Researchers have found that millennials are more inclined towards starting their own business rather than doing a 9 to 5 job. The reason behind this could be that there is a growing trend of people wanting to build things from scratch. This gives them a sense of ownership and creativity.

Product designing, marketing, investment, and profit calculations, etc.; require hard work, but these can easily lead to stress and depression.

In this article, we have discussed some of the ways using which you can deal with your startup stress.

Work on the causes of stress

It’s not the whole process that leads to stress, rather certain areas in a startup that are responsible for it.

What you need to do is adopt a positive attitude and find out the reasons which lead to stress. Once you have figured out the causes of stress, you can easily work on them; eradicate them or mould them.

Also Read: 5 research-backed stress-busters that can help you improve work-life balance

For instance, if fewer sales are a reason why you are having stress then you can certainly work on the ways with which you can increase your sales; introducing new marketing tactics or investing in PR. Therefore it is important to figure out the main cause of stress in your startup and work on it.

Increase your reading habits

Most of the successful businessmen you see on the esteemed cover of Forbes magazine are all avid readers; Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, etc.

There are two main reasons why you need to read while engaging in a startup; the first one is that it draws your attention from the tensions your daily routine and helps you relax, whereas the other reason is that it gives you the ideas and inspirations which you can apply to your problems.

For example, if you are reading about a successful business that faced issues at the start of his entrepreneurship journey then you can certainly find some reference to your problems in his story and apply the remedies which he used back in time. So, read the biographies of successful people regularly to keep you inspired.

Exercise and meditation

A healthy body keeps a healthy mind.

Mental stress is automatically dealt with if you engage yourself in exercise and meditation.

A simple exercise like running helps you to focus on yourself which is extremely helpful when it comes to dealing with stress. Moreover, when you break a sweat in a gym or a jogging track, vision and dedication are increased which helps you fighting with work-related stress too. 

Secondly, meditation is also found to be fruitful in mitigating startup related stress. With meditation, you attain an inner peace that helps with self-evaluation. This process of introspection and self-evaluation helps deals with startup stress.

Get yourself a Mentor

No matter where you are on the success ladder and whatever you do, you always need someone to show you the right direction and tell you that everything is going to be alright. Get yourself a mentor and seek his help when you find yourself in a startup bottleneck. 

Talk about your problems, seek advice and implement. But remember, this is a never-ending process. Your mentor would show you light from his personal experience.

Also Read: Stressed at work? Here are 11 best meditation apps to help you relax

So, if one piece of advice doesn’t work out, do not lose hope. Rather, discuss again and seek new advice. This will not only remove the startup related stress but give you the ideas using which you can ensure tremendous growth for your business.

Focus on activity and not the outcome

There is no denying the fact that profit maximization is the ultimate aim of every startup. But you need to show patience with such outcomes.

In a startup, your main focus should be the activity and the process whereas the outcome and the profit should be given secondary importance. This will help you reduce a great deal of startup related stress.

Keeping these simple things in mind, you can get rid of the stress that hinders the growth of a startup.

These steps will not only minimize your stress but it will ensure your grooming and mental development as well which is important to become a successful businessman.

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How Kdan Mobile’s DottedSign changes the way we do e-documents

Back when the idea of an electronic scheme was merely a theory, signing documents was not without hiccups. First, it usually meant a longer turnaround time, especially when there were multiple signatories. More than that, the geographical zone differences of these signatories could also add to the delay.

Second, the possibility of human error — such as placing your signature on the wrong section, or missing a signature altogether — could mean having to repeat the process all over again. This is especially difficult when dealing with sensitive documents that aren’t easy to replicate.

Third, the security of documents may be compromised since paper documents could be easily tampered with.

Thankfully, an abundance of digital solutions available in the market today have stepped up to help solve these challenges. The evolution of signing has gone from paper to paperless, and now to cloud-based signature service. These services ushered in a new way of doing document signing by helping in the following areas:

● reduce courier costs
● expedite turnaround time
● increase productivity, and
● upgrade a document’s security and legality.

The number of e-sign services is on the rise, but one particular player is making a name for itself

The convenience of electronic documents has made digital signing a fundamental part of the modern-day workflow. The progress of technology, the rise of the gig economy, and the advent of employing remote workers all contributed to this phenomenon.

In recent years, we’ve also seen how the digital signing landscape has been influenced by the growth of both mobile workers and mobile users. With telecommuting and remote working is increasingly gaining popularity among both startups and traditional businesses, employees and constituents may be working in various locations at any given time. Additionally, as of 2019, smartphone users in the Asia Pacific region are at 1,483.4 million.

