On September 28th, 2019, I joined the StartupViet (Hosted by VnExpress.net)’s Bootcamp for top 80 startups as the Moderator for the Panel discussion “Go Global”.

It was a sweet coincidence that before our panel session, the startups had an in-depth dialogue with Grab’s representative in Vietnam. The discussion really brought me back to an article idea that I have had for quite some time, what are the key components to Grab’s success in Vietnam?

Recently, Grab, Southeast Asia’s leading start-up with an estimated valuation of about USD$14 billion, just announced a plan to invest USD$500 million into Vietnam this September to spur development of the country’s digital economy.

Last year, I was amazed when I had the chance to attend the launch of Grab’s R&D centre in Ho Chi Minh city: their large-scale system integrates emerging technologies such as Big Data, AI, and Human-Data Interaction to improve the in-app user experiences (UX) and tailor the UX to Vietnamese users.

A look at the ride-hailing market

According to a recent report by ABI Research, the automotive industry has continued to slow down while the ride-hailing market has continued to grow considerably. Another recent report by Google estimates that the ride-hailing sector will reach a valuation of USD$30 billion by 2025 with services expanding to more than 500 cities in Southeast Asia.

Yet, despite such growth, some vendors are experiencing significant losses. GoJek lost its 2nd Vietnam CEO within 5 months and Uber has had infamous struggles with a reported net loss of USD$1.1 billion for Q1 2019 and its widely publicized exit from Asia last year following Grab’s acquisition of its Asia operations.

Meanwhile, Grab was Vietnam’s most downloaded ride-sharing app from January to July, followed by GoViet (GoJek), Be and FastGo. According to ABI Research, Grab had over 70 per cent of Vietnam’s ride-hailing market in the first half of the year, compared with Go-Jek at 10 per cent.

Also Read: Today’s top tech news: GrabKitchen launches cloud kitchens in Thailand, Vietnam, accelerating regional expansions

Let’s see how Grab can maintain its dominance in the APAC region!

Grab’s phenomenal growth

Grab entered Vietnam in 2014 as a taxi aggregator well before it added private car services, which of course took a page from Uber’s playbook.

At the beginning of 2018, Grab tapped into Vietnam’s tech talent with its new R&D centre in Ho Chi Minh City. This conveys the company’s philosophy of developing highly localized products to target consumers in their countries while tapping the best-specialized tech talent from around the world to enhance UX and platform efficiency.

Later, they entered Vietnam’s online payment industry by partnering with the Vietnamese fintech firm Moca to launch a digital wallet. Grab also formed a joint venture with Credit Saison, a Japanese credit card company, to offer loans and credit analysis to consumers and micro-entrepreneurs across Southeast Asia.

These movements pushed the total payment volume on Grab’s mobile application more than doubled% in the first half of 2019 and GrabPay mobile active users grew by more than 65 per cent.

As mentioned above, in 2018, Uber sells SEA business to Grab, this helped Grab reach over 160 million downloads with more than 9 million drivers and agents for its fintech services. The deal put Grab in absolute control of Southeast Asia’s ride-sharing market.

Within the same time period, GrabFood saw a gross merchandise value rise 3 times with average daily orders hitting 300,000 in Vietnam. Grab has also shown a willingness to localize for local eaters, for example, GrabFood has signed contracts with Lotterria and other popular Vietnamese cafes and chains to bring them their favourite foods.

Earlier this month, Grab signed a partnership with Vietjet and Swift247 in which the company will provide a “super express delivery service” to provide expedited deliveries in cities in Vietnam with the potential for future international expansion

By the end of 2019, Grab will have fulfilled its plan to become the one-stop app to offer services and solutions for daily needs from transportation, to food, to entertainment, and seamless cashless payments similar to the role WeChat plays in China.

The factors driving the success of Grab

The result is obvious to see. The real question is, how could Grab do that – the thing that Uber left and Go-Jek couldn’t do?

1. Grab mastered the super app 

The very first factor is the so-called ‘super apps’ – the one-stop app that satisfies a range of daily services.  For Grab, this includes services such as transportation, paying bills, ordering food, and even booking hotels. This factor is a key component behind the success of both Go-Jek and Grab and it is what Uber left behind in South East Asia one year ago.

Grab, like all such super-apps, provides enough benefits and functionality to keep its users from ever needing to close the app.  It can cover everything at every step at any time. Today, users in Vietnam can pay bills, book hotels, order food and send parcels all from the Grab app.

