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11 annoying business buzzwords you use without thinking and what to say instead

 

Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley once told me that 90 per cent of his job was trying to communicate. That’s the case for many business leaders who spend a lot of energy figuring out how to communicate in a way that gets people tuning in, rather than tuning out.

Overusing business jargon and buzzwords defeat any of that effort. It undermines your credibility as a leader, makes you sound like a mouthpiece spouting off the equivalent of business advice from a billboard, and just plain makes people, not like you.

I was in corporate long enough to know the buzzwords and jargon that drove lots of people crazy.

Here are the top 11 examples as I see it, ranked from the least offensive (relatively speaking) to the most. I offer alternatives to each so that people don’t have to fight back the gag reflex when they hear you say these things.

11. “Paradigm shift”

People who say this are trying to over-dramatize what is actually shifting and are just trying to sound smart.

An alternative: “It’s a big change.” Short. Simple. Sweet. People will focus on the size and impact of the change you’re communicating, not the size of the words you’re using.

10. “Best practice.”

Bleech. So overused. It’s like assigning an unnecessary label to common sense. It’s making what’s simply the smart thing to do sound clinical and likely more measured and recorded than it really is.

Also Read: Rise of the social entrepreneur: can doing good be good for business?

An alternative: “What’s proved to work.” This sounds so much more compelling and so much less bloated. Who wouldn’t want to follow proof?

9. “Work smarter, not harder.”

Seriously? You might as well say “You’re wasting your time with the way you’re working now.” You can’t help but raise hackles here. Try it. Go tell someone, anyone, they need to “work smarter, not harder” and see if, even once, you aren’t met with a clenched jaw. And how exactly does one work smarter, anyway?

An alternative: “Work more efficiently.” At least I have an idea of what it is you want me to do here–learn some productivity hacks, stop surfing the web at work, pop in headphones. You get the idea.

8. “Think outside the box.”

This just smacks of laziness because this has been such an overused phrase for so long. When people say this I can’t help but think, “That’s ironic because you’re demonstrating right now that you need to think out of the box with the language you use.” It has become a throw-away term for people who want you to think differently just for the sake of being different.

An alternative: “Consider non-traditional solutions.” This establishes the contrast you’re looking for–you don’t want people thinking in terms of what’s typically done, because the norm won’t work.

7. “Raising the bar.”

My experience with this term has been leaders generically demanding we raise the bar to an unspecified level that’s a lot higher than today, and that’s completely unrealistic.

An alternative: “Up our standards.” I especially like the use of the word “standards” here because it implies that if you don’t go above and beyond, you’re OK with mediocre, the run-of-the-mill.

6. “Core competency.”

Just, no.

An alternative: “Key strength.”

5. “Touch base.”

Where did this phrase even come from? It’s the definition of a buzzword because it adds nothing over the zillion alternatives you could use. I suppose it’s meant to indicate a casualness to communication–it’s like an alternative to scheduling a meeting. I’d rather just schedule a meeting–it’s more definitive and directive.

An alternative: “Let’s communicate.” Period.

4. “At the end of the day.”

I always want to say right afterwards, “It’s night.”

Also Read: The future of remote work is happening now, heres how to make it work for you

An alternative: “What matters is …” This gets right to the point and makes it much more easily understood that what follows this phrase is the most important thing.

3. “Give 110 per cent.”

This one says that you don’t understand math (because you can give ONLY 100 per cent,) and that you aren’t ambitious. Why just 10 per cent more? Why not ask them to “double-down”?

An alternative: “Dig deep, do your best.”

2. “Synergy.”

Huh? This is the one on the list that many people might hate just because they don’t know what it means. By the way, it means a combined effect. Guess what the alternative to this word is?

An alternative: Combined effect.

1. “Stepping back.”

This one is usually said by someone trying to prove they’re more strategic than everyone else and that they’re going to come down from the mountain to bring sanity to a clouded, misguided meeting. Give me a break.

An alternative: “If I could share a different perspective.”

So tell these buzzwords to buzz off, before someone tells you to.

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.

Image Credit: Matthew T Rader

This article was first published on Inc.com

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Meet the 7 leading startup incubators and accelerators in UAE

Since birth, e27’s key focus has always been Southeast Asia’s startup ecosystem. We have been acting as a significant catalyst and supporter of tech startups in the region. 

While our principal focus geography remains to be the same, we realise it is equally important to know what is happening in the startup industry in our neighbourhood.

West Asia, which provides jobs to millions, is a strategic region for many countries in the world, thanks to its massive oil reserves. However, the region’s economy has been on a downward spiral for the past few years. Countries, which have long been dependent on oil for revenues, have now started looking at alternative sources.  Tech startups industry is one such source.

Of all the countries, the UAE is at the forefront of the startup revolution. The successful exits of companies such as Careem (acquired by Uber) and Souq.com (acquired by Amazon) have boosted its startup industry.

