Go-Jek CEO Nadiem Makarim on stage at Tech in Asia Jakarta 2016.
Indonesia’s homegrown ride-hailing app Go-Jek followed through on its promise to enter a partnership with the country’s largest taxi operator, Blue Bird.
As of today, some Go-Jek users see a pop-up in their app announcing “Go-Car and Bluebird join forces.”
Screenshot made today by a user of Go-Jek’s iPhone app.
Go-Car, one of Go-Jek’s many transportation features, is just like Uber. It lets you order a private or rental car – mid-range to luxury – on the spot.
But it’s now possible that you get a Blue Bird cab instead, based on the partnership between Go-Jek and the taxi operator. If a cab happens to be closer than a Go-Car driver, it will come pick you up, for the same fixed rate and promotions offered by the ride-hailing app.
The feature, for now, seems to be only available to iPhone users and is limited to Jakarta. The app description in the App Store points out the update, but there’s no mention of it on Google Play.
Screenshot of Go-Jek’s app update description on the iOS app store today.
Then, toward the end of last year, Uber sped past Go-Jek. It launched its own tie-up with another big taxi company, Express. The way it works is very similar to what Go-Jek and Blue Bird are doing now.
Both startups could increase the numbers of cars in their networks dramatically if the trials proceed toward a full-fleet integration, possibly across several cities.
For users who are not comfortable riding a cab and don’t mind waiting longer, Uber gives the option to cancel the booking. Go-Jek probably offers a similar option, though we weren’t able to catch a Blue Bird yet to test it out ourselves.
A Go-Jek spokesperson said the company would issue a statement as soon as “there is an update from us.”
Don’t you wish these startup ideas were real by now?
2016 was the year of fintech and insurtech in Asia. Over the course of the year, I spent a lot of my time building insurance value propositions in Asia, delving deeply into the potential future of insurtech in this region.
Based on these learnings, here are five imaginary start-ups that could find their way into the market in the coming ten years based on trends, emerging customer needs and technologies. As with all future predictions, this is a hypothetical sneak peak – and only the future will tell whether these are the right predictions.
A lot of urbanised Asia is blessed with a well-established or emerging public transport infrastructure. comsure.Asia will offer daily, tap-as-you-go life insurance protection for commuters using stored value cards. For every trip users take, a couple cents are auto-deducted from their balance, covering them for the day. In case of accidental death or permanent disability the insurance pays out a lump sum to their families. Sign-up will be available in major convenience stores and takes minutes. comsure.Asia will sign strategic partnerships with major public transport operators, insuring millions of people in major cities.
2 Social.life
With the advent of trust-enabling technology, insurance will returning to a mutual business model. Social.life will be a purely peer-to-peer life insurance company using the latest smart contract technology, with fully automated payouts of death benefits. It will view itself as an insurance social network and a trusted technology intermediary offering mutualised life at scale. Premiums are auto-determined based on a myriad of data collected, including life expectancy statistics as well as news, traffic data, place of residence, and behaviour patterns. Surplus premiums will be invested in P2P lending at a guaranteed interest of 10 per cent per annum and returned to the insured. The company will serve 100,000 customers across 97 cities in Asia.
3. Welll
Following great medical research strides in the science of prolonging life, Welll is a company that focuses on helping their customers make the most of the time they are alive. It will offer a first-of-a-kind quality of life insurance product that pays for remedial treatments whenever the happiness level of their users falls below a pre-determined threshold. The offering is enabled by Welllable, its skin-embedded device that automatically monitors brain chemistry for prevention and detection of happiness-impeding influences. Threats to physical or emotional wellbeing are either resolved on the spot or through a dense network of mental pit-stop clinics. As per WHO, 67 per cent of the happiest people alive will use Welll daily.
