Mosaic was founded with the support of the Small and Medium Enterprise and Startup Administration, Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Startup Terrace Linkou. The team under the name of "Mosaic Venture Lab" aims to explore the potential of startups in Taiwan. It carried out cross-field cooperation and formed strategic partnerships with many automotive as well as technology companies and supply chains, including Audi.
The Chief Operating Officer, Shi-Wei Zheng, believes that Mosaic is well experienced in POC concept verification, business model design, intellectual property rights and marketing, and strives to change the constitution of startups and the entrepreneurial environment in Taiwan, hoping to foster the future smart transportation unicorns in Taiwan.
Transform the OEM Constitution of Taiwan Based on the Experience of the Silicon Valley
After seeing various venture capital environments around the world, Mosaic found that Taiwan has the highest "cost-performance ratio" in Asia in terms of talents, resources and the environment. However, due to cultural differences, startups in Taiwan are still not as good as those in Europe and the United States. "Successful business models in Taiwan will not necessarily succeed if they are applied to the Silicon Valley", Senior Project Manager Wei-Ming Huang said.
Even if Taiwan has technological advantages, the OEM atmosphere in Taiwan is still quite strong. Wei-Ming Huang took the startup culture in Israel and the United States as examples. Foreign venture capital often focuses on new technologies that may be developed within eight to ten years and may have planned to sell the company within five years at the beginning of the establishment, while Taiwan usually does the opposite. Since the venture capital environment in Taiwan is often tied to private equity funds, the attitude of startups is like "going as far as can we can go", meaning that companies like to do projects that can make profit within two years. In other words, if foreign startups can do product A, Taiwan startups will only do product A+ instead of creating a totally new product B.
"Startups in Taiwan often lack the spirit of conducting in-depth studies and do not know what the world can offer them". Wei-Ming Huang thinks that failure to tell stories that impress investors or inadequate preparation is also the major weakness of Taiwan’s startups. Mosaic suggests that instead of putting irrelevant content on the presentation slides, the presenter should directly point out their strengths to the investors. Even if you do not clearly know the needs of customers, you should try your best to figure out the solution that can fulfill their needs: "If you are an entrepreneur, you should act like an entrepreneur. Every word you speak and your manners must be in line with who you are. Any doubt or pause in your presentation will make you lose points."
"If you are not well prepared, how can investors invest in you?", Wei-Ming Huang said.
Elite Coaches Polish Startups with World-Class Standards
Mosaic will select 4 to 8 startups to join the accelerator from 50 to 100 startups during the three to four months of incubation period. The selected startups will be coached in terms of market, customer source, technology and application. On the one hand, the selected startups will be constantly optimized and "challenged" by professional coaches and polished to improve their "constitution". In addition, the startups will also be assisted in raising funds and creating new images by professional managers.
To improve the "engineering-oriented" thinking of Taiwan startups, a special digital marketing manager will be assigned to carry out the overall strategic planning. Furthermore, items that are relatively weak, including foreign language capability, presentation content, expression and logic, etc., will be improved and intensively coached one by one.
Volker Heistermann, General Manager of Innovation and Technology Development, has more than 20 years of experience in the Silicon Valley. In addition to having abundant resources, Mosaic also has coaches who are senior R&D managers from automotive and industrial research institutions, and well-experienced entrepreneurs.
"Startups often think that their products are the best and are not aware of their own problems. Entrepreneurs who have experienced success and failure can have have a thorough view of their entrepreneurial experience, offering instant guidance to startups".
The Trend of “Smart People-Car Interconnection”, Mosaic Helps Bring Taiwan to the World
As a relatively moderate testing site in Asia, Taiwan has allowed many new business models to be implemented successfully. In the exploration of smart city transportation, the commuting blueprint of Mosaic has the spirit of realizing the "Smart People-Car Interconnection". With hands-free smart driving, people can use IoT and sensors to enable social activities, such as audiovisual, communication, and games, to be carried out in the car. Other examples include the air quality in the car, the monitoring and protection of mood or alcohol concentration, hardware current distribution, machine visualization and software based "smart garage" car rental, etc. Mosaic boosts Taiwan startups to contribute local wisdom to the future of people-car interconnection and smart transportation.
The technologies of startups must be tuned, verified, and fitted with the car factories before they can be implemented. The startups rarely have the opportunity to directly connect with first-tier manufacturers. However, through technology cooperation, they can sell their products to first-tier manufacturers. The Mosaic accelerator can act as a bridge to connect the two together. By using the resources from the industry, the “concept verification” part of startup’s new projects to be carried out with many car factories, hardware manufacturers and supply chains.
The Chief Operating Officer, Shi-Wei Zheng, also pointed out that: "Nowadays, many second-tier manufacturers in Taiwan are trying to use this model to advance to the first-tier. Especially for the manufacturers in autonomous driving, most of them will collaborate with us". Whether it is bringing Taiwan startups to the world, or foreign companies hoping to settle in Taiwan, Mosaic has the experience to be the best connector.
Written/Photographed by: Startup Terrace Editorial team