Vanessa Keng and Chang Xi are running e-commerce store, The Golden Concepts, which curates eldercare products for Singaporeans

While pursuing a Business Management course at National University of Singapore (NUS), Vanessa Keng, a guitarist, and Chang Xi, her friend and neighbour at Kent Ridge Hall, spent more time playing sports and music than studying.

Although entrepreneurship was on their mind, they didn’t seriously pursue it until they went to Denmark as part of the student exchange programme in the third year of their course.

“Denmark is one of the most progressive countries in terms of elder care and quality of life,” Keng narrates her entrepreneurial story to e27. “During our stay there, we observed that Danish seniors embraced ageing and lived life to its fullest, while not being limited by mobility challenges. Upon returning to our own elderly grandparents, we wondered –- why not bring home this positive, independent culture surrounding the golden years?”

When they came back, they got to meet young entrepreneurs during their technopreneurship classes at NUS, and this shaped their thinking better. “While brainstorming on ideas, we kept gravitating to our experiences in Denmark. We felt that we could do something to help elderly Singaporeans improve their independence and age better. Knowing that this would affect not just our grandparents but eventually our parents and ourselves too, it just seemed like the right reason to start our company,” says Keng.

Also Read: How apps help seniors with better mobility, safety, and quality of life

The Golden Concepts, their startup, was started immediately after their graduation in 2011. A B2C e-commerce store, The Golden Concepts curates eldercare products, such as adjustable and foldable wheel chairs, nursing beds and mattresses, walking canes, hiking and trekking pole, mobility scooters, and bath accessories.

“At The Golden Concepts, we believe that mobility is key to ageing well. A loss of mobility often has profound consequences on a person’s physical, social and psychological state. By maximising mobility, seniors will be able to continue to be fully engaged in their communities and enjoy a high quality of life,” Keng says.

“We understand that the role of caregivers is an extremely important one, and we strive to provide customised solutions that best suit your needs. With a curated selection from both international and local brands, our product specialists can advise you on the various options available to find the best solution,” she adds.

The beginning

Keng and Xi set up the company using the money they saved from their part-time jobs while studying. This money went into buying some inventory in the initial days. While running the company, the duo still continued their part-time jobs in the nights and on weekends to get things going.

“In the initial days, we barged into hospitals and pharmacies and spoke to whoever would be keen to chat with us. I realise that it was an asset to look like students as more people were willing to give us their time and share their experiences,” she smiles. “Before long, we landed our first (small) order from a hospital, and that made us rush to incorporate the company, so that we could have a business registration number and a company bank account for them to issue payment to us.”

As things got better, Keng and Zi wanted to more and stand out from the crowd. “We asked ourselves what unique value we could bring to this growing industry — something that most other established industry players were not focusing on. We realised that the focus on independence and mobility rather than rehabilitative and medical equipment would be our key differentiating factor. Our dream was to introduce more products to maximise mobility at any level because we felt that was the way to age with dignity and enjoy a good quality of life,” Keng shares.

With this in mind, The Golden Concepts started manufacturing its own brands in 2015 to have a better control over the quality, affordability and design of the products. The hefty investments in manufacturing was something that the duo pondered over, but they knew that it was an important step to grow the business.

“Over the years, we have curated a range of high quality products suited to our customers’ needs, including partnering with the finest manufacturers to create our own improved product lines. Product safety standards are our top priority and we go the extra mile to source for the best, durable parts,” she maintains.

Adapting to the local market

After receiving feedback from many of their customers that the standard walking canes were too tall and not suited for the elderly users in Singapore, Xi and Keng decided to manufacture their own brand of designer walking canes, The Cane Collective.

“We designed our walking canes to have a shorter height range suitable for the local market, and offered a variety of patterns for our customers to have more options to suit their style. We did face some challenges during the production process, but learnt many valuable lessons. Since then, we have launched several more brands of mobility, bath and home safety products,” shares Keng.

Also Read: Tweet about your #startuplyfe and win tickets to Echelon Asia Summit 2019!

