Your defining features could be the problem

Two years ago, we took a long hard look at our business.

We had recently made substantial changes to our business model but weren’t getting the results we wanted.

After spending some time with a whiteboard and a few smart people, we could see clearly where we needed to focus our efforts — we had a lousy conversion rate.

There were two possible solutions:

1. We could get more eyeballs — drive more traffic to the website.
2. We could figure out why our product wasn’t converting.

Let me state the obvious — dramatically increasing the traffic at your site is not easy. We were already doing everything we could on this front.

Besides, with bad conversion, we were throwing a huge amount of users away. It made a lot more sense to focus on option 2.

Still, option 2 was no easy road. Determining what is preventing users from converting is difficult.

For example, we use Aha! to collate user feedback — and listening to users, you would believe we just needed to add more features.

But features are rarely the reason software adoption efforts fail, plus our product already had a shit ton of features.

According to research from the University of Washington, here’s what is important for software adoption:

_{Most important factors for realising the value of software (I got this from HBR/University of Washington. But sadly can’t find the original link)}

As you can see, functionality is rarely the problem. We also looked at our usage metrics to see if any particular feature was standing out.

After some research, it turned out several features had a high correlation with conversion.

Unsurprisingly, they were the features that made Hiri different from other email clients.

Great! Surely all we needed to do was inform and educate. Tell users about these fantastic features so they would use them and convert.

Time for a new onboarding mechanism

At Hiri, we’re big fans of Samuel Hulick’s UserOnboard.

By tearing down some well-known applications, Samuel does an excellent job of teaching people how to think about onboarding. It’s fantastic.

We created an onboarding process that followed Samuel’s rules. We refined the login process, carefully highlighted our key features. We took the time to craft the copy, adding some much-needed personality. The results made us pretty happy.

But, when we pushed it, it didn’t have the impact we were hoping for (not blaming Samuel here!).

We iterated and measured, redesigned and tweaked. But nothing seemed to work.

The reality was that most users paid little attention to our onboarding.

They weren’t reading our precious copy. They simply blazed their way through it as quickly as possible — dismissing pop-ups and walkthroughs just as fast as they could click.

I mean, who doesn’t know how to use an email app?

A different lens to look through

I’ve been handling “User Experience” (UX) since before it was called UX.

By training, I’m an Industrial Designer. A lot of UX concepts have been taken from Industrial Design, but I think one is particularly relevant when it comes to onboarding:

Mental models.

A mental model is an important part of the product adoption process, which looks something like this:

^{The line in the background depicts how a user is feeling at a particular gate. Might cover this in a future post.}

I’ve highlighted the attributes relevant to mental models. The two key points here are:

1. Your product should work the way I expect it to.
2. How I expect your product to work is largely based on my experience using other products.

I’ve known this stuff for a long time but always looked at it as a usability principle rather than a conversion principle.

Also Read: These are the five startups joining Phandeeyar Accelerator third batch

We use elements of this stuff throughout Hiri.

For example, we use conventions that people are familiar with; dropdowns, toolbars, autocomplete, yada yada.

But it occurred to me that we might be able to leverage this principle to help with conversion.

The other important onboarding concept came to light when my co-founder, Kevin, finished the book Hacking Growth, by Sean Ellis.

This is a much more natural way to discover features.

It puts the user in control — no more force feeding them information through a complicated educational onboarding process (which people ignore anyway).

More importantly, it reduced our time-to-Aha moment from one week to one hour.

Our conversion rate shot up from 1 in 50 to 1 in 10. A huge difference.

Conclusion

This approach isn’t going to work for everyone. But I think everyone can take something from it.

Here are the key takeaways:

1. Know what your Aha moment is.
2. Know how long it takes to get there. Try to reduce this time.
3. Be aware that what makes your product unique could also cause confusion.
4. Try to meet user’s expectations — before they use your product, how do they think it should function?
5. Find ways for users to take control and discover your USP/Aha moment naturally.

I hope you’ve found this article useful. Questions, comments? Leave them below and I promise that I will try to answer them. If you liked this article, please share!

—

David Power is Founder & COO of Hiri, an ingenious email app.

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

The post A novel approach to onboarding appeared first on e27.

Investors seemed open-minded, but did not think it would radically change their strategy

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) has applied for a digital operating license, a move that would allow people to buy and sell cryptocurrencies on the bourse, according to the Bangkok Post.

A core part of the plan is to leverage third-party private companies that already use the exchange. Companies that trade securities on the SET will be able to apply for a broker and dealer license that will allow them to trade “digital assets” (aka cryptocurrencies).

If approved, SET would join a handful of stock exchanges around the world that allow people to buy/sell cryptocurrencies.

Pattera Dilokrungthirapop, the Chairwoman of the Association of Securities Companies told the Post that the hope is to follow the trend of people using cryptos as an investment vehicle.

Dilokrugthirapop said the SET still needs to iron out important details like setting up the actual wallet and and figuring out the back-office workflow.

Also Read: A novel approach to onboarding

The stock exchange is hoping to attract investors because of its advantage in public capital and trust. The issue of trust is particularly highlighted this week after the CEO of Quadriga, Canada’s largest exchange, died suddenly and left US$145 million worth of crypto unaccessible.

That being said, private companies have been operating wallets for years and have a lot of experience to lean on.

Presumably, the SET would be subjected to tougher government oversight which could make mom-and-pop investors more comfortable to put their money in the exchange.

The SET will be responsible for regulatory oversight but the Ministry of Finance will control the operating licenses.

