A detailed morning till night time routine of StashAway’s co-founder

My name is Michele, and I am one of the co-founders at StashAway.

I spent half of my career in financial institutions, and the other half building consumer-centric internet companies.

I am originally from Italy, and I have been spending the last seven years in Singapore with my wonderful family; my wife Ludo who works 24/7 for our family, and our son Matteo (5) and daughter Agnese (3) who make sure that nobody is ever bored.

I used to play soccer (an avid AC Milan fan!), and I also ran for the New York marathon 12 years ago (and 8 Kilos ago).

Professionally, I started my career at McKinsey, where I advised large banks and insurance companies, before moving on to be a private equity investor.

Six years ago, I found the Italian and Pakistani office of Rocket Internet, where I was responsible for launching and scaling the leading regional e-commerce company.

Before StashAway, I was the Group CEO of ZALORA and sometimes wonder when I will stop being called the ex-CEO of Zalora.

In StashAway, as the CEO of the company, my daily activities mostly revolve around people.

This was something that I was always passionate about (in fact, my MBA application essay was on the importance of people in decision making).

I feel lucky that what I am doing today allows me to build relationships every day, not just with clients, but with my incredibly talented team at StashAway.

I see my job as making sure that

(i) we hire the best talent available and that

(ii) the people that join are in the best position to succeed and have fun in the process.

 

630am: Wake up

 

630am-7am: I spend time with my kids before my wife takes them to their school.

If we have time, Matteo, my son, and I briefly play lego, or I get to read him a book and Agnese, my daughter loves to pretend she’s cooking me breakfast.

I need to order something from her and taste it before she leaves.

We always have a “hugging contest” to see who can hug more forcefully and she usually tells me that I won.

 

7am-8am: I finally get breakfast. My wife Ludo, who is amazing prepares handmade croissants for me (yes!) and I drink tea. I’m an unusual Italian.

 

8 am: Ride my bicycle to the MRT station

 

8:05 am: (Yes, I am fast! or maybe it’s just a few hundred meters from the MRT to the office)

 

8:45 am: I am finally in the office!

I start my workday by clearing up my email and Slack (the application we use for internal communications).

I  like Slack because one can create multiple channels to manage projects and share interesting thoughts and ideas!

We have channels like “reading compilation” and “fin-market articles” where we share general interest and financial articles with the team.

Also, as part of my slack backlog, I read all customers comments in our “NPS Survey” Slack Channel.

This is a channel that every member of the company is in.

We make it a point to have everyone, from the technology to the product and marketing teams, read customer feedback and comments.

We do this to ensure that we are always aware of customer pain points and feedback. It’s also good for everyone to read comments that praise the product and service!

I always drink a cup of warm water throughout the day. 10 years ago it was coffee, then it became green tea, and after I moved to Asia, it’s warm water.

Not sure what could be next!

 

10 am: I interview a candidate for our Client Engagement Team

We give lots of attention to hiring, and all full-time hires are interviewed by two co-founders, while at least one Co-Founder interviews the interns.

I spend a few hours a week interviewing candidates (we are planning to hire 29 more team members in the next six months), and I enjoy understanding people’s motivations and building a point of view from their perspective!

Also Read: Singapore-based robo-financial manager StashAway is now available in Malaysia

10:30 am: Send in monthly investor updates to StashAway’s shareholders

This is an email with a deck attached.

The slides are mostly prepared by a few of my colleagues, and it only takes me less than 30 minutes to review, edit some of the commentaries and send it to our shareholders.

 

11 am: Meet with the team to discuss the details of a new investment product we have been working on which we plan on launching soon. 

This meeting will probably have 5-6 participants, including two of the co-founders, a member of the product team, and a representative from the marketing team.

 

12:30 pm: Team Lunch!

Every Thursday, the StashAway team has lunch together in our office pantry.

I usually get myself a mixed bowl of salad with brown rice, chicken, avocado which I love but am unsure why they charge me an extra dollar for it) along with tomatoes and the flavour of the day.

During team lunch, I usually have multiple conversations with various groups.

It’s 35 of us now, so I am not able to engage with everyone but I try my best to make sure I know people’s upcoming weekend plans.

 

2 pm: This is the two hour time where I work independently.

Today, I am working on filing for a license in a new country.

This means reviewing (and responding) the comments from lawyers and making sure the material is ready for filing. ASAP.

I block 2 hours of independent work slot in my schedule three times a week.

 

4 pm: Meeting with the Business Intelligence team to review the latest KPIs, including client acquisition number, cohort behaviour and the results of the most recent tests.

 

5 pm: Call with our Malaysia Country Manager Wai Ken, to catch up on how things have been going and brainstorm new ideas to serve our Malaysian clients better

 

Also Read: Singapore fintech startup StashAway raises US$2.15M to roll out robo-advisory platform

6 pm: Coffee with one of our newcomers.

I meet all newcomers for a 30-minute coffee during their first 2 weeks at StashAway.

This is something that I do to make sure I get to know everyone. There is no agenda to the meeting, just a light-hearted chat for me to know my colleagues better.

And you are definitely right; I drink warm water during the coffee-conversations. 

 

6:30 pm: Prepare for my StashAway Academy Seminar.

StashAway Academy is the educational arm of StashAway where we host free seminars every week on topics ranging from personal finance to investing. 

 

7 pm: Today’s seminar is on How to Plan for your Retirement.

I talk about Central Provident Fund (CPF), Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS), and how one should go about saving for retirement.

 

9 pm: Take the MRT back home and cycle uphill for the last hundred metres

 

9:30pm:  Dinner.

My wife is usually asleep by the time I get home (she wakes up at 5 am to cook breakfast for everyone!) and she would have left a (fabulous) dinner ready for me.

