companies have found the execution is not so simple. Understanding the overall market in Taiwan and moving into the space with great urgency can serve overseas startups well, as we can see from the example of SEA Group.  SEA Group started out as Garena, and they entered the Taiwanese market early in 2009 as the publisher of League of Legends. Through their operations in Taiwan, they probably realized Taiwan’s potential early on, despite having only 23 million people. When they launched Shopee in 2015, they quickly latched on to Taiwan as a decisive market. In the last 3 years, Taiwan has become a major revenue source for SEA Group as Garena and Shopee has been doing very well in the market, and they intend to expand further in the long-run. The digital population is relatively high, at 92.8% of the population (around 21.5 million people), and the GDP per capita of USD 24,971 is roughly similar to Portugal, at least twice of Malaysia, and about 2.5x China's GDP per capita.  So there are still huge areas of growth sitting in Taiwan. The significant spending power of its residents, as well as the shift to the digital landscape makes the digital market extremely attractive to the right company. Knowledge is power, and this is an information asymmetry that SEA Group has discovered since the last decade and have been continuing to profit off even after its IPO in 2017. As SEA Group emphasizes in its prospectus and reports, Taiwan is deemed to be part of the GSEA (Greater Southeast Asia) region, and the current Taiwanese president under Tsai Ying-wen has enacted the New Southbound Policy that reorients Taiwan’s businesses to build a closer relationship with ASEAN countries. E-Commerce Despite the sluggish overall GDP growth in Taiwan, there are areas where growth can perhaps rival ASEAN economies, growing at least 10%. Taiwan’s population has a relatively long history of e-commerce adoption, owing to the early technological advancement and the relatively internet-savvy consumers. Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute, a local government research institute, estimates that 70% of Taiwan’s internet population used e-commerce in 2018, which computes to around 15 million people.  In 2016, sales made over the internet have ballooned to make up 5.4% of the total retail activity, which computes to around USD 7B in total, and growing even further every year. In 2017, retail sales over the internet grew 13.6%, and some subsections such as logistics for internet-based B2B sales grew a crazy 75%. As a comparison, growth in overall retail (both online and offline) only grew about 1.2%, implying that Taiwan’s retail economy is slowly moving over to the digital space. Indeed, we are seeing online e-commerce sites eating a larger portion of the pie every year. Most e-commerce players have enjoyed this trend, with public e-commerce companies such as PCHome and Momo (Fubon Media) enjoying a bumper year in their topline numbers. The digitalization of retail activity has also prompted many to enter the market and ride on this wave, including Shopee who set up shop in 2015 and promptly gained a huge market share on the back of its mobile-first strategy and social media-oriented marketing. Although Taiwan’s e-commerce scene is quite mature, it has not evolved to keep pace with the mobile evolution in the past few years. PCHome is still the leader in the overall B2C market, but Shopee and Momo are ahead in the mobile app space, and the growth of orders done through mobile devices are also increasing, and the industry will have to adjust further to the ever-evolving consumer preference. Adding to the competition in the B2C market, Shopify-style e-commerce platforms have also been blooming in Taiwan. Local player 91APP raised $9M in series A, whose backers include AppWorks and PCHome’s chairman. Foreign competition is also present, as Hong Kong’s Shopline has made a landing in Taiwan, backed by Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund. As a whole, the e-commerce industry in Taiwan is supported by the robust digital infrastructure in place, the government’s push for more retail digitalization, the ubiquity of credit/debit cards, the rise of cashless payments (LINE Pay, JKo Pay, Pi Wallet) driven by the government, the developed logistics network, as well as the relative spending power and preference of the internet-savvy population.  There is still a lot of value to unlock in this space, despite the intense competition in the domestic e-commerce space. B2B logistics for e-commerce is an area where the right firm can dominate, and digital financial products grew a significant 31% in 2017, which is an area that will experience more growth, as the supportive regulator has recently issued licenses for virtual banks. Being a developed country, Taiwan has a solid structure in intellectual property rights, and Taiwan frequently ranks highly in the Ease of Doing Business index. However, expanding into Taiwan will be a tough task nonetheless due to the need for localization as well as the need to navigate through the tangled web of bureaucracy. We at Cornerstone Ventures can be a suitable local partner for startups who are thinking of Taiwan as a potential market for expansion. We focus on new internet ventures, especially in the AI and data space. We are backed by both Chunghwa Telecom and PCHome, and we can also rope in other resources both from the government as well as the private sector. If you are truly interested in building a business together in Taiwan and you believe there is space for us to partner up, please do contact us through contact@cornerstonevc.tw and send us relevant information, we look forward to knowing you.

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  • Uncategorized digital economy e-commerce Taiwan