With digital payments making up the vast majority of 2025 transactions and cash phasing out, Spendsurance makes all insurance decisions on behalf of its customers based on the things they spend on. The start-up auto-insures customers’ lives, household possessions, travel plans, medical needs and vehicles autonomously in the background, while providing real-time advice for customers to minimise risk exposure in their daily lives. Its subscription fee will be based on household income, and customers earn rebates with increasing spend. The company will be negotiating an acquisition offer in the ballpark of US$11 billion from Google Bank.
5. Fundvest
With most private wealth in Japan traditionally held in cash, Fundsure will revolutionise banking in the country. Instead of a regular bank account, Fundvest will offer a fully automated investment account achieving a guaranteed 4 per cent return. Just like a savings account customers can deposit and draw cash anytime they like. Depending on their average daily account balance, users are eligible to buy a term life insurance paid for with a portion of their interest. Within three years time, 5 per cent of families in Tokyo will already have a Fundsure account, resulting in several trillion yen in assets under management.
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The views expressed here are of the author’s, and e27 may not necessarily subscribe to them. e27 invites members from Asia’s tech industry and startup community to share their honest opinions and expert knowledge with our readers. If you are interested in sharing your point of view, submit your post here.
Trump’s executive order, despite a stay from a New York federal court on his temporary ban, has shaken the American startup ecosystem in a major way
The executive order that was signed on Friday by President Donald Trump sent shockwaves as the world attempted to form a response to the outrageous ban on citizens of seven Muslim majority countries.
According to the yet to be fully understood decree, citizens hailing from Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, and Syria are to be denied entry from the US. There remains some confusion as to whether this pertains to green card holders as well.
The horrific violence that has hit many of these places throughout the region has created a stream of refugees seeking safe harbor, of which a small percentage have sought to reach the shores of the United States. They make this journey just as so many have before, dreaming of a better life for themselves and their families.
While perhaps in less desperate circumstances than refugees fleeing conflict, many in the tech world could find themselves unfairly locked out of the US, based solely on their country of origin. If we block people from entry due only to their national affiliation, we not only encourage extremism across the globe, but harm our own future as well.
Had such policies regarding America’s borders been in place in years past, then we would have missed out on some incredible talent that helped bring us to where we are today.
These profiles are just a sample of names who have previously worked in or with the US in their capacity as founders and technology ecosystem leaders. They should give perspective on what might be lost should the Trump ban be reinstituted by the courts.
1. Omnia Eteyari (Co-Founder/CEO at Mazadah) LIBYA
Eteyari is the co-founder and CEO of both IT training services company Mazadah and business management for Arabic-speakers startup Raakez. Her company is a diamond in the Libyan rough based in Triploi.
She is also the co-founder of Global Shapers Community’s Tripoli Hub and a coach at Startup Weekend Tripoli. Recognized for her impact, she is a US State Department partner, having participated as a fellow with the department’s TechWomen initiative.
She holds an Executive Education Certification from Harvard.
2. Moumen Mohamed Abd-Almonim Ali (Co-Founder and CEO of Tenchologya) SUDAN
As far as technology resumes go, Ali would be impressive in any country. He is the co-founder of digital services company Tenchologya based in Khartoum, where he has been an instrumental contributor to the local ecosystem. He was an organizer for both Startup Weekend Khartoum and Global Entrepreneurship Week in 2014.
“I think the ban came [in] on the wrong time, since the Sudanese ecosystem [has] started to expand, raising the awareness about it among the young entrepreneurs,” Ali told Geektime, saying many Sudanese entrepreneurs had recent been accepted to accelerator programs in the US. “When President Trump singed the EO, it changed a lot of plans for Sudanese startups on a scalability level.”
He carries a Certificate in Innovation and Design Thinking from the United National Development Program. He graduated from the Sudan University of Science & Technology with a B.S. in computer and software engineering.
3. Dara Khosrowshahi (CEO of Expedia) IRAN
As CEO of travel booking site Expedia, the Tehran-born Khosrowshahi helped build the TripAdvisor network into an empire.