I usually watch Netflix while enjoying my dinner. I’m watching Narcos right now. Comment below if you have any good Netflix recommendations!

When I don’t have seminars or late meetings, I try to be back home by 8 pm so that I can chat with my wife before the day ends.

My day is hectic from the moment I get in the office.

So, when I get home, I try to unwind by either by spending time with my wife or, if she is asleep, watching Netflix or YouTube.

It is my way of taking a “mental break” before the next day allows me to look at things with a fresh perspective.

 

 

10:30 pm: Typically, I work on emails, Slack backlog and other ad hoc work. 

Today, I am making some edits to StashAway Workplace’s Financial Wellness Presentation we have at a global technology firm at lunchtime tomorrow.

 

 

11:30 pm: Time to sleep. Goodnight! I am an excellent sleeper, and I sleep like a rock until the alarm goes off the next day!

If you’ve made it this far, we have an exclusive promotion for all e27 readers that entitles you to 50% off your fees (for the first SGD 50,000 of AUM) for the first six months if you sign up via this link.

Also Read:  A peek inside the culture at Stashaway

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Given the trend leading toward decentralisation, a blockchain approach will mean better efficiency, security, and incentivization

 

Since the advent of Bitcoin a decade ago, the technology behind the cryptography-driven decentralised ledger has undergone a lot of innovations.

Blockchain technology was originally intended as a means to execute, verify, and record transactions through a decentralized ledger.

While its most popular applications have been in cryptocurrency and payments, smart contracts are now leading in terms of impact in real-world applications.

Smart contracts enable the automated negotiation, fulfilment, and execution of agreements done through blockchain programming.

Also Read: 5 companies set to drive blockchain adoption in Asia

Smart contracts can negotiate the terms of an agreement, verify whether these terms have been fulfilled, and then execute the agreed terms – usually through an exchange of token or cryptocurrency ownership.

This is done without the use of a centralised organisation or authority, meaning lawyers, agents, notaries, and other intermediaries will no longer be necessary for the enforcement of such agreements.

Challenges with decentralisation

However, the decentralised and trustless nature of smart contracts does come with problems.

For one, in the real world, notaries exist as trusted authorities that verify and keep a record of contracts.

These confirm the actual existence of the parties involved and the contracts they enter in. In a blockchain setting, such execution of contracts is done through a decentralised consensus mechanism.

But if it involves specific parameters like location, there needs to be a means of verifying such details without necessarily putting users’ privacy and data at risk.

One glaring example of this is in e-commerce fulfilment.

Till date, there are already several e-commerce sellers and major establishments accepting cryptocurrency as a form of payment for their goods or services, including Shopify sellers and even Microsoft.

This comes with even more challenges.

Crypto payment does not provide a chargeback mechanism, which makes it a potential target for fraudulent transactions.

In the case of e-commerce, there is value in executing the transactions through smart contracts.

For one, funds will only be transferred from a wallet to the seller’s once the item is received – somewhat akin to the “cash-on-delivery” option still popular in most Southeast Asia markets.

There is a location-based aspect to such execution of smart contracts, which means that a person or item needs to be at a given place at a given time in order for the parameters of the smart contract to be valid.

Such location-specificity is viable not only in the e-commerce setting. It is also essential in other industries.

As another example, in augmented reality (AR), a user’s exact location and orientation will play a big part in the effectiveness of the technology.

Also Read: 3 of your most important assets may soon have tokenised counterparts in the Blockchain

Games like Pokémon Go come into mind, but there are more severe and mundane applications, such as in tourism and geographic information systems. 

Without verifying location, it is easy to game the system through fake reviews – wherein fake reviews can flood the review mechanism to increase or decrease the rating of an establishment like a restaurant, hotel or a tourist spot.

In banking and finance, location can be a vital component of the Know Your Customer or KYC process.

Here, service can be provided (or denied) based on their location.

While the essence of blockchain and crypto intends users to be able to transact without borders, there are specific regulations that might prevent users in certain countries or regions from doing so. Here, location-awareness will also play a big part in ensuring such rules and regulations are met.

Automation and IoT to the rescue

In the context of smart contracts and decentralised infrastructure, the challenge of verifying locations can be addressed by instituting some form of validation.

Here, it will be necessary to automate the process, since relying on using human-driven verification means there needs to be a trust-based system, which can be easily cheated.

This traditionally involved establishing location through GPS triangulation, but this is fast becoming displaced through other mechanisms.

“Centralized authorities are susceptible to interference, attacks, and failure, and are thus not a viable source of data for smart contracts,” shares Arie Trouw, Co-Founder and CEO of XYO.

He stresses that in a decentralized context, “there is a need for a consensus-based network of interconnected devices that records and verifies real-world events in order to make the resulting data available in a distributed, trustless, and secure manner.” 

Also Read: How blockchain is using decentralised ID verification for seamless user onboarding

For this purpose, a trustless system of validation will essentially involve the internet-of-things – devices that automatically talk to each other in order to derive, confirm, and share location information all without unnecessarily risking other personal information and without relying on a centralized authority.

Here is where blockchain can potentially make a big impact on the real world. In the case of Trouw’s XY Oracle Network, X and Y refer to coordinates, and “oracle” refers to how location data can be specifically and securely recorded through interaction among location-gathering oracle devices, verified through a cryptographic proof of origin chain. 

The result is real-world impact by enabling smart contracts to be executed upon actual delivery or transfer of goods or simply present in any given location. Participation in the location network incentivizes participants in the network, too, for verifying location data.

The future is bright with IoT, blockchain and automation

As with most technologies, the long-term success of blockchain-driven solutions will be in how widely it is adopted and how well-integrated it will be into our daily lives. 

One marker of success is when things are so ubiquitous that we are no longer aware they are there in the first place. As Google’s Eric Schmidt told at a World Economic Forum panel on IoT.