The UAE has been attracting startups and accelerators to the country to start and set up business there. There are now a handful of incubators and accelerators to help entrepreneurs hone their skills and realise their dreams.

Below is a list of seven incubators and accelerator in the UAE.

Dubai Smart City Accelerator

The Dubai Smart City Accelerator, powered by Startupbootcamp, supports innovative companies in the IoT and cconnectivity, urban automation & mobility, Artificial Intelligence, blockchain, open city data, sustainable cities & living, smart government, and smart retail industry.

Its intensive three-month accelerator programme provides 10 selected smart city companies with hands-on mentorship from over 100 industry experts, office space in Dubai, seed funding, and access to a global network of investors and corporate partners from across the smart city industries.

Turn8

The Turn8 growth accelerator is focussed on startups with minimum viable product innovations (MVPs) and immediate product-to-market fit in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Turn8 injects investment, develops talent and provide mentorship and business development support for startups.

Also Read: 11 annoying business buzzwords you use without thinking and what to say instead

The Fall Round begins in September and Spring Round begins in February of each year. Rounds last for four to five months.

Launched in 2013,  Turn8 has funded over 70 technology startups to date.

Impact Hub

Impact Hub Dubai is a community of entrepreneurs, creatives and techies in the UAE. It connects social entrepreneurs, investors and supporters with the aim of finding ways to disrupt society by shifting economic thought from profit towards impact. It designs, develops and manages programmes and services that provide capacity building, acceleration and impact scaling for enterprises in the Middle East.

Impact Hub also offers a co-working space and community located in Dubai’s renowned Downtown district. It also offers workshops, events, networking and innovation labs for startups and entrepreneurs.

in5

Launched in 2013, in5 is an enabling platform for entrepreneurs and startups, fostering innovation and helping new ideas reach the marketplace. Launched by TECOM Group, in5 offers business setup framework, training and mentorship, networking, investment opportunities, and prototyping labs, studios and creative workspaces.

in5’s three specialised innovation centres provide aspiring students, entrepreneurs and startups with access to a community of creative minds, facilitating the constant exchange of knowledge.

Flat6Labs

Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi is a global hub for digital innovation that supports a generation of entrepreneurs from the UAE and abroad to launch digital businesses in Abu Dhabi and scale to regional and global markets. Supported by twofour54, Flat6Labs supports startups at idea-, early-, and growth phases, with a focus on media and digital content, including media and film production, e-commerce, social media, online education, gaming, mobile apps, and big data and analytics.

In its competitive programme, Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi provides entrepreneurs with seed funding, strategic mentorship, office space, a multitude of perks and services from partners, and entrepreneurship-focused business training and development workshops, all engineered to prepare companies to be investment-ready within four and a half months.

Dtec

An initiative of Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority, Dtec is designed to help entrepreneurs set up a new business in Dubai. Dtech provides amenities ranging from 100 per cent business ownership, visa processing, 24/7 access, high-speed wifi, to a range of creative meeting and events spaces.

Also Read: Watch how these robots have invaded into mainstream Asian market

For technology startups and entrepreneurs looking for flexible co-working or office space in Dubai for rent, Dtec offers a nurturing, supportive community from which they can set up their new business. One of the largest technology innovation hubs in the MENA region, the 10,000 sqm creatively designed workspace hosts an integrated ecosystem, home to hundreds of startups, SMEs and technology entrepreneurs from around the world.

Dubai Future Accelerator

Dubai Future Accelerators facilitates partnerships between entrepreneurs, private sector organisations and government entities to co-create solutions. Dubai Future Accelerators was launched in 2016 by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, crown prince of Dubai and Chairman of Dubai Future Foundation.

Its mission is to imagine, design and co-create the future. It pairs forward-thinking public and private sector organisations and startups using the city of Dubai as a living testbed to co-create solutions for global and local challenges of tomorrow.

Photo by Pascal Debrunner on Unsplash

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The real reason why you should launch your startup faster (which is not talked about)

 

I woke up with an epiphany, rushed out of bed and drew down a graph on paper. What it illustrated (below) was this simple point: “Valuation doesn’t always reflect how much work you have done unless you pass into a new phase.”

Most people talk about launching, lean-startup methodology style from the viewpoint of Customer Development Methodology to get validation.

But, no one talks about the real reason for launching, which I believe is maximising the value of your time and ability to go faster.

The traditional view of launching is good but it’s not the whole story

Google search this; you will find literature dating back to around 2007 that talks about launching to get validation from customers faster, and that you need to launch with something called a ‘Minimum Viable Product’.

Something that provides the base level of utility that customers will get just enough value to pay you as they ‘get’ your new value as opposed to competitive offerings (including none at all).

This is all completely right, though I think nuance is that I prefer Minimum Desirable Product, being something that looks a bit more polished, a little less buggy and more clearly defined in its value proposition.

