XFail 2019 Conference, an occasion for entrepreneurs to share their experiences of failure to improve startups' chance of success, will open in Taipei on December 14.

Successfully starting his own business twice, Gwong Lee, managing director, Translink Capital, sold his second firm for a high price 15 months after its establishment and he was named one of Silicon Valley's top-10 most important persons of the year. Afterwards, Foxconn chairman Terry Gou invited Lee to serve as chairman of CyberTAN, a Foxconn subsidiary, and guide Foxconn Technology Group's investment deals. Drawing on his entrepreneurship experiences, Lee offers some thoughts and advice for Taiwan startups.

Having started three businesses, two of which successfully went public, founder of Vivo Capital Frank Kung set foot in the biotech sector in the 1970s. Thanks to Kung's decades of experiences in investing in biotech firms in the US and Greater China, Vivo Capital has made itself the largest biotech venture capital fund in Chinese communities worldwide, managing over US$1.7 billion in capital including the Taiwan Silicon Valley Technology Fund. Furthermore, Kung often attends the Taiwanese government's Bio Taiwan Committee meetings and offers advice for the development of Taiwan's biotech industry.

Co-founder of Translink Capital Jackie Yang has accumulated 21 years of experience in venture capitalism since he first set foot in the field in 1996. Having witnessed the rise and fall of Taiwan industries and changes in technologies, Yang thinks although the PC and semiconductor industries that have fueled Taiwan's economic growth are experiencing market saturation and maturity, startups still have a good chance at success if they are able to capture opportunities. He gives some pointers and suggestions to Taiwan's entrepreneurs based on his experiences in funding successful startups.

Co-chairman of SVT Angels and co-founder of Acorn Campus Ventures, T Chester Wang taught college courses in Saudi Arabia and invested in real estate in Silicon Valley before he began angel investing. From investing in real estate to investing in high-tech startups, from investing by himself to founding Acorn Campus Ventures with friends (Wu-Fu Chen and ‎David Tsang) and investing with a group of angel investors, Wang has many success stories as well as bad investments such as the one in eBay made without a real understanding of new business models.

LuxNet chairman, Hsing Kung, has founded three companies. Among them, SDL was established in 1983, specializing in manufacturing optical communication devices. It was sold for US$41.1 billion 16 years later, awarding early investors a 10,000 times return on their investment. Then, Kung soon started Pine Photonics in 2000, which was acquired four years later. During the same time, Kung also founded LuxNet. Both his own companies and those that Kung had stake in underwent the burst of the Internet and optical communication industry bubble in 2000 and sustained great impact. Kung has tasted both the sweetness of success and the bitterness of failure.

Technology only accounts for 25% of what makes a startup successful while the CEO's leadership can contribute to 50% of its success, said Chun P Chiu, national policy advisor to the president of Taiwan, InnoBridge Capital's Senior Advisor and an angel investor, who has funded more than 100 startups over a 20-year period.

Co-founder of Acorn Campus Ventures Bob Lin started six businesses, three of which succeeded and the others failed. In addition to being an angel investor, Lin is also the author of top-selling books. Lin has been through it all, from making a fortune to losing every penny. He put his thoughts and wisdom gained from four decades of experiences in his books in hopes of helping more people. Lin declined the title of a venture capital guru in modesty, stating that he continues to make investments and keeps writing about the industry he observes closely.

In a media career spanning nearly three decades, Tally Liu served as senior vice president of Knight Ridder, in charge of finances, operations, internal audit and new technologies at the second-largest newspaper company in the United States. Liu took part in Knight Ridder's investment deals and gained extensive experience in Internet business investments. Liu, now an angel investor, is a certified public accountant (CPA). He was also chairman and CEO at Newegg, a well-known online retailer of computer hardware and consumer electronics, giving him plenty of e-commerce know-how.

Sandy Chau, co-founder of Acorn Campus Ventures as well as an active real estate investor, engages in investment undertakings throughout the United States and Greater China. His success in startup investment and business operation can be attributed to what he experienced as he was growing up. Born in Shanghai, Chau received primary and secondary education in Hong Kong and Vietnam as he travelled back and forth between the two places. In Vietnam, he witnessed social unrest including the Vietnam War, political coup and student strikes, while in Hong Kong he saw the social stratification and inequality between Chinese citizens and the British ruling class. He learned how to quickly adapt to new environments and figured out how to survive and thrive. Such characteristics helped him reach success.