This heavily-funded online automobile marketplace has done everything possible to make its employees happy and healthy

What is the greatest asset of an enterprise? Is it a great business idea, a team of experienced and veteran leaders or great infrastructure and resources?

While every aspect has a significant role to play, it is the employees of an organisation that bring all these elements together and turn ideas into reality. This, then makes employees arguably the most significant organisational resource, which demand focused attention and engagement.

In India, online automobile marketplace Droom has been giving great focus to employee engagement and care, organising fun activities. The company claims careful planning has gone in identifying the right kind of activities that result in holistic care of employees.

Recently, Droom tied up with one of the leading spa and massage service providers in Gurugram, which will frequently organise Zumba training sessions, rejuvenating massages, chair yoga sessions and meditation days at its office.

While Zumba, chair yoga and meditation sessions are to be held once in a week, the massage sessions will be available to Droom employees once in a month.

According to Founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal, it is the organisational constituents that determine its success. “Employee engagement and attention is an avenue that needs considerable attention and at Droom, we ensure every one of us feels constantly connected to the team, colleagues and the organisation and the bond grows stronger throughout the hierarchies.”

Droom was founded by Aggarwal, who is also Co-founder and former CEO of ShopClues, an e-commerce unicorn in India. Droom is an online marketplace for buying and selling new and used automobiles.

Droom is headquartered in Gurugram, with a team size of over 365. It has four marketplace formats — B2C, C2C, C2B and B2B. The platform offers a range of categories from bicycle to plane and all automobile services such as warranty, RSA, insurance and auto loan.

Droom boasts of having nearly 250,000 auto dealers in more than 500 cities across India on its platform and 27.3 million monthly visitors.

Droom is a Singapore holding company with subsidiaries in India and the United States. The company has so far raised close to US$125 million over six rounds of funding.

Some of the prominent investors are Lightbox, Beenext, Beenos, Digital Garage, Toyota Tsusho Corporation, Integrated Assets Management and family office of Japanese investor Joe Hirao, Founder ZIGExN.

Last May, Droom secured US$30 million in Series D funding, led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation, a member of automobile giant Toyota Group, and co-led by Japanese tech company Digital Garage.

Image Credit: Droom.

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The unicorn status is a mean and not an end, according to Bukalapak President and Co-Founder Fajrin Rasyid

Get insights from Fajrin Rasyid and more at Echelon Asia Summit 2019. Happening on May 23-24 at the Singapore Expo. Tickets are now available at US$10 each!

The year 2018 was fantastic for Indonesian e-commerce startup Bukalapak.

After expanding to fintech verticals with the launch of their gold and mutual funds trading in 2017, the startup continued on adding new offerings for their customers with the launch of its O2O initiative Mitra Bukalapak, which enables individuals or small businesses owners to act as an agent for Bukalapak services.

With the launch of the initiative, the company managed to secure a total of 1.2 million new users (500,000 small businesses or warung owners and more than 700,000 individuals) in addition to the four million merchants in its online marketplace.

The company had also secured a partnership with Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and the Ministry of Research and Technology to launch an artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud innovation lab at the campus, in addition to its own R&D centre.

Last but not least, Bukalapak had been crowned as Indonesia’s fourth unicorn startup through its latest funding round.

Also Read: Bukalapak confirms new funding round by Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund

In an interview at the startup’s office in South Jakarta with e27, President and Co-Founder Fajrin Rasyid explains their views on the unicorn status.

“Being a unicorn is a means, not an end. It is just like gas stations; we need to stop at a gas station to add fuel [to our vehicle] so that we can reach our destination … We don’t build companies in order to look for investments. We are here to serve the customers,” he says.

“However, we are grateful of the trust given by our users and investors, which had encouraged us to give more to our customers, employees, and stakeholders,” he adds.

The sleeping giant

During our interview, we also discussed about the state of Indonesian e-commerce industry. Despite being the breeding ground of four unicorn startups, and continuing to receive a flow of funds from abroad, Rasyid sees that there are many parts of Indonesia’s potential that remains unknown to the international community.

“Some even called Indonesia the biggest invisible country,” he points out.

Also Read: Naver Corp possibly takes part in Bukalapak’s potential fresh funding

This has led to Indonesian talents being overlooked by the global tech community. Rasyid describes how the global tech industry is more familiar with tech talents from China, India, and Russia, but not with Indonesia. Meanwhile, there are actually many Indonesian talents who are working in tech giants such as Google and Facebook, indicating their level of capability.

