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Victor Ching, CEO of Korea-based home cleaning service Miso, tells e27 about the perfect cleaning session

Victor Ching, CEO, Miso

In South Korea, O2O is definitely the buzzword of the year. O2O refers to services that allow consumers to go online to find goods offline. One example would be Miso, an online company that helps people get matched to home cleaners.

Here we speak to Victor Ching, CEO, Miso, to understand more about the company, and where it’s headed.

Can you tell me more about your business?

We started the company in early August. Basically, it’s a service that lets you book a home-cleaning service via our website. By the end of this month, we’ll have mobile apps for iOS and Android.

Also Read: India’s Wassup acquires on-demand laundry company Chamak

You go online, you choose a date and time where you’d like a home-cleaning service. We operate a base set of standard services but if you need any other services like cleaning your refrigerator or any thing that takes a lot of time and a lot of hard labour, then you can request that.

What we’ll do is we’ll go through our pool of cleaners and then, match someone who can work at that time, date and location that you requested.

How many cleaners do you have on your platform?

More than 160 people have actually worked via our service, that means at least one job and earned revenue.

How many employees are there?

Officially, five, right now. We have three set to start on December 21, and we have offers out to two more people.

A few of the Miso team

Can you walk me through how much you charge for each cleaning session?

It’s a standard fee of KRW10,000 (Around US$8.50) per hour for the cleaner. It’s about market rate – I think it’s on the low end of the market rate.

I think you see a lot of services going a bit higher than that. I think it’s about market rate for 60 per cent of the companies out there. The base service is about four hours, so KRW40,000 (Around US$34) to the cleaner and then KRW5,000 (US$4.50) to our company for the fees.

How do you generate revenue?

Basically through commissions. Out of every cleaning, we earn a commission fee – it averages between KRW5,000 to something higher, depending on the customer. I think from from our basic service, it’s about KRW5,000.

If I have special requests, do I pay the same amount as others?

It’s by hours. If you have a bigger apartment, then we ask you to purchase more hours. Or if you do a few extra services, like cleaning the insides of refrigerators – that tends to be difficult work, because you have to take all the food out and it’s very time intensive, so we ask customers to tack on an extra hour.

Every customer wants something different, right? Some people want people to arrange the closet, but clean the insides of the closet? It’s not as simple.

Do you promise your cleaners a minimum number of hours of work?

Well, we don’t have a set guideline for the number of hours we’re going to give somebody, because every person is different.

Some people have existing jobs and want extra work. But we’ve had some people contact us and say, “If I quit my other job, will you be able to fill my schedule up with 40 hours a week?” And in those cases, we tell them, yes, that we have enough work for you.

Has Miso received external investment? 

We closed an angel round in October. We’re looking to raise another round in February. It’ll either be seed or Series A. It depends. We’re looking at raising at least a million dollars.

I think, right now the big debate is: Do we just take a million dollars in seed and try to grow further from there, then do a big Series A, or do something in the two to three million dollars range right now and then use that? We’re still going through the scenarios.

Where do you see Miso in the next six months?

It’s basically really to create saturation in this particular market in Seoul, but also in Incheon and Gyeongi-do. And I think, with that, we don’t offer much innovation in the market right now.

I think our big innovation is our review system because it’s something that other companies don’t really implement at the moment. But we feel that competition can easily implement something like that.

Our business is very much like Uber’s, in that you benefit by economics of scale. Uber has their concept of the perfect ride. The perfect ride is one where the driver makes more money, but the customer pays less.

It seems like it’s not possible but we’ve found that it is. What we’re trying to do is if you develop a scale of orders in a particular region, then these cleaners have to travel less from job to job.

Also Read: WaHome scores US$1M in seed funding to clean more houses in Korea

Ultimately, travel is time, which is money. What happens when these cleaners can travel less from job to job is that they can work shorter jobs, two-hour jobs or even three-hour jobs — something that they’re not willing to do right now. Because nobody wants to travel one hour to work a two-hour job.

But if you can offer three jobs in the same building, then you can do a two-hour job, maybe the customer pays KRW30,000 (Around US$25.48), so they’re ultimately paying less but the cleaner makes more per hour.

What we see is that you can offer more innovative services, more value to the customers and the cleaners themselves.

The post Startup in Spotlight: Miso helps South Koreans find home cleaners appeared first on e27.

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There’s a lot the digital revolution can teach us about building innovation beyond just technology

When he won the Nobel Prize for his work on laser technology, Charles Townes said, “It’s like the beaver told the rabbit as they stared at the Hoover Dam. ‘No, I didn’t build it myself. But it’s based on an idea of mine.’” Cheekiness aside, this remark hints at the escalation of ideas that define innovation.