While the company’s major focus is Singapore, it also has orders coming from other countries in Southeast Asia and even Canada and the US. In addition to manufacturing own line of products, it also distributes foreign brands in the region through its online platform and brick-and-mortar showroom, as well as through other e-commerce platforms, retailers, hospitals, and pharmacies in Singapore.

The company claims to have grown 30-40 per cent year-on-year in the past four years.

In the past seven years of its existence, the company faced several challenges, including hiring right people. But for Keng and Xi, it has always been an opportunity to take a step back and re-evaluate their business model.

“These problems gave us the uncertainty and discomfort to find new ways to stay ahead of the competition while staying true to our purpose of why we started the company in the first place. We also learnt that instead of viewing other companies in the industry as simply competitors, we could collaborate with them. It just required us to be more creative and proactive to suggest win-win scenarios for both parties,” she continues.

Started off with just four products, the company today has a warehouse, in addition to the online store with over 400 products.

In 2017, The Golden Concepts secured a round of funding from unnamed investors.

Also Read: Why be a thought leader at Echelon Asia Summit 2019?

“It has been a challenging but truly fulfilling journey and nothing makes us happier than hearing stories from our customers about how our products have helped improve the lives of their parents and loved ones,” Keng signs off.

 

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Shopee shares how to get the “happy user, happy future” ratio

Southeast Asia’s e-commerce industry is growing rapidly and is a key driver in the digital economy.

According to the Google Temasek e-Conomy SEA 2018 report, Southeast Asia’s Internet economy will exceed US$240 billion by 2025, while e-commerce, which has already passed US$23 billion in 2018, will exceed US$100 billion by 2025.

This growth has been largely fuelled by rising internet access, especially on mobile devices. Improved connectivity and decreased mobile data costs have attracted about three million new internet users in Southeast Asia every month.

As of June 2018, there are over 350 million internet users in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. That is 90 million more than in 2015.

As more Southeast Asians go online, their increased trust and familiarity with e-commerce will be a major factor in its development in the coming years.

Thus, given the growth potential in the e-commerce industry, here’s how startup founders can utilise Shopee’s learnings to create platforms and communities that will win Southeast Asia.

1. Relating to users

Knowing the region will tell you that it is predominantly mobile-first. It has leapfrogged generations of technology and adopted the mobile phone.

With more than 90 per cent of Southeast Asians surfing the internet primarily through their smartphones, we have to grab their attention with highly localised strategies across all areas of the business to ensure that user experience is relatable and engaging.

Having a different app for each country is one of the ways that allow for a hyper localised user experience, resulting in nimble marketing campaigns that target directly at local cultural nuances.

Case study

During Shopee’s regional campaigns, we adopted localised strategies and content to suit the preferences of locals.

For example, we had different campaign ambassadors used for different countries during Shopee’s 12.12 Birthday Sale.

In Vietnam, we worked with a local footballer, Bùi Tiến Dũng, who is popular with his community, while also partnering with Jose Mari Chan (affectionately known by locals as the Father Christmas of the Philippines) to draw the Filipino crowds. Riding on the Korean-pop wave, Bambam became the face of Shopee Thailand’s 12.12 campaign.

This not only made our campaigns highly localised but also deeply engaging for users who were also fans of these ambassadors.

We hosted exclusive fan meets, live concerts and utilised social media platforms to hold live streaming events that allowed for further engagement with our users.

2. Engaging users

Every brand and every app is looking to win the attention of users.

Attention alone is not good enough; we want to keep users engaged as an experiential e-commerce platform.

A study done by App Annie showed a strong correlation between time spent in shopping apps and e-commerce sales.

Therefore, time spent in-app is an important metric which is why companies customise their in-app experience for their consumers.

Also Read: Why be a thought leader at Echelon Asia Summit 2019?

Through elements of gamification, flash sales, the curation of categories and products, these e-commerce platforms want to keep their users constantly engaged through entertainment and personalisation.

