Eric Manlunas
Eric Manlunas is the Founder & Managing Partner of Wavemaker Partners, a multi-faceted cross-border venture capital firm with over $600M of Assets under Management he founded in 2003. Prior to founding Wavemaker he founded Sitestar in mid-1999 and, in December 2002, successfully divested his ownership position after guiding it to become one of the region’s larger independent ISPs. In mid-1996, Eric also founded Interfoods, a specialty foods firm focusing on specialty foods online and offline retail trade. During his threeand- a-half-year tenure, Interfoods grew to become a mid-sized specialty foods company, which was successfully purchased in late 1999.
Eric presently serves on the boards of several developing firms and has previously served on the boards of over a dozen ventures. He is also a Trustee of the Philippine Development Foundation, an organization dedicated to social and economic development activities in Eric’s home nation of the Philippines.
In an interview with Startupcity Magazine, Eric Manlunas discusses startup problems and trends that are now prevalent in the market, as well as what the future holds of this space.
How has the startup space evolved over time?
Startups were much more expensive to build25 years ago because the cost of getting started was much higher in terms of hardware and software costs. Today, those costs have plummeted due to the democratization of technology tools brought about by remote computing or the Cloud.As a result, there’s been an explosion of technology startups trying to solve various pain points across many industries that have translated intohuge gains in productivity and efficiency, which in turn have made a lot more businesses much more competitive. Therefore, the most significant difference between then and now is that getting started today costs a fraction of what it did back then. And it’s been a big benefit for entrepreneurs, as this has removed a lot of the barriers to getting started.
It is no longer the big companies who are outperforming the small, but rather the fast who are outperforming the slow
What are some of the major challenges that startups are currently facing?
The biggest challenge most startups face today is scaling in the face of the unlimited resources incumbents the likes of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon have at their disposal. Technology incumbents today continue to behave like startups in terms of their willingness to innovate and disrupt themselves in spite of their massive scale. This dynamic has been the biggest difference in terms of corporate behavior between technology behemoths of today versus traditional non-technology incumbents of yesterday. As a result, a lot of these incumbents are competing with upstarts and in most cases have weaponized their massive balance sheet to acquire market share. Thus, it’s never easy to compete against businesses that practically have unlimited resources who are willing to deploy them as a defense mechanism.
What are some of the technological trends that are currently influencing startups?
Automation, Data and Intelligence are the three main ingredients needed to create efficiencies, insights and breakthroughs. All kinds of businesses across all industries could benefit from these products therefore entrepreneurs will constantly figure out ways how to create differentiated solutions that are applicable to different kinds of problem sets. Since applying technology to businesses is no longer a “nice to have” but now a “must have,” enterprising founders will constantly figure out ways how to cater to this market.
What are some other best practices that businesses should implement to stay ahead of the competition?
Creating a conducive environment to constantly inspire confidence in your team is key to sustainable success. In spite of the efficiencies technology has embedded inbusinesses, Humans and Culture are what make businesses successful so those are the two best practice elements business leaders should focus on nurturing and enhancing. Maintaining an entrepreneurial and collaborative culture will help create that environment. To help create a collaborative environment, business leaders should embrace a culture of shared success and prosperity.
How do you envision the future of this space?
Entrepreneurs will constantly launch businesses that solve various pain points across a wide range of industries. That’s what entrepreneurs do, they solve problems and the ones that succeed in creating exponentially better solutions will be rewarded handsomely. While solutions that bring incremental improvements contribute to a better society, it’s the high impact solutions that transform processes exponentially that are going to be commercially rewarded in a significantly meaningful way. I believe breakthrough solutions in ways that remain unimaginable today in Artificial Intelligence and Biotechnology will see exponential improvements in the next decade or so.
What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs?
Having a Purpose is what drives an entrepreneur. While a lot of people talk about Passion as something an entrepreneur must follow, having a Purpose is a lot more important because it’s what sustains the journey. A purpose driven entrepreneur also needs to develop a strong Point of View to help navigate that journey. Think of Purpose as the “destination” and Point of View as the “navigation system.” In addition, Entrepreneurs need to learn how to thrive in ambiguity and the best way to do that is by learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable. And since entrepreneurial success requires constant reinvention and reimagination, it’s important for entrepreneurs to not dwell too much on the risk of failure. Finally, it’s imperative for entrepreneurs to train themselves to be long term thinkers. Having the capacity to think in 10 to 15 year horizons will create a conducive environment for proper decision making. Short term thinking is poison for entrepreneurs.
