Ideas, opportunity, time & capital

Any new enterprise requires a combination of ideas, opportunity, time and capital.  The absence of one or an unsympathetic proportion between the four and sooner or later the venture will fail.

Last week's travel hassles had me cooling my heels in Singapore, hanging out with old mates and getting a taste of the comfortable expat lifestyle that a career in Asian dealmaking affords.   I found myself thinking, "I could handle this. The great food, warm weather, access to amazing cities and a chance to be situated near the centre of the next economic revolution."

But could I handle it?  Is there a niche in the turbocharged Asian environment for a Headcount: 1 player?  No one of my personal acquaintance is genuinely and successfully playing with his own capital in Asia.  I can name half a dozen people who've fallen in love with this or that island in Thailand or Indonesia and who are the proud (part-) owners of overgrown building sites rapidly receding into the jungle.  The real game in Asia is either resource extraction or building those big things that only governments and huge consortia can afford to pay for.  Tapping into that world is what gets you that cool Singapore lifestyle.

I doubt that a market yet exists in Asia for my sort of sales/marketing insights.  I've delivered a couple of projects a year across the region over the last five years but in every case the client was the Western-run global or regional office.  I've never had a local manager contact me for unsolicited follow-up work. This lack of bottom-up demand speaks volumes; I don't mind taking occasional money in the name of global harmonisation but to be successfully based in Asia I'd need demand directly from Asian offices.  No amount of time, capital or great ideas will compensate for the lack of on-the-ground opportunity.

As I write I'm sitting in Zurich en route from Singapore to Germany.  I bet that there are at least a dozen men and women just like me in this airport right now; self-employed, small-shop consultants specialising in semi-soft skills. Each of us happily making a living without needing to conquer all of Europe to do so.