Also Read: AI-based digital music discovery platform Musiio secures US$1M seed round

Investment companies quoted by the Bangkok Post were open-minded to the cryptocurrency push but were quick to point out that it would be viewed as something of a ‘side project’ internally. The quotes suggested investors would still be focussed on their main business and the crypto exchange would not be part of that core.

While the application from SET signals a strategic desire to be a crypt0-friendly bourse, there is still a long way before it becomes a reality.

—

Photo by Adam Dore on Unsplash

 

The post Thailand stock exchange moves forward on goal to trade crypto appeared first on e27.

Launching consumer loan service, Akseleran plans to continue on fundraising to hit its IDR105B (US$7.5M) target

Indonesian peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform Akseleran announced that it has raised a IDR35 billion (US$2.5 million) funding round from undisclosed banks as well as local and foreign venture capital firms.

On a press conference on Thursday, February 7, Akseleran CEO Ivan Tambunan said that the company is aiming for IDR105 billion (US$7.5 million) for this Series A funding round. If everything goes according to plan, the startup will finalise the funding round in March or April 2019.

With the funding, Akseleran plans to develop it technology, particularly its UI/UX; acquire new talents; and expand its presence in Bali and Celebes. The company is also planning to launch several new products.

Akseleran said that at the beginning of the year, it has begun working with e-commerce giants Tokopedia and Bukalapak. By working with these two marketplace platforms, the company expects to add the number of loan recipient this year.

“Our target is to have more than 2,000 loan recipients by end of 2019. By far we have secured around 450 loan recipients. We also have plans to work with B2B companies to add the number of loan recipients,” Tambunan said.

Also Read: Akseleran launches as Indonesia’s first equity crowdfunding platform, aims to bridge funding gap for SMEs and startups

Throughout 2018, Akseleran had channeled a total of IDR210 billion (US$15 million) of loan. By the end of 2019, the company aims to channel up to IDR1.2 trillion (US$85 million).

“We had also experienced an increase in the number of lender, from 25,000 in 2018 to 56,000. The majority of them came from three finance institutions –Indo Surya, Global Indo, and Andalan– and individuals,” Tambunan said.

At the moment the company own four lending products for businesses: Invoice financing (which contributed to a total of 85 per cent of loan on the platform), inventory financing, capital expenditure, and online merchant financing.

“We have recorded 75 per cent of repeat transaction. This indicates lenders’ commitment to loan recipients on the Akseleran platform,” Tambunan said.

Licence finalisation and product launch

 

Akseleran has also begun to add consumer loan to its list of new products since January. In this segment, the startup is working with relevant partner Best Finance.

Also Read: Beauty services marketplace Mecapan completes equity crowdfunding campaign, launches in Indonesia

“We also have plan to launch employee loan service. Once it is ready to launch, the service will be beneficial for recipients with employers’ recommendation,” Tambunan said.

As a P2P lending service, Akseleran claimed to have been able to curb non-performing loan (NPL) rate to 0.5 per cent. The company was able to achieve this number by focussing on mid-size businesses such as oil and gas, retail, and construction. These certain nature of these businesses is able to convince lenders to continue on using Akseleran platform, according to Tambunan.

To strengthen its position as a P2P lending platform, Akseleran expected to secure licence by the financial service authority (OJK) this year. The process requires time and preparation, which includes the implementation of seamless digital signature feature. OJK also requires digital lending companies to keep money on escrow accounts for no more than two days.

“In accordance to OJK’s regulatory sandbox, we aim to be able to fulfill all the requirements for official OJK licence this year,” Tambunan said.

—

The article Akseleran Kantongi Dana Segar Baru 35 Miliar Rupiah, Fokus Kejar Izin Resmi dari OJK was written by Yenny Yusra in Bahasa Indonesia for DailySocial. English translation and editing by e27.

The post Akseleran raises US$2.5M funding, will focus on securing OJK licence appeared first on e27.

The key is in mastering the basics

For most businesses, e-commerce is (and has been for some time now) an indispensable topic for C-level executives, strategists, analysts, agencies and more when it comes to crafting growth plans.

Beyond all the incredible, exponential figures about e-commerce’s size, growth and potential, I would like to share some perspectives that could bridge the gap between vision and success.

Note: By definition, “Brands” refers to (mostly) companies with B2C brands that have an e-commerce business, primarily through e-commerce platforms with an “Official Store”. These Brands can be selling products from any of these categories: FMCG, Consumer Electronics, Fashion, to name a few.

Currently, I lead a team “at the tip of the spear” where we work closely with Brands to convert the shoppers at the end of their customer journey into delivering the sales (GMV).

The rigorous interaction and engagement with Brands have taught us that multiple key factors often cause significant gaps between vision (e.g. “We want to grow ten times bigger”) and success (e.g. “How come we only grew twice?”).

These can be narrowed down to three most frequently observed factors:

1) Lack of effective organizational set-up optimized for E-Commerce

For all the amazing things about Digital Commerce, the realization of success (e.g. convert more shoppers to buy, and shoppers to buy more) still depends largely on People & Teams.

Any partnership between Brands and e-commerce platforms cannot succeed by solely depending on the biggest exposure, best tools (e.g. search, store decoration, flash sales, etc) and best deals (e.g. free delivery, heavy discounts, vouchers, etc).

It still boils down to the People & Teams (both on Brands’ and E-Commerce Platform’s side) who will work together to strategize, plan, execute and ideally, perform real-time optimizations.

However, at most Southeast Asian Brands (particularly in Indonesia), a lack of organisational set-up that’s designed optimally for e-commerce is a major impediment to true exponential growth.

