David Ying – Why Dot-Com Start-ups Failed (And What You Can Learn from Them)

Aug 21, 2018

David Ying, Senior Consultant at Systex Corporation, discusses his painful experience investing in a dot-com start-up during the internet craze of the late 1990s. He reflects on the challenges faced by dot-com ventures, the cultural and legislative obstacles in smaller markets, and the importance of understanding before investing in unfamiliar ventures.

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ANECDOTE

Dot-com Bubble Investment

David, despite being a conservative banker, invested heavily in a dot-com startup during the dot-com bubble.
This investment, driven by the hype and FOMO (fear of missing out), turned out to be his worst ever.

INSIGHT

Investment Psychology

Investment decisions are often driven by behavior and environment, not solely logic.
The dot-com era created a fad where people blindly invested in internet-related ventures.

ANECDOTE

Ahead of its Time

David's startup aimed to revolutionize cosmetics by allowing virtual changes to looks through a website.
This idea, ahead of its time due to technological limitations, is now commonplace, proving the concept's validity.

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David Ying is a Senior Consultant at the Systex Corporation in Taipei since 2012. David Ying holds a bachelor degree in Economics from National Taiwan University, along with an MBA degree, and an Executive MBA degree in Business Administration.

In 1982, David started his career as a banking officer at Continental Illinois National Bank (CINB) located in Taipei City, where he was promoted to loan officer. He has more than 35 years of experience working for a dozen companies, including 5 years at International Investment Trust Company Ltd in Taiwan, 4 years at Dow Jones Telerate and the last 20 years at Systex Corporation.

In this episode, David Ying shares his big dreams during the DotCom era leading to a painful start-up venture that brought his years' worth of salary into the bubble.

“Investment pretty much at that time [dotcom era] is driven by your behavior and driven by the environment. Lots of people around you say, ‘Yeah, I make a lot of money because I invest in the internet’. ”

-David Ying

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Topics Covered:

00:56 – David Ying’s professional background

02:09 – David as a risk-averse investor

03:01 – The circumstances that lead to David’s Dot.Com investment

05:01 – What persuade him to venture into internet business during the Dotcom era

06:09 – The type of start-up cosmetics business that he ventured in dreaming it to be as big as Amazon and Yahoo

08:33 – How big of an investment was it relative to the money he had

09:11 – Andrew summarizes the critical learning point from David’s experience

10:37 – Jack Ma’s experience when he visited Taiwan for venture funding

Main Takeaways:

Lesson 1: People easily fall for the fear-of-missing-out. When you hear your friends and everybody talking about their winners and you are thinking that you are missing out, and you try to belong to the fad and invest your way to what they are doing.
Lesson 2: The Dot-Com start-up period was the time of BIG DREAMS, BIG FADS. As you get older you recognize big dreams, big fads period is much better when you are younger.
Lesson 3: Not all people will become a superstar like Jack Ma and Joseph Tsai.

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