We first learnt what users in the region enjoyed and understood their motivations before deciding on a comprehensive, multi-pronged approach ranging from in-app activities to regional and local celebrity ambassadors.

Case Study

We found that users enjoy “slicing” food/fruits on their mobile phones, so we created a Shopee version of it and localised it so that each market will play a unique local version of the game.

We had Shopee Chop-Chop Curry Pok in Singapore, where users had to slice falling curry puffs (a snack of choice for many locals) and an Indonesian version of the game titled Shopee Potong (Bahasa word for “slice”) for one of our local Super Brand Days.

Another in-app game that we introduced was Shopee Quiz where we had local celebrities from the various countries host the quiz sessions, making it an interactive and social experience for our users.

This was a combination of strategies: localisation and deeper user engagement.

Using what was familiar to consumers and creatively adding them to in-app games allowed locals to spend more time on the app which may lead to additional browsing and purchasing.

3. Listening to the users via feedback

Putting users first in whatever you do is vital as the entire online experience is shaped based on their preferences.

Companies often collect user data so as to continually improve the online experience, resulting in a more satisfied and hopefully “repeat” consumer.

Actively reviewing their feedback helps platforms to improve on their features and services and to better cater to users’ needs.

Case Study

One example of utilising our users’ feedback is Shopee’s live chat function improvement.

The previous version of our live chat did not allow for multitasking which led to instances of the conversation timing out and users having to go through the help process again. We listened to our users and updated the chat function to allow for multitasking, and also introduced additional push notifications to remind users of ongoing chats.

These changes were made possible due to a strong feedback loop between our community of users and us.

Also Read: These two entrepreneurs help elderly Singaporeans improve their independence and age better

In the fast-paced and dynamic e-commerce industry, the relevance and importance of data cannot be understated in identifying consumer behaviour and buying patterns. The combination of updated technology and the resultant data we are able to obtain has also helped us better map out an optimised buyer and seller user experience.

Furthermore, this enables us to pre-empt customer demand and anticipate potential surges in order volume—a great asset when it comes to helping our seller’s manage stock and logistics.

In addition, we use AI technology throughout the app, including modules such as our recommendation engine, to prompt relevant products to customers based on their past browsing and purchase patterns.

Conclusion

As technology and people’s online behaviour evolves, we must constantly look towards creating greater value for users beyond just being a transactional platform.

Founders need to have the courage and honesty to ask themselves if their product is able to relate to, engage with and learn from their users.

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Image Credit: imtmphoto

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The report is brought by Horangi Cyber Security from Singapore, these are the state of cybersecurity in Southeast Asia

As the third largest internet market, Southeast Asia leads in its e-commerce sector, as told by a report issued by Horangi Cyber Security. In its cybersecurity outlook, Horangi stated that 90 per cent of users in Southeast Asia has internet access via mobile, led by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand.

 

With 90 million users to date and a market worth of US$ 72 billion last year, internet users in the region are estimated to reach 350 million users.

Also Read: Thai startup Jitta raises US$6.5 million to empower wealth management

A dominant share is held by online travel business as it totaled 41.7 per cent of the internet economy, as recorded by Google & Temasek e-Conomy SEA 2018. Singapore and Vietnam emerged on top as the countries with GDP-contributing internet economy.

Given the overall statistics, Horangi concluded in its findings that cost of cybercrime is increasing as it is persistent, and Asia is a lucrative target even with the lagging of cybersecurity maturity in the region because of low awareness and historical exposure.

Horangi further noted the breaches in cybersecurity for the past year, ranging from Equifax in late 2017 that affected 1.43 million of its consumers, to Marriot hotel’s data leakages that’s been going on for four years undetected.

Number one type of attacks plaguing the region turned out to be a crypto-related one, with crypto exchange accounts being hacked, accounted for 369 per cent in 2017. This reflects the weak information security the region still has that doesn’t meet the interest in the sector halfway.

Other big attacks were malware for 275 per cent, as there’s an increase in encrypted attacks. In Singapore alone, 42 per cent of the country’s business has reported phishing incidents.