2. Grab has rewards and subscriptions 

Reward programs are also helping to build customer loyalty. Grab now offers points for spending on its app. Users can redeem points for cash vouchers at KFC, coffee shops, or for free Grab bikes.

3. R&D as a differentiator 

Grab has shown its serious and long-term commitment to Vietnam. Grab now has more than 1,000 staff members in Vietnam which include more than 100 engineers in its R&D centre. This is a smart move.

As we all know, Vietnam is one of the emerging hot spots for tech talent in the region. Plus, hiring the local tech staff brings the company an unprecedented opportunity to deliver a platform catering to the region’s mobile-first environment needs. With this, they can gain a combination of deep local understanding and best-in-class engineering.

Also Read: Grab reportedly wants to merge OVO with Ant Financials DANA. What does it mean for the rest of us?

Last but not least, the focus on customer experience! As I mentioned above, their Ho Chi Minh R&D Center is like a “futuristic room” where their large-scale system meets emerging technologies such as Big Data, AI, and Human-Data Interaction to improve the in-app UX and tailor the UX to Vietnamese users. This is Grab’s way to fully understand and penetrate markets while providing the best possible experiences.

4. Hyper localisation

Just look at the way Grab managed to master each Southeast Asian market’s transportation needs: GrabBike in Vietnam, GrabBajay (three-wheeled motorized vehicles) in Indonesia, ThoneBane in Myanmar, Tuktuks in Thailand, and Remorque in Cambodia.

“Our strategy has always been, and will continue to be, to focus on Grab services in a country, our customers — and providing what we think and what we hope to be outstanding customer experience.” – Russell Cohen, Grab’s head of regional operations, told the Nikkei Asian Review.

Grab is truly among the giant tech companies and they clearly understand the power of ABCD Technology. These benefits gave Grab valuable data insight into its customers and drivers on its network which leads to the promotion of traditional transportation modes in several markets. For business, real-time unified data can be used to unlock automation functions and enable them to fully understand the market needs of customers.

These above characteristics are, for me, the most important characteristics for a startup to go global and become a unicorn.

As Vietnam ranks third among Grab’s top markets and the Southeast Asia Internet economy is expected to exceed USD$240 billion USD by 2025, this is just the beginning for Grab and I am excited to see how far they will grow beyond ride-hailing towards the daily super app.

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Many people still don’t understand what UI and UX really mean, often endowing both concepts with false meaning. To make it clear, let’s take a brief look at the two definitions.

Although both concepts work closely together, they are not to be confused with each other. In fact, user Interface comprises elements of the product that the user interacts with. These include colours, buttons, keys, images, etc. Simply put, it is a layout of the product.

User Experience is a broader concept. It determines how exactly the user interacts with the product and how they feel about it — whether they are satisfied with the functionality or not. UX includes all aspects of user interaction with your company, service or product. As you know, the clients are always right, and their positive impressions are your key to success.

The major trends of 2019-2020

Now that you know what UI and UX are, let’s discuss the main features that will rock the industry in the near future.

Dark themes and dark mode

 

Dark themes are gaining more and more popularity every year. This approach has several advantages. Such themes are eye-friendly, battery-saving, and more elegant.

While most designers still prefer to use white themes because of their versatility, dark themes offer the opportunity to make your product more stylish. Still, the wrong combination of colours in a dark theme can become a real torture for the eyes. So keep the colours balanced to add a pure style to your product.

An additional impetus to the growing popularity of dark themes was given by Apple with its macOS Mojave update on September 2018. The brainchild of Steve Jobs continues to set trends and designers tend to follow them.

Surreal and custom design

Custom design has always been trendy. The design doesn’t tolerate uniformity and monotony, so a truly creative approach is needed here. Therefore, the more unique your product’s style is — the better. This is highly relevant to narrow-niche products.

As for surreal design, don’t go too heavy on it. Although for some this design may look obscure and odd, this is precisely the main advantage of this approach.

Also Read: 2 tech trends to keep a watch for in the coming decade

Think about famous surrealist paintings by Salvador Dali or Pablo Picasso. They can be seen in the world’s great galleries of the Louvre and the Hermitage. Now, imagine that you can create something similar, but in the application or on the website.

This will immediately evoke subtle associations, and the product is likely to lure in users.