    Taiwan – An Introduction to: Digital Life

    Samuel is an Indonesian economics graduate from National Taiwan University, fluent in Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian. He previously worked for Taiwanese financial institutions, experienced in financial institution corporate strategy and corporate banking. As mentioned in last month’s article, Taiwan has a mature digital market dating back to the late 90s. According to tefficient and Taiwan Internet Report, Taiwan has one of the highest rates of internet penetration in Asia and the world, and data consumption per capita is the highest in Asia, just second to Finland worldwide. Taiwan has 3 big telecom companies, 2 smaller telecom companies and many other MVNOs, serving a population of 23 million people. Internet usage in Taiwan is ubiquitous, and Taiwan’s digital life is relatively developed. However, the digital ecosystem in Taiwan is not the same as the ecosystem in the Southeast Asian region. In this article, we are going to take a look into some apps of choice for Taiwanese consumers in the realm of social media, online transportation, and food delivery service. Social Media Internet users in Taiwan generally use Facebook as their main social media, with a growing number of users shifting their private profiles over to Instagram.  For forum-based discussion, the platform is fragmented depending on the topic at hand. For example, for discussion about electronic goods, mobile01 is the main place to go. Gamers flock to Bahamut to discuss everything about games and related topics.  However, PTT, a telnet BBS launched in 1995, is still one of the largest communities in Taiwan covering any topic, similar to Japan’s 2ch or the global 4chan in BBS form. Its impact is huge, generating many of the contents and topics currently in circulation in the Taiwanese parts of FB and Instagram, to the point that a Taiwanese movie was based on the board. Above is an example of a login screen, and below is the current list of most popular boards: Moving on to other media, Taiwanese users generally use Youtube as their primary video source, similar to the US. However, more and more people are opting to use the video feature on Facebook. Similar to the current trend in the world, we see the internet moving to a more mobile environment with a more video-focused approach. Lately, we have seen an uptick in the number of people trying to use Facebook Live to directly sell to consumers, similar to TV marketing but with added interactiveness with the audience. A potential customer would follow the link given by the broadcaster, or chat directly to buy the products. There have been a growing number of startups in Taiwan that are trying to support this part of e-commerce, working together with influencers and small merchants. The above shows a new trend in the making, as the worlds of video, social, and e-commerce collide. However, traditional B2C e-commerce are still very strong with solid revenue numbers. Just counting the revenue of 3 public e-commerce companies (PCHome, momo and Kuo Brothers), all 3 add up to almost USD 3B. Similar to Southeast Asia, there are also many merchants who are trying to make it through low-cost channels, mainly through social media (Facebook, Instagram) and chat-based applications. Some even sell on PTT or Facebook Marketplace, and do the transaction directly by bank transfer or through Shopee (for added security). The first-choice messaging application in Taiwan is LINE. Out of 23 million people, LINE has about 21 million users in Taiwan, which approximately covers 91% of the country. As such, LINE has become a necessity of life in Taiwan, embedding itself into the fabric of everyday life. There are many theories about how LINE became successful in Taiwan, but a part of its early boom can be attributed to the attractiveness of stickers as a means to communicate, as it made chatting a bit less stiff. LINE increased its stickiness when they started releasing their own inhouse games in the same era where Facebook games were all the rage.  As of today, LINE has become a major force in the digital ecosystem in Taiwan, including branching out to offering daily news, in-app e-commerce platform, on-demand audio and video content, mobile internet and even an in-app online travel booking platform. They also provide corporate accounts through their Line@ service. Besides their services, LINE has vigorously marketed its virtual point system, exchangeable as vouchers and products, or even cash in many merchants. A user can get LINE Points by using their payment services (LINE Pay), and they have made efforts to reach the population by working together with local banks to issue co-branded credit cards (CTBC Line Pay, Union Bank of Taiwan Line Points). LINE is also moving into the financial services sector after it was granted a virtual bank license in Taiwan, joining forces with local banks (including CTBC and Standard Chartered). It is quite possible to think of LINE as a super-app for Taiwan, similar as to how Kakao and Naver are super-apps in Korea. As part of Naver, LINE can implement proven business models from its regions (including Japan, Thailand) and try to localize. LINE has already redesigned its UI in order to provide users with easier access to their services. LINE has also expanded in Southeast Asia, notably Thailand. but in other Southeast Asian countries, LINE is losing ground to Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger. That is in contrast with Taiwan, where LINE is unquestionably the messenger application of choice, to the point that work communication as well as customer service are being done on the platform. The Taiwanese internet market has a few quirks that are different with Southeast Asia, and startups that are considering Taiwanese consumers as a target market should be mindful of the different local consumer preferences compared to Southeast Asia. Online Transportation Ride-hailing apps such as Uber has had a rocky history in Taiwan, as they play cat-and-mouse games with the regulator, as the regulator first rejected their claim to be a purely tech company and required them to register as a transportation company. After a few back and forth, the government finally issued an ultimatum to register as a taxi company or pull out of Taiwan. As of October 1 this year, they operate as a taxi company in Taiwan. One of the reasons Uber has been relatively successful in Taiwan is that besides pioneering the ability to call taxis from an app, the cars are usually cleaner, and that the drivers are usually more professional compared to a random taxi you hail on the streets. The entrance of Uber into the market meant that the traditional heavyweight in the taxi industry, Taiwan Taxi (台灣大車隊), has had to adopt and provide a call-on-demand function on their application. Another upstart, TaxiGo, started out as a chatbot on Messenger and LINE to call taxis. It originally worked with existing taxi drivers, but gradually developed into its own taxi company. Food Delivery Taiwan has a culture of eating out, and many apartments in Taipei don’t include a kitchen at all. In the last few years, food delivery has been a very big battleground between new startups in Taiwan, starting from the now bankrupt Honestbee, Foodpanda, Uber Eats, as well as the newest competitor in town, Deliveroo. Besides international competitors, small local upstarts are also trying to make it in this crowded space, such as Yowoo. So far, Uber Eats, Foodpanda and Deliveroo has been the current leaders so far. Compared to Grab and Gojek being the two giants in both transportation and food delivery in Southeast Asia, the transportation and food delivery part is largely fragmented. Different players exist in both areas, with the exception of Uber. In general, there are still a couple of spaces left for international startups to exploit, as can be seen from the proliferation of LINE and overseas food delivery companies, but the key thing is for startups to localize into Taiwan. Another key thing is to think of Taiwan’s digital ecosystem as completely separate from China, as consumer preferences and habits differ in both countries. In this case, one can lump Taiwan in as another one of ASEAN’s many countries with different cultures and languages. As long as localization is done right and the services benefit consumers, Taiwanese consumers are also open to new solutions, and Taiwan can really be a nice cash cow for a startup who is willing to localize.

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  • Uncategorized cashless digital economy payment Taiwan

