Silicon Valley entrepreneur works with Cebu team on startup project

From left to right: Tina Amper, organizer Geeks On A Beach (GOAB), Bowei Gai, founder World Startup Report and World Startup Wiki.

Silicon Valley entrepreneur Bowei Gai has emerged with a new project, the World Startup Wiki, after being holed up with his team since December 2013 in Cebu, Philippines. The World Startup Wiki that seeks to build startup databases on all countries first focuses on the Philippines and has gone live in Moscow during the opening of the Global Entrepreneur Congress last March 17, 2014. 

Entrepreneurs can look up list of incubators, notable startups, available talent to costs or everything one needs to know before building a startup in the Philippines. Aside from data on the country and its startups, Gai’s project allows entrepreneurs to look up potential investors and vice versa.

The 28-year-old came from Silicon Valley where he sold his company for millions of dollars to LinkedIn. Gai visited the Philippines after globetrotting for his World Startup Report in 2013 that he first presented during the Geeks on a Beach conference in Boracay.

“We helped him setup a small team of volunteers and consultants in Cebu for his WSW project,” said Cebu-based Tina Amper of TechTalks.ph who pointed to the experience as an example of collaboration between experienced entrepreneurs and sharp local talents who are eager to learn and can meet fast-paced, world-class type of business practices.

“We look forward to more of such collaboration,” Amper said, because this allows Filipinos to experience Silicon Valley practices without leaving Cebu. This organic process has become like our own homegrown version of the “Startup Chile” program where foreigners are enticed to visit Chile to set-up businesses. 

“Our visitors like Bowei also experience the richness of Filipino culture -- the food, laughter and endless celebrations.”

In Cebu, observed Amper, “the normally hard-charging 24-hour working Gai finds occasions to stop and celebrate birthdays and work in exotic places as the beach and beach-front restaurants.”

This awesome work-play environment comes with the lower cost of building startups and foreigner-friendly culture, something attractive to entrepreneurs from the Silicon Valley and other more mature startup communities in the United States and Europe.

Amper expected more foreign entrepreneurs to experience this especially with Geeks on a Beach 2 will be held in Mactan, Cebu in August 2014.