So You Want To Be An Entrepreneur?

SINGAPORE: Budding entrepreneurs in Asia will get a chance to pitch to top investors their business ideas, on a new business reality TV series, Angel’s Gate, which will premiere on Channel NewsAsia on Monday night.

Each entrepreneur is given 30 seconds in a lift to make a business pitch to one of the judges known as Angels.

And if the judge is impressed, the entrepreneur is let through to make his or her proposal to all four judges, where they’ll be advised on their business ideas and will stand to receive funding from investors.

In season one, 24 entrepreneurs will seek support from the Angel’s Gate Fund which is in the hands of four judges.

They are Patrick Grove, co-founder and CEO of Catcha Group, William Klippgen, founder and managing director of Tigris Capital, Ken Mandel, managing director of Buddy Media Asia Pacific, and Karan Singh Thakral, executive director of the Thakral Group of Companies.

Entrepreneur John Fearon, who would appear on Angel’s Gate, said: “When you go in the elevator you don’t actually have time to think.

“You just have to basically recite what you have prepared before hand.

“It’s very intimidating because you have cameras in your face, you have a judge who’s going to say yes or no and you know, ruin your life or make your life.”

Keith Ng, who would also appear on Angel’s Gate, said: “The pressure of the elevator going up and the pressure of the door opening and the sound, ‘ding’, they’re really very exciting for me.”

But with investments as high as half a million dollars, judges are taking a no-nonsense attitude.

Angel’s Gate judge William William Klippgen said: “When entrepreneurs come on the show, and they make false claims or misleading claims or they try to exaggerate — that works well when (they) speak to (their) friends or family, but not when (they) speak to someone who would like to put money into (the) company.”

Whether it’s pitching new websites or gaming technology, the programme hopes to give start-up businesses in Asia an edge.

Angel’s Gate founder and CEO Ash Singh said: “It’s a very segmented market so you have to build a product for Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia to really get some traction to really make stuff happen.

“So I think the platform itself is a good marketing vehicle to get you to reach to tens of millions of people.”

The show is on a 360-degree media platform and is available on web and mobile.

Entrepreneurs will be able to raise funds for their projects, online.

Visitors to Angel’s Gate.com will be able to browse the numerous business ideas, and offer to back the projects that excite them.

People who contributed to the funds can monitor and track the progress of the projects. In return, entrepreneurs offer benefits to their backers.

Channel NewsAsia is producing the programme together with CEO of Interactive.SG Ash Singh, with support from the Media Development Authority (MDA).

Channel NewsAsia managing director Debra Soon said: “It fits in not only with programming but also with what we want to do in the future, which is to capture more stories on businesses about Asia and the Asian economy.

“Not only that, MDA — it was a great partnership because we want to boost our 360 content. The Angel’s Gate team were quite strong on that 360 content (considering) they haven’t really done TV production.

“So we brought our skills together , worked with them on the distribution, on the online platform and we hope this will be a successful formula that we can take further.”

MediaCorp has plans to turn Angel’s Gate into a show that could eventually be sold to the international market.

Interested participants can submit online their business ideas.

As the official charity sponsor of Angel’s Gate, CapitaLand Hope Foundation is donating S$1 for every “like” received by business profiles on angelsgate.com, with winning business ideas earning bonus donations.

The donations will go towards four selected children’s charities, namely the Infant Jesus Homes & Children’s Centres, Jamiyah Children’s Home, Melrose Home and Sunbeam Place.

- CNA/wk

Channel News Asia