GlobalTiC invites the CEO and co-founder of Enspyre – Elias EK to share his entrepreneurial experiences.
“Do you want me to speak in Chinese or English?” As soon as Elias EK, CEO of Enspyre, spoke fluent Chinese but with a relaxed tone, the people present couldn’t help smiling: “Chinese and English are fine. Why not mix Chinese and English!” Elias also smiled understandingly.
On May 14, 2011, the streets of Taipei were shrouded in mist and rain, but the Science and Technology Building of the National Science Council of the Executive Yuan stood clear in the rain; just when most people stay at home and enjoy the weekend vacation, a group of people who care about the global entrepreneurial atmosphere gathered to devote their efforts to creativity and innovation.
GlobalTiC held a general meeting at the National Science Committee of the Executive Yuan.
A group photo of Elias Ek, General Manager of Ashburn International, and Wu Chongyu, Chairman of GlobalTiC 11/05/14
Founded in 2006, the three letters “TIC” stand for Talentrepreneur-Talent, Innovation-Innovation, and Collaboration-Cooperation, which means to connect talents with the industry so that the two can interact, learn, and create unprecedented new businesses. And hope to use Taiwan as the center of global entrepreneurship development.
Therefore, Elias EK, a Swede who succeeded in starting a business in Taiwan, has become an ideal entrepreneurial representative of GlobalTiC. Chairman Wu Chongyu, also the president of National Chiao Tung University, warmly invited Elias to sit with him as soon as he arrived at the venue. Secretary-General Yang Weisen also took Elias to get to know the board members and members present, fully demonstrating the demeanor of a landlord and a hero.
The first contact between Elias and the National Innovation Council was in an academic seminar attended by both parties. Elias took the stage to share the entrepreneurial experience from childhood to adult and the concept of his company Enspyre. GlobalTiC was quite amazed and invited Elias to serve as the judge of its entrepreneurial competition and has maintained a good relationship ever since.
“I started thinking about starting a business when I was fifteen,” Elias said solemnly. “I wanted to start a company that specializes in ordering bread for everyone.” Food ordering is a very common service now; however, at the time, everyone thought that starting a company is a fantasy for a fifteen-year-old, no one wanted to help him, so Elias’ first entrepreneurial dream fell through.
“At that time, there was no organization like GlobalTiC supporting youth entrepreneurship, so it was really not easy to realize a concept.” Although Elias’ entrepreneurial dream was shattered many times, he never wanted to give up. However, it is very rare for entrepreneurs who can persist for more than ten years and are still full of enthusiasm. Many young people have good ideas but often give up because they have nowhere to ask for help. It is a pity.
“Every failure is not meaningless. I learned a lot of things that I didn’t think about.” When Elias was in his twenties, he thought that portals had great business opportunities, so he began to learn how to make a website. “At that time, I had to go to work in the morning, and go home in the evening to research the website stuff.” After four months of enthusiasm, Elias proudly showed the finished product to investors. Unexpectedly, he got the other party. Indifferent response.
“The other party told me that this website doesn’t seem to be special. Even their company’s team will do this kind of stuff, and they do it better,” Elias recalled. “At that time I was really frustrated and invested. With so much effort in it, it turned out to be rated as “Nothing”!”
However, in this experience, Elias finally realized that he had been trapped in a certain myth before. “Many people start a business and feel that everything has to be done by themselves. It makes sense to do it yourself,” he pointed out, “but there are many We have to explore things from scratch, which often makes us fall into a certain bottleneck, and there is no way to move forward, and many of those things are not our own.”
So Elias thought of the concept of “outsourcing”. “Outsourcing is quite common in Europe and the United States. It is a great way to save costs, but Taiwan does not seem to be very popular at the moment.” Elias saw that many companies know how to do business, but office operations are quite inefficient. “They need someone to help them. phone”.
Most local companies in Taiwan are accustomed to hiring secretaries or switchboard ladies to take charge of telephone service and transfer work. Not only are personnel costs high, but employee training often fails to achieve results. “If it can be done directly by professionals, it is absolutely It will save a lot of time and money.” Enspyre was born after seeing such a demand.
Anshi International has virtualized its office, not only has a telephone secretary, but also provides telemarketing and telephone customer service. It is staffed by a group of professionally trained employees. Since its establishment in 2002, it has received countless cases, with small and medium-sized enterprises as its main customers. Group, because if it can reduce costs, its competitive advantage will be greatly improved.
With the experience of personnel training and the desire to encourage entrepreneurship, coupled with the inspiration of GlobalTiC, Elias believes that students are a group worthy of cultivation, and also hopes to do a little bit for the shortcomings of Taiwan students generally lacking practical experience, so recruiting internships Born to Ashinstone to cultivate practical experience, and also hold an entrepreneurial competition-Enspyre Entrepreneur Challenge (EEC) as the pedal for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Enspyre Entrepreneur Challenge is different from the “Global Innovative Business Wisdom Award” sponsored by GlobalTiC. It is a warm-up competition. The purpose is to gather entrepreneurs who have good ideas but don’t know where to start, or who have methods but can’t find good ideas. Together, team up, implement and publish on site, complete in one day, test the water temperature for entrepreneurs who have dreams, and grasp the feeling and direction of entrepreneurship.
The “GlobalTiC Talentrepreneur Award” is a two-day and one-night entrepreneurial competition organized by the National Innovation Council to help young entrepreneurs cultivate their entrepreneurial skills and knowledge to recruit entrepreneurial talents across Asia, America, Europe, and the Middle East. , Let the participating teams learn by doing, and the winning teams will have the opportunity to cooperate with the venture capital industry and instructors in the future. It has been held for four sessions since 2007. It is a fairly complete and international professional competition.
“Youth need a confident entrepreneurial environment,” said Mr. Lin Congming, founder of GlobalTiC. “We use GlobalTiC as a professional entrepreneurial guidance brand to operate, combining resources from the industry, government, and academia, and the cooperation between the government and NGOs to create creativity. , Young people who want to start a business receive strong support.”
It is the common enthusiasm for entrepreneurship that draws Aston International GlobalTiC together. There is cold rain outside, but the indoor atmosphere is quite warm. Participants at the meeting listened to Elias’ sharing, sometimes laughed, sometimes bowed their heads in thought. It is with such a group of people who are keen to promote and encourage creativity, the operation of Taiwan and the world can continue to spark new sparks, and new things are born every second.
After the speech, Chairman Wu Chongyu issued a certificate of appreciation to Elias, and the participants responded with warm applause. The board members, supervisors and members who have seen great winds and waves in the industry are still moved by seeing future entrepreneurs who have dreams and the courage to pursue dreams, and believe that the trend of the world is advancing in the direction of innovation, whether in Taiwan or the world, Under the support of these seniors, every innovative talent will not be alone, and everyone can have a stage for free development.
