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If you’ve been using third-party apps or the mobile version of Reddit on your Android device, you’ll be happy to know that the company is finally going to offer an official app for the platform. Over on Reddit last week, the team shared the news: Hi everyone! I’m the product manager for native mobile here at Reddit. As many of you know, the team here has been working hard… Read More
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SketchDeck, a two-year-old, on-demand design service for marketing and sales teams, has raised $1.7 million in new funding. The round comes 10 months after the startup raised $500,000 from investors. Backers include Matrix Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Foundation Capital, Blue Capital, Arnold Capital and Flight VC. Read More
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The post Securing the built environment and critical infrastructure appeared first on African Business Magazine.
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Another year has come and is almost gone. It seems like just yesterday we were discussing how to improve ourselves professionally in 2015. So much can happen in 365 days, from leaving jobs to try new opportunities, getting promoted, to following your dreams and becoming the entrepreneur you always wanted to be.
No matter what year is looming around the corner, it’s so important to take a step back and assess your year professionally — triumphs, failures and everything in-between. Why? Staying stagnant is not an option, especially if you’re aspiring to be the next Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg
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Chun Min Ma, Head of Operations at Helpr, is not exactly a newbie in the tech industry.
Prior to joining the Kuala Lumpur-based startup, she had experience working for three years in e-commerce marketplace for merchants Groupon. But the desire for new challenges encouraged her to accept the offer from the co-founders of the online concierge service company.
“I want to go through things where you can build something from a scratch, because when you are joining an established company, everything is set up for you … It is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” she says.
Working closely with customers from different backgrounds and with different needs, she has dealt with many surprising twists and turns while running this business. Some of them might surprise you.
Here is the edited excerpt of the interview:
Also Read: Logistics firm RocketUncle — now Zyllem — goes into Malaysia, Philippines
You can set your own way of doing things, how you want the culture and the processes to be, as long as it makes sense and is agreed upon by the all the other colleagues… You don’t need to follow too many procedures to get things done. You can challenge yourself more, and explore more things.
Joining startups allow you to realise that you actually have more potential.
The bad thing? It’s very, very tiring. You need to have lots of patients and be willing to sacrifice … sacrifice time with family and friends, because, basically, you have to devote time and energy to the business.
Startups often don’t have enough manpower, so one person has to do many things.
Also Read: Malaysia’s Axiata-MAVCAP reveals first 6 investments from US$23M fund
When we just started, we had customers who texted us to ask, “Can I adopt a tiger in Malaysia?” or “Can you find me a boyfriend?”
Google is our best friend here. We learned that there is a tiger adoption programme in the US, where customers can sign up.
So, basically, you don’t have to keep the tiger with you, you’re adopting him by funding his life. So, we ended up giving the customer information that while you can’t actually adopt the tiger at home, you can join a plan to fund the tiger.
We also had a promotion where customers only have to pay for the cost of the service, not the delivery cost.
We usually receive orders that we can deliver by the next day. But what happened that day is that we received so many that we had to close down shop for three hours.
We really did not want to disappoint our customers, so we spent the whole day running around, purchasing drinks for our customers.
Also Read: 500 Startups, Cradle Seed invest in Malaysian startup Involve Asia
There are three things that you need to bear in mind.
First, sacrifices. Before you join a startup, think if you are willing to sacrifice your boyfriend, your friends, your weekends.
Second, perseverance. You need a lot of patience for [it]. Things are moving fast, you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow, so you need mental preparation to be able to accept the stress level. Because the stress level is actually very high.
The third thing would be greed, in the sense of the hunger to learn. Greed to add more knowledge and know the things around you.
The post Behind the Startup: What to do when a client wants to adopt a tiger appeared first on e27.
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Ousted CEO of Housing Rahul Yadav has some harsh words for the Indian media. He calls them “poor talent.”
Rahul was fired from Housing in July due to his clashes with the company’s board. Leading up to his sacking, Rahul had said his own investors and board members were not “intellectually capable enough to have any sensible discussion.” In an eventful week in May, he resigned, withdrew his resignation, and even gave away his shares to Housing’s employees.
All this was widely reported.
Speaking on the articles about him in Indian media during that time, Yadav says, “I understand that TV channels play all those masala stories to grab eyeballs and writers write such stuff. But there is still the need to cross-check facts. That’s basic courtesy.” He was speaking at Flipkart’s annual tech conference in Bangalore.
Rahul went on to cite an example: “Some stories said that I am from IIT-Kanpur or Kharagpur.” Yadav is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. Some stories, he said, incorrectly reported about his family. He dropped out of college to start Housing with 11 of his college-mates in 2012. “Earlier I used to get troubled when someone wrote such stories about me. But now I have accepted and gotten used to it. It’s my mistake, I used to take it so seriously,” he says.
