Not even the unicorns. There are no, “Join my TED Talk on How to succeed and sign up for my newsletter, hit the follow button and buy my merch” vibes. No investors posting ChatGPT-generated ‘insights’ that they didn’t even prompt themselves.
Taiwanese startups execute. You find out they’ve raised millions after the deal closes, or that a founder IPO’d when it casually comes up in conversation. Taiwan is like the ultimate anti-hype strategy.
Take Appier, for example. I didn’t even know who I was talking to at first—a nice, smart guy I met at the hashtagAISalon (I was hosting – shoutout to Chi Ko– for trusting me with that). Chatting casually, and then this guy starts talking about meeting Sequoia Capital in an elevator, closing a deal, and eventually landing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Turns out, he’s the founder of Appier.
And yet, here he is, coming back to small meetups to talk about his mistakes —dropping genuinely helpful advice and even throwing some tree-shaped shade. 🌳
Chi Ko posed this question to the audience: “What are some successful startups you know?”Someone answered, and Chi-Ko, with the deadliest calm, replied: “Nah, they don’t even have their IPO yet.” – Zero fluff given.
Now, here’s my entirely improper turn to boost:
With Startup Kitchen we brought a startup delegation to Taiwan and it was genuinely great time. Some real business deals are on the way—though I can’t tell you what they are because:
– the NDAs and stuff.
– I wasn’t actually paying attention when they pitched, so I have no idea what they’re doing.
Loved catching up with my friends from Startup Terrace again. Huge thanks to Matouš & CzechInvest (I paid him with dinosaurs), to all startups (I paid them with dinosaurs knowledge) for making this happen and to the Startup Kitchen team – Nikola , Tomas, Dominika for organizing this (I paid them by shutting up about dinosaurs) and to the CTBC (Czech Taiwanese Business Chamber) for helping craft the agenda.
I just wish I’d managed to steal those special TSMC chips while I was at it.
On the last day, one surfer turned to me and said: “Czechia? Oh, Czech PORN, very famous!” – glad we have the branding covered.
