This past week, we attended the Echelon 2012 event held in NUS’s cultural centre organised by e27. As with most Singapore events, this was another well-organised event, with attendees coming from all over the world, all the way from SV to Indonesia.
What impressed me was that the pitches were given by startups that have more or less validated their business model and most are generating revenue, which is slightly different from many of the events we attend that usually have alot of startups who’s in the very early stage and most do not have a business model.
We spent 2 full days, okay, 1.5 days because we could not reach at 9am, which is the time the event starts, its way too early for us, and we had to still go back to office to settle our work stuff first. There were about 50 startups booths, and startups were from all over Asia, met a few familiar faces and many friends in the event. Singapore is small, the tech scene is so much smaller, we should really all start looking regional from Day 1, and we are glad we always had this mindset.
All in all, we met up with a lot of friends, made new friends, and as usual, you get the one or two high profile investors who act like they own Singapore, oh well, you probably will get these all over the world, but still we love the event, it keeps us abreast of the events in the startup scene and allows us to see what’s hot and what’s not.
PS: We loved the afterparty event after DAY 1, but the location, which was the Loof at Oden Towers was really sucky, I mean the concept is really cool, open air and all, but in Humid and Hot Singapore, it is terrible, even at night when it’s supposed to be cooler, it shouldnt be called the Loof, it should be known as The Sweaty.