Having been graduated from Brown in 1991, he has brought his touch for the digital to business and the media, having been recognized for his talent by the New York Times when they elected him to their Board of Directors in 2015.
4. Salar Kamangar (Executive at Google) IRAN
Starting off his career as Google’s 7th employee, Kamangar has worn a number of hats at the Mountain View internet giant, including heading up big name products like YouTube and Google Groups.
Born in Tehran, he was graduated from Stanford in 1998. Still a senior executive at Google, he was responsible for their initial business plan. He oversees Google AdWords and other big money projects that make this a very profitable company.
5. Martin Hermez (Founder and CEO of Tivvi) IRAQ
Hermez and his family escaped Iraq in the early 2000s, arriving in Detroit on July 4, 2003 of all days.
Hermez is a Chaldean Christian, a minority that in theory would not get the same type of restriction as Iraqi Muslims. But with broader application of the executive order against green card holders and perhaps even dual citizens by Homeland Security, it is a concern that minorities targeted under ISIS like Christians and Yazidis will be disproportionately affected by further restrictions on refugee intake.
“If social networking 1.0 was about manifesting your real life identity through an online presence then the next level is about making the experience of sharing more life-like,” he told the Huffington Post back in 2014. Tivvi is meant to allow users to express themselves better, as the multi-dimensional beings they are.”
Apart from gymnasium and swimming pool, the facility also offers a string of features, including Zumba dance classes, self-defense and safety training, an exclusive female fitness trainer, cooking & baking classes
CoLife
CoLife, a network of shared living and working in India, has partnered with UKN Properties to introduce what is probably Bangalore’s first women-only co-living space with amenities exclusively designed for the modern woman.
Living room
The facility has been conceptualised and designed by Suresh Rangarajan, a pioneer in boutique properties including shared living and working spaces.
Private balcony
According to CoLife, the facility offers many firsts towards building a commune for women professionals and students who can freely collaborate in a self-sustained ecosystem.
Apart from gymnasium and swimming pool, the facility will also offer a string of features, including Zumba dance classes, self-defense and safety training, an exclusive female fitness trainer, cooking & baking classes.
The monthly rentals have been priced between INR 6,500 and INR 9,500 (under US$140)
Kitchen
Security has naturally been a crucial element that was factored into every aspect of planning for this property. CoLife has partnered with Ausodhytmika, company offering SOS alerts with an app in case of emergencies. The facility also has a very intuitive Godrej powered video door phone to ensure safety for the residents.
Private balcony
CoLife has also drawn out exclusive offers and discounts with partners like TherPup (a pet café), and Brew & Barbeque (Bangalore’s leading salon play and the hep & happening brew).
Bedroom
Developed at a cost of INR 100 crore (US$15 million), the commune is strategically located in Whitefield, one of the most cosmopolitan hubs of Bengaluru. The catchment area in Whitefield is reminiscent of modern day Bengaluru, attracting a large number of the city’s working professionals.
Living room
Rangarajan, the architect of the concept, believes that there is a void in quality living spaces for millennials especially working and student women. Most of the women in India are more comfortable when they are in secure environments that is populated by likeminded forward looking individuals and more importantly women only.
CoLife conducted an extensive study among paying guest accommodations and its inhabitants regarding the challenges women faced prior to developing this concept.
Bedroom
Rangarajan says, “CoLife already operates and manages over 300 co-living apartments in the city. We have been receiving a steady string of requests in recent months from women to provide a facility that is not necessarily a hotel but has all the functional features that a hotel can provide and more. We have hence carefully articulated all their collective feedback into our latest project in Chez Nous, White field”.
Swimming pool
CoLive.in, an affiliate of Co.Life, is a network of shared living spaces across the city. CoLive.in homes are fully furnished, fashionably modern, enhanced with luxury amenities & are conveniently located near workplaces.
A year ago, Vaibhav Magon’s colleague was looking for career related advice. Vaibhav introduced him to his dad, an engineer who has been practicing astrology for the past 25 years. Vaibhav says his father’s advice helped the friend focus better.
