It’s a hard adventure, but it’s also a rewarding and fun one, as well

I spent a large part of my youth playing video games. RPGs, like the Final Fantasy series, and tactical RPGs, like the Fire Emblem series, were my favorites. There was something riveting about a group of characters banding together and taking on challenges and dungeons, one after another, and eventually saving the world at the end.

As I spent more time in the entrepreneurial world, I noticed increasing number of parallels to RPGs. It was a fun realization because it frames how we can approach entrepreneurship for younger aspiring startup founders. As I mentor other startup founders, I find myself using these comparisons more often (provided my mentees play RPGs as well).

In this article, I will introduce some of the more obvious parallels! This comparison is not meant to reduce entrepreneurship into a game (it’s serious business). Instead, I’d like to propose an alternative and hopefully refreshing way to think about entrepreneurship, especially for the younger audience.

#1 You and Your Co-founders = Main Characters

Shout-out to fellow founders out there: you guys are the main characters of your own journey.

Think of the co-founding as a group of adventurers — the CEO as a warrior, and the CTO as a wizard or vice-versa. Each character comes with their own skills, strengths, and weaknesses. These adventurers also come with equipment, and how much starting gold they have.

There are rare founders who are multi-class characters that can equip many different hats, but those are few and far between and it makes more sense to engage in division of labor.

Eventually, you’d have enough gold to hire your own minions (employees) to do your bidding. That’s when your team expands and you start taking on more strategic decision making for your underlings to execute.

Balance is important — you wouldn’t want a team filled with nothing but warriors, do you? You’d be wiped out if you encounter monsters that are immune to physical attacks.

In addition, having a team is advantageous because it’s important to have the right mix of skills and equipment. Those things determine how well you fight monsters. Monsters? Speaking of monsters …

#2 Problems to solve = Monsters

Adapted from http://nes-sprite.resampled.ru/ff/. Credits to Polar Koala and Dixet.

There are many monsters (problems) to slay (solve) in this world, each with their unique properties and levels of difficulty. Adventurers band together to fight these monsters. When you slay those monsters, they drop loot and money. Slay enough, your team levels up and get to buy sweet equipment.

Adventurers that slay low-leveled monsters will level up slowly and they’ll take forever to buy new equipment. You can grind all day, but it’ll never match up to those adventurers who tackle increasingly stronger monsters over time. At this stage, adventurers can either continue slaying monsters as usual, i.e. become long self-sustaining companies, or save the world/join a bigger group of adventurers, i.e. go for an exit via IPO/M&A respectively.

What if adventurers want to slay larger, bigger, monsters? Introducing … merchants.

Also read: Failures teach us way more than the successes, and other lessons I learned as an entrepreneur

P.S. The thing is, sometimes you have a team that suits up and heads out…only to find that there is no monsters to kill. So make sure you identify the right monsters to kill, else at the end of the day you might just disband after running out of time and resources.

#3 VC = Nobles

For a price, you will gain power and equipment. Source: YouTube.

You’re doing well, slaying smaller monsters and you think you’re ready to slay larger ones. However, the equipment and party size required to tackle these huge monsters are just too much. These monsters can span continents and/or multiple areas. It’s a humongous monster, but it offers great rewards as well. Furthermore, other groups of adventurers are trying to kill it at the same time.

To compete with other adventurers and to overcome the huge monster, adventurers will now have to make an appeal to nobles. These nobles provide excellent equipment, money, and advice for you to slay humongous monsters. In return, when you save the world, they get a piece of the reward as well.

P.S. Admittedly, it was hard drawing deciding whether to consider VCs nobles or kings. Why aren’t VCs kings? They serve the funds they raise from. VCs do have bosses too, just so you know. That’s a topic for another day.

Conclusion

Using RPGs as a lens was an amusing exercise, but one that makes sense as well. As I continue on my startup journey in fundMyLife, it does really feel like I’m in an RPG with my co-founder. It’s a hard adventure, but it’s also a rewarding and fun one as well.

Have any more comparisons that you’d like to share? Please comment below and let me know! Looking forward to gathering enough material for Part II.