But don’t forget about balance and appropriateness — surreal design is hardly a good fit for a healthcare application or a legal services website.

Minimalism

The minimalist approach goes well with the previous trend of custom design. Ease of comprehension and use is the key to success today. The faster the user grasps the functionality of your application and jumps into it, the better.

Complex applications with a mess of interactive elements are a thing of the past, and there is nothing that portends their comeback.

Minimalist design is gaining ground due to the fact that users are no longer surprised by the complex and interesting design solutions. Content comes back to the first place – that’s why the user actually opens your application.

Minimalist design is perfect in simplifying user access to content, and that is why it is gaining popularity.

What’s more, minimalist design combined with dark themes gives an excellent result. Recall how much fun and excitement Playdead’s indie-game Limbo caused in 2010. Yes, this is a narrow-niche solution, no doubt.

 Voice interface

Voice control has already penetrated into all spheres of our life so you can find it in any device now. In the coming years, this trend will continue gaining momentum.

The most interesting thing is that voice control is not about design at all, since this feature doesn’t imply any visible elements. However, some designers try to portray the voice control interface in the form of futuristic moving objects.

Nevertheless, voice control is a crucial component of UI and UX, as it is actually a part of the minimalist design. Fewer elements of user interaction result in intuitive agile control.

Creative loaders

The load (or pre-load) indicator can be found in almost every application and website. The customers don’t like to idly spend their time waiting until the necessary file is downloaded, so you need to try your best to improve their experience.

Also Read: 5 mistakes to avoid when building a business from scratch

This is where creative loaders come into play. Instead of a typical moving stripe, they can be designed as a bouncy ball or a spinning wheel, for example. Thus, they attract the user’s attention and distract them from boring anticipation.

Due to the fact that modern users value speed and simplicity, the trend for smart loaders will definitely persist in the coming years. Here, you can find good examples of loaders to get inspired to create your own.

Summary

Summing up, we can say that 2020 will follow the motto of chaos, creativity, and innovative solutions. Switching from proven, trivial solutions to a more out-of-the-box approach is a trend for another couple of years.

Of course, the design pattern should be consistent with your product’s aims and niche, but don’t be afraid to experiment. Perhaps, it’s high time to make your app or website look more rockstars!

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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.

Join our e27 Telegram group here, or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.

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Cool Japan Fund, a Japanese entertainment-dedicated fund, announced an investment of JPY5.5 billion (US$50 million) into gojek, as gojek’s eventual foray into entertainment sector with the launch of its video streaming service goplay.

According to an article from Variety, Cool Japan says it will work with Gojek to spread Japanese culture in Indonesia through both the platform’s food delivery and video streaming services.

“[This investment in gojek] was decided under very strict screening,” said Naoki Kitagawa, a former representative director of Sony Music Entertainment (Japan), who became president and CEO of Cool Japan in June last year.

Cool Japan Fund (CJF) Inc. was launched in November, 2013. Funded by both the public and private sectors, the company aims to promote Japanese exports, such as anime and food.

However, the company is not without trouble. The initiative has been reporting losses, with the fiscal year ending in March showed a US$160 million loss. The year before, the fund lost US$90 million.

Critics blame the public-private arrangement as a sign of a lack of accountability regarding performance.

Also Read: Women-focussed media Clozette secures US$10M funding from Cool Japan Fund

“[The Cool Japan Fund] is allowing projects to move forward unchecked without releasing to the public its profits and losses for current projects,” Takayuki Shimizu, a member of the House of Councillors from the Japan Innovation Party, said.

Among the known failures was an investment of US$9 million in a department store in Kuala Lumpur in 2016, resulting in CJF selling its shares in the venture two years later at a presumed loss. No amount of loss was disclosed.

In April this year, it announced that it was co-investing alongside talent agency Yoshimoto Kogyo and telecoms giant NTT into Laugh & Peace_Mother, a business for distribution of educational content.

Previously, Cool Japan was a backer of the Daisuke animation website, which became wholly owned by games company Bandai Namco in 2017, following a buyout.

In August 2018, Cool Japan announced that it would put up to US$47 million into another fund, Japan Contents Factory Investment Business, to support the creation of Japanese visual content aimed at international distribution. Other partners are NTT Plala, YD Creation, Bungeishunju, and supermarkets to multiplex giant Aeon Entertainment.