Horangi detailed on why Asia is vulnerable to cyber attack, which is caused by the longer overall time it takes to identify a breach, easier entry, and the lack of cybersecurity experts in the region. Even with the data showing that Asia is, in fact, the fastest growing region for security-related hardware, software, and services since 2015, the total spending on security alone was to hit over US$12 billion last year.

Horangi Cyber Security is led by CEO and founder Paul Hadjy, focussing on creating software that solves cybersecurity problems in Asia. It provides clients with actionable data to make critical cyber decisions.

Also Read: These two entrepreneurs help elderly Singaporeans improve their independence and age better

In 2016, Grab selected Hadjy as their Head of IT to shape the company’s internal technology, information security, and business process architecture.
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Also, Malaysia’s HelloGold steps foot in Africa, Temasek invests in US startup DoorDash

First legal tech startup accelerator to launch in Singapore [KrAsia]

Singapore is said to be getting ready to launch Asia’s first legal technology startup accelerator in April this year, according to the Singapore Academy of Law (SAL). This would be the second attempt of the accelerator, named the Future Law Innovation Program (FLIP), which is a two-year pilot program by SAL that was started with the initial title Accelerator!, but has now been halted.

The program will be three to six months long, with experts in innovation and entrepreneurship joining as mentors that’ll give advice on business strategies and management.

Also Read: Thailand now has six digital bills welcoming Thailand 4.0

With the legal sector in the country being regarded as lagging behind in tech innovation, this would be a significant upgrade that can provide help for the legal industry.

Malaysia’s fintech HelloGold steps foot in Africa [Press Release]

Malaysia-based fintech savings platform HelloGold has officially expanded to Africa in partnership with Baobab, a digital financial inclusion group. With the partnership, HelloGold will provide gold savings and loans to 800,000 Baobab’s customers, who can access HelloGold’s products through Baobab’s new mobile app.

Using the app that will be launched this year, Baobab’s users will be able to buy, save, and invest in gold on the integrated mobile application instantly and securely.

“The possibility to easily save and invest in gold is an additional key offered to our clients to unleash their potential. This collaboration with HelloGold will allow us to integrate this saving offers in the nine African countries we are working with,” said Arnaud Ventura, CEO, and founder of Baobab Group.

Baobab provides digital and mobile solutions for customers in Africa at its 1140 service points as well as in China to help to manage their finances.

HelloGold uses blockchain technology to enable customers to access affordable financial products and services, starting with gold.

Singapore welcomes People Matters TechHR Conference this month [Press Release]

People Matters TechHR, Asia’s HR tech conference will launch in Singapore on February 28, 2019, at the Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre. The conference is the two-day program organized by People Matters, the HR community and HR media brand focussing on work, talent & tech.

Key speakers at the conference include Dr. Robert Hogan, Founder & President at Hogan Assessments; Jason Averbook, CEO & Co-Founder at Leapgen; Goh Swee Chen, Chairman Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF); Nora A Manaf, Group Chief Human Capital Officer at Maybank, and Aileen Tan, Group Chief HR Officer, Singtel.

The conference will highlight topics like tech for productivity and efficiency for employees and the process of deploying technology in the organizations.

The conference also will facilitate about 50 HR tech startups that will showcase their companies at the Startup Zone, meet investors one-on-one, and attend exclusive masterclasses. Investors that will be zooming in as mentors are Singapore Press Holdings, Golden Gate Ventures, SeedPlus, TRIVE, Cento Ventures, Accenture Ventures, TNF Ventures, Monk’s Hill Ventures, ENRG Hong Kong Limited, and Omidyar Network.

The conference also includes a study tour segment which will take place on March 1, 2019, bringing in companies such as Netflix, Singapore University of Technology & Design, 3M, P&G, Google, TCS, Workplace by Facebook, Singapore Management University, and the National University of Singapore that will be hosting delegates as part of this exclusive program.

Register for People Matters TechHR Singapore and take the next leap! Click here to register.
Click here to know more about the conference.

