Making it work like MaGIC

1 Having a look: Participants taking a walk around Stanford University during the programme.

Striking out on one’s own is never easy but being able to gain insights from those who have already done so is indeed invaluable.

FOR some Malaysian entrepreneurs, tapping into the minds of industry experts and tech giants in the United States may seem like a pipe dream.

However, the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC) is making that invaluable experience a reality for selected Malaysian entrepreneurs through its e@Stanford programme. The two-week immersive innovation and entrepreneurship programme at Stanford University and Silicon Valley in California, US is one of the three programmes under a three year partnership between MaGIC and Stanford.

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“The e@Stanford programme sees entrepreneurs who are already running their businesses who we think are ready to be exposed at the regional and global level,” said MaGIC global and regional programmes (GRP) programme director Ham Yon Han at an interview at MaGIC’s headquarters in Cyberjaya.

The programme allows participants to gain invaluable insights at the Stanford faculty, build relationships with potential mentors and investors in Silicon Valley and develop peer-to-peer support with founders and to network with fellow entrepreneurs. MaGIC is looking to send its third cohort of entrepreneurs next September, with participants selected by MaGIC’s senior management and industry leaders. Applications are scheduled to open in June and July next year.

The inaugural cohort of 57 participants was sent in 2014 while the second cohort of 40 entrepreneurs was sent in August.

Of value: Many companies in Silicon Valley placed a strong a strong emphasis on work culture, says Lee. 

Recently, e@Stanford participants had the chance to spend their week-long workshop sessions at Stanford, tapping into the minds of lecturers and professors whose experiences include authoring books and sitting as board members for some startups.

The world-renowned entrepreneurship programme allows selected participants to experience and gain invaluable insights at the Stanford faculty, intense hands- on sessions with the professors and develop peer-to-peer support other founders, network with fellow entrepreneurs.

The e@Stanford programme leverages on the close relationships within the cohorts to develop a stronger community with the right mindset of entrepreneurship. All participants are encouraged to support one another in their pathways to success – sparking the entrepreneurship ecosystem.

For the second week, participants could network and walk into the offices of some of the world’s most influential companies including Google and Facebook, in addition to site visits to smaller startups in various stages of development.

“Participants also had a wishlist of people whom they wished to see, with MaGIC CEO Cheryl Yeoh helping them to connect with certain people,” said Ham.

Having learnt from the movers and shakers of the industry, three participants from the second cohort, including SignatureSnack.com co-founder Edwin Wang, PurelyB.com chief executive officer Raja Jesrina Arshad and MilkADeal.com co-founder Shaun Lee, agreed that the programme had been an invaluable experience.

Intimate sessions with founders of selected startups proved precious to the participants, who had the opportunity to pick their brains and obtain advice from those who have succeeded in their respective fields. At the end of the Stanford week, participants were required to pitch their business ideas to a panel of judges.

“The pitch was quite stressful but they gave us some good feedback at the end,” said Lee, whose business is a Cashback site which gives customers Cashback on their online purchases from e-commerce stores.

“There were people from the industry, investors, those who are in business and those who have been in business along with academics to be a part of the panel who gave spot on feedback.”

Helpful: Wang says the programme has been a good experience. 

Ham emphasised that they encourage participants who would be open minded enough to be molded and to be exposed to different ways of thinking to join the programme. He said that they carried out a follow-up six months after their first batch returned from the US.

“Some of the participants made minor tweaks to their businesses while there were others who made drastic changes,” he said, adding that there were also those who abandoned their projects upon realising that their business was not sustainable and began working on new projects.

“Overall, the feedback from participants have been positive,” he said, adding that several of them had raised funds for their projects while one company is ready for IPO (initial public offering).

Equally important is for former participants to share what they have learnt, which is done through a series of sharing sessions on a monthly basis with the startup community.

The global exposure proved insightful to the Malaysian entrepreneurs, who learned various things including the importance of work culture and the different themes throughout the whole lifecycle of a startup.

Raja Jesrina added that the feedback and views received from the mentors, entrepreneurs and investors varied greatly from what Asians would say, helping them to broaden their minds.

“We wouldn’t have been able to improve that much if we didn’t go to Silicon Valley to get the different perspectives,” she said, noting that many of these companies also advocate healthy living.

The founder of a portal that provides a go-to guide to leading a sustainable healthy lifestyle added that she and her business partner would tweak their business model each day during the programme to accommodate their newfound knowledge into the business.

Different perspectives: Raja Jesrina notes that the feedback from the mentors, entrepreneurs and investors helped to broaden their minds. 

“One of the most profound culture that we found was that they empower employees and care about what they think,” said Wang, whose healthy snack eCommerce company enables customers to order their goods and have them delivered to their doorstep.

“One of the things that we did upon coming home was trying different types of marketing,” said Wang, adding that they managed to grow the company 100% month-over-month.

Echoing him was Lee, who expressed that many of the companies they visited practised an open culture. “At the end of the day, teams would share what they have achieved for the day, what problems they faced and how others can help them solve that problem,” said Lee.

Another programme under the partnership between MaGIC and Stanford includes a week-long Stanford Go2Market, which targets aspiring entrepreneurs who are in the early stages of their business who need help in fleshing out a business plan or business model. With the help of Stanford faculty members at MaGIC’s premises, individuals can obtain the necessary help to launch their products and services in the market.

“The Faculty-Train-Faculty programme sees the Stanford faculty sharing their best practices, how they teach entrepreneurship curriculum along with how they engage students in classrooms with our Malaysian university faculty. This enables them to enhance the way entrepreneurship is currently taught in Malaysian higher education institutions.”

Local entrepreneurs will also have an opportunity to learn from Stanford’s professor of marketing Baba Shiv between from March 14 to 20 at MaGIC next year.

Places are limited. For details, visit global.mymagic.my.