The first challenge: some Brands lack an e-commerce team.

If the same Brand Key Account Manager (KAM) has to prioritise between three to five offline channels (around 90 per cent of national annual sales) and three to five e-commerce platforms (one to 10 per cent of national annual sales), it’s clear where the attention, effort and resources will go to.

The same goes for the Operation’s role (to manage online stores & product page front-end operations), Graphics role (to develop visuals for mobile-App-optimized presentation to online shopper) and even Supply Chain roles (to manage On-Time-In-Full (OTIF) stock fulfillment for high availability, either through the Brand’s own warehouses or a third Party like Distributor or “Enabler”).

It is crucial that Brands have a “Head of e-commerce” and a KAM specially dedicated for e-commerce.

The best brands can even take it further by having dedicated KAM per E-commerce platform to increase agility/speed and minimize conflict of interest.

The second challenge: some Brands are either not truly committed to or lacking support from the organization, due to poor cross-functional support.

The most typical structural setup is the reporting line between the Head of e-commerce and the Sales Director.

While this may make sense on the surface, the reality is the Sales Director would inevitably be incentivized to prioritise “bigger” offline channels again, decreasing the necessary investment of effort and resources into future-proofing the business through e-commerce.

Also, to win in e-commerce, Brands need to have the attention, expertise and insights from multiple functions — excellence in sales tactics, marketing and supplying.

The best practices we see from exponential-growth Brands to combat these two problems include: having the Head of e-commerce report directly to the CEO in the market or to an N-1, equipping the Head of e-commerce with its autonomous e-commerce budget independent from offline channels, and even designing the budget to be “complete”.

This will increase the speed of decision-making, problem-solving and brainstorming so that Brands grow in a more dynamic, real-time manner.

2) Eagerness to “shortcut” to the “cool, sexy” stage before mastering fundamentals

All e-commerce practitioners know the following basic theory: To sell successfully, one requires a lot of eyeball-traffic which can be exchanged for product page views that can be converted into GMV/Sales through things like compelling content, product availability, competitive prices, other value-enhancing mechanics and multiple payment options. All while being underpinned by a seamless end-to-end experience (no bugs, no crashes, minimal latency, etc).

The real challenge is not being unaware of the theory, but knowing how to execute each of these building blocks with quality output, speed and consistency.

Also Read: 15 more awesome startups that will be apart of TOP100 APAC 2019

From my experience, Brands often start most discussions by asking these types of questions for e-commerce planning:

“What’s the big launch for next year?”

“What are the cool stuff we can do (or do more of)?”

“What’s the latest technology that we can leverage on to do cutting-edge stuff?”

These types of questions are valid and important, but the problem arises when Brands only focus on these questions and neglect other fundamental questions as a result.

Also Read: What we learned from almost failing before an Indonesia break through

Exponential-growth Brands always work hard to prioritize mastering the fundamentals before moving on to the “cool/sexy/awesome” topics.

They put a high priority on “hygiene factors” before anything else.

Questions to Brands: Do you have your fundamentals in check?

• Support from top management to work with Supply Chain and Distributor to ensure that stock fulfilment to consumers is On-Time and In-Full for consistent high product availability.
• Collaboration with marketing teams, creative agencies and graphics team to ensure that all product shots are of high-quality. The same goes for all the Brand’s key visuals on the e-commerce platform, within their stores and beyond.
• Clearing weekly and monthly content and promotional plans to refresh key messages to shoppers.
• Strong channel management practices and pricing strategies to ensure regular competitive prices while not destroying brand value through over-discounting.

Most of all, since e-commerce platforms operate by algorithmic ranking, they need to do all of the above consistently to gain traction for their Brands and SKUs in order to stand out from the millions of products on e-commerce.

3) Not driving enough traffic to the Brand’s official product page

A commonly mentioned analogy that e-commerce practitioners have heard of many times goes like this:

“Imagine the e-commerce platform as the traditional offline Shopping Mall, and your Brand’s Official Store is one of the many shops in the mall. While the Mall will invest in bringing in total traffic to the building, the shop needs to do its own advertising within and outside the Mall to bring more of its target shoppers to its doorstep.”

Most Brands that fail to grow as fast as their expectations often have the misconception that “The e-commerce market is growing fast and it has a huge quantity of daily active users (DAU), so there is more than enough traffic to give my brand sustained growth in Page Views. Therefore, why do I need to invest in bringing my own traffic?”

The thing is, just like the offline Mall, all e-commerce platforms want to grow the number of brands, sellers, assortment and product categories and it is not efficient for the platform to invest in hyper-targeted online traffic that’s best-suited for every Product Category and every Brand.

So while the DAU continues increasing, it may or may not benefit the specific Brand immediately.

This means that, while it’s easy for Brands to tap on the existing platform DAU at the start to gain a fast uptick in Page Views, it will become increasingly difficult to sustain this trajectory.

Brands must also remember that on any platforms, there exists a highly dynamic environment.

Every Brand wants to stand out and grow fast, and while one of e-commerce’s advantage is the so-called “infinite” shelf-space, one must remember that there are limits to online shoppers’ attention span.

The wisest Brands understand this and invest in driving quality traffic consistently to their Official Stores or Product Pages on the e-commerce platform.

They have a good mix of “re-targeting high-affinity customers” and “acquiring new relevant customers” traffic strategy. They constantly perform optimizations to continuously improve the quality of the traffic. Plus, they don’t simply focus on the quantity but equally devote attention to the quality.