“Then I saw this opportunity to connect the seeker and the giver online. I myself was in need of advice at one time and didn’t want to go to my dad. I went to another astrologer, and it helped,” he adds.
These incidents culminated in the birth of astrology app Askmonk, which rolled out in July last year. 25-year-old Vaibhav, an engineer who has worked with companies like travel portal Goibibo and Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT company, set out to launch what he calls “astrology on the go.”
“We have no complications of appointments, personal meetings, or even Skyping. You just post a question, pay for it, and get answers,” Vaibhav says. In the six months since its launch, he claims Askmonk has 10,000 customers and 2,000 paid transactions, spread over 320 cities in India.
“Our customers are mostly young people aged between 18 to 35 years, though we help anyone who asks for it,” he adds.
Future trek
Askmonk’s Vaibhav (center) with teammates. Photo credit: Askmonk.
Astrology, and other kinds of divination has always been a flourishing business in India, with even stock market brokers looking at predictions for auspicious deal timings. Some estimate the total “religion and spirituality” industry to be worth US$40 billion, with astrology being an important part of it.
Little wonder then that the rise of startups have also seen the birth of a bunch of predictions-oriented apps and websites, like Astrospeak, and GaneshaSpeaks (which, to be fair, has been around since 2003). These are Askmonk’s rivals.
Vaibhav argues that Askmonk’s clean interface and ease of use makes it better than the others, some of which can be quite cumbersome to use.
“All our astrologers are selected after due diligence based on the number of years of experience, education, and their passion to pursue astrology as an enabler. It takes no more than 30 seconds to access one of our handpicked astrologers and know your stars and their effects on your life,” he says.
“Astrology is a science. And we are a tech startup. If we were not doing astrology, we could be selling headgear online,” Vaibhav says.
A techie’s plans
Screengrab from the Askmonk app.
On Askmonk, each question is a paid service, ranging from US$4 to US$15, depending on what you want to know about yourself. The company takes a commission from the astrologers on board, typically about 40 percent of each transaction.
On the app, customers can decide whether to pick an astrologer they like, or ask an open question on the board. If it’s an open question, Askmonk runs an algorithm to match an available astrologer with the customer. The algorithm checks for things like which age group the customer falls under, and what is the nature of the query (some astrologers are better at solving romantic dilemmas, while others claim work-related problems as their forte) before making a match.
Vaibhav launched Askmonk in his hometown of Ahmedabad, but now wants to expand to other cities. “We also want to be a lifecoach. We are planning to raise half a million to a million dollars in the next three months. Most of that money will go towards these expansions and marketing,” he says.
As of now, Askmonk is only an Android app, but the iOS version is in the works, he says. The startup is a five-person team, with about 15 astrologers working for them on commission run terms.
The team is made of three engineers. The astrologer’s panel is managed by Sunil Magon, an engineer from IIT Roorkee and an astrologer for the last 25 years. Vaibhav says this gives the team deep connections within the community of astrologers and are able to leverage that for the right match.
“Astrology has seen a tremendous advancement in recent years and is only growing with the advent of scientific tools and better understanding of people. In the coming years, it will expand to new horizons and adapt according to the new challenges of the 21st century. Askmonk wants to be the fulcrum in that change. We envision a future where astrology is as easy as getting a recharge on your phone,” Vaibhav says.
And how owning that niche can help an entrepreneur build a larger empire
Pat Flynn’s success was in large part the result of the 2008 financial crisis. After losing his job as an architect, Flynn found a podcast with a man making six-digits a year teaching people how pass the “project management exam“.
That was his lightbulb moment.
Flynn, on his journey to become an architect, took many exams and began to blog about the multitude of tests he had taken. One successful product later (an e-book), Flynn discovered the immense possibilities of the internet to build a passive income stream.