These scenarios reveal the need for a secure, accessible, and mobile-friendly digital signing solution. To this end, several e-sign services currently out in the market have been adapting to these swift changes. Adobe Sign, for instance, recently made digital signing available directly from Dropbox. DocuSign, another player, boasts of a product that matches the needs of its consumers.

Despite the surge in e-sign services, there’s room for one more player. Enter DottedSign, a smart e-signature solution launched earlier this year. Aimed at providing solutions for mobile workers, the service was built on mobile-friendly UI that helps mobile workers finish their work with just a few simple taps. It was also designed to support multiple languages, so all users can use with ease.

Although a new player in the field, DottedSign has already proven its reliability in important negotiations. During the Echelon Asia Summit 2019, e27 and AsiaIOA electronically signed a Memorandum of Understanding through DottedSign’s reliable partner.

This wasn’t the only notable signing engagement where DottedSign’s services became an instrumental component to. During two events in Tokyo — the Venture Cafe Tokyo and Tokyo Startup Station — the e-sign service was also used, ultimately attracting various parties.

DottedSign — not just another e-sign service

Recently, e27 sat with Kdan Mobile’s CEO Kenny Su to talk more about DottedSign and why his company decided to offer an e-sign service. The foray, says Su, was but a natural response given the company’s history of having started as a PDF application developing technique.

Before its launch of DottedSign, Kdan Mobile has been building mobile software applications and online services since 2009. Their solutions empower the world to create, distribute, and conjoin projects through the use of mainstream digital devices.

Throughout the years, their services have been used by 5 million members across 167 countries worldwide and received a total of 150 million downloads. This serves as proof of their solid reputation is their market presence not only in Taiwan where they are headquartered, but also across China, the U.S., and Japan.

One major reason why Kdan Mobile’s apps have been the go-to app for consumers is because of its flexibility and user-friendly interface. Their services are available for download on desktop, Android, and iOS, and have been carefully built with the consumers in mind. In addition, Kdan Mobile’s push for cloud-based applications means that their services are easily accessible anywhere, anytime.

Their extensive experience as a SaaS provider is why DottedSign is not just another e-sign service. In conceptualising DottedSign, their solid background in SaaS due to their experiences in developing apps in the past years has proven beneficial for providing solutions to mobile workers. Furthermore, he adds that “today’s contracts are a little more complex than they used to be. There’s often a freelancer involved on one end (e.g. a programmer) who sends the contract, a small business that hires the freelancer, and a client that you’re working with. Thus, we’ve been working on a new, complete e-signature to optimise your business’s workflow that will change the way you sign documents, forms, contracts, and agreements forever.”

At a glance, DottedSign exhibits the following features:

● Mobile-friendly user interface – DottedSign boasts of a friendly UI for people who rely on smart devices and travel a lot.
● Visual signing task management flow – The visual progress bar makes it easy to monitor and track signing tasks by checking signers’ statuses. Meanwhile, a search tool makes it easy to find specific documents in the pile.
● Security and legality warranty – Sign legally-enforceable, paperless document. Digital audit trails record every change made to the document, such as when it’s created, sent, viewed, signed, etc. One-Time Password (OTP) verification adds stronger authentication and better protection to personal identity and data.

DottedSign also lets you boost efficiency by multitasking documents at once. That is, it gathers all signing tasks in one place, including those that are completed, waiting for you to sign, and waiting on others’ signatures. What’s more, it simplifies the process of remote business by automating your document delivery. This means you can track progress by checking each signer’s status. You’re assured that nobody incorrectly places or misses a signature.

And it doesn’t stop there. Kdan Mobile continues to update more features that will be used in enterprise solutions in the near future, such as admin console for enterprises to manage their signing documents and open API for the integration to CRM system.

A two-week free access to DottedSign’s Pro features

For a limited time, DottedSign offers a 14-day trial so users could check out for themselves the features and benefits of using this e-sign service. What’s great about this offer is that it allows you to access its advanced Pro features, such as: creating multiple signature tasks, unlocking special input fields, or offering in-person signing. Enterprise users can learn about special pricing options by contacting the sales team through the website for more details. Ready to check it out? Click here to sign up for free and begin your two-week free access.

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Walk into any store. Pick up the nearest item on the shelf and you’ll see a “Made in China” sticker. What comes to mind?

I’ll tell you what most Americans imagine. They think of shoddy workmanship or knockoffs. They think of run-down cities and broken infrastructure. They imagine a society without the resources to create the type of innovative companies and technologies that we can.

Unfortunately, for many: “Made in China” means “cheap.”