Finally, these exponential-growth Brands leverage on both their Paid and Owned Media assets to do an always-on traffic strategy instead of just waiting to only drive traffic during the major campaigns by the e-commerce Platform.

–

In reality, it is definitely not easy to immediately implement the above practices.
It requires strong willingness & commitment to shift mindsets and make short-term trade-offs and sacrifices, especially from the top-level decision-makers.

But, from experience, it is very much possible, and it takes courageous talents & executives in any Brands to start the ball rolling (& keep it so).

“Rely not on your euphoric vision, but make it your victorious reality”.

—

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

The post Why brands fail on e-commerce and what they can do about it appeared first on e27.

Orangewood Labs was part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2018 batch

Aditya Bhatia, an alumnus of National Institute of Design (Ahmedabad), used to work as a furniture designer in Delhi, but was wasn’t happy with the way the whole industry functioned. He realised that most of the custom pieces being designed and created at traditional design studios would take two to three months to finish and it also involved a lot of manual labour.

Bhatia was determined to rewrite the whole concept, and knew that new-age technologies could be leveraged to bring in a change. He went to his friends Abhinav Das and Akash Bansal, both have prior startup building experience, and brainstormed.

“We started thinking of making the whole process better and thought of making a smart CNC (computer numerical control) router which can cut pieces of wood very fast and very precisely,” Das shares the story with e27. “This ended up in the founding of Orangewood Labs.”

Established in 2017, Noida (near Delhi)- and California-based Orangewood is a design-led startup that creates customised furniture on demand, using robotics. The company, which follows a zero-inventory model, says it can make furniture within a few hours of receiving the order from the client and can ship it the same day. Orangewood’s robots are cheaper, light-weight, and easier to deploy, says Das. Since these robots are connected to the internet, it is easy to run applications on the cloud and operate remotely.

“With the ability to create custom furniture on demand, we can help you get that unique look that sets you apart from the rest,” Das claims. “Using robots for crafting the furniture pieces gives a millimetre level accuracy. We have a virtually limitless supply of fresh designs from designers all over the world.”

Also Read: He built a robotics startup with just US$100 and no prior experience; It has now won some top e-tailers

Most of Orangewood’s customers are enterprises, which are in need of custom furniture but don’t want to wait two to three months getting it done. The startup is also working with several co-working spaces in India to design furniture for them. “As of now, we follow a services model, where the customer pays a monthly or per operation fee,” says Das, who is the CEO of the startup.

Orangewood targets businesses in the countries like the US, Europe and India.

The tech venture, which is currently based in California, was part of Y Combinator’s (YC) Winter 2018 batch. The YC experience was very rewarding, adds Das, since the trio got an opportunity to meet in person most high-profile entrepreneurs they follow and admire.

“But getting into YC is really hard, with the number of applications increasing every year (the Winter 2019 has 10,000 applications). Thankfully, we got into it. We learnt lots of things from YC partners,” he says.

Das, who holds a Mechanical and Automation Engineering Degree from Guru Govind Singh Indraprastha University (Delhi) is not new to the startup world. In 2009, he founded a startup called Evomo, which built rural utility vehicles. The startup, however, ceased operations in 2015.

“But the whole experience of building ultra low-cost trucks helped me build better machines, and it came in handy when we started Orangewood,” he smiles. “Overall, startups are an evolving science and when you build things that have not been built before, you should know where to fail. We are making less mistakes since we have the experience of failing in the previous venture.”

Talking about the robotics industry in Asia, Das says that robots are not as popular as they should be in the industry at large. Just like computers in the 60’s, robots are expensive and still require trained professionals to handle them.

“Asia is doing as good as some of the developed nations when it comes to robotics, with China leading. India is slow in terms of adoption and its is still expensive to deploy and use robots here. Most SMEs are aware that they would become obsolete if they don’t move towards more automation. But access to capital for most SMEs in India is still a problem,” he adds. “We want to change that, starting with furniture industry. Having said that, India is a very good test bed and it’s now easier for us to develop technology here.”

Also Read: A novel approach to onboarding

Finding experienced hardware talent in India is hard, admits Das. “However, we have been quite lucky to have an awesome team which is not afraid to push the boundaries. Most of our team members are fresh graduates and are happy to learn new skills as we grow.”

In addition to YC, a few funds and angels have also invested in Orangewood, and the startup would be raising the next round soon.

“Its been a roller coaster ride till now, the very thought that your creations will have a huge impact on how humanity functions is awesome,” he concludes.

The post This robotic startup can make custom furniture on demand within few hours of getting your order appeared first on e27.

Flourishing in the “same same but different” continent

Between the Asian and Western (US and Europe) markets, the latter was once considered the more lucrative option of the two whereas the former was dubbed as slow-paced and laggard.

But this concept has changed dramatically over the past decade.

More and more international giants have steadily set foot on the Asian soil and are continuing to do so.

Asia now holds many profitable business prospects given its changing economic scenario — the steady progression of its countries are now leading more people to embrace technology.

Hence, there is a huge untapped potential in the developing Asian markets due to the surplus of mobile devices, internet accessibility, and cloud technology.

That being said, the big commercial ventures that have been successful in the Western markets have not yet been able to obtain a stronghold in Asian markets.

In fact, many businesses have tasted failure when they set foot there.

Why? That is because they have failed to alter themselves to better suit the Asian market.

See, Asia is a diverse community where preferences change every mile.

The local customs and traditions are so varied that businesses need to make a complete change in their marketing strategy or partner with local businesses in order to secure a place in the Asian markets.

Let’s see what challenges business ventures face when they decide to enter the Asian markets.

1. Which country?

First, know that each country in Asia is different.