Naturally, people wanted to know how to build a passive income stream and Flynn was able to leverage this into an entire company called Smart Passive Income.
On this week’s episode of The Jay Kim Show, Flynn sits down to give tips and tricks for people who are thinking of venturing out on their own.
Some investments are sensible and work out. Some are terrible, and don’t. Can we stop the silly debate on protecting bad investments, and move on?
One wouldn’t think it’d get to this. But now I see executives from two different venture capital funds (or VCs), each of whom is almost entirely funded by overseas money, asking for other overseas money to NOT be put into rivals of their investees.
Wow. Before we dive in, a little backstory.
The backstory
It started with the founders of foreign-funded Flipkart and Ola calling for a press conference to suddenly make this somewhat bizarre claim of “capital dumping” by their rivals. They were derided for it widely by the same entrepreneurial community that once saw them as heroes.
When that didn’t go too far with the powers that be, Tarun Davda of Matrix, a venture capital firm (or VC) that is again almost entirely funded by foreign capital, and one of the moneybags behind Ola, got a piece published in a publication backed by partner-in-copypasting Kalaari Capital, where he started by claiming he is not protectionist but a good capitalist and all — and then went on to volunteer a bizarre socialist argument about the need for a “level playing field” and protection against “capital dumping”. Again, equally bizarrely, the same gent never felt the need for any playing field, level or otherwise, when Ola was busy pulverising Meru, Taxi for Sure and the black-and-yellow cab market.
And now the orchestrated campaign continues. Vani Kola, of afore-mentioned foreign-funded Kalaari Capital, and someone with money in two other players who are deeply hurting: Flipkart (via Myntra) and Snapdeal starts quite interestingly by not quite understanding evolution in the Galapagos as noted by Darwin, and then repeats the same hollow arguments about “level playing fields” that are needed to stop “capital dumping” by Amazon, which has, sniff, sniff, almost put her Flipkart and Snapdeal out of business.
As one VC paraphrased the well-known urban motorist and noted wildlife conservationist Salmaan Khan, “main karoon to saala, character dheela hai” or “If you do it, it’s fine, if I do it, it’s a crime”
Of course, the same level playing fields were not deemed necessary by the same venture capitalists when Big Bazaar petitioned the government for them against Myntra and Flipkart, and when small shopkeepers asked for them to protect against Snapdeal.
So why the hypocrisy?
It might pay to understand what the fuss is all about.
Flipkart and Ola (and Snapdeal and Myntra and Shopclues and Truly Madly and Food Panda and many, many other startups in India) have entirely been set up on a copy-paste model.
Where a bunch of apparent smart operators from apparently top engineering and management schools got the memo that there was a quick buck to be made.
Quickly, just clone some American business in India, get funded big time for it by VCs by telling them the original American businesses are sure to buy you out for a bundle.
And in the meanwhile try win market share by discounting widely. And then play the acquisition dance by calling yourself a “unicorn” and believing that you’re worth a billion dollars, and constantly upping your self-claimed valuation.
And their VCs danced along, waiting for their part of the billion-dollar paydays.
Except it never happened. Almost everyone figured out that it’s cheaper and more sensible to invest in building out their own business than to buy some desi copy-paste.
Flipkart took 9 years and US$3.5 billion to grow to where it is. It asked for a price of $15 billion to be acquired. Amazon did something smarter. It simply took less than $2 billion (about 1/10th of what was demanded) and built a larger and better-loved business in India than Flipkart that too in 1/3rd the time.
Ola went the same path. It raised $1.3 billion and spent a lot of that to build a business that it asked for $5 billion to sell. Uber didn’t take the bait, and like Amazon, just spent 1/10th that amount – i.e. around $500 million to build a larger and more loved business in India than Ola, once again, in 1/3rd of the time. Perhaps there’s a formula here.
Cue sad music now.