Apart from the issue of visibility, the e-commerce industry in Indonesia also faced several challenges, including in the matter of payments. This issue has led to an even greater problem for industry players: Lack of trust towards online services.

“Many people [in Indonesia] have gone online, but only limited to functions such as chatting and social media. The percentage of people shopping online leaves much to be desired, and this is strongly related to trust,” Rasyid explains.

The launch of services such as Mitra Bukalapak is a form of the company’s effort to tackle the issue of trust among potential users, apart from introducing escrow system to their platform in 2011-2012.

“[Mitra Bukalapak] is able to give an introduction to online shopping through a more intimate setting with customers. Some people may feel overwhelmed when they first open our app, but when they are being offered our services by their owner of the warung, whom they might already known, it can help build trust between the customers and our platform,”

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Get insights from Fajrin Rasyid and more at Echelon Asia Summit 2019. Happening on May 23-24 at the Singapore Expo. Tickets are now available at US$10 each.

Image Credit: Bukalapak

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The household name insurance enters into partnership with the digital healthcare provider based in Singapore, Whitecoat

WhiteCoat, the Singapore-founded on-demand telemedicine service provider, announced that it has been appointed by AIA Singapore to be its telehealth provider.

With the partnership, WhiteCoat will extend further its corporate client reach to AIA’s 1.2 million corporate base and its dependant access to qualified Singapore-registered general practitioners (GPs) in the form of a one-stop service covering diagnosis, treatment, medical referrals, and delivery of medication.

Furthermore, AIA and WhiteCoat will also co-create a digitally integrated platform in Singapore which facilitates claim processing for telemedicine services, presenting unprecedented convenience for the global insurer’s corporate clients and their employees and dependents.

WhiteCoat’s telemedicine services are done via video calls and have been dubbed as a solution to overcome both rising healthcare costs and hectic work schedules faced by employees in Singapore.

WhiteCoat’s mobile application allows users to video call any of WhiteCoat’s Singapore-registered GPs from wherever and whenever.

Also Read: (In photos) India’s Droom is your dream workplace

The approach offered is eliminating travel time and reducing waiting times to see a doctor.

“We are honoured to partner AIA as its exclusive telehealth provider for its corporate clients. We are dedicated to simplifying complicated processes reliably and safely, and making it easy for patients to navigate the intricacies of the healthcare system to make informed medical decisions early in order to prevent disease progression,” said Bryan Koh, CEO of WhiteCoat.

WhiteCoat’s target market includes travelers, especially those who visit places where language may be a challenge. WhiteCoat presents itself as a trusted doctor to be consulted with anytime, anywhere.

“Next, aside from continuing to put our patients first, our plan is to materialise our vision toward transformative care utilising data-driven technology to make WhiteCoat the everyday go-to digital health provider for all healthcare needs,” Koh added.

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Plus, Aida raises Series A round and Jack Ma defends 996 culture

MaGIC announces Dzuleira Abu Bakar to take over top job 

Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC) has announced the appointment of Dzuleira Abu Bakar today by the Malaysian Ministry of Entrepreneur Development (MED). She was the motor behind Cradle Seed Ventures (CSV) for the past 2.5 years and will be replacing Ashran Ghazi as the new MaGIC CEO.

Dzuleira Abu Bakar brings on board her 15 years of VC & PE experience to focus on driving national entrepreneurship via MED, according to Digital News Asia.

MED has been under the spotlight for stalling on the appointment of MaGIC’s new CEO, but Abu Bakar’s appointment now has been welcomed positively, according to an aware resource. “She is a good choice for the role. Learning from Mavcap’s and CSV’s dealflow and industry relationships, I’m sure she has the experience to differentiate between ‘valuable’ and ‘investible’ ventures,” the source told Digital News Asia.

Jumper.ai integrates social media product for Amazon merchants —[PaymentsSource]

The Singaporean social-selling startup Jumper.ai has launched a product that allows people to buy Amazon goods online without ever having to visit the website. According to PaymentsSource, the product allows Merchants who sell via Amazon Prime to complete the checkout process via their social media accounts.

Jumper.ai Co-founder Nyha Shree posted on Facebook that it is the first deal of its kind with Amazon.