“There will be … so many devices, sensors, things that you are wearing, things that you are interacting with, that you won’t even sense it.” 

Location-awareness has already gained full acceptance and application, especially given the ubiquity of smartphones and apps that utilise device location such as mapping, tracking, finance, and even gaming.

And this is how blockchain tech will have a meaningful impact in the real and physical world, even if we don’t necessarily feel it is there.

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At the latest edition of Xero Community, investors and startup founders discuss the ins and outs of fundraising

For startups in need of funds, securing external investment is a popular option. But it’s not for everyone.

This is one of the many nuggets of wisdom shared during the second edition of Xero Community, which took place in Singapore on 23 July. Xero, a global small business platform offering cloud accounting software, established the quarterly event series to share industry- and business-critical knowledge with SMEs and startups, and in doing so, cultivate a community of successful digital-first businesses.

This edition shed light on the nuances of fundraising that startup founders may fail to understand. Fundraising is crucial to growing and building a business, but there are other factors to consider aside from the amount of cash raised.

For instance, it’s important to outline an investor’s role in the startup and understand how a company might fit into a venture capital firm’s mandate. Businesses need to learn about the investor’s reputation, while the latter need to see that founders are focusing on their businesses and understand their financial numbers.

Breaking the silence on fundraising

Fundraising is a quest for financial support as you grow your company. While news reports like to celebrate successful fundraises, they don’t often reflect the process behind it.

In fact, trying to understand the how and why of fundraising can be especially daunting because despite the endless discussion of money in the tech world, it sometimes feels like everyone just talks around the actual realities of how money is raised rather than directly confronting the complexities of the process.

Also read: Early stage fundraising: What it takes to win over investors that best fit your team

To help fill in this knowledge gap, Xero Community invited an expert panel representing the investment and business community. Panelists were Sam Gibb, a partner at Endeavour Ventures and Junxian Lee, CEO and co-founder of logistics startup Moovaz. They were joined by moderator Graham Brown—himself also an entrepreneur—and Xero’s Asia Managing Director, Kevin Fitzgerald.

Throughout the event, the speakers covered a number of areas on how startups and mature businesses go about the fundraising process from beginning to end. The panelists discussed the etiquette of fundraising, how and what to look for in potential investors, financial literacy for founders, and what happens after you’ve raised the money you need.

Building relationships takes real work

One key takeaway from the event was that at the heart of each successful fundraising round is hours of conversation and discussion between potential investors and founders. Good communication is fundamental to strong investor-founder relationships, and strong relationships are foundational for the success of any fundraising efforts. Whether you start a conversation through an e-newsletter or a face-to-face conversation, ultimately the goal is to establish a strong relationship that puts the mission rather than the money first.

After all, the money being invested in a company is almost always going to be a huge bet by investors, so it’s important that everyone involved knows and trusts who they are getting into bed with.

These conversations should start long before the targeted month for closing the fundraise. Gibb noted that he tends to take three to six months to build a real relationship with the founders to ensure there is a mutual understanding of the company’s goals and needs, as well as the role (if any) the investor can actively play in its growth.

Also read: Understanding the culture of relationship-building in Asia

Moovaz’s Lee added that it’s not enough to “spray and pray” when it comes to fundraising, and that founders need to really take an interest in potential investors’ portfolios and how all their goals align.

He also suggested that businesses talk to investors about their venture capital firm’s mandate. By understanding where and how a startup fits into this mandate, VCs and founders can build a strong foundation for their relationship.

“Investors and startups should be one team working together, not adversaries sitting on opposite sides of the table,” shared Brown in a post-event write-up. “Don’t approach an investor like applying for a bank loan. They are not ATMs distributing cash. They want to be part of something.”

Knowing the financial numbers

The cost of venture capital has been well-documented to be potentially more trouble than it’s worth, especially if investors and businesses fail to align their goals, build trust, and agree on how to work together.
For that reason, Lee cautioned against taking venture capital money simply because the opportunity to do so is there. In fact, taking venture capital could be a huge mistake if the business model and the company’s term sheet don’t show the need for it.

That’s why it’s important for founders to have their business’ financial vitals at their fingertips.
In fact, Gibb suggests that not enough businesses are paying attention to their numbers. This often leads to a failure to recognise that the funds they have raised are not enough to help them reach their next milestone, which they would need to achieve in order to raise the next round.

This is only one of several blind spots that founders may have regarding their business. To shed light on these blind spots, Fitzgerald recommends having people around who can offer a different perspective and call out oversights or missed opportunities. Technology can also help business owners keep an eye on their financial position in real-time.

“By having your numbers at your fingertips and tracking your dashboard, you will start to ask the right questions and educate yourself about the finances of your business,” he said.

Also read: What founders need to understand about fundraising from Angels

For Brown, it was only when he began to monitor his financials that he realised how important it was to map out his business’ burn rate—the rate at which a business is losing money. This data can tell a business when and how much to raise. It’s also important because investors can smell desperation—so businesses shouldn’t wait until they are hard up on cash to raise funds.

Having a strong understanding of your company’s financial reality can be invaluable for charting business growth, identifying gaps, and tapping on opportunities. In today’s saturated landscape, it’s not enough to simply have a great product to secure funding. What can truly tip the scales is a keen understanding of the business model and value proposition, and how that feeds into the startup’s strategy and revenue growth.

Moovaz’s Lee added that for his company, profitability is important, which is why they work closely with their accountants to plot revenue and growth, and to determine when and where they can turn a profit.

Looking for a great investor-founder fit

However, at the end of the day, Lee also stressed that founders should not rely on venture capital as the only source of fundraising. This is a mistaken assumption that many founders make, sometimes to the detriment of their businesses.