Unlike China and Russia, copy-paste doesn’t work in India
Unlike Russia, which is a closed market where Mr. Putin’s personal support, if not ownership is needed for a business to survive – or China, where the same is needed from the Politburo and most non-Chinese Internet companies are blocked out for political and other reasons – India is an open market.
We’ve enjoyed the world’s best services simply because we have not had to force our people to use sub-standard products from some copy-paste guy who studied at IIT or IIM and then figured he could make a quick buck.
The BRICS theory – copy from the first world and paste into Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa — is more MBA twaddle, and just doesn’t work.
And nor has the government forced us to be nice to the VCs who made decisions to invest in copy-paste companies. The biggest of them all, Tiger, put a billion dollars in Flipkart, and on seeing that the bet didn’t work out did the right thing, one by walking away from India and this flawed thesis – and two, by putting a billion dollars in Amazon to perhaps atone for their sins. When you fail, you accept your failure and then make amends.
Another company too, Rocket Internet, came to India with this copy-paste thesis. But they’ve exited too, after the failure of this thesis in virtually every single company they funded in India: Food Panda, Jabong, Asasa, FabFurnish and the like. Though in all fairness it was not just a flawed thesis but crime-prone management in India that led to their demise here.
Neither of them asked for protection. Investments in startups are risky, and when you have a bad thesis, a bad business or a bad team, then you lose. They understood that.
But apparently our VCs want quotas and protection for the bad investments they’ve made.
As things stand now, nobody is willing to take these companies off their hands at the prices they’re quoting. Current investors in Flipkart have cut its on-book valuation from $15 billion to $5 billion. Snapdeal is apparently doing the rounds in a humbled, fraction-of-former-demand mode asking for money. As is Ola.
This makes the VCs sad, and delays, if not entirely destroys their pay day.
Hence the request to grant protection and ask the government to let them put foreign money in Flipkart and Ola and not let foreign money go into Amazon and Uber.
But this isn’t because of capital dumping. This is because of bad investing calls
Many of us in the investment community, myself included, have been crying hoarse for many years about the dangers of investing in copy-pastes.
And sure, a couple of earlier ones slipped by. Baazee got acquired for a small sum a decade ago by the guys they copied, eBay. Make My Trip got in well ahead of Expedia two decades ago and went public and built a small but significant business.
But that was in the days the world wasn’t paying attention to India. Today Indians are the largest community on Facebook and Quora. Our billion people are fought over by the best companies in the world.
Any reasonable investor would have realized that you can’t invest in copy-pastes and ‘duplicate’ companies. And if you did, and have hence flushed many hundreds of millions of your investors’ dollars down the drain, you accept it with humility, learn from it, and don’t make that mistake again. You say your mea culpas.
And, as the market and the Indian consumers should have it, may the best company win.
But what of the claims of the sad VCs?
Kalaari has claimed that these Indian-started foreign funded companies have more staff in India than their larger Indian-managed foreign-funded rivals. So it’s being pitched as an employment story. Really? If Uber takes 1/5th of the people to offer a better product to more Indians than Ola does, one should penalize them? So our government’s job in the new economy is to punish efficiency and reward mismanagement? Jai ho mechanical typewriters, out with the laptops!
And they of course don’t mention the other rip-off. The HR head of Flipkart, a gent with 8 years’ total experience, earned Rs. 35 crores last year. And the founders get much more.
So the government should create a level playing field – how, by specifying that Amazon and Uber should also ridiculously overpay their people to the same insane levels? So they should also lose as much money as our founders are determined to rip off from their not-so-clued-in investors?
It’s time for us to grow up as investors and take the responsibility for our investment decisions. At the same time, it’s time for our founders to grow up, and accept that their attempt at some short-term arbitrage or mercenary jugaad didn’t work.
Copy-paste is dead. Accept it
The answer isn’t to become cry-babies and go waiting to the government begging for reservations and protections when the originals come in to threaten your little duplicate empires.
Indian consumers and the entire Indian startup ecosystem deserve much better than that.