The product allows people to post sales links in their social media accounts (like Instagram) which help people complete an entire e-commerce checkout process within the platform.

Jack Ma defends China tech 996 culture

Asking, ‘if not now, then when’, Jack Ma defended China’s 996 tech working culture last week, according to CNBC.

He sent a message to employees via WeChat that said employees should be grateful for the opportunity not granted to workers in other industries.

The workplace culture has recently come under scrutiny after recent reports have suggested the industry faces a much higher burnout rate than its global peers.

Aida nabs Series A from trio of investors — [e27]

Singapore-based machine learning insights provider AIDA Technologies announced that it has raised an undisclosed amount of series A round from Mastercard, Kuok Ventures of Kuok Group, and Singapore government-tied SG Innovate.

According to Deal Street Asia, the company noted that the investment will be focussed on supporting its market penetration and North Asia’s expansion, especially Hong Kong and Japan.

AIDA Technologies was founded in 2016 by its chief executive Dr. Tan Geok Leng. Tan Geok Leng was a senior fellow and executive director at A*STAR, the Singapore government’s research agency.

Singapore trials facial recognition technology at Malaysia Johor Strait immigration check point — [CNA]

The Singapore Immigration and Checkpoints Authority announced today they are testing a system that allows people to “breeze-through” the immigration checkpoint at Tuas Link, according to Channel News Asia.

The system would not require people to register their passport as the system automatically registers their information. Currently, the trial is open to Singapore citizens whose passport names ends with the letter K.

The trial, which was announced today, is set to run for six months.

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Mental health and wellness is a real problem in the startup world and these four Echelon speakers want to provide some advice

Already excited for Echelon? Buy your tickets here! 

As with most of our social media life, the life we see online is a curated — and often inaccurate — version of ourselves. This is even more true for a Founder, who needs to maintain a certain public perception in order to benefit the company.

The crazy part of this is its also a job with a ton of pressure, a lot of stress and bouts of incredible loneliness.

This life can lead to serious bouts with depression, troubles with anxiety and a general mental health that is far from ideal. Thankfully, it is a fairly well-discussed topic in the Southeast Asian startup scene.

The ecosystem seems to be trying to find  solutions and genuinely wants to be supportive of people who are struggling during their entrepreneurship journey.

At Echelon Asia Summit 2019, we will have four fantastic speakers on stage to discuss the topic. Let’s meet them!

Panel: Why it is dangerous to be a “rockstar entepreneur” 24/7: The importance of mental wellness

Moderator: Zi En Wong, Co-founder, Hasiko

Wong is a veteran of the startup ecosystem, having Founded a startup that connected corporates and startups named Detecq. Her startup was acquired in 2017. During her time as the Founder of Detecq, she also Founded the Singapore branch of Founder Institute, a global pre-accelerator company from the Silicon Valley.

So she clearly has the startup chops, but what makes her unique to host this panel is her time as the Co-founder of Hasiko, a company that mixes physical, mental and emotional wellbeing to help people live a sustainable lifestyle.

The company believes that a well-balanced life is a key to success, and Hasiko works to help people find this place in their lives.

Panelist: Bjorn Lee, Founder, MindFi

During his time as a Product Manager for the Zopim-Zendesk acquisition integration, Lee discovered firsthand the risks of a high-stress no-sleep lifestyle.

Lee decided to pursue meditation and went on a deep-dive into the practice. As he puts it, it was a fantastic experience, but it isn’t overly sustainable in our day-to-day lives. So, in an effort to help regular people integrate meditation into their schedules, he Founded MindFi.

MindFi is a meditation app that helps people pursue active mindfulness. This may mean learning how to be mindful during meals, finding a post-work meditation practice or learning useful breathing exercises.

Panelist: Desmond M. Koh, Managing Director, Southeast Asia, BNP Paribas

In the world of wealth management, Koh is an important person, helping BNP Paribas achieve the designation as the top bank for sustainable finance in 2019, according to EuroMoney.

But the reason he is on this panel is his passion for wellness. He is part of two organisations — Mind Warrior and Compassion Capitalist — that work to help people find the balance in their lives that they need to achieve their full potential.

Koh works to evangilise his ideology of ‘mindful flow states’ to help people achieve the correct balance between mind, body and spirit. His hope is that his sharings will help make the world around him a better place.