Temasek to invest US$500M in US food delivery startup DoorDash [Deal Street Asia]

Singapore-based investment firm Temasek is said to be in a discussion for a US$500 million funding round for DoorDash, food delivery startup in the US. DoorDash has been backed by SoftBank, CRV, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital.

Should this round comes through, the San Fransisco-based company will be valued at over US$ 6 billion.

DoorDash was founded in 2013 by Stanford University students and does business by hiring contractors to pick up and deliver orders from food and beverage outlets. Currently, it serves in over 1,000 cities across the US and Canada.

Just last year, the company signed a partnership with US retail behemoth Walmart and has been testing autonomous car deliveries via General Motors-owned, Cruise Automation.

Philippines inch away to approve a startup-friendly bill [KrAsia]

Philippines’ Innovative Startup Act, a bill that is designed to support startups in the Philippines is now just waiting for President Rodrigo Duterte’s approval for it to become a law. The country’s Senate has ratified the bill last week.

Also Read: Horangi Cyber Security: Southeast Asia is still vulnerable to cybercrime

Senate Bill 1532, or the Innovative Startup Act, was authored by Senator Bam Aquino. In the to-be-enacted as law, startups will be provided with financial subsidies such as tax breaks and grants, especially for tech startups whose platforms address the country’s problems in transportation, healthcare, financing, and other areas.

The Innovative Startup Act will also give founders access to a PHP 10 billion (US$191.6 million) Innovative Startup Venture Fund that they can use to finance their businesses. The fund will be managed by the Department of Science and Technology.
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Photo by Sebastian Pichler on Unsplash

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From a benevolent Facebook group to dating apps, we reveal 8 tech trends we love in 2019

A Facebook group that helps families affected by dementia

Let’s start with a serious moment before we start to get a bit more lighthearted.

Facebook gets a lot of criticism globally and a lot of the times it is well-deserved. But there are some undeniably positive aspects of the social media network.

In Singapore, one of those positives is a Facebook Group called Dementia-Friendly Singapore.

An important goal of the group is to humanise dementia, and provide a safe place to discuss challenges, advice and success stories to people who are accepting and understanding.

However, it has also developed into another avenue to pursue in emergency situations (obviously, it’s important to call the professionals, but Dementia-Friendly Singapore is an additional avenue to crowdsource help).

A friend of mind has a grandmother with dementia. One day, she left the house and ended up getting lost. This can be a terrifying situation for loved ones because it can be impossible to know exactly where the person went. My friend said Dementia-Friendly Singapore was crucial in his efforts to return her home.

Mental health is becoming and increasingly important part of our global discourse and places like Dementia-Friendly Singapore help make sure we are moving in a positive direction.

On Valentine’s day, yes, the singles are grateful for dating apps

An anecdotal survey of my network suggests that dating apps are a boon for singles out there who don’t feel like wallowing away their night with friends and wine (which, to me, sounds WAY better…but who am I to judge).

That being said, online dating has completely lost the stigma of even a few years ago, and the benefits for Valentine’s Day makes sense. Notably, taking someone out on Valentine’s Day is a big move for a first date. It might be wonderful, but you will be surrounded by long-term relationships and married couples. That’s a lot of pressure.

For single’s it can be scary to walk up to someone and propose a Valentine’s Day dinner to your crush (although it is definitely too late for that at this point). On Tinder, Paktor or Coffee Meets Bagels, the people engaging around this week are already open to testing out a Valentine’s Day meetup. This lowers the barrier-to-entry and can help singles feel the love on this V-day.

To the rest of you, raise a glass to your colleagues, bros or girlfriends.

The addictive nature of TikTok

There is a very important fact about the rise of TikTok that needs to be mentioned: The social network is not considered “cool”. The word used by a lot of young people is “cringeworthy”. But, that doesn’t mean it isn’t popular. Over the 2018-2019 year TikTok announced itself as the successor to SnapChap and Instagram as the next hot social network.

