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A golden opportunity — From a Taiwan Gold Card entrepreneur.
Taiwan aims to attract 100,000 high end professionals in the next 10 years.
So far it attracted a little over 3000. I believe Taiwan can achieve its goals faster if it focuses on attracting entrepreneurs but that will require some modifications first.
The Taiwan Gold Card program was setup prior to COVID as a future looking initiative by the Taiwanese government to recruit some of the brightest minds from around the world and introduce them to Taiwan with an eye towards emigrating. A slow and steady trickle of academics, artists and professionals came in the first couple of years, 546 people in all (myself included).
As COVID spread around the globe and as the western world was locked down in a nightmare, Taiwan remained relatively open. Understandably, this opportunity did not go unnoticed in the US.
A Golden Opportunity arises.
1399 people received a Gold Card in 2020. Taiwan became a temporary escape from the horrors of the west for many hundreds of Technology and Finance oriented people from New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. When COVID eventually made its way into Taiwan, it locked down and just as quickly as this group came in, it left.
With their departure a golden opportunity for Taiwan was missed.
Had these people decided to stay it could have resulted in a mini renaissance of an entrepreneurial class in Taiwan.
A Golden Opportunity is wasted.
I would rather view this turn of events as a learning opportunity. Most of these people did not end up investing in businesses, founding companies or engraining in the Taiwanese economy in major ways. They could have though. This is where the reality for those Gold Carders who came with an intent to stay sets in.
As a serial entrepreneur in the US, I assumed I will find many opportunities in technology, traditional businesses and uniquely local business which could scale in Taiwan considering its advanced technology, geographic location and industrious society. I am trained as a Lawyer but I was frustrated to find so many needless inefficiencies, empty bureaucracy and needless expenses for many months before even getting a local company formed in Taiwan.
In all, the process of setting up a company in Taiwan took about 5 months. Hiring an accountant, gaining banking verifications, anti-laundering verification, leasing an office and a lot of manual forms and in-person meetings. I spent tens of thousands of dollars and months to just have a company setup. In the US that is something that could be done in a day and for a few hundred dollars. In other countries, within a week and for a couple thousand dollars at most.
The oddest quirk I encountered was that If I wanted to receive mail for my business at my home, I could not do so without registering the address. Seeing as I was renting my landlord would not allow it as it would raise his taxes and consequently my rent. I have not encountered this in any other country I have done business in. The registration hurdles and maintenance of a Taiwanese company was mentioned in numerous conversations with fellow Gold Carders as a disincentive alongside the in bureaucratic hurdles in transferring funds from abroad into Taiwan to fund the operations or purchase of a business.
After I setup, registered and funded my company I looked towards the startup environment in Taipei. The process of applying for grants and incubators is cumbersome and depending on the industry, limited. Then comes the regulatory component and government interaction.
I personally dealt with numerous offices in Taipei that are set up to help startups. One office was quite helpful and I had spent a few weeks creating an in-depth proposal with their kind assistance which sought to bring to Taiwan one of my digital businesses from the US. The innovation office was helpful and the people there were genuinely interested in seeing the project start in Taipei as it would generate a lot of revenue and convenience (not to mention look good on their record).
My next stop was a meeting with a board of Taipei officials.
This particular business was already running in the US, I thought it would be a relatively simple conversion into Chinese. Once converted, it would allow local businesses to connect with consumers. Create convenience for citizens, increase sales for local businesses and more tax revenue for the government while introducing local brands to the world and world brands locally.
Exciting right? Not so fast.
According to the officials the existing laws did not cover the business model so they were not sure how to handle it. As such they deemed it “illegal”.
I understood their concerns and demonstrated how the model is legal within existing laws but the reply was still “oh it’s illegal”. My Taiwanese accountant and lawyer agreed that the model was legal, elaborated their points and result was still “illegal”. Ok. so that business is not coming to Taiwan.
I figured that instead of importing my business, I would look at existing local businesses and opportunities. I proceeded to interact with local business people. I found them very astute and open about the concerns they have in their respective businesses. I soon realized that Taiwan is a close-knit society. Many businesses have long been established and people generally feel comfortable doing business a certain way. “We haven’t done it this way” is surprisingly common to hear.
Speaking to other foreign professionals that work in corporate settings, one of their biggest frustrations is being told that “We just don’t do it like that here”. Local business management is generally not accepting of different ideas. This is a difficult thing for many foreign executives to deal with.
Another complaint I heard was that it was quite common to see a top-down management approach which encourages highly educated employees to not make waves or show much initiative. Consequently, foreigners do not stay with local companies for long.
This now brings me to business education. As part of my intent to engrain into Taiwanese society, better understand it and find new opportunities, I spoke to numerous Senior NTU MBA alumni and decided to apply to the program.
I quickly found out that the senior and executive MBA program is administered only in Chinese. A program director told me that “unless I am fluent in Chinese, I should not apply”. This takes an MBA program from global to local and limits the horizon and potential of its graduates.
I find this is quite antithetical to the purpose of an MBA which is to introduce people with different professional backgrounds, ideas and styles to new opportunities and thought processes.
With all due respect, while I am slowly learning Chinese, English is the international language of business, medicine and other sectors. How are senior executives going to successfully compete globally when they are not trained to do so in the language their foreign peers will likely use?
Universities in non-English speaking countries understand this and have their programs taught in English. What is worse is that Taiwanese executives in training are not maximally exposed to foreign peers unless the executives travel abroad for their education. At the same time, foreigners wishing to enter Asia via Taiwan get no insight into Taiwanese business culture due to the language barrier.
The admissions person then mentioned the GMBA (Global) program which is in English but the people that apply to it are mostly people starting out their career after just graduating college. The cohort is not as strong since it is comprised of young international students that come to Taiwan, study for a couple of years and leave. When I asked for more details about the program and about the background of the people in the program, I was referred to the website.
What is going to happen with the Gold Card entrepreneur community?
Right now Taiwan touts its large corporations (TSMC, MediaTek, Foxconn, Evergreen etc.) Which are indeed good companies but the lifeblood of a modern and information driven economy rests with new ideas, rapid adoption and innovation - Entrepreneurs. Taiwan must foster Taiwanese entrepreneurs and be welcoming to international ones if it is to maximize its potential.
I believe this can be accomplished with a three prong approach:
Large Taiwanese companies
Could develop incubators and innovation funds.
A prime Japanese example is SoftBank.Taiwanese government
Could overhaul the needless complexities and costs that discourage many local businesses from opening and frustrate foreigners from engaging the Taiwanese market.
i. Streamline the registration complexities of business creation.
ii. Reduce the compliance burdens and overhead of maintaining businesses.
iii. Modernize international banking and fund remittances.
iv. Initiate a bank panel alongside local and international business people to modernize bank/client interactions.
v. Implement a Gold Card panel with existing entrepreneurs in conjunction with regional and national businesses. This would be a great opportunity for all vested parties to learn from one another.
- Local government
Could startup easy access initiatives providing funds, scholarships and
accessible loans to individuals and businesses looking to start up and be inviting to foreigners by introducing incentives to retain Gold Carders the government already brought in.
It would be a shame to see another Golden opportunity slip away.
The original article : A golden opportunity — From a Taiwan Gold Card entrepreneur.
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