Panelist: William TOV, Associate Professor of Psychology, Singapore Management University

William TOV is a psychology expert, having received a Phd from the University of Illinois in 2008. But more relevant for this panel are is specific research interests.

TOV has spent a lot of time looking into the impact that well-being and personality make on our everyday lives.

This includes how social media affects our wellbeing, the social implications of certain personality traits, how culture and society impacts the individual and policy measures governments can pursue.

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Already excited for Echelon? Buy your tickets here! 

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Five examples of AI in healthcare and how this collaboration will grow more important in the coming years

The healthcare industry is undergoing a tumultuous period of change where it’s being forced to evolve in the face of rapidly growing consumer demand.

With an increasing global average lifespan, rising healthcare demands have pushed modern hospitals and healthcare providers to their limits and forced to call upon any tool that can help them provide positive patient outcomes.

Over the past few years, it’s become obvious that AI has become nearly unrivalled in its ability to help hospitals and medical experts heal patients while cutting costs.

Here are five powerful examples of AI in healthcare, and why this technology will only grow more important in the forthcoming years.

1. Flagler Hospital is using AI to create health-enhancing Clinical Pathways

For those who doubt the ability of hospitals around the nation to innovate and make use of AI, look no further than Flagler Hospital, where healthcare professionals have harnessed the power of intelligent machines to create care-enhancing clinical pathways.

They have also drastically cut the costs of providing healthcare. The Saint Augustine, Florida-based hospital has decided to use AI to help improve the treatment of pneumonia, sepsis, and other high-cost conditions to wondrous effects.

The AI program analyzes clinical pathways for patients with high-cost conditions and recommends the most efficient option for doctors; it’s already expected to save at least US$1,356.35 per pneumonia patient.

As hospitals become swamped with more and more patients, they’ll find it necessary to follow in the footsteps of Flagler Hospital and employ AI programs that help them deal with high-cost conditions.

Ultimately, expediting the treatment process and saving hospitals money could be the most impactful way that AI comes to change the future of the healthcare industry.

2. Machine learning is supercharging the medical diagnostics process

Medical diagnostics are about to get a lot easier than ever before thanks to the help of machine learning applications, which are supercharging the ability of healthcare professionals to comb through huge reams of patient data in pursuit of crucial insights that could mean the difference between a healthy patient and a suffering one.

According to the Institute of Medicine at the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, diagnostic errors contribute to approximately 10 per cent of all patient deaths. This means that any innovation to help make the diagnostics process more efficient is sorely needed in the modern healthcare system.

Hospitals can use AI for a wide range of purposes when it comes to diagnostics; chatbots, for instance, can have friendly conversations with patients over the phone or computer before they actually head into a hospital, and thereby prevent any hospital errors later on.

This will cut down the number of people who needlessly head into the ER when they’re only suffering from a minor condition, and chatbots could also help lure in patients who are otherwise untrusting of doctors and medical experts.

3. AI is making analysing patient records easier

Combing through a huge sum of patient data is never easy, as any medical professional can attest to. In the future, this process could be greatly expedited by injecting AI into the works, as a number of healthcare providers are already finding machine learning techniques useful when it comes to analyzing patient records.

A recent research report demonstrates that systems like IBM’s Watson can be used to screen literally millions of patient records for clues to identify who may be at a higher risk for cancer.

More hospitals and medical researchers will doubtlessly come to view the application of machine learning to patient records as an essential part of digitising their operations and moving headfirst into the 21st-century healthcare environment.

4. Medical image interpretation is about to get better

Interpreting medical images, x-rays, and scans aren’t easy, yet it’s a crucial part of monitoring patient health and ensuring that diseases are detected early on.

As another recent research paper on AI and its application into various areas uncovered, images of brain tumours can be analysed by machine learning programs that learn to recognise common trends and can recommend useful insights to researchers.

Also Read: Solidifying Singapore’s standing as a leading global blockchain hub

The future of medical image interpretation is going to become dominated by intelligent machines – human workers in this area can legitimately fear automation, as software is likely to prove much more efficient at image analysis and pattern recognition than the human brain.

5. Robots are becoming surgery assistants

Perhaps the starkest example of AI in healthcare is how robots are slowly but steadily becoming surgery assistants. While some healthcare professionals dismissed the idea of AI being useful in the operating room, a number of medical procedures have already been conducted with AI-assisted robotics playing a key role in the process.