The upside being if users (or customers) like it they may refer you to their friends, leading to growth, or have high-enough engagement levels for you to get more valuable feedback to test your hypothesis.

I am not going to go into detail here about MVP and MDP, I largely agree entirely with the espoused value.

Rather, there is something missing here which should make it a lot clearer as to why you need to get your product out and fundraising (assuming you do?). That is the maximum valuation you are going to achieve irrespective of how much more work you do.

Perfectionism is the root causes for not launching, but you can get to perfection if you launch faster

The most insidious thing in some great founders is perfectionism, amongst many other factors. They understand CDM and all the related theories, but they still refuse to launch.

I have never met Paul Graham, but I presume he knows more than I do on this:

“Companies of all sizes have a hard time getting software done. It’s intrinsic to the medium; software is always 85 per cent done. It takes an effort of will to push through this and get something released to users…

Several distinct problems manifest themselves as delays in launching: working too slowly; not truly understanding the problem; fear of having to deal with users; fear of being judged; working on too many different things; excessive perfectionism. Fortunately, you can combat all of them by the simple expedient of forcing yourself to launch something fairly quickly.” – Paul Graham

In the early days when it is one man and his dev in a garage, you simply don’t have resources, ergo, your ability to reach perfection is entirely unrealistic. Do you know what helps you a lot to get to near to ‘perfection’? Resources!

If I said to you now, ‘If you launch and I will give you your angel round to hire five more people, would you do it?

In most cases, yes (I did hear a funny story about Eric Reis offering a founder to launch and he would be an advisor to them and he still didn’t). What you don’t know is that it is truly a distinct possibility!

Understand the value (opportunity cost) of your time

What is key to understand is the value of your time and that you can only ever do and achieve so much. If you are a talented founder, you should be able to do more with more people in the team, right?

So if you and your co-founder spend two years developing a product, do you think that is a good use of your time? How much could you have earned as an FTE at a company and how many devs could you have paid out of your salary instead?

There really does come a point when taking the money and diluting means you can go faster and maximise the value of your time. Spending two years to build a product is ridiculous. Real learning I have heard is, “We should have raised earlier”.

When you understand how valuations really work, this will start to make even more sense.

How valuations work in the real world for early-stage companies

You have no P&L and Balance Sheet, you may not even have KPIs because you have no customers. If you have numbers, they don’t mean much and every KPI comes with an explanation.

The reality is this, valuations for early-stage startups are based on heuristics and what you negotiate, not some magic formulas.

I know this will stress out non-salesy people, but it is simply true.

There is so much uncertainty in your business and also, so little data available in Asia, that even if there were amazing benchmarks, it still wouldn’t matter. You are going to negotiate with your investors for valuation.

Now, this is going to come as a bigger shock, but the valuation expectations of the investors are based on heuristics supported with no data. These ‘rules of thumb’ change a bit depending on the market and the environment (definitely if you get a term sheet) but they sort of exist. You get lumped into very simple boxes and that’s your valuation, particularly with no customers.

Also Read: I am a full time Mom working remotely in a startup, here is how I survive

You have a great idea and a team with some mock-ups, maybe US$1 million posts. You haven’t gone live yet, but have a great product, well you get US$1 million, maybe US$2 million post. You get a couple of customers, but nothing meaningful, well that number doesn’t really change. Sorry.

It’s only when you ‘change your stars’ and put yourself in a new box that your approximate valuation range changes. Only, this costs money. As a founder said to me last week, “But I need money to get more customers!” Great team, great product, not traction, tough.

To put this in perspective, I have seen companies invest a US$1 million of their own money to create a superb product and not many customers, and then have unrealistic expectations on valuation simply because the valuation doesn’t match what the stage investors think they should be at. There is a mismatch of “the box” they want and the one they are in.

Stages of development


Let’s continue to focus on pre-revenue companies looking to do first raise. I have set out a simplified graph illustrating:

The stages of development for your product are:

1. The percentage of ‘perfect product” completion

2. Anticipated Net Promoter Score (NPS) you could expect from early-stage users/customers. Google the term, for now, I will blog on this later.

Launch Faster

Launch Faster

Bad MVP

I truly believe launching too slowly has killed a hundred times more startups than launching too fast, as founders lose faith and give up. However, it is also possible to launch too fast with something with no value, or perceived value.

If you go guns blazing reaching out to PR and all your contacts, you can ruin your reputation.

You launch something, anything, you get the early adopters to try it out, and drop out rates are immediate and they don’t come back with a moments thought.

You will have to do something special and reach a later stage in the adoption curve before they will give you another try. In short, your NPS sucks and it shows.

Forget about raising money here. Not only do appearances matter, but also the underlying reasons you failed will be apparent to investors.

MVP

If you follow theory to the T and launch with something your targetted user base will get some value from, you are on the right track for sure.

If you get your hands dirty and elicit real feedback from customers and keep iterating, your chances of surviving to go up a lot. Furthermore, team morale and motivation will be high and they celebrate the small wins.