Also Read: AIA Indonesia takes part in gojek’s Series F funding in a strategic partnership

The Japan Contents Fund seeks to help companies bankroll pre-sales contracts to provide capital until payment of license fees. It also plans on supporting production companies for visual content within a contract that promises payment after completion with Video On Demand (VOD) media services.

Cool Japan has also announced investments in a fashion brand for working women, and a direct to consumer winery promoting the consumption of sake by U.S. consumers.

gojek has been consistently adding partners-investors to its Series F funding, from Google, JD.com, and Tencent in February, to local conglomerate Astra, who invested US$100 million in March 2019.

In July 2019, Visa also joined the Series F funding, right after Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank involvement in the round.

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SoftBank downgraded after WeWork’s US$9.5 billion rescue package- Bloomberg

A Jefferies analyst downgraded SoftBank Corp in its second Hold rating on Friday for engineering WeWork’s $9.5 billion rescue package according to Bloomberg report. Jefferies Group held a ‘buy’ recommendation on it since at least 2014, and moved it to ‘hold citing the increased risk of SoftBank “throwing good money after bad.”

Jefferies joins HSBC Holdings Plc in recommending that investors hold for now.

Once some of the brightest stars in the SoftBank’ portfolio, Uber and WeWork now number among its worst performers. SoftBank is planning to take a writedown to its Vision Fund of at least $5 billion to reflect a plunge in its value, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Analysts are recommending investors to buy shares in Masayoshi Son’s company even as it faced billions of dollars in writedowns from the WeWork IPO and a sharp decline in shares of Uber Technologies Inc. But now Son’s decision to double down on WeWork has prompted a rare voice of dissent to emerge.

India’s telecom giant Airtel picks up 8.8% stake in tech startup Vahan Inc- Deal Street Asia

Bharti Airtel Ltd has acquired a minority stake of 8.82% in Bengaluru-based software development startup Vahan Inc, said a report by Deal Street Asia. The acquisition of Vahan is a part of Airtel’s Startup Accelerator Program to support the growth of early-stage Indian tech startups.

The initiative will give startups early access to Airtel’s online and offline distribution network, deep market understanding and ecosystem of global strategic partners. Vahan specialises in providing jobs by using artificial intelligence-driven bot (web robot) and a messaging platform, became the first company to join the program.

Startups will also access to advisory services from Airtel’s executive team. Airtel’s scale and digital capabilities around distribution and payment can drive growth for startups that face multiple challenges in scaling up, said Airtel Chief Product Officer Adarsh Nair.

Cool Japan Fund invests US$50M in gojek, despite reported losses- e27

Cool Japan Fund, a Japanese entertainment-dedicated fund, announced an investment of JPY5.5 billion (US$50 million) into gojek, as gojek forays into the entertainment sector with the launch of its video streaming service goplay.

According to an article from Variety, Cool Japan says it will work with Gojek to spread Japanese culture in Indonesia through both the platform’s food delivery and video streaming services.

“[This investment in gojek] was decided under very strict screening,” said Naoki Kitagawa, a former representative director of Sony Music Entertainment (Japan), who became president and CEO of Cool Japan in June last year.

Cool Japan Fund (CJF) Inc. was launched in November, 2013. Funded by both the public and private sectors, the company aims to promote Japanese exports, such as anime and food.

Also read: Following Nadiem Makarim’s resignation, gojek names new leaders

Indian online hotel booking startup MiStay raises funding from ah! Ventures- VCCircle

Founded in 2016 by alumni of IIT-Madras, MiStay Hospitality Pvt. Ltd, which runs online hotel reservations startup, has raised an undisclosed amount from investors including the Mumbai-based ah! Ventures, wrote VCCircle.

The round was also supported by a group of investors led Hyderabad-based entrepreneur, Sumit Nagpal.

Bengaluru-based MiStay said it will use the funds to expand its footprint and grow its leadership team. In 2017, it raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Axilor Ventures and a group of angel investors.

It claims to have grown five times since its pivot to the consumer market and says it has achieved operational profitability. It is currently present in 100 cities through 1,500 hotels.

Chinese biggest co-working space provider Ucommune files for US IPO- Deal Street Asia

Beijing-based Ucommune, which was valued at $2.6 billion about a year ago, has appointed Citigroup and Credit Suisse to work on a listing, while Bank of America has a minor role in the deal, as it files for a US IPO, said a Deal Street Asia report.