India, China, Indonesia, and Japan — all these countries share very little in common from the language spoken to the food consumed.

In Asia, businesses have to use a step-by-step approach; taking one country at a time.

Once they familiarise themselves with one country, making a business mark on the second would be more easy and comfortable.

2. Similar yet so diverse

As pointed out before, Asian countries seem similar to outsiders but are in fact vastly different. Thus, businesses will have to sort out or alter their plans for each country based on local preferences.

Take McDonald’s for example. The fast-food giant famous for its non-vegetarian menus had to insert vegetarian meals when it entered India.

In a similar vein, Subway segregated its vegetarian menu from the non-vegetarian menu to avoid offending Indian sentiments.

Culture is the defining point of making a good entry into the Asian markets.

Imagine McDonald’s entering the Indian market with a completely non-vegetarian menu. Would it have been able to taste success with such a strategy?

So it is simple.

What works for the US and European markets might not necessarily work for the Asian markets.

3. Local competition

If you want to succeed in the Asian market you will have to deal with the stiff local competition.

Local businesses have flourished in their markets because they have a better understanding of the local preferences.

An Uber would not work in a country like Indonesia simply because locals prefer the two-wheeler ride here. That is because it is cheaper and easier to commute in the traffic snarls than hitch a four-wheeler ride on the roads.

This is where local businesses come into play.

They understand the local challenges better and design their businesses around it.

4. Payment options

Asia is a place that uses cash as its main mode of payment. And because of that, many businesses have failed to take off in Asian countries.

Therefore, the wise thing to do is to start accepting payments in cash. Remember that the card-only mode of payment would never work in Asia.

Another challenge is that of online shopping.

Also Read: Why brands fail on e-commerce and what they can do about it

Till businesses start to accept cash on delivery as a mode of payment, it will certainly find few takers in the Asian market.

5. Political challenges

The governments in Asia are very finicky when it comes to foreign investments.

Recently, many countries have tweaked their rules and regulations to be more inviting, of which cyber and encryption laws are included.

With the many cases of cyber data misuse, the Asian governments demand that the customer databases be maintained in their respective countries only.

These new laws on data protection have to be adhered to.

Also Read: On Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics: How Group-IB is Reshaping What We Know

The fake news issue on our social media platforms is another grave challenge that businesses have to resolve before entering the Asian markets.

This, in turn, requires sharing the customer database with the local authorities so that they have full control to monitor content closely.

6. Local mobilisation

For effective business strategy, it is wise for international businesses to align their interests with the local partners.

This will help them initially to gain ground and lay a strong foundation.

The local recruitments and the sourcing of raw materials also become easy once they partner with a local team which will help take care of rules and regulations.

The fragmentation found in Asian countries has definitely been a challenge that any business would face when trying to gain entry there.

Thus, this has to be rectified by finding trustworthy local partners.

Conclusion

Setting foray into Asian markets is easier said than done.

It is beyond the obligatory handshakes and the bows.

Many-a-times, you will need to micro-manage things to resolve disputes at the initial stages itself before it gets into a full-fledged problem.

Asia is every businessman’s dream. It is developing much faster than any other European or American nations.

Just get your priorities and risk recognition in check and seize this golden time to penetrate the Asian markets!

—

Image credit: www.pexels.com

e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

The post Top 6 business challenges to consider before entering Asian markets appeared first on e27.

From ICOs to regional expansion to local achievements, here’s a look at the latest from finalists at last year’s TOP100 Vietnam Qualifiers 

More than a pitching event, the Echelon TOP100 Qualifiers are a platform that fosters insights, connections, talent, and funding opportunities for early-stage startups across Southeast Asia. e27 kicked off TOP100 with a bang this year, and we’re all set to visit 17 countries around the region in search for the most promising early-stage startups out there.

Let’s take some time to revisit some of the TOP100 startup participants from 2018 and see where they are and what they have achieved so far since then. In particular, let’s take a look at Vietnam, which is unique for its two startup hubs and which is currently experiencing an influx of foreign-born, ethnically Vietnamese people returning to the country. The country’s startup ecosystem is also doing well as 2019 kicked off, with Vietnam ranking well in terms of deal flow and size, at least in January.

Also read: Vietnam stars in January as e27 data tracks US$1.5B in deals

Eleven startups vied for TOP100 in Vietnam in 2018, and here’s what’s up with them lately:

689Cloud

Selected as the Judges’ Choice in last year’s Vietnam Qualifier, 689Cloud is a private cloud platform that simplifies secure file-sharing and collaboration for enterprises. The company has since gained recognition for its contribution to Ho Chi Minh City’s smart city initiatives.

Also read: 689Cloud secures your files on cloud and beyond

Aversafe

Aversafe is a blockchain-backed credential issuance and verification network. Aversafe’s verifiable digital credentials protect individuals, employers and certificate issuers from credential fraud. Prior to its participation in TOP100 Vietnam Qualifiers in 2018, Aversafe was part of Cofound.it’s initial group of blockchain startups provided with seed funding prior to their initial coin offerings.

CyFeer

CyFeer is a technology solutions provider that focuses in improving the rental ecosystem in its target markets. With seed funding from VIISA, CyFeer’s primary product is CyHome, which provides a platform for property and rental management. In October 2018, CyFeer participated as a finalist in Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks’ annual elevator pitch competition. In December, the company also pitched at VIISA Investment Day #4 as an alumni of the accelerator’s 2nd cohort.