Take care to do some easy wins that will add disproportionate value. A nice landing page and decent UI/X is simply required now. With all the tools and frameworks available, there is also no excuse.

On the downside, it’s not all perfect. It is fairly unlikely, given your NPS is low, that you won’t get referrals to spur your growth and save on marketing money you don’t have.

However, you will be able to get a few customers and that is super useful.

If you can show that customers have high engagement rates (time spent, DAU, etc.), you can use this to approach investors. This to me is the best time to ‘open dialogue’ with investors you want.

Go ask for ‘advice’ and see what their temperature is. Keep focussing on improving the product and getting more customers, but definitely engage investors. Your valuation, if the team is good and you understand the problem and market, will be decent.

MDP

This is your ultimate sweet spot. By this I mean you are in the ‘referral zone’ in terms of NPS, customers may actually like your product, use it and tell some friends about it.

The key thing though is, unless you are lucky to magically gain real traction (not likely) this is the best possible time to raise money.

Assuming investors are already tracking you, you come back with a fairly nice product, some customers as well as learnings as to why they use your product and may be willing to pay for it.

Also Read: How I manage my time and a team of 130 employees

Any development beyond here is really a waste of time as it won’t lead to what matters beyond here, traction (which costs cash). An extra module here, automation there is simply not quantifiable, as if you can’t measure it, you can’t value it.

Overdone or overdeveloped

How is this different from the MDP stage?

Well, your early-stage customers like you a little more, you can address more customers as features meet their needs, but more likely than not… you spent another six months to do this and got few more measurable achievements (aka traction).

These six months has taken its toll on your morale, no one is getting paid yet and you are worried about losing staff, there are more arguments. But more so, your valuation simply doesn’t reflect the time spent.

In fact, if you approached investors at MVP stage and return eight months later with no numbers to show, they may lose faith in you and tell you to go away and ‘get more traction’. I know how much founders love that response!

All the time spent is a waste of valuation and you curse the investors that don’t have the vision to invest in you and just don’t get it!

When to launch and raise

So in summary, launch when you are slightly past MVP and launch small.

Make the users you get so happy, they become customers and ideally make referrals. Do this in an unscalable way, focus on them being super happy. Reach out to a few select investors and get their feedback, they may even fund you.

When you are MDP, your value proposition is, at this point, sort of clear and users get enough value to keep using you, get on and fundraise, get the deal done. Any more product development will not lead to meaningful valuation increases.

Conclusion

You need to understand that a startup is both an art and a science. You need to work smart and hard.

You can do too much work as well as too little if you want to raise money, and make the best possible use of your time.

It just is really silly to find yourself in a position where you say, “We should have raised money earlier”.

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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99.co acquires iProperty.com.sg, Rumah123; to assume full control of REA’s Singapore and Indonesian ops

99.co CEO Darius Cheung

Singapore’s leading property portal 99.co has announced it has inked an agreement to take over operations of REA Group’s consumer brands iProperty.com.sg in Singapore and Rumah123.com in Indonesia.

The joint venture would place 99.co as a market-leading player in Indonesia.

With the rise of Southeast Asia’s digital economy, REA Group is doubling down on the market by investing in 99.co and merging its Singapore and Indonesia assets under 99.co’s leadership.

99.co will be assuming full control of REA’s Singapore and Indonesian operations upon closing.

The joint venture will be helmed by 99.co’s senior management team, including its Co-founder and CEO Darius Cheung. 99.co will continue to operate 99.co, iProperty.com.sg and Rumah123.com consumer portals.

REA Group will also further invest an additional US$8 million in capital to accelerate growth and development.

Also Read: The real reason why you should launch your startup faster (which is not talked about)

“This is a key milestone that positions us instantly as number one in Indonesia, and well on our way to that in Singapore. Our innovative DNA plus REA’s unrivalled experience and resources make this partnership a lethal combination Southeast Asia has not seen before,” said Cheung.

REA Group, Chief Strategy Officer and CEO Asia, Henry Ruiz commented: “Over the past two years, we’ve admired the innovation and speed that Darius and his team have brought to the marketplaces that they serve. The formidable combination of our talent, best of breed technology, digital expertise and customer relationships will supercharge our ability to compete and win in Singapore and Indonesia.”

Founded by Darius Cheung in 2014, 99.co, is a fast-growing property portal in Southeast Asia, having grown its traffic 32x in the last two years.

The company raised US$15.2M in its Series B funding round led by MindWorks Venture and Allianz X in August 2019.

iProperty.com.sg and Rumah123.com are two of the most recognised property portal brands in Singapore and Indonesia, respectively.

iProperty was acquired in 2015 by REA Group, one of the largest property technology groups in the world, for US$531 million.

REA Group is a multinational digital advertising business specialising in property. It operates Australia’s leading residential, commercial and share property websites — realestate.com.au, realcommercial.com.au, Flatmates.com.au, as well as Spacely, a short-term commercial and co-working property site.