A prospectus was lodged with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in late September, they said, and the company has held preliminary meetings to sound out investors before the formal public marketing process begins.

China’s biggest shared workspace provider Ucommune’s decision to explore a listing has surprised investment bankers given the similarities between its business and that of embattled US rival WeWork, which this week had to be bailed out in a US$10 billion deal after investors soured on an IPO plan.

A decision to go ahead with the IPO will depend on the feedback provided by potential investors, the sources said.

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On Wednesday, October 23, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo announced the list of ministers and heads of institutions for his new cabinet. Despite the continuous mention of the “digital economy” jargon throughout his campaign, the new cabinet came out as a shock for the national startup ecosystem –one of the leading players in the country’s creative economy sector.

There are two major questions that remain. First is the merging of Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf) into the ministry of tourism, transforming it into ministry tourism and creative economy. “Merging” is the terminology that they prefer to use instead of elimination. While the ministry itself will be led by a young, leading name in the creative industry, the merger may indicate a changing level of priority for the creative industry –which also included the startup ecosystem. This is especially crucial considering Bekraf’s significant role in the industry.

The agency’s programmes specifically target the needs of creative professionals, considering the list of deputy that was in charge of the different sectors in the agency, from research, funding, infrastructure, marketing, intellectual property rights, and inter-agency relationship. Ideally, with its own potential and complexity, tourism should be handled by its own agency.

Never look down on creative economy

According to research by central statistics agency and Bekraf in 2016, Indonesia’s creative economy sector contributed 7.35 per cent of the nation’s GDP or the equal of IDR922 trillion (US$65 billion). The figure has continued to rise that it is projected to grow by 4.13 per cent by the end of the year. Creative economy employs up to 17 million workers from various fields –including tech.

Also Read: Indonesia’s IDN Media foray into e-sports by acquiring GGWP.ID

According to other sources such as the Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company e-Conomy SEA 2019 report, this year, Indonesia’s digital economy sector is expected to reach US$40 billion and is predicted to grow up to US$133 billion by 2025. The e-commerce, travel, and media sector will play a key role in driving the figure and pushing Indonesia to become a top player in the Southeast Asian region.

Some concerns

In addition to Bekraf, the other institution that works closely with the digital industry is the Ministry of Communications and Informatics. In the past years, former minister Rudiantara played an active role in advocating startup industry players with his ambitious target of giving birth to new unicorns. To support the mission, the minister had taken several steps including the issuance of new regulations.

Johnny Gerald Plate has been named as the new minister to replace Rudiantara. While the new minister has been a familiar face in the political sector, he is a relative newcomer in the creative and digital industry.

This is basically the second point of our concerns.

The Indonesian creative and digital ecosystem is growing rapidly and it requires the government to run just as fast with it –if not more. Disruptions, as provided by players in these industries, have been proven from time to time to drive changes in society. Our tech ecosystem has gone beyond its early-stage; we have even entered the scale-up stage at the moment. This development requires an individual with a relevant, strong track record to lead the policy-making institutions. Especially since Plate was given the mandate to handle the matters of cybersecurity, data autonomy, and protection of local ICT industry. A rather serious and daunting task.

Also Read: MHomecare wins Indonesia-Korea Startup Demo Day 2019

On Monday, October 22, the presence of Nadiem Makarim at the Merdeka Palace gave a fresh, new hope for the industry. Many were expecting to see the set up of a new ministry that specifically handles digital and creative economy, but he was being appointed as minister of education and culture instead. There is no denying that human resource development is a crucial matter  But given his track record in running a disruptive business model, it feels like a waste to not maximise his potentials.

It is hard not to be pessimistic

The Indonesian digital industry had facilitated access to financial services for the underserved community, with the connectivity provided through their tech innovation. The ride-hailing vertical has opened up new job opportunities and transformed SMEs through the use of digital tech. We have not even talked about the New Retail, healthtech, edutech, and other verticals that have created significant impact in Indonesia.

It is hard to accept the political calculation that the President had to make. We sincerely hope this is not an effort to sacrifice the creative and digital industries for a so-called greater good.

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The article Harap-Harap Cemas Ekosistem Industri Kreatif dan Ekonomi Digital Pasca Pengumuman Kabinet Indonesia Maju was written in Bahasa Indonesia by Randi Eka Yonida for DailySocial. English translation and editing by e27.

Image Credit: William Manuel Son on Unsplash

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