All panelists agreed it’s crucial for founders have to establish clarity on when and how to take on venture money, and that this decision has to be backed up with data. While it’s quite common—and legally necessary—for investors to conduct due diligence on their potential investee, founders don’t always take the effort to research on VCs’ reputation.

Brown added that founders should take the initiative to do some due diligence on their potential investors, with the aim of finding the right fit.

Gibb suggested that networking can be a great form of due diligence, thanks to the relatively compact nature of the investor community. Founders can get a feel of potential investors’ reputations and their suitability through simple conversations with their peers—and doing so could make a huge difference between a success and a mistake.
What if you’re not feeling like you should take venture capital? Always consider alternative ways to generate funding. The panel suggested looking to other types of loans, such as invoice factoring and government grant programmes.

To tune in to more industry trends, check out Xero on Air podcasts here as they deep-dive with industry leaders on key topics that drive business success.

Digital transformation can be a daunting task and Xero has taken a step to ease technology adoption for startups with the introduction of Xero for Startups bundle comprising exclusive promotions for Xero’s cloud accounting and complementary app partners. Sign up here to lay a strong and scalable foundation for your startup today.

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In addition to Honestbee, we also have updates from UrbanClap, Venture Catalysts, and Indonesia’s financial services authority

Honestbee applies for court-supervised restructuring process – Deal Street Asia

Grocery and food delivery startup Honestbee announced that it has made an application to the Singapore High Court to commence a court-supervised restructuring process, Deal Street Asia wrote.

According to the report, the company intends to propose a scheme of arrangement to the court to restructure its liabilities and to seek a moratorium against enforcement actions and legal proceedings.

“Honestbee has taken this imperative step to protect and preserve the value of its businesses while it restructures its operations across Asia. The court-supervised restructuring process is in the best interest of Honestbee’s stakeholders as the company can focus on re-evaluating the business without interference; streamline operations, increase existing efficiencies and bring down the cost structure,” it announced.

India’s UrbanClap raises US$75 million – TechCrunch

Indian marketplace for freelance labour UrbanClap announced a US$75 million Series E funding round led by Tiger Global, TechCrunch wrote.

Existing investors such as Steadview Capital and Vy Capital also participated in the funding round.

The startup also announced that “some early investors” had sold portions of their stake.

Operating in India, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi, UrbanClap matches service workers (such as cleaners or beauticians) with potential customers.

It claimed to work with 20,000 service professionals with around 450,000 transactions taking place each month.

Also Read: Honestbee names Ong Lay Ann as new CEO

Indonesia shut down 826 illegal fintech services in 2019 – Bloomberg

Indonesia’s financial services authority (OJK) announced that it has shut down 826 illegal fintech startups this year alone, Bloomberg wrote.

The regulators admitted that they struggle to keep pace with the illegal services –who operate without a licence– as they operate on multiple platforms from websites, mobile apps, to social media.

It has turned to the police and the public for help in tracking them.

Venture Catalysts launches US$43M fund – Deal Street Asia

Startup incubator and accelerator Venture Catalysts announced the launch of an INR300 crore (US$43.4 million) 9Unicorns Fund, Deal Street Asia reported.

The fund is searching for early stage startups in various sectors such as electric vehicles, mobility, AR/VR, AI and ML, fintech, retail, and FMCG.

Venture Catalysts wants to invest in 100 companies every year.

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Image Credit: Bill Oxford on Unsplash

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Managing a creative team means finding harmony between the irrational creative process and careful planning

It’s creativity what sells your products. Beautiful designs, catchy headlines, innovative solutions, convenient features, and so much more.

Doing creative work is a complex process that includes more than just coming up with brilliant ideas.

The final result of your creative teams’ work depends on how the process is organized, and the manager needs to be aware of what encourages creativity and what ruins it.

The phrasing “creativity flow” suggests that it’s a barely manageable process, but it’s not quite so.

Providing an environment that encourages creativity while complying with requirements and timelines is the main part of a creative team’s manager.

Also Read: Creativity is humanity’s only advantage against AI, but can bots be creative in their own right?

So, how do you align the creative and business processes?

Traits of creative people that matter at work

It’s hardly possible to lead a team without understanding the personalities of the people that you manage. Of course, creative people can have various traits, but there are several work-relevant features that they have in common.

Managers need to take these traits into account when communicating with their teams and organizing work. Creative people are:

• curious and open to exploration;
• constantly pushing the envelope and prone to taking risks;
• emotionally sensitive and especially sensitive to aesthetics;
• easily adaptable and comfortable with chaos;
• more autonomous than many other types of employees;
• often nonconforming, sometimes radical in expressing their opinions, and tend to question and challenge rules;
• they rarely have leadership skills or ambitions;
• they don’t tolerate boredom, don’t see any value in rigid work processes, and struggle with formal procedures.

The do’s: steps to build an efficient management process

Organising an efficient management process on a team of creatives is mostly about maintaining a comfortable environment that doesn’t restrict creativity, and ensuring delivery of expected result.

Here’s what a manager needs to pay attention to when organizing work on a team of creatives:

• Set boundaries and goals

A blank slate leaves so much room for a creative process that you never know what the final result will be.

Be clear with your team about what outcome is expected. Provide workflows, specifications, and style guides to comply with. Also, share the big picture with the team: it will help them understand what’s the right direction of their work.

• Communicate

Being more autonomous than other workers, creative professionals sometimes tend to make decisions on their own and ignore (or forget about) requirements and timelines.

Inform your team on the plans, roadmaps, and time-bound milestones. Encourage your team members to escalate possible problems to you, and don’t be forgiving to delays.

• Ensure quality

Make sure it’s clear to your team members that they’re creating art for the sake of the business, not for the sake of the art itself, and that certain level of quality is required.