Contractium

Contractium is a platform that helps users deploy smart contract and issue tokens on blockchains easily without technical knowledge and skills. The blockchain company’s ICO is currently live and has raised 860,220,371 “CTU” tokens, which at the ICO price is equivalent to around 57,348 ETH or US$5.93 million.

FINIZZ

FINIZZ aims to address the basic problems in healthcare delivery, including lack of information and access to healthcare profesionnals. The company provides a booking system, database of doctors, and community reviews.

Hand Free

Hand Free is a marketplace for local services, which include household service providers such as plumbers and electricians, as well as other professionals or creatives.

HiKaMi Digital

HiKaMi Digital specializes in designing, developing and producing IoT devices that interact directly with consumers and their favorite products, with a key focus on the packaged goods industries. Its first product is BOx, a connected bottle opener that automatically updates friends when one opens a beer bottle — with the hopes of bringing friends together for drinks. The product raised CHF 19,630 on Kickstarter (around US$19,500). Its next product is the WeCheer, which is a connected bottle opener that provides a gamified experience for the bar culture and bartending business.

Also read: 15 more awesome startups that will be apart of TOP100 APAC 2019

International Alumni Job Network (IAJN)

IAJN is a job market network for the international education sector that is student data-driven and student employment outcome-focused. The platform connects students, alumni, educators and employers, with the aim of enriching the world through shared educational experiences, greater understanding between people and cultures and meaningful careers. In November, IAJN launched its IAJN Connections Professional Network Event, an exclusive event for international student gradautes and alumni to meet one another and develop their professional networks in Vietnam.

Meete

Meete is a platform that allows diners to get discounts with partner F&B outlets with successful campaigns such as “Happy Day” under its belt.

WinCorp

WinMe by WinCorp offers e-commerce users an opportunity to win products they desire but are too expensive for their reach. The company partners with brands in getting more visibility for their products by entering these in as prizes.

WisePass

WisePass WisePass is a lifestyle subscription service platform that allows its members to redeem a set meal, bottle service, Starbucks coffee, VIP access to special events in town and more every single day, all for around $250 subscription per month. The service currently has expanded its offering to over 200 venues in HCMC, Hanoi, Bangkok, Manila and soon Jakarta.

Be part of TOP100

Want to be part of TOP100? Here’s everything you need to know to take your first step toward accelerating your company across Southeast Asia.

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Photo by Lukasz Saczek on Unsplash

 

 

 

 

 

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Remind yourself of the inner 10-year-old boy or girl and the sense of possibility that exists in their young brains

In 2019, the biggest challenge the global community faces is not climate change, frustrating politics or income inequality. It is the sense of creeping cynicism, a propensity to see the worst in humanity and a “we are doomed” mentality.

This is a big problem because it makes it impossible to actually solve climate change, get involved in the political system or propose an economic idea for wealth inequality.

Being cynical can be helpful in analysing situations to avoid getting taken for a ride, but it is fairly useless when actually trying to make the world a better place.

That is why the image released yesterday by NASA, taken by the now-retired Kepler telescope, is a timely reminder. It should be inspiration to think beyond what is possible. It is an admonition of humanity’s tendency towards narrow thinking.

In our hyper-modern, hyper-speed and hyper-hustle cosmopolitan culture, the day-to-day grind it is easy to get stuck in a “this is the way things work,” mindset.

Then, NASA releases a picture that drives home how obnoxiously tiny this planet earth truly is; and it should prompt people to stop and think, “oh wait, maybe I don’t really know ‘how it is’.’”

The sheer amount of possibilities presented on one photo is a reminder of the many diverging paths any situation can take.

Plus, the history of Kepler itself should make people feel more hopeful about what is possible.

The telescope was originally designed to operate for three-and-a-half years. Assuming the possibility of things going wrong, NASA took precautions to make sure it had enough operations for six years. As the date approached, the team realised the weight of the spacecraft was significantly less than had been anticipated.

This allowed them to fill the spacecraft with enough fuel to operate for 10 years. Plus, in a celebration of physics, the Kepler instruments are powered by solar energy and the fuel is only meant for course correction. NASA leveraged the sun’s gravitational pull for most of the flight.

Imagine telling a cynic in 1969 that human beings would operate a space telescope for 10 years whereby a significant amount of the mission leveraged energy (solar, gravity) from by the sun. They probably would have said, “but that’s not feasible”.

Then there is the sheer childhood glee that comes from the results produced by Kepler.

Kepler discovered 2,600 planets beyond our solar system, proved that the galaxy has more worlds than stars and collected so much data that scientists expect to mine it for years.

“The “last light” image taken on Sept. 25 represents the final page of the final chapter ofKepler’s remarkable journey of data collection. It bookends the moment of intense excitement nine and a half years earlier when the spacecraft first opened its eye to the skies and captured its “first light” image,” wrote Alison Hawkes of the Ames Research Center in Kepler’s obituary.

Also Read: e27 Ask Me Anything: OVO Chief Product Officer Albert Lucius answers your questions!

Space has a unique ability to spark wonder. It makes us imagine the impossible, dream of the unachievable and work against the insurmountable.

Sure, we may not actually achieve our ultimate goals, but the place where we have landed is much further than anyone could ever have anticipated.

Kepler provides a useful example. The final photo has a lot of missing pixels. Why? Because the camera has broken multiple times along its journey. Was the final picture a beautiful tour de force of space exploration? No, not really. But it was really cool, and while today’s scientists may have hoped for a better picture, 10 years ago they never would have imagined even taking a photo.

Whether it is starting a company, saving the environment or helping the less fortunate, the first step is to approach the challenge with optimism. There will be a lot of bumps along the way, so if the mindset is wrong in the beginning, it will be impossible to succeed.

