SINGAPORE — At 21, Ms Gwendolyn Tan packed her bags for a year-long internship with an e-books software company in Silicon Valley, California.

In the hotbed of entrepreneurship, she learnt, among other things, that creating a flourishing start-up required more than an appetite for risk. Networks, investors and workers to run day-to-day operations were also key ingredients to success.

These were readily available in Silicon Valley, along with people who were willing to volunteer their time to give budding entrepreneurs a leg-up in any way possible.

“There were myriad resources, and if you needed help, you could ask a friend, who would ask another friend. There were a lot more connections across the board,” recounted Ms Tan, now 32.

The bustling environment was in stark contrast to the muted start-up scene she had left back home.

“The scene in Singapore back then was nascent. I realised how much more vibrant an eco-system could be ... I felt that for a start-up, you need to be visible to potential customers and investors. You need to spread the word. That’s where I was very inspired,” said Ms Tan.

She had started technology blog SGEntrepreneurs in 2005, around the same time that she left for the internship under the National University of Singapore Overseas Colleges (NOC) programme. Her time rubbing shoulders with entrepreneurs at Silicon Valley made her realise how important it was for start-ups to have time under the spotlight, and from there, build networks and secure funding.

“It was just a blog. It slowly but surely grew. It showed me how much was needed and that fuelled me even more,” she said.

The blog grew from featuring tech start-ups to organising dialogue sessions and hackathons for entrepreneurs, and in 2013 digital media start-up Tech in Asia acquired SGEntrepreneurs.

Two years later, Ms Tan joined digital media website Mashable as its Asia-Pacific director of strategy and business development.

The year that she spent in Silicon Valley — making sales pitches to strangers at conferences or putting in cold calls to companies to digitise their annual reports — taught her to interact with people from different cultures.

Along the way, Ms Tan also took to becoming an angel investor, providing capital for tech start-ups.

One such company she helped is homegrown online ordering system Oddle, which helps restaurants to manage their delivery and takeaway orders.

“The global exposure is important because the world is not contained in your locality or your region. It’s more connected and in your daily life, you have to interact with people from other cultures. You’re always working with different parameters,” she said.