Don’t accept subpar work, and if the result doesn’t meet the specifications, provide constructive feedback on how exactly it doesn’t match set requirements and how to correct that.

Also Read: The smart way to harness creativity

• Plan for inspiration

It’s not possible to come up with great ideas constantly, or at least within a predictable schedule. Managers need to take this into account on work planning steps.

Allocate time for thinking, finding inspiration, generating new ideas, and trying out new concepts. Be as flexible as time and resource limits for your team’s tasks allow: plan necessary time in advance and make sure it’s sufficient for finding the best solution to the task.

Consider including an inspirational part in your team’s work processes: brainstorming, coaching sessions, workshops, etc.

• Minimize control

Constant control invites frustration and demotivation – not only for creatives.

That’s why it’s reasonable to limit monitoring to what’s really important. Boil down regular control to the general roadmap, important milestones, and deadlines, and avoid checking in every now and then.

• Combine talents

Creatives struggle with formal processes and routine operations.

So if a task requires both a creative solution and attention to details, it’s worth organizing groups or tandems of creative individuals and employees who tend to focus on details, operational procedures, and organizational side of the work process.

They will complement the abilities of each other and achieve the necessary quality of the end result, as they’ll be performing work they are best at.

• Show recognition and appreciation

Appreciation means not less than money for creative individuals. Anyone invests emotionally in their work, but creatives tend to see the work process as bringing ideas to life, and they want to see it valued.

Make sure your appreciation is visible to both individuals and the entire team – this will work as a powerful motivator for everyone.

• Encourage collaboration

Creative team members are usually more autonomous and less collaborative, so make sure their activity is aligned with the team’s goals. Organize active communication on the team and reserve time for exchanging ideas and thoughts.

Matching each individual’s activities with the general goal is however not the only reason why communication matters: talking to others and sharing ideas is also a great source of inspiration for all participants.

The don’ts: common mistakes

Any project or team manager has lessons they learned the hard way. While some mistakes are inevitable (sad but true), being aware of the most common ones helps to avoid major pitfalls and achieve better results. Here’s the list of the main don’ts for management of a creative team:

• Don’t micromanage

Nothing kills creativity faster than someone looking over the shoulder, so micromanagement, frequent check-ins and constant oversight are a no-go.

Don’t be the helicopter boss who hovers over the team the entire time: not only you’ll undermine your authority – you will also impair team performance and jeopardize the satisfactory outcome.

• Don’t allow creative chaos

It’s a common misbelief that creatives deliver best results when their work scope is a blank sheet.

A vague description of what needs to be done might be an exciting opportunity for self-actualization, but in terms of work, it’s misleading.

This applies to unclear processes too: they create disorganization and frustrate team members that have to spend their time trying to sort out organizational flows instead of actually working.

• Don’t be bureaucratic either

No one professional, focused on their creative process, is interested in filling in multiple documents, describing all minor and unnecessary details, and accounting for every small action they take at work.

And while a certain level of control and documentation is necessary, assigning too many mundane tasks to creative professionals or charging them with administrative work demoralizes them by drawing their attention away from their actual work.

• Don’t stick to the “one size fits all” approach

It can seem sometimes that a talented professional would be a great manager. In reality, it’s not always true, even when an employee themselves wants a management role.

It’s common among creatives to not have leadership traits, so be mindful about assigning new roles on the team. Also, consider the necessary amount of training required: it’s very likely that a creative person will need more training hours than anyone else.

• Don’t be afraid of failures

Any manager has faced failures at some point in their career, and the most common lesson learnt from them is, unsurprisingly, taking fewer risks.

When minimizing risks related to creative work, make sure you’re not out if tune with your team: remember that risk-taking is one of the prerequisites for finding creative solutions. Discouraging this in the fear of failure reduces innovation and frustrates creativity.

Also Read: 6 ways to inspire creativity in your office

Summary

When organizing work, make space for inspiration, exploration and failure. Combine different talents to get all aspects of the work done properly.

Be mindful of what motivates your team, and create a comfortable and productive environment for creative professionals.

 

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From IoT-based solutions to online organic grocery stores, these agritech startups support the country’s effort to increase high-tech farming production value

In a February 2018’s article released by Vietnam Investment Review, the country’s agricultural sector’s GDP contributions were reported to be in a modest state judging from the numbers.

It says that agriculture only accounts for 16 per cent of GDP, while labourers in the sector account for 42 per cent of the total workforce and up to 70 per cent of the population in rural areas.

There is quite a gap in the numbers shown, which often causes the harvest oversupplies with bumper crops that decrease price. This is something that the government has paid attention to, labelling it as “chronic disease of the domestic agricultural sector”.

In response to this situation, Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development reportedly has planned for 500 hi-tech agricultural cooperatives and to increase the high-tech farming production value by five times by 2020. The ministry planned that each province and city would have at least three hi-tech agricultural cooperatives.

Also Read: These are the 5 game-changers in Indonesia’s agritech sector

According to another report in January 2018 by Vietnam Investment Review, the ministry said it was important to develop a production value chain of high-added value farming products and to promote the linkage of cooperatives with enterprises, as well as to encourage technology transfer and provide preferential loans to agricultural cooperatives.

With Vietnam’s startup scene burgeoning, it made perfect sense for the country to turn into technology for solutions. In fact, there are five detectable agritech startups that have been making waves with their solutions to the number one problem the country’s facing in agriculture: fragmentation in household farming.

The five startups are:

Demeter

Pham Ngoc Anh Tung founded Demeter in 2017 after deploying a US$4.4 million Cau Dat farming project in Ho Chi Minh City. Tung did it while partnering with Intel Corporation to continue the expansion of their customer network.