This irked the reporters present at the conference. Before they could voice their dissent, Flipkart CEO Sachin Bansal jumped into a damage control mode. “Maybe we should encourage our kids to become reporters,” Bansal said.
Rahul has been very active on social media, sharing his opinions, posting half-nude shots, and taking potshots at others in the startup space. This has been keeping him in the news, though many times for the wrong reasons.
Tech in Asia quizzed Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma if being a CEO has curtailed his freedom of speech on social media. Vijay replied that there were a lot of issues in India that he would have liked to comment on but held back. For example, recently Bollywood actor Salman Khan was acquitted on a culpable homicide case. “I wish I could tweet about all that,” Sharma said. But being a CEO he can be that open only with his close circle of colleagues or friends.
Last week, Rahul announced his new startup, Intelligent Interfaces. Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal are backing it.
This post Maverick startup CEO Rahul Yadav slams India’s media appeared first on Tech in Asia.
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Pravin Gordhan has dramatically returned as South Africa’s finance minister after President Jacob Zuma was forced to scrap his appointment of an obscure backbench MP.…
The post Gordhan returns as South African finance minister appeared first on African Business Magazine.
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Brussels-based Doctena, founded in 2013, represents a familiar European startup story. It sells a medical booking platform that lets doctors offer online booking to their patients and has successfully launched in three European countries — Luxembourg, Netherlands and Belgium — juggling regulatory differences in each country and doing it all with modest funding. Read More
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The Syrian refugee crisis has been plaguing European economies over the past couple of years. It has handed these countries an influx of foreign nationals without the necessary infrastructure to handle them. Recently with the terror attacks in Paris, the crisis has transformed from one of economic ramifications to a more serious problem with national security in mind, particularly for these countries such as Germany, France, and the Nordic countries whose high quality of living attracts foreign asylum-seekers. While countries like Denmark have pursued policies aimed towards keeping asylum-seekers out, Germany has been much more lenient in its acceptance of refugees. In fact, an article by Der Spiegel argues that Germany’s relaxed policy actually allows it an economic benefit by energizing the country’s labor force.
German chancellor Angela Merkel is pursuing an “open-armed” policy towards the refugees flowing into the country. Her policy essentially states that Germany will be allowing refugees to stay in the country as opposed to returning them to their country of first entry. This goes against the Dublin Accord, which states that refugees are to be processed for asylum in whichever Schengen Zone nation they cross into first (this rule obviously places an undue burden on countries like Greece and Italy). The move is uncharacteristically bold for Merkel, however it establishes a strong tone for the rest of the European Union, for which Germany has emerged as a leader of sorts both economically and in the face of the refugee crisis.
Despite its humanitarian overtones, Germany’s open-armed reaction to refugees should not be seen only as an act of good will. This map by the Washington Post shows how the German population has been declining, and how this has had negative ramifications for Germany’s economy. Compare this trend to a country like Great Britain, which has seen vast population growth and is struggling to maintain its population at a steady amount despite taking on refugees. The disparity in population growth between the two countries could perhaps explain why their different approaches to refugees have led to strained relations between the two countries. Foreign labor has always been an important part of maintaining German economic growth, however sources suggest that the country’s already high immigration rate is still not enough to fill this void. The integration of these refugees into the economy could provide Germany with the economic boost they need while also improving Germany’s reputation as a humanitarian country.
Merkel’s plan could prove to be problematic. For one, it is yet to be determined how effectively these foreign nationals will be able to integrate themselves into the economy – although 77% of the refugees are of working age, many of them do not speak German – an obvious hurdle in the challenge to contribute to the German economy. Additionally, Merkel faces internal political opposition both domestically and from other EU countries that do not share the same sort of eagerness to accept refugees that the German chancellor is now pressing on the other member nations. Following recent terror attacks in Paris, these concerns have been complicated even more by questions of security surrounding the refugees. Despite these challenges, many hold confidence in the notion that these migrants will give Germany the boost that it needs to continue the growth of its sprawling economy.
These foreign laborers could serve to benefit the German start-up sector as well. While its primary industries are still based around manufacturing and engineering, Germany’s Berlin based start-up scene is vibrant and could serve to grow with this increase in the population. Large start-ups like Soundcloud and Blacklane are only a small part of the vibrant community that has grown around Berlin in recent years. Additionally, by serving as a role model for other European countries, Germany could encourage other burgeoning European economies to open their doors to refugees and allow migrant laborers contribute to their small business.