    Taiwan: An Introduction – Contactless Payment

    Samuel is an Indonesian economics graduate from National Taiwan University, fluent in Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian. He previously worked for Taiwanese financial institutions, experienced in financial institution corporate strategy and corporate banking. One of the hottest battleground in the technology sector currently is the battle between various types of contactless payments. Much like Japan, big companies and startups in Taiwan are also trying to grab a slice of the pie in question through both stored-value cards and QR payments. Stored-value Cards Contactless payment has been quite entrenched in Taiwan for some time already. According to the latest statistics, the largest stored-value card in Taiwan is Easycard, established in 2000 by the Taipei City government.  While they were originally used for payment in Taipei MRT, it quickly grew as the capital city Taipei is essentially the center of Taiwan’s economy. It also became the payment system of choice for buses in Taipei, gradually expanding to the nearby cities of Keelung and Hsinchu. Meanwhile, intercity trains have also adopted Easycard, benefiting commuters from satellite towns. After initial government regulations in 2009, the use case of Easycard expanded significantly as they entered retail stores including: convenience stores, supermarkets, restaurants, bookshops, movie theaters. It was also the initial payment method for Taipei’s public bike-sharing service Youbike, also launched in 2009. In more recent years, it has also become an accepted form of payment for even taxis. Thus, Easycard gradually became ubiquitous in Taiwan, as they expanded their coverage to include Kaohsiung’s MRT, while working with local city governments in Taoyuan and other cities to implement their payment chips in the IDs of local residents. This enables local governments to give direct benefits to seniors and students through their Easycard balance. Easycard has also embedded their chips into company ID cards and student cards as well as regular consumer debit/credit cards, further diversifying their user base.  These early developments have resulted in the dominance of Easycard in Taiwan while leading to other competitors in the space. Although Easycard is by far the largest company in this space, its dominance is not as big as the Octopus Card in Hong Kong. According to Tofugear and Wirecard, the rate of adoption of Octopus is over 99% in Hong Kong’s working age population. Similar to Easycard, Octopus started out in 1997 as a payment solution for Hong Kong’s MTR, eventually expanding to all public transportation in the city (including buses). It was rapidly adopted as roughly 4.5 million cards were issued after just one year, despite the presence of a competitor called Mondex (led by HSBC and Mastercard) and VisaCash. Mondex and VisaCash floundered, and Mondex was eventually terminated in 2002. Octopus was so successful that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority decided to give a deposit-taking license, no longer limiting Octopus to only be used as digital payments for transit. Thereafter, expansion to the retail sector was swift, as Hong Kong conglomerates start to adopt Octopus, bringing it into convenience stores, supermarkets, and even photocopy machines. However, Octopus became so commonplace that consumers find it hard to adopt a new payment system, stifling innovation and competition in this space. The competition in Taiwan leads to more choices for consumers, and added competition from mobile payments (e.g. Apple Pay, Samsung Pay) has led some companies to try and secure partnerships to drive growth. For example, iPass was originally founded in 2014 by the Kaohsiung City government. In 2017, LINE became a major shareholder (30%) after buying new shares. Since then, they have tied up LINE Pay cards with iPass value cards, allowing users to access their iPass balance directly from the LINE app. They also have tie-ups with credit card issuers, especially with CTBC and Union Bank (who is also a significant shareholder in iPass and LINE Taiwan’s virtual bank). icash is established in 2013 as a subsidiary of the President Chain Store Corp., which runs 5,505 branches of 7-11 in the country (as of June 2019) and hold the domestic licenses for Starbucks, Cold Stone Creamery, and the Japanese donut chain Mister Donut. Similar to iPass, they also create tie-ups with local credit card issuers to enter the market. All three have their own point systems which are fairly easy to exchange with store vouchers, a short summary can be found below:  EasycardiPassicashYear Established200020142013Main ShareholderTaipei City governmentLINE President Chain Store (7-11 Taiwan)PointsUUPONLINE PointsOPEN POINT Mobile Payments Taiwan’s banking regulations have been rather strict in comparison to other countries, owing to the regulators’ focus on minimizing risks since Taiwan is unable to call upon the IMF or World Bank to help bail its financial system. The proliferation of banking services have also led to overbanking on the island, and interest margins are very low. Under this backdrop, the government has been trying to promote innovation and healthy competition in the industry by encouraging banks to merge or by relaxing banking regulations, such as when they relaxed regulations pertaining to mobile payments in 2015. The Financial Supervisory Commission has also released a white paper on the domestic fintech development in 2016, hoping to spark a digital renaissance in the sector. The Taiwan government announced in late 2017 that they aim to digitalize the economy, including its aim to increase the penetration of mobile payments to 90% in the country by 2025. Digital payments include both mobile and non-mobile cashless payments such as debit/credit cards, whereas mobile payments refer to those that are done by mobile payments.  The latest government update in September 2019 forecasts Taiwan’s transaction value in digital payments to break USD 3.2B. The penetration of mobile payment in Taiwan has surged from 24% in 2016 to 50% in 2018, making the initial goal seem achievable. One of the major reasons for this bump in penetration is the mobile payment war that has been brewing in the country, much like the war in Japan. Everyone from banks, convenience stores and IT companies want to grab a share of this pie. Translated and edited from: Source The most popular payment methods in 2018 are LINE Pay, Apple Pay and JKo Pay (the company with the red logo), with the 3 of them conquering 62% of the total digital payment market in Taiwan. Young people have readily adopted mobile payments as more than 75% of consumers aged 26 - 35 have used them. Perhaps similar to dynamics elsewhere in the region, the payment providers heavily invest in marketing to subsidize consumers to use their payment method, making it a short-term boon for consumers. Comparing the above to Japan’s mobile payment market really shows the extent of the competition in Taiwan’s market, especially as Japan’s population is about 5.5 times bigger than Taiwan. For some background as to why everyone seem so keen on the payment gold rush, one can look at Stripe and Square to gauge how profitable it can be. Furthermore, a company can lock in the user even more tightly in its ecosystem, and build a customer profile by tracking their transactions and gain new insights through the application of AI. Being dominant in a service that everyone uses makes it easier for companies to try and monetize their user base in other ways. One can look to China for a real-life study case, having as much as $270B assets under management at one point. India’s Paytm is following the trend, as they launched Paytm Money. According to Taiwan’s statistical bureau, in 2016, there are approximately USD 2.2T that are quite liquid which can be diverted into mutual funds, as the table below suggests. Assuming a very conservative market share and management fee of 0.1% and 1%, a company might earn USD 2.1M, which is a sizable amount for a startup.  Type2016 Amount0.1% Market Share1% Management FeeCash & Demand Deposits452,270,967,742452,270,968452,271Time Deposits525,400,000,000525,400,000525,400Portfolio (Equity, Debt, Fund, etc)1,144,783,870,9681,144,783,8711,144,784Total (USD)2,122,454,838,7102,122,454,8392,122,455 Of course, the above is just a hypothetical market for ONLY the asset management part, since a payment gateway company would also have their main revenue stream coming from payment handling fees. Given the size of Taiwan’s digital retail market, the potential value for digital payments is very high compared to the population size. The amount of each person’s share of wallet is quite high compared to developing markets such as Vietnam or Indonesia. Although the market won’t be as big as China or India, but the winner of this small market will have many opportunities to monetize further.