At first, Demeter launched an Internet of Things (IoT)-based system at Cau Dat Farm, inspired by international farms overseas. The IoT system allows for automation that replace human involvement and was proven to be beneficial to farmers, helping farmers doing management work, maintaining productivity, and product quality.

The IoT system Demeter introduced at Cau Dat Farm consists of three main parts. The first one is Connected Edge, hardware that controls tasks such as pumps, irrigation systems, micro-climate control systems, drones, weather stations, camera systems, and sensor systems. It connects and pre-handle data through gateways before moving to the cloud.

The second part is storage, equipped with the processing and data analysis, turning data into insight on the cloud.

The third part is the identification of all agriculture tasks based on analysed information and data.

The system all depends on the equipment, providing actionable information that’ll help users understand what their production status is.

Also Read: 7 Asian startups putting the spotlight on agriculture

Nine months after introducing the IoT system, it was reported that the farm started to see positive signs, with flowers, green tea, fruit and vegetables reaching productivity targets without compromising quality.

The focus of this startup is now to do expansion to countries such as Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand.

MimosaTEK

MimosaTEK was established in October 2014 by Nguyen Khac Minh Tri after he resigned from his position as the CEO of the Saigon Institute for Techniques and Technology.

In e27’s coverage, MimosaTEK is described as a cloud-based system that lets farmers control and manage farms with the use of sensors that communicates through radiofrequency waves to monitor the environment, alerts on unfavourable environmental factors, crop progress monitoring, crop database, and remote irrigation execution through mobile phones. With such implementation, the system allows farmers to manage crops and farm plan based on collected data on daily environment and historical crop database.

The company offers two key parts of its large farms’ management solutions: the sensor equipment to measure parameters and a smartphone app that helps to show water levels and providing advice to farmers on planting.

MimosaTEK was the winner of Vietnamese round of the Seedstar World Competition and has competed at the Seedstars Summit in Switzerland back in March 2017.

One of MimosaTEK’s users for more than a year, Nong Phat High-Tech Agriculture JSC, said that it managed to save 10-15 per cent in total water and fertiliser used for eight hybrid muskmelon hybrid greenhouses. MimosaTEK’s application also allows just one worker to cover all the 2,100sqm greenhouses, instead of eight workers.

With up to 70 per cent of the population in Vietnam lives in rural areas doing largely manual and experience-based farming practices, MimosaTEK said it seeks to have one or two per cent of the proportion use their service.

Sero.ai

Sero.ai is the AI-based startup that seeks to overcome erratic crop production problem by connecting farmers and agriculture experts through mobile internet. It works by tracking the plant’s health and detects pest diseases using pictures.

Also Read: Meet the 10 agritech, foodtech startups pitching for Future Food Asia’s US$100K grand prize

Described itself as a crop intelligence company, the company that was founded in 2016 collects in-field data throughout the entire growth stage with images and sensors to provide preventive recommendations via computer vision technology, and production insights via partnerships with farmers and exporters.

There are not many activities around the AI-based startup thus far, but it did mention the latest investment deal it received, which was worth US$20,000.

Naturally Vietnam

Based in Hanoi, Naturally Vietnam was co-founded by husband and wife Mai and Patrice Gautier. Mai grew up in Hanoi and quickly realised that there was no transparency in where food comes from and how certifications were mostly suspicious.

So Mai and her husband created Naturally Vietnam, a platform that provides traceable food products, sourced from six farms in the city’s Soc Son district. To make it happen, the startup even helped build the farms up from scratch by offering startup loans of over US$2,000.

In an article by Forbes, Naturally Vietnam claims that the livestock farms are veterinarian-supervised, use chemical-free processes and are easily traceable in terms of food origins and processes.

Naturally Vietnam provides an online grocery shop and within-24 hours delivery allowing customers to shop from a total of over 300 products of fresh fruit, meat, and poultry paid with direct bank transfer or cash-on-delivery.

It puts the name of the farm they sourced from on the packaging and equips their staff with products knowledge to assist customers. The farms are also open for visiting.

Hachi

Hachi helps vegetables planting via smartphone using an IoT system. The crop app was founded by CEO Dang Xuan Truong, claimed to be suitable for customers living in the city.

The IoT-based application helps reduce risks in the planting process, such as drought and a lack of soil nutrition. “By controlling these aspects, productivity increases from 30 to 50 per cent compared to traditional planting methods,” said Truong.

Also Read: Taking a glimpse into agritech startups in Thailand

Hachi works by allowing Farmers entering data about the status of their rice through a smartphone app. The data is sent to the processing unit that will cultivate information about soil, climate, and plant growth into a quick summary with advice.

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Image Credit: Abbas Jamie on Unsplash

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An edutech startup and a service that helps you to cut down the queue line share the throne for Startup of the Month in July

Can’t believe this actually happened. We asked the e27 Community to vote for the Startup of the Month winner on our Telegram Group and Twitter handle, and we came out with two winners!

The first one is AI-powered school administration platform Edusuite, which had recently announced an over US$235,000 seed funding round from the Manila Angel Investors Network (MAIN). Two of the startup’s clients –Batangas Eastern Colleges (BEC) and Sumulong College of Arts and Sciences– also participated in the funding round.

Edusuite stole our attention for providing a service that helps schools optimise their resources and make smart decisions.

The other winner is QueQ, a Thai startup that aims to help customers queue for their spot in a dining or retail outlet with the touch of a button –from the comfort of their own home.

QueQ has recently raised a US$2.8 million Series A funding round from True Incube and Bon Angels Venture Partner.

Also Read: Startup of the Month, June: Indonesian tech-enabled coffee chain Kopi Kenangan

The startup stole our hearts with their unique service and rapid expansion move –it already has a presence in Malaysia and Thailand and is looking forward to entering Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong.

For the runner-up, this month we also have two startups vying for the same spot — Brunei’s Memori and Malaysia’s Naluri.