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This article originally appeared on Medium, and was first published on e27 on September 3, 2018.

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

Photo by Pierrick VAN-TROOST on Unsplash

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The funding will accelerate its growth to help more entrepreneurs succeed through its accelerator programmes, startup ecosystem activations, and corporate innovation

Techstars​, a global seed-stage startup accelerator, announced today it has secured US$42 million in an investment round led by ​SVB Financial Group​, the holding company of Silicon Valley Bank.

Existing investors including US-based VC firm Foundry Group also participated.

As per a press note, this funding will accelerate Techstars’s growth to help more entrepreneurs succeed through seed-stage accelerators, global startup ecosystem activations, corporate innovation, and entrepreneur-focused events.

Techstars runs two accelerators in Singapore annually — one with Rakuten and the other with Eastern Pacific Shipping. It is now planning to expand its presence in the region. “We certainly plan to expand further in Southeast Asia in the future. This is a primary reason why we raised this capital — to speed our further global expansion and to help connect the Techstars network even more deeply into Southeast Asia. We recognise the tremendous opportunities in the region to extend our investment activity there, as well as to potentially help build strong ecosystems,” Techstars Co-founder and co-CEO David Cohen told e27.

Founded in 2006 by Cohen and David Brown (co-CEO), Brad Feld and Jared Polis, Techstars is a worldwide network that enables founders to connect with entrepreneurs, experts, mentors, alumni, investors, community leaders, and corporations to grow their companies.

Techstars consists of both an investment management business with US$500 million in assets under management, as well as an operating business that is approaching US$100 million in annual revenue. Its investment activity now includes 49 accelerator programmes in 35 cities across 16 countries, deploying US$80 million into nearly 500 startups on an annual basis.

Also Read: Techstars is helping to grow Southeast Asia’s startup scene; Here’s how they did it

The firm claims its portfolio of 1,900 companies currently attracts an annual US$2 billion in downstream investment from the venture capital industry. It also invests in global emerging startup communities by operating approximately 1,000 annual ​Techstars Startup Weekend​ events in 600 cities across 120 countries to help surface and support future high growth companies.

Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, Techstars employs more than 280 people across 20 countries.

“Being the largest and most active global seed investor requires a mindset and approach that is completely distinct from traditional venture capital,” said Cohen. “Techstars has created and is scaling an entirely new type of early-stage private equity asset.”

Through its operating activities, Techstars’ partners with ​nearly 100 corporations​ to provide corporate innovation solutions.

SVB Capital President John China, who has joined Techstars’s Board of Directors, said: “The Techstars team is well-positioned to keep developing its platform and enable and support founders, investors and startup ecosystems around the globe,” said China. “SVB has a long history working with Techstars and its portfolio companies and we’re enthusiastic about the opportunity to further our relationship and make a bigger positive impact on the innovation economy.”

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These five ventures have the potential to bring hundreds of millions of people into the mainstream

The kind of social impact that startups around the world have created is massive. They not only make people’s lives easier and better, but also generate millions of employments in their respective markets and contribute to the economic growth. Some build companies with the single goal of profit, while some others have twin objectives of profit making and impact making.

Of all the industries, fintech is probably a vertical that has brought in massive changes to the lives of millions of people around the globe. The industry has played a vital role in democratising the banking industry and level the playing field. Fintech has forced banks to be innovative and competitive.

Since the beginning of the fintech revolution, hundred of products and solutions have been developed and deployed by different startups, targeting the underbanked, or those living on the bottom of the income pyramid.

Here we introduce to you five such startups, which are striving to create an impact through their innovative products in their respective markets in Southeast Asia.

Kredivo (Indonesia)

Getting a loan from a bank is no mean task. If you approach a bank for a loan of any kind, the bank will ask you a lot of questions, check your creditworthiness and ask you to pledge a collateral. Getting a loan sanctioned by the bank may take weeks and even months.