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  • 布蘭登觀點 fundraising Saas Taiwan valuation

    2020 年新創募資動向 [布蘭登觀點 029]

    Techcrunch 的這篇文章，整理了 2020 年新創募資的一些變化趨勢。募資的狀況因人而異，所以每個人得到的建議都會不同，有些人說很好募資，有些人說很難募資，有些人會建議你多拿一點錢，有些人則是建議你少拿一點錢。我們先從文章中節錄幾點有趣的建議，文章的最後，我再提出我對於 2020 年新創在台灣募資的看法。 募資難度因人而異 在 Bay Area，如果你是名校畢業，曾經待過有名的大公司 (Eg. Google、Facebook 這類的)，或是曾經有成功的出場，就算你還沒有做出太多實績，而且不管做什麼題目，你在早期階段是比較容易拿到錢的。 Bay Area 的價位：上述這樣的人，拿個 USD 3-5M 可能不是問題。如果你是連續創業家，那募個 USD 8M，讓公司估值達到 USD 30M 也不是不可能。這點就跟之前跟各位提過的相關：VC 對於早期的創業團隊來說，看重「人」的比例是比較高的。如果投資人對於這個「團隊與人」有信心一些，早期很難看確定商業模式是否可行，所以人看起來對了，比較容易拿到投資。 SaaS 很夯 在 Bay Area，如果你不是上面那類的人，但你做的題目是 SaaS 類別的，那現在還算是好募資。過去幾個月矽谷的 VC 越來越看重獲利能力，這也可能是 2019 年幾個沒有獲利能力的獨角獸上市後，變成「毒」角獸，讓 VC 燙到後的改變。所以成長不在是唯一指標，健康的成長才會是投資人樂見的。(參閱：[VC 101] 沒成長就很難獲得投資人青睞)。高毛利與回客很多的類型，比較能夠達成獲利的目標。而 SaaS 類別產業就有這特性，毛利高，而且客戶基本上就類似訂閱制，每個月都會回來，Churn 的比例通常很低。 對大多數創業者來說，募資還是很難 如果你不是有好的背景，而且做的題目也不是當下投資人偏好的口味，那麼你就跟大多數人一樣，「募資很難」！雖然你會讀到很多創業者募資成功的故事，但記得，那個可能是百分之一的例子，剩下的 99 個人還是辛苦的在「募資中」。 估值的狀況差異很大 很多創業者都會問：怎麼替自己的公司估值，或者是現在估值的水準如何？(參閱：[VC 101] 公司是否估值越高越好？) 估值這件事情其實跟地域性有很大的關係，但跟一般股票市場一樣，價格都是供給與需求所創造出來的。過去熱錢多的後，資金供給變多，在相同的資金需求下，熱錢就會去追求相對少的案子，則價格就會變高。反之亦然。 2020 年台灣的募資狀況 現在才年初，很難說得準 2020 年的狀況。原本以區域性的投資與募資狀況來看，相對沒有前幾年來的熱，不管是中國、東南亞還是台灣，我認為上述提到的「獲利性」會是長期投資人想看到的。當然中國與東南亞前幾年還是以「成長」為最大的驅動力，能否賺錢短期其實沒有那麼重要，只要有成長，新創的下一輪有人接，繼續注資讓新創成長，一手接一手，這是很常見的狀況。但激情退去，資金供給慢下來後，理性的獲利性考量就浮出了。台灣則是因為市場相對不大，所以對於成長的期待雖然有，但考量到 Total Addressable Market (TAM) 可能不大後，就會提早把獲利性納入考量，所以相對來說是務實些。 但如果加上今年的變數「Coronavirus」的影響，節儉的 Founder 可能會比較吃香一點，因為這影響不知道會多久，Top Line 也會延後幾季到達原本設定的水準，所以你有多少糧草可以撐到再次起風就會是關鍵。(參見：武漢肺炎對於新創之影響 [布蘭登觀點 027])。 我猜測有些新創有可能會延後個一兩季拿到錢，上半年的募資狀況可能會比較冷，下半年陸續才會有些案子出現。而如果是跟疫情直接相關的產業，如旅遊與零售餐飲，直接影響大，可能就得要縮衣節食一下。短期先活下來，等到市場恢復時看可否掌握回彈的成長力道，長期則還是要證明健康的獲利能力。 若覺得基石創投的文章有幫助，可以幫我們基石創投的粉絲頁按讚與關注，也順便幫我們分享給更多的創業者。 我是布蘭登，畢業於台大數學系、商研所。與台大物理系、光電所畢業的 TP 一起管理基石創投。研究所時期對於網路創業與創業投資產生興趣，經過初創企業與大公司的洗禮，之後投入創投產業至今。 The Future Is Unwritten. Let’s Write The Future.

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  • Taiwan: An Introduction cashless digital economy payment Taiwan