Also Read: We revisit Vietnam’s TOP100 from 2018 to see what they’re up to now

Remind yourself of the inner 10-year-old boy or girl and the sense of possibility that exists in their young brains. Try to emulate the children in our world and approach life with the same enthusiasm. Instead of thinking about ‘what is’, focus on ‘what could be’.

The retirement of Kepler, and the final photograph sent back to earth, should inspire optimism and, to quote Tom Hardy in the movie Inception,

“You musn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.”

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Photo by Logan Lambert on Unsplash

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It is absolutely crucial to get into customer’s phones, and these are the best companies to get that done

We’ve marched into the mobile age — there’s no doubt about it. One area that’s continuing to grow, especially for business goals, is app development. According to Google, 91 per cent mobile users turn to their smartphones for ideas in the middle of a task and 82 per cent of them consult their mobiles before buying anything in a shop. If this doesn’t persuade you, nothing will.

Nowadays mobile app development is a particularly demanded service for every business. Entrepreneurs couldn’t adapt their business fast enough to the emerging market and, hence, specialized mobile app development companies became of monumental importance.

So, after long hours of profile-hunting on Clutch, LinkedIn, and pretty much all the resources, we took the liberty of providing business owners with a concise, updated, actual list of the top 10 mobile app development companies in Singapore in 2018.

Vinova

Vinova is among the Top 10 Mobile Applications Development Companies in Singapore according to Yahoo Finance. Vinova has been providing world-class mobile and web development services for enterprises, SMEs & start-ups since 2010.

The company started entering the app development market providing services for small businesses and schools. Nowadays, it has become one of the most recognized mobile app development companies in Singapore.

Swag Soft

Swag Soft was reviewed by AppFutura as one of Top App Developers in Singapore 2018. It services a wide range of clients spanning from startups to big brands such as BMW, Toyota, Caltex, and government agencies like the MDA and Singapore Air Force.

They provide a comprehensive suite of mobile app development services, including Android and iOS app development, virtual and augmented reality development, game development, and iBeacon technology.

HokuApps

HokuApps was featured by Clutch as one of Top Mobile App Development Companies. It’s a technology agency specializing in digital transformation, rapid application development platform (RAD), low code, business process management, and mobile application development platform (MADP).

Also Read: IOT-based bike-sharing service GOWES launched in Semarang, Indonesia

The last one empowers enterprises to develop mobile and web applications customized to their unique ecosystem in a radically short time frame. It has powerful inbuilt tools — granular user access, powerful reporting, unified communication platform, reliable security model — your ideas can get implemented within weeks.

Rainmaker Labs

Rainmaker Labs, acquired by KPMG this year, is a mobile app development company delivering services for both retail businesses and enterprises. Rainmaker Labs developed its own beacon management system and was supplying location-based marketing campaigns with Apple certified BLEep iBeacons couple years ago. That’s how the app development company got into the business of enterprise solutions.

They aim at connecting businesses with their customers, empowering employees, and driving revenue growth using mobile technologies.

Buuuk

Buuuk has started as an experimental app and turned into a fully fledged client servicing studio over the past decade. They focus on developing apps for both iOS and Android.

Every project at Buuuk is led by a focus on design. In addition to developing a mobile app, a mobile project demands a stable and scalable server backend. Having the extensive experience, Buuuk team is deploying robust servers and integrating with existing setups.

Codigo

Codigo is a digital agency with a strong in-house UI/UX and development team. They craft high-quality mobile apps, websites, games and backend systems. Having launched over 300 successful apps, Codigo has won its title among the best Android and iOS app developers in Singapore.

Codigo has also co-incubated 7 startups and runs a UI/UX school. They create smart technology behind-the-scenes to keep the customer experience simple, beautiful and usable.

Square Fresco

Square Fresco team has been providing custom mobile app development services in Singapore for enterprises and startups since 2011. Having deep industry and functional expertise they will definitely help you bring your ideas to reality in the form of impressive mobile apps.

Massive Infinity

Massive Infinity was formed in 2011 by a team of interactive media producers and developers. Its team boasts years of experience in the field of mobile app development in Singapore and has the right skill set to craft a fully-functional, valuable and cost-efficient mobile app.

The company offers complete end-to-end solutions such as web design, VR/AR development, game development, e-Commerce, and Blockchain solutions. They create quality products as per the latest industry standards, client requirements and target audience.

Robust Tech House

Robust Tech House is an affordable strategic e-Commerce, Mobile-Commerce and FinTech technology company founded in 2014. They provide a wide range of services such as mobile app development, chatbot development, blockchain development, and web development.

Robust Tech House will add the substantial value to your product offering mobile applications that enable businesses to cope with the constantly changing business patterns.

Oasis Web Asia

Oasis Web Asia is focusing on web design, website development, app development, e-Commerce and content management system (CMS) solution and hosting services for all businesses. They build innovative, aesthetically appealing applications for iOS and Android apps that offer a superior user experience.

Conclusions

It’s increasingly important for small businesses and enterprises to be present in each moment of the customer journey, especially, when the consumers reach their mobile devices. Choosing the app development company able to help you beat the competition with the excellent app is the uber-important step for every business.

Also Read: 15 more awesome startups that will be apart of TOP100 APAC 2019

We hope to have provided the necessary clarity on the issue of hiring the best app development company creating this list of the most recognized companies in the Singaporean mobile app development market, according to our research. Choosing the right app development company requires a particularly individual approach and doesn’t necessarily require working with companies from the list.