In his recent book and serial biography, The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, author Walter Isaacson takes an entertaining and informative look at how innovation and failure propelled technological advances during what is being called the third industrial revolution.

He begins with Ada Lovelace, who pioneered computer engineering in the early 1800s, and follows the series of inventions — such as the microchip and the Internet — of the digital revolution through the lives and lessons learned from Alan Turing, Doug Engelbart, Tim Berners-Lee, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, among others.

I picked up the book hoping to be inspired and to find clues to help spur the social revolution that is upon us. I was not disappointed. The Innovators focusses on six central concepts that were key to the development and success of the digital revolution. They included:

Ideas

Innovation is often connected with a new idea, but the technology innovators (as illustrated by the beaver quip) borrowed ideas from everywhere and simply built upon them.

For example, while technology is most notably science-based, Isaacson notes that the best innovators took cues from the arts as well. However, this free flow of ideas didn’t always establish a clear purpose for innovations. In fact, the innovators of the digital revolution often invented a device first and then determined how it should best be used.

Also Read: 3 steps for executing a successful Kickstarter campaign

People

The tech industry has produced some notable personalities that have inspired other industries’ efforts around innovation.

Many of the innovators had what Steve Jobs and others at Apple called “reality distortion field,” where the work made the impossible seem possible. Individuals possessing a unique combination of attributes – passion-followers who were decisive, energised by failure, yet loved having fun – helped propel reality distortion forward.

Teams

In early America, we had a culture of altruism and mutual support. Think barn-raisings and quilting bees. While the technology industry is characterised by stories of intense competition, the book showcases the opposite. As Isaacson puts it, “Innovation comes from teams more often than the light-bulb moments of lone geniuses.”

The technology revolution was built through collaboration, often spurred by physical proximity and multiple disciplines coming together to “hack” a problem and offer solutions.

Also Read: 7 startup metrics all entrepreneurs must track

Cross-sector collaboration

The technology revolution was accelerated by cross-sector collaboration between universities, private industry and the military to produce deadline-driven results.

While military objectives were often the driver, the accelerators were strong personalities who served as “bridgers” and the “bumblebees.” Bridgers, like Vannevar Bush, who led the US Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War II, had the ability to translate among scientists, engineers, government and private industry.

Bridgers helped each group understand their role in the larger cause. In Bush’s case, his outspoken advocacy for government support of science led to the creation of the National Science Foundation. Bumblebees, like Alan Kay, worked tirelessly across disciplines and platforms to create new ideas.

Although Kay was a computer scientist for Atari and Xerox, he also worked at Disney and was a musician and composer. Like many of the innovators profiled, he took inspiration from many disciplines and collected, improved and collaborated on half-formed ideas, pulling from multiple sources.

Business models

Because of the technology industry, we have the concept of the new dynamic duo: the visionary paired with the business mastermind. Many of the innovations profiled in the book would never have seen the light of day if the innovators had not paired up with individuals who understood how a product could work for consumers.

Isaacson profiles many of these duos, highlighting the necessity to combine product usefulness with marketing expertise to make it appealing to and affordable for consumers.

Also Read: Is swiping competitors’ employees a good strategy?

Ecosystem

The role of environment in spurring innovation, or as Isaacson calls it, “the right primordial soup,” was just as critical to the digital revolution as the innovators were.

He discusses the evolution of Silicon Valley and what made it successful: the universities, the venture capital funding and the collection of different, but connected groups – from hippies to hobbyists – that saw computers as a way to give people power. From this “soup,” ideas were formed and molded, inventions were refined and products went to market.

All of these concepts are noteworthy in their role in the digital revolution. But the book notes one thing that served as the foundation upon which the revolution was built: tension.

For many, tension has a negative connotation. But as a means for promoting innovation, it is often necessary. It creates a dynamic environment where positive interactions can lead to continuous improvement.

During the digital revolution, many tensions existed, from the struggle between focus and flexibility in idea creation to the push and pull of vision and business in taking an idea to market. Ultimately, these tensions helped shape the revolution and resulted in the digital world we live in today.

Suzanne Smith, Founder of Social Impact Architects, has been reshaping the business of social change for more than two decades. As an educator, writer/blogger (Social TrendSpotter/@socialtrendspot), Tedx speaker, and coach to social sector organizations, she pioneers meaningful and sustainable social solutions to create real, scalable impact. Suzanne holds an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organisation comprising the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship programme that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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Here’s some more validation for Indian startups targeting global markets with B2B (business-to-business) software products. Mumbai startup Customer360 announced its acquisition yesterday by US-based Interactive Intelligence, a provider of cloud-based customer engagement software, for an undisclosed amount.

Customer360 provides live chat and mobile in-app tools on the cloud for customer support. It has over 1,000 clients. “The team at Customer360 has built an enterprise-grade platform that enables contact center agents to give the kind of personalized, real-time experience they demand,” said Jeff Swartz, vice-president of development for Interactive Intelligence.