    Taiwan: An Introduction – Contactless Payment

    Samuel is an Indonesian economics graduate from National Taiwan University, fluent in Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian. He previously worked for Taiwanese financial institutions, experienced in financial institution corporate strategy and corporate banking. One of the hottest battleground in the technology sector currently is the battle between various types of contactless payments. Much like Japan, big companies and startups in Taiwan are also trying to grab a slice of the pie in question through both stored-value cards and QR payments. Stored-value Cards Contactless payment has been quite entrenched in Taiwan for some time already. According to the latest statistics, the largest stored-value card in Taiwan is Easycard, established in 2000 by the Taipei City government.  While they were originally used for payment in Taipei MRT, it quickly grew as the capital city Taipei is essentially the center of Taiwan’s economy. It also became the payment system of choice for buses in Taipei, gradually expanding to the nearby cities of Keelung and Hsinchu. Meanwhile, intercity trains have also adopted Easycard, benefiting commuters from satellite towns. After initial government regulations in 2009, the use case of Easycard expanded significantly as they entered retail stores including: convenience stores, supermarkets, restaurants, bookshops, movie theaters. It was also the initial payment method for Taipei’s public bike-sharing service Youbike, also launched in 2009. In more recent years, it has also become an accepted form of payment for even taxis. Thus, Easycard gradually became ubiquitous in Taiwan, as they expanded their coverage to include Kaohsiung’s MRT, while working with local city governments in Taoyuan and other cities to implement their payment chips in the IDs of local residents. This enables local governments to give direct benefits to seniors and students through their Easycard balance. Easycard has also embedded their chips into company ID cards and student cards as well as regular consumer debit/credit cards, further diversifying their user base.  These early developments have resulted in the dominance of Easycard in Taiwan while leading to other competitors in the space. Although Easycard is by far the largest company in this space, its dominance is not as big as the Octopus Card in Hong Kong. According to Tofugear and Wirecard, the rate of adoption of Octopus is over 99% in Hong Kong’s working age population. Similar to Easycard, Octopus started out in 1997 as a payment solution for Hong Kong’s MTR, eventually expanding to all public transportation in the city (including buses). It was rapidly adopted as roughly 4.5 million cards were issued after just one year, despite the presence of a competitor called Mondex (led by HSBC and Mastercard) and VisaCash. Mondex and VisaCash floundered, and Mondex was eventually terminated in 2002. Octopus was so successful that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority decided to give a deposit-taking license, no longer limiting Octopus to only be used as digital payments for transit. Thereafter, expansion to the retail sector was swift, as Hong Kong conglomerates start to adopt Octopus, bringing it into convenience stores, supermarkets, and even photocopy machines. However, Octopus became so commonplace that consumers find it hard to adopt a new payment system, stifling innovation and competition in this space. The competition in Taiwan leads to more choices for consumers, and added competition from mobile payments (e.g. Apple Pay, Samsung Pay) has led some companies to try and secure partnerships to drive growth. For example, iPass was originally founded in 2014 by the Kaohsiung City government. In 2017, LINE became a major shareholder (30%) after buying new shares. Since then, they have tied up LINE Pay cards with iPass value cards, allowing users to access their iPass balance directly from the LINE app. They also have tie-ups with credit card issuers, especially with CTBC and Union Bank (who is also a significant shareholder in iPass and LINE Taiwan’s virtual bank). icash is established in 2013 as a subsidiary of the President Chain Store Corp., which runs 5,505 branches of 7-11 in the country (as of June 2019) and hold the domestic licenses for Starbucks, Cold Stone Creamery, and the Japanese donut chain Mister Donut. Similar to iPass, they also create tie-ups with local credit card issuers to enter the market. All three have their own point systems which are fairly easy to exchange with store vouchers, a short summary can be found below:   Easycard iPass icash Year Established 2000 2014 2013 Main Shareholder Taipei City government LINE  President Chain Store (7-11 Taiwan) Points UUPON LINE Points OPEN POINT Mobile Payments Taiwan’s banking regulations have been rather strict in comparison to other countries, owing to the regulators’ focus on minimizing risks since Taiwan is unable to call upon the IMF or World Bank to help bail its financial system. The proliferation of banking services have also led to overbanking on the island, and interest margins are very low. Under this backdrop, the government has been trying to promote innovation and healthy competition in the industry by encouraging banks to merge or by relaxing banking regulations, such as when they relaxed regulations pertaining to mobile payments in 2015. The Financial Supervisory Commission has also released a white paper on the domestic fintech development in 2016, hoping to spark a digital renaissance in the sector. The Taiwan government announced in late 2017 that they aim to digitalize the economy, including its aim to increase the penetration of mobile payments to 90% in the country by 2025. Digital payments include both mobile and non-mobile cashless payments such as debit/credit cards, whereas mobile payments refer to those that are done by mobile payments.  The latest government update in September 2019 forecasts Taiwan’s transaction value in digital payments to break USD 3.2B. The penetration of mobile payment in Taiwan has surged from 24% in 2016 to 50% in 2018, making the initial goal seem achievable. One of the major reasons for this bump in penetration is the mobile payment war that has been brewing in the country, much like the war in Japan. Everyone from banks, convenience stores and IT companies want to grab a share of this pie. Translated and edited from: Source The most popular payment methods in 2018 are LINE Pay, Apple Pay and JKo Pay (the company with the red logo), with the 3 of them conquering 62% of the total digital payment market in Taiwan. Young people have readily adopted mobile payments as more than 75% of consumers aged 26 - 35 have used them. Perhaps similar to dynamics elsewhere in the region, the payment providers heavily invest in marketing to subsidize consumers to use their payment method, making it a short-term boon for consumers. Comparing the above to Japan’s mobile payment market really shows the extent of the competition in Taiwan’s market, especially as Japan’s population is about 5.5 times bigger than Taiwan. For some background as to why everyone seem so keen on the payment gold rush, one can look at Stripe and Square to gauge how profitable it can be. Furthermore, a company can lock in the user even more tightly in its ecosystem, and build a customer profile by tracking their transactions and gain new insights through the application of AI. Being dominant in a service that everyone uses makes it easier for companies to try and monetize their user base in other ways. One can look to China for a real-life study case, having as much as $270B assets under management at one point. India’s Paytm is following the trend, as they launched Paytm Money. According to Taiwan’s statistical bureau, in 2016, there are approximately USD 2.2T that are quite liquid which can be diverted into mutual funds, as the table below suggests. Assuming a very conservative market share and management fee of 0.1% and 1%, a company might earn USD 2.1M, which is a sizable amount for a startup.  Type 2016 Amount 0.1% Market Share 1% Management Fee Cash & Demand Deposits 452,270,967,742 452,270,968 452,271 Time Deposits 525,400,000,000 525,400,000 525,400 Portfolio (Equity, Debt, Fund, etc) 1,144,783,870,968 1,144,783,871 1,144,784 Total (USD) 2,122,454,838,710 2,122,454,839 2,122,455 Of course, the above is just a hypothetical market for ONLY the asset management part, since a payment gateway company would also have their main revenue stream coming from payment handling fees. Given the size of Taiwan’s digital retail market, the potential value for digital payments is very high compared to the population size. The amount of each person’s share of wallet is quite high compared to developing markets such as Vietnam or Indonesia. Although the market won’t be as big as China or India, but the winner of this small market will have many opportunities to monetize further.

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  • Taiwan: An Introduction digital economy e-commerce Taiwan