I love TikTok, and was formerly introduced to it by a 20-something office mate who doesn’t even really use it. It was like a non-smoker accidentally getting me hooked on cigarettes.

TikTok may be nerdy, but it also is the best of humanity. The videos are wholesome, dumb-as-hell and highly entertaining. This means the app is super addicting. I can’t tell the number of times I decided to “check out TikTok for five minutes” only to look up half-an-hour later and realise I need to close the app or else I’ll be here for two hours.

TikTok is great.

The diversity of the Southeast Asian startup scene and its willingness to learn

The fragmentation of Southeast Asia has long been a narrative of the region, but we often do not talk about how much we learn from one another.

As my colleague Claudia Florea (who coined this idea) put it,

“From attending different roadshows on the ground in Southeas Asia last year (Bangkok, Singapore, Phnom Penh), I realised how different all the market are and thus, their specific needs.

“The beauty of tech community in Southeast Asia comes from diversity. In Laos and Cambodia, there are not big VC companies but the ideas nourished there can be seen as “gems” for the entire region.

“Bringing an international panel of judges helped with constructive feedback and I think that seeing someone with a track record of experience definitely got the participants onboard for pitching and learning,” she said.

A pop of investment activity in Vietnam

From a macro level, investment into Vietnamese startups has been the story of the young year. In January, the country saw nine deals worth US$113.5 million, according to e27 data. Plus, we counted two additional deals whereby the funding amount was undisclosed.

The momentum continued into February when LOGIVAN raised a US$5.5 million deal last week.

For years, Vietnam has been considered the Southeast Asian country with the most potential for hyper growth. If the early trends of 2019 continue, this will be the year they fulfil that destiny.

Shameless Plug: We are hosting an amazing event in Vietnam on March 12. Register here!

Esports continues growth, and a couple Southeast Asian companies are well positioned

While Esports is still a small market (global yearly revenues are expected to cross the US$1 billion mark for the first time in 2019), the rise of Esports feels inevitable. The industry is the definition of the word “burgeoning”.

This growth bodes well for two companies with connections to Southeast Asia, SEA Group and Razer. With their core customer base being gamers, its natural that the two companies have made a big investment into Esports.

Sea Group and Razer both made early plays into video games, and in 2019 it seems that bet will pay off handsomly.

We have ourselves a new Big Dawg

Technically, with a valuation of US$950 million, Southeast Asia does not have another unicorn. But we do have another company that can bear the torch for the region’s tech ecosystem.

The US$226 million Series D from Zilingo forced everyone in Southeast Asia to take note.

The company is just over three years old, and just over two years ago it was closing a US$8 million round. Then BOOM! US$226 million later it immediately catapulted itself into one of the most important startups in Southeast Asia.

If people were not aware of Zilingo before this week, they certainly are now.

A half-male half-female bird

I mean, is there anything more Valentine’s Day than a bird that does not need to navigate the social expectations of gender?

The theory behind this Northern Cardinal is that it is actually a fraternal twin…to itself (MIND.BLOWN). Essentially, the two ova are fertilised separately and early in the process they fuse together, creating one organism with two separate genders.

Now don’t worry November babies, scientists don’t think this is possible in humans because we don’t lay eggs. Our fertilisation process is washed in blood which essentially wipes the cells “clean” so they have the same hormones. Even in egg laying animals this is extremely rare.

The most interesting thing to watch over the Cardinal’s life is whether or not it will reproduce.

Free Valentine’s Day tickets to Echelon!

Is your date a tech nerd? Are you a tech nerd and you want to share the world with your loved one? Well Echelon is just around the corner and you can surprise him/her with a couple of tickets!

We have a special Valentine’s Day one-for-one promo that give you access to all three conference stages (Founder, Future, Capital), the TOP100 pitching stage, exhibition areas and partnered zones (TOP100, Marketplace, country pavilions and Talent Zone), the official Echelon App, and the Echelon Official Afterparty.

Our Valentine’s promo can be found here.

Find out more about Echelon 2019

The event is on May 23-24 at Singapore expo.

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Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

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