Kredivo, a product of Indonesian startup FinAccel, aims to address this with its a digital payment solution. It provides different options of payment methods and terms to help customers break large payments into monthly, affordable, and safer payments. The startup gives users the convenience to buy now and pay later in 30 days with no interest or with 3-month, 6-month, or 12-month installments. Users need to put in basic details and their social networking account details to avail the loans provided by Kredivo.

The company uses data science in credit-scoring algorithms, combined with more traditional measures such as credit history and income, to determine creditworthiness, unlocking access to credit to a whole new set of consumers.

To date, Kredivo has raised more than US$30 million in funding, from investors including Telkomsel Mitra Inovasi (TMI), MDI Ventures, Jungle Ventures, Openspace Ventures, GMO Venture Partners, Alpha JWC Ventures, and 500 Startups.

MyCash Online (Singapore, Malaysia)

Being migrants themselves, Mehedi Hasan Sumon and Nurol Haq know the major challenges faced by the massive 40 million migrant population in Malaysia — one being the inability to access various financial services, as most of them are unbanked. The duo’s urge to solve this problem drove them to start MyCash Online, an online financial marketplace for the underbanked migrant population in Southeast Asia.

In 2014, the two met while working for a Value Added Service (VAS) company in Kuala Lumpur. Whenever they met, they would talk about the problems of migrant population in Malaysia, particularly those coming from Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. They wanted to develop a simple and cheaper financial alternative for them. This led them to start MyCash Online.

Incorporated in 2015 and headquartered in Singapore, MyCash provides a tailor-made platform for the unbanked migrant population, where they can purchase products and services online without using any bank account, credit cards, or prepaid cards. Users can reload phone credit, pay bills, and buy bus tickets through MyCash.

In June last year, MyCash raised RM500,000 (US$120,000) through equity crowd-funding platform pitchIN. A significant part of this investment came from Hong Kong-based JC Management.

HelloGold (Malaysia)

Traditionally, gold savings has been classified as a financial product for the upper class, but here is an app to give everyone access to gold savings and to serve as a secondary platform for savings.

HelloGold is a mobile app that allows you to buy and sell gold on a single platform for as little as RM1. You can manage your account and enjoy competitive buying and selling prices in the market. Your physical gold is fully insured and stored in a secure vault.

Founded in 2015 by Malaysian co-founders Robin Lee and Ridwan Abdullah, it claims be the world’s first Shariah- compliant gold mobile application that “changes the way you buy, sell, send and redeem physical gold”. The company also runs a digital token called GOLDX, a ERC-20 token the startup has pegged to gold. What this does is allow people to make transactions outside of the platform. Without the crypto tokens, the app is a self-contained wallet.

Last year, the startup raised an undisclosed sum in Series A funding from 500 Startups.

Julo (Indonesia)

Julo is a P2P lending startup that has developed a digital data-driven credit underwriting and risk assessment platform to process consumer loan applications and determine their creditworthiness through its mobile app. The app uses Machine Learning technology to provide tailor-made, low-interest instalment credit products to the unbanked population, most of whom are tech-savvy young people and micro-entrepreneurs currently locked out of the formal financial system.

With low overhead costs thanks to a purely digital architecture, Julo offers competitive interest rates to no-file or thin-file borrowers at 4 per cent per month.

Last year, Julo raised US$5 million in a Series A funding round, led by Skystar Capital and East Ventures. Gobi Partners, Convergence Ventures, Provident Capital, Central Capital Ventura, Heyokha Brothers, and other investors also participated in the round.

soCash (Singapore)

Headquartered in Singapore, soCash is a classic example of out-of-the-box thinking.

In developing countries in Asia, millions of people still deal with cash, in spite the massive growth of digital banking services. These people often rely on money-dispensing machines a.k.a ATMs to withdraw cash for their daily needs. In some countries in this part of the world, people often have to walk or drive kilometres in search of the nearest ATMs, which add inconvenience to their lives.

Now, from the banks’ point of view, setting up and maintaining ATMs is a money-draining affair. This often runs into  millions of dollars and also affects their bottom-line. Three entrepreneurs have decided to address this challenge and came up with an innovative concept called soCash. Headquartered in Singapore, soCash is a fintech startup that allows bank customers to perform banking services like cash withdrawal and loan applications at retails shops via a mobile app.