    Taiwan – An Introduction to: Digital Life

    Samuel is an Indonesian economics graduate from National Taiwan University, fluent in Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian. He previously worked for Taiwanese financial institutions, experienced in financial institution corporate strategy and corporate banking. As mentioned in last month’s article, Taiwan has a mature digital market dating back to the late 90s. According to tefficient and Taiwan Internet Report, Taiwan has one of the highest rates of internet penetration in Asia and the world, and data consumption per capita is the highest in Asia, just second to Finland worldwide. Taiwan has 3 big telecom companies, 2 smaller telecom companies and many other MVNOs, serving a population of 23 million people. Internet usage in Taiwan is ubiquitous, and Taiwan’s digital life is relatively developed. However, the digital ecosystem in Taiwan is not the same as the ecosystem in the Southeast Asian region. In this article, we are going to take a look into some apps of choice for Taiwanese consumers in the realm of social media, online transportation, and food delivery service. Social Media Internet users in Taiwan generally use Facebook as their main social media, with a growing number of users shifting their private profiles over to Instagram.  For forum-based discussion, the platform is fragmented depending on the topic at hand. For example, for discussion about electronic goods, mobile01 is the main place to go. Gamers flock to Bahamut to discuss everything about games and related topics.  However, PTT, a telnet BBS launched in 1995, is still one of the largest communities in Taiwan covering any topic, similar to Japan’s 2ch or the global 4chan in BBS form. Its impact is huge, generating many of the contents and topics currently in circulation in the Taiwanese parts of FB and Instagram, to the point that a Taiwanese movie was based on the board. Above is an example of a login screen, and below is the current list of most popular boards: Moving on to other media, Taiwanese users generally use Youtube as their primary video source, similar to the US. However, more and more people are opting to use the video feature on Facebook. Similar to the current trend in the world, we see the internet moving to a more mobile environment with a more video-focused approach. Lately, we have seen an uptick in the number of people trying to use Facebook Live to directly sell to consumers, similar to TV marketing but with added interactiveness with the audience. A potential customer would follow the link given by the broadcaster, or chat directly to buy the products. There have been a growing number of startups in Taiwan that are trying to support this part of e-commerce, working together with influencers and small merchants. The above shows a new trend in the making, as the worlds of video, social, and e-commerce collide. However, traditional B2C e-commerce are still very strong with solid revenue numbers. Just counting the revenue of 3 public e-commerce companies (PCHome, momo and Kuo Brothers), all 3 add up to almost USD 3B. Similar to Southeast Asia, there are also many merchants who are trying to make it through low-cost channels, mainly through social media (Facebook, Instagram) and chat-based applications. Some even sell on PTT or Facebook Marketplace, and do the transaction directly by bank transfer or through Shopee (for added security). The first-choice messaging application in Taiwan is LINE. Out of 23 million people, LINE has about 21 million users in Taiwan, which approximately covers 91% of the country. As such, LINE has become a necessity of life in Taiwan, embedding itself into the fabric of everyday life. There are many theories about how LINE became successful in Taiwan, but a part of its early boom can be attributed to the attractiveness of stickers as a means to communicate, as it made chatting a bit less stiff. LINE increased its stickiness when they started releasing their own inhouse games in the same era where Facebook games were all the rage.  As of today, LINE has become a major force in the digital ecosystem in Taiwan, including branching out to offering daily news, in-app e-commerce platform, on-demand audio and video content, mobile internet and even an in-app online travel booking platform. They also provide corporate accounts through their Line@ service. Besides their services, LINE has vigorously marketed its virtual point system, exchangeable as vouchers and products, or even cash in many merchants. A user can get LINE Points by using their payment services (LINE Pay), and they have made efforts to reach the population by working together with local banks to issue co-branded credit cards (CTBC Line Pay, Union Bank of Taiwan Line Points). LINE is also moving into the financial services sector after it was granted a virtual bank license in Taiwan, joining forces with local banks (including CTBC and Standard Chartered). It is quite possible to think of LINE as a super-app for Taiwan, similar as to how Kakao and Naver are super-apps in Korea. As part of Naver, LINE can implement proven business models from its regions (including Japan, Thailand) and try to localize. LINE has already redesigned its UI in order to provide users with easier access to their services. LINE has also expanded in Southeast Asia, notably Thailand. but in other Southeast Asian countries, LINE is losing ground to Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger. That is in contrast with Taiwan, where LINE is unquestionably the messenger application of choice, to the point that work communication as well as customer service are being done on the platform. The Taiwanese internet market has a few quirks that are different with Southeast Asia, and startups that are considering Taiwanese consumers as a target market should be mindful of the different local consumer preferences compared to Southeast Asia. Online Transportation Ride-hailing apps such as Uber has had a rocky history in Taiwan, as they play cat-and-mouse games with the regulator, as the regulator first rejected their claim to be a purely tech company and required them to register as a transportation company. After a few back and forth, the government finally issued an ultimatum to register as a taxi company or pull out of Taiwan. As of October 1 this year, they operate as a taxi company in Taiwan. One of the reasons Uber has been relatively successful in Taiwan is that besides pioneering the ability to call taxis from an app, the cars are usually cleaner, and that the drivers are usually more professional compared to a random taxi you hail on the streets. The entrance of Uber into the market meant that the traditional heavyweight in the taxi industry, Taiwan Taxi (台灣大車隊), has had to adopt and provide a call-on-demand function on their application. Another upstart, TaxiGo, started out as a chatbot on Messenger and LINE to call taxis. It originally worked with existing taxi drivers, but gradually developed into its own taxi company. Food Delivery Taiwan has a culture of eating out, and many apartments in Taipei don’t include a kitchen at all. In the last few years, food delivery has been a very big battleground between new startups in Taiwan, starting from the now bankrupt Honestbee, Foodpanda, Uber Eats, as well as the newest competitor in town, Deliveroo. Besides international competitors, small local upstarts are also trying to make it in this crowded space, such as Yowoo. So far, Uber Eats, Foodpanda and Deliveroo has been the current leaders so far. Compared to Grab and Gojek being the two giants in both transportation and food delivery in Southeast Asia, the transportation and food delivery part is largely fragmented. Different players exist in both areas, with the exception of Uber. In general, there are still a couple of spaces left for international startups to exploit, as can be seen from the proliferation of LINE and overseas food delivery companies, but the key thing is for startups to localize into Taiwan. Another key thing is to think of Taiwan’s digital ecosystem as completely separate from China, as consumer preferences and habits differ in both countries. In this case, one can lump Taiwan in as another one of ASEAN’s many countries with different cultures and languages. As long as localization is done right and the services benefit consumers, Taiwanese consumers are also open to new solutions, and Taiwan can really be a nice cash cow for a startup who is willing to localize.