The New York Post has already reported on one of the world’s earliest examples of micro-surgery conducted with the assistance of AI, and these instances are only likely to become more common as the tech becomes cheaper and more widely accessible in the medical industry.

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Image by aleutie

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

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The e-scooter startup plans to expand regionally, starting with local presence in Singapore

Lime, the mobility service startup that provides e-scooter for an easier commute, announced a new headquarter set up in Singapore that will be officially opened in the third quarter of this year. The new headquarter will be the hub of its Asia Pacific operation, as reported by The Straits Time.

Lime chose the Republic as its strategic location due to its “strong potential for growth” and high existing adoption rate of personal mobility devices.

Lime said it plans to expand local capabilities by including government relations, partnerships, brand, and operations from its central business district-located hub.

Lime is following its electric scooters pilot with Ascendas-Singbridge group back in November 2018. The pilot then continued with an investment in in-house research and development for new e-scooter models which it said: “meet local safety and usage needs”.

“The country’s strengths in terms of infrastructure readiness, macroeconomic status coupled with the presence of progressive government support and regulation made this decision an easy and natural one,” said Ashwin Purushottam, Lime’s general manager for Singapore.

Also Read: Space sustainability company Astroscale receives US$30M funding, expands to US

Lime said it also has collaborated with various stakeholders to promote a sustainable and responsible riding culture throughout the city to kickstart its expansion.

“This development will help set the groundwork for the firm’s Asia-Pacific expansion as it is geographically well-positioned as a communications touchpoint to support and connect the firm’s regional offices,” said Anthony Fleo, Lime’s regional general manager of APAC.

The American company currently operates in more than 100 cities across at least 20 countries, with over 10 million sign-ups on its app and over 34 million rides taken.
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Aiming to launch with a “perfect” version of your product is a blatant waste of time

I’m the co-founder of The Kint Story, an online platform dedicated to rebranding second-hand clothing so that they’re no longer seen as second best.

Currently, we are in a pre-accelerator programme, The Start, run by the organizers behind Startup Weekend. This 12-week long programme commenced in January this year.

Here’s what I learnt so far.

Being in The Start has rapidly accelerated our learning and progress. Even though both my co-founder Elisa, and I have worked in several startups and were also part of National University of Singapore’s Overseas Colleges (New York), this is the first time we are running a business of our own. From this programme, we’ve managed to get help in many areas.

For one, The Start provides us with mentors that are relevant to our business, and are able to give us valuable advice. Many times we commit mistakes that these successful entrepreneurs have made earlier on in their own journeys and being able to get advice from them helps to steer us back to the right path.

1. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. People want to help you.

There is no need to shy away from asking for help because you’re afraid that you might appear inadequate. The journey of every entrepreneur is never smooth sailing. There are so many entrepreneurs out there who have been through your struggles and are more than willing to advise you because they fully understand the situation that you are in.

Also Read: Space sustainability company Astroscale receives US$30M funding, expands to US

2. Your product does not have to be perfect when you launch.

Aiming to launch into the market with a “perfect” version of your product is a waste of your time.

When we first joined The Start, we had set a goal of launching with this ideal version of our website. It was only after our consultation with the mentors that made us realise that what we already had was good enough. After all, the first version of your product will rarely hit the nail on the head.

Your product will always have to go through several rounds of reiteration based on the feedback you get from your consumers because what they want will often be vastly different from what you had hypothesized. Instead, launch your product with the core features that you want to test out and work things out from there.

3. Listen to advice, but always remember what you stand for.

Everyone that you speak to will perceive your business differently because they come from different industries and are shaped by their own experiences. Being in The Start has given us the opportunity to speak to so many outstanding mentors, and each of them had varying views on our business.

What we’ve learnt is to take all these advice with an open mind, but to also always remember what we started The Kint Story for and the vision that we have, which is to reduce textile wastage.

4. All the resources you need are already out there waiting for you.

It is very easy to feel like the problem you are facing in your business has no solution. That is absolutely not the case. Being exposed to entrepreneurs working on different businesses has taught us to creatively implement solutions from other fields to our business.

Also Read: E-scooter company Lime to enter APAC region with Singapore headquarter

Therefore, do not limit yourself to the industry you are working in, instead, speak to the people around you because you never know what you might discover. If you are in need of money, there are many grants out there that you can apply for, you just have to be proactive in searching for them. This also ties back to our first point- do not be afraid to ask for help.

