【Taiwanology Ep.43】From Failure to Unicorn: How Appier Became Taiwan’s AI Pioneer

Taiwan is renowned for its world-class semiconductor manufacturing, but it’s not often recognized as a hub for software startups. So why did Appier, an AI-driven marketing tech company, choose Taiwan as its base—and how did it become the island’s first AI software unicorn? In this episode, co-founder Chih-han Yu shares the lessons learned from eight (!) failures.

- What is Appier, and who are its customers? [4:30]
- Eight failures and their lessons [10:54]
- The ‘aha’ moment: Combining AI and marketing [14:32]
- Why Taiwan? Returning from the U.S. to build a software startup [19:40]
- Why Tokyo was the go-to market [26:14]
- Looking ahead: How Taiwan can foster more software unicorns [34:00]

Host: Kwangyin Liu, Senior Managing Editor of CommonWealth Magazine
Guest: Chih-han Yu, CEO and Co-founder of Appier

＊Read more about Appier's journey: https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=2950
＊Share your thoughts: bill@cw.com.tw