We deserve genuine innovation. We deserve startups solving our real problems, like only we can. We deserve world-beating companies, not world-copying companies.
Whether it’s an Airtel understanding how to make low-cost cell services work in 20 countries, or a Bajaj knowing how to make motorcycles people want in 40 countries. Or a Red Bus that sells millions of bus tickets a month across the length and breadth of India. Or a PayTM that has managed to do what few others globally can do.
We CAN innovate. We can be original. We don’t need to be copy-pastes.
Let’s stop moaning about our failures and trying to defend the indefensible.
Let’s go past this sad era of copy-paste and into a world of funding, backing and growing originals.
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Mahesh Murthy is a venture capitalist and marketer. He was, via Seedfund, the original investor in RedBus, and has since exited. He has no positions in any of the other companies mentioned. He is on Twitter at @MaheshMurthy.
The views expressed here are of the author’s, and e27 may not necessarily subscribe to them. e27 invites members from Asia’s tech industry and startup community to share their honest opinions and expert knowledge with our readers. If you are interested in sharing your point of view, submit your post here.
This article originally appeared on LinkedIn and was republished in full with permission.
Singapore-based PouchNATION, which helps organizers manage huge events, has raised a seven-digit sum in US dollars to move towards being a data-driven solution. The undisclosed round came from a group of private Singaporean investors and Malaysia’s early-stage venture fund, Cradle Seed Ventures.
PouchNATION is an event management system that uses NFC (near field communication) wristbands, which have become popular during concerts, sports fests, exhibitions, and fairs. The bands replace paper tickets as passes and are used to pay for goods inside the venue, getting rid of the need to carry cash. Guests can load credit to the NFC bands upon purchase online, through credit cards or bank deposits. If they need to top up on site, there are reloading booths that accept cash and credit card payments.
Organizers may also use the bands for crowd control by disallowing entry in restricted areas. PouchNATION packs in an offline mode so events don’t get disrupted in case the wifi network crashes.
PouchNATION CEO Ilya Kravtsov (center) with investors. Photo credit: PouchNATION.
CEO Ilya Kravtsov says they will use the money they raised to build out their analytics capabilities.
Because it works offline, PouchNATION can collect data on user behavior with higher levels of precision than GPS and other tracking tools that depend on an internet connection.
“The data that is collected revolves around spending behavior, personal preferences, crowd moving patterns, heat maps, and interaction with newly launched products with a very specific focus on certain target communities such as millennials and the wellness community,” Ilya explains to Tech in Asia.
He believes that this information is highly valuable not only for event organizers but also for big brands that consider offline activations vital in an era when online user acquisition costs have gone through the roof.
“Analytics is becoming a crucial element of PouchNATION’s business model,” he adds.
Last year, the startup helped manage 50 events across Southeast Asia, including one of the region’s largest sports gatherings – the Tafisa Games. Those events saw 1 million transactions recorded and approximately 30 million data points collected. PouchNATION handled over US$6 million in transactions for half of those events.
Pitching is one of the most important skill-sets you will need in order to succeed as an entrepreneur
We just had our largest Startup Weekend in Singapore. Over the weekend of 20–22 January 2017, 150 passionate startup enthusiasts, including participants, mentors, and judges, gathered at Google’s stunning APAC HQ to hack out their next company. The event was full of networking, the most genuine entrepreneurial trials and community gathering at large.
Pitching is one of the most important skill-sets you will need in order to succeed as an entrepreneur.
“Everything from creating the right environment to vocabulary to when to push hard, when to yell, when to be gentle, when to be motivational, when to challenge. If you’re an entrepreneur and you want to reach your maximum potential, or you’re an investor or someone who works closely with them, this talk is for you.”
– Nicole Glaros, Partner with Techstars Ventures & Chief Product Officer of Techstars
The winners of 2017 Startup Weekend Singapore, Team GitHip
There isn’t a single winning structure to pitch your startup ideas, and that is why it is often seen as an art form. There are however, some tricks and ways of presenting that seem to create better impressions (people always remember how you made them feel!) for your audiences and communicate your ideas better.