In Asia, REA Group owns iproperty.com.my, squarefoot.com.hk, iproperty.com.sg, myfun.com (China), and property review site in Thailand (thinkofliving.com). It also owns Smartline Home Loans, an Australian mortgage broking franchise group, and Hometrack Australia, a provider of data property services.

REA Group also holds a significant shareholding in property websites Move, Inc.in the US and PropTiger in India.

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Today’s top tech news: Vietnamese edutech MindX raises US$500K led by ESP Capital

Didian introduces B2B proptech marketplace, claiming to be the first [Press Release]

New proptech firm Didian Realtor Sdn Bhd announces the launch of Malaysia’s B2B property marketplace aimed at reinventing property sales. The platform is available in both web and mobile app versions claimed to help both property developers and real estate agents and negotiators to connect and drive the property sales of curated units at projects that are under construction or close to completion.

The Malaysian-made platform considers variables such as location, skillset, and expertise. The system also features digital booking, real-time data access, commissions status tracking, and supports backend administrative processes.

Didian Realtor Sdn Bhd also entered into a strategic collaboration with StarProperty, a part of The Star Media Group Berhad, that would see both parties work together on co-marketing the platform to both the real estate fraternity as well as property developers.

UAE’s Mubadala Capital injects US$60M to Berlin-based scooter startup Tier Mobility [DealStreetAsia]

German scooter startup Tier Mobility reportedly raises US$60m led in part by UAE’s Mubadala Capital, who is one of the sovereign wealth vehicles behind SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund. Also joining the round is Silicon Valley’s Goodwater Capital.

Also Read: Why Malaysia is an ideal startup hub

Berlin-based Tier Mobility said it would use the money to accelerate its expansion across the continent.

In 2017, Mubadala committed US$15 billion to SoftBank’s US$100 billion Vision Fund.

“We firmly believe that micro mobility as a form of transportation is here to stay, especially in Europe,” said Amer Alaily, senior principal at Mubadala Capital.

Other new backers of Tier include Axa Germany and Finland’s Evli Growth Partners.

Vietnam-based edutech startup MindX secures US$500K from ESP Capital Fund

MindX, a chain of school for training new skills, announced that it has completed the first round of US$500,000 funding led by ESP Capital and a number of other individual investors.

MindX (formerly TechKids) aims to build an ecosystem that includes schools for new skill sets of 4.0 era (programming, robotics, design, 3D drawing, etc.) and coworking space. Each complex is considered a little Silicon Valley that contributes to nourishing inventors, social change agents, or talented entrepreneurs.

Founded in 2015, MindX now has 5 centers in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, claiming to have trained more than 8,500 students and working adults.

Also Read: Stripe officially launches in Malaysia, to migrate more businesses online

At the same time, MindX also facilitates an office complex that hosts more than 200 domestic & international technology startups and investment funds such as Wefit, Ninja Van, Nextrans Capital, and more.

With this investment, Nguyen Thi Thu Ha, Co-founder, and CEO of Education said that the company would focus on opening new centers in Ho Chi Minh City and upgrading the current syllabus of Designing, 3D Drawing, and VR/AR.

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8 things female entrepreneurs in Asia need to know according to Forbes 30 under 30 Michelle Yuan

Being an entrepreneur is a lot harder than I thought — and things are even harder in Asia where there’s more stereotyping of women in society.

I thought being an entrepreneur was all about building a product or service you believe in, filling that gap in the market, and marketing and selling it as hard as you can.

But as an Asian female entrepreneur, you have to work twice — maybe five times — as hard to make people take you seriously, or let alone, believe in what you are capable of.

Not until I entered the startup world did I think women empowerment and female support was more important than ever before. With that said, here are some things I’ve learned about being a female entrepreneur in this part of the world:

1. You’ll have to surround yourself with the right people

People are what make the company — but people are also what makes your life a lot easier. Surrounding yourself with people who don’t believe in what you’re doing, whether in business or in your personal life, is a real time-waster. And I can tell you that from experience. You don’t have to convince these people why you’re building this company — that’s what you have to do for customers and investors.

Also Read: The importance of working with great co-founders

Your life shouldn’t be one giant pitching session. This is obvious for employees, but sometimes women don’t understand how important this is for people who are involved in your personal life. as well.

As a female entrepreneur, you’re already trying to beat the odds, there’s no point in adding more odds to the equation. On the other hand, surrounding yourself with people who support and believe in what you’re doing can really help your business multiply.

2. You’ll want to build a product you can talk about for hours

It doesn’t matter whether you want to build a compression algorithm or a wedding platform, you’ll need to be seriously passionate about it. My first startup idea was in finance — I really believed in it (and I still do), but it’s not something I can talk about for hours. Weddings, on the other hand, are something I’ve always loved and dreamt about as a little girl.