The post Germany’s Refugee Policy Could Turn the Migrant Crisis into Economic Victory appeared first on The Startup Magazine.
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As competition is getting tougher in India, global as well as domestic cab booking giants Ola and Uber made an entry into auto rickshaw booking a few months ago to find new business opportunities. But, unable to get a grip on the steering wheel, the latter announced its departure from the Indian three-wheeler segment recently.
While US-based Uber’s (which has billions of dollars in hands) exit has raised many questions on the feasibility of this business, a small-town startup Jugnoo is making in-roads into what it dubs to be a lucrative vertical — making a strong statement that rickshaw is something that only a domestic player can crack in India.
“The taxi aggregators are aggressively trying to hold their stakes in this sector, but auto-rickshaw aggregation is an area that we felt can aid towards making local commute much more convenient by making use of this source which is abundantly available,” says Samar Singla, Co-founder of Chandigarh-based Jugnoo.
“This is an area which still has a room for growth because maximum of India’s population makes use of this source for local travel and since we have an ease of access to technology, it made sense to a build a platform which integrates both, a concept which has helped both the customers and the auto rickshaw drivers,” he adds.
Also Read: Uber India follows Ola to allow for auto-rickshaw booking
The startup was established in November 2014 by Agarwal and Singla — both alumni of IIT Delhi.
Jugnoo is targetting students, working professionals and masses that are dependent on public transport for their daily conveyance. The firm claims to have approximately 3,300 plus autos registered with it.
Recently, Jugnoo raised US$3 million from SoftBank-backed Paytm, and Kunal Shah, Co-founder of Freecharge (a Snapdeal-owned mobile recharging platform). Prior to this, it raised US$5 million in Series A co-led by SnowLeopard and Paytm in May this year, preceded by US$1 million in an angel funding round a year ago.
Currently, Jugnoo’s services are available in 22 cities — Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Amritsar Jaipur, Gurgaon, Indore, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Pune Nasik, Jodhpur, Surat, Vadodara, Nagpur, Noida, Hyderabad, Bhubaneshwar, Guwahati, Mysore, Udaipur, Kota Coimbatore. The duo claims that it is witnessing around 15,000 daily transactions and has a user base of one million.
Unitus Seed Fund-backed mGaadi is the oldest player in the auto rickshaw segment. According to Jugnoo’s other Co-founder Chinmay Agarwal, the dynamics of this space are completely different.
“Our demography is different, we don’t follow the other players and our focus remains on cities which may be small but have high potential. We do not focus on creating new supply, rather we leverage what is already there. Our engagement with drivers and customers is what we focus on.”
Also Read: China’s Didi Kuaidi driving to India with an investment in Ola
He continues, “Surviving is what we are good at. We don’t want to unnecessarily dedicate our resources to win against anyone and we want to scale our speed even if it is in their shadows. We’d rather let the biggies make mistakes and solve problems than get impatient to win and drain our resources. The advantage of being small is that the speed of execution is much fast, so while we understand our weaknesses; we’d rather focus on our strengths and do our thing.”
The company’s ultimate goal is to take technology to every household in India for making commuting easy and quick. Most of India’s population is contingent on local transport, which is what the startup wants to focus on.
“It is often a cumbersome process to step out and search for a source of local commute mode in the scorching sun or at night. When you can avoid the overhead with a tap on the mobile, life becomes easier, says Singla.
“This is how our customers save time and trouble with our economical rides. For an auto rickshaw driver, if he gets a ride request in his vicinity without riding around in the city, a lot can be saved at his part. Adding to this, a driver also has the flexibility in picking up rides. We have managed to add value to the livelihood of our primary stakeholders,” Singla explained.
Jugnoo’s ultimate aim is to be in every city of India and also are exploring joint ventures internationally. There are acquisitions and synergies underway which will boost its plans and transaction targets of a million per day in the coming few months, says Agarwal.
Also Read: India’s Jugnoo acquires BookMyCab; plans to raise US$20M Series B
Talking about the key challenges the startup is facing, Agarwal adds, “It is tough to convince the drivers to get on a smartphone, most of who know how to use it, but are reluctant to use it for activities that can impact their livelihood directly. So a lot of convincing and training is needed to get them comfortable on this platform.”
The company says the fund it raised recently will help its pan-India expansion plans and streamline processes in all new cities. “There is still a lot to be done in this space, we basically want all autos to come on our platform and as we launch new cities, we also need to sustain the older ones and keep expanding our reach there as well,” concludes Agarwal.
Image Credit: SurangaSL/Shutterstock
The post With Uber off the auto rickshaw wheel, Jugnoo takes the driving seat in India appeared first on e27.
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