Here are some of my observations that differentiated the wining teams at Startup Weekend:
1. Ask the right questions
Asking questions to engage the audience in your pitch is one of the most widely used tricks yet it is seldom done effectively. Almost 50 per cent of the teams asked questions to kickstart their pitch hoping to hook audiences’ attention but only one or two teams used this technique effectively. Teams should use this only if they have novel facts, unexpected insights or strong emotional triggers.
Example: Did you know that pork bacon can be healthier than turkey bacon?
2. Humour and honesty
Both are mutually exclusive. Humour can be the hardest but done right, it can be one of the most powerful tools one can use to create emotions.
Whether your pitch is funny or sad, one must always be honest with everything you do! People (judges) will see right through any shortcuts, laziness and lies. Entrepreneurs are truth seekers (customer validation, the problem, features, economics)!
So be honest with yourselves. If you don’t have the answer, don’t lie or try to pivot the solution.
3. Prepare for the Q&A Sessions
You get as much time for answering questions as you have for the pitch, so us the Q&A time more intentionally. This can be strategically utilised to cover the extra stuff. Spend some time and try to come up with as many questions as possible from the judges’ perspectives. Be your own devil’s advocate.
4. Know where you stand
Positioning matrix always seems to aid, especially if judges don’t have direct experience with the industry you are exploring.
5. Demo prevails over everything
Show, don’t tell. If there is only one thing you can do, it’s DEMO (given that you have some sort of MVP).
Most people do a great job of demonstrating the size of their markets and customer segments. However, only few put enough energy into explaining how they will get their share of the market.
The most creative team, The Woodland Whisky
Additional tips:
The team member (who is also the user) who understands the pain should have the opportunity to share the problem slide!
Nobody is CEO: Please don’t use CEO, CFO, CIO in your team slide! It is not the best sign at this stage of your startup. It doesn’t paint the right image of you at this stage since people invest in people.
When tech stops working remember your time! Be ready to continue even when the slides stop working.
Congratulations to the organising team and the Singapore Startup community!
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Oko is the Techstars Regional Director of Startup Programs, Co-Founder of Startup Mongolia, and a Design Thinking Practitioner.
LatiPay allows Chinese consumers to pay for goods and services using Yuan whilst merchants receive full payment for goods or services direct to their local bank account in their local currency
Latitude Technologies, an Auckland-based online payments company which operates under the brand name LatiPay, has secured US$3 million in Series A funding from Singapore-based venture capital firm Jubilee Capital Management, with participation from Tuhua Fund, Zino Fund (both based in New Zealand) and an angel investor.
These four investors are the latest to fund this fintech company, whose existing shareholders include Jim Rogers (Chairman of Rogers Holdings and Beeland Interests).
With this capital, LatiPay will onboard more merchants onto its platform, in addition to expanding into Singapore and the US.
Started a year ago by Peter Wei, LatiPay allows Chinese consumers to pay for goods and services using Chinese Yuan whilst merchants receive full payment for goods or services direct to their local bank account in their local currency, at no cost to the merchants. Chinese payers can make payment through their preferred bank payment channels (19 Chinese banks) or leading e-wallets such as AliPay or WeChat pay, JDPAY and Baidu wallet.
The startup launched operations in Australia in December 2016, and will expand to the US and Singapore in May this year.
Jubilee Capital is a Singapore-based VC fund which has recently obtained its registered fund management license from Monetary Authority of Singapore. The lead investor, Jubilee Capital, deploys funds into high-growth technology enterprises. Latipay is the third investment by Jubilee Technology Fund, which has a target size of US$100 million.
In November, Jubilee announced the launch of its new fund Jubilee Tech Fund (JTF) with an initial kitty of US$30 million. It plans to raise a total of US$100 million for JTF.