5. Always remember to have fun.

We received this valuable piece of advice from one of our mentors at The Start. He said, “Always remember to have fun because when you enjoy what you’re doing, your customers will be able to tell.” This really resonated with us.

It is so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you have to stick to only one way of doing things when what you did manage to strike a chord with your consumers. But doing things repetitively will not make your business mundane for you, but for your customers as well.

I think — especially when you’re still a young startup — it is a great time to be experimenting and introducing features that you yourself are excited about because you never know what might be the next big thing for your business.

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About The Start’s Pre-Accelerator Demo Day

15 April 2019, at Developer Space @ Google Singapore. This is the day when we will be showing potential investors and partners what we have worked on over the past 12 weeks in this programme.

RSVP now here.

About the Kint
We devote a lot of effort to changing the negative perception towards preloved clothing, by recreating the first-hand experience you get when you shop for brand new clothing. Each piece of clothing you see on our website has been carefully curated, washed, modelled for, and will be delivered to your doorstep after you make a purchase.

Visit us here, and follow us on Instagram!

Image by samuraitop

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

The post The lessons I learnt from being in The Start Pre-accelerator appeared first on e27.

Tik Tok is not as sticky as it seems, but more important, Bytedance isn’t going all-in

Let us begin this article with an anecdote. A quick survey of the young employees at e27, my teenage cousin, and my friend’s kid all resulted in the same word when asked about Tik Tok.

“It’s so cringe-worthy.”

This is true, but it is also part of the charm of the app. It is a place to enjoy watching people making fools of themselves and being rewarded for giving up their ‘cool’. As everyone eventually figures out at some point in their mid-20s, being cool is a gigantic waste of time and energy. In life, it is far better to be Phil Dunphy than Michael Bluth.

The earnest sweetness has helped the company cross 500 million users. It has clearly become the next ‘best bet’ social media startup to dethrone Facebook — and, more importantly, its incredibly valuable Instagram property.

Instagram is twice the size of Tik Tok (it claims over one billion monthly active users), but 500 million people on Tik Tok is enough to strike fear into the heart of Zuckerberg.

Plus, it has the much desired demographics. Two-thirds of the platform is used by people under the age of 30; it may be the most successful Chinese startup in the US and it is seeing huge growth in India. So, theoretically, it could control huge user numbers from the world’s three biggest countries by population.

Also Read: Warung Pintar CEO: How my grandmother inspired our vision for Indonesian mom-and-pop shops

Tik Tok grew by over 400 per cent between 2017 and 2018 and is now a mainstream app. The question is, will this explosion continue? Or, are we approaching the ceiling whereby user growth will flatten a la Snapchat and Twitter?

Unfortunately (there, my rooting interests have been revealed), I think we are reaching the ceiling. Tik Tok does not represent a true threat to Instagram and the reason is fairly simple:

The product is not conducive for content creation and Bytedance will not go all-in on challenging Facebook.

Creating content

Instagram attracts so many users thanks largely to the dramatic increase in smartphone camera quality. For most people, it is very easy to grab a picture in 30 seconds, throw it through some filters or third party apps and publish a photo of reasonable quality.

Instagram Stories is even easier. Just lift up the camera, pretend life is awesome, ad a poll or gif and voila! You are now Instafamous.

Tik Tok is an entirely different beast.

While it has the same ‘pretty people’ advantage as any social network, Tik Tok also has a significantly higher barrier to entry for content creators. Currently, my feed includes teenagers jumping off their balcony onto a beanbag chair, acrobats doing front-flips over their cars, and a time lapse of a fantastic piece of artwork.

This videos are all fantastic, but they require A LOT of effort. Not minutes, but hours. If we include transitions, music, editing, costumes, make-up, dancing, and trends, the platform becomes intimidating for new users.

It is fun to scroll through these videos for a half-hour every now and then, but it eventually becomes repetitive and loses its stickiness after awhile.

Statistically, only 29 per cent of users open the app once per month. A data point that backs up the eye test.

Instagram works because, after the inevitability of getting bored with the lives of others, the next step is to bore others with your life. Then, visiting the app is more about checking up on how the latest post performed.

Tik Tok has similar qualities, but again, it takes at least an hour to create a video that has any chance of getting traction. More likely, it becomes a half-day project. That is a lot of effort to put into a few likes.

