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Whether it’s about women in tech, environmental innovations or Peter Thiel, we wrote some good articles this year — but the metrics did not approve

One of the most important tenants we have instilled for the e27 editorial team is we do not track pageviews or sessions when considering the success or failure of our writers.

We have a more vague term called ‘pulse of the ecosystem’, which is far more difficult to define by data metrics and is harder to achieve on a day-to-day basis.

The reason is because I (and every writer understands this feeling) have written articles I felt were important that I knew, before I wrote a word, nobody would read. On the flipside, forgettable articles do well, because they are either a hot topic or the headline is particularly catchy.

To highlight the point, our most popular article this year was a fantastic piece by Sainul about green tech, and it will go down as one of the most successful writings in e27 history. However, I know Sainul, and I know he has been far more nervous/excited to publish other articles because he was taking a risk or saying something personal. Those articles may not have have taken off like the Windmill article, but they were approached with the same professionalism, nonetheless.

So, in that spirit, I took a deep dive into our analytics and picked out the articles that did not do well by the data, but were still worth a read.

Enjoy!

Kerjabilitas CTO Tety Sianipar: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a woman”

One of the surprising sources of criticism for us is that we bang the feminism drum too hard (a criticism I will 100 per cent embrace). In a talk during the Google Women Techmaker 2016 in Jakarta, four kickass women developers talked about the hurdles, and successes, they face as women in the coding world.

In the article, Kerjabilitas CTO Tety Sianipar said:

“Whenever women ask for help from men, they’ll be like, ‘Here, let me do that for you.’ This might seem like kindness at first glance, but imagine all the learning opportunities that go missing, and the opportunity for women to showcase their skills.”

Peter Thiel: The hero Gotham deserves?

Nobody in the tech world had a better year than Peter Thiel. Yes, Elon Musk is the prince of techopia, and Mark Zuckerberg is king of deathstar, but when it comes to people who took huge swings — and connected — Thiel won 2016.

Whether it was the early support of Donald Trump, or single-handily taking down a questionable media organisation, when the world scoffed at Mr. Thiel, he sat back and laughed as we were all proven wrong.

He may not be the hero we want, but is Peter Thiel the hero Gotham deserves?

Take a bite of this shopping bag made of veggies

Greentech does not always need to be finding a silver bullet for renewable energy or leading the path to interplanetary travel. Sometimes, it is the small designs that make a big difference.

Plastic bags are going out style, as proven by the cities across the world implementing a tax system to dis-incentivise their population from choosing plastic instead of paper.

In Mangalore, India, one startup has an entirely different idea — how about we make a ‘plastic’ bag that is not plastic at all, but rather built out of vegetable oil derivatives and starch (thus, making the bag just as edible as the food it is carrying).

Why go public? Mobvista CEO Robin Duan says it is about brand perception

Maybe this article came too early, when we all held out hope that companies would IPO in 2016 (they didn’t). Movista’s IPO was in November 2015, but to hear the insights of a CEO who has taken his company to the public market is always interesting.

But as 2017 approaches, and there was not a single major IPO in the Southeast Asia region, it offers an interesting perspective into why a company would choose to take the leap of faith — especially when nobody else is following.

Which Asian city has the hottest FinTech startup ecosystem?

2016 was the ‘Year of Fintech’ in Singapore. But to call it an enthusiastic embrace would be mistaken. In the early parts of the year, it was talked about amongst friends, but was not beast it would become six months later when events like Singapore’s Fintech Festival coronated the sector as the king of Southeast Asia’s startup universe.

Markus Gnirck saw it early — and wrote about it — and for that, he should be credited.

The most common lies told by startup CEOs

Everyone exaggerates — whether it is holidays with the family, bumping into that old ex at the coffee shop or trying to explain to Mom and Dad what it is, exactly, you do.

Startup CEOs are no different. In fact, they are probably the worst culprits of twisting and manipulating their companies to sound more like Fortune 500 conglomerates than ‘garage band’ startups. It makes sense: I probably describe my articles to my mother as if I am a Senior Reporter for the New York Times.

It’s natural, but it’s also good to keep an eye out, and have a good understanding of what is bullshit and what is real.

Singapore ranks top Asian city in new Woman Entrepreneur Cities Index; fifth globally

Lets go full circle on this, because that’s how we roll. I live in the ol’ Lion City, but travel across Asia regularly. Through those travels I have run into the occasional situations in which I thought, “Wow, this would cause a controversy in Singapore.”

So yeah, when a place is named the best place for women entrepreneurs, they best be proud — and for those want to dismiss it, they can count to two on their hands … and then subtract the pointer finger.

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The post You probably didn’t read these e27 articles, but they are still awesome appeared first on e27.

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