Memori is a legacy-planning platform that has recently raised additional seed funding round from an undisclosed member of an Asian royal family.

Naluri, a healthtech startup founded by former iflix CEO Azran Osman-Rani, has recently raised a US$1.5 million oversubscribed pre-Series A funding round led by Global Founders Capital.

Congratulations and best of luck to the companies!

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Image Credit: Ambreen Hasan on Unsplash

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In addition to Didi Chuxing and BP, we also have updates from Progcap, the Indonesian government’s electric car ambition, and ByteDance

Didi Chuxing, BP to build e-vehicle charging infrastructure in China – TechCrunch

Ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing and British oil and gas giant BP today announced the formation of a joint venture to build electric-vehicle charging infrastructure in China, TechCrunch reported.

The service will be available for both Didi and non-Didi drivers.

BP’s first charging site in Guangzhou has already been connected to XAS (Xiaoju Automobile Solutions), a platform that was launched by Didi in April 2018 for all its vehicle-related services.

The announcement of the joint venture came in just a week after Didi announced a US$600 million funding from Toyota Motor Corporation, which enabled Didi to set up a joint venture with GAC Toyota Motor to provide vehicle-related services to Didi drivers.

India’s Progcap raises US$5M funding led by Sequoia – Deal Street Asia

Delhi-based fintech startup Progcap has raised a US$5 million Series A funding round led by Sequoia India, Deal Street Asia reported.

The funding round also included the participation of MV Nair, chairman of Credit Information Bureau (India) Ltd (CIBBIL); Sandeep Tandon, co-founder of Freecharge; as well as existing investors GrowX Ventures Fund and Somak Ghosh.

Progcap is a platform that aims to facilitate debt capital for underserved micro and small businesses in India. It was founded in 2017 by Pallavi Shrivastava and Himanshu Chandra.

The funding will be used to strengthen its operations, support product development, and accelerate pan-India expansion.

Also Read: Today’s top tech news, Feb 14: China’s Didi Chuxing injects US$100M into OYO

Indonesia to incentivise electric-car manufacturers and ownership – Bloomberg

Indonesia is planning incentives for electric-car manufacturers and drivers in order to help bolster a sector that has already lured investment from Toyota Motor Corp and SoftBank Group Corp, Bloomberg reported.

Citing a draft government strategy that is awaiting approval from President Joko Widodo, the plan is said to include lower taxes for manufacturers and buyers.

It also included benefits for owners such as special parking areas.

ByteDance to build a search engine to compete with Baidu – Kr.Asia

ByteDance has begun the recruitment process to build a general search engine for all internet users, Kr. Asia wrote.

Citing a WeChat announcement from the company, the move is seen as a plan to compete against Baidu

The search engine will be built by the same team that has built search functions inside ByteDance’s apps such as Jinri Toutiao and TikTok.

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Image Credit: Adi Constantin on Unsplash

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How you design your pitch deck gives investors an insight into how you plan on building your business

 

Creating a good pitch deck is hard, creating a great pitch deck is even harder.

Investors look through applications from startups: a lot of them are great, some of them…not so much. Why?

One of the main reasons is that the pitch deck is incorrect or incomplete.

Here are a few hints and guidelines on what is expected from a pitch deck. That way, you can increase your chances of leaving a lasting impression.

By the end of the pitch deck, the following questions will be answered:

• 1.   Why you?
• 2.   Why this?
• 3.   Why now?

We often see simple mistakes, such as missing information, overcrowded slides, a lack of research, confusing or contradictory statements, typos, etc.

Also Read: How to impress with your startup pitch

Take extra care to avoid these blunders, please! This will help us and especially you!

How can you avoid this?

Do your research and create a sound structure for your pitch deck.

Take the investors on a journey.
Show them all the aspects of your company that they want to and should know about.

A great place to start is to include the following dimensions and answer the following sample questions:

• 1.   Problem → What problem are you addressing?
• 2.   Solution → What solution do you offer?
• 3.   Product → What is your product?
• 4.   Vision → What’s your vision today, in a year, in five years?
• 5.   Market size → How big is your (addressable) market?
• 6.   Competition → Who are your competitors (direct and indirect)?
• 7.   Business Model → How does your business work? How do you plan to make money?
• 8.    Status and roadmap → Where are you today? What key milestones do you want to achieve in the next 12 months?
• 9.    Team → Who are you? Why are you the right team to build this?

Last but not least, the pitch deck design matters.

It is not expected from you to have your corporate identity completely figured out – or even having a simple logo.

However, you must prove to the investors that you have a good feel of the business. After all, an image is worth a thousand words.

Also Read: Pro pitch deck tips for beginners

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Image Credit: Campaign Creators 

 

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Joshua Agusta shares how MDI Ventures made its calculated moves as an Indonesian VC firm long before it was cool to do so

Indonesian corporate venture capital (CVC) firm MDI Ventures has been reported to be in fundraising mode for its third vehicle. This time, the firm –which also has operations in Silicon Valley– aims to tap external investors.

In 2016, MDI Ventures launched a US$100-million single-LP fund from Indonesian state-owned Telkom Group, followed by a US$40-million fund in partnership with Telkomsel, the telco giant’s subsidiary.

In this interview with e27, Joshua Agusta, who is Vice President (Investment) at MDI Ventures, talks about the fund’s local operations which had witnessed three back-to-back exits within just a single month.

The early days

In the venture capital space, the term ‘exit’ is used to describe a point at which an investor sells its stake in a firm to realise gains or losses. For MDI Ventures, the three back-to-back exits it witnessed in a span of one month represent healthy capital gains.

