#26: 9 to 5 or entrepreneurship?
Are youths feeling pressured to start their own business?
Welcome to this week’s edition of SEAmplified! Your latest insights on Southeast Asian youth in 6 minutes.
💼 Redefining Work
Redefining Work examines how Southeast Asian youths are rethinking their approach to work and what it means to be a successful professional.What do youths feel about entrepreneurship?
Recently, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced that the government will be doubling down on innovation and enterprise.
But these works have already been ongoing for more than 20 years.
The Singapore government has always been taking a proactive approach when it comes to pushing the entrepreneurial landscape.
This includes creating a favorable regulatory environment, while also creating channels in which start-ups can access funding and incubators.
With various government agencies such as startup.sg and SkillsFuture providing both educational courses and initiatives to support the start-up ecosystem, tertiary educational institutions are also pushing forth degrees and courses.
From entrepreneurship centers and programs in polytechnics and universities, it seems like youths are highly encouraged to pursue the entrepreneurial path.
But what does this mean for the youths? Are they feeling pressured to start their own business?
Innate Drive or External Pressure?
Digital marketing specialist Yan Jun, 24, feels that youths are not pressured into starting a business, but it is due to an innate desire to want more out of life.
“To have more, you have to do more”, she stated nonchalantly, “If you want to earn more than the others, you cannot do the same as the others.”
To her, being tied to a corporate job, like 87.8% of the Singaporean workforce, limits one's financial potential, while true wealth comes from entrepreneurship and breaking away from the conventional path.
Yan Jun’s experience underscores a broader trend among young entrepreneurs across the region, where 60% of youths surveyed in Indonesia and the Philippines view traditional jobs as limiting and insufficient.
In her own entrepreneurial journey into the tech industry, Yan Jun was driven by her experience interning at multiple tech start-ups. Though small in size, she felt that these start-ups were disruptive in their own way.
She noticed how seeking feedback from customers was so manual in nature, and wanted to find a solution that could make the process automatic and efficient.
“I wanted to join in the very competitive and disruptive landscape and mainly to solve problems that matter to me.”
This growing sentiment is also shared among youths globally, especially in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, who are drawn to the tech start-up scene. Many are motivated by the opportunity to innovate and address meaningful problems in society.
However, due to financial restraints amidst other difficulties, Yan Jun and her co-founders had to take a pause in their journey.
While the entire process from production to sales wasn’t easy, it was definitely “fun and rewarding”.
It allowed her to reflect more on what work life balance means for her, and what she wanted to achieve through the work she does.
Yan Jun described their experience as a “good journey in the wrong phase of [their] life” and has hopes of continuing to work on the same product when they’re more experienced and financially stable.
But beyond the internal drive and passion, another powerful motivator emerges: the pursuit of financial freedom.
Motivated by Financial Freedom?
The notion of “to be financially free is to work for yourself” is shared by Ethan, 23, who is serving his military service.
Ethan feels no pressure from his peers to become an entrepreneur but feels that living expenses have risen so much that it is getting harder to live in Singapore. He is also not keen on a 9-5 job, citing how it makes him feel like a cog in a machine.
Entrepreneurship is therefore his hope towards financial freedom. But where did this idea come from?
“I really think social media has a huge part to play,as compared to the norm of working hard to [have] a nice retirement life”, Ethan shared.
Ethan feels that social media has accentuated the large prosperity gap between the ‘rich’ and the ‘poor’, which has driven people like himself to have larger aspirations in life.
It seems that aside from the broader governmental initiatives and educational environment, the pervasive use of social media platforms has pushed youths towards entrepreneurship.
Social media platforms have also increased the visibility of the lifestyles of the wealthy. This, combined with the fact that the richest 10% of people own 76% of the world’s wealth while the bottom half own only 2%, has increased people’s financial ambitions.
Combine that with the rising cost of living, Ethan finds that finding a side hustle, or starting his own business, is his only choice.
And Ethan isn’t the only one who feels this way. Youths in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, who have some of the highest entrepreneurial intentions globally, see entrepreneurship as a pathway towards financial independence too.
But that doesn’t mean that having his own business is purely motivated by financial gains. Ethan also finds that creating something from scratch will be very fulfilling.
“I want to have full control of [my] product, as well as full creative and innovative control,” he said.
Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone
However, not everyone would be comfortable with taking the risk, especially when there’s no guarantee of success and a stable income.
With that, about 30-40% of youths across Southeast Asia have expressed little to no interest in starting their own business, and are more inclined towards a secure and salaried job.
One of them is Tim, 27, who works in the defense industry.
He agrees that entrepreneurship is more encouraged in recent years and that youths start their own business because they “feel the need to and have the competency to solve a certain problem”.
Yet, he notes that not everyone is drawn to start their own business. Building strong connections with communities, raising money, and handling all the details of running a business can be overwhelming for many people.
Some might even feel that they can better contribute by improving existing systems instead of creating new ones.
Citing the negative effects of media platforms, Tim feels that the ‘need’ to be an entrepreneur also comes from external pressure.
“Some [youths] are pressured into entrepreneurship by looking at other success stories, without considering the sheer amount of hidden work and cost involved,” he said.
While Tim emphasized that the desire to solve problems and provide value to communities is a worthwhile reason to start a business, he warns against being driven purely by the allure of freedom or wealth, which can lead to disillusionment.
This challenges the assumption that entrepreneurship and innovation are synonymous with each other, while highlighting that innovation can flourish within established frameworks.
For instance, fields like Research & Development, Design, Technology, and Healthcare often require creative problem-solving and the development of new solutions.
A McKinsey study analyzing 2,000 companies over a decade found that those investing in R&D and innovation achieved up to 3 times higher revenue growth, and 9 times higher profitability compared to their peers, especially during economic downturns and recovery.
In another report by CB Insights, one of the top reasons for failure—cited by 42% of companies—was the "lack of market need" for their product, stemming mostly from a lack of genuine innovation or differentiation from existing solutions.
These findings suggest that while adapting innovative ideas can significantly impact traditional industries and start-ups, it also needs to address real needs and has to be done meaningfully, rather than simply following trends or external pressure.
But at the end of the day, it probably doesn’t matter if youths choose to embrace entrepreneurship or embark on a conventional career path.
What matters more is for youths to recognize that fulfillment and value come from pursuing what aligns best with their personal goals and passion.
Adopting an innovative or entrepreneurial mindset will then become an added boost to help youths chart a clearer path in a world that will be constantly disrupted by new technologies and uncertainties.
Enjoyed today’s article? Follow SEAmplified on Instagram and LinkedIn for exclusive content, hit the subscribe button, and tell us how we did in the poll below!
Have a new idea or lead for a story, feedback on our work, or just want to say hi? Email us at hello@seamplified.com.