A few days ago, it has raised US$6 million in its Series B round of funding led by Japan’s cash automation tech company Glory Ltd.

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Photo by Peter Hershey on Unsplash

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Artatler is trying to change the facet of digital art by providing a go-to platform for artists to source, distribute and deliver arts

Art isn’s necessarily a hot commodity when it’s in its digitally-adopted, tech-enabled forms. Although there are many online art galleries, such as Artling in Singapore and Moselo in Indonesia that sell crafts, a dedicated platform for artists still needs a ground-up work, the right market penetration, and strong network of artists to be able to survive.

Artatler is trying to change the facet of digital art by providing a go-to platform for artists — who are trying to make a living out of their job — to source, distribute and deliver arts.

“Existing creative marketplaces are focussed on providing a platform for people to sell their products which is useful but is insufficient for those making a living through art,” said Martin Lim, Founder of Artatler.

Art can be a steady job

Artatler’s vision is to enable artists to make a living through art, which Lim believes is a way to help reduce the stigma around art and artists as a non-steady job.

“I once read an article about the struggles of surviving in a gig economy, in which budding creators have to take on multiple gigs to make ends meet. That really rang a bell with me,” Lim recalled.

It brought him back to the time when he and his fellow art enthusiast-friends in school had to stop pursuing their passion due to lack of resources, knowledge and skills. “It got me thinking about ways that artists can specialise in the craft they were passionate about, instead of having to diversify for utility’s sake.”

Artatler was started off as a standard online gallery and provided manual assistance to artists to get some help on printing or showcasing their works.

Also Read: Indonesian handicraft marketplace Qlapa shuts down

“I received direct requests from China, Thailand and even Russia, and they provided me their online works. But as I received more and more interests, it got hard to do it manually. I decided that I had to take a step back to focus on preparing an online marketplace to serve such needs,” said Lim.

While there has been increasing acceptance and government support for the art industry throughout Southeast Asia, artistic endeavours are somehow still seen as impractical, unrealistic and unprofitable.

“It was originally started as an initiative to support creative people, especially young people who are in need of making a career out of doing creative works, but it eventually became something that is aimed at helping to grow the creative industry locally,” said Lim.

An art e-commerce platform and beyond

In March 2019, the art and craft space was left vacant with the shutting down of Qlapa, which dominated the space for four years. Despite raising funds and being recognised by Google and Forbes Asia for its potential, the company was ‘unable to turn Qlapa into a profitable and sustainable business’. Lim, who currently resides in Singapore, mentioned that he wants to fill this gap.

“What we offer is not simply a creative e-commerce platform. We want to become a digital multi-platform that provides a variety of means for creators to make earnings from art, design, and lifestyle experience — from end to end,” Lim explained.

Founded in May 2018, Artatler targets independent creators and creative small businesses such as jewellers, craftsmen, fashionista, illustrators and painters to set up a page and sell their creations.

Artatler aims to help artists tackling the multiple processes they need to be able to sell their works. It offers to take care of the production of non-digital arts and delivery. The idea is to save production time for artists by providing an all-in-one service, allowing them to just focus on making creative works, instead of having to source multiple platforms or services in order to develop their products in time for sale.

One step at a time

Artatler said that the process to sell artwork on the platform has been made simple.

“Artists can go to our website and sign up. They then need to provide us with the URL(s) of their sample works for our approval. Once approved, they can start uploading their products (both digital and non-digital artworks) and create their online gallery and shop. We can also help set up all these if the artists email us their work sample files,” Lim explained.

Given its vision and mission, the journey to discover and promote artists and their works is indeed ambitious, but Artatler needs to start somewhere.

Learning from Etsy, a public-listed company with US$2 billion valuation, the challenge for Artatler is to educate the sellers and buyers about the platform.

According to a case study published by Growth Hacker, Etsy’s Brand and Community Hacker Danielle Maveal explained that in its early days, Etsy did what other online brands avoided; it got off the internet to educate and recruit. Etsy had a team attending art and craft shows across the US and Canada almost every weekend.