According to him, it is not common for Indonesian VC firms to get exits as fast as MDI Ventures did, let alone in an overseas company. Agusta says that MDI Ventures managed to achieve this feat thanks to a carefully mapped-out move, crafted since its establishment in 2016.

“Basically, our strategy in the early days was to have a quick win. We will shadow the more established and seasoned VCs to learn from them as well as participating in their portfolios’ funding,” he explains.

Also Read: Indonesian digital payment startup Kredivo secures financing from Telkomsel’s VC arm, MDI Ventures

He speaks of the firm’s decision to invest in Whispir, an Australian cloud-based email, text messaging, and web chatting platform, which he dubs as a learning process.

In investing in Whispir, MDI Ventures followed the footsteps of Telstra. The local telco giant is already a seasoned investor through its VC arm Telstra Venture; by participating in the same round, MDI Ventures was able to establish a good rapport from early on.

Given that MDI Ventures’s LP at that time was Telkom, the decision to back a company that was already backed by an established telco entity made a lot of sense, says Agusta.

“We, of course, have a responsibility to show our LP that we can have a quick return, hence the venturing out overseas,” he stresses.

These are the three back-to-back exits from the VC:

Whispir

Whispir has commenced trading on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on June 19, following an oversubscribed IPO that raised AU$47 million (US$32 million) via the issue of 29.4 million shares at AU$1.60 (US$1.10) each.

The IPO comprised of a primary raise of AU$27 million (US$19 million) and a secondary sell-down by existing shareholders of AU$20 million (US$14 million).

At the IPO listing price, Whispir had a market capitalisation of AU$163 million (US$113 million).

According to Agusta, MDI Ventures was confident in backing Whispir because it has recorded a more than 100 per cent net negative monthly recurring revenue churn since 2013.

“For any SaaS company, this is a very impressive stats to have,” he says.

As for quality aspect, Agusta vouches that Whispir’s founding team members were solid and persistent, shown by the company’s ability to land multiple sales contracts from Fortune 500 companies and partner with world-class names in enterprise communications.

Red Dot Payment (RDP)

Singapore-based RDP is a fintech firm best-known its product RDP Connect, which focusses primarily on the hospitality industry. With RDP’s tools, clients such as hotel chains can introduce their own booking sites without the need for other booking engines or aggregators.

Naspers’ fintech company PayU announced that it had acquired a majority stake in RDP on July 5, as part of its expansion into Southeast Asia. While the details remain undisclosed, PayU has confirmed that it values RDP at US$65 million.

Also Read: Naspers unit PayU forays into Southeast Asia by acquiring Singapore startup Red Dot Payment

“For RDP, since 2016, the company has been growing its revenue at a double-digit rate month-on-month, with a healthy gross margin compared to other payments companies,” says Agusta regarding the VC’s investment in the company.

In terms of quality, RDP consisted of ex-banking industry veterans who mostly worked for Visa. For MDI Ventures, this showed a deep level of domain expertise, which is important for a highly-regulated industry such as payments.

Wavecell

On July 22, 2019, MDI Ventures announced that another exit was made from the acquisition of Singaporean cloud-based communication platform Wavecell by US-based 8×8 (NYSE: EGHT) as a part of its market entry strategy across Asia. The deal was worth approximately US$125 million.

Established in 2010, Wavecell helps businesses enhance customer experiences by offering SMS, chat apps, video interaction, and voice solutions for any platform.

The startup operates in key Southeast Asian markets such as Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Hong Kong.

The deal brings MDI Ventures to a total of three successful portfolio company exits in 2019, all of which have taken place simultaneously during the month of July.

The firm can now claim that it has cultivated a total of five success stories since the fund’s first investment in 2016.

“Wavecell is a great example of our firm backing a company based on a founding team with deep industry know-how, who are aiming to solve a real problem, in a relatively untapped space, at just the right time,” stresses Agusta.

MDI Ventures’ playbook

Agusta highlights that MDI Ventures is an independent entity with its own funding processes. It “combines a VC model with services in providing companies from Telkom Group with access to operational assistance and help in building startups’ growth engine after making a financial investment.”

When considering to invest in the company, MDI Ventures always approach the assessment from both the qualitative and quantitative side.

“On the quantitative side, strong traction and growth in their key operational metrics were important to us,” he explains.

In Whispir’s case, for example, some things that MDI Ventures considered were whether the business actually upsells and by how many per cent.

“They have a spread out footprint and their clients returned to use their offers,” Agusta says.

The first investment MDI Ventures made was in Japanese company Geniee. It is a platform to enable users to deliver ads to earn maximum revenue from pure advertisements, demand side platform (DSPs), real-time bidding through ad exchange, multiple ad networks, and affiliate ads.

True to its “quick win” strategy, Geniee exited in 2017 and is now listed in Tokyo Stock Exchange Market.

In the future, MDI Ventures plans to diversify its portfolio, particularly by backing up-and-coming unicorns in Indonesia, such as fintech startups Finaccel and Kredivo.

“We started off with capturing a quick win opportunity overseas, and now we have shifted focus to go after startups in Indonesia. It’s all a part of our portfolio mix. From a total of 32 companies we’ve backed so far, there are those that we’ve invested in to have a return, and there are companies that we believe will exit. It’s all pure strategy,” Agusta elaborates.

Also Read: Indonesian digital payment startup Kredivo secures financing from Telkomsel’s VC arm, MDI Ventures

Recent data shows that 2018 saw a surge in Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) activity worldwide. For the whole year, there were 2,740 deals on record, while roughly US$53 billion was disclosed in CVC funding for tech startups.

Asia attracted 38 per cent of all CVC deals in 2018, up from 31 per cent in 2017.

“What matters is that our investment thesis is working, and that Indonesian corporate funds can succeed not just on their home turf, but also throughout the region,” Agusta emphasises.

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Image Credit: MDI Ventures

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