Mitul Thakkar, CEO of Customer360, said:

This acquisition is a testimony to B2B startups in India. Our team has worked hard to reinforce the fact that global products can be developed here.

Mitul is a former Yahoo executive with a master’s degree in computer science from the State University of New York. His co-founder Mayuresh Shilotri is a former Cognizant executive with an MBA from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras.

Mitul and Shilotri along with all 30 Customer360 employees will join Interactive Intelligence but remain in their Mumbai office. Interactive Intelligence wants to include Customer360 products into its PureCloud customer engagement services.

Customer360 raised funding two years ago from angel investor Vishwas Patel, CEO of CCAvenue, and subsequently another round from CCAvenue and Milind Mody, CEO of eBrandz Solutions.

The Customer360 team

SaaS surge from India

Indian software product think-tank iSPIRT, India’s first software products think-tank, supported the Customer360 acquisition as part of its M&A Connect Program. “The Customer360 team has developed high-quality technology and we are excited to see them continuing their journey as part of Interactive Intelligence,” said Sanat Rao, Partner (M&A) at iSPIRT.

B2B (business-to-business) software emerged as a hot area for funding this year in India, with 83 deals worth US$435 million in the first three quarters, according to data from Tracxn.

Customer support software makers were among the highest funded ones: Freshdesk raised a US$50 million funding round while customer analytics firm Capillary Technologies had a US$45 million round. The south Indian city of Chennai has emerged as a SaaS hub with its SaaSx conference proving to be a big draw in its second year.

India’s transition from the world’s back office for software services to a maker of software products for a global innovation blowback appears to be surging ahead.

This post Indian software eating the world: here’s evidence appeared first on Tech in Asia.

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The investments come from Tiger Global, Accel Partners, Flipkart and Yuri Milner’s Apoletto

Tech-enabled logistics is probably one of the few sectors in India that has seen strong investor interest in this calendar year. The growth of the sector is mainly attributed to the fast-growing e-commerce industry.

Offline businesses, however, have also started relying on third-party tech-enabled logistics services to move products from city to city, beating the notorious traffic snarls and other infrastructural issues in Indian cities.

BlackBuck is one such company helping businesses to move products between various cities. This one-year-old startup has just raised a whopping US$25 million in Series B investment, just months after bagging a US$5 million Series A round.

Also Read: India’s on-demand delivery firm Shadowfax acquires rival Pickingo

The latest investment came from US-based Tiger Global, which has been arguably the most active VC investor in India for the past two years. Accel Partners, along with Apoletto (a fund run by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner) and e-commerce giant Flipkart, also participated.

The Bangalore-based B2B logistics startup will use the proceeds from this round to ramp up expansion, build products and set up the team.

BlackBuck was founded in 2014 by the trio of Rajesh Yabaji, Chanakya Hridaya and Ramasubramaniam.

An online marketplace for logistics transactions, the startup helps customers move full truck loads between cities. It brings truckers and customers together on a platform to execute the transaction using intelligent auction engines equipped with smart mobile interfaces.

Also Read: Hyperlocal delivery startup Grofers raises US$120M led by SoftBank

According to BlackBuck, the current mode of transportation is executed through a market structure which results in multiple inefficiencies for both trucker and customer. The customer faces issues of quality of transportation, availability and pricing. The truck owner, on the other hand, is unable to find the right price in the market, sweat the asset and safeguard against malpractices. BlackBuck aims to address these perennial issues with technology.

BlackBuck currently employs 200 people and has a presence in 40 locations across India. It now plans to expand its footprint to 200 locations over the next year.

Its customers range from corporates to small businesses that include Asian Paints, Unilever, Britannia, Godrej, Marico, Jyothy Laboratories and EID Parry.

“Transportation is the largest unorganised sector globally. In India, the freight industry is estimated at US$100 billion and contributes to six per cent of GDP. A majority of this is inter-city logistics,” said Rajesh Yabaji, Co-founder and CEO of BlackBuck.

“However, the commerce of this industry is unorganised, fragmented and conducted offline. BlackBuck has been formed to re-create logistics commerce with technology at its core, which would enable logistics be simple and effective,” he added.

“The startup ecosystem in supply chain is very exciting and a great boon for the country, especially as our current supply chain infrastructure is not very reliable. Our investment in BlackBuck is a continuation of our strategy of developing and integrating this ecosystem. BlackBuck brings in new tech capabilities that will not only strengthen Flipkart’s supply chain, but will also pave the way for innovations in this area,” said Binny Bansal, COO and Co-founder of Flipkart.

The post Logistics continue to dominate Indian VC space as BlackBuck raises US$25M appeared first on e27.

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