Just because we’re ambitious women doesn’t mean we have to prove something extreme to make a statement. If you like baking cakes or handcrafting jewellery, you can still be a fierce female entrepreneur.

3. You’ll need to use your strengths to outdo competitors

Use your femininity as your advantage. I’m not talking about sex appeal, but the ability to relate. When I first started Asia Wedding Network, I understood that there were tons of older male founders in the wedding technology space. I tapped into my femininity and really looked at the product and the world from a female perspective — after all, we are building a platform for brides.

The ability to understand your strengths and what only you could bring to the table is what will make your company better than others’.

4. You’ll need to trust your intuition

Coming off of the last point, you’re going to be intimidated by your competitors. I know, I was — they were twice my age and armed with a handful of experience. But once you learn to trust your intuition and once you see customers switching over to your product, you’ll learn to take control and trust your instincts.

5. You’ll need to learn to brag

Nobody likes people who brag, but as a woman, you’ll need to brag when the time is right. I feel that women, especially in Asia, are too humble — and that’s okay in normal circumstances. But when you’re talking to an investor or selling you product, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be bragging about how great your company is.

Also Read: Bootstrapped and proud: Companies that don’t need VC money

Talk about the awards that you’ve received or which big company is using your product (if it’s not confidential). As Asian women, we were taught to not brag and be loud- but when you enter the male-dominated startup world, rules do not apply.

6. You’ll need role models

This sounds cliche but I feel that role models are extremely important, even if you don’t know personally know them. For me, I look up to role models, because they show that they have defied the odds, and the things I want to achieve are actually achievable. I’m not defying the odds — they’ve already done that.

Role models show you that the things you want to achieve are actually possible and that if you put your mind to it, you too can do what they’ve done — and maybe even more.

7. You’ll need to use your emotional intelligence

I’m about to stereotype us but here it goes: Women are sensitive. Now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Use this emotional instinct to your advantage. If you trust your gut instinct, you can read people, customers, and investors. This will help you forecast their next steps.

Also Read: 5 lessons in leadership from top female executives

8. You’ll need to learn ‘tough love’ leadership

Women in leadership roles tend to either be pushovers or strict and unyielding to the extreme. I find that women need to show more love to their employees — tough love, that is. Yes, you need to make sure people are meeting deadlines and working hard on their projects, but you’ll also need to show some compassion when it is most needed.

I’m not talking about befriending your employees or letting them walk over you, but I’m talking about showing leniency when it matters. Nobody wants Cruella de Vil as their boss but you’re still building a company here.

Females in the Western world are founding companies, leaning in, and taking control of their #girlboss lives. It’s time for women in this part of the world to also start building great businesses, fulfilling their dreams, and start chipping away at the invisible glass ceiling.

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Image Credit: Michelle Yuan

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Today’s top tech news: Smart credit fintech startup Flowcast nabs US$3M Series A funding from ING Ventures, BitRock Capital

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Smart credit startup Flowcast snags US$3M Series A funding co-led by ING Ventures, BitRock Capital [Press Release]

Flowcast, a smart credit startup powered by AI that helps financial institutions and corporates make decisions, announces that it has raised a US$3 million with additional funding from existing investors including Katalyst Ventures and Alpana Ventures.

The company noted that the proceeds of this round will be used to fund the acceleration of Flowcast’s go-to-market strategy, global market expansion especially in Singapore and the APAC region, and the continuing product development and improvement.

Flowcast offers an AI-enabled platform to power smarter credit decisions for financial institutions and corporates. Flowcast’s API-based machine learning platform harnesses alternative data to unlock credit at scale, which helps empowers lenders and corporations to extend and monitor credit that is historically unavailable with conventional lending and credit scoring methods.

Flowcast shares that it is also participating in the SAP.iO Foundry Singapore program, which aims to accelerate startups via providing them access to curated mentorship, exposure to SAP technology, and application programmable interfaces (APIs) with opportunities to collaborate with SAP customers in the Southeast Asian region.

Lao ride-hailing service app LOCA to showcase business model at Thailand’s Mekong Innovation Startup in Tourism [Eleven Myanmar]

LOCA, a ride-hailing service operating in Laos will be showcased at the Mekong Innovation Startup in Tourism (MIST) meeting in Thailand next week, as reported by Eleven Myanmar. It will represent Laos in the final pitching competition at MIST on October 8-9 in Bangkok, Thailand.

Also Read: Mekong regional initiative aims to help travel startups

LOCA is a Lao startup that claims to dominate the ride-hailing business. It has been operating since early 2018 with more than 300 cars.

The co-founder and CTO of LOCA, Souliyo Vongdala, said that tourism is a major contributor to GDP and that innovative startups will help attract more tourists to Laos.

Right now, there are two ride-hailing services in Laos – LOCA and the Cambodia-based Drive-up. These two were recently launched and it is expected there will be more in the future.

Mekong Innovative Startups in Tourism is jointly managed by the Mekong Tourism Coordinating Office and the Mekong Business Initiative.