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  • Taiwan: An Introduction e-commerce Taiwan

    Taiwan – An Introduction to: E-Commerce

    Samuel is an Indonesian economics graduate from National Taiwan University, fluent in Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian. He previously worked for Taiwanese financial institutions, experienced in financial institution corporate strategy and corporate banking. A General Introduction to Taiwan's Digital Economy Taiwan, to many young Southeast Asians, will seem like a place that is the birthplace of bubble tea and fried chicken a-la Hot Star. To an older generation, a place where F4 and Jay Chou is from. Apart from the Chinese-speaking populace in Southeast Asia, the layperson in the region perhaps do not know much about Taiwan. Despite the cultural pull that Taiwan has, tech startups in the ASEAN region do not really think of Taiwan as a possible market to expand to, mostly because they are simply not acquainted with Taiwan as a market. To people who are a bit more well-versed about Taiwan economically, they might point out that it is a developed country but lagging in growth compared to South Korea, as recent GDP data shows Taiwan only growing 2~3% yearly. Behind the facade, there are actually many more things to be more optimistic about in Taiwan, there is still a very significant market to be exploited, especially in the digital space. Although the world has known Taiwan to be a country with strategic importance in the global high-tech sector, Taiwan is mainly but a hardware manufacturing hub. Given the global slowdown in the hardware market, many are looking into the software and services space to expand to, but traditional Taiwanese companies have found the execution is not so simple. Understanding the overall market in Taiwan and moving into the space with great urgency can serve overseas startups well, as we can see from the example of SEA Group.  SEA Group started out as Garena, and they entered the Taiwanese market early in 2009 as the publisher of League of Legends. Through their operations in Taiwan, they probably realized Taiwan’s potential early on, despite having only 23 million people. When they launched Shopee in 2015, they quickly latched on to Taiwan as a decisive market. In the last 3 years, Taiwan has become a major revenue source for SEA Group as Garena and Shopee has been doing very well in the market, and they intend to expand further in the long-run. The digital population is relatively high, at 92.8% of the population (around 21.5 million people), and the GDP per capita of USD 24,971 is roughly similar to Portugal, at least twice of Malaysia, and about 2.5x China's GDP per capita.  So there are still huge areas of growth sitting in Taiwan. The significant spending power of its residents, as well as the shift to the digital landscape makes the digital market extremely attractive to the right company. Knowledge is power, and this is an information asymmetry that SEA Group has discovered since the last decade and have been continuing to profit off even after its IPO in 2017. As SEA Group emphasizes in its prospectus and reports, Taiwan is deemed to be part of the GSEA (Greater Southeast Asia) region, and the current Taiwanese president under Tsai Ying-wen has enacted the New Southbound Policy that reorients Taiwan’s businesses to build a closer relationship with ASEAN countries. E-Commerce Despite the sluggish overall GDP growth in Taiwan, there are areas where growth can perhaps rival ASEAN economies, growing at least 10%. Taiwan’s population has a relatively long history of e-commerce adoption, owing to the early technological advancement and the relatively internet-savvy consumers. Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute, a local government research institute, estimates that 70% of Taiwan’s internet population used e-commerce in 2018, which computes to around 15 million people.  In 2016, sales made over the internet have ballooned to make up 5.4% of the total retail activity, which computes to around USD 7B in total, and growing even further every year. In 2017, retail sales over the internet grew 13.6%, and some subsections such as logistics for internet-based B2B sales grew a crazy 75%. As a comparison, growth in overall retail (both online and offline) only grew about 1.2%, implying that Taiwan’s retail economy is slowly moving over to the digital space. Indeed, we are seeing online e-commerce sites eating a larger portion of the pie every year. Most e-commerce players have enjoyed this trend, with public e-commerce companies such as PCHome and Momo (Fubon Media) enjoying a bumper year in their topline numbers. The digitalization of retail activity has also prompted many to enter the market and ride on this wave, including Shopee who set up shop in 2015 and promptly gained a huge market share on the back of its mobile-first strategy and social media-oriented marketing. Although Taiwan’s e-commerce scene is quite mature, it has not evolved to keep pace with the mobile evolution in the past few years. PCHome is still the leader in the overall B2C market, but Shopee and Momo are ahead in the mobile app space, and the growth of orders done through mobile devices are also increasing, and the industry will have to adjust further to the ever-evolving consumer preference. Adding to the competition in the B2C market, Shopify-style e-commerce platforms have also been blooming in Taiwan. Local player 91APP raised $9M in series A, whose backers include AppWorks and PCHome’s chairman. Foreign competition is also present, as Hong Kong’s Shopline has made a landing in Taiwan, backed by Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund. As a whole, the e-commerce industry in Taiwan is supported by the robust digital infrastructure in place, the government’s push for more retail digitalization, the ubiquity of credit/debit cards, the rise of cashless payments (LINE Pay, JKo Pay, Pi Wallet) driven by the government, the developed logistics network, as well as the relative spending power and preference of the internet-savvy population.  There is still a lot of value to unlock in this space, despite the intense competition in the domestic e-commerce space. B2B logistics for e-commerce is an area where the right firm can dominate, and digital financial products grew a significant 31% in 2017, which is an area that will experience more growth, as the supportive regulator has recently issued licenses for virtual banks. Being a developed country, Taiwan has a solid structure in intellectual property rights, and Taiwan frequently ranks highly in the Ease of Doing Business index. However, expanding into Taiwan will be a tough task nonetheless due to the need for localization as well as the need to navigate through the tangled web of bureaucracy. We at Cornerstone Ventures can be a suitable local partner for startups who are thinking of Taiwan as a potential market for expansion. We focus on new internet ventures, especially in the AI and data space. We are backed by both Chunghwa Telecom and PCHome, and we can also rope in other resources both from the government as well as the private sector. If you are truly interested in building a business together in Taiwan and you believe there is space for us to partner up, please do contact us through contact@cornerstonevc.tw and send us relevant information, we look forward to knowing you.

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    [布蘭登觀點 001] 台灣有機會培養出獨角獸嗎？

