Thoughts from singapore

I went to Singapore about a month ago and I started thinking whether it's a good place for startups to open an office in.

Let's start with my main takeaways:

• Its more AI native than Hong kong
• Many cracked ppl, love the motion
• Super humid, almost impossible to be outside
• Insanely clean, no trash on the ground
• Four language country
• Such a small island but still so compact
• MRT is good. Can pay with ApplePay too
• Many places accept card (with additional fee) then some have a local payment option (like their cashapp), and also AliPay and WeChat
• Changi Airport is crazyy efficient. The fastest security and boarding i've ever experienced. (and not to forget the huge waterfall)
• They use SGD and use the dollarsign, so don't be confused if things look expensive. 1SGD approx 0.8USD
• Free market. Easy to do business here.
• its a livable city. I would live here.

Soo about if I think startups should open an office here: I think yes, if you want to expand to Asia.

It's probably the best English-speaking base for APAC. Easy access to the rest of Asia, way more predictable than eg. us or europe, safe and just very convenient.

One challenge tho is that a lot of locals prefer stable jobs at big companies or in finance. But there are still plenty of cracked people, and it's also easy to attract talent from places like China.

Livability is much better than SF. And when I say that, I mean SOOO MUCH BETTER. In SG you can take the metro anywhere, taxi isn't really required at all. Whereas in SF I need to pay 30 dollars to go anywhere because the metro stinks.

Startup density is much lower than SF.

Still, I think it's a great place to run an Asia office. Google is here, DeepMind has a presence here, Manus is here, Airwallex has an office, and I believe Anthropic is building here too. Asia is a huge market, and Singapore feels like one of the best places to manage operations across the region.

And it's also a good place if you want to collect asian talent. (and europeans that are bullish on asia)

So keep this in mind and don't sleep on Asia.

亚洲第一！