The initiative is supported by the Australian government and the Asian Development Bank and organised by UNWTO Affiliate Member Chameleon Strategies.

Indonesian logistics startup Paxel reportedly gears up to close series A round from East Ventures, SIG, SMDV [Tech In Asia]

Indonesian logistics startup Paxel is reportedly in the dawn of closing a Series A funding round that will likely be US$7 million in total, as reported by Tech In Asia. East Ventures reportedly leads the round, with participation from Susquehanna International Group (SIG) and Sinar Mas Digital Ventures (SMDV).

In September, Paxel reportedly raised a seed round led by one of its founders, Johari Zein, who is also a founder of omnipresent logistics provider JNE. One person familiar with the matter adds that the founding team put in US$10 million of their own money in the seed round.

Paxel was founded by Bryant Christanto and Zaldy Ilham Masita. It is an app-based logistics startup providing same-day delivery services for a flat rate to several major Indonesian cities, promises customers to get their money back in the event of failure fulfilling the delivery within a certain time limit.

Nikkei acquires a minority stake in Singapore’s AI startup DC Frontiers [Nikkei Asian Review]

Japanese media group Nikkei announces that it has acquired 14.79 percent of DC Frontiers’ stake, a Singapore’s AI startup, looking to enhance data and news service scoutAsia with the collaboration.

Nikkei and the Financial Times launched scoutAsia last year, creating an extensive database of Asian companies and regional business news. Nikkei acquired the FT back in 2015.

Also Read: Singapore Press Holdings unveils AI initiative and stock photo marketplace

Founded in 2011, DCF offers the use of AI for tasks like article tagging and creating maps that illustrate relationships between companies, individuals, and investments. DCF’s AI and machine-learning technologies are aimed at improving the accuracy and efficiency of searches for news and corporate data.

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Rise of the social entrepreneur: can doing good be good for business?

 

Having pioneered Singtel Ventures, a corporate venture capital arm, in the late nineties and through the subsequent years of working with social enterprises, I’ve observed some commonalities and unique qualities that set successful social entrepreneurs apart.

In essence, they are extremely talented people who see opportunities in building sustainable and viable commercial businesses with a prime focus on solving social issues.

Take Singapore’s online marketplace, Bompipi.com, for example.

The business was founded on the premise of encouraging more people to give back to society, and it developed a creative and sustainable revenue stream anchored on the growing demand for affordable online grocery shopping. The founders’ passion for giving back to society then inspired an innovative reward system that allows customers to offset a part of their online shopping costs by volunteering with partner charities.

Bompipi.com was one of seven social startup ventures shortlisted to be part of a six-month-long social innovation programme called Singtel Future Makers. Its novel pitch won the hearts of the judging panel from Singtel, Singapore’s National Council of Social Service, SPD, raiSE, 500 Startups and Adrenalin Group of Social Enterprises.

Also Read: Revealed: 7 Singtel Future Makers winners set to create greater social impact

To become and stay successful as a social enterprise it requires all the essential capabilities needed in running a commercial enterprise while creating social good. The business challenges are compounded as often the social cause which they support is niche, lacks the scale or is costly to serve at the onset.

Bear in mind that you could also be serving a need where the risks, stakes (and mistakes) can be a lot higher for the end beneficiary they serve, depending on the inherent vulnerability which they face.

So, what have I learnt from two decades of working with commercial start-ups, and more recently social start-ups? They all have the same ingredients needed to become successful entrepreneurs, albeit social entrepreneurs come with the additional factors of:

Empathy

Having an extremely deep sense of understanding for the social issues that they seek to address. Often they have personally experienced the issue or through someone, they know.

Many of those whom I have met can tell a very personal story behind their causes. It’s analogous to having deep customer centricity in your business model. Going back to Bompipi.com, two of the founders grew up in families with financial difficulties and could not afford daily necessities.

Even as both men became successful businessmen, they never forgot their origins and have turned their insights into a business opportunity built upon the social cause they champion.

Purpose

Having a deeper and more grounded sense of PURPOSE that may be missing in non-social entrepreneurs. It’s this sense of purpose that will be their core foundation of resilience when the going gets really tough.

Many a time, they will ask themselves: Am I blinded by my cause and purpose, and will I ever make it through? Where do I draw the line between my purpose and cause, and the realities?

Courage

Having the capacity to deal with the paradox of making money, sometimes from the needy and vulnerable ones. Sustainability is key to staying in business and achieving positive social impact. The successful ones are those who dare to challenge the stigma of profiteering from and helping those who are vulnerable and needy.

But, vulnerability may not always mean one cannot afford. Sometimes the solution just doesn’t yet exist, even if one is willing and able to pay. Regardless, for those who cannot deal with this inherent paradox, it’s best to consider staying in the charity model.

Also Read: For social enterprise, how to balance social good with the realities of business?