    最近看完內向心理學後，更加發覺自己是個內向的人。自己一人獨處時，腦中常常會有許多的想法與小劇場發生，大多時候許多想法就這樣消逝而去，或者是變成布蘭登自己的觀點。後來覺得還是要把這些微小的觀察與想法記錄下來，才能夠知道自己這些年來思想上的轉變。於是除了 [創業者這樣說] 與 [VC 101] 外，我又新增了 [布蘭登觀點] 來記錄自己的想法，也跟大家分享。 基石創投最近正在積極募資中，除了原有股東外，也希望可以尋求更多有力的股東，一起來幫助台灣的新創圈。在準備募資的過程中，常常被問到的其中一個問題就是「台灣有機會培養出獨角獸嗎？」 何謂「獨角獸」？ 在新創圈中，獨角獸指的是尚未公開上市的公司，其估值能夠達 US$ 1B (美金 10 億元，大約是新台幣 300 億元)，那就會被稱為是獨角獸公司。過去幾年世界產生了許多獨角獸，而且這些獨角獸也都偏好待在非公開上市的區域，一直延後上市的時程。有個說法是因為這些公司在非公開上市市場能後獲得比較好的估值，但如果 IPO 經過公開市場的檢視，說不定這些估值都是太高的本夢比。 市值怎麼估算？ 在公開市場中，市值是藉由供需而產生。但在非公開市場中，流動性較差，並沒有那麼多對於未公開市場股票的需求，所以公司評價相對比較難。但如果要用個比較簡單的評價方式，大概會以可類比的上市上櫃公司的股價營收比 (P/S) 或是本益比 (P/E)，來推估該公司的價格。大多數的新創可能也還沒到賺錢的地步，加上初期應該是以營收成長為重點，有時就會以 P/S 法估算，可能會比較符合新創公司的價值。 簡單的來說，就是以你公司年化的營收，乘上一個營收乘數 (P/S)，就是你公司的估值，例如：你的公司年營收新台幣 3,000 萬元，大概就是 US$ 1M (美金 100 萬元)，假設你的營收乘數是 1 倍，那你公司的價值就是 US$ 1M。 營收乘數 P/S 如何選取？ 公司價值其實也是反應出投資人對於公司未來價值的呈現，公司的價值可能跟他所處的市場、產業或是商業模式不同，投資人會給予不同的價格，在同樣的營收基礎下，P/S 越高，代表當下投資人對公司未來的信心越高，給的價格更好。所以在選取時，可能要尋找跟你類似的公司 (具有可比性的公司 P/S) 來比較。特別說明，這邊不以評估初創團隊所選取的 P/S 來計算，因早期的團隊通常營收規模都非常小，但成長很快速，所以用此方法估算，有時候很難衡量早期團隊之價值。我們是以「獨角獸」公司來討論，也就是幾年後，這間新創已經有一定的營收規模，也比較能用正常的 P/S 法來計算。 因為基石創投本身投資的領域是數位經濟領域，這個領域我相對比較熟悉，所以我就以此作為基準來討論。下圖是我將台灣上市櫃公司中，偏向數位經濟領域的公司，將他們的市值、近 12 個月營收、P/S、P/E 等數值以表格列出： 從 P/S 來看，如果是更偏向軟體產業的，如數字科技、104 等，毛利率較高，通常投資人願意給予的 P/S 會比較高，大概都有 P/S 大於 1 的水準；如果是一般電商，那大概會在 P/S = 0.5~1 之間。當然這是台灣市場的 P/S，下表列出 S&P 500 公司與 Stock Q 上可以找到各國股市的 P/S 提供大家參考。 Source:https://www.bloomberg.co.jp/news/articles/2018-08-08/PD4ID06JIJUS01 Source:http://www.stockq.org/economy/cap.php 如果台灣整體的 P/S 大概是 0.58，那美國大概是 0.91，這大概可以反映出國家與市場不同，導致 P/S 不同。S&P 500 的 P/S 近幾年都有 2 以上，這也反映出這些公司的表現通常比較好，能過獲得高於大盤的 P/S。 台灣是否有機會培養出獨角獸？ 如果是以獨角獸的等級來衡量，P/S = 1 還算是公平，記得前幾年阿里巴巴併購 Lazada 時，如果拿併購的價格跟當時 Lazada 做到的營收，也大概是一倍。如果還沒到獨角獸的公司，有時候 P/S 乘數會更高。 所以「台灣有機會培養出獨角獸嗎」的命題，如果我們以 P/S = 1 的假設來看，其實就是「台灣有沒有機會培養出年營收超過 US$ 1B 的公司？」，年營收新台幣 300 億元的公司！如果是在數位經濟產業，從目前有公開上市櫃的公司來看 (詳見上表)，大概就是 PChome 跟 Momo 而已。所以如果要培養出獨角獸，至少要是下一個 PChome 或是 Momo。這個數字看起來有點挑戰，近期表現不錯的創業家兄弟，近 12 個月營收大概就是新台幣 50 億元，再六倍就是了！想像起來有點令人灰心，看來挑戰真的很大。 台灣如何有更高的機率培養出獨角獸？ 如同文章一開始提到的，世界上很多獨角獸過去幾年都偏好 Stay Private，在非公開市場有機會得到比較好的估值。如果不要拿公開市場那麼嚴格的標準來看，也許 Private Market 可以用比較高的 P/S 來衡量公司，那營收的目標就可以下修一點，也許可以達成的機率就更高了。 另外尋找有更高 P/S 的市場，也是另外一個有機會達成獨角獸里程碑的做法。以過去幾年的投資經驗，P/S 的高低，其實也是投資人對於市場大小的期待。如過台灣團隊有機會做到區域級/世界級的市場，也許就可以用 P/S 大於 2 的數字被投資人認可，那營收規模隨著市場性變大，也不會那麼遙不可及。所以如果要變成獨角獸，市場拓展是必須的！市場拓展的好處在於，多市場有機會做到更大的營收規模，而且大市場的 P/S 通常會比台灣的 P/S 更好，兩相加成下，那產生獨角獸企業的機率也會提升。 比起獨角獸，更重要的是 IMPACT！ 獨角獸其實不是重點，有很好，沒有也沒關係。只要這間企業是能夠替社會帶來更多價值的，就是好公司。獨角獸其實是很看緣分的，當然可以傾全國之力來做出獨角獸。但我認為，台灣現在更需要的反而是更多成功的故事，而非一隻單一的全壘打。一間 US$ 1B 的公司，跟十間 US$ 100M 的公司，我會認為後者因為達到一定的數量，對於台灣來說，會讓更多創業者有信心投入創業。因為出現一間你可能會認為那是國家幫忙，出現兩間你會覺得那是好運，但出現十間你就會覺得那是可能會發生的。 台灣需要的是更多成功故事的正向循環，雖然理性的分析一下，這件事情不好做。但這幾年我也發現身邊有許多人默默的在他能發揮的位子上努力，我也是，基石創投也是，我很認同 TP 說的一句話：「與其在那邊抱怨，不足捲起袖子來幹吧」！相信集合眾人之力，應該還是有機會一拼的。 基石創投現在也在尋求夥伴，一起做一些自己有興趣，而且能夠對於社會有 IMPACT！ 有興趣的人請洽這裏

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