Also Read: This startup puts the AR in art and makes collecting easy through tech

TheEtsy team would single out influential artists, crafters, and vintage collectors, and basically court them for their strong offline followers and community. The timing was in Etsy’s favour back in the early 2000’s because during that time, more and more indie artists and crafter emerged and the company quickly grasped them.

Etsy managed to grow quickly from then on.

Despite being early in the sector, Lim said Artatler is optimistic with the collaboration-marketing model. He continued: “Right now, we are having discussions with businesses providing on-demand printing, international logistic platform, and digital support by allowing buyers to connect to the creators directly. Let’s start there.”

As for the number of artists signed up, as many as 50 artists have started selling on the platform. “Our current goal is to gradually improve through effective collaborations, operations, and partnerships,” Lim noted.

The future of art tech and e-commerce

“I strongly believe that you need to keep looking out for the new trends and never stop innovating. Art is evolving and technology is a big part of its future, with the blockchain implementation, AI, and Augmented Reality. However, we should be careful not to create too much disruption, as such technology advancement needs to be rolled out along with the efforts to educate, assist, and bring a positive contribution to the society,” Lim stressed.

Lim emphasised the importance of collaboration and partnerships for growth. Marketplaces, he said, can co-exist and give options to creators that will provide channels for them to promote branding and improve their chances for earning a living.

As for Artatler’s next plan, Lim says it’s currently looking for angel investment and seed funding to accelerate growth. It’s a five-men operation and still missing a co-founder, something that he still scours as he wishes to have someone with strong background in business development, art, and tech.

“When we get funding, we will improve the infrastructure, business development, and marketing,” Lim concluded.
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Photo by Alice Achterhof on Unsplash

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As employers find it challenging to hire individuals,  here are the upcoming trends in HR

Today, HR professionals are not just looking for employers that offer fat paychecks.

They’re more concerned about engagement and promoting wellness.

Technology is making strides in the current competitive market; people who are adapting to newer technologies remain to be the hottest trend.

Here are the top four HR tech trends you need to watch out for:

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Also Read: Health and wellness startup The FIT Company acquires three local startups

Natural language processing, a subset of artificial intelligence provides software with the ability to comprehend the human language in either spoken or written form.

For instance, a recruitment chatbot can pick up a conversation with the applicants for the initial stage like asking them for their resume, contact information, knowledge, skills, and even inquiring regarding the candidate’s experience to scheduling interviews with the recruiter.

As technology keeps growing, NLP will be applied in several areas of human resources.

The rise of natural language processing has transformed the way workers perform tasks.

Automated chatbots are now used frequently by many businesses. Such practices will enhance HR in becoming responsive.

Talent analytics

The HR tech is on the verge of taking people analytics to a different overall horizon. From predictive analytics to the generation of talent analytics.

Several HR functions today are engaged in producing analytics. However, the usage is on the lower side. Reason being an organisation gets laid back in selling one or more product.

Working with data has laid down a great foundation to the HRs, allowing them to understand talent insight and the way businesses function.

Augmented analytics

Also Read: Success through planning — a wakeup call for “startup snobs”

Augmented analytics is a whole new class of smart software offering HR professionals as well as people leaders a better way to analyse their data and draw a conclusion out of it.

You can easily automate insight using machine learning and NLP using augmented analytics.

According to Belong, augmented analytics projects itself to be the next wave of disruption in the field of data and analytics job market.

This will help HR technology build and scale up their team in pretext to present insights to customers or stakeholders take a better decision.

Practical AI

With the hype and the buzz around AI in 2018, 2019 now is said to be the year for realistic AI.

HR leaders will now have to focus more on the technology and how this will solve the problems that leaders and professionals in the HR domain are facing.

Though the hype is here, it will still take time to cause an impact.

The fact that we know what is and what will come to be tomorrow, organisations should focus on fulfilling the needs of tomorrow.

Also Read: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invests in Indonesian healthtech startup Halodoc

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