If you believe this, one visit to Shanghai will change your mind for good. You’ll find an unending sea of glass and steel, with a skyline to equal any you’ve seen. In many ways, it’s a city out of the future – bullet trains, modern architecture, and glowing crowds of people talking on mobile devices.

The changes that have occurred in the last twelve to fifteen years, even the last five, are unbelievable.

China has shifted

In the last decade, wages for the average Chinese worker have more than doubled. Chinese companies like Tencent and Alibaba are the world’s 10th and 12th most valuable, respectively. They adopt new technologies with a speed unmatched by anything on this side of the world.

China is no longer a place for the West to outsource cheap labour. In recent years, people have become wealthier, more urbanized, and more modern. In fact, Chinese companies are now the ones outsourcing their labor to lower-cost economies like Vietnam and Mexico.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise: history is cyclical.

In the 1960s Japanese-made cars weren’t taken seriously. No one doubts the quality of a Honda today. Taiwanese electronics were considered inferior, and now dominate the market. Despite their power in the market today, even South Korean products were once thought unreliable.

The reality is that China has been going through that very same transformation. They’re rapidly transitioning out of the “low cost” mentality and have the ability to compete globally with quality products. These companies can win against the world’s best-known brands.

The unseen advantage

It’s important to understand that Chinese companies have something most American companies don’t.

Something that we used to have.

For decades, America has dominated the international market with our entertainment, technology, and incessant drive to innovate and change the world. It’s not an exaggeration to say that life everywhere would be drastically different, and worse, if not for American ingenuity. The key to much of that dominance?

An appetite for risk.

We’ve been on top for so long, with no true peer competitors, that there’s no reason to take the kind of outrageous gambles that lead to either incredible success or bankruptcy.

However, Chinese companies are hungry. They work harder and work more, as people who want to prove themselves tend to do. Just as we did during the Cold War era.

The cutthroat business environment on the mainland breeds only the most adaptable, capable companies.

Most importantly, they’re willing to take tremendous chances to reach their goals.

Also read: A look into China’s future: Unravelling China’s edtech landscape

Chinese companies know they have to succeed in an environment long dominated by more established players, and that means doing things differently. For some, those risks have paid off.

More than a few tech publications have ranked Lenovo as the #1 brand in laptops, beating out established brands like Apple, Asus, and Dell.

Huawei has quietly become the world’s second-largest smartphone brand, with a vast range of five-star products on Amazon. If you’ve heard of “Clash of Kings,” then you’ve heard of the Chinese app giant, Elex Tech.

Changing expectations

On a business trip to Shanghai in 2006, I visited a popular market displaying hundreds of Chinese-built phones. Barely anyone would touch them. Back then, the Chinese preferred brands like Nokia, Samsung, and Apple.

When I asked why they said it was because they were worried about the quality of local products.

When I visited again in 2017, it was now local companies like Xiaomi, Oppo, or ZTE that dominated the mobile market. And not just in China, but all across Asia. Walk into a mall in Thailand and you’ll find Huawei phones next to LG.

Today, Chinese consumers demand quality, and Chinese companies have delivered. Expectations have changed.

Businesses that don’t take them as serious competitors are going to regret it when they see where the customers are going.

The future consumer market

Five years from now, don’t be surprised if “Made In China” means “quality.” If we cover our eyes to this new reality, we will not only miss the threat of these newcomers but also the vast potential in working with them.

This is a turning point. Many businesses are still afraid of doing business with China due to the perception of their build quality, copyright issues, and government interference.

The severity of these problems have been eroded, or even eliminated, in recent years.

Build quality has evolved. Copyrights are now actively protected as Chinese companies seek to gain international legitimacy. And the government, far from inhibiting them, is bullish on joint ventures.

It’s an incredible opportunity for those who can recognize this and act quickly. We must have the courage to take risks again.

Chinese companies are actively looking for partners on this side of the pond. The synergistic possibilities are both widely varied and potentially game-changing.

Also read: 6 shifts in China’s internet sector from 2017 into 2018: report

Traditionally, America has partnered with Chinese companies only to gain a leg up in the local market. This isn’t about that – it’s about working together to help them move out of China and compete globally in a mutually beneficial arrangement.

The first to do so will reap the rewards. Brands like AMD, HP, and Qualcomm have already bet big on joint partnerships with China.

America must regain that mindset of challenging the status quo instead of perpetuating it.

China has changed – and so must we.

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

Image Credit: twinsterphoto / 123RF Stock Photo

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Mall91, an India-based social commerce platform, has secured US$7.5 million in its Series A funding round led by Go-Ventures, the venture arm of gojek.