That said, there are potential attributes of social entrepreneurs that can undermine their success, when:

1. They become too fixated on their cause that they cannot adapt to the realities of the situation and are unable to see opportunities to ‘pivot’, especially when their solution is too customised to a cause, making it difficult to find scale.

2. Their sense of purpose and passion toward the cause may undermine their openness, agility, and adaptability, thereby holding them back from collaborating, synergising and sometimes ceding to others who might hold the key to bringing the venture to the next level.

3. They lack organisational skills to run a growing team and don’t know how to build diversity and talent in their teams that can complement their own competencies.

Unfortunately, there are no panaceas to circumvent all of these potential pitfalls, but no successful social entrepreneur ever gets to the top alone. For most, if not all cases, there is always a mentor guiding them from behind.

What a mentor can provide is the much-needed guidance and alternative perspectives to overcome common pitfalls as the ones I’ve highlighted earlier. It’s with this belief that the Singtel Future Makers programme puts a strong focus on mobilising a diverse set of mentors from every sector. Building capability and capacity goes beyond just providing cash funding.

No doubt, the social enterprise business model will continue to be refined and evolve. But, here in Singapore and Australia, the ecosystem of social enterprise is starting to take shape and will grow from strength to strength.

Successful social enterprises can also demonstrate to larger corporations that profiting and effecting positive social changes are not mutually exclusive concepts. Only time will prove our fundamental belief that doing good is good business in the long run.

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Founder to invest US$700M in OYO as part of new US$1.5B round; to expand in US, Europe

OYO Hotels & Homes, one of India’s largest hotels aggregators with significant operations in Southeast Asia, today announced that it is raising US$1.5 billion in Series F round.

RA Hospitality Holdings will infuse approximately US$700 million as primary capital, with the remaining US$800 million coming from other existing investors.

RA Hospitality is owned by OYO Founder and CEO Ritesh Agarwal. Earlier this year, RA Hospitality received Competition Commission of India’s approval to invest US$2 billion in OYO.

In order to facilitate this transaction, existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital are selling a part of their shareholding in OYO to help Agarwal increase his stake.

Also Read: Token sales being abused as a fundraising tool by many, will mostly go away: LuneX VC’s Kenrick Drijkoningen

A huge chunk of the money will go into continuing its growth in the US and Europe.

This round comes about a year after OYO raised over US$1 billion led by SoftBank Vision Fund. Existing investors Lightspeed, Sequoia and Greenoaks Capital also participated. New strategic partners like Airbnb also co-invested.

In a short span of six years, OYO has expanded its presence in 80-plus countries. It includes China (with presence in 338 cities and over 590,000 rooms), followed by Indonesia (presence in 100-plus cities and over 27,000 rooms).

In the UK, OYO has a presence in 30 destinations and over 3,500 rooms, and in the US in 60 cities, 21 states and over 7,500 rooms.

At the moment, OYO employs over 20,000 people.

Agarwal said: “The growth across verticals in India and globally has been phenomenal and we truly believe that we will be able to build a truly global brand out of India while ensuring that the business is run efficiently and with a clear path to profitability. Our immediate goal, however, is to make forward-looking investments so we can achieve our mission while delivering on our fiduciary responsibility to our investors by building a sustainable business.”

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TouchTen raises fresh funding, to address often-ignored women gamers market in Indonesia

Mobile game company TouchTen has secured an undisclosed amount in fresh funding from investment firm Prasetia Dwidharma.

Indonesian business leaders Sheila Tiwan (CEO Carsurin) and Indra Leonardi (Kingfoto Group) also joined this round.

Existing investor CUEBIC, a leading digital marketing company in Japan, is also investing this round, as TouchTen boosts its efforts to address the often-ignored women gamers market.

“Gaming has often been considered a male-centric pastime, but our world is changing,” said TouchTen CEO and Co-founder Roki Soeharyo. 

Also Read: Token sales being abused as a fundraising tool by many, will mostly go away: LuneX VC’s Kenrick Drijkoningen

“Today, half of all mobile gamers are female. And the data shows despite lacking content that appeals to them, more women are playing games than ever before. This is what truly excites our team — to bring joy to underserved players globally through games that we love.”

Prasetia CEO, Arya Setiadharma commented: “TouchTen has extensive experience in developing mobile games. Prasetia is excited to join this round because we believe TouchTen is the perfect team to tackle the huge market of female mobile gamers. TouchTen is very data-driven in developing their games, and this is what we find most attractive about the company.”

TouchTen claims its revenue and user base grew 238 per cent and 93 per cent, respectively, in the past year. 

The company has added to its portfolio a new flagship game focused on the intersection of puzzle gamers and pet lovers for the US and European markets. The game will feature the most adorable pets in the entire puzzle genre while bringing a fresh twist on the familiar match-3 puzzle gameplay. 

The team is also working on an undisclosed project for the Indonesian market slated for release in late 2019.

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