Then, to circle back around, there is the cringe-worthiness of it all. It is pleasant to watch someone pretend they can get a boyfriend by turning on the faucet and then flicking their bathroom lights on and off. It is an entirely different proposition to convince the average person to do this themselves.

Fly in the ointment

Recently, in the US, something has happened that does significant damage to this argument. It is called “Old Town Road”, a song by Lil Nas X that has absolutely exploded and will certainly be the most hated song in the country by the end of 2019.

It also was made popular almost entirely through Tik Tok, a platfrom Lil Nas X told The Verge he was quite familiar with.

Lil Nas X uploaded the song for free on Tik Tok, so technically he gets zero dollars out of the song’s virality. However, the song became so popular it began to leak beyond Tik Tok, where it eventually gained the attention of mainstream channels and is now, easily, the most popular song in America.

Is this the future of Tik Tok? Is it the next YouTube? Which is more of a platform that creates stars rather than one where already-stars connect with fans.

Maybe Tik Tok is the place where nobodies can launch America’s ‘Hit of the Summer’.

Also Read: [Updated] Carousell raises US$56 million at valuation of US$550 million

Tik Tok seems to think so, as the South China Morning Post reported today, the company is working to launch a Spotify-type of service. While this is a more logical step than its Lark product (which I will discuss below), it points to a major issue for Tik Tok’s ability to compete with Instagram:

Bytedance does not appear to want to go all-in.

Focus, focus, focus

Bytedance is using its newfound success as an opportunity to expand into all sorts of verticals, and in doing so risks becoming a Master of None.

This month, the company launched Lark, a Slack-like productivity tool. As mentioned above, it appears a Spotify service in on the way.

It is attacking an entirely different user, and in doing so will need to shift resources away from Tik Tok.

Imagine if Slack decided to launch a social media platform? They would be pilloried by investors, the media, and their users. For some reason, Bytedance has largely avoided criticisms for its decision to launch Lark.

The company has found itself in a position to compete with the global giants Facebook, Snap Inc., and Twitter. Now it wants simultaneously build a product to compete with Google, Slack, and Apple?

At this point, Bytedance should just launch a food delivery service like the rest of the tech ecosystem.

As more and more stories come out asking if Tik Tok will replace Instagram, remind yourself that it will not. Here are the simple reasons.

1. Tik Tok is not sticky – only 29 per cent of users open the app once per month
2. Tik Tok is hard for newbies to build a following
3. Bytedance has not gone all in on Tik-Tok

Tik Tok may very well replace Snapchat, but Instagram? No way.

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Singapore-based VC PSA unboXed signs an agreement with Israeli company theDOCK Innovation Hub, seeking to benefit port, maritime, and supply chain sector

Singapore-based VC arm of PSA International, PSA unboXed, has entered into an agreement with Israel-based startup theDOCK Innovation Hub, global ports, shipping, and maritime logistics hub, that will see both parties leveraging technologies to benefit the port, maritime, and supply chain sector.

The agreement notes that theDOCK will facilitate for PSA unboXed in scouting, screening, and investing in promising startups that focus on providing solutions addressing specific challenges cited by PSA.

The partnership itself will be marked with a first-ever maritime tech Hackathon in Israel, dedicated to a list of challenges which reflect the digital transformation needs in the port and shipping sector.

The call for applications for the Hackathon will be published in the coming weeks and the event itself will take place in June 2019.

“We are excited by the prospects of engaging creative ideation and solution providers to tackle the transformation of this sector. The specific interest will cover areas such as ports and its adjacent spaces including maritime, logistics, supply chain, and all that is associated with containerized cargo flow,” said Nir Gartzman, Co-Founder and COO at theDOCK.

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theDOCK connects creative startups with worldwide maritime corporations by matching its technology solutions with the challenges and needs of its corporate partners.

“We believe that this strategic partnership with theDOCK will help PSA benefit from Israel’s innovation ecosystem, and improve the dynamism of the industry as we strive to become the go-to partner in the startup ecosystem for ideation, co-creation, and validation of technology and solutions for the port, maritime, and supply chain spaces,” said Elton Fong, Vice President of PSA unboXed.

Aside from PSA unboXed, theDOCK’s partners include Wartsila, Lloyd’s Register, Kirby Corporation, DSV, Maersk, Cargotec, and others.
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