Singapore-based Beenext, Indian VC firm Kalaari Capital, and AngelList India also joined the round.

This funding will help Mall91 to expand its business, as it looks to target the next 400 million vernacular users across tier II, III and IV cities in India. It will also embark on international expansion opportunities.

The company also plans on expanding to other top eight local languages of India.

Also Read: How to deal with startup stress?

Started in December 2018, Mall91 combines various functions onto one platform, including gaming, video, chat, and social shopping features. It combines live videos-based shopping, local language voice recognition-based catalog discovery, and Whatsapp like chat/messaging-based checkouts.

Mall91 targets users who speak different regional languages across India. Mall91 claims to have reached to 2,000-plus tier II, III and IV towns/villages of India.

Speaking on the investment, Mall91 Co-founder and CEO Nitin Raj Gupta said: “While we focus on enhancing our platform and offerings, we will also aim to expand our talent pool to drive our ambitious growth plans.”

Photo by Blake Wisz on Unsplash

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gojek reveals five startups selected into its Xcelerate’s first cohort [Tech In Asia]

Indonesia’s gojek announced five startups from the first cohort of its accelerator programme in partnership with Digitaraya, gojek Xcelerate. They are a decentralised warehouse services provider Crewdible; mobile concierge platform IZY; mobile platform of pet care solutions PETO; smart city ecosystem enabler Qlue; and, sharing accommodation platform Travelio.

The five shortlisted startups will receive mentorship from McKinsey & Co, Google Launchpad Developer, and UBS Bank. According to Digitaraya’s Managing Director Nicole Yap, the startups will also have an opportunity to be incorporated under gojek’s ecosystem.

Malaysia prolongs VCs, angel investors’ tax incentives until 2023 [DealStreetAsia]

The Malaysian government reportedly decided to extend tax incentives given to venture capital (VC) and angel investors until 2023, which aims to encourage startup funding and attract more foreign investment in the country.

The extension is one of the latest moves by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng in his Budget 2020 proposal. The budget also seeks to boost private equity (PE) investments in the country, with the government seeking to provide a 1 billion ringgit (US$239 million) 1:5 matching guarantee for PE funds to invest in Malaysian consortia.

Also Read: Malaysia’s Petronas sets up US$350M VC fund to invest in tech startups around the world

There were 105 registered VC firms in Malaysia at the end of 2018 and these firms had invested a total of 613.3 million ringgit (US$150.1 million) in the entire year.

Budget 2020 promises to support and encourage new financing options such as Equity CrowdFunding (ECF) and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) platforms. Both platforms had collectively raised more than 430 million ringgit (US$102.8 million) as of June 2019.

The Malaysian government is allocating 297 billion ringgit (US$71 billion) for Budget 2020, an increase of 19.5 billion ringgit (US$4.7 billion) compared to 2019.

Dental 3D printing startup Structo secures funding [e27]

Singapore-based dental 3D printing startup Structo announces that it has secured a new round of venture funding from several Asian investors. According to the company’s statement, the investors joining the round include the Singapore Economic Development Board’s investment arm (EDBI), GGV Capital, Wavemaker Partners, and Temasek-backed, Pavilion Capital.

Structo plans to use the latest round of funding to further develop its digital additive manufacturing solutions, and launch new products that leverage automation to enable the mass production of custom patient-specific products.

Structo was founded in 2014 as a project from the National University of Singapore (NUS). It develops 3D printers and solutions for the dental industry.

Also Read: 5 Singapore startups that could be the next industry darling

Huub van Esbroeck, co-founder and CEO of Structo added that it has installed its printers across five continents and produces hundreds of thousands of dental appliances per month. Apart from its Singapore-based headquarters, Structo also operates from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom (UK).

AI-powered edutech startup Mathpresso receives US$14.5 Million in Series B funding, focussing on driving growth [Press Release]

Mathpresso, an AI-powered education startup from South Korea, announces that it has secured US$14.5 million in a Series B funding round led by Legend Capital with participation from new investors InterVest and NP Investments as well as existing investor Mirae Asset Venture Investment, bringing its total funding to US$21.2 million.

Founded in 2015, Mathpresso is an ed-tech company that offers ‘QANDA’, a mobile app that enables students to search solutions to math problems just by taking a photo and ask 1-on-1 questions to top-school tutors.

“Our mission is to provide equal opportunities to education through technology,” said Jongheun Lee, co-founder, and CEO at Mathpresso. “With the new investment, we plan to bolster our presence in the Asian market beyond Korea and Japan which will bring us closer to achieving our mission.”
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