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Photo by Rob Hampson on Unsplash

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My startup Sleek accomplished its important goals, but the path taken was unexpected

The article was written by Julien Labruyere, a serial entrepreneur based in Singapore. If you would like to contribute an article, follow this link.

Whether it is January 1st or Chinese New Year, this time of year always invites reflection about the year that is wrapping up.

Since growing a startup makes you feel like you’re moving in hyperdrive, I’m amazed when I think back about what I wanted to do back in Jan/Feb 2018 with my startup, Sleek.

It’s funny – did we end up getting to where we wanted to? Yes, almost to the dollar, revenue-wise.  Did it look anything like we expected?

Not at all.

We planned one roadmap of where we wanted to go, then wound up at the same destination but from a very different route.

When my cofounders and I sat down to make a business plan for this year, that plan contained assumptions that were fairly wrong compared to what we know now.

To illustrate – here’s three resolutions I made as a startup founder at the beginning of 2018 that didn’t turn out anything like I planned.

Grow our tech team

Sleek helps entrepreneurs and investors with their company secretary and accounting needs, all online. Central to our services is an cloud-based platform that means people based in Singapore (and overseas) can incorporate their company from wherever they are. We wanted to create an easy, intuitive interface (don’t we all!) and so we needed a solid technology/development arm of our business.

This is a tricky one. In December, our technology/platform team was seven strong, up from four at the start of 2018.

What’s unexpected is that no one from our core tech team from the beginning of 2018 is still with us. We’ve had 100 per cent turnover of our development team.

Some have left for larger companies, some were interns that finished up their time with us, some we exited on good terms. The plan was to have a great team — and I think that we do — it just wasn’t smooth and incremental.

The current team has been rebuilt from the ground up and I would say it’s stronger than ever now – I just wasn’t expecting it to look like this.

Also Read: Top 10 mobile app development companies in Singapore

We have also brought in two senior guys, who are just in a different league to our initial team members. I’ve learned this year that having talented developers isn’t the whole game. Having some great product managers, designers and veterans with the skills to manage a team goes a long way in keeping the dev team focused, engaged, and supported, so that they have everything they need to get their best work done.

To me it also shows just how strong the tech scene in Singapore is right now. Tech talent is scarce and everyone is scrambling to hire devs. This means that resources are in demand, which can sometimes lead to friction, big egos and expectations, and occasionally complacency.

Build a flourishing marketplace of accountants in Singapore

When we began in 2017, our core offering was online company secretary services to disrupt the conservative paper-based industry. But we quickly found that once people had incorporated, they were also on the hunt for an accountant.

We didn’t have the capacity in-house and wanted to focus on doing one thing really, really well – and so our solution in 2018 was to build a marketplace of accountants that we could connect customers to, and take a margin off the services rendered. We thought, let’s get a range of different accountants – from startups through to ex-Top 4 CPAs, something to match every type of business.

Our goal was to get to 100 accounting clients? Did we get there? Yes – but we completely ditched the marketplace model along the way.  The classic startup pivot!

We had the demand, but in the end we realised that although we were passing the work onto the accountants, we were still accountable for the quality since it was sold under Sleek, and because of that accountability, we were still very much involved… way more than we should have been given the margins we were making.

Since the accountants offered came with Sleek branding, we knew we needed to deliver on our brand promise of quality; the price, commitment, and level of engagement that we had made us think, ‘this is not going to scale’.

So we took a different route and took it all in-house. Now we can control the quality of our output. And since then it has been crazy.

In less than five months, we have a team of eight, 100 clients and, thanks to the great work of our Accounting & Tax Practice, we have been consistently delivering great work, with great commitment. There’s a great synergy between the corp secretary team and the accounting team, and the result has been great customer service to our clients.

Daily one-on-ones with my employees

When I became CEO I instituted daily 1-on-1s with different staff of the company every day. I’d first heard about it on a podcast, and I thought it would be a good way to spend more time with my staff. I wanted to prioritise getting feedback from the team, since they’re the people on the front lines, growing the company.

So I thought ok, let’s do it. At the same time every day, I’d be catching up with someone – taking a meeting room, or have coffee in the sofa area, not with any precise agenda, just catching up and hearing what they had been working on and what was on their plate.

But I noticed after about two months – that was about two cycles through everyone in our company – that my time was getting too fragmented, and I felt like it was harder getting into the ‘flow state’.  Yes I was getting more feedback, but it also made my agenda feel hectic.

Overall I thought, “I’m not doing better as a CEO because of this”. I knew I needed to retune things.

I dropped the one-on-ones. Instead I’ve moved to weekly Friday lunches with small huddles of 4-5 people from across the organisation. I’ve made it clear to the team that they always have my time, if they need it. If there’s a topic, put a time in my calendar, but if there’s no topic – skip it and let’s save it for lunch.

Also Read: 15 more awesome startups that will be apart of TOP100 APAC 2019

I still get ideas and feedback from the ground – and I’ve noticed that there’s also the benefit that colleagues have the opportunity to catch up with people they mightn’t necessarily get to talk to every day, so there’s a lot of cross-company team building.

People don’t know as much about each other as I expected, we need to do more to encourage the team to talk to each other — especially in a place like Sleek with massive diversity of jobs, nationalities and cultures. I’ve found that when they know each other, they like each other, and work better together.

In terms of feedback I feel like we’ve gone from nothing (no structured feedback) to something that didn’t really work well, to something that I feel works.

It’s progress.

The road to success is non-linear, but I’m proud of where we are now. Do I have resolutions for 2019